Page 48 of Thorn

It was probably the fact that he couldn’t put her in a neat category. The cryptic message Brigitte had left on the bathroom mirror did nothing to clarify the role Juliette played. She was staggering about, obviously impeded, but with the tenacity of a woman every bit as dedicated to her survival as the janitor had been back in the bathroom when Thorn had wrapped his arm around the guy’s throat to save Dr. DuBois.

Obviously, she was brave.

Obviously, she was intelligent.

Brigitte had said, “‘Good guys’ is perspective. Everyone working for their government thinks they’re the good guy.”

No matter what was happening from his own perspective, Thorn felt certain that Juliette believed herself to be a good guy, here. That was something that a soldier should always remember. Evil wasn’t fighting for evil. Evil fought for what they thought should be right.

Right also fought for what they thought was right. And sometimes had to do evil to achieve it.

The question wasn’t really if Juliette was a good guy or a bad guy.

Her eyes told him that she believed herself to be doing something that was right.

Nope, he didn’t get a single vibe from her that she was a criminal. Now, what they needed to figure out was did Iniquus’s creed and obligations align with this woman’s? Were they fighting for the same vision of good?

Thorn chuckled to himself as he scratched a hand through his hair. That was much too damn philosophical for this time of night.

The plane landed with a jolt. It woke the baby who the mother had just cajoled to sleep. Thorn thought that she was about to cry. She looked exhausted. He helped her get her bag down and offered her a smile when she thanked him for not being angry with her. The way she said it bothered Thorn, like she had specifically been afraid that she’d disturbed him because men shouldn’t be disturbed. It wasn’t her words as much as her inflection.

Now that she was standing in the aisle, Thorn could see the last of a fading bruise on her cheek bone. Anger brewed in his gut. But he forced it down. Survivors often developed a sixth sense when dangerous emotions swirled near them, and Thorn didn’t want her to become anxious because of him.

He hoped that this flight was taking this woman and her baby to safety.

He’d never know.

Walking down the gang way and into the terminal, the woman turned toward baggage collection, and Thorn turned toward the exit. He used his thumb to swipe his phone, taking it off airplane mode. He read his text instructions and headed toward the rally point.

***

Now that he was in Paris, Nutsbe had sent him to one of the hangars for private jets. Two members of Lynx’s Strike Force team − Blaze and Gator − were coming in from London with two of the primaries that they’d been securing. They’d be taking the same jet back to the United States as DuBois. Blaze and Gator would sit on DuBois and make sure he behaved until the FBI grabbed him at Dulles to ask him some pointed questions. And they’d wait until they were over international waters before they did the blood draw for Zoe.

The plan was for them to contact Zoe upon landing and meet her at her lab.

Thorn had been ushered into a conference room to wait for both of the teams to come in. Gage, Honey, and Thorn would be heading to a hotel just down the road to hit the rack while Nutsbe and Lynx did what they could from stateside to track Juliette down.

With any luck, by the time his team had themselves fed and underway, Zoe would be done with her science experiment, and they’d have at least some of their questions answered.

Thorn patted his thigh pocket where he’d stored his phone then pulled at the hook and loop closure.

He opened up the file that Lynx and Nutsbe had loaded up for him.

Ethical issues, Navy sailors, following ship attack 2000.The file title read. These issues were almost two decades old. That seemed kind of irrelevant to Thorn. After all, DARPA had hired the guy in, which required an FBI background check to get credentialed, so the guy would have access to sensitive compartmentalized intelligence. The FBI must have concluded that this ethics breech was water under the bridge.

Thorn glanced up to check the door, swept the room, then put his back to the wall as he swiped to open the file.

There were some notes at the beginning:

Dr. Dubois was contracted with the Navy to work with sailors with PTSD following the ship attack in 2000.

Sailors complained about the process of treatments that werenotFDA approved.

Dr. DuBois admitted to using laboratory techniques he was developing in his research, effectively using the sailors for human research without the necessary scientific protections, including the subjects’ knowledge or consent.

The techniques Dr. DuBois used included targeted use of memory implantations.

Based on Dr. DuBois’s laboratory notes that were seized by investigators, Dr. DuBois’s experiments were unsuccessful.

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