“Waldridge would never accept that,” Kendra said positively. “Not in a million years.”
“None of us liked it. We kept working on a way to solve the problem even as it became more and more apparent the project’s backers didn’t want us to succeed. The Night Watch directors, headed by Dyle, were getting more and more paranoid about security, so they let most of the staff go and put Waldridge, Shaw, and me in an old factory about an hour outside of London. They started requesting more and more documentation, and it became apparent that they were going to move forward with their own plans for the project even though we were very close to finding a solution that would totally negate the need for medication.”
“Nice guys,” Jessie said.
“They’re not, trust me. Not with potentially billions of dollars at stake. They were making veiled threats, so that’s when Waldridge, Shaw, and I decided to leave the country on separate planes and hide here in Southern California. The plan was to complete our work here on our own. Waldridge has a fair amount of money from his other patents, so he was going to bankroll us until we licked the problem. Unfortunately, we never got that far.”
Kendra nodded. “We know Shaw is dead.” She had to ask it. “What about Waldridge?”
“I’m fairly certain he’s still alive.”
She let out the breath she had been holding as relief soared through her. “Why?”
“Because he has something they need. They would be reluctant to kill him without having it.”
“What does he have?”
Biers was silent, then he bent closer to them. “He has the biochemical key that made the whole procedure work in the first place.”
Jessie looked at him incredulously. “Nobody else has it?”
“Waldridge developed it. I didn’t have it. Shaw didn’t have it, and the Night Watch directors certainly didn’t have it. They kept demanding we give it to them. Waldridge never trusted them. At first, his fear was corporate espionage, but he later became suspicious of people within our own organization. Good thing, because it may be the only thing keeping him alive right now. If they caught me, I might not last five seconds.”
Kendra was starting to shake as she realized what Biers was saying. “Billions of dollars. And they can’t touch it without Waldridge. They may be keeping him alive, but there’s no doubt they’ll be trying to get that information. They’ll be torturing him, won’t they?”
Biers nodded soberly. “They’re probably using every physical and psychological trick in the book to get what they need out of him.”
“I know him. He’s a strong, principled man. He’ll die first.”
“That’s what worries me,” Biers said quietly.
“Every physical and psychological trick,” Kendra repeated numbly. “Psychological. That’s why they tried to take me. They must be having trouble getting him to talk. The threat of violence might not work on him, but they think it might if it was directed at someone he cares about.”
He nodded. “Possibly. From what I’ve heard, there are few people on Earth he cares for more than you, Kendra. You became the symbol of everything he wanted to accomplish in his career, then you became his friend and ally in the fight.”
Kendra dug her nails into the railing. “This can’t be happening. We have to do something.”
“We’re doing it,” Jessie said. “Everything we can.”
“How can you say that? We don’t even know where Dyle is keeping him. What they’re doing to him right at this minute.”
“We’ll find out,” Jessie said gently. “I can see what this is doing to you. But at least we know what’s happening. We can call Griffin and ask him to go after Dyle.”
“And what if Dyle stalls him? What’s Waldridge going to go through while Dyle tries to get that information from him? He could die.”
Jessie turned back to Biers. “But we do have time, right? This all means that they have to keep Waldridge alive.”
“Not exactly.”
Kendra whirled on him. “What in hell does that mean?”
“There are years of documentation, formulas, and result reports. If they have to reverse-engineer our process, they might be able to do it with enough time and money. They’d probably prefer not to do it, I’m sure. But it could possibly be done. If they decide Waldridge is too much of a liability or just a pain in the ass, they might go that route.”
Kendra stared at him, stunned. “So if torture doesn’t work, they might kill him. This keeps getting better and better.”
“I know,” he said sympathetically. “I wish I could give you better news. But you want the truth.”
“Yes.” But this truth was sending her spiraling into terror.
Detach. Concentrate. She couldn’t let her emotions rule her now. Not when Waldridge might need her most.