“Whether your gut is right or not, we stopped a major enemy operation,” Meredith said. “And if Shepherd’s mission works out, we’ll be back in Kinsey’s good graces by the time we get home.”
Dom nodded. He would be grateful to be working with the United States government again rather than around them. But there was something troubling in Meredith’s words. Something he had known all along. He just hadn’t acknowledged it so bluntly before.
“When this all started, we thought we were dealing with an outbreak,” Dom said. “But it’s not about the Skulls anymore. It never really was, of course.”
“What do you mean?
“This is war. All-out war.”
“‘I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones,’” Meredith quoted.
“Biological weapons instead of nuclear, but Einstein was right as usual,” Dom said. “The Oni Agent leveled the playing field. No more superpowers. We’re damn close to sticks and stones again.”
Meredith stared out over the bow. “But we’re not there yet. Spitkovsky can still be stopped.”
“Damn right, he can be stopped,” Dom said. “And if I’ve got any say in the matter, we’ll be the ones that do it.”
-Epilogue-
The smell of fresh coffee permeated the mess of the Huntress. Dom enveloped Kara and Sadie in a hug as Maggie’s tail beat the bulkhead. She was eager to be a part of the family bonding experience and weaseled her way between them.
“Too tight, Dad,” Sadie said. “Every morning, you squeeze us like this. Eventually, we’re going to pop.”
Kara laughed and tousled her younger sister’s hair. “We’re made of stronger stuff than that, aren’t we?”
“Of course you are. You’re Hollands,” Dom said. “And you better get used to the hugging because it isn’t going to stop.”
He let go of them, his morning ritual of greeting them with an embrace complete.
“I don’t mind the hugs, Dad,” Kara said.
He smiled at that, but there was a hint of the bittersweet in those words. Kara, like him, had long since learned the invaluable worth of family time in a world where most people’s families had quite literally been torn apart.
“I’m glad you made it back, Dad,” Sadie said. “And this time just a few stitches, huh?” She poked his shoulder.
The muscle was still tender, but it was nothing compared to the wounds in his leg. Lauren had chided him as he had predicted, all but saying, “I told you so.” At least now he had some time to allow the injury to heal.
Kara handed him his crutch. “For the morning rounds.”
Dom took it reluctantly. Part of his deal with Lauren had been exerting as little pressure as possible on the damaged leg. The tissues needed rest, but Dom couldn’t sit still while there was work to be done. The crutch was a compromise. Sadie stayed behind in the mess, giving Maggie the belly scratches she deserved, as Dom limped out to the passageway.
Kara followed. “Dad?”
He paused outside the hatch. “Yes?”
“I’m just...really, really glad you didn’t get shot this time. Every time you go out there...” She wiped an eye. “Every time you go out there it gets a little harder, you know?”
Dom swallowed hard. “I know.” He hugged her again, and she pressed her face into the crook of his shoulder. They stayed like that until she drew away, her eyes red and puffy.
“I know I’m just being a huge baby. But this time, I almost lost both you and—” She stopped in midsentence, and the wide-eyed expression showed that she thought she’d said something wrong.
“Navid?” Dom finished for her.
“Yeah,” Kara said, looking sheepish. “When you both left, it felt a little like I was tearing apart inside. I don’t mean to sound whiny, but I hate this. I can’t stand being left behind when you leave.”
“I understand,” Dom said. “I hate leaving you. I’m sure Navid hated it too.”
“But we all do what we have to.” Kara stood straighter. “Sometimes I wish I could be out there with you. Be a Hunter myself someday.”
That frightened Dom more than he had thought possible. He tried to prevent his fear from crawling into his expression. “I’d rather you be safe.”
Kara laughed. “I know. I just feel like there’s got to be more I can do.”
“You’re doing enough just by being here,” Dom said. “You’ve helped Lauren in the lab. I guess if you’re really eager to pitch in, you can clean the mess or the heads.”
To his surprise, Kara didn’t look the least bit fazed. “I’ll do whatever needs getting done.”
“That’s my girl,” Dom said, squeezing her shoulder.
His next stop was the med bay. Most of the Portuguese airmen had been transported to the cleaned-up medical ward at Lajes. While the isolation ward had been burned to the ground, the general ward had been recoverable enough to ease the load on the med bay aboard the Huntress. They’d finally had enough time to catch up on Phoenix Compound production to stomp out the Oni Agent infestation on Lajes.
Dom stopped beside the first patient he saw. “Sean, how are you doing?”
The epidemiologist’s face was covered in sutures, and bandages wrapped his abdomen. “I’ve had better days, but I’m alive now, so that’s all there is to it.”
“You did a hell of a job,” Dom said. He’d read the epidemiologist’s report. The Oni Agent at Lajes hadn’t gone airborne after all. It had been spread by fleas, just like the bubonic plague.
Just as the Oni Agent had evolved to become airborne and antibiotic resistant aboard the Huntress, the Oni Agent at Lajes had been festering in a pack of stray dogs before making the evolutionary leap to using fleas as a carrier. The dogs themselves had contracted the Agent after scavenging the flesh of a Skull washed ashore on one of the far reaches of the island.
That the Oni Agent had evolved in this microenvironment so rapidly gave Dom pause. He wondered what other transformations the Oni Agent had made throughout the rest of the globe. What other strange variations might they find?
He prayed his medical team was equipped to handle the task, and that the Phoenix Compound was equal to the task. They would need all hands on deck to face the next threat.
“You focus on getting your ass better instead of just lying about all lazy-like, understood?” Dom asked Sean with a slight smirk.
“I get enough of that from Lauren. Don’t need it coming from you, too.”
Lauren was tending to one of their newest patients, Petty Officer Brendon O’Neil.
“How’s it going?” Dom asked.
“We’re doing our best to come up with a pain-management protocol,” Lauren said. “Every day, we get a little closer to balancing dosages.”
“I like the drugs, Doc,” O’Neil said, “but I also like to be able to think clearly.”
“Exactly,” Lauren said. “It’ll take some time, but I’m confident we can manage the symptoms of what the FGL have done to him.”
“And what have they done?” Dom asked.
Lauren tapped on a syringe before inserting it into a bulging vein beneath a plate on O’Neil’s arm. “They reengineered the Oni Agent. The nanobacteria component is almost fully intact, but they’ve managed to control them and stop the prion production.”
“So while they didn’t mess with my mind, those nano-things still did this.” O’Neil held up his claws and then looked up at Lauren. “What did those geeks call me?”
“They didn’t call you anything,” Lauren said. “But Samantha and Chao uncovered a name in the intel they recovered from the FGL. Apparently, they took some of Matsumoto’s initial research from the Congo and used it to create what they called the Heikegani Agent.”
O’Neil sighed, closing his eyes as the effects of the painkillers took hold. “They’re these Japanese crabs whose shells kind of look like a warrior’s face. Some people believe they’re the spirits of angry samurai. Just like me
, they got the rage of a fighter and the body of an armored beast.”
“Something like that,” Lauren said. “Sorry about the name.”
“I’ve been called worse,” O’Neil said.
“Heikegani Agent,” Dom repeated, testing the word on his tongue. “And as far as you and Peter can tell, that’s all they were working on in Tangier?”
“That’s right. A new wave of warriors with the ability to exert some influence over Skulls.”
“This just keeps getting better,” Dom said. He turned to O’Neil. “I never really thanked you for what you did for us.”
“You don’t have to,” O’Neil said, sitting straighter. His bony spikes rattled against each other. “You freed us.”
“But the sacrifices you and the others made can’t be taken lightly.”
“They weren’t sacrifices. We wanted revenge for what those people did to us. The torture they put us through. The experiments.” He shuddered. Under Lauren’s care, Dom could see his flesh had turned from gray to a healthier olive complexion. His body had regained a little mass, too. He no longer looked like a victim of a death camp, although he might be mistaken for a living embodiment of death with all the claws and armor. “We spent every day wishing we could die. You gave us the chance to free ourselves from that prison—both the one with the bars and our bodies. You owe us nothing.”
Dom wasn’t sure if he should ask the next question on his mind. But O’Neil wasn’t the type of guy to bullshit around, and Dom figured they owed each other brutal honesty. “Do you still feel the need to free yourself?”
O’Neil tensed for a moment, then his limbs relaxed. He settled into the bed once more. “I thought I still wanted to die. But I’m not ready. As long as the doc here can keep me at a dull seven or eight instead of an agonizing ten on the pain scale, I still want my revenge on Spitkovsky. Because until he’s dead, he’s just going to have more Rezas and Dimitris to do his bidding, creating more monsters.” O’Neil swallowed hard. “Monsters like me.”
“Understood,” Dom said. “If you want, I can get you back to your command. See if they want to assign you to work with the SEALs again.”
O’Neil’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the last thing I want. You know what’s going to happen if you hand me over to the military. More poking and prodding. I don’t want to be an experiment again.”
Lauren looked at Dom. “I’ve already promised not to do any research on O’Neil without his consent.”
Dom understood what she was implying, and in that second, he already knew O’Neil had been through the fires of hell and withstood those flames. He’d proven to be selfless and courageous. “You’d make a damn fine Hunter if you want to stay and fight with us.”
At that, O’Neil grinned. “I was hoping you’d ask.”
Dom left the medical bay, glad to have the SEAL and Hybrid on the crew. The crew quarters had started to feel empty around here, and the team had taken its share of casualties. Each one of them still haunted Dom at night. He couldn’t help but see Renee and Hector when he closed his eyes, and Ivan and Scott and Brett. He hadn’t thought of replacing them yet; it was a cliché, he knew, but they couldn’t really be replaced.
Still, O’Neil brought all the skill and professionalism of a SEAL plus the unique assets of a Hybrid to the team. He was a hell of a warrior.
Continuing on his rounds, Dom entered the electronics workshop. Frank was leaning over the table at the center of the room, watching a computer monitor as Chao worked. Thomas was sprawled in another seat near Samantha.
“Do you read me?” a voice called through the speakers. Dom recognized the voice from their time with the Moroccans—one of Jalil’s men.
“We do,” Chao said. “Call us if you need aid. We’ll do our best to provide assistance.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Got the boys back home,” Frank said simply. “Jalil and Hamid didn’t seem to enjoy their first helicopter ride. I had to break out the barf bags.”
“We took the AA guns out,” Dom said. “There was no need for acrobatics.”
“Hey, I tried making it as smooth as possible. Winds are little choppy. Think we got a storm front rolling in.”
“More than one front,” Samantha said. Frank raised an eyebrow. “I’m speaking metaphorically here. I thought you’d be able to handle that.”
Frank tapped his temple. “Haven’t had my coffee yet. You know, too busy shuttling people back and forth over Skull country.”
“And we all appreciate your hard work,” Dom said, placing a hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Now why not grab yourself a cup of coffee? I’ve got some business with these fine folks.”
“My pleasure.” Frank sauntered out of the workshop.
“You have data for me?” Dom asked them.
“Sure as shit we do,” Samantha replied. She pushed aside a few empty energy drink cans and reached for her keyboard. “This was a hell of a lot more work than I thought.”
“For a huge payoff, I hope?” Dom asked.
“That’s yet to be determined.” Samantha tapped on her keyboard. “After a metric shit-ton of decryption work, this is what we found.”
“A metric shit-ton is a technical term, as Samantha has so kindly informed me,” Thomas said.
Dom frowned at the image that appeared on Samantha’s monitor. “That’s it?”
“I’m afraid so,” Samantha said. “There wasn’t anything else on the SD card.”
“Christ. Let’s get Shepherd on the line.”
“Hold a moment,” Chao said. “We may not have found anything else on the card Dimitri had, but there was something in the lab files.”
“What is it?”
“It ain’t good, that’s for sure,” Thomas said. He crossed his arms over his chest.
The bank of monitors at the front of the room fizzled to life.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” Chao said, “but I noticed this while we were translating the files on the Heikegani Agent.”
A document appeared on the screen, first in a mixture of Russian and Farsi. Then Chao displayed the translated document beside it. Dom scanned the list of laboratory protocols and catalogues of test samples—which he presumed were the Hybrids. But then he saw it, the single line that had undoubtedly piqued Chao’s interest.
“Get Shepherd,” Dom said with more urgency. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. This wasn’t good. Not at all. “Now.”
The line buzzed.
“Shepherd here.”
“This is Dom.”
“Glad to hear from you,” Shepherd said. “There have been some strange developments here.”
Strange? Dom didn’t like that. Strange could mean any number of things. “What’s going on? Are you still making inroads with Kinsey?”
“He hasn’t locked me up again,” Shepherd said. “Not yet, anyway. Kinsey and most of his council seem to be less cynical about us. Now they’re just skeptical.”
“That’s a slight upgrade.”
“I’ll take anything we can get,” Shepherd said. “Divya and Navid have been helping to get Phoenix Compound production running both at the NIH and Fort Detrick facilities. As other pharmaceutical manufacturing plants go online around the US, Kinsey is reaching out to them to extend the operations. It’s going to take a while, but at least they’re making progress.”
“And Matsumoto?”
“That’s what’s strange,” Shepherd said. “He’s in custody. Got round-the-clock medical care, too. Man doesn’t say a word as far as we know. And then, suddenly, he’s decided to start speaking. You know, throughout the whole trek through the woods, I honestly thought we’d be delivering a corpse to Kinsey. But I’ll be damned if Matsumoto didn’t seem to get his wits about him when we reached Andrews. From what I’ve heard, he’s been talking up a storm. Course, I’m no longer allowed to see him, but word gets around.”
Dom thought back to the neurological implant Lauren had extracted from the elderly scientist. “I have a
feeling we’re going to be learning a lot more from Matsumoto now that he’s no longer under Spitkovsky’s control. Anything else going on there?”
“Kinsey’s going to want to talk to you again in the near future, guarantee it. What’s this news you’ve got for me?”
“I found out where Dimitri was headed,” Dom said, referencing the image on Samantha’s screen. “We’ve uncovered coordinates in Tel Aviv.”
“What is it? A safe house? Another lab facility?”
“We have no idea. All we have are the numbers.”
“Damn,” Shepherd said. “I’ll run it by Kinsey.”
“There’s one more thing,” Dom said. He studied the incriminating document displayed at the front of the electronics workshop again. “We already determined the Heikegani Agent was being used to turn soldiers into substitutes for the Titans. Imagine humans with the capability of leading Skull armies. Those freighters full of Skulls were going to be just that.”
Dom took a deep breath before continuing. He hated what he had to say next. It made their successful mission seem so trivial. What they thought had been a devastating blow to the FGL was more like a pebble thrown at a brick wall. “Pallets of the Heikegani Agent were synthesized and shipped from that lab to over forty different locations. We don’t know where those locations are because we couldn’t recover anything from their shipping manifests. But there are forty other labs out there, growing their own armies of Hybrids. Spitkovsky has invasion forces stationed around the world. It’s a threat unlike any humanity has ever seen.”
“Good God,” Shepherd said. Silence hung over the line for a moment. “I’ve got to talk to Kinsey right now. We need to mobilize our defenses and prepare some kind of intercept. Captain Holland, we’ll be in touch.”
The line went dead.
In the silence that followed, Matsumoto’s words echoed in Dom’s head. He had thought the man was delirious. But that hadn’t been the case at all. Matsumoto had offered him a warning. Only now, too late, did Dom understand what it had meant.
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