Burned: Black Cipher Files #3 (Black Cipher Files series) (31 page)

I was literally struck dumb at her beauty. She was a light skinned African-American woman with black hair in a pixie cut, aristocratic cheekbones, and a lush set of lips. My inexperience with men and my general feelings of inferiority when dealing with the opposite sex hit my confidence hard. I waited for Zeke to be equally as bowled over. But he just thrust out his hand.

“Barb. I’ve heard great things.” He wasn’t really looking at her but instead was checking out the surroundings and peering into the interior of the building, in no way acknowledging her stunning looks.

Even with her figure hidden beneath a shapeless white lab coat, she exuded sophistication and a subtle sexuality.

She smiled as if she had a delicious secret and tugged him inside, gesturing for me to follow. Then she locked the door.

“Zeke, nice to meet you.” Barb eyed me with a gorgeous chocolate brown, and slightly suspicious, gaze. “And you are?”

“Not important,” Zeke dismissed me. So, I only thought that he hadn’t noticed how gorgeous she was. His utter rejection stabbed into me like a hot poker. The pain so fierce, I couldn’t draw a breath.

“Relax, sweetie.” Barb patted my shoulder. “He just wants me to have deniability.”

For my gigantic brain, I sure was stupid sometimes. I nodded, still unable to push any words past my constricted throat.

“Lucas owes me. Again,” she muttered. “Come on back.”

We followed her into an exam room at the back of the building.

“I’m actually familiar with this study,” Barb said as we entered the small room. The EEG machine was already set up to record the electrical impulses and patterns in Zeke’s brain. A syringe of what I assumed was Sodium Pentothal sat on the little metal rolling tray table. And she’d brought a laptop. Because we didn’t think the tablet was the correct test material for the experiment. “But it’s somewhat obscure. How did
you
know about it?”

She directed her questions at Zeke. I stayed silent, but he wasn’t about to let me be modest. He jerked his thumb toward me.

Barb turned and raised one perfectly-arched ebony eyebrow. The interest in her gaze went up about one hundred percent. “Excellent.” She smiled, her white teeth gleaming in the low light of the office. “You can help.”

Zeke sat on the exam table and Barb began applying the electrodes to various areas of his forehead and at the base of his head. Then she rubbed her palm over his fuzz. “Gonna have to shave some spots.”

“Fine,” Zeke said.

I sat on the chair next to the exam table, held the laptop, and waited until she was done applying the leads and wires.

“Two things.” She stepped back so she had us both in her sights. “First, the original study did not use Sodium Pentothal. I’m assuming there’s a reason you chose to administer the drug.”

Zeke nodded.

“Second, you realize that what we’re attempting will likely not be permissible evidence in a court of law?” Barb cautioned.

“It’s just a piece of evidence,” Zeke said. I wondered how much Barb knew. He wasn’t wanted in the general sense but if he were caught things would be…uncomfortable for all of us. He neglected to mention that he’d be tried in a potentially secret, military tribunal. And imprisoned in a highly secure federal penitentiary if convicted.

Yeah, he may not have come out and told me that but I could connect the dots.

“Ready?” Barb asked.

He took a deep breath. I held mine. I hoped this worked.

Barb pushed up his shirt sleeve. He’d changed into a plaid short-sleeved shirt and khaki cargo shorts he’d bought yesterday at Target, very different from his usual board shorts and t-shirts.

Barb wiped his skin with rubbing alcohol. Then she efficiently uncapped the syringe and injected the Sodium Pentothal into his arm.

“We’ve got a few minutes until that starts working. We’ll do two separate readings as he does one rote thing, and then does the thing that he’s accused of doing.” Barb told me, since Zeke’s eyes were glazing as we stood there.

“This won’t work,” he said glumly. “I’m immune.”

The odor of the rubbing alcohol burned my nose. My eyes watered, because of the smell, not the defeat in his voice. At least that’s what I told myself.

After the drug had time to enter his system, I handed Zeke the laptop. He very precisely aligned the edge of the laptop with the edge of the counter. Then he performed the same routine he always did before he used the laptop. He touched the top edge, the left, the right and finally the bottom of the keyboard before he powered it on.

As Zeke went through his motions, Barb input notes along the time stamp so they could analyze his responses to stimulus.

“You think that’s enough data?” I was watching the EEG machine register the spikes in his brain waves. “Should we have him surf the web?”

Zeke nodded and began typing on the laptop.

“It gives us a baseline.” Barb cautioned worriedly, “Again, this won’t hold up—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Zeke said. “I’m pretty much screwed.”

I thought about asking him a question that he normally wouldn’t answer. "What did you hack into that got you in trouble when you were sixteen?”

But he just pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Nope.”

“Come on, we need the baseline of you giving up a secret,” I cajoled.

He stared at me. I could see his brain working. Finally, he said, “Not gonna answer out loud.” However he leaned over and whispered the answer in Barb’s ear and I squirmed with a spike of jealousy. Jeez, I needed to get a grip.

The EEG continued to register the spikes and drops in his brainwaves. “Power down the laptop,” I said impulsively.

Zeke did what I asked. And we had our baseline.

Barb ended the first test. She input Zeke’s name, and the words “Under the influence of SP and Baseline for brain patterns when doing rote tasks, plus subject imparted classified information.” She saved the results to a USB drive. Then she reset the machine.

“Let’s do the second test.” I patted Zeke’s hand.

Barb said, “Okay. So after you power on the machine this time, do whatever it was that got you into trouble.”

Zeke performed the same series of touches and motions that he always did when he set up and turned on his laptop. The EEG machine registered his brain waves. There was a jagged spike first, then the lines went nearly flat.

And he just sat there. He pressed his palms flat against the top of his thighs and didn’t move.

“Zeke Hawthorne.” I said sternly, “Share your encryption program.”

Zeke opened up a new file and looked at the cursor on the blank page. He typed out a bunch of data slowly. His fingers moved slower and slower as the machine results continued to spike and dip. I couldn’t be sure without analyzing the results but it definitely looked different from the first pattern.

Finally he stopped, his fingers resting on the keys, not moving as he stared at the screen.

“What did you write?” I asked.

“I wrote out the program,” he said smugly.

I recalled our conversation from yesterday. Kerchoff’s Law. “But did you give us the key?” Because without the key the program was worthless.

Zeke stared at the screen. Saved the document. “I can’t do it.”

“But we need to see—”

“I may be accused of giving up national secrets, but as far as
I
know, as of right now I’ve given none. And I’m not about to start.” He reached for the leads.

“Wait,” Barb said frantically.

I wished there was something we could ask that would either confirm or deny his resistance to the drug since he was so convinced that he was immune. Even running this experiment there wasn’t necessarily a way to confirm his resistance to the drug because he needed to do certain things to get the reading. “Can you think of a casual test?” I asked Barb.

Barb bent down and got right in Zeke’s face. So close she could probably kiss him with one slight move. Jealousy reared again. “What’s her name?”

But Zeke just stared into her deep, dark chocolate eyes and said, “No.”

“Come on,” she said enticingly and ran a single finger down his arm. I wanted to punch her. “You can tell me. I’m a friend of Lucas’s. A good friend.” Her voice was sultry, seductive.

“No.” Zeke shook his head, frowned, and lifted his hand to tug at his hair and grasped nothing. Then his brows lifted as if he’d remembered he’d cut it. “Not gonna happen.”

Barb straightened. “Pretty good verbal resistance.”

He powered down the laptop. All without looking at either Barb or me. When the laptop was off, and closed he turned to us.

“I’ll finish the experiment the exact same way we did the other one.” She completed the same steps, and labeled this file, “Zeke, Under the influence of SP and Attempt to divulge secrets, but didn’t give up the secrets.”

We waited while Barb saved the second test to the USB drive, then powered everything down and handed the drive to me. Zeke was still kind of out of it.

Zeke had grabbed my fingers and twisted our hands together. Barb stared down at our entwined fingers. “Um, you guys have a place to stay?”

“Aiding and abetting.” Zeke brushed his lips over my knuckles. “Not a good idea.”

“Where else are you going to go to analyze the data?”

She had a good point. We needed someplace to lay low until we heard back from Jamie and Lucas. Wasn’t gonna lie, I didn’t like the fact that we were dependent on so many other people. As a matter of fact, the reliance on others gave me the willies.

Barb took off the shapeless white lab coat. Underneath the generic covering, she wore black wide leg pants and a black and white hound’s-tooth crop jacket and simple black patent pumps. She reached into a matching black leather bag with black patent accents.

“Go back to my place.” She retrieved a single key on a Tufts University lanyard from the purse. “He’s going to need a few hours to recover from the drug. Even if he didn’t reveal any state secrets, Sodium Pentothal still packs a punch in dimming awareness and slowing reaction time.”

I studied Zeke for a minute watching the slow track of his vision. She was right. He was not at one hundred percent. I could use her computer to analyze the data we’d accumulated and see if there were any conclusions or if this morning had been a waste of time and a potential breach of Zeke’s safety.

I curled my fingers around the woven cotton. “Directions?”

Barb quickly rattled off instructions on how to get to her house. The sky was beginning to lighten and I knew I needed to get him out of there.

Zeke was borderline docile as we all walked together to the car. His lack of awareness was beginning to worry me.

“Good luck,” she called out.

“What about your key?”

“Just leave it in the entry.” Barb slid into the ‘in your face’ red car. “I’m headed out of town for a conference.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Thank you.”

She paused, one foot touching the ground. Barb gripped the door handle and glanced between Zeke and me, her gaze wistful. “Be careful.”

I nodded and started our stolen car. I drove quickly but didn’t dare go over the speed limit. Within fifteen minutes, I was pulling into the driveway of a very elegant French-style chateau with rear windows that overlooked a working vineyard. Barb had given me the code to her garage and I quickly entered it on the numeric pad installed on the frame. I drove inside as soon as the door went up.

I turned off the engine and jerked the key out. With economy of movement, I pressed the button for the garage door and breathed a sigh of relief after the door was down and all the light was eliminated and we were in the semi-darkness.

I peered in the car at Zeke. His head lolled against the passenger window and he was sound asleep. With his buzz cut, random patches of bald skin all over his skull, and his face slack he looked like a little kid worn out after a long day at the park.

My heart clenched at the thought of disturbing him. But he’d be more comfortable inside. I bent down and pressed one knee on the driver’s seat as I leaned awkwardly over the console to wake him up. I didn’t want to open the passenger door because he might accidently fall out of the car.

“Zeke,” I whispered.

But he didn’t stir. He snored softly and I huffed out a breath. “Zeke,” I tried again a little more loudly.

But he still didn’t wake.

So I caressed his shoulder, his muscles hard beneath my tentative touch. With that small contact, he jerked awake. His blue eyes, oddly so much darker in his tan face without the shadow of his curly hair, cleared within seconds of awareness. His palm cupped my cheek and he nuzzled his lips against my neck. The contact was sweet and affectionate.

“Sunshine.” He skimmed his lips along my jaw and pressed a tender kiss to my top lip, then repeated at the left corner, right corner, and then he sucked my bottom lip into his mouth. He pulled me off balance until I tumbled into his lap.

“Where are we?”

“Barb’s house.”

Zeke sat up straight and glanced around all teasing gone. “I was that out of it?”

“You still didn’t give anything away.” I could sense his unease.

He huffed out a breath in disgust. “We don’t know that for sure.”

“We do at least for today,” I said. “You refused to divulge your program, or any other secrets. You wouldn’t even tell Barb my name.”

“Information that didn’t matter.” He closed his eyes and thunked his skull against the headrest. Except he had refused to reveal my name to Barb. He had protected me even when he was out of it.

“So let’s go analyze the data.”

We let ourselves into Barb’s house. The chateau-style house was as refined and put together as she was, not an item out of place, no dust lingered on the wood surfaces, no dirty dishes stacked in the sink, no clean laundry piled on the sofa. Until I peered into her bedroom. Clothes littered the floor around what appeared to be a dirty laundry hamper as if she’d shot them like basketballs and missed.

That little inconsistency made me like her more. I peered into what I assumed was the guest bedroom. “You want to lie down?”

Zeke frowned. “No. Let’s see if we can find anything of significance.”