LITMIR.BIZ

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Killinger and his Venturion Corporation board comprise a covert organization that refers to itself simply as the Cabal. This Cabal, under your father’s leadership, plans to hand Grayson Forbes the most powerful office in the world.” His eyes narrowed. “He plans to make your fiancé the leader of the ‘free world’ six days from now. That’s all the time I have to stop them. That’s what I’ve been hired to do. That’s what I intend to do. And you are going to help me do it.”

      She tried to jerk free, but his grip tightened. He pulled her closer as he reached into his pocket with his other hand, took out a black box.

      She yanked frantically against his hold. “Let me go, Jack! This is garbage! It’s not possible. You…you’re insane. And he’s not my fiancé. I did not agree to marry him.”

      Something—hope?—flared hot and sharp in his eyes. Then it was gone. “That helps,” he said darkly. “We have until midnight, October 13. If we fail, a set of biological bombs will be released over New York, Chicago and Los Angeles at one minute past midnight. Repercussions will be felt around the globe.” He paused. “I hope you are not involved, Olivia.” He snapped a metal cuff around her wrist.

      Her brain reeled wildly. “What’s this!”

      “That’s insurance, just in case you choose not to help me.”

      She stared in shock at the thick band of silver locked tight and cold around her wrist. It was the color of platinum. Smooth. Alien. And it had a strange little window cut into the top that held what looked like a glass ampoule of pale liquid. She looked up, terror filling her heart. “What…what’s in it?”

      “A GPS device. If you run, we’ll know where to find you.”

      “Who’s we? What’s that liquid in the capsule?”

      He studied her in cool silence, his eyes still seeking something in hers.

      He was looking for guilt—that’s what he was doing! Her heart began to palpitate. She couldn’t breathe. “Tell me what the liquid is, Jack!”

      “The capsule will break if you try to take the cuff off,” he said flatly. “The liquid inside…it’ll kill you, Olivia.”

      “What!”

      He dropped her hand, stalked over to the drinks cabinet, poured another scotch, turned to face her. “It holds a lethal pathogen.” He sucked back his drink, winced as it hit his gut.

      “What kind of pathogen?”

      “A very rare one. One that has been genetically modified in a lab run by the Cabal. Your father will know exactly what that pathogen can do. It’s a variant of the one he plans to release in six days if President Elliot refuses to step down and hand power to Forbes by the October 13 deadline.” His eyes lasered into hers from across the room. “I advise you to keep the bracelet on, Olivia. If you want to live, that is. You’ll be safe as long as no one tries to cut it off.”

      She lurched toward him. “Take it off, Jack. Please. For God’s sake, don’t do this to me.”

      He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Olivia. I can’t take it off.”

      “What do you mean!”

      “You need specialized equipment to remove it. You need the antidote at hand…in case something goes wrong.”

      Blood drained from her head.

      “You’ll be fine, as long as you cooperate with me.” He hesitated. “As long as I can trust you.”

      “I…I don’t believe this is happening. What made you like this, Jack?” She held out her wrist. “You loved me once! How…how could you do this to me?”

      “How could I hold one life against a billion others?” He gazed at her, hard, his eyes narrowing.

      “One life versus world peace? What would you do, Olivia?”

      23:59 Romeo. Manhattan.

       Tuesday, October 7.

      A green dot flared onto Grant McDonough’s screen and began to pulse. Bingo. He flipped open his satellite phone, punched the number for the FDS base on São Diogo Island off the Coast of Angola. “He’s in. GPS cuff has been activated.”

      “You have a detonator?”

      “Affirmative. We both do. Antidote as well. Everything’s in place.”

      “Good. Now we sit tight and wait for Sauvage’s direction.”

      McDonough hesitated. “Any word on December?”

      “He’s been airlifted from Djibouti to the hospital here on São Diogo. His condition is critical, but stable. They still have him on life support.”

      McDonough flipped the phone shut, stared at the pulsing green dot. December had been shot in the gut by a mysterious pale-skinned man while helping evacuate Rafiq Zayed and Dr. Paige Sterling from the shores of Hamān. December sure as hell better pull through—for more reasons than one. They’d dubbed the shooter the Achromat because of his absence of pigment, and if he was found to be somehow affiliated with Killinger—McDonough shook his head. He didn’t want to begin to think of what Sauvage might do to Killinger’s daughter if December didn’t make it.

      He punched in a text message, letting Sauvage know that the vehicles outside Olivia Killinger’s apartment had been traced to an outfit owned by one of the Venturion Corporation subsidiaries. It was a group that Samuel Killinger used for his personal protection and security detail. The maniac was having his own daughter tailed.

      He pressed the button, sent the details.

      Chapter 3

      00:06 Romeo. Olivia Killinger’s apartment.

       Manhattan. Wednesday, October 8.

      She stared at the silver cuff, her face sheet white.

      Jacques hated this. His mouth felt like ash. His chest hurt.

      “You said someone hired you to do this? Who?” Her voice was strangely flat.

      “The president.”

      “President Elliot?”

      He nodded.

      She reached for the back of the sofa, steadied herself. “That’s…ludicrous,” she said quietly. “If…if the president really were threatened he’d go through regular channels—Homeland Security, the Secret Service, the military, CIA, FBI. Why on earth would he hire you?”

      He studied her, searching for a sign, something that would betray her knowledge of this. He couldn’t see it. Her reaction had been visceral, her shock too real. Unless she was damn good—unless she had learned from her father.

      But he didn’t think so. She was still wearing the small Saint Catherine’s pendant, and that told him something.

      He’d given it to her for her nineteenth birthday when they were both prelaw students. Saint Catherine was said to be the patron saint of lawyers, barristers, jurists, and according to legend, had been prepared to die for her belief in good. Jacques had never been as big on faith as Olivia’s family, but the locket had been a symbol of what they both shared—a joint vision for justice, a dream of the future, a goal for their careers—a goal that had defied her father’s insistence she become a corporate lawyer for one of his transnationals.

      Instead she chose to work for the UN. And she still wore his pendant. It made a fierce kind of pride burn inside him.

      And the fact she’d rejected Forbes fed him with a hot flare of hope that she was not so intimately involved with the vice president as to be a part of his scheme to take control of the White House. It also made a dark part of Jacques wonder if there might still be a place in her life for him.

      He sipped his drink, welcoming the way it dulled the edge of his guilt, the pain this

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