I Dream of Danger

by Rice, Lisa Marie

  A tension Nick had refused to acknowledge lifted from his shoulders. Elle was safe here. Everyone was safe here.

  This was their refuge and the refuge of the family of misfits and talented outcasts they had gathered around them. He and Mac and Jon. Ward and Lundquist, Romero and Pelton. The entire Ghost Ops team had been sent to destroy a lab in Cambridge they’d been told was secretly weaponizing Yersinia pestis, bubonic plague. Only there was no secret project. A team of soldiers had been waiting for them to take them out. They’d been accused of high treason and had escaped on the way to a court-martial in Washington.

  There was no way anyone could hold a Ghost Ops operator prisoner.

  On the run from the entire U.S. government and bitter about their betrayal at the hands of Ward, a man they all worshipped, Mac, Jon, and Nick had found refuge on Mount Blue in northern California, inside an abandoned mine Mac had explored as a child. They holed up here, and damned if soon a community hadn’t congregated around them. The community was turning Haven into the most comfortable high-tech lair for people on the run the world had ever seen. They were becoming self-sufficient in everything: energy, Internet, food—you name it.

  The best thing was that the entire community was funded by two Latin America drug cartels. Jon, who had a personal crusade against drug dealers though no one knew exactly why, had spent two years undercover in the biggest Cartagena drug cartel walking a tightwire, pretending to be an emissary from California’s dealers. He got enough intel, while burrowing deep into their finances, to put three hundred men away forever.

  Whenever Haven needed anything, they just skimmed off the Caymans and Aruban bank accounts of the cartel, leaving bread crumbs and footprints back to one kingpin after another and enjoyed it greatly when some scumbag took the blame and got whacked.

  One less fuckhead on this earth, Jon had said. In the meantime they all had black credit cards in false names with several million dollars behind them.

  The platform stopped moving and they were inside the hangar. It was an immense space two hundred feet high. They kept all their vehicles and drones and the helo here.

  Elle couldn’t get down out of the helo hooded, so Nick simply picked her up by the waist and swung her out. She didn’t resist, but as soon as her feet hit the ground, she stepped back, away from him.

  Oh no you don’t, Nick thought.

  These security measures were standard practice and necessary, he knew, though he regretted bitterly having to treat Elle like this.

  The thing was, he, Mac, and Jon had become the front line of defense for a community of vulnerable, talented people that trusted the three outlaw soldiers to keep them safe. The three of them took that trust seriously. Everyone who came was vetted. If they passed, they could stay. If they didn’t pass, they were given a big dose of Lethe, an amnesia drug, and left down in the valley without any memories of the hidden city inside Mount Blue.

  Nick knew that if Elle somehow didn’t pass the test, he was going back into the world with her, even though he was hunted by the U.S. government and there was a huge bounty on his head. He’d take his chances. Elle was not leaving his side, ever again. And he was never leaving hers.

  Nick and Jon exchanged a glance. No talking. The rule for those who came to them but weren’t of them yet. Any voice would echo in the huge chamber. Nick simply put his arm around Elle’s waist and started walking to the elevator, Jon keeping step.

  The elevator was a miracle of technology. The elevator lifted two thousand feet in the air so smoothly that it was entirely possible that Elle didn’t realize she was in an elevator.

  The elevator, together with most of the infrastructure had been designed by a talented engineer, Eric Dane. Eric had spent years writing report after report about the structural weaknesses of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. When the ’21 Halloween quake struck the bridge, collapsing and killing forty people, Eric’s reports vanished and he was blamed for the collapse. A multimillion-dollar lawsuit was filed against him but there was no one to sue.

  Eric had made it to Mount Blue, where he built them a comfortable, beautiful impregnable fortress. Haven.

  There was no elevator ding at the top, just a silent opening of doors onto Haven’s atrium.

  If they weren’t outlaws, and if Haven were a public place, the atrium would win a slew of city design prizes. A huge airy plant-filled plaza filled with terra-cotta pavestone paths winding through unexpected small squares with a flower bed here and an organic tomato patch there. There were benches and flowing metal-and-wood sculptures by the famous sculptress Kloe, on the run from her very rich and very abusive husband.

  Overhead was an invisible arched roof made of graphene, one molecule thick, studded with tiny solar panels that provided light in the evening and helped keep the atrium at a steady 72 degrees all year round. The atrium was ringed with balconies, behind which were offices and homes. Some housed families and some, like Nick’s pad and Jon’s pad, were glorified bachelor officer quarters, though more spacious and definitely better-looking. Whenever a space needed decorating, everyone turned to Nancy Parsons, whose decorating firm was destroyed by her husband and partner, who ran off with every cent and the secretary, leaving Nancy holding a sackful of debt her husband owed the mob, no way to pay for it, and the mob on her heels.

  On the third floor was their war room and Nick and Jon made their way through the paths of bright vegetation. It was four A.M., too late for the owls and too early for the larks. Mac and Catherine would be up, though, waiting to debrief.

  Even if there had been people, not many would think twice about Nick and Jon marching a hooded figure across the great plaza. At one time or another, many honored members of Haven had been marched hooded up to the war room.

  Another elevator let them out onto the third floor. Nick kept his arm around Elle to guide her and also . . . because.

  Because he was still finding it hard to believe that she was here, with him. Pissed at him, sure. She had every right to be. But against all the odds she was safe and alive, and that’s how she was going to stay. He’d found her, he’d fought for her, he’d waited for her for ten long years. She was his.

  Jon went ahead, his biomorphic profile opening the door. Elle’s wasn’t programmed in. Yet.

  Elle sensed that there was a threshold and she stopped dead. The war room was straight ahead of her, the corridor behind. Her new life, her old life. Straight ahead of her Mac and Catherine were waiting, as Nick knew they would be. They’d stayed awake all night, even Catherine, who was three-months pregnant. She wouldn’t leave Mac, who wouldn’t go to bed until his men were home. Mac wouldn’t even have tried to convince Catherine to lie down because she wouldn’t and he knew that.

  To one side was a serving cart with a number of dishes with silver covers.

  Stella. Bless her. She’d once been a world-famous actress until a stalker slashed her face to pieces. No one at Haven even noticed her scars anymore because everyone loved her. She was smart and kind and ran the extraordinary communal kitchen with a lot of help. No one ever wanted to get on her bad side because access to Stella’s cooking was basically access to heaven itself. On the run and hunted, the people of Haven ate better than most millionaires.

  From here on in, Elle was his and he was going to take care of her and that included feeding her. Before bedding her.

  At the thought, his dick swelled.

  Shit.

  After long years of training, his dick had learned to obey him. It didn’t get out of control anymore. In fact, it had been so obedient the past couple of years it was practically dormant. Ghost Ops had taken every ounce of attention and energy he had. Then they were on the run and in hiding, so bedding a woman became this huge energy suck. Not only because he had to plan the exit before the entry, as always, but now also because he had to work really hard not to leave a clue as to who he was. That involved having fake docs o
n him at all time, and it involved remembering his fake name and fake legend, exactly as if he were working undercover.

  If anyone figured out a way to fuck without leaving DNA anywhere, he’d have been right on it.

  It was exhausting and a lot of work for a one-night fuck, because two nights was pushing it. Jon didn’t seem to have any problems. From what Nick saw, Jon got laid a lot on a regular basis and had no problem whatsoever with telling the women lies.

  For Nick, it got very old very fast.

  So, now his dick was waking up and smelling the roses. Or at least smelling Elle. Because over the smell of her fear and exhaustion was the smell of her. Something fresh and springlike and absolutely unmistakably her.

  No other woman in the world smelled like her. Looked like her. Was her. Which explained the half-woodie in the presence of Jon and Mac and Mac’s pregnant wife, though he knew better.

  Nick put his hand on the small of Elle’s back and she stiffened again, which was enough to take the starch out of his dick. She was disoriented enough without coping with his horniness.

  Nick laced his hand with hers, ignoring the fact that she didn’t close her hand around his, keeping it loose. He tugged and she walked forward, turning her head slightly at the drop in air pressure as the door shut.

  Mac, Catherine, and Jon were standing in front of her, Catherine with a welcoming smile. Mac didn’t do welcoming smiles, but at least he wasn’t scowling, which was something.

  Nick whipped the hood off Elle’s head, her pale hair lifting slightly with a crackle, then falling back down in light shiny curls.

  “Honey,” he began, but Catherine gasped.

  “Dr. Connolly! You’re the one Nick went out to rescue?”

  “You know me?” Elle asked.

  Three deep male voices echoed. “You know her?”

  Chapter 10

  Arka Pharmaceuticals Headquarters

  San Francisco

  Lee suddenly stood up. “I need to check something,” he said and walked out the door. But not before Flynn saw the sweat beading his forehead.

  Something was wrong with Lee. Seriously wrong.

  Former General Clancy Flynn had watched him carefully all day. Lee was a slick one, always cool and calm and emotionless. Two of the secret programs Flynn and his company had financed had earned him a lot of money in return. And the new one was going to be a bombshell. Creating faster, stronger, smarter soldiers was every general’s dream, but it was the private sector, and Flynn’s company Orion Security in particular, that was going to make it a reality.

  They were close. There’d been a trial in Africa, where Orion had a potentially huge contract to guard a convoy conveying diamonds from a rich mine in the rebel-army infested interior to the coast. At first it had worked like a dream. He and Lee had watched as the team moved with increased precision and speed, like a well-oiled machine. Visibly enhanced, a joy to behold. And then the breakdown where they self-immolated.

  But those first hours were promising. Lee said he had pinpointed the problem—a question of dosage—and one trial had gone very well and another trial was scheduled for next week.

  But this new development . . .

  If Flynn hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed it. The potential. There was no limit to what he could earn with enhanced soldiers with powers like those.

  Lee was onto something that would change the world, if it didn’t kill him first.

  If Flynn didn’t know better, he’d say Lee was drunk. But Lee didn’t drink, he was a teetotaler, something Flynn couldn’t understand. The world was full of pleasures Lee seemed immune to. He was a driven, dedicated man and he was falling apart.

  The signs were clear.

  Lee had spent the entire time drumming his fingers restlessly on the desktop and jiggling his foot. He’d swallowed often and adjusted his shirt collar as if it were too tight, though actually it was loose. Lee had lost at least ten pounds since the last time Flynn had seen him.

  But more than anything else there had been a barely contained excitement about the man, which was totally unlike him. Flynn had known Lee for a long time. He’d commissioned research from Lee’s company back when he’d still been in the military. He believed in Lee so much, he dipped into his own company’s pockets to keep this line of research going when he retired. It had been banned by the government, but what the government didn’t know wouldn’t hurt it.

  “Human experimentation” was a big no-no in government labs, but that was bullshit in Flynn’s opinion. Portable weaponry had gotten about as lethal as it was ever going to get, and there were limits to the use of the big bombs. The last frontier was human enhancement, which was going to make all the difference in the coming resource wars.

  Lee had always been cool and rational. The ultimate scientist, though Flynn had always suspected Lee had another agenda. Not money, which puzzled him. Because money was the best motivator there was. Lee liked money well enough, but mainly he saw it as a tool to help him continue his research. He himself lived simply. So money wasn’t it. Whatever it was, as long as it didn’t impede the ultimate goal, Flynn didn’t give a shit.

  But now whatever it was that was driving Lee was messing with him—with the man Flynn had just given fifteen million dollars to.

  If what Lee was working on panned out, the history of soldiering would be changed forever and Flynn would almost overnight become one of the richest men in the world. If it didn’t pan out because Lee went off the reservation, then Flynn was out a shitload of money and the promises he was making to potential clients would turn out to be so much hot air. And a couple of those clients were not men you could lie to and walk away from alive.

  Whatever happened, he needed to stick around for a few more days to make sure Lee wasn’t going to make fifteen million dollars go up in smoke.

  He tapped his ear. He needed to check in with headquarters.

  “Yessir.” Oh yeah. Melissa, his new secretary. Efficient and pretty and eminently bangable. She could roll out of bed after two hours of fucking him and coolly plan his next day’s schedule while he was still gasping on the bed.

  “Yeah, Melissa. I know I said I was coming back today, but I need to stay. Block out the next two days and cancel my flight back to Virginia. Tell the pilot he can stay at the Marriott until I need him.”

  A pause and then Melissa’s throaty voice. “Done.”

  “I’ll let you know when I’m arriving. And, Melissa?”

  She recognized that tone and her voice dropped even lower. “Yessir?”

  “Don’t be wearing panties when I arrive.”

  Flynn disconnected with her throaty chuckle ringing in his ears.

  Mount Blue

  Elle found herself in a warm embrace, short but heartfelt. The woman embracing her was slender, so the slight protuberance of her belly could be easily felt. She was pregnant, and there was no doubt whatsoever who the father was. He stood right behind the woman with a hand on her shoulder.

  They made a strange couple. Beauty and the Beast. The woman was very pretty, with shoulder-length dark hair and gray-blue eyes, and the husband . . . well, the husband was huge and ugly and frightening. Those were the only words that really fit. He was the tallest man in the room—though both Nick and Jon were tall men—and would be in just about any room. His face was hard with a nose that had been broken several times, what looked like a knife scar on one side and a burn scar that had melted the skin on the other. His eyes were cold and hard. This was a guy you wanted to avoid if you knew what was good for you. That didn’t stop the woman from gently stroking the huge hand on her shoulder and giving him a quick loving glance over her shoulder.

  He smiled down at her and the entire arrangement of his facial features changed. He didn’t turn warm and cuddly, but there was no doubt what he felt for the woman. Elle herself would
have been frightened to be in the same room as the guy, but love was love. What could she say? She’d been in love forever with a man who’d abandoned her twice, so she was no one to judge.

  This woman knew her, which was eerie bordering on creepy. “How do you know my name?” Elle asked as the woman took her hand.

  “Chicago, May 2022, the annual meeting of the American Neuroscience Academy. Room B. Your paper on ‘Immune Markers in Trance States’ blew us all away.” The woman shook her hand gently then let it go. While Elle’s hand had been in hers, there had been a weird flash of warmth, something gently blooming then fading. It might have been coincidence, but she felt a little stronger too.

  Chicago, May 2022. “You were there?”

  “I was.” The woman smiled softly. “Though I read the entire paper later because I had to leave halfway through and go to Room C. To deliver my own paper on ‘The role of Kir4.1 in Oligodendrocyte Myelin Formation’.”

  Elle gasped. “Dr. Young! Dr. Catherine Young!” This time Elle was the one to grab a hand. She pumped it up and down. How amazing to find her here! Catherine Young was a legend who was doing cutting-edge research into dementia. Unlock dementia and you unlocked a number of secrets of the brain. “What a privilege! I’ve followed your work these past years with a great deal of interest. Particularly your work on the gamma secretase activating protein in translating ribosome affinity purification. I know you’re applying it to a study of dementia, but really, it could be extrapolated to association cortices in the parahippocampal gyrus.”

  Dr. Young leaned forward. “Oh, I know! I was studying the dementing process, but your findings are important in gaining a clearer understanding of immunoreactivity. When we used immunofluorescence assays—”

  “Did you use the Coons and Kaplan technique?”

  “We did. It’s old but it is reliable and stable. I know some are using the new Hunter and Florheim technique, but—”

  “Whoa!” A deep voice interrupted. Elle turned her head to see Nick with his big hands up in a time-out gesture. “Some pity for the non-geeks here. And especially pity for two certain non-geeks who are starving because they just saved a certain geek’s ass.”