by L. A. Banks
She watched the doctor’s staff begin scurrying around after the exchange of appropriate salutes and greetings. She noted how Doc walked from monitor to monitor coolly, not regarding her, nodding, murmuring reassurances, looking into the microscopes, and then conferring. From what she could gather, Bradley’s sat-comm screens had not confirmed anything alarming. Same deal with McGill’s lab test monitors—if there was werewolf toxin present on any of Clarissa’s instrumentation, the MPs in the room would already be moving toward her. Whatever Winters was showing them on his computer monitors didn’t seem to make them bristle. The whole twenty-minute process of waiting and being watched through glass was worse than having a root canal.
Finally she was allowed to exit the chamber, and she stood at attention, her salute tight, waiting for permission to stand at ease. Eyes focused on a point on the wall, she listened for the instructions to move the meeting to the war room, and she followed the brass, listening to the echoes of boot footfalls from the two MPs beside her, and then took a position standing in the front of the room at attention as each member of the chain of command sat.
“At ease, Trudeau,” the general said in a weary voice. “Where were you?”
“Permission to speak, sir,” she said, her hands behind her back, shoulders thrust back, chin lifted.
“Permission granted,” the general said, again sounding weary.
All eyes were on her, but none bored into her as intently as Doc’s.
“I was on leave, sir. I looked for my squad brothers, who are also friends, sir. When I arrived at their apartments, something was wrong. I was worried, sir, given the nature of our missions. When I arrived at Captain Butler’s apartment, sir . . . if I may speak candidly . . .”
“Yes, Lieutenant. We would appreciate candor.”
Sasha nodded. “I was horrified, sir.”
Senior officers murmured and quietly conferred.
“Continue, Lieutenant,” the general said, sitting forward and making a tent with his fingers before his mouth.
“I panicked. I could see that Captain Butler took his meds, sir, or was trying to, but . . . there were spilled meds all over the floor. Carcasses. I feared that he might have gone after the squad, or worse, civilians. Something moved, may have been vermin, given the filth that was in there . . . the carnage. Then I saw him.” She stopped briefly and sucked in a deep, steadying breath. “There was no option, sir. He was too far gone.”
The general nodded. “Yes, we are aware,” he said, his voice tinged with regret. “We found his body and are grateful that you did what you had to do given the personal nature of your relationship to Captain Butler . . . but you should have reported in after the incident.”
“There was additional gunfire heard on . . . er, uh, reported by the local authorities,” Major Adams said.
Sasha felt her face burn, but kept her eyes on a fixed spot on the wall beyond the brass. “Frankly, sirs, I panicked and opened up several rounds when I thought something else was in the apartment.”
“And was there?” Xavier Holland asked.
“Sir, I realized I was in a residential zone, and to be sure I didn’t hurt any civilians, I drove back out to the most isolated place I could—the empty lot of Ronnie’s Road Hog Tavern. My thinking was that if whatever it was was still nearby, and had . . . Turned, then I should draw it away from a populated area and follow the protocols set up by the project if one of our viruses mutates, sir. I didn’t know if it was one of our own, or a brand-new contagion source.”
She stopped and drew a shaky breath. The brass at the table conferred. She was definitely not acting. Just remembering the apartment was enough. Remembering that Rod was dead, as well as several other men, made her chest constrict. Now came the delicate part, syncing up times and conversations for credibility so they’d buy her story.
“You did the right thing, removing the potential firefight from a highly concentrated civilian environment.” Colonel Matt Vlasco looked at the other brass at the table, now speaking to them as though Sasha weren’t in the room. “Given the highly personal mentor-protégée relationship between Captain Butler and Lieutenant Trudeau, I think it demonstrates an extreme level of clearheadedness for her to draw a potential predator away from a residential area.”
She wanted to die.
“Thank you, sir.” She wanted to die.
She wanted to die. They had eavesdropped on all their personal conversations. She wanted to die—wanted to kill.
“But we found your jacket, portions of your clothes, a destroyed cell phone, Lieutenant,” Colonel Waters said.
“Yes. It looked like a Turn had taken place,” Major Adams concluded.
“Sirs, permission to respond,” Sasha said quickly, before more conjecture could occur.
“Permission granted,” the general said.
“Thank you, sir.”
Sasha stared at the general’s four-star braid for a moment, willing herself to remain detached from emotion and to stay focused. Doc was so silent now, and his eyes held such a deadly warning glare that she couldn’t look at him. To do so would make her leap across the table and go for the general’s throat. General Donald Wilkerson had set all this insanity in motion, now he dared to want a quick and easy solution? Bastard.
“I called Dr. Xavier Holland,” Sasha said, her voice firm and clear. “My first thought was that if Captain Butler had been AWOL and out of control, or if any other members of the squad had been injured, Dr. Holland would be the only one able to control a viral outbreak. He had the correct medicines, if a Turn had not fully occurred in those surviving men. I couldn’t be sure that it had, because I had no physical evidence—no bodies. But when I contacted the doctor briefly, he was already up in the mountains starting his leave, sirs. His cell phone went out in the middle of our conversation, and frankly, I was in such a state of frustration I hit mine on the dashboard and flung it out of the window.”
Major Adams chuckled and guffawed. “I’ve wanted to do that several times myself just from cell phone dropout, Lieutenant.”
“But your clothes, Lieutenant,” Colonel Vlasco said in a clipped tone, bringing the meeting back to the inquisition it was.
“A source stepped out of the shadows, sir. He surprised me when I went to retrieve my phone, and we did brief hand-to-hand combat, whereby my boots were damaged, my pants, and the collar of my jacket, from the fight. However, I was able to subdue him with a pump shotgun, sir. Then he was ready to talk.”
Sasha’s gaze held the colonel’s. “He turned out to be a bounty hunter from up in Ute Indian country. He said that there had been livestock attacks and they had been watching Captain Butler’s apartment because of animal raids off their lands that they’d tracked back to his place. He saw me come out of the apartment, wanted to ask questions, but heard gunfire and laid low until I parked in the open lot.”
Her eyes went to the general. “If one of our men, or more, had gone into the private Ute lands in the mountains . . . They could potentially spread the virus to residents who would be hard to find in the vast wilderness. All it would have taken was one. Then it occurred to me that Dr. Holland coincidentally said he’d gone there on vacation prior to a big storm, and my thinking was, sir, that perhaps the doctor also was going up there to eyeball the situation. He has a relationship with the native peoples, so I decided to head for where Dr. Holland might have gone. The guide seemed legit, his story made sense, and I needed him to lead me to where the livestock mutilations had occurred. It was also my intention to protect the doctor at all costs. He is the project’s only link to finding a cure to wipe out this scourge, and he could himself have been imperiled in a wilderness situation. Suffice to say, I was working during leave, sirs.”
“Good move, Trudeau. Good move,” the general said, sitting back and lacing his fingers over his hefty stomach.
“I accepted the offer to accompany this guide and was armed. At no time was I at risk, and knew to look for signs of a mauling. I met up with th
e doctor there, and learned that the pack . . .” She drew a deep breath. Even now it was hard to say out loud. “That the pack had perished in Afghanistan on mission. Therefore, I terminated the search for the pack and with the doctor checked any and all tribal members for signs of viral infection—and found none.”
“Excellent, Trudeau. The circumstances were initially a bit sketchy,” the general said, looking around the table as though he’d had confidence in her all along. “But we knew you had been well trained for any and all circumstances.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said blankly, without looking at any of them.
“May I submit a request, sir?”
The murmurs in the room fell silent.
“Permission granted,” the general said.
“May I attend the memorial service for my squad, sir—even though I am on duty? That was my only family. And now they are all dead.”
It was so quiet in the room that only the whispering hum of electronic equipment could be heard.
“Absolutely, Lieutenant,” the general said, his voice somber. “It was a great loss.”
Sasha nodded and swallowed hard; she couldn’t help it. “Yes, sir. It was.” She lifted her chin higher. “Thank you, sir.”
They seemed to be waiting, not sure what to say. She’d answered all their questions; she needed a moment to be sure that when she spoke her voice wouldn’t waver.
“Sirs, may I make a suggestion?” This time she looked at them directly.
Each man at the table leaned forward, craning his neck to hear what she might say.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” the general said, an expression in his eyes that seemed like compassion—an expression coming from him that she didn’t understand.
“Sir . . . this scourge was the reason my entire pack, my family, was killed in action.” She stepped closer to the large, oval mahogany table, noting that Xavier Holland was so tense he seemed brittle enough to crack. “Let me go after them,” she said, her voice dipping to a venomous level. “Let me hunt down and wipe this disease-carrying animal off the face of the planet and chase it back into the demon doors it comes out of.”
She stepped back and clasped her hands behind her, nearly trembling with unspent rage. “Sirs,” she said, her gaze raking them. “I learned much from the indigenous peoples in the mountains. They have been dealing with this monster for centuries. There’s a door in their ranges, it crosses over into the Canadian Yukon Territory. The bounty hunter source said they’ve been trying to sabotage black market efforts, because transactions up there feed labs in hot spots around the world. I should also add, sirs, that he’s a shaman.”
The general was on his feet. “You have a lead to where these things breed, maybe hide, where other nations not in the allied network can acquire a beast and therefore DNA from one?”
“Yes, sir. I have a lead. I do not have a location. The Ute scout will not deal with authorities outright. I was only allowed in because, frankly, I’m female, and while monitoring Butler’s place, he’d heard me put down a virally infected man. The Ute are very wary of any government show of force, citing broken treaties in the past. But they want this gone as much as we do. They also don’t want to see any nation, terrorists or otherwise, unleashing this menace on human populations—so they agreed to take me as far as they had gotten in their very underfunded search.”
“We could cut this bull off at the pass, General,” Colonel Vlasco said, his voice urgent as he gazed up at the now pacing general. “Rather than send Trudeau on missions like the one in North Korea—where we heard they got one of those monsters to experiment on after the fact, we could shut down the source of the samples.”
“That’s true, sir,” Major Adams concurred. “Up to this point, all of us, anybody in this paranormal business, have been relying on random sightings, then having to spend endless resources and hours tracking the one or two we learn of to get to it before the other nations can capture it.”
“Not to mention the collateral damage,” Lieutenant Colonel Waters said. “By the time we find one, how many people have died? We’ve even had to go behind Butler’s bar fights to be sure there was no . . . How many people have to be . . .”
Sasha blanched; revulsion made her dig her nails more deeply into her palms until she could feel small halfmoon crescents forming in the heel of her hand. But she didn’t blink.
“If we can find out where these various dimensional tears are, or demon doors as the indigenous clans call them,” Dr. Holland said, speaking calmly and firmly, “then perhaps we can better understand how they come out, and how to block those portals with barriers—as well as shut down any black market attempts to broker dirty DNA.”
“Make it happen. Special task force. Give Trudeau what she needs,” the general said, heading for the door. “And, Xavier . . . See that she gets to go to the memorial service we’ll have on base. That’s the least we can do.”
THE BASE WAS their family—dysfunctional, political, no different than anyone’s family, really. It was all they knew. There were no civilians in attendance. It was cold outside, the flag was at half-mast, and the wind was whipping against her cheeks like a bitter slap in the face.
Mrs. Baker pretended to be one, though . . . a civilian, which was cool. Sasha wondered who to give the flags to. What happened to the memories of men who had no one to look after them, to care for them once they were gone?
Suddenly she realized that VFW posts, veteran’s memorial organizations, vet biker groups, and others who went around attending funerals made a great deal of sense. They would remember and she’d bring pictures of her squad to the keepers of the vaults, and she would have a good beer and a good cry and tell them about a valiant squad of young guys who died way before their time. She’d never understood why that was important until now. Before she’d always been invincible; so had they.
Taps left an eerie hole in her soul, like the baleful mourning howl of a lone wolf.
Yukon Territory, Canada . . .
TWO BODIES WRAPPED in furs and tied with ropes dropped onto the sleds. Dogs yipped and barked, ready to get on their way. Money changed hands between men. Thick gloves went back on huge male fists. Wintry blasts coated black eyelashes and eyebrows with snowflakes.
“When they wake up, they’ll be scared shitless, so keep the ropes on ’em.”
“SHE’S STABLE, JUST like I told you she would be,” Dr. Holland said to the general. “Everything she’s done is rational, exactly what any thinking person with her training would have done.” He walked back and forth in the empty war room, his eyes locked with the general’s. “For the past two days you’ve been testing her, and if she’s going to get out of here to convene with her contact before he bolts, she has to get out of here ahead of the storm.”
The general rubbed his palms over his face and sat down at the head of the table. “Xavier, for once you might be right.”
At a loss, Dr. Holland just stared at the man.
“I never thought I’d see the day when we’d have such a breakthrough, but from all the reports and everything you’ve shown me, it seems that her DNA has adapted somehow to this demon wolf virus.” He looked up at the doctor, his voice calm, his voice filled with regret. “I know you never approved of my methods, Xavier . . . but those young men who got sacrificed for science didn’t die in vain. They’ll help millions, possibly, if there’s ever an outbreak. Understanding the key to Sasha’s blood may very well be the answer.”
The doctor looked off toward the monitors that surrounded the room but held his peace.
“It is madness, Xavier. What else could this be?”
The two stared at each other for a long time and the general finally shook his head.
“We can put a man on the moon, unravel the wonders of physical science, but we’ve entered this new millennium to find there are indeed dungeons and dragons, witches and trolls, warlocks and wizards, goddamned werewolves and vampires . . . I don’t sleep at night, anymore, Xavier. Do you?”
<
br /> Xavier Holland returned his gaze to the general and answered him honestly for the first time in years. “No, sir. I don’t.”
BOREDOM WAS HER watchword. Sleep was next to impossible. She stared at her dress uniform that she’d worn to the funeral as it hung neatly from a hanger on the back of a medical station door.
An MP knocked once, opened the door, and stood before her without expression. “They are processing you out, Lieutenant. Dr. Holland has your orders and your release papers. As soon as he has all the paperwork signed, I will be your escort to the lot.”
Just like that, he spun on his heel and stepped out.
“Hot damn!” Sasha whooped as the stone-faced MP left her room.
Sasha cleared her dorm bunk and began to hastily shove the few changes of clothes Doc had brought her into a duffel bag. Focus made her move swiftly; the protocol she and Hunter had established was simple: meet in the gym he’d told her about in Vancouver. It would be a good cover and he had a contact up there who could take them underground and off radar. She had to fly from Denver to Seattle, in surveillance-stripped clean clothes, then rent an SUV and head north—all before the storm. From there the storm would be their cover.
Not even the lab staff who’d become her friends could know where she was going . . . not this time, not yet. Not till they found out what was going on inside the chain of command. That was one of the key reasons she had to go underground with Hunter, but with the general thinking it was all his idea. Any glitches in communication had to seem technology related. But technology, as advanced as it was, happened to be the least of her worries.
Sasha flopped down on the bed with her bag next to her, swinging her legs like an impatient kid.
It was easy to beat equipment, fake it out; even the most sophisticated systems couldn’t do what natural resources could. Therein lay the problem: as part of the paranormal unit, the Sirius Project had seers, shamans, and even those familiar with the dark arts as well as white magic. They had to.