by Lexi Blake
And there was the catch. There was nothing out there for them to film with the exception of moose and elk and the occasionally cranky bear. A couple of the spots were designated refuge areas.
She’d known it was too good to be true, rather like the man running the meeting. “What exactly are we looking for, gentlemen? I was told this was about the environmental impact of big business on the national forest land. There’s no big business out here. Unless you count Marie and Teeny. They’re talking about opening a used bookstore. Between that, the tea room, and the Trading Post, they’re kind of the captains of industry around here. I seriously doubt they’re dumping trash and used tea bags deep in the forest.”
“Absolutely not,” Henry said. “They follow all of the best recycling practices. They would never pollute anything but the air.” He shrugged. “Marie has a potty mouth at times.”
She gave him her best stay-on-task stare. “I’m serious, Henry. What’s this actually about?”
The golden god of a man who she’d found out was called Taggart set down his coffee mug. “It’s about all those zeroes you just got.”
Nope. She wasn’t going there. It was important to set some ground rules right up front. She’d done this job long enough to know that some clients weren’t worth the trouble. “Zeroes are nice. Truth is better. Look, I need the money, but I also need to keep my business. You seem to think you can walk in here, flash a ton of cash, and get me to do anything you want. I won’t do anything illegal and I won’t do anything unnecessarily dangerous. And I make the call as to whether or not something is dangerous. You are not the expert, Mr. Taggart. I am.”
“I’m a former Green Beret. I assure you, I know a thing or two about surviving,” he shot back.
“And if I need someone to save me from bad guys, I’ll give you a call. If you knew how to handle those woods, you wouldn’t need me. You would lead this party yourself.” If there was one place she still felt confident, it was in the wild.
His lips turned up in the faintest grin. “I’m far too old to rough it. I like beds and I swore I’d never eat another MRE again. When we take the kids out, my wife and I are all about the glamping.”
Fain snorted. “Sure you are.”
Taggart chuckled. “Charlie glamped my rig up. We get Netflix in that sucker. Oh, we put the kids in a tent with one flashlight between them because they need to learn to survive. We already did that. That’s why the puppies are running this show. Their backs can handle it.”
She wasn’t sure that man took anything seriously. “I have to know what I’m taking us into. You’re holding out on me and that makes me worry. If I can’t trust you out there, there’s no amount of money that will get me to risk my crew on this mission of yours.”
“It’s not a mission,” Fain insisted. “It’s a film.”
Taggart sat back, those ruthlessly intelligent eyes watching her. “We have all the proper permits. I’ll give you copies and you can make calls if you like. We’ve made all the arrangements with the National Forest Service. I assure you, those tracts of land aren’t off limits to us.”
“And that scares me, too.” She wasn’t getting a filmmaker vibe off these guys. Only the fact that Henry Flanders was in the room kept her from walking away. Otherwise, she would be worried she was getting the wool pulled over her eyes again and she was being asked to work for the mafia. She could see the big guy running some American wing of the Swedish mob. Did they have a mob? Didn’t everyone have a mob? “No one gets these permits with the exception of scientists.”
“Or documentarians trying to prove that there’s a secret CIA black ops site deep in the forest.” The words dropped from Jax’s mouth like a boulder.
Or a landmine. Yep, she was standing on a landmine, and if she moved it would explode. “The CIA doesn’t work on American soil.”
Taggart stared at Jax, an arctic look in his eyes. “I thought we were going to keep that secret.”
“She needs to know that this is dangerous. I’m not letting her walk into this ignorant.” Jax turned to her. “This team was put together because of the potential danger the job holds. Most of us are ex-military. We’re all trained. Every single man on this crew can handle himself, and we can protect you. What we can’t protect you from is whatever the hell is in that building.”
“Could I take this moment to remind everyone in here that you all signed nondisclosure agreements?” Robert asked with a grimace. “We’re going to take that seriously. You are not allowed to talk about anything that happens during this expedition, and that includes what goes on in this room.”
They were all frowning at Jax, but she was grateful at least one of them was telling her the truth. Why did it have to be him? She wasn’t going to soften. Just because he was telling the truth now didn’t mean he wouldn’t lie later. She should have known this would go south when they’d had her fill out as much paperwork as she’d given them. “We know how to be discreet. This is not our first nondisclosure.”
“Yeah, I once took a group of swingers out into the woods, and I’ve never talked about that,” Ty offered with a shudder. “I really try not to talk about it. Or think about it.”
Taggart snorted. “I’ll remember that.” He sighed and seemed to relax. “Well, go on then, Romeo. The floor is yours.”
The sarcasm didn’t seem to faze Jax. He turned toward her, his gaze serious. “It’s called The Ranch. The Agency used it to house medical experiments they wanted to keep off the radar.”
A chill went through her. “This is starting to sound like a conspiracy theory. Like a medical Area 51.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “If this is nothing but a conspiracy theory, then you’ve got nothing to worry about and we’re out a ton of cash.”
“I’m struggling with the idea that the actual CIA is here in Colorado,” Andy said. “I thought they worked in places like the Middle East. Aren’t they spies? Why do they care about medical stuff?”
It was a good question. “Isn’t the CIA supposed to protect us from foreign attacks?”
“The CIA’s mission is to gather intelligence that will protect our country from all kinds of attacks,” Fain said. “Everything from physical terrorist attacks to cyber attacks to foreign governments manipulating our systems for their own gain. The question is always how to do it. Sometimes they try to protect in extremely ruthless ways. And I assure you they have an interest in all things scientific and technological. The Agency knows the future of warfare will be on two fronts—the cyber and the biological. The time for big bombs is over. Bombs are for terrorists. Viruses are the new Manhattan Project.”
“And drugs,” Jax added. “Pharmaceuticals can be used to keep a population in line. Drugs and other therapies can make soldiers stronger.”
“Eugenics is back in play,” the man named Robert said. “Originally it was a way to manipulate the human gene before birth to make the human race stronger. It was perverted by the Nazis to build the master race. Now we use it to make sure our kids have blue eyes and not brown. But the Agency would use it to make their soldiers better, faster, stronger.”
She’d landed in some kind of sci-fi story. “How would they know who is going to grow up to be soldiers?”
“Not all DNA is manipulated before birth,” Jax said with a gravity that scared her.
“And they’re doing this in my backyard?” It was almost incomprehensible. She lived here to be away from all the crap that came with large populations of humans. She turned to Nate. “Do you believe this is true?”
Nate nodded. “Yes. I do. I also believe that these men will do everything they can to protect you. There are rumors that The Ranch has been abandoned because the current administration would likely have a problem with what went on there.”
“They shut the whole thing down overnight,” Jax explained. “And from what we understand they haven’t been back. This was a site that housed roughly twenty labs and everything that goes with medical research.”
“Like
medical waste?” Ty asked. “But they would have gotten rid of that, right? We have regulations.”
“And that’s why it’s a black ops site,” Taggart pointed out. “No oversight. I assure you the EPA isn’t watching them. The EPA has no idea they exist. Neither did the Bliss County Sheriff’s Department.”
“We might have had something to say about it,” Nate agreed.
“It’s beyond mere medical waste. It’s everything that goes along with having a bunch of humans and animals in a closed space for months or years at a time.” Jax’s fingers drummed along the tabletop. “All those systems are degrading by the day. Our research indicates that The Ranch has been closed down for roughly three years. They left everything. All the doctors and staff were taken out, but we believe everything else was abandoned.”
All those chemicals. They would have used generators and chemical toilets and god only knew what else. Nature had a way of encroaching. Years of disuse would lead to ways in and out. It would affect the wildlife and the biosphere. It could be worse. “It might affect our water supply.”
Experimental drugs could seep into the water table, finding their way into the reservoirs.
Andy looked a little pale. “I think this is bigger than we can handle. You need to get the authorities involved.”
Nate’s brows rose. “Am I chopped liver?”
Andy frowned and pushed away from the table. “No, but you’re a small-town sheriff and this is a big-time problem. This could affect everyone in this part of Colorado.”
“Which is precisely why we’re asking for your help.” Jax sounded entirely too sensible. “We have to find the site and document it. Otherwise they’ll continue to let it decay or they’ll do something more drastic. Fires are common in this part of the country. A nice fire could potentially destroy all the evidence. Oh, it could also decimate the forest and possibly kill off the towns around it, but that’s what the term collateral damage was invented to describe.”
She couldn’t get out of this.
She would be stuck out there with him, and she couldn’t pawn it off because what he was doing was important. It was critical.
Her heart sank as she forced herself to look at him. She was trapped and there was no way out. In this particular game, she’d lost the second round, too.
She didn’t have high hopes for a third.
Chapter Seven
Several hours later, Jax zipped up the lightweight windbreaker Teeny Warner swore would keep him warm during the cool nights out in the forest. He looked at himself in the mirror. There was a hollow look in his eyes that never seemed to go away.
He thought seriously about smashing that mirror into pieces. It had been so long since he’d had blood on his hands. Mother had been right. It was really the only thing he was good at.
“Robert said you flat out told River what we were looking for. You told her about The Ranch?” Tucker was wearing the same jacket only in blue instead of black. “I thought we weren’t supposed to do that.”
They had a shopping list of personal items River thought they would need for the expedition. She’d handed him the handwritten list at the end of their meeting. She’d had a hollow look in her eyes, too.
Had he put it there?
“I wasn’t going to lie to her. I hate the fact that I already did.” He shrugged out of the jacket and into the second one he’d been given to try on. It fit better than the first. He hated clothes shopping. When he’d been rescued, he’d come out of the facility with nothing but the white T-shirt and gray pants he’d been given to sleep in. They all wore the same things. No one was different in Mother’s world. The evil doc had believed in equality among her soldiers. Everyone got the same torturous drugs and the same utilitarian clothes to wear. Two sets of PJs. Two sets of fatigues. One pair of boots. Five pair of boxers and socks. He’d left it all behind except for what he’d worn out of the facility. He would have left that behind, too, if Taggart hadn’t forbidden nudity on his private plane.
At the time he’d thought he would buy all new things. It had felt like a fresh start. So why when given the choice did he always buy the most utilitarian thing he could? There were lots of colors, but he’d picked up the black and navy blue. All of his T-shirts were plain. Now he owned three pairs of jeans. Four plain T-shirts. One pair of slacks with three collared shirts in neutral colors.
There was very little color in his world. He’d loved the fact that River’s offices had been brightly painted. The walls had been a sky blue, covered with pictures of the adventures she’d led. He’d stared at them for the longest time. She had a whole wall of memories.
He only remembered pain and one night with her.
“I’m sorry about last night.” Tucker unzipped his jacket and put it on the buy pile. “Can we talk about it now or are you still ignoring me?”
What the hell other color would he get? And Tucker was right. He couldn’t ignore him forever. “It was stupid to think it could work out.”
He’d hated how distant she’d been. Hated how she’d looked at him and reminded him how many times she’d asked him to stop talking about their non-relationship. She’d left him no way out except to leave her alone.
She hadn’t looked happy alone.
“Did you hear the part where I was sorry?” Tucker was staring at him in the mirror.
“You were doing your job.” The job was pretty much all any of them had. Even Dante.
Tucker’s jaw firmed, a stubborn look coming into his eyes. “I won’t do it again.”
Now Tucker had his back? “You won’t have to. I told you she’s done with me.”
“She doesn’t have to be.”
He turned because that hadn’t been said by Tucker. That optimistic statement had come from a feminine voice.
Tucker’s whole face lit up. He went from grim to hopeful in a second, reminding Jax of how Tucker could find the light in any darkness. “Heather, it’s good to see you. We missed you at the meeting. Were you looking for me?”
Heather stood a couple of feet away, a bag in her hand. She’d obviously been downstairs shopping. The Trading Post was Bliss’s all-purpose store. The grocery and household goods were on the first floor. The second floor contained clothing and sporting goods and an odd collection of miscellany. He had to wonder if she’d heard them talking and headed up the stairs.
Heather stepped forward and ruffled Tucker’s hair like he was a puppy. “No, I didn’t, sweetie. I told you. You are far too young for me.”
“We don’t even know how old…” Tucker began with a frown. “I mean you don’t know. I could be far older than I look.”
She smiled vibrantly and shook her head. “Not a chance, buddy.” She turned to Jax, her smile fading. “You fucked up. River has been screwed over one too many times. She’ll take anything you do and twist it into something bad. She’s looking at the world through poop-colored glasses, if you know what I mean. I came looking for you because I need to know if I should kick your ass or help you out because you’re dumb as dirt.”
She was giving him a chance? A tiny kernel of hope kindled inside him. “Dumb as dirt.”
“Whoa,” Tucker intervened. “He’s not dumb. He wanted to stay with her, but we had an emergency back at the base. I had to come get him. He’s our computer and security expert. He was the only one who could deal with the problem.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “All right. I can understand an emergency. Why not leave a note?”
Dante had fucked him over. He wouldn’t be in this situation if he hadn’t been drugged and dragged out. “I didn’t think about it at the time and I’d forgotten to get River’s phone number. I meant to go by after the meeting with our guide. Surprise. I’m with the film crew. So is Tucker. We didn’t talk about that because we’ve gotten burned by women who thought we were Hollywood types. We’re not, though we do know some actors.”
Her brow arched. “You do?”
This really was part of their cover. Over the yea
rs McKay-Taggart had done some bodyguard work for stars and royalty. “One of our best friends is married to Joshua Hunt, and we’ve worked with Lyle Tarpin before.”
Her eyes went wide. “The action star?”
He nodded. “Yes. He’s a pretty cool guy. We did a couple of pieces on the king and queen of Loa Mali, too. But we mostly work with journalists. I would never want a woman to sleep with me because she thought she would get something out of it beyond an orgasm and my deepest affection.”
“I am not as picky,” Tucker offered. “I’m cool with whatever she gets out of it.”
Heather ignored him. “Okay. I accept your explanation. Are you still interested in River?”
“Yes.” He’d been trying to find some way around her we can’t talk about our relationship edict. It was making him crazy. He finally kind-of, sort-of had a relationship and he definitely wanted to talk about it. “I like her very much. I’d like to spend time with her.”
“She has an ex,” Heather began.
Jax nodded. This had been his morning project. “Yes, I believe I’ve found all his aliases. The wire transfers should go through tonight. I’ve set it up like a line of dominoes. They’ll start falling at nine p.m. Central time. I located him in Omaha. I don’t want him going into a physical bank. He’ll have to call customer service.”
“I’m sorry. What are you talking about?” Heather asked.
He’d thought it might be the only thing he had to give River. A little revenge. A lot of justice. Sometimes they went hand in hand. “The sheriff gave me her ex-husband’s name. By the end of the night, River will have her money back. Probably more. I don’t know how much he stole from her so I took everything. She also now owns a nice one bedroom in Midtown Manhattan.”
Heather’s jaw dropped open. “Are you fucking with me?”
“He never fucks around about ruining lives,” Tucker explained solemnly. “Dante should be glad he doesn’t have an internet footprint or Jax would have come down on his ass. Once a member of British parliament called our friend Kayla a cow and Jax doctored up a video of him screwing farm animals. He didn’t get reelected.”