The Zero Dog War (4 page)

A man walked into the room. Not just any random male either. It was the same man I’d seen on the street three days ago following the TastyTech disaster. The cut, drool-worthy pistol-guy. He strolled through the doorway and destroyed my nonchalance as thoroughly as if he’d shoved a grenade into a termite mound. I flinched and reached out to summon my magic. The temperature in the room started to rise by degrees. Never surprise a pyromancer. We’ll sear your jockey shorts off first and apologize later.

Then the man smiled. Simple as that. One damned smile that animated his face from strong jaw to green eyes, and that hard-case sniper-eyed military-look softened into something that yanked at all my nerve endings and made my stomach do a lazy flip, not in fear, but with a low-grade desire dripping through my veins like warm molasses. At that moment, everything finally clicked into place inside my brain.
This
had to be the guy our mysterious client had mentioned on the phone. He’d been scoping us out on our last job. Sizing us up. He must’ve liked what he’d seen…though maybe that alone should’ve set off warning bells. After all, we’d bollocksed that job but good, didn’t get paid, and Rafe had been naked at the time.

The guy was just as impressive as I remembered, human (as far as I could tell), dressed in fatigues, an olive green T-shirt and jump boots. Nothing screams hot to me like paratrooper jump boots. It’s like a leather jacket—it sweats all kinds of sexy. I shivered, despite my heat-rising skills, and then I felt my face flush, as if I’d been caught staring at his crotch. Which I decidedly did
not
do. Nor did I stare at his pecs. Or at the way those shoulders bulged against his T-shirt. Or his damn-hot military-cut hair that certainly
wasn’t
making my fingers twitch with the need to run themselves through the bristles. Nope. None of that.

All right I’m lying.

I stopped rocking back in my chair and thumped the chrome legs back on solid ground before I toppled over and completed my humiliation. I pushed out of the chair, irritation dousing my initial firework explosion of drooling lust. Goddamn it, who’d let him in? There’d been no intercom call and no doorbell.

“Sorry to barge in,” the man said, keeping his distance. Of course, he had a smooth baritone that seemed to vibrate right through me. “The gate was open.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I said, the gate was open.”

The gate. Open. Holy flaming monkey shit, someday I’d kill somebody for incompetence, and no jury would ever convict me. “Who let you inside the house?”

“The gentleman with lots of tattoos, who prefers public nudity.”

Rafe
. I should’ve known. Rafe and security procedures knew each other about as well as virgins and labor pains. “Ah. Well, then…welcome to Zero Dog Compound.” I tried on a smile that didn’t quite fit. “Are you the agent our prospective client mentioned?”

He nodded once and kept a grin on his face as he walked toward me. I could’ve sworn his eyes glinted with something…either humor or pure evil, I wasn’t sure which, and either way they were intense—dark green with flecks of gold—piercing. Eyes that noticed too much. Despite my body’s initial flood of reaction, I started to think I didn’t like the guy. He smiled too much and I suspected his easy confidence would rub my fur the wrong way in roughly five minutes.

“I’m Captain Jake Sanders, US Army Special Forces, Operational Detachments Alpha 2nd Special Forces Group out of Fort Bragg. Good to be a part of this.” He held out his large hand.

I looked at his hand and slowly took it. His skin felt warm against mine. I loved warm things. It was a particular weakness of mine. Rough calluses covered his palm and fingers—shooter’s calluses, I guessed—either that or he really loved to jerk off. I snorted at my own crude joke and he lifted one eyebrow in silent question, his damn smile faltering a bit. His grip on my hand was firm, not crushing. A lot of macho guys liked to impress me with their toughness by breaking my fingers. He gave my hand two brisk pumps and released it. A stray, traitorous image flashed through my mind—him running his hand up my neck. Tracing a soft circle behind my ear…

Enough
. I yanked both hormones and emotions back into line. There was professionalism to maintain here. I represented the entire team. And damn him for making me feel this way.

“I’m Captain Andrea Walker, Merc Wing Rv6-4. A pleasure.”

“The pleasure’s mine, Captain Walker.”

Now it was my eyebrow’s turn to arch. Was he being a smart-ass or coming on to me or had I overreacted? Hard to tell because he kept smiling at me, and when a man is smiling, it meant he either wanted something or he did something he doesn’t want you to know about. Either way, I didn’t like it.

I retreated toward the safety of my chair, still fighting my traitorous hormone and endorphin invasion. I couldn’t afford to turn into a drooling eggplant at the sight of some good-looking bastard in uniform. And what the hell was it about men in uniform, anyway? Some kind of biological booby trap.

“Please sit down.” I gestured at a chair positioned along the middle of the table. His gaze swung from my chair at the head of the table to the chair at the opposite end. I couldn’t help a tiny smirk. An Alpha Dog, eh? Wanted to have the dominant table position. Too bad I got it first. I settled into my seat, making sure my full dress uniform displayed me to my best advantage.

He hesitated, and then took a chair close to mine, not the one I’d indicated, but not one opposite me at the other end of the table either. I fought the urge to draw farther away as he sat down. It was a little unnerving to be this close to him. Distracting.

The intercom buzzed. Sarge’s deep voice rumbled over the line. “Captain. I have a visitor here. He has an appointment.”

I pushed the button. “Thank you, Sergeant. Please escort him to our conference room.”

“Copy that. On our way now. Out.”

An uncomfortable silence spread between us while we waited. I concentrated on not scaring off the cake-filled goodness of a government contract and silently prayed Sarge would bring our prospective client around the side of the house instead of taking the direct route through the wreckage inside. Army poster boy Captain Jake Sanders kept interfering with my attempts to keep calm. Not a subtle interference either—more like cranking a stove burner from high to jet-engine-on-afterburner. Sonuvabitch.

Sarge brought the client around the side way and up to the outside glass door, thank God for stupid favors. The man he escorted was old but looked spry—appeared, in fact, to resemble one of those bankers from the
Mary Poppins
movie that get all bent after a run on their bank. He wore a gray twill suit with a vest and a striped gray and black tie. A gray bar of mustache spread across his upper lip, and deep lines scored the skin around his mouth and eyes. His briefcase swung in his hand, back and forth in impatient little arcs.

Sarge escorted the man inside, didn’t salute me, and stared at Captain Sanders as only a six-foot-four demon with red pupils and jet-black irises could do. Captain Sanders’s face remained impassive, but I got the feeling the two of them eyed each other like tigers, comparing biceps sizes or crotch bulges or something. Men. I loved them, but I swore God built them stupider every year.

A long, uncomfortable pause drew out, in which I could hear the wall clock humming. I stood, but before I could speak, Sarge nodded to me…and then winked. He left before I could melt his boot heels. I knew that goddamn wink. He was telling me to
go for it
. As if I’d throw myself on a Green Beret. Everybody knew the SEALs could kick their asses.

I introduced myself to the old man, and his slightly pensive, unhappy look softened.

“Ah, yes. Captain Walker.” He placed his briefcase on the table and settled into the chair at the opposite end of the table. “I’m William Harker. Delightful to make your acquaintance. Shall we get down to business?”

“By all means.”

“Excellent.” Harker cleared his throat. “The Department of Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis, working with other governmental agencies, has identified a developing threat to the security of the United States. I represent the Office of Operations Coordination and Planning. OPS is interested in contracting with Merc Wing Rv6-4 for certain services to be determined at an immediate future date, pending contract acceptance. Details of the services required and information on the developing situation is classified and will only be shared following your signature on a legally binding nondisclosure form. Your security clearance has already been evaluated.”

“Great, but that’s all a little vague—”

Harker raised a hand. I stopped, fighting annoyance at being interrupted. He ran a finger along the top of his briefcase, and then popped open the gold clasps. “Please, let me lay out all the compensation details before you decide. I have a contract here for your services, exclusively, for a time period of not more than one year. There will be a bonus of three percent of total offer paid if you complete your task within two weeks.” He gave me a prim smile. “We’d like this wrapped up as soon as possible.”

“How much are we discussing in terms of remuneration?” Yes, I always asked about the money before I asked about the job. Enough money and you could ask us to invade the moon for all I cared.
Ask
. Didn’t mean I’d accept, though. I’d turned down high-paying jobs where the risk to my people was too high and the odds too long. Everybody loved money, but it meant little if you weren’t around to enjoy it.

Of course, I also liked to eat and I had plenty of hungry mouths to keep fed, so that had to be factored into the equation as well.

Harker folded his hands. “Twenty-five million dollars. However, your own operating expenses must be deducted from the stipend.”

I nodded, not quite trusting myself to speak. If we could do this job with minimal cost—which, like the apocalypse, might actually happen some day—twenty-five million could keep us running smoothly for at least a year, maybe two, if we were careful and didn’t have to pay any lawsuits.

“I suppose you might be wondering about Article 47 of the Geneva Convention’s Protocol 1 or perhaps UN resolution 44/34,” Harker said, although I’d been doing nothing of the kind. “The restrictive conventions forbidding government use of mercenaries in armed conflict.”

“Ah, yes.”

“I assure you, Rv6-4 and the Hellfrost Mercenary Group is classified as a private security force under your registration, and regardless, exceptions are made in times of extreme circumstances.” Harker opened his briefcase and took out a sheaf of papers. He leaned forward and slid them across the table to me. “Please sign this nondisclosure form. Once signed, I’ll allow Captain Sanders to fill in the details.”

I scanned it quickly. All the usual stuff. Promises of lawsuits, incarceration and ritual dismemberment if I shared any classified or proprietary information. I snagged a pen and scrawled my signature on all the necessary lines while they watched in silence.

When I finished, Captain Sanders leaned toward me, his eyes intent. “There’s been a RCT outbreak.” He paused for effect. “A Reanimated Corpse Threat…” Yet another pause for effect. “
Zombies
.”

I stared at him. With all the buildup I’d expected something a trifle more dramatic. Like cyborg dragons or Godzilla on crack. Hell, a rampaging horde of menopausal lemmings would be more of a challenge. We’d done zombie duty before in Nogales, supporting the Yao Mercs, and “head duty”—the jargon term for zombie headshot kills—was gory, distasteful and mostly boring. It might sound strange to the uninitiated, but there were only so many times you could headshot a walking corpse, or light it on fire, or smash it with a mace before the law of diminishing returns kicked in. Still, as a professional, I wasn’t about to let my disappointment show. Shit, hadn’t I just been salivating at the prospect of all that income? And now I learned it’d be a cakewalk. The bonus would definitely be ours.

Sanders continued. “A necromancer established himself in a Portland business district two months ago. Since then, he’s raised a considerable force of the undead. Three weeks ago he began shipping more of the living dead from Idaho, where we think he had his origins. I don’t need to tell you this is a serious charge of interstate zombie trafficking. Since his arrival, he’s attacked two financial institutions with a quick deploy force of RCTs, both well-known commercial banks.”

I grinned. “So, for customers, instead of a run
on
the bank, it was a run
away
from the bank, right?”

Crickets. Blank stares from both of them, and not even a laugh track to save me.

Everybody’s a fucking critic.

Harker cleared his throat. “The necromancer seems to be planning something large scale and requires more financing. We wish to disrupt those plans.”

“So, basically, we’re talking potential Zombie Apocalypse here. You need the Zero Dogs to make sure the dead stay dead. Help them out by ventilating their skulls with high-velocity projectiles.” A wistful smile crept across my face. “Light some things on fire.”

“We’re hoping for a modicum of discretion as well.”

I nodded and lied through my teeth. “We’re known for discretion.”

“The situation is delicate.” Harker tapped one finger on his briefcase. “The zombies appear to be contained at the moment, but the target is hardened. We’re afraid dropping bunker-buster munitions may allow some zombies to escape into the general populace. So precision is required.”