Lisette’s brow furrowed. “Where was this military base? It couldn’t have been on any island guarded by an immortal. As soon as the immortal heard the battle and saw what was transpiring, he would have summoned Seth.”
Zach began to pace. “That’s the hell of it. I don’t know. Nick and the other men weren’t told where the base they manned was stationed. Not the name of the island. Not the general location. Hell, not even in what ocean it may be found. It’s all very hush-hush.”
“Was it another Gitmo?” Ethan asked.
Zach shook his head. “I don’t think so. I saw no prisoners or detainees in Nick’s memories. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it weren’t some kind of bioweapons research facility, because Nick did see a lot of doctors there.”
“Well, shit,” Ethan said. “That’s even worse. A vampire army in possession of potentially lethal bioweapons? Fuck!”
“Nick may not know the location of the base,” Seth said, “but General Lane must.”
“I’m sure he does,” Zach said, his every word and gesture radiating frustration, “but I couldn’t find the information with a standard, harmless search. He has unusually strong mental barriers for a human. Had I delved any deeper, it would have hurt him.”
Ethan’s stomach sank.
All eyes went to Heather.
Heather straightened away from Ethan and took his hand in a death grip. “He does.” She licked her lips nervously. “Have strong mental barriers, that is. My mother was a telepath, too, and . . . over the years he learned to guard his thoughts and erect mental barriers neither one of us could penetrate easily. They aren’t as strong as Ethan’s, but . . . they’re there. I can’t get past them without him knowing, because just trying to gives him a headache. It’s why I don’t read his mind anymore and never hear his thoughts when I let my own guard down around him.” She looked up at Ethan, then at Zach, Seth, and David. “You aren’t going to hurt him, are you?”
The quiet that followed stretched every nerve tight.
Heather raised pleading eyes to Ethan’s. “Please, don’t hurt him.”
He swallowed hard, not knowing what to say, unwilling to lie to her.
Seth’s voice carried regret when he spoke. “We need to know the location of that base.”
She closed her eyes, face pained.
“If we can examine the scene ourselves,” Seth continued, “and read the minds of anyone else we find on the island, we may be able to discover something that can lead us to this vampire army. We have to destroy them, Heather, before they launch another attack. And we have to know if they’ve gotten their hands on bioweapons.”
Heather opened her eyes. “Can’t you just talk to him?” she pleaded.
“We would have to erase the memory of it from his mind, if we did,” Seth explained. Which, because of the strong mental barriers General Lane possessed, would cause as much damage as simply reading his mind would.
“He won’t tell anyone,” she promised.
“I’m afraid we can’t take that chance,” David said. “Ethan told you of our recent troubles with Shadow River.”
“My dad isn’t like that,” she vowed. “He isn’t greedy. He isn’t a warmonger. And he knows how to keep a secret, knows the importance of keeping one. He’s kept mine for twenty-nine years, and kept my mother’s even after she died. If he were like those Shadow River guys, don’t you think he would’ve used our telepathy for his own gain? Don’t you think it occurred to him once in all these years that maybe the military could benefit from our abilities?”
“The military does benefit from your ability,” Zach pointed out.
“Not as much as they would if they knew what my ability actually was,” she protested. “He told them I read facial expressions, not minds. You don’t think he knows the kind of career boost he could get by bringing the government an honest-to-goodness telepath who can read the thoughts of every prisoner, every political opponent, every other nation’s leader?”
Ethan glanced at Chris. “Can’t your contacts get us the location of the base?”
Chris shook his head. “Too much attention is focused on it at the moment. The military would know instantly if someone hacked into classified files. But my contacts may be able to tell us who else would likely know the information we need. Then Seth or Zach could read that person’s mind instead of Heather’s father’s.”
Sounded good to Ethan.
“What about Mac?” Heather blurted.
Zach turned to her. “The other man in the room with you and the general?”
“Yes. Or maybe the soldier monitoring all the equipment?”
“Neither knows the location of the base. I checked.”
“Oh.” The hope in Heather’s face died a swift death.
“Well, someone else must know,” Chris said. “I’ll see if my guys can’t give us some names.”
Seth nodded. “Do it.”
Heather released a weary sigh and leaned into Ethan’s side.
Wrapping his arms around her, Ethan drew her close and hoped like hell Chris’s contacts would let General Lane off the hook.
Heather stared at the powerful men and women seated around David’s long dining room table. All of the immortals stationed in North Carolina were present, as were their mortal Seconds. And everyone had greeted Heather with friendly smiles, as though she were one of them.
Well, everyone except Roland. But Ethan had told her not to take that one’s stony expression to heart. They all considered Roland the most antisocial of their ilk.
Heather could see why. Roland was quiet and didn’t participate much in the conversation flowing around him. He did stick close to his wife, though, and always seemed to be touching her. If he wasn’t holding her hand, he wrapped an arm around her or rested a hand on her thigh or leaned down to kiss her neck. Heather thought it sweet, how much the surly immortal adored Sarah. And thought it even sweeter when his dour face broke into a wide, affectionate grin when Ami’s baby held her arms out to him and called, “Wo! Wo!”
Even now, the little one sat in Roland’s lap, toying with the buttons on his shirt while he whispered something in her ear.
Heather felt honored to sit at a table with such powerful immortal warriors. It seemed so surreal, like sitting down to chat with a bunch of superheroes, only these guys—and gals—didn’t wear colorful tights. They wore black to conceal the blood they would spill later in the night when they hunted.
A sobering thought.
The relaxed, family-like atmosphere evaporated once Seth and Chris arrived and related the day’s events. All eyes shifted to Heather, who tried not to squirm beneath the attention.
Curses flowed freely.
Ethan took Heather’s hand beneath the table and, linking their fingers, rested it on his thigh. “Did your contacts come up with any names for you, Chris? Anyone who might be privy to the same information General Lane has?”
Chris drew a single sheet of paper from his briefcase. “Yes.” He handed it to Seth. “They seem to think these are your best bets. The first list is of helicopter pilots they believe might have been the ones who evacuated Nick Altomari and transported in some of the army personnel who cleaned up the base and collected the dead. The second list is of army and army intelligence officers who, like Heather’s father, may be in the loop. But . . . I’ve been thinking.”
Seth took the paper and examined it. “What’s on your mind?”
“It may be worth the risk to try to recruit General Lane.”
“What?” Heather and Ethan exclaimed simultaneously.
“Are you out of your mind?” Roland demanded.
Other murmured protests floated around the table.
Chris shook his head. “Heather said he understands the importance of keeping a secret, and—after all the digging I’ve done during the last few hours—I’m inclined to agree. If he were a man driven by greed or a lust for power or even fame, he would have long since sold out his wife and daughter. But he’s a smart man and knew what would happen to them if their abilities ever came to light.” He turned his head and met Heather’s gaze. “Did your father encourage you when you told him you were going to pass yourself off as a FACS specialist and see if you could earn a living helping others with your telepathy without actually revealing it?”
“No,” she said. “We actually had a falling-out over it. He was afraid I would slip and say or do something that would reveal I can read minds. Things were pretty tense between us for a couple of years until I proved to him that I could keep my true ability hidden.”
Chris motioned to her as he addressed the others. “Clearly the man’s priorities are where they should be.”
“She’s his daughter,” Marcus pointed out, helping Adira as she scrambled from Roland’s lap over onto his own. “Of course he wants to protect her. We, on the other hand, are strangers who all wield even more power than the vampires who just destroyed one of his military bases. If we tell him the soldier who survived isn’t insane and—to prove it—flash our fangs, how eager do you think he will be to keep our secret? What reason would he have to believe we’re any different from the monsters who slaughtered the soldiers who manned that base?”