Special Ops Shifters: Dallas Force: The Complete Series Collection (Shifter Nation)

by Meg Ripley

  The muscles in her back contracted as she worried whether she was being followed. Lucy didn’t seem the type to come after her, but Erica had realized it was hard to understand or estimate these people. They’d fallen under Ben’s spell, and they believed he was giving them exactly what they wanted. Even worse, they were willing to commit horrific crimes.

  Erica reached out with her mind, searching for Jack, and found only the other recruits.

  She dove into her room and shut the door behind her, leaning against it for a moment and breathing heavily. It’d been easier to remain distant in her other missions, getting in and getting things done and getting out. But having Jack there had complicated things. She had so much more riding on the line than her job.

  She’d brought only a small suitcase and her purse, both of which sat on the floor near a set of built-in drawers. Erica quickly dug her keys out of her purse, unfolding a tiny penknife. Unzipping her suitcase, she carefully ran her fingers over the lining until she found the small bulge. The slick fabric parted easily at the behest of the tiny knife. Erica hesitated as she held the tiny transmitter in her hands. It was only for emergencies, only for things going completely awry. Rarely had she needed to use the emergency backup plan that was put in place for every mission. This was one she hadn’t even been familiar with, considering Jack had provided it.

  Then she remembered just how many cars were out there. Even if she or Jack managed to find some list that told them how to locate every vehicle, there was no possible way she and Jack could stop them by themselves. Erica pulled the tab that engaged the battery and waited.

  “I’m here.” It was Winston’s voice.

  “It’s me.” Relief washed over Erica. No one should have been able to tap into their frequency, but she still didn’t reveal her name just to be safe. “Listen, we’ve got a situation.” She rattled off the details as quickly as she could.

  “10-4. We’ll work on things from our end, but keep me posted. I’ll maintain radio silence unless you contact me first.”

  “Right. Over and out.” Erica tucked the transmitter in her pocket, hoping no one would happen to notice, and headed outside.

  Lucy was waiting for her in the parking lot as promised. “There you are! Did you get your bracelet?”

  “Oh, um, I couldn’t find it. I must’ve dropped it somewhere else. I’ll get it later. What car should we take?”

  “This little sports car is cute,” Lucy enthused, “or we could take the convertible. Like Thelma and Louise!”

  Bile rose in Erica’s throat as she remembered just how that movie had ended. “Right. Well, you’ve been here longer. I’ll let you choose.” She swiftly turned her head as movement caught her eyes. Erica could swear she saw the tip of a furry tail disappearing behind one of the vehicles.

  She dared to lean against the side of the car, even knowing it was probably hiding explosives somewhere under the hood. Erica closed her eyes as Lucy prattled on about her driving experience and reached out once again. The wave of emotion that hit her nearly knocked her down. It was Jack, but it was the side of him she hadn’t had unimpeded access to when she’d known him in his human form.

  Erica received his messages clearly, even though they were only in pictures. She could see through his eyes, suddenly much closer to the ground, as he made his way around the grid of vehicles in the parking area. They were massive hunks of metal, all of which smelled like different places and different people. Those scents varied depending on how long the cars had been there, and Erica could sense through the vision Jack was giving her just how much time had passed and where they’d been. More importantly, there was an acrid, sulfuric scent that made adrenaline shoot through her veins. Explosives. They were in every single one of those cars, just as she and Jack had guessed.

  “Hey, are you all right?”

  Erica snapped her eyes open, breaking off most of her connection with Jack. She knew he was still around, but those vivid images had disappeared. “Yeah. I’m fine. I think my breakfast just isn’t sitting well. What about that car over there?” She pointed to a little blue coupe in the next row.

  Lucy turned to look at it. “I guess that would be fine, if that’s what you really want.”

  Erica braced her shoes against the ground, wishing for pavement instead of loose gravel as she took off and jumped against Lucy’s back. Her would-be partner was tall and much stronger than she looked. Lucy’s fingers dug into Erica’s arm, trying to unfold her grip from her neck. This was the part of the job she hated, when she knew she was holding someone’s life in her hands. Erica squeezed harder, her disgust powering her muscles as she pressed against Lucy’s windpipe. The blonde woman began to sprout fur along her arms as she began to shift and managed to land a few blows, but she soon sank to her knees. Erica laid her gently on the ground.

  The fox that emerged from around the other side of the convertible watched her carefully. Its brilliant eyes looked toward the gate for a moment, and then it began to change. Right before Erica’s eyes, the fox stretched, twisted, and grew. It went from standing on four legs to only two, the brawny form of Jack arising out of the agile fox with ease until he was standing before her as though he’d always been there.

  He stepped forward with his now very human legs and gripped her arms. “I think I found something. Come on.”

  9

  The look on Erica’s face as she watched him transform was a priceless one, but Jack didn’t have the time to tease her about it now. “Lucy won’t be out for long. What did you find out?” He’d grabbed her hand as they ran back toward the building.

  Erica’s feet were just as confident as his as they barreled across the yard. “I saw several of the assignments. If my skills at guessing travel times are still sharp, then everything should be going down at noon tomorrow. Or at least that’s one phase.”

  He didn’t like the hesitation in her voice. “What do you mean?” There was no doubt in his mind that the cars carried explosives. Whoever had done the work had done it well, and no human mechanic had happened to locate the material so far. Ben knew what he was doing, but that wasn’t good news for them.

  “Ben gave Lucy and me a special assignment. We were supposed to leave almost right away, and we were only going to a church in Hortonburg. I’d guess he wanted to get rid of me quickly, since I’m new, and you were probably going to get a similar assignment as soon as he saw you. For all I know, he’s doing it in waves. Shouldn’t we be heading away from this place?” she asked as they ducked back inside the building.

  Jack yanked her to the left and down a hall before a group leaving the common area could spot them. “Sure, that would be great. But then we wouldn’t be able to get to this.” He reached for a door around the next corner, but the knob twisted before he could touch it.

  The mechanic was standing there, his eyes wild. He immediately readied himself for a fight, his fists curling and his feet braced. Jack didn’t hesitate, either. He launched himself at the man, knocking him backward into a metal desk. The mechanic’s fists whipped through the air, missing Jack’s head by only a hair’s breadth. Jack’s fox fought to get out, eager to sink its razor-sharp teeth into this evil man’s flesh, but Jack resisted. His human form was bigger, and the mechanic didn’t show any signs of shifting. The scent of grease and sweat filled his lungs as they grappled. Finally, Jack swung his head back and smashed it into the other man’s face. The mechanic collapsed, and Jack let him fall to the floor.

  Erica’s had the foresight to shut the door behind them, and she flicked a small lock that should keep them safe for at least a short while. “I wish he could at least tell us what’s going on,” she remarked as she took in her surroundings.

  Jack rubbed his arm as he straightened. The small room was filled with computer equipment. The heat from the devices and the closeness of the room gave off the distinctive smell of plastics and electronics. It was unmistakable now that he knew it was there, but before it hadn’t looked like anything more than a j
anitor’s closet. “I don’t think we need him. We’ve got most of it figured out.”

  “I thought you said there wasn’t a place like this here,” she pointed out as she sat in front of one of the computers and began hacking the password.

  “Yeah, because I was looking in my human form. I shifted almost as soon as I left the common room, and my nose led me here before I even made it out to inspect the cars. I should’ve done that as soon as we arrived, and then maybe I would have figured out Ben’s plan before it was too late.”

  “We don’t know that it’s too late yet,” Erica said through gritted teeth as she rattled away on the keyboard. “I guess Ben is only anti-electronics when it comes to his recruits. God, they followed him so blindly. I can’t tell you how much it worries me that terrorists like him can brainwash people by offering so little.”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Jack leaned down to look over her shoulder. “They couldn’t deal with everyday life anymore, and he offered them something better. Religious extremists are basically motivated the same way, just in different dressing. There you go,” he said as Erica finally made it into the system. “Those look like coordinates.”

  Erica pulled the transmitter from her pocket. “I’ll start feeding these to HQ. They’re going to have to activate every specialist in the DHS to stop this from happening.”

  “And probably all the local police, too, but it’ll be worth it. It’s hard to tell without getting inside the vehicles and inspecting them individually, but there’s no telling just how much damage Ben is planning to do.” While she began reading off what information they had to Winston, Jack used the password information she’d decoded to log in to one of the other computers and search for more data. Coordinates were great, but that would only help so much if they didn’t know who and what they were looking for. “I’ll see if I can find a roster of everyone here and maybe a list of cars.”

  Winston’s voice came through the radio. “The local police are working on shutting down the roads nearby. That’s going to help us filter through any vehicles that might have already been sold. We’ve got satellite imagery on the compound as well. I’m working on getting a force activated to get in there. What kind of explosives are we looking for? I need more details on that.”

  Jack and Erica exchanged a look. She knew; she’d seen those images. Jack had been startled to realize how easy it was to get inside her head when he stood on four legs, but he shouldn’t have been. Shifters who shared the bond of a mate or clan could telepathically communicate with each other in an even more articulate way, and Erica certainly wasn’t an ordinary human. Winston wouldn’t be surprised at all if Jack told him he’d smelled out the bombs, but Jack had no way of knowing if Mr. Worth was sitting right there with him. Someone probably was.

  Erica’s mouth worked as she tried to formulate some way of explaining it, no doubt ready to use an excuse similar to the ones she used for herself when she got through a mission with more than just training and smarts.

  He snagged the transmitter from her before she had to do it again. “You know how I am,” he said drily into the radio. “I’ve got a nose for these things.”

  Winston didn’t ask any further questions, even though Jack knew there would probably be a list of them waiting for him when they made it out of there.

  “Right. Is anyone onto you yet? You’re rural enough that I can’t arrange an extraction for a while yet.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jack replied. “We’ve got a couple of minor casualties, but only control over one of them.” Given that Ben had already hidden this massive computer system from them, Jack wouldn’t doubt it if someone was monitoring the airwaves. Granted, the frequency should be encrypted, but he didn’t like to take any chances and kept things as vague as possible. The blonde woman Erica had choked would either come to or be found soon, and that could mean the end of the mission for them if they were discovered. The mechanic was silent and still on the floor, a trickle of blood leaking from his nose and down his lips. The one saving grace Jack could latch onto was that there didn’t seem to be many weapons on the compound.

  “I’ll see what I can do. I need the rest of those coordinates.”

  Erica had stilled in front of her computer console. “It looks like that’s not going to be possible,” she whispered.

  Jack let go of the radio button, speaking to her directly. “What’s wrong?”

  “The file has been corrupted.” She tapped angrily at the keyboard. “If I had my guess, I’d say Ben or one of his cohorts put a self-destructive virus in the system. As soon as it detected the hack, it started destroying the files. I got most of them, but it’s begun erasing all the information.” Erica worked away, but she shook her head in frustration.

  He took over on the computer, using every skill he’d ever had hammered into him in the intelligence field. The graphic user interface was set up like most computers, only allowing the user into the part of the system that was easy to understand. Jack moved into the back side of the operating system, pummeling the keyboard as he typed in commands. “Here. Read these off to Winston. I’ve got some of them.”

  Erica stood at his shoulder and fired off the coordinates over the radio as quickly as they appeared on the screen. Winston reported that a few of them were repeats, but they were making progress.

  “There’s still one here,” Jack growled. His focus was entirely on the screen. Vaguely, he thought he heard shouts outside the building. As long as no one realized where the two of them had gone, they’d be safe for the moment. “I can’t get it. The virus has it.”

  A gasp sounded over his shoulder as Erica pointed to the column of numbers next to the coordinates. “Look. They’re put in order according to when they were supposed to leave. The one right above it is the car Lucy and I were supposed to take. That should mean this last one has already left.”

  “Fuck.” Jack slammed his fist into the keyboard. “We’ve got to get out there and find them.”

  “But all the cars are loaded with explosives,” Erica argued. “We don’t even know what will trigger them.”

  “Then what do you propose we do?” Jack rumbled. The only positive aspect he could concentrate on was the fact that they weren’t in a metropolitan area. Even if everything went wrong, the casualties would stay low. He’d prefer none.

  She put her hand on his shoulder, and when Jack turned to look up at her, Erica’s eyes were blazing. “I’ll find it.”

  He pointed helplessly at the computer screen. “How? There are traces of a file here that indicate Ben was going to track all the vehicles via GPS, but that’s corrupted now, too.” Everything he tried just turned to dust in his hands, and it unsettled him on a very deep level.

  Erica set the transmitter on the desk, where neither of them was touching the button. “Astral projection.”

  She looked so calm and tranquil as she spoke, but Jack felt ripples of unease on the underside of his skin. His fox was anxious now, ready for action. “I think I’ve heard of that before, but I don’t know anything about it.”

  “If I leave my physical body and go out into the world, I can find the car faster than even the DHS.” Erica looked like a goddess as she stood before him, her tousled hair flowing around her shoulders and her voice quiet and steady.

  “Have you done this before?” Jack could feel control quickly escaping his grasp.

  “Of course.”

  “But on a mission?” he pressed. “When someone could burst in here at any minute?”

  The corner of her mouth jerked. “Not so much, but it’s the best solution I can come up with. It’s either that or try to get all the information out of Ben, if we can even find him.”

  He swiped a hand over his face. Jack definitely wanted to get his hands on Ben, whether he gave them any further details or not. But Erica was right. They didn’t have any time left to lose. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

  Erica launched into an explanation of how it worked as she cleared off on
e of the desks. “Astral projecting is basically what people refer to as an out-of-body experience. These happen when people undergo medical trauma or accidentally find themselves in an altered state that allows them to separate their minds from their bodies. The big difference is that I’ll be doing it on purpose.” She hoisted herself onto the surface of the desk and took off her shoes.

  “That sounds dangerous.” The room was getting hotter, smaller. Jack tugged at the collar of his shirt.

  “To a degree, but I’ve done it before. It’ll be fine.” She shook out her hair and laid down, closing her eyes.

  Jack swallowed. He wasn’t the one who had brought Erica into this mess, yet he still felt incredibly responsible for her. That bond they’d forged the other night in his room hadn’t been an accident. He knew she was his mate, and he wasn’t about to lose her now; they shared a destiny. Seeing her laid out on the desk, she looked so vulnerable. What if she somehow got lost out there without a physical body to be attached to? He’d never forgive himself. “What can I do to help?” he whispered.

  Shouts were emanating from somewhere just outside the building now, and her brow furrowed over her closed eyes. “I’ve got to relax every part of my body before I use something called the rope technique. It’s basically like climbing right out of myself. But I’ve got to get into the right state of mind to do it.” She chewed her lip. “Lay your hand on my shoulder.”

  He did as he was told and felt her body relax under his touch.

  She sighed, a sensual sound that made his own flesh react, even though this definitely wasn’t the time for it. “That’s better. There’s something about you that calms me down, Jack.” Erica said nothing else as the rest of her body went slack.