"Why?"
"Because women don't belong in combat. They shouldn't be running around killing people. They're supposed to be the gentle sex. We take care of them. They should be having babies and cooking dinner not killing people. What the hell is going on in the world when we think it's okay for women to have guns?"
"Flame, Dahlia, and Saber don't need nor want guns, bro," Neil pointed out.
"Well that's just a fucking great relief to me," Logan snapped.
There was a stunned silence and then both Neil and Jess burst out laughing.
"I suppose they shouldn't be allowed to vote either," Neil said.
"Would you like her better if I told you she can cook?" Jess asked.
Logan glared at them. "Go ahead and laugh. It isn't right."
"Good God, Max. You're a fuckin' male chauvinist," Jess said.
"So what if I am? What about you? Don't pretend it doesn't freak you out just a little that that woman can kill with one touch. What if she's on her period? You ever see a woman with full-blown PMS? My mom used to lose her mind. I'd go to a friend's house for a week until she'd call and say it was safe to come home."
"Okay, I've gotta go with Max on that one," Neil agreed. "Think about it, Jess. The ability to kill with a touch and a woman with PMS. You gotta have some big balls to live with a threat like that."
Jess let out his breath. "I have to admit, I never thought about it."
"It could be ugly," Logan said. "Really ugly."
"I'll just have to keep her pregnant."
"Yeah. That'll work," Logan rolled his eyes. "Don't you watch movies? Ever see a woman in labor? Or having a baby? One hard contraction, my man, and you are toast. The husband's life is already at risk without the woman knowing how to kill. Seriously, Jess, you've got to think about this long and hard, and think with your brain, not with other portions of your anatomy."
"You're just trying to scare me," Jess said, glaring at them.
Logan and Neil burst out laughing.
"Go to hell, both of you." Jess poured a cup of coffee. "You're a couple of boneheads. Are we working here or what?"
"I brought this for you." Neil pulled a disk from his pocket, the smile fading from his face. "I'm going to let you listen. It took a while to clean it up and get the conversation. There's still some background noise, but I think you'll recognize a couple of voices." He pushed the disk into the computer. "I'm saving the original and you'll see why."
There was a moment of silence and then the sound of footsteps. "We can't afford to let any of them live, Senator, not one. I don't care if they're out of it or not. You've got to shut that program down. The biggest danger to us right now is that megalomaniac, Whitney, and the abominations he creates." The voice was muffled, and a little distorted, but Neil had managed to amplify the sound enough to catch the words.
"I'm trying."
"Try harder. Whitney knows about us. He's going to find a way to bring us down and you'll go down with the rest of us, Senator. We'll all be charged with treason and my guess is, some of us will be taken out and shot before we ever go to trial. Do you think the president is going to want anyone to know that we've been selling secrets to terrorists and funding them for years on his watch? No one is going to want that information made public. They'll kill us all, and Whitney's supersoldiers will be the ones pulling the triggers. The man's mad as a hatter but they won't terminate him. We've got a few people in key places who feed us information, but it isn't enough. You have to find a way to take him down."
"I'm doing my best." The voice was clearer, as if perhaps he was the one with the voice-activated recorder nearest him.
Jess leaned in to pause the recording. "That's Senator Ed Freeman. This had to be made before he was shot. Who's the other man?"
Neil shook his head. "I have no idea. I've been trying to match the voice with voice prints I have, but so far, no luck."
"The senator sounds almost as if he's afraid."
"Listen to the rest of it," Neil suggested and once more activated the sound.
"Whitney's going to keep going until he's killed. There's no other way to stop him. You've got to kill all the women in his breeding program--all of them. We can't have them adding to this mess."
"He doesn't trust me. I think he's trying to have me killed."
"He must know you were instrumental in sending out a couple of his GhostWalkers to the Congo. Get it done. And when I say all the women have to die, I mean all of them."
"Violet is helping us," the senator hissed.
"She's the one who told him about Higgens. If she hadn't tipped him off we would have gotten the bastard then. Instead, Higgens is dead and Whitney is in the wind."
"She didn't..."
There was the sound of a knock on a door, hinges creaking, and then more footsteps. Both men went silent instantly. Chairs scraped.
"No, no, keep your seats."
The recorder went off abruptly. Jess and Logan looked at each other. The tension in the office rose.
"Was that who I thought it was?" Logan asked.
"That was the vice president," Jess said. "He has a very distinctive voice. He just walked into that room. You don't think whoever was talking to the senator is in the White House, do you?"
"Could the rot really go that high up?" Logan took a deep breath. "They're talking about selling out our country from the White House."
"We're dead men," Neil said, "if we don't find these people."
"They're traitors," Jess snapped. "Fucking traitors and we're going to find them. Isn't Higgens the man Ryland had to kill?"
"He must have been part of a much larger ring and we thought we got it, but we didn't even get the tip of the iceberg. When you're talking senators and someone working in the White House..."
"Or the Pentagon. The recording could have been made there as well."
"We know the conversation takes place somewhere the vice president would visit. Neil, can you isolate any background noises?"
"I tried. The recording was damaged. I don't know who could have put the recorder into Louise's private safe."
"The senator's wife? She's a GhostWalker. But she also had made some kind of deal with Whitney to save her husband's life. Whitney put out a hit on him. When she made the deal, she sold out the girls in the breeding program."
"It was one of Whitney's soldiers who put a bullet in his head," Jess confirmed, "although any of us would have been happy to. The senator is responsible for Jack and Ken's capture and torture. He handed them over to Ekabela in the Congo. Prior to that, Whitney had targeted the senator for assassination using Saber. She escaped instead of carrying out the order."
Jess took another drink of coffee, his frown deepening as he tried to puzzle it out. "So we've got two factions. We have Whitney who is a madman, making weapons for his country and thinking he's as patriotic as all get out."