Seek and Destroy (TREX, #5)

by Allie K. Adams

  “You don’t even know why I’m here.”

  He gave her a crisp glare. “The hell I don’t. You’re Charis McKoy. A visit from you is like a visit from the grim fucking reaper. You’re death to a frontline agent’s career.”

  Her mouth fell open. She recovered and cleared her throat as she thinned her lips. Color splashed her cheeks as anger flashed in her eyes. “Listen, you’ve been wounded. It’s going to take some time to get back on your feet.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  She slammed her gaze into him, taking on the challenge. His heart rate jumped in response. Damn it. “Okay. It wasn’t the bullet that almost killed you.”

  “It wasn’t?” David and Weber asked in unison.

  “If it wasn’t the bullet,” Weber cut in, “then what kept him out of it and in ICU for almost a week?”

  “Even we couldn’t get in to see him until they brought him out of ICU,” JT added.

  “Actually,” McKoy started slowly, and David somehow knew her next revelation would be even worse than her first. “It wasn’t ICU. We had him under quarantine for the past week, heavily sedated. Doctors from TREX’s bioterrorism division kept a close watch on him.”

  “Bioterrorism? For what?” David snapped, then cringed when his injuries reminded him they were still there.

  “Ricin.” She didn’t have to say anything else. Ricin was serious shit. She took a breath and licked her lips. He watched the gesture keenly, taken by the shape of her mouth. It would be a perfect fit to his he was sure of it. “The bullet that obliterated your spleen and sliced through your liver left traces of Ricin throughout your system. You received a dose of almost three hundred micrograms when that bullet hit you. Now, three hundred micrograms isn’t enough to kill you. If he would have shot you more than once...” She didn’t finish and didn’t have to.

  “Did they get it all?” Thinking about how close he’d come to death didn’t settle well. Knowing that bastard who shot him did it as an act of bioterrorism really pissed him off.

  “Why the hell wasn’t I told about this?” Weber barked. JT jumped up, placing her hands on his shoulders, but he pushed her aside. “No. I should have been informed.” He challenged McKoy. When she didn’t back down from Weber’s glare, David’s opinion of the good doctor slash agent upped a few notches. There weren’t many who’d stand up to Dan Weber. He cleared six foot by more than a few inches and had a booming voice he used to his advantage. “You’d better give me a good enough reason why I don’t send you back to your desk job right now.”

  “All right.” McKoy held her chin high. Holy shit. She challenged Weber right back. David’s opinion of her upped a few more notches. “I’ll give you more than a good enough reason, sir. We didn’t inform you, Special Director Weber, because of your personal involvement with Special Agent Snyder.”

  “Cut the bullshit, McKoy. He’s an agent in my region. That’s as far as it goes.”

  She lifted that lovely eyebrow again. He found himself oddly drawn to the gesture. “Oh really? A year ago, on the op where you met your wife—”

  “How you’d know we were married?” JT asked.

  McKoy regarded her. “Intel knows a lot more than you think we do.” She adjusted her glasses as she brought her attention to Weber. “Now, a year ago, you three brought down the Mercado Cartel with the help from some of the local mercenaries, and successfully destroyed the biological weapon known as LEON before it could be released. After you recovered from injuries sustained in Colombia, you and David took out an entire guerrilla compound in Beirut, among other missions along those lines. Last week you two successfully terminated Abu Khalil, as well as half his guerrilla army, on his own turf no less. And, for the past year, when you haven’t been on assignment with him, you’ve assigned David with your wife on all her ops.”

  “He’s a good agent,” Weber defended.

  “He’s a personal friend,” she countered and turned to David. As she leaned over to check his dressing, he took in the sweetness of her flowery perfume. Or maybe it was just her. Either way, it held his attention and awakened whatever parts of him not already in a frenzy because of her. “There hasn’t been an op involving David that didn’t also involve one of you two since Colombia.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Weber grunted.

  “This is reality,” she countered again. Jesus, this woman didn’t even flinch holding her own against the surly Dan Weber. David’s pride for her swelled. “You wouldn’t partner just anyone with the woman you love. We didn’t want to risk your involvement. If something went wrong with David’s treatment, you would have come undone.”

  “Bullshit!”

  McKoy paused her exam and glanced back over at Weber, an I-told-you-so look glowing in her eyes. “Oh really?”

  “Is it still in me?” David asked to pull her attention back to him.

  It worked. She went about finishing her exam. Goose bumps peppered his skin wherever the heat of her gaze touched him. “The Ricin is dormant thanks to a series of treatments. But yes, it’s still in you.”

  That news deflated him. “Why?”

  She swept a loose curl behind her ear. “Ricin doesn’t dissipate. It’s absorbed into your system and becomes a part of you, which makes it one of the more dangerous chemical warfare agents. Others wash through your system. If you don’t receive a lethal dose, you eventually recover.”

  He swallowed. Even that hurt. “Will I?”

  “Oh, you’ll recover. But you’ll always have three hundred micrograms of Ricin in your system. If you so much as get pricked by a needle with Ricin on the end, it could kill you.”

  He choked back the dark horror consuming his heart and bared his teeth. How fucking unfair. He’d survived being shot all so he could live in fear of the next act of bioterrorism. “Would I have made it if you hadn’t done whatever treatment you did?”

  She lowered her glasses to the end of her nose and locked her gaze on his. The warmth of her breath, a combination or rich coffee and peppermint breath mints, tickled his cheek. If he turned his head just right, maybe adjusted his chin, he’d just reach her lips. He moved and a surge of pain slammed into him. He gave in to defeat and held still.

  “Sugar treatment. Active charcoal. The norm. It absorbs the Ricin but doesn’t remove it. Without the treatment, the Ricin could have killed you. That’s why we had you quarantined for so long. We had to be certain the treatments worked.”

  She pushed her glasses back up and went about redressing his wound. After she’d finished, she paused and looked at him. “You really are lucky to be alive. The bullet entered under your right shoulder blade at just the precise angle needed to hit your collarbone and ricochet back onto your shoulder blade, shattering it before going after some of your organs. Luckily it wasn’t after your heart. Another inch to the left and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  David knew the hazards of the job. Didn’t mean he had to like them. “Holy hell. You paint a,” he stated and swallowed, “very vivid picture.”

  She smiled then. The darkness of the room disappeared, replaced by a glow that seemed to center around her.

  Just what kind of drugs did they have him on?

  THREE

  “Can you fly, David?” McKoy stared at him, waiting for his answer. He threw a look at Weber. Did the question sound as crazy to him? “What I mean is, the angle of the wound doesn’t make any sense. It’s almost as if—” She stopped herself with a slight giggle and adjusted her glasses. The noise landed in his chest and caught what little breath he had in his lungs. “Never mind.”

  She had his full attention. “As if what?”

  Licking her lower lip before pulling it between her teeth and in turn pulling a groan out of him as he watched her every move, she shook her head. “It’s like you flew into the path of the bullet.” She laughed, and it, too, lodged in his chest with amazing force. “As good as you spec ops agents are I’m sure flying is not one of your many talents.”


  He really did fly. He’d jumped in front of that bullet milliseconds before it would have taken Weber down. And if his memory served, and to date it’d never failed him on something like this, his shoulder had been centered directly in front of Weber’s chest when the bullet struck.

  He knew what he was doing. If he hadn’t jumped in front of him when he did, Weber would have been killed. Dead. He looked over to Weber. No words were needed. He’d come to the same conclusion. Did JT know as well? Was that why she kept looking at him with gratitude shining in her eyes?

  “Some shrapnel couldn’t be removed without doing more damage than the bullet already had,” McKoy continued, directing his gaze to her.

  Well. This just kept getting better and better. “How much is left?” he asked.

  She paused. When Weber growled with impatience, she went on. “Let’s just say you’ll set off the metal detectors in the airport from now on.”

  So much for going in undetected. He closed his eyes against what it all meant. Deep down, he knew. He didn’t want to admit it, but he knew. His days in spec ops were numbered, if not over all together. No wonder McKoy was here.

  “Goddamn it, McKoy!” Weber barked. “Why wasn’t I briefed on any of this?”

  She snapped her pretty brow into a frown. “I just told you.”

  Weber looked ready to pop. His blue eyes blazed as his entire head turned crimson. “I meant before now.”

  “Would it have made any difference?”

  “Why the hell am I always the last to know? I’m the special director, for Christ’s sake! That entitles me to something, doesn’t it? You’re supposed to brief the director before briefing the agent. Classic TREX. Jesus, it’s in the fucking manual!”

  This time McKoy did jump at Weber’s barking. Hell, the entire hospital wing had to have heard him. “No, it’s not.”

  “It’s common sense, McKoy.”

  “Common sense,” she argued, impressing the hell out of David that she would stand up to Weber, especially in the mood he was in, “would dictate I tell the person the news is affecting. It doesn’t make any sense to tell you, then turn around and tell him the same thing. If you’re in the same room, which you are, then it makes sense to tell you both at the same time.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass whether it makes sense to you. Follow my rules or I find someone who can. You wanted this, wanted to get out from behind that desk. I’m doing you a huge favor and so far, you aren’t impressing me.” He emphasized his point by driving his finger at her, his teeth clenched.

  She backed up until she ran into David’s arm on the side of his bed. As much as it hurt, he retreated his arm before he reached around and pulled her to him. She took a few preparatory breaths. “We expect him to be out of here within the next few days, now that we know the threat of death is no longer imminent.”

  “Good,” David said. “So I’ll be back in the field in no time.”

  “Not so fast.” She turned to him. “You can’t simply bounce back from this. You need to take a break from the field.”

  Shit. He was afraid of that. “How long of a break?”

  She hesitated and dropped her gaze to her wringing hands. As she brought her eyes up, she looked to Weber. “Do you really want me to do this?”

  He narrowed his gaze on her. His expression hardened. His breath grew labored. His nostrils flared. As he clenched his hands into fists, he looked down and shook his head. JT came to his side and rested a hand on his shoulder. They exchanged glances.

  “You have to,” JT told him gently.

  Weber shook his head again and dropped his gaze to the floor.

  “Director?” McKoy urged.

  “I’ll take it from here,” Weber growled, his voice terse, full of something David rarely heard from him. Emotion. Regret. The look in those eyes told him everything he needed to know. “Listen, Snyder.”

  “No, Weber.” He refused to accept defeat. He’d fought the bullet. The poisoning. That had to count for something. “Don’t take me out of the field. I can still do this.”

  Visibly swallowing, Weber nodded. “I have no doubt. But I can’t have you back out there, not knowing what we know now. Goddamn this fucking agency.”

  Weber’s resentment toward TREX shocked David. They both loved their jobs. Ate, slept, and breathed their jobs. There was only one reason why Weber would talk about TREX like this. He hated them for kicking his ass to the curb when he became a liability. They wouldn’t do the same to David, would they?

  Of course they would.

  They did the same thing to Sam Wise. He was still in physical therapy when intel charged in and dropped the bomb. Lyons never got the chance to enjoy his desk job before that sniper took him out. “Convenient how McKoy is here already.”

  “I didn’t know about the Ricin,” Weber defended.

  “And yet you still involved intel,” he retorted. “Why is she here then, Weber?”

  “It was originally supposed to be a temporary transfer to the sidelines. Just until you fully recovered.”

  “Like Sam Wise?” He clenched his jaw until that hurt, too. “His transfer was also supposed to be temporary. That was over three years ago. Why is he still there?”

  “Wise will never be able to run again. He walks with a cane, for Christ’s sake.”

  McKoy broke in. “I brought Agent Wise in after his injury. I never presented his transfer as temporary. He knew it was a permanent move.”

  Interesting tidbit, and one Wise never told David. Whether or not it held an ounce of truth didn’t matter. Wise still waited around for the call that would put him back out in the field. Why would TREX string him along like that?

  Weber sighed. Oh great. That sigh meant he wanted to open up. And in front of McKoy. On any other day, David would have jumped at the chance to have Weber open up, since he did it so rarely. But something told him this wouldn’t turn out well, at least for him.

  No need prolonging the inevitable. He clenched his teeth until his jaw popped. “Am I out?”

  “No,” Weber answered without hesitation. “You know you’ll always be TREX. But...”

  “Here it comes. The big but.”

  McKoy added her two cents. “You’ve lost mobility, David. The doctors had to take half of your right lung. Your spleen. You may never get full use of your right shoulder again.” She counted on her fingers all of the reasons why he was the poster child for a transfer from a frontline division to the sidelines.

  Sure. When hell froze over.

  “It isn’t a matter of jumping right back into the field,” she continued, as if it would make a shit bit of difference to him. “For an everyday average guy, he’d barely notice the change. Even for a field agent in any other division. But for a spec ops agent? The situations you get into, an injury like this could be the difference between life and death.”

  He kept his glare on Weber and ignored the angelic agent. “Well? Am I out or not?”

  Weber pinched the skin between his eyes. “It’s the hardest goddamn decision I’ll ever have to make.” JT leaned against him as he rested his gaze on David. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Goddamn it, Snyder.” He sighed again.

  David swallowed several times to ward off the way the constriction in his chest had his eyes burning. He stared at the rails on the bed. “Just say it and get it over with.”

  “I’m sorry, my friend. Please understand. I have no other choice. It’s too much of a risk putting you back out there.”

  “Risk?” He ignored the shooting pain in his shoulder and ribs as he stiffened. The burn in his eyes grew to a fury as he locked his gaze with his director’s. “Don’t piss in my face and call it rain. That’s bullshit. You want to talk about risk? I risk my life every fucking day for this agency. The minute I become a risk, the minute the table is turned...” He lost his steam when McKoy rested her hand on his arm. “The agency turns.” He focused on the way her short nails tickled his skin as she moved her fingers back and f
orth. The bile in the back of his throat subsided. “You of all people should understand that.”

  “You’ve got it wrong,” Weber pointed out. “I can’t put you out there again. I won’t risk it. I have no doubt you’ll be able to stay up with the rest of the agents physically. That isn’t the issue.”

  “The Ricin,” he finished hoarsely, his focus on McKoy’s hand on his arm.

  “If you so much as walk into a room where they’re manufacturing that shit, it will kill you. Do you get it now? It. Will. Kill. You. I can’t lose you, Snyder. Not as an agent. Not as my friend. Please. Understand.”

  Oh yes. He understood. He took a bullet for his country. And in return, he got fucked.

  “Intel has agreed to take you as a transfer,” McKoy added as a consolation prize.

  He eyed her leg. “What got you into the recruiting business? Are you, like me, too much of a risk for your agency to send you in on a real mission?”

  “I beg your pardon?” she snapped and jerked her hand back.

  He clenched his jaw to keep his anger in check. He knew she’d been injured in the field, but didn’t know if she knew he did. Although she favored her right leg, she didn’t walk with a profound limp. If he mentioned her injuries, where she’d been when she’d gotten them, he’d be exposing his own cover on the op. Up until five minutes ago, he didn’t even know intel had been involved.

  Did she know he’d been the other agent in that field? Did she recognize his eyes as the ones she’d stared into moments before the blast? He couldn’t risk the possibility of exposure.

  “No thanks, Angel. Not interested.”

  Her cheeks splashed with fresh color at his comment. Something flashed in her brilliant blue eyes, clouding them darker. Panic? Skepticism? “What did you just say?”

  Definitely panic. “I said I’m not—”

  “No.” She cut him off. “The name. Why did you call me Angel?”

  He wasn’t about to tell her the truth. “Figured it fit. You’re in white.” How lame.