by Ronie Kendig
“What branch?”
“Navy.”
“So if my guards hold you underwater”—he motioned out the floor-to-ceiling windows to an Olympic-sized pool glimmering blue in the dark night—“you would not drown.”
“No, but they would.”
Chang barked a laugh. Gripped Leif’s shoulder. “I like you.”
“That is not a requirement.” Leif managed a smile. “But it is appreciated.”
The general aligned himself beside Leif and waved toward the crowd. “Tell me what you see, security expert.”
It was part of the game. And again, this was why Leif had been a SEAL, not a spy—he hated that the man beside him was responsible for untold atrocities. Hated that if he just lifted the tactical knife from his boot, he could end a serious threat to peace. But even if he did, another would take Chang’s place. “I assume you don’t mean the scantily clad women or the men sucking up to you.”
Another boisterous laugh. “No.”
“Your system is weak, sir.”
The man objected. “But you could not get into the corridor to my home.”
“I didn’t try.” He let his meaning settle. “The doors were old—hinges off by a fraction. Makes it easier to break down. I had no reason to do that.” The general’s probing eyes held his, and Leif pushed on. “The restrooms are a problem, as they’re close to the gas line that feeds the fireplace—a very easy target for flammables or explosives.”
“But you walk the hall, yes? You saw none.”
Absorbing what the general had just revealed, Leif held his gaze. They had been watching Reaper. “None.” He kept his hands at his sides, ready. “You have vulnerabilities. Some can be remedied. Others would require reconstruction.”
A string of Mandarin flew off Chang’s tongue as he turned to Saito, whose smirk deepened. Saito gave Leif a quick nod of approval, and the two walked away.
“We have trouble,” Baddar said, his accent thickened by his concern. “I just bump into Fuji come out of supply room. He accessed heating closet behind the kitchen. There are purifiers for the air conditioners—and one of the canisters is not the same. I think he will release gas.”
Air purifiers. Leif eyed the vents in the ceiling. Large. Abundant.
Even as he did, plumes of mist snaked out.
CHAPTER 12
BEIJING, CHINA
“Gas attack. Get him out of here!” Leif shouted to the general’s security detail. He pointed to the ceiling. “Go! Out!”
Culver darted toward Baddar, who was staggering, coughing, slowing. He hooked his arm under the commando and around his shoulder, then pulled the fire alarm.
Claxons screamed in shrill warning.
Guards swarmed the general, throwing their jackets over him as they tugged him into a protective hold and rushed him to the exit. Guests started coughing, gagging. A woman near the fireplace slumped to the ground, vomiting blood. The Chinese barreled out with their general, bodies falling around them.
Shouldering out of his jacket, Leif pivoted to Reaper. “Move!” He tossed his jacket at Mercy. “Cover your face.”
Instinct made Leif head to the full glass walls. A glance over his shoulder told him it was the right way—the security halls were clogged with people trying to get out, falling as they did. Screaming. Coughing. Vomiting.
He lifted one of the small bar tables, and Culver and Baddar—blood slipping down his chin—fired as they ran. The windows cracked and spider-webbed beneath the barrage of bullets, then surrendered when the table careened into it. Glass crunched beneath their shoes as they sought the refuge of clean air. But the haze encircling the residence thickened. A woman tripped into him. He narrowly avoided her vomit as she collapsed and breathed her last.
“Reaper, van is idling and ready,” Cell reported, his voice laden with worry. “Authorities and rescue squads are notified. Where are you?”
“Rear of the facility.”
“What chemical?”
“Unknown.” Throat raw and tight, Leif hiked back around the property to the vehicles, folding into the throng of guests, some coughing and gagging, but nothing worse than that. “Sarin is clear, but maybe something he used to deploy the gas made it visible. Symptoms are the same. Baddar saw Fu—”
Crack!
Not slowing but recognizing the report of a sniper rifle—Devine—Leif did his best to avoid looking at the hill as they rounded the building.
Saito widened his eyes.
“Target down,” Devine calmly reported.
“Mercy—get to Cell. Get into their feeds.” Leif glanced toward the residence where the guests—what was left of them—staggered around, confused. Panicked. Screaming. Some running down the drive, away from the middle of the parking lot. Away from the body of the man who’d received some Devine intervention.
***
Coughing and throat raw, Mercy slipped into the van with Cell to monitor cameras and see what she could learn. Find out if there was a way to draw the toxin out of the air. But she was a hacker, not a scientist. Her gaze hit the monitor, and with a shaky breath, she absorbed the chaos of bodies and movement. She lifted a hand to her mouth as guests tumbled out of the house. The ones who exited later didn’t make it far before vomiting and collapsing, thereby blocking the path of others trying to escape.
“What a nightmare,” she whispered, tears stinging her eyes, grateful that Leif had given her his jacket for protection. How many guests were stuck? Was there a way to seal off that section of the house? She looked to Cell. “You already called it in, right?”
He nodded, forlorn. “Command, where’s containment and medical?”
“En route, two mikes,” Braun said, “and we’ve looped in the local authorities, so they’ll be on scene soon. Clear out ASAP.”
It was horrible and brought back seismic waves of dread that reminded Mercy of Ram’s death amidst others dying on a battlefield. But this was especially cruel because the people here weren’t combatants. They were guests at a gala.
Tears blurred her vision. She had to do something, but going out there could contaminate her. Until officials cleared the air, she couldn’t help. And that was the most wretched thing of all.
“This is messed up,” Cell muttered, shaking his head. “At least Peyton got Kurofuji.”
Swallowing hard, Mercy’s gaze involuntarily went to the body in the parking lot. “What drives a person to do this, to participate in a mass killing?” Monitoring the frenzy, she noticed Leif and the others were farther out of sight. “They’re almost at their SUV.”
“They need to get to a medic and get checked.” Cell hissed a curse. “And sarin—if it is that—is communicable via skin contact, so they need to keep a safe distance to avoid contamination.”
Numb and grieved, Mercy scanned her own arms, then looked at the crowd, wishing away this night. Wishing—
With a gasp, she jerked straight and blinked. “No,” she breathed, clicking on the feeds to home in on the parking lot. Where . . . where . . .
“What’s wrong?” Cell asked.
She’d seen him, right? It wasn’t just her imagination. Couldn’t be. But where? She switched cameras. Scanned and zoomed. He’d been . . . Squinting at a person on the far side of the crowd, she leaned in. He shifted—yes!
Mercy spun and threw herself at the back door of the van. Flung it open and leapt onto the concrete, stumbling. Ditched her shoes. Came up running, ignoring Cell’s shout to come back.
Andrew was here. And he was not getting away. Not this time. Running, she crossed the parking lot in a wide arc, away from the infected. She skittered around a man who lurched and vomited.
Scanning as she ran, Mercy refused to accept defeat. Andrew would be hers. He’d give her answers. He would not get off scot-free like he had in Angola. There was no power-giddy general here to stop her. She would have his name and identity. Not that he’d readily give them up, but if she tackled him, she could maybe pickpocket his phone. Hack that. Unearth every d
irty little secret about the too-slick operator.
She saw his brown-haired self bobbing through the crowd.
With a skip, she sprinted after him. She wanted to yell for him to stop, but she was not giving this guy a chance to make a run for it.
A woman in front of her staggered and collapsed, her husband catching her, pitching the couple into Mercy’s path. She hopped over them, startling the man, who yelped.
Andrew glanced back. His eyes widened, and he flung around. Bolted into the woods.
Adrenaline coursed through Mercy, giving her ample fuel to pursue him. Going ninety to nothing, she was closing in on him. Yes. She would take him down. Make sure—
She registered something in his right hand. A gun?
A dozen feet separated them.
Unwilling to let the weapon deter her, she continued. Refused to let him get away. He was connected to these deaths, and he would pay. She ran harder. Pushed herself.
Eight feet.
She wished for Leif’s endless energy or his parkour skills, though they wouldn’t do much good in this sequined number. She would shove off a tree and plow into Andrew’s back. It’d be great to be Storm and call down lightning. Zap him in the head.
But he stopped and pivoted. “Don’t!”
Seizing her chance, she dove at him even as he yelled, “No!” They went down, the leaves and dirt softening their landing.
Mercy grabbed his arm.
He flipped her onto her back. Extricated himself unbelievably fast and leaped backward. He glanced at her hand, muttered an oath, and dropped to kneel. Using his knee, he held her to the ground and gripped her wrist.
“Get off me,” she shouted, trying to wrest free.
“Stop. Look.”
Her hand—red, blistered. The sight slowed her. She gaped at her skin reacting.
Gas. She was contaminated. How? She’d checked! She looked at his arm and saw blisters. Even as she did, she noticed the syringe he slid into her thigh.
Dumbstruck, she barely felt the prick of the needle. “I—”
His arm hooked her throat in a chokehold, cutting off her air. She struggled against him. Writhed. Slapped. Tried to drop free. Nothing worked.
“Easy,” he muttered, a strange sound to his words. “I’m sorry.”
Her vision went gray, like curtains being drawn over her senses, pulling her into a dark void.
***
Shouts hauled her back from the emptiness of unconsciousness. Groaning, Mercy peeled off the ground. Squinted, momentarily lost. Where was she? Woods. Okay, but—
Andrew!
With a gasp she whipped onto her feet—and the world spun. Her vision jiggled. She canted and caught herself on a tree.
Leaves crunching to her right helped her home in on Andrew. She would wring his ruddy neck! She pushed herself toward him, aware she had no weapon but her hands. Rounding a tree, she saw his form. Drew up sharp.
“Mercy,” Leif breathed in apparent relief. “Reaper, this is Actual. I have her. Rendezvous in five.” His expression darkened. “You okay?”
“No, I’m not okay,” she growled, feeling the stinging of her hand and the thickness of her tongue. “But that doesn’t matter.”
Leif assessed her. “What happened?”
“Andrew.” She sounded petulant but didn’t care. “He was here. I went after him, because I could not let him get away again. He spotted me and started running. I gave chase. Tackled him and he—” Those moments crawled through her brain with painstaking slowness. His shout to stop, his don’t, the panic in his tone. “He was warning me,” she whispered in disbelief.
“Come again?”
How did that make sense? “Nothing.”
“We need to move before the authorities show up.” Leif led her to a dirt road, and they hurried to the van. Climbed in, everyone clustered at the front.
Seated, she let out an exasperated sigh. She’d been so close. Her thigh throbbed, and she rubbed it. A lump rose beneath the skin, and she recalled him injecting her. Peering down, she wondered what he’d stuck her with. How had he known what antidote to have? Was he involved? Mentally, she probed herself for sickness, fever, nausea, dizziness. . . .
“Mercy?”
She flicked her gaze to Leif, who was watching her way too closely.
Then she saw the body bag on the upper bunk, zipped up to the face, a mask covering the nose and mouth. The strong forehead. “Baddar!”
When she punched to her feet, Saito restrained her. “Stay back.”
“Why?” She visually traced the few inches of Baddar’s body that she could see. Eyes closed. Oxygen mask. No new holes. Was he alive? A face mask meant alive, right?
“He’s contaminated,” Leif said from the bench. Sirens screamed past them, heading in the opposite direction—toward the residence. “We’re headed to the airstrip, where a medical team has been waiting for us with a medical quarantine.”
Has been waiting.
Her gaze struck Leif’s as his meaning pushed her into her seat. Because she had been missing, Baddar’s medical treatment was delayed. “How long was I . . .”
“Found you in fifteen.” Leif’s answer held no condemnation.
Fifteen minutes. They could’ve already been at the airport. Baddar would be getting treatment. Instead, he was here.
She reached for him.
“No,” Saito said, then started. “Your hand!” He frowned. “You blistered, but . . . nothing more?”
Withdrawing her arm, she shook her head.
“Arriving now,” Cell called from the front. They cleared the private security gate and barreled toward the waiting transport jet, its engines whining. At the base of the ramp, a team of doctors waited with a gurney. They were hurrying toward the van as it rolled to a stop.
Bereft, Mercy watched Culver and Leif hustle Baddar up into the plane.
“Mercy,” Leif called with a nod. “Come on. Since your hand is affected.”
She swallowed and obeyed, every ounce of petulance wiped out of her. She’d failed on two fronts—she hadn’t gotten Andrew, and she’d kept Baddar from getting help. Trudging after them, she was met by a woman in a full hazmat suit.
Brilliant. Not just a failure—a contaminated failure.
“Hey.” Cell trotted up behind her but kept his distance. “At least you have more in common with Bruce now.”
“That—he wasn’t . . .”
Oh, never mind. It was useless to explain that Banner was bombarded by gamma radiation, not poisoned with sarin gas. He got superpowers out of it. She’d only gotten heartache.
***
The video popped to life and showed the Reaper hub and the deputy director. “Okay, Braun got waylaid and will be here in a minute, but let’s get started. Tell me what you know,” Dru said as he settled in at the desk in the hub.
“Mercy saw Andrew again,” Leif said as the jet rumbled down the runway. The nose tipped up and lifted off. “Said she was chasing him.”
“Was she contaminated before that?”
“No, she was in the van with me,” Cell said. “No gas exposure.”
“But she ran a virtual minefield of infected guests,” Culver said, his voice hoarse from the gas. “So if anyone touched her . . .”
“We had a team recover Kurofuji’s body,” Dru continued, “and it’s en route to American assets, so we’ll run an autopsy. We’ve heard from China that General Chang was spirited away.” The director’s gaze met Leif’s. “Good work. It would’ve been nice if you had set eyes on Fuji before Devine had to take him out.”
“Baddar saw him, but too late. And what would’ve been nice is preventing the release of that gas,” Leif said, frustrated. “This wasn’t a win. We didn’t get intel, and people got hurt, including three of our own.”
“Granted,” Dru agreed.
“Both killings were chemical in nature,” Saito said. “Do we think this will be the MO going forward? Maybe it’s a good idea for me to be prepared with antidotes�
�which might be how that Andrew dude had what he needed to help Mercy.”
“If we actually had the book,” Culver bemoaned, “we could see if that’s what the second war was about. You know, like the first war was about storms.”
“Technically,” Cell said, “it was about a type of cloud seeding—”
“Easy, Purcell,” Dru chided, then glanced at the team. “We’re working on re-securing the book and have a couple of leads. By the way, Maddox was suspicious of Jeeves at RTB, but I’ve confirmed he’s a nonthreat.”
Leif leaned forward. “Hold up. ‘We’re working on re-securing the book’? What leads?” Why hadn’t the director included him on that?
“Yeah, I thought that was our primary objective,” Lawe added.
“Yet we got sent to China,” Culver grumbled.
“Kind of hard to secure something when you don’t know where it is.” Devine crossed her arms and settled in her chair.
“Dial it back, guys,” Dru said. “You were in China, working a legitimate lead. That meant you couldn’t be doing everything. When you return, we can debrief fully, hopefully with Kurofuji’s test results. So rest up, and we’ll see you back here.”
Though the screen went blank, images danced in Leif’s mind. Like the expression on the director’s face when he’d been called out on outsourcing leads on the book. Was he trying to hide something?
As the team cleared the room, Leif wondered who Dru was using to go after the book. Why exclude him? Was there someone better? Sitting alone, the drone of jet engines a loud white noise, he had a thought. Retrieved his phone and dialed.
A mechanized recording answered, saying the number couldn’t be reached but to leave a message. Iskra had never changed the preprogrammed recording that came with the phone. It was one less way for people to know who they’d reached. Ending the call, he tightened his lips. If she wasn’t on a mission with them, why couldn’t she answer the phone? He’d called three times and never once gotten her. No return calls.
Tapping his phone on the table, he rubbed his lower lip. Instinct told him to forget it. She was a big girl, and he didn’t need her.
But he did. Which was crazy. He’d been a loner all his life. As the baby of six children, he’d made his way in the wake of the Metcalfe legacy. Watching all their mistakes and learning how to navigate life without inflicting stress on their mom as his siblings had. His oldest brother, Stone, had married, and then his wife ditched him for someone else. Brooke escaped an abusive husband. Canyon married Dani, following a rocky first start because of conflict with Range, who’d tried to date her first. And Willow— Bohemian Peace Corps and a lot of drama but unmarried. They weren’t exactly stellar role models on relationships, though Canyon came close.