Page 84 of Covert Mission

Fury lit Marsh’s eyes as he watched the interaction.

Seth caught his attention and signaled the other detective to stand down.

“Yes, sir.” Jillian returned to her task, her hands trembling.

“We’re glad to have you and your team with us,” Peters told Seth. “I’ll be in the training center tomorrow morning at 7:00 to see how you and your group perform against our enforcers. If you’re as skilled as I think you are, you will be my personal enforcers.”

“We’ll be ready.” Seth stood and held out his hand to Teagan. The rest of the team stood as well. “See you tomorrow, Peters.”

The group remained silent as they trekked to their quarters, but it was obvious Marsh seethed about the situation with Jillian and Peters.

Seth unlocked the door and motioned the others inside. Once he locked the door, he signaled for silence and glanced at Teagan and Violet.

They grabbed their electronic signal detectors and split up to cover the interior of their quarters more quickly. By the time they returned to the living room where the others waited insilence, Teagan and Violet had collected ten listening devices and ten cameras, one for every room in their quarters. Four of the cameras were in the bedrooms, a fact that had Teagan’s stomach tied into a knot.

Violet found a large bowl in the kitchen, filled it with water, and they dumped the unwanted electronics into the liquid. “We’re clear,” the medic said.

“Where did you find the cameras?” Seth asked.

“Every room in our quarters. Same for the bugs.”

His jaw flexed. “Including the bedrooms?”

She nodded.

Knight whistled. “Someone in the camp is a voyeur.”

“They want to listen to pillow talk,” Bowen said, disgust in his voice.

“They won’t get it.” Noah dragged a hand down his face. “We’ll have to check our quarters every time we return. I don’t believe Seth’s key is the only one to this place.”

“We’ll rig something up to keep unwanted visitors out at night,” Teagan said.

“We’ll set up watch shifts in pairs,” Seth said.

“Can we talk about what’s important here?” Marsh snapped.

“Look, I get it,” Seth said. “We all saw how Jillian responded to Peters’ order for her to go to his quarters. Unless you want to blow our covers, there’s not much we can do.”

“You’ve already made inroads with Jillian,” Violet said. “Be her friend, Andre. Persuade her to confide in you. Perhaps you can convince her to leave. If she has a boyfriend here, he might persuade her to go for her own safety.”

“You heard the feds. No one leaves this compound voluntarily. The only way out is in a body bag.”

She patted his forearm. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not planning to leave that way. We can take her with us when we escape the compound or find another way to get her out.”

“You know what’s going on as well as I do. It was obvious by her response.”

“I know, but we can’t force the issue.”

“I would give almost anything to find out how old she is,” Marsh muttered.

“A good topic to slip into a conversation with her.” Teagan slid her signal detector into her cargo pants. “Be her friend and gain her trust. We’ll do what we can to help while we’re here. If we can’t get her out when we go, I promise you Artemis or one of the other Fortress teams will rescue her before things go downhill or before the feds move in.”

“If she’s not a minor, the choice has to be hers,” Knight said. “We can’t force her to go.”

Marsh held up a hand. “Yeah, I got it. Doesn’t mean I like it.”

“I hate it, too.” Bowen sighed. “We see too much of this on the job. Makes me angry and sad at the same time.”