“Yeah, I have a way to do it. I just don’t know how we’re going to make it work,” Evan said. “You never explained how the hell we’re going to get the bug in the room with them.”
That was because he hadn’t given it one second of thought. “Like I said, let me worry about that. I’m leaving now, but it’s going to be tight. Any chance you can rig up a way to slow things down if I’m late?”
There was a long sigh on the other end of the line. “Dammit, Trevor. I’m an analyst, not a field agent. I sit around a soft, cushy cubicle all day and play with a computer. I don’t know how to rig anything.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Trevor said, trying to be as encouraging as he could. “Keep it simple, and you’ll be fine. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
He hung up and gave Tanner a nod, knowing the hybrid had heard the entire phone conversation.
“What was that about?” Alina asked.
While he’d been on the phone, she’d gotten Sage into the back of Jaxson’s SUV and somehow convinced her to stay put. Through the open back window, Trevor could see the girl looking anxiously at Alina.
“Did Dick go after Seth and Cody again?” Alina prompted when he didn’t answer.
He shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I just need to be someplace.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Trevor’s first instinct was to say yes, but the word got stuck in his throat as his head spoke up and urged caution. Letting her help with Sage was one thing; bringing her to a meeting where Thorn might finally reveal something damaging was a completely different world. He hated himself for doing it, but that didn’t keep him from shaking his head.
“No. I’d rather you help Jaxson get Sage back to the complex and settled. You and she seem to have a connection, and what I’m doing isn’t a big deal. I’ll take Tanner with me and catch up with you later.”
Disappointment flashed across Alina’s face for a brief second before she nodded and climbed in the backseat of Jaxson’s vehicle with Sage.
Trevor had no doubt his partner knew he’d fed her a line of crap, and he could tell it bothered the hell out of her. It bothered the hell out of him, too, especially considering what she’d just done for Sage. But until he knew for sure that she wasn’t playing him, he couldn’t take the risk of telling her what he was doing.
As Jaxson pulled the Suburban out of the church parking lot and drove away, Alina threw Trevor an angry look. It occurred to him then that he might have burned down the already shaky bridge that had started forming between them.
* * *
Vivian met Trevor and Tanner in the lobby of the DC office. With its big reception desk and black-and-white photos of well-known landmarks like the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building on the walls, it wasn’t all that remarkable. It certainly didn’t scream covert organization.
“Thank God you’re here,” she said softly. “Thorn and the people he’s meeting with have been here for a while, and poor Evan is about to blow a gasket.”
Trevor could believe it. While Evan might be on the verge of passing out, Vivian seemed cool as a cucumber as she led them down a deserted hallway. Considering the leggy blond had never done anything other than receptionist work for the DCO, that was a little surprising. Then again, maybe she was a ninja receptionist? He could see John hiring someone like that to work the desk of the organization’s clandestine headquarters.
“Who’s in there with him?” Tanner asked.
“I don’t recognize them,” she said over her shoulder. “No one from the Committee or the DCO, that’s for sure.”
“Not even Dick?” Trevor asked.
The DCO’s new director was rarely far from Thorn when anything important was going down.
She shook her head. “No. They’re all scientist types.”
“How do you know that?” Tanner asked.
“Trust me,” Vivian said. “I know a nerd herd when I see one.”
Trevor frowned. If Vivian was right about them being scientists, this meeting could very well be about another hybrid project—or whatever Thorn had decided was the next step in hybrid evolution.
“Man, am I glad to see you guys,” Evan said when they walked into the office where the analyst was waiting for them. “I was able to delay the start of the meeting for a few minutes by popping the circuit breakers, which made all the computers in the conference room have to reboot, but I couldn’t get away with that more than once.”
“Sorry about that. Traffic was a bitch, as usual,” Trevor said. “Did you get the wire I asked for?”
Evan nodded and held out a small plastic and metal device that looked kind of like a miniature flash drive, except the USB adapter on the end of it didn’t look quite right.
