by J. M. Madden
The back entrance was a joke. Single metal door with a magnetic lock to secure it. Normally, this would be more than enough to secure a building, but not against him. Fontana held the lever and created enough focused static to interfere with the magnetic latch, then pulled the door open. Grinning, he looked at Aiden, who seemed suitably impressed. Quickly, he sent him a mental explanation of what he’d done.
That’s cool.
They walked to the elevators as if they belonged in the place. Angela even waved and the old security guy sitting at the front desk responded in kind. Fontana chuckled to himself as they entered the elevator.
When the doors slid open and they stepped out into an elegantly appointed waiting room, Fontana was moderately impressed. The company had been started by three vets, he knew that, and Aiden’s brother had been one of them. What Aiden had failed to let him know was that his brother was wheelchair bound.
The man that met them could have been Aiden’s twin. The family resemblance was remarkable. But where Aiden had a bit of a rough, grizzly look from blending in with the homeless population, John Palmer had a refined badass look, black beard shorn short and hair clipped close to his head. The intensity in the man’s expression was fierce, his almost-black eyes narrowing on the three of them in consideration. Aiden moved forward to clasp the man’s hand and even though they didn’t say anything, there was a sense in the room that they had conveyed a lot with the look they shared.
Must be a family thing. Not that he would know about any of that.
Fontana spotted an older guy coming out of the office on the far side of the waiting room, as well as a petite, curly haired brunette. They paused for a moment to take in their group, then the older man stepped forward, a smile splitting his face as he headed for Aiden.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you, you bastard.”
Aiden took the man’s hand, smiling slightly. “Thank you, Duncan. I’m sorry I haven’t contacted you sooner.”
Duncan waved that off. “I’m not worried about it. You had to come to us in your own time.”
“And congratulations on the baby. I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything.”
Fontana was curious at the sense of pride that rolled off the older man. It overwhelmed everything else he was feeling.
“Don’t worry about it.”
The petite woman moved close enough to drag him down into a hug. Fontana didn’t think it looked comfortable, bending over for such a short woman, but whatever. Aiden could do what he thought he needed to do.
“Thank you for the gifts,” she told him. “And the heads up about the boys. We thought about you a lot, I hope you know that.”
Fontana watched red creep up into Aiden’s cheeks and wondered where the hell his badass former Navy SEAL fellow operator had gone.
“You’re welcome,” he told her gruffly, then turned to the woman. “Do you know Detective Holloway? And this is Drake Fontana, former Navy SEAL. Fontana, this is Shannon Palmer… my sister-in-law.”
The petite woman smiled at the detective, then her soft, concerned eyes turned to him. “Mr. Fontana, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Lost and Found.”
Fontana took her hand in his and allowed the tiniest crack in his shield to feel if she meant what she said. He was surprised that she did. Duncan seemed appreciative that Aiden had returned, and cautious that he’d brought a friend. And Palmer, well, Palmer was a bit harder to read. His emotions were clamped down tight as a drum, but Fontana thought he was reading relief and excitement that Aiden had just walked into his building. Even as the man shook Fontana’s hand his attention was on his little brother.
The older guy seemed to be the leader of the group, because he escorted everyone into a meeting room a little down the hallway. Fontana wondered at the slight limp in the man’s gait. Shannon offered refreshments and snacks, and bottled waters were handed around, then they settled in and looked at each other.
“I’m glad to see you, Aiden,” Palmer told him.
“I’m glad to see you too,” Aiden responded, “but I’m afraid I can’t waste a lot of time on personal stuff. We’re in trouble, and I’m hoping you can help us out.”
As gut wrenching and wonderful as it was to see his brother, it was imperative that Aiden keep things on track. They had a limited amount of time.
“I have three thumb drives full of information about a covert research program that the Silverstone Collaborative is running,” Aiden told the men across from him. “There is a fourth drive coming, and we believe it’s the key to unlocking the other three, but we wanted to see if you could take a look at them for us.”
“What kind of research program?” Duncan asked.
Aiden took a breath. He had debated how far in depth he wanted to go with the explanation, and he wanted to be at least a little circumspect, but if this was the only chance he got to explain everything to these guys, he needed to take it. His glance slid to Angela. She gave him a smile and a slight nod, making his heart swell. When had he ever had support like that before?
“It’s a research program using an Amazon basin plant derivative to create augmented soldiers.”
He waited a moment for that to sink in.
“Are you talking about the big pharmaceutical company, that Silverstone?” Shannon asked.
Aiden nodded. “The Collaborative worked out a deal with someone in Washington to take volunteer military personnel to the Amazon, Brazil specifically, to participate in the program. These men were from every branch of the military and at least a dozen different countries. The soldiers, sailors and Marines were there voluntarily at first, but when people started dying while participating in the program, the cage door shut, so to speak. The experiments continued but on a strictly non-voluntary status. They hired jungle mercs to guard the men, then the Brazilian Army to clean up any other messes they were told to.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” John snarled. “And you were a part of this?”
Aiden went still. He should have known that John would pick up on that. All of his planned words to create distance went out of his head and he made sure to keep his gaze level. “Yes.”
Shannon gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. Her pretty eyes filled with tears and Aiden realized he hated to be the one to cause her this stress. If he could have done it any other way he would have, but John could very well be his last chance to figure all this out.
“How have we not heard about any of this?” Duncan demanded, leaning forward on his elbows. “I’ve never heard a squeak of this in any of the military chat rooms or Marine groups that I’m in.”
Aiden shook his head. “I don’t know exactly.” He glanced at Fontana. “We assume they’ve paid enough bribes to keep everything quiet. We know that they told the families of the soldiers participating that they were assumed dead after a training mission. They were very careful in selecting personnel that didn’t have a lot of family, if any. Those that did have family, well, that was one more leverage point the company had to keep the ‘subjects’ in line.”
“Did they know about me?” John demanded, making the immediate leap.
Aiden drew in a breath. “I learned I had a brother when I found my file.”
John stared at him hard and there were so much fury there he thought the conference room would combust, but John drew in a heavy breath as well. Tears streaked down Shannon’s cheeks before she hid her face against John’s shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her, but continued to stare at Aiden.
A gentle hand rested on his own thigh and he would have jumped if he hadn’t been so focused on John. For a moment he turned to look into Angela’s calm blue eyes. They were brimming with tears as well, and he was a little shocked that the women were feeling that much emotion for him. Forcing himself to give her a slight smile, he squeezed her hand against his thigh, then left it there. Anytime she touched him he basked in it, but at this particular moment he drew comfort from it.
“How did you break out?�
� John demanded.
The absolute certainty that he had broken out made Aiden smile. “How do you know we did?”
John scowled as if there were no other possible answers. “Because no blood of mine would stay in there any longer than he absolutely had to.”
Aiden’s smile faded. “You’re absolutely correct about that, but it took us several months to be able to do it. The doctors kept us sick or injured enough to be debilitated almost constantly. It wasn’t until Dr. Edgar Shu died from a snake bite that the program took a pause to regroup. Fontana was actually the one that kicked us in the ass and implemented the plan to get us out of there when we were our best physically.”
The other man tipped his imaginary hat gallantly, but there was no shine in his eyes. “Piece a’cake.”
The sheer absurdity of the statement made everyone go quiet. They understood what it would have been like escaping an armed camp, sick and hurt in the middle of the Amazon.
“We escaped with two other men,” Aiden continued. “TJ Rector and Wulfe Terberger. Rector was an Army Ranger, Wulfe a Spezialisierte Einsatzkraftë Marine with the German Navy. Wulfe’s brother helped us get back to the States, and we all scattered, each with a thumb drive of information, along with a few other small items that belonged to the doctor. We thought that if we went dark for a while things could calm down and at some point in the future we could come together and explore the info together, but things didn’t work out that way. The Collaborative sent us a warning that we had to turn the information in by a certain time, and when we didn’t do that they started sending mercenaries and operatives after us. They’ve been relentless trying to get these stick drives back, and I think it’s because it has the doctor’s original formula of the serum on it.”
“Oh, wow,” Shannon breathed. “And you came to Denver because you thought the company would come after John.”
Aiden nodded once. “And they have. A couple of times.”
“More than LeBoutin?” John demanded.
Aiden nodded once. LeBoutin had been the most conniving. When Shannon had been pregnant with the boys, he had been the one to force her into the hospital, sending her car off the road. Then LeBoutin had known exactly where John would be and when as he exited the hospital the next day, protecting his wife.
“There have been at least three in the past few months. LeBoutin was just the most dramatic.”
John’s jaw was clamped and Aiden couldn’t tell what he was pissed at, the fact that men had come after his family or that he’d had no idea. It didn’t matter.
“So, sidebar here, talk to me about the alley situation,” Duncan said firmly. “You were living on the streets in sub-zero cold. I saw you, more than once. Gave you food and a blanket.”
“I knew there was going to be an attack…” he started, but Duncan held up a hand.
“How did you know?”
They hadn’t planned on exposing themselves completely, but now that Duncan had asked, he felt obligated to tell him the truth. Aiden respected the man for everything he did and he wouldn’t betray the man’s belief in him. And if by chance the men and women of Lost and Found were faced with any of these operatives, it was best if they were prepared. Aiden drew in a deep breath, knowing that this was going to be the hardest part so far. Fontana shifted slightly in the chair beside him, which was a huge tell from the other man. He didn’t like it any more than Aiden did.
“The research program was a limited success. The serum that Dr. Shu created from this plant was as ingenious as all of the other miraculous things he created. They started off by infecting us with diseases and sicknesses, the common cold, the flu, and going up all the way to cancer. As we battled each one off, we became stronger. And the same with the injuries. They started small. Twisted ankles, broken fingers, concussions, working up to bigger injuries. Broken femurs, compound fractures, multi-limb fractures, gunshot wounds. The more devastating the injuries were, the longer they took to heal but those of us left were strong.” He glanced at Fontana. “Wulfe actually discovered the other aspect of our growth. Mentally, we were sharp. After being in the Amazon for as long as we had and on the limited diet that we had, there should have been more brain atrophy, but instead we were growing stronger there as well.”
Aiden met Duncan’s narrowed gaze. “I knew there was going to be an attack because I could feel the mental weight, or determination, of the man coming to attack us. I believe he’d been following TJ for a while, waiting for him to connect with another one of us. TJ was bringing me his drive and we’d planned to meet here so that I didn’t have to leave the area.” He waved vaguely out toward the alley where the incident had taken place. “There was a fight and TJ was critically injured. I went after the operative and he was killed. But TJ and I were…”
Aiden shook his head, pausing for a moment as the remembered fear and pain of that night threatened to overwhelm him. It had been so debilitating, more than he’d ever expected. The pain had been more than Shu had ever dished out for them.
We’re okay now, Will. With the two of us together we’ll be able to work this out. Fontana’s voice reached him through the remembered agony. At the same time, Angela’s hand tightened on his thigh, anchoring him to the here and now even as a shudder rippled through his body. Aiden appreciated both of them so much in that second.
“The four men that escaped developed a bond,” Angela told Duncan, glancing at the others. “And the closer they are the more clear it is. When TJ was killed, Aiden felt his death through that bond and it injured him almost as much. That was why he was found in Kansas City. He thought he was hiding in the truck but he didn’t even realize it had taken off. He didn’t come around until you saw him in the hospital in Kansas City.”
Duncan got a funny look on his face as the pieces started falling together. Aiden’s senses were so sharp at this moment that he could feel the understanding roll through the man, and the wonder, then the slice of worry. Shannon projected sympathy for all they’d been through and worry at what he was still dealing with. And John, well, John was like Angela. He was a bit of a hard nut to read.
“I felt the death as well, but I was a thousand miles away at the time,” Fontana murmured, rubbing at the golden bristles on his chin.
“I’ll always be thankful to you,” Aiden said abruptly, looking at Duncan, “that you convinced the doctor to release those handcuffs. You don’t know how close to the breaking point I was at that moment. And bad things could have happened if I’d broken.”
The older man nodded his head. “I could see you were struggling. I just had no idea how bad.”
Aiden smiled, a little lopsided, and glanced at Angela. “I go by that alley fairly often, and the good detective here cornered me there the other day.”
She laughed. “Well, you turned the tables on me pretty quick.”
The pink in her cheeks warmed him and he squeezed her hand thankfully. It would be nice to add a decent memory to the place now.
“I figured it had to be you the detective was describing the other day,” Duncan told him.
Aiden grinned at the other man and shrugged. “What can I say?”
Duncan turned his dark look to Angela. “And how is Denver PD treating this situation? Now you know what happened in that alley.”
Angela winced. “Not like I can put that in a report. As of right now, I am on ‘medical vacation’ so Denver PD is staying out of this situation and the case remains unsolved. Besides, the bodies are still missing.”
That sent a pall over the group. John heaved a sigh. “So where are these drives?”
Without a word, Aiden removed the thumb drives from his pocket and lined them up in front of John. The older man picked one of them up and flipped it over in his hand.
“So, your issue is, even if you manage to decrypt the information, if this drive isn’t on a Silverstone Collaborative approved modem it triggers a locator program.”
“Correct. It’s a proprietary failsafe on all of their equipment
.” He tapped the SC logo.
John flipped it around in his hand, obviously thinking. “Well,” he said finally, “let me mess with it for a while. I have an idea about that.”
Snatching the drives from the table John backed away from the group and rolled out of the room.
“So, what is your plan going forward,” Duncan asked. “Once you have the information what are you going to do?”
Aiden looked at Fontana. “We don’t know how high the corruption goes in our government. I think we were kind of waiting to see what was on the drives, then we would decide.”
Duncan looked down at the table, tapping his fingers lightly as he thought about the problem. Eventually he looked at Aiden. “I think we should do a formal, recorded interview. If anything, it will be another form of collateral to have should we need it or should you be compromised.”
The same thing had occurred to him several times, he’d just never done it. He glanced at Fontana. Though he was scowling, the thought had also gone through his mind, that they needed to have their accounts recorded somehow. “Yes, you’re probably right.”
The older man looked at John’s wife. “Shannon, would you mind getting the interview room ready? I’ll start jotting down some notes.”
Duncan pushed up from the table and turned to leave, then paused. “If you gentlemen will give us a few minutes we’ll get everything ready. Feel free to wander.”
Then he disappeared. With an apologetic smile, Shannon stood as well. “There are vending machines in the break room or if you go a little further down the hallway, on the left is the rec room. There are couches and workout equipment and other distractions. I know Duncan said a few minutes but it’ll probably take us a little longer than that to be ready, so please help yourselves to anything you need or want to do.”
With a final wave she backed out of the room and hurried away.
