Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Buck the System (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Sealed With A Kiss Book 2)

by Margaret Madigan

  Before he left the bathroom, he peeked back out into the hallway to be sure nobody lurked there waiting for him, then he hurried across to the first room on the left. It turned out to be a dormitory with enough bunks to house eight men. He didn’t know if they had a full complement, but he’d seen six leave. If eight men lived there, that left two unaccounted for.

  Inside the dormitory, all of the beds appeared rumpled, as if the men had left in a hurry, so there were definitely eight.

  At the opposite end of the room he exited through a second doorway. Across the hall in the second room on the right side, he found more storage, mostly linens.

  That left only the final room on the right, the one with a line of light shining through the narrow space between the door and the floor.

  His best bet would be to burst in with the element of surprise, assuming the door was unlocked. He could retreat to one of the other rooms and make some kind of noise to draw them out, but then they’d be armed and prepared.

  He knelt in front of the door and took a gentle grip on the handle. Very slowly, he tested it. When it continued to turn, revealing it to be unlocked, he smiled. Amateurs.

  He swung the door open and stood, bringing his weapon up, all in a smooth movement. Inside, he found an office complete with a couple of desks, a computer, and a radio set. One man sat at the radio.

  “Hey,” Buck said.

  The guy spun in his chair, his eyes flying wide and his mouth dropping open. He said something in Russian, which Buck didn’t understand.

  “I don’t speak Russian,” he said. With his right hand he pointed the M4 at the guy’s head. He lifted his left hand to illustrate he wanted the guy to raise his hands. “Get ‘em up.”

  The guy started to raise his hands, but then his face relaxed and a smile started at the corners of his mouth.

  Instinct kicked into motion and Buck ducked just in time.

  A gunshot echoed in the small space of the office, except instead of tearing through Buck’s head, it shattered the window behind the desk, admitting a rush of freezing air.

  Buck spun and drilled a handful of bullets into the guy at the door, who froze in place with a movie-worthy look of shock on his face. His handgun clattered to the floor an instant before his dead body. At least Buck could account for all the men now.

  He turned to the radio operator whose expression had fallen into defiance as he blindly fumbled in the desk drawer, never breaking eye contact with Buck. He had to be searching for a gun.

  “Hands up,” Buck said, demonstrating again.

  The guy’s hand stopped rummaging. He’d found his gun. For a split second, they both stared at each other.

  “Don’t do it,” Buck said. “You’ll be dead before you can aim.”

  The guy probably knew that, but pride being what it is, he’d rather die than be captured. So, predictably, his hand came out of the drawer holding a gun and Buck pulled his trigger and killed the guy.

  “Buck,” Ice’s voice blasted into his ear. “We’re all clear. Bring Dr. Emerson in.”

  “Roger that. I cleared the security quarters. Looks like a radio operator may have sent out a call for help. Over.”

  “Copy. Out.”

  Buck hurried back downstairs, out the front door and across the grounds. Mindy had stayed put.

  “How long do you think before their backup arrives?” she asked.

  “No idea. We’re in the middle of nowhere, but who knows where else they have outposts. Could be nearby, or they could need to fly in. Either way, we’re on a countdown now,” Buck said.

  “Got it. Time is short,” she said.

  Buck said, “We’re going to go in now. Stay with me.”

  “Okay.”

  Buck scanned the area in front of the building to be sure it was clear, then took off around the perimeter, staying to the edge of the clearing. If there’d been hidden snipers, they’d have targeted him already, but it never hurt to be safe.

  At the front door of the building he found Dude, one of Wolf’s team, standing guard. Buck pushed his goggles up onto his helmet.

  “Hey, Dude. They find Petrov yet?”

  “They’re searching the labs and offices now. We cleared all the security, which wasn’t much. Most of the scientists were sleeping, so they were easy to detain.”

  “Got it. C’mon Mindy,” Buck said.

  He followed the hall from the reception area to the left and around the circular center of the building. They found Ice, Coyote, and Wolf in the hall.

  “What’s the status?” Buck asked.

  “Most of the scientists were sleeping in their quarters upstairs,” Wolf said. “We found a couple in a lab here.” He gestured to a nearby door.

  “Some of Wolf’s team headed downstairs to search. Still no Petrov,” Ice said.

  “Where are the scientists now?” Mindy asked. She snapped the strap of her helmet open and pulled it off her head, running her other hand through her hair.

  “There’s an auditorium in the east wing. We’re holding them there,” Ice said.

  “If the labs and offices are cleared, I can get to work since we don’t have a lot of time,” Mindy said. “It would be faster to have Petrov tell me where to find everything since I don’t read Russian.”

  “Maybe one of the scientists can translate?” Buck asked.

  Dozer’s voice blasted over the comm. “Dozer here. Found Petrov in an office in the sub-basement. You’re going to want to see this, Ice. If Dr. Emerson’s in the building, bring her, too. Over.”

  “Copy. We’ll be right there. Out,” Ice said.

  Buck shooed Mindy to follow Ice and Wolf. Down the hall they entered the stairway and descended two floors. The door opened into another round setup. An elevator formed the core of the ring structure, but the outer ring was made up of holding cells with Plexiglas fronts. Inside the cells, human subjects lay on bare shelf-like beds, or sat on the floor, staring blankly at them as they passed by.

  “Jesus,” Mindy said. “They’re doing human testing.”

  They already knew that from the pictures they’d seen at the briefing on base, but seeing it up close obviously hit Mindy hard.

  Dozer appeared around the hall. “Over here.”

  They hurried to follow him and ended up at a utilitarian office space. An older man with gray hair and glasses sat behind the desk. Flash guarded the man with his M4 pointed at his head. Dozer took up position on the other side of the scientist.

  Mindy pushed her way past Buck. She did a cursory survey of the room, then focused on the man. “You’re Dr. Petrov? You speak English, right?”

  Petrov made an effort to look defiant, but he didn’t pull it off. “You’re American.”

  “We are,” Mindy said.

  He sat up and straightened the lapels of is lab coat. “I received my medical degree at Harvard.”

  “Congratulations. Why are you using that education to experiment on people?”

  Apparently any stranger anxiety Mindy had disappeared in the face of professional anger.

  “Dr. Emerson,” Ice said. “Let’s focus on the task at hand.”

  Mindy propped a fist on her hip and turned to give Ice a withering glare. Buck had never seen anyone look at Ice that way. Ice didn’t blink, but he looked a little less confident. If anyone could make the man flinch, it might be Mindy in that moment.

  “I am focused, Darius,” she said.

  Dozer and Flash froze, but their eyes popped wide in disbelief. They glanced at each other, then at Ice. Buck bit his lip hard to keep from grinning. Ice’s face hardened into a scowl, and if it was possible for deep brown eyes to be glacial, his were.

  “Then carry on, Doctor. Just be aware of time.” Ice turned on his heel. “You have this now, Buck.”

  Mindy turned back to Petrov as Ice left the room. “I need to know about your research on Amaranthine.”

  Petrov did a comical double take. “Why?”

  “Why do you think? Because you’ve basta
rdized it into a monster. I’m the one who’s responsible for it. And I’ll be damned if I’ll allow some two-bit scientist in a supervillain lab at the ass end of Siberia to turn it into a killer.”

  Petrov’s face lit up. “You’re the genius who created the drug? I hadn’t thought I’d ever be lucky enough to meet its creator, But here you are.”

  “What did you do to it?”

  Petrov stood. “If you’ll allow me, I’ll take you to the lab and show you. It was really very easy to change the structure only minimally, but with amazing results.”

  Mindy looked to Buck. “Can we go to the lab? I’m going to need to go there anyway, to collect the information.”

  “Sure.” Buck turned to Dozer and Flash. “You guys come too.”

  Mindy and Petrov walked side by side down the hall, following Dozer and Flash to the stairs. Petrov chattered science babble the whole way like a kid excited to talk about comic books.

  7

  Melinda followed Petrov, not listening as they passed the holding cells. The haunted eyes of the prisoners tracked them as they walked by.

  “How could you test on humans?” she asked.

  Petrov looked at her as if she’d asked him why is the sky blue. “How else would we test?”

  They entered the stairwell following the two SEALs in front of them, and exited on the main floor, two flights up.

  “It’s unethical,” Melinda said.

  Petrov chuckled. “Well, ethics are relative, dear. Many of our modern scientific advances never would have happened if those scientists had observed our ethical standards.”

  “My ethical standards,” Melinda said. “You clearly have none.”

  They followed the main corridor around to the labs. Petrov entered one of them, gesturing for her to follow.

  Buck stepped inside and stood near the door. “I’ll be here if you need anything, Mindy.”

  She smiled for him. It made her feel infinitely safer having him there with her. “Will do.”

  Petrov pulled a tray of test tubes from a cooler and held them up. “This is Amaranthine,” he said, pride in his voice. She loathed the sight of it. The drug had turned into the bane of her existence.

  “Is that all of it?” she asked.

  “In this cooler, yes.”

  Melinda filed that information away for later use while Petrov replaced the test tubes, then headed for one of the tables in the middle of the lab where he opened a cabinet at the end. The action of opening the cabinet door brought up a shelf with a laptop anchored to it. Petrov signed in. The keyboard was in Cyrillic, but Melinda watched the pattern he tapped in for his password.

  When the desktop popped up on the screen, he opened a program and a document complete with text and diagrams filled the screen.

  “I can’t read that,” she said.

  “Oh, of course.” He shuffled his feet and scratched his chin, as if baffled how to solve the problem.

  “Will the program translate it into English?”

  “Well, probably. But I don’t know how to do that.”

  “Is there anyone else here who could do it?” Melinda asked, riding the edge of patience.

  Petrov’s face brightened. “We have an IT manager. He could probably do it.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Ask your people.”

  “Ugh. Buck? Can you go find the IT manager for me?”

  “What’s his name?” Buck asked.

  “Yury Gorev,” Petrov said.

  “Be right back,” Buck said.

  While Buck went to fetch Yury, Petrov went about pulling up reports on the computer.

  “Here,” Petrov said. “This is the spectroanalysis of your version of Amaranthine.”

  Melinda shifted over to look at the report. She couldn’t read the Russian, but understood the graphic information.

  “Okay,” she said.

  Petrov scrolled the screen. “These are the alterations we’ve made”

  The chemical structure per the report appeared very similar to her version, but with a couple of distinct differences. She hadn’t thought to alter it. She’d been so frustrated that it wasn’t what she’d wanted to create she’d put it aside to start over. What if she could take Amaranthine and change it in other ways to see if it would still be a useful treatment for Alzheimer’s?

  “It always amazes me that a couple of small chemical changes can have such wide-reaching effects,” she said.

  Buck returned with a man who looked like he’d barely passed his twentieth birthday, in tow.

  Petrov said something in Russian to the new man who nodded and went to the computer. He tapped furiously on the keyboard, creating a copy of Petrov’s document translated into English.

  The man said something to Petrov, who translated. “Yury says he doesn’t know how good the software’s translation function is, but you should get the general idea, at least.”

  She started in on the document, which was many pages of notes, and had to be Petrov’s research journal. He hadn’t been working on the drug long enough to have produced an actual paper about it. Not that work done in a super-secret Russian mafia lab was publication-worthy.

  As she scanned his meticulous notes about his experiments, and then trials on humans, she had to admit, from a purely scientific perspective, it was exciting work. Drugs that affected the brain and altered human behavior were both fascinating and dangerous, and in the American scientific community, research was slow and careful. And ethical. When ethics were removed from the equation, interesting, even exciting results, could be accomplished. But, thank God for ethics because no scientific advancement ever existed in a purely intellectual vacuum. History was littered with the disastrous results of science turned into weapons of one sort or another.

  Now her work contributed to that disastrous history.

  She became more horrified the further she read into Petrov’s notes. The ways he’d altered Amaranthine worked on the parts of the brain regulating inhibition and cognition.

  “This is…stunning.”

  Petrov’s proud smile misinterpreted her meaning. He clearly thought she approved. “We’re on the right track. Amaranthine does amazing things for cognition. Subjects have been able to learn and retain new information at rates unheard of before, and problem solving is through the roof. Even the most complex issues are easy for subjects to sort, analyze, and act on with positive outcomes.”

  “They also lose inhibitions and they’re susceptible to suggestion?”

  Petrov’s eyes lit up. “Yes. Those were effects we hadn’t expected.”

  “You sound as if they’re good.”

  “We were tasked with recreating your drug, which we did from the information that Mr. Abramovich supplied. But he and his people wanted more. I’m sure you can understand the pressure to produce results in the world of science.”

  Melinda scoffed. “This is hardly the world of science. You’re slaves to the Russian mafia. I mean, clearly you’re Russian, but are all the scientists here Russian? Not too long ago, I was kidnapped and destined to end up here, too.”

  Petrov shrugged. “So you understand we have little choice. When you’re held captive, and those you love are threatened, ethics become superfluous. You work to do as you’re asked, produce what you can, to save lives.”

  Putting herself in his shoes, she didn’t think she’d have done what he had if only her life was on the line. If she had children, or parents, or siblings and she worried for their lives, things might be different. She might hesitate to resist.

  “Have they threatened your family?” she asked.

  He waved in a dismissive gesture. “I have no family. But the other scientists here, do. They’re from all over the world and they fear for those they love.”

  “What about those people in the holding cells downstairs? Don’t they have family?”

  Petrov took his glasses off and tossed them on the table before scrubbing a hand down his face. “These questions are moo
t. We can’t do anything about them. We must work within the parameters we’re given.”

  “Fine. I refuse to ignore the gross ethical negligence, but you’re right, I can’t do anything about it right now. Your version of the drug enhances cognition, causes susceptibility to suggestion, and reduces inhibition. What about the side effects? I understand they’re quite bad.”

  He slid his glasses back on. “Indeed, they are. And we’ve yet to figure out why or how to fix them. Administering the drug is one hundred percent fatal. Subjects will live anywhere from twelve to forty-eight hours, depending on their physical conditioning and the strength of their circulatory system. Inevitably, however, they die from heart attack or stroke.”

  He reached over and scrolled his report. When photos filled the screen of subjects with bleeding as if the cerebral arteries had blown with such force as to burst blood from every orifice, she wished he hadn’t scrolled.

  “Jesus,” she said.

  More photos of autopsies showed heart muscles and aortas that had literally ruptured with massive holes.

  “Ideally we need to solve these problems.”

  His casual tone sounded more like talking about solving a computer glitch, or fixing a recipe so cookies were chewy rather than crunchy. Not stopping a human heart from blowing out.

  “No kidding,” she said, more determined than ever to destroy everything to do with it. “I need you to give me all the information you have on Amaranthine. Both the original source material and any backup you have.”

  He frowned, his brows coming together in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re done researching this. We’re shutting you down. These are American Navy SEALs. I’m an American scientific consultant with the authority to close down your entire operation,” she said.

  He shook his head. “No. You can’t. We’re on the verge of a major breakthrough. Not to mention, they’ll kill all of us and our families.”

  “Your breakthrough can rot in the annals of history. I can’t do anything for your families, but we can save you and all the human victims you would have killed when you experimented on them. Now, please provide me with all of the documentation and show me the file tree of all the digital documents on your computer.”