Once Enzo was on the other side of the door, Shreeve shut and locked it. “HQ ran a check on you and found out you’re missing and presumed dead. Everything else about you is classified. We asked HQ to tell the special ops office we located you.”
“Thanks.” Enzo tried to sound grateful instead of nervous. Had they said anything about finding his wife too? Probably.
“A call from Special Ops just came through. They want to talk to you.” Shreeve headed down the ramp, clearly expecting Enzo to follow. “You must be someone important. Makes me glad I didn’t shoot you last night.”
“You and me both.” Enzo cast a glance back at the door, then went with Shreeve. He didn’t have another choice.
The two weaved their way through the rows of green tents. Shreeve finally led him into one of the smaller ones. It was dimly lit, smelled of coffee, and the faint thrumming of a generator filled the air. A desk overflowing with tech equipment stood in the back. Several chairs surrounded the desk, but only one tech officer sat inside.
He handed Enzo the sort of headset used for classified calls. It had secure earpieces, and the covered mouthpiece would keep anything he said from being heard.
“They’re on the line now, Officer Vasquez,” the man said. He sat in an adjacent chair and busied himself talking to Shreeve.
Enzo put on the headset. “Hello?”
“I can’t believe you’re still alive.” Schmitt himself was calling. “I thought for sure we’d find you in that cabin with your throat slit and the girl long gone.”
“You know about the cabin?”
“We know it all. We captured Ben Huntington yesterday and used truth serum on him.”
Enzo’s stomach dropped. How was he going to break the news to Charity that her parents had been captured?
“Even for an Empowered,” Schmitt went on, “the man is crazy. I don’t know what he hoped to accomplish by making you marry his daughter. Even he couldn’t tell me. She’s still locked up, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but Charity didn’t hurt me. She immediately released me, and after I left and raiders attacked me, she let me back in. We only stayed at the cabin as long as we did because it wasn’t safe to leave beforehand. I was never in any danger from her.”
“You don’t know how glad I am the military found you in one piece. And that’s only partially because your mother has called my office every day to see if there’s been any news about you.”
“Now you can tell her yes.”
“I’ve instructed the unit to lend you a vehicle and any assistance you need to bring Charity in. You can leave today.”
Bring Charity in.Those words sounded ominous. “She can’t tell you anything that her father hasn’t already. If you’ve questioned him, you must realize he’s never broken any laws or hurt anyone.”
“Except when he kidnapped one of my officers.”
Enzo tried to make his point another way. “You asked him what his core goal is, didn’t you?”
“It’s to keep his family safe. I’ve got to say, I never thought I’d see a psychic who didn’t want some sort of wealth or power. He’s an odd one in many ways.”
“Right. So you know he’s not a threat.”
“They’re all threats, but this one can help us.”
Enzo relaxed a bit. The government would be reasonable and cut a deal to let Ben live. “He’s willing to work with us? Good. I’d hoped as much.”
“He hasn’t agreed yet, but he will once we have his daughter.”
That made sense. Ben wanted to make sure Charity was safe. “Tell him she’s fine, just like he knew she’d be. She’ll be happy to see her parents again.”
“We only have Ben. We tracked him and his wife driving toward the breakaway states, but when we closed in on him, he was alone. We stupidly didn’t bother to keep searching for Maretta. We didn’t know then that we’d need his family.”
A prick of warning went up Enzo’s back. “What do you mean, you need his family?”
Schmitt huffed. “Haven’t you thought through the implications of a psychic whose main goal is to protect his family?”
“Yes, and he wouldn’t pose any danger unless a terrorist got hold of someone in his family and threatened them. To protect them, Ben’s visions might provide him with information they want.”