Retribution (SSU Trilogy Book 3) (The Surgical Strike Unit) (17 page)

“Kill her,” Kaufmann ordered again.

Against his will, Rafe’s hands rose. He fought, but the pain in his head grew so sharp, the edges of his vision started to turn black. Screaming inside, Rafe watched his fingers close around the woman’s jaw. He twisted sharply, breaking the woman’s neck, and felt the pain in his head vanish like fog.

“Excellent job,” Dr. Kaufmann said with approval. He waved toward his assistants, indicating they should remove the body. “I’m very pleased with you.”

Rafe’s shoulders went back with pride. Why had he fought? It was his job to obey. To seek this man’s approval.

“In fact, you’ve performed so well that I’m assigning you to a very special project. See this woman?” Kaufmann held up another photo. “Her name is Susana Dias. She has something very important that I need. I want you to retrieve it for me. This man might be in your way.”

The man in the photo looked familiar, but it took Rafe a long moment to pull up a name. Kai.

“You will kill him and the woman if they get in the way. All I want is the microchip in the woman’s abdomen.” Kaufmann went on to outline Rafe’s mission.

The sane part of Rafe didn’t listen. It refused to accept the need to kill again.

Something had to be done. He could not be allowed to succeed in this mission. Not this time. Kai was too important. His friend.

But the rest of Rafe didn’t care. It just wanted to obey Dr. Kaufmann so the pain wouldn’t return.

Six Weeks Later

Sunday, Morning

“N
iko.” Rafe clutched the phone to his ear like it was his only link to sanity. He could feel the madness pushing in on him again. The chaos that took over his mind gave the Voice in the white coat the power to control him. But this was important. He had to warn Niko. So he focused hard, making sweat pop out on his brow.

“Rafe. What’s wrong? Where are you?” Niko’s worried voice burrowed into Rafe, calming the jagged noise of pain and rage.

“God, we’ve been searching frantically for you.”

Rafe gave a harsh laugh. “In trouble, bro. Ouch… Shit…” A headache sliced through his skull, the pain nearly dropping him to his knees. It meant the chaos was coming back. He didn’t have much time.

“Rafe!”

“Ah…sorry…headaches…” He gasped at another bolt of pain.

“Stay with me, Rafe. What happened?”

Rafe took several shuddering breaths, forcing his way through the pain by using what meager self-control he still had. “Security…waiting for us… others dead… Gave me…drugs.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“New…treatment…accelerated results…aagh!”

“Rafe, where are you?”

Rafe laughed. “New York City. Heading…to Brazil… They…ordered me…find Kai…kill him… Kill anyone…tries to…stop me…” The Voice insisted Kai had to die at Rafe’s hand. Like Willits. Like Depaoli. But this time it wasn’t the same. Rafe wasn’t in the killing room, with the Voice speaking in his ear as he circled one of his teammates in the fighting sand. Here he was free to listen to the part of him deep inside that said killing this man was wrong. Kai was tied to Jenna, Niko’s wife. Hurting Kai would hurt Jenna and that would hurt Niko.

He wouldn’t hurt his brother. “Ordered…get chip…get Susana Dias.”

“Rafe, what has the drug done to you?”

“Body,” Rafe panted. “Small changes…mind…shit, I’m losing it again…mind only sometimes my own…headaches when can think inde-pend-dent-ly…otherwise, only think of mission…shit…I’m losing control again…will try to…slow myself…down… Please, Niko, you gotta…stop me…do whatever you have to do…don’t let me succeed… They tell me…hate you…hate everyone…can’t do it…can’t kill you all…”

“Rafe!”

Rafe tried to hold on to his brother’s voice. There was something important he needed to tell Niko. But the madness swept in and took over his mind.

Chapter 14

Nine Days Later

SSU Laboratories

Georgia

T
hey brought Rafe back in a straightjacket.

Gabby had orders to stay inside so Rafe couldn’t see her, but that didn’t stop her from looking out the window of the sprawling plantation house that had been converted first into a CDC lab, and then the SSU’s newest research facility. Only a few feet separated the back of the van and the rear door of the building, but even so, the two men in fatigues carrying Rafe could barely control him.

A couple stepped out of the sedan that had followed the van into the parking lot. The man lunged forward as if he wanted to help Rafe, but the woman put a restraining hand on his arm.

Rafe’s brother, Niko, and his wife, Jenna. Gabby hadn’t met them, but the man’s resemblance to Rafe was too strong for him to be anyone else. Watching the way Jenna comforted Niko, a lick of jealousy flared to life. Gabby wanted that kind of closeness with Rafe. Yet the joy of knowing he was alive was tempered by the knowledge that he’d been subjected to Kaufmann’s drugs. If she couldn’t find a way to reverse the damage done to Rafe, she had only weeks left before she lost him to the same bloody death that had claimed Nate and the others.

She closed her eyes against a sharp wave of grief and fear. Her fingers snuck into her lab coat’s pocket and stroked the worn fur of her valentine teddy bear. From the description Niko had given Ryker, Rafe sounded like he was just entering Level 3. Gabby crossed her arms tightly over her chest. Even when they’d thought Rafe and his team dead, Ryker had asked her to continue working on a way to counteract the effects of Kaufmann’s program. He’d assumed that Kaufmann had relocated his lab and that there would be other men to rehabilitate once the SSU located the facility.

That’s how Gabby had ended up here in Georgia, in this beautiful Victorian mansion with a team of scientists at her disposal. They’d made progress. She thought the drugs they’d come up with would halt the progression from Level 3 to Level 4, but since they’d lacked subjects to test the drugs on, she wasn’t certain.

She believed that the only way to completely reverse the damage done was to directly counteract the drugs Dr. Nevsky had created. Those were the elements so unfamiliar that her team, like Kaufmann’s, had had little success in replicating them, let alone creating counteragents.

Which left her terrified that even if Kai Paterson returned with the microchip containing Dr. Nevsky’s notes, it might be too late for Rafe.

It would be better to be dead than subject to Kaufmann’s experiments, wouldn’t you say?

She gritted her teeth and pushed Ryker’s comment to the back of her mind where it belonged. As long as Rafe was alive, she’d cling to the hope that she could find a way to return him to the man he’d once been.

She refused to accept anything else.

T
he sob that had been sitting hot and heavy in Gabby’s throat broke free, echoing through the empty observation room. She pushed the back of her hand against her mouth, trying to muffle it. Ryker had warned her what to expect, but still, it was so much harder to watch Rafe than she’d thought.

Impossible to think only like a doctor instead of a woman. A lover.

She bit her lip. One night. That’s all they’d had together, but it had been enough. Her heart belonged to Rafe.

The man in the cell below only vaguely resembled the man she’d fallen in love with. He had the same dark hair and eyes, but steroids had added layers of bulky muscle to his previously lean frame.

Gone were Rafe’s amusement and love of life. Instead, this Rafe was constantly angry. In pain. His keen intelligence had dimmed until his eyes held only an animal’s cunning. For Rafe, the world had narrowed to survival, with his mind the equivalent of an ape’s.

Pain wrapped around her heart and squeezed. The world darkened momentarily and she staggered, feeling another piece of her soul shatter. She raised a hand palm out and caught herself against the window.

Rafe must have heard the impact, for he stopped his pacing and looked up. Even though she knew he couldn’t see through the special glass, she shivered under the hatred in his glare. Her stomach rolled over and Gabby was profoundly grateful that she hadn’t eaten anything that day. Vomiting all over the floor when she wasn’t even supposed to be here would be a perfectly horrible way to end the day.

But she’d had to see for herself how far down the scale he’d progressed. She’d needed to reassure herself that he was indeed only at Level 3, not 4 or 5. The drugs her team had created didn’t work on the other levels, only Level 3.

She was just grateful Nate Ngoro had still been Level 3 when he’d arrived at the SSU. Between him and the others, her team had samples from Levels 3, 4 and 5, giving them crucial data. Today they’d been notified that Kai Paterson had succeeded in retrieving Nevsky’s microchip. With those notes added to her own data, she felt certain, given enough time, they could heal Rafe and return him to the man he once was.

The key element, of course, was time. She touched her forehead to the cool glass.
Please, let us succeed.

As her stomach settled and she met Rafe’s eyes again through the glass, she came to the realization that this wasn’t enough. She couldn’t simply stand up here watching Rafe as if she were just one more scientist studying him.

This was the man she’d made passionate love to. Who had touched a part of her soul that no other man had even recognized. She loved him. Had worried over him from the moment he left her bed.

She owed him so much more than just working to find a cure. He needed human contact.

Since he’d been brought in three days ago, Rafe had supposedly calmed down slightly. Enough that Niko had been allowed a face-to-face session with Rafe. The
y’d brought the brothers together in a small holding room yesterday afternoon, and Rafe had nearly broken his restraints in an attempt to kill Niko. Then, once Niko was gone, Rafe had beat his head against the wall, crying.

Several other visitors had been brought to see Raf
e over the next few days,
but none of them had been allowed in the same room with him. They’d all appeared on the other side of reinforced glass.

And Rafe had responded in exactly the same way.

Gabby didn’t even want to imagine the type of pain Kaufmann had inflicted in order to turn Rafe against his brother and best friend. She rubbed her arms to ward off a sudden chill. Had Kaufmann known about Rafe’s connection to her? Even if he’d tortured Rafe and his teammates, would Kaufmann have asked the right questions to learn about her relationship with Rafe? Possible, but unlikely.

A slow bud of hope unfurled inside her. What if she was the one person in his life Rafe hadn’t been brainwashed against? The one person he wouldn’t attack?

Still…the scientist in her warned that she had to be practical.

Was she willing to risk her life on a slim possibility? Yes. Would the rest of the team allow her to risk her safety? She shook her head, knowing all too well that Kai would be the most opposed to putting her in danger. But the despair lurking behind Rafe’s eyes broke her heart.

She
had
to find a way to get closer to him. She wanted Rafe to see her. To hear her. Even if it was through the barrier of a window, she needed to let him know he wasn’t alone.

T
he next day, Gabby asked the head of Rafe’s psychotherapy team for permission to communicate with him through the two-way observation glass.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Winthrop said in his haughty voice. “But I cannot authorize that. It takes Andros hours to calm down after his rages and then more hours to earn back his trust again.”

Knowing she wouldn’t find any sympathy from the man, Gabby had pleaded with one of the other doctors on the psychiatric team. “Please, just show him my photo. All the other people he’s been faced with from his past have been male. Maybe he won’t react so aggressively toward a female.” Even though Dr. Kaufmann had employed several women at his lab, Gabby had sensed a degree of chauvinism. It was likely Kaufmann never considered brainwashing Rafe against the females in his life.

“Think of what it would mean if Rafe doesn’t have a violent reaction to me,” Gabby had added. “I could help him in a way no one else can.”

The woman had given Gabby a look that bordered on pity, but nodded her head in agreement. “If he has an extended period of calm, we might consider showing him your photo.”

Two days later, the psychotherapy team showed Rafe Gabby’s picture, while Gabby watched through a one-way observation window with her fingers crossed. But when Rafe saw her picture, he growled and snapped at the photo. Shouted “Bad woman. Kill.”

Gabby hadn’t been able to control her flinch, even though Rafe hadn’t posed a physical danger to her. The therapist had tried to calm Rafe down, but left when it became clear he was ignoring her. Despite the disappointment swamping her, Gabby had continued to watch Rafe as her mind had tried to come to terms with the fact that he’d been programmed to kill her.

After a few minutes alone, Rafe’s expression had turned from aggression to confusion. Then he’d grimaced in pain, put his hands to his head and squeezed his eyes shut. He’d started rocking back and forth, mouthing “No. No.”

Gabby’s eyes had filled with tears and the weight of Rafe’s pain had threatened to crush her heart until she couldn’t breathe. It had taken fifteen minutes before Rafe had calmed down, but Gabby had hovered on the verge of tears for hours afterward.

The incident had only made Gabby more determined than ever to help Rafe. She examined his blood samples, looking for any nuances that would help her fine-tune the drug formula and stop his deterioration.

Because Kai Paterson had done some marginal work on the original formula while undercover at Dr. Nevsky’s lab, he’d been made co-team leader with her. Kai took charge of reviewing the data the tech team painstakingly retrieved from the encoded microchip and helping Gabby incorporate the data into her research.

A week after Rafe had reacted so aggressively to her picture, Gabby’s team administered the adjusted formula to him. Finally, they saw the results they’d been hoping for. They were ninety-nine percent certain they’d managed to at least temporarily halt his slide toward Level 4.