“So you want us to send you in there tied up and alone?” Renee asked, aghast. “No way! You cannot be serious!”

“I won’t be alone for long. You’ll all be right behind me. I just need a few minutes to get some information. We can wire me up so you can hear everything that’s happening. If I’m in the slightest danger you guys can come crashing in.”

“I won’t let you go alone,” Renee said. “I’m coming with you. Besides, they’re expecting me to be there. Collateral,” she said. “They were going to use me to coax you into talking. Maybe we can make excuses for why the other kidnappers aren’t there, but we can’t excuse me not being with you.”

“What am I supposed to say about the others?” the phant asked, panicked.

“Tell Killean they were killed in the fight to get us under control. Most of them anyway. Say one of them ran away and left you to deal with us…that you managed to finish subduing us all by yourself.”

“He’ll be furious!”

“At the others, not you. You’ll have listened to him, done what you’re supposed to. Like a good dog. In fact, he’ll be very impressed by you.”

“You’ll think he’ll believe I did it all by myself?”

“Like I said…you finished subduing us. The others helped before dying. Say you got me from behind just as I was killing the last of your compatriots and the other ran away in fear long before that. It’ll be very believable.”

“What’s your name?” Renee asked the phant.

“What does it matter what his name is?” Rafe asked irritably.

“Hush. What’s your name?”

“Joss,” the phant replied.

“Joss, you can do this. You can bring us back and act like everything is normal. If you do that for us, we’ll let you go. We’ll even give you a plane ticket to the West Coast where you can start over.”

“S-she’s right,” Joss offered. “If I come back with only one of you, Killean might know something isn’t right.”

“You’re not coming with me, Renee.”

“Why not? I can take care of myself.”

Rafe clenched his hands into fists. “I won’t be able to concentrate if I have to worry about your safety. There’s a chance Killean could use you to keep us at bay. I don’t want you within touching distance of that warped bastard.”

“Oh, but it’s okay if you’re within reach? It’s okay if you can be used against the strike force?” She scoffed. “We don’t have time for sexist BS, Rafe. I’m going and that’s final.”

“She has a point,” Simone said. “They will be expecting both of you. Killean might accept the rest of his crew missing, but he won’t accept any failure on their part.”

“I won’t lead you to him if you don’t both come. You might as well kill me now. I can’t show up with only half the package and expect him to let me live. At least you people will kill me quick. Killean will make it last.”

“I guess it’s decided then,” Renee said, ignoring Rafe’s glare.

“So we both go in, tied up and wired. I get Killean to talk and then you all come in as the cavalry once I say a code phrase.”

“What phrase?”

“ ‘Simone will come looking for you,’ ” Renee said.

“Come on. Let’s get you two wired up and put a GPS tracker on the van. Just in case Joss gets any ideas. So, Joss, where is he?” Danton asked.

“At the east docks. I’ll have to show you where. It’s a small shipping office. He runs all of his shipments out of it.”

“Give us an address,” Danton said darkly. “It has to have an address.”

“It doesn’t! It’s in the middle of a bunch of warehouses! Please, we have to hurry. There isn’t much more time.”

“Let’s go gear up,” Danton said. “Renee, come with us. Rafe, you too. We’ll wire you.”

The entire group of men and women, all strong and capable looking, filed out of the penthouse and into the elevators. They dropped only two floors before getting off. Danton led the way into a locked room, an armory, Renee realized with awe as she looked at the amount of weaponry available.

“This can’t be legal,” she said softly.

“You gonna tell on us?” one of the men asked. He towered over her, his long black hair braided thickly at the back of his neck and his bright blue eyes raking over her hotly. She had heard someone call him Halo.

“No. I was just observing. You’ve got tear gas and everything! Tasers? Why would you need Tasers? I thought we could only incapacitate by killing.”

“Well, we use them as a sort of adrenaline shot. If we’re injured badly we just shoot it in the leg and bam…instant energy.”

“You shoot yourselves?”

“Makes no sense to shoot electricity into an enemy that feeds on energy,” he said as if he were speaking to a simpleton.

“If you can feed off voltage, why not feed off electricity instead of people?”

“It’s a false high. Like adrenaline, the effect wears off quickly, usually leaving us weak and shaking.”

“What’s quickly?”

“About twenty minutes or so.”

“That isn’t a lot of time at all,” she said. “But can you do it more than once?”

“We can but it’s painful and when we come down from doing it twice the effect is twice as debilitating. I’m Halo,” he said, reaching out a hand. Renee took it, thinking he was about to shake it in greeting. Instead, he used it to yank her close against his body. He pressed a hand to her back and held her in place. “And who might you be, you delicious little morsel of humanity?”

“I’m Renee. And I know a half-dozen ways to incapacitate you—including and not exclusively kneeing you in the balls. So I’d let go if I were you.”

“Ooh, feisty. I love me a feisty woman.” But he did let her go and stepped back with a chuckle. “I’m just messing with you. I can smell Rafe all over you. And by the way he’s glaring at me, I’d say he’s made his claim on you pretty apparent.”

Halo reached back behind him without looking and picked up an assault rifle. He hefted it, slid back the action bolt and peered into it to check it for cleanliness. Then he reached for an ammunition cartridge, slapped it in, and put a round in the chamber.