Toxic Game (GhostWalkers #15) - Christine Feehan Page 0,157
there in minutes. He didn’t remember to shut off the camera, he just turned and ran from his control room, calling to the people he trusted most and rushing to his car.
He knew he was too late. He knew he was. His son was dead. Ethan. His greatest asset. His one indulgence. He actually loved the boy and his intelligent, quick mind. How could he ever have gotten caught up in this type of erotic play? It was just insane.
Trying to breathe, he thought about it all the way to his son’s home. No way. He would have known if Ethan was into such things. No, this had to be murder, plain and simple. He had enemies, so did Ethan. But if it was murder, how had the assassin gotten into a locked room, through all the security guards and cameras? His son must have … No. He wouldn’t accept that. Someone had murdered his son. This was a message. Maybe Cheng wasn’t as insane as everyone thought.
19
“Nonny wants to come home,” Ezekiel greeted. “I think Teams One and Two want to steal her, but she misses her swamp.”
Trap flung himself in a chair, looking glum. “They’ve been gone a week and Cayenne won’t even speak to me. I’ve tried everything, and she won’t answer her phone or do a video chat. If I don’t bring her home soon, she may not want to come back to me. She’s acting like I wanted to send her away. If she doesn’t stop this soon, I’m going there and dragging her little ass back and we’re going to be talking.”
“You can’t do that until we find these three scumbags who want to test their virus on us, thanks to Cheng,” Joe said. He glanced over at Draden and the newest member of their team, Shylah. “Good work. The papers reported that Ethan was found dead of an apparent suicide. There was no mention of erotic play, and weirdly, three of his security team disappeared. I think Daddy wasn’t happy that anyone saw his son like that, but he bought the scenario.”
Draden nodded. “We were in the room with Ethan when he was reporting to his father, and the power play they were exchanging back and forth suggested his father might buy into any kind of sexual activity. He’s smart though, and he’ll figure it out eventually. Unfortunately, Ethan wasn’t able to give Whitney’s three scientists the order to back down and not test the virus on us.”
“Trap vaccinated everyone here,” Wyatt said. “The vaccine was tested immediately by the military labs, and it’s working. But he can’t vaccinate the entire population of the swamp.”
“Fucking Whitney got exactly what he wanted,” Draden said. “He used us. He took a chance with Shylah’s life and he used us to get him his biological weapon and his vaccine. Those in the White House helping to hide him are no doubt very grateful to him and he’ll be doubly dangerous now. They’ll give him all the more room because he delivered.”
“Do you think he intentionally allowed his virologists to escape with the virus?” Malichai asked, stuffing food into his mouth as he did so. Nonny may have been gone, but she’d left behind casseroles and various other meals in the freezer for her “boys.” Malichai was forever hungry and no one made home-cooked meals like Nonny. “What do you really think, Shylah? You’ve been around Whitney more than any of us.”
Shylah turned that over and over in her mind. Was it possible Whitney had known all along that the men were talking with Ethan Montgomery? Even accepting money from him? He had to have known. Everything was monitored. Email, phones, computers, any kind of device that sent messages out or received them. He had cameras everywhere as well as audio to pick up conversations. He was able to monitor bank accounts of those he employed. He had people that did that sort of thing 24/7. Even if the Williams brothers and Orucov were smart enough to find a code to use, Whitney would have known, and he would find someone to break it—or would do so himself. He enjoyed playing with codes.
She nodded her head slowly. “He would have known. They couldn’t have been working for Montgomery, passing him information over several years, without Whitney finding out. A few weeks, maybe, but it sounded as if they had been accepting pay from the Montgomerys for a long while.”