“Telepaths,” I breathed, and I heard a chorus of agreement within.
“What?” Breandan said.
“In the memory I took, Weissman said they were using telepaths to identify metas,” I said, drumming my fingers along the plastic-leather coating of the van’s interior. “If we could find those telepaths, take them out of the game—”
“You mean kill them, don’t you?” Breandan asked.
“Then Century’s scheme comes crashing down, doesn’t it?” I wasn’t asking Breandan. By this point I was staring out the front window, trying to figure it out. Was Weissman a telepath? How many did they have? I narrowed my eyes. My real question, which I wasn’t sure I wanted to admit, was how many would I have to kill to succeed at waylaying their plans? “Without trackers, it’s going to be damned hard to find their targets.”
“Uh, if you say so,” Breandan said, nudging me back to reality.
“Turn here, then left again,” I said, pointing at a warehouse ahead. “It’s there.” I looked at the visor above his head and hit a button that caused a heavy metal garage door to open. Darkness shrouded the interior and I reached back to grab one of the guns and checked to make sure a round was chambered. “I think you might want to wait here.”
“I don’t know that that’s so wise,” Breandan said. “How about I follow two paces behind you?”
“Not such a grand idea,” I said, scooping up the second submachine gun we’d brought and strapping it around my chest. “I’ve seen you use a gun, and I don’t want you to handle another until you’ve had some basic lessons in safety drilled into your head.” I gave him a sympathetic look. “Sorry. But you’re more dangerous to me with a gun than you are to them.”
“Oh, I see how it is,” he said with a look of hurt. “You shoot one bloke in the head by accident and it’s all over, then.”
“Yes,” I said, opening the door, “that’s how it is. Because I’m attached to my head, and I don’t need any more holes in it.”
“Bloody violent Americans.”
“Says the man who just blew some poor, unarmed bastard’s brains out.”
Before he could respond I hit the ground in the warehouse moving like Parks had taught me, sweeping the corners for hostiles. If this Weissman was a telepath, there was no way I was going to sneak up on him. If he had surveillance cameras of any sort, I similarly had little chance to catch him by surprise. If he didn’t, then theoretically he should be expecting his own men and would be surprised by a girl with a submachine gun creeping into his lair. Theoretically. This was the problem with theory; it wasn’t proven. A thousand things could go wrong that I could think of and countless more that I couldn’t. What if the team was supposed to call him on the way back to check in?
“Maybe this wasn’t such a great plan,” I whispered.
I wasn’t going to say it, Bastian said, but I’m glad you realize it now.
If you see this Weissman with a gun, Eve said, try to jump out in front of it, will you? Catch the bullet in your teeth. You can do it. I believe in you.
“I get the feeling that Eve’s decided not to be a team player,” I whispered. “Somebody do something about that, please?”
There was the sudden sense of motion in my mind and it was as though I could see Eve being attacked, thrown to the back of my mind by shadows, tossed into the nether regions while screaming in protest. It was almost as though there was a clang, a damnably familiar sound for some reason, and her presence was gone. I shrugged. “Thanks.”
I was in an open bay, spread wide along the largest part of the warehouse building. I dived through McClaren’s memory in a flash, and saw that there were offices to my left. The whole room was shrouded in shadows, like ink had dripped down and covered the walls outside of the places where lamps broke the dark. I could see the outline of the door that led to the offices, still shut. I knew from McClaren’s memory it was to keep out the chill that was ever present here in the bay.
“Where are we going?” Breandan said from behind me. I didn’t bother to turn back, just made a slow motion with my offhand (the one that wasn’t on the grip of my weapon) that showed him we were moving forward. “Oh, okay.”
I fired him a sizzling look, then whispered low. “We don’t know if Weissman’s a meta. If he is, he may hear us. Go silent.”
Breandan nodded once then continued to crouch like an idiot, as though he could somehow hide by bending his large frame forward to sneak. I wanted to tell him he looked like a moron, but he was the only backup I had, so I chose silence as a form of tact. There was a faint sound of water dripping in the corner, and the smell of oils were thick here, along with something else, like this place had been around a while and hadn’t ever been exposed to the elements much. My feet made low, quiet noises with each step I took toward the door, and I wondered what I’d find waiting beyond.