A Darker Shade of Dead (17 page)

“I can think of a few reasons the bad guys would want you out of the way, Commander, but the most likely scenario given what's come before is that Sandra's being targeted.”

“Question is, how did our enemies know she was out here? How'd they get that intel so fast?” Matt wondered.

“The obvious answer is that she's being followed.” Simon shrugged. “Maybe they followed your car when you brought her out here.”

“Possible, I suppose, but unlikely. I'd like to believe my skills aren't so rusty that I wouldn't have noticed a tail.” Matt frowned in the dim light.

“Nobody's perfect,” Simon reminded him. “Still, I know your skills, old friend. Even though you've been riding a desk the past few years, I don't think you'd ever let yourself get that rusty. So we're back to the question—how'd they find out Sandra was here so fast?”

“And how do they always seem to know where to target her?” Matt's brows drew together in a frown. “There have been too many attempts on her that were too close for comfort. They always seem to know exactly where she is. Why is that, Sandy?” He turned questioning eyes on her.

“I swear, I don't know.” She didn't like the way he was looking at her. Correction: the way they both were looking at her. She could make out their features, even in the dim light, and they both looked at her with clear suspicion.

“Maybe she doesn't.” Simon offered the unexpected olive branch.

“How so?” Matt asked quickly.

“I'm not sure but I think we should let Mari have a look at her. I remember her telling me about the original research team and their various specialties. I think one of Rodriguez's previous experiments involved really small subdermal implants. Maybe there's some kind of tracking device under Sandra's skin.”

“You got a battery of shots before they'd let you work on the experimental team, right?” Matt looked at her, and she thought maybe she saw a little glimmer of hope in his eyes. Or was she just fooling herself? She wasn't sure.

“Yes,” she answered, thinking back. “As a matter of fact, Dr. Rodriguez administered them. Son of a…Do you think he implanted some kind of tracking device without my consent?”

“From what Mari told me, it's possible,” Simon answered.

Sandra shot to her feet. “Get me to the lab. I want it out!”

“Calm down, Sandy. We'll go when it's safer. In the morning.” Matt's tone was gentle and reassuring. “For now, we hunker down here until we're sure the woods are clean.” He reached out and took hold of her hand, drawing her to his side. “Si,” he looked at the other man but didn't let go of her hand. “Set up a perimeter. We're holding position here for the rest of the night. I doubt, after that display, that there could be many more zombies elsewhere on base. I think they must've sent them all here. Let's make sure there are no stragglers.”

“Yes, sir.” Simon straightened and headed toward the door. “Should I call Mari and give her a heads up for the morning?”

Matt squeezed her hand and sought her gaze before answering. “Do it.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Simon went out the back door and shut it behind him.

The silence stretched as Matt held her gaze.

“You don't trust me, do you?” Sandra had always believed the direct approach was best in most situations. “Do you think I called Rodriguez or something, to tell him where I am? Do you think I'm playing you?”

“I know you didn't call him.” The look on his face was inscrutable, but resolution and belief resonated through his tone.

“You believe me?”

“I believe you didn't call him. As for the rest?” He let go of her hand and sighed. “I know you're still hiding something from me, Sandra. Can't you trust me enough to tell me what it is?”

Oh, God. There it was. He wanted a truth that she feared would change his mind about her for all time. Men had died because she'd allowed those first creatures to escape the lab that awful night. Chances are, some of those men had been Matt's friends. She couldn't forgive herself for her cowardly mistake, so how could he?

 

Matt watched her face carefully. Panic flashed in her eyes and his heart ached. He knew she was telling the truth about not calling Rodriguez because he'd watched her all day. He wouldn't tell her that. He wanted her complete trust first before he gave his.

Perhaps that was a bit selfish, but Matt couldn't be too careful given the dire nature of this mission. He'd given her more leeway than he should have already. He was tempted to give her everything after the sweet way she'd given herself to him. He had to fight against his instincts. He wanted to trust her. He really did. But he needed to know what she was hiding. At the very least, he needed to be certain it wasn't something that could blow up in their faces before this was all over. He needed to be confident that whatever it was that she didn't want to tell him, it wasn't as vital as she was making it out to be.

“I'm not hiding anything.” Her answer was too fast to be true.

“Try again.”

He held her gaze and dared her to lie to his face a second time.

Two loud thuds sounded on the back door before Simon poked his head in. Spotting Matt, Simon made his report.

“Perimeter's secure, Commander. And I gave Mari the heads up.”

Sandra scampered out while Simon talked, and Matt saw her close herself in the bathroom. The lock on the door sounded with a faint click. Matt sighed. She was running from him. Running from the truth. He'd let her run a little longer, but a showdown was coming and they both now knew it.

“Very well.”

Matt decided to give Sandra space. He went into the safe room and checked in with the various units of the team. The combat unit was all around the house. The cleanup team was already on alert. They'd have a big job to do after the All Clear had been sounded to clean up the remains of all those creatures Matt and the rest of the combat squad had reduced to steaming piles of goo earlier.

The members of the science team were accounted for. Simon had just checked in with his fiancée and Sandy was currently holed up in his bathroom. Just one more group to check.

Lew Kauffman had been charged with keeping an eye on the prisoner. Matt had left orders for Kauffman to call when the prisoner woke up, which he probably should have by now. Matt dialed Kauffman's number and waited while the call connected and rang. And rang. And rang.

“Shit.”

Matt stuck the combat earpiece back in his ear and opened the mic.

“When's the last time anyone heard from Kauffman?” he demanded without preamble.

“Archer here, Commander,” came the snappy reply. “I spoke to him just before we got your SOS. All was clear at that time, sir.”

“How did you contact him? He's not answering his phone,” Matt reported. “It's not even going to voicemail. It's just ringing off the hook.”

“That's not good, sir. Kaufman's solid about comms. Something's wrong,” Simon added.

“I was afraid of that.”

Matt set about contacting the remaining combat-trained members of the team who weren't immune. There were a couple of Special Forces guys in support positions in addition to Kauffman.

The report came back almost immediately. Not only had their prisoner escaped, but Lew Kauffman had been left for dead. They were taking him to the base hospital where Mari would meet him and take charge of his treatment. They'd do everything they could for him, but it was difficult to say at this point if he'd make it.

Matt disconnected the call with a heavy sigh. A slight movement at the doorway alerted him to Sandra's presence.

“You through hiding from me?” He didn't even bother to turn around and look at her. He was too tired of all this crap. Not only was she driving him crazy, but his mission was falling apart before his eyes; he lost a prisoner and possibly one of his Special Forces brothers this night.

“I wasn't hiding.” She edged into the room, leaning against the wall by the door, her hands behind her back, looking at him as he swiveled his chair to face her.

“Could have fooled me.”

“What's wrong?” Her eyes narrowed and she moved closer to him, concern in her expression.

“We lost the prisoner and Lew Kauffman is in the emergency room at the base hospital.” He gave her the news straight up. No sense trying to sugarcoat any of it. “They're not sure he's going to make it.”

“Oh, no.”

Matt was pissed off. Somehow Rodriguez had known where they'd stashed the prisoner, even though they'd made a strong effort to hide him on the large base. And now one of Matt's team members was fighting for his life.

“Somehow Rodriguez knew where we were keeping his man.”

“More evidence that he might've tagged both his employee and me somehow.” Sandra sounded worried but she was right.

“The sooner we get you checked out, the better, but I'm not moving from this location until after sunrise. We're the safest here for now. In transit, we'd be sitting ducks.”

“I don't want to wait that long.” She was rubbing her arm distractedly. “I've been thinking about where and how Rodriguez could've inserted a transmitter. All I'd need is a receiver tuned to the right frequency—or maybe a metal detector would be easier—to find it. If it's there.”

Matt stood. This was something he could do. He had all kinds of electronic equipment in the house. Lots of spare parts he could cobble into something useful.

“Give me a few minutes. I'm pretty sure I can come up with something.”

“Really?” She looked excited. Her gaze followed his search through a few boxes he'd stowed under the desk. He nodded absently in answer to her question.

He found what he wanted and cleared a small space on one of the tables. It would only take some minor adjustments. He got out his toolkit—a collection of miniatures that worked well on the tiny electronics pieces—and set to work. After a few minutes, Sandra came over and perched at his side, watching with a worried but hopeful expression on her pretty face.

A few minutes later and he'd jury-rigged a small receiver enough to try it out.

“Where did Rodriguez inject you?”

“Here.” She pointed to a spot on the back of her hip.

“What's your best guess? If he'd tagged you, would the thing stay in that general area, or would it travel?”

“Depends on its size,” she answered as if thinking aloud. “But anything moving around could prove dangerous if allowed to travel the bloodstream. It could easily cause a blockage. Again, it would depend on size. I've heard of nanotechnology, but what we're talking about here is years beyond where the tech is now from my understanding.”

“So you're saying it'll most likely still be in the same area if he put a tag under your skin without your knowledge.”

She nodded in agreement. “That's the most likely scenario.”

“All right then.” He patted the table in front of him. “Sit up here and let's try this out. It's a short-range receiver with limited power, so proximity is helpful.”

She leaned against the table in front of him and allowed him to pull the stretchy waistband of her leggings down a bit. Matt tried not to let the sight of her soft skin and the feel of her warm, curvy body under his hands distract him. They had work to do. Fun and games could come later. They definitely
would
come later if he had anything to say about it. The taste of her he'd gotten earlier had only whet his appetite for more.

“How does it work?” she wanted to know.

He held up the small box and began turning the knobs. “I'm going to go through a range of frequencies to see if we can pick up any sort of signal. If we get lucky and hit on the frequency, we'll have confirmed there's a transmitter. Once we know that, we can also use this to determine its location. Then we can do our best to get it out of you.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” She looked downward, watching the receiver with anxious eyes.

“It is—if it works. Keep your fingers crossed.”

It took more than a half hour and an agonizing sweep through multiple frequencies until they hit on the signal.

“Son of a bitch,” Matt mused when the radio he'd doctored started to ping. He moved away, then back. The signal got louder the closer he was to Sandra.

“I can't believe this. I can't believe that rat did this to me without my knowledge.”

Sandra sounded truly pissed off. Matt hadn't seen her really angry yet. She was kind of cute when she was riled. He knew she wouldn't appreciate that observation, so he kept it to himself while he moved the receiver around her body, trying to pinpoint where the tiny transmitter might be hiding.

Just as they'd thought, it was on her hip. Or more accurately, under the skin of her hip.

“It's right in this area.” Matt tapped the soft skin of her hip, just a little behind her.

Sandra's fingers went to the area and began a gentle probing motion.

“It can't be too small if they're picking up the transmission from far away, right?” she asked.

“I'm not really sure what size transmitter he'd have access to or what the newest tech has produced. Wouldn't you have noticed something relatively large?”

“Not necessarily. Some of the shots I got were experimental and not administered in the traditional way. See the scar there? That was from a skin patch test Rodriguez insisted on for the entire team. Now that I think back, he probably tagged us all.”

The ramifications of that intrigued Matt.

“What?” She must've caught something in his expression.

“It would save us a lot of trouble if I could get a hold of his list of frequencies. If he knows how to locate all the members of the original team…”

“Oh, I see what you mean.” Understanding dawned on her face as she thought it through. “If we can get this thing out intact, could you reverse engineer from it? Maybe figure out how to pinpoint the rest of them? Assuming there are more, of course. I could be wrong. Maybe he was just singling me out.”