Dark mission 04 - Sacrifice the Wicked Read online

  A sudden, muted flurry of determined industriousness followed.

  Henry Trapp, a slight, dark-skinned man with a propensity toward outlandish ties, half stood from his station at her left. “Ma’am!”

  It was time to get to work. Late or not. “Is there an update on last night’s surveillance?”

  “The report is compiled and in your in-box,” he said smartly. “Patterns suggest that activity is climbing. We’re up thirty-seven percent over last year.”

  General surveillance, the kind the Mission kept up to study patterns over the long term, was the lifeblood of the Mission’s success. Fully half of her analysts were assigned to day-to-day maintenance, and Trapp had been nominated the de facto spokesperson for the month.

  Parker didn’t begrudge them the efforts to minimize contact with her as a whole. She just made sure to keep track of who drew the short straw.

  “Climbing?” She stopped, facing him directly over the head of another analyst who didn’t seem to be paying attention. A glance at her screen showed four columns of figures. Statistics.

  Last year around this time, the Coven of the Unbinding—a semiorganized cell of witches with ties throughout every major city in the Church’s fold—had only just been decimated by the collective efforts of the Mission. It had put a massive dent in witch activity figures for the next few months. A successful raid.

  Well, successful with the aid of rogue elements the Mission had never found.

  Maybe an internal coup from the coven’s own ranks, maybe external sources. All the investigative team had been left with were a lot of charred bodies and a dead operative.

  And one traitor director turned into so much melted flesh.

  Maybe it didn’t say much that activity was up this far. The Coven of the Unbinding—or at least the city’s witches—had plenty of time to rebuild.

  “The mid-lows have reported no less than two separate sightings in a six-hour window,” Trapp explained. He adjusted his tie—today’s offering was electric orange stripes on a field of sunshine yellow. “Both known heretics. Although teams attempted to take down both, the witches and the individuals they’d met with were gone by the time they mustered.”

  Parker frowned. “They’re not mustering fast enough. Send out a notice to keep two teams and three analysts per district on round-the-clock standby.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Director?”

  She turned, followed the raised hand three cubicles away. “Agent Neely. What do you need?”

  If Peter Neely could have chosen any other field of work, he’d have served admirably as some kind of waiter or catering staff. He was plain, not unattractive, with brown eyes and thick black hair he kept fashionably styled. His build was average, his height was average. He didn’t stand out. He didn’t have to.

  It made him an excellent candidate for those operations requiring close-quarters surveillance.

  He spun around in his chair, adjusting his thin black tie with one hand. A nervous habit she’d long since learned to ignore. “Eckhart from the mid-lows got back to us. He sent the files you requested,” he said, as matter-of-factly as Parker could have wished.

  Straight to business always made her day.

  She shrugged out of her damp trench coat. “And?”

  “I went through all the operations for the past year,” he continued, gesturing with his pen. Parker’s gaze flicked to it. Neely lowered the offending utensil. “Topside and below the sec-lines. I highlighted all the markers that might link Operation Ghostwatch to other cases, but it’s looking pretty slim.”

  “We know he’s been working with various members of society, heretics and otherwise. We need to find our leads where we can.”

  “Yes, ma’am. But without knowing how he operates, it’s all guesswork on my part. I’ve sent the files up to the profilers for verification,” he added.

  “Make sure they get in touch with Mr. Stone. He’ll have the best tools to get you what you need.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Has Agent Silo reported in?”

  “Early this morning.” Neely tapped his computer screen. “There’s a list of new reports in your in-box. Over half are marked as urgent.”

  “I’ll handle them immediately.” She folded her tan coat over her arm, glancing toward the dubious safety of her office. Slatted blinds in the same off-white color covered the glass window.

  She never closed her blinds.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Who is in my office, Mr. Neely?”

  “Not sure, ma’am.” Neely’s gaze flicked to the side. Just enough. “I’ll get to work on these links.”

  “Do.” Damn it. Parker turned, but she only made it five steps before another voice rose in her direction.

  “Director Adams?” A petite woman with pixie-short light brown hair waved a bangle-ridden hand from across the room. The sound jingled and clattered through the operations floor.

  Without hesitation, Parker detoured. “Agent Foster. News on Red Balloon?”

  “No, ma’am.” The girl—woman, Parker corrected silently—beckoned her to come around the chest-high cubicle divider. Elizabeth Foster’s records put her in her mid-twenties, even if her freckled cheeks and wide blue eyes gave her the appearance of a teenager. “I’m looking at Operation Domino.”

  Damn. “Tell me it’s good news, Ms. Foster.”

  “Sorry, it’s bad.”

  Parker leaned over her shoulder, bracing one hand on the cubicle lip for balance. She was acutely aware of every ear on them.

  Sign enough that bad didn’t begin to cover it.

  The images on Foster’s screen . . . screamed. Vivid red. Mottled pink and gray. Streaked brown.

  Blood and brain and bone.

  Parker steeled herself, forced her eyes to glide from one photo to the next. There wasn’t anything left to identify the operative with. Not without scraping it all together and dropping it into a man-shaped bucket.

  “Who am I looking at, Ms. Foster?” she asked coolly.

  “Jesus,” came a whisper from somewhere beyond Foster’s desk.

  Ice bitch. She didn’t have a choice. If she let herself think about the face, the personality, the mind behind all that smeared gristle and paste, she’d be as useful as a two-legged chair. The men—her missionaries—deserved a foundation stronger than that. She’d learned long ago to compartmentalize her emotions from the job.

  All good missionaries—all successful ones—did.

  “David Carver.” Foster’s voice wasn’t quite as steady. “Rookie, ma’am. Came in on the last recruitment drive.”

  She searched her brain. On cue, an image of the rookie surfaced—pale skin, dark blond hair cut close to his scalp. Green eyes?

  No, blue.

  Her frown tightened. “Where was he on the training regimen?”

  “Level three,” Foster said quietly. “He was training under Eckhart’s crew.”

  “He flew through level two,” another voice offered, and Parker glanced across the divider to meet Neely’s serious gaze. “Bright kid. Real talent. Scouted him from the selection myself.”

  A hush fell over the office. Parker straightened, her hand coming down on Elizabeth’s thin shoulder. Brief. There and gone. “Neely, Foster, put a rush on the samples from the scene. Where was he found?”

  They exchanged a glance Parker didn’t miss.

  “His home, ma’am,” Foster said when Parker’s eyes narrowed. “The bastard got him in his home.”

  Parker nodded. “That makes five.” She turned, pitched her voice to carry. One by one, the agents she knew had been watching her met her eyes. “Five of our agents have been murdered, missionaries. Five of your friends and teammates. Do I need to make any clearer the importance of Operation Domino?”

  “No, ma’am,” came at her in a rippled chorus. A few headshakes.

  A lot of hard-eyed stares.

  Parker met each set of eyes in cool appraisal. “Those men and women below the sec-line are
counting on us. Let’s not let them down.”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  “You have your tasks. Everyone get back to work.” The sudden flurry of activity that followed jangled. “Make sure all the evidence is given highest priority,” Parker added to Foster. “I want the labs on this immediately.”

  “Ma’am,” Foster replied, already lowering her attention back to her computer screen.

  Parker strode to her office. Every step earned eyes pinned to her back.

  Anger? Probably. Confusion, she was sure. Fear among the non-street teams.

  Carver made the fifth dead operative in the past two weeks. The nature of each varied. Carver, so much meat. Hannah Long, another rookie, had been nothing but ash. The other three had been shot, one in the back and two execution-style in the forehead.

  The only connection seemed to be their occupation.

  Someone was hunting witch hunters. Many someones, given the differing MOs. And those someones, she thought, her mouth set into a grim line, were very good at it. Operation Domino had just blown the rest of her priorities out of the water.

  But she couldn’t ignore Ghostwatch, either.

  The former was an obvious problem. The perpetrator behind Domino’s string of murders needed to be found. But the latter was an ongoing issue. Initially, Ghostwatch began as a shadow in her lead technical analyst’s radar, then morphed into a monster of a problem within weeks. A hacker was infiltrating previously secure systems across the city and causing her lead tech specialist unending amounts of trouble.

  Jonas Stone was a fine missionary, the best tech the Mission had. Possibly anywhere. He could go into any database, learn anything, filter out data from the most complex systems. Parker didn’t understand it all; she’d tried for a while, but that language belonged to a whole other, much more foreign world.

  What she did know was that when Jonas talked about the Ghostwatch hacker as if the second coming of Christ was on its way, there was a major issue.

  Ghostwatch and Domino weren’t the only dockets on the Mission’s collective desk, either. The city’s witches weren’t being kind enough to wait their turn. The lower-level teams had their own problems, and according to the reports flooding her in-box, they were all contending with a spike of witch-related activity.

  To say nothing of her murdered missionaries. If they didn’t get a lead on this soon, she was going to lose more men. She couldn’t afford that.

  She pushed open her office door, schooling her features into a mask of cool appraisal as she found it unsurprisingly occupied. A blond head lifted from a digital readout; artfully tousled waves slid off shoulders clad in a stunning red designer blazer. Cheerleader perfect.

  As Parker hung her trench coat on the hook inset by her door, her back teeth ground.

  Dr. Kayleigh Lauderdale. Just Parker’s luck.

  If Parker was the ice bitch of the Mission, then the daughter of Sector Three’s director was her classified equivalent. With her wavy blond hair, innocuous gray-blue eyes, and expensive suit, she gave the same air of hands off that Parker polished to perfection.

  Only her shoes, Parker noticed as the woman rose to her feet, were flats. Contrasted black against her red suit.

  “Good morning,” the woman said in cheerful greeting. She didn’t offer a hand.

  Parker didn’t care. “Dr. Lauderdale.” She shut the door behind her with an emphatic, quiet click. “I was unaware you had an appointment.”

  If Parker’s frosty greeting scored any hits, she couldn’t tell. There had to be something in the Sector Three water coolers. Every employee she’d ever had the bad luck to deal with had matched Parker attitude for attitude.

  The fact that the director of Sector Three was this girl’s father wouldn’t help Parker’s case.

  “I’m sorry.” Kayleigh sat as Parker sank into her own chair. “I’m given to understand you’re always prompt, Miss Adams.”

  “Director Adams,” Parker corrected coolly. She didn’t address her punctuality—or lack thereof. “We’re very busy, Doctor, excuse me while I get to the point. What does Sector Three want with the Mission this time?”

  Score. Parker watched the woman’s smile fade. “You are referring to Nadia Parrish?”

  Mrs. Parrish was only the tip of the iceberg. Parker had so many questions. About Mrs. Parrish, the folder Simon stole, the order that demanded the Mission seal their own operation and destroy the data.

  There was a lot Parker referred to.

  When she only studied Kayleigh, steepling her fingers on the polished surface of her light wood desk, the scientist sighed. “I understand that relations between Sectors Three and Five have been strained, Director. It’s my hope to change that.”

  No real answer. “You can start with explaining what you want.” Parker’s voice didn’t soften. Didn’t warm.

  She didn’t want this Lauderdale—any Lauderdale—in her office. Not even in her Mission. Parker had to deal with the fact that the sector’s Magdalene Asylum headquarters occupied the quad across from the Mission. If she looked out of her office windows, Sector Three’s side of the quadplex towered even above Mission levels.

  The first ten served as hospital wings, topside’s premier facility. The next seven as rehabilitation centers. The rest was classified. What was worse was that all the labs the Mission had access to fell under his purview.

  And that bothered her.

  Laurence Lauderdale kept a tight rein on his division. As tight as Parker kept on her own, only he had the temerity to walk all over hers.

  She’d happily return the favor. On those rare occasions when the notoriously secretive sector came out to play, anyway.

  “Right to the point, aren’t you?” Kayleigh murmured. Her mouth twisted, rueful. “I can’t blame you. Director, you know from previous debriefings that Mrs. Parrish is no longer with us.”

  “I wonder, are you referencing the spiritual sense or professionally speaking?”

  The remorseful line to Kayleigh’s mouth deepened. “I understand that she was an obstacle, but I’ve spent the past two months going over her projects. It’s my hope that we can work together on future matters.”

  That wasn’t an answer, either. Although Parker didn’t need one. Through Simon’s post-op report, she already knew Mrs. Parrish had met an unfortunate end in the lower streets. According to official channels, however, the woman had simply retired.

  Well, according to the top-secret official channels that Parker had access to. As far as most were aware, the woman had never existed. Much like Sector Three.

  Translated? None of her business, and Parker didn’t have a choice.

  Her eyes shifted to the wide glass window separating her office from the information hub beyond it, but the vertical blinds remained closed.

  She liked to keep an eye on her operatives. That this woman had closed the blinds regardless told Parker everything she needed to know about the nature of this relationship.

  “Cut to the chase,” Parker ordered evenly, flicking away the doctor’s worthless olive branch with a gesture. “What do you want? What does Sector Three want?”

  The doctor’s eyes cooled. Ice and diamonds. Like father, like daughter. Only her father was eighty if he was a day. Parker placed his daughter at somewhere just under thirty. Close to her own age.

  “Very well, Director Adams.” Kayleigh sat back in her chair, crossing long legs in classic fuck you. “I understand you’re working on an operation you’ve called Domino.”

  Parker resisted the urge to rub at her forehead. It thumped in muted echo of her heartbeat; a twitch of temper she wrestled into place. “So you’ve been keeping tabs on our lab requests.”

  “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  The woman rested an elbow on the chair arm, one hand splayed over the reader in her lap. “Because the Mission’s interests are Sector Three’s interests, believe it or not.”

  “Oh, I believe it,” Parker replied, acid in the dry words. “What�
��s your point?”

  “We’d like to arrange a joint task force.”

  Over Parker’s dead body. “All evidence points to witchcraft. This places jurisdiction squarely with the Mission.” And she’d had enough of Sector Three’s spy witches to last her a lifetime.

  The question was, did Kayleigh know? She had to.

  “It sounds like you can use the help,” the woman pointed out.

  Not from her. Not when it came with strings, like Simon so obviously did. Parker shrugged. “Sector Three won’t take over this investigation, Dr. Lauderdale. It’s useless to ask.”

  Kayleigh tilted her head, eyes wide and earnest. “This investigation, Director?”

  Parker’s gaze narrowed. “You must think I’m stupid.”

  “Not stupid.” Lauderdale straightened, leaning forward, broadcasting a sincerity Parker didn’t believe. “Cautious, yes. And that’s understandable.”

  She’d just bet it was.

  Politics. Mrs. Parrish had failed in her demands, Simon failed in his retrieval, so they sent the sweet-faced cheerleader to make friends.

  Not today.

  “We have it well—”

  “An exchange, Director.” Kayleigh raised her hand as she cut Parker’s denial off. “We’re willing to offer something for the information.”

  An eyebrow climbed. How serious was she?

  One way to find out.

  Parker met her gaze, mouth curving into a faint smile. “I want Operation Wayward Rose declassified.”

  The doctor hesitated.

  “And in exchange for having access to my missionaries, you will tell me why two of your men were stamped with a bar code. I’ll even give you Agent Wells to lead your task force.” But she wouldn’t admit that she knew what the bar code meant. Not yet.

  Not until she figured exactly how far this political corruption went.

  But Parker didn’t have to be psychic to know Sector Three would never meet her demands. Dr. Lauderdale’s face shuttered, her eyes sliding up to the ceiling for a brief second. It was enough.

  “I didn’t think so.” Parker stood, bracing the tips of her fingers against her desk, and looked down at the terrier on Director Laurence Lauderdale’s leash. “You can compile your own team if Sector Three thinks it necessary.” Parker’s tone frosted. “But let me be clear. If your people interfere with mine in any way, we will arrest them. Conspiracy against the Church is a dangerous accusation to contend with.” True or otherwise.