The Operator
Page 68

It was an overly generous estimation with her knee bleeding like this. “Drive,” she said. “I’ll hold the phone to your ear.”
“Now?” Jack stared at her. “You’re serious about this? Peri, Bill doesn’t even like Michael. He’s going to retire him the same hour you come back. I promise you.”
Promise. She doubted he even knew what that meant beyond a way to convince people to do what he wanted. And she doubted that Bill would permanently “retire” Michael. He’d always be a threat, stuffed away in some cell in case Bill ever needed his talents again.
“You promise me?” she said as she held the phone for him to punch in Michael’s cell. “I’m not coming back,” she added as it rang. “If he’s this side of the sod, I’m forever looking over my shoulder. Tell Michael I’m hooked and accelerated. That as soon as I run out of Evocane I’m coming in, and that Bill never intended to accelerate him. Make it convincing so he comes after me.”
“Babe.”
“Call me that one more time, I’ll break your kneecap.”
He snuck a glance at her, lowering his speed as she held the phone to his ear. She heard the connection click open, and she put her free hand on her Glock, sitting on her lap. Jack’s eyes pinched at the corners as he remembered something. Probably her shooting him in the back. Yeah, she’d pull the trigger, and he knew it.
“Michael,” he said when someone said hello. “Can you talk?”
Shit, my hands are shaking, Peri thought, not liking that it made the phone jerk against Jack’s face.
“Yes. Where are you?”
Jack looked at Peri for confirmation, and she nodded. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “I’m in Detroit. Peri took me out of WEFT. She’s accelerated herself. Silas doesn’t have a prayer to reverse-engineer it in time and she knows it. Soon as she runs out of Evocane, she’s coming in.”
Her grip on the pistol tightened.
“That wasn’t the plan,” Michael said bitterly, and Jack stiffened.
“Me taking your place in Detroit was Bill’s idea. I didn’t have a choice. Look. I’m going to wipe her the first chance I get, then bring her in as Bill told me. But Michael?” Peri’s finger tightened on the handgun, and Jack stared at her, eyes virulent. “I don’t think Bill had any intention of accelerating you. Remember who told you that when you need someone to watch your back.”
Peri’s finger eased up, and a drop of sweat trickled down Jack’s neck.
Michael laughed. “You tricky bastard! Where are you?”
“No. I can’t risk Bill thinking I’m screwing with him.”
“Jack—”
Peri took the phone from his ear and hung up. Her fingers were still shaking as she rolled her window down. The wind whipped in, and she flung the phone out, the assault on her hair slowly vanishing as she cranked the window back up. I’m so cold I could pee ice cubes.
“I wouldn’t wipe you, Peri. I only said that to give us some space to think.”
She fiddled with the heater controls, giving the dash a smack when nothing changed. Sucking on the fatty part of her hand, she glared at him. She didn’t believe him, but she wanted to. “There is no us, Jack,” she said softly, but memories were creeping back.
Jack stared straight ahead, his hands tight on the wheel. “He’s going to kill you.”
“Not if I kill him first.” But Jack was right. If Michael went for Bill first—and survived—he’d come for her next.
“Tell me you know what you’re doing.”
She turned in her seat, surprised that she was comfortable with him doing a hundred down a night-black highway where deer were known to cross. “I know what I’m doing.”
But as she searched the glove box for a flashlight to look at her knee, her doubt crept out, black and ugly. She was with Jack and a part of her felt at peace. The pain of being lied to, used, and scrubbed like an Etch A Sketch was being layered over by a calm relaxation that she hadn’t felt for over a year. It was more than the peace instilled by a successful task. She hated it even as she basked in it. It didn’t matter whether it was Opti conditioning or not, it was real. She’d enjoyed breaking out, doing something no one else could. Besting Steiner before his own men. It felt good, and not much had in a long time.
Maybe this was who she was after all.
 
 
CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO
Silas leaned back from his calculation, rubbing his aching eyes before reaching for an open reference book. He’d gotten the first chemical assay back on the Evocane, and it was like trying to balance an octogenarian’s pharmacy list to make sure the multiple compounds weren’t coming together into a lethal combination. He still didn’t know why half of what was in there was in there, but he had a suspicion that most of it was to make it criminally addictive. Four sixteen, he thought, looking at his clock and feeling tired. He was never much of a night owl, but rumor had it Steiner had gone out after Peri, and he couldn’t sleep.
Thumbing to the index, he looked up the compound in question.
But then a curious, inside-out feeling ripped through him, and he blinked as the light pooling from his desk lamp shifted blue, and then flashed clear. Someone just drafted.
Silas stiffened. The book he’d been referencing was back where it started, out of his reach on a pile with the rest. He set his pencil down, his gaze going to his clock. It was four fifteen, clicking over even as he watched. Standing, he pushed his rolling chair back.
He had been under loose house arrest since Steiner had found Peri’s old Opti apartment empty. Rumor had it a ping from a search engine had pulled the distasteful man out from behind WEFT’s walls, but that had been hours ago. By the sound of it, he’d found her.
Pace fast enough to furl his lab coat, Silas strode out of his temporary office. The familiar scent of electronics and floor cleaner wafted up, and he followed the sound of men shouting. His brow furrowed in worry. If Steiner had figured out she was hooked on Evocane, she’d do anything to keep from going into a cell.
The rolling sound of a gurney pushed him to the edge of the hallway, and he slowed, his expression vanishing as three bodies rolled by, their slow pace saying they were going to the morgue, not the emergency medical floor. The men were covered, but they were in combat suits, blood seeping past the drapes.