Gideon swore under his breath. “We have to just let her walk?”
Mack shrugged. “There’ll be another time and another place. There always is.
Right now, we’re here for Jefferson. We know he’s after Kane and Brian and he’s certainly the one who ordered the hit on Sergeant Major when they lost track of him.
We’ve got to look after our own first.”
Violet sank into a chair, accepting the crystal glass Jefferson handed her. “How’s the senator?” he asked as he gave the drink to her.
The voices sounded tinny through the recorder. Javier adjusted something Mack couldn’t see, frowning as he did so.
Violet, her eyes on Jefferson’s face, held the glass under her nose and inhaled.
“We’re on the same side, Violet,” Jefferson reminded.
“Anyone in my position can’t be too careful, and Whitney and I didn’t part on the best of terms. He had my husband shot.”
“He saved his life. No one else could have done that operation,” Jefferson pointed out.
“He wouldn’t have needed the operation if Whitney hadn’t arranged for an assassination.” She put her drink down and leaned forward. “Let’s quit playing games, Jefferson. I want Whitney off our backs.”
“It isn’t going to happen, Violet. You can join the other side and try to wipe out all the GhostWalkers or you can come back to the fold where you belong. Without us, your husband has no career and without Whitney, he’s a dead man.”
Mack was watching the woman’s face closely. Jefferson was a man in extreme danger. He thought he was holding all the cards, but she was weighing whether or not to kill him. She looked cool and composed, but Mack knew exactly what was going on in her mind.
Jefferson appeared confident, but he must have felt death in her silence. He set his drink aside and shook his head. “What good would it do you to kill me, Violet?
Whitney would retaliate against you by letting Ed die. This is about him, isn’t it?
Your husband? You want him alive. Only Whitney can keep him alive.”
“As a puppet,” she snapped. “We both will have to do his bidding.”
“Without Whitney, neither of you would have a decent life. It’s time to pay the piper, Violet,” Jefferson said. “It isn’t like Ed is a viable candidate for the vice presidency. Whitney had to practically replace his brain.”
“My husband can still have a political career.”
Jefferson sat back in his chair and once again picked up his glass, regarding her over the top of it. “Now we come to the real reason you’re here. What exactly do you want and what are you offering?”
“I can find the missing women for Whitney. They escaped. Whitney wants them back. I can get them for him. I have the resources. And I can tap into the women’s networks better than anyone else. In return, I want Ed completely well.”
“He was brain-dead, Violet.”
“Not anymore. Not with this new technology. Get him up and running and put him back in the political arena. I can handle everything else. No one will ever get close enough to know he’s not all human.”
“You’re asking a lot,” Jefferson said, and took a sip of his brandy.
“One of the women is pregnant. The father is a GhostWalker. She has extraordinary talents, as does he. Their child alone will be worth what I’m asking.
You and your friends back Ed’s career and we’re back on track. Whitney will have a friend in the White House for life.”
Gideon gasped. “That bitch. She’d sell out her own mother.”
“Just make certain you’ve got this all recorded,” Mack said.
Jefferson’s smile turned malicious. “He’s already got friends in the White House.”
“He has enemies too. I can find them for you. You know I’ll do it too. I keep my promises.”
“Do you?” Jefferson asked. “You turned on Whitney before and you have no problems turning on the women who regard you as their sister.”
Violet tapped her perfectly manicured nails on the arm of her chair. “Don’t judge a woman in love, James. I would do anything for my husband.”
“Or for the power. We both know who’s behind the proverbial throne, Violet, so don’t play the loving wife to me. You were prepared to sleep with me if that’s what it took, but you knew the moment you looked into my mind that wouldn’t serve your purpose,” Jefferson said shrewdly.
Javier growled deep in his throat. “She really is a cobra.”
Violet shrugged her shoulders. “Why should I deny it? I am prepared to pay whatever price Whitney wants from me.”
“And if he demands a fail-safe?”
She sucked in her breath, for the first time her composure shaken. She recovered very quickly. “He’s put a fail-safe program in Ed?”
“Of course he did, my dear, and he’s prepared to use it. You not only will deliver the women to us, but you’ll find whoever in the White House is going against the GhostWalker program and you’ll deliver them as well. If we decide to put Ed back into position to use him, believe me, Violet, it will be our decision without coercion.”
Even from his position a distance away, Mack could see the woman’s eyes glittering with malicious intent as she rose. “I would be very careful of threatening me, Jefferson. You may hold all the cards, but if you push too far, you’ll find out just what a woman will really do when you’ve put a bullet in her husband’s head.”
Her voice was utterly cold. Deliberately spiteful. Mack swore under his breath.
Jefferson would know exactly what she meant and he would take her threat seriously.
That would make it doubly difficult to kill him.
“You’re getting him back,” Jefferson reminded. “A new, improved model, wholly devoted to you. There won’t be any chasing skirts, or aides under his desk; he’ll live for you.”
Mack inhaled sharply. “Whitney paired her with him, but didn’t bother pairing Freeman with her. Whitney sold her into service with Freeman to aid his political career.”
“He couldn’t know the monster he was creating,” Gideon said.
“I can’t even feel sorry for her,” Javier said. “She’s willing to give up the other women to a breeding program, knowing what happened to them in that compound.”
“She’d kill all of us if it got her husband one step closer to the presidency,” Mack said, watching with a small frown. “He’s glanced at his watch again. You think he’s got more than one visitor coming tonight?”