Live By The Team (Team Fear Book 1)

by Skaggs, Cindy

  Eyes the color of velvet green moss focused on her with an intensity that chilled the flush from her skin. “You’re finishing if I have to stand guard outside your class every day.”

  “Crawford already assigned my classes to a first-year.”

  Ryder’s lips slimmed into a frown, without words for the first time since she’d known him.

  Lauren rubbed a hand through the scruff on his jaw. The rough wildness was the first thing she’d noticed about him, and she loved the feel of his whiskers against her skin. The innate masculinity he exuded made her feel feminine. She reached up to nip his chin. “It’s only a few months, and not teaching will give me more time to finish my dissertation.”

  “So you’re not quitting?”

  “Apparently that’s not an option.” Wings fluttered in her chest. Ryder understood what made her tick. He understood the importance of finishing her education. “I love you.”

  “Guess you’re stuck with me.” His lips whispered across hers. When he came up for air, he glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “Thirty minutes to the briefing.”

  “A nap sounds just about perfect.” She hadn’t slept the past few days. Every muscle in her body hurt, and added to it, she and Debi shared a room, which was fine, they’d done that before, but their designated bodyguard snored, so sleep was near impossible. But what really had kept her awake was fear. Rose wouldn’t let her see Ryder. She’d kept watch so Ryder couldn’t disappear in the middle of the night. She could use a good twenty-four hour nap.

  “Sorry.” Ryder stood and then pulled her up and over his shoulder in a naked fireman’s carry. She squealed his name. He laughed and walked towards the bathroom, his hand sliding along the curve of her backside. “We have a half hour. I plan to use every minute.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Lauren pulled Ryder to a halt on the way out the door. The bed was now perpendicular to the wall and the shower curtain rod was hanging drunkenly from one bare screw. Ryder grinned at the destruction. Lauren smacked his gut. “We’ll have to leave in the middle of the night.”

  “Totally worth it.”

  A pretty flush climbed her chest. “Remind me why I love you?”

  “Because you think quoting Sun Tzu is sexy.”

  She laughed, the sound a good luck charm. “I think the Romantic era poets are sexy.”

  “That stays between me and you.” Rose would never let him live it down.

  “Since you quoted Byron to get in my pants, I don’t think that counts.”

  “You love me because I still keep that leaf in my wallet. Plus.” He leaned down to whisper in her ear, brushing his scruff against the soft skin of her neck. “Three screaming orgasms in the last hour.”

  “It’s a reason.” She butted her shoulder into his chest.

  His heart flexed in a pang of unfamiliar emotion. Happiness, he decided, beating the hell out of his chest. “A damn good reason.” He twisted his fingers through hers and led the way to the other room where they were putting together a conference with the rest of the team.

  A surprise rain drizzled from the gray sky. Not quite day and not quite night. In the room, someone had setup a buffet of pizza and soda. Ryder grabbed a plate for himself and Lauren, but while they ate, a hive of angry African bees stirred in his gut. He still wasn’t leveled out from the meds, but they needed to get gone. Staying too long in one place was asking for Team Echo to find them.

  When the different team members clicked onto the videoconference, Ryder paced as he would for a live briefing. They hadn’t been a team for eight months. His hair was longer and his head more fucked. They looked different, too. Some had longer hair, more tats, more attitude coming across the video. In the past six months, he’d kept watch from afar. Visiting team members and watching them slowly withdraw from the world. Where were they mentally? Did they see ghosts and stalkers and danger in every shadow?

  Craft nudged him forward. “Bennett is MIA. Stills told us to fuck off.”

  “He’s a moody bastard.” Ryder took a deep breath and sat in front of the camera. A split screen of four of the best men he knew filled the monitor. Something in his chest expanded. Briefing the team, he felt more like himself than he had since leaving the Army. He spoke directly to screen, knowing the three men and two women in the room were following along. “After Madigan’s incident, Captain Johnson tracked me down in the county jail.”

  Rose pursed his lips into a flat line. “He had to be close to get there before I did.”

  Ryder nodded. Johnson had already been there and gone before Rose bailed Ryder out of jail. Johnson had been keeping watch on him or he wouldn’t have made it there in time. “The captain warned me that the clusterfuck in front of the media had attracted attention. According to him, his superiors called to ask if he knew the meaning of the word clandestine operation.”

  “Translation, you made the news, and after Kandahar, they couldn’t afford the heat.”

  “Exactly. Using his typical fucking doublespeak, Johnson warned me that the company was ready to pull my plug.”

  Curses sounded from the screen. Rose’s jaw twitched. Yeah, Ryder had fucked up by not telling Rose the whole truth, but he hadn’t known if Johnson was screwing with him. One last mindfuck for shits and giggles. “I thought I was the only one in the crosshairs, because I had been the one on camera.” And Madigan was already dead, so there wasn’t much they could do to him. Ryder had spent the next six months stuck in his head, trying to decide what was real and what was paranoia. Trying to decide if Johnson and his company of jackasses would come for the rest of the team. Now he had his answer. Whoever was in charge, they’d go after anyone in their way. There would be no mercy for the ones they loved. “What Johnson didn’t tell me was that Team Echo was still alive.” Ryder ran them through what they’d learned the past few days. “It is highly likely both Madigan and Gault were dosed with whatever mad cocktail would flip a switch in their brains. The result wasn’t pretty.” The image of Madigan pulling the trigger was stuck in a loop in Ryder’s head.

  A man with dark hair and a scraggly beard leaned forward, his face filling his corner of the screen. “What does your goat rope have to do with us?”

  “Santiago, you’ve always been a contrary motherfucker.”

  “That’s why you love me.” He leaned back. “Seriously, man, I know you. Your ass could be on fire and you’d run for the nearest water source rather than ask for help, so I say again, what does this goat rope have to do with us?”

  “Possibly nothing. Possibly everything.” He laid it out for them, everything they’d learned about Team Echo. “The fact that they’re officially dead tells me they’re working with someone on the inside. If what Joe told Lauren is correct, they were kept in the program because of their ability to kill without remorse.”

  Craft moved into the shot with Ryder. “We were sent packing because they found their elite team of killing machines.”

  A rock settled in Ryder’s gut. “This next part is supposition. After the fact, someone decided to eliminate the loose ends. We were part of the program. If anyone asks questions, we know too much.”

  “Screams black ops,” Santiago said. “If Echo was the result they were looking for, we’re a danger to them and their operation. Makes me wonder if the other teams are experiencing similar episodes.”

  Shit, Ryder had been so focused on his team, on protecting Lauren, that he had lost track of the other teams that were part of the experiment. There were six of them total, including Team Echo. “What happened to the other teams? We were all cut loose, but are they dead or alive?”

  Rose wrote a few quick lines in his notebook. “We’ll add that to the long fucking list of questions that need answers. First question, who funded the program? Captain Johnson was the face, but he wasn’t the one paying the bills.”

  Santiago’s dark eyes narrowed. “We should have asked more questions.”

  “Agreed.” Ryder had been too gung-ho Army to question
his good fortune at being recognized and selected. Ego was a nasty bastard. “Who wants us gone and why? We were obviously in a classified program, but medical personnel were involved. Researchers. There were trials done as they developed the protocol, long before we hit the barracks. So who did the R&D?”

  Rose was writing as fast as they were talking. “I want to know how long the fearlessness lasts, as well as the paranoia and the anger. And what the hell did they give you to trigger your episode?”

  “Long on questions and short on answers,” Santiago said. “You want us to head your way?”

  “No.” Ryder had thought about this for days. “I don’t want all their targets in one place.”

  “We’re stronger together,” Santiago answered.

  “Live by the team,” someone else echoed.

  Live by the team, die by the team. It was their way of life. If a teammate walked off a cliff, then you damn well better be on his heels and hit the ground ready to break his fall. “Agreed, but we stick to two teams for now.”

  There was chatter amongst the four about where to meet. Ryder interrupted before he heard more than he wanted. “The four of you need to circle the wagons, find a place to lie low and we’ll stay separated geographically. Once we hang up, I don’t want to know where you fuckers are. Craft can keep us linked electronically, but physical location is classified.” That way, if they were captured—tortured—they couldn’t give up the other team. Ryder brushed a hand over his brow.

  “You’re talking about running an investigation into a deactivated and classified operation—stateside—with zero equipment, zero intel, and a team of fucking Section Eights who are mentally unfit for combat.” Craft tapped the mouse to keep the screen awake. “Brother, you are out of your mind.”

  “We all are. Isn’t that the point?”

  “You’re not crazy,” Lauren hissed from across the room. He’d warned her to stay off camera, but she shot him a glare that said they weren’t done.

  A tall, blond soldier, his hair still high and tight, leaned into the frame. “You think we’re all targets?”

  “They were on my ass,” Fowler said, the anger vibrating in his voice. “They were after Madigan, Gault, and Ryder. Even Ryder’s wife.”

  “Seems to be isolated around your location,” the soldier insisted.

  “We’re targets.” On the adjacent square, Santiago glared, his eyes an abyss of dark emotions. “Last I heard from Bennett, he had picked up a tail. Said he was going underground.”

  “That’s what you need to do. The four of you, plus Stills if you can convince his ornery ass. Craft has setup a secure chat room. Check in once a week, more often if you have information.”

  “We going after Johnson?” Ice shimmered in Santiago’s dark eyes, promising vengeance. “Gault was a good soldier. A friend. Mad Dog too. Johnson deserves payback.”

  Fowler’s hand twitched like he had something to add, but Ryder shook him off. For now, the two teams worked with operational autonomy. Information was on a need to know. Team by team. “We’re going after information,” Ryder insisted.

  “And if I find him first?”

  Fucker. Santiago always made it personal. “Get the information first.” If they killed Johnson, Ryder didn’t want to know.

  Santiago’s two-finger salute wasn’t exactly agreement.

  Ryder stepped out of the hot seat and let Craft take over, walking the other team through the communication protocol. Lauren stood and wrapped her arms around Ryder. Behind her, Debi’s features were pale and gaunt.

  “I’m not going home, am I?”

  “Afraid not, sweetheart.” Rose stood with his back to the camera, blocking any view of the women. “Echo knows where you live and work, your connection to Lauren. They tried to infiltrate your house the other night. We have to assume they’ll try again if you make yourself a target.”

  Debi dropped her head between her knees like she was shaking off a panic attack. Behind them, Craft finished the call and shut it down. He turned and nailed Fowler with a glare. “Want to tell us what has you so twitchy?”

  “Shit has been happening so fast, we didn’t get a chance to debrief the situation in Tucson.” Fowler rubbed his hands together. “The reason I picked up a tail was because I was tracking Gault’s last few days.”

  Ryder nodded. “I did the same. Rose wasn’t far behind me. Gault was a paranoid bastard, zigzagging all over Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Seems we would have saved ourselves some trouble if we’d made a more coordinated effort. That starts now.” Working alone had gotten Gault killed.

  Fowler pulled a laptop from a duffel bag on the floor. “This was Gault’s. A couple days before the incident” —he coughed— “Gault called me. Same paranoid shit we’ve all felt and said and done. He’d told me if anything happened to him, I should check out his old man’s hunting cabin. Found this there.”

  Craft grabbed the laptop. “Come to Papa.” He booted it up, and started searching recent files. Less than a minute passed before he whistled low. “How the hell did he get this?”

  Ryder leaned over his shoulder. “Is that—”

  “The coroner’s report on Madigan’s family.”

  Ryder read through, standing behind Craft. Most of it, he didn’t want to know. He’d seen the crime scene photos. The memory still turned his stomach, but he read through it, knowing Gault had put his ass on the line to get it. When he got to the description of Maggie’s injuries, he stopped. “Fuck. Madigan didn’t kill Maggie.”

  Lauren looked between the two men. “Echo was going to kill me and frame you. Makes sense they did the same at Madigan’s. What does the autopsy tell you?”

  “The killer was a leftie. Slit Maggie’s throat from right to left. As far gone as he was, Mad Dog would have done the deed with his dominant hand.”

  “Fuck.” Rose hit the table next to the laptop, knocking over a soda can.

  “Shithead.” Craft yanked the electronics away from the spill.

  Rose trembled with unspent rage. “I saw that shit firsthand. Came down the stairs after the shot went off. Ryder watched it happen.”

  “Mad Dog killed himself, but we never questioned that he killed Maggie and the baby.” Ryder tore his hand through his hair. They’d failed Madigan, because they had believed the setup.

  Lauren tugged at Ryder’s elbow. He lifted his arm and tucked her into his side. “You okay?”

  She cleared her throat. “You know who is a leftie?” She glanced across the room at Debi.

  “Baby Face Joe.” Debi’s faced paled and looked like she wanted to throw up. “He knocked you across the room with his left.”

  “Sick fuck,” Fowler muttered. “The way Madigan carried on about his wife and kid. I never did buy that story. The shit running through our veins altered us, inhibited the fear, and I’ll be the first to admit that the side effects are killer, but I don’t think it can turn us into something we’re not.”

  “The people in that village in Kandahar might disagree.”

  “I’m not saying Echo didn’t go ballistic, I’m saying they started as sadistic, psychopathic bastards.”

  Ryder leaned back on his heels. “What are the odds that twelve men on the same team went all Helter Skelter without a push? We’re not talking friendly fire or a weird adrenaline rush. These guys took out an entire village, men, women, and children.” Ryder had forced himself to read the classified files after the incident. He’d made a promise to himself that day. He’d follow Mad Dog to the other side before he lost his humanity like that.

  Fowler picked up a piece of pizza and chewed on the end. Thoughts were working themselves out in his owlish brain. The click of his jaw was the only sound in the room. When he finished, he tossed the pizza bone back into the box. “What do we have in common?”

  “You mean the recruits who signed on the dotted line and drank the Kool-Aid?” Rose asked.

  “No. Team Fear. What binds us?”

  “Loyalty,” Craft answered. “
I’d die for you fuckers.”

  Lauren shook her head no, bumping into Ryder’s side. “The military trinity. God, country, family.”

  “That’s it.” Fowler pointed a finger at her as if she’d won a prize. “You’re a genius.”

  “I have my moments.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “What’s your point?”

  “We never questioned our dedication to the mission. We all felt the same way. Like Craft said, we’d die for each other. But what if we were chosen for the same team because of our core beliefs.”

  Ryder remembered his own thoughts back in the day. “I bled red, white, and blue.”

  “Exactly. We were chosen to be on Team Fear because of our dedication. Our faith. Is it such a reach to think they chose other criteria for other teams? Like choosing Team Echo for their moral flexibility.”

  It made a sick sort of sense. “Let me get this straight. You think they were chosen specifically because they were psychologically predisposed to murder.”

  “Not just predisposed, Ry. They were chosen because the link between humanity and killer had already been severed.”

  From the edge of the room, Debi cleared her throat, finally engaging in a conversation that must be light years out of her experience. Her skin was pale, her lips nearly blue. “You think they were already killers. Before they joined. Before they took the medicine.”

  Craft stepped between them. “That’s a shitload of supposition there, brother.”

  “I know what I know. All this time, we all went to our separate caves, worried we’d end up like them, but the company was playing the long game with us. With all the teams. They stacked the deck.” Fowler braced his hands on his hips. “We won’t turn out like Echo because we didn’t start the same. What’s more, no matter how much of that sick shit they pump into our veins, like they did with Ry, we won’t turn. We’re inherently different than Team Echo.”