Slow Burn(94)
Griffin unfolded the paper. “It’s an email.”
“Look who it’s from,” said Knox.
“Gerald Norman,” said Griffin. “The head of Dewhurst-McFarland. So what?”
Knox clasped his hands together. “That’s an email from years ago, telling everyone to discontinue the Dura Project.”
“So what?” said Griffin. “We know that project got discontinued.”
“What is it again?” I asked. I couldn’t remember what Griffin had told me.
“The project that created the serum,” said Knox. “Norman told them to destroy all of the remaining serum.”
Griffin furrowed his brow. “But they didn’t do that. They used it to start Operation Wraith.”
“Exactly,” said Knox. “Without the knowledge of anyone in the organization.”
Griffin straightened. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not,” said Knox. “The only people who know about Op Wraith in Dewhurst-McFarland are the four people who run it. Frank Thorn, Jim Bradford, Jolene French, and Bart Caldwell.”
“Three people,” said Griffin. “Frank Thorn’s dead.”
My dad. “My dad headed up Op Wraith?” I said. “I thought he just worked for Dewhurst-McFarland.”
“Sorry, doll,” said Griffin. “I thought you knew.”
I looked away. My dad hadn’t been a very nice guy. At least he’d saved me in the end.
“Do you realize what this means?” said Knox.
“Not really,” I said.
“I’ve got the emails right here,” said Knox. “I finally hacked into the server earlier. And Op Wraith was Bart Caldwell’s brain child. He brought the others in to help. The idea was to train a group of invincible assassins and sell them to the highest bidder.”
“We weren’t part of the corporation?” said Griffin.
“No, we were Caldwell’s dirty secret,” said Knox. “He used us to make money. He hired us out to kill whoever he wanted killed. And he did it all without anyone in Dewhurst-McFarland knowing about it.”
Griffin took a deep breath. “You’re saying that if we kill the people who head up Op Wraith, then we kill everyone who knows about it.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” said Knox. “If we do this, if we kill just three people, we free every single person who’s been forced into being an assassin.”
“We shut it down,” said Griffin.
“That’s right.”
“Wait,” I said. “Does this mean no one would be after you?”
“Yes,” he said.
I leaned against his shoulder. “I’m in.”
Griffin kissed the top of my head. He turned to Knox. “No one would be after any of us.”
“Yeah,” said Knox. “I could, um, find my kid. The little girl that Beth had.”
“You want to do that?” I said.
He looked at his hands. “I think so.”
Griffin got up off the bed. “Okay, so what do we do? Who do we go after first?”
“Jim Bradford still works in a lab for Dewhurst-McFarland,” said Knox. “It’s not like he’s behind bullet-proof glass all day. I’m thinking we get up in a building next door.”
“Sniper him,” said Griffin.
“Yeah,” said Knox. “No muss, no fuss.”
* * *
Light streamed in between the heavy curtains of the hotel. I opened my eyes to find that I was snuggled tightly against Griffin in bed, his arms crushing me against his chest. When we’d gone to sleep the night before, we’d kept to our own sides of the bed. Both exhausted, we’d been out immediately. But it seemed that our bodies had somehow come together in the night.
I shifted a little, doing my best not to wake him. In sleep, he looked like a little boy, innocent and vulnerable. I gazed at him, wondering at the fact that he could be so different. The Griffin who’d whispered to me that he wanted things to be perfect for me was the same man who’d engineered that I get shot in my car, the same man who’d called me names last night, the same man who’d apologized and claimed I made him a better person.