Lanie said nothing for a moment, then walked over to the table where a guy sat behind a computer. She asked him something and he nodded. She picked up the laptop and brought it over, stopping a few feet in front of Mercedes.
“Is this the man you gave Dr. Oliver’s research to?”
“That’s him.”
“His name is Steffan Ostermann. He owns Bioteric.” Lanie returned the computer to the guy. “We think he’s kidnapped one of our men and Dr. Oliver.”
“I think he did, too.” She jerked at the zip ties biting into her wrists. “Untie me.”
“This is a ploy,” Ian said. “And not a very good one.”
She whirled on him. “I don’t care what you think, pendajo.” Realizing she’d let Ian get under her skin—oh, she’d forgotten how good he was at that—she returned her attention to Lanie. “When I met with Ostermann, he was off. Everything about him was fake. Cold. Calculating. Nothing good will come of him having both that research and Dr. Oliver.”
Marcus Deangelo, who had sunk down into a chair while she spoke, stood up again. His eyes were bloodshot and he’d lost the color in his cheeks. “Guys…”
Everyone looked at him.
“Claire thinks the virus is a bioweapon. Who else would kill for research on a virus cure-all but a bioterrorist?”
A bolt of shock sizzled through Mercedes. She sucked in a sharp breath, and felt Ian’s gaze swing toward her and focus in. She ignored him.
Bioterrorism?
Her stomach rolled over.
Lanie studied her face, then nodded once. “Cut her loose.” She turned to the two guys standing back from the group, who had thus far been silent observers. “Contact Tuc and have him send in the cavalry. We’re going to need…” She trailed off and shook her head. “All the help we can get.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Claire drifted toward consciousness, bobbing there just under the surface, not asleep, but unable to come fully awake either. It was terrifying. She struggled to lift an eyelid under the heavy weight of the drugs in her system, managed to open her eyes the tiniest sliver. She was on a couch of plush, soft leather, her face pressed to the back of the seat. She recognized the hum under her ear. A familiar droning like…like a plane engine cruising at altitude.
A plane.
They’d put her on a plane. A private one if she had to guess from the leather under her cheek. But what about Jean-Luc? Was he here, too?
She tried to lift her head, but her brain wasn’t communicating with her muscles yet. Still too much of the tranquilizer in her system. All she could do was lie there and stare at the back of the couch and listen.
Other people were definitely in the cabin with her. They weren’t talking, but she sensed their presences. Occasionally she heard a rustle of paper, like someone turning the page of a book. The silence stretched for a long time, which was fine by her. Each passing minute, more of the drug-fog lifted from her mind and she was able to think more clearly. She gave her fingers and toes an experimental wiggle. Both moved on command.
Good.
She hated not having control of her faculties.
The mood in the cabin abruptly shifted, filled with tension like a slack string suddenly pulled tight. Someone said something in a language she didn’t speak. German? Yes, sounded like it. The voice sounded edgy, as if the speaker didn’t like what he was saying. The response he got was calm and cool—the other speaker seemed unworried.
Hard hands grabbed her and yanked her upright. She gasped and shut her eyes against the onslaught of dizziness brought on by the quick movement. Mr. Calm and Cool said something else to his companion, and a moment later, someone shoved a bottle into her hand. She opened her eyes and looked at it.
Water.
Oh, she wanted it. Her tongue felt like a cotton ball, wicked of all moisture. The seal around the cap hadn’t been broken, but she didn’t dare trust it. For all she knew, her captors could be trying to drug her again.
“Drink.”
She looked up and found the pock-scarred man in a seat across from the couch, her research scattered on the table in front of him.
“It’s not drugged, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he added without looking up from the page he read. “If I wanted to drug you, I’d just have Audric stick you with a needle again.”
She glanced over at the stone-faced man sitting at the other end of the couch. Nothing in his expression gave him away, but something about his posture exposed how unhappy he was with the current situation. Audric. She recognized him. The man who had killed Dayo without a second’s hesitation.
“Go on,” the scarred man said. “Drink. You’re probably experiencing cottonmouth. I’m sorry for that, but it couldn’t be avoided.”
“What have you done with Jean-Luc?” she tried to ask, but slurred the words. Resigned, she fumbled off the cap on the water. She had to risk it. Her mouth was too dry to talk, and she wanted answers. She took a small, experimental sip and waited. When the light-headed, floaty feeling of the drugs didn’t return, she drank until the bottle was empty.
“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” the man said while she drank. “I’m Dr. Steffan Ostermann.”
“You’re no doctor,” she said. Her voice still sounded like gravel, but it was better than last time. “Doctors take an oath to do no harm.”
“Harm?” He scoffed and sat back in his chair. “I’m trying to save the world, not harm it.”
She stared at him in complete disbelief. “How can you say that when you’ve killed so many people in your pursuit of me?”
“I’ve killed no one.”
“No, you just order it done,” she snapped, then drew a breath to calm herself. Ostermann didn’t even blink in the face of her outrage. She wondered if he ever felt any emotion at all. “Do you really think that putting the distance of a mercenary between you and the people you’ve murdered relieves you of guilt?”
“I have no blood on my hands, but I wouldn’t regret it if I did.” Ostermann’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “I don’t understand your concern about Dayo’s death. He betrayed you.”
She swallowed the anger burning at the back of her throat and carefully set her empty bottle down on the table between them. “He only betrayed me because he was scared and desperate and you gave him a sliver of hope. Anyone in his position would have done the same.”
“Yes. Exactly.” Ostermann folded his hands on the table and smiled congenially. “That’s the problem with this world. There’s no rational thought anymore. No logic. People react without thinking. Opinions are now considered fact, and facts are fake. Dictators, terrorism, the willing destruction of the planet…” For the first time, there showed a flicker of something real behind his eyes. Nothing as passionate as excitement, but definitely a clinical kind of enthusiasm as he warmed to his topic. “The world has gone insane and there’s only one solution. Only one way to reset the system before the system destroys itself and everyone and everything in it. As a scientist, you must see it, too.”
Yes, she saw it. His vision of a solution, in all its cold, logical horror.
He planned to eradicate the human race.
Selectively, if Akeso was involved.
Her mouth went dry again and not from the drugs. She licked her lips and glanced around the cabin. Jean-Luc wasn’t here, and she dreaded her next question. “What did you do to Jean-Luc?”
“Don’t worry, he’s protected. As all precious cargo should be.”
“He’s not cargo.”
Ostermann raised a brow. “No? His only value lies in the fact you used him as a test subject.”
No, he was more. So much more. He was funny and sweet. Protective and ruthless. He laughed loud and loved hard. Told stories, sang off-key, and danced to his own beat. His family meant the world to him, including his brothers-in-arms, and he had chased her across continents all to keep a promise. He was heat, and spice, and passion. He was the man she loved.
; Jean-Luc was more than a test subject, but Ostermann, with his icy logic, would never be able to understand why.
Ostermann sighed heavily, then pushed out of his seat and joined her on the couch. “I’m going to build a better world, Claire.” He took her hand, patted it. “We’re going to. Me and my viruses, you and Akeso.”
She leaped to her feet, the anger boiling inside her making her restless. His bodyguards all tensed, but he held up a halting hand as she paced away. The cabin was too small. He knew as well as she did that there was no place to go.
Resolute, she turned back. “I won’t help you.”
Ostermann said nothing. He simply nodded to Audric.
The bodyguard pulled a needle out of his pocket and approached her.
Too late, she realized her mistake. She should’ve played along. He would’ve kept her awake because he wanted to tell someone about his plan. He’d shown the first flicker of real emotion while discussing it. The more he talked, the more she’d know.
When she woke up again, she wouldn’t make the same mistake. If she wanted to stop him, she had to make him think she’d come around to his logic. It was the only way she’d get close enough to destroy his virus.
Audric wasn’t gentle with the needle stick. It hurt, but then she didn’t care. She was floating again, slipping toward unconsciousness. He picked her up and deposited her on the couch.
Just before her heavy eyelids drifted shut, she saw Ostermann kneel beside her, his scarred face inches from hers. He stroked her hair. “Don’t fight me, Claire. I’m not going to hurt you. You’ll serve us well when it comes time to repopulate the world after my virus destroys it.”
“I won’t…” she tried to say, but it came out as a prolonged groan instead. Then she couldn’t say anything at all as she fell into unconsciousness, chased by horrible visions of the world he intended to create.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“What do you know about Ostermann?”
Marcus eyed the Defion woman—Mercedes Raya—as everyone fired questions at her. Cool as ice, that one. And just as deceptive. He didn’t trust her one bit.
“Not a whole lot,” Mercedes answered. “When I was given this mission, I was told Bioteric had hired us.”
“Us, meaning Defion,” Marcus corrected.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, we’ve already established I work for Defion.” She pointed at Carreras and Devlin. “And those two goons are Quentin’s bounty hunters.” She swept her arm out indicating everyone else. “And you’re all HORNET. Tell me again why any of that matters right now? We all want the same thing here.”
“I don’t believe you,” Ian said. “You’re playing an angle we don’t see yet.”
Marcus nodded. He and Ian didn’t have any problems, but they’d never been simpatico either. Nice to know he wasn’t the only one who thought trusting this woman was an epic mistake.
Her eyes all but spit fire at Ian. “The only angle I’m playing, Reinhardt, is the one where the world doesn’t end. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to continue breathing without drowning in my own blood. Because that’s what this virus does to people.” She turned her gaze to Marcus. “You’ve seen how fucking terrifying it is. Tell them.”
He thought of Jean-Luc in that hospital bed, so still and pale and…
Damn her, she was right. He would never trust her, but she looked frightened enough by the possibility of the virus that he believed her. They were working toward the same goal. Right now, survival was the name of the game.
“You saw it up close?” Seth asked softly.
“Yeah.” He debated the wisdom of the truth for a moment, then decided they might as well know everything from the get go. “When we first arrived in country, Jean-Luc and I were attacked by militants and separated. Took over week to track down Claire, and when I did, she led me to him. He’d been infected.”
The room erupted.
He raised his voice over the noise. “Yo! Guys, he’s okay. Claire saved him.”
Jesse frowned, his brows drawn together under the brim of his ever-present Stetson. “She…saved him? How? Everything I’ve read about this virus—”
“She gave him Akeso, and it worked.”
Again, the room exploded. Marcus rubbed at the ache between his eyes and paced over to the window. Something was going down in the parking lot, he noted without much interest.
Until he saw a body on a stretcher being zipped into a bag.
He spun around. “Harvard!” he called over the noise. “You’re still in the security system?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Bring up the basement. Parking garage. Loading dock. Anything like that.”
Harvard nodded and went to work without question.
Lanie walked over to stand beside him at the window. “You got something?”
He nodded toward the mess of official vehicles below. “They just found a body.”
She tensed, her spine going rigid as she stared out the window. “Jean-Luc?”
He shook his head. “It was a black man, but I’d bet my entire movie collection Jean-Luc’s involved somehow. You don’t have two people go missing and a body show up in the same night without a connection.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Anything yet, H?”
“I’m working on it,” Harvard said testily. It wasn’t like him to snap, and this was the second time in as many days he’d lost his temper.
Marcus walked over to him. “You okay?”
“Jesus Christ. I have, like, fifty searches running simultaneously. I’ll let you know when I have something.” He grabbed a pair of noise-canceling headphones and slipped them on, effectively shutting everyone out.
Marcus held up his hands and backed away. “What’s his deal?”
“He’s been like that since you and Jean-Luc took off,” Seth said. “I thought he was just annoyed at you two, but he’s snapping at everyone now.”
“I think it’s an improvement,” Ian said. “It’s about time the nerd grew a spine and told you guys to fuck off once in a while. I’m proud of him.”
“You would be,” Mercedes muttered.
Ian’s lips compressed into a scowl.
Huh. Some weird vibes there. Marcus wagged a finger between the two of them. “You two know each other?”
Their gazes met. Ian turned away first. He knelt down to pay attention to Tank, and the move was as effective at shutting out the conversation as Harvard’s headphones.
Mercedes made a face at his back. “No. I just don’t like him. Ever meet someone and hate them on sight?” She shifted her gaze to Marcus. “I like you, though, Deangelo.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised how much I know. About all of you.”
Something there in her tone, something like amusement, sparked against his temper. She was laughing at him. Laughing at all of them and—
She knew.
The cork popped on the rage he kept bottled up deep inside him, sudden and violent. He saw red and a target painted right across her forehead. He didn’t realize he’d lunged toward her until Ian blocked him.
“Hey,” Ian snarled. “Back off.”
“She knows who killed Danny!” He lunged again. Several sets of hands wrapped around his shoulders and arms—his teammates hauling him backward. “Ask her! She fucking knows!”
Lanie jumped between them. She spared Ian a look over her shoulder, which he must have taken as an order to leave because he grabbed Mercedes by the arm and hauled her out of the suite. Then Lanie focused all of her attention back on him. “Marcus? Listen to me.”
He didn’t see her at first and barely registered she was speaking to him. All he saw was Mercedes, the first and only lead he’d found to Danny’s killer, ushered away by one of his teammates. A howl of pure, black hatred ripped out of him, so raw he barely recognized it as his own voice.
Two soft hands clasped his face and held firmly, forcing him to meet sympathetic brown eyes. Lanie. Her lips wer
e moving, but the words echoed like she was at the end of a very long tunnel.
“Easy,” she said. “Shh. Take it easy now.”
Everything went out of him in an instant, and he sagged against the arms holding him. He noticed now that Jesse and Seth had been the ones to grab him, hold him back. The two men deposited him in a chair.
Lanie knelt in front of him. “Marcus, I promise you we will find Danny’s killer. He was one of us, and Gabe, Quinn, Tuc, and I will not give up until he’s avenged.”
His face felt hot, his eyes gritty. When he rubbed a hand over them, his palm came away wet. Fuck, he was crying. “I promised his wife. I—I promised Leah I’d find the bastard.”
“I know, and we will. But right now, we can’t. Our focus has to be Jean-Luc, Dr. Oliver, and this bioweapon, okay? We have to find them or else this world will no longer be safe for Leah and her kids. Do you understand that?”
It hurt—it physically pained him like a knife twisting in his gut—but he nodded. “Lanie, you can’t expect me to work side by side with that woman. For all we know, she killed Danny.”
“That’s fair,” Lanie said. “Make no mistake, no one here sees her as an ally, but if it makes you feel better, she’s now officially our prisoner. We’ll use her to find our people, then take her back to HQ and question her about Danny’s murder.”
“Thank you.” His voice came out raw, barely a whisper.
“Got something,” Harvard said, dragging off his headphones.
Lanie patted his knee, then stood. “What is it?”
“Jean-Luc and Dr. Oliver were lured out of their suite and to the loading dock below the hotel.”
“They weren’t forced?” Lanie asked.
“No, not by the looks of it. I’ve knitted the different videos together.” He pointed to the wall across from him, which lit up with a fuzzy image of three people talking in the hallway right outside the suite’s door. “This is their first appearance after going into the suite. This man knocks, and they go with him.”
Marcus wiped at his eyes with two fingers, then shoved to his feet to get a better look at the picture of the man. “That’s Dayo. He worked at the MSF field hospital. He was dating Claire’s friend, Sunday. Another doctor.”
Reckless Honor (HORNET) Page 20