Retribution (SSU Trilogy Book 3) (The Surgical Strike Unit) (35 page)

Mark made an angry sound behind the duct tape. After all these years, he’d finally found the man responsible for his father’s death and he was helpless to seek his revenge.

“Unfortunately, you managed to do what your father couldn’t. You interfered in my plans.” Jamieson rubbed his thumb over the dent in the horse’s shoulder. “We discovered your transmissions to the SSU. Tell me, have you been working for the SSU since the beginning? Nod yes or no, please or Victor will break your leg.”

Mark shook his head no.

“Strange. I believe you.” Jamieson tilted his head to the side. “What turned you? Was it Ivanov?”

Mark nodded.

Jamieson’s lips pressed together. “Idiot.” His hand closed around the horse, then he straightened out of his crouch.

“You’ve ruined my plans for you, Mr. Tonelli. You were supposed to be my scapegoat, but only after the anniversary demonstration. Now, with Kaufmann’s lab destroyed and the SSU in possession of Kaufmann, I’ll be forced to have you killed. Records will show that you’d been embezzling funds in order to support Kaufmann’s lab. The investigation will center on you. Meanwhile, the anniversary demonstration will go off as planned. Afterward, Kerberos will remain in high favor. We’ll free those scientists currently in custody and then we’ll start the lab again using our backup notes.”

Jamieson sighed. “It’s a pity, Mr. Tonelli. For a while there, I had high hopes for you.” He turned to go.

Mark was about to watch his father’s murderer walk away and there was nothing he could do about it. Yet oddly enough, he didn’t feel bitter. Instead, he felt relieved to know the truth. Revenge didn’t matter right now. Getting free and getting to Faith before Jamieson discovered her brother’s connection to Kerberos was all that mattered.

Jamieson spoke briefly to the guard by the door, then one of the men accompanied him out of the room.

Leaving Mark and three men.

He tensed. He had a plan, but the only way it was going to work was if he could get someone to take off this damn duct tape. He needed to speak.

But before he could figure out a way to convince one of his guards to cut the tape and let him talk, a boot slammed into his temple and the world went black.

Chapter 30

SSU Laboratories

Georgia

G
abby removed the slide from the microscope, replaced it in its empty slot in the organizing box, then propped her elbows on the countertop and rested her head on her hands. She was exhausted. The past forty-eight hours she, Kai and the rest of their research team had been working around-the-clock trying to create an antidote to Agent Styx.

Unfortunately, the version of Agent Styx removed from Kaufmann’s compound contained alterations from Nevsky’s original formula that almost made it impossible to counteract. Thanks to Kai’s knowledge of biochemical weapons, the various dispersal methods, and what biochemicals were the best neutralizers, they’d eventually come upon what they thought was an antidote.

Based on this latest test data, they’d succeeded.

Unfortunately, the antidote was still highly unstable, which would interfere with Ryker’s attempt to stop the anniversary demonstration.

She shook her head. Ryker had explained about the team of Kaufmann’s enhanced men and their role in the upcoming anniversary attack. It sickened her to think that innocent lives could so easily be put at risk.

Not to mention the lives of the men under Kaufmann’s command. She had no illusions that the men would survive the mission. They were nothing more than disposable weapons. Just like Rafe had been.

Rafe.

Gabby bit her lip. God, she missed him so much. She hadn’t seen him since he’d given her a quick kiss good-bye back in the cavern before he headed off to Oregon to prep for the mission.

She’d worked twice as hard to find an antidote to Agent Styx because she knew Rafe and his men faced potential exposure when they moved in to stop the attack. The threat of them falling prey to the chemical in its current, ultra lethal formula had been filling her sleep with nightmares. Yet, even given the danger of the scenario she was about to present to Kai and Ryker, it was their only viable option.

Thank heavens she wouldn’t be the one to tell Rafe her plan. She knew he was going to go ballistic.

Gabby finished typing up the last of her notes and shut down her computer. After locking up, she strode down the hallway to Kai’s lab. She knocked once, then pushed open the door.

“We’re good to go,” she announced as she stepped into the room. “The final test was a success.”

Kai held up his hand to indicate he’d be with her in a second. He put another droplet of green liquid into the vial in front of him, then quickly capped it. “That’s great,” he said.

He checked the clock on the wall. “Give me fifteen minutes and meet me in the conference room so we can call Ryker together. I need to finish this up.”

Twenty minutes later, a grim faced Ryker stared at Gabby across the video link. “Are you sure?”

She nodded with as much confidence as she could muster. “Yes, sir. The only way to keep the formula stable enough to be effective is if it’s created on the ground and handed to Rafe and his men as they head out.”

“Kai?”

Considering she’d hit Kai completely out of the blue with her insistence that their team needed to head to the island, he remained remarkably calm. For which she wanted to hug him. “I agree, sir. We need a mobile lab on the ground with the team.”

Ryker raised a brow. “Gabby, I hope you appreciate what hell Rafe’s going to put me through when I tell him.”

She winced. “I do, sir. Sorry.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t want to go. Honestly. I’ve had enough danger to last me a lifetime. I know the chances of something going wrong and our team getting exposed to Agent Styx are high. But there’s no other choice.”

“Very well. Go get some sleep. I’ll call when I’ve made arrangements, and when we’ve figured out which island is the target.”

T
he next time Mark woke up, he was hit by the nauseating stench of diesel fuel and the bone-jarring vibration of tires underneath a corrugated metal floor. Before opening his eyes he flexed his muscles, confirming that his hands and feet were still bound. His mouth, however, was no longer taped.

He cracked open his eyes then immediately shut them again as the faint gray interior of the van he was in spun around him, igniting another headache. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t dead yet, but he didn’t plan on letting this opportunity escape him.

“Don’t move,” a man’s voice said behind him.

Mark flinched. How had he missed that he wasn’t alone?

Something sawed through the bindings at his wrists and the thin plastic restraints quickly broke. Mark didn’t dare move his arms in case this was some kind of sick game.

“It’s okay to move,” the man said. “No one in the driver’s compartment can see back here.” A moment later the restraints at Mark’s ankles were cut away.

Mark rolled gingerly to a more comfortable position, then ignored the screaming pain in his head and pushed himself to his knees. “What’s going on?” he demanded in a voice gone hoarse.

In the faint light from the rear window Mark recognized one of the men from Jamieson’s assassination squads. Not one of the men who’d been in the kitchen.

“Call it an attack of conscience,” the man said. “I don’t approve of what Jamieson has done with Kerberos, muddying the purity of our mission with those freaky monster men. You were right to help the SSU shut Kaufmann’s lab down. Now I want you to stop the demonstration.”

Mark shook his head, sure he must have misheard. “Excuse me?”

The man nodded toward Mark’s hip. “I put a flash drive in your pocket. It has the personnel roster and battle plan for the anniversary attack. Give it to the SSU. Stop Jamieson from killing everyone on that island.”

Mark opened his mouth to speak, but the man held up his hand. “I don’t have the contacts to get this information acted on immediately. The SSU trusts you. Me and my men will disappear in a few days. We’ll tell Jamieson we dumped you in the ocean if he demands proof of your death. By the time he becomes suspicious, your friends at the SSU should have taken care of him for us.”

Mark didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t used to people helping him without asking for something in return. But the man’s voice rang with the truth of conviction. So Mark settled for a simple, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me too much,” the man said. His teeth flashed white as he smiled. “I still have to make this look good.” With that the man opened the back door of the still moving van. Before Mark had any idea what he intended, he found himself picked up and flung toward the side of the road.

Mark had a second to think, “Oh shit, this is going to hurt.” Then the ground rose up and smacked him.

Before he passed out yet again, he thought he heard the sound of the man’s laughter.

National Arboretum

Washington, D.C.

“I
have proof that the President is planning an attack to mark the fifth anniversary of his son’s death,” Ryker announced to the four men sitting around the secluded picnic table. The sun slipped behind a bank of clouds. “Half of the assault team will be Kaufmann’s enhanced soldiers.” He paused, still stunned by the information on the flash drive Tonelli had brought him. “They’re going to drop an updated version of Agent Styx into the water supply.”

Ryker listened to the collective round of cursing. The five men—Ryker; Matt Jordaine, of the FBI; Roger Brown of the CIA; Four Star General Aldrick Wehrig, and Brit Remington of the House Judiciary Committee—had met in Vietnam and become the sort of inseparable blood brothers war often produced. None of them would forget the bloody massacre they’d stumbled upon during a routine security sweep of a Vietnamese village, or the shock of seeing maniacally enraged American soldiers attacking each other when there were no more villagers left to kill.

They’d later learned that those soldiers had been affected by exposure to Agent Styx.

“How the hell is that possible?” Jordaine demanded. “All samples and all data on Agent Styx were destroyed in seventy-two.”

Ryker kept an eye on Brown and Wehrig as he answered. “Dr. Nevsky. The data on his microchip indicated that he was one of the creators of Agent Styx. I suspect that when the CIA and the DOD hired him to create their super spy and super soldier programs they didn’t ask for proof that he’d destroyed his data on Agent Styx.”

Jordaine swore. Wehrig looked disappointed. And Brown shook his head in resignation.

Ryker rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Plus, someone in one of those organizations must have been a co-creator with Nevsky. Because our teams found the lab being used to create the new version of the drug. I know we didn’t leak the formula, so Kaufmann must have received outside help.”

Remington sat forward. “Give me details of the attack.”

Ryker placed manila file folders in front of his friends. “This is what we know. Nevsky incorporated Agent Styx in his program to create superhumans for the CIA and DOD. After his death, his second-in-command Dr. Kaufmann started a similar program using drugs he’d removed from Nevsky’s lab before the fire. These samples included compounds that had been mixed with Agent Styx. Based on Kaufmann’s formula, our expert believes that Kaufmann didn’t fully understand the full range of side effects of Agent Styx. Which is why she believes someone else must have provided the data to recreate Agent Styx for the demonstration.”

“Your expert?” Brown demanded. “How can you have an expert on Agent Styx?”

“More connections to Vietnam,” Ryker replied. “Dr. Montague, the woman who reversed the damage done to Rafe Andros, is Dan Reagh’s daughter. Montague is her mother’s maiden name. Reagh apparently saved a few vials of Agent Styx and left them to her after his death. Since her father experienced the periods of rage that are the primary side effect of Agent Styx, she’s focused her career on finding a way to help veterans who’d been exposed to the drug. According to her, the version of Agent Styx Kaufmann plans to give to his team to disperse is even more lethal than what we saw in Vietnam.”

Four grim faces stared back at Ryker. “Reagh,” Wehrig finally commented. “No shit. Small world.” They’d all heard the rumors during the war about Reagh and his extraordinary black ops unit. Including the tales that the men had become overly aggressive due to exposure to Agent Styx.

“Can we tie Kaufmann’s men directly to the President?” Remington asked. He’d play a key role if impeachment became necessary.

“Yes. My source provided data that shows the President has commissioned a group called Kerberos to carry out an act of retribution on behalf of the United States.”

“What’s Kerberos?” Jordaine asked.

Brown nodded slowly. “The name rings a bell, but I can’t say where I’ve heard it.”

“How about Wayne Jamieson and CIA’s In-House Projects? My source says Kerberos is Jamieson’s private army and that Jamieson provided funding to Kaufmann for enhanced soldiers.”

“Jamieson.” Brown shook his head. “Should have figured he’d be behind this. Arrogant prick. Thinks rules are for everyone else. I never approved of In-House Projects to begin with.”

“Someone care to clue the rest of us in?” Jordaine asked.

“In-House Projects was created to clean up the messes left when a sanctioned CIA mission goes sour or there’s risk of a breach of secrecy.” Brown braced his forearms on the table. “Ryker, you’re saying Jamieson has formed his own paramilitary group?”

“Of course. The freak trainees,” Wehrig muttered.

“What?” Brown shot a puzzled glance at Wehrig.

“There have been stories for months about crazy men with incredible strength who showed up for army maneuvers, accompanied by orders that the men were to be trained like everyone else. Rumors of regular units going out on training missions and finding the targets already destroyed.” Wehrig shrugged. “Never saw proof, though.”

Ryker nodded. “We’ve all been aware of assassinations the news media never reported. Hard assets of hostile governments or competing businesses being damaged by so-called terrorists that were supposedly built like the Incredible Hulk. That might have been Kerberos at work.”