“Indeed. I wish you would have come directly to me instead of asking your handlers about Nemesis . . . Oh, don’t give me that look. Don’t worry. The Flierls didn’t snitch on you. They’re very talented at managing my little menagerie but they’re the Task Force’s resident goody-two-shoes. Luckily for them, their skills outweigh their troublesome integrity, but that’s why I keep an even closer eye on my humans than I do on my monsters. Sadly, your actions have put Beth in danger. Now she too is asking questions which are better left unanswered.”

As expected, that shook her. Kerkonen was predictable. Her psych evaluation had nailed it on the self-sacrificing tendencies and how she was extremely protective of others. “Beth had nothing to do with this. Franks mentioned Project Nemesis. I was curious. That’s all.”

“So curious that your deceased former STFU handler’s login was used yesterday to access classified operations files. And this happened to occur on a computer at an STFU safe house where you were being locked up that night because of the full moon?”

“I don’t—”

“Bullshit!” Stricken slammed his open hand against his desk. It made the werewolf jump. “I’ve got a guy that reads electrical impulses with his mind. You were caught red-handed.”

He could tell Kerkonen wanted to say something else but she held it back. Inherently honest people were such easily manipulated chumps. She was pissed. She knew something, but confronting him with it would only dig her grave. STFU wasn’t the type of outfit that issued reprimands, it issued bullets. Kerkonen had probably gleaned enough to figure that Nemesis had been reactivated without authorization. If she was as smart as he thought she was, she’d probably even figured out that something was up with the hit on the MCB.

Too bad . . . He’d been hoping to get some use out of her. Werewolves that were actually sane enough to be operationally valuable were few and far between.

“You got anything to say for yourself, Kerkonen?”

“No,” she growled.

She was going to make a run for it. He could tell. Knowing her, she’d probably memorized where all the guards were on the way through the bunker, and calculated how fast she’d need to move before they got the place entirely locked down. It was a good thing he’d already made his move.

Kerkonen stood up so fast she knocked over her chair. She took a halting step toward his desk, but was having a hard time standing. The effects of the neurotoxin were kicking in.

He held up his hand. The remains of the capsule he had smashed against his desk were glittering on his palm. “Odorless, even by werewolf standards. This stuff is a pretty nifty little concoction they discovered during Decision Week. Don’t worry. I’m immunized against it, but it does a real number on lycanthropes.”