Kalen (16 page)

“Why not?” Cameron asked, looking through his sight. “They could test all they wanted and no one would even give the trucks going in and out of here a second glance, especially when most of them were legitimate milk haulers.”

Bastien shook his head. “It just galls me to think that this damned thing has been here and we’ve overlooked it for two years.”

Dimitri settled next to Cameron. “What do you see, my brother?” He squinted down into the clearing. “I can see nothing with only my eyes.”

“Then you should have grabbed some NVG from out of the truck. I know a werewolf’s sight is better than a human’s after dark, but these things rock.” Randy threw his brother-in-law a pair of night vision goggles he pulled from his pack. “Here, take one of my pairs.” He shook his head. “Babysitting. Why am I always fucking babysitting?”

With a grin, Dimitri pulled the strap over his head, fitting the pair to his face. “Strange how these fit me when your head is so much larger than mine.”

“Fuck you.”

“Can you two stop your bickering long enough to get the damned job done?”

“Probably not,” Cameron answered for his brother. “Randy lives to give Dimitri a hard time. He’d probably lighten up if our bother by marriage would stop calling him Junior.”

“How many guards do you see down there?” Kyle asked.

“I don’t see any guards. I see a lot of cowhands though, which is strange considering they should all be at home this time of night.” He paused. “Nope, wait a minute. That cowhand has an Uzi. How interesting.”

“Are we sure we’re in the right place?” Kalen asked. The last thing he wanted to do was kill a bunch of innocent farmers.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Randy looked up and stared at him as though he was as dumb as a bag of hammers. “Somehow, I don’t think milk cows respond well to Uzis. Does anyone have any other idea why they’d be carrying them?”

“Okay,” Randy said with a grin. “I’m going down to make a target of myself. “Please pull me out if I get hit.” He stood and checked his weapons. “If someone shoots at me, you’ll know we’re in the right place.”

“Don’t get yourself killed, bro.” Cameron didn’t look up, but still stared through his sight.

“Cry for me if I do, will ya?”

“Riiiiight,” Cameron replied as Randy started down the hill.

Bastien looked over at Carly. “Shall we?”

“I don’t know if it will work when we don’t know where they are,” Carly replied.

“We have to give it a try.” Taking his mate’s hand, Bastien closed his eyes. Carly followed suit closing her fingers around Bastien’s hand.

After a minute, sparks arced up over six different light posts surrounding the barn closest to them.

“That must be where they’re at.” Cameron stayed still, still staring through his sight. “Oh, no you don’t, asshole.” He squeezed the trigger on his rifle and two seconds later a sentry dropped to the ground. Once he took one out, others came running. Randy, lower on the hill, was an easy target.

Cameron fired off shot after shot and one at a time the gun-toting farmhands fell to their deaths. “I think that’s got them all.” He looked away from his sight and grinned.

Standing, he picked up his gun and slung it over his shoulder before bending down to retrieve his bi-pod.

“Not all of them, my brother,” Dimitri said. “There are always more inside.”

“Damn… You’re right.” He grinned. “I guess it’s a good thing I’m the best.”

“Yes, you are,” Dimitri agreed. “Just so long as you can keep your beast at bay.”

Cameron shook his head. “It doesn’t matter if I can’t. Believe me, when I tell you I have killed many men with my bare hands. It’s not something that will deter me.”

“Perhaps,” Dimitri said with a nod. “But have you ripped their throats out with your teeth?”

Kalen chuckled as the color drained from the retired Ranger’s face.

“Hmm…” his brother-in-law said. “I thought perhaps you hadn’t.”

“Sonofabitch!” Cameron swore. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“That is what I am here for, my brother.” Dimitri slapped Cameron on his shoulder. “Where you and your twin are good with weapons, I am good with my teeth.” He smiled, baring his teeth. “Do not worry, my brother. I shall protect you both if the need to change overwhelms you.”

“You know, Dimitri, I’ve always told Randy that deep down, you’re a nice guy.”

Dimitri smiled. “He knows, Cam. Believe me, or he would have tried to kill me for sleeping with your sister by now.”

Cameron grinned. “Don’t think he hasn’t thought about it.”

“Time to move in,” Bastien said. “And it’s time for silence. Use the common communication channel now.”

“This is going to be so cool,” Cameron said.

It would be more cool if you would use it.

Cameron grinned at Dimitri.
Awesome way to communicate.

Only if your enemies do not know how to do so.

Cameron turned to him with a frown.
What’s to say they don’t know how?

Bastien nudged Cameron on the shoulder and pointed to the man who just walked out of the barn, weapon raised as he talked into his radio.
By the fact that they are still using radios.

Oh. Good point.
Cameron looked around.
I hope you sent your wife back to the cars, Alpha.

I have.
Bastien gave him a scowl.
Do you think I’m crazy enough to bring her down here into this mess? Now, be quiet until there is something of importance to say.

Yes, sir.

They all made their way down to the compound without being seen. Randy, already in position, awaited their arrival. He watched the gun-toting farmhand as they all made their descent into the pasture next to the barn.

When the last man reached the fence, Randy pounced on his target and took him out using a chokehold. He dropped the man after he lost consciousness and utilized the man’s belt and shoelaces to secure him.

Good job, Randy.
Bastien slapped him on the shoulder.
I always knew you two were a good asset
—
human or were, I’m glad you’re on our side.

Of course we are.
Randy frowned at the man he’d just overtaken.
When our government can turn against its own people the way it has, it’s time to fight back.

I don’t think it’s your government doing this. I think it’s a few rogue generals who have sanctioned it.

It doesn’t matter. The secretary of defense should know where every dime is going. If he doesn’t, then it’s time to replace him.
He paused for a moment, looking grim.
And if he does, perhaps it’s time for a forced retirement.

Now, don’t even go there, Randy. You are
not
targeting the secretary of defense.

Randy gave his brother a blank look.
I never said I was.

Bastien carefully led the way into the barn.
The entrance to their lab has to be in here somewhere. The question is, where.

At that moment, a noise caught their attention. “Move, move, move,” Randy hissed, forgetting to use the mental form of communication as they all scattered in several directions. A moment later, a trough moved to the side and two men emerged from below the floor.

“Whaddya think, Hawkins?” One of them said, his gun to his shoulder as he peered around the interior of the barn.

“I think you’d better shut up before you give our position away again, now move it, Riley.”

“I don’t know about this whole situation, Hawk. I mean, what are we guarding down there that’s so important? One lousy prisoner can’t be that valuable that they had to build a special prison for him just so nobody can find him.”

Kalen heard the sound of flesh meeting flesh as he assumed Hawkins punched Riley to get him to be quiet.

“I said, shut up,” Hawkins reiterated.

Riley mumbled something he couldn’t quite catch. He might have, had the two men been fifty feet closer.

The men continued to move closer to their position and Kalen wondered how many more men they would have to kill before they found out what was below their feet.

When the two men got even with the stalls they hid in, both Dimitri and Bastien attacked, knocking the two men to the ground and bashing their heads into the hard cement floor.

With the two men unconscious, Bastien and Dimitri tied them up using their own articles of clothing. They sure were resourceful. He’d give them that.

“Let’s go. Now that we know how to get in there, we’ll go down. There’s nothing like having the element of surprise.”

After moving the trough aside, the men found their way down a darkened staircase. When they reached the bottom, they followed a long hall, encountering no one.

“Where is everyone?” Kyle whispered. “I feel like I’m in some sort of ghost town or something.”

“You’re lucky you’re not one of the ghosts in it,” Galen grumbled, and Kalen couldn’t have agreed more. Though he knew now was not the time to pick up where they’d left off, he and Galen were still of a mind to beat the shit out of Kyle again.

“Shut up, you three.” Kalen wanted to snarl, to tell them to stop bickering. A man’s life could very well depend on their answers and their attention. “We’re here to save a man, not bicker like children.”

It was strange how the facility was so empty. Perhaps the pureblood wasn’t here. Or perhaps the doctor just assumed, however incorrectly, that his secret here would never be discovered, or perhaps he thought one were didn’t warrant a larger contingent.

They moved slowly down the hall until they reached a steel-reinforced door. Bastien and Merrick reached the door first. They looked at each other and shrugged. Reaching out Merrick rested his hand against the door then shook his head.
It’s not hot and I don’t hear anything from the other side, but that doesn’t mean a thing.

No it doesn’t,
Bastien agreed.
Perhaps we should open it.

No! Do not open the door. It is booby trapped. You must know how to open it.
The mental
voice
sounded weak. The warning did nothing but make them more determined to save the man on the other side.

How far are you from the door?

I am in a large laboratory. They have me in a caged cell on the other side of the room. I think I am about fifty feet from the door.

Are you alone?
Kalen asked to find out if they would endanger others if they did what he suspected they were about to do.

Why are you even worried about others?
Merrick asked with a scowl.
If they’re here, they deserve whatever they get.

Not if they have been coerced like most of the others who work for us have been.

There is no need to argue. There is no one here with me. There has not been anyone here with me for several months. I am lucky they still feed me when they think of it.
There was a short pause.
Who are you? Are you but another fantasy my brain has dreamed up?

No,
Bastien replied.
We are not a fantasy. I am Bastien Sinclair, Alpha to the North American pack. I believe we are the last of our kind. Who are you?

The North American pack? If there are enough of you to call a pack, you are lucky indeed. I have thought of myself as the last of my kind for the last two-hundred years. Several years ago, I finally found my mate, but she was not one of our kind. Still, it didn’t matter. She was mine. Now, she is most likely dead.

The man’s sorrow was so great, Kalen could feel it though the link even though it was the connection used by his kind that usually did not include emotions.

Randy and Cameron used the time they spoke to rig an incendiary device against the closed door. They motioned everyone back as they led out the fuse approximately forty feet.

Cover your ears. It’s about to get loud.

Randy grinned and looked at his brother. “Big steel door go boom!”

The device they attached to the door exploded and the door burst inward. Debris and dust flew through the air. They all remained with their arms covering their heads until the dust cloud cleared then they made their way into the room.

On the far side of the laboratory was a large, caged cell housing a tall, thin man with pitch black hair.

“You aren’t a fantasy?”

Kalen approached the man while the others investigated the computers, pulling hard drives and sifting through files. “No, sir. We aren’t a fantasy.” He paused outside the door. “Can I trust you not to attack us if I release you?”

The man stood on the other side, his hands clenched to his sides. “Yes, but I must warn you that I will not stay here. I must try to find my wife.” He swallowed and looked away. “I know she is probably dead, or remarried, but I must find her to tell her I didn’t leave of my own free will.”

Kalen nodded. “I understand your desire to find your wife. I don’t know what I would do if I lost my mate.” He sat on the corner of a desk and tilted his head as he looked at the other man. “You know, I met a very interesting woman recently. I think I should tell you about her.”

“I do not know why. I have told you I wish to find my wife, if she still lives.”

“A few minutes either way shouldn’t matter, should it?” Kalen asked with a shrug of his shoulders. “After all, if she’s dead, she’s dead. Right?” He didn’t wait for the other man to answer. Instead, he began to tell the man what he had to say.

“Two days ago,” he paused and shook his head. “It’s hard to believe it’s only been two days. It seems like I’ve known her a lifetime.”

“Mates will do that to you,” Bastien interjected with a grin.

“Anyway,” Kalen continued, swinging his leg, taking his sweet time while the others searched the facility. He
had
to buy them time, otherwise the man in the cell would bolt the minute they let him out. “I was taking my mate back to her house so we could run away from the same people who put you here. I met the nicest old woman. She spun a fantastic tale about her husband who was over one-thousand years old.