I frowned. "Looks like a freckle."
"That it does. Only, if you run your finger over it, you feel a slight hardness around the edges compared to the rest of your foot."
I did. "It's the tracker?"
"Yep."
"Landsend can make trackers that small?"
"Not only small, but untraceable to current finders."
"And you know this because you have one in you?" It was a guess, but not much of one.
He smiled. "Yes, I have one. But they don't entirely trust it, so I have followers as well."
"Why don't they trust it on you? It obviously works."
"Because I know how to remove it, and do so when it suits me not to be found. He thinks the signal is faulty, hence the followers."
"You play a dangerous game, Misha."
"Extremely." He reached over to our pile of clothes, and pulled a knife from the pocket of his jeans. "Hold still," he said.
He cut into my foot. Not deeply, so the pain wasn't really that sharp. After a few seconds, he grunted, then held up the spot on a fingertip so I could see. Now it looked like a freckle with four fine, wiry legs. He dropped it to the floor and smashed it under his heel.
"He will of course know you've found the bug."
"As long as he can no longer track me, I couldn't care less." I studied Misha for a moment. "He can't track me now, can he?"
"As far as I know, that was the only bug he placed. You can't use more than one on a person - stuffs up the signal or something like that."
"And I presume Kade has one, as well?"
"Everyone of importance to the project had one. Just in case."
"Then excuse me while I make a quick, phone call."
He shrugged. I pulled the cell from the pocket of my jeans and quickly dialed Jack's number. It was busy, so I left a message giving details about the bug and how to remove it.
That done, I shoved the phone back into my pocket, and said, "So tell me why Hunt was killed."
Misha relaxed back into the opposite bag. "He'd reached the end of his usefulness."
"And the fact that you're now talking about him means he wasn't a player, let alone a major player."
"Yes."
"So why not simply tell me his name in the first place?"
"He's dead, so the restrictions on my mentioning his name have gone." His smile was cold. "Besides, it was never part of the agreement that I make things easy for you."
True. But it was occasionally nice to think things could be easy. Stupid, I know. "Then Hunt was simply a means of gathering information?"
"Yes."
"To top-secret military bases."
"And what they were doing. But also a means of keeping an eye on the various investigations, both military and civilian."