In the Wreckage: (M/M Sci-Fi Military Romance) (Metahuman Files Book 1)
Page 7
Katie left her purse in the car and easily kept up with Jamie in her high heels as they made their way to the elevators. They took it up to the ground floor of the main MDF building, working their way through further security to the restricted elevators that would take them up to the command levels.
The Metahuman Defense Force headquarters consisted of a cluster of buildings sitting adjacent to a small airfield, the tallest topping out at forty stories. Building Two came in at twenty stories and contained the scientific and R&D labs working under MDF supervision. The third building was simply called Medical and was the MDF’s onsite hospital used for research and the care of the metahumans and humans on roster.
Each of the three buildings were built to withstand the gale force winds of hurricane season, and the entire base could be surrounded by a defensive energy shield. The land surrounding the building had been snapped up by eminent domain decades ago in order to build an airstrip for the transport and combat jets and other vehicles used by the MDF. Command was run out of the higher levels of the main building, with certain areas restricted. Very little of the building was off-limits to metahumans though, which meant Jamie and Katie weren’t impeded on their way to the briefing room on Level 36, just beyond the command nerve center. They weren’t the first to arrive, but neither were they the last.
“One of these days I’m just gonna ignore the summons and stay home in my nice warm bed. I had binge-watching plans,” Madison muttered. She had folded her arms on the table and buried her face against them, nearly sliding out of her seat.
“Drink some synthcaf,” Jamie said as he sat down.
“Synthcaf won’t make me less homicidal. Also, it’s disgusting.”
“Doesn’t stop you from drinking it.”
“I don’t want to. I want my day off.”
Jamie had tasted both coffee and synthcaf over the years, and while he could have probably been convinced to kill for a cup of actual coffee when stationed overseas, he’d been drinking the swill of synthcaf for his entire military career. It didn’t taste great, but it did the job of waking a soldier up at zero dark thirty.
Katie paused long enough by the small side table holding a tray of beverages to pour herself a cup of tea. Whoever was in charge of prepping the room for the briefing knew her preference for strong black tea and her particular add-ons. Katie had a disconcerting habit of mixing cloned fruit jam into the beverage, which Jamie found more than a little odd, though he never said so to her face. He rather liked living.
Madison propped her head up on her fist, squinting at Jamie. “You got any ideas about what’s going down? The Old Lady wasn’t big on details when she called.”
“No. We’ll find out soon enough,” he said.
Jamie dragged his hand over the opaque surface of the table, but no information popped up at his touch, just the swirling colors that meant the computer was on standby mode. He really wished the director would let them read in on some of the details prior to this briefing like he sometimes did, but it looked like they were supposed to hurry up and wait.
The door to the briefing room slid open a few minutes later with a pneumatic hiss. Donovan and Trevor came inside, both of them dressed in civvies. Everyone would change into their combat uniforms after the briefing and gear up to deal with whatever this problem turned out to be.
Donovan nodded a greeting to everyone in the room. “Man, I was in the middle of lunch when I got the call. Had to leave half of a perfectly good steak on the table and cut my date short with my girl.”
“Count yourself lucky. Jamie and I didn’t even make it to lunch,” Katie said.
“Did Gracie get recalled as well?” Jamie asked.
Donovan shook his head. “Nah. It’s her day off. She’ll probably come in anyway though.”
Dr. Gracie Gold was a gifted surgeon who used to volunteer with Doctors Without Borders. Her selfless and giving nature was what led her to be at the wrong place at the wrong time while helping out at an Ethiopian refugee camp. A jihadist terrorist group exploded a Splice bomb in the center of the camp, killing hundreds before a quarantine zone could be set up. Gracie was the only one to survive, coming away with the extraordinary ability to accelerate a person’s immune system to three times the normal speed for a limited amount of time in order to promote healing. She headed up the Medical Division within the MDF now and had actually been the one in charge of their care when they first arrived.
Donovan had fallen for Gracie hard in the beginning and had flirted with her for a year before she deigned to say yes to his advances. Outside of team dynamics, relationships were usually allowed between departments. In general, fraternization was still frowned upon within the military and federal agencies. That fact didn’t stop people from pursuing relationships, either flagrantly or secretly. Dating someone on his team was always a line Jamie refused to cross. For one, the power imbalance between ranks could be construed negatively, and Jamie never wanted anyone to ever think he’d abuse his rank to force someone into his bed. The mere thought of such a thing made him sick to his stomach.
Jamie watched Donovan and Trevor sit down on the opposite side of the table, leaving half the table empty. Everyone looked alert, even Madison, despite her grumblings. Jamie tapped his left forearm and watched a line of tiny number representing the time shine through his skin before winking out. The embedded, translucent piece of biotech was powered by the kinetic motion of a person’s body and was linked to the RealIdent chip in his hand, the comms behind his ears, and made accessing the wireless grid that society ran on now seamless and easy. Limited information was illuminated through the skin by a microscopic-thin layer of nanotech.
The door slid open again and Annabelle hurried inside, red hair damp and braided away from her face, wearing shorts and a tank top. She waved at everyone assembled and plopped into the seat next to Trevor, clutching a water bottle. “Sorry, y’all. Was workin’ in Aviation and had to clean up first.”
“You were working during your time off?” Madison asked, sounding horrified.
“I was flyin’.”
Katie waved her words aside. “No worries.”
Five minutes later the director entered, clutching a thin tablet in one hand and a bottle of his preferred energy drink in the other. He only ever drank the cherry-flavored one, despite there being at least a dozen different flavors of the Zing! energy drink on the market.
“Made it in good time I see,” Nazari said gruffly. “I’d apologize for the early recall but it’s in the job description.”
He set his tablet on the table and pressed his fingers to its screen before snapping them over it in a forward motion. Data streamed out of the tablet and into the table’s computer, spinning command windows rife with reports, holos, and videos in front of each member of Alpha Team as well as two empty seats. Jamie eyed the two empty seats with a sudden sinking feeling in his gut as the data lifted itself into aerial holographic panels before each designated spot.
“Sir,” Jamie said in a tight voice.
Nazari opted to ignore whatever protest he could hear in Jamie’s voice. “As we discussed, Callahan. Your team needs a sniper, especially for this mission. I found you one who comes with a permanent partner. I’d have argued for the sniper only, but they’re just that damn good I didn’t see the point in making a fuss. For the record, it is not a permanent posting only because of the short notice request, but we’ll see if I can’t pry them out of Strike Force by the end of the week.”
Jamie blinked at the mention of Strike Force, the crème de la crème of the United States military. Members were admitted only from active duty men and woman already part of the various Special Operations Forces in existence. If they were ghosts before making it to the top, they downright ceased to exist after putting on the gray beret. Strike Force was what everyone dreamed about becoming at least once in their military career, and of those who actually entered the harsh training, ninety percent washed out. The last ten percent were some of the deadlies
t soldiers on the planet, and they weren’t even metahumans.
The door slid open and Deputy Director Ranisha Stirling walked inside. She was a short African American woman who was career Navy before taking a position with the MDF and carried herself like the Rear Admiral Lower Half she never ceased to be. Following her were two men in dark service uniforms that lacked any markings, name patches, or branch designations. One man was taller than his partner, but both carried themselves with the unconscious straight-backed stride of career military. The taller man had brown hair cut short and roving sharp gray eyes set in an angular face. But it was his partner who caught Jamie’s full and undivided attention like a sucker punch to the gut.
“Alpha Team, you’ll be partnering with Staff Sergeants Alexei Dvorkin and Kyle Brannigan out of Strike Force for this mission,” Ranisha announced. She gestured at the two men in question and continued with “Staff Sergeant Brannigan is an accomplished sniper. Staff Sergeant Dvorkin is a spotter when needed but specializes in close-quarter combat.”
Jamie met Kyle’s gaze over the length of the conference table and managed to keep what he was feeling off his face only through years of practice with his family and the Marines.
Shit, he thought.
“<
“<
Alexei scowled at Kyle and crossed his arms over his chest. Kyle glared right back at him, jaw tight as they argued in a series of looks and hand gestures that stemmed more from growing up together as siblings than proper nonverbal military signals. They didn’t trust that the MDF agent wasn’t fluent in Russian, nor that the car was possibly bugged. They’d been living in the shadows for too long to not be suspicious of everything, even of the people on their own side.
On some days, especially the people on their own side. They both had deeply valid reasons for feeling that way, none of which could be discussed in front of an audience.
“<
Alexei grunted before nodding sharply. Kyle could tell Alexei wasn’t happy with the situation, but then, neither was he. After spending what seemed like the entire day yesterday and again this morning at the Pentagon being argued over by the CIA and MDF in the shadow of SOCOM brass, it was finally decided that the immediate threat put forward by the MDF was more in need of their skill set than the CIA’s deep cover problem in South America. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, they both would’ve taken jungle work in high summer over the MDF for personal reasons, but they weren’t asked, they were told, so here they were.
They spent the rest of the drive to the sprawling complex which made up MDF headquarters in silence, watching the scenery whip by. Their liaison didn’t broker much conversation with them except when they hit several layers of security on the way in that required them to authenticate their IDs. Each time, Kyle and Alexei dutifully scanned their RealIdents over the designated receiver and waited for confirmation that they could continue on.
When the car finally pulled into a parking spot in the subterranean garage, Kyle was more than a little on edge. He and Alexei got out and grabbed their gear from the trunk. Their liaison had promised the MDF was perfectly capable of equipping them, but like hell was Kyle using any weapons other his own Barrett M293A sniper rifle.
“Follow me,” the woman said, gesturing at them.
They fell into step behind her, their stride silent while the click of her high heels echoed in the garage with every step she took. The elevator took them to the first floor, where they got scanned through another block of security before being taken up to a command level. Their gear was retrieved by another agent, and they were ushered into a corner office with an impressive view. Kyle idly noted all the different vantage points a sniper could use to take out the woman in question sitting behind a large desk, half hidden by holoscreens which were immediately locked down upon their arrival.
Kyle and Alexei both snapped to attention and saluted the MDF deputy director before anyone spoke. She nodded at them, brown eyes cool as she took them in. “At ease, gentlemen.”
Kyle relaxed his shoulders and automatically gripped his hands together behind his back. Deputy Director Ranisha Stirling eyed them speculatively after waving away the liaison. Kyle looked at a point beyond her right ear, not bothered in the least by the perusal.
“Welcome to the MDF,” she said. “It’s not very often we can wrangle soldiers of your caliber out of SOCOM, so rest assured, we’re going to put you through your paces.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they replied in unison.
“We’re due to meet the director and the team you’ll be seconded to, so let’s go. We’re on a tight enough schedule as it is and the CIA dragged out the request hearing longer than they needed to.”
The faint burr of irritation in her voice was something Kyle could understand. He didn’t like working with the CIA at all, despite how many times he and Alexei were requested for secondment with that agency, either as a pair or within a larger Strike Force team.
The deputy director led them out of her office and to a different elevator, which they took to another command level. The open space design on Level 36 was full of agents in service uniforms or suits sitting at terminals that circled a command platform running a slew of holos filled with data for the current agent in charge of overseeing everyone on this shift. They bypassed the beating heart of the MDF’s command operations for a door that led to a conference room already full of people.
The second they stepped inside, Kyle immediately knew they had an unforeseen problem, because the man sitting at the far end of the conference table was Jamie, the same man he’d enthusiastically let fuck him into near oblivion Monday night. Not that Kyle was complaining about the sex, because he wasn’t, but Kyle always made it a point to not mix work with pleasure. Despite all his usual rules about picking up a one-night stand—don’t screw anyone in the military or one of the alphabet soup agencies, only scout bars catering to business people, don’t ask any questions that didn’t relate to sex, get off as much as possible—he’d unintentionally broken the first one.
For all that he was glad to see Jamie again, he wished it were under different circumstances.
“Alpha Team, you’ll be partnering with Staff Sergeants Alexei Dvorkin and Kyle Brannigan out of Strike Force for this mission. Brannigan is an accomplished sniper. Dvorkin is a spotter when needed but specializes in close-quarter combat,” the deputy director said by way of greeting the room.
“Since when does Strike Force share their people?” the Latino sitting halfway down the table asked.
“Since now, so don’t blow it,” Director Amir Nazari ordered, giving Jamie and not the man who first spoke a sharp look.
Something was going on there, but Kyle didn’t know what, and he didn’t have time to wonder about it, not when the director kept on talking.
“Staff Sergeants Dvorkin and Brannigan, I’d like to introduce you to the MDF’s Alpha Team. Captain Jamie Callahan leads it while Sergeant Ekaterina Ovechkina is the second-in-command. Donovan Williams, Trevor Sanchez, Madison Chan, and Annabelle Brown round the team out. Everyone but Brown came out of the Recon Marines, while she came out of the Night Stalkers unit. With all your various military backgrounds, I trust you eight will get along.”
Again, he was looking at Jamie as he spoke. Whatever Jamie might be feeling was impossible to tell, because his poker face was just that good. Kyle knew something was up though, and he didn’t like not knowing what the problem was. The other thing he didn’t like not knowing was the people he’d be working with. Names were all well and good, but the MDF specialized in fielding metahumans. Kyle had never worked with the MDF before, nor any metahumans on their roster.
“What is powers?” Ale
xei asked, the accent and cadence of his youth he’d never lost coming out thick.
Katie was the one to answer his question. “Chan throws energy blasts, Williams can see in any spectrum, Brown has anti-gravity mostly used for flight, Sanchez is our telekinetic but with a limited range, and I’m a telepath.”
“And your team leader?” Kyle asked as he stared at Jamie, though he rather thought he had an idea already. The memory of the way Jamie so easily manhandled him at the hotel was impossible to forget.
“Enhanced strength and durability,” Jamie said in a professional voice that shouldn’t have gone straight to Kyle’s dick, but it did. Thankfully, his service pants were a little on the loose side.
“With introductions out of the way, both of you take a seat. Let’s get this briefing done. We’re on a tight enough timetable as it is,” Nazari said.
Kyle and Alexei sat down in the two empty seats that had data streaming in place. The director slid his fingers through several holopics taken from security feeds before throwing them at the center of the table. They reappeared larger and in sharp detail for everyone to see, rotating slowly. A file on each enemy target opened up on the table before every taken seat.
“You’re looking at Marion Durand, head of a roving cell of the Libération Nationale Français terrorist group known for trafficking—drugs, weapons, people, you name it, they move it. They aren’t shy about employing metahumans, which is why we got designated to deal with the problem once it crossed our border. She and her current group of loyalists popped up on Interpol’s radar after they’d already hopped a flight to the US. They uploaded a delayed worm in the computer system to target the facial recognition programs to not register them. A routine security scan noticed the glitch, but it still took Interpol time to find the source. The group traveled under fake IDs and seemingly disappeared once they touched down on American soil.”
One of the holopics caught Kyle’s eye and he leaned forward, pulling it closer to his terminal. “When was this taken?” he demanded.