“She's not there. I'm guessing she's waiting somewhere on the road you live, not quite at your house, but close enough not to miss us when we drive by,” Chey said, pulling her attention in from outside and across the car to him.
Leander struggled not to shout. He wasn't typically a shouter, but he'd given his cautions for a reason.
Stubborn damn women.
Giving in to the only recourse he had left, biting back harsh words for the queen of Latvala, Leander turned off the main highway twenty minutes later and followed the back roads deeper into the woods.
“I can't believe you grew up here,” Chey said, angling her head to try and get a better view of the tall, tall trees.
“It was...interesting,” was all he said. He ignored the questioning look Chey shot him.
On the final road, turning the corner onto a dead end street, Leander blew out a long, slow breath and prepared himself. Ahead, he saw a rental car pulled to the side of the road and came to a stop behind it.
“There she is,” Leander said with no small amount of relief and irritation all at once. He put the car in park, unclasped his seat belt, and got out of the car at the same time Wynn climbed out of hers. He knew she'd borrowed clothes from Chey by the outfit of plain jeans and a pretty button down silk shirt of mint green. No plaid in sight, a calling card of Wynn's regarding fashion. Her style was always a bit more modern than Chey's, who trended toward classic elegance.
Trotting from her car to his, Wynn threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. As irritated as he was that she'd not heeded his warnings, he was glad to see her. She smelled good, felt good, and he swung her around in a little circle before planting a possessive kiss on her mouth.
“You should have stayed away,” he said against her lips.
“It's your life on the line, Leander. I couldn't.” Leaning back enough to see his eyes, she smoothed a few loose strands of hair away from his face.
He wrecked the neat style of her hair—hanging loose and straight to her shoulders in a familiar bob, the precious curls of sleep ironed out—by returning a stroke of his hand through the silken softness.
“Why don't you two take one of the rental cars back to whatever hotel you were at--”
“No. We're both coming with you,” Wynn said, cutting him off.
“Yes, we're coming with you.” Chey strode up on his other side and checked a non-existent watch on her wrist. “And time's wasting.”
Yes. Yes it was. Leander pressed another kiss to Wynn's mouth, then set her feet on the ground. “Follow me up to the house.”
He gave Wynn's backside a firm pat, then turned back to the car, knowing without being told that Chey would ride with Wynn the rest of the way. A glance back just before sliding into the driver's seat assured him he still knew the girls as well as he ever had when Chey and Wynn climbed into the vehicle ahead.
Passing them on the road, he drove the last quarter mile and turned into the driveway of the only house within sight. The log cabin styled home sat on its own plot of acreage in the middle of the forest, protected not only by the sturdy, old-as-dirt trees but surveillance monitoring every inch of the road and grounds in a half mile radius. A person couldn't get within range of the house from any direction without someone knowing about it. The only reason the security hadn't come forward to stop them was because they didn't consider him a threat.
Cutting the engine, he waited for the girls outside the car, fidgeting with the keys. He was openly dressed in dark clothing but had deposited all the weapons except one hidden gun and a knife in the trunk. He had Chey's safety to think about as well, and took the job of keeping her alive seriously.
Snatching Wynn's hand, Leander led the way up the drive. He wasn't surprised to see his father exit the front door and wait on the porch, dressed the same as he always had in what Leander referred to as 'old man pants' and a gray plaid button down.
“So I see you've met my fiance already. Wynn and Chey, my father, Nathaniel. Dad, Wynn and Chey.” Leander made formal introductions as they approached the steps.
“Good to meet you, Nathaniel,” Chey said, tipping her head in a cordial nod.
“Hello,” Wynn said more quietly.
Nathaniel glanced between the women. “Yes, yes, hello. You shouldn't be here. I don't imagine Leander's very happy about that.”
“No, but we're here, and we'd like to know what the threat is about,” Wynn said, clinging tight to Leander's hand.
Nathaniel looked pointedly at Leander.
Put on the spot, unable to have a discussion without the girls overhearing, Leander made a choice. The choice to admit what his father did for a living, to inadvertently fill the women in about some of the uncomfortable lessons of his past. Secrets could only be kept so long. He nodded once to his father.
“Come inside, then.” Nathaniel held the door open.
Leander suffered flashbacks as he stepped inside the cabin, which looked so much like it always had. Warm colors, inviting furniture, the homey feeling of comfort and security, as if nothing bad could ever happen in this house. He didn't bother to sit down, preferring to stand in the middle of the living room with the girls at his flank while Nathaniel closed and locked the door behind them.
“I'm afraid I've got bad news, Leander,” he said when he faced him, his features pinched, skin paler than it was moments before.
“So it appears. Who is it I've got to watch out for?” That was the conclusion he'd come to after the long flight: his father had intel about an act of revenge on him, and was using Leander as either bait or blackmail.
Silence descended on the living room. A tense kind of silence that Nathaniel broke by spreading his hands wide, palms up, as if seeking supplication. “When I offered you something to help a while back--”
“Two months ago, yes.”
“What was two months ago?” Wynn asked, interrupting.
“I wasn't feeling well and I had...something to do, so I sought my father out for help,” Leander said, instinctively vague with the information.
“You mean you had a mission with the guys and weren't feeling up to par.” Wynn cut straight to the chase.
“Yes.” Leander glanced at Wynn, then Chey, surprised to find no judgement there, only unhappiness. He glanced back at his father. “Anyway, what about it?”
“I was working on a project at the time and...and I gave you the wrong shot, son. The vials got mixed up, I don't know how, I really don't, and you were injected with the wrong thing.” Nathaniel's expression was nothing but lament and agony. Clearly, the mix up hadn't been the intended outcome.
And it was the last thing Leander expected to hear. “What?”
“I don't understand. Are you a doctor?” Wynn asked with a frown.
“I've been working on a project, a new...something.” He glanced at the women and hesitated. “I'm a scientist.”
His father's work was about as top secret as it got, and Leander understood the pause. This was one reason he hadn't wanted the girls here. A chill shivered its way up his spine, spreading out over his nape and along his scalp. He knew, intimately, what his father worked on. What his 'projects' entailed.
“I don't understand,” Wynn said, frowning. “Why is that dangerous?”
“My work is in the bioterrorism business. The virus I infected him with is a slow release agent, meant to kill the recipient after a specific amount of time has passed. This makes it safer for governments to--” Nathaniel hesitated, then cut off that line of thought. “Anyway, I was testing multiple subjects with different time releases. Recently we ran their blood to see how the virus was reacting in their system, and one of the subjects came back with no trace of the agent. In fact, he was healthy as a horse. It set off alarms in my head from when Leander came here to receive his booster shot. That's when I realized I must have picked up the wrong vial, giving Leander the injection meant for the test subject and giving the subject the booster instead. I don't know how the mix up happened, everything is v
ery well organized and labeled and I--”
Leander held up a hand to pause his father's sudden, nervous and upset rambling. Wynn and Chey's gasps of surprise and horror went unanswered. Leander looked his father straight in the eye and said, “So where's the antidote? I know you've got one, you've always got one. That's why I'm here, isn't it? Because you need to counter the virus with the cure.”
“I wish I had it, son. I do. But after I made the antidote, it went straight to the Center, like everything else, and I can't get access. I've tried, of course. And before you ask—I can't make more because I'm now missing some of the more important components.” Nathaniel's hands fell to his sides.
“You work for the department of defense?” Chey said, wearing a similar frown like Wynn.
“A more clandestine group than that, but yes,” Nathaniel said. “It's a private organization, who then contracts out to other, larger...clientele.”
“He's being modest. My father is one of the top experts in his field.” Leander, ever since he'd been able to understand what his father did for a living, had loathed the endeavor and begged him to get out of the business. It was a long, drawn out argument that spanned more than a decade.
The irony that he was now infected with a dangerous virus was just one more slap in the face.
“So that big white building in the back. That's where you infect people?” Wynn said with an aghast expression.
“No, no. That's where I develop the agents. I do all the exploratory work there, then hand the projects off to the Center for safe keeping,” Nathaniel said.
“I don't understand why you can't get the antidote back. You made it, right?” Wynn said, her free hand fluttering up near her throat. “Did you just bring him back here to die, then? If you knew you couldn't get the antidote?”
“Of course not.” Nathaniel glanced at Wynn and Chey, then looked back to Leander. “Even if I still worked at the Center, I would have to get special clearance to enter the rooms where the dangerous agents are kept. I work here, have for years, which means I simply can't walk in and walk out of the Center at any time, with any virus or agent. We would have every deadly virus known—and unknown—to man running rampant if the access for everyone was too easy. I know Leander's got contacts in high places, however, and I'm hoping you can use them to sway the higher ups at the Center to release it to me. I created it, but when I turn my finished projects over, that's it. Unless they need me to adjust an element, I'm on to the next project.”
“He means that he's got to work on the next, best way to kill millions of people.” Leander let go of Wynn's hand and turned to pace the room.
“Let's not get started on that, Leander,” Nathaniel said, holding up a hand in a halting motion.
“Why not, dad? Why not now? How long have I said to give up this place, give up your work?” He bit off so much more that he wanted to say, that he'd said a hundred times before. This was the cause of the rift between father and son: Leander spent his time trying to save people, while his father developed ways to kill them.
“Isn't it dangerous to work on such things in the open?” Chey asked, still apparently stuck on the laboratory.
“Yes,” Leander said in response to Chey. “They call it hiding in plain sight. Few people would think that such delicate...deadly...work would be carried out in such innocuous surroundings. But the labs outside are far more sophisticated than you might think, and there's heavy surveillance around the house and woods here. Not just anyone can get close without repercussions. I'm guessing the security didn't consider Wynn a threat. They won't show themselves until they're absolutely sure someone is attempting to get into the lab—or compromise my dad and his knowledge.”
“That's why he met me outside with a shotgun yesterday,” Wynn said, as if that now made more sense.
“I don't know if I've got the right connections, dad, to get this released. I mean, just because I know people--”
“Ask Sander. Maybe he can put in a call to add urgency to the situation. Leaders of many nations call for favors to each other all the time. And many of them are of this more secretive nature. I've seen it done. Just ask Sander,” Chey said.
That brought Leander back around to the other main problem this morning. Lack of contact with the plane. He rubbed a finger across his lip, not wanting to break that news at the moment.
“Leander? We don't have a lot of time, son. If she thinks Sander can help--”
“I don't know if he can or not. I'm thinking of my other connections to see if there's another way.” Leander, knowing he wouldn't get a cell signal here, went to the landline and dialed Mattias's number.
It rang. And rang. And rang. Then went to voicemail.
“He's as good a place to start as any, Leander. It'll take time for the calls to go through, and to travel to—where is it? The antidote?” Wynn asked.
“The Center is in Georgia. Although I still know many of the workers there, I haven't been able to obtain access now that I work offsite,” Nathaniel said.
Leander ended the call without leaving a message. Tension over the fate of the plane made his shoulders tight. “I can't get through right now,” he said to Wynn.
“But you have a 'special' phone that's just between you all,” Chey said, picking up where Wynn left off. “Why aren't they answering? I thought that's what they were for.”
Leander cursed under his breath. “I can't get a signal out here.”
“So, let's drive until we get one,” Chey countered.
“It's better to stay near the landline,” he said.
Chey narrowed her eyes. “What's going on, Leander?”
There wasn't any other way around it. He was going to have to tell Chey what he knew. “I'm not one hundred percent positive, but I think Kristo's kidnapping was a set up. To get as many of the Elite members in one place at a time to...to...” He made a gesture with his hand.
“To?” Chey said, prompting him. Then her hands flew up to cover her lips. “Oh no. No.”
Reluctantly, Leander said, “They were en route in Ahsan's jet to Weithan Isle. I lost contact with them in the middle of a conversation with Mattias. I suspected the 'attackers' that came at us in the compound were plants. We were meant to take them back for questioning and I suggested to Mattias that there might be a device in one of their weapons. The line went dead and I haven't been able to raise them since.”
. . .
The first thing Chey did was to pull her phone out, apparently prepared to call Sander herself.
“You can't get a signal here,” Leander said at the same time as Nathaniel and Wynn.
Chey didn't hesitate. She pushed the phone back into her pocket, face drawn with worry, and stepped across the living area to use the same phone as Leander. Plucking up the handset, she put it to her ear after dialing a number.
“Urmas? It's Chey. I need you to raise Sander on the phone. Or however you have to. Him or Mattias. If you can't, or don't have access, then call in one of the Generals. Also, I want you to lean on the military and find out where Ahsan Afshar's private jet is right now. I don't have time to explain, just do it, please.”
Leander listened to Chey give her orders, secretly impressed with her reaction to the news. That was her husband and brother in law up in Ahsan's plane, lives at risk, and she handled herself with calculated calm that he'd watched grow in her time as queen. She was learning quickly how to tackle even the most difficult problems and use the connections available to her.
Which, he had to admit, were a lot stronger than his own in this particular situation.
“No, I'll call you back in fifteen minutes. Time is of the utmost importance here, so put this as priority one,” Chey said, then ended the call. As thorough as she'd been, and in control, her hands shook when she set the receiver back into the cradle.
“How long do you think it'll take to know anything?” Wynn asked Chey.
“They'll look into it immediately, I'm sure.” Chey wrung her hands together and l
ooked from Wynn to Leander. “I wish you would have told me sooner.”
“I didn't want to panic anyone and besides that, it's very possible that everything is fine and they just hit a blackout point. I didn't want to say anything until I knew more,” he said. And, he admitted to himself, he'd wanted to avoid harder questions from Chey. Ones difficult to dismiss and ignore when it was only the two of them on a plane. The devil on his shoulder insisted that if he had trusted her with the information, then perhaps she would have already been in touch with Urmas and the Latvala military, and they might have an answer to what happened to Ahsan's jet.
Leander rubbed his jaw, too restless to make himself comfortable on a couch. The women also remained standing, agitated and probably as restless as he. “How will it happen?” he finally asked his father. The death. He wanted to know just how painful it would be and how it would progress...just in case.
Nathaniel sank down into a chair, sitting on the edge while he twisted the wedding ring he still wore around and around his ring finger. Left a long time ago by Leander's mother over the very same things that drove father and son apart, Nathaniel chose to cling to the past. Pictures sat on the fireplace mantel of a family in happier times, along with a dated wedding photo of a much younger Nathaniel and a pretty, brown haired woman in a lace gown.
“By some time tomorrow evening, you'll start to feel flush and have stomach cramps. The aching will spread throughout your body and your organs will shut down. It's about a five to eight hour process from subjects already affected,” Nathaniel said.
Wynn covered her mouth and made a low noise of distress. Chey pulled her into a hug, which Wynn went into willingly.
Leander crossed the room and laid a hand on Wynn's delicate spine. “It won't come to that, don't worry. We'll figure it out.”
“I don't understand why anyone would want to develop such a thing,” Wynn said through her tears.
“It's part of warfare,” Nathaniel said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Leander made a cutting-off motion with one hand out of the line of sight of the girls. He didn't want his father to go into any more detail. The stories only got uglier and more unbelievable from here. More horrifying. Leander had difficulty wrapping his head around some of the things the military establishments of the world could, and would, do. He didn't want the women exposed to more of it than they had to be. Already, they knew too much.
Royal Elite: Leander Page 10