“You’ve been linked to a multitude of corporate espionage events that resulted in massive illegal gains in the private sector,” Fran continued, peering down through her glasses. “I have them listed here, if you feel the need to refute them. Numerous accounts of theft or arson to eliminate records detrimental to Opti personnel … several mentions of technological terrorism. Most of them involving biological warfare.” She peered accusingly at Peri over the glass tablet. “We’re not sure what you were doing in old Russia, but I’m not liking that the Korean ambassador developed Legionnaires’ disease the same week you were there and died of complications. Here’s my favorite, though. Under the cover of installing a U.S.-friendly government, you set in power an extremist group who went on to commit a nationwide genocide, more commonly known as the White Plague.”
“That wasn’t me,” she whispered, going cold. “That was Nina and Trey.” She looked at Silas, seeing his empty expression. “I didn’t do that!” But a faint memory ticked in the back of her skull, a wisp of unfragmented memory of trying to sneak frightened people past a blockade as the night lit up in a fiery hell behind them. Maybe she’d been there, but it had been to stop it, right?
But even as Peri thought it, doubt paralyzed her. Had she ever been anything other than Bill’s tool? Had she believed everything Jack had said because he’d rubbed her feet and made her dinner? Sick to her stomach, she looked up when Fran said, “How plead you?”
Silas stood, shoving the sudden hands off him. “How can you stand there as if you’ve never bought a drafter’s skills before, Fran?”
Fran covered her mic, and the tech guy jumped. “I am not on trial,” she hissed, furious.
“Maybe you should be.” Silas fell back into his chair, pushed by security.
“Everything I’ve done is for the benefit of mankind,” Fran said earnestly, but her face was red from more than anger.
“End justifies the means, eh?” Silas said bitterly, and from outside, thunder rolled between the hills. “You are a hypocritical elitist,” Silas accused, straining against the guards’ hands. “How dare you, Fran. She’s been used. By you most of all, turned into something she might not come back from. How dare you accuse her of this? You owe her!”
“Mother, this is not fair!” Taf exclaimed, pushed back to the windows with Howard.
“Fair doesn’t enter into it,” Fran said coldly as the three men kept him unmoving. “You’re correct in your diagnosis, though, Silas. There’s no way she can come back from this. She is a tool. And she needs to be destroyed before she brings us all down. You either perform the incision, or you will remain in alliance custody for the rest of your life.”
Peri was numb as the thunder grew and beat on her. Had she been blind to Jack’s lies for three years, or had she known and gone along with it?
“Uh, guys?” the tech geek said, eyes on the mountains as he stood over his tablets.
“I won’t do it,” Silas promised. “I’m not going to mutilate her so you can hide your guilt. She volunteered for this. Everything she’s done has been for the alliance. You have a responsibility to fix her!”
Volunteered? Volunteered for what?
“Guys! That’s not mine,” the tech guy said, pointing, and someone gasped at the massive high-Q drone hovering just outside the window. Three seconds later, a military helicopter thumped overhead. Behind it, half a dozen more rolled over the mountains. It hadn’t been thunder. It was a flight of Black Hawks, no insignia marring their sleek black shadows against the low clouds as they roared overhead and swung back around. Fast and light.
Fran paled. Spinning, she turned to Taf. A house alarm began to sound, filtering up through the stairway.
Opti was here.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
“Get them to the cars!” Fran shouted, hustling to the bar and physically pulling Taf to the elevator. “You”—Fran pushed an agent toward Taf—“escort my daughter to a secure location. I want Reed out of here. Now! Move!”
“Fran, it’s not Peri’s fault!” Silas shouted as he was shoved to the elevator.
A security man yanked Peri to her feet and all but dragged her to the carpeted stairs. A frustrated anger was spilling through her, but she wasn’t ready to act. She’d been ready to put herself at the alliance’s mercy—and they had condemned her. Going back to Opti wasn’t an option, but neither was the alliance.
“It is over, Silas,” Fran said as the elevator filled with Howard, Taf, Silas, and the bulk of the security. “Either she just gave us to Opti, or they’re using her without her knowledge and will continue to do so within the alliance’s shadow. Either way, she needs to be ended.”
“I won’t mutilate her,” Silas argued with Fran as the doors slid shut to leave the tech guy panicking over his equipment.
“Downstairs!” Brian demanded, his nice white shirt bloodied by his nose, his Glock pulled and pointing at her. Peri turned, catching herself against the railing when he shoved her.
The thumping of the helicopters was a heavy pulse she could feel through the walls. Tension pulled like a ribbon through her, shredding her mental fog and bringing on a new clarity with each step. She was not going to an Opti cell, and she was not going to stay and be lobotomized by the alliance. There were two guards and one of her. Doable—even if she was cuffed.