Silent Creed

ALSO BY ALEX KAVA

THE RYDER CREED NOVELS

Breaking Creed

THE MAGGIE O’DELL NOVELS

Stranded

Fireproof

Hotwire

Damaged

Black Friday

Exposed

A Necessary Evil

At the Stroke of Madness

The Soul Catcher

Split Second

A Perfect Evil

THE STAND-ALONE NOVELS

Whitewash

One False Move

THE E-BOOK ORIGINALS
WITH ERICA SPINDLER AND J. T. ELLISON

Storm Season

Slices of Night

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

Publishers Since 1838

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street

New York, New York 10014

Copyright © 2015 by S. M. Kava

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kava, Alex.

Silent creed / Alex Kava.

p. cm.—(A Ryder Creed novel; 2)

ISBN 978-0-698-16068-2

1. Veterans—United States—Fiction. 2. Dog trainers—Fiction. 3. Search dogs—Fiction. 4. Search and rescue operations—Fiction. 5. O’Dell, Maggie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 6. Criminal profilers—Fiction. 7. Conspiracies—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3561.A8682S55 2015 2015015993

813'.54—dc23

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To Deb Carlin and the rest of the pack: Duncan, Boomer, and Maggie. You all are my heart and soul.

And again to Scout, this whole series is for you, buddy.

Haywood County, North Carolina

D
aniel Tate clenched his teeth and looked away just as the needle pierced a vein in his arm. He’d spent two tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. He’d been shot at, dodged IEDs, and escaped a grenade. But needles—damn, he hated needles.

“This will help relax you,” Dr. Shaw told him.

When she walked in the door, Tate had been relieved to see a woman. But she had barely introduced herself before she pulled out a stainless steel tray with vials and surgical utensils and, of course, several syringes. Her black hair was pulled back tight, leaving only long bangs that overlapped heavy-framed glasses. She was younger than he expected, with smooth skin that hadn’t yet earned wrinkles at the corners of her mouth or eyes. And she was attractive, but instead of looking at her now, Tate let his eyes scan the room. He didn’t want to even see the needle, so he stared at the walls.

It was a strange room, empty except for the examination table. The drywall looked spongy, like the foam mats you’d find at the basketball court tacked up under the basket for overenthusiastic athletes to bounce off. Only these mats weren’t tacked onto the walls, they
were
the walls—whitewashed and seamless. The term “padded cell” came to mind.

There wasn’t a single thing displayed. Didn’t medical exam rooms have diplomas or something on the walls? Not that it mattered. Tate’s chance to back out had passed. He knew it as soon as he signed on page seven of that long-ass contract they’d handed him when he first arrived.

He didn’t even know where this place was. It had been pouring sheets of rain the entire hour and a half from the airport. That was yesterday, or at least he thought it was. His wristwatch and cell phone were two of the personal items he’d had to surrender. Other than not knowing the time of day, he didn’t mind. But Tate didn’t understand why he couldn’t wear his own shoes or underwear. The blue scrubs were comfortable, but the paper booties drove him crazy. He felt like he was shuffling, the sound reminding him of the old people in the nursing home where his wife worked.

“After I administer the drug, I’ll ask you a series of questions,” Dr. Shaw said.

He glanced at her and held back a grimace. She was loading another syringe. Long, slender fingers with bloodred nail polish. A ring on her thumb—that was strange, but young women did that, right? The ring had tiny diamonds dancing around the band. All Tate could think was that this served him right for not reading all seven pages. He’d only cared about the three thousand dollars he had been promised, and he had double-checked that it was in the contract.

He hated that his wife worked an extra shift once a week just to make ends meet. Their oldest daughter had started waiting tables at the coffee shop. Even Danny Junior had a paper route. But Tate hadn’t been able to get a job.

Not true.
He hadn’t been able to
hold
a job since he’d been back.

The doctors called it post-traumatic stress disorder. But all Tate saw when he looked in the mirror was a perfectly healthy man. Never mind that his brain twisted pieces of information and insomnia kept him pacing the streets of their small town. He needed to start contributing and helping to take care of his family. Even if it meant a few needle pokes.

This time it didn’t matter where he looked. As soon as the metal slipped into his vein, he felt the liquid rush into his body. A heat wave crawled up his arm, over his shoulder, and spread throughout his chest. It took his breath away, and he felt his body shudder.

“You may experience a tightness in your chest,” he heard Dr. Shaw say. Only now it sounded like she was talking to him from the next room.

He turned his head to look at her, and just that movement made him nauseated. He tried to find her eyes through the blur. The small rose tattoo he had noticed earlier on the side of her neck had grown legs and started to inch along her skin like an insect. Tate blinked hard, trying to focus. Sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip.

“Nosebleeds are not uncommon,” Dr. Shaw continued in her calm, cool manner. “I’m going to ask you some questions, Daniel.”

Tate,
he wanted to tell her everyone called him Tate, but he couldn’t take his mind off the bug digging into her neck. His heart galloped in his chest, and it was difficult to breathe.

“Daniel, can you count backward from a hundred for me?”

His mouth had a metallic taste and it took effort to make it move. Teeth and tongue seemed to be in the way of him activating his voice.

“Daniel, can you count backward from a hundred?” she repeated.

Suddenly he heard himself say, “That would be difficult to do because I don’t like rice.”

Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t the correct answer, but already he’d forgotten the question. Nothing mattered except the black insect on her neck. Why couldn’t she feel it digging under her skin?

“Dr. Shaw.” A voice called from the doorway.

Tate’s entire body jerked before he saw the man. His head was shaved and gleamed almost as bright as his long white coat. Tate had to look away. The brightness hurt his eyes. Just as they were starting to focus, the light sent stars and sparks like electrical surges, and he knew he couldn’t trust them.

“I’m in the middle of a test,” Dr. Shaw told the man.

“It’s gotten worse.”

“Can you please wait a few minutes, Richard? I’ve just started.”

“For God’s sake, you didn’t give him the serum, did you? It takes seventy-two hours to leave the system. And we need to leave now.”

“Calm down, please.”

Tate couldn’t decide if she was talking to him or to the man, because she was staring directly at him.

“They’re talking about landslides. We really must evacuate.”

“I’ve lived through hurricanes, Richard. This is just rain.”

But now she left Tate and joined the man at the door. They didn’t bother to keep their voices down. In fact, they seemed to forget about Tate. They didn’t even notice that he was panting now and wiping erratically at his eyes, sweat pouring down his face.

“The water is almost over the bridge.” Richard sounded panicked. He was loud and gesturing. “If we don’t leave now, we risk being stranded here.”

Dr. Shaw was turned away from Tate and he could no longer see the insect on her neck. He began checking his own hands and arms.

“We can’t just leave behind all of our research material. We’re safe here,” Dr. Shaw was telling Richard. “This place is built like a fortress.”

Tate tried to see if there were any bugs on the man. His eyes were finally settling down when he saw a flash of green-and-black fur behind the doctors. It looked like a small monkey running up the hallway.

“Well, I’m leaving. With or without you.”

“That would be a mistake. Let’s talk about this.” She glanced over her shoulder, and when she called out to Tate, it sounded like a bellow echoing across the small room. “I’ll be right back, Daniel. Stay right here.”

She joined the man in the hallway and tried to close the door. When it didn’t seem to fit the frame, she opened it wide.

“See, that’s not a good sign,” Richard told her. “Doors and windows tend to stick right before. It’s bad, I’m telling you. We must leave.”

This time she pulled the door with such force it slammed.

Tate sat listening to the
thump-thump
of his heart. It was beating inside his head, and he put his hands over his chest to make sure his heart hadn’t moved. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed since the doctors had left. It could have been minutes. It could have been an hour. Then a loud crack jolted him off the table.

It sounded like an artillery shell. Was that possible?

He crawled under the examination table, his body scrambling in twitches and jerks. He listened for more artillery shells. The room started to sway and tilt. Was it the drug? Had it screwed with his equilibrium? His ears popped, and instead of the thumping of his heart, he now heard only a rumble.

He felt it, too. A vibration rattled the doctor’s instruments, shaking them off the tray. The floor tiles lifted and rolled beneath him, and Tate grabbed on to the examination table.

That’s when he saw the whitewashed walls crack and buckle. They were actually caving in, as if a bulldozer was on the other side shoving them in. Tate felt something coming down from the ceiling. He ducked his head back under the table. He watched, not sure whether to believe his eyes. It was raining dirt and gravel. He could smell the wet earth.

The rumble grew to a roar. Forget the bulldozer, a freight train was headed down on top of him. He covered his head with his arms and curled into a tight ball.

More crashes. Metal shrieked. Light fixtures exploded.

In the darkness Daniel Tate couldn’t see. The floor became a roller coaster. He clawed to hold on to the steel table as the world shattered and roared and collapsed on top of him.