Ruthless Temptation (15 page)

Chapter
Seventeen

Viggo
asked Angela to sit in the back row of chairs with Madison. He didn’t want to
leave her alone while he joined the crowd up front to watch as they brought Dave
into one of the interrogation rooms on the other side of the one-way mirror.
The mirror dominated one wall of this room, and afforded them a view of three
interrogation rooms.

He
was worried about Madison, but not because of Blaine. Blaine was a notorious
flirt but essentially harmless. His concern centered
around
whether she’d see all this and conclude he and his friends were nothing but
thugs and vigilantes.

The
media had labeled them both more than once during the past year. It was
difficult to fight against public opinion when the people living underground
had become tired of hearing the Weathermen were
trying
to do this and
trying
to do that. They wanted results, not endless promises.

It
hadn’t helped that they had deliberately kept so much from the public. The
rumors flying around the Internet were mostly false, but people didn’t know
that. The entire group was shrouded in an air of mystery, and their integrity
had recently been called into serious question by articles of the sort that
Dave had written.

Viggo
knew this was their only chance to right what had been made wrong. It was their
one shot to stop this program. They’d be able to spill their guts then, but
only if this worked.

Julianne
arrived shortly after they watched Dave brought into the middle interrogation
room. The other two were currently empty. Viggo introduced Julianne to Madison,
and then took her and Kane aside to ask if Julianne could sit with Madison and
Angela.

“
Why are the women sitting in the back row?” asked
Julianne, smiling. “Afraid we might get answers out of Dave and you guys
won’t?”

Viggo
always admired Julianne’s directness. “It’s not like that. Madison is a bit
overwhelmed by all this, and you and Angela are the only other women in the
room. I only want to make sure she has people with her to keep an eye on her.”

“
You’re all so sexist.”

Kane
chuckled, and then he kissed Julianne on the cheek. “Yes, we are. You’re right.
But will you do it anyway?”

“
It doesn’t matter to me where I sit as long as I can
hear Dave’s answers, assuming he gives you any. You had no luck at all with the
others.”

Kane
grimaced. “Please don’t remind us.”

“
You don’t need to worry,” said Viggo. “We’re recording
all these interviews.”

She
arched a brow. “Is that what you’re calling them?
Interviews
? Will you let me have a copy of this one, then, in case
I miss something?”

“
Of course.”

Julianne
joined Madison and Angela. Then Viggo crowded in next to Blaine and Dominic to
watch four men bring Dave into the room. He looked terrible. Had he been in
hiding? He had lost a lot of weight since Viggo had last seen him. There were
dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was shaggy, like he hadn’t cut it in
a long time.

“
You can tell them to take the cuffs off,” Dave said,
looking directly into the mirror on his side of the wall. “I won’t try to run.
I’m too fucking tired.” He knew he was being watched. He’d likely been standing
where they were now many times during his career.

Everyone
in the room fell silent as the four men removed the handcuffs and ankle restraints,
then stood in front of the door to the room. Dave rubbed his wrists. “Any
chance of getting something to drink?”

Ace
pushed a button on the wall and leaned close to the speaker below it. “Bring
him whatever he wants.”

“
This is silly, you know,” said Dave, eyeing the mirror
again. “I’d rather be talking to all of you face-to-face.”

Ace
flipped a toggle switch above another speaker, and a red light came on above
it. “We’re doing it this way for now, Dave. Everyone is here. All twelve of
us.”

One
of the men near the door of the interrogation room opened it, and another man
walked in to place a tray holding bottled water and two sandwiches in front of
Dave. Dave eyed the door long enough to watch the man retreat through it. When
the men in the room closed it again, Dave drank the entire bottle of water,
then consumed one of the sandwiches in four bites. Viggo wondered when he’d
last eaten.

Ace
talked into the first speaker again. “Bring him more water, please. He’ll be in
there for a while.”

Dave
sat back in the metal folding chair and sighed loudly. “You want to know why I
wrote that article, don’t
you?
”

“
That’s no longer important,” said Emmett. “You know
what we want. Tell us how to stop it, Dave.”

He
shook his head, the corners of his mouth curling up. “Didn’t get anywhere with
the others, did you? Don’t bother denying it. I read about it online. You
should read the chatter out there. You’re not seen as heroes, you know. You’re
seen as thugs, no better than organized crime figures.”

Viggo
felt Dominic stiffen next to him. No one in this room except Viggo knew
Dominic’s real past, and Dave certainly didn’t know about it. Viggo turned
around and addressed Ace, lowering his voice so Dave wouldn’t hear him. “What
happened with the other hackers?”

“
Sam is still missing, and Clyde told us all to go fuck
ourselves blind. Mindy refused to say a word without a lawyer present, although
she doesn’t have one, and we told her we don’t give a shit whether or not she
says she wants an attorney because we aren’t the police.”

Viggo
rolled his eyes.

“
Shawn sat in that room on the right for ten hours and
didn’t say a word. Drank nothing, ate nothing, and never even asked to use the
bathroom. Dante said we already knew as much as we’d ever know and refused to
say another thing.”

“
What about Rob or the other thirteen people?”

Ace
shook his head. “They don’t know anything, and Rob is useless. Waste of time to
pick him up.”

“
Did I hear someone mention Rob’s name?” asked Dave.
“He doesn’t know anything.”

“
Rob simply reiterated everything we already knew,”
said Barclay, addressing Viggo in a low voice. “He kept asking to talk to Ace
alone so he could explain why he did what he did. When Ace went into the room
with him, he didn’t tell him anything other than what we’d already found out.”

“
I thought at one point he was going to pee his pants,”
said Ace. “I actually felt sorry for the guy.”

“
Where did you find
him
?”
asked Viggo, gesturing toward the window.

“
In a storm shelter,” said Blaine. “He’d been in there
for two weeks. He was out of food and almost out of water. He’d been running
outside every time he had to take a piss. We had them take him to a hotel so he
could shower and shave before they brought him here.”

“
Our guys found him up there?”

“
No. A team of Storm Troopers did. They got in touch
with Ace, but Dave didn’t even put up a fight. He stayed there with them until
our men came to get him.”

“
He knew he was caught.”

Blaine
nodded.

“
Rob is planning on suing you,” said Dave. “His wife is
posting about it all over the Internet. All of them will sue you when this is
over. Wrongful imprisonment, grand theft for taking Rob’s laptop, kidnapping …
and that’s just for starters.”

“
We don’t give a shit about any of that,” said Damien,
pounding his fist on the window. “And neither do you. You know better than any
of them what’s really at stake here.”

Dave
ate the second sandwich, slower this time, and then drank another bottle of
water from the group of six that had been placed in front of him. When he
finished, he ran a hand over his face. “I didn’t believe it at first. The
predictions Oliver made.”

“
Is that why you wrote the article?” asked Kane.

“
Not at first. I fought Barclay and Grayson tooth and
nail in that meeting because Bonnie and I both believed you’d all become too
powerful. Your egos were out of control. We thought you’d made up that oxygen
depletion story to get your own way.”

“
How do you feel about it now?” asked Oliver, quietly.

Dave
stared at them for long moments, his expression unreadable. “I know you told
the truth. I found out, you see. I asked around. I did my own digging when I
was in that storm shelter.”

“
So why did you write it, then?” asked Blaine.

Dave
ran a hand through his hair. “You were too close to the truth. I thought I
could deflect attention away.”

“
Away from what?”

Dave
shook his head.

“
Whatever the reason,” said Addison, “do the right
thing now, Dave. Tell us how to stop it.”

No
one moved. No one breathed. Everyone in the room was focused on Dave now. Viggo
could feel it. He could smell the fear and desperation coming off them. No one
but Dave could help them do this, and everyone knew it.

“
What about those tests?” he asked. “Reversing the
fields?”

“
They’re still working on it,” said Oliver. “It’s
taking longer than we thought to test the theory.”

“
Tell them not to bother,” said Dave, his voice filled
with defeat. “It won’t work.”

Viggo
swallowed hard. “Why not?”

“
You’ll blow the planet apart. It’ll send a shockwave
that will trigger massive earthquakes. These cities will collapse.”

“
You don’t know that,” said Dominic.

“
I do know it. Ask your experts. Call them now and ask
them how the lab tests are going.”

“
It is possible to do,” said Oliver.

“
Yeah, it’s possible. It’s happened in real time, but
slowly. Over centuries. Not all at once, and not artificially.”

“
You’re a coder,” said Grayson, “not a physicist or an
electrical engineer. What would you know?”

Dave
slammed his hands on the table and stood, his face red. “Then fucking ask them,
Grayson! Ask them right now how it’s going! I’ll wait.”

The
Weathermen all eyed each other, and then finally Atticus took out his Internet
phone. He pushed a button, and then they listened to him speak with Corbin
Bertrand, the physicist who was working with Harold Gregory. Harold had a PhD
in magnetic engineering.

Viggo
didn’t need to ask after Atticus ended the call. They all had heard enough on
their end to know that Dave had spoken the truth.

“
It’s not going well,” said Atticus. “The tests in the
lab show it can work, but it’s like Dave said. The shockwave is too intense.
They predict if we try it, the planet will suffer major earthquakes. A minor
one here and there won’t affect these cities, but the kind that Harold and
Corbin say would be triggered could collapse them.”

“
How did you know this?” Barclay asked Dave.

“
How the fuck do you think we knew to have The Madeline
Project harness the electromagnetic fields in the first place? Do you imagine
none of us played with these same types of tests in a lab setting? You think it
was all guesswork and coding?”

“
Well, Dave,” said Viggo, “then I guess we’re right
back to where we started. There’s only one thing left to do or we all die. It’s
up to you to save the planet. How do we stop this thing?”

“
You can’t stop it. You can’t get back in.”

“
I don’t accept that. Help us find a way.”

Viggo
waited while they all watched the emotions cross Dave’s face. He knew he was
backed into a corner, and he knew this entire thing, after nearly eight years,
came down to him and him alone. If anyone had told Viggo eight years ago that
Dave Perry would have to save Earth from the very program he had helped create,
he’d have laughed in their face.

****

Madison
hadn’t said a word to Angela or Julianne since the men began talking with Dave.
She was both terrified and fascinated by this exchange. All that time they’d
spent tracking down the hackers and the thirteen others known to have worked
with them in some way, and it meant nothing. They’d stolen Rob’s laptop, and
while that had given them the information to get this far, even that hadn’t
solved anything.

If
this man couldn’t help them stop The Madeline Project, no one could. Everyone
on the planet would die a slow death within two and a half years. It was too
surreal to be true. There had to be a way to prevent it.