Payback (17 page)

Shaking his head, he pushed open the door to the housing unit and stepped out into the humidity. It was nearly time for the assault to begin.

Even as he swatted at mosquitoes, his lips twitched into a grin as adrenaline hit his system. He felt a stronger rush knowing he was about to enter a possibly physically dangerous situation than he experienced when arranging for a hostile takeover of a criminal’s businesses. A sensation similar to the heightened awareness he remembered from his days of thievery on the streets of Moscow.

He could definitely understand why field operators got addicted to this thrill.

“Y
ou almost done there?”

Faith startled as Daniel Lang, one of the SSU’s research specialists, stopped in the doorway of the tiny office she’d been given. “Sorry,” she mumbled, glad that her laptop’s screen was turned away from the door, hiding her work. “Guess I’m a bit jumpy.”

Daniel nodded. “Understandable. It’s your brother over there.”

She shrugged, letting him believe that was the main reason she was on edge. Yes, she was worried sick that the attack would result in Toby’s death. Or Mark’s. Still, she’d been managing pretty well to compartmentalize her fear so that she could work. The truth of why her nerves were stretched resided on her laptop.

“So, are you finished?” Daniel asked.

“Uh, yeah.” Making sure he couldn’t see her screen, she brought up the spreadsheet she’d been working on. Ryker had assigned her to help match the names of the men targeted by Jamieson as potential Kerberos subjects to those men the SSU had recovered from Kaufmann’s lab. Not all of the men were capable of communicating their names, so Faith used the detailed catalog Mark had helped put together in order to compare physical descriptions.

Daniel worked on verifying which men were dead. Once they finished identifying the victims, the SSU would reach out to the appropriate authorities so that the family members could be notified of their loved ones’ status.

Another team would try to track down the remaining men on the Kerberos list who the SSU had not yet located.

Faith sent her list to the printer. “There you go.”

Daniel picked up the multi-page document. “Great. Thanks. I’ll shoot you another list of names in a bit. Why don’t you take a break for now?”

Faith gave him a vague smile and a nod, her tension not ebbing until he’d headed down the hallway toward his own office.

Damn, that had been close. Faith got up and shut her office door, taking a risk and locking it as well. She hoped no one would bother her for a few more minutes. That’s all she needed to finish going through the file on Dr. Mikhail Nevsky.

She couldn’t decide whether the security on the SSU’s internal server was lax because the external security was so tight, or whether someone on the research team actually wanted her to poke her nose into areas that she wasn’t authorized to view. Nevertheless, Faith was running with the opportunity.

Maybe another woman would feel guilty over repaying Ryker’s hospitality and his assistance with finding her brother by preparing an exposé on the decades of experimental research that had led to Dr. Kaufmann’s program. But Faith felt a driving need to understand every aspect of the program that had disrupted her brother’s life.

Unfortunately, the more she dug into the SSU’s files, the more history she uncovered. According to the records she’d reviewed, the United States government had been experimenting with ways of using chemicals to enhance soldiers since the Vietnam War. Certain side effects such as insane rages had been documented during the war. Despite official declarations to the contrary, the experiments had continued in various forms. The most recent being Dr. Kaufmann’s program.

Faith’s stomach cramped thinking about all the men who’d suffered under the government sanctioned programs. If, after Toby was rescued, there was no public disclosure of what had happened, she would take her findings public. Her lips curled. Siobahn would love to sink her teeth into this. Together they’d write a series of articles that would shine so much light on the experiments that the government wouldn’t dare restart them.

Faith downloaded another set of files onto her flash drive. Then, figuring she’d pushed her luck as far as she could for the day, she unlocked her door. Several minutes later, she received her next list of names and once again began the slow, heart breaking process of cross checking victims.

Washraiti Island, Salaqut

M
ark couldn’t believe his luck. He’d found Toby Andrews. For some reason, the man had broken away from his assigned group. Now Toby crashed through the jungle a few yards ahead of Mark, making animal sounds of panic.

Mark didn’t know what had scared Faith’s brother, but at least his trail was easy to follow. Plus, the dense vegetation slowed Toby down enough for Mark to keep up with him, even with Toby’s enhanced speed.

Mark had already radioed the SSU team, letting them know he was in pursuit. To his surprise, no one from the Kerberos team had come after Toby. Perhaps they were too close to the launch of their attack to waste time on an unstable man who couldn’t stop them.

Toby tripped on an exposed root and nearly went down.

“Stop, Toby Andrews,” Mark said in a loud, clear voice of command. “I have a message from your sister. From Faith.”

The man growled and turned around. Even though Dr. Montague had warned Mark to expect rage and madness, he wasn’t prepared for the feral, assessing look Toby gave him.

He fought the urge to back up. “Treat him like a wild animal,” Dr. Montague had warned during their final briefing. “Stay calm and don’t make any threatening moves. His handler is the only one he’s supposed to listen to. Depending on what phase he’s in, he may or may not be receptive to your conversation. Most likely you’ll have to sedate him.”

Mark carried the tranquilizer gun the SSU had issued him, but he’d promised Faith he’d only use it as a last resort.

Wetting his dry lips, Mark stared into Toby’s eyes. “Faith misses you,” he said.

Toby winced. His hands went to his temples. “Faith…bad,” he groaned. “Kill…Faith…kill…all.”

Mark shook his head. “No. Faith loves you. Kaufmann lied to you. Kaufmann is bad. Listen.” He pulled the voice recorder out of his pocket and pushed play.

A sweet lullaby in Faith’s crystal clear voice poured out of the recorder. Toby’s head jerked back as if someone had yanked on a cord around his neck. His hands dropped to his sides and he glanced around fearfully.

“No,” he moaned.

Mark turned up the volume. He was still amazed that Faith had such a beautiful singing voice. But the effect of her voice on him was immediate. Mark forgot the heat and the dirt and the bugs. He only remembered Faith. Her smile. The way her eyes shone with confidence and trust when she looked at him. The small, contented sigh she’d given him after they’d made love last night.

For her sake, he hoped this worked. It would break her heart if he didn’t bring her brother back. Yet he also didn’t want Faith to see this wild man who’d dropped to his knees as if his sister’s melodic notes were nails being driven into his flesh.

Toby’s hands went back up to his head. He yanked on his hair. “Stop!” he shouted. “No more! Hurts.” His face twisted, contorting into an expression of such deep pain that Mark had to turn away.

The sound of repeated thudding made Mark look back. Toby was banging his head against the ground. “Stop…love…obey…hurts…kill…sleep…” The man sobbed each word in the pauses between slamming his head against the earth.

“Toby, stop!” Dr. Montague had warned Mark that any attempt to expose Toby to his past would conflict with Kaufmann’s conditioning, result in excruciating headaches and possibly make Toby try to kill whoever had brought up the memory.

Mark shut off the recorder, figuring that if Toby hadn’t attacked him yet he wasn’t going to. “I can help you.”

Toby lay quietly with his forehead resting on the ground. Still, Mark watched him warily, all too aware of the enhanced speed at which the man could attack him.

“Do you understand me?” Mark demanded. “I can take you to someone who will make the headaches stop. Who will get rid of the voices. Give you control of your mind again. Reunite you with Faith.” Dr. Montague had promised she’d do everything she could to restore Toby to his previous self.

Mark prayed that Toby wasn’t too far gone to make a full recovery.

“Toby! Answer me.”

Toby lifted his head. His lips curled back and he snarled at Mark, snapping his teeth like a rabid dog. He rose into a crouch and his powerful body tensed, ready to leap.

A woman’s scream lanced through the thick jungle air.

Toby jumped to his feet. “Faith!” he yelled, charging into the jungle.

“No! Toby wait. Faith’s not here. She’s safe. She’s—” But Toby was gone.

Cursing under his breath, Mark shoved the recorder in his pocket and took off after him.

M
ark followed Toby into a clearing and pulled up short at what he saw. Shit. The bodies of four guards lay scattered around a truck that must be one of the SSU’s mobile labs. Two of the men had broken necks. One had multiple stab wounds and a slit throat. The other man looked as if he’d been beaten repeatedly with a blunt object about the head and chest. Despite the damage he’d suffered, he was trying to pull himself toward the truck.

Mark threw a quick glance to where Toby had disappeared through the twisted door to the lab, then hurried over to the man. “What happened?”

“Kaufmann’s men…two…caught us by…surprise…wear…ing…protective suits…tranq darts…bullets…bounce off…” His eyes turned toward Mark, pleading. “Help…Dr…Mon…tague…” He coughed violently, then collapsed.

Mark bolted toward the lab. If the men killed Dr. Montague, then who would return Toby to normal? How would he explain to Faith that he’d failed her?

Mark jumped over the mangled ruin of the door and into an antechamber that must have been the security command center. Broken monitors littered the floor. A chair stuck out of the far wall. All that remained of the observation window were jagged pieces of glass and fragments of wire.

Beyond that, a growing pool of blood seeped out from under the body of another guard. Dr. Montague lay in a boneless heap at the foot of a supply cabinet. One of Kaufmann’s men kicked Dr. Montague repeatedly in the face and torso while a second man smashed beakers and shoved everything from the countertops onto the floor.

The man attacking Dr. Montague threw back his head, yelled in primal fury, and pulled a knife from his belt.

With an answering bellow, Toby charged the man. The pair went down in a tangle of flying fists.

The other attacker was too busy trying to pry a cabinet off the wall to notice the fight. But Mark knew it would only be a matter of time.

The man’s hood had slipped off his head, leaving the back of his neck exposed. Mark raised his pistol and fired just as the cabinet broke free of the wall. Kaufmann’s man staggered back under its weight. Mark fired repeatedly until the man landed on his back under the weight of the cabinet.

Satisfied that the man was dead, Mark turned in time to see Kaufmann’s man kick Toby in the stomach. Toby landed on his back with a grunt.

Kaufmann’s man ignored Toby and rushed over to Dr. Montague. Dropping to his knees, he raised his knife and plunged it into her chest.

“No!” Toby struggled to sit up, reaching out as if he would choke the man. Tears streamed down his cheeks as his mouth twisted in horror. “No hurt Faith!”

Shit. Dr. Montague was roughly the same size as Faith, and with her straight blonde hair hidden under a protective cap, Toby wouldn’t realize this wasn’t his curly-haired sister. He must have thought Faith was close by because of the voice recording Mark had played for him.

The man yanked the knife out of Dr. Montague.

A second later, Rafe Andros dove through the window and tackled the man.

Mark sensed another man heading toward Toby and he threw himself at Faith’s brother, pushing Toby to the floor and shielding him with his own body. “Jurassic Park,” Mark said, giving the code word to indicate he was friendly. “Don’t hurt this one. This is Toby. I—” A gasp of pain bit off the rest of his sentence.

Kaufmann’s man yanked his knife free of Mark’s lower back as he and Andros rolled away.

Mark screamed and lost consciousness.

I
an McDermott, Ryker’s administrative assistant, was at the door when Faith answered the knock at her guest apartment at four in the morning. Swallowing her dread, she forced herself to meet his somber eyes. “What’s happened? Are Toby and Mark all right?”

“Your brother is okay. But, I’m sorry, ma’am. Mr. Tonelli was injured during the attack.”

Faith swayed and gripped the doorframe to keep herself upright. No. Not Mark. Please, no. “How bad is it?” She had to force the words out of her parched mouth.

McDermott glanced up and down the hallway. “I think it would be better for me to tell you inside, ma’am.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.” Faith shuffled out of the way so the man could enter and tried to use the action of closing the door to ground herself. No matter what McDermott had to say, Mark wasn’t dead. She had to hold onto that thought or go crazy.

“Tell me,” she demanded. “What happened?”

“While trying to protect your brother during a fight with Kaufmann’s enhanced men, Mr. Tonelli was stabbed in the lower back. The knife did severe damage to his internal organs. He’s being medevaced to a surgical trauma center.”

Oh, God. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Do they expect him to live?”

“It’s touch and go right now, ma’am.”

“I want transport to the hospital. I need to see him.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s why I’m here.”

“Good. Just let me change and we can go.” She headed toward the bedroom, calling back, “What about Toby?”

“Your brother is a bit beat up, but sustained no serious injuries.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“He’s en route to our Georgia lab. Our medical team has given him starting doses of the drugs that will help calm his rage and bring his intellect back online. The team reports that he’s resting quietly.”