‘Harvey’s an asshole.’
Ben made the declaration in the seat next to Bill. The automated car drove them back to the ITF after visiting the hospital where they’d just met with Harvey and Jameson.
‘What?’
‘I said, Harvey’s a piece of work.’ Ben glanced at him sideways. ‘You’re trusting that dick with one of your clinics?’
He huffed out a breath. ‘I agree with you, but I need him.’
‘And Jameson? He’s okay, but he’s a bit of a doormat.’
Ben’s summation of the pair intrigued him. ‘What brought you to that conclusion?’
‘Seen it before in the orphanage. A lot of the criminals running Waverley were like them. False bravado.’ Waverley neighbourhood was where Ben had lived before returning home to Exilon 5. ‘Did you see the way Jameson got flustered every time you asked him about the Elite and their health?’
‘Jameson rubbed his hands together. What about it?’
It was a nervous habit of the doctor’s, but Bill didn’t see anything odd about his behaviour.
‘Nope.’ Ben tapped his ear. ‘It twitches. Not all the time, just when you asked him about the Elite. I think he’s stalling.’
The car bumped over rocky ground. Bill grabbed the door handle to steady himself. ‘Why?’
Ben locked eyes with him. ‘My guess is it bothers him you’re keeping them alive. He was their doctor, yeah?’ Bill nodded. ‘Well, maybe he’d prefer if they were dead.’
Bill hadn’t considered that to be one of Jameson’s motives. He’d come out of hiding and volunteered to help.
‘What would he have to gain from that?’
‘Maybe his freedom. Maybe he wants to make sure the Elite never wake up.’
Perhaps the Elite had some kind of hold over him. Bill sat back in the seat. How had he not picked up on that? He’d been a profiler once. He’d been good at reading people. Living on Exilon 5 had made him soft.
The car pulled up to the kerb outside the ITF. The Actigen Bill had taken last night was reaching its peak. His hands shook more than they had the day before. This was usually when the buzz wore off and the slide into lethargy began. This was usually when he popped another pill. Eight years ago, he’d have squeezed days out of one, but now he was lucky to get twenty-four hours.
He yawned into his fist as they passed through the security scanner. Climbing the stairs winded him, but Bill’s heart kicked into overdrive as he neared the first-floor door. Ever since Julie had turned up at his apartment, he’d been avoiding her.
Ben glanced at him. ‘What’s wrong?’
Bill tightened his jaw, hoping to disguise his nervous energy. ‘Harvey and Jameson will be sending their findings over by encrypted channel. I want you to liaise with Greyson on it, be his point person. Can you do that?’
Ben gave a sharp nod.
He opened the door. ‘Give me a minute. I need to speak to Julie, get you set up on a different monitor. Wait at your desk.’
Ben walked on. Julie stood over one of the men in the open-plan room. Her eyes lifted and met Bill’s, but her lips continued to move as she carried on with her conversation. He nodded at the conference room. Julie lifted her brows, then pointed to the room at the back—Laura’s old office—but Bill shook his head. He didn’t think he would step inside there ever again.
He steadied his breathing as he waited inside the quiet, glass-walled space. The sound of beeping had disappeared the second he closed the heavy door. Julie opened the door briefly and the sounds returned before they vanished again.
A nervous Julie tucked her hair behind her ear. Her eyes settled on Bill’s chest. ‘I, uh, wanted to apologise for my behaviour. I don’t know what—’
He cut her off. ‘That’s fine.’
Her eyes lifted to his. ‘Really?’
She had her back to the main room, leaving Bill in full view. He kept his expression as neutral as possible.
‘It is. We were both drunk. I was missing Laura. It wasn’t fair of me to take advantage of you.’
Julie laughed; the sound lifted the tension between them. ‘I think it may have been the other way around. I called over unannounced, remember?’
Despite his surliness that day, the company had been nice. He cracked a smile. ‘I appreciated that you did. I thought I needed to be alone, but I liked having you there.’
Julie looked up at him through lashes, then down at his chest. ‘I’m glad. I don’t have many friends and I’m always busy working.’
The statement hit him hard in the chest. He could be talking to the old Laura, the one he’d met in the back alley in Sydney. She’d said the same thing to him then. Something about her admission drew him to the blonde-haired woman seeking a friend. Maybe they could help each other get over their loneliness together? The occasional drink or dinner wouldn’t hurt.
He suggested the idea to her.
Her eyes brightened. With a nod, she said softly, ‘That would be nice.’
Bill’s gaze flashed past her to the floor beyond. Ben was watching their interaction. As soon as Bill caught him, he looked away.
He cleared his throat. ‘I called you in because Ben’s going to be working with me on another project. I hope you can spare him.’
‘Yeah, that’s no problem. There’s very little chatter going on. I was going to suggest we get the underground team busy on some new recon.’
Bill folded his arms. ‘What were you thinking?’
‘Checking the movements of Ollie Patterson, for one. I know he was a person of interest recently.’
Bill didn’t see how it could hurt. Harvey was where he wanted him right now.
‘Do it. And ask them to watch Jameson when I’m not there. I want to know if he leaves the premises.’
He already had tabs on Harvey, thanks to his signature handing over the rights to the warehouse. When he’d accepted ownership, the DPad had inserted a tiny tracker in his thumb. It would log all the times he signed in and out of the warehouse, or accessed any other property using the same method.
‘Thanks,’ said Bill. ‘Could you set him up on a private channel with the same access as me?’
‘I’ll do it now. Does he need privacy?’ She thumbed at Laura’s office. ‘I could set him up in there?’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to use it?’
He refused to say Laura would not be coming back.
Julie shrugged. ‘I’m out on the floor mostly.’
‘Okay, do it.’
Julie left the room first and walked over to Ben. Bill followed her out and gave the teen a quick nod before he exited the floor to return to the sixth.
The second floor had monitoring stations covering the main pressure areas around the city, from water supplies to power. The third to the fifth floor held the AI systems that made the interstellar wave and other sentient programs around the city possible. On the fifth was also the IT team, on hand to troubleshoot hardware issues and to make sure the AI operated within behavioural parameters. But there was also a private area with its own entrance at the back of five where the underground operatives would meet with Bill. He hadn’t spoken to them since Laura had left, leaving the details of their operations to Julie. His head hadn’t been in it, but soon he would need to accept Laura wasn’t returning and do his job again.
Bill entered the sixth floor and headed for his office. The data Harvey and Jameson had been ordered to send was waiting for him.
He opened the files filled with medical jargon that hurt his head to read. Moments later, a message from Julie flashed up to say Ben was online. She included his code. Bill entered the sixteen-digit code and sent the files to Ben, with a reminder to get the files to Greyson.
‘On it,’ came back the reply.
He sat back in his chair. Having Ben work as his right-hand man released some of his stress. Julie had been a great help managing the first floor, but Ben would become his eyes and ears. When he’d first met the curious eight-year-old boy in Belgrave Square, he couldn't have imagined him working beside him in the ITF eight years later.
Bill activated his screen and checked on Harvey’s location. The geneticist was back at his clinic. But before logging out of the hospital, he’d spent a further ten minutes at the site after the meeting had ended. He hadn’t gone far. The prison had recorded his time stamp. It had only lasted a few minutes, but it was long enough to put Bill on high alert.
What business did Harvey Buchanan have with Marcus Murphy?