In the Shadows (Metahuman Files Book 3)

by Hailey Turner

  “Dr. Gold, do you copy?” Trevor said as he braced Sean and kept him from keeling over out of his seat. “Agent Delaney definitely has a concussion, but I’m more worried about the contusion on the right side of his face. He has some broken bones around the orbital area. You’ll want to prep a regen regime for him.”

  Sean spat into the bag as his body finished expelling what little was left in his stomach. Antonovich had fried his bioware and his comms, so he couldn’t hear what Dr. Gracie Gold, the surgeon who headed up the MDF’s Medical Division, responded with.

  “Copy that,” Trevor said, the concern in his brown eyes difficult to escape. “So, Sean. Gracie says you get to spend the rest of the day in Medical before debriefing with the director.”

  “That sounds so fun,” Sean muttered as he used the sleeve of his dirty suit jacket to wipe his mouth clean.

  Dr. Gracie Gold used to volunteer with Doctors Without Borders before a jihadist terrorist group exploded a Splice bomb in the middle of the Ethiopian refugee camp she’d been volunteering in. She was the only survivor of that attack, coming away with the power to accelerate a person’s ability to heal up to three times the normal speed for a limited amount of time. Pairing her power with a regen regime meant healing could happen in hours or days rather than weeks. That didn’t mean it was comfortable.

  Trevor took Sean’s pulse rate and blood pressure with the field version of the med-glove he’d pulled from the jet’s field kit. The medical device was of a shorter design than the elbow-length ones used in a hospital setting.

  “You lose consciousness when you took these hits?” Trevor asked.

  “No,” Sean dutifully replied. “Slept a little afterward, even though I tried not to.”

  “Let’s get an IV in you.”

  Sean slowly attempted to pull off his suit jacket, trying not to jar his head while Trevor got up to get the bigger med-kit from a storage compartment up front. Another pair of hands helped remove the offending piece of clothing for him and Sean squinted up at Alexei.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “You in New Miami why?” Alexei asked. He tossed the suit jacket on the seat behind Sean’s, stepping out of Trevor’s way when the medic returned.

  “Because that’s where Wolcott’s schedule allowed us to meet.”

  Sean undid the cuff of his button-down, rolling his sleeve up so Trevor could slide a catheter and needle into a vein on the back of his hand. Two IVs piggybacked into a single entry point, the saline and glucose bags hanging from a small, floating disk used to secure IVs and other medical devices.

  “Why weren’t we told?” Trevor asked as he unsealed a quick-heal patch and delicately laid it over Sean’s swollen right cheek. It wouldn’t fix the fracture underneath, but it would take the swelling and pain down.

  “Wasn’t your mission.”

  “You called me,” Alexei reminded him.

  Sean flinched as another quick-heal patch was applied to the left side of his face. “Because Antonovich’s assassin was going to cut Chloe’s throat, and I figured threatening him with the Pavluhkins might be enough to get him to stay his hand. It was a better option than me trying to shoot him in the face. I’m not as good as your brother with a gun.”

  “No one as good as Kilyusha.”

  Sean closed his eyes, slouching in the seat. He tried to ignore the throbbing in his head to answer everyone’s questions, but his concentration was rapidly failing. “I know. Which is why I didn’t try to shoot him.”

  “Could have phased.”

  Sean cracked open his one good eye, glaring up at where Alexei leaned over his seat. “Then that would have compromised the mission. Wasn’t worth the risk.”

  Alexei seemed angry by that answer, but Sean was too tired to figure out why. “They crack your skull. That not worth mission.”

  “It wasn’t your mission to execute.”

  “Is now,” Alexei scoffed.

  “Okay, let’s not argue about this. I’m ordering Sean to get some rest before we land,” Trevor said, giving Alexei a pointed look.

  Sean honestly expected Alexei to keep arguing. Most field teams wouldn’t think twice about using their powers in a fight, but Sean’s job differed from theirs. Using his power in the field could ruin missions that took months to plan, with every last little detail relying on Sean to keep his power under wraps, to be human.

  Alexei disappeared and Sean spared a moment to recline his seat before closing his eyes. A minute later someone draped a soft blanket over him.

  “Thanks,” he murmured to whoever had been so thoughtful.

  “Pozhaluysta.”

  Despite the pain in his skull, sleep wasn’t difficult to find, not after hours of staying awake, trying to keep the Wolcotts, and the mission, alive. Sean fell asleep quickly, the feel of gentle fingers brushing back his hair chasing him into unconsciousness.

  4

  No Luck But What We Make

  Dr. Gracie Gold held the scanner up to Sean’s face, passing it over the orbital bone of his right eye. An exact image of his skeletal structure appeared on the holoscreen hovering above the biobed. Sean had no idea what all the numbers in the side bar represented, but to his own eyes, he couldn’t see the fractures that were there five hours ago.

  MDF agents and operatives always had a stint in Medical after a mission, whether they were wounded or not. Physical checkups happened dozens of times a year, if not more. Any health problems were caught early that way and addressed. Considering the advancement in medicine over the last few centuries, no one had to worry about contagious STDs or other easily contractible infections anymore. It allowed people a freedom with their bodies their ancestors didn’t have.

  That didn’t mean Sean liked spending time in Medical.

  “Looks good,” Gracie finally said, studying the results before setting the scanner aside. “The nanites did a great job resetting and fusing the bone.”

  “I wanted to claw off my face,” Sean admitted.

  “Most people do.”

  Regen regimes were standard emergency care in most hospitals these days. Microscopic nanites carrying a person’s own stem cells were programmed to heal a specific injury, freeing up doctors to handle more patients. Injected into a patient’s body, the nanites could fix even major wounds over time. Paired with Gracie’s ability to heal people, Sean’s broken bones were fixed in about four hours, though his face still felt sore. The concussion symptoms were beginning to fade as well, but the nanites could only do so much for that. The brain was a delicate area to work in and always would be.

  Nanites couldn’t fix his exhaustion though, and all he wanted to do was sleep. He knew that wasn’t an option the second Alexei slipped into his private medical room. The younger man had handed him off to Gracie’s competent care a couple of hours ago before disappearing with the rest of his team, probably to report in. Sean wasn’t used to people coming to look for him after a mission like this unless it was his coworker, Elena Flores. She wasn’t his handler, but she helped wrangle the analysts whose intel formed the basis of Sean’s missions. She had already stopped by to check up on him and apologized for not anticipating the Antonovich Brigada angle.

  Elena was a friend in the sense they were drinking buddies off the clock when things got really bad at work, but that was it. Sean didn’t have any real friends outside of the job. He kept up the persona of his bank auditor life on social media, keeping in distant touch with old high school and university acquaintances and watching his brothers live life to the fullest without him. Sean cultivated his own life the same way he cultivated the lies he lived, which usually left him alone in the aftermath of missions.

  Alexei coming to see him was definitely out of the ordinary.

  “I hope you haven’t come to yell at my patient the same way you yell at your brother,” Gracie said mildly as she entered something into Sean’s file on her tablet.

  “Not yell. Retrieve. Director want to see him,” Alexei said.

  Gra
cie turned to look at Alexei, who gave her the best don’t shoot the messenger expression Sean had seen in a while. The puppy dog eyes were a nice touch. Alexei, Sean absently noted, had really nice eyes.

  He blamed that thought on the lingering painkillers in his system.

  Gracie shook her finger at Alexei. “Nuh-uh. He’s still under observation.”

  “You said I was healed,” Sean said.

  Gracie let out a heavy sigh. “Mostly healed. You need some down time, Sean. More than the regulatory three days. A meeting with the director isn’t something the doctor recommends, because those meetings inevitably turn into missions.”

  “I’ll be fine, Dr. Gold. Thank you for patching me up.” Sean slid off the biobed, ignoring the way its sensors went dark once he was no longer within its scan field. “I promise I’ll take it easy for the rest of the day.”

  “You say that, but I’ve heard it all before.” Gracie dragged his scan results out of the biobed’s main display and flung it at the work tablet she carried, the holographic data a bright streak in the air. “Rest is what the doctor orders, Sean.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  “Someone needs to mother all of you. I swear, it’s like all of you think you’re invincible.”

  Sean, having listened to his mother rant and rave about her own patients while growing up, wisely didn’t say a word.

  “Will make sure he get home after meeting,” Alexei said.

  “I can drive myself home,” Sean replied. Gracie raised an eyebrow at him and Sean winced. “I can let someone else drive me home?”

  “Good answer,” she told him dryly. “I’m putting you on vehicular restriction for twenty-four hours until we clear your post-concussion symptoms completely. I’ll send a reminder to the director in case he thinks you’re up for going anywhere after the meeting other than your apartment.”

  Sean wisely didn’t argue with her. Gracie was notorious within the MDF for barging into the director’s office and giving him a piece of her mind if she thought one of her patients was being deployed prematurely. No one was brave enough to get in her way when she was on the warpath, including the director. Gracie had come from the civilian sector, but she would’ve made a fantastic officer if she’d ever joined the military.

  “I promise I’ll be good.”

  “I want to see you back here tomorrow afternoon for a checkup. I’m putting that into your file and sending the director a note in case he thinks he can send you out again before then.”

  Gracie swept out of the room, already focused on her next patient, leaving them alone. Sean headed for the door but came to a stop when Alexei didn’t immediately move out of the way.

  “You said we had a meeting with the director,” Sean said pointedly.

  “Da. Not started yet. Jamie still five minutes out,” Alexei said.

  “Isn’t he supposed to be with his father?”

  Alexei shrugged. “Is Jamie. He not like when team deployed without him. Like mother hen. Biggest mother hen.”

  “We should head up anyway. I don’t like being late.”

  “Won’t be late.” Alexei lifted his hand to Sean’s face, but Sean leaned away from the touch. Alexei frowned a little, hand hovering close to where his head wound used to be. “Is okay?”

  “I’m fine. Nanites did their thing.”

  Alexei made a face, letting his arm fall back down to his side. “Hate nanites. Sometimes wish I had Kilyusha’s power.”

  “That would be nice. Terrible for undercover work though. It’d be a little obvious if you got beat up and the bruises disappeared within minutes.”

  “Should duck,” Alexei said as he turned to palm open the door.

  “You keep saying that. I know how to duck.”

  “Face say otherwise.”

  “My face is fine.”

  Alexei glanced over at Sean, gray eyes narrowed in perusal as the taller man openly studied him. “Yes. Is fine.”

  Sean rolled his eyes before stepping into the hallway, ignoring the weight of Alexei’s gaze. His time around Alexei back in January hadn’t exactly been comfortable, though it had become easier over the past several months whenever they saw each other on base. Alexei’s bristling demeanor had faded into something almost friendly, which had surprised Sean at first before he got used to it.

  Sean knew Alexei had a negative opinion of spies and spy work in general, something Sean couldn’t even fault him for. But Sean was an MDF agent, not a CIA officer, and his loyalty would always be to his country first. As a former Strike Force operative, he hoped Alexei would be able to accept that fully someday, not just for the sake of a mission. Sean had a feeling this mission with Adrian Wolcott wasn’t finished, and they’d be spending a lot more time together.

  They didn’t talk during the time it took to leave Medical through the corridor connecting it to the main building. Sean had learned during the meals they shared that sometimes Alexei preferred silence over conversation; this seemed like one of those times. Alexei called the elevator and they took it up to Level 36. It wasn’t the level Sean normally worked out of since the majority of the space was dedicated to the field teams. Alexei led him to a conference room where Alpha Team waited, along with the director. Sean nodded respectfully at Nazari while Alexei snapped off a salute.

  “Sir,” Sean said.

  “Glad to see you’re doing better, Agent Delaney. Both of you take a seat,” Nazari said.

  MDF Director Amir Nazari was a three-star Army general used to giving out orders and expecting obedience. Alexei prodded Sean down the table to a pair of empty seats, leaving the last remaining seat at Nazari’s right-hand side open. Since Jamie wasn’t present, Sean assumed he would take it when he finally arrived.

  Sitting down between Annabelle and Alexei, Sean activated his terminal and skimmed through the information there. He had yet to writeup his after-action report since Gracie had banned him from using a tablet while in Medical. His post-concussion symptoms had mostly subsided, thanks in part to the regen regime, but squinting at the data made his eyes burn a little.

  Alexei fixed the problem for him by reaching over and slapping his hand on the minimize command, closing down Sean’s terminal. Sean glared at him, but Alexei didn’t seem bothered by his annoyance. He didn’t move his hand away from the terminal controls, which annoyed Sean to no end, but he wasn’t one to make a scene in front of the director. Kyle watched the interplay from across the table with an inscrutable expression on his face Sean didn’t bother to try to decipher.

  The conference room door opening drew Sean’s attention, along with everyone else’s as Jamie finally arrived. Jamie looked like he had come straight from one of his father’s campaign stops, the expensive bespoke suit he wore a dark blue color and sporting a tiny American flag pin on its lapel. His blond hair was a little tousled, as if he’d run his fingers through it one too many times. His blue-eyed gaze swept around the table, lingering for a few seconds longer on Sean, before focusing on the director.

  “Sir,” Jamie said without saluting since he wasn’t in uniform.

  “Callahan. You didn’t have to leave the campaign trail for this,” Nazari said.

  “You’re splitting my team up and sending half of them out on a mission. I think it’s important I be here for this briefing, sir.”

  Nazari waved a hand at the table. “Take a seat so we can get started.”

  Sean bit back a grimace at that little tidbit. Sometimes he hated being right.

  Jamie sat down in the empty seat near the director, watching as Nazari opened up a few data windows and sent them into the center of the table. Several holopics of the Wolcotts appeared in the air, surrounded by a half-dozen holoscreens.

  “As you know, we’ve been cloning data taken from the zero-day exploit we left in the security systems of Saunders & Associates,” Nazari began. “We have yet to find a way into the Pavluhkins’ personal systems, but whatever target they choose from Saunders & Associates or any of the oth
ers we’ve opened up for them, we know about. Adrian and Declan Wolcott came onto our radar a few months ago because of this.”

  The holopic of Declan having dinner with Nikolaas Jansen popped up on everyone’s terminal, including Sean’s now that Alexei had removed his hand from the controls.

  “The Wolcott family privately owns one of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas, not to mention a slew of strip joints and nightclubs. They’ve been some of the biggest power players in Nevada for at least four generations. The city is a playground for the rich and famous, despite being in the middle of a desert. Adrian Wolcott doesn’t need to go to them; they come to him. We believe the issue with Jansen and the Wolcotts is less of a blackmail incident and more a willing business partnership.”

  “Why?” Jamie asked.

  “Because of Declan and the company he owns.”

  A third holopic rotated into prominent view, its border flashing for a few seconds. Sean had seen it before, but the rest of Alpha Team took their time studying the candid picture of Declan in the field. He looked a lot like Adrian: tall, with the same underlying build, if a bit more muscular, just with darker hair and eyes. Even in the holopic his gaze seemed sharp and assessing, a byproduct of his time in Special Forces rather than boardrooms. At first glance, he seemed far less approachable than Adrian’s openly smiling face.

  “This is Declan Wolcott, Adrian’s younger brother. Former Army Ranger, honorably discharged at the age of thirty-two, he’s spent the last seven years getting his private military company up and running. It’s one of the top go-to PMCs right now and holds many federal and defense contracts with the government and military. North Star International is looking more and more like a problem for us.”

  “Why go through Adrian then? Why not go directly through Declan if he’s the real target?” Katie wanted to know. She had her eyes on the data instead of the director, her fingers swiping over various files as she skimmed through it all. A deep read would have to come later for everyone.