Kill him, Rowan.Do it.
Her finger tightened on the trigger.Eight pounds of pull, Justin’s voice said, from his own long-ago training of her.When you get to about six and a half, you better mean business.
The man below her was a psion.He struggled, his Talent caught in her own sure grip; she saw, suddenly, the twisted thing that lived in his flesh.He used his abilities to hurt people, to torture them.Sigma was made in his image, and he was proud of his access to the corridors of power, proud of the extralegal status he enjoyed.Kidnapping and torturing psions was only the first step.
She also tasted the same mind which had built the defenses inside Jilssen’s head, before sending him to the Society like a poisonous gift.If Jilssen was the traitor who had made the breaking of Headquarters possible, here was the hand behind, the finger on each trigger that killed, on each hypo of Zed.
Kill him, Rowan.He won’t stop.He won’teverstop.
She choked on bile and rising rage, a fury so intense the world shaded with red before her staring eyes.Her finger tightened, tightened.
“Get it over with,” he snarled.“There’s a whole complex of armed guards and psions on alert.You’ll never get out.They’ll catch you and pair you with a handler anyway, it’s inevitable.Go ahead, Price.Pull the trigger.”
Daddy.Her father’s face, the chilling little gurgle as he died in her arms, choking on his own blood.Shot by Sigs.
She gathered herself, andreached.
The man under her bucked and screamed as she poured her rage in, a twisting, barbed flood of agony and grief.She tore at the root of his psionic Talent, clawing brutally, and yanked it free.Burning, cauterizing the open, festering sore.
He screamed again, the sound of a rabbit in a trap; Rowan let him go, rising on her knees.Her hand flashed down, the butt of the pistol becoming a club.
There was a solidchunk; the filthy Colonel lapsed into merciful unconsciousness.
“I’m better than that,” she rasped.“I’m one of Henderson’s Brigade, you sack of shit.”
She sagged over the unconscious body, her breath harsh and loud.Then she pushed upright.Sock feet, no kitbag, and a whole installation to get through.
Well, at least she now had a gun.
She rifled Anton’s pockets, coming up with a wallet, seventy-three dollars in cash, a white plastic card with a magnetic strip—door key,just like a Vegas hotel, let’s hope they don’t use retinal scans in here—and another mag of ammo.
Good thing she had pockets.
White-hot needles burst inside her skull.She wiped at the wetness on her face—tears on her cheeks, and a hot thread of blood from her nose.
I’m a mess.It was such a practical, despairing, everyday thought; Rowan laughed, hunched over the unconscious, bleeding near-corpse.
He wasn’t going to like waking up.
In the middle of her laughter, she rose, headed for the door.Perhaps the magnetic card in her hand would open it.
If not, she would figure out something else.
CHAPTER26
I cannot believeI am doing this.Del nodded, gun pointed up, and Henderson slid around the corner, covered.The sage-brushed chill of a desert night enfolded both men; they were just about to penetrate the second ring of buildings on the east side.
Sigma Zero-Fifteen was being infiltrated successfully.So far.
The team had fortunately been right behind him, following the same signs he had and monitoring him through the tracker Yosh had secreted in his kitbag.In fact, they were a little less than half an hour away when Del dialed in.
After a short, crisp scolding from the old man, Del had gotten rid of the bodies and made the rendezvous, picking up the team in the Sig van and hitting the road.Information gleaned from the driver’s broken mind told him that 511 was a cleanup team sent to make sure the hotel room was wiped after locals cleared, then head back to Zero-Fifteen in six to eight hours.
A long drive, not made any shorter by Del’s inability to think of anything but Rowan.The mindwiped psion had been turned over to Eleanor, who would take him to Headquarters, get him started on rehab.If there was anything salvageable in his broken, Zed-stained mind, they would try their damndest to save it.
Bet Rowan could, if she gets out of here.Christ.Please be safe, angel.Please still be alive.
Everything had gone smooth as silk, the transponder on the Sig van getting them into ane underground garage.Yoshi accessing the Sig intranet from the console in the van, Brew staying behind to help support Yosh plus keep a weather eye on the parking lot.The complex was several concrete cubes and hangars tucked into the side of a mountain, a collage of underground labs and facilities burrowed into rock, virtually impenetrable.
