by Vanessa Kier
A chill slid down Rafe’s spine. No—
“They must have given him a tranquilizer, too, because when he woke up, he was mellow. We spent a lot of time talking. He never said too much, but reading between the lines, he was terrified of taking any medicine because of the side effects of the drugs given to his unit. Some of the drugs were pills, some were injections, and other side effects came from inhaling the fumes of the chemicals they handled on their missions. He said the drugs made them all crazy and was afraid that if he didn’t get out, he was going to end up dead. Because if the drugs didn’t kill him, the government would, to stop him from talking about what they’d ordered him to do.”
Ryker’s eyes lifted, revealing some dark emotion that Rafe couldn’t identify. “I helped make certain Reagh never healed well enough to go back into the field. We left the doctors with no alternative but to evacuate him to the States for more involved surgery. I returned to action, but never forgot how terrified he’d been.
“Now his daughter shows up at Kaufmann’s compound. Working on a program that has similarities both to the one Reagh talked about in Vietnam, and to Nevsky’s program. Further digging by our research team uncovered more than one domestic disturbance report that listed extensive property damage as a result of her father’s uncontrollable rage.”
“Christ. Did he hit Gabby?”
“Not according to the reports. And we didn’t find any medical reports that would indicate abuse of either Dr. Montague or her mother.”
“Thank God.”
Ryker nodded. “Dr. Montague has focused on treating the side effects, including wild rages, caused by exposure to biological and chemical agents. Most of her patients have been Vietnam vets. Coincidence?”
Ryker set his coffee cup behind him on the desk and steepled his fingers underneath his chin.
“If her father told her his rages were triggered by drugs he was given in Vietnam, that would explain her life’s work,” Rafe mused. “Did you ask her about her father?”
Ryker shook his head. “She needs to trust me first. If I throw this out there, she might run. Some of the programs the government ran during the war were so secret, and so potentially damaging on a political and moral front, that even today the government will kill to keep them secret. I believe her father was part of such a program. Knowing anything about his work puts her in danger. If she’s aware of that, she’s not going to believe the coincidence that I happened to remember her father. She’ll think I’m a threat. And we can’t afford to lose her.”
Rafe swirled the dregs of his coffee inside the cup. “You think Nevsky and Kaufmann were using some of the same components given to Reagh’s team in Vietnam?”
Ryker shrugged. “We can’t rule it out. To the best of my knowledge, all of those programs were terminated due to high failure rates. But that doesn’t mean someone didn’t keep a few samples.” He stood up and walked over to the globe. Rafe waited while Ryker twirled the globe slowly.
Finally, Ryker shook his head. “We’ve confirmed the identities of the men you helped escape, plus the dead men Willits photographed on the way to the crematorium.”
Rafe sat up at the sudden anger in Ryker’s voice.
“Two of the men in our infirmary are FBI agents reported dead in action. The third is infantry, assumed dead after a roadside bomb in Iraq. All the other men you rescued were either current or former law enforcement or military reported as dead, but many of them hadn’t yet been added to our list of missing personnel.”
“What are you going to tell Jordaine?” Rafe asked. Matt Jordaine was their contact at the FBI. He’d turned the investigation into the missing personnel over to the SSU after four agents were killed while looking into the disappearances. Military intelligence had also lost agents during their investigation. So far, both the FBI and the DOD had failed to locate the people who’d leaked the details of their investigations.
Ryker walked his fingers over the globe. “I’m not going to update Jordaine yet. Nevsky was supported by both the Department of Defense and the CIA. Given the recent leaks, we have to assume Kaufmann has similarly well-connected backers.”
“You think our mole reports to Kaufmann’s sponsor?” Rafe asked. Ryker suspected the SSU had a mole, someone who was responsible for several mission failures over the years. They believed the mole had blown Kai Paterson’s cover two years ago, resulting in the attack against his family that left everyone but his sister Jenna dead.
Because of the mole, Rafe’s missions were a carefully guarded secret.
“I don’t know,” Ryker said. “I’m still trying to put together the big picture. Is our mole randomly creating trouble when he sees an opportunity to make money, regardless of who pays him? Or is his mission to slowly destroy our reputation?” Ryker gave a sharp spin to the globe, then turned abruptly to Rafe.
“Before your team heads back out, we’re going to update the tracking program in your subdermal microchip. It will have stronger encryption to prevent anyone hacking into the signal and following you. We still can’t track deep underground, but as long as the device is within ten feet of the surface, we’ll know where you are.”
The back of Rafe’s neck tightened in warning. If any of his men got captured by Kaufmann’s team, he prayed they died quickly. None of them wanted to end up like Nate.
Mindful of the way Gabby had reacted the previous afternoon when he’d walked into her lab, Rafe knocked loudly on her door. When she didn’t answer, he gave the door a strong thump.
He was just about to give up and barge in when the door swung open.
“What?” Gabby snapped. She barely gave him a glance before she went back to reading the notes she held in her hands.
Rafe stood in the doorway, enjoying the unexpected opportunity to watch Gabby work. Her hair stuck up in sections behind a cloth headband, as if she’d pulled her hair while thinking through a problem. The right corner of her mouth was tucked in between her teeth and lines of concentration ran between her brows. He smiled when he spotted the little stuffed bear sitting on her computer, and thought about her next gift resting in his pocket.
Gabby muttered something to herself and turned back to her worktable. Grabbing a pencil, she began making rapid notations on the paper.
Rafe leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb, prepared to wait until she noticed him. But after several minutes, he realized she was so absorbed in her work she didn’t remember he was there.
His male pride didn’t like that. Especially on top of the way she’d refused to so much as look at him when he’d walked her to Dr. Smith’s office after that mind-blowing kiss. Her presence drew his attention like a magnet. The least she could do was say “hi” to him.
He cleared his throat.
Gabby didn’t notice.
When she reached for a test tube, he stepped forward. “Hold on a sec, doc.” He grabbed her hand.
She started and blinked up at him in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
O-kay, this was scary. What if he’d been here to hurt her? “Gabby, you opened the door and let me in,” he chided. He checked his watch. “Ten minutes ago.”
“I did?” She frowned and then her eyes really focused on him. “Why are you here?”
“I came to bring you this.” He pulled a tiny, posable ballerina doll out of his pocket and set it next to the bear on top of her computer.
“Oh, Rafe! Thank you. How did you—”
“You had ballet shoes in your go-bag.”
She flashed him a quick smile, then adjusted the doll’s position.
“I’m also here because it’s seven o’clock and no one has seen you in the dining hall all day, Gabby. I came to make sure you’ve eaten.”
She shrugged. “Um…”
“Gabby, you’re not going to do Nate and the others any good if you collapse. Let’s get you something to eat.” He tugged her to her feet.
“But—”
“Uh-uh. No buts.” He ignored her attempt to free h
er hand and pulled her toward the door. “There’s still an hour of full service in the cafeteria. You can take half an hour to eat.”
“Rafe, wait! I’ve got to close these containers and turn the equipment off before I leave.”
He raised an eyebrow, but at her no-nonsense look he let her go. While she puttered around the lab he crossed his arms over his chest and admired the curve of her ass when she bent down to retrieve a pencil from the floor. Then he frowned, noticing her skinny wrists as they peeked out from the cuffs of her lab coat.
“We need to put some weight on you,” he blurted.
She stood up slowly, keeping her back to him. “Excuse me?”
Ouch. Rafe felt the chill even across the lab.
Gabby set the pencil back in its place, then turned to face him with her hands propped on her hips. Now she was totally focused on him.
Focused, and pissed.
Okay, so he knew better than to discuss a woman’s weight. But still, someone needed to make certain she took care of herself.
“You’ve lost too much weight,” he commented. Then his eyes narrowed. “You stumbled coming out of the lab the night we rescued you. Then you had trouble getting into the truck. You’re so exhausted you’re near the point of collapse, yet you’re not doing anything about it.”
She waved her hand toward her workspace. “Hel-lo. I’m working here. I think it’s a bit more important for me to try and find a way to help Nate and the others than to break for meals.”
“Nice words,” Rafe said, snagging her arm and hauling her close. “But look at you. You’re trembling. If you don’t get something to eat and don’t get a good night’s sleep, you’re going to end up in the infirmary. Then how will you help Nate?”
“Maybe I’m trembling because I don’t like being manhandled and ordered around by a chauvinist jerk!” She leaned back, trying to break his hold.
He just wrapped his other arm around the small of her back and pulled her tighter against his body, starved for the softness of her breasts pressing against his chest. He bit back a satisfied grin as her pupils widened and she licked her lips. “Or maybe you’re trembling because you’re thinking about our kiss. Wanting another so much you can hardly breathe.”
“In your drea—”
He shut her up by slamming his mouth over hers. Ah, hell. He wasn’t supposed to do this again. Hadn’t he given himself the lecture of all lectures yesterday afternoon? He was leaving on a mission in a week or two, tops. He had to stay focused on finding the best way to free the remaining subjects of Kaufmann’s experiments.
He had no fucking business starting something with Gabby.
But damn if he could find the willpower to stop. The taste of her was like nothing he’d ever known. Even with her lips tightly closed she was more potent than the strongest shot of Ouzo. But when she whimpered and opened her mouth, her nimble little tongue reaching out to trace the seam of his lips, he was lost.
All he could think of was getting closer. Getting more. Slaking this thirst that only grew the more he tasted. Until he heard glass break. Years of training had him jerking his head back. He pushed her behind him as he scanned the room searching for the threat.
And felt like an idiot when he realized that during the kiss he’d turned and pressed her up against the counter. They’d knocked a glass beaker to the floor.
“Ah, shit,” he said. “Sorry.” He peered down at the fragments. “It looks like it was empty.”
When Gabby didn’t answer, he turned his head. Her face had lost the little color it had. Gabby swayed, then caught herself by bracing her hands on the counter.
Oh great, dickwad. You just finished yelling at her for pushing her limits and now your kiss has gone ahead and stolen the last of her reserves.
As much as he wanted to say something about that amazing kiss, he didn’t trust himself to say the right thing. “C’mon,” he said gently. “Let’s get you some food, okay? I’ll send someone over to clean up the mess.”
He put his arm around her waist and led her toward the cafeteria. Even though he’d much rather be leading her to his bed.
Chapter 10
“Are you out of your freaking mind?” Gabby snarled at Rafe a week later, resisting the urge to destroy the mock-up of Kaufmann’s lab that sprawled across the gleaming conference room table. Diagrams based on her memories of the lower lab’s personnel schedules were tacked to the wall next to recent satellite photos. She gestured angrily at the glossy eight by tens. “Look at the photos! Kaufmann has an entire army guarding the compound now. Yet you’re treating your return mission like some kind of party.”
Sure enough, Rafe’s mouth shifted into what she now considered his trademark teasing smile. She cursed as her mouth quivered, wanting to return a smile.
Dammit, sometimes she had trouble remembering that this was the man who’d pinned her to her bed that night at the compound. Who’d kept the flashlight directed at her eyes while he interrogated her.
The same man who’d nearly devoured her with those kisses she’d been trying so hard to forget. A week of giving him the cold shoulder hadn’t stopped him from flirting with her, and it sure hadn’t killed the low buzz of arousal she felt whenever he was near.
She rubbed her throat and took some petty satisfaction in watching Rafe’s smile dim. His lips turned down and he shifted his weight as he stared at the faint pink scars that were the only remaining evidence of the night he and his men had terrorized her.
She let herself enjoy the small power of unsettling Rafe. Ever since he’d ordered her to grab whatever she needed from her cabin and then shoved her into the night, her life had been anything but comfortable. She’d been trying to shake up his world ever since, but nothing rattled him.
“Gabby, this is what we do,” Rafe said. “We’re good. My team can handle it, no problem.”
Realizing she was close to throwing something at Rafe, Gabby closed her eyes and counted to ten. The infuriating man delighted in pushing her too far. He must have made it a personal goal to force her to unleash the temper she’d kept tightly chained since her childhood.
“Daddy, no!”
Gabby cowered behind the sofa as her father threw her favorite ballerina sculpture across the room. The delicate china shattered against the corner of the fireplace mantle and Gabby bit back a sob. She knew her daddy would be sorry about what he’d done when his nice side came back, but until then she clasped her arms around her middle and vowed she’d never get scary mad when she grew up.
Gabby jerked herself out of the past. True to her childhood vow, she never let her temper fly out of control. Even though she now understood that her father’s rages had been a side effect of Agent Styx, the ghost of the child she’d been was still afraid she’d end up like her dad one day—so enraged that only destroying her surroundings would ease her. Then being unable to remember what she’d done the next day.
Just like her patients.
Not patients. Patient. Singular. Rafe’s friend Nate Ngoro was the only escapee still alive.
But not for long. Today Nate’s blood and tissue samples had confirmed her fears. His body had started self-destructing at a rate she had no way of countering.
Knowing she had to give Rafe the bad news only made her temper worse.
“Gabby, c’mon, give it a rest will ya?” This was from Muldovsky, Rafe’s cherub-faced cohort. “Haven’t you figured out by now we’re the best?”
Gabby wanted to scream.
“Can you survive attacks by men as strong and mindless as Nate?” she threw back. Even in his weakened condition, Nate possessed extraordinary physical strength and unbelievably fast reflexes.
But if Rafe and his men felt any qualms about facing such a foe, they didn’t show it.
“How’s Nate doing?” Rafe asked.
Gabby winced as Rafe’s expression moved from teasing to concern. She really didn’t want to be the one to give him the news. He knew his friend’s prognosis wasn’t good, but Nate
had been in such better overall mental condition than the others that she’d heard some of Rafe’s men speculate their buddy might make it.
As Rafe watched her expectantly, Gabby sighed and forced herself not to look away. “He’s dying, Rafe. His latest blood work shows his body has reached the same stage that killed the others.”
She saw the quick flare of grief in Rafe’s eyes and bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I wish there was something more I could do.” Her throat tightened on a wave of tears. “But I can’t help him because we’re up against compounds we’ve never seen before!” What terrified her was that the notes Laurel had hidden in the clothes of the escapees contained comments indicating that even Kaufmann didn’t fully understand the drugs he’d been using. He’d stolen samples from someone he’d worked for before, a scientist called Dr. Nevsky, but Kaufmann didn’t have the man’s research notes and so had been unsuccessful in deciphering Nevsky’s drugs.
Despite his maddened, almost animalistic behavior, Gabby felt both possessive and maternal toward Nate. Her team had managed to ease Nate’s pain somewhat, but nothing could stop his body from self-destructing. She bit down on her molars, driving back the persistent feeling of helplessness. He was her patient now. She hated knowing she couldn’t save him.
There was no consolation in knowing that tomorrow Rafe and his team were returning to Kaufmann’s compound and might bring back the answers she needed. Nate didn’t have that long. At the rate his body was deteriorating, he’d be lucky to still be alive in four days, let alone the six Rafe estimated his team would be gone.
She studied the tabletop mockup of the compound one more time. It looked just as she remembered. Which wasn’t saying much. There were critical gaps in her knowledge of the lower lab. Empty spaces on the model indicated the places she’d been prohibited from entering. She’d only been able to give a rough estimate of the number of security personnel on duty inside.