"Have you found her yet?" Cole asked the minute Lydecker walked through the door.
Lydecker shook his head in the negative. "There's no trace of her anywhere." He was furious, and even more convinced of a traitor. That was the only explanation, but it didn't tell him why she hadn't contacted him or Cole at the very least.
"What would you do if you believed command had been compromised?" Lydecker asked Cole.
"Establish secured communications with either yourself or Alicia."
"What would Alicia do?"
"Complete the mission as ordered, using whatever resources are available."
"That's what I thought," Lydecker replied. That's exactly what she's doing, he thought angrily. She found out about a traitor, and an X-5, and is going after the X-5 rather than telling me about the traitor. Was it possible he had trained them too well?
He had not been able to find a drop of evidence of a traitor in LA. He'd resorted to using drugs on the people he was interrogating to get answers, but nobody that should have known the insertion point had betrayed them. He knew he had to be missing something. But, why had she not contacted him directly? She had done so in the past. Unless, she thought he might be the traitor. No, she knew better than that.
"I'm going to the block," he told Cole. "Stay here and see if she calls you."
Lydecker left, and Cole got back onto the computer. Lydecker thought he knew his kids, but there were some things even he didn't know. As much as he was a part of their life, he was a norm. When it came down to it, the only people they really trusted were each other. They had established a means of communication through an on-line RPG. Cole played it enough on his own so that if someone else saw it up, it didn't arouse suspicion.
He jumped on-line and left a message. Thou art lacking the map of power, fair Gwendolyn, he wrote. Seekest thee the dark one in whom ye have cast off. Cole hit send, and then settled back for a wait. She would see it, and respond. In the meantime, he needed to get the other sixers ready to jump out on a moments notice.