EDGE OF SHADOWS: The Shadow Ops Finale (Shadow Ops, Book # 3) (14 page)

“Drive,” Chase shouted.

<><><>

Rose lay in the tall grass outside the Georgia warehouse and stared through her thermal imaging binoculars at the large building. Except for the guards milling about within the fence
’s perimeter, the building looked deserted. There were two doors in the front, one large bay door on the side for trucks, and then another bay door around back that nestled up to the water.

“You’ve got one coming in on your right,” KC whispered into her comm.

Rose shoved her face into the mud, held her breath, closed her eyes—the only part of her flesh she couldn’t camouflage. Ah, the glamorous life of a covert agent. You’d never see James Bond doing this part of the job. She had a hole cut into the chain link almost big enough for her to squeeze through. The guard made his pass, looking bored as he walked back and forth, muttering to himself. After another long three minutes, he entered the building.

“Clear,” KC said.

Rose went to work on the fence again. A minute later, she slid into the compound where the grass was short and there was no cover, nowhere to hide. She snake-crawled through mud mixed with grass. Just her luck, the weather had turned warm enough to defrost the ground and turn this marshy area into swampland.

Her gaze swept over the building’s perimeter, a nondescript, large steel building surrounded by chain-link and razor wire. The building lay silent in darkness. The only people they’d seen while monitoring it for the past hour were the two guards alternating turns at patrolling.

Rose sprinted across the grass, heading toward the same door the guard just entered. If he followed the same protocol he’d been following for the last hour, he would emerge out the side door next to the large trucking bay and make the circuit again.

The building’s heat signature had been steady, indicating no change in any potential sources of heat like production equipment. For a building this size, it actually showed very little heat radiating through the walls. And no signs of any occupants.

Rose feared the worst. They were either too late or their intel was bad, and this really was a normal warehouse closed down for the night. Either way, there were no signs of the Preacher’s people or Grigor, much less any evidence of an active production facility.

Maybe she’d been wrong about all this.

Except her gut still had that tight edge to it, that something out of the corner of her eye sense of imminent danger. The same fight-or-flight instinct that had led her to Georgetown earlier today, despite the risks of an in-person meeting. She couldn’t risk her secrets being exposed, just as she couldn’t risk allowing anyone else to enter the building and face a possible trap set by Grigor.

“You’re good to go.” KC’s voice was interrupted by static.

Rose hit the side wall of the building. Back flattened against the wall, she inched toward the door. The overhead camera was aimed out, leaving her a large blind spot to maneuver in. It was a regular camera, no infrared. She breached the door and slid inside.

Twelve minutes before the guard made it back this way, more than enough time to get the intel she needed—verify the presence of a lab, discover if it was true that Grigor was involved, plant some bugs on the computers and cameras.

She keyed her subvocal mic. “I’m in.” Static answered her. She jogged silently through the large lobby, bypassed security and entered what should have been the laboratory area, according to the building plans. Instead, she found herself in a corridor with a row of metal doors lining each side. Each door had a small window. No lights except a faint glow at the far end of the corridor, the red of the emergency exit sign.

No movement. No sound except the hushed rasp of her own breathing. She looked inside the first room, expecting to find laboratory equipment. The room was empty except for a metal cot with a man lying on it, sleeping. No sheets, no blankets. He wore a hospital gown that barely came to his knees.

Were the SOBs doing human experiments? Her hand went to the door handle, then she jerked it back. What if she was wrong about the weapon being chemical and the patients had been infected? They’d be walking time bombs—she couldn’t risk their entering the general population, spreading contagion. They’d have to be quarantined.

Except…where was the staff?

She glanced down the hall, counted the doors. Eight that she could see, and that was just one corridor. Other than her own personal protection gear—a mask, respirator with fifteen minutes of air, and antidote kit—she wasn’t set up for a hazmat situation. She’d have to complete her mission first, then find a way to save these people.

Behind schedule, she should check the next level, find the lab, snag her documentation, plant her bugs, and get the hell out of Dodge. But the corridor ended in a central nurses’ station, and she couldn’t resist a peek at a patient’s chart. Maybe they weren’t infected, not yet.

Except there were no charts. Just a bunch of empty binders. There was a computer monitor, ancient, looked at least fifty pounds, but no keyboard, no actual computer. Then she glanced up. On the wall behind the desk, pictures were stuck together in a macabre collage.

Candid shots of the Team: her, Billy, Chase, KC, Lucky, Vinnie, Teresa, Hollywood, EZ, Marion, and even Chase’s little brother, Jay, taken in many different venues—restaurants, outside their offices, downtown at the Capitol building, Jay at his dorm.

Each face circled in red, notes plastered to the side of the photos with names, addresses, habits…

A stalker’s trophy album. A stalker after her people.

“Abort,” she told KC. No answer. Just static. “KC, abort!”

Chapter 14

Cold and exhaustion dragged Billy into sleep while he waited for the ER doctor to finish with him. He heard people talking around him, something about a cracked rib, normal head CT, labs pending, core temp rising…jargon that translated into gibberish as his mind drifted where it really wanted to go: Rose.

Her face filled his vision, hair sweeping over his naked body in silky waves that he caught in his fingers, tried to hang onto as if a lifeline…her laughter, not the raspy, deep voice she had now, but the way she’d sounded five years ago, before Grigor…Grigor!

He jerked up, and fighting hands pushed him back down. Instincts took over, and he lashed out with an elbow, then realized the man holding him down was Chase. Billy dropped his arm and shook his vision clear. God, he hurt. Everywhere. Head throbbing, body aching, chest burning with each breath.

“Rose—”

“No news,” Chase said. “They should be out by now.” Worry filled his voice.

Billy blinked, the fog in his brain clearing. “Did they miss a check-in?”

“No,” Chase admitted. “Not for another eighteen minutes. But, still—”

“You don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“Three attempts on our team in one day? A freakin’ hat trick for the Preacher’s men and who says they’re done?”

“What did you tell the staff here?”

“Said we were taking a piss near the river, got into a fight, and I pushed you in.”

“They bought that?” Billy said, a nod to Chase’s crutches.

“Of course they bought it. Soon as I told them I was a Marine and you were Army.” He glanced around, lowered his voice. “I had Jay grab photos of the dead men, none had any ID. He called it into the cops after we got here.”

Billy swung his legs around to the side of the bed, ignoring the IV and the monitor leads. “Get me some clothes and let’s go.”

“Thought the idea would be to play it low-key, not ping anyone’s radar. The docs said you’ll be ready to go in a little while, just waiting for blood work or something.”

“No. Tell them I’m ready to go now. They’ll have my tox screen back, know that I’m sober and can sign myself out. Work your charm on them, tell them I need to get home before my wife finds out or some shit.”

Chase nodded. He disappeared and returned a few minutes later with a pair of surgical scrubs and some patient slippers. “The nurse will be in to take your IV out. I’ll go get Jay.”

Billy gritted his teeth as he lowered his feet to the ground. “Good. Hurry.”

<><><>

“
KC, abort, abort.
” Still no answer. Anxiety tattooed a staccato beat along Rose’s nerve endings.

A woman’s cry of pain pierced the air. She spun and continued cautiously down the hall, listening. The scream came from a room up ahead. The door was open. A light was on.

Where was the guard?

She should go. Run. Get out. Obviously, this was a trap, someone targeting her and the STR, but she couldn’t stop herself from creeping forward one tiny step at a time. She reached the door and peered inside.

A TV was on. A video playing. A video of Rose. Begging. Screaming.

Memories rocked her psyche. She took a step back, her eyes shifting away. Her hand rose up to cover her mouth, but she couldn’t stop the screams ricocheting inside her.

A tangle of barbed wire lay on the floor of the room. A smear of blood. She stared at it, remembering…feeling each sharp metal tooth as it pierced her skin.

A woman lay on the bed in the shadows beyond the TV, staring at the ceiling, mouth agape, hand fallen to her side. Sitting on her face, nibbling at her lips and ears, were two large rats.

Rats and barbed wire. Grigor. Of course.

He
was
here. Leaving behind a calling card addressed to Rose.

The woman on the bed didn’t move, didn’t try to fight the rodents off. No blood came from the rat bites. She was dead.

Not a patient. A corpse.

What was this place? Rose ran to the next door. Another body.

All dead!

Of course they were. That explained the lack of heat signatures. She keyed her throat mic even as she sprinted toward the exit. “Abort, abort, abort. KC, acknowledge, abort. Get the hell out.”

It was all she could do not to shout. Who was she going to wake, the dead? But there were still the two living guards. Hopefully, they didn’t know their security had been breached.

If she didn’t hurry, they would soon. She had to get out, warn KC.

She ran toward the rear exit sign, still sending the abort code to KC, hoping at least a few seconds of transmission broke through the static.

She paused before the steel door standing between her and freedom. Were the guards lined up, waiting for her, an unholy reception? Grigor standing with them, laughing at her panic and terror.

What would she do? Let them capture her? Flashes of pain blurred her vision. Memories from five years ago. A lifetime ago, yet always a mere heartbeat away. No. She’d fight. It was KC’s best hope of escape.

Better to die than live at Grigor’s mercy.

Because this time he’d make sure he finished the job he’d started five years ago—and he’d take his time, enjoying every second of her slow and agonizing death. Worse, he’d use her capture to torture the people she loved. Force them to make choices no one should ever have to make. She couldn’t let that happen.

She raced through the door, weapons raised and at the ready, when an explosion rocked through the bowels of the building behind her.

Chapter 15

Chase had sent Jay to bring the Jeep when his cell rang. He stopped inside the ER’s waiting room and answered.

“Chase, is Billy okay? What happened?” Teresa’s voice was rushed, but he could tell she was holding back even more than the questions she was asking.

“He’s fine, just a few cuts, knock on the head, bruised ribs. How’d you know to call me?”

“The ER called me—the office is the in-case-of-emergency contact.”

“Right. Of course.” Wait. That didn’t answer his question. “But—”

“Is this another one of those ‘things’ I’m not supposed to know about? Where you guys were going? Aren’t you supposed to be home resting?” With each accusation, her voice rose in pitch, strung tight with emotion. Not at all like Teresa—usually she was the nurturing, calm voice of reason, the welcome voice in their comms that guided them out of danger during operations. “Is Billy okay to leave? You guys need to come back here. Now. As soon as you can.”

“What’s going on, T?”

“Just get Billy back here. Then I’ll give him my resignation, and you guys can let someone you trust run comms. But until then—oh, Chase…” Her voice broke with a sob. “I’m so sorry. Please, just hurry.”

“Teresa—” Chase pivoted on his crutch until his gaze landed on an overhead TV designed to keep the waiting patients entertained. It was tuned to a news channel. The screen was filled with a roaring blaze, the ticker beneath it read:
Explosion in Savannah, GA…bodies found.

“No. KC.” He lunged toward the TV as the story changed to something involving a chicken and a beagle. His weight landed on his bad foot, but the pain barely registered over the roaring that engulfed him. “Teresa, tell me she’s okay. Patch me through to her. I need to talk to KC.”

“I’m sorry, Chase. I can’t.”

“Just do it, damn it. Get her on the line. Now. That’s an order!” His shout drew the attention of the others in the waiting room, and the security guard at the far corner stood up from his desk, glaring at Chase.