The Betrayed Series: Ultimate Omnibus Collection With EXCLUSIVE Post-Shiva Short Story (100 page)

And damned if his gut was never wrong.

CHAPTER 21

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GID Outpost, Jordan

10:56 p.m. GMT

“Over there!” Bunny yelled, pointing across the SUV to a small glow of light.

Rebecca grabbed hold of the armrest as Lopez gunned them across the desert to the grate in question. She leaned out of the window to peer down at the metal grate. Sure enough, light was coming from deep underground.

“Can I?” Davidson asked as he squeezed in next to her.

They’d already rigged each of the grates with C-4, so what was Davidson up to? Carefully he wrapped string around a lipstick camera. “This is so Mickey Moused, but we might be able to pick something up.”

“We should have brought the endoscope,” Lopez grumbled.

To have a high-tech, flexible, cablelike camera would have been great, however who knew back in London they would be trying to spy beneath the Jordanian desert? Instead, they were just going to have to be content to lower the equivalent of a nanny cam on a string.

Lopez turned on a small palmtop tablet. The image was blurry and showed metal wall after metal wall. The picture jarred only to stabilize. The camera seemed pointed down a horizontal vent.

“Can’t we get some kind of visual?” Bunny asked.

Davidson indicated to the strings in his hand. “I can’t force it to go forward to another opening. The best we can do is track their light signature.” Then Davidson frowned. That was the look of a man about to come up with a great idea. “Let me try to turn it,” Davidson said as he looped the string over his finger and worked the lipstick camera like a puppet and he the master.

Wobbly at first and then with more precision, Davidson gave them a full spin of the vent. It looked like they were at the intersection of four ducts. “I think,” Davidson said, readjusting the camera, “that the light is coming from that direction.”

Which turned out to be straight ahead.

“Then what are you waiting for?” Lopez asked. Davidson promptly reeled the camera back up.

They moved north to the next grate that did not show any light. At least not yet. Davidson lowered the camera, repeating the maneuver.

“Nothing,” Lopez sighed. “Maybe they turned off—”

Then the screen bloomed with light. They still couldn’t actually see anything, but someone was moving down there. And given the swiftness and surety, it was Brandt.

And if he was moving, he was alive.

That thought had to get her through the next three hundred seconds.

* * *

Brandt trotted to keep up with Harvish. They’d lost the trail on the marred the wall, but the farther they went the more obvious the wheel marks of the hydraulic lift were in the dust. They’d only stopped to check side rooms. Except for the occasional dead body, they were clear.

Whatever the Jordanians were doing here, their job had been done decades ago. Had they given up looking for the tablets? Or had that never been their purpose here? This close to the Israeli border, maybe this really was just a GID outpost.

And strangely the hallways seemed to angle back up toward the surface. Who spent all the time and money to build a deep underground structure and then have it rise back to the surface? But not a lot about this complex made a whole bunch of sense.

As long as they found the damned Rinderpest intact, Brandt wouldn’t care.

Harvish made a left, sweeping his light over the floor, following the relatively fresh wheel marks. Guess Amed didn’t expect anyone to track him this far. And with good reason. They’d had to traipse all over London, Russia, Slovenia, and Jordan to find it.

Suddenly Harvish shut off his light and pulled to a full stop. Brandt and Talli followed suit. As soon as their lights were doused it became obvious why Harvish had halted them.

A dim light streamed out of the room ahead. Brandt cocked his head trying to hear anything beyond his breath but came up empty. He put his hand on Talli’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Talli then put his hand on Harvish’s shoulder.

They were in attack formation.

Now to attack.

* * *

“Where did they go?” Rebecca asked in Davidson’s ear. “Why did they turn off their lights?”

He didn’t know the exact answer to either question, but Davidson could bet it wasn’t good. Brandt would only have turned on their lights if he felt they were alone and safe. Which meant Brandt no longer felt they were alone or safe down there.

Not good. Not good at all.

“We’ve got to figure out how to help them,” Rebecca said, clearly already walking her own questions forward.

How though? He was twirling that lipstick camera around like a ballerina from a jewelry box and had squat.

“Turn it off,” Bunny hissed beside Lopez.

The corporal switched the device off, plunging them back into darkness. The moon was covered by clouds, cutting off their only source of illumination. They all sat still for a few breaths. But no reason for Bunny’s panic showed itself.

“Bunny, what—”

“There,” she hissed, pointing toward the sky.

Davidson had to squint to make out a plane, flying without it running lights, swooping in low over the desert. The rear bay door opened and half a dozen or more figures parachuted out. At such low altitude, it had to be the Disciples, and it looked like they’d gained some fresh recruits.
Again.

One of the chutes seemed to be carrying two people. At such low altitude that was extremely dangerous, but then again these were the people who created directional avalanches, so Davidson wouldn’t put anything past them.

The only advantage his team had was that the plane had come in from the east. They might not have seen the SUV since it was partially blocked by the outbuildings. Parachutes floated on the wind as the assailants landed swiftly near the front door of the outpost. Weird. It was as if they knew exactly where they were going.

“Look,” Bunny said, pointing to the south. The headlights of several vehicles raced in their direction. No wonder the parachutists didn’t both to check the compound—they had backup right behind them.

“We’ve got to warn Brandt,” Rebecca whispered.

“Anything we do,” Lopez explained, “is going to leave us vulnerable.”

“Ricky, we’ve got to try,” Rebecca insisted.

The corporal frowned. “Brandt would so
not
want us to get killed saving his butt.”

How could they warn the sergeant without giving away their position? They had so little equipment. And even if they had a gad of tech, what would it help? They needed to get a message to Brandt and only Brandt.

“What?” Rebecca asked Davidson. He hadn’t even realized an awkward smile had spread across his lips until she called him on it.

“Sometimes low-tech is just what you need.”

Rebecca’s eyebrow arched at him, but he didn’t answer her. Instead he just worked those strings of his.

* * *

Brandt swept his gun from left to right and then back, seeking, searching for enemies, however this new room was just as barren as the rest. Well, with the exception of a body. A fresh-ish body. A body that had died within the last ten days. Given that the corpse was dressed in street clothes, more than likely one of Amed’s men.

More proof that the Rinderpest was here. Actually here. Not theoretically here. Not hopefully here, but Amed’s boots had walked across this ground.

The stark, bare-bulbed work light however did not shed where that might be. Then Harvish pulled back a piece of sheet metal to reveal a ragged hole blown in the wall.

Gotcha, fucker.

Amed must have stashed the Rinderpest and then killed his accomplice.

“Did you hear that?” Talli asked.

Brandt cocked an ear. The rush of discovery had taken over his senses. But even with all his attention focused he didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary.

“There,” Talli said, moving to the vent. “It’s faint, but it sounds like…”

Then Brandt heard it.
Tap. Tap. Tap
. Pause.
Tap.
Pause.

Fucking Morse code. The sequence continued until it finished and then repeated, over and over again.

They are here.

There was no doubt who the “they” were. Also no doubt that his team had disobeyed a direct order and stayed long beyond the three-hundred-second window. He wasn’t quite sure if he should court-martial Lopez or kiss him on the mouth.

“We’re on the clock, people,” Brandt stated, indicating to the hole. Getting the Rinderpest and destroying it was all the more important with the enemy at the gates. He would deal with the “they” later.

Harvish and Talli hustled through the hole.

Brandt followed them into a small chamber that lay just on the other side of the official outpost. This chamber’s walls were covered in salt.
Covered
. It was like being inside a saltshaker. The floor, the ceiling, everywhere you could see, touch, or smell was crunchy and just a bit acrid.

The only exception to this glistening white oddity was a small refrigerator unit. Through its glass door Brandt could make out four bright yellow vials.

The Rinderpest.

It glowed an otherworldly canary color in the dim light. So much destruction in such a tiny container. Despite their small volume, those vials contained enough bacteria to wipe out an entire continent’s livestock. Enough to throw the world’s economy into a tailspin with chaos, riots, and civil war not far behind.

Just like any villain, though, Rinderpest had its vulnerability. Heat. The bacteria had to be kept chilled until it found a susceptible host. Warmed or worse heated, boiled, Rinderpest was about as harmful as the mold on blue cheese.

“Do it,” Brandt ordered Harvish. The point man pulled out a flare from his belt and then yanked opened the refrigerator door open. Sparking the flare up, Harvish pointed the flame toward the vials.

The brilliant clear yellow rapidly turned a tarnished, turbid brown. Satisfied the bacterium was going down without a fight, Brandt guarded the door as he instructed Talli, “Let the others know that we have joy.”

* * *

“They’re taking care of the Rinderpest,” Davidson whispered.

Rebecca breathed out, tears spilling down her cheek. Not only was Brandt safe, he’d found the plague and apparently was destroying it. Now they just needed to get him and the rest of his team out of there safely.

Surprisingly, Rebecca found that her hunger for the tablets evaporated. History for once could stay put in the past.

“Plus he made it pretty dang clear he wants us to get the hell out of here,” Davidson added.

“Which is going to be a little hard to do,” Lopez answered. Those other vehicles were approaching fast. “It would be one against four.”

“We can’t leave him,” Rebecca interjected. The corporal had to come up with a better plan than making a run for it.

Lopez turned to her with a grin. “Like I’ve come this far, I’m not going to see it through?”

Bunny however looked ready to emulate her namesake. “Maybe we should make a run for it and get the authorities out here?” The younger woman glanced to her feet as everyone stared at her.

It wasn’t her fault though. Any reasonable, rational person would think the same thing. The only problem was the car wasn’t filled with any of those besides her.

Rebecca patted Bunny’s knee. “Even if we could, I don’t think the Jordanian authorities would be all that helpful.”

Lopez snorted. “Then we’d just be facing three assault forces.”

Rebecca shot the corporal a look. That was
not
helping.

“Or maybe we do need to get going?” Davidson stated.

All eyes turned to the young man.

“I think the thing Brandt needs right now more than anything is a distraction. Something to divide their forces.”

Before they could debate what that might look like, a bright light shot up out of the nearby vent along with a jaw-rattling bang.

* * *

Thank God he’d replaced the sheet metal before the fucking Disciples tossed a flash bang into the outpost’s storage room. His ears still rang, but at least he wasn’t blinded. It wouldn’t take them long to get through that piece of metal.

“Harvish?”

“Coming along, Sarge,” the point man said. “Think it’s safe?”

Brandt looked over his shoulder. The vials were now the color of untreated sewage. “Do it.”

Even if the Rinderpest wasn’t 100 percent deactivated, they had to finish the job before they were overrun. The risk of exposing themselves to any of the active bacteria paled in comparison if they allowed even a drop of the Rinderpest to leave this facility.

Harvish smashed the vial, splattering the liquid onto the bottom of the refrigerator. He then took the torch to the liquid itself. Boiling the shit out of it. Cremating it out of existence.

“Don’t stop,” Brandt ordered, “until you’ve melted the fucking glass.”

He wanted that Rinderpest
gone
.

“Talli?” Brandt asked. Now looking forward to their post-Rinderpest lifespan. “Anything?”

“Except for this alcove where I believe the fragments of the tablet were kept, there’s no break in the walls.”

Not exactly what Brandt wanted to hear, but that was kind of the definition of a cave wasn’t it? A chamber with no fucking outlet.

Guess it was time to make a last stand.

Brandt dropped to one knee as another grenade went off it the adjacent room.

This wasn’t going to be pretty.

* * *

Davidson ducked his head as a shot bounced off the roof. They’d created a distraction alright. Lopez was driving in and around the buildings like some kind of drunk Pac-Man.

“Turn right.”

The corporal obliged, of course going about ten miles an hour too fast for the turn as they skidded out, their rear bumper hitting the building. Even so, Davidson let off a shot, shattering one of the chase cars’ windshield.

Then they made another sharp left, cutting off the sight.

A shot shattered
their
rear window. They were damned lucky that it wasn’t the vaulted sniper after them or that bullet would have probably taken one of them down.