Legend of Michael (2 page)

Cassandra gaped. “Kill them?”

Kelly chuckled. “I’m kidding, or mostly kidding. The stories of Michael are darn near legend, though half of them are probably not even true. The whole lethal-in-battle and lethal-in-bed kind of typical soldier talk. They say he’s different than the other GTECHs.” Before Cassandra could ask how, Kelly wiggled an eyebrow and added, “He’s certainly got that tall, dark, and sexy thing going on, doesn’t he?”

Cassandra shook her head. “Oh no. You aren’t luring me into saying he’s sexy. I’m here to do a job, not drool over the soldiers.” Though silently, Cassandra wasn’t sure “sexy” even began to describe Michael’s appeal.

“You don’t have to admit it,” Kelly said. “I saw the look on
your
face, too, at that elevator.” She grinned. “Just use a condom.”

Heat rushed to Cassandra’s cheeks. She didn’t need a condom! Or a soldier to fret over, especially a man who apparently had plenty of other women to do it for her. No way. She was
not
having sex with Michael.

***

Late that evening, Cassandra sat at her simple steel desk in her still barren office—now her home away from her not-so-comfortable home—trying to focus on the GTECH file and failing. She grimaced, giving in to the temptation driving her to distraction, and punched in Michael’s name. He was thirty-four, five years older than she was. Of course, who knew how the GTECH serum would affect his aging process. She could turn into an old lady, and he’d never age a day. She didn’t like that thought much and moved on. He was from California and… holy moly. His family owned Taylor Industries, one of the largest weapons manufacturers in the world.

She sat back in her chair. There was no way his being here was a coincidence. Her father, of course, had to know. She’d bet her weight in chocolate that Michael was here because her father believed he could be useful in the future, if not already. Cassandra sat up, keyed again. Sure enough, Michael had been the only soldier pulled from his Special Ops unit and brought to Groom Lake. Her father was nothing, if not strategic. He’d wanted something from Michael beyond his battlefield skills. He wanted that connection to Taylor Industries.

“What are you up to, Father?” she whispered. “And why do I know it’s not a good idea?” Frowning, she stared at the computer screen. And what made someone like Michael, who had to be filthy rich, join the military? Family trouble was the usual answer. She’d seen it plenty of times. Cassandra tabbed down the computer screen, reading the details of how Michael’s father had died in a small plane crash in Saudi Arabia when Michael was twenty-one. She checked the record. That happened a year after he’d entered the Special Forces. Michael had been on a mission and didn’t hear about the death until after the funeral. His mother now ran Taylor Industries. So even after his father died, Michael had stayed in the army, which meant he wanted nothing to do with the family business. Or his mother didn’t want him involved.

“How’s my favorite daughter doing?”

Cassandra all but jumped out of her skin at the sound of her father’s voice, finding him standing in the doorway, a smile on his face, looking sharp as always in his well-decorated uniform, his gray hair trimmed neatly.

“I’m your only daughter,” she reminded him, wishing he’d share that smile with the staff at Groom Lake who feared him far more than they should. “And that joke is older than you, Father.” She had no idea why she felt like a kid who’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

“The old ones are the good ones,” he said. “Remember that.” In tip-top shape and looking far younger than his fifty-five years, he lent truth to that statement.

“I don’t have to,” she said. “You remind me often.”

He studied her with a critical eye. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I’m a workaholic, like my father,” she said.

“And if your mother were alive,” he said, “she’d hang us both up by our toes.”

Even two years after her mother’s car accident, the reference to her passing made Cassandra’s chest tighten uncomfortably. “As my psychology mentor, she’d be as nuts as I am over the incomplete evaluations done on the GTECHs.”

“I have no doubt,” he said. “But before you dive in and try to conquer a year of what you see as our deficiencies, I want you to focus on a specific list of ten soldiers of special interest to me.”

“What kind of special interest?”

He shut the door. “They’ve all tested positive to a certain gene we’re calling X2. We have animals in the lab also testing positive that are showing aggressive tendencies we need to be certain don’t translate into our GTECH population. We need to rerun all baseline evaluations and whatever extra testing you deem necessary, then ongoing evaluation.” He fixed her in a silvery stare. “The animals and the soldiers seem to be showing the gene growth somewhere in the twelve to fifteen months post-injection range.”

Cassandra ground her teeth. The fact that he, and the government, had withheld the experimental compound of the immunizations from the soldiers was completely despicable. But she’d stated all her objections to how the GTECHs had been created before taking this job. Heard all the vows that the GTECHs were created by accident, when they—meaning the army, though she translated that to her father—were simply protecting them from a biological threat. Considering her father was all about protecting his country at all cost, and though he meant well, often went too far by her standard, she wasn’t completely sure she believed that claim. She suspected she’d hear the soldiers voice the same concerns once she earned their trust, which she fully intended to do. In fact, it was her objections to how the GTECHs were created, and then how little emotional support they’d received regarding that creation—rather than her father’s urging—that had finalized her acceptance. Her father wanted her for the job for her skill and the family loyalty her mother had often given him. But like her mother, who had often worked by her father’s side, Cassandra wanted to help the soldiers he employed. So, like her mother, and out of character to her true self, she did what most people did around her father and bit her tongue.

“Let’s have a father-daughter breakfast in the morning,” he ordered rather than asked. Her father didn’t know how to operate outside of giving orders, even when he simply wanted father-daughter time.

Knowing this, and seeing it as his form of affection, Cassandra smiled. She didn’t always approve of her father’s ways, but she loved him deeply. “I’d like that.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said, giving her a nod before disappearing out the door, and leaving her with a sense of unidentifiable dread that lingered for the next hour.

Finally, tired and ready for food, she exited the building and headed to her car, only to be greeted by a perfectly flat, perfectly defeating, tire. “Great,” she mumbled, setting her files inside on the backseat and then pulling the tight knot at the back of her hair free to release the ever-growing tension there. She glanced around, looking for the resource never in short supply on a military base—a soldier or two or three, who could be easily convinced to lend a helping hand.

Suddenly, her hair lifted around her neck, a soft breeze picking up momentary speed with a raw masculine scent touching its depths. A second later, Michael appeared before her, as big and broad and devastatingly “sexy” as he had been this morning.

“You really should come with a warning alarm of some sort,” she said, fist balled at her chest to calm her pounding heart.

“So I hear,” he said, his too-blue eyes flickering with a hint of unreadable emotion before he glanced at her tire. “Looks like you need help.”

There was something overwhelming—perhaps decadent even—about this man that had her struggling to remember how to form a proper sentence. “I… yes, please.” Cassandra brushed a lock of blonde hair from her eyes and glanced at the elevator, then him. “Was that you this morning holding the elevator for me?”

He kneeled down to inspect her tire. “Yeah,” he said, tossing her an amused look over his truly spectacular shoulder hugged by a nice, tight black tee. “But apparently, strange men and elevators don’t work for you.”

Cassandra felt her cheeks flush. “I had a call,” she said. The look he gave her said he wasn’t buying it, so she added, “Okay fine. I’m not beyond admitting I was a little intimidated. You wind-walked without any visible wind. I didn’t know that was possible.”

He pushed to his feet and ignored her comment. “You’ve got a screw the size of a rocket launcher in that tire. It’ll have to be replaced.”

Cassandra wasn’t letting him off that easy. “Can everyone wind-walk without any visible wind?”

“I can,” he said, his lids half-veiled now, his jaw a bit more tense. “I don’t pretend to speak for anyone else.”

Kelly’s words played in Cassandra’s head.
The stories of Michael are darn near legend.
“You’re the only one who can do it, aren’t you? That’s why people talk about you. Because you’re different and it scares them.”

He stepped closer to her, so close she could feel the heat of his body, so close she had to tilt her chin to look him in the eyes. They flickered and then turned solid black. “Do I scare
you
, Cassandra?”

Oh yeah. He scared her all right, but not for the reasons he assumed. This man reached inside her and demanded a feminine response she wasn’t prepared to give him. In fact, standing there, looking into his eyes—she didn’t care if they were black or blue—they spoke to her in a soul-deep way that told her far more than she thought he knew. He was showing her the GTECH, and instinctively, she knew he needed her to see the man. “I’ll make you a deal, Michael Taylor,” she said. “I’ll be scared of you when you give me a reason to be. But just so you know, being all broody and showing me how well you can shift your eye color isn’t doing the job.”

Surprise flickered across his handsome features, and for a moment she almost thought he might smile. She wanted to see that smile, for reasons she couldn’t explain, and hung on to a thin string waiting for it, until the moment was gone. Until he said, “Let me take you to dinner. I promise to work on being scarier while we eat. And for added effect, I’ll replace your tire when we get back.”

Warnings played in her head at the invitation. He had a slew of females. She didn’t date soldiers. Her father wouldn’t approve. But still, she found herself looking forward to the challenge of enticing that elusive smile. She playfully replied, “I’m up for the challenge if you are.”

Those black eyes shifted back to blue fire, filled with enough heat to make her knees weak. “I guess we’ll see about that.” He fished his keys from his black fatigue pants. “I’m parked over in the corner.”

“What?” she teased. “We have to drive? We don’t get to wind-walk to dinner? Superman used to fly Lois all over the place.”

“While I’m never against a little comic book fantasy,” he assured, “I’m no Superman, believe me, and you’re not Lois—not unless you’re looking for a near-death experience. It’s dangerous for humans. Sometimes even fatal.”

“Oh,” she said, surprised, walking with him toward a row of cars. “That’s limiting. I thought you could just pop in and rescue someone and be done with it.”

“Gives me an excuse to keep Carrie,” he said, stopping next to a classic black Mustang.

“You named your car Carrie?” she asked, surprised yet again by this man. He was far more human than people made him out to be.

“She’s the friend who has never failed me,” he said, pulling the passenger door open and waving her forward.

“She’s also a psycho demon character from a Stephen King novel,” she reminded him. “Not sure that’s a friend I want to have.”

“You won’t say that after you ride in her,” he promised.

All too aware of his warm stare, Cassandra slid into the car, sinking into the soft leather surrounding her, a moment before he shut her inside.
The friend who has never failed me.
Someone had not only failed Michael in the past, they’d hurt him doing it. And that hurt was a part of how he defined who, and what, he was. Maybe it even made him as lethal as everyone seemed to believe him to be. Maybe she
should
be afraid of him. So why wasn’t she opening the car door and getting out?

Besides, how could one little dinner date be dangerous?

Chapter 2

Michael walked into the Kuwait City Fish Market off Arabian Gulf Boulevard in street clothes—casual jeans, a black T-shirt, and shades covering his eyes. It was two weeks after meeting Cassandra, and he was on a mission, but in one hell of a foul mood, never something that boded well for his enemies. After four casual dates that had somehow not ended up in bed, despite a damn near primal need to strip her naked and have his way with her, Michael had sworn off seeing her again. And not because he wanted to. He wanted that woman like he had never wanted anything. She was full of life and intelligent, like his mother had once been before his father had shredded every bit of soul she possessed. And as his mother often said—Michael was nothing, if not the spawn of his father, a man who knew way more about death than he did about life.

The foul scent of the dead fish flared in his nostrils, made worse by the heat radiating beneath the canvas roof that covered the displays, reminding Michael he had a little of that death to deal today. He hated the smell of dead fish almost as much as he hated the smell of blood, but sources said Raj Mustafad came here every Friday to buy his fish, which meant Michael had to endure the stench. Raj was their link to an Iranian terrorist group which was hell-bent and on their way to the annihilation of Israel by biological attack.

Michael knew the instant Raj walked into the market, having memorized his photos. Three tables of stinking fish separated them, which Michael quickly remedied, fading into the wind and reappearing beside Raj, not giving a crap about witnesses. Not in Kuwait City where people were afraid to speak their names for fear of being stoned to death in the streets.

He grabbed Raj by his long robe and flung him onto the center of one of the tables of fish, the slimy bodies smashing beneath him and flopping off the table. He pointed a gun at the man’s head and spoke in Arabic. “Where are the canisters?”

Screams sounded behind him, as the fish market cleared. Shouts called out for the military forces nearby. The wind shifted, and Michael didn’t have to look to know Caleb and Adam Rain, identical twins, stood behind him, covering his back. He trusted Caleb completely, but Adam, not at all. Adam was a loose cannon developing a God Complex who Michael might one day have to kill to spare Caleb the pain of doing it himself. He suspected that was why Powell kept him paired with the two brothers. Because he knew Michael wouldn’t hesitate to kill Adam no matter how much he respected Caleb. But for now, the two brothers made an impermeable shield, and Michael had a job to do.

Raj continued to plead for his freedom as Michael cocked the gun. “I don’t have time for denial.” There were millions of lives on the line, with reliable intel from the Israeli government that the attack was planned for sometime in the next twenty-four hours. A week and a half of chasing their tails for the details had led to only one person—Raj. He was all they had.

Raj spouted more denials. Michael moved the gun to the man’s ear. “I’ll start here and move on.” Michael fired a warning shot, and Raj screamed as the bullet intentionally grazed his ear.

Gunfire sounded behind him. Caleb shouted at him, “Anytime now, Michael.”

Michael shoved the gun to the man’s crotch. “Last chance.”

Raj spilled his guts before Michael did it for him. Michael released him, and without turning, called out a second before he faded into the wind, knowing Caleb and Adam would follow. “We’re a go.” He wasn’t worried about Raj talking—he’d be killed for being a traitor.

***

Near sunrise, several hours later, in black fatigues, Michael materialized from inside the wind behind one of the four terrorists, who was arming the unlit fishing boat, and silently snapped the man’s neck. Only a few feet away, two more insurgents were taken out by Caleb and Adam, wearing dark caps to conceal their short, light brown hair. If Raj’s claims were accurate, then in exactly three minutes, a supply jeep would appear on the dark, dirt path leading to the dock—that jeep would hold the live biological agent they’d come for.

Michael quickly scanned for the fourth man, previously missing, but finally located him on the edge of the boat about to jump. Michael simply thought himself beside the man, and the wind made it so. In a matter of ten seconds, he’d snapped the man’s neck. Quickly, he lifted the dead insurgent, dumping him below deck where Caleb and Adam had already stored the other bodies.

The eerie sound of wolves howling ripped through the distant woods. The three GTECHs stood side-by-side, eyes on those woods. Barely audible, Adam said, “Two snipers. Another ten insurgents a half mile down the hill. Here for the same reason as we are. They want the shipment that’s on the way to that boat.”

Michael narrowed his gaze on Adam. “How the hell do you know that?”

“The wolves,” Adam said without looking at him, his attention on the dark line of the trees barely a kilometer away. “They’ve started talking to me.”

What the F? “And do you talk back?” Michael asked.

“Working on that,” Adam said. “I’ll handle the snipers.” The wind lifted a second before he was gone.

Michael cut Caleb a look. “Did you know about this?”

“It started last week on that mission to Asia we went on without you,” he said. “The freaking wolves followed us everywhere.”

Headlights flickered down the dirt path, and Michael and Caleb instantly faded into the shadows, taking cover. Michael took scout position behind the cabin, keeping the approaching target in sight. Caleb crouched low in a dark corner of the boat. The engine grew louder; the canvas-covered truck halted in front of the dock. Doors slammed shut. Male voices rumbled through the air.

The instant the last of the five men stepped on board, leaving the truck and the biological weapons unattended, Adam spoke into his headset. “Go.” He didn’t say “clear,” which translated to: Adam still had his hands full, but he had them covered.

Michael signaled Caleb, and Caleb faded into the wind, going after that biological agent and leaving Michael to deal with the five men. Using the edge of silent wind-walking that made him lethal in ways no other GTECH could be, Michael methodically took out the men. Like a ghost, he appeared behind each, snapping their necks, and then disappearing. In less than a minute, he wind-walked to join Caleb, appearing behind the truck.

Michael found Caleb standing on the back ledge of the vehicle, lifting the canvas covering, unaware that a young boy, maybe fourteen, held a machine gun on his back. Michael drew the semi-automatic at his side, finger on the trigger.

Time seemed to stand still in the three seconds that passed, and that black place he called home when on the battlefield, slipped away. Dealing with the kid soldiers messed with his head. They always had. It was likely that the boy was fighting, serving the terrorists, because his mother—and brothers and sisters, if he had any—had been threatened. The line between killer and victim, man and boy, was skewed, which was the case all too often, yet Michael had never gotten used to it. Today the boy could become a killer and a man, if Michael let him, but then Caleb would be dead. Because even as a GTECH, Caleb had little chance of surviving a machine gun unloaded in the back of the head.

Michael fired his gun, hit the boy with a bullet in each arm, for good measure. The boy fell to the dirt screaming as Caleb jumped to the ground, a grim expression on his face showing he felt the same trauma over the boy that Michael did. “Michael,” he said, “you had no choice.”

The wind rippled as Adam appeared beside the boy and shot him. Michael went cold inside, his gaze connecting with Caleb’s in shared discomfort.

From the nearby woods, a scream cut through the air, and Adam laughed. “The wolves were hungry.” His gaze flickered to the boy. “Piece of shit human.” He kicked the bloody, limp body, and Michael flinched with the action. “They’re all pieces of shit, weak in every possible way.”

He reeled back to kick the boy again, and Caleb grabbed him a second before Michael would have done so himself. “Enough!” Caleb said, glaring at his brother. “He is only a boy. A child and a victim, Adam. Probably trying to save his family.”

Adam grabbed a handful of Caleb’s fatigue jacket. “Oh come on, brother,” he ground out. “Humans are no more than animals. They kill each other. We stop them. And for what? So they can try again. Maybe they are supposed to die so we can thrive.” He let go of Caleb and eyed both of the men. “We evolve as they turn more Neanderthal with every passing day.”

“Damn it, Adam,” Caleb said, scrubbing his day-old stubble. “Stop talking crap. Sometimes I don’t even know who you are anymore. Let’s just do our jobs.” He yanked down the tail of the truck and slid the wooden box forward.

“You’ll come around, brother,” Adam said, and glanced at Michael. “Once you’re a little less human, like me. And Michael.”

That comparison shredded what was left of Michael’s gut.
Like me and Michael
. Michael glanced between the two brothers, so alike and so different—Caleb, who Michael knew would die to save an innocent human, and who might well have chosen that boy’s life over his own; and Adam, who would kick the child while he was down.

Caleb pulled open the lid and exposed three airtight canisters, small, yet lethal—able to kill hundreds of thousands. Adam reached in and roughly removed a canister. “Eventually there must be an end so that there can be a new beginning.”

There was an evil look in Adam’s eyes that said he was considering opening that canister. Michael readied himself for action as Caleb grabbed his brother’s wrist. “Enough. Put it down, Adam.”

Adam laughed. “Maybe I’ll keep one of these babies for myself.” The wolves in the distance howled as if joining in on the joke. Another glare from Caleb, and Adam returned the canister to the crate and sealed the lid. “I’ll do the honors of taking these to Powell.” He grabbed the crate holding the canisters and faded into the wind.

Caleb cursed and eyed Michael. “I’ll deal with Adam. And Powell.” He disappeared.

Michael felt no compulsion to follow. He just hoped Caleb was truly as prepared as he claimed for what was to come, for the day when Michael would be forced to deal with Adam. A day that was coming sooner than later. The GTECH serum had done something to him, turned him into a monster. Caleb was a good guy, the one who wouldn’t break rules. The one who needed someone like Michael by his side, someone who would.

He glanced down at the blood puddle at his feet, the blood of the young boy, the sight all too familiar, and told himself that every life he had ever taken had been necessary. He wasn’t like his father, who’d sold weapons to foreign countries without concern for who lived or died, or his mother who justified his actions for money and security. Who hated him because he dared to shake up her perfect little world. Nor was he like Adam who killed for amusement. Michael had devoted himself to saving lives, and sometimes that meant taking lives. The GTECH serum had nothing to do with his choices, or Caleb’s, for that matter. Caleb and Michael were not X2 positive. Adam was.

And it meant nothing that Michael and Adam had both developed special gifts—his own ability to communicate with the wind and Adam’s to communication with the wolves. Michael balled his fists at his sides. He wasn’t like Adam, damn it.
But you aren’t like Caleb either
, the wind seemed to whisper back. In that moment, without any conscious decision to do so, Michael faded into the wind. More and more, it seemed to communicate with him, almost speak to him. And it knew where he wanted to go. It knew he needed an escape, to pretend he was still human—when sometimes he wondered if he had ever really been human.

***

An hour and a half later, Michael leaned against the back wall of Vegas’s version of Coyote Ugly, known for loud music and hot women in Daisy Dukes and cowboy boots, several of whom were dancing on the bar above the rows of tables.

He had no idea why he was still here, pretending to watch the dancers, why he hadn’t done his normal post-mission roundup of a woman—or two or three—and already gone and buried himself, and the hell of his mission, in their many pleasures. Or why he had to keep talking himself out of going to see Cassandra when he knew damn well that was a bad idea. “What can I do you for, Michael?” There was no mistaking the invitation in the sweet southern drawl of Becky Lee, the twenty-something redhead who’d sidled up beside him and pressed her ample breasts and a sleek body against his side. She knew why he was here as well as he did. A woman liberal with her sexual preferences, willing to try about anything, who didn’t want a commitment, Becky Lee was exactly Michael’s kind of pleasure, and this wouldn’t be the first time she’d serviced his post-mission needs.

Michael eyed her, his gaze raking the curves of her bountiful cleavage, expecting that rush of raw, primal need, the need that beckoned him to seek female comfort and seemed to draw females to his side. That same rush that got worse with every return home since he’d become GTECH. But he felt nothing. Not one damn thing. Michael ground his teeth at the thought. Damn it to hell, what was wrong with him?

He tilted back his beer and downed it, wishing his GTECH metabolism didn’t burn off the alcohol practically before he swallowed. There was no pleasure to be found from booze, just a reminder of exactly what he was trying to escape—that he wasn’t human. But sex gave him escape—sex made him feel alive, gave him a release. Frustration churned in his gut, and Michael grabbed Becky and pulled her with him. He was damn sure getting his escape.