by S L Shelton
The anxiety over the contents of the aerosol Gallow had sprayed in his face worsened with every degree his fever spiked. And as it climbed, the dreams it induced became more vivid. They had become laced with haunting whispers of violence, Gallow’s words echoing through the brutal imagery they produced. “Kill them all, then put the gun in your mouth and kill yourself.”
Thoughts like these kept him awake, leaving him afraid to sleep. He had been lying in his office for more than five hours, unable to calm his mind enough to rest.
Damn you, Gallow.
As he closed his eyes once more, the door burst open and a flood of light from the hallway filled the room.
He sat up, squinting against the blinding assault on his optic nerve.
“We need you in operations,” a young medical tech stuttered nervously, her eyes wide in fear.
“Why? What’s happened?”
“They’re trying to break containment on LOT 44.”
Emrick bolted from his cot and out the door, pulling his shirt on and buttoning it as he ran out of the administrative building. “Wake Tris,” he said, prompting his tech to divert toward the asset housing barracks.
He burst into the lab building and ran as fast as his tired legs would carry him to the containment unit. He heard raised voices as he rounded the hallway toward the isolation rooms. Three of his techs and a staff doctor stood between Braun and two Jaggers. The Jaggers restrained two of the techs as they pled in desperation.
Emrick rushed in. “What the fuck is going on?!”
“Albert, they’re trying to break containment,” the staff doctor said, his face contorted in anger and fear.
Emrick looked around the room then back to the Jaggers. “Release them,” he said. “And get away from the containment controls.”
The Jaggers obeyed without hesitation. Emrick silently breathed a sigh of relief, worried for a moment that his authority was no longer absolute. When the techs were free, they rushed to the control panel and tapped the lockout codes on the computer. After a moment, the doctor looked up at Emrick and nodded, relief rising to his face.
“What the hell are you doing?” Emrick asked Braun. “Are you trying to infect the entire facility?”
“Our timetable has changed. We need her now.”
“That may be so, but you can’t just break containment on an incubating subject. There’s no telling what that virus would do to us before it’s completely absorbed in her DNA.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Braun said coolly.
“I’m not!”
“That decision isn’t entirely up to you,” Braun replied. “Circumstances have escalated our need.”
Tris ran into the room. “What’s going on?”
Emrick turned, but Braun stepped forward. “We have immediate need of Kathrin’s services.”
Tris looked at Emrick then Braun. “She’s in isolation for another two weeks.”
Braun shook his head. “That’s not practical. And, I suspect, overkill on the containment protocols.”
Tris turned to Emrick. “What did he do?”
“He tried to break containment without notifying anyone.”
In a display of speed that astounded Emrick to his core, Tris rushed Braun and grabbed him by the throat, slamming him against the containment glass and lifting him off his feet. “I think we’ve already had a similar discussion about this sort of thing,” she said as he tried to pry her fingers from his throat.
“Down,” he said through the constriction. “Now.”
Tris held him a moment longer with little more effort than holding her nails up for inspection, then lowered him to the floor.
“You are going with her. This is a science policy issue, not a violation of our agreement. I was doing nothing to endanger her.”
Tris glared at him for a moment longer then looked over her shoulder at the Jaggers and the techs. “Leave.”
As if her words carried an imminent threat, the room emptied of everyone but Emrick, Braun, and herself.
When the door slid shut, she turned to Braun. “Why the change in timeline?”
“Scott Wolfe just assassinated a member of the Combine board of directors,” he said, rubbing his throat and stretching his neck to the side.
“Who? Where?” she asked.
“Adolphe BeauLac, at his family estate in the South of France…in fact, he leveled the estate in his escape.”
“A board member... He’s gone for the throat,” she said.
“Not an uncommon tactic of late,” Braun said with a sneer, still rubbing the red skin on his neck.
Tris turned to Emrick, ignoring the snide rebuke. “How much of the containment time is considered redundant safety?”
Emrick shook his head. “It varies by subject. But I can promise you that seven days is not even close.”
“If you had a blood sample, would you be able to determine our minimum safe window?”
Emrick looked at Kathrin on the floor behind the glass. “There’s no way to get a sample without breaking containment. She’s unconscious.”
Tris stared at her for a moment then approached the glass, putting her hand on the transparent, sealed divide. “Kat,” she whispered, then again, a few seconds later, louder this time. “Kat. Can you hear me, sweet girl?”
No movement.
Tris walked to the side and flipped the intercom switch for the room. “Kat.”
Kathrin flinched as if struck, and Tris returned to the divider. “Can you hear me, Kat?”
Kathrin’s head moved just slightly.
“Kat, I need you to go to the wall by the sealed port…away from the shower.”
Kathrin shivered.
“She can’t do it,” Emrick said, but a sharp glare from Tris silenced him.
“Kat. You need to get over to the corner away from the shower. As far from the shower as you can go.”
Kathrin’s arm moved.
“Good girl. You can do it.”
As Emrick watched, Kathrin flung her other arm forward and pulled herself several inches. He secretly hoped she wouldn’t make it. Nothing would have pleased him more than to have final authoritative veto over breach of the containment protocols. But with each inch that Kathrin moved, the more he realized he would have to perform the blood test.
Braun patiently watched the spectacle, rubbing his thumb across the top of his closed fist until Emrick thought the skin would break.
After several agonizingly slow moments, Kathrin arrived at the port.
Tris knelt next to the window at the corner and placed her fingers against the Lexan. “Now I need you to take a syringe from the drawer and draw some blood.”
Kathrin rolled over and looked at Tris through tired slits. She nodded after a moment and tried to rise up, using the corner to brace herself. When she had risen to almost half her height, her foot slipped and she fell to the floor.
“Try again, sweet girl. You can do it.”
Kathrin rolled her head back and forth, but after a moment, she braced herself and tried again.
When she was high enough to reach the drawer, she tried to pull it open. That simple shift of her weight sent her to the floor again, panting like a sick animal.
“It’s okay Kat. I know it’s hard. But I really need you to draw some blood and put it in the port next to you.”
She lay there, gasping, seemingly unmoved by the encouragement. After a moment, she reached up and hit the button, opening the seal on the service portal.
“No, Kat. We need the blood sample,” Tris said, but Kathrin raised her hand to her mouth.
Without flinching, she bit down, opening a gash in the fleshy pad of her thumb, then put her arm through the portal. Her blood poured, then slowed to a drip inside the clear sealed drawer embedded in the wall.
“Good girl, Kat. Good girl,” Tris said as Kathrin’s arm slipped out of the opening back to the floor. “Sleep. I won’t bother you again.”
Tris looked at Emrick who was
already sealing the port on Kathrin’s side of the wall. After pushing a syringe through the self-sealing membrane inside the drawer, he extracted his sample from the tray. He stood and flicked the bubbles from the syringe, holding it close to his face to inspect.
Braun turned to leave. “Let me know as soon as you have the test results.” He stopped in the doorway and looked at Emrick. “Raw data, if you please. I’d hate to have any miscommunication with a biased reading.”
Emrick sneered and was about to comment, but Braun had left. He stood and stared at Tris. “This is bullshit, and you know it.”
“Do the test. Then we’ll figure out what our options are. I won’t let Braun harm Kathrin or this program. Don’t worry.”
He continued to stare at her as she too turned and walked out. After a moment, he shook his head but set about preparing the sample for testing.
“Some serious bullshit.”
**
7:25 a.m. — Near Rue du Sablon, Lyon, France
WOLF woke, sitting in the passenger seat of the Volvo sedan. He looked at the driver, discovering with genuine surprise that it was BeauLac driving them. He looked around and recognized where they were only seconds before the GPS spoke in French, alerting them to their location.
“You didn’t sleep long,” BeauLac said. “We’re almost there.”
Wolf cursed Scott silently for sending them back to Lyon. He took a breath and counted his heartbeats, adjusting to the reduced oxygenation he had woken to. When BeauLac turned them onto the Rue du Sablon, he sat up and took stock of his physical state. Grateful he had no more holes in him than when he had lost consciousness, he next checked his weapon.
“What happened to the sedan we rammed?” He asked, not caring that BeauLac would find it confusing.
BeauLac thought for a moment then answered, “You killed them all quite effectively, disposing of them and their vehicle into the valley.”
“What happened to the SUV?”
BeauLac turned and looked at Wolf, then returned his attention to the road. “We wiped away our fingerprints then you stole this lovely automobile for us.”
Wolf nodded. At least Scott hadn’t lost all of his operational awareness. Good.
“Thank you for driving,” he said. “I needed the break.”
“À votre service.”
As they neared the safe house, the garage door rattled into motion as if it had been expecting them. Inside, Seifert stood against the wall, hand behind his back, but standing relaxed as if bored by the whole thing.
BeauLac drove in carefully, nose first and parked. When the garage door rolled down again, Seifert tapped the glass with the barrel of his pistol. BeauLac tensed.
“It’s fine. We’re safe now,” Wolf said, getting out of the car.
Seifert looked up. “This the guy?”
“That depends on which guy you mean. Adolphe BeauLac, this is Majesty. Majesty, this is one of Combine’s board members. I’ve rescued him from Combine.”
Seifert looked at the elder Frenchman with a skeptical glare, then back to Wolf. “Funny, he don’t look like a demon.”
BeauLac got out of the car. “I left my horns and tail in my other suit.”
Seifert chuckled before he could stop himself. The smile evaporated quickly, and he nodded his head sideways, letting BeauLac walk in front of him.
“Where’s Momma?” Wolf asked.
Without taking his eyes from BeauLac, Seifert tipped his head toward the back bedroom. “He’s trying to decode a message from one of the other groups.”
Wolf peeled off and went that way while Seifert showed their guest to the other bedroom. Mac lay on the living room sofa, snoring loudly as he passed.
He reached the bedroom door and knocked.
“Come,” John called.
Wolf went in and joined John at the ad hoc communications station Seifert had set up since Wolf’s departure.
“BeauLac needs some sleep, but I think he’ll be a well of information once he’s up,” Wolf said. “He’s already given me some useful INTEL.”
John nodded without looking away from the screen. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. But I need to get back on the road,” he said. “If I stop now, it’ll be harder to convince Combine that BeauLac’s actually dead.”
John nodded again then turned to Wolf. “What the hell is happening to you? You forgot where we are?”
Wolf shook his head. “I’m not sure I could explain it in a way you’d understand. And even if I did, it wouldn’t change what has to be done.”
“Try.”
Wolf stared at John for a moment, then shook his head. “The bullet is gone. But the inflammation is making it hard, especially when I’ve had no rest…and stress makes it worse,” he lied.
John sat there silently, his eyes flashing over various points of face and neck that should betray deception if present. Wolf knew he’d find no such indicators and waited for John to speak. But he didn’t speak. He simply turned back to the computer and clicked on a partially decoded Craigslist message from Jo.
“Apparently, Nick is taking his SEALs to DC and sending Jo to link up with the other group in Marsh’s care.”
“Why?” Wolf asked, turning his attention to the message.
“Homeland has just doubled the President’s depleted Secret Service ranks with a squad of ex Baynebridge hit men.”
Wolf’s mind jumped into action. It was a short trip to the conclusion. With the chain of deaths that had led to the appointment of Congressman Robert Trembly as House Speaker, it was clear Combine intended to install their president in the White House.
“Do they need resources?”
John shook his head. “It doesn’t say so. Nick is pretty resourceful.”
“Damn. Too many irons in the fire.”
“Tell me about it. If BeauLac can’t help us close in on the accountant, I’m not sure we’ll have enough resources available for our end game.”
John was fishing. He didn’t know what the end game was, and Wolf knew it.
“We’ll have enough,” Wolf said. “But I need to take the heat off everyone while the others find the accountant.”
John turned, looking perplexed. “You don’t plan on being there when…if we find the accountant?”
Wolf shook his head. “Not my job anymore. Maybe a week ago. But now that we’re down to one tactical team, we can’t let any heat fall on them before we catch the numbers guy.”
John squinted at Wolf, angry suspicion shaping his expression. “I thought the tactical teams left behind were there to protect Storc and Jo.”
Wolf just stared.
“Goddammit Scott, what have you done?”
“Nothing. You know what I’ve done. You were there.”
John leaned forward. “What’s the real reason the tactical teams got left behind.”
It had been a good charade. John hadn’t even thought twice about Scott just being overprotective of his friends in leaving such a SEAL heavy distribution of man power. Nick taking one of the teams on a new errand had disrupted that plan. Now, Wolf had to improvise.
“Eventually, the accountant will be found. It’ll be a black bag Op.”
“You don’t need two full SEAL squads for bagging an accountant. We don’t use that many going after terrorists.”
Wolf nodded. “But the man is no good without the evidence.”
John’s eyes shot wide. “You were counting on Nick or Mark Gaines to lead a team of SEALs into one of the big four accounting firms and take their data?”
Wolf shrugged.
John sat back abruptly, his hands rubbing his face in genuine frustration. “What else?”
“What else what?”
John pulled his hands from his face and glared angrily. “What else aren’t you telling me?”
“You really need a haircut. It’s gotten kind of—”
John slapped him across the cheek. “You think this is funny?”
Wolf stared, emotionless.
“You know John, that doesn’t really help with the head injury thing.”
“Then tell me what you’re planning! You’re risking the lives of more than a dozen people, and you don’t think it’s important enough to tell us what the end game is?”
Wolf tipped his head to the side, waiting for the irony of John’s statement to sink in. He saw it when it happened.
John shook his head. “If you don’t tell me what you’re planning, I’m out. Right now.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you,” Wolf said, leaning back and throwing his arm casually over the back of his chair. “In the other room is a board member of Combine. He’s been held captive by George Harp for the past month or so. They’ve been draining his and other Board member fortunes to compensate for the money we stole from them.”
John’s eyebrows rose in interest.
“He’s fuzzy on a name, but he knows who the accountant is, and he wants Harp put down.”
“He said this?”
Wolf nodded. “Not in so many words, but yes.”
“How does that change your plan?”
“It doesn’t. I was going to torture him for the information anyway. I’m sure that if you apply your interviewing expertise on him, he will be a wealth of information that will lead us to the Combine books. We need their ledgers, history, payoff lists, revenue sources—”
“And that’s what the other teams are for?”
Wolf nodded again, allowing a slight grin to bend his mouth. “But then we need the data.”
“And you planned on the other team to do that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you’ve been so evasive about your plan, you devious bastard,” John said, glaring at Wolf through slits. “You had everyone convinced you were breaking up the teams to protect the operation, when this whole time you’ve been maneuvering them like pieces on a chess board to grab the accountant and his data…you cold hearted prick.”
“Would you have done it any different?”
