In the Blood (Metahuman Files Book 4) Read online

  “Trying to think positive here, Tank.”

  “Is cartel. Nothing positive about cartel,” Alexei grumbled.

  Someone rushed around the corner up ahead. Jamie pulled the trigger before his mind even fully processed the automatic rifle the cartel fighter carried. The sound of his and Madison’s weapons going off at the same time echoed dully in the long corridor.

  “Viper, scan status?” Jamie said as they cleared the intersection.

  They weren’t on American soil and weren’t technically beholden to the laws governing her telepathic power. Leeway was given in the middle of a firefight, and Mexico had agreed to allow Katie full use of her telepathy for this mission. Katie was one of the most honorable people Jamie had ever known, and while she’d stay completely out of their allies’ minds, she was ruthless when it came to the enemy.

  “You still have people inside the compound. Fighters mostly, not any scientists,” Katie said.

  Jamie grimaced. That was as clear a sign as any they weren’t going to find any survivors. “Do you know if they’ve rigged charges?”

  “Not yet, but a couple of them are destroying the servers.”

  “Deal with them. We’ll handle the rest.”

  Katie was a strong telepath, but she had her limits. Gaining full mental control over a person took effort, and she could only focus her power like that on four or five people at a time under optimal circumstances. Doing so ate away at her concentration though, something she couldn’t risk in the middle of a firefight.

  “Bones to Apollo. I’m with Viper,” Trevor announced over the comms, putting Jamie’s mind at ease that someone was watching her six. “Fighting is clearing up out here.”

  Which meant they’d be leaving a lot of dead bodies behind them when they called for an extraction. Autumn in the mountains was still warm enough to make decomposition an unpleasant affair for any cleanup crew the Mexican government might try to send in. Jamie figured they’d probably leave the bodies to rot.

  Jamie didn’t know what they would find inside the compound. The Federación Cartel was known for control of the border on this side of the invisible line, charging exorbitant fees to desperate illegal immigrants from Mexico, Latin America, and South America looking for a better life in the United States and Canada.

  Even with vertical farms to feed the masses, desalinization factories dotting the coasts, and pollution filtration towers in every major suburb and megacity across the world, a safe quality of life was not a guarantee for everyone. Contested borders on nearly every continent ensured criminal enterprises would always prey on the desperate and destitute. Climate change and war had destabilized too many places over the centuries for peace to last long enough to make a difference.

  The desperate, Jamie knew, were willing to do anything for a shot at a better lot in life. It was unsurprising they would put themselves in the corrupt hands of a coyote who led them not to a promised land, but into a grave.

  Jamie tapped the side of his tactical goggles, switching the maps to a wider view, enabling him to pinpoint their location in the compound.

  “Let’s head below,” Jamie said as they hurried down the long hallway.

  “Whatever you say, boss,” Madison replied.

  Jamie led the way, pausing here and there to exchange fire with the enemy until his people ruthlessly took them out. Most cartel members lived and died by the gun; surrender was a coward’s way out, and the only acceptable way to die was by way of a bullet.

  Alpha Team and their allies were more than willing to oblige.

  Madison took point at the stairwell entrance, lobbing a few of her smaller energy blasts at a small group of cartel fighters one floor below. She tailored the explosion low enough to ensure maximum damage for her targets while not risking the structural integrity of the stairwell too much. Jamie’s boots squelched in the blood on the landing as they descended, sidestepping the splattered remains as much as possible.

  They finally reached a door more heavily secured than the few they’d put behind them. Jamie held up a fist, silently signaling everyone behind him to freeze. He shot out the control panel and locking mechanism, watching the door jerk a little as it was released from its seal. Jamie crept down the stairs, put his back against the wall once he hit the landing, and reached for the door. He shoved it open with minimal effort, the heavy door grinding against its shallow tracks.

  Jamie quickly cleared the corner, advancing once it became obvious the cartel didn’t have anyone posted in their area. The lighting down here was bright and clear, reflecting off the dull walls and concrete floor. The first door they came across two turns later had the biohazard symbol attached to the front. No window was available to see through, but they couldn’t risk not clearing the room.

  Jamie signaled for two of the SF Corps operatives to take point while ordering the rest to fall back. They were human; he didn’t want them getting contaminated by whatever remained in the room.

  “Ready when you are,” Madison said, weapon braced against her shoulder as she covered his six.

  Jamie let his weapon hang from its strap so he could yank open the door. He lifted it off its grooved track and shoved it into the recess within the wall, the metal crumpling like old paper in his hands.

  Even with his air filtration mask on, Jamie swore he could make out the smell of decomposition pouring out of the room now that the seal was broken. He stepped inside, clutching his weapon in both hands, trying to remember not to break it as he took everything in.

  The large room wasn’t a lab, but a holding area for the dead.

  A row of what could only be described as prison cells lined both sides of the long space that stretched far into the earth. The plas-glass walls were smeared with blood and dirt, countless handprints smudging each one. Lying on the ground, slumped over in rigid positions, were numerous bodies in various stages of decay.

  Jamie walked the length of the long passageway bisecting both sides of the area, taking in the horrible scene with a critical eye as rage simmered beneath his skin. From what he could tell, none of those who’d died down here had died by way of Splice. The bodies weren’t in as liquefied a state they would’ve been in if that were the case. Starvation, dehydration, and disease were probably the most likely culprits outside being shot, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear witness to.

  “Apollo?” Madison called out in a quiet voice.

  “Place needs to be cleared by a biohazard crew, but I don’t think any of the deceased were subjected to Splice in here,” Jamie replied.

  “Doesn’t make it any better.”

  “I know.”

  They retreated into the hallway, where Madison pulled a graffiti marker from one of her belt pouches and proceeded to draw a large red X across the front of the door after Jamie slid it back into the place. Tagging the door in such a way gave notice to anyone coming in after them that they’d cleared the room. She put the marker away when finished and looked over at Jamie.

  “Lead the way, boss.”

  They came across three more rooms like the first containing only the dead. Men, women, and children of various ages, all of whom had never reached their destination, were left to rot underground. Jamie knew not all of them would be identified. Most likely, they would all be assigned numbers by a government coroner before being cremated, reduced to a note in an electronic file no one would ever look for. And that was only if the Mexican government decided to send people in.

  Jamie shoved aside his thoughts of the dead, and kept moving.

  Clearing the compound took time, and quite a lot of bullets. The cartel had left foot soldiers behind to hold the line long enough to destroy evidence. Despite Katie’s interference, when they finally made it to the heart of the lab—beating Alexei and Donovan’s group by twenty seconds—most of the terminals had been destroyed, to say nothing of the server towers in the cold-storage room.

  Two men stood frozen in front of the last intact terminal. Their chests rose and fell
in sync, trapped within the unforgiving grasp of Katie’s telepathy.

  “Viper, we have them,” Jamie said as SF Corps operatives manhandled the cartel soldiers to the floor and cuffed their hands behind their backs.

  He knew the exact moment when Katie released them from her power. Both men heaved in the operatives’ grip, choked-out yells escaping their mouths. They remained pinned to the floor, no longer a threat, while Jamie and the others quickly cleared the room. Jamie peeked into the server room and wasn’t surprised to see the data towers shattered by a grenade. He doubted anything was salvageable, and walked away from the mess.

  “Status,” Jamie said into the comms.

  He listened to the field updates, pleased to hear the perimeter was in their control. Ground squads were still clearing the compound, but it seemed the majority of the Federación Cartel had already dispersed well before they arrived. Jamie didn’t know if a leak was responsible for their retreat, but it seemed likely.

  “Can maybe take one or two solid-state drives back,” Alexei said as he approached.

  He and Jamie were almost the same height, but Jamie knew enough of his own skills to know Alexei would beat him in hand-to-hand combat nine times out of ten—and had, during training. As a former Strike Force operative, Alexei was one of the deadliest members of Alpha Team, even before one factored in his pyrokinesis.

  “Extract them,” Jamie ordered.

  Alexei tipped his head in Jamie’s direction before hustling to obey the order. Jamie checked the chrono on his HUD, mentally keeping track of how long they’d had boots on the ground. Securing the compound for processing would take time, but Alpha Team would be long gone before the Mexican authorities made it through the mountains.

  He only hoped his team came away with enough evidence to show that North Star International and Vitae Neurotherapeutics had been involved with selling Splice to the Federación Cartel. MDF analysts would have their work cut out for them on extracting any data from the solid-state drives they were bringing back.

  Finding hard evidence of the collaboration between multiple criminal enterprises the world over was a tedious, difficult process. The MDF, along with the agency’s international counterparts, was still playing catchup. It put them all at a disadvantage they couldn’t afford.

  “Alpha Team, clear out,” Jamie said.

  Madison, Alexei, and Donovan immediately headed his way, falling into step behind him. The SF Corps remained behind to deal with the mess and the two prisoners. Jamie had no use for the cartel members.

  The nighttime raid hadn’t produced exactly what they needed and had offered up more bodies than anything else. The compound was little more than a graveyard with ghosts wandering its impersonal halls.

  The mission was over. It was time to go home.

  2

  See Right Through Me

  Kyle pried his hard helmet off, tossed it on the floor of the locker, and ran a hand through his sweaty hair. Like everyone else in the ready room getting out of their gear, he needed a shower. With that in mind, he swiftly divested himself of his tactical body armor and combat uniform.

  “Debrief in twenty, then Medical,” Jamie said from the other side of the ready room.

  Kyle sighed, moving his head from side to side to crack his neck. “Sounds fun.”

  “Sounds exhaustin’,” Annabelle corrected.

  Everyone must have been too tired to argue because no one piped up after that. Kyle grabbed a clean towel from the top shelf in his locker before striding naked for the showers. The military had long ago killed any sense of body shyness for the group as a whole, so no one even blinked as he walked on by.

  The showers at the end of the ready room were small, but the water was hot, and that was all Kyle cared about. He ducked under the spray and reached for the shampoo, getting clean as the others straggled into the shower area.

  His rapid healing ability meant he carried no bruises on his lightly freckled skin. The brief, bone-jarring ache in his knees during landing had long since disappeared, any minor hint of injury healed before he could even really process it. Most days Kyle appreciated the lack of wounds he came away with during a fight. It meant less time spent in Medical, but he couldn’t completely escape Dr. Gracie Gold’s domain. None of them could.

  Ten minutes later found the entire team cleaned up and dressed in service uniforms, ready for the mandatory debrief with their superior officers. Kyle lengthened his stride to catch up to Jamie as the group walked down the hallway, glancing over at the taller man. Jamie’s expression was difficult to read, but Kyle had been his lover for almost a year and a half now; he knew Jamie wasn’t happy.

  “What’s wrong?” Kyle asked in a low voice as they headed for the elevator.

  “We’re chasing useless leads and it’s getting us nowhere,” Jamie replied, no hint of his frustration showing up in his voice or face.

  “Something has to pan out.”

  “We’ll see.”

  They’d been chasing this problem for as long as he and Jamie had been lovers. Kyle enjoyed that milestone far less than the more pleasurable one of waking up to Jamie. Unfortunately, those moments were starting to decrease over the past month or so as Jamie’s father’s presidential campaign ramped up, despite the oncoming holiday season. The Callahans were demanding Jamie’s presence in their lives more and more lately, which was creating a strain on Jamie. Kyle could see that, even if no one else could.

  “Destination,” Ceres, the MDF’s smart-building AI, asked as two elevators opened their doors.

  “Level 36,” Jamie said.

  The ride up to the command level was quick, the place bustling despite the late hour—or early, depending on how one read the chrono. Dawn was a handful of hours away, and Kyle honestly couldn’t wait to go home and sleep off the mission.

  Jamie led the way to the conference room where Alpha Team always conducted their briefings and debriefings. Inside they were greeted by MDF Director Amir Nazari, a three-star Army general who was used to long days and even longer nights monitoring Alpha Team’s more delicate missions. In his mid-fifties, Nazari’s brown eyes were sharp and piercing beneath trimmed black hair slowly growing gray. Stress from the job rarely filtered through his calm demeanor, the product of a veritable lifetime of being a commander in some form or another.

  Kyle joined the rest of the team in saluting their commanding officer before taking seats around the long conference table. Terminals were up and running, and Kyle logged in using the RealIdent chip connected to the bioware embedded in his left hand and wrist. Command windows snapped open in front of him, some of the data there duplicated in the center of the table.

  “Welcome back,” Nazari said.

  “Sir,” Jamie acknowledged for them all.

  “I watched the raid in real time through your helmet cams. You did good work.”

  “We didn’t come back with much evidence.”

  “You still came back with something, and that’s worth the effort we put into this mission. Especially if it means we’ve destroyed a possible Splice lab.” Nazari leaned forward, tapping at a command prompt on his terminal. “The solid-state drives are currently with our hackers and analysts. I’ll update you on what information is extracted when I have it. In the meantime, I thought you’d be interested in the latest development concerning North Star International.”

  The holoscreens in the middle of the table minimized, replaced by a recorded newscast video showing Senator Mark Graham of Montana leaving the Senate building under a swarm of media attention.

  “Senator Graham, do you have any comment about the donations you received from Adrian and Declan Wolcott?”

  “Senator Graham! Can you tell us about the budget earmarks you wrote up that directly benefited North Star International?”

  “Senator Graham, what is your opinion on the federal investigation into North Star International’s ties to terrorism?”

  The clamor disappeared when the video cut off as Graham got int
o his vehicle while aides kept the press at bay.

  “Has he issued a statement yet?” Katie asked.

  “Other than the standard no comment, no, he hasn’t,” Nazari said. “He’s lawyered up though, in response to rumors that a subpoena directed at him may be coming down from the DOJ.”

  “He can afford to take the political hit that bringing in lawyers always stirs up. Graham isn’t up for reelection next year, and he still retains his position as Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. The DOJ will need to tread carefully with him,” Jamie said.

  “I’m sure the senator’s camp will spin it as a precautionary measure. Everyone seems to need legal advice these days. It’s a tried and true cover that every politician uses at some point in their career.”

  “Is the DOJ acting on any of the information we previously submitted to them regarding the Splice labs on American soil?”

  “We’ve provided limited information concerning the subpoena the MDF received. Since a good portion of it involves evidence gleaned from our backdoor in Saunders & Associates and the classified, active mission with the Pavluhkins, we’re treading carefully. If anything found on the solid-state drives you returned with falls within the scope of the subpoena, we’ll pass the information along if it won’t jeopardize our standing.”

  Jamie frowned. “So we’re playing legal hardball.”

  “We always play legal hardball.”

  Kyle grimaced, thinking about the mess the Pavluhkin mission had become. Ever since London, when they’d wormed their way into doing business with Stanislav Pavluhkin, his inner circle, and the Presnenskaya Bratva his family headed up, Alpha Team had been on edge. They had solid confirmation that Stanislav was a metahuman, though they could only guess at his power. Currently, all metahuman agencies were operating under the belief that Stanislav was a precog who could see the future. It made running this mission worse than walking a tightrope over a canyon with no tether.

  Being unpredictable got tiring, but that was the only option everyone could agree on was a viable weapon against Stanislav’s precognitive power. Utilizing it, however, was difficult, and Alpha Team had started to pull away a little from Stanislav’s demands, especially after what happened in Montana in June.