Midnight Fever

by Lisa Marie Rice

  “Good for him,” she said.

  “It doesn’t end there and it doesn’t end well.” Nick’s mouth pursed into a thin line. “Back at the FOB, he was busy arranging for placing the little boys in the care of an international aid agency when the CIA prick came storming in with Matt’s commanding officer, screaming at Matt that he’d fucked with our son of a bitch and that Matt had to hand back the warlord’s property.”

  Shock chased the air from her lungs. “Property?”

  “Yeah.” Nick nodded grimly. “Property. Little boys as property. At which point, Matt pointed out that this country fought a fucking war a hundred and fifty years ago so that the US government never again thought of human beings as property.”

  “I hate that CIA guy already.”

  “According to the CIA fucker—who had the audacity to introduce himself as John Smith—there was a deep game being played and Matt had stuck himself right in the middle and messed it up. So not only was Matt supposed to deliver those poor terrified and abused boys back to the monster who was torturing them, he was expected to apologize to the warlord, too.”

  Oh God. “Was that a direct order? From his commanding officer?” Kay knew enough about the military to know that disobeying a direct order was the worst crime a soldier could commit, besides treason.

  “Gets a little tricky, because the direct order was verbally given by CIA Fuckface. Who then told Matt’s XO to confirm. The officer nodded, but didn’t give the verbal order. By which point Matt was getting back into his Humvee to head for Kabul. CIA Fuckface said if he left the FOB, he’d pay for it with his career, but at that point Matt was so pissed, he left anyway. By the time he got to Kabul, the shit had hit the fan.”

  “They blamed Matt?” Kay asked, appalled.

  “No, all the SEALs were on his side, but the CIA guy, John Smith, had accused him of ‘causing bodily harm to a crucial ally’, making it sound like Matt had lost control. No mention of the kids, of the Bacha Bazi. A lot of US military personnel are tempted to break a lot of warlord jaws, so they decided to turn Matt into an object lesson. Smith was foaming at the mouth for a court martial but Matt is a hero. Has medals coming out his ass. No one would dare court martial him. And there was resistance to giving him a dishonorable discharge. So, he got an OTH discharge. Effective immediately.”

  “OTH?”

  “Other Than Honorable.”

  “Oh my God, that is terrible!” A loyal Navy officer, a SEAL, a man who risked his life daily for his country, being discharged under a cloud…Kay could barely believe it.

  Nick lifted Kay by her shoulders, kissed her gently on the mouth.

  “Yes, it’s terrible, honey. But ASI and anyone who knows Matt is standing by his side. And we’re working to get the OTH discharge overruled. We’re fighting back. Just like you’re fighting back. Either you stand for something or you don’t. You and I and our friends—my teammates, Priyanka, Mike Hammer—will live or die by what we stand for. We will never give up and we will never back down. But right now, to continue the fight, you need to rest, otherwise you’ll collapse. Am I right?”

  He was looking deep into her eyes, so deeply she couldn’t lie. Kay wanted to continue tracking down the criminals who had infested her world of science. Not rest until she found the bastards. But she was exhausted. Her knees were trembling; she could barely stand. She needed to rest or she’d collapse, just as Nick said.

  “You’re right.” No use in lying. Another half hour of work and she’d fall asleep with her face on the keyboard. She’d worked this hard before and there came a point when her body simply shut down. She was at that point now. “What time is it?”

  “Four.”

  “Four what?”

  He looked at her curiously. “Four in the afternoon. You’ve been working nonstop for almost 24 hours. Time to rest.”

  She nodded.

  “Good girl. How long do you need?”

  She looked up at him, strong and steady, waiting for her answer. He was clearly willing to roll with whatever she said. She knew enough of Nick to know he was protective, maybe even overprotective, like her grandfather. He’d want her to sleep around the clock, but he wasn’t pushing for that. He trusted her to know herself, know how much rest she’d need to be functional. He wasn’t pushing in any direction, just waiting for her to tell him.

  They crossed the room, walked into the big corridor. She was a little turned around and wouldn’t have been able to find their room without his help.

  “I think if I could rest for about four hours, I’ll be okay.”

  His glance was piercing, but he didn’t say anything. “Four hours it is. I’ll have coffee and some dinner waiting.”

  “A sex god and he cooks dinner.”

  “Let’s not go overboard. A sex god, yes. Dinner, no. That would be thanks to Isabel and her minions.”

  They were in the huge bedroom. Kay turned around, linked her arms around his neck and lifted to kiss him, breaking away when the kiss got interesting. Sex would be wonderful, but it would wipe her out.

  He held up the covers. “Get in, honey.”

  All the fatigue, all the horror and terror of the past day came down on her like an anvil. With barely the energy to move, she crawled into bed and felt him get in behind her, curling around her like a strong, warm wall.

  Nick reached up, did something, and the light dimmed almost completely. He held her, one thick arm around her stomach, knees tucked in behind hers, a living blanket. He had a huge erection against the small of her back.

  “Nick, I—” An enormous yawn overtook her.

  “Shh.” His lips moved against her ear, his deep voice sounding like it came from the pit of his stomach, vibrating against her back. “You’re too tired. I just want you to sleep in my arms. I almost lost you yesterday, Kay. I need to hold you.”

  She sighed. It felt so good to be held. Desire was there but it was far away, beyond the fatigue. It could wait. She was falling, falling into sleep, but she knew if she fell too far he would catch her.

  “Sleep, darling,” he said in that dark dark voice, and she plunged straight down.

  “Help, Kay. You’ve got to help.”

  “Priyanka!”

  Kay looked greedily at her friend. She was back! So beautiful, so smart. Priyanka. “I’ve missed you so much.”

  Priyanka smiled for an instant. “Yes, I know. I know everything.”

  “If you know everything, then help me, Priyanka. Help me stop this craziness. I watched Mike Hammer die.”

  “I died, too, Kay.”

  “God, I know. Killed. No way were you drunk behind the wheel.”

  Her face was sad, her skin ashen instead of that beautiful bronze color. “No, I wasn’t drunk. Is that what they’re saying? But I am dead.”

  Grief shot through Kay all over again, as piercing as the first time she’d heard Priyanka was dead. “But you’re here now. Stay. Stay with me,” she begged. “Let’s work this out together. I need you, Priyanka. I can’t do this alone.”

  Priyanka looked down then back up. Kay gasped. There were holes where Priyanka’s eyes had been. No longer that warm chocolate brown, full of amusement and life and intelligence. Now there was nothing. Emptiness.

  “Can’t help you, Kay.” Her voice was low, barely a whisper. Priyanka turned and started walking away. A freezing cold wind blew up out of nowhere and her long dark hair whirled around her head.

  No! Kay couldn’t let her go! She missed her, needed her. Priyanka knew how to tease out the mystery from the thousands and thousands of files. Ahead of Priyanka were endless doorways, fading into infinity. Door after door after door…

  Priyanka was walking through them, one after the other, becoming smaller and smaller.

  Kay ran after her, but her feet weren’t working. She couldn’t move, her body simply wouldn’t work. She struggled but it was useless, it was as if she were tied down, encased in something hard and unyielding.

  Priyanka was barely a dot on
the horizon, walking through the doors stretching into infinity.

  Kay leaned forward, trying to move her feet. She put everything into her scream, but it came out soundless. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak!

  Priyanka was at the edge of infinity. She turned and spoke softly, her voice directly in Kay’s ear, though she was so far away.

  “So many dead, Kay. Such a horrible death, though you were spared. You know why. The dead will tell you why. The dead will become crisper.”

  “What?”

  “Crisper, they will become crisper.” And the voice disappeared and the faint dot on the horizon that was Priyanka winked out.

  The wind was freezing, the cold bitterness of a world where Priyanka was gone.

  “Crisper!” Suddenly Priyanka was screaming, right in her ear, anger and fear in the voice. She gave a howl that Kay felt down to her toes.

  Kay bolted up in bed, heart pounding, the sound of a scream echoing in the room. Nick held her tightly with one arm, the other holding a heavy black gun, which he pointed where his eyes looked.

  She was sweating, heart pounding. Nick’s muscles were rigid, tight.

  He relented first, relaxing, putting the gun down on the night table. She hadn’t even known it was there.

  “Sorry,” she whispered through a tight voice. “Nightmare.”

  “That’s okay, honey,” Nick said, kissing the top of her head. “You scared the shit out of me, though. Must have been a hell of a nightmare.”

  She eased up against the headboard. A bottle of water and a glass had been placed on her side of the bed, which she thought was better than a gun. She poured herself a glass with shaking hands. Nick’s steady hand cupped hers as she brought the glass to her lips and drank deeply.

  “It was.” She leaned into him, into that strong body, steady as a rock. The nightmare had chilled her but his body heat was starting to warm her back up. “Not so much a nightmare, just sad and cold. Priyanka leaving.”

  That was it. Priyanka’s spirit had left the world. It was as if she’d been hanging around, maybe trying to help Kay, but now her time was up. Priyanka had walked through that endless corridor of endless doors and had departed this earth. Kay shivered, feeling bereft all over again. With hindsight, she realized she’d still somehow felt Priyanka, guiding her, helping her, but now—now there was only emptiness.

  She was gone. Forever.

  “She’s gone.” Nick echoed her thoughts. His voice was so low, she perceived the words through the vibration in his chest rather than from his lips.

  “Yeah,” she whispered, throat tight. “I know.” The words hurt.

  Words. She remembered the fun times with Priyanka, who had been a chatterbox when she relaxed. All business at work, such a complex and fascinating woman outside of work. How odd that her last word to Kay had been crisper.

  Priyanka was so embedded in Kay’s heart that she thought she could still hear her voice. Crisper.

  Kay stiffened.

  “Honey?” Nick pulled away a little, frowning down at her.

  “Crisper,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  Kay looked at him but she didn’t see him. She saw through him, to a point a million miles away.

  “Kay?”

  “Crisper.” The word bounced around inside her head. Bless her, Priyanka had given her the key from beyond the grave.

  CRISPR.

  Because Bill Morrell hadn’t been a geneticist. He wouldn’t necessarily have known how to edit genes using a CRISPR. But she knew someone who was a geneticist and would have known how to splice DNA into a gene.

  Oh God.

  Kay gave Nick a little push and rolled out of bed, pulling on the soft yoga outfit. She ran toward the room where she’d worked, but only got as far as the huge plaza. She was almost jumping with anxiety.

  Nick was right behind her, frowning. “Kay, what’s crisper?”

  “Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats. I told John that. Where’s the office, Nick? Priyanka just gave me the key!”

  “Come with me.” He led her back, without once mentioning that a dead woman had talked to her. If Kay’s head weren’t whirling, she’d have kissed him for that. Down one hall and then another and he opened a door and there it was—her workspace, just as she’d left it.

  Kay made a beeline, sitting down, opening the root directory.

  “CRISPR is the gene engineering and editing system. It can target specific areas of genetic code and can edit DNA at specific locations. If the H1N1 was engineered with specific DNA, they had to use a CRISPR. It wasn’t Bill Morrell. He wouldn’t know how to splice and edit DNA at that level. Someone else did it, did the genetic engineering. I need to check usage of the CDC CRISPR-Cas9 machines. Someone used those machines, and I think I know who—”

  The rest was lost in the explosion that rocked the Grange.

  “Kay!” Nick shouted. He threw himself over her, mantling as much of her as he could. The force of the explosion had to be huge to make the floor shake. The Grange was built as solidly as technology would allow.

  The floor stopped shaking, nothing falling from the above. Was another explosion coming?

  He jumped up, pulling Kay with him. He grabbed her hand and ran while thumbing in the first number on his ASI cell. Each ASI operative had the bosses on speed dial. No matter what John “Midnight” Huntington or Douglas “Senior” Kowalski were doing, they’d answer, day or night. The Senior was away, so Nick called Midnight.

  Midnight answered on the first ring. It wasn’t a number you called to say hey, howzzit hangin’?

  “Nick. Talk to me.”

  “The Grange is under fire. I don’t know who or what is out there. I’m taking Kay to the safe room then I’m going up.”

  “Get back to you in a minute,” Midnight said, and the line went dead.

  Nick pulled Kay back for a second at an unmarked stretch of wall. “Here, honey.”

  “Here?” Her eyes were wide as she looked at the unbroken wall. She wasn’t panicking and she wasn’t out of breath. Good girl. He felt a surge of pride in his smart princess.

  Nick put his hand on a section of the wall and a door slid open. As it did, a light went on inside. He knew what was there. A large, comfortable space with a separate electricity system, separate air system and food and water supplies. There was also a separate weapons locker.

  Figuring this thing out was her business. Protecting her while she did it was his.

  He urged her into the room but stopped at the door. “This is a safe room, honey. Nothing can get to you here. To get out, punch 2001 on the keypad by the door, but don’t go out unless I’m on the other side of that door. I need to get topside.”

  “Can I help you in any way?”

  Nick repressed a shudder at the idea of Kay in the line of fire. “No, no way. You need to stay safe here. We need you, I’m just the muscle.”

  “Okay.” She was watching his eyes, taking her cue from him. “I don’t want to get in your way. I’ll stay here, don’t worry about me.”

  God yeah, this was a woman in a million. Her world was upended, best friend dead, a man had died in her arms, and she didn’t want him to worry about her. He kissed her, waited for the vault-like door to close, and turned to run for the main weapons locker.

  His ASI phone buzzed. “Yeah?”

  It was Felicity, only on speaker, not on vid. “Nick, you’ve got an overhead drone. Not a quadcopter like the one that came after Kay. We don’t have a perfect visual, I’m piggybacking on a communications satellite, but it’s got missiles. It just shot one at you—”

  With anyone but Felicity, Nick would have said, no shit Sherlock, but Felicity didn’t deserve it. She was working hard for him, she worked hard for everyone.

  He was passing the entrance elevator. Smoke was drifting down from the top.

  “It wiped out John’s shack and your vehicle. I don’t know how, but someone followed your vehicle up to the Grange. The guy�
�s good, Nick.”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t want to think too closely about someone good at being bad targeting Kay. “Can you tell how many more missiles the drone has?”

  “Negative,” Felicity said sadly. Metal’s bass tones rumbled in the background. “We can’t see the belly. However, my guy—who is usually right—guesses the drone only has one other missile to shoot, given the size. But this is outside my wheelhouse, Nick, and Metal doesn’t like the thought of you paying the price if he’s wrong.”

  “I trust Metal. Do you think the drone has FLIR?” Meaning, would it have infrared and could its cameras see him if he hid in the trees.

  Metal’s voice came on. “It’s a drone model I’ve never seen before, a little smaller than a Watchkeeper. Act as if it has FLIR, that way you’re safe. Anti IR blankets in the armory.”

  “Altitude?”

  The keyboard clickety-clacked. “He’s in a circular flight path, counterclockwise, at about a thousand meters.”

  Nick did the calculations in his head. Hard, but doable. “Speed?”

  Another moment of clacking. “About 80 mph.”

  He hit the armory and came out with comms, an IR cloaking blanket, Kevlar-plated body armor and a MacMillan TAC-50. Jacko was in charge of gear, always, and Nick had no doubt at all that the rifle would be in perfect working order.

  It was a damn pity that he’d left the DD in the SUV. Nick would have kicked his own ass if he could have reached it. He’d been so keen to get Kay into the Grange that he hadn’t unloaded the vehicle.

  Fuck.

  Nick grabbed a few grenades and ran to an auxiliary exit.

  “I’m headed to the north exit since the main exit is destroyed. When the drone is facing away from me, give me a heads-up.” The photographic equipment would be in the nose.

  “Roger that,” Metal said.

  Nick rode up to the ground but held back on opening the elevator doors until Metal gave the okay. “Hundred meters north-northwest,” Metal said. “I estimate you have about four minutes.” Nick punched the buttons. The doors opened silently and he stepped out. A lot of work had gone into surrounding the unassuming entrance to the Grange with unassuming security.