Fight By The Team (Team Fear Book 2) (25 page)

“He’s the complication,” Craft answered.

Fowler grinned like he was thoroughly enjoying himself. “We had to tie him up a few miles back.” He gestured at Stills. “Won’t take him long to get free. You might want to avoid him for the next couple days.”

These men were not right in the head. Ryder stepped up and started giving orders like he was born to it. “Craft. Recon. Fifty feet around the perimeter. If there’s a squirrel in a tree, I want to know it.” Craft disappeared into the night as Ryder continued. “Fowler, find a perch. Craft and I will find the asset. Does she have her phone on her?”

“Of course.” Stills pulled out his phone and showed a red blip where she wound her way through the lab.

“Excellent. Stills, find a place to stash Camy.”

“Hey.” That did not sound like a good time.

“Just until your brother shows. He’ll need access to the lab, so you get to show off your skills again.”

“Oh, I’m sure River will love that.” Sometime soon they needed to talk about her new life plan.

Stills rubbed his jaw. “You do not want to position me with Camy when Rose shows up. Not if you want both of us in top shape.”

Ryder gave a swift nod. “New plan. Craft—”

“Was the one who tied Rose up in the first place,” Fowler said.

Ryder cursed. “Fowler, trade places with Stills.”

“I’m a better shot.”

“True, and as much of an asshole as Stills can be...”

Stills flipped him off.

“I’d like the whole team to survive tonight’s fight.”

Fowler handed off the sniper’s rifle and Stills disappeared into the night.

Craft reappeared like a ghost flickering back into view. “No one on the ground or in the air.”

Fowler shrugged the muscles in his shoulders like he was stretching awake. “I don’t like that one damn bit. Either they’ve got eyes all over this ground—”

“Or they’re inside,” Ryder finished. “Craft, let’s roll.”

“Wait,” Camy called, but nearly swallowed her tongue when they turned. They were all fierce warriors with hard jaws and cold eyes. “The inner code is 1492.”

They disappeared in silence, leaving Camy alone with the gorgeous and completely intimidating Jake Fowler. “So.” She cleared her throat. “How come you call your mom Janet?”

T
he lights
in the lab were on power-saving mode, so only one in ten was lit, leaving shadows in corners and around shelves. Debi peered over her shoulder. She couldn’t shake the feeling someone was watching. Probably Stills, although she hadn’t felt this nervous last time when four of the team members were watching over her. Maybe it was from having too little backup. Great. Now was the perfect time for that epiphany. What she wouldn’t give to have Rose’s pissy voice in her ear.

In front of her, Allyson walked briskly to the back, her pencil skirt swishing. The only sound in the place. The fans were off, the equipment was off, and so were all the researchers.

An easy in and out. Debi forced a breath. She’d been kidnapped by drug dealers and shot at by enhanced soldiers. Nothing in the lab was as scary as that. Even if she ran into Barry, what the hell? She could let him have it. Lay every complaint she’d ever had at his feet. A nervous giggle escaped.

Allyson put a finger over her lips. Yeah. Quiet. The whole covert thing was testing her warrior skills. Really, after one day training with Janet she felt like a badass. Until she walked through the secure doors and felt more insecure than ever. Her arm hurt because she didn’t wear her sling today, her legs hurt because Janet
was
a badass and trained like one, and all Debi really wanted was to drop to the ground and have a good cry. Instead, she was breaking into a lab and stealing government secrets. That was probably a felony. Or treason. Did they still give you the electric chair for that?

Deep breath. She heard Rose’s voice in her head. After everything she’d done in the past few weeks, this was the easiest. She followed Allyson down the hall to the offices. Barry’s was in the back. Corner office one floor down from her father’s. The lights came to life when they walked through the door. Allyson went to the computer and booted it up. As Barry’s assistant, she knew his passwords even if she didn’t know his secrets.

“Which files?” Allyson whispered.

Debi moved around the desk and plugged in the drive that Camy had given her. She wasted precious time flipping through the directories looking for the right folders.

“These.” Allyson tapped the screen. “I’ve never seen these before.”

“Are you sure?”

“Start moving the files. We can verify while they’re copying.”

They opened the first one as the door clicked open.

Rose jogged through the shadows until he spied his sister and Fowler. He approached on foot and unarmed. Fowler turned at the last second, but Rose was on him with a solid hit to the jaw. Fowler crashed against the brick wall. Camy jumped in front of him. “What’s wrong with you?”

Fowler wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. “I wasn’t the one who tied you up.”

“It was your turn.” The anger was tucked away. He’d jogged three damned miles thanks to Craft and his dumbass stunt. “Where’s Debi?”

“Inside.”

“With?”

“Allyson.”

“Who’s running this operation?” Rose pointed at Camy. Okay, maybe some residual anger still flowed through his veins. “If I have to lock you in a basement cell, you’re not leaving the manor until this is finished. You got me?”

She stuck her tongue at him. “First you need me to get you inside.”

“How do you plan to do that, little sister?”

She pulled a slim electronic gadget from the bag she wore across her body. “Follow me.”

Barry gloated in the doorway. “Debra. I knew you’d be back.”

He didn’t ask why she was here, which meant he had a pretty good guess, but Debi wasn’t giving in easy. She leaned over, panting like she was having a hard time breathing. “I’m looking for evidence that you stole my research, you arrogant prick.”

“I think we’re long past that kind of lie. After Robert disappeared, I knew you’d be back, but finding you with my sister. That’s a surprise.” He frowned at Allyson. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Allyson’s face went white.

“I figured you’d bring one or two of our science experiments. Make it easy on everyone.”

Debi didn’t have to fake the gag. God, she hoped Stills and Camy were hidden.

“Still having panic attacks? You should have kept some of your illicit supply.”

If she’d had enough time, she would have, but depending on the drugs to eliminate the fear wasn’t a cure. It was a weakness, one that she was finally facing. The Army wanted to use the pills to create a fearless fighting team. Maybe that had been a noble purpose once, just as hers had been. Or so she wanted to believe. “What did you do to my program?”

“Improved it.”

“Improved my ass. You perverted it. It had legitimate uses and you turned it into a money maker to fuel your ego.”

“You do realize that’s our job.”

“Our job is to help people.” Bent over like she would during a panic attack, Debi tried to focus her thoughts to prevent an actual attack. Losing it now would cost her her life.

“You can’t really be that naïve. Our job is to bring money into the university. Our job is to find paying sponsors.” Barry pulled out a cell phone and dialed. “She’s in my office. She appears to have come alone, but search the lab.”

Please, please, please let Camy and Stills be somewhere not in the lab.

Allyson dropped back in the chair like she’d been slapped. “Barry, what are you involved in?”

“We’ll discuss that after my new friends take Debra away.”

Allyson picked up the phone off his desk. “I think we should let the police sort this out.”

Barry pulled out a handgun. The fussy scientist carried a weapon? “Put the phone down.”

“You’re working with Echo,” Debi guessed.

“You mean Team Echo.”

“Are you their creator?” He really was a mad scientist.

“They’re magnificent, aren’t they?”

“You’re as crazy as they are if you believe that.” How many were left? Six? No, that was before Robert, so five left. Great. She had no skills and was bent over like an old woman. Best-case scenario was to get out the fire exit before Echo arrived. Coughing, she stumbled as she might during an attack, moving closer to Barry.

Allyson stood, the sound of her skirt swishing closer. “Debi, are you okay?”

“No.” She rasped the words like she struggled to breathe. She stumbled, brushing the desk. At the last minute, she altered trajectory and rammed her head into Barry’s midsection. They tumbled into the hall.

Her shoulder hit the wall and his gun went flying. She didn’t have to fake the pain that dropped her to the ground next to Barry.

“Well, well.” Strong hands picked her up by her hair.

“Ouch, you prick.” Hair in her eyes, she couldn’t see the attacker. She kicked out and he backhanded her into the wall. She dropped back down by Barry who had struggled to his knees. Allyson flew at the man with claws out and aimed for his eyes. She must have hit something, because he used his fist to knock her back. She landed on the opposite side of the hall, out for the count.

“Hey, leave my sister out of this. I need her to compile our results.”

“There will be no compiling.” There was no warning. One minute Barry was spouting orders and the next brain matter spattered the wall. “Once the smoke clears, it will look like you killed your ex-boyfriend.”

Debi struggled to her feet and pushed her hair out of her eyes. She stopped cold. “Wade?”

Rose slipped into the lab after ordering Fowler to get Camy the hell back to the manor. He went in hot, no time for finesse. Where the lab ended and gave way to offices, Ryder yanked him to the side. “Who trained you?” he asked in a low whisper. “You can’t come marching in like a fucking cowboy unless you want to get shot.”

“Where is she?”

“Last ping was from right here.”

“No cell service,” Craft explained. “We have to find her the old-fashioned way.”

A gunshot sounded around the corner and down the hall. Rose lurched forward, but Ryder slammed him into a cement wall. “I will tie you up again if you don’t pull your head out of your ass. You’re no good to her dead.”

Rose nodded tightly. Every muscle in his body strained to move out, to find her before it was too late, but Ryder was right. He needed to pack that shit up. “No fear.”

“Now you’re talking, brother.”

“If it isn’t my favorite bartender.” Wade gave Debi his best shit-eating cowboy grin. “You didn’t really think that I sat on that damn barstool night after night just to grab your ass?”

“No.” She thought he was a decent guy who drank too much. He’d been coming to the bar from the beginning. Erratically at first, but more often recently. Nearly every day. The implications chilled her to the bones. Wade was involved even before they started training the teams. He’d been keeping an eye on her because it was her formula. Why hadn’t they killed her like they did Barry? Debi gagged and spit the bile on the floor next to the body she couldn’t look at. “Who’s in charge?”

“Right now, I am.” He nodded to a soldier who had taken up a position behind him. “Grab the girl on the floor. Lock them in the server room.”

The other soldier dead lifted Allyson onto his shoulder.

Debi swallowed. “If you let us go now, I’ll forgive your bar tab.”

Wade dropped a hand over her shoulder and pressed into the wound. “You can come hard or come easy, but you’re going into the closet.”

Debi followed the soldier, frantically trying to find a way out, and not finding a way past Wade and the soldier she recognized from the Echo wall of shame. Another soldier dressed in black cargo pants and t-shirt approached from the opposite direction. “Team Fear is in the building.”

“How long until they find the women?”

“They have to do a room-by-room sweep. Best estimate is seven minutes.”

“Set the charges for six and then bug out.” Wade shoved Debi into the server room and slammed the door closed.

“What? No goodbye?” she muttered. She tried the door, but it was locked from the outside, which was backwards. Obviously they’d planned this ahead of time. Debi yanked the cell phone out of her pocket and checked the time. They had six minutes to get everyone clear of the building. She dialed, but there was no cell service.