GhostWalkers 10 - Samurai Game

one.
    What had she missed? Thorn took another slow, careful sweep of the airport and the outlying buildings. Nothing seemed out of place, but Sam was not alone and he’d definitely communicated telepathically with someone else. The spike in the electrical current had been sharp, a certain sign of psychic energy. Although it had been far too long since she’d felt such a surge, there was no way she didn’t recognize it. She’d spent a good portion of her childhood feeling that spike when Whitney experimented with the other girls, using her body as his lab rat.
    She could almost smell psychic energy. She associated that spike and scent with acute pain. She wanted to press her hand to her stomach to still the sudden churning. She thought she was past all that. All the years her adopted father had put into training her in the way of the samurai. She should feel at peace anywhere she was. She accepted death as part of life. She wasn’t afraid of this man or anyone else, but those childhood memories were forever entrenched in her brain.
    The lives of both Daiki and Eiji were in her hands. They trusted her—trusted her judgment. Had she started this game before she was ready? It was war, pure and simple. She had declared war on Peter Whitney, and all of them would be at risk until it was finished. He had tortured her, used her for his ghastly experiments, and then disposed of her when he thought her of no more use to him.
    Many times her adopted father had pointed out to her the huge mistake Whitney had made. Whitney had seemed omnipotent—godlike—to the orphan girls he controlled in his laboratory, yet had not known the considerable power Thorn wielded. She had been a child but she had managed to keep her psychic gifts secret from him—in effect, she’d defeated him. There was honor in what she’d accomplished, Yoshiie had assured her. She hoped he would think what she was doing now was honorable.
    “We so appreciate you making the trip,” Sam said, keeping his voice low, showing no emotion, but he watched them closely. Lily had outstanding intelligence on anyone she did business with. She would never have invited these three to the compound if she had any suspicions. “We’ve arranged for you to stay with us. Do you have your bags?”
    He shoved his hand through the thick mass of curls on his head, watch facing out, scanning the faces of each of the three VIPs from Samurai Telecommunications. If these three were imposters, the facial recognition program would catch it immediately. He couldn’t explain what made him so uneasy, particularly about the woman. There were no covert looks, nothing to make him worry, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about them. He was careful, watching them closely, and he couldn’t discern a signal between them, but he was certain something unseen by him had passed between them.
    “We do not want to impose on your kindness. We will stay in the local hotel,” Daiki said with a small smile.
    “Unfortunately, our home is miles up the mountain, Mr. Yoshiie,” Sam said. “Trying to get you back and forth would eat up most of the work time. It would really be more convenient for you—and for us—if you stayed with us. We have accommodations apart from the main house. You would have plenty of privacy.” He wanted them where he could see them at all times, and he wanted Lily to send him the results of the facial scans immediately.
    Again, he didn’t see them exchange any signal, nor was there a sharp spike in the energy around them as if they were speaking telepathically, but his brain refused to settle. Every nerve ending was on high alert. He watched them all very closely, observing their interaction, and there wasn’t a single thing out of place, not one, yet he found himself more certain than ever that something wasn’t right.
    As strange as it seemed, he was coming to believe that it was the woman, not Daiki, who was in charge. There was absolutely no reason why he would feel that way. Thereputation of the Samurai Telecommunications company was spotless, and always, it was Daiki at the helm, Eiji and Azami flanking him, but Sam found he didn’t believe it. They were almost too smooth.
    Of course they would be, he argued silently with himself, they had gone to high-security companies all over the world; yet he found himself certain that the woman was the boss, not the imposing male doing all the talking, which was shocking. Samurai