Forged in Smoke (A Red-Hot SEALs Novel Book 3) (3 page)

Eric tensed at the derision in Coulson’s acidic voice, then forced his muscles to relax. While Amy Chastain’s brother was actively working against her, the woman didn’t know that, so Coulson’s words held weight.

“True.” He held Coulson’s cold gaze. “However, at the moment, we’re out of options. The SEALs have gone off grid. Which makes it rather difficult to neutralize them.” He paused, offering a derisive smile himself. “Amy will go after her children.” Of that at least he was sure. “Even if she doesn’t return to Mackenzie afterward, the tracking devices will give us access to her; through her, we’ll find them.” He paused, to lift an eyebrow. “I’m all for a proactive approach, if we had an approach to follow.”

Coulson flexed his shoulders restively. “We force the bastards into the open. Mackenzie has an ex-wife; Simcosky, a mother; Winters, parents and brothers. We use them to bring those bastards to heel.”

“And prove to the world that Mackenzie wasn’t mouthing excuses when he screamed conspiracy?” Eric steepled his fingers and held Coulson’s flat gaze. “Going after their families will bring notice. We can’t afford notice, not yet. They’re discredited, wanted by the police. We can afford patience.”

“Manheim’s right,” James Link said, a note of finality in his quiet voice. “If we were further along, we could chance questions and deeper looks. But we haven’t reached that point yet. It behooves us to exercise caution.”

Eric relaxed slightly—time to shift the focus. “What of your newest acquisitions? Are they settling in?”

A slow smile, shadowed by cruelty, kicked up the edges of Coulson’s thick lips. “It took some initial persuading, but things are moving along nicely now.”

No doubt the convincing had been brutal and bloody—just as Coulson preferred it. Their American associate had the soul of a sociopathic thug. Eric found it unlikely that the man had joined their cause out of concern for the planet, or the survival of the human race. It was more likely he’d accepted the council’s mandates in order to shoehorn his own agenda.

But then, it didn’t matter why Coulson had joined them, because his methods were exceptionally effective when it came to getting the job done.

“If we’d moved on the lab earlier, right after the plane fuckup, we’d be a hell of a lot further along,” Coulson pointed out.

“We agreed it would be a mistake to take the lab while Mackenzie and his crew were being hailed as heroes.” Link responded in his habitually quiet voice. “They knew the hijacking was a ruse to grab the seven scientists from first class. If we’d targeted Benton’s lab while Mackenzie’s cries of conspiracy were the lead story across the States, we’d have bolstered his credibility and collusion allegations.”

“
You
agreed to wait,” Coulson snapped back. “I called bullshit.”

Eric shrugged. “It’s done. No sense in reopening that discussion. How long before Benton can produce another new energy generator?”

“A couple of weeks,” Coulson offered readily enough, although from his scowl it was obvious he didn’t appreciate the change in subject.

“That soon?” Eric dipped his head in surprise. Maybe they wouldn’t have to adjust their time line after all. “It will be ready—tested and refined—by phase two?”

“Absolutely.” Coulson smiled, cold detachment in his gaze. “Benton has impetus to produce rapidly and well.”

“Is the design as easy to weaponize as reported?” Link asked.

Which was the trillion-dollar question. For phase two to succeed, they needed the device fully operational and capable of specific energy discharges.

“Indeed.” Coulson offered an honest-to-god sincere smile. “With a bit of rewiring and a component swap”—he spread his hands—“boom. Through the sonic distribution we’ll be able to clear millions of acres with negligible effect to soil, water, and vegetation.”

Silence ringed the table.

An equally stunned silence had struck the room the previous year when Link had filled them in on Leonard Embray’s pet project, along with the potential alternative use for the device.

Benton and Embray’s original intention for the prototype would have proved catastrophic for the entire world. With cheap renewable energy available to everyone—
absolutely everyone
—the human population would explode. Famine and disease would vanish, at least at first. Wars over oil or other natural resources would disappear. There would be far more people being born into the world than leaving it.

Benton and Embray, the ideological fools, hadn’t looked past the initial benefits. They hadn’t questioned the eventual ramifications. The earth couldn’t support its current load of parasites. Natural resources were vanishing at an alarming rate. The giant oxygen-producing rainforests of the Amazon were being cut down and plowed under at a rate of twenty-thousand square miles per year, and predicted to be completely gone by 2050—with disastrous consequences to earth’s climate. With the water table shrinking by the month, and the ice packs melting, and dozens of species forced into extinction thanks to mankind’s unabated appetites, someone needed to step up and make the hard decisions.

Eventually, when the aquifers went dry, and previously lush landscapes descended into arid deserts, and irrigation was no longer available, disease and starvation would step in again, and the human race would face a massive die-off. Only, by then it would be too late. The planet would be in its final death throes.

None of these imminent threats could be fixed by energy for all. Indeed, the new energy paradigm would accelerate planet earth’s decay.

People were simply too selfish and blind and disinclined to change their behavior. They were incapable of making hard choices and standing by them during difficult times. And governments were no better. Not when they had to answer to the lowest common denominator within their populations.

Something had to be done on behalf of the planet, someone had to make the tough choices and cull the human population—but nobody was interested in stepping up and shouldering the thankless task.

The New Ruling Order had been born of that realization. Born to make sure that earth survived and the human race prospered, albeit at massively reduced numbers and beneath benevolent guidance so the current crisis never happened again.

The council would have moved on the new energy paradigm anyway, as soon as reports of it hit their table—just as the parents and grandparents of various council members had moved on similar projects during the past seventy years. Only this time, stifling the new technology wasn’t about conserving their share of the energy pie. It was about saving the planet.

But then James Link had joined them and opened their eyes to an entirely new application for Embray’s pet project. One that offered a complete reboot of the planet, with minimal loss to vegetation, soil, or water. Embray, the idealistic fool, hadn’t seen the possibilities they’d offered him. The chance to mold the planet into a sustainable ecosystem.

“What of Embray?” Coulson asked, as though he’d read Eric’s mind. “Has his condition deteriorated?” He frowned and ran the Gurkha Black that Link had passed to him beneath his beak of a nose. “It’s a shame we can’t accelerate his condition. It’s dangerous to have such a threat looming over our heads.”

Link was quiet for a moment before offering a shrug. “He’s stable, at the moment, but the damage to his brain was extensive and permanent. He exists in a vegetative state, with no possibility of recovery.”

Which served their purposes well.

If Embray had survived the stroke with his mental faculties intact, Dynamic Solutions would have been beyond the council’s reach, and Embray would have taken the assembly’s proposal public. However, if he died, with no heirs or next of kin, the company would pass into the public’s keeping in accordance with the dictates of his will. Embray’s death would have severely limited James Link’s role in the company’s stewardship. Link would have been one of many executives with limited power. His usefulness would have been critically handicapped.

The trick had been destroying the man’s mental faculties without killing him outright. It had been the only way to keep the company beneath their umbrella. If the CEO of Dynamic Solutions were incapacitated for any reason, the vice president of operations, in this case James Link, would step into the chief executive officer’s position until such time as the incapacitated officer recovered or died. So far the strategy they’d employed to ease Dynamic Solutions under the council’s control had proceeded without a hitch. Which was a blessing. The corporation had been a technological windfall.

“Nobody has questioned his condition?” Eric asked.

“Not once they’ve visited him,” Link said quietly, his eyes on the table.

Eric nodded in satisfaction. It had been Link’s request to give Embray the option of joining them, rather than simply removing him from the playing field. Still, they’d gone into the meeting prepared to act, and they’d done so immediately upon Embray’s appalled reaction to their invitation. The cocktail they’d injected into the roof of his mouth had been specifically designed to cause a massive stroke. He’d been comatose before his personal assistant had been summoned or the first medical professional had entered the room.

The fact that Embray had chronically high blood pressure, and was under a doctor’s care, had lent weight to the diagnosis of a stroke. So had the fact that there was no other explanation available. The chemical compound they’d used wouldn’t show up in a blood panel.

So far, nobody suspected a thing. And James Link had taken control of Dynamic Solutions with little fanfare.

Eric studied the tight face and empty eyes of his newest associate and sympathized. There was no question that Link’s betrayal of his childhood friend and teenage bandmate had come at tremendous personal cost. There was also no question he’d do it again, in a heartbeat, if necessary. While Link and Embray had been united in their environmental concerns, Link hadn’t shared Embray’s idealistic belief that the various factions of the human race would eventually pull together in the common interest of protecting Mother Earth.

Rather, Link believed, as did the council, that the human race would continue to squander the world’s resources until the planet hit the tipping point and spiraled down so fast it couldn’t recover. To prevent the annihilation of the planet, someone needed to act, and they needed to do so
now
—while there was still time to reverse the ill effects weighing down their cosmic home. When he couldn’t convince his best friend and boss of that, Link had successfully facilitated the removal of Embray from power and stepped in to guide the company himself.

Chapter Two

F
IVE DAYS AFTER
he’d died and been dragged—willy-nilly—back to life, an icy chill still held Rawls captive. So did a translucent, obnoxious, troll of a ghost. Gritting his teeth, he stared furiously at the rocky bank that plunged down a foot or two ahead, and the boisterous creek babbling along below.

Wolf—their badass Arapaho associate—certainly liked his trees and privacy. The new sanctuary their host had ferried them to was tucked into the Cascade mountain range and completely obscured by trees. At the back of the property, a stream wound through thick clusters of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir, providing the privacy and cover to accommodate Rawls’s teeth grinding and frustrated silence.

“Five hundred and twenty-nine bottles of beer on the wall, five hundred and twenty-nine bottles of beer
. . .
” Pachico belted the verse out at the top of his lungs.

If the bastard had lungs . . .

The creek bed at this spot cut through rough terrain, so the path was narrower and studded by clusters of thick, heavy boulders. The force of the water rushing through the rocks was louder as well. Almost loud enough to drown out the annoying asshole haunting him.

“
. . .
take one down, pass it around, five hundred and twenty-eight bottles of beer on the wall. Five hundred and twenty-eight bottles of beer on the wall, five hundred and twenty-eight bottles of beer.”

Pachico raised his voice even louder, as though his life depended on it, which was damn ironic considering ghosts didn’t have lives. Neither did Rawls. At least not since the bastard stalking him had usurped his life.

As the apparition’s voice rose again, drowning out the soothing babble of the water below, Rawls bent to pick up a rock. Too bad he couldn’t knock the transparent miscreant on his ass, but the stone would just sail through his clear form.

Things could be worse, he supposed, a whole lot worse. Currently only one of the newly departed had taken to stalking him. Hell, one was bad enough, but a whole passel of the damn things would have proved even more aggravating.

“You ready to make that call yet?” Pachico interrupted his rendition of the most annoying song ever to ask the question he’d been asking every hour, on the hour.

Gritting his teeth harder, Rawls drew back his arm and sent the rock skipping down the stream. He tried like hell to ignore the jaunty tune as it started up again. Still, it quickly bore into his brain, drawing fresh blood.

If he could believe Pachico, the call would be harmless. A quick recounting of the man’s death to bring closure to his family, followed by instructions so his parents could retrieve the sizable fortune he’d stashed away.

Except the demand held two big complications. One—he sure couldn’t trust the man
. . .
or ghost
. . .
or whatever the hell he was. What if the number was tapped and ringing-in exposed their current location? And two—hell
. . .
what if Pachico didn’t actually exist? It was the most likely scenario and the one directly responsible for the constant burn in Rawls’s gut.

The only working phone in the compound was an Iridium Extreme satellite model located in the command center. Accessing it meant wading through his teammates and the civilians accompanying them. If Pachico wasn’t real, and the number didn’t exist, the imaginary asshole’s ultimatum would expose the ugly truth to the entire camp—when Kait’s magical hands had healed those two chest wounds five days ago, there’d been a price. A big price. His sanity.

Although, considering how Zane and Cos had walked in on him while he’d been ranting at the corner of the cabin for no apparent reason, there’d probably been plenty of conversations concerning his sanity already.

Pachico had been immensely amused by the incident and determined to engineer a repeat performance. Conversely, abject humiliation was something Rawls had no intention of participating in twice, so he’d locked down his reactions and took to fiercely pretending that the asshole tormenting him didn’t exist.

If the bastard would just shut the fuck up and let him get a couple hours of shut-eye
. . .

Suddenly the singing stopped. Surprised, Rawls straightened and turned to face his see-through nemesis. Had his frustrated mental demand affected the ghost? Could dealing with Pachico really be that easy?

A wolf whistle pierced the clearing, followed by the exaggerated lip-smacking sounds of kissing. “Look who’s headed our way. Normally big tits crank my cock, but under the circumstances, that package of skin and bone will have to do.”

What . . . ?

Rawls turned, following Pachico’s stare, and heat instantly unfurled in his stomach and wound through his chest. The hot, itchy prickle marched straight up his neck and into his face as well. It was a familiar, and annoying, reaction. One that struck anytime Faith Ansell, the dark-haired, blue-eyed walking freckle they’d rescued during the lab recon, was in his general proximity.

The woman had some insanely strong mojo. Not that he’d noticed this mojo all those months ago when he’d first spotted her at the airport terminal while waiting for his flight to Hawaii to board. No, this damnable reaction hadn’t infected him until he’d touched her back at her lab. Somehow the simple act of putting his hands on her had supercharged his physical awareness.

Of course she’d coldcocked him at the time with a piece of pipe. The incident still made him grin. Even though it had hurt like hell, he admired that kind of spunk.

As he’d been doing for days now, he ignored his body’s awkward reaction. She was close enough he should have heard her approach. Would have heard her if a repetitive, annoying ditty hadn’t decimated his eardrums.

“Tell you what, Doc. You do her here, and I’ll give you the night off. How’s that for a compromise?”

The hope that he’d stumbled on a means of dealing with the bastard fizzled. Obviously mental demands failed to flip the switch on the ghost’s voice box.

“Lieutenant Rawlings?” The lilt in Faith’s voice turned his name into a question and drove that scratchy, uncomfortable prickle straight down his spine, where it played hell with his heartbeat. She slowed as she approached, watching him with furrowed brows and tentative eyes. “Do you have a moment?”

“A gal like that, all buttoned-up and proper. I bet she’s got a kinky streak. I bet she’s into bondage or some shit. I bet you could get her on her knees with your cock in her mouth after a compliment or two.”

Rawls’s jaw tightened. He tried like hell to ignore the troll’s words, but they lodged in his brain, a burning, vivid image
—that dark sleek hair of hers rippling like a waterfall below him, her soft mouth moving up and down . . .

Sweet Jesus—

Grimly, he shook the image away. “What can I do you for, Dr. Ansell?”

Pachico’s belly laugh rolled across the creek bank. Rawls prayed she hadn’t guessed his train of thought as easily as his ghostly stalker had. But the fact that she backed up a good two feet, as her uncertainty devolved into outright nervousness, was a clear indication she’d picked up on
something.

“Two dumb-ass doctors sitting in a tree—k-i-s-s-i-n-g.” Pachico’s voice hit a singsong rhythm.

Rawls winced. Devil take it. No doubt a new and equally annoying song was poised to drive him crazy.

“Dr. Ansell?” he prompted, trying to ignore how enthusiastically his body was appreciating her nearness.

The sooner he found out what she wanted, the quicker he could send her on her way. He tried a smile out on her and she backed up even farther. Frustrated, he dropped the friendly act.

“You need somethin’, darlin’?” he asked, only the question came out much curter than he’d intended.

She tensed, and for a moment it looked like he’d unintentionally managed to drive her away. But then she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, holding his gaze. His lips twitched; there was that spirit again.

“Rumor has it you went to medical school.”

He’d bet his med kit that rumor had focused on his loss of sanity even more than his aborted medical career, not that he had any interest in digging up either subject. Besides, he doubted she’d gone to the effort to track him down to drill him about his schooling.

“And?” He scanned her inflexible figure and the heat in his belly spiked.

She looked fine. Okay, not exactly
fine
—she was too thin to fit that description.

He’d noticed how skinny she was four and a half months earlier at gate C-18 in Sea-Tac Airport. He still wasn’t sure why she’d caught his attention back then—she sure as hell hadn’t looked like a terrorist. But something about her had snared his gaze over and over again.

Her thinness had been readily apparent when they’d broken into her incinerated lab six days earlier and stumbled upon her shimmying her way beneath the particle accelerator. The woman seriously needed to eat, although if she hadn’t been thirty pounds underweight, she’d never have fit beneath the machine. Hell, she’d been light as a kitten, and as combustible as C4, when he’d dragged her out from beneath the machine and half carried her from the building.

She’d also been covered in scratches. Scratches she’d refused to let him tend
. . .
He swore beneath his breath and ran a palm over his head. “I knew I should have ignored your objections and insisted on dressin’ those gashes—”

“The cuts are healing appropriately,” she interrupted.

His gaze was drawn to the thick band of freckles marching across her upper cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Her coloring was
. . .
unusual. Freckles were more visible on people with fair coloring. Yet her skin tone had a distinct olive tint to it, and her hair shone with blue-black luster.

And her eyes
—
deep, dark blue
. . .
He jerked his gaze away, struggling to remember where he’d been going with his train of thought.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, you moron, kiss her already. Get her out of that shirt. Let’s see some tits.”

Pachico’s loud voice knocked him out of his stupor. He stepped back, scanning her face—relieved to find her expression unchanging. At least she hadn’t noticed his momentary lapse.

“I’ll bite, sweetheart,” Rawls said, working overtime on his drawl. “If you don’t need me to tend them cuts, what do you need me for?”

Her eyes widened for a moment and then narrowed again. The tight skin of her forehead furrowed as she pressed her lips together.

Just maybe that question had come off more sexual than he’d intended.

“Never mind,” she said, and pivoted with such precision, she would have done the naval ceremonial guard proud.

“Now, darlin’.” He stepped forward, fixing to chase after her. “Don’t—”

“Rawlings.” A deep baritone barked from behind him.

Rawls spun to face the new threat and found himself face-to-face with the bulky, broad-shouldered frame of Kait’s Arapaho friend. Hell, the man moved as silently as an operator
—
of course, according to Kait, he headed some super-secret Special Forces team, which elevated him to an operator of sorts.

He shot Faith’s departing back a frustrated glance and forced an easy smile as he turned back to Wolf. “Thought you knew better than surprisin’ a person like that, hoss. Surefire way to get yourself gutted.”

Then again, it was a good thing Wolf didn’t have a hankering to use that wicked knife strapped to his belt, ’cause Rawls would have been the one filleted.

He was in pretty sorry shape, damn it. First Faith had managed to surprise him, and now Wolf. Inexcusable. He needed to screw his damn head back on. If the bastards hunting them pinpointed their new camp and stumbled onto him lollygagging off in oblivion
. . .
hell, his mental meltdown was going to get him dead. Get his whole team dead. Time to man up and start acting like an operator.

“A word.” Wolf let go of Rawls’s arm and crossed thick arms across a wide chest.

Rawls shrugged, forcing himself to hold his host’s hard, black gaze. “Have at it.”

Wolf glanced from side to side, his black brows drawing together. “Is it here?”

Tilting his head, Rawls studied Wolf’s face. His new friend’s tone had been raspier than normal, with an undercurrent of unease. “What?”

“The
biitei.
” The normally velvety baritone roughened.

With a roll of his shoulders, Rawls sucked back a tired breath. Christ, he needed a few solid hours of sleep. “You’re gonna have to speak English, hoss.”

Wolf’s lips tightened, and the disquiet lurking in his voice shadowed his face. “The
biitei.
He who walked the other side. He who followed you across the threshold.”

The other side?

That strange, ethereal dream rose in Rawls’s mind. “What’s a
biitei
?”

Wolf actually hesitated before offering a shrug. “Ghost.”

Pure shock rocked Rawls back on his heels. “You believe in ghosts?”

An asinine question since the big guy had just suggested Rawls had brought one back from
the other side . . .
which happened to be a pretty apt description of that eerie, silvery world in his dream.

“What makes you think I picked up a ghost?” Rawls asked.

“I know you crossed over. I know you walked the other side. I know you brought a
biitei
through the veil on return.” With each clipped sentence, Wolf’s voice hardened.

A denial teetered on Rawls’s tongue, but he couldn’t force it out. Damn it—he was tired of pretending. He was tired of not knowing. He wanted answers. “I died?”

“You deny this?” Wolf asked, anger flashing across his square face. He planted his thick black boots and glared.

“I ain’t denyin’ anything. Zane and Cos—they said I had a pulse.”

Wolf didn’t respond, but the anger faded.

“Hold up now,” Rawls said, studying Wolf’s inscrutable face intensely. “How’d you know there’s a ghost?”

Which was as close to a confirmation as he intended to get. While his teammates clearly knew something was wrong, they hadn’t identified the problem yet.