Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1), Mariana Morgan [epub e ink reader .TXT] 📗

expected to be among the guilty. Though it was much more likely that she would be caught and killed long before the Leeches, her people, tasted freedom.

Stop it! she ordered herself sternly.

She shook her head hard, as if to shake the unproductive thoughts away, and winced as the pain at the base of her nose intensified.

‘Fuck,’ she muttered, pressing a tissue to her nose to catch the blood.

The other Leech was currently busying himself reviewing the available cam footage on Wagner’s orders, focusing on the time of Gonzalez’s escape, but he lifted his head when he heard her curse. He gave Megan a weak smile of support in their joint misery, but then, before she had a chance to reciprocate, his head bent down and he was back at work. Technically Megan was supposed to be doing the same, but she didn’t need to review the footage to know there was nothing there. She had made damn sure there was nothing! She had fried the cams that would have caught anything important, and viewing footage from the rest of the building would be a pointless waste of time. Maybe—

‘Good morning, ma’am. I just read your message. I most certainly will. Right after this call.’ The icy-cold voice was a sudden distraction. It came through her earpiece, and she nearly jumped out of her skin, because it sounded like Wagner was standing right behind her.

Somehow, her sixth sense in action, she knew Wagner was talking about her. The virus she had placed in his computer was doing its job perfectly and the computer’s microphone was picking up even the softest whisper, transferring the words to her in real time. The earpiece she wore was police issue, not quite as advanced as what she regularly used at MIS HQ, but it was suitable for the purpose. Normally, she wore it to make routine comp calls as part of her duties at the 4th. Now, it was allowing her to listen to Wagner’s personal calls.

‘Just letting her stew. She must know she won’t make it out alive.’

And then, after a brief pause: ‘Yes, ma’am.’

The microphone should be able pick up everything Wagner was saying as well as the caller’s replies, but for some reason that was not the case. She couldn’t hear a word of what the other person, the woman, was saying.

Megan had to bite her tongue as a particularly loud and nasty swear word nearly worked its way out. The bitch on the other end had to have some truly exquisite encryption to cover her tracks so successfully. Her words weren’t garbled or disguised by static; they were simply not there for Megan to hear. Momentarily distracted from the fear and uncertainty about her own future, Megan allowed herself a few seconds of indulgence, contemplating the anti-spook software the other woman was using. She would love to get her hands on it. It must be the sweetest perfection ever.

‘Absolutely, ma’am.’ Wagner’s voice brought her back to reality. ‘I don’t know why the asshole didn’t take her with him. And I don’t care how good she thinks she is, she’s gone,’ Wagner reassured his caller.

‘No, I have no reason to doubt Bellefeuille’s intentions—the asshole was after her from day one. Though I will need more people… Yes, two or three Elite officers and another half dozen Leech gendarmes sounds perfect. I will have the investigation concluded in a couple of days… Yes, ma’am. Additional units have been dispatched to the crash site and they are sifting through the wreckage. The preliminary report will be on your desk by the end of the day, ma’am.’

A longer pause followed, after which Wagner only grunted in the affirmative, and then the call was over, the soft ping as the connection broke ominous in Megan’s ears.

She had no choice. Gonzalez was counting on her to make a report. He needed a way to get to Wagner, and she was the only person in place to hand him the sonofabitch on a silver platter. She had to live. Her fingers hesitated only for the briefest of moments, and then she hit the accept key. A previously set-up program kicked into action, planting the flawless recording in just the right place.

I’m sorry, Marco.

CHAPTER 12

Roc de Chere

Lac d’Annecy

Afro-European Alliance

Wednesday 22 April 2725

DAY 3

Gonzalez collapsed into his chair with a sigh of frustration. Again.

He’d been in and out of the chair a dozen times in just the last hour. He couldn’t find a comfortable position to think. He was used to eerie motionlessness when his mind was busy planning, but right now he just couldn’t settle down.

Every now and again, he would think of another possible password to decrypt the chip Megan had given him, but they were all useless and the chip guarded its content fiercely. Over the last few hours, the ideas had been coming less frequently. He couldn’t clear his mind by venturing outside to indulge in a fast run like he wanted to. Too much movement around the safehouse was bad. What he could do was run a VRP to cater to his needs, but it just wasn’t working this time. No matter what he tried, it wasn’t enough to distract him from the frustration that threatened to overwhelm him. What he needed was good, old-fashioned hard work, but there was nothing to work on.

It had taken him a couple of hours after arriving at Roc de Chere the day before to get the place back up and running. He had to restart the nanobots that maintained the underground safehouse, monitored the security systems coming online and connected to whatever computer network or database he trusted himself to establish quick-burst links with, without it being traceable. But that had been nearly a full day ago, and he already missed being busy. He could handle waiting way better than Ingram could, but in these particular circumstances he was royally sick of doing nothing. Analysing and reanalysing the scraps of information he had access to