Rogue Alliance (2 page)

             
Before Champlain could follow Shinto’s instructions, an employee burst through the door they’d come through earlier.

             
“Uh, sorry to interrupt, Doctor, but there is a problem with specimen 9-4-7.”

             
“What kind of problem? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

             
Shinto’s voice was strained.

             
“Yes, I know,” his employee said, “but he’s really not doing well. He’s having the same issue as last week and I knew you’d be worried.”

             
“All right, then,” Shinto sighed, “I’m sorry, Mr. Champlain. I do need to address this right away. Do you mind waiting? It should be only about ten to fifteen minutes.”

             
“Not at all. I’ll just wait right here.”

             
“Actually, I’d prefer it if you waited inside the viewing room. Just to be safe.”

             
“Sure, whatever you say, Dr. Shinto.”

             
Shinto rushed out and the room was silent.

             
Brennan faded in and out. There was no longer an interesting conversation to keep him fighting for consciousness until a delicious aroma filtered into his nostrils. Human blood. He kept his eyes closed but his senses were suddenly on alert.

             
Champlain was very close.

             
Something inside Brennan was waking up. It was rising to the surface, driven by his hunger and the drive to survive. Carefully, he pulled at the restraints on his wrists. The leather straps cut sharply into his skin.

             
“Hey, buddy.”

             
For a moment Brennan was confused. 

             
“Hey. I know you can hear me. Look at me. Now.”

             
Champlain’s tone was low but dangerously serious. Brennan was more than intrigued now. Slowly, he opened his eyes to barely a slit. Champlain stood directly in front of him, peering down with a watchful gaze.

             
“You don’t want to live like this anymore, do you?”

             
Brennan remained silent.

             
Champlain squatted down so that his face was only a foot from Brennan’s. The smell of him was overwhelming. Brennan’s pulse quickened. 

             
“Come on,” Champlain said, “you gotta be tired of this game.”

             
Tired of the game? Hell yeah. Brennan had been tired of it for a long damn time. Still, he didn’t know what Champlain was getting at and ignored his prodding.

Champlain grabbed him by the jaw and lifted his chin. Now the smell was just too much. He snapped but Champlain jerked his hand back just in time.

             
“Whoa, there! You almost took off my hand!” he laughed.

Brennan glared into Champlain’s eyes, feeling only hunger and frustration. What was this guy up to? What did he want?

             
Champlain stuffed his hands in his pockets casually.

             
“It’s not me you want, friend,” he said, “it’s Shinto.”

             
Brennan didn’t try to disguise the hatred which poured from his eyes at the mention of Shinto’s name.

             
“You’re hungry, aren’t you? You’re tired of being Shinto’s guinea pig, right?

Well, what if I give him to you? Like a tasty treat. He’ll be back in here any minute. He’ll want to finish out this experiment; push you to your limits to prove how much of a genius he is. Then he’ll do it all over again, bigger and better. You up for that, sport? Or maybe you and I can make a deal, instead?”

             
Brennan refused to move a muscle or show any emotion, but he was listening.

             
“What kind of a deal?” he asked quietly. His voice was raspy and dry from dehydration.

             
“I get you out of here. You come to work for me. It’s that simple. Seem like a fair trade; freedom for loyalty?”

             
The sound of Shinto’s footsteps echoed down the hall. They had less than a minute.

             
Champlain held up a finger in warning,

             
“I’m not someone you want to strike a deal with and then back out of it. If I let you go, you are indebted to me,” he said, “ and we’ll take care of each other. You got it?” 

             
Brennan nodded.

             
Shinto walked through the door just as Champlain released the second wrist restraint. The ankles had been first. His eyebrows raised in alarm.

             
“What have you done?”

             
The hunger peaked into a violent crescendo. Brennan lunged, soothing his thirst and exacting his revenge in a bath of blood.

TWO

Shyla
jolted
awake
, t
he incessant ringing of
her work cell phone interrupting
her alcoho
l-
induced coma. The
sound
infiltrated her inebriated dreams of torment
,
bringing her to consciousness
,
which wasn’t much better. Without ope
ning her eyes
,
she reached to her belt clip and hit the
‘
receive call
’
button.

“Ericson, here.
”

Her voice c
ame out a croak; h
er mouth was
desiccated
.
She swallowed but kept her eyes closed. Her head was pounding and she knew that
,
when she lifted her lids
,
the dull drumbeat in her skull w
ould escalate to
sharp explosion
s
of chaos.

Hangover. Situation normal.

“Ericson, w
here are you? I’ve been trying to reach you for the
past half
-
hour.”

Eli
Stratton’s
tone was strict but not accusatory.

“Hey, Boss. I’m uhh…”

S
he warily opened one eye and looked around. The pulsing pain behind her forehead sharpened.
S
itting in the driver’s side of her car,
she pulled at the seatbelt which had been holding her upright
and rubbing her collarbone raw
. Dammit, she’d
driven after a few too many drinks and
passed out in the garage
. Again.
She should have
call
ed
a cab.
Risking her badge was never something she took lightly.

Her door was cracked open and the accessory light was on.
The key was still in the ignition and the ding, ding, dinging was nearly enough to send her over the edge.

“I’m home. I was sleeping. It’s what most people do at this time of night. Morning. Whatever. What time is it?”

She glanced
at the digita
l clock on her console
;
it read 5
:50.
She didn’t wait for his answer.

“What’s up?”

She sat
up straight
, her lower back complaining
. Hung
over or not, she knew
Strat
t
on
wasn’t making a social call.

“A pig farmer,
twenty
minutes south
,
fou
nd the remains of a body with
the rest of the slop when he went out t
o feed this morning. Says there’s not
much left, but there’s no doubt that it
was human. He rounded up all fi
f
ty-eight of his pigs and penned ‘em up so that they couldn’t get at the rest of it.

“Yum.”

“
Homicide’s already
out
,
but I want
you down
there
because
the victim has the gang’s necklace on.”

Shyla sat straighter,
suddenly on alert.

“The double-
headed eagle?”

“Yep.
And it’s an exact replica of the last one we found
on that
dead body
in Huntington Park
.”

“Yeah, that screams of Ricardo’s crew. Maybe this time we’ll be able to get something on him. Figures he’d have a bunch of hogs clean up after his dirty work.
I’m a little shocked there’s a pig farm within a thirty mile radius
,
though.
The homicide guys aren’t going to want us
out there getting in their way - y
ou know how territorial they are. They hate us Federal goons.
”

“
I know, but you’re on that case and with the body having the same necklace I thought it best to get you out there
.
The farm’s
not much of a farm;
it
’s more
a facility
. Nasty place
.
We have no clue how this will pan out, b
ut I have a hunch that Ricardo
has his hands in it, somehow or
other. I don’t want those numb-
nuts messing this up.”

“Got it. Body. Farmer. No
numb nuts. I’m on it. Have you talked with Johnson
?”

“Yes
, Shyla, of course. He’s already on his way
.
”

             
“Why didn’t he just swing by and pick me up?”

             
“We didn’t know where the hell you where at.
Both he and I have called your home phone a few times.
It’s not like you not to answer. We thought maybe you…well…we weren’t sure what to think
.”

             
Shit.
She hung up. She desperately wanted to take
a few minutes to get out of the car and stretch her cramped legs. Brushing her teeth to rid her
self of the rotten, post-tequila
dragon breath would have been
the next priority. But
,
as Eli
had mentioned, she needed to get her butt to the scene.
And her partner,
Daniel
Johnson, was
surely
going to
give her hell for not being available
. The last thing she needed was to give him another reason to hate her.
Maybe hate was too harsh a word, she thought. She guessed it was more a
discomfort than anything else. She was used to it
.
Most of he
r associates acted uncomfortably
around her.

             
She
sta
r
ted the car and backed out of the garage. Tilting the rear-view mirror, she
sneaked
a quick glac
e at her appearance.
Bypassing
her blood-shot, jade green eyes, she tamed the wisps
of
hairs that
sprang out around her head
.
A flicker of panic shot up h
er spine. Where was her hair clip
?
After rummaging around she came up empty handed. Shit.
She ra
n a dry tongue over her lips.

             
Well, no time to gussy up, she thou
ght,
especially when you had a couple
of
cops
on scene who didn’t know what they
were
looking for and
a bunch of hungry swine waiting for breakfast. 

*

             
The stiff breeze whipped Shyla’s dark brown hair into disarray. She swore under her breath as she pulled a long strand from the corner of h
er mouth. Irritated, she jerked
back the loathsome mane and tucked it under the hood of the department issued wind-breaker
she wore. Normally – obsessively -
she kept it tamed and
tied back
.

             
S
he was mucking around in thick, ankle-deep mud, her hair loose and at the mercy of the blustery weather. At some point during the previ
ous evening’s binge
she’d man
aged to lose her hair tie.
She fe
lt the eyes of the crew - t
hey
had never seen it down; n
o one had since she was a little girl. Now
,
as she plodded through the pig shit and mud,
it frustrated her that they were distracted so easily.