No one move. No communication. Mack sent the warning, careful to keep his energy low, to keep it from spilling out into the open where the woman might have a chance to feel it. Get her picture and send it to Jaimie for positive ID.
The woman stepped away from the car and looked carefully around, her gaze quartering the area, and then turned her attention to the house. She moved with unhurried, fluid steps up the walkway to the door. Jefferson greeted her before she could ring the doorbell. He waved her inside and only then did Mack let out his breath.
"She looks familiar," Gideon said. "Like I've seen her before, but I've never really met a female GhostWalker other than Jaimie."
"And Rhianna," Javier supplied. He glanced down at his phone. "Jaimie's on it, boss."
"Shit," Mack said. "That's Senator Ed Freeman's wife, Violet. I remember seeing her picture in the news right after her husband was shot. I forget the story. How the hell did a GhostWalker hook up with a senator?"
"And what the hell is she doing here?" Javier asked.
"Maybe we'll get lucky and she'll assassinate him for us," Gideon said.
Mack directed their attention to the couple in the house. Violet leaned in to brush a barely there kiss along Jefferson's cheek. "If Jefferson thought he was going to seduce, he's wrong. She's deliberately tempting him, but that kiss was a definite signal to back off."
"Maybe she's wired too," Javier ventured. "It would be pretty funny if they were bugging each other."
"I don't doubt for a minute she's wired," Mack said. "She's exuding confidence and if Jefferson has a brain in his head, he'll be very, very careful."
"Kind of like entertaining a cobra in your home," Javier said and smirked. He knew he looked like the boy next door. "Glad she's one of us."
"Data coming in," Mack said, frowning down at the small phone in his hand. "Never make the mistake of thinking Violet Smythe-Freeman is one of us. She sold out the women in Whitney's compound. Kane warned Jaimie about her. She was raised with those women, one of the orphans Whitney acquired, and they all believed in her."
"She turned on them?" Gideon asked as if disbelieving. "That would be like one of us turning on the others. We were raised together, a family, like those women. That's just . . ." He cast around searching for the right words to express his disgust.
"The word's gone out to all the GhostWalker teams that she's a traitor," Mack read on. "She was at the compound to make an alliance with Whitney when everything went to hell. She was going to help suppress evidence on the breeding program if he backed her husband's bid for the vice presidency. She and her husband are the ones who sent Team Two to the Congo and tipped off the rebels where they were going to be."
There was a small silence while they absorbed the treachery of the woman's actions. There were very few GhostWalkers and all of them knew just how difficult one another's lives were. Violet had been raised with Whitney's youngest, earliest victims, yet she appeared not to have any loyalty to them at all.
"I could take her out when she comes out, boss," Gideon reminded.
"She's not the objective," Mack said. "We're here to protect Kane and Brian and to get Jefferson off Sergeant Major."
"I could stop the car down the road," Javier offered.
"Too dangerous. Jefferson's death has to look like a legitimate heart attack. If we take out a GhostWalker, they're going to know someone was in the area."
Gideon swore under his breath. "We have to just let her walk?"
Mack shrugged. "There'll be another time and another place. There always is. Right now, we're here for Jefferson. We know he's after Kane and Brian and he's certainly the one who ordered the hit on Sergeant Major when they lost track of him. We've got to look after our own first."
Violet sank into a chair, accepting the crystal glass Jefferson handed her. "How's the senator?" he asked as he gave the drink to her.
The voices sounded tinny through the recorder. Javier adjusted something Mack couldn't see, frowning as he did so.
Violet, her eyes on Jefferson's face, held the glass under her nose and inhaled.
"We're on the same side, Violet," Jefferson reminded.
"Anyone in my position can't be too careful, and Whitney and I didn't part on the best of terms. He had my husband shot."
"He saved his life. No one else could have done that operation," Jefferson pointed out.
"He wouldn't have needed the operation if Whitney hadn't arranged for an assassination." She put her drink down and leaned forward. "Let's quit playing games, Jefferson. I want Whitney off our backs."
"It isn't going to happen, Violet. You can join the other side and try to wipe out all the GhostWalkers or you can come back to the fold where you belong. Without us, your husband has no career and without Whitney, he's a dead man."
Mack was watching the woman's face closely. Jefferson was a man in extreme danger. He thought he was holding all the cards, but she was weighing whether or not to kill him. She looked cool and composed, but Mack knew exactly what was going on in her mind.
Jefferson appeared confident, but he must have felt death in her silence. He set his drink aside and shook his head. "What good would it do you to kill me, Violet? Whitney would retaliate against you by letting Ed die. This is about him, isn't it? Your husband? You want him alive. Only Whitney can keep him alive."
"As a puppet," she snapped. "We both will have to do his bidding."
"Without Whitney, neither of you would have a decent life. It's time to pay the piper, Violet," Jefferson said. "It isn't like Ed is a viable candidate for the vice presidency. Whitney had to practically replace his brain."
"My husband can still have a political career."
Jefferson sat back in his chair and once again picked up his glass, regarding her over the top of it. "Now we come to the real reason you're here. What exactly do you want and what are you offering?"
"I can find the missing women for Whitney. They escaped. Whitney wants them back. I can get them for him. I have the resources. And I can tap into the women's networks better than anyone else. In return, I want Ed completely well."
"He was brain-dead, Violet."
"Not anymore. Not with this new technology. Get him up and running and put him back in the political arena. I can handle everything else. No one will ever get close enough to know he's not all human."
"You're asking a lot," Jefferson said, and took a sip of his brandy.
"One of the women is pregnant. The father is a GhostWalker. She has extraordinary talents, as does he. Their child alone will be worth what I'm asking. You and your friends back Ed's career and we're back on track. Whitney will have a friend in the White House for life."
Gideon gasped. "That bitch. She'd sell out her own mother."
"Just make certain you've got this all recorded," Mack said.
Jefferson's smile turned malicious. "He's already got friends in the White House."
"He has enemies too. I can find them for you. You know I'll do it too. I keep my promises."
"Do you?" Jefferson asked. "You turned on Whitney before and you have no problems turning on the women who regard you as their sister."
Violet tapped her perfectly manicured nails on the arm of her chair. "Don't judge a woman in love, James. I would do anything for my husband."
"Or for the power. We both know who's behind the proverbial throne, Violet, so don't play the loving wife to me. You were prepared to sleep with me if that's what it took, but you knew the moment you looked into my mind that wouldn't serve your purpose," Jefferson said shrewdly.
Javier growled deep in his throat. "She really is a cobra."
Violet shrugged her shoulders. "Why should I deny it? I am prepared to pay whatever price Whitney wants from me."
"And if he demands a fail-safe?"
She sucked in her breath, for the first time her composure shaken. She recovered very quickly. "He's put a fail-safe program in Ed?"
"Of course he did, my dear, and he's prepared to use it. You no
t only will deliver the women to us, but you'll find whoever in the White House is going against the GhostWalker program and you'll deliver them as well. If we decide to put Ed back into position to use him, believe me, Violet, it will be our decision without coercion."
Even from his position a distance away, Mack could see the woman's eyes glittering with malicious intent as she rose. "I would be very careful of threatening me, Jefferson. You may hold all the cards, but if you push too far, you'll find out just what a woman will really do when you've put a bullet in her husband's head."
Her voice was utterly cold. Deliberately spiteful. Mack swore under his breath. Jefferson would know exactly what she meant and he would take her threat seriously. That would make it doubly difficult to kill him.
"You're getting him back," Jefferson reminded. "A new, improved model, wholly devoted to you. There won't be any chasing skirts, or aides under his desk; he'll live for you."
Mack inhaled sharply. "Whitney paired her with him, but didn't bother pairing Freeman with her. Whitney sold her into service with Freeman to aid his political career."
"He couldn't know the monster he was creating," Gideon said.
"I can't even feel sorry for her," Javier said. "She's willing to give up the other women to a breeding program, knowing what happened to them in that compound."
"She'd kill all of us if it got her husband one step closer to the presidency," Mack said, watching with a small frown. "He's glanced at his watch again. You think he's got more than one visitor coming tonight?"