Whiteout

by Adriana Anders

  Ducking—though in all honesty, she didn’t need to—they ran across the helipad, then down a flight of stairs and inside.

  “What do you think?” Side by side, they made their way down a long well-lit hall to a thick metal door.

  “Reminds me of Burke-Ruhe.”

  “Yeah?” His face was so wide-open that she wanted to spread little kisses all over it. In deference to the fact that they were here to join his macho brother’s underground paramilitary team of good-guy vigilantes, she refrained. Barely.

  “Yes.” She squeezed his hand back.

  “Sure?”

  “Yes. Not trying to become a killing machine or anything, but I don’t regret what I did. And I’ll never regret what happened.”

  He smiled. “Good. ’Cause Eric’s not kidding about recruiting you to the cause.”

  “I told you. I’m in.” She shook her head. “You should know that by now.”

  They stepped out of the first passageway and she noted that the door wasn’t quite the station’s refrigerator-styled ones, but more like a submarine’s. Not that she’d visited many of those.

  But she would, if Ford took her there.

  At the end of another long hall, Eric and his girlfriend, Zoe Garcia, met them. It gave her a weird rush of adrenaline to see them both again, especially in this strange, out-of-the-way setting.

  “You made it!” Zoe hugged Ford.

  “Course.” Ford sounded grumpy, as usual, but she saw through him like cellophane. Gruff meant he had something to hide. In this case, it was happiness and affection at the sight of his brother. It was adorable.

  God, she hoped she never got over this first-crush feeling.

  “It’s so good to see you again!” Zoe rushed forward to hug Angel, then Eric gave her a peck on the cheek. Zoe led the way. “Watch your step down here. The place is a work in progress.” She turned one last time. “Welcome to Polaris.”

  This corridor’s lighting was markedly different from the others—warmer, more subtle—with three doors at the end. They walked through the central door into—

  “Wow.” Angel couldn’t shut her mouth at the sight of the massive high-ceilinged living space, with a circular wall of windows overlooking the ocean at one end. At the other end, doors opened onto what appeared to be a central patio, complete with fire pit and—“Is that a pool?”

  “Sure is.” Eric laughed his deceptively lazy Paul Newman laugh. “You like?”

  “This is amazing. It’s like a cruise ship or something.” Angel spun just as Leo entered behind them. She was beautiful, but no-frills. Her hair was a very short, dark halo. Simple, no-bullshit hair that went with her no-bullshit personality.

  “You see the rooms yet?” Leo asked.

  “No.”

  “Don’t even think about stealing mine,” she said, looking for all the world like she didn’t have an ounce of humor—until she winked. She was followed in by Jameson and Pam, who’d apparently flown in the day before.

  “Oh, we all know better than to try to take your room away.” Zoe threw an arm around Leo’s shoulders, which the pilot appeared to suffer through with an affectionate look. “Besides.” Zoe glanced back at Ford. “This guy picked your room ages ago.”

  “Come on.” Eric led the way through a side door into a smaller room, where Ans and Von awaited.

  They all stood to kiss Angel on the cheek, then the men bro-hugged Ford—on his good side—before pulling chairs out around a pitted, ancient-looking wooden ship’s table.

  “Thanks for coming out, everyone. Got some new intel we need to brief everyone on.”

  Ford seemed to sharpen, and suddenly Angel could see exactly how he’d fit in with this bunch. “New intel?”

  “Couple things.” Eric looked around. “You’ve probably all heard that Clive Tenny died in federal custody.”

  Silence. A couple nods. The man may have been an asshole, but nobody was happy about this development.

  “As far as you two, we thought you could keep your heads down out here for a while. At least until the nation is finished mourning the deaths of Angel Smith and Ford Cooper.” Angel caught Ford’s eye. He looked different with his new dark hair and thick-framed glasses. So did she, as a redhead. But they’d adjust.

  “Now, we know from what Tenny told us in his debrief that Chronos has teams searching the globe for the virus.” Eric was the last to sit. “Ans, tell us what else we’ve got.”

  Ans, shorter than the other men at maybe five eleven or six feet, had one of those thick builds that looked packed hard with muscle. He was darkly handsome—and he knew it. His black hair was shorn—about the length of his beard—and gelled up.

  “Here’s what we’ve got. We believe that Chronos Corp’s CEO and director, Katherine Henley Harper, is head honcho in all this. Tenny named her personally. Said he answered directly to her.” He looked around. “But this goes higher than that.”

  Von broke in. He was scarred and mean-looking, rougher than the other guys, his accent pure Texas. Or Deep South, maybe, Angel couldn’t tell the difference. “My contacts at Defense are bein’ extremely tight-lipped about everything.” He gave Angel and Ford an apologetic look. “They’re blamin’ the murders of Jamie Cortez and Alex Stickley on Tenny and Sampson. No mention of Chronos involvement.” Another look around the room. “Murders, kidnapping, Tenny’s so-called suicide in lockup. Cover-ups like this… It’s some high-level shit.”

  For a few seconds, nobody spoke. The four Burke-Ruhe survivors exchanged long looks.

  Ans took over. “Good news is there’s new intel from a possible inside source.”

  “To be verified.” Eric broke in, before pointing at Ans, letting him know he should carry on.

  “They’ve got digging locations elsewhere.” Ans paused. “So far, we know of Colorado. The North Sea, off the coast of Scotland. Siberia. We’re trying to get more on those. And now we’ve got a possibly related incident in Alaska.”

  “This one’s mine.” Zoe interjected happily. “When we quietly put out word that we were looking for info on Chronos, we got a few bites. This is from a friend of a friend of a friend, but she works—worked—for a private eye out of LA. Says her boss disappeared a few weeks ago. For over a decade, he’s been on retainer. Not for Chronos per se, but for a nameless honcho over there. Apparently, he was pretty excited about finally getting a lead and followed it to some remote place in Alaska.”

  “Bermuda Triangle,” muttered Ans in a ghost story voice.

  Leo threw him an affectionately annoyed look. “Well, all she knows is that the guy her boss was after stole something from the Chronos bigwig years ago. Says a few days after she notified the client, the entire office was shut down, taken over by some unnamed government agency. Now she’s out a job. And she’s scared. Weird shit’s been happening.”

  “We’ve gotten her to safety,” Eric said, chiming in. “In the meantime, word is a security contractor’s sending a team for a big operation in Alaska. Major firepower. Could be a coincidence.”

  Ans snorted.

  “Anyway, we’ll send someone as soon as we pinpoint where.” Eric finished up, then looked at his brother.

  “For now, our sole mission is to put a stop to this thing before Burke-Ruhe’s up and running again,” Von said, his voice almost as gruff as Ford’s and totally in keeping with his entire persona—a big, scarred, mean-looking warrior.

  Angel’s brow lifted in surprise. “That’s six or seven months? Not a lot of time.”

  “Given that they’d planned to test the virus on humans, I’d say we need to clear this up as fast as we can. And with Chronos bankrolling the Burke-Ruhe and Volkov rebuilds, we’re on borrowed time.” Ford tilted his head at Jameson and Pam, who sat two chairs down. “These two’ll be on the first flight down there.”

  “Yep,” Jameson boomed. “Eyes on the ground.
”

  “On the ice,” Pam said with a giggle. The two exchanged a smoldering look.

  Ford smiled. He did that a lot now.

  “So.” Angel looked at the group, a little nervous now that the big moment had come. “I have a proposal. I know you’ve probably got a better solution, but I was thinking…when I’m not working on getting my nonprofit together”—she glanced at Ford, who gave her an encouraging nod—“you guys got room for a chef out here?”

  “Oh thank God.” Leo whooped. “Thought you’d never ask!”

  “Hold on. Hold on.” Eric put out a hand. “Did we pressure you in any way? I don’t want you to feel like it’s an obligation. We’re perfectly cap—”

  “Are you kidding? This is perfect. Like the South Pole without the cold. And I’ve got my day job.” Just thinking about the nonprofit she’d decided to create gave her a warm feeling. As soon as the kitchen was set up, she’d be doing healthy, inexpensive family-cooking sessions with folks from low-income households. Helping people, making them happy, sharing her love of food with them. “Seriously, guys. Working with the families onshore and then cooking out here, being part of this gang—it’s a dream.”

  Everything about her life and this moment—the man beside her, this odd band of people, their crazy HQ in the middle of the Pacific, their mission—made her feel alive and in charge of her destiny. “This is what I want.”

  “It’s settled, then. Executive chef.” Eric smiled at her, then looked at his brother. “And chief science officer. Welcome to Polaris Team.”

  * * *

  “You don’t miss the ice all that much, do you?” Angel flopped down beside Coop on the bed in the ridiculously swank suite they’d been given in the repurposed oil platform. Even unfinished, it was nicer than anyplace he’d stayed in his life.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look as excited as you were in that meeting today.”

  Excited. Coop hadn’t known the meaning of the word until this woman had come into his life.

  He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to his side, gentle with her and himself. Their bodies were still healing after all.

  “This feels right for me.”

  “Being an underground global superhero living under a false identity? Yeah. The old Ford might have balked, but this guy’s into it. With your brilliant mind, you’re basically their in-house science geek.”

  “I’m not a virologist.”

  “No, but you know where to find one.”

  “I do.” He ran a hand from her strong shoulder, along the gentle curve of her back, to the perfect dip above her ass. “And I—we—have the one thing everyone seems to want.”

  “The virus.”

  She stretched and rubbed her face on his chest like a cat. “Where’s your brother getting the funds for all this?”

  He half shrugged with his good shoulder. “Eric’s loaded. Apparently a couple of the others are pretty well-off, too.”

  “This loaded? Redo-an-oil-rig-and-finance-a-secret-mercenary-team loaded?”

  “They prefer to be called security specialists.”

  “Whatever. You know what I mean.”

  “I do.” He smoothed a gentle hand down her face and thought I’m a lucky bastard for the millionth time. That day. “They’ve got backers. You heard them—Polaris is more than us. It’s a coalition.”

  “Mm-hm. Just a bunch of masked heroes hanging out, secretly fighting for the common good.” She sighed. “Why aren’t you kissing me right now?”

  “That what I’m supposed to be doing, Angel Smith?” Angel Cooper one day, if he had his say.

  He broke out into a cold sweat. He hoped. Because he couldn’t stand to live without her.

  Suddenly, he needed to hear her say it. “I love you, sweetheart.”

  Her smile lit up her face like magic. And to think he hadn’t believed in this sort of thing once upon a time. “I love you, too, Ford. And, in case you’ve forgotten, I told you first.”

  “Well, obviously. You’re smarter than I am.”

  “It’s an EQ thing.”

  “EQ?”

  “Emotional Intelligence.” She craned her neck up, reaching for him. “Now kiss me.”

  He dropped his lips to hers and kissed her the way he did every time—like he meant it. Like he’d cross the world for her, brave anything for her. Like it could be their last kiss, their last breath, and he wanted to spend it with her.

  When he pulled away, she followed him partway and then dropped her head back to her pillow, as if it weighed a ton.

  “This place…” She rolled her eyes to one side, then the other. “It’s like a resort or something. You think it was Zoe’s idea?”

  “I know for a fact it wasn’t.”

  “Eric’s?”

  “Yeah. My brother—Navy SEAL, roughneck, billionaire owner of…whatever this is.”

  “Polaris. The mothership.”

  He laughed and bent to rub his nose against hers, loving the way she bubbled through him, humor, smiles, warmth, desire. All the things he’d thought he had to give up in order to survive in the world.

  “You’re my mothership.”

  She turned and gave him a side-eye. “I know that was meant to be romantic, but it came out a little weird.”

  “I’m a science guy. We’re weird by our very nature.”

  “You can say that again.” She sat up. “Hey. Didn’t Zoe mention a balcony?”

  He grabbed a sweater and followed her outside, where he dropped it on her shoulders. And then, because keeping her warm was a pleasure he’d never get sick of, he wrapped himself around her and looked up at the night sky. “There’s only one thing I regret.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “I never got to show you the aurora australis.”

  With a sigh, she scooted even closer, snuggling into his chest in that way she had that made him feel huge and strong, like a man who could take on the world and survive.

  “Right. The southern lights. Oh, I bet we’ll make it there one day.” She kissed his chest in that spot that felt like hers since he’d first held her all those weeks ago in Antarctica. “As far as I’m concerned, Ford Cooper, our adventure is just beginning.”

  When she put it that way, he knew for a fact that he could—and would—take on anything in the world for her. And he’d do it with a smile on his face.

  Epilogue

  One month later—Familia Kitchen, San Diego, California

  Angel hummed to herself as she shoved the leftover cilantro into the fridge, pleased at how it had grown out in the middle of nowhere, along with the tomatoes and basil and everything else she’d planted in the Polaris platform’s massive interior courtyard. With the chickens she’d just brought out there and the goats she’d harassed Eric into considering, Polaris was quickly turning into a farm.

  An offshore farm. The world’s first, maybe? Now all they needed was a puppy. The thought of grumpy, stoic Von holding some cute tiny fuzzball decided her. They were getting a puppy.

  The phone jangled, startling her into dropping a can of coconut milk, which rolled under a counter. She clapped a hand to her chest and glanced at the clock. Her last group of moms and kids had just left Familia. Had someone forgotten something?

  The phone rang again, way too loud in this space. She ran to the office and grabbed it. Too late. Of course.

  She checked the number. Who was that? Not an area code she knew.

  It rang again just after she’d set it down. This time, she snapped it up. “Familia, this is Abby.”

  “Ang—Sorry. Abby.”

  “Uh…” Her fingers and toes tingled. No one knew her real name. “You must have the wrong—”

  “It’s Leo. Listen, I can’t get through to anyone else and they’re
closing in fast, but it’s the virus.” Something moved on the other end. A scuffle of some sort and then Leo was back on. “Shit. They’re coming. Listen, tell Eric. And Ford. Tell them all. There’s something about the virus you need to know.”

  Something banged—loudly. Then again and again, the pops so familiar that Angel had to fight not to duck for cover.

  “I’m listening, Leo.” She squeezed the phone in her hand. “I’m here.”

  “Ford was right about the virus,” she whispered. “It’s deadly. But it can also…” Another loud pop, this one followed by a crash.

  “Leo. Leo!” The line was dead.

  Angel hit Redial and raced to the kitchen, where she grabbed her cell phone and tapped out a quick message to Ford.

  At her ear, the phone rang once, again, and finally someone picked up.

  “Leo, you—”

  “’allo.” It was a male voice. “With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I’m the man who just took down your pilot friend.” He huffed out an audible breath. Something beeped in her ear and he spoke again, sounding exceptionally satisfied. “Shame. Had quite a way with an aircraft, she did.” Another annoying beep and he sucked in a breath. “Ah! Grand. And now, love, I’ve got your number, too. All right, then. Afraid I’d better go.” His voice lowered, quieted, going from friendly to menacing. “Don’t bother looking for her. There won’t be anything left for you to find.”

  Familia’s front door opened and Ford stepped in just as the man hung up. He froze as soon as he saw her expression, then rushed to her, instantly concerned. “What’s going on?”

  “Leo’s in trouble.” She sank to the floor, numb. It was all starting again: the fear, the violence, the uncertain future. She looked up at Ford. “And I think we’re too late to help.”

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, above all, to Mary Altman, who has carved, shaped, sculpted, and scoured this book into what it is today. You are amazing.

  The wonderful crew at Sourcebooks is, as always, a pleasure to work with. Thank you for all your hard work.