Heart of Danger

by Lisa Marie Rice

  “Driver, take me around to the side entrance. Entrance D. Drive directly to the loading area.” From there it would be a short descent down to the autopsy suite. He’d have time to suit up and set up his private recording equipment.

  “Yessir,” the driver answered, and Lee tapped the button that lifted the privacy screen and sat back, pleased.

  All in all, a good night’s work.

  At first, it was hard for Catherine to run. Her legs wobbled, her head felt light and far away, and she could barely concentrate. But minute by minute she came back into herself.

  Mac was there beside her, every single step of the way. If she stumbled, his hand was there, on her back, steadying her, so surreptitiously that Nick and Jon never noticed.

  It was the aftereffects of her connection with Lucius Ward. He had sapped her strength. Connecting with another mind, another heart, was as hard as lifting weights. She felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach while running a marathon.

  But as they crossed the wide lawn, Mac having calculated sentry guards’ rounds to the second, she came back into herself. Remembered what she was doing, and why.

  She was saving a life.

  They were at the side of the building. The three men watched as she swiped her colleague Frederick Benson’s code through the system, hoping Jon knew what he was doing.

  He did.

  The door clicked open. Catherine pushed and the four of them walked through as if they were one. The recorder at the side would merely have registered a larger than usual mass. Not something that would trip an alarm, but definitely something that would target them when looked at tomorrow, with Patient Nine gone.

  Catherine was well aware of the fact that she was not only illegally entering Millon Laboratories. She was also crossing over into a new life. She was now a member of Mac’s team, an outlaw. Tied to the men by her side and tied to the community that had congregated around them with unbreakable bonds. Forever now cut off from her old life.

  She’d spent four years with Millon and the parent company Arka in various laboratories. They would never give her references, and a scientist with a four-year gap in her résumé was unhireable. She would never work in science again.

  It wasn’t important, though.

  She was with Mac, for as long as he’d have her.

  Jon was consulting his handheld but she didn’t need anything now. She knew where to go. “Come with me,” she whispered, and they moved fast toward the patient wing. She stopped them at the corner before Hall B. They stacked up behind her.

  “Clear?” She looked up at Jon.

  “Clear.”

  “Hurry!” Catherine broke into a run and they followed her. She ran to Nine’s room, ran to the still man on the bed. The first thing she did was cut off the clavicle catheter. Whatever amount of SL-59 Ward had absorbed, she could only hope it wasn’t going to prove a fatal dose. She gently pulled the long needle from the permanent shunt and started disengaging him from the EEG, EKG, the catheter, the pads on his chest measuring muscle electricity, the tube down his throat giving extra oxygen, the parenteral feed tube.

  Somewhere an alarm was sounding as the machines went dead but she couldn’t think about that as she moved as quickly as she could to disengage him.

  Finally, he was cut off from the machinery, a tall, once well-built man, now a husk of a man, a pathetic creature who’d been tortured nearly to death. Something about the quality of the air made her look up and she froze at the expression on Mac’s face. Nick and Jon looked stunned, sick.

  “What?”

  Mac swallowed. “What did they do to him?”

  She looked down at the patient. She’d never seen him in his prime. She’d only ever seen him as he was now—helpless, weak, a shadow of a man. She touched his wrist and suddenly there he was in her mind. The man he’d been. Ramrod-straight in a starched uniform, a black beret on his shaved head, fierce and strong and formidable.

  That was the man he’d been. That was the man Mac remembered.

  The man on the bed was emaciated, skull criscrossed with scars, skin hanging off his bones. Pale, sunken in, barely alive.

  Anger filled her. He didn’t deserve this. The man she’d touched and who had touched her was hard but fair. Unswerving in his duty to his country, unswerving in his loyalty to his men.

  The man she’d touched had been fully prepared to die in battle, prepared to die an honorable death. This wasn’t an honorable death. It was a lab rat’s death.

  Anger, white and hot, shot through her.

  “They nearly killed him. They robbed him of his life, of his honor, Mac. We’re going to rescue him.” She shot Mac a glance and saw he understood her. Understood her anger and her own sense of betrayal.

  Everything she’d done in life had been with one goal. To understand the human brain, to make things better. To make people better. She’d dedicated her life to science and now someone had taken her science and twisted it to dark ends. Twisted it until it had become a source of horror and pain.

  She’d been betrayed, too, just as much as Mac.

  “Can you carry him?”

  “Yeah. No problem.” Mac bent and, with a gentleness she’d only seen reserved for her, picked Ward up in his arms as if he were a child. He looked down at the unconscious body of his former commander and there was such pity in his face Catherine nearly cried.

  “Captain,” Mac said softly, and the man stirred, as if troubled.

  Catherine was still touching his wrist and she suddenly stiffened. “Wait!”

  Jon tapped on his screen, frowning. “Catherine, we’ve got guards coming. We don’t have time to waste.”

  Darkness, pain, despair.

  Bodies on beds like moths pinned to felt.

  Brave men, reduced to animals.

  Her heart pounding, Catherine looked up at Mac. “Were there other men with you?”

  He frowned. “When?”

  “When”—she pointed at the scar on the side of his face—“when that happened.”

  The frown deepened. “Yeah. They’re all dead. Why?”

  Awareness burst inside her together with dread and sorrow. “Because they are here,” she whispered. “Three of them.”

  Nick grabbed her arm. “Who? Who’s here?”

  She met their eyes, certainty blazing through her. “They’re here,” she said clearly. “The men who were with you that night. They didn’t die. They were captured. They are being used as guinea pigs. As lab rats. Tortured. They are here and we must go to them. Captain Ward doesn’t want to be rescued if he has to leave his men behind. He would rather die.”

  She could feel their shock. It came off them in waves.

  “Romero, Lundquist, Pelton?” Jon whispered. “Alive?”

  With each name she felt a shock of recognition. “Yes. Alive. And here. And we must rescue them.”

  “Where are they?” Mac asked.

  She listened inside herself, felt for the answer. Oh God. “Level 4,” she said, shocked.

  “How do we get there?” Mac asked urgently.

  “I don’t know. But I know who does.” She looked at the man lying limply in Mac’s strong arms. He looked close to death. Perhaps a less strong man would already be dead. But there was something in this man, and it was the same thing that was in Mac. And Nick and Jon. A core strength that would carry them beyond what other men could do. This man had commanded them. He would be as strong as they were. Maybe stronger. She had to count on that.

  “I’m going to try something. I don’t know if it will work.” She put her hand on Mac’s arm. She didn’t need her psychic powers to draw strength from him. The steely arm under hers belonged to a man whose will was as strong as his muscles. “You’re going to have to trust me. Can you do that?”

  She looked up at him. He was tense with the effort of standing still. She imagined every instinct in him was screaming at him to escape. They had their man, now they had to go. Yet he stood unmoving, waiting for her word.


  It was at that moment that she realized how much she loved Mac. Loved everything about him. Loved his strength and his loyalty. Loved the fact that he was willing to risk his life on her say-so. He’d come here at enormous risk, believing in her implicitly, the first human being who’d ever done so. She loved him, and because she did, she knew he could never live with himself if he abandoned the other men here. This had to be done.

  They needed to get to Level 4, fast. Level 4 had been a rumor, almost a joke. There was no way she could get down there unless . . .

  “I think I’m going to hurt him,” she murmured, watching Mac. “I have to.”

  He nodded.

  She looked at Nick and Jon. “Can you two buy us some time?”

  At Mac’s nod, Nick said, “Sure. I’ll send the Antz out, they’ll give us an early warning sign.”

  They left the room, two utterly tough and competent warriors. Catherine knew they’d provide her with a window.

  Both Catherine’s hands hovered over Ward. “I hate to do this,” she whispered. “But I have to.”

  “Do it,” Mac ordered.

  She pulled down the neck of the hospital johnny, placed her hands over Ward’s heart and closed her eyes. For the first time, she tried to push her thoughts into someone else’s head, tried to control instead of read. Though the skin of her palms lay lightly against the man’s emaciated chest, she felt as if she were pushing through his skin, down past bone and muscle, to reach into his chest cavity and seize his heart.

  She squeezed, hard.

  A rattling gasp of air and the man arched in Mac’s arms as if given an electrical shock.

  “Jesus!” Mac tightened his grip on him as if on a slippery fish as he bowed and twisted.

  Catherine went deeper, pushing herself into Ward’s psyche, as if going spelunking. Deep, deeper, plunging down until . . . ah.

  Your men need you. Help us.

  I . . . can’t.

  He was awake! Aware, on some level of his being.

  Yes. They will die without you. How do we get to Level 4?

  He twisted wildly, arms flailing.

  Help us help your men. They need you, Captain.

  Silence in her head.

  He writhed wildly, seeming to want to reach back to the bed, clawed hands reaching for the sheets.

  Was this the dying throes of a man who wanted nothing more than to die in bed?

  She pushed him harder, feeling his heart beat wildly, muscles twitching, wondering if she was killing him.

  Dull moans came from him, then grunts, as his feeble muscles tried to claw his way to the bed.

  “What’s going on?” Mac demanded. “I don’t want to hurt him but he’s out of control! What the fuck does he want?”

  To die in bed, she thought. That’s what he wants.

  But—but that didn’t make sense. Everything in that ravaged, emaciated face spoke of discipline and duty. There was nothing in that face that spoke of a man whose greatest wish was to die in bed.

  He was like Mac.

  What would Mac do? Whatever Mac would want to do, Catherine would want to help him do it. “I don’t know why, but he wants to get to the bed.”

  Under her hands she could feel Ward’s withered muscles straining. Under that, iron will straining . . . Bed . . .

  The clawed hands fell, grasping . . .

  Bed.

  Something in the bed.

  Catherine leaped.

  “What?” Mac grunted as he tried to calm Ward without hurting him. “What are you doing, honey?”

  She was scrabbling madly in the sheets. The bed, the bed . . . echoes of what she’d heard as if a faraway scream sounded in her mind.

  The bed.

  She stripped the sheets off, shook them out.

  The bed . . . under the bed.

  She fell to her knees so hard she hurt herself and scrabbled wildly in the darkness under the bed. Nothing.

  It had to be here, whatever it was.

  Think, Catherine!

  His hands, flailing, reaching . . .

  She lifted the side of the mattress and there it was, on the orthopedic support. With a cry, Catherine lifted it up, and like a button had been pushed, Ward stilled in Mac’s arms.

  She studied the bloodstained card, studied the 3D hologram of the face. The face of the enemy. “This is Lee’s own pass. The head of research at Arka. I can’t believe it. He stole Lee’s card. This definitely has clearance to Level 4, if it exists. We can get in and get out now.”

  “Boss, Catherine.” Nick’s quiet voice was grim in her earpiece. “Company. Coming fast.”

  “How many?” Mac asked. The shit storm was almost upon them. They’d got this far, they’d already been lucky. There was only so much luck to be had on any mission and they’d just used up all of theirs.

  They were going hot now, and Mac wanted Catherine out of here. She’d done a fabulous job of getting them here. Smart and beautiful and kind. And now brave. He wasn’t going to lose her. Not now, not after just finding her.

  He had to get her out of here, fast.

  The Captain was still in his arms, after having what felt like a seizure. His eyes were closed, ravaged face slack. He weighed less than some of the backpacks Mac had carried into battle.

  Mac could carry him anywhere. He could carry him down to Level 4. He could do anything as long as he knew Catherine was safe.

  “Listen,” he said urgently. “We’ve got the pass. We’ll get down to Level 4, get the men out. Take the Antz, they’ll help you navigate your way out. Can you make it back to the helo and wait for us? You remember how to get over the microwave screen? You—”

  She was already walking to the door. “No way, Mac. No way am I leaving you. You need eyes and ears that aren’t the Antz, eyes and ears that know their way around. And you’re definitely going to be needing me to detach those men from their machines, if they are still alive. Make sure you close the door behind me.” She opened the door and signaled Nick at the end of the corridor, looked back at him. “Come on! Close the door.”

  There was no time to argue and he recognized that it would be useless anyway. Every cell in his body told him to get Catherine out of there but his head told him she was right. They needed her.

  Never before in his life had he gone on a mission with a split goal. He was always narrowly focused on getting in, getting the job done, getting out. He went in with men who trained as hard as he did and who were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. He’d never gone in worried about a teammate like he was now with Catherine, and he hated the hell out of it.

  But what could he do?

  He followed her out, the Captain in his arms, closing the door. She was already running down the corridor, Nick and Jon following her. He caught up with Nick. “How many?” he asked.

  “Three.” He was watching Catherine as she hurried down the corridor. “They’ll be at the corner any second now and they’ll see us.”

  “You and Jon be ready to take a knee.”

  “Yeah.” Jon and Nick had their weapons out. Mac shifted the Captain to a fireman’s lift and drew his own.

  Nick had shifted the screen image to holo. “Boss? They’re just around the—”

  “Here!” Catherine had stopped at a door, opened it and ushered them in. Mac, Nick and Jon turned, came in at a dead run. She shut the door quietly just as Nick’s holo showed three guards rounding the corner. There was a quiet sound as they all exhaled. None of them wanted a firefight with a wounded comrade to carry and a noncombatant to protect.

  Mac looked around. They were in a large room full of equipment. It wasn’t a sickroom, though. There were no beds, only inert machines stacked all around the walls. The only light came from the holo by Nick’s side. They watched it.

  The three guards were walking slowly, completely alert, hands on weapons. These weren’t rent-a-cops filling time.

  “Will they check the rooms?” Jon whispered.

  “Yes. The Captain’s mac
hinery is dead, there will be a red light flashing above the door. When they see the body missing they will sound the alarm. We have to get down to Level 4 fast. Follow me.”

  Catherine didn’t wait for them to acknowledge her, but rushed to the end of the room. There was a door there Mac hadn’t noticed, hidden behind what looked like a huge old-fashioned MRI, completely different from the new handheld ones.

  They filed out, into a large, dimly lit corridor.

  “That room is essentially a storehouse for equipment that needs recycling or repair or discarding. No one enters except tech guys on a schedule. We’re now in a part of the facility used for maintenance. It’s off the security camera web system. We should be okay until we get to Level 4. And pray there is one.” She was panting as she spoke. Mac let her lead. He had the layout of the Millon facility memorized but they were off the blueprints.

  Once again, she was saving their asses.

  The corridor ran over three hundred meters and at the end there was an elevator—a freight elevator from the size. They ran to it and Catherine swiped Lee’s card. They filed in and she swiped the card again. There were only three buttons, but when she swiped the card, a big 4 pulsed on the screen. She pressed the screen and they dropped.

  Nick had managed to herd a troop of Antz into the elevator and they clung to the ceiling. Mac looked at the handheld and saw the five of them in a bird’s-eye view.

  The doors opened onto a huge, gleaming hallway.

  An alarm sounded, a big foghorn sound, wailing every two seconds.

  Shit.

  Catherine looked up at Nick. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do now. Nick, can we use the Antz to check the rooms?”

  He was already deploying and the nearly invisible creatures were scattering, scrambling along the walls, looking into every room. They watched the screen showing room after empty room.

  Catherine put her hand on his arm as she watched and Mac felt warmth and hope and fear in equal measure enter his system. With the Captain in his arms he couldn’t cover her hand with his so he bent down and kissed the top of her head.

  “Wait! Have them back up.” She still had her hand on his arm and he could feel a jolt of excitement in his system and had no way to tell whether it was hers or his. “There!” She pointed. A dimly lit room with three beds. Three bodies hooked up to machinery.