Dangerous in Motion (Aegis Group Alpha Team, #4)

by Sidney Bristol

  She needed a nap. That was it. Some time asleep, under the covers and she’d be ready to execute her plan. She’d find Reddy’s daughter and turn Léo in, then it would be over. She could go back to her corner of the country and Adam to his.

  He was only too happy to leave her.

  She’d seen him drive away earlier. It hurt, but she should be used to it by now. They’d been doing this ever since the day Adam got his bicycle. She’d survive. She’d be okay, because she was strong. But right now, she was cold. So, cold.

  Heidi stumbled toward the bed. She made it as far as the dresser before the room started to pitch and spin.

  What the hell?

  She went to a knee to keep from falling over.

  What had they done to her?

  Something wet dripped down her nose. She lifted a hand and wiped it away, only to discover that she was sweating.

  A small voice in the back of her mind screamed, trying to be heard.

  Heidi shook her head and used the dresser to pull herself to her feet.

  A dark shape unfolded itself from the shadows below the window.

  Heidi squinted at it, but the spinning was worse now. Her stomach clenched.

  She was going to hurl.

  Hands grasped her arm. She pitched forward, her stomach emptying it’s contents onto the floor. The darkness held her while she heaved, and when she was done it cradled her, carrying her out into the night on a fluffy, dark cloud.

  TUESDAY. ABANDONED facility, Mumbai, India.

  Adam frowned at the large structure. No cars were in the lot. Not a thing moved inside or out that they could see. There wasn’t even a security light on outside the building. It was dead.

  “I’m not reading any heat signatures, but the walls might be messing with that.” Riley lowered the binoculars to his lap. “What do you think?”

  “Let’s get a closer look.” He shifted the SUV into drive and drove across the two lane road and down the drive leading up to the structure.

  The building was another warehouse facility. Lots of room, easy access to utilities and people. Given the nature of what they feared was being done here it stood to reason that the labs were mobile.

  Adam drove the SUV up to the front door. Riley shone a flashlight in through the glass, but the only thing they could see was an overturned office chair.

  “This is fucking eerie,” Riley said.

  Adam was inclined to agree.

  He eased the truck around to the side lot. Up close it was easy to see boxes and items left behind as though the warehouse had been packed in a hurry. Ordinarily Adam would assume someone had seen something, but the closest houses were a good distance away.

  “See that bay door? It’s open.” Riley popped his seatbelt.

  “We need to be careful.” Adam turned the SUV, so the headlights pointed into the open space and shifted into park. Heidi was already sick. They didn’t need to come down with something.

  “Place seems deserted. We might as well get an up close and personal look.”

  Riley got out of the truck leaving Adam to scramble after him.

  He wasn’t convinced going for a closer inspection was a great idea. What if these guys were still here? The men they’d run into in Peru had been outfitted well, not to mention the bio weapons at their disposal.

  They crept up a set of concrete stairs to the loading bay dock. Riley extended his baton and slid his hand held Taser out of its holster.

  Adam hated relying on such tools. They were close quarters weapons that would do nothing against someone with a gun, but it was what they had.

  “I’ll go first,” Riley said.

  “Smell that?” Adam sniffed. There were some odors he could have lived without.

  “What is that?” Riley frowned and inhaled a little deeper. “That’s not...”

  Adam stepped around the other man and brought his flashlight up.

  The floor of the warehouse had been cleared. What was left were odds and ends, trash mostly, and a metal shipping container. The doors were wedged shut, but the ash tracked outside as rodents went in and out gave away its contents.

  “Adam—don’t. We can’t risk it. Think about Heidi.”

  That made Adam stop short.

  He stared at the pale dust tracking out of the shipping container. He could guess at what that was.

  “You’re right,” Adam said and turned.

  He’d seen enough.

  There were no living people here.

  Riley continued to stand there, eyes wide, the horror etched into his face.

  “Do what you can to forget this.” That was Adam’s best advice. They didn’t need to see this to report it. Adam would never forget that smell until his dying day.

  “Were they...”

  “Don’t think about it. Come on.” Whoever did this would be gone. He strode for the open doors and fresh air.

  “I got out of the Army to get away from this stuff.” Riley shook his head, no doubt trying to get the smell out of his nose. “I’ve never run into this on a Lepta Team job before. Is this the kind of stuff you guys see?”

  “We see a little of everything.” Adam stared into the surrounding darkness.

  The site was remote and rural, but there were still homes in the distance. Someone must have seen something. Yet it was dark out there. Pitch black.

  Adam walked in an arc, around to the side of the structure.

  A pair of lights shone through windows of what had to be a second story room. The house was over a hundred yards away, but they still must have seen or smelled something.

  “What? What are you looking at?” Riley asked.

  “That house.” Adam turned toward the waiting SUV. “Come on.”

  “Do you speak the language?”

  “No, but I bet Google does.” Adam climbed behind the wheel and shifted into drive.

  “What do you think happened here?” Riley peered at the building.

  “Lab had to move. Too much trouble to take the test subjects with them.”

  “Fucking hell, man.”

  One of Adam’s old team mates had made the round of Troy and Lepta Team before settling on Alpha. He’d said that Omega and Troy were out because he liked to live, and Lepta was too boring. Right about now, Adam would take a dose of boring.

  He got back on the road and went down to the next point to turn.

  “What does that sign mean? The red one?” Riley asked.

  Adam slowed to a stop and peered at the homemade sign. It was a piece of plywood cut into a square. Someone had painted it a glossy red and put reflective tape around it. The words were white outlined in black by someone with impeccable handwriting, but the script meant nothing to Adam.

  “That’s not on any official list of road signs.” Adam eased past. As the team’s default driver, he’d spent hours reviewing local driving laws and signs.

  Even if he couldn’t speak or read the language, signs were easy enough to decipher. That one didn’t leave him with a good feeling.

  “There’s another one.” Riley leaned forward.

  The second sign was like the first, but bigger. Another piece of wood had been painted white and had smaller, black writing on it.

  “What do you think is going on here?” Riley asked.

  Adam kept his eyes on the road. Ahead, he could make out more lights between the trees. They had to be pretty close.

  He still couldn’t see neighboring houses by their lights. Perhaps they didn’t have electricity? Close to such an urban area that didn’t make a lot of sense. Besides, they hadn’t seen a lot of houses in the last few miles they’d driven to get to this place. It made sense that an illegal lab wouldn’t operate under the watchful eyes of nosey neighbors.

  Ahead of them, two figures stepped out from behind the foliage butting up against the road, each carrying AR-15s.

  “Wow.” Riley sat back, pressing himself into the seat.

  Adam eased the SUV to a stop and held up a hand.

&
nbsp; This was interesting.

  A third figure stepped into view behind the SUV. All three had their weapons trained on the ground. These weren’t boys who’d gotten guns. These men knew how to use them. It was the way they held the weapons, the positioning around the vehicle. These men were professionals.

  “Get us out of here,” Riley barked.

  Adam squinted at the figure in front of the SUV.

  The exposed skin was paler. He wouldn’t even call it brown. The guy was Heidi white.

  Adam shifted into park.

  “What the hell?”

  “They aren’t Indian. We need answers.” Adam rolled his window down.

  “Stay in your car,” the man in front of Adam called out. There was some sort of European accent to the strained words. The man repeated the same words in another language.

  “We’re looking for someone.” Adam held his hand out of the vehicle.

  “We should get out of here,” Riley said.

  “Not yet.”

  “You must leave,” the man said.

  “I’m just looking for a friend. Can you tell me if you’ve seen them?” Adam leaned a little ways out of the window to better hear the man.

  “The people in this house are very sick. It is not safe for you here.” The man in the lead waved his hand.

  “I’m looking for a woman named Laranya. Laranya Reddy?” Shit. Adam didn’t know the woman’s married name.

  The second figure in front of the SUV turned his head and said something to the other man Adam couldn’t make out. The first one spoke, but this time Adam made out enough words to get a grasp on who they were dealing with.

  “They’re French.” Adam peered into the rearview mirror at the third. “Look at their faces. They’ve wrapped scarves around their necks and mouths.”

  “Mosquitoes?” Riley sounded downright hopeful.

  “Nah. I’d overheat in this weather. What if they’re sick? What if they’re all sick and that’s why they were left behind?”

  The man leading the trio edged as close as the front of the SUV.

  “You can’t be here. It’s not safe,” the man said.

  “Because you were all infected with something at the lab back there?” Adam gestured at the warehouse. The moonlight glinted off the metal roof making it shine like a beacon.

  “What do you know about that?” The man took a step back and raised his AR-15, pointing it at the door of the SUV.

  “I know an illegal lab was set up over there. I saw the shipping container. I know the daughter of the CEO of Sorkin Pharmaceuticals was kidnapped. What I don’t know is how a couple of French mercenaries are involved or if the daughter is still alive.” Adam watched the man’s eyes, how he flinched. “You didn’t know what you were getting involved with, did you?”

  The man looked away, at his partner and said something in French too fast for Adam to understand.

  “Is Laranya still alive?” Adam asked.

  “She won’t be for long.” The man lowered his rifle, then let go of it, allowing the weapon to hang off his shoulder by a strap. “We were hired to provide security. We had no idea what we were getting involved with. Six weeks ago there was an outbreak in the facility. It spread in a matter of hours with varying degrees of severity. Those who weren’t infected packed up, burned the bodies, then left us here to guard the family. We didn’t know until a week later we also had contracted a strain of the sickness.”

  “What the hell are you doing out here? Why not get help?” Riley asked.

  “No one can help us.” The man took a step back.

  “You don’t know that,” Adam said. There was more going on here than simply guarding some sick people.

  “We do.” The man nodded at the third blocking the road behind them. “Leave now. You’ve been too close already.”

  “We can get you help,” Riley insisted.

  “Our orders are to contain this. Now, I must ask you to leave.” The man raised his AR-15, pointing it at Adam.

  “What’s going to happen to you?” Adam needed to put the pieces together. He had to figure out what was going on.

  “Every twelve hours one of us resets an alarm. When we’re dead and there’s no one to reset the alarm, the house will burn and the sickness will die with us.”

  “Fine.” Adam shifted into reverse and let off the break.

  “What the hell?” Riley whispered.

  “Think about it. Why would these mercenaries not just kill the hostages or go to a doctor?” Adam kept his eyes on the three figures clustered in the middle of the road.

  “You think there’s leverage on them?”

  “Something that keeps them here, but also nothing bad enough to make them kill the hostages and themselves.” Adam pressed the car phone button. “Call Kyle.”

  The speakers beeped, followed by a series of rings.

  What would keep the mercs there? Why would they continue to protect a dying woman and her family? What was in it for them?

  They kept the SUV creeping backward toward the main road.

  The call went to voicemail.

  Adam frowned and glanced at the clock. It was late, but someone should have answered.

  He hit the end call button on the dash.

  “What time is it in Seattle?” Adam couldn’t recall the math.

  “A little after eight in the morning.”

  “Call Zain.”

  The SUV rang once.

  “Zain’s phone,” a woman said in a sing-song voice.

  “Andrea?” Adam resisted the urge to groan.

  “Yes. Zain is coming. He said to answer the phone if you called. I take it this is a hard job?”

  “Yeah.” Adam would normally try to muster a polite response to Zain’s wife. The woman was kept in the dark about much of their work following her own harrowing ordeal. Tonight he couldn’t make himself be nice.

  “Here he is,” Andrea said.

  “Hey. What’s up?” Zain’s voice was rough and weary.

  “Kyle’s not answering and we’ve got a situation.” Adam caught Zain up to speed on what they’d found at the former lab site and hostage house.

  “I was able to get records on an Indian account Reddy paid into. That account still has a sum of money in it, and I can tell you I’m not the only one watching it. If I remember right, some payments were made to French bank accounts.”

  “Could that be it?” Riley asked. “These guys are waiting to die because of the money?”

  “Any way to find out these guy’s identities? Do they have families?” Adam hated where this was going. “That could be it. They’re waiting for this disease to run its course, and on their death their families get a payday.”

  “Sitting down in my home office now. Kyle sent me a link to the security camera feed.” Zain blew out a breath. “Where are you now?”

  “Headed back to the safe house. We need to let someone know about the lab and those people. There could still be a serious risk to anyone who stumbles on either. Hell, they might be able to find a cure.”

  “Huh.”

  “What?” Adam didn’t like that sound.

  “Not to alarm you, but the cameras are offline at the safe house...”

  “We’re on our way. Get someone to the warehouse. See if you can track Kyle’s phone?”

  “Already on it,” Zain replied.

  10.

  TUESDAY. UNKNOWN, MUMBAI, India.

  Heidi groaned and curled into a tighter ball. The spinning and lurching had only gotten worse once she was in the vehicle. Everything hurt. She was sweating and shivering. A voice in the back of her head kept issuing orders, but all she wanted was silence and for the world to just stop.

  She pried one eye open.

  Why was she in the car again?

  Where were they going?

  The dimensions were wrong for the SUV.

  Heidi lifted her head, though that one action seemed to take all her strength, and peered out the window.

  “Where
are we going?” she asked.

  They’d told her they were staying put at the house. Why were they moving?

  The man in the driver’s seat turned and glanced at her.

  “Awake again?” He glanced at the person riding shotgun. “Give her a dose.”

  She stared at that face. That horrible set of eyes and nose and mouth.

  Léo...

  TUESDAY. AEGIS GROUP Safe House, Mumbai, India.

  Adam whipped the SUV into the driveway. The darkened windows in contrast to the neighbor’s security lights made his stomach clench. He resisted the urge to call out for Heidi and the others. Instead he shifted into park and got out, clutching his expandable baton in his right hand.

  A figure pealed out of the shadows, a wrench in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

  “Adam?” Kyle called out.

  “Where’s Heidi?” Adam didn’t need to know that something had happened.

  “Let’s load everything into that SUV and get out of here,” Grant said.

  Adam’s gaze skipped over Kyle and Grant to Cindy and John deeper in the garage.

  “Where did she go?” Adam asked.

  “Someone attached the SUV’s battery to the power line and created a surge. Fried the phones, everything that was plugged in. Left us blind.” Kyle held up his hands and spoke in a soft tone while the others loaded the still running SUV. “Best we can figure out, someone came through the window and took Heidi. We got the drop on a guy holding Cindy and John at gunpoint.”

  “Who?”

  “My guess? That Léo guy Heidi described.”

  “Where is she? How long ago?”

  “Twenty minutes?” Kyle’s face creased as though he were in pain. “Her tracking device was removed.”

  Adam stared at Kyle, aware the other man’s mouth was moving. Adam had left because it was obvious his presence upset Heidi. She’d begun to yell and get hysterical, completely unlike her. His instinct was to be next to her as close as he could get. So he’d left to give her space and let the others have time to figure out what was wrong with her. Instead, she’d gotten kidnapped by the same person who’d taken her last time.

  “Which way did they go?” Adam turned to the street.