by Vanessa Kier
Mark laughed softly. “Don’t apologize. We can grab lunch before we hit the safe house.”
After enough evasive action to satisfy even Faith’s paranoia, they ended up sharing fried chicken and biscuits at a picnic table in a deserted corner of a beachside park. The look of faint disdain on Mark’s face as he ate the meal almost made Faith laugh, but she knew he’d take it the wrong way. He was just so cute when he got all fussy and arrogant. But eating at an upscale restaurant would have been out of character for their worn jeans and threadbare t-shirts. Mark even wore a ragged army jacket that made him look dangerously sexy.
Although, from the look on his face, Mark didn’t approve of their apparel any more than he did their food. And if the way he’d carefully brushed off the picnic table and bench was any indication, he wasn’t a fan of eating outdoors. While she found his fastidiousness odd—with his training he had to have slummed it from time to time on a mission—she felt a warm glow in the vicinity of her heart knowing that he was willing to ignore his distaste in order to help keep her safe.
“So,” she said after she’d devoured several pieces of chicken and two biscuits, “I finally cracked the code on the remaining file on Toby’s flash drive. There wasn’t much new there, except he quoted several sources as claiming that some of Kerberos’s special teams were going to help out the President on an unspecified mission.”
Mark’s hand froze on the way to his mouth, then he set down the piece of chicken he’d been about to eat.
“That means something to you,” Faith said.
“Maybe.”
“What—”
“No, Faith. I can’t tell you.”
The chill in his voice raised her hackles. As she opened her mouth to protest, he shook his head. “All I have now are a few vague rumors. Are you certain there were no specifics in Toby’s notes?”
She nodded.
“Okay. I’ll have to look into this. If I find out anything concrete, I’ll let you know.”
Faith knew she’d have to settle for that. “So, what do you have for me on Toby’s disappearance?”
Mark cleaned his greasy fingers with a wet wipe before answering. “I haven’t found any mention of your brother yet. But Jamieson has assigned me to search lists of military and law enforcement personnel and identify potential candidates for the enhanced soldier program.”
“Did you…” Faith forced herself not to scoot away as alarm flashed through her. “Did you actually pick men out to be kidnapped?”
He sighed. Neatly stacked his lunch debris in a small pile before answering. “Yes.”
Oh, God. Had she been wrong about him?
She started to push to her feet, but Mark tugged gently on her wrist. “Sit down, Faith. It’s not as bad as it seems. Yes, I provided names of potential candidates to Jamieson. But as I mentioned before, I’m working against him. I also gave the data to a privately run special operations group called the Surgical Strike Unit. The SSU’s goal is to shut the scientific program down. They’ll make certain no harm comes to the men.”
Some of the tension drained out of her, leaving her shaky.
“Just how much do you know about the program, Faith?”
She shrugged. “Basically what I told you before. Toby’s notes make it clear that the aim of the program is to create superhuman soldiers, but he never explains what that means. Only that the subjects appear to end up with bulkier bodies and to suffer from insane rages.”
“Okay.” He nodded, as if coming to a decision. “What I’m about to tell you has to stay between us, Faith. No future articles by you or any of your contacts. Promise?”
“No.”
His mouth thinned. “Then—”
She raised her hand in a stopping gesture. “Hold your horses, mister. I’m not done. I promise not to share what you’re about to tell me unless I think the information needs to be released in order to save Toby’s life or the life of anyone else. I also can’t promise that my colleagues won’t eventually manage to ferret out the information on their own.” She’d lay odds that Siobahn would manage to find the truth if she dug hard enough.
Mark’s shoulders lowered and he nodded. “Okay, that’s fair.”
Suspecting that it was hard for him to confide in anyone, let alone a near stranger, Faith squeezed his hand.
He responded with a faint smile. “I’ll try to make this as short as possible. For several years the Department of Defense and the CIA jointly supported a lab with the goal of creating men with enhanced skills that would better suit their mission objectives. Increased strength for the DOD. More speed and improved mental abilities for the CIA. Little need for sleep. An inability to feel pain.”
“But…how?”
“I’m not sure of the details, but my understanding is that the scientists used a combination of steroids and other drugs, including custom created chemicals. There may also have been hypnosis, gene manipulation, and torture. They wanted a soldier who could carry out his mission without stopping to sleep or eat, and who was so focused on the objective that only his death would stop him.”
“That sounds like something out of a science fiction movie!”
“It gets worse. The scientists found a way to alter their subjects’ brains and make them susceptible to mind control.”
Faith shivered. Had anyone else been telling her this, she’d have brushed them off as delusional or too easily fooled. But Mark seemed too coldly pragmatic to believe in wild speculation. And hadn’t Toby’s note mentioned he might be turned into a creature that would kill her on their order? At the time, Faith hadn’t known what he meant, so she’d dismissed it as hype. Now, though, she was beginning to understand.
Mark pushed his lunch debris into a tighter pile, then brushed a few crumbs off the tabletop. “The head scientist at the lab, Dr. Mikhail Nevsky, was close to achieving his objectives, but there were deadly side effects. Insanity. Uncontrollable rage. Massive organ shutdown. Before he could perfect his program, Nevsky died in a fire that consumed his lab. However, he’d saved copies of his notes on a microchip.”
He turned his head to look at her. “Word got out about the existence of the chip. Every criminal and governmental organization wanted the microchip—most particularly the military and the intelligence agencies. Jamieson ordered me to find the chip and bring it to him before he’d give me the name of the man who killed my father. That offer was, of course, made before I discovered that Jamieson was the one responsible for my father’s death.” His expression hardened. “I countered with a demand that in exchange for the chip, he also let me into Kerberos.”
Faith sucked in a breath.
“Back then,” Mark continued, “I approved of what I knew of the organization’s mission. Kerberos’s goal is to strike at our country’s enemies in the most effective way possible, without regard to the law. I’ve seen too much damage done by short-sighted politicians to want to be shackled by their lack of courage. So I joined the hunt for the microchip.”
Mark tapped his fingers against the table. “However, it turned out that Nevsky’s right-hand man, a scientist named Dr. Leonard Kaufmann, had survived the fire and started his own lab. Funded, as your brother discovered, by Jamieson and Kerberos.” Mark laced his fingers through hers. “Faith, if Jamieson ordered Toby kidnapped and sent over to Kaufmann’s lab, you have to understand what this means. The men in the program don’t just become susceptible to mind control. They lose their ability to think at more than a basic level.”
She yanked her hand away and stood up. “What are you saying?”
“One of the SSU’s agents, Rafe Andros, was recently captured during a mission to investigate Kaufmann’s lab. By the time the SSU rescued him, Andros could only communicate in grunts and monosyllables, because the drugs he’d been given blocked his intelligence. He acted like a rabid animal—snapping and lashing out at everyone who came near him. Faith, he tried to kill his own brother. Apparently they brainwashed him into thinking all his family members
and close friends were enemies who needed to be destroyed.”
Faith shook her head and moved away from the picnic table, nearly blinded by panic. She’d suspected that Toby had been conscripted into the program, but she’d assumed that the effects would be something he could fight against. That the insanity and rages would stop once the harmful drugs were out of his system.
Now Mark wanted her to believe that her sharp, witty brother would end up no better than some dumb beast, under the influence of mind control that would make him try to kill his own sister.
“No!”
Faith turned and raced toward the water. “NO!” she shouted to the sky. “I refuse to believe it. Do you hear me?” She’d lost her parents, her sister, her career and now her home. She needed to believe that whatever happened to Toby could be reversed. “You will not destroy my brother. You. Will. Not!”
But the pressure inside her chest said that fate could, and would hurt Toby, because Faith’s wishes didn’t matter. Unable to stand the thought, she sprinted down the beach, ignoring Mark’s shouts behind her.
She couldn’t bear another loss. She just couldn’t. She wasn’t strong enough.
So she ran.
Chapter Five
Mark cursed himself for an insensitive lout as he watched Faith sprint down the beach. He should have thought more carefully about whether to reveal the side effects of Kaufmann’s program. But he’d been so blindsided by the new experience of trusting another person enough to confide in them, that he’d failed to consider that a caring woman like Faith wouldn’t want to know that her brother might be programmed to kill her.
Keeping an eye on Faith, Mark gathered the debris from their lunch and tossed it in a trashcan. Then he headed down the beach toward her. At least he hadn’t gone into specifics about the program. He hadn’t told her what he’d witnessed in Ivanov’s lab and the strange effect seeing those men had had on his conscience.
Even worse, he’d just received confirmation that Kaufmann indeed had an accelerated program in place. Normally, a subject would take many weeks to transition into the optimal level required for inclusion on a Kerberos team. But if his latest information was correct, the accelerated program required only two weeks.
Which meant that Toby might not have the time they needed to save him.
For perhaps the first time since his mother and stepfather died, Mark cared about another person’s feelings. He hated knowing that Faith was hurting over Toby’s situation.
Up ahead, Faith dropped to her knees. Her head and shoulders curled forward and it looked like she’d buried her fists in the sand.
Mark slowed as he approached her. “Faith.”
She exploded up out of her crouch. Sand sailed toward his head and he realized she’d thrown it at him. “You’ve known this was a likely scenario since I met you and yet you said nothing. You let me… Let me…”
Mark grabbed her hands as they aimed for his face. “You said you suspected that Toby had been captured and put into the program. How was I supposed to know that you had no clue what that meant? If I’d realized your ignorance, I would have saved you this emotional pain.” He took a deep breath. “Don’t lose hope. Not yet. I can’t prove Jamieson had anything to do with your brother’s disappearance. Toby might have been killed in an accident someplace so remote that his body hasn’t been found yet. He might have been captured or killed by enemies he made while conducting another investigation.”
Faith’s tear-stained, grief ravaged face tore something loose inside of him. Mark couldn’t stand it any more. He pulled her against his chest and held her as she cried.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, clutching hold of Mark’s shirt. “I knew it was possible he’d been changed. Just not to the extent that you mentioned. I can’t…I can’t bear the idea that he might be trapped inside his mind, forced to act against his beliefs.”
Mark’s chin settled on the top of her head. “I can’t promise you that you’ll get back the brother you once knew,” he said. “But I will promise that I’ll do everything possible to find him.”
Her arms tightened around him. “Please. He’s my only remaining family. I can’t lose him. I just can’t.”
“I understand. After my father died, I didn’t want to be out of sight of my mother.”
Faith pushed away from him and swiped her hand over her face to dry her tears. “How old were you?”
Mark shook his head. “Not here.” Glancing around, he guided Faith toward a patch of sand sheltered by a fall of rocks. He removed his jacket and laid it down, then sat with his back against the rocks and Faith cradled against his chest. A remote part of his brain marveled at how he’d lowered himself to the sand without protest, when a few months ago he would have turned up his nose at sitting on anything less than a beach chair on top of a blanket. But the newly awakened part of him enjoyed putting Faith’s comfort first.
Once they were settled, he asked, “So, what do you want to know?”
If Faith’s life got any weirder, she’d start to wonder if she’d been cast in a movie without realizing it. In the space of an hour she’d ricocheted from fury and grief over seeing her house burn, to agonizing fear upon realizing Toby might be forever altered, to this aching tenderness over the gentle way Mark was treating her. The man might be a cold hearted bastard in his job, but he’d been nothing but considerate with her.
“Tell me about your family,” she finally said. “Did Jamieson truly order your father killed? Is that really why you’re working against him?”
Mark exhaled loudly. His cheek pressed against hers as he stared at the waves crashing against the shore. “It’s…complicated. The short answer is yes. And no.”
Faith laced her fingers with his and crossed both their arms over her middle. Then she turned her head and placed a soft kiss on his jaw.
Mark’s lips lifted into a half-smile. “My father was a judge in Boston, but his father was from Sicily. Part of the mafioso before he immigrated to America. My father was proud that he’d broken family tradition and was clean his entire life. He taught me not only to obey the law, but to love and respect it.”
He tightened his clasp on her fingers. “But when I was five, my father was kidnapped, tortured, and then dumped on our front lawn.” Mark cleared his throat and Faith braced herself. “He died in my arms.”
Faith pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Mark, I’m so sorry.”
“Everyone assumed it was retaliation for my father’s work, but no one was ever arrested for the crime.”
Faith heard the pain of the little boy in Mark’s voice and snuggled closer to him, drawing soothing circles on the backs of his hands with her thumbs.
“My mother was Russian and had never really fit into Boston society. She wanted to be with her family again, so three years later, we moved to Moscow. At first, all was well. We lived in relative comfort. Then the patriarch of the family died and his successor didn’t get along with my mother. Later, I learned that under his guidance, one of Mother’s cousins had taken control of the money that came from her widow benefits and my father’s life insurance policy. He used the money to try and recoup the family’s losses from bad investments. Instead, he lost Mother’s money, too. But at the time, all I knew was that there was a huge fight and they threw us out. Mother and I ended up in a substandard apartment in the poorest section of town, barely able to afford the rent from the meager funds she had left.
“Because she’d been raised in high society, and my father’s job had ensured that she didn’t have to work, my mother didn’t have any marketable skills. She couldn’t find a job and we soon ran out of money. I went out onto the streets and quickly learned how to beg or steal enough so that we could buy food and keep up with the rent.”
Faith bit her lip to keep back her cry of protest.
“I didn’t care who I hurt or wronged, as long as my mother had food and shelter. Every lesson my father had taught me went down the drain. Survival was everything.”
“How long were you on the streets?”
He shrugged. “On and off for about three years.”
This time she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. “Oh, Mark!”
“It wasn’t so bad. I soon earned a reputation. The other kids were afraid of me and that afforded me some protection.”
“Didn’t your mother worry about you? Wasn’t there anyone in your family who could have helped you?”
“I didn’t realize it at the time, but my mother was severely depressed. Her focus was turned so completely inward that…” He coughed, then fell silent.
“What?”
“I’m not sure she always remembered that she had a son.”
Her throat too tight to speak, Faith repositioned herself so that she sat inside the protection of Mark’s arm, with her head on his shoulder. Then she pressed a kiss over his heart, moved deeply by the trust he showed by revealing his childhood to her. Now she understood why he’d developed such a callous attitude. Why he didn’t think of the potential pain his actions caused others. Mark’s emotional scars, whether or not he admitted to them, ran deep.
She also understood why he was so fastidious. It was a reaction to the time he’d spent on the streets. She could picture him as a grubby boy in threadbare clothes, scowling fiercely as he fought to earn enough money to keep him and his mother alive.
“My mother eventually came out of her grieving period and took more responsibility for her life,” Mark said. “She managed to land a job as a hostess in a tea house, but she barely made enough to pay for food and our room. However, she enrolled me in school, which I hated. I didn’t want to leave her.” He hesitated.
“You were afraid that you’d come home and find out that something had happened to her?”
“Yes.” Mark took a deep breath. “But she insisted, so I went to school. Then, a few months later, she met my stepfather.”
At the affection she heard in Mark’s voice, the hard, tight knot in Faith’s chest unwound.
“Talk about a fairytale romance. Sergei was a millionaire who owned an import-export business. He met my mother when he took a client to tea in the place where she worked. According to him, it was love at first sight. Before I knew it, they were married and the three of us were living in his palatial apartment. He even launched an investigation into the theft of Mother’s money, and eventually won back some of her funds.”