Page 95 of Duty Compromised
“Can’t have you calling for help,” Darcy said.
Now that I was closer, I could get a better look at Charlotte. The bruising was worse than I’d thought—purple-black spreading from her cheekbone up toward her eye. Her face was streaked with dried tears, and she was shaking, small tremors running through her like electric current.
I tried once again to give her a look of reassurance, but what the hell could I promise? We were outnumbered, outgunned, and the cavalry couldn’t move without getting us all killed.
“This changes things,” one of the sellers said. His accent had gone from thick to nearly impenetrable. “The Protocol has been neutralized. She did something.” He gestured at Charlotte with his weapon. “The access we paid for no longer works.”
“So we kill her,” another seller suggested with a shrug.
“Let’s not be too quick,” Darcy said. “She can fix it. Can’t you, Charlotte? You can reverse whatever countermeasure you deployed. And then you’ll come with us. Create more weapons. Better weapons. You’re worth more alive than any single sale.”
Charlotte’s head snapped up, fresh terror flooding her features.
The buyers exchanged glances, some silent communication passing between them. Finally, the lead one nodded. “Perhaps. But these two”—he gestured at Ethan and me—“they die now. We cannot leave witnesses.”
“No.”
The word burst from Charlotte with enough force to make everyone turn. She straightened despite the grip on her shoulders, lifting her chin in that defiant way I’d seen when she refused to give up on a problem.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” she said, her voice steadier now. “I’ll reverse the countermeasure right now, right here. I’ll come with you, create whatever weapons you need. But only if you don’t kill them. If you let them go.”
The lead seller laughed, an ugly sound that echoed off the metal walls. “You think you have leverage here? We can simply make you do the work.”
I could not allow myself to think of the ways they could torture her into working.
Charlotte turned to Darcy. “You know I’m the best at what I do. You’ve seen my work. You know what I’m capable of.”
“Yes,” Darcy agreed slowly.
“Then you also know I’m smart enough to hide things. To build in delays and malfunctions you’ll never catch. If you let your friends kill them”—she nodded toward Ethan and me—“I swear that nothing I ever make for you will work correctly. Every weapon, every protocol, every line of code will have something wrong with it. Something small. Something that won’t show up in testing but will fail when you need it most.”
Her voice grew stronger with each word. “I’m smart enough to do it, and I’m definitely smart enough to hide it. You’ll never know if the next weapon you sell will work or blow up in your client’s face. I’ll take you down from the inside, and you won’t see it coming until your reputation is destroyed and your clients are hunting you down.”
I wanted to tell her to be quiet. Every word brought more danger down on her head. They’d just find ways to hurt her until she complied. Torture her until she gave them what they wanted. And none of it mattered anyway because she couldn’t let the Cascade Protocol be reactivated. This was bigger than any of us. A weapon that could not be allowed to be used by terrorists.
Plus, I knew with the certainty of someone who’d seen too many deals go bad that they’d kill Ethan and me anyway. The moment Charlotte gave them what they wanted, we were dead.
But Darcy was studying Charlotte with something like admiration. “She’s not bluffing. I’ve worked with her for three years. When Charlotte Gifford makes a promise, she keeps it.”
“This is a waste of time,” one of the sellers started, bringing his weapon up and pointing it at Charlotte’s head, but Darcy cut him off.
“Think about it. She’s worth billions in future weapons development. Kill her boyfriend and handler, and you get a brilliant but uncooperative asset who’ll sabotage everything she touches. Keep them alive, at least for now, and she’ll be motivated to do her best work.”
The sellers huddled together, rapid-fire conversation in what sounded like Russian. Finally, the lead one turned back.
“She fixes the Protocol now. We see proof it works.”
“It’ll take time,” Charlotte said, her voice now shaky. “Twenty minutes minimum. Maybe thirty. The countermeasure I deployed is complex?—”
She was stalling. I knew it, Darcy knew it, hell, everyone in the room knew it.
“Then it will have to be done on the move,” the seller said. “We cannot stay here that long. The FBI will move in soon.”
He looked between Ethan and me like he was choosing cuts of meat. “Pick one,” he said to Charlotte. “One comes with us while you work. The other dies here.”
“That’s not—” Charlotte started.
“Choose, or we choose for you.”
