He stopped short and glanced back at her. “Twenty?”
She nodded. “They’re some of the people he planned to repopulate the world with after he releases his virus. He’s been kidnapping them for months. We have to find them.”
“Well…fuck.” He continued forward and paused at the first of the windows to peek through. A man lay strapped down on a hospital bed like he had been. Despite the straps, he thrashed violently and seemed to be gasping for breath, swallowing convulsively. Saliva bubbled around his mouth.
“Oh my God,” Claire said and covered her mouth with one hand. “That looks like…rabies. He’s infected with rabies.”
She ran to the next window. After another horrified glance at the rabies victim, Jean-Luc followed. A skinny black man sat on the bed in the next room, staring blankly toward them—not at them—with bright yellow eyes.
“Jaundice,” Claire whispered. She grabbed a clipboard hanging on a peg by the window. “He’s been infected with Yellow Fever.” At the next window, she snagged the clipboard. “Measles.” She went from one to the next, reading off the viruses. “HFRS. Dengue. Lassa. Marburg. Ebola Zaire.”
Jean-Luc stopped in front of one window and stared at the empty bed inside. He knew the room, had studied every corner of it for nearly twenty-four hours. Slowly, he reached for the clipboard and saw the three words that terrified him more than anything else could have. “Claire.”
At the other end of the hallway, she let out a small squeak of shock. She turned toward him, a clipboard dangling from one trembling hand. She’d gone white. “He’s infected someone with smallpox. We have to leave right now.” The clipboard clattered to the floor and she ran toward him.
Jean-Luc took a step back and held up his hands to fend her off. “Don’t touch me.”
She skidded to a halt. “What?”
He opened his mouth to tell her, but found he couldn’t say it. Instead, his gaze drifted toward the empty room. She looked through the window at the familiar bed and gasped. “No. No, no. Where’s the clipboard?”
He set it on the floor and pushed it toward her with his foot. She stared down at it like it would bite.
“Delta Hemorrhagic Fever,” he told her gently. “Ostermann is not going to re-infect me. He already has. I don’t know how. He never injected me with anything, at least not while I was conscious.”
“He’s creating a weapon,” Claire said and looked up at an air intake vent above their heads. “He probably aerosolized it.”
Icy fear splashed through his veins. “You need to leave. Right now.”
She returned her gaze to his and tears gathered in her pretty blue eyes. “Not without you.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I’ll risk infecting anyone I come into contact with. Including you. Oh, ma belle, you know this. You know this.”
She hugged herself and choked on a sob. “Jean-Luc, I…I can’t…”
He wanted to reach out to her, pull her into his arms, and wipe away her tears. Instead, he took another step backward. “You are Akeso. Not your research, not your drug. You and that beautiful, stunning brain of yours. If you don’t leave, you’ll give him exactly what he wants. He’ll release the viruses on the world if he has you to keep him safe.”
The sound of running footsteps thundered from a hallway nearby.
“Go. Find the other hostages and get out.” His own voice came out ragged and raw, but he forced a smile. “I’ll distract them.”
She opened her mouth as if to say something more, but he hushed her with a finger to his lips and blew her a kiss. She stared at him for a beat, then spun away and ran.
Thank God.
He sucked in several breaths. At least he could still breathe and wasn’t drowning in his own fluids yet. That was a plus. He looked down at the scalpel in his hand. Not enough. He might have an advantage if they didn’t want to infect themselves, but—
Oh. Oh, he was a coullion. He didn’t need a knife…
He glanced over at the man with the jaundiced yellow eyes.
…not when he had a hallway full of deadly weapons at his disposal.
He found an intercom on the wall next to the man’s cell and jabbed the button. “What’s your name?”
A stream of angry Arabic answered and Jean-Luc switched to the language. “I know you’re angry. What this man did to you is unforgivable. He took everything from you—your freedom and your life. You know you can never leave here, right? Not without endangering everyone outside these walls.”
The man said nothing more for a moment. Tears dripped down his cheeks and he nodded. “I know.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ra’id.”
“Hello, Ra’id. I’m Jean-Luc. So…are you well enough to at least get revenge before we die?”
Chapter Forty-Two
There was nothing worse than the wait before action. Marcus thought he might jitter out of his skin if they didn’t make a move soon, but he could do nothing while crammed into an SUV with Lanie, Harvard, Ian, and Carreras. Jesse, Seth, and Devlin followed in a second car with the team’s equipment while their pilot, Jace Garcia, waited on standby in case they needed a quick helo exfil.
God. Last time they’d gone to battle like this, Danny had died. He looked around at his teammates and wondered who was next.
His leg bounced nervously. He gripped his knee with one hand, forced it to stop moving. He had to focus or the next dead guy would be him. He turned slightly in his seat to face Lanie, who was giving one final mission briefing as they sped up a twisting mountain road toward the castle. Marcus imagined Jesse doing the same for Seth and Devlin in the other vehicle.
“The castle has only one point of entry and that’s the bridge. We’ll wade across the moat here, underneath the bridge, where there is less chance we’ll be seen from above.” Using an iPad, Lanie indicated a spot on a digital 3-D rendering of the castle.
“Nice image,” Carreras said. He twisted around to the driver’s seat and punched Harvard in the arm. “You make that, genius boy?”
Harvard’s fingers tightened on the wheel until the leather creaked. “No, Sami did. I don’t have a background in graphic design.”
Carreras whistled. “Hang on to that girl, H. She’s something else on a computer. And you know what they say about girls who are good with hard drives…”
“Murderous” was the only word to describe the look Harvard spared him before returning his attention to the road.
And that ratcheted up the tension to a billion.
Good going, Carreras.
Marcus groaned. “Let’s get Jean-Luc back so we can get rid of this clown.”
“Aw, you’ll miss me.”
“Like an anal fissure,” Ian muttered. “I never thought I’d see the day I missed the Cajun. At least he’s funny. Sometimes. No, wait. He’s mostly a pain in the ass.”
“But he’s our pain in the ass.” Marcus jerked a thumb toward Carreras. “Unlike this dude.”
“So he’s a hemorrhoid,” Carreras said cheerfully. “Tell me, is that a step up or down from anal fissure?”
“Are y’all done?” Lanie asked the group. When everyone settled again under her glare, she continued. “We’re lucky Austria has had an exceptionally dry summer. According to Harvard’s intel, the moat is only chest high at its deepest point. Ian, Carreras, Seth, and Devlin will go across first. Seth and Devlin will provide cover while Ian sets a charge here and Carreras sets one here.”
Using two fingers, she enlarged the spot on the digital model where the lower part of the castle’s wall was stone and the upper part wood.
Lanie pointed to two corners where wood met stone. “This is the weakest point in the outer wall. The rest is all stone. Now Seth cautions that we should watch the arrow slits as we cross the moat. They’re all perfect sniper hide sites. As well as the turret.”
“What do we know about this Ostermann guy’s manpower?” Carreras asked, all business now. “Does he have enough guys to pu
t snipers in all those spots?”
Lanie shook her head. “We don’t know, but he has enough money to buy a lot of loyalty.”
“So expect the worst. Got it. Wouldn’t be fun if it were easy, right?”
“The rest of us will cross while Ian and Carreras set their charges.” She turned to Harvard. “I want you to get a recon drone airborne as soon as we stop. That will at least give us some info about what kind of force we’re up against.”
Harvard pulled the SUV onto a side road and killed the engine. “So I’m staying behind with the SUVs?” He shoved open his door. “Great.”
Lanie winced when his door shut harder than was necessary.
“Hey,” Marcus said and touched her shoulder. “Whatever’s bugging him, he’ll get over it. And if he doesn’t, we’ll kick his ass when this is over.”
She drew a breath. “Yeah.”
Everyone climbed out and started unloading the gear. Once they were set, Lanie gathered them around. “Everyone clear on the mission and objective?”
Everyone gave affirmative responses.
“All right. No lights. Only night vision from here on.” She slid her own goggles over her eyes. “And guys? This should go without saying. We have no idea what we’re going to find on the other side of that castle wall, but we’re breaching a suspected bioweapons lab. Take every precaution you don’t infect yourselves with something nasty and bring it home to our families, got it?”
“Roger that,” Marcus said.
…
Harvard watched the team leave without him. Again. Why should he be surprised? They always left him somewhere away from the action, where he’d be safe.
Cursing, he grabbed his drone and controller from the back of the SUV. The drone was of his own creation, not much bigger than a humming bird, but with all the power of the best surveillance drones currently on the market. He set it on the hood of the SUV, powered it up—
And then just stood there, watching its propellers spin.
Fuck this.
He grabbed his cell phone. Sami answered after a handful of rings, and he didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Can you hack my drone?”
A second a silence passed. “If that was a pick-up line, you need to up your game.” She sounded out of breath. So out of breath, she was almost wheezing.
“No—what? No, it wasn’t—” He felt heat crawling up the back of his neck and her heavy breathing on the other end of the line didn’t help. “Jesus. What exactly are you doing?”
“Dying,” she said and let out an exhausted sigh. “Quinn just tortured us on the obstacle course.”
Oh, yeah. He knew how that felt. He’d voluntarily run the thing many times in his quest to prove he was combat ready. “Can you hack my drone or not?”
She groaned. “Honestly, I don’t know. You created that thing. It might be above my abilities.”
He’d thought hacking it would be quicker, but she was right. Maybe not for her. Not yet. “You need to break into my office. On my desktop, there’s a program that will allow you remote access. You’re going to provide surveillance for the team.”
“I—what?” She sounded wide awake now. “Wait. What will you be doing?”
“Don’t worry about that.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Jean-Luc was not going to die of that damn virus. Claire wasn’t going to let him.
The thoughts ran through her head on repeat as she sprinted through the labyrinth of hallways, searching each room for the other hostages. They had to be here somewhere, and she guessed he’d keep them sequestered away from his test subjects. Maybe they were in a room over by her lab…
It made sense. He’d want them closer to Akeso than the viruses.
She skidded around a corner and nearly came face to face with one of Ostermann’s Stepford thugs standing guard outside the open door of the lab.
He raised his weapon and let out a shout that was more surprise than an order.
She still had the sux in her pocket. She dipped a hand in, closed it around the remaining vial, but changed her mind. Throwing the vial at him wasn’t going to do anything, and she wanted to keep it as a backup plan. He wasn’t going to kill her. Ostermann needed her too much, and these guys were too brainwashed to disobey his orders. She dropped the sux back into her pocket and slowly lifted her hands.
The goon motioned for her to go into the lab. Exactly where he shouldn’t want her to go. Because, out here, she was helpless, but in there, she had weapons at her disposal.
Hands still held in the air, she edged past him. Audric’s body still lay where he had landed, eyes wide open and staring.
She had to push the guilt out of her mind, because she was about to take another life.
She slipped closer to the workbench, where the random bottles she’d taken from the cupboard still sat. There had to be something she could use…
There. Yes.
Sodium azide. The deadliest drug to ever help save lives. It had many uses from airbags to pest control to a preservative, but accidents abounded with the stuff because it reacted with everything. Depressed researchers had been known to use it to commit suicide. She just needed a moment of distraction…
The radio on the man’s belt squawked with rapid-fire German. He reached for it and she saw her chance. With one hand she twisted off the cap of the sodium azide. With the other, she snagged a respirator and held it to her face as she flung the bottle in his direction. The white crystal powder hit him in the face and he dropped the radio. She twisted to grab a beaker of water she’d left on the bench and threw it at him. He howled when the water made contact with the powder on his skin and clawed at his face with both hands. He tripped over Audric’s body, tumbled to the ground, and began to writhe, screaming in pain.
Claire took precious moments to pull on coveralls, boots, and gloves to go with her mask. She gathered the most flammable substances in the lab and dumped them on the floor, the workbench. She hesitated before dousing her files—her stomach twisted at the thought of losing years of work. But it had to go. It all had to go. She couldn’t risk Ostermann salvaging any of it. She upended a bottle of ethanol on the files and picked up a lighter, but stopped short and looked at the cabinet with its refrigerated section. What if Ostermann had stored her remaining dose of Akeso there? It could help Jean-Luc.
She took a step toward it, but the thug’s hand shot out and grabbed her boot. He was too weak to effectively stop her, and she shook him off easily, but the interruption cleared her thoughts.
No. Ostermann would keep the last dose of Akeso for himself.
It killed her not to look in that refrigerator, but everything had to go. She walked out of the lab. At the door, she couldn’t help the escaped sob as she flicked open the lighter and a flame licked to life. She watched it dance for a few moments too long, then held out her arm to drop it—and fumbled at the sound of gunfire from somewhere in the facility.
Jean-Luc!
She shut the lighter and whirled around, took a couple steps in the direction she’d come from before she caught herself. He’d wanted her to find the other hostages and get out. There were twenty people trapped in this building somewhere. Once she lit that fire, all of those explosive chemicals would probably collapse this whole side of the building.
No. Destroying the lab would have to wait.
More gunfire echoed through the halls. She flinched but didn’t race toward it—and Jean-Luc—like she wanted to. She ran in the opposite direction, past the lab.
That’s when she heard the banging, like a fist on a door, and the muffled sound of someone shouting in German. She didn’t understand his words, but his fear registered loud and clear. Not one of the guards, then. It had to be Dr. Jürgen Nacht. She followed his voice to a large set of double doors.
She pulled off her mask so they could hear her more clearly through the door. “Hello? Dr. Nacht?”
The banging stopped. “Who’s there?” he asked in thickly accented English.
>
“My name is Claire Oliver.” Heart tripping, she fumbled for the ring of key cards and started scanning each over the lock. “I’m here to help. Are others in there with you?”
There was some shuffling from the other side of the door, and then another male voice spoke up. He was American, likely born and raised in New York City judging by his accent. “Yes. There are twenty of us.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lucas West.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Maybe three weeks? It’s hard to keep track of time. Some of us, like Jürgen, have been here for months.”
She swiped another card. The lock beeped and the small indicator turned green. She pulled open the door and found herself face to chest with a guy almost as big as Jean-Luc. He had dark hair and a beard that hadn’t seen a trim in a while.
“Thank you.” He released a relieved breath and stepped out into the hall just as more gunshots rattled through the hallways. He glanced toward the noise, then returned his attention to her and studied her coveralls and mask. “What’s going on?”
She ignored the question and peeked through the door as the hostages streamed out. The room was as big as a college gymnasium, set up with cots and a line of shower stalls along one wall. Ostermann was crazy, but it was a cool, level-headed kind of crazy. He’d thought out every detail.
She turned to Lucas since he seemed to be the de facto leader of the group and pulled her mask into place. “Get everyone out. There’s about to be a big explosion.”
Chapter Forty-Four
This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to happen.
Ostermann watched his surveillance cameras with a growing sense of disbelief. His specimens were running free, his men running scared, his chosen leaving, commandos sneaking around on his property, and Dr. Oliver…
Crazy woman. She was going to kill them all.
“Sir.”
His second lieutenant stood in the open door of his office, a gun in one hand and a bag in the other. “We’re overrun. We have to go. Now.”
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