8. Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Day 2 Karaveht, Tajikistan
Hunched over on his knees, with his palms braced on the cold, hard ground, Aiden struggled to breathe. A thick, aching lump sealed his throat, cutting off access to fresh air. Lightheaded, he yanked the balaclava off, wheezed a couple of times and concentrated on the sensation of cold seeping through his gloves. He stared at his fingers as they dug into the ground. They trembled.
He was infected. Like his brothers. His dead brothers.
“Huh.” The raspy sound was part groan, part cough to clear his throat.
Burning, acidic pain washed over his left leg. He looked down. The white and gray camo of his winter BDUs were soaked with blood. Or at least his left thigh was. He grunted as the pain swelled. He must have taken a hit. He should bind and treat the wound.
But apathy stilled his hands. Why bother? He’d be dead soon, anyway.
A faint, urgent voice came from his headset. Instinctively, he reached out and pulled his helmet closer. The voice grew stronger. It was Montana demanding a sitrep.
Heat flashed through his chest, exploding in his gut. His lips tightened. Montana knew exactly what the situation was. He’d had a front row seat for it. Unlike every other op since he’d taken the trident, these new motherfucking cameras were still rolling. A continuous feed from drop-off to exfil. Those had been his orders. What a damn coincidence.
The brass, along with whoever had set them up, had watched five of the bravest, most loyal men on the teams sink into insanity and slaughter each other. The rage churned hotter, thicker.
It was inconceivable. A Special Operator’s creed was bound by loyalty. Your life for your brothers. To create a weapon that bypassed that loyalty and forced an operator to turn on his teammates, to massacre them—his gut twisted, caught between horror and grief.
He should have 86’d those damn cameras as soon as they went skids up, left the bastard behind this setup to stew in the dark.
Another voice from his comm, another demand for a sitrep.
Fuck that. No way was he updating the motherfuckers behind this situation. Nor was he killing himself on camera for their goddamn data collection. He turned his helmet over. The new camera was a thin cylinder mounted to the right side of his helmet. He flipped the tiny power switch from on to off and forced himself to his feet. The pain shifted with his movement, radiating up and down his leg, before sinking back into his thigh in an agonizing rush. He gritted his teeth and shuffled toward the splayed body of Hutch. All his teammates’ cameras needed to go dark. Damned if he’d give the bastards any new insights through those live camera feeds. He hobbled from helmet to helmet, half of which were still attached to his crew’s bloody, fragmented heads, and flipped the cameras off.
By the time he finished, his whole body was trembling. Exhausted, he sank down, landing on his ass, and stared at his hands. They were still shaking. Not a surprise. He was infected. He already knew that. He’d touched the same bodies his brothers had. No, he hadn’t gone insane yet, but it was coming. Maybe the delayed insanity was because his metabolism was different. Or maybe his infectious load had been lighter and slower to spread.
Tilting his head back, he stared dully up at the gray, fluffy sky. The wind had died. A lazy, faltering snow was falling. It would be a peaceful morning, if not for the bodies of his dead teammates surrounding him.
He needed to take himself out now, while he still had control of his mind, before the exfil crew arrived. Before he attacked anyone.
He unsnapped and unholstered his sidearm. Too bad it wasn’t dawn with a clear sky. The sunrises in the Karategin Mountains were gorgeous—all pinks and purples. They reminded him of Demi’s hair, of the way she’d looked three years ago, when he’d finally claimed her. The way she’d glowed, all pink hair and flushed skin as she’d writhed beneath him in bed. His chest went hollow and hot. He closed his eyes and burned the image of her into his mind. The sexy smirk on her red lips, the hungry glitter in her eyes, the way she welcomed him into her body with urgent hands and breathy moans.
He wanted to ask Montana to patch her through to his comm so he could tell her he loved her, tell her how sorry he was for the past three years, how he regretted not spending those years with her. How he wished he’d filled his memory with her, instead of endless ops and training missions.
Fuck, he’d been an idiot. He’d cheated them of the only thing that mattered. Time. Now that he had none left, he realized how badly he’d squandered it.
With a drained sigh, he lowered his head and stared at his helmet. But he didn’t reach for it. Demi had one man haunting her already, a better man than him. Donnie had understood what mattered in life. He’d given Demi everything he had to offer, while he’d had the chance to give it.
Aiden, on the other hand, had hoarded his time with the teams. Sure, he loved her, but she’d always come second—behind the missions, behind the training, behind the teams. It wasn’t fair to load his biggest regret onto her shoulders, where she’d carry it, along with his memory, for the rest of her life. He’d do her a favor and let her grieve his death, without the agony of unborn possibilities.
After one last look at the snow floating down from the fuzzy sky, he lifted his weapon, shoving the muzzle into his mouth. His gaze locked on his hands, and the finger resting on the trigger guard. It took him a second to realize what he was seeing—or rather, not seeing.
His fingers were steady. Still as a rock. Not a tremble in sight.
What the hell?
He lowered the gun, his gaze transfixed on his hands.
Still no shaking.
With Squirrel and the rest, the twitching had gotten worse, not better, as time went on. And come to think of it, their faces had twitched as well. After holstering his weapon, he carefully shucked his gloves and cupped his face with his hands. His skin felt icy beneath his touch, but he felt no twitching. Hell, his face was as still as his hands.
Was he infected?
Sure, his hands had been shaking earlier—but fuck, he’d barely escaped a bullet to the face and watched his team slaughter each other. Plus, he’d lost a lot of blood. Adrenaline, shock, and grief could have caused the shaking.
Was he infected? Maybe. But maybe not.
It had been fifteen minutes since his team went insane. And they’d all gone down that rabbit hole at the same time. He hadn’t joined them, not then…not now. Plus, Benny had mentioned a tingle in his brain, which he still hadn’t experienced.
He sat there, frowning. He didn’t want to die. Sure as hell not by his own hand. But he couldn’t allow himself free rein either. This sickness came on fast. If he was infected, just slower to succumb, he needed to protect the exfil team while he still had the chance.
First things first, though. He scowled down at his blood-soaked leg. He needed to take care of that. Blood loss could kill him as easily as a round to the mouth. No sense in trading one ticket out for another. He’d treat the wound, change into some fresh warmies, wrap himself in the heat sheet, and tie himself up.
And hope he was still alive and sane by the time the evac crew came to pick him up.
Day 2 Washington, D.C.
Clark exited the NNB26 programming and navigated back to the camera screens. There was no new imagery, but according to the seconds accumulating on the individual camera clocks, the six units were still filming. He pushed back the desk chair and rose to his feet, about to exit the feeds and call it a night, when a sandy colored object encroached on one of the camera feeds. It paused in the frame.
It was a boot laced to above the ankle. A bare, blood-stained hand skimmed through the camera feed and the camera went dead.
Clark sank back down, staring at the remaining camera feeds. Two were dark now. Winchester’s and Hutcheson’s. The boot—or more accurately, a pair of them—appeared again, this time in Acker’s feed. The hand reached down again, and the video feed went dark. Feed after feed, the tan boots appeared, followed by the bloody hand, followed by the camera feed going black.
Someone was moving from body to body and turning off the cameras. Why? Who? A local? But why would a stranger turn the cameras off? Besides, wouldn’t there be audio if a local showed up? Shocked exclamations when they came across the bodies? It couldn’t be anyone from the evacuation team. Hurley hadn’t sent his evac crew out yet.
There was only one possibility.
One of the SEALs was alive.
The only man who hadn’t died on the feeds—was Aiden Winchester. Was the squad leader still alive? Of course, even if he was alive, he wouldn’t—or shouldn’t—be mentally stable.
He glanced at the clock on his laptop screen. It was fifteen minutes since the other SEALs had succumbed to the bots. He shifted in unease, his desk chair squeaking beneath him. Moving from body to body and turning off the cameras was not a sign of someone suffering a mental lapse. It was too methodical. Too focused. Winchester was eerily silent, too. No shouting. No ranting. And then there was his hand. His fingers hadn’t trembled while turning the cameras off.
Was Winchester infected? He remembered the SEAL touching at least two of the bodies. That alone should have been enough to infect him.
He rewound Winchester’s camera footage until just before the SEALs entered Karaveht and pressed play. He stopped the feed when they reached the first set of bodies. Only two of the men were wearing tan boots: Winchester and Acker. And he’d watched Thomas Acker take a bullet to the face. The SEAL turning off the cameras had to be Winchester.
Slowly, he pressed play, and the video inched forward. He paused it again as Winchester turned the first woman over. Clearly, he’d touched her, at least long enough to roll her over. Sure, he’d been wearing gloves, but his gloves weren’t made from a metal alloy that prevented bot penetration. He allowed the feed to advance forward again until the SEALs reached the second set of bodies. This time an entire family—kids and all. He paused the video again as Winchester reached for one of the children. His hands made contact again. It was right there on film.
Frowning, Clark’s gaze dropped to the volume of blood surrounding the bodies. Winchester’s boots were standing in the middle of all that red. Of course, everything was frozen, but that wouldn’t make a difference. The NNB26 bots would have been in the blood when the family bled out. When Winchester made contact with that lake of red, the bots should have penetrated his boots, and then his skin and muscles, before entering his circulatory system.
Winchester should have received an infectious load through his gloves and boots—like his teammates had. Clark slowly leaned back, staring at the computer screen, then jerked forward again and fast forwarded the video.
He didn’t remember seeing any signs of infection from the team leader. But he hadn’t focused much on the man, not when there was so much drama through the other camera feeds. Maybe he’d missed the symptoms. He slowed the video again, watching as the SEALs went crazy, and methodically searched the various camera feeds for footage of Winchester. He found plenty of instances of Winchester on the various video footage—different angles, different cameras. Like the others, the squad leader was wearing one of those damn face covers. But the cloth left his eyes free, which were not bloodshot. In none of the video feeds were the corners of his eyes twitching, nor were his hands. And there was no sign of erratic behavior.
Winchester didn’t look compromised at all.
Had he been infected? It seemed unlikely. He would have been infected at the same time as his teammates, so he’d have gone crazy at the same time they had. At the very least, he’d be showing symptoms by now. This new weapon was incredibly predictable. There was little variation in how it affected its victims. If Winchester had been infected, he would have had symptoms. He would have succumbed to the insanity by now.
Clark’s stomach tightened. A sudden, vicious throb pounded behind his eyes. A tension headache. He recognized the pinch and pull, although he hadn’t suffered one in years.
It was inconceivable, but Winchester was apparently immune to his NNB26 prototype. But how? There was only one way to find out.
He needed to get Winchester in his lab.
Immediately.