Conspiracy Game (GhostWalkers 4)

There was a small silence. "It is Dr. Whitney, isn't it?" Ian asked. "He's alive then."

"We don't know. Certainly if it isn't him, it's someone he worked closely with who was privy to all of his experiments," Ryland said.

Lily cleared her throat. "No matter who my father was working with--or for--he would never have shared all of his information. He has to be alive. In my opinion, he's alive and he's continuing with his experiments." She pressed her hands protectively to her stomach. "He's out there, and he's watching us."

Ryland put his arms around her, leaning to nuzzle the top of her head. "But aren't we watching him now?"

Flame nodded. "He isn't going to be able to get to you, Lily. Not you and certainly not the baby."

There was a murmur of agreement through the room and Lily relaxed visibly.

"How are you watching him?" Ian asked.

"I hoped I could access his computer as easily as he was accessing ours. I actually identified all of our computers and isolated his, so I knew I had the right one, but he had disallowed access." Flame smiled. "So I changed tactics. I knew he was accessing certain files on a regular basis. He follows all of Lily's findings and wants to see her updated reports on each of us." She smirked. "He was particularly interested in my file."

"What a shocker, cher," Gator murmured. "I'm interested in it too." His hand swept down her arm, his fingers tangling with hers.

Flame relaxed, leaning back against Gator. "I created a little surprise of my own for Dr. Whitney. I created a Trojan and embedded it in one of the regularly viewed files. First I had Lily update my file in order to entice him to take a long look at it."

"What does that do? How'd you do it?" Ian asked.

Flame shrugged. "I assumed he was using Windows XP because all the computers here are XP. So I programmed the Trojan to do one thing. It goes into the controls for Remote Desktop on his computer and adjusts the settings that allow users to connect remotely to this computer across a LAN. Of course, we had to wait for the doctor to read the file embedded with the Trojan so he could unwittingly activate the program for us, but with Lily updating, he took the bait."

"That's amazing, Flame. You can actually read his computer files?" Ian asked.

Flame nodded. "It's so perfect. If he weren't masquerading as another computer on our LAN, we couldn't turn around and return the favor by using Remote Desktop control, which is only possible for other computers on a LAN. But now we've activated the Remote Desktop setting on the doctor's computer, we have access to his computer as if it were our own."

"So what is he up to?"

Flame nodded toward Lily. "She can explain it better than I can."

Kadan held up his hand. "First of all, by reading the files, is there any way to positively identify who is spying on us?"

Lily shook her head. "We can't see who is creating files, but certainly I recognize my father's type of notes. He likes to put everything into numbers, a kind of code, and definitely there are many files filled with numbers. In order to read the data, I have to break the code. It's rarely the same in each file."

Kadan glanced at Ryland. "Someone very high up in the government has to be helping him. How sanctioned can Whitney be?"

There was a small silence, no one wanting to mention the inevitable suspicion. They were under the direct command of one man, General Ranier.

Lily shook her head. "I know what you're all thinking. General Ranier has been a close friend of my family for years, but he can't be involved."

"Why not?" Logan asked.

Lily ducked her head. "Because if one more person I love is living a lie and betraying us, I don't think I could live through it."

Ryland swept his arms around her and pulled her up against his body. "We've got Dahlia back and now Flame. We'll find the rest of the girls and we'll have our own family, Lily. No matter what happens, you have us."

"I'm scared, Rye," she admitted. "I'm really scared this time."

"We're not going to jump to any conclusions about General Ranier, Lily," Kadan assured her. "And, Logan, you've got your own worries with the admiral who runs your unit. If we have a line into Peter Whitney's computer, we might get lucky and come across an indication if either the general or the admiral is in any way associated with the doctor. In the meantime, we'd all better be very careful when our orders come down."

"To call me here, you must have found something on Jack or one of my other team members," Logan said.

Lily took a deep breath and nodded. "For purposes of simplicity, we're going to refer to whoever is behind this as Dr. Whitney. Most of us believe he's alive and pulling all the strings. Dr. Whitney appears to be trying to bring the women he first experimented on together with the men he later worked on. We believe he's doing so as part of a much larger plan. Each of the women so far has been both psychically compatible and sexually attracted to one of the men. The couples work well together as a single weapon. As a team, they're fully functional in a combat situation as well as being able to live and function in the world, which they cannot always do alone. Dahlia, if you recall, could not be out of the sanitarium for any length of time, but with Nico, she's able to live a seminormal life."

"So far, that part doesn't sound half-bad," Logan said with a faint smile.

"There are a few perks to the job," Gator said, waggling his eyebrows at Flame.

She rolled her eyes. "I don't have a clue how I got into this." She flashed a small smile at Logan. "Raoul is right, there are definite perks."

"So the doctor wants the men to hook up with the women," Logan said. "What's the big deal?"

Lily frowned. "He made us all into weapons. Together, as a couple, we seem to be far more powerful, complementing or even amplifying the enhancements. Where before, a team could be sent in and the odds of success went up tenfold, imagine how much better if only two people could be sent in to clean up a mess, especially if the couple were as powerful as, or more so than, an entire team."

Logan switched his gaze to Gator and Flame Fontenot and Nicolas and Dahlia Trevane. "Do you think it's true? The two of you could handle a mission without the entire team and do just as well?"

The couples looked at one another, then nodded. "There's no doubt, Logan, depending on what needed to be done," Gator answered. "Flame and I manipulate sound, and without using Kadan--or someone else--as a shield to stop the corridor, it would get tricky, but we could definitely get the job done. Our abilities are amplified when we're together. Both Flame and I are physically enhanced as well as psychically."

"We are too," Dahlia said, taking Nico's hand. "And like Gator and Flame, we work very well together."

Logan sighed. "This physical enhancement you've all mentioned..."

"And you know perfectly well your entire team is enhanced," Lily broke in.

Logan ran his finger around the collar of his shirt. "It's just gene doping. Inserting our own DNA into our cells to pump them up, right?"

"That would be what most doctors are doing these days, but Dr. Whitney took it a step further," Ryland said. "He developed a chromosome in order to insert DNA and enhance the entire body both physically as well as psychically."

"Now I'm not understanding," Logan admitted, frowning.

Lily tapped her pencil on the table again, the only sign that her earlier nervousness remained. "Actually, chromosomes come in pairs. Technically, he developed an extra pair of chromosomes. And that gave him eighty thousand extra genes to play with, which can encode a lot of capability. Whatever psychic attributes you already have, the experiments increased, but more were added when he inserted the extra chromosome for physical enhancement. For instance: there is a huge evolutionary distance between man and mosquito, but in spite of that, at a molecular level, both are equipped with the same chemosensory system."

Logan whistled softly. "Whoa there. That's a darned big jump from computers to chromosomes and mosquitoes. I'm guessing there's a reason for that."

"I found a file on Dr. Whitney

's computer relating to Jack Norton and one of the women he first experimented on. Apparently Jack and Ken Norton had, prior to undergoing physical and psychic enhancement, tremendous talent already in both areas. Both have extensive military training and are highly skilled."

"They're legendary as snipers," Nicolas volunteered.

"Apparently Dr. Whitney believes so as well. He has been attempting for some time to manipulate Jack Norton into meeting a woman named Briony Jenkins. I want you to note Briony is a type of plant just as Lily, Dahlia, and Iris are." She sent a faint apologetic smile to Flame for using the name Dr. Whitney had given her. "You know how he liked to dehumanize us. No real names and no birth dates."

"Briony is one of our lost sisters," Flame said softly, her fingers tightening around Gator's. "I don't remember her. Even when I try." She rubbed her temples, frowning, trying to ease the headache that always accompanied working at remembering the girls Dr. Whitney had experimented on.

"In this case, Flame," Lily explained, "I don't think we've forgotten her just because he tried to erase our memories, it's because she was very young when he sent her off. He actually did adopt her out."

Flame leaned forward. "What? It's not one of his elaborate stories to cover what he really did with her? He pretended Dahlia was adopted and he locked her up in a sanitarium. He certainly wrote a wonderful tale about my adoption when all the time I was locked in a laboratory being given cancer. Are you absolutely certain Briony was really adopted by someone?" There was a hitch in Flame's voice.

Beneath the cover of the table, Gator wrapped his arm around her waist to give her comfort.

Lily inspected her hands before speaking. "My father was a man who believed in having as many controls as possible. I wasn't enhanced physically, so I'm the control for that experiment. Briony was enhanced both physically and psychically, and he chose the parents he wanted for her, a circus family living in Europe. The father was a United States citizen and the mother was Italian. They already had four boys and wanted a daughter desperately. They were also in need of a lot of cash to buy in as partners for the circus."

Lily looked around the room. "Flame and Dahlia were raised in a closed environment. Briony was raised with a family, although her training was directly overseen by my father. Detailed reports were sent weekly of Briony's physical and psychic training. It was rigorous, although certainly she didn't suffer from the training, but there were huge problems. Her family believed her to be autistic because she couldn't function around people. She isn't an anchor, and the toll on her not being able to filter out sound and emotion from those around her must have made her life hell. It's obvious from his notes, Whitney wanted to see if, after being raised in a loving environment, Briony would have the same abilities as Flame and Dahlia. He feels a child raised by loving parents may lack determination. He deliberately sent a child, who wasn't capable of living in close proximity to others without suffering severe pain, into a very crowded and public environment to see if she was tough enough. Whitney has many notations saying she surprised him with her abilities in the face of continual pain. From what I've read, in spite of numerous physical problems, she performs with her family, is extremely intelligent, and every bit as well trained as any GhostWalker. And he provided his own doctor for her care and designed her education, which her parents agreed to follow to the letter."

Lily's eyes glistened with tears for a moment. "I think he had her parents murdered when they objected to his sending her to Colombia. Jack Norton was in Colombia at the time. The parents were beginning to object to Whitney's continual interference in their lives now that she was grown, and he wrote that they were in the way. Later he wrote: problem solved."

Flame pressed her fingers against her mouth, her hand visibly shaking. "We have to find her, Lily. What does Whitney want from her?"

"He wants a baby. He wants the child to be a product of Jack Norton and Briony Jenkins. He's spent millions maneuvering behind the scenes in order to bring them together. Right at this very moment, she's in Kinshasa. She and her brothers were paid an exorbitant fee in order to get them to perform in a music festival there."

There was another small silence. Logan broke it. "You're saying Whitney was behind the senator's plane going down in the Congo? That he tipped off General Ekabela that Ken Norton was leading a rescue mission?"

"Jack was supposed to lead the rescue, remember?" Lily corrected. "Ken stepped in when Jack couldn't get back from Colombia in time. This was all about watching Jack perform. Was he worthy of donating the sperm? Jack is one of the more powerful GhostWalkers. We all know that. He has extreme talents, and I'm willing to bet Briony matches him in every way. Jack was the one meant to be captured. He was the one meant to escape and make his way to Kinshasa. Ken was used to draw him to the Congo, that's why Ekabela didn't have Ken killed immediately."

"Kinshasa is no small place," Kadan pointed out.

"Briony's brother is a former Navy SEAL and served with Jack. They have a history. Jack saved his life. I'd say the setup is more than perfect. Jack is going to go straight to him if he's escaped."

Kadan shook his head. "I can't see Ekabela letting him get away no matter how much money Whitney pays him. Ekabela has wanted Jack for a long time. He knows Jack is capable of taking him out and would if the order came down. The general is going to kill him."

"Certainly Whitney expects him to try. Whitney created the ultimate weapons. What's the use if he can't see them perform?" Ryland asked.

Logan swore softly under his breath. "Can we get to Jack?"

"We've tried. We hit two different camps where he was reputed to have been held. They were long gone. In the last one, it looked as if a fight had taken place. There were bodies and a lot of blood, but no Ekabela and no Jack."

"What about Briony Jenkins? Can you get to her?"

"We need a way to extract Jack. If we warn her..."

"So you're using her as bait." Flame's head snapped up, her eyes stormy. "Is that what we are to you, Kadan? Is that what she is? Something to use so you can get your GhostWalker back?"

Gator put a restraining hand on her arm, but she shrugged it off, glaring at the other man across the table.

Kadan shrugged with his usual calm. "We're all GhostWalkers, Flame. Neither Norton nor Briony is expendable as far as I'm concerned. If Whitney has targeted Briony, he'll eventually try to reacquire her. Jack Norton is her best bet for protection. I'm not willing to give up either one of them. Even if we did manage to send word to Kinshasa, and the chance of getting there before this is over is not good, why would she even believe us?"

"But she isn't an anchor?" Ian asked.

Lily shook her head. "No, and it's surprising that she's managed to exist in the environment she has. My father has written copious notes about her ability to withstand pain and carry out her mission. In this case, performing with her family in front of so many people. She's a strong telepath as are both Jack and Ken Norton. She has the same abilities that both of them have."

"Which are?" Kadan prompted.

"Which brings us back to mosquitoes," Lily said. "Mosquitoes can sense carbon dioxide and lactic acid up to one hundred feet away. When we breathe, humans, along with other mammals and even birds, give off these gases. The chemicals in sweat also attract mosquitoes."

"Are you saying Jack and this woman, Briony, can do that as well? Scent people by breathing and sweat?" Ian asked.

"Yes. Absolutely they can. They were born with the same olfactory system in their noses, as we all were. Mosquitoes have receptors that allow them to use that system efficiently. Briony and Jack both have receptors." A small smile escaped. "Although their receptors are not in antennae. Mosquitoes also have heat sensors, as do Briony and Jack. And last, but not least, mosquitoes have visual sensors."

"I'm seeing a pattern here." Ian flashed a grin around the room. "No wonder the man is good in the jungle. He can just home in on his targets."

"Actually you're right, he can. He also has t

he ability to change his skin color to match his surroundings."

"Like a chameleon?" Ian asked.

"Contrary to popular belief, chameleons can't display limitless colors and do not change colors in a camouflage response to their surroundings. Their skin changes in response to temperature, light, and mood," Lily explained. "The hormones that control the melanin-containing cells can vary in concentration over the chameleon's body, producing elaborate colored patterns. Some patterns are good camouflage, while other patterns are more showy stripes or spots in contrasting colors that signal the chameleon's mood."

"But chameleons don't have the same skin we do," Kadan pointed out. "So far, Whitney hasn't introduced any alien DNA into us, has he?"

"A chameleon has four layers of skin. The outside layer has both red and yellow color cells. Inside that layer are two more layers, both reflecting light, one blue and one white. The inner layer is complicated and contains pigment granules called melonophore cells. The melonophore has dark brown pigment called melanin."

"The same stuff that colors human skin brown or black?" Ian asked.

"Exactly the same stuff," Lily acknowledged. "Humans, by the way, also have red and yellow color cells. So if you could independently and precisely control the hormone levels for each of the melanin-containing cells, you could create a wide variety of color patterns within the ranges allowed by multiple-color cell layers."

"In a human? How could you do that?" Kadan asked.

"Through a distributed network of nano-computers associated with the melanin-containing cells: one such nano-computer."

Ian shoved a hand through his red hair. "I hate it when you start talking like this. It makes me feel stupid."

"Each nano-computer is a few hundred molecules in size, and its primary purpose is to regulate the hormone level of the melanin-containing cell with which it's associated. It has one more function--something like a sperm cell, if injected into the bloodstream, it will find its way to a melanin-containing cell that currently doesn't have a 'nano-computer' and latch on to it."

Flame frowned. "So you're saying the idea is to inject a zillion of these into the bloodstream, and they will sort themselves out into a distributed computing network, one nano-computer per melanin-containing cell? What controls them?"