by C. J. Barry
Max shook his head. “I haven’t figured that out yet. Something must have happened. The fact remains, he’s here and he’s rebuilding his network. This country is at serious risk.”
“Bart said he was building an army of Shifters. What would he need them for?”
“Maybe for protection. Maybe for an attack. I don’t know.”
She stared at him for a few long beats. Finally, she said, “So basically you’re telling me all this to keep me working with you.”
He could say the other reasons—because he cared about her. Because he finally realized that he could trust her. Because he wanted her to have the knowledge so she could keep herself safe. But none of it would change the present or the future for them. So instead, he said, “Yes.”
She blinked a few times and looked down at the table. “I appreciate your honesty.”
He felt the heaviness in his chest at the subtle good-bye. It was the only way this could end. He could say he was sorry a thousand times and it wouldn’t erase the betrayal.
“Neither one of us can go home,” he warned. “It’s safer if we stick together.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “I realize that. We’re partners, and we have a duty.” Then her eyes focused on something behind him. “I think your friend is here.”
Max turned just as Carl stepped into the diner. He stopped abruptly when he saw Seneca, but Max waved him in. Carl sat next to Max, across from Seneca, and ordered a coffee from the waitress.
“Carl, this is Seneca Thomas. My partner,” Max said by way of introduction.
They shook hands but Max could sense the suspicion between them. He added, “She knows everything.”
Carl raised his eyebrows. “Is that right?”
Her brown eyes studied him. “Including that you’re a Shifter.”
Carl gave Max a quick look. “Was that necessary? You know the position I’m in.”
“He didn’t tell me,” she said. “I can see you.”
Max grinned as Carl’s mouth dropped open. “How is that possible?”
She spun her coffee cup and replied dryly, “Everyone acts so surprised when I tell them that. You must have had people like me on your last planet.”
“No,” Carl and Max said in unison.
“Great. How’d I get so lucky?” she murmured.
Carl asked, “Are there others like you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
The waitress brought Carl his coffee, and he waited until she was gone before turning to Max. “Apollo said you found the traitor.”
“His name’s Hager. Running an underground operation and organizing the Shifters. We shut down his Skinman a few days ago, but it won’t be long before another one replaces him. Have you heard of any other Shifters working for the government?”
“No,” Carl answered. “I haven’t seen any either.”
Max exchanged a look with Seneca. Hager wasn’t following the same pattern of working with the government. What was he up to, then?
“Hager has to be stopped. I don’t need to tell you that,” Carl said. “He’s a threat, but we have other problems too. You asked me what happens to the Shifters you capture. They are picked up by a cryonics company called Smith Industries.”
“Nicely generic,” Max noted.
Carl nodded. “Officially classified as a private contractor hired to freeze and store Shifters. They set up facilities in all the cities XCEL operates in.”
“And unofficially?” Seneca asked.
He looked at her. “There are minimal cryogenics capabilities at the facility here, not nearly enough to handle the number of Shifters coming in. Which means not all your captures are being frozen.”
“Then what is happening to them?” she said with a frown.
Carl shrugged. “They’re gone. The last audit they had? The incoming Shifters didn’t equal the Shifters on hand. The contractor claimed some bodies were too damaged to bother freezing and were cremated. Of course, there are no remains to verify this, which means we’re missing thirty or so bodies locally.”
“So they could be using them for weapons development,” Max said.
Carl nodded. “It’s possible.”
“I didn’t know,” Seneca said quickly. “I would never have agreed to that.”
“I believe you,” Carl replied with a little smile. “Maybe they were cremated and the facility just kept lousy records.”
Max added another possibility. “Or their disappearance has something to do with Hager’s army.”
“Or all the above,” Carl said. “The fact is, we simply don’t know.” He looked at Max. “Someone is going to have to find out for sure what is happening to the captured Shifters.”
And that someone was Max. “Don’t suppose you have the location of the local cryogenics operation?”
Carl reached into his pocket and slipped a piece of paper to Max under the table. “This is strictly confidential. You understand that if you decide to pursue this, and something goes wrong, I can’t protect you.”
“I know.” Max checked with Seneca and found her staring at Carl.
She tapped her fingers on the table. “Carl Hannaford. I thought you looked familiar. Associate director for operations.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“You’ve been in that office for over ten years,” she said.
They all knew what she was getting at. The Shifters had only been here two years.
Carl said, “Mr. Hannaford had a bad heart.”
Her expression was pensive, but Max had a good idea what she was thinking—Shifters were taking over. At this rate, he was definitely going to be working alone.
“You’re on the Committee that oversees the XCEL operations,” she said.
“That’s correct.”
“Our field office director was replaced by a Shifter,” she said slowly. “We killed the replacement and our deputy has assumed control of the agency. But we could use your help.”
Max nearly choked.
Carl smacked him on the back and asked Seneca, “What are you looking for?”
She leaned closer. “The Committee hasn’t been informed of the current situation—our missing director, Hager, Skinman—and we’d like to keep it that way for a while longer so we can find and neutralize Hager.”
Carl nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you,” she said and looked at Max. “I have a plan.”
“Am I included in this plan?” Max asked.
She lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, yes. You are definitely included.”
“I’m not sure I’m liking this plan,” Apollo said as he sat in the driver’s seat of the delivery van.
“You liked it enough to volunteer,” Seneca replied.
“Seemed like a good idea until it occurred to me that I might not be too happy with what we find,” he grumbled.
It was hard not to like Apollo. Six hours ago, they had intercepted a delivery out of the alleged cryogenics lab. The original drivers had been kind enough to share their destination after Dempsey “talked” to them. Four hours ago, they’d geared up and recruited Apollo to help complete the delivery. He’d used the driver’s saliva to get his DNA and finished replicating his face and hair fifteen minutes ago. Now they were heading into what could prove to be a very bad situation. And he didn’t have to do it.
She only wished things could have been different with Dempsey. Her mistake. Live and learn, and never make the same stupid mistake again. Although it was a shame because the sex was off the scale. She was ruined for life.
The road ahead ended at a barbed-wire fenced-in compound with a gate and a guy with rifle. She said, “There’s the gatehouse. Drive up to it like you belong here.”
“Into the fray,” Apollo said. He pulled up to the warehouse complex gate and handed the armed guard a pass. The guard studied the pass and Apollo in turn. Finally, he nodded and waved them on. The steel gates swung open and then closed behind them.
“See
? Easy. He never suspected you weren’t the real driver,” Seneca said.
Apollo looked at her. “Hopefully no one will look too closely at me.”
She shrugged. “So he lost weight.”
“Since last week?”
They drove through the industrial complex, their headlights reflecting off the perimeter of steel fencing and razor wire. No moon tonight thanks to thick cloud cover, which would work to their advantage since they were dealing with only humans. Hopefully. If not, then Apollo would be identified as a Shifter on sight and things would get really interesting, really fast.
At Building 12, Apollo turned into a parking lot and drove to the back warehouse doors. It was quiet. No movement, no other deliveries.
“Now what?” Apollo asked as he parked in front of a row of warehouse doors.
“We wait until someone comes out,” Seneca said as she double-checked her gun before holstering it and zipping up her jacket to conceal it.
One of the warehouse doors began to lift, and light spilled out from underneath it. A man jumped off the dock and approached the van. He was stocky and ugly and human. There was a patch on his uniform that read “Butch.” Not the smartest criminal on the block.
Apollo and Seneca stepped out of the van to greet him.
“You’re late,” he barked to Apollo.
“New chick,” Apollo said, hitching a thumb at her. “Got us lost along the way.”
“Well, you kept the man waiting,” he said. “You know he doesn’t like to wait. It’s gonna cost you extra. Bring it in.” Then he turned and climbed back up on the dock.
Seneca went to the back of the refrigerated truck with Apollo.
“Did you see anyone else inside?” he asked her.
“Couldn’t get close enough. Worried?”
He whispered, “You bet your ass. Every time I do a job with Max, I get beat up.”
She grinned. “What can possibly go wrong?”
“Christ,” he said. “You sound just like him.”
She didn’t want to think about that comment too much. They pulled the gurney out, and the support legs dropped underneath the body. The black body bag stretched between them as they maneuvered the gurney onto the dock. Once inside, the warehouse doors closed behind them. Seneca counted two more human workers as they followed Butch down a wide corridor. She could hear him talking on the phone.
“They’re here. I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
Seneca looked back at Apollo, and he nodded that he’d heard it too. She checked her watch for the ten-minute mark. That didn’t give them much time.
They all stopped in front of an elevator and waited as the oversized doors opened. Butch waved them in, and they pulled the gurney into the elevator with them. Butch pushed the red button at the bottom of the elevator panel.
If they were blown, there would be gunmen ready when those doors opened again. She slipped her hand inside her jacket and on her gun as the elevator began to drop. Apollo was armed as well, but there was a minor problem. The elevator walls were heavy steel. Ricochet City. They wouldn’t have a chance.
“I hope this is a good one,” Butch said to no one in particular. “You know we only accept the best here.”
Seneca said, “He’s prime.”
Apollo cast her a quick glance that she ignored. So they only wanted the best. That could mean anything. One thing was for certain, though: XCEL agents had been lied to, and she was not happy about that.
The ride seemed to take forever before the elevator clunked to a stop, and the doors opened. Seneca had gun in hand, but it looked clear. They pushed the gurney out and into a well-lit room that resembled a medical facility. Her heart sank as she scanned the expensive, stainless steel equipment lining the walls and rows of deadly looking instruments lying in steel pans. There was a door on the left and a long white hallway extended out straight ahead with a series of doors on either side.
Butch unzipped the body bag. “Let’s see what you got.”
Apollo moved behind him while Seneca stayed next to the gurney. Butch hummed a few times as he poked and prodded the Shifter body.
Seneca tapped her foot. “Well?”
“Give me a minute,” Butch said, annoyed at her impatience. “I need a slice to make sure he’s healthy.”
A slice? She hadn’t expected that. Then Butch picked up a razor-sharp surgical knife, and her heart stopped.
“Then you can’t use him,” she said quickly.
Butch gave a chuckle. “You ever see how fast these bastards heal? He won’t even miss it.”
Just as he bent to cut the skin, the body moved, and the Shifter in the body bag grabbed him around the neck. Butch’s eyes widened, and his expression quickly turned to shock and terror.
It was priceless.
Max held Butch by the throat and drew him to his face. “It’s assholes like you who give humans a bad name.”
“Don’t kill him,” Seneca said. “We might need him.”
Max growled and threw Butch across the room. He bounced off the wall hard and landed on all fours, looking like he was going to have a heart attack right then and there. Max rolled off the gurney and stepped toward him. “You make a sound and I’ll rip your throat out. You won’t even miss it.”
Butch scrambled back against the wall with a little yelp. Max scanned the room for the first time, and a bad feeling settled in his gut. This was an operating room.
Seneca checked her watch and walked to the side door to put her ear against it. “We have about two minutes before they show up. Apollo, watch the door.”
He pulled out his gun and got into position.
“Just enough time to extract some information,” Max said, drawing his Shifter frame up to dominate the room. Butch turned white.
Seneca eyed Max as she headed for a corridor at the back of the room. “Don’t kill him. I mean it.” Then she disappeared down the hallway.
Fine. But she didn’t say anything about scaring the living shit out of him. Max stood in front of Butch. “Who’s coming?”
“A scientist,” he said, his eyes huge as he stared at Max. “Name’s Franklin. Dr. Franklin.”
“What does he do with the bodies?”
“No, no. You . . . you’ll kill us,” Butch stuttered. Sweat was soaking his uniform around his neck and armpits.
“Answer my question or I will,” Max said, moving closer.
Butch grimaced. “He works on them.”
“How?” Max asked.
Butch just shook his head over and over, and the smell of his fear filled the room.
“You’re really pissing me off, Butch,” Max warned.
“He . . . He . . .”
“He forces them to shift under UVC light,” Seneca finished from behind him. Max turned to find her walking toward him from the hallway. Her eyes glistened when she looked at him. “I found them. In various stages of transformation. None of them were alive.”
Max rounded on Butch, who covered himself with his hands. “I didn’t do it—it’s not me! It’s not me!”
If Seneca weren’t standing right there, he’d rip Butch to pieces.
Apollo said, “That doesn’t make sense. We can’t shift under UVC light. Everyone knows that.”
“We can,” Max said. “It just doesn’t work.”
Seneca replied, “But if you could, you’d be able to go up top and shift at will.”
Max growled. “The perfect army.”
“Right.” She held up a large syringe containing liquid to Butch. “What’s in here?”
“A formula that Dr. Franklin is working on, that’s all I know.” Then his eyes widened at Max. “No, wait, I know more. A lot more.”
Seneca slid a glance at Max and smiled a little.
Then the side door opened and a man in a white coat walked in. Glasses, a beaklike nose, and a thin body. Max could snap him in two like a twig. He froze when he saw Max in Primary Shifter form.
Apollo leveled his gun at the scientist’s he
ad. “Dr. Franklin, I presume.”
“Yes, I am,” he said, lifting his chin in arrogant defiance. “Go ahead, shoot me.”
Seneca walked up to him. “You’ll wish we did by the time we’re done with you. XCEL agent, Seneca Thomas. You’re under arrest.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hager pulled a dusty bottle from its cubby hole and blew on it to reveal the label. 1969 Inglenook Pinot Noir. An excellent wine for a bad day.
He handed the bottle to Puck to uncork and decant. The little man scurried to his duties as Hager took his seat in the cool chamber, silent in his thoughts. He scanned the news on his BlackBerry. It wasn’t good. A man with less self- control would be furious, lashing out at those closest to him. But Hager needed the loyalty of those close, to protect him. No, all his energy was focused on taking this situation and making it work for him.
Max Dempsey and his partner had single-handedly put his program months behind. Skinman’s inventory was useless. Word had gotten out that his organization was targeting XCEL agents, and they’d been warned. Suddenly, XCEL agents were scarce, making Hager look like a fool. His replacement for MacGregor had been discovered and terminated. Dempsey had even thwarted a kidnap attempt on Seneca Thomas.
And now the laboratory had been discovered and shut down. There were many layers between him and Dr. Franklin. He was safe enough, but he’d lost precious time and invaluable research. Now he’d have to start over and find another way to create a militia. His militia. He would not be betrayed by another government. This time, the government would bow to him.
Puck finished decanting the wine hastily, wasting some of it down the outside of the glass decanter. Hager breathed in and out with controlled effort as Puck asked, “Want me to pour you a glass?”
Hager shook his head. “Too soon. You can go.”
Puck frowned, looking from the glass to the decanter. “You sure?”
“Some things can’t be rushed, Puck.”
“True.” Then he exited the room, leaving Hager to think. Dempsey and Thomas had outsmarted him too many times, undermining his reputation. He needed to show his inner circle of borough lords and his budding militia that he indeed had the power, the reach, and the cunning to run this organization.
