“Either they’re dead or they may still be hiding in there, if the tip is genuine. If they were pulling up stakes, they probably didn’t want to be burdened by those two. Let’s just hope they didn’t kill them to keep them from talking to the MP’s.”
“Why are we just now getting this information, and why do you question the accuracy of the tip?” Remi asked, bracing in his seat as TJ took a corner on two wheels.
“Well… there might have been a little duress involved,” TJ said evasively.
“Excuse me? What kind of duress? Why would that negate the validity of the tip?”
“Holy crap! Do you always talk like there’s too much starch in your shorts? No wonder you can’t get along with anyone,” TJ snapped. “Look the guy was acting weird when some of my team were canvassing the area. It was obvious he knew something, so they leaned on him a little. He might have just told them what he thought they wanted to hear though. He’s not exactly an upstanding citizen.”
“So has anyone checked out the warehouse yet?” Remi asked. “We don’t want any trigger-happy idiots blowing these guys away before we can question them.”
TJ glanced over at Remi and scowled. “Those idiots happen to be my men and they’re holding for us to get there. They know how to do their job.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to insult your team. I just don’t want to lose these guys. They’re obviously small-time thugs, but Chris needs to be taken down asap. From what Jake and Tiger have said, he’s a psycho. If he’s been following them around town…” Remi couldn’t finish that thought.
When they reached the warehouse, TJ’s team had all the exits covered. There was no attempt to talk anyone out. They just broke in through all the doors and windows in a massive show of force.
The two gang bangers were there, one lying on a ratty looking couch and the other sitting in an equally ratty overstuffed chair. Neither tried to grab for a weapon or get up. The one on the couch had a bloody bandage wrapped around his thigh that showed through his ripped pants and he was unconscious. The one in the chair, who turned out to be Ripley, had a shoulder wound and had his arm in a sling.
Ripley was eager to cooperate; he just wanted them to receive medical care and food. All they’d had to eat since the gang had deserted them was some candy bars and bottled water. Both of them were too badly hurt to go for food or escape the area. He wasn’t feeling any loyalty to Chris or the gang for leaving them behind.
Even though he couldn’t give the exact location of the gang’s new hideout, he was at least able to tell Remi and TJ what town they were headed to. The authorities there were notified to be on the lookout for them and several of TJ’s men left to try to catch up with them.
Ripley knew that Chris wouldn’t be with them. He told them that the gang had rejected Chris as their leader because of all the trouble he’d brought down on them. He also verified that Chris was seriously deranged and that he had been obsessed with Tiger since the attack.
“His last name is Hawkins. He’s always been a nut case, even as a kid.” His own brother, Dominic, wants nothing to do with him, and he’s no saint. He’s vicious, even with us. It’s like he just has a need to hurt something all the time.”
“Since the thing with that sword guy though, he’s been way worse, like a damn rabid animal. We couldn’t stand to be around him anymore,” Ripley confessed. He told them where Chris’ apartment was, once they promised not to tell him how they’d gotten his address.
Leaving the rest of the team to deal with Ripley and Shark, TJ, Remi and two of TJ’s men drove directly to Chris’ place. The door was slightly ajar when they approached Chris’ apartment. TJ and Remi glanced at each other, frowning. Pushing the door open slowly with the toe of his boot, TJ called out “Come on out Chris. We’ve got the place covered. There’s no way out for you.”
When there was no response, they entered cautiously and immediately spotted Chris’ body. His head had been severed by what appeared to be one clean sword stroke, and it looked like he’d been dead for less than twenty-four hours. They both winced when they saw that his penis had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth.
“Shit! I really wanted to be the one to kill that asshole,” TJ declared. “Do you think Tiger had anything to do with this? He said we needed to find Chris before him if we wanted to take him alive.”
“I don’t know,” Remi replied. “He certainly had motive, opportunity and the means. We need to talk to Tiger.”
Leaving his men to handle the scene, they headed back to Remi’s office to fill out a report and make some quick calls. Figuring Tiger probably wouldn’t answer his Cortex for Remi, he had TJ try to call several times, but it kept going to voice mail. TJ left a message for Tiger asking him to call back asap. When they finally had a chance to take a break, TJ kicked back with his boots on Remi’s desk and eyed him speculatively. “So, dumbass, what did you do to piss off Tiger this time?”
Remi leaned his elbows on the desk and buried his face in his hands. He muttered something that TJ couldn’t hear.
“Speak up, idiot!” TJ ordered. “Stop hiding behind your hands of invisibility!”
Looking down at his desk, Remi dropped his hands and mumbled, “I asked Jake about the alley rape and Tiger overheard me. When he defended Jake for not telling me about it, we kind of got into an argument and I blurted out something about the TC rape. He stopped talking to me and locked himself in his room. That’s when you showed up.”
TJ’s boots hit the floor and he lunged over the desk, hauling Remi across the top and onto the floor in front of it before Remi could react. He fisted Remi’s shirt with one hand and held him down with a knee on his chest, while the other hand squeezed his throat.
“I warned you not to hurt him,” TJ snarled. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t beat the living shit out of you!” Hanson came rushing in to see what all the noise was about, wide eyed and mouth hanging open. “Cap? What……,” his voice trailed off.
TJ looked up at Hanson and snapped, “He’s busy! Get out! And close the damn door!” Remi was wheezing and trying to pry TJ’s fingers from his throat.
“Do what he says,” Remi croaked. Hanson reluctantly backed out and shut the door.
TJ hauled Remi to his feet and threw him into a chair, nearly flipping it over backwards. “Damn you’re strong. How do you do that?” Remi gasped, trying for levity.
“I could tell you,” his eyes narrowed, “but then I’d have to kill you. I may anyway” TJ hissed, looming over him. “You have some ‘splaining to do. Tell me everything, word for word.” So, Remi did, flinching a few times whenever TJ shifted.
When he was done, TJ said “Your house. Now.” He grabbed Remi by the bicep and dragged him up from the chair and towards the door, snatching his coat up along the way.
Chapter 14
Remi and TJ pulled into the driveway at home and Remi ran down the hall, while TJ headed into the living room. The door to Tiger’s room was open and Remi could see that all his stuff was gone. He headed into the living room and found TJ and Jake sitting there, looking pissed. “He’s gone” Jake said, hugging Midnight. “Didn’t leave a note or anything. Just left while I was upstairs.”
“Maybe he just went out to cool off,” TJ ventured.
Remi sat in another chair, smart enough to know Jake didn’t want to be near him at the moment. He could hear all those points he’d earned by bringing Midnight home just flush down the toilet. “All his stuff is gone,” Remi said.
TJ called his team to see if Tiger had gone back to the barracks. “They haven’t seen him. He’s been gone long enough he would have been there by now if that was where he was headed.” He pulled out his Cortex and selected Tiger’s code. They heard a buzzing noise coming from Tiger’s room. Remi went down the hall and came back with Tiger’s Cortex in his hand.
“I was wrong. He didn’t take all his stuff. This was in the bedside drawer. You think maybe he just forgot it?” He set it on the table in front of TJ.
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“No, he never forgets it.” TJ sat staring at the unit, tapping his fingers on his thigh. “He wouldn’t go AWOL. Well, he does have leave right now, but why would he take off without his Cortex? Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to you, but why not me or the team?” TJ asked.
TJ’s Cortex buzzed and he saw Tyree’s code on the screen. “Hey Tyree, what’s up buddy? What? Why? Well, do you know where he was going? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, thanks.” TJ disconnected.
“Tyree just got back to the fort. He called after the guys told him we were looking for Tiger. Tiger called him this morning and asked him for a lift to the shuttle port. He said Tiger didn’t tell him where he was going but he seemed kind of quiet. Said he would be gone for a bit on leave and to watch out for Jake.”
“This makes absolutely no sense. I can see him leaving because he’s pissed at me and maybe he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Maybe he’d even go somewhere to be alone, but why would he leave his Cortex behind when he could just turn it off?” Remi said.
TJ frowned. “Unless he ditched it because of the GPS tracker,” he mused. “Where would he be going that he doesn’t want anyone to know about?”
TJ punched another code into his Cortex and waited till Max answered. “Max, I need to know something and no more of this patient confidentiality shit. Tiger’s disappeared and we think it’s because Remi told him we knew about the rape. He left his Cortex so we can’t track him. Is it possible he’s having a flashback or a mental breakdown from the attack?” TJ started to argue with Max then said “Okay, we’ll be right there.” Disconnecting, he said “Grab your coat. He wants to talk to us, but he says it needs to be in person.”
*****
Doctor Max Stafford met TJ and Remi in his office. Locking the door behind them and setting the privacy system to secure mode, he ushered them to the sofa where he had set out glasses and a bottle of Corvan vodka.
They all sat down, Remi and TJ on the sofa and Max on an upholstered plush chair facing them. He poured three small glasses full of the vodka, handed them each a glass and, picking up his own, said “one for all and all for one” clinking their glasses together. TJ and Remi shot a glance at each other and downed their drinks in one gulp.
“Okay, doc” TJ choked out past the burn, “what’s with the top-secret spy routine?”
“You mentioned a rape in regard to the Toro Yamano case. What exactly do you know and what is going on? If I’m going to stick my neck out for you two, I need to be one hundred percent in. You first,” he said, pointing at Remi.
Remi went over everything they knew or thought they knew about the case to date, including the secret file and the sudden disappearance of Tiger. TJ trusted Max, so Remi would have to trust Max too.
When he was done, Max sat back and contemplated Remi with an appraising glare. “Dumbass,” he muttered, shaking his head.
TJ smirked at Remi and stuck his tongue out at him.
Max poured them all another drink, which they also belted down. “Okay, I admit to knowing about the rape in in the alley. Jake told me in the hallway when we went to get him cleaned up, because he wanted to be sure we screened Tiger for STD’s. He’s smart, that kid.”
“By the way, he was negative, which I told him, and I said it was standard testing for all admissions. I did collect DNA samples and documented everything. I did not include that in his official file. The samples and the report are stored in a secure unit that only I have access to. I was not privy to the file which you somehow accessed so I didn’t know about the previous rape. It would explain a lot about some of Tiger’s actions.”
“Do you think he’s capable of harming himself?” Remi asked stiffly, not sure he really wanted to hear the answer. What if he had triggered something Tiger couldn’t cope with?
“No,” Max said immediately. I think that’s the last thing he wants to do. TJ knows him better than anyone and I think he’ll agree with me.”
“Absolutely,” TJ said. “He’s a strong guy. ‘Never say die, never surrender’ and all that. Unless he’s had a total mental break, he’d see it as dishonorable and cowardly. I don’t think anything you said was extreme enough to cause that. He knows we can’t force him to testify about the TC events.”
“He obviously planned this whole thing. Something else is going on in that guy’s head, but what? Where is he going and why does he want to be sure we can’t track him? He has to know we’ll catch up with him eventually.” I don’t think he’d have run if it was just about killing Chris. At best, it’s just a delaying tactic.
Max hesitated, then asked both men, “Do you love this man? Are you willing to do anything for him, even if it means risking everything?”
“Yes!” they both answered together without hesitation. TJ glanced over at Remi, curious about his answer.
Max went on, “TJ what was Tiger’s last mission?”
“The Severen termination,” TJ answered.
“And do you remember what his injuries were?” Max asked.
“He just said he was laid up a bit from a dislocated shoulder and had some cuts and bruises from being tossed around. He never had a post mission exam because of the attack in the alley. He hadn’t made it back to the fort yet when that happened,” TJ said. “Why are you asking that?”
“When I compared the results of his last exam at the fort to the results of his post assault exam I found one injury that couldn’t be accounted for… a bite scar on his left pectoral that had healed but showed up on the deep tissue scan. By the way, the deep tissue scan of the bite scar was not entered into the medical records either. I made sure nobody saw it but me.” Max watched them and waited for all that to sink in.
“I saw that scar, but he said it was old.” TJ’s brain processed a bit faster than Remi’s. “A bite scar…. No! No… no…. that can’t…. he never said…. no…,” his voice trailed off, face stricken and pale. “That’s a death sentence Max.” He snatched up the bottle of vodka and gulped greedily from it, hands shaking so hard the liquor in the bottle quivered.
Max gently took the bottle from him and set it down on the table, holding onto TJ’s hand. Remi looked back and forth between them, totally in the dark. He had no idea what the Severen mission was about.
“What does his last mission have to do with this?” “What’s going on?” He was starting to panic. From TJ’s reaction, he knew something horrible had happened.
TJ tried to pick up the vodka again, but Max wouldn’t let him. He needed to stay sober for this. “Tiger was sent north to track down and terminate a throwback by the name of Robert Severen.”
“He told me he had to get in close and use that stupid sword because some farm kid was too close to Severen to use his sniper rifle. Throwbacks are so strong we use armor piercing rounds to take them down from a distance. He took a hit and lost his katana in the river and had to go hand to hand until he got it back. Said he got tossed around and had his shoulder dislocated when Severen yanked him out of the river. The kid found his blade while he was holding Severen off and he was finally able to take the guy’s head off.”
“He said the dislocated shoulder was what had laid him up at the farm until he was well enough to travel. The kid’s mother is a nurse and an herbalist. He said she reset it for him. I think her name’s Elvira. Damn, she must have helped him with more than a dislocated shoulder.”
TJ looked at Remi who was still giving him an uncomprehending look. “We don’t ever get close to those monsters because their bite can infect us with the virus,” he said.
Remi shot off the sofa and started pacing furiously around the office, running his fingers through his hair. “Tell me everything you know about these things and the ramifications of being bitten by one of them.”
Max poured another drink for Remi, which he ignored, so TJ picked it up and gulped it down, earning an exasperated glare from Max. Max proceeded to explain everything he knew about the subject, concluding with “the fact that he survived the initial bite indicates that someone at
that farm must have had exceptional medical training to help him fight off the venom.”
“The bite was healed with very little scarring, possibly his Fae genetics may have helped with that. How that may affect the virus in his body is anyone’s guess, but I have a theory about that, or rather about where he’s headed.”
“If you’ll check with the shuttle port, using your authority as a security specialist to find out what his final-destination port was, I think we’ll find that he’s headed to Dominion.”
Remi pulled out his Cortex and searched for the port’s code, then connected to the ticket counter. He argued with an annoyed employee who connected him with an annoyed manager who finally gave up the information in a slightly less annoyed tone once he verified Remi’s ID. “Thank you,” Remi huffed and disconnected. He looked at Max. “Dominion.” “How did you…?”
“I have a colleague who works at a research facility up there. I think that’s where he’s headed. Doctor Lucius McNair is studying, among other things, native mating venom,” Max said.
TJ and Remi looked at each other, seeming to come to some unspoken agreement. “He’s got a good head start on us, but this is going to take some preparation. Styles and I need to alert our teams that we’ll be gone for a few days and we’ll need supplies and clothes for the trip. Styles can get us reservations for the day after tomorrow. He’ll have more pull with the port if we have to declare it emergency travel,” TJ said.
“Get me a ticket too. I’m going with you. Someone needs to keep you two boneheads from killing each other and Tiger may need my services. Oh, and it’s snowing up there right now, at least until we get to the valley they’re in, then we’ll be in a sheltered area.”
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