Shards of Hope(167)
Nerida and Yuri, who Aden trusted deeply and who he’d intended to tell about the mirror in any case, knew what was up and to cover for the six who were down. As it was, all was calm until seven hours later, by which time he and Zaira had come naturally awake.
“Six-and-a-half-hour recovery period,” Zaira said on waking, her eyes still drowsy. “Makes you a lethal threat, Aden Kai.”
Stretching out his arm, he placed his palm on her abdomen as she stretched. “Your telepathy?”
A disappointed look. “Back to normal. So if you ever turbocharged an army, you’d have supersoldiers for five hours. Hmm . . . that’s still not bad. Especially if you only turboed half, leaving the other half to cover for the six and a half hours until you woke back up and could restart the cycle.”
Aden raised an eyebrow as he stroked his hand up to her rib cage. “Who are we invading?”
“I like to plan ahead.” Zaira was raising her hand to his cheek when her phone went off. Answering it, she jerked up into a sitting position. “Persephone is alive,” she said after a short, intense conversation. “Miane says another e-mail just downloaded into Olivia’s account.”
A psychic knock came on Aden’s mind right then, the squad’s tech surveillance team having seen the same message.
Having sat up, he curled his arm around Zaira as she brought up that message. It was another image of the forlorn and scared little girl; once again she held a printout of the latest Beacon update to verify time and date—and once again, her face was obscured enough to make it impossible to ’port directly to her.
The message below was cold: Do not attempt to track the child. Do it and we will cut her into small pieces which we will send to you by mail. Any rescue attempt or perceived attempt by BlackSea will equal her death.
Jawbones grinding against one another, he put Zaira’s phone on the small table she’d brought from her Venice room and that now sat to one side of their bed. “They don’t know we’re working with BlackSea.”
“Exactly.” Rage vibrated in her own voice, but it was frigid. “Miane’s people can’t risk being caught—they’ll continue to work behind the scenes in the search to find Persephone and the other missing members of their pack, but they need our help for live actions.” She turned to face him. “I don’t have any other pressing mission briefs. I want to focus on this.”
Aden didn’t even have to think about it. “Do it,” he said, not only because no child should have to suffer such hell, but because Zaira needed to save this one child as she hadn’t been able to save herself. “Use whatever resources you need.”
Hands fisted, Zaira gave a small, frustrated scream. “The thing is—I don’t know where to go,” she said, her voice taut. “None of my search bots on the PsyNet or Internet have turned up anything.”
None of Aden’s sources had unearthed anything, either. “I’ll speak to Krychek, see if the NetMind or—” He froze, his mind shining a thin beam of light on a near-forgotten piece of data. “Hashri Smith’s business associates,” he said. “The woman.”
Zaira sat up on her knees, her hair wild around her shoulders. “She was asked to wire a bribe to an official in Denver six months ago in order to expedite certain building permits—but the owners of those buildings are all ordinary people.” She shoved back her hair. “Deep background, telepathic scans, none of it points to any kind of involvement in the conspiracy.”
Having already pulled up the report on an organizer, Aden scrolled down. “Secondary report confirms the first. We’re keeping an eye on them, but so far, it looks like someone did them a favor for no discernible reason. The e-mails we were able to retrieve show them expressing surprised delight at the swiftness of the permits.”
Zaira blew out a breath and, getting out of bed, began to pace. Since she was dressed in only a pair of black panties, the sight was distracting despite the serious nature of their discussion, but Aden didn’t tell her to put on clothes. He was an Arrow, not an idiot.
“Why offer a bribe to expedite permits that provide you with no advantage?” Zaira frowned, turned on her heel, and continued to pace. “It’s not like the contracts with Smith and the others. These people have no idea they were done a favor and no reason to believe anyone who claims to have facilitated it.”
Aden tapped the organizer on his knee, the whole situation niggling at him. “That’s exactly it. The people running this op aren’t stupid—their every action has been well thought out, planned. I can’t believe they’d waste several thousand dollars on creating a pointless dead end.”