Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) (4 page)

“Hey, Kinsley,” he called. “Go ahead and pack it in. I’ll take over for the rest of the night.”

The lookout in the tree mumbled something in acknowledgment. “I thought Sanders was on this shift.”

Godfrey shrugged. “Bad chili. He’ll have the shits for a week.”

Kinsley gave a low whistle and began his descent from the tree. “Thanks. It’s freezing up there.”

Godfrey nodded and watched him go.

“What now?” I hissed. “He knows.”

Greyson raised his rifle, training it on Godfrey, but I pushed it down and stepped in front of him, forcing him to make eye contact.

“What are you doing?”

“He’s gotta go.”

“No!” I couldn’t believe Greyson was about to shoot someone. “You don’t want to do this. This isn’t you.”

“He tortured you, Haven.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t kill him anyway. We’d wake up the whole camp.”

“She’s right,” said Logan.

“You can come out now.” The voice made me jump out of my skin.
 

I wheeled around, and Godfrey was standing in the shadows under the tree just a few yards away.

Greyson and Logan snapped up their guns, aiming them at his chest.

“You let us tie you to a tree so we can escape, or I’ll put a bullet in your brain,” Logan growled in a low, deadly voice.

“Fine,” said Godfrey. He raised his hands in surrender. “Just thought I might be of help.”

I exchanged a glance with Greyson, but Logan wasn’t having it.

“I’m done letting rebels torture my friends.”

Even with two guns on him, Godfrey looked relaxed. “It had to be done,” he said. “How else were you going to steal Rulon’s maps?”

Logan blinked — something I’d never seen her do when she had her gun trained on a target.
 

“I had to throw the heat on her so you could get in there.”

“He’s telling the truth,” I said. It all made sense now. “He lied to Rulon and told him I was training
you
in combat.”

Godfrey frowned. “You really need to tone it down,” he said to Logan.
 

She looked confused.

“You don’t hide the PMC thing well. I saw you coming a mile away. It’s dangerous.”

Logan lowered her rifle.

“We need to get the hell out of here,” he said. “They probably already know you’re gone.”

“You first,” said Greyson.

Following Godfrey through the woods back in the direction of Sector X, Logan and I kept exchanging nervous looks. It was possible he was leading us into a trap, but we didn’t really have another choice. We had the maps but no definitive plan for getting through the PMC checkpoint. And if Godfrey was lying, we couldn’t leave him alive
or
kill him without bringing all the rebels down on us.

“So how do we get into Sector X?” I asked finally.

Godfrey smirked. “Are you telling me you three didn’t have a plan? Not even a bad one?”

I felt a sting of irritation. “I was a little busy.”

He shook his head. “I figured as much. Well, your friend is being kept at Isador as a PMC guinea pig. The only way you’re getting in there is if you have someone who is real PMC. Those fake CIDs aren’t going to cut it. You need security clearance.”

“What are you saying?” snapped Logan.

Godfrey turned around, eyebrow raised, waiting for us to figure it out.

“You’re the mole,” I whispered. “You’re helping the rebels get into Sector X to steal food and supplies.”

“Among other things, but yes. That’s the general idea.”

“What other things?” pressed Logan.

“Weapons, ammunition, first aid supplies . . . toilet paper.”

“Explosives?”

“That’s my specialty.”

“That’s why you weren’t in the riots at all that day,” I said. “You stayed out of the city so you wouldn’t blow your cover.”

He nodded. “The fewer people on our side who know, the better.”

“Did Mariah know?” I asked. I thought back to when Greyson had left us outside Sector X that day.
 

“Yes, she did. Everything Rulon knew, Mariah knew. In fact, toward the end, it was hard to tell who was really calling the shots.” His tone was even, but I could detect the undercurrents of resentment in his voice.

“She’s out there,” I said.

“That is a big risk for us, but since she’s infected, going to the PMC would be mutually assured destruction.”

“What if she’s caught?”

“She won’t be. Mariah always had a knack for . . . self-preservation.”

“I don’t understand why you’re helping us,” said Greyson. His voice was still harsh, distrustful. “They’re going to notice you’re gone. Don’t you think they will figure out you helped us escape?”

“I was ready to leave. Rulon’s camp has outlived its usefulness to me, and, truth be told, I’m sick of their methods.” His dark eyes flitted to me. “You want me to blow up a building full of PMC officials? Fine. But Rulon and Mariah always had this way of preying on the weak. The kids they can’t scare into following them into the fire, well . . . you know.”

“So what, you’re a free agent now?” asked Logan.

“I suppose I am. I’ll go where I can put my skills to use. Right now, that is not with Rulon’s division. He’s floundering, and when Haven told him off tonight, I knew it was time to move on.”

“What will they do for food now that you’re gone?”

“They have everything they need.”

We walked in silence for a long while, and Greyson finally lowered his gun. We still had a couple miles before we would reach Sector X, but we were far enough away from camp that he seemed convinced we were not headed into an ambush.
 

Godfrey still had his gun slung over his shoulder, and he had not made a move to reach for it. He also carried a large rucksack, which made me think he had really packed up his belongings and left the camp for good. Like the three of us, all the rebels seemed to be able to carry everything they owned on their back.
 

He was dressed for the weather in a bulky black coat with what seemed like infinite pockets, a stocking cap, and enormous combat boots. With the snow sticking to his bushy black beard, he looked rugged and oddly more cheerful.

Logan, Greyson, and I had decent boots, but we were only dressed in layers under our thin jackets. We had been issued hats and gloves from the supply tent, but heavy winter coats were coveted items in the rebel camp.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Godfrey stopped and turned to the three of us.
 

“You three need to prepare yourselves for what we’re about to do and what we might find. People who go into Isador don’t come out normal. Most people never come out at all. You need to accept right now that your friend Amory might not be himself anymore.”

I nodded, but I felt sick. I couldn’t stand thinking about what the PMC might have done to him.

“I need to know,” he said. “How far are you willing to go for him? Are you willing to do what needs to be done?”

I shuddered, nodding once.
 

Greyson pulled his shoulders back and straightened beside me. “I am.”

“Me too,” said Logan. Of the three of us, she looked the most excited for what was about to come.

Godfrey shook his head. “You need to really consider this. If we get in there and he’s too far gone, we have to leave him. We can put him down if it’s the best thing for him, but we can’t bring out someone who’s a liability. Understand?”

Greyson and Logan were looking at me. I bit down on my lip to keep the tears from coming.
 

“Haven,” said Greyson. “It’s what he would want. It’s what any of us would want.”

I took a deep breath and nodded.

“All right.” Godfrey clapped his hands and reached in his pack. Logan’s hand twitched to her gun, but he pulled out something white and folded. “Put these on.”

He tossed me the white bundle of fabric, and I caught it as he pulled out a few others.

I let the stiff folds of the material fall open in my fingers and gasped when I saw the insignia: the image of one all-seeing eye flanked by three stars inside an embroidered circle.
Order. Compliance. Progress.
 

We were dressing as PMC.

The PMC uniform was stiff and unfriendly. Even when I tucked the starched pant legs into my combat boots, they were still too big for me. The jacket was boxy and too light for the winter, meant to be worn under full riot gear and a bulletproof vest.
 

I gasped a little when we all turned to face each other after changing. Greyson looked imposing in a way I never would have believed possible. Clean-shaven with short hair, he would easily pass as a real officer, and his dark eyes were unforgiving,
 

Logan looked ordinary. Her usual radiance was muted by the stiff white polyester, and her bouncy golden waves were pulled back into a French twist. Only her bright green eyes stood out against the stark whiteness of the uniform, but they seemed less vibrant, too.

Seeing her hair pulled up, I struggled to twist mine into a bun. It was too short in the front and slipped through my fingers, but Logan appeared at my shoulder.

“Let me,” she said. She worked quickly, and within a minute she had my hair wound into a tight knot at the back of my head.

Next she moved to Greyson, reaching up to fasten the last hook at the neck of his jacket. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves with a uniform that’s not regulation,” she muttered.

“You’ll be needing these,” said Godfrey. He held up three plastic wristbands with the stolen CIDs. Out of everyone, Godfrey looked the least at home in his uniform. Maybe it was the bushy black beard or his ruddy complexion, but either way, he seemed to stick out like a sore thumb.

Logan cleared her throat. “What about your beard?” she asked.

He grunted. “I’m not active duty. It’s fine.”

I fastened the band around my wrist, examining the gold ridge around the edge of the white chip. The CID was so small and so benign looking, yet it controlled so much in our world.
 

Godfrey clapped his hands together. “All right. Let’s get a move on.”

Storming through the underbrush in his wake, I began to wonder if he planned to walk right into Sector X on foot. He was talking fast now. I knew we had to be getting close. “You three are Fuller, Hellmack, and Woeden. Remember your names. Always make eye contact, but don’t speak unless spoken to. Your pins will be your home sectors: 573 and 314.”

I examined the name etched into the plastic wristband: Rebecca Fuller.
 

“You’re new recruits, so your fingerprints and retinal scans won’t be in the system yet. We will have to do that when we get into the facility. Don’t do anything stupid. These aren’t burner CIDs like the last ones. You have no idea what I had to do to get security clearance for a bunch of interns. And for god’s sake, don’t let anyone see that scar on your arm,” he said to me.

Through the trees, something white caught my eye. As we approached, I could see it was a light utility vehicle like the ones the PMC used. We got inside, and Logan sat in the back with Greyson. Of all of us, she posed the greatest risk of being recognized.

“Won’t it look suspicious for us to enter the city in the middle of the night?” I asked.

“No. The beta unit rarely does its business in the daylight.”

The engine roared to life, and we barreled forward through the underbrush. It was a rough ride, but I began to feel a slight twinge of hope that I might see Amory soon. I tried not to think about how they must be treating him or what shape he could be in; it only mattered that we got him out.

“Your CIDs are set to go live when we’re half a mile out,” said Godfrey. “They’re staggered because it’s a little suspicious if three people come online all at once, but all the tree cover makes signals pretty shitty out here.”

We stopped, and Godfrey squinted through the trees. Seeing nothing, he barreled onto a dirt road. Behind us was a locked gate, but I couldn’t see where the road went.

“PMC storage facility,” he explained. “We’re getting close. Put on that riot gear in the back. Every officer in the city is wearing a set these days.”

Logan reached behind the back seat and pulled up a bulletproof vest and a helmet. She passed one to me, and I fastened it over my chest. It was stiff and heavy. I didn’t know how officers were supposed to run when they were wearing one. The helmet was white like everything else, but it had a black strip running down the middle. I put it on, feeling ridiculous but slightly relieved that it would hide part of my face.

“Here we go,” he said.
 

Glancing behind me, I saw that Greyson’s mouth was set in a hard line, his eyes cold and empty. Logan looked nervous, but sitting there in her white uniform, I could see her inner fierceness beneath the surface that made her who she was.

We pulled onto the main highway, where several other white vehicles were visible up ahead. I had the immediate urge to shrink down in my seat to avoid being seen, but then I remembered I was dressed as an officer.

Following the flow of traffic off an exit ramp, we slowed to a crawl in a convoy of other utility vehicles just like ours. We followed the one in front of us onto another major road, and I saw the bridge up ahead. I heard Logan’s involuntary intake of air, and I knew she was thinking about Max and Amory.

The bridge had seemed impossibly long when we were swimming across the frigid river below, and now that we were trying to cross back to the other side, it seemed just as long.
 

We came to a stop in a line of vehicles passing through the checkpoint, and an officer approached the truck in front of us, shining a flashlight.

“Is this normal?” asked Greyson, sounding alarmed.
 

“I guess it’s their new nighttime protocol,” said Godfrey. “Don’t say anything unless you have to.”

My heart started to pound a little faster, and I clenched and unclenched my hands to release some of the tension.

The beam of the flashlight flew over in our direction, shining through the windshield and making me squint.