Night Game

CHAPTER 9

Gator fought down the unreasonable anger churning in his belly. Stay where you are and keep your head down, or I swear I’m going to beat you within an inch of your life. He used directional sound to give her the command, uncaring that the notes were pulsing with rage. The spongy ground undulated slightly and birds shrieked an alarm, taking once more to the air. He wasn’t concerned about the sniper hearing him. Directional sound waves were powerful enough to go through walls, yet they could be directed specifically to one recipient. He had worked on the ability in the field often and wasn’t in the least surprised that Flame was as adept at it as he was.

Be still my heart.

His fingers itched to shake her-or strangle her. She had to know the sniper had a bead on her. Gator couldn’t spot him and that made the man dangerous. He had training and he was just lying in wait, biding his time, waiting to get a shot at Flame. All she had to do was stick her head up and the marksman would kill her. She knew better. She should have waited! It was illogical to rush off after four murderous gunmen when she had only knives – and it was really, really stupid to get pinned down.

I can’t hear him. Not even his heartbeat. Can you?

That brought him up short. She was right. He should hear breathing, at least the beat of the sniper’s heart, but he heard nothing at all. He could feel him, but there was no sound-and there should have been.

Gator moved with deliberate slowness, forming a makeshift Gilly suit by shoving reeds, leaves, and moss through his shirt. It didn’t take long to construct a hood for his head and back, cover it with the foliage and begin a slow stalk through the swamp. Somewhere nearby, the sniper lay silent, targeting Flame, rifle steady and waiting. Gator had to find him before he managed to get off a clear shot at her.

He studied the area where he knew Flame lay in the reeds and water. He couldn’t see her. She was adept at be coming a ghost, using the camouflage around her. No doubt she was still digging deeper into the muck. Their two big advantages were that the shooter didn’t know Gator had joined the hunt and that they could communicate with each other.

Do you have a bead on his location? Gator asked.

That last shot came from directly in front of me, somewhere near the cypress with the one branch sweeping to the ground, but he moved immediately. He doesn’t have a clear shot at me or he would have taken it.

Gator considered the information. What would he do under the circumstances? The swamp offered several good places for concealment and a professional sniper could lie for hours waiting for that one moment to take his shot.

Gator worked his way in a wide semicircle using Flame’s position as his reference. The going was slow and methodical. He had to inch his way, careful not to disturb the reeds or bend any foliage.

He has to be enhanced. He has to be sent by Whitney.

Not necessarily. But he didn’t know. What the hell kind of sniper could mask his heartbeat? His breathing? Was he the same as they were? Gator and Flame muted any noises they might make. Could the sniper do the same?

Raoul? It’s going to rain any minute. I can feel moisture above us, can’t you?

Was there a tremor in the sound coming to him? Her voice just slightly wavering. She was probably stiff and sore from falling off the motorcycle, and lying so still in the mud and water she’d be cramping up. She was looking for reassurance and completely unaware of it. His every protective instinct grew stronger.

A little rain never hurt anyone. You aren’t worried I’m going to leave you, are you, cher? A man doesn’t leave the mother of his child. And after this, I expect you to address me as your hero.

Her soft laughter reached his ears coming toward him on the precision sound wave she generated.

The clouds suddenly burst with an ominous rumble of thunder and rain poured down from the sky. Gator kept his head down, but his gaze moved ceaselessly over the terrain. He was looking for anything that might reveal the presence of the killer. With the rain coming down, it was much more difficult to see, but he strained his eyes, feeling rather than seeing that something was moving closer to Flame.

He’s shifting position. Flame’s warning came on the heels of his own radar. The man was good. Even with the rain flattening the reeds in places, there was nothing to give him away. Gator looked for telltale “tree cancer,” a small dark spot on either side of the tree that might mean a sniper had set up shop, but there was nothing, only his warning system blaring at him.

My ear is planted in the mud and I can feel the earth vibrate. He’s using the cover of the rain to get a better angle. I’m going to roll to my left. I think he’s to my right.

No! Gator’s command was sharp. He’s deliberately trying to get you to move. Stay still. I’ll get him. You need patience for this kind of hunt. Don’t panic on me, cher. The thought of Flame moving terrified him. His heart actually jumped in his chest and something squeezed hard on his lungs. He didn’t know how he knew the killer was trying to spook her into movement, but he was absolutely certain. And while he didn’t think that Flame’s training had included sniper school, Gator would have bet his cabin that the killer’s had.

As if! I never panic.

He hoped that was true. Playing cat and mouse with a professional killer took nerves of steel. Flame knew the killer had a scope on the spot where she went down. If he managed to get a good shot off, she was dead. It took a lot of guts to lie still when a high-powered rifle was pointed right at you. Snipers didn’t miss. He knew the odds. Where many soldiers fired off hundreds of rounds in a battle, a sniper used one to three shots per kill.

The rain poured from the skies, through the canopy of trees, so heavy it obscured vision. The water would help obliterate the tracks when it came to clean up, but it also provided a conductor for sound. He muted noise and sent out sonar, using echolocation in an attempt to pinpoint the location of the sniper. The man had to be concealed in the network of tree roots. Gator willed Flame to remain still as he crawled through the reeds and muck toward the last known spot where his adversary had been.

He scooted through a water-filled depression before realizing it was a man-made trench, narrow with just enough space for a man to lie in. He froze. He had to be almost on top of the sniper. Carefully, only allowing his eyes to move, he searched the area around him, quartering every section of ground. He barely allowed his breath to escape, waiting for something, anything at all to give the sniper’s position away.

Time crept by. The rain poured down. Gator felt the rhythm of the marsh now, the teeming of insect life and the whisper of movement as frogs and lizards darted out from cover to grab a quick meal. His watchful gaze poured over the terrain again and again. The log to his left had split apart, rotted with age and was home to various life forms. A small green lizard skittered toward the log in small stops and starts, dashed forward and abruptly stopped before going up and over a slight mound.

Gator’s breath caught in his throat. That mound, no more than ten feet from him, was the sniper. He hadn’t moved, lying so completely still, covered in reeds and mud, he appeared part of the landscape. If he turned his head and looked, he would be able to spot Gator as only Gator’s head and shirt were camouflaged. His jeans were muddy, but no way, at such a close range, would he escape detection. He didn’t have a gun, which meant he would have to use a knife – and that meant working his way without detection until he was within striking range.

What’s wrong?

He heard the anxiety in Flame’s voice clearly.

Nothing. Stay down.

Your heart rate just went through the ceiling. Don’t give me nothing. Fill me in. I’m not some pansy ass that can’t take bad news.

No, she wasn’t that. She’d coped with bad news most of her life. No, you’re a hothead and you might get yourself killed.

I knew that weasel Whitney wanted me alive. Give it to me straight, Raoul. I need to know what’s going on.

He weighed his options. He’d only have one chance at the sniper. She had to know the danger. He’s a few feet away. If he turns his head, he’ll see me. Don’t move, Flame. This guy knows what he’s doing. He hasn’t moved a muscle and he’s had his eye to the scope the entire time.

There was a small silence. He found himself holding his breath. Raoul. I’ll be really angry at you if you blow this and get killed.

Now cher, make up your mind. I thought you wanted me dead.

You haven’t had time to take out an insurance policy for the baby and me.

Nothing’s goin’ to be happening to me.

Flame was silent again. I could kill him using sound. It’s risky, but better that, than taking a chance…

No! He forced calm into his voice. She was shrewd. He’d just given away too much to her, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to chance it. He wouldn’t let her chance it. No. We’ll do it the old-fashioned way.

Count off. On every fifth second I’ll use sound to move the reeds off to my right.

Was there relief in her voice? He couldn’t tell. Damn it, no.

Damn it, yes. Just enough to make him worried I might be on the move. He’ll be concentrating on me and it will give you a chance. I’m not stupid enough to let him get a shot at me. There was determination in her voice. You can’t have it both ways. Either we use sound or we take the chance together.

Gator counted to five and propelled his body forward through the mud using his elbows. He silenced the sucking sound as muck dragged at his body in an attempt to hold him in place. He gained two feet. A few more and he could launch himself onto his target. He would have to go from a crouch to a full-on attack, leaping the distance before the sniper could turn and get a clear shot.

The second count he pushed forward only to see the sniper shift ever so slightly, shoulder hunching.

He’s taking his shot.

He sent the warning simultaneously as the gun went off. The sniper rolled to his left, came up on his knee, rifle to his shoulder for the second shot. Gator sprang, more than grateful for the physical enhancement that allowed him to smash into the sniper, driving him facedown into the mud.

The man must have sensed his presence at the last second because he tried to turn, tried to keep the rifle out of the mud. Gator drove his knife into the man’s side just as the sniper slammed the rifle stock against the side of Gator’s head. For a moment, everything faded in and out. The sniper heaved him off, but Gator caught the rifle, hanging on and kicking at the other man’s crotch.

Flame! Are you hit? He felt frantic, needing reassurance, needing to hear she was alive and well even as he was fighting for his own life. The sniper fought savagely, fear and anger lending him strength as they struggled for possession of the gun. Answer me.

“I’m here,” Flame called out to him as she pushed up out of the muck. The wet ground sucked at her, tried to hold her in place and her leg was throbbing and painful as she tried to stand. Gator had jerked the rifle from the sniper’s hands and it went flying away from them. Both men pulled knives and began to circle.

She dragged herself out of the mud, willing her leg to work when it buckled under her. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered but that she get to the gun. Gator leapt back avoiding the slice of the sniper’s knife by a hair’s breadth, feinted with his right hand, and moved in, going for the kill with his left hand. Flame launched herself into the air, landing hard beside the gun, going down as her leg collapsed under her, but she wrapped her fist around the rifle and brought it to her shoulder. The sniper was already stumbling backward, Gator’s knife in his heart. He toppled over slowly, landing face-up in the rain, eyes wide open, shock on his face.

Gator turned and looked at her. Her gaze clung to his. She looked worn. Beat up. Shocked. Both heard the approach of a four-wheel-drive vehicle, but they didn’t look away from each other. Gator walked over to her and pulled her to her feet. She stumbled, lacking her normal fluid grace and he caught her arms, steadying her, then reached out to wipe the mud from her hair. Streaks of brown and red ran down her pale face as the rain tried to wash her clean.

“Did you plan this?” Her voice was low, barely discernible, but her gaze remained locked with his. Steady. Demanding. There was pain there. Sorrow. Betrayal. All of it mixed together and it tore him up inside that she could think he might have been part of killing Burrell. Her body shook almost uncontrollably despite the heat and warmth of the rain.

Gator sucked in his breath, his fingers curling into two tight fists. “What the hell are you accusing me of doing?”

She shook her head. “I’m asking. Tell me the truth. I need the truth.” Her arms swept out in a semicircle to encompass the swamp. “Did you do this? Set it up?”

The SUV screeched to a halt and Wyatt and Ian jumped out, looked around at the dead men, then to the couple, but they didn’t approach them. Something in the way Gator and Flame stood so close, one body protective, the other fragile, yet both seemingly combative, warned the two men off.

“Damn it, Flame. Are you asking me if I killed Burrell? Grand-mere’s friend? My friend? What possible motive could I have?” Gator demanded.

“A field exercise to see if we worked well together. If we did what we were created by Whitney to do. We did, you know. We just performed a perfect combat mission.”

“Get the hell out of here. Go with Wyatt and stay with Nonny until I can get home.” He raked a hand through his hair. “That’s a hell of a thing to accuse me of, Flame, when I just saved your life. You have a real knack for getting under my skin.”

“I need to hear you say it.”

“Or what? You’re going to shove a knife down my throat? You can’t be here when they come to clean up. I’ve got to take the heat for this. I’m not about to stand here defending myself to you.” He took a step closer, gripping her upper arms before he could stop himself from giving her a little shake. “You’re being completely unreasonable and illogical…“ His voice trailed off. Was she? Could he say with certainty that someone hadn’t set them up to test their skills? The sniper had had exceptional skills.

He dropped his arms, suddenly wary, gaze working the area. “Damn it, now you have me thinking conspiracy theories.”

“At least you’re thinking. I can’t stay with your grandmother. Don’t argue with me, I just can’t. I’ll find somewhere, a motel, a room, it doesn’t matter. I’m not being difficult, I need-space. Downtime. You know what I mean.”

He did. It didn’t sit well with him, but he knew exactly what she meant. “I have a cabin out in the bayou. It’s far away from everyone. I’ll have Wyatt take you there.” She turned away from him but Gator caught her arm. “I expect you to be there.”

“I hear you. It isn’t like I have too many places to go.”

“I didn’t. Set this up I mean. There was no field exercise that I know of. I have no idea who these men are or who sent them, but I’ll find out. I didn’t do this, Flame.”

“Just out of curiosity, who’d you call for help with the cleanup? I’ll bet it wasn’t the local authorities. You called Whitney, didn’t you?”

He almost wished she sounded angry. Instead, she sounded weary, exhausted, defeated even. “Not Whitney. Lily.”

She shrugged. “It’s the same thing, Raoul. If you’re talking to one, you’re talking to the other, you just can’t admit that to yourself.”

He reached out to brush mud from her face, his touch gentle, tender even. Flame stepped back, pushing at his arm, her gaze jumping to first Wyatt and then Ian. “Don’t.” Her whisper barely reached his ears. “You can’t be nice to me right now. I wouldn’t survive it.” Her voice broke and she turned her face away from him.

Pain knifed through his heart. She looked broken, so fragile every protective instinct he possessed rose up to overwhelm him. He needed to hold her, to comfort her. “Flame.” He drew her to him, uncaring of her mud-soaked clothes or her brittle resistance. “I want to go with you, but I can’t. We can’t just leave a bunch of dead bodies out here.” She trembled and he pulled her even closer, trying in vain to warm her body. Not even the heat and humidity of the bayou seemed enough to drive away the icy coolness of her skin.

“Why? They left Burrell to the alligators.” Her voice broke and she ducked her head, resting her brow against his chest.

Gator wrapped his arms around her, uncaring that Wyatt glanced at his watch and then up toward the sky. The helicopter would be arriving momentarily and somebody would be demanding answers to questions. All that really mattered at that moment to Gator was comforting her. “I’m sorry, bebe. Je vais faire ce droit. Je jure que je ferai ce droit.”

She lifted her head to study his face. “You can’t make it right, Raoul. You can’t bring Burrell back. Nothing can make this right.”

He brushed his lips over her eyebrow, a soft caress meant to comfort. “Je suis desolé, le miel. I wish I could make this right. Please go with Wyatt.”

His voice was a drawling sexy tenderness that nearly was her undoing. She blinked up at him, aware of her wet clothes, of the fact that she smelled like the swamp, that she was covered in mud, but most of all that tears shimmered in her eyes. She looked away from him, not knowing what to do or say. She needed desperately to be alone.

His hands covered hers. “You were wearing gloves. Good girl. Ian’s retrieving the knives and we’ll lose them somewhere in the bayou a great distance from here. I don’t want them traced back to you. He’s replacing all sign of your being here with that of his own. These men killed Burrell, we chased them and fought.”

She shook her head. “Forensic people are too good for that.”

“Not if they want to believe what they see. Our people aren’t going to let the locals in on this. I’ll say I wrecked the bike kicking the hell out of the driver. I did kill the sniper and the others are guilty of killing Burrell. I just want your name kept out of it. It’s safer for you.”

“Why are you doing this for me?”

“Don’t ask me that. I don’t know the answer. Just get out of here and go with my brother.” He tipped her head back and brushed her lips with his. He didn’t care that they were both covered in grime. “Don’t make me come looking for you tonight, Flame.”

“Come with me.” Wyatt jerked his thumb toward the swamp. “We don’t want to leave any tracks they can’t cover. You’ve got my Jeep stashed somewhere. We can take that.”

“What about my bike?” She wasn’t certain her leg would stand up to a run through the swamp, but the SUV would be sighted from the air. Ian would say he had driven it to the scene when Gator called him. “If they check it…”

“I stole it, remember?” Gator said. “Don’t worry, I noticed it isn’t registered to Iris Johnson. No one is going to make the connection, Flame.”

“Lily will. Whitney will.”

“Get out of here.” He wasn’t going to argue with her anymore. Hell, she was sounding more and more like she was making sense. He frowned as he watched Wyatt and Flame start into the swamp. She was running, but she seemed to be limping. He almost called her back but Ian cleared his throat.

“This guy burned off his fingerprints. No ID on him at all, Gator. What the hell is going on here?”

Gator let out his breath. What was going on? Was it possible Flame was right and Whitney was still alive? No one had seen the body. Only Lily claimed he was dead. Would she lie to protect her father?

When he was certain Flame was out of earshot, Gator turned to Ian. “There may be something to Flame’s suspicions. I couldn’t even hear him breathe, Ian. You know I can hear just about anything.”

“You think he was one of us? One of the other team?” Ian asked.

Gator shrugged. “I have no idea. Is there the slightest chance Peter Whitney is still alive?”

Ian swallowed his first instinctive answer and thought about it. “How the hell would I know? There was no body. He disappeared and Lily told Rye she connected with him as he was being murdered. I suppose it’s possible.”

“Do you think Lily would help him disappear?”

Ian scratched his head. “No. No way. She’s torn up over the things he did. If he’s alive, she doesn’t know it.”

Gator frowned. “Lily’s psychic, Ian. How could he fool her? She ‘saw’ his death.”

Ian shrugged his massive shoulders. “Whitney was on the cutting edge of experimentation. No one knew more about psychic enhancement than he did. He experimented on children, on us and on at least one other team we know of. What’s to say he didn’t do a few experiments on himself?”

“Why? Why would he just disappear?”

“Higgens wanted him dead. The service was bound to be closing in on him. Most of his experiments were illegal. Even his money wasn’t going to keep him out of harm’s way. What better way to get out of it than to ‘die’? He had more money than he knew what to do with. It wouldn’t have been that difficult to bleed off a few million to a secret account and establish another residence and lab outside the States.”

“Flame thinks he’s alive. She even thinks this might have been some kind of field operation to see how we work together.”

Ian’s eyebrow shot up.

Gator nodded his head. “Flame, Iris, has this idea that Peter Whitney is alive and directing everything from be hind the scenes. I thought she was crazy at first, but now little things are bothering me. For one, I’m so damned attracted to her I can’t think straight. It isn’t just lust or emotional, it’s a powerful combination of both and it borders on obsession. When I’m with her, I would do almost anything to have her, and I feel like killing any man who comes near her. That isn’t me, Ian, and I don’t trust it. She doesn’t trust it. She feels the same way and she thinks Whitney managed to pair us somehow.”

“That’s a little far-fetched, don’t you think? How could he do something like that?” Ian stepped away from Gator, putting a small distance between them in an unconscious effort to deny what he was saying.

“Is it? I’m acting out of character. Even more, out of training. I knew she was dangerous, but led her straight back to my house. To my family. Wyatt and Nonny. To you. Why would I do that when every instinct I possess would lead me to do just the opposite? I make illogical decisions around her. Why? Because I have to see her. The need is as strong as any drug. Look at Ryland and Lily and Nico and Dahlia, It’s the same with them. And if that isn’t enough our psychic gifts complement each other. My psychic talent matches hers. I can even amplify her. As a weapon, the two of us are probably unstoppable in an environment where we could destroy a large number of targets with no risk to civilians. Flame thinks Whitney did that on purpose and now he’s sitting back testing us.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know what the hell to think. There was a military sniper in this group- one with a very questionable background. He didn’t belong with the others, he was light-years ahead of them in training. None of them carried IDs. His fingerprints are burned off. That’s a hell of lot of trouble to go to just to kill a retired riverboat captain.” He cocked his head to one side, listening. “The helicopter is on the way. Who do we trust, Ian?”

“Each other. Just the way it’s always been.”

“Do we warn the others? We don’t have any facts, just pure conjecture.”

“It really doesn’t matter if this was a field operation or whether it was something altogether different,” Ian said. The others need to know there’s a possibility Whitney is still alive.”

“Then they ought to know we were physically enhanced as well as psychically.”

Ian nodded. “I suspected as much. I didn’t think being able to see through walls was going to help me jump over them. The physical enhancement just seemed a bonus.”

“He infected Flame with cancer more than once when she was a child. Enhancement can sometimes produce cancer and he wanted to find ways to avoid that. She was used as his lab rat. And Ian…“ Gator waited until his friend looked at him. “She was never adopted out any more than Dahlia was. She says if any of the girls were, it was only one or two of them, which means Whitney planted false stories for Lily to find. Lily is very suspicious already.”

Ian whistled. “It never occurred to me that Peter Whitney might be alive.”

“Do you realize what that would mean? He’s yanking on our strings. Setting us up. Still using us for experiments, only this time we don’t know it.”

“We’re in the service, Gator. It isn’t like we don’t expect to conduct field operations. It’s why we agreed to the enhancement in the first place. We all thought we’d cut down on casualties and better serve our country. He could just have someone following us on assignment and document what we do. Going to this kind of trouble seems overkill.”

“Not if he wants to see us working with the women. If Whitney is alive and he’s conducting secret experiments by putting us into other positions using the women, that changes everything. We didn’t volunteer for that and that makes us…“ He trailed off, unable to actually voice the word without bile rising in his throat. “Damn that son of a bitch, Ian.”

“I’m not a damn victim, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Ian responded, his brilliant green eyes suddenly going flat and hard.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m getting at. Do you think we feel superior to Lily, Dahlia, Flame, and the others because we made the choice? We volunteered for psychic enhancement. Do we pity them?”

Ian opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. “I wouldn’t say superior. But the pity might be true. Although how anyone can pity Flame is beyond me. She’s beautiful and she’s lethal. And sexy as hell.”

“Thanks. You don’t ever need to be saying that again. Or thinking it.” Gator let his breath out slowly. “We didn’t agree to physical enhancement and as cool as it has been, it also means we could get cancer just like Flame. For all I know the son of a bitch could have targeted us just like he did her. Once he realized gene enhancement could stimulate a mutant cell, he deliberately caused the mutation in order to figure out how to beat it. So he gave Flame cancer and then put her into remission a couple of times just as if she were a lab rat. Who’s to say he hasn’t done that to us?”

Ian swore softly. “Cancer? Is that for real, Gator?”

Yeah, it’s for real. Lily thinks it may recur in Flame. Whitney used viruses as the vector for the enhancement. Sometimes the enhancement stimulated a cell that it shouldn’t have been messed with and there you go. Cancer. Of course Lily explains it all a lot better, but it boils down to the fact that Whitney deliberately used Flame for medical research.”

“What about children?” Ian asked. “How do we know we’re not going to pass something on to them?”

“Exactly. Lily says the gene doping shouldn’t be on, but she’s worried.”

“She’s worried that he deliberately experimented at on the women to see if he could,” Ian guessed. “Because the question would occur to him as well. And knowing Whitney, he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had the answer.”

“And that means the women had to grow up and find a partner,” Gator said “If Whitney conducted some other kind of experiment to match us all up, he’d be in a great position to get his answers.”

“If he were still alive,” Ian added.

“Exactly. If he’s still alive.” Gator shoved a hand through his dark hair. “That sniper was too well trained to be a civilian like the others. I swear, Flame’s theory is beginning to make more sense than I want to admit.”

“How’d Flame get away from Whitney if she wasn’t adopted out? And when? How long did he have her?”

Gator shook his head. “She hasn’t confided in me yet. She thinks Whitney sent me to bring her back.”

“Well. In a way that’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“Not like this.” Gator looked around him. “I don’t want them to trace any of this back to her. It’s another gun aimed at her head.”

“Then we have to make certain they think you were on the bike, that you threw the knives, and had the garrote. We have to remove every trace of her, and we don’t have much time.” He was working as he spoke. “If they’re looking for her, Gator, and they suspect for even a moment she’s been here, they’ll crawl through this place to find a strand of her hair. I’m laying down my prints and my tracks everywhere she was, but you need to be all over that bike. A child could read what went on here. And they’ll be sending experts.”

“Chopper’s already landed.” Gator cocked his head to one side listening. “A couple of our boys, Kadan Montague and Tucker Addison, are heading this way. What would they be doing in this vicinity?” He hurried to help obliterate all signs of Flame’s participation.

“Come on, Gator. Kadan and Tucker are with us. You don’t suspect them of being part of a conspiracy.”

Gator met Ian’s gaze squarely. “Just to be on the safe side, until we know what’s happening, let’s be careful what we say.”

“She’s going to be royally pissed about you claiming that bike,” Ian warned. “She has a thing about that motorcycle.”

“Well she’ll have to get over it. Until we know what’s really going on, I’m going to assume she’s in danger. Whether Lily or anyone else likes it, Flame is a GhostWalker and is under our protection.”

Ian laughed as he turned to walk back toward the small clearing where the helicopter had landed. “You’ve got it wrong, Gator. That woman thinks you’re under her protection. She’s going to kick your ass for this. You’re taking advantage of the fact that she was a little bit shell shocked with Burrell’s death. When she recovers…”

“Stop trying to give me nightmares.” Gator righted the bike, not an easy task when it was half buried in mud and the front tire was completely twisted. It wasn’t going be easy, in fact, it was probably impossible to hide the that Flame had been there from Kadan and Tucker. He trusted them with his own life, but he wasn’t so certain he trusted them with Flame’s. He didn’t know exactly how to explain that to Ian.

“I think you’re in over your head,” Ian tossed back over his shoulder, striding away, his long legs covering t fast.

“That’s an understatement,” Gator admitted aloud.

He lifted the motorcycle out of the muck, for the first time really paying attention to the superhuman strength of muscle in his body. He could run twice as fast and twice as long as he could before the experiments. He could jump and clear unbelievable heights, but it was really his tremendous strength that astonished him. He knelt beside the motorcycle and looked as if he were examining the bent frame and wheel.

“Nice mess,” Kadan greeted as he stepped around the Jeep. “What the hell happened here, Gator? It looks like you went hunting.” His sharp gaze was already touching on the water-filled tracks in the mud.

Kadan had trained in Special Forces, served a couple of years, joined the FBI, and had a reputation for solving very difficult murder cases. He’d volunteered to join the psychic team and retrain with the rest of them when he was approached. It was common knowledge Kadan had been far more psychically gifted prior to the enhancement than any of the rest of the GhostWalkers.

“Four men killed a local retired riverboat captain. He was a good friend of mine. Knew him since I was a kid. They hunted him on his island, murdered him, and threw his body in with one of the big alligators, weighted it down so no one would find him. Then they burned his boat. Burrell wasn’t a troublemaker, just a nice man who deserved a hell of a lot better than that.”

Kadan’s steel blue eyes never shifted from Gator’s face. “And you happened on them afterward?”

Gator nodded. “I was actually going to the houseboat, had parked the motorcycle I was using when I heard the shots coming from the island.”

Kadan glanced at the Jeep wrapped around a tree, at the body of a man with a knife buried to the hilt in his throat and the driver garroted, his weapon lying beside him. “You lost your temper, Gator.”

Behind him, Tucker Addison snorted. “I’d say that as a hell of an understatement. This is a war zone. And didn’t do much for your motorcycle either.”

Gator didn’t crack a smile. He didn’t feel like smiling. He had lost his temper and that was a dangerous thing. And he hadn’t been the only one. Flame had shown restraint. It didn’t much look like it with four men lying dead in the swamp, but she could have flattened everything within a five-mile radius had she not been disciplined enough to focus on only the four assassins.

He ducked his head, the memory of his own loss of temper, his own lack of discipline a lifetime ago washing over him before he could stop it. The blow felt like a punch in the gut and he choked on shame and guilt. He had to turn away from Kadan and his all-seeing eyes. He could never look at any of the GhostWalkers, not straight the eye, when he recalled the early events of his training. He slammed the door closed on ugly memories the way he always did, but he wondered how many ugly memories Flame had. It was another thread tying them together.

Without conscious thought, his hand stroked the seat I the motorcycle. He only became aware of it when he felt Kadan’s gaze following the movement. Abruptly he pulled his hand away. “I couldn’t let them get away with it, Kadan. They were whooping it up and I followed them. We fought and they died.”

“Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it, Tucker?” Kadan asked.

Gator glared at him. “They had their chance at me. The big guy over there,” he gestured with his thumb to ward the sniper, “nearly killed me.”

“Did you try to take them in?” Kadan stared at the Jeep and the dead man with the knife shaft sticking out of his throat.

“There were four of them and they didn’t exactly say they were giving up.”

Kadan’s sharp eves slid over him. “Not with a knife sticking out of their throat, I’ll just bet they didn’t. Why aren’t you telling me the truth? What happened here?”

“Why were you in New Orleans?” Gator countered. “The last I heard you were recovering from a mission and holing up for a while.”

The tension shot up. The rain poured down. Kadan’s blue eyes grew colder, turned more gray than blue. “What the hell’s going on here, Gator?”

Tucker moved up beside Kadan, his features hard and still. Ian shifted position until he was shoulder to shoulder with Gator, facing the other two GhostWalkers.

Kadan’s cell phone jangled. He let it ring twice before he pulled it out and snapped it open. “Make it fast. I’m in the middle of something.”

“Tell me what’s going on out there, Kadan.” Lily’s voice could clearly be heard. “Does this have anything to do with Flame? With Iris Johnson?”

“As far as I know Gator came out here to find Joy Chiasson. I don’t know anything about the Johnson woman. I don’t know if this is related to Joy’s disappearance or not, but four men, one highly skilled and definitely trained in the military, probably special ops, from the evidence I see, murdered an old man, a friend of Gator’s. That’s what this is about. You know of anyone running a field op down here, Lily?”

“I’ll find out. Is everyone okay?”

“All the good guys. The bad guys are in a hell of a mess.” Kadan hung up, pocketed the phone, and looked directly at Gator. “This is about Flame, isn’t it? You found her.”

Another silence settled over them so that the rain seemed loud as it beat down on them. Gator shrugged his shoulders. “She’s here in New Orleans. She was staying with Burrell in the houseboat.”

“You think she was the one they were after?” Tucker gestured toward the dead men. “You don’t really think they were sent to assassinate her, do you? Who would know about her? Who would send them? And why would there be a son of a bitch just as trained as we are and most likely just as enhanced psychically?”

“You think Whitney is alive.” Kadan made it a statement.

Gator shook his head, a slight, humorless grin tugging at his mouth. “You’re good, Kadan, and you weren’t even touching me. Yeah, I think the bastard just might be alive. And I’m thinking he might be setting us up to see how we match up in the field with the women he experimented on.”

Kadan frowned, thinking it over. “No one saw his body. I suppose it’s possible. He could have fooled Lily and set her up to do his work for him.” He looked around him with suspicious eyes. “Gator, you didn’t think Tucker and I were part of someone else s team, did you?”

Gator shoved a muddy hand through his disheveled hair. “I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking anymore. Who can I trust when her life is on the line? Lily wants her back, but I can’t exactly force her to go back when all she’s ever known there is pain and suffering. She doesn’t trust Lily.”

“What about you, Gator? Do you trust Lily?”

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?”