Page 14 of Ruled By Their Desires

“We are. We need to get moving ASAP.” Hawk told her.

“Okay. Let’s get scanning and off this road. There’s no telling what intel got out.” She turned and saw the two Humvee’s were now empty, everyone standing awkwardly looking at her group and around them. She started to walk back as her uncles started pulling out the equipment. “Don’t mind them, they’re my family, the rest my friends. We’re nowhere there yet so relax. These are my uncles, Hawk, Crash, Comet and Spike.” She waved in their general direction. “We need to scan the cars and us. Make sure there are no trackers before we go any further. We’ll be checking everything again including us.”

“We were checked before we left.” Charlee didn’t sound happy. She couldn’t blame him and didn’t give a shit. She’d be taking no risks with her people or theirs.

“Yeah and sadly, there’s a hole in your ship and we need to make sure it’s not shoved a target up our asses.” She looked at her uncles and gave a nod then walked back towards them. Crash brought her a scanner. Spike opened the table in front of her waiting for his first customer. “Everyone grab your packs and stand to one side. Leave 3ft apart and take everything out and off you apart from the clothes your standing in. When called forward, put everything on this table and stand back.” Comet, Crash and Hawk moved in on the vehicles and started work going over them.

Going to the first person she nodded to the table standing to one side as they emptied their kit bag for Spike to go over. “Arms out Caroline.” She opened her arms and she started to scan moving around them slowly in descending circles. Once done with no triggers, she looked to Spike. He gave her a shake. That meant he’d found nothing. “You’re good. Pack it back up and stand on the other side.” They moved to the table to pack it all back up. “Next.”

She worked her way through three other people in her car before starting on the fourth. It wasn’t long before Spike called out to her showing her a tracker. There was no question on seeing it, it had been placed in the kit bag. “Where was it?”

“Sole of the boot.”

That just meant that anyone could have put it there. “James, you had a tracker in your boot.” She showed it to him, and he swore. It sounded genuine. She finished her scan. “You’re clear.” She smashed the tracker. “Okay next.” She did the last one and they were clear too. Then started on the other vehicle occupants. She cleared two more Spike agreeing. “Next.” She waved John over. He put his bag on the table and pulled everything out then moved to her arms out. She started scanning. She got as far as the buttons on his shirt and it bleeped. “Take the shirt off.” He stripped it off and she carried on. The scanner bleeped on the waistband of his jeans. “Seriously?” she asked shaking her head, she looked over at Spike. He pointed out three trackers in Johns kit. Rolling her eyes, she blew out a breath. “Jesus John, what did you do? Bend over and tell um to fuck you?” There were plenty of sniggers. “Okay, okay.” She turned to Spike. “He got a shirt and pants that aren’t full of trackers?” Spike smirked and threw her a shirt and pants. She passed them to John. “Change.” She checked his boots. They were clear and passed the top and jeans John passed to her to Spike. He cut the trackers off and smashed them. Then she scanned him again now redressed and nothing.

She passed the scanner back to Spike, grabbed her bag and laid it out. “Do me.” By the time Spike told her she was clear, Crash and Comet were back. “How bad?”

“They’re both loaded.” Crash and Comet held out their hands. There were several trackers in each. “We should leave the cars here.” Crash told her. “More than we can get to.”

She nodded. “Fuck. Go over everything we’re taking and everyone one more time.” They got to work, and Crash called in the bus. Moon smiled, they’d thought of everything. “Someone’s to blame for this. Can we reverse engineer any of these?” He nodded.

“It’ll take a while.” Crash shook his head. “You should let the Director know what we found. It’s likely all their vehicles and people are compromised and being tracked.” She agreed, Hawk walked up and held out his hand. It was a phone.

Fuck!...

A fucking phone. Could it be more stupid?

There was only one way it was there. Someone was meant to use it. They’d been told to leave all their own devices behind, along with all under the skin implants that had been removed for the same reason. They could be tracked, and piggy backed off. So that meant someone was on the take or compromised in one of the cars or both. That was undeniable now. She sighed knowing someone here was going to betray them, giving out vital intel not just satisfied with being tracked. Or try to. She guessed they expected everyone would be scanned anyway. It made sense and pissed her off that they were being played so well.

“How easy was it to find?”

“Had to rip off the panels to see it.”

“Jesus…. so fucking dumb. Forget the fucking bus we can’t take any of them. Do DNA and fingerprints on everything we found and that phone. Someone had to put it in there. We might get lucky.”

She walked over to what had been her team for the past year feeling she didn’t know them at all. “In addition to the flood of trackers we found on you and your stuff, we also found a multitude in both cars and a phone in car 2.” To their credit they all looked surprised, but she knew that didn’t mean anything. These people were trained at deception. “Sadly, we all know that doesn’t mean it was someone in car 2 but it does tell us, that someone here was going to use it.” She shook her head. “I can’t take any of you as a result of all this.” There was lots of moaning and several fucks.

“Someone here was told to use that phone. I could get the Cyborgs to break each of you to find out who it is, but I’m not prepared to do that. You are all going into custody when you reach FHA until they know who did this. Obviously, the risk of taking you now is just too high after what we’ve found. Someone or several someone’s are determined to keep tabs on us for whatever reason. It could just be our own people, but the Director was clear on that, so that would mean someone is going over his head or worse, is working with the enemy. If you, any of you are involved in this, I’d suggest you talk to the Director himself and explain.” She looked at each of them. “I’m sorry, you’re all going back, and I need to call him and appraise him of why.” She turned around to her uncles. “Pack it up, we’re leaving. I’ll travel with you.”

After much protest, they’d left. The SCs second security team tracked them long enough to make sure they didn’t turn around and try to follow them. In that time, the phone came up clean and was smashed. It held no numbers. So someone had to know the number to call or they’d set up a time for contact to take place. Out as far as they were, it would have taken some juice or more likely, the person on the other end of that phone would have moved in to stay close. The trackers were reverse engineered and led back to the Directors people. But that could mean anything too. By the time their Cyborg security team was back happy the two cars were long gone, they were all smashed and ready to hit the road again.

So much for trust.

She made her first call to update the Director personally, the second, she made to the Director while in council, and arranged it that way beforehand in their private call. It hadn’t gone down well, and the Director put on a good show. For anyone listening he was fuming when he took the call. She could hear others angry as well as him, but they all knew that might not mean anything. But she told him it didn’t mean the alliance was over, she’d keep working on it with her people to track down the mission and pass on intel he needed to know. None of that had changed, they still needed to work together. What she’d then told him, they’d decided on earlier.

They’d found a number of personal and in car trackers that could be reverse engineered by the SCs and a phone. They had DNA from all of them. That she would be passing along later today, and it was clear that someone had subverted his orders. She suggested that everyone and everything was checked again from the cleaners to every vehicle and done by several very different personnel over and over again. Clearly, the Free Human Alliance had more than a problem. He’d given the order to Jackson to do just that while she was on the phone. And, she’d told him, seeing as this had been a need to know operation, those that needed to know should be investigated. Thoroughly. He agreed before cutting the call.

As her father had told her, if you wanted to find snakes, you needed to beat the grass a little.

They stayed at the halfway point for two days as expected, making sure that no one was following before heading out and pushing on to get to the now not needed, training ground. Before long she knew exactly where they were going and told them to push on. She didn’t need another night camped out. She was getting soft and wanted a bed. Not that she’d let them know that. They’d rib her silly and she’d never hear the end of it.

It was late when the Humvees eventually pulled in after going through several security patrols. Dragging her sorry ass out the vehicle she stretched before heading to what she knew was the camps office expecting to see her Dad waiting on her. She steeled herself for the dressing down of the century that no doubt was coming her way but undeterred, walked down the corridor on determination to face the music in her usual style, head on.

Throwing the door open she walked in and stuttered to a stop at the sight that confronted her. Blinking a few times in confusion while her mind caught up, that gutted sick feeling flew up from the bottom of her stomach overwhelming her once more.

The sense of betrayal flooring her.

When the fuck would that stop?

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