Sean bit down on his split lip, a stinging pain stabbing through his jaw and mouth. He wanted to yell, to scream for help, but if he did, he’d be responsible for Alexei losing pieces of himself. That didn’t mean the all-too-human desire to beg was easy to give up.
Sean watched as two of the men tied rope around Alexei’s biceps to secure him more tightly while the third held a gun level with his head. Then they wrapped more rope around his torso to keep him from moving. Alexei didn’t fight them, either because he knew it wasn’t worth the risk or because his limbs still wouldn’t cooperate. Sean didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, but he had doubts it was long enough for Alexei to shake off the effects of getting hit by a neuro-jammer gun.
Alexei ignored them all, gray eyes locked on Sean with a startling intensity. Sean dreaded what could come next.
“Is okay, kotyonok,” Alexei said.
It was a lie that Sean desperately wanted to be true. Like Alexei, he’d gone through SERE training both during his time as a CIA officer and upon his transfer to the MDF. Surviving torture could be taught, to some degree, but no one ever really knew how they would react when they fell into enemy hands.
Cillian stood next to Alexei, making sure Sean had a full view of what was going on. He clenched his hands into fists, nails biting into palms as Cillian pressed the edge of the ceramic knife against the crook of Alexei’s elbow.
“Ye can be as loud as ye want, no one will hear ye,” Cillian said as he tapped the blade against Alexei’s arm. “We have hours ta become acquainted.”
The first cut wasn’t deep, but a line of blood welled up, spilling down Alexei’s arm. Sean saw Alexei’s entire body jerk, hands curling around the end of the armchair so tight it looked like his knuckles would break through his skin as Cillian slowly worked the knife down his arm. Rather than cut down to the bone, Cillian sliced through the first layer of Alexei’s skin, lifting it off the muscle below.
The sound Alexei made caused Sean to flinch with his entire body. But he kept his eyes open and his mouth shut, like Cillian wanted.
Sean reached for his power again and again, only to fall short every time, his only prize a furious agony that settled over him. Sean forced himself to watch Cillian peeling away the top layer of skin on Alexei’s forearm with the knife, Alexei’s choked-off, heavy cries and furious Russian words filling the room.
If they survived, Sean knew this nightmare would never leave him.
10
Cost of the Devil Due
Kyle flipped through a few news streams before settling on one at random. The anchor on the holoscreen in the middle of the conference table was a clean-cut older man who wore glasses, which struck Kyle as odd. Regen regimes could heal just about anything these days unless one had an allergy to the regeneration process or bioware in general. Prescription glasses were rarely seen outside poorer enclaves.
The anchor was getting opinions from several guests about the top news story of the evening, namely, the assassination attempt on Senator Richard Callahan. Kyle rubbed hard at his eyes as he listened to the people argue about poll numbers and whether or not nearly dying was good for the campaign.
“Dying doesn’t get you elected,” Kyle muttered.
He felt like he should have a headache after the day he’d had, but with his rapid healing power, that wasn’t happening. Kyle had arrived back at headquarters in the afternoon and gone through an intense debrief with the director before Nazari had left to oversee the MDF’s response to the mess in Los Angeles. The MDF couldn’t be overtly seen as having interest in the attack, but they needed to know the identities of the shooters.
Luckily, someone had leaked the information to the press. Kyle couldn’t care less about a couple of dead men, but when they belonged to the Sons of Adam, his only thought was he should’ve aimed for their heads.
“Your debrief finished an hour ago,” Katie said as she stepped inside the conference room.
“Still need to write up my report and sign off on it. Got distracted,” Kyle replied.
Katie pulled out the chair next to Kyle and sat down, resting her elbows on the conference table. She propped her chin on top of one hand, eyeing the news. “I can see that. You don’t need to watch this.”
“What else am I going to do? They caught me on camera shooting at the threat. I should know what’s going on in the news so that when a reporter waylays me on the street, I know what to expect.”
“No comment should be your only answer.”
“I know. I just really fucking hate this.”
Kyle watched himself and Jamie on the holoscreen at the tail end of the incident. His face and identity were being splashed all across the world, and he wanted none of it. Years of living and working in the shadows with Strike Force, and now with the MDF, meant he didn’t like people knowing anything about him. The background the MDF had built for him for the Pavluhkins mission said he came out of the Marines, and they’d buried as much of his past as they could.
The press could dig up anything though, as shown by the next promised segment after the commercial break which would delve into his past. Kyle didn’t want to know how these people would spin whatever some fucking reporter had dug up from court records on him. His birth family had died in a gang retaliatory attack when he was a kid, and then he’d been adopted by the Dvorkins. Kyle didn’t want the press hounding his family in any way, but it looked like things might escalate.
“Jamie called,” Katie continued. “Said they would be putting out a statement soon concerning the situation. I’m assuming they’ll address your actions.”
“Like I told the director, I’ll go along with whatever Jamie wants.”
“I know you will. He won’t let Richard throw you under the bus.”
Kyle snorted. “Wouldn’t be much I could do if his dad tried. I’m not a politician.”
She didn’t say everything would be all right. In their line of work, they knew that was nothing but a false promise. But they were a team, and they’d support each other no matter what. Jamie’s family was a complicated problem they all had to deal with, and the current mission wasn’t making that any easier.
“We should pull out,” Kyle said, slouching in his chair.
“Not up to us.”
“I know, but fuck, Katie. The mission is putting my family in danger and I hate that. I can handle it. So can Alexei. But they don’t deserve to be in the middle of all this and I don’t want them to be.”
He’d said as much to the director during his debrief. Kyle knew he didn’t have the authority to kill a mission, but it was getting to the point where he wasn’t sure the risk was worth it anymore. Making deals with the enemy and compromising their own safety for the greater good wouldn’t be worth anything if Kyle lost the people closest to him.
Jamie was at the top of that list.
When he’d seen the flash of a scope on top of the building’s roof, his first thought was for Jamie, and how he was so unprepared to live a life without him. A split second after was when he started worrying about the Callahan family as a whole, and had gone racing up the stage to get Richard secured. He hadn’t wanted Jamie to experience losing a parent in such a public way, which made the current situation all the more aggravating.
It’s not like Kyle had any experience living beneath the expectations the Callahans put on themselves in public and in private. He’d seen the way Jamie quietly tore himself apart over the demands the MDF and his family put on him. Kyle was only able to provide so much comfort during those moments—the decision of what to do was Jamie’s alone. But Kyle would support him, always, and Jamie knew that.
“You know his father refuses to cancel the rally tomorrow?” Kyle said.
“I’m aware of that. Jamie took over dealing with the security.”
“He’s got less than twenty-four hours to turn that park into Fort Knox.”
“If anyone can do it, Jamie can.”
“Yeah, but he’s going to be pissed a
s fuck about needing to.” Kyle stared up at the ceiling while the anchor on the holoscreen said goodnight to his audience and it rolled over to the next news show. “We should be there to watch his six.”
Kyle knew it wasn’t possible, but a guy could dream. If the entire team showed up to help Jamie handle security for his father, people would talk. The New York Times article back in January hadn’t exactly painted them all in the best light, despite the Marine Corps agreeing to help cover for them at the MDF’s request. Only so many lies could be told before they crumbled, and journalists, in Kyle’s experience, were tenacious little beasts.
“Word came back that the shooter and his partner identified with the Sons of Adam,” Katie told him.
Kyle turned his head to the side and made a face. “I know. I’m not surprised. If that group is following Declan now, and if he knows all our classified identities through Stanislav, the Sons of Adam are going to want revenge. Jamie killed Valerie, after all.”
Katie rubbed at her nose, a frown tugging at her mouth. “The director is aware of that problem. It’s why he approved having undercover MDF agents on the ground during the rally. The local police are aware of the threat and are taking extra precautions.”
“I don’t think it’ll be enough. We should be there.”
If they didn’t get permission to go, Kyle knew he would spend all day tomorrow glued to the news, watching the rally, and be in constant contact with Jamie. He knew the others on the team felt the same way, but they didn’t have clearance to go, and it rankled.
“It would cause too many problems if Alpha Team was seen onsite. You know that.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Katie looked like she would have argued, except the door to the conference room slid open and Elena Flores, Sean’s coworker, came rushing inside. “The deputy director needs to see you. Now.”
“What’s wrong?” Kyle asked as he quickly stood up.
Elena grimaced, fingers white-knuckling the tablet in her hand. “Alexei and Sean are missing.”
Kyle had no recollection of leaving the conference room. He blinked, and the next thing he knew, he was standing in the middle of the MDF’s command nerve center where active missions the world over were handled by supervising officers and support crew. Kyle stared at MDF Deputy Director Ranisha Stirling across a work table inundated with holoscreens pulled up into bright layers.
“When?” Kyle demanded, his voice sounding strange in his ears.
“Their trackers went dead at 1409. I was made aware of the situation when the supervising officer on duty couldn’t raise them on comms.”
That timeframe was mere minutes after Kyle had spotted the sniper targeting Jamie’s dad. Kyle felt weirdly lightheaded as he realized he’d been on the other side of the country when his brother needed him the most.
“Why didn’t you inform me earlier?” Kyle demanded, forgetting any sense of decorum and honorifics in the riptide of emotions swirling through him at the moment.
“Because the director wanted you clearheaded enough to give your debrief and we both know you wouldn’t be in the right headspace if you knew Dvorkin was MIA.”
Stirling didn’t sound apologetic about the command decision to keep Kyle in the dark. Part of him wanted to rage at Stirling for doing so, but he beat his temper into submission. Yelling at his commanding officer was a good way to end up benched, and like hell was he going to be held back on this mission.
“What do you have for us, ma’am?” Katie asked, stepping into the leadership void since Jamie was heading to Boston with his family for the campaign rally tomorrow.
“Agent Flores was notified by the monitoring agent on duty that Dvorkin and Delaney’s trackers went dead within a minute of each other. Their last known location was here.”
Stirling adjusted the holoscreens hovering over the table into a new order, bringing up a satellite map of an area in the Washington, D.C. megacity. It zoomed down over a parking garage tower squeezed in between a pair of skyscrapers.
“They went to your apartment before heading to the city center. They were taken in the parking garage,” Stirling said.
“Do we have security feed?” Kyle wanted to know, as a few more command windows started to populate.
“Unfortunately, not in the parking garage tower. Cillian’s people hacked the system and deleted the period of time Dvorkin and Delaney were on the premises.”
Kyle dragged one window closer, watching as a bright blue line rapidly mapped out the route Alexei or Sean had driven once they left the base. It wasn’t direct, and tracking them on the ground would’ve been difficult. Both Alexei and Sean were skilled in knowing when they had a tail. He looked up from the map, catching Katie’s attention. For a few seconds, all they could do was stare bleakly at each other.
“If they weren’t followed,” Katie said slowly, “was Cillian lying in wait?”
Kyle closed his eyes, leaning his weight against the work table, ignoring the quiet buzz of conversation as agents and analysts worked around them. If Cillian knew where to wait, the only person who could have given him that information was Stanislav.
“We need to end this mission,” Kyle ground out. “We can’t outplay a precog.”
“The mission is still green,” Stirling said.
“For fuck’s sake—”
“When are you updating Callahan?” Katie swiftly asked, cutting Kyle off.
Stirling kept her focus on the holoscreens. “Later. We’ve ordered him to call when he has a secure line and is finished handling his family’s security.”
“He needs to know now. He would want to know,” Kyle said.
Stirling leveled him a look that slid off Kyle as if it were water. Whatever punishment they’d end up putting into his personnel jacket didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was saving his brother and Sean.
“The director is trying to mitigate risk to Callahan’s identity. When he is in a secure location, we’ll give him a sitrep.”
Kyle opened his mouth to argue, but Katie rather firmly ground her boot heel onto the top of his foot to get him to shut up. Kyle didn’t feel any pain, but it stopped him from saying something he would regret.
Katie caught Stirling’s attention. “What about their families?”
Kyle’s mind screeched to a halt so hard he swore it was like getting hit over the head.
“We recalled the field teams guarding the Dvorkin and the Delaney families and their charges once we confirmed the attack.” Stirling held Kyle’s gaze, the surety and calmness in her dark brown eyes something he wanted desperately to feel himself right about then. “Your family is being tended to on a residential level of the base. They’re safe.”
Kyle wouldn’t believe that until he got eyes on them.
“Permission to leave, ma’am?” he asked.
“Granted.”
Call Jamie, Katie telepathically told him as he saluted the deputy director and spun on his heels. Run the encryption program when you do.
I already had plans to. He needs to know.
It was going against orders, but Kyle didn’t care. Alpha Team was under Jamie’s command and Kyle knew what that meant to him. What’s more, Kyle knew how badly it had and could affect Jamie when he knew members of his team were in danger. Tripoli had done a number on the team members who’d come out of the Recon Marines, but it had affected Jamie the most. No way was Kyle going to keep Jamie in the dark. Stirling could do what was best for the country. Kyle would do what was best for the team and for Jamie.
He left Level 36 and headed down to the level Jamie’s office was located. He and Katie were the only two on the team who had one, and the team had access to both. Kyle pressed his hand to the control panel for Ceres to read his print and unlock the door. It slid open and Kyle stepped inside, the lights automatically coming on.
“Ceres, initiate privacy blackout mode,” Kyle said.
“Privacy blackout mode engaged,” was the AI’s response.
Kyle crossed the small space to put his hands on Jamie’s desk, the embedded screen on top dormant to his touch. The computer synced to his bioware and it didn’t take very long for Kyle to activate the encryption program that would hide his call to Jamie from any prying eyes—including the MDF’s. It took only a couple of seconds longer to call Jamie. The welcome sound of his voice wasn’t enough to loosen Kyle’s tight shoulders.
“Kyle?” Jamie asked, sounding a little distracted.
“Get somewhere secure,” Kyle told him, unable to keep his voice completely steady. He stared down at the blank screen on the desk, hands curling into fists against the solid piece of furniture.
Jamie’s voice came out sharp and focused, echoing in Kyle’s ears over his encrypted and embedded nanotech comms. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re in the clear.”
He was trying so hard not to let the fear screaming in the back of his mind overtake his concentration. Knowing that Alexei was in the hands of the enemy gutted him in a way few other things could. What’s worse, this wasn’t some kidnapping for ransom that could easily be paid. Cillian had done this out of revenge on Sean, and when revenge was a factor in anything, nothing good came of it.
The call was muted for several minutes as Jamie did whatever he had to in order to carve out some alone time. Kyle knew Jamie was on the ground in Boston already, overhauling whatever security measures were previously put in place for the campaign rally. If he was in the midst of campaign aides and security personnel, not to mention the Secret Service, finding a place to take a private call would be difficult.
“Talk to me,” Jamie finally ordered, voice the same sure one that had been in Kyle’s ears since day one of joining Alpha Team. No matter the situation, Jamie was always the anchor he could cling to in the midst of a storm.
“The brass want to keep you in the dark. Katie and I know you need to be told,” Kyle said, licking his lips. His mouth felt sandpaper-dry and it was difficult to force the words out. “Alexei and Sean’s trackers were disabled. They’re not answering comms. They’ve been taken, most likely by Cillian.”
In the Blood (Metahuman Files Book 4) Page 17