If there was Kite virus in there, they had to kill it with fire, no bothering with samples. It was too risky trying to contain them when they didn’t have the proper personnel or equipment handy.
“How do you know there’s Kite virus in there?” she whispered.
“We don’t,” Juju said. “That’s the point. It’s not safe in there for you if there is.”
“What about you?”
“At least we’ve been inoculated against some of the strains,” he said. “Can you say the same?”
Her mouth dropped open in stunned shock, then snapped shut again.
He held out his hand. “Keys.”
“What—”
“Don’t make me frisk you, because it won’t be the fun kind of frisking right now. I’m not in the mood. Keys. Now. We’re not going to kill you but we need to get away from here and regroup some place where we can talk and get caught up on niceties like who we are and who you are and why the hell you’re stumbling around in a goddamned Kite lab. Keys.”
Glaring at him, she fished them out of her pocket and dropped them into his hand.
“Thank you. Move.” He spun her around and pointed her at the vehicles again.
“Where are we going?”
“Away from here. Lima, you get all that?”
“Yeah. Got a safer spot about a mile away from here.”
“Good. You guys lead. We’ll follow in her car.”
Delta immediately headed for the backseat, which Juju thought was amusing as fuck since it was only a two-door and it was like trying to shove an elephant inside a peanut shell.
But once all three of them were crammed inside her car, Juju got it started and they followed the SUVs out of the parking lot.
“So who are you guys?” she asked.
He glanced over at her. “For starters, we caught you trying to break in there.”
She peeled the nitrile gloves off her hands. “I wasn’t trying. I was in until you grabbed me. And how do you know my name?”
“How do we know your name, your brother’s name, that you work for Harris County, and that you followed someone from work, to here, then went back to work, came back here, went back to work, and then home?”
Her eyes widened. Damn, glasses on a woman always melted him. It was impossible to focus on driving and trying to keep his cock from getting hard, so he gave up and focused on driving.
That was more important at the moment. His cock would just have to wait to be adjusted until he could get a free hand.
“We have a tracker on your car. It’s a long damn story, but we watched you following your brother the other night.”
“What?”
“We’re good at what we do,” Delta said from the backseat.
“We’re the Drunk Monkeys,” Juju said. “Guess it doesn’t hurt to tell you that, considering everything you’ve been up to today, huh?”
“You’re…real?”
“We ain’t blow-up dolls,” Delta snarked.
* * * *
Shasta was still waiting for her pulse to slow down a little. She’d gone from her previous, healthy level of fear over what she’d psyched herself up to do, to terror when she realized she was being grabbed, to fucking angry over being interrupted, to terrorized—again—that she might have walked into a lab full of Kite virus, to…
Now she honestly wasn’t sure what she was, except confused.
“You tell us what you think’s going on,” the driver said. He’d pulled off his goggles and now she could see his slightly shaggy, curly brown hair and what looked like green eyes, but it was honestly too dark to tell for sure.
Hell, they could have shot her with the damn gun.
Note to self, remember the safety.
Then, she recognized them. “Waaaait a minute.” She stared at both of them. “You two. I’ve seen you two before. What the hell? You said you were cops!”
“No,” the guy in the backseat said. “We just said we had questions.”
“How long have you been following me?”
“Fortunately for you, long enough. Now give us the truth this time instead of the lie you told us.”
She fumed, but hell, they had her. She had lied to them. “My brother was an addict. But also, two of the guys I work with, they disappeared around the same time for a couple of days and I found out later they’re vets, too. Someone, I think at the VA clinic, recruited my brother for what he claimed was a secret medical study. He came home one night literally like a new man. His pain was gone, he was acting different. And so were the other two guys I worked with, they were—”
“Different,” the backseat guy said. “Serene. Smarter. More there, and with it. More focused and like they could do anything.”
A new chill settled through her as she turned to look at him. “Yeah,” she said. “How did you know?”
“Kite,” both men said. “The drug,” the driver added. “Go on.”
“Well, I followed Stu, my brother. I followed him, as you noted, and saw him get in one of those vans at a shopping center. I think they dosed him there, maybe gave him an extra one.” She struggled not to let her voice crack.
And failed. “He didn’t wake up the next morning. He had an empty hypo next to him. I think he took it and that’s how he OD’d. Same with Paul Waxler, the guy I worked with.”
“I’m sorry about your brother,” the driver said. “How’d you track the clinic back to here?”
“I followed John Bailey here. Then I hacked into their system, got into the back end on the county’s servers to do some research, and put two and two together. Now why are you guys here?”
They pulled into the parking lot behind the other SUVs. “We followed the bodies,” the driver said as he parked and shut the engine off. “The unreported deaths. From info we got from one of Hannibal Silo’s operatives. It was discovered that even though the deaths from Kite the drug were being reported to the CDC in Washington, that info was dying on the vine there and not getting spread to Atlanta. Through another operative, we located your brother at the VA one day acting a little suspicious, followed him, and here we are.”
She was still trying to process what they’d said. “That crazy preacher with the missing wife? He’s really behind all this?”
“You don’t watch the news much, do you?” Backseat Guy asked.
“I’m usually a little busy keeping Houston’s streets unclogged. Which reminds me.” She pulled out her phone, found nearby traffic cameras, and shut them down.
“What the hell is that?” the driver asked.
“A little toy Paul Waxler wrote in his free time a few mornings ago,” she said. “A gift from Kite.” She showed them. “He wrote an app that actually allows the user to control all the traffic signals and cameras in Harris County.”
“Ohh, cool.”
“No, not cool.” She stared at her phone. “And also illegal. He sent it to me. He was like a proud first grader wanting me to look at the app for him. I never deleted it from my phone.”
They got out and had her walk around to the others, where they introduced her to everyone.
It turned out the driver’s name was Juju, and his buddy was Delta. There were a set of twins, Oscar and Yankee, and then Lima, who looked like one of the military men, and another guy named Ax, who looked nothing like a military guy.
“I’m a civvie,” he offered with a halfhearted smile. “Great work, by the way. With the data shredder and stuff.”
“I can’t claim all the credit. I downloaded a couple of scripts to do the dirty work.”
“Did you copy all the files?” Lima asked.
“Copied and decrypted.”
“Decrypted? How?”
“I found a script tool that was uploaded not too long ago. Apparently it’s a very new and specialized encryption system that not many—”
“Bubba,” everyone said.
“Huh?”
Juju shook his head. “Long story.”
“Do we know if there’
s virus in there?” Lima asked.
“No,” Delta said. “We grabbed her at the doorway. Literally.”
“Do you have those files with you?” Lima asked her.
“Yeah, on my laptop in the car.”
“Get it, please.”
She did, showing him.
He took over, seeming to know what he was looking for, skimming through file after file for nearly fifteen minutes while everyone looked on.
“Okay, looks like we’re safe,” he finally said. “Everything here is research on the drug. There’s no mention at all of the virus or research about it.”
“How can we be sure?” Delta asked.
“Cameras. I’m going to suit you up and watch. The…team,” he said, faltering as his gaze fell upon her, “sent me stuff to look for to make sure. You guys go in, let me see, and then I’ll tell you.”
“Lucky you,” Delta said. “You get to sit out here.”
“Hey, I’ll go in if you want to stay out here and monitor all the local feeds and keep our six safe.”
Delta rolled his eyes. “Fine.”
“If you want to go,” Ax said, “I’ll do it.”
“I appreciate the offer,” Lima said, “but we need at least two people out here.”
“I’ll stay,” Shasta offered. If there was even a remote chance of the virus being in there, she didn’t want any part of it.
“Did you really have the safety on your gun?” Lima asked.
She felt her face heat and was glad it was dark to hide her blushing. “Yes,” she muttered.
“Let me clarify,” Lima said. “We need at least two people out here who can shoot, and who I actually know. Ax I know can do in a pinch. You absolutely will be staying out here, because you’re coming with us.” He turned to the men. “Let me do a quick sit rep with Bubba and we’ll go from there.”
“Who is this Bubba?”
“Long story,” Delta and Juju both said.
Chapter Nineteen
Lima got the four men suited up with small cameras and checked their feeds before they returned to the parking lot near the warehouse. They left Shasta’s car behind for now, promising they’d come back to get it. But the fewer vehicles, the better.
Lima also gave Shasta a two-way radio so she could talk to the guys, and he let her watch the camera feeds on his laptop with him and Ax. And he’d added a remote access user, someone named Mama, whose face didn’t appear. But she could speak to them and watch what they were watching.
The four men, Juju in the lead, retraced their steps and got to the door.
“069245,” she told Juju as he reached for the lock.
He punched it in and the door clicked open.
Inside, they spread out, silent, carbines ready. The facility was, in fact, empty. Shasta didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until the men declared it clear.
Now it was just a matter of finding out what they were dealing with.
It didn’t take them long to find the actual lab itself within the facility, which Shasta had another lock code for.
Inside, they slowly swept through the racks as Lima watched.
“What do you think, Mama?” Lima asked.
The older woman spoke clear but accented English. “I do not see any signs of virus testing or culturing. There are not any protective measures in place to prevent contagion or allow for isolation or decontamination. Unless they are completely dumb, I am willing to bet they are only doing drug testing and manufacturing there.”
“We clear to blow it?”
“Let me get Papa.”
“They married?” Shasta asked.
“Shh,” Lima said.
A man’s voice came over the connection. “Mama says she’s sure, so it’s a go.”
“Roger roger.”
“Confirm with a follow-up sit rep when safe upon completion. Papa out.”
“Lima out.” He looked at her. “And no, they’re not married. Papa is our CO, and her code name just happened to end up being Mama, for…reasons I can’t say.”
“She pregnant?”
“No.”
“We good to go?” Juju asked.
“Shake the tree into toothpicks,” Lima told them.
“Finally!” the twins said together.
Juju and Delta helped the twins get everything ready. Nearly an hour later, the men were leaving the facility and beat a double-time run back.
One of the twins held up a remote control. “Who wants the honors?”
Juju grabbed it and started to hand it to her. “Hold on. Everyone in vehicles.”
They loaded up, Lima and Shasta riding with Delta and Juju. Only when the other SUV took off toward where they’d left her car did Juju turn and hand her the controller.
“Count it down from three on my mark,” he said, holding up a finger. Then he spoke into the radio. “Fire in the hole. Fire in the hole. Fire in the hole. Detonation in…” He pointed at her.
Her voice trembled. “Three…two…one.”
She pressed the button.
When she turned, it was like…the building evaporated. Juju hit the gas but still she felt the heat and pressure wave hit her even inside the SUV, startling her.
Lima took the controller from her and it was then as her vision blurred and tripled that she realized she was crying. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate that.”
Lima shrugged. “We can’t give you first dibs on killing Silo. That’s been promised. To several people, actually. But…” He turned to face her. “You aren’t the first person to lose a loved one because of this crap,” he said. “Friend, family, coworker, you name it. I hope that gave you a little peace.”
She glanced back. The nighttime sky was lit by the fireball still billowing up from the building. “It’s a start,” she said.
* * * *
Juju drove Shasta’s car while she rode in the SUV. They headed to a motel on the outskirts of Houston, where they had two rooms. Gathering in one, they turned the show over to Lima, who appeared to be in charge.
At least she wasn’t in fear of her life anymore. If they’d been planning on killing her, they would have done so long before now.
“What we’re about to tell you is, obviously, top secret,” Lima said. They settled her at the table and Lima sat his tablet on the table in front of her. Swiping through, he called up a video and hit play.
She wasn’t sure what she was looking at, at first. It appeared to be a lab setup, but then…
Then they pulled what had to be bodies from a refrigerated room.
And when they unzipped the body bags, that theory was proven.
She thought she might be ill. “What is that?” she whispered.
“Behold the mighty creation of the Rev. Hannibal Silo, head and founder of the Church of the Rising Sunset,” Lima said. “This was called his ‘Preachsearch Project.’ It was out in LA. Basically, he brainwashed people, completely indoctrinated them, gave them what they thought were vitamin shots—actually Kite the drug in disguise—infected them with the Kite virus, and tried to send them out across the country to cause outbreaks.”
He hit pause but she couldn’t pull her gaze from the still.
A close-up of a woman, obviously dead, inside the body bag.
“Why?” She looked up at him. “Why the hell would someone be batshit crazy enough to do something as horrible as that? And why is he not arrested if you know all this? And I thought the North Koreans created this shit?”
Lima looked at Juju. “Technically, my part of the mission’s over. You want to take over as ranking officer, or want me to keep going?”
Yep, in the light of the hotel room, she could see Juju had gorgeous, dusty green eyes. Delta’s were brown, and while he also had brown hair, his was straight where Juju’s was shaggy and slightly curly. Juju was a good three inches taller than Delta, who she guessed to be around six one.
Juju seemed to need a moment. “I’ll take over,” he quietly said.
Sh
e turned in her chair as he pulled out the other one at the table and turned it so he could sit facing her.
“It’s a long story, so I’m going to give you the…highlights. Anything you want to call bullshit on, be my guest, and I can have Lima pull up the proof. We’re part of the Drunk Monkeys. The rest of our unit, including civvies and…scientists, is divided between two secret safe houses right now.”
“Why?”
“I cannot stress enough how important it is that you don’t say anything to anyone about any of this.”
“Okay.” God, she could stare at him all night.
What?
She knew the human body had strange ways of dealing with stress and grief, but maybe she shouldn’t be letting this hunk distract her like that.
“You’ve heard of ‘The List?’” he asked.
“Yeah, something about that. The missing scientists who…” Recognition dawned. “You found them?”
“Some of them,” he confirmed. “And they’ve been frantically working to stop Kite, to come up with a vaccine.”
“I thought they were war criminals?”
“No, they were forced to do what they did by North Korea. Mostly by threatening their loved ones.”
“And that’s how you guys are vaccinated?”
“Against some of the strains,” Juju said. “Not all of them.”
“Why isn’t the public getting that yet?”
He scrubbed at his face. She realized how exhausted the man looked and a sudden wave of drowsiness swept through her. The stress and grief and hours and everything catching up with her.
“The public can’t get a vaccine yet. Not until they are sure it’ll cover as wide a swath as possible. The problem is, the virus keeps mutating, quickly. That’s good, because it seems to mostly be mutating to less harmful versions. The bad news is, it’s still mutating into lethal forms.”
“But…can’t they just make multiple vaccines?”
Delta had been leaning against the door, his arms crossed over his chest. “That’s a logistics nightmare.” She loved his voice, a deep, rumbling purr that did something gooey to her insides. “People won’t grok that the vaccine won’t protect them against everything, and it allows the chance of a different strain getting them. They can’t let their guard down.”