Intimate Danger

by Amy J. Fetzer

  “This is what I know, Clancy Moira McRae.” He dug into the chip bag. “Arrested for grand theft auto, and drug possession, you were looking at four, five years in jail, hard time.” He crunched a chip.

  Clancy stared, oddly curious about this side of him. “That was over fifteen years ago.”

  “So the judge said, four years in jail or four in the Navy, am I right?” He waved with a chip, then ate it.

  Clancy inhaled. “How did you find that out? My records were sealed.” She’d just turned eighteen then, old enough to go straight to jail without passing Go, and it wasn’t her first offense. But the judge tried her as underage. It was the only thing that kept her butt out of prison. That and the Navy.

  He slid her a look that revealed little, munching away like a Saturday picnic. “Your Desert Storm record is impressive, then to the Pentagon, computer counterintelligence, and artificial intel. Hum? College on the GI, bioengineering graduate study at Cornell, and now you work for the Department of Defense. What section?”

  Clancy looked at the floor. He was pissed, and while she didn’t think he’d hurt her, she knew he wouldn’t give up.

  “There isn’t just a flag on you, it’s a red one. Priority. Bin Laden’s on it.” Her eyes got the doe-in-the-headlights look and Mike wanted to stop. Throwing dirty laundry at her like this would make her hate him. “Yeah, that asshole and you, same boat. You’re in deep kimchee, and I’m apt to believe them.”

  “For what reason?”

  “A forged passport, in the company of known criminals, building something electronic in your hotel room.” Her eyes kept getting rounder. “And you’re here, in Peru alone with an assassin after you. And then there is this whisper of conspiracy.”

  “Conspiracy is a crock.” But it would work, she thought. Even the subtle word of it here and there. Smear her first and Cook looks good. Colonel Cook knew that even if she was proven innocent, and that was debatable considering she stole classified material—she’d never live it down. Her career was over. But then, so was his. The truth would come out. Suddenly, she doubted it was Cook. He had as much to lose as she did. “From who?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Perhaps you should check.”

  “Maybe later.”

  “No, now. Find out who put that flag up, find out who’s waving it under your nose like a matador.”

  “No.” He popped a chip in his mouth and crunched.

  Clearly, he’s not giving an inch, she thought, and looked at her hands on her lap. She needed him on her side. If she didn’t get his attention, he would send her packing back to the States under heavy guard. She didn’t want to go back in handcuffs. Not without the Marines.

  She tipped her head back and looked at him. “Someone’s leading you around, Gannon. That red flag is unnecessary and let me tell you what I know. You’re Spec Ops, team commander probably, and you’re here to recover some hardware, right?”

  Mike didn’t move a muscle.

  “The UAV that crashed.”

  There was recognition, not anything one would see, but she did. Just below the surface, he tensed, right along his ribs. The man had incredible control, she thought, and she left the chair and went to her bag, digging her hand inside. “This what you’re looking for?” She tossed him a chunk of something.

  He caught it, and stared at the thick piece of gray material. He studied the depth of it, pulling out his knife to scrape the edge. It bent, flexible, a polymer fiber and aluminum compound, probably. Then he realized it was the tail of the UAV. Jesus.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “I’d been in the jungle since dawn and was on my way back when the German—Denner showed up.” She pulled out the Palm Pilot. “I found it here.”

  She pointed to the east, and Mike thought, it was possible. It was inside the area Gantz had calculated. “We met here, with the Indian.”

  It was nearly four miles. Nearer to the mountains. “You’re certain?”

  She nudged him. “Yes, I can read a map. A couple hundred feet up are the ruins, some ancient Inca dwellings.” She shrugged. “Just holes in the side of the mountain. They weren’t on a tour map.”

  “Moche,” he said and looked up. “The Moche, not Inca. They’re older than dirt.”

  “Wow, we are a font of knowledge.”

  “I minored in marine archaeology. It was a chapter, nothing up close and personal.” Yet he hoped the UAV didn’t crash into something that could never be recovered. He ran his thumb over the piece and the small numbers still printed in black on the edge. “Was there more?”

  She shook her head. “Pieces? No, and I looked. Not long or far, I’m only so adventurous with a peashooter.” He slid her a glance that hid a smile. “There was an impact mark on the ground. Not really noticeable either.”

  “The thing weights seven hundred pounds. It should have made a dent the size of a car.”

  “Makes you wonder who’s going through all this trouble to erase it and why, huh?”

  He lifted his gaze to hers, and Mike experienced an unfamiliar feeling, as if he was looking into the face of his ideal match. Just as a piece of contentment he hadn’t known in years settled in him, he mentally shook himself, reminding himself she was under some heavy charges. Conspiracy to commit treason, betraying your country were grounds for execution.

  “But that”—she waved at the fragment—“was as if that was just dropped there.”

  “Well, we know that’s not possible.”

  “What do we know, Mike Gannon?”

  As he held the fragment, only his gaze shifted to her.

  “You’re looking for that and the men the U.S. sent to recover it.”

  His dark eyes narrowed dangerously, so intense it cut off her breath for a second. “Fine, then don’t expect more from me.”

  Then his voice went soft and she felt it roll down her spine and leave a warm trail over her. “You can tell me, Clancy.”

  “That’s really smooth, Marine. That tone get you laid a lot?” He choked, but she didn’t stop as she said, “I’m curious, is the Spec Ops Marine asking, or the guy who kissed me at the bus stop?”

  His gaze lowered over her, a powerful stroke over her skin. “Both.”

  “I don’t know you well enough to trust you with classified material.” He wasn’t happy about that. “If I tell you anything I want your word that it won’t go further.”

  “No.”

  “Say again?”

  “No, I won’t give my word because if you have intel on my men, then I want it now.”

  She stepped back. “Your men?” No wonder he was hell-bent on information. “If they are your team, then why weren’t you with them?”

  He pulled up his T-shirt sleeve to show the red scar on his shoulder. “Recovering.”

  Clancy came to him. “How old is this?”

  “A month or so.”

  “You heal quickly.” For a moment Clancy thought, if they injected four, then why not five? But she dismissed the thought after she discreetly looked for the insertion mark. Mike was fast and strong from years of training. If he had a biopod in him, he’d be dangerously out of control by now.

  “What have you got to do with my team?”

  She lifted her gaze. “DiFazio, Valnik, Palmer, and Krane.”

  His dark brows pinched, and he loomed over her.

  Time to get his attention, she thought. “They were volunteers to use a new technology, field enhancement.”

  Mike thought of the lock on her job. “It’s not gear or a new GPS, is it?”

  She shook her head and began explaining and with each word, watched his fury build.

  Special Operations

  The Pentagon

  “Dr. Figaroa is here, sir.”

  Jansen didn’t look at the speaker and blindly tapped the button. “Please tell him I don’t have a spare—”

  The door opened and Figaroa strode in. “You need to find one, Hank.”

  Jansen sat back. �
��Can’t this wait? I have an appointment at NMCC in fifteen minutes and with traffic…”

  “No, sir, you need to see this.”

  Ensign Durry stood beside him at attention. “At ease, Ensign, please have a seat.”

  Figaroa did and she followed suit. Jansen listened as Dr. Figaroa explained what she’d found, then took a moment to study the findings. It was amazing. “You’re certain this is not a typographical error.”

  “Yes, sir, I triple checked it,” Durry said.

  “Ensign,” he said, looking at the papers. “You have a comment before we go further?”

  Her brows knit for a moment. “No, sir.”

  “Good, what you find in these files is classified.”

  “Yes, sir, of course, sir.”

  “Which means if I hear about it, I’ll know where it came from, correct?” Her brows drew a little and he knew he’d just insulted her, but better to have her on guard than not.

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  There was a little snap to her reply and Jansen met her gaze. “Is this everything you have?”

  “Yes, sir.” She sat up straighter.

  “Then I’ll take it from here. You’re dismissed.”

  “Sir?”

  Her expression pinched, then smoothed out, and when he simply stared at her she stood and executed a perfect salute. But the colonel was already ignoring her.

  As Ensign Durry walked into the outer offices, leaving the two men alone, she thought, I’m being shoved out and it will be buried.

  Why else would he ask for all her paperwork so far?

  Mike heard the words, but it took a moment for them to sink in. Nanotechnology. Biosynthesized neuron-enhanced something or other. He let it stew, his mind ticking off reasons this was a bad idea. Putting anything into the body that didn’t belong there never was. “What’s it do?”

  “Increased strength and resistance to antibodies, increased lung capacity. Intelligence quotient increases, forcing the brain to use more than three percent. Smell, taste, touch, sight, all heightened and reaching beyond normal levels. It maintains from the body’s own electromagnetic field. Can you imagine the things we can do? We could develop it for the deaf, the paralyzed—”

  “Permanent?” he cut in, crushing her excitement.

  “Yes, until it can be destroyed. It’s designed to dissolve, then be swept out through the bloodstream.”

  “And you invented this?” He admitted it. He was impressed.

  “The actual pod, yes, with the help of a medical doctor, Dr. Yates.”

  “You know how this sounds to me? Like science fiction. You’ve created a human weapon, judgment-enhanced by this pod. We shoot weapons, we don’t become them. We solve the problems. And this just creates more. Christ, next you’ll be taking away our conscience and memory so we’re no better than those fuckers who strap on a bomb!”

  She reared back, not expecting this reaction from him. “That’s not true and you’re really going over the top, Mike.”

  He rounded on her and she half expected him to paw the ground. “You created this science project to control.”

  “Yes, your control, I’m damn proud of it!”

  “That you turned people into machines?”

  “There is nothing mechanical about it. It’s a bio-pod that helps them survive! They do everything they can do now, only faster and more efficient. It doesn’t give them superpowers, for pity’s sake, not something they don’t already have. It enhances what’s already there.”

  Mike rubbed his skull with both hands. “You expect miracles and they’re people, just people, and we’re doing the best we can.”

  “Mike.” She gripped his arms, forcing him to look her in the eye. “I know that. I’ve patched the wounds. I’ve held them when they died.” Her throat burned as battle memories filled her mind. “If this technology keeps them alive just a little longer, long enough to get them out safely, or more help than a medic and some morphine, wouldn’t you want it?”

  “Yes, of course.” He sighed hard, and knew that if his men were alive, this pod might be the reason. “I’m trying to understand your point, believe me, it’s the purpose of all my gear, but did you ever think about what would happen if the enemy gets this technology? They have everything else already.” His gaze rose to meet hers. “DOD thinks you’re giving it over.”

  “You don’t know how laughable that really is. It’s not a file I can hand over. I don’t have it. I can’t create it again without the right facilities and equipment, and lots of time. It’s locked up in an Army medical facility under layers of security.”

  He frowned, curious. “Then how’d you find my guys?”

  “I have skills. I hacked.”

  “Christ, you’re a national security risk all by yourself.”

  “Aren’t you glad I’m one of the good guys?”

  He smiled for the first time since dragging her back here. “I should probably tell you that when they sent my team in after the UAV, the chopper was shot out of the sky.”

  Her smile fell. “Oh no, Mike. Any trace?”

  “Not a one.”

  She frowned, thinking about the Google earth photos she’d seen, the smooth path in the jungle. “That’s impossible. A fire, the explosion, a heat signature at—”

  He shook his head. “No heat signature at all. Satellite picked up the hit, but not the launch. The wreckage isn’t showing. It knocked it so far off course that I was looking in Ecuador. There’s no way to locate where it came from.” Except for Gantz’s calculated theories.

  “They’re wrong. There’s nothing that can do that. Thrust for launch takes compressed propulsion. It explodes and that’s what gives it thrust. The explosion has to generate heat.”

  She wasn’t telling him something he didn’t already know and had speculated over since leaving the U.S. “Not this time.”

  Clancy couldn’t imagine how that could happen. Even alternative fuels generated heat for propulsion.

  She was still shaking her head when he said, “If what you say is true, then my men, my friends, are out there, and if they are alive—”

  “They could very well be.”

  “—if they are alive, then where are they? Why haven’t they used this enhanced intellect to get out of there? And if the enemy is some damn cartel and has them? Jesus, this was too dangerous to start!” They’d be dead, executed for trespassing into cartel territory. DEA agents had vanished in the fight against drug lords, some horribly.

  “Sorry you feel that way, Mike, but it doesn’t change the fact that it exists. It’s here, now, in use in primates, and it works.” She was very curious about how Boris was handling it, but not enough to call Francine.

  “And the results?”

  “We weren’t done. Haven’t you been listening or are you always this pigheaded?”

  He smiled. “There’s a reason they call us jarheads.”

  “I learned they inserted it into your friends without my knowledge and without full long-term testing. If I hadn’t been drawing blood from the ape, I would never have known. Last year we injected the nanopod for the first time in an ape and it destroyed his central nervous system and killed him within hours. It’s been refined quite a bit since then, but not enough.” She shook her head. “Not nearly enough for humans. They don’t want anyone to know it, and with good reason.”

  His gaze thinned.

  “Refined or not, it could kill them, Mike. Reaction is different for any candidate because no two people are alike. Different weight, muscle mass, brain function.”

  “How bad?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  “Insanity.”

  “Christ.”

  “The pod is injected into the cerebellum, and then it attaches itself to the wall. Neurosynaptic sensors implant and boot the cerebral cortex.” Her voice trailed off when she noticed he wasn’t interested, but furious.

  “How could they do this to them?” He rubbed his head, tur
ning away.

  “Don’t go there, your men volunteered.” He whipped around, his dark eyes savage. “Volunteered,” she said more softly. “I wasn’t in the loop. They superseded me in secret.”

  He was quiet for a long moment, his gaze intense. “Bet that fried your ass.”

  “Enough for me to come down here.”

  “To do what?”

  “Find the men, destroy the pods.”

  He scoffed, almost amused. “Honey, you wouldn’t know if they were two feet from you, and if this pod is in their brains, how the hell can you destroy it?”

  “Ah, now you see my problem. I had a device, but Richora smashed it.”

  The electronics in the trash, Mike thought, stiffening. She tried to make another. “Is there another way?”

  The glass window exploded behind him, fragments rocketing across the room. Mike hit the floor. Clancy was already there next to the bed, staring at the bullet embedded in the opposite wall.

  “That was meant for you.” He was in the line of fire.

  “Oh yeah.” Mike crawled across the floor, pulling gear to him and grabbing his Cyclops. He shifted to the window, peering over the edge. Night Vision illuminated the area. “The shot had to come from another building. It was suppressed or people would be running for cover.” He lowered and looked at her. “The streets are packed.”

  “Probably didn’t hear it over the music. You’re on someone’s mean and nasty side too.”

  “Pretty much.” But most didn’t know who he was. This wasn’t the first time he was out in the open. Going in silent and getting out made covering your ass a lot easier. “I think it’s time to leave this town.”

  Crouched on the floor, she grabbed her bag and adjusted the straps, slung it across her body. “They’d follow.”

  Mike was almost hoping they would so he could put an end to this. “Sure, but we’re fish in a barrel here.”

  She was on the floor, flat on her stomach, and she wiggled beside him. “So, let’s talk, Gannon.”