Tiger in the Hot Zone (Shifter Agents Book 4)

by Lauren Esker

  "Oh. Huh. That's actually a good point." She tapped something on the phone. "Sadly it's too late. The video is out in the wild. Citizen army mobilizing."

  Noah clenched his fists on the steering wheel. "Thank you for making protecting you as difficult as possible."

  "I never asked for your protection. Although I do appreciate the save."

  "If you're going to be sitting up, put your seatbelt on," Noah said between his teeth.

  "Didn't you say we're almost at the clinic?" she said, making no move to do so.

  They were in fact turning off the road into the clinic's parking lot. "Can you manage not to do anything reckless or life-threatening for the next five minutes?"

  "I'm the victim here. I didn't ask to be attacked!"

  "No, you just went around antagonizing people until you finally got yourself in real trouble," Noah muttered.

  "I don't believe it! You are blaming me for getting attacked! Have you heard the term 'victim blaming', buddy? 'Cause right now—"

  "Listen, Peri." Having parked the car in the nearest open space, he twisted around to look at her over the seat back. "I sat in this car less than an hour ago watching a good friend of mine, a really nice kid with a promising career ahead of her, bleeding out from a gunshot wound that might end up killing her. Whoever these people are, you're the one who got those shif—deformed bodies on their radar." God, he'd almost said "shifter," despite a lifetime's practice at not mentioning it around regular humans. He really was rattled. "I know you didn't mean to, and I'm actually sympathetic to a lot of what you're doing, believe it or not. But actions have unintended consequences, and sometimes other people get hurt because of it. All I'm saying is, you're in a pile of deep shit right now, and it'd be a good idea to stop and think before doing anything that might get not just you but anyone in your vicinity into even deeper shit, understand?"

  He was expecting more arguing, but instead she gazed back at him in silence, her face troubled. She had very expressive eyes; they were a clear blue-gray and seemed very large in her narrow face.

  "I'm sorry about your friend," she said quietly.

  "Yeah, me too. C'mon, let's get you checked out and see how she's doing."

  In the clinic, he'd just handed Peri off to an intake nurse when he heard his name from across the room. Turning, he found Chief Stiers bearing down on him. Stiers was intimidating at the best of times, a tall angular woman with an intense air about her and graying blond hair trimmed close to her skull. At a time when Noah had every reason to believe she was probably pissed off at him, he had to fight to stand his ground.

  Taking his arm, she steered him out of the waiting area.

  "Where are we going?"

  "Debriefing," was her terse reply.

  They went down a corridor into an unused exam room. Stiers shut the door, folded her arms, and stared at him.

  "I told you to clean up the situation, not create a whole new situation we'd need to clean up."

  "Right, because I absolutely went to the morgue planning to get shot at. How's Trish?"

  "In surgery." She jerked her head at the gun in its shoulder harness. "You're not a field agent. Why are you wearing a gun and doing field work?"

  "I'm certified for both," Noah pointed out. "I'm doing it because it needed doing and there was no one else. Do you have people at Harborview?"

  Stiers nodded. "Ross and Cho."

  "I just saved Per—Ms. Moreland from an attempted kidnapping. If these guys are covering their tracks, there are two witnesses to the shooting at the morgue who will probably need protection too. I already gave Rivkah their names, a Dr. Bassi and some guy named Zach."

  "We'll handle it. Okay, what happened? Talk."

  Noah gave her a fast summation of the situation, including Peri uploading the video, which made the well-worn line between her eyebrows crease a little deeper.

  "So we've got at least five guys," Stiers said when he was done. "All foreign males, one of whom may or may not have been a shifter."

  "The second getaway driver could've been a woman; I didn't see. And I didn't hear the second group say anything, so they could have been local. They had the same general look as the others, though."

  "Did any of the others give you the shifter feeling?"

  Noah shook his head. "And it was ... I don't know how to explain it. I'm not sure if he was a shifter or not. And I've never been unsure before. You always just know. This time, I felt something for sure, but I don't know what."

  Stiers paced around the small room, three steps one way, four the other. Noah sat on the end of the exam table to stay out of her way.

  "The interns ran the license plate you gave us," she said. "The van's a rental. It was rented to one Les Vandretti at the airport three days ago. Rented for a week."

  "Let me guess. Vandretti's an alias."

  "Seems to be. On the other hand, we have his credit card number now, so we can pick up his trail if he uses the card anywhere else."

  "That's the only hit on the card? No hotels, nothing like that?"

  "Nope. There's no record of a Vandretti on any flights in the previous few days, but that could just mean he flew in under a different name."

  "Three days ago," Noah said. "That means these guys were in town before the radio broadcast, but it's too close to be coincidence. Who the hell are they?"

  Stiers stopped and fixed her predator's gaze on him, making him jump. As an owl shifter, she could stare for minutes at a time without blinking.

  "Noah, I need to bring you up to date on a top-level clearance situation."

  "Are you telling me you do know who they are?"

  "I have a suspicion, but that's all it is. This is strictly classified. Right now, the only people who know about it are me, the field agent who brought it to me, and the director himself."

  Of course Dad's involved.

  Director Curtis Easton cast a long shadow that Noah had spent most of his career trying to escape. He'd transferred to the division farthest from D.C., and he had always tried to work hard and make it clear that he wasn't a nepotism hire—difficult, sometimes, when he'd chosen to avoid field work for personal reasons.

  He should have known he'd get pulled back in, one way or another.

  "Earlier this year, one of our field agents alerted us to the existence of an organization called the Valeria," Stiers said. "Have you heard of them at all? Any nibbles anywhere?"

  Noah shook his head. "Who are they?"

  "They're a hate group dedicated to wiping shifters off the map."

  Okay, he was starting to have a lot of fellow-feeling for Peri's "everything in the open, all secrets on the table" approach to the shroud of government secrecy. "I've never even heard a whisper. Why am I just now finding out about this?"

  "We are just now finding out about this because, according to our source, they're a European group who have only recently expanded their operations into North America. And shifter-related crimes are such a jurisdictional patchwork, with every country having its own system, that reliable international intel is hard to come by. It's possible that various European countries have known about this for decades and we simply haven't stumbled upon a need-to-know situation during our joint operations."

  "But you said that you and Da—that you and Director Easton knew about this already. For how long?"

  "A few months," Stiers said, and held up a hand. "No. I see that look. Don't start."

  "You found out about an anti-shifter group and you kept it from the rest of us?"

  "This isn't your first time at the rodeo, Noah. I'm sure you understand that this is a very sensitive situation."

  Now it was Noah's turn to pace, his inner tiger chafing at its bonds. "I also know that I don't like being kept in the dark about the shifter KKK. How big is this group, anyway? They seem pretty well-funded. It's not two skinheads with shotguns. They've got weapons, trained guys, and a coordinated attack plan."

  "We're working on acquiring intel."

  "Wh
atever you find out, I want it shared with my department. We're supposed to be your public affairs office, and that doesn't just mean talking to normals. It also means interfacing with local shifters, and the shifter public has a right to know about this." God damn it, now he sounded like Peri.

  He'd never been so tempted to play his "director's son" card and call Dad to complain—except he didn't think he'd get any sympathy from that quarter. Curtis Easton was the top of the SCB secrecy pyramid, after all; he was the guy who had made the organization into what it was today.

  Stiers was unfazed by his frustration. "I need to see the video of the incident. The uploaded version as well as the original."

  "It's on her phone."

  "Yes, and?" Stiers asked expectantly. "Where is her phone, then?"

  "She's still got it."

  Stiers made an impatient noise. "You aren't usually this sloppy."

  "What do you expect me to do?" Noah demanded. "Confiscate her phone and hold her prisoner?"

  "If necessary! There's a lot more at stake here than one person's civil liberties."

  "Yes, and what is at stake, exactly?" Noah demanded. "There's a lot more going on here than you're telling me, isn't there?"

  "Actually, at this point you know almost as much as I do. The Valeria are still a giant question mark—"

  There was a brisk tap at the door before it cracked open. Willa Lafitte, lead doctor on the clinic's medical staff and (despite being human) one of the country's few specialists in shifter medicine, stuck her head inside. She was also Stiers' wife, but the two were, as usual, consummately professional on the job; a warm glance passed between them, and that was all.

  "I wanted to let both of you know that Trish Begay is out of surgery and her prognosis looks good. We repaired some damaged blood vessels in her neck, but the actual damage is not extensive and well within the scope of shifter healing to repair. She'll be able to have visitors once she's out of recovery."

  "Oh, thank God," Noah murmured, sagging against the exam table.

  "Ms. Moreland is also doing fine. No ill effects from the sedative her attackers gave her, though it seems to be processing out through the kidneys, so she should drink plenty of water. She's in Exam Room 4."

  "Thank you, Willa." Stiers flashed her a quick smile.

  Lafitte nodded, swishing the dozens of small brightly colored braids she wore, and withdrew.

  Stiers' game face snapped back on as she turned to Noah. "Here's what I need from you, Easton. That video and Moreland's phone, first of all. Since you're already involved in this up to your eyeballs, I'm putting you on her protection detail if you're good for it." Her sharp eyes held him. "Can you handle it?"

  "Yes." He tried not to let anger show in his voice. After the way he'd left field work, she had a right to ask.

  "Good. That's settled, then. I need her kept out of the way of our investigation and, if you can manage it, off the Internet. I do not want to find out key details about the case from Moreland's blog."

  "So we are holding her prisoner?"

  "No, we're keeping her out of the Valeria's way, for her sake and everyone else's. Ross and Cho seem to have the situation in hand at Harborview. We'll arrange a safehouse for Moreland. You get her there, make sure she stays out of touch with her usual associates, and start thinking about a way to spin this story that Moreland and the human public will believe."

  "That'd be easier if I had all the details. Can I at least ask who the other field agent is who knows about this? Is it Ross?" Jack Ross was one of the SCB's long-time agents, a former mercenary and one of the people Stiers had a habit of relying on.

  "Need to know, Noah. Your protection and theirs."

  "Right," Noah said. "I just never realized that, as your front-line PR person, I was one of the people who didn't need to know before."

  If his flash of anger scored a hit, she didn't show it. "I need to make some calls. Get me that video, Easton."

  Noah went down the hall to Peri's room, lost in frustrated thought, and tapped on the door.

  "C'mon in, I'm decent."

  She was sitting on an exam table, phone in hand; from what he'd seen so far, she seemed to be glued to the thing. She was still dressed, but had taken off the scruffy denim jacket, leaving her in an oversized Sex Pistols T-shirt.

  "Sex Pistols? Really? 1985 called and they want their music back."

  "Excuse you, they're awesome, even if they are all ninety-five now." She didn't look up from her phone. "You would not believe how many hits I have on that video already, by the way. And comments. One guy says—well, not really sure if it's a guy, he or she or they goes by 'twentyprawnarmy,' but they claim they saw our dudes in Bellevue. I've got a couple more sightings along the Alaska Way corridor."

  "Can I see?"

  She obligingly tipped the phone his way, keeping hold of it. Noah scrolled through a handful of Youtube comments and Twitter messages.

  "Neutral-colored SUVs aren't rare, you know. It's likely that none of these are the right one. Or, even if they are, we don't have a good way to narrow it down."

  "I know," she said. "But if we get a whole bunch of reports from one part of town, or if someone sees something suspicious, that's a lead, isn't it? I'm serious about mobilizing the citizenry to keep an eye out. You can't be everywhere, but people with phones can be."

  As he had become all too aware, in the course of trying to keep the existence of shifters from the general public. He still had his hand on her phone. He could just take it away from her. But he let go instead.

  "Peri, my boss wants to see that video."

  "Sure. Is she on Twitter? I'll DM her a link."

  "No, she wants the raw video. She also ..." Wants me to keep you out of touch. But he couldn't say that. Wasn't going to say that. The Internet was Peri's lifeblood; he'd already seen that, just in the short time he'd known her. And anyway, he understood—even better now than before—why she viewed her public Internet footprint as a safety net. If she posted constantly on Twitter about what she was up to, then no one could grab her and make her vanish without causing ripples. She was very deliberate about that.

  Does she live with that fear all the time, that someone's going to make her vanish?

  "She wants what?" Peri asked. She smiled lopsidedly. "Let me guess. She wants me off the Internet, staying out of sight, and enjoying the hospitality of Uncle Sam in some cheap hotel room where all the phones are monitored by feds."

  "Basically," Noah admitted. "I've been told to confiscate your phone. I'm not going to, as long as you'll share what you have with us. You're already sharing it with the entire Internet, so what's the harm?"

  "Hmm, point," she conceded.

  "Just email the video to my boss, along with anything else you have that might be relevant. I'll text you her email address. What's your number?"

  "206-555-1792. And I actually do have something else." Peri's fingers slid across the screen with practiced speed. Her nails were short and blunt, painted in glittery mermaid colors that matched her hair. "I think a guy was following me earlier today. I decided I was being paranoid at the time, but I don't think so anymore. Here, I got some pictures of him."

  She tilted the phone to show Noah the screen.

  The picture was slightly out of focus and motion-blurred, making it look like a bad surveillance camera shot. But the cold intent in the grim face of the man in the photo came through loud and clear.

  "Whoa," Noah said. He touched the screen, zooming in and out, trying to get a better look. "That is one bad-looking dude."

  "Right? Check out the scars on his face. Like he got mauled by a bear or something."

  Shifter claw marks? Shifters in photographs didn't give off the characteristic whatever-it-was that allowed shifters to recognize their own kind, nor did the deceased. But there were still ways to tell. One of the most common was the presence of scars that were unlikely in a human, especially claw marks and bite marks. Working for the SCB, Noah had become adept at recognizing
those clues.

  "Does your agency know anything about those guys?" Peri asked, looking up at him. "Like who they are, or what they want?"

  He should just lie to her. Do his job. Instead he found himself skirting as close to the truth as he could get away with. He'd just found out firsthand what an ugly feeling it was to be excluded from the inner circle. He hated to turn right around and do it to Peri.

  "They may be connected to an international group of criminals we've been tracking for awhile. Some of us have been tracking, I should say. I'm not involved with the investigation, so apparently I don't need to know the details." The bitterness surfaced in his voice, surprising him.

  Gratifyingly, he got another smile from Peri, this one commiserating. "Feels pretty rotten when people lie to you and don't tell you things, huh?"

  They were very close together on the exam table, her shoulder brushing his arm whenever he moved. He could smell a light spicy scent, not a perfume exactly, but some sort of body wash or shampoo.

  "Yeah," he conceded. He let her retake full custody of the phone and stood up, stepping away to reclaim some distance, both physical and professional. "Go ahead and email those photos to my boss, as well as the video. If she complains about you being on the Internet, I'll take the heat. I think you're right anyway. We don't have enough manpower to search every SUV in Seattle, and I want to find these assholes. Actually, can you do me a favor?"

  Peri looked startled and pleased. "Sure."

  "We're looking for another vehicle that probably belongs to the same group, a white van that scraped the fender of my car. If they didn't notice and clean it up, it might have a smudge of red paint on the driver's side, somewhere around the bumper area."

  Peri was already typing. "White van, red paint on the left. Gotcha. Now that's an identifying mark."

  "We also have the license plate." He gave it to her.

  "Done. The message is off to my citizen army." She looked up. "Now what?"

  "Now we get you to a safehouse."

  Peri rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. I can't just go huddle behind beige suburban walls while all the interesting stuff happens elsewhere."

  "Yes, you can and you will. At least for the next couple of days."