“All clear,” Lima said as he holstered his weapon and unlocked the door.
Lima admitted an older man, who nodded at them as he walked in and Lima closed the door behind him.
“An old worker bee reporting for duty at the hive,” he said.
Lima smiled and shook hands with him. “Welcome to the honeypot.” He introduced them all by their code names, including Ax.
The man’s gaze narrowed. “No offense, Ax, but you don’t look like special ops.”
“I’m not. I’m along for the ride.”
“He’s our in-house helper-bee geek,” Lima explained.
The man relaxed. “All right. Bubba told me about you. Sorry. No offense intended. Can’t be too careful.”
“So what do we call you?” Lima asked.
“You can call me Kant. Probably been so long since I’ve been in the files no one will remember that name unless they served with me.”
“What do you have for us?”
“Mind if I sit down?”
Lima waved him to a seat at the table.
Kant pulled out a tablet. “I spent all day yesterday and today at the damn VA clinic where we think the OD victims were picked out. I mean, you have people likely already hooked on something, easy to offer them a fix, right? Several of the victims had been to the VA clinic on a Tuesday. At least one of the people had told a friend they were involved in a special ‘experimental trial’ program that they had to keep secret. Before her OD, she was exhibiting completely different behavior than normal. Practically manic, no pain whatsoever, mental clarity through the roof.”
Delta exchanged a knowing glance with Juju. “That sounds damned familiar.”
“No one approached me yesterday or today,” Kant continued, “but I was watching. Today, there was this young guy in there who seemed to be a little…nervous isn’t the word I’m looking for, but he sure wasn’t there for an appointment. He’d sit for a while, seemed to be studying people, would go strike up a conversation with someone. Then move around. He was there over two hours and left without making contact with me.”
“That’s it?” Lima asked.
Kant arched an eyebrow at him. “Not my first rodeo, son. I followed him. He went to a house, pulled in, seemed to settle in for the day.” He swiped through his tablet and showed them a driver’s license picture. “Stuart Brian Myers. Twenty-five, did four years in. Out nearly three years, injured on duty. Problems ever since. Bubba ran him. He’s been in rehab three times. No job, apparently. Looks like he lives with his parents and another female who is likely his older sister, based on DMV and license plate records.”
He swiped again, showing the man’s military ID. “I think he’s a recruiter for the Kite distributors. Maybe not the only one, either.”
“But you’re not sure?” Lima asked.
“No. He’s my first and only lead so far.”
Delta and Juju moved closer so they could clearly see the tablet. “So we need to stake out this house and follow him?” Delta asked.
“I can put a tracker on his car,” Lima said.
“I just came from there about thirty minutes ago,” Kant said. “If you hurry, he’s probably still there. The car is registered to that address, and all his military paperwork and VA info all go to the same address.”
“That’s our starting place, then,” Juju said. Technically, he was the highest-ranking member of their assignment.
Well, not technically—he was. He was a sergeant while the rest of them were all specialists.
But Lima had been unofficially put in charge of the assignment owing to the fact they knew they’d need his tech skills to gain entry to the place and gather information.
Lima looked at Juju. “We a go?”
“It’s your rodeo. I already told you, I won’t override you unless I feel there’s life or death riding on it. We’re off the grid, that means we’re all working together.”
“I’m going to go back to the VA clinic again tomorrow,” Kant said, pulling out a burner cell. “Give me some contact burners so I can touch base with you.”
They exchanged info, including where Kant was staying for now, and then he left.
The men geared up—except for Ax—and got ready.
“You need me to go with you?” Ax asked.
Delta didn’t miss the glance Lima sent to Juju, deferring to him.
Juju shrugged. “Might not be a bad idea. If we’re lucky enough to be able to turn and burn this damn place tonight, we could be meeting up with Panda without even having to S-S-and-S before we return to Atlanta.”
Lima nodded. “You’re coming with. Unless we tell you otherwise, though, you stay in a vehicle. Understand?”
Ax nodded. “Clearly.”
* * * *
Juju was more than leery about taking an untested civvie on a scouting mission. Especially when they didn’t know what it would end up becoming. If they found the lab that night and took it out, they were done.
Frankly, he’d rather have a seasoned operative like Kant watching their six.
I guess it’s finally time to see what the kid’s made of.
Even though Ax was only four years older than them, and looked and acted as if he were nearly twenty years older than he really was, in some ways he was a naive kid.
But he’d be the first to defend the guy’s technical skills. They might run up against electronic defenses they needed to disable. If Lima got caught up in a firefight, Ax would be their geek backup.
He wants to be part of the team. We can’t keep handling him with kid gloves.
Dusk fell as they loaded into their vehicles and headed out again, Lima in the lead SUV and navigating for Yankee. Yankee and Oscar were twins partnered up with Clara, a nurse practitioner who’d joined their ranks in Colima, Mexico, when they tracked down Sin to the charity medical clinic she was running there.
Now she was an integral part of the Kite virus research team, helping out in the lab as an assistant to the scientists.
They found a fairly busy shopping center less than a mile from the target home.
“We’ll cruise by first,” Lima said. “Make sure the car is still there and check the layout. You wait here.”
“We going to grab this guy tonight?” Juju asked. He felt edgy, on guard, even more so than any heavy fire mission, for some reason.
He wanted results.
“We can’t,” Lima said. “Not unless he leads us to the lab tonight. We’re not even positive this is our guy. He’s just a start. I want to tail him.”
They returned to the SUV and waited. Ax pulled up the tracker program on his tablet. Ten minutes later, he spoke up from the back seat.
“Tracker’s active.”
Lima’s voice came to them through their two-way radios. “You catching that ping?”
“Roger,” Ax said. “Clear as a bell.”
“On our way back.”
Five minutes later, they were together again.
“So how you want to handle this?” Juju asked. “Split shifts?”
“He’s not going anywhere in that car we won’t know about,” Lima said. “I’ll set an alert on the tracker to notify us when he starts moving. I think it’s pointless for all of us to sit out here all night long.”
“We’ll take first watch,” Juju said.
It was doing something, at least.
“Roger roger,” Lima said. “Why don’t you guys cruise by the house first and get a visual on the car. Can’t miss it, it’s a silver Toyota hybrid, rusty and beat to hell.”
They cruised past the house and immediately spotted the car.
The odd thing to Juju was that the house, while not ritzy, was obviously tended, cared for, especially when compared to some of the other houses on the street. The other three cars in the driveway were old and inexpensive, but clean, and in far better condition than the subject’s car.
Junkie.
“We good?” Delta asked.
Juju kept going to circle around ba
ck to the shopping center. “Put eyes on it.”
Once the others had returned to the hotel, Juju, who was behind the wheel, leaned the seat back. I’ll take late watch,” he said. “You guys wake me up if we need to get moving.”
It wasn’t much, but at least they were doing something.
Hopefully, something worthwhile.
Chapter Thirteen
Wednesday morning, Shasta couldn’t shake her unease. Stu hadn’t checked in lately, and had been a little vague on the note he’d left her that morning about when he’d be back.
If he was on his “usual” schedule, he should be back that afternoon.
I knew it couldn’t last.
Whatever he was on, whatever he was taking, there was no way in hell it could be legal, much less doing what they’d told him it was doing.
Being a guinea pig? Actually, she could believe that. In his state, he was pretty gullible, especially if someone was promising him not only a payout in reduced pain, but in actual cash money.
It genuinely shocked her when Stu returned later that afternoon and, without even having to be asked, started pitching in with chores, doing his own laundry, and even asking if she needed help making dinner.
He smirked. “What’s wrong, sis?”
“Nothing, I guess. I’m just trying to get used to this and hoping you don’t break my heart again.”
His smile faded as he took her hands in his and squeezed. “This stuff is helping me. Once they let me, I promise, I’ll get Dad into the trials. I can’t imagine how much better he’ll feel when he gets on this.”
“What is it called?”
“I don’t know. They won’t tell me, said it’s proprietary. I heard one of the guys refer to it as K1 but I looked that up. All I could find that made any sense was K, and that’s the periodic table symbol for potassium. When I researched—”
“Wait. You researched?”
That would be a massive first.
He smiled. “Yeah. My brain feels clearer now than it ever did before. Anyway, potassium deficiencies can cause all sorts of stuff. My guess is that they’re experimenting with applying potassium and other stuff together to try to deliver whatever the compound is to our nervous systems to help with the pain. They told us when we started that they’re working on how to bypass the ‘broken’ brain signals, and that not only would we get pain relief, but also emotional and mental clarity as well.”
They hadn’t lied about that, apparently. “But they won’t tell you what’s in the stuff?”
“No. Confidentiality agreement.” He grinned. “You want to know what’s even better?”
“What?”
“I haven’t used since this started. At all. It’s like the desire isn’t even there anymore.”
She spotted the needle marks in his left arm and grabbed it, shoving his sleeve up. “What are those, then?”
“It’s an IV drug. That’s why I have to go get it. They said for the initial trial period, they aren’t supposed to give us doses we can administer to ourselves yet. They have to carefully manage the doses and control it for the research to be valid. Eventually they will, though. Premeasured doses.”
“So you have to go in every day?”
“Not yet. The doses they’re giving us right now last nearly two full days. I’m telling you, it’s crazy how great this shit is. I start feeling sort of achy toward the end, and my brain gets kind of fuzzy, but it’s nothing like I used to get that made me use.”
Shasta wanted to believe this.
Needed to believe this.
Desperately.
She let go of his arm. “I want this to work for you,” she quietly said. “I want you to be able to go to college and have a life. I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch, but…I’m scared.”
He pulled her in for a hug, apparently misunderstanding what she was scared about. “This time, it’s for good. I swear it is.”
She closed her eyes. “I hope so, Stu. I love you, and I really hope this is a good thing. I want this for you if it’s a good thing.”
“I love you, too, sis.” He stood five inches taller than her five nine and rested his chin on top of her head. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get my shit together before now.”
“Yeah, well, you fuck this up after getting my hopes up, and Mom and Dad’s, and I’ll be your worst enemy, little bro.”
But when he stepped back he wore that grin, the same goofy, lovable grin she hadn’t seen from him since he was a kid. “Thank you for being patient with me. And the tough love. Thank you for not giving up on me.”
Their mom didn’t have to work a late shift tonight and was going to eat at home with them. The four of them, around the dinner table.
An extremely rare occurrence as of late.
Still, Shasta couldn’t shake her gut’s screaming how wrong this all was. How…
Weird.
Nothing added up.
Either the company was breaking the law by trying to bypass the regular testing procedures, or…
They were flat-out breaking the law trying to get people hooked on some weird new drug.
Before Stu had returned that day, Shasta had searched his eerily clean room. No signs of drugs, but she found a handgun, ammo, and spare mags in a box way up under his bed. It looked like he hadn’t touched it since returning from deployment, and there were a few other things in there, like a hat and other memorabilia from his time in.
She wondered if he even remembered he had it.
Out of an abundance of caution, she took the gun, ammo, and mags out to her car and locked them in her glove box. She didn’t know how to shoot, had never shot a gun in her life.
But she’d wanted that gun out of the house, just in case.
Just in case something bad happened with Stu.
In case this wasn’t a “good thing” after all.
* * * *
Delta had awakened Juju and then kicked back for his own snooze. Yes, this was a boring—so far—assignment, but he was well aware how quickly boredom could turn into a life-or-death battle.
And they weren’t even sure if there was any Kite virus in the lab they were looking for. That alone added an extra degree of difficulty to the challenge.
The military had been his refuge when his dad died in a flu pandemic when Delta, then Daryl Spears, was only eighteen years old, and two months out of high school.
He had hoped to figure out a way to scrape up money for vo-tech training, or community college classes, but the military had been his final decision.
He’d been in over five years, serving in a number of posts and learning skills as part of mechanical divisions when the call went out for tryouts for the new special ops units.
More as a lark than anything, he’d tried out, shocked when he’d blown the doors off some of the others trying out with him.
He guessed doing PT and spending time at the range as a hobby had paid off.
He also hadn’t been sure he and Juju would get along well as partners, but when he spotted the pattern, he damn sure didn’t want to be seen as having been forced to partner up with the guy. Hell, they were a team. Might as well choose his partner.
Wasn’t like they didn’t have some fun together. First time they’d gotten a good beer buzz on and shared a woman in bed, that cemented it for both of them. Delta wasn’t going to deny that he’d never had a woman moaning as loudly or coming as hard as that woman did with both of them going after her. No jealousy, either, which wasn’t something he’d expected. The fact that she’d been having fun had made it fine.
Yeah, okay, he’d admit sometimes it was fun getting Juju riled up. And to the man’s credit, he didn’t lord the stripes over Delta, either. If it hadn’t been for fucking TMFU, Delta would have sergeant stripes of his own by now.
Everything had been put on hold, though, pending the outcome of the apocalypse.
He’d been an only child growing up. When his mom died when he was fourteen, he’d had to take on part-time jobs to help o
ut with money, if he wanted to buy extras, like food and clothes. His dad had a hard enough time trying to make ends meet as a single parent. They’d lived in Columbus, Ohio, and until he joined the military, Daryl Spears had never gone any farther than Cincinnati.
Now he’d seen the world.
He also never thought he’d say he missed the hell out of Columbus. Especially not after the shit they’d witnessed. Hell, LA would probably be giving him nightmares for the rest of his life.
Juju, even though only a month older than Delta, was more like a big brother to him. In that vein he loved trying to tweak him, pick on him, gig him.
Yeah, he loved the dude. He’d kill and die for his partner, that was for damn sure. The guy was easy to get along with, even though Delta knew his own behavior sometimes made Juju want to belt him.
Nolan Buck hadn’t really wanted to be dubbed Juju, but it was that or Joker, and he’d liked that one even less. When the code names were handed out, they’d had two choices and picked one. As SOTIF1, they’d had first crack at the names.
With Juju’s curly brown hair and green eyes, he was usually the good kind of juju for drawing in the ladies. When Delta tapped in and finally spoke after Juju set the hook, the ladies were reeled in. Delta had a deep “purr” of a voice that was about the only thing he could thank his father’s two-pack-a-day cigarette habit for. Years of inhaling second-hand smoke had helped insure a voice that women melted for.
It was a little after three a.m. when a beeping in the backseat caught his attention. He turned to see Ax sitting up and staring at the tablet as Juju startled awake.
“What is it?” Delta asked.
“The vehicle’s moving. Coming this way.”
Juju, now wide awake, started the engine but left their lights off. The big-box store that anchored this busy shopping center was open twenty-four hours a day, so sitting there hadn’t drawn any suspicion.
“Give me directions,” Juju said.
“Hold on. He’s coming this way.” Ax looked up, around. “Go to the south side of the shopping center. The road that comes out there. That’s where he’ll be.”