But that didn’t solve the problem. He was a cop, even while he was working for the DCO. It wasn’t like he could overlook the fact that she was stealing. So did he call Coleman, or did he trust the woman he’d fallen in love with to somehow not be the woman he once knew her to be? Or did he confront her?
On the other side of the conference table, Dreya was talking excitedly about the mission, wondering out loud if they would get to go to some exotic foreign country like Nepal, Fiji, or Belize. When John walked in a few minutes later, however, she immediately fell silent. Braden could understand why the moment he saw the older man’s face. Something was wrong…very wrong.
John sat at the head of the conference table, a thick folder in his hands. “I don’t have time for a full briefing, because you two need to be on the way to the airport in less than fifteen minutes if you’re going to make the flight I chartered for you.”
“What’s wrong?” Dreya asked, her face suddenly as worried as John’s.
“I have three DCO agents on an operation in Maine, and one of them just called in asking for emergency backup. Those operatives are some of my best, so if they are asking for backup, it’s bad. I would normally have a dozen people heading up there already, but this mission is sensitive, and there aren’t that many people I can trust to handle it.”
Braden frowned. What kind of mission was so sensitive that the director would rather send a brand-new team than people with more experience? He opened his mouth to ask John that same question point-blank when he spoke.
“You don’t know Trevor Maxwell, but you’re both familiar with the other two agents—Ivy Halliwell and her partner, Landon Donovan.”
Braden did a double take. “Ivy and Landon were working for you the entire time they were helping me track Dreya?”
“Ivy’s in trouble?” Dreya asked, ignoring Braden’s question.
“Yes, Braden. Ivy and Landon were working for me back then,” John said. “And yes, Dreya. Ivy’s in trouble. She’s the one who called for backup.”
Braden had about a million things he wanted to ask, but John held up his hand to forestall them. “I know you both have a lot of question, but we don’t have time. I have to give you two the basics of what’s going on up there, so you can decide if you’re willing to go on this mission.”
That stopped Braden cold. John wasn’t telling them he had a dangerous mission he needed them to go on. He was asking them to volunteer for it.
“What the hell’s going on, John?” he asked. “What kind of trouble did your agents get into up in Maine?”
John’s mouth tightened. “The kind that involves Thomas Thorn.”
Shit.
John opened the folder and took out pictures, placing them on the table. Braden recognized the first few. There was Thorn, then his head of security—Braden was pretty sure his name was Frasier. Next came photos of Ivy, Landon, and the man Braden assumed was the other DCO operative, Trevor. The next two people—an older dark-haired woman with sharp features and a gray-haired man in an expensive suit—were also familiar.
Then John laid out a series of disturbing photos that almost made Braden cringe—and he’d seen some terrible things on the job. The people in the pictures were dead shifters, their bodies horribly twisted and their faces bearing the grimaces of humans who had died in terrible agony. Some of the dead tortured souls were lying on the ground, while other were strapped into beds or thrown onto piles of other bodies. It was truly gruesome.
Braden looked at Dreya. Her face had gone pale, her eyes wide.
He glared at John. “What the hell are you showing us these pictures for?”
“So you have some idea about the kind of people you’re going to be dealing with if you go on this mission.”
The director tapped two of the photos. “You both know Thomas Thorn. This man beside him is Douglas Frasier, his chief of security. Dreya, it might interest you to know that this is likely the man who killed your friend Rory.”
Braden darted a glance in her direction to see her eyes glowing green. She looked fierce—and angry.
“Frasier is up in Maine right now, leading a group of trained killers you’ll probably end up facing if you go up there.” John pointed out the other pictures, one by one. “Ivy, Landon, and Trevor.” He took a breath. “Trevor got himself committed to a psychiatric facility undercover almost five days ago. Ivy thinks he’s okay but doesn’t know for sure, since she has no way to make contact with him at the moment.”
John moved to the photos of the other man and woman Braden had recognized. “You might recognize these two if you follow DC politics. They’re Congressional Representatives Rebecca Brannon and Xavier Danes. Along with former Senator Thorn, they’re the three most powerful members of the oversight Committee that runs the DCO.”
Braden wasn’t sure, but he thought his jaw might be sitting on the table. He scooped it up to ask the same question he’d already asked. The one John hadn’t answered.
“Okay, what the hell is going on here? What do Thorn and these congressional reps have to do with a psychiatric facility in Maine and with these tortured shifters?”
John spread the pictures of the tortured people out a little more, like he wanted to make sure Braden and Dreya could see them clearly.
“These aren’t shifters,” he said. “These are regular, everyday people who some very sick, power-hungry doctor experimented on in an attempt to make them into man-made shifters. We call them hybrids. The process is prone to failure, and when it fails, the results are horrible. On those occasions when it is successful, the hybrids are usually violent and uncontrollable.”
“Who would do something like this?” Dreya asked softly. “Some of these people don’t look any older than teenagers.”
“Thorn would do it,” Braden whispered.
