The 3rd Cycle of the Betrayed Series Collection: Extremely Controversial Historical Thrillers (Betrayed Series Boxed set)

by Carolyn McCray

  “I was thinking about the wedding.”

  “Ugh. Please,” Bunny groaned. “I can’t argue place settings again. I think Stark is going to lose all of his hair over this wedding.”

  Yes, their IT guy was also their wedding planner. That was just how Alpha Tango rolled.

  “I know…” Davidson hesitated. He didn’t know how Bunny was going to take his suggestion. “So I was thinking…How about we just elope when I get back to the States?”

  There was a pause which felt like a half an hour, but Davidson was pretty certain was only a few seconds.

  Bunny sounded winded. “Oh God, please. Is that an option?”

  “It is, if the bride is down with it,” Davidson answered, as he scanned the area again. Still no movement.

  Another pause. He could hear his fiancée get up and move out of the attic. It sounded like she was in the stairwell. “Stark is going to be devastated though.”

  True, true, but Davidson couldn’t wait any longer. For the nuptials or what happened after the nuptials. Somehow deciding to not consummate their lengthy and bumpy relationship until after the wedding had brought out another side of Davidson. But it wasn’t just about the sex. Something he was actually looking forward to.

  Now he understood why Brandt and Rebecca got married out in the field. There was just a feeling of not wanting to wait another second.

  “We’ll invite him along to be the witness,” Davidson suggested.

  While he couldn’t see his beloved, he knew that Bunny was chewing at the edge of her lip. He wanted to reach through the line and stroke her cheek.

  “That could take the sting out,” Bunny admitted.

  “So?”

  This time there was very little hesitation. “So when do we announce this?”

  Davidson chuckled as he checked each and every doorway for movement as he answered. “We don’t. I’ll get home and we’ll pick up Stark and head out.”

  “Okay,” Bunny replied.

  “Are you sure, babe?” Davidson asked.

  “Yeah, I’m just…you know…getting used to the idea, but by the time you get home, I’ll be raring to go.”

  That was his girl.

  “Let’s do this,” she said stronger.

  Yep, that was the motto of his life as he clicked off the private channel and tuned into the team getting ready to implement Lopez’s plan.

  * * *

  Cama had served on several teams. In her years in the Special Forces, she’d seen some things, but a sergeant in a full suit of armor wielding a sword was not one of them. She was still having a hard time believing her eyes.

  She had been warned that Alpha Tango was a different sort of team, but it truly did take seeing, to believe it.

  Lopez raised the facemask of his armor, the origination of the current salute. “Are we ready to do this?”

  Cama couldn’t take in the fact, that they were ready to do this.

  When did they get so few options that this insane ploy was the most rational one? They truly were without other tangible options though. They could never make their way around to Philippe’s office through the back halls without running into security guards. Therefore, the only way to their destination was through that dining hall. And they couldn’t get across there until the children and their guards were lured away.

  Apparently, there wasn’t a clown costume nearby, hence the suit of armor.

  Cama at first had thought Lopez had been joking, but apparently not.

  “Welcome to my world,” Ki said, rolling his eyes next to her.

  “Do it,” Brandt said, completely straight-faced.

  What had Cama gotten herself into?

  Lopez flipped his facemask down and opened the door. Or at the least tried to open the door. Those metal gauntlets he was wearing weren’t exactly functional. Ki turned the knob for the sergeant.

  “Hey there, kids!” Lopez announced as if he belonged there. “I’m Knight Ricky!”

  The children clapped, whooping, sounding as excited by all this as Lopez was. Cama watched through the crack in the door as Lopez made his way across the room, swinging his sword in front of him.

  “Who is ready for the most intense game of hide & seek?”

  Every hand went up in the room. Lopez urged them out a side door.

  “Alright, let’s get this medieval party started.”

  No one raised an eyebrow at the development. Not the kids, not the parents, and especially not the guards.

  Cama shook her head.

  Welcome to Alpha Tango.

  * * *

  Brandt felt about as surprised that Lopez’s plan worked as Cama and Ki looked. His team had best learn to not underestimate Lopez. His thinking outside, not only the box, but the room it was stored in, had saved the team a hundred times over.

  He gave the nod to Ki, who pushed open the thick wooden door with his toe, inching out into the room. The point man still seemed confused that the room was cleared of the twenty or so occupants it had just a few moments before.

  “Let’s move it,” Brandt urged. He was ready to get out of the castle and get home.

  Ki indicated up to the cameras that were placed in the corners of the room. One of the rare non-authentic additions to the castle. Beyond the tech, the place looked and smelled as it must have back in the day. Brandt could tell why Ki was concerned. The red lights at the base of the cameras were all glowing a nice steady red. They seemed operational which was exactly opposite of what their IT guy had promised them.

  “Stark. Cameras.” Brandt didn’t waste any more breath than that.

  “Trust me, the security station is only getting static. I’ve made it seem like it is the back up generator’s fault.”

  Brandt gave Ki the nod to continue forward. They were just going to have to trust the IT man. Stark had knocked the primary power out, hence the torches on the wall. He’d even allowed the back up generator to kick in, but was causing havoc with the wattage output.

  They crept across the long, large dining hallway. It could probably fit five hundred people in here if they wanted to. Brandt was glad Philippe hadn’t tonight. Quickly they reached the other side. Ki checked the door. It was unlocked.

  He opened it and burst into the next hallway, checking his corners. It was as clear as had been promised. One day maybe Brandt would let up on Stark.

  Nah, probably not going to happen.

  * * *

  Stark leaned forward, watching each and every pixel of the screen showing the team’s progress. He was listening to Brandt’s breathing pattern, trying to anticipate if the man was angered or frustrated.

  This must be what it was like to have an equally emotionally, withholding, and demanding father. God, Stark loved it. Okay, half the time he hated it, but that was part of the emotional roller coaster that made it so exciting.

  Glancing over at Bunny, Stark wondered what was up with her. Ever since her conversation with Davidson she’d been acting weird. She seemed guilty, happy, and sad all at the same time. Weird. Usually, Stark could read her like a middle grade book.

  He couldn’t be worried about that at the moment. The team was active. He double-checked to make sure the security hub was only getting the static he had promised. Which in fact it was.

  “I’ve got some weird readings,” his mother stated.

  “What kind?” Stark asked.

  “Not sure, but the juice is coming from the battery back up.”

  Not good. Not good at all. Those battery lines were hard-wired and were not connection to the security hub. They could mess with the generator, but not the battery farm.

  Which was kind of odd. What was so essential, it was hooked up to the batteries, when the security cameras weren’t even on that circuit?

  It made no sense, but most of their missions didn’t so Stark decided to roll with it.

  What other choice did he have?

  He studied the screen his mother pointed to. Not only were the batteries being engaged, but
they were outputting a hell of a lot of voltage. What could need that much juice?

  “Guys,” Stark said. “We’ve got a developing situation.”

  “Don’t mince words, what’s wrong?” Brandt admonished Stark.

  That little thrill went down Stark’s back. “Not sure yet, but we’ve got a lot of electricity heading your way.”

  “How much?” Brandt asked. If there was a reward for economy with words, Brandt would be a hundred times winner.

  “A lot,” Stark answered, wishing he could give Brandt more information.

  CHAPTER 2

  “On your toes,” Brandt instructed his team. Although he really didn’t need to. Ki and Cama might be new to Alpha Tango, but they were both solid. Even before she officially joined the team, Cama had saved Bunny.

  He saw no reason why either of the lieutenants would crash and burn now.

  Brandt hated walking into a situation where he didn’t know what was coming, but welcome to black ops.

  “Davidson, anything?” Brandt asked as they inched forward down the stone hallway. Long swords, leather shields and spiked maces lined the walls, along with those super-cheerful tapestries.

  “All quiet, sir,” their sniper responded.

  At least there was that.

  Light sparked up ahead. Maybe this electricity thing was just the hall lights. They could only get that lucky. Not.

  Rapidly the diffuse light sharpened in focus.

  Brandt could not be seeing what was in front of him.

  Knights. Holographic knights to be precise.

  “Is this a joke?” Brandt asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Stark said, sounding very unsure. “I mean, there is no way a simple hologram would need this much electricity.”

  Simple?

  While the knights were see-through, they were extremely detailed. Like Brandt could see the individual rings in their chain mail.

  “Okay, let’s just get through this,” Brandt said.

  Ki responded immediately, walking right up to the nearest knight. The knight drew back his sword, angling it right at Ki’s neck. But what could it do? It was just a hologram. The point man didn’t flinch or slow as he approached, but when the holographic sword hit Ki’s neck, the large man cried out, falling to the side, putting pressure on where the sword hit.

  Brandt knelt next to his man, checking the injury. There was no blood, but a large oozing burn and Ki was knocked out. Cold.

  “Stark?” Brandt growled.

  * * *

  Bunny felt horrible for her friend. This situation was so far out of the ballpark, it wasn’t even funny.

  “How can a hologram give an electrical shock?” Brandt asked.

  Well, it shouldn’t. Clearly Philippe’s engineers had found a way to make it work though.

  “Stark!” Brandt barked.

  “I’m working on it,” Stark squeaked. He got so high pitched when he got nervous. Bunny would love to help, but she knew when she was in over her head. If she even tried to help, she’d be a distraction. So the only thing she could do was try to talk Brandt through this.

  “Brandt, this is really higher order stuff. It is going to take them a minute.”

  “You know as well as I do, we don’t have a minute,” Brandt responded, sounding as annoyed at Bunny as he was at Stark. “Guards are going to be coming through here in thirty nine seconds.”

  He wasn’t wrong.

  “There’s no way to get through them?” Bunny asked, although she could see the footage. The holograms definitely blocked their way.

  “You want to come down here and volunteer to get zapped?” Brandt asked.

  That wasn’t just a little jolt that Ki got. He’d been knocked three feet into the air and that guy was huge. Bunny probably would be dead with that much voltage in her system.

  “This is going to sound crazy, but the leather shields on the wall are not electrically conductive,” Stark’s mother said.

  She always came through in a pinch.

  On the large screen, Bunny watched as Brandt didn’t hesitate. He strode over to the wall, pulled a shield down and headed to the holograms.

  “Sir!” Cama called out, but Brandt ignored her.

  He set off straight for the hologram that had gotten Ki. The “knight” swung, but instead of hitting flesh, hit the shield instead. No zap.

  This gave Brandt all the more confidence. Bunny watched as he bullied his way through the knights.

  That was Brandt all right.

  * * *

  Davidson could hear Brandt’s attack. Despite the shield, he was taking some hits. How did Davidson know? Because Brandt’s grunts. If Brandt was grunting, it must be bad.

  It didn’t sound like he was going to make it through. And if Brandt couldn’t make it through, no one could.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Davidson noticed something. Guards fanning out over the property.

  “We’ve got movement,” Davidson announced. This wasn’t good. Then the children were suddenly hustled out the front door and into the awaiting cars. Guards escorted them, covering their heads. “Guys, we’ve been made. Security is on the move.”

  There was no other response than a strained grunt.

  “Ki?” Davidson called out. Again nothing.

  “Cama?”

  “Yeah, um…things aren’t going quite so well here…”

  “You’ve got to get everyone on the move.”

  “Easier said than done,” Cama responded with a grunt of her own. “Ki is heavier than he even looks.”

  Damn it. Where was Lopez? If the kids were out here, where was he? Davidson didn’t think even if he abandoned his perch he could make it into the castle at this point.

  There were way too many guards spreading out over the property.

  Like he said. Damn it.

  * * *

  Stark was freaking out. He didn’t care who knew. Clearly some kind of off-the-grid alarm had been triggered by the holographic knights. Despite the fact that the security hub looked quiet, all hell was breaking out in the castle.

  The security footage must be on some kind of time delay. That Philippe was one smooth character. The guy seemed to be all about the old. Antique, historical, ancient, yet here he was sporting some of the most advance electronic security that Stark had ever seen, and with all that he had seen especially with Alpha Tango, that was saying something.

  “I don’t even understand how a hologram can zap someone,” Bunny groaned, watching Brandt valiantly, but ultimately in vain, try to make his way through the tempest of knights.

  “They are using wireless electricity flow,” Stark’s mother explained.

  Bunny frowned, clearly that wasn’t enough of an explanation.

  “Electricity flows due to charge, not due to the wire,” Stark stated. “There must be an invisible magnetic field that is guiding the electricity. In fifty years it will be in homes across the world.”

  Bunny looked extremely skeptical of that notion, but it was a reality. The tech existed in the lab and once you could make it work in a laboratory, the commercial rollout was about a half century.

  And no matter what a pain in the ass it was to them, this beta unit in the castle was proof positive wireless electricity was here to stay.

  “Fine, whatever,” Bunny said, as only Bunny could. “We need to make it stop before Brandt is electrocuted.”

  That was the problem. There was no way to shut down a closed circuit like this. Whoever built it, knew what they were doing.

  “Stark!” Bunny barked, doing a pretty damned good imitation of Brandt.

  Darn it, she really knew how to get his blood flowing to his brain.

  * * *

  “Fuck.” There, Brandt said it. To hell with his agreement with Rebecca to curb his cursing for the kids. If there was ever a time for a four letter word it was kind of now.

  He was over them. Completely over the holographic knights. For every row he got past, another popped up. Stark called
it mirroring behavior but Brandt could give a crap what it was called. In the real world it just hurt.

  The real problem? He was going to have a hundred small burns he was going to have to explain to Rebecca. Forget the pain of the actual burns, that discussion was going to hurt.

  As if she heard him cuss, Brandt’s phone rang. It was his wife. Even though he was fighting off five holographic knights, he answered it. When he didn’t Rebecca thought of the worse, which honestly was probably less dangerous than the situation he was actually in.

  “Hi, babe,” Brandt somehow got out.

  “What’s wrong?” Rebecca asked from the other side of the phone.

  Damn, she knew him too well. “Nothing,” he grunted. That was never going to fly. He might as well tell the truth. “I’m fighting off some holographic knights.”

  A sigh came from the line. “Brandt if you don’t want to talk right now, just say so.”

  “Ah!” he couldn’t keep that out as he got zapped in the upper thigh.

  “You really are fighting holographic knights, aren’t you?” Rebecca asked.

  “Yes, yes I really am,” Brandt answered, swinging around to block another swipe of the see through blade.

  “Fine, we can talk later, but just know your Mother has really outdone herself.”

  The line thankfully clicked off, although their next conversation sounded nearly as painful as this ordeal. He was going to have to back up and retreat to his team’s position, he just couldn’t make it through.

  “I’ve got this!” a shout came from behind.

  Brandt turned in horror as Cama screamed, “Don’t!”

  Lopez, in full metal armor, didn’t heed his new teammates warning and ran right into the thick of the holographic knights, swinging his sword like he was the Highlander.

  Then the screaming came.

  Right before Brandt’s eyes, Lopez was getting electrocuted.

  * * *

  Cama could smell Lopez’s flesh burning as he spasmed in the middle of the hallway. He was going to die if she didn’t do something, like right the hell now.

  This was going to hurt.

  She sprang, running to the side of Lopez. A straight on hit would just knock him deeper into the wireless electricity. She had to hit him at just the right angle.