14. Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Day 7 Denali, Alaska
With a muffled grunt, Aiden settled back against the plush pillow of his hospital bed. The constant beep-beep-beep coming from the medical monitors next door was irritating, but that annoyance was mitigated by the spring-fresh scent of his recently laundered pillowcase. The nurses must have changed his sheets while he was in that last CT scan.
Now that he was free from testing, it was time to rustle up that jet. He picked up the borrowed cell phone from the bedside table and dialed Wolf’s number. When the call went to voicemail, he left a message.
Since there wasn’t anything to do until Wolf hooked him up with a plane, he relaxed into the freshly laundered sheets and closed his eyes. Might as well nap until Wolf showed up. Fuck, he was tired. Ironic, since he hadn’t done a damn thing all day except get wheeled from test to test. He was pulled from dreams of twisted, nightmarish trees and a misty, alien terrain thirty minutes later by the whisper of footsteps outside his door.
“Lunch is served. Chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes with a vegetable medley.” The perkiest nurse in the history of perky nurses slipped through the privacy curtain. She set the plastic covered platter on the swivel tray parked along the side of his hospital bed and rotated it until the food was in front of his chest. “Applesauce for dessert.” She stepped back and beamed at him, the smile brightening her hazel eyes. “Never let it be said we don’t treat our patients right. Don’t forget to leave us a positive review.” She winked at him before brushing past the curtain on her way out.
Aiden grunted in response. All that cheerfulness was downright exhausting. The thick, meaty smell of chicken fried steak and gravy soured his stomach, so he pushed the swivel tray aside. Before he reached for the phone to call Wolf again, the squeak of rubber soles against the rubber flooring brought his head up. His visitor wasn’t wearing tactical boots, not with all that squeaking, so it wasn’t Wolf outside his door.
Sure enough, Kait squeezed through the gap in the curtain. Cosky didn’t bother with squeezing in, he just shoved the drape aside. The shriek of the plastic curtain rings against the metal rod followed him into the room.
“Either of you see Wolf? I need that plane.” Aiden watched the pair advance on his bed.
Although he’d talked to them on the phone over the past four days, he hadn’t actually seen his sister or Cos since they’d been hustled to the isolation units. But the two looked good, bright eyed and bushy tailed. He suspected he didn’t look nearly as bright eyed. But then, unlike them, he’d had gallons of blood drawn, and dozens of tests run.
“I try to avoid the bastard as much as possible.” Cosky dropped into the second chair and grabbed the swivel tray, maneuvering it toward him. He popped the plastic lid off the tray and picked up the knife and fork.
Aiden scowled. He should give the bastard a rash of shit for co-opting his lunch, but it was too much effort. Besides, he wasn’t hungry.
“Wolf won’t forget about the plane.” Kait’s gaze was wide and worried as she scanned Aiden’s face. “He knows how important Demi is to you.”
He must look even worse than he’d suspected for his sister to look so anxious.
“Before you ask, I feel fine.” He could tell she was dying to ask, even though she could sense how annoying he found the question.
Partly because it was the question that everyone—from nurses, to doctors, to scientists—kept asking him, which became tedious, and partly because the simple act of having to answer that question reminded him of why they were asking it. Which reminded him of what had happened to his squad brothers. Which was a constant reminder of what he could face himself—death by insanity.
Although that possibility was lessening every day.
“So…nanobots? How the hell did you pick those up?” There was a hint of accusation in Cosky’s question, like he figured Aiden had to be responsible somehow. “I mean, seriously? Nanobots?” The shake of Cosky’s graying head held disbelief and disgust. “What the hell?”
The good doctors must have filled Cosky and Kait in on the culprits they were facing off against.
“Yeah.” Aiden’s headshake was just as perplexed. He still hadn’t processed that disturbing news. “You know anything about those damn things?”
“Nanobots?” Cosky paused his chewing. “Not enough. We need Leonard Embray, he’s Shadow Mountain’s organic robotics consultant.”
Aiden scowled. If Embray was the go-to man on nanobots, why the fuck hadn’t someone already gone to him? Maybe they had. Except a Dr. Embray hadn’t sat in on any of the medical updates he’d been given. “Haven’t met him.”
“He’s the CEO of Dynamic Solutions.” Cosky glanced at Kait. “He was instrumental in neutralizing the NRO.”
Aiden’s eyebrows rose. The dude they were talking about was that Leonard Embray? The founder of Dynamic Solutions? Fuck, the company had their fingers in most of the robotics—hell, most of the technology—the world’s brainiacs were creating.
As for Embray — “Wasn’t he forced into a coma? Didn’t his buddy steal Dynamic Solutions from him?”
The scandal had been all over the news.
Cosky’s face hardened. “Yeah. Turned out his second-in-command was NRO. When Embray fell into his handy-dandy coma, the NRO stepped in and took over the company. After we rescued and revived him, he turned all that brain power to defeating the organization that had turned him into a pawn.”
Cool. Sounded like Embray was the man they needed. “When is he arriving on base?”
“He isn’t. Not any time soon, anyway. He’s currently up in space, on the International Space Station. His stint isn’t up for another four weeks.” A scowl joined the hardness on his brother-in-law’s face. “And we can’t contact him while he’s up there. Every transmission is recorded and tracked. Even sending him a secure, coded message could expose Shadow Mountain to U.S., Russian and Chinese intelligence. Wolf won’t take that chance.”
“Fuck.” Aiden growled. “So the plan is to sit here and hope the world doesn’t disintegrate before he returns to Earth?”
That sounded like a damn shitty strategy.
“Pretty much,” Cosky said, his voice as frustrated as Aiden’s had been. “In the meantime, we mitigate the threat of infection, and figure out a way to shut those damn bots down if they go up for sale.” He paused, his eyebrows lowering over his icy eyes. “You were wearing gloves and boots, right? How the hell did they get through the leather?”
Aiden shrugged. “No fucking clue.”
“Brickey says none of us were infected.” There was confidence in Kait’s voice, but deep concern in her eyes, concern that was directed at Aiden.
He could sense her fear for him. Even see it in the worried brown eyes locked on his face.
Aiden smoothed his expression. “Brickenhouse and Cole both said I was clean. The bots never infected me.”
Kait nodded, but hesitantly. Her forehead furrowed. “But what if you do have them, but they’re just inactive—like with your teammates?”
“If that’s the case, the docs would have found some sign of them inside me. They found them in Squirrel and the rest, after all, even though they were inactive by then. Stands to reason that they would have found them in my blood and tissue samples if I’d been infected.” Aiden forced nonchalance. Was it a twin thing that Kait had voiced the exact concern that was currently tying him into knots?
Kait’s brows knitted. She didn’t look convinced. “I suppose.”
Time to distract her.
“You were trying to cure me of any possible bot infestation up there above Karaveht, weren’t you?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “There was no reason to waste so much energy on a thigh wound. You healed that lickety-split. The rest of that scorching heat was about purging whatever infection I’d been exposed to. Maybe you roasted the suckers. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t infected.” He paused before adding gruffly. “I appreciate it, either way.”
“I didn’t know what you’d been exposed to.” She shrugged. “But I figured it couldn’t hurt.” She slid a glance toward Cosky, who was scraping the last of the potatoes up with his fork. “From what the docs have said, Benioko was right. You never posed a threat to me.”
Cosky froze, then slowly set his fork down. When he looked up, his face was completely flat, but his gray eyes glittered with irritation. “We didn’t know that at the time. Sue me for trying to keep you safe.”
Apparently, there was still friction about how things had played out up there amid the ice and snow. Had Wolf worked things out with Cosky? He didn’t ask. Wasn’t his fucking business.
“Too bad your Benioko didn’t bother to explain why I was safe to touch.” Aiden raised his eyebrows. They’d been damn lucky. If Benioko had been wrong, and Kait had been infected, he’d have broken the bastard’s neck.
“Sure, would have helped if he’d explained what we were dealing with.” Cosky agreed with a sharp nod. But then his face went reflective. “My gut says we’re facing a new weapon.” While Cosky’s voice remained mild, his eyes glittered with icy rage. “Drop a canister of those nanobots behind enemy lines and watch your enemy tear each other apart. They obviously tested this weapon in Karaveht.” He tilted his head and stared at Aiden, his face darkening. “Do you think WARCOM knew what they were sending you boys into?”
Rage, which was at a constant simmer lately, spiked. “I don’t know. Not for sure. But I suspect so.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Cosky’s face twisted into bitterness.
The dude had cause for both his suspicion and his resentment. NAVSPECWARCOM had sure goat-fucked him—as well as Zane, Rawls and Mac—during that hijacking incident four years back.
His gaze narrow and distant, Cosky’s expression turned thoughtful. “Hurley must wonder what happened to you and the bodies of your teammates.”
Aiden nodded. Thank Christ he’d turned off the cameras. “At least whoever’s behind that damn test doesn’t know about this base.”
“Wolf and his boys have done a fine job of keeping Shadow Mountain off the radar.” Cosky’s voice sounded reluctantly admiring. “Nobody will find you here.”
Aiden didn’t doubt that. He’d heard no mention of Wolf’s team, or the Shadow Mountain base through the years, and he had all the right connections and had been listening in all the right places. No wonder his brother was so reluctant to contact Embray.
Demi, however, wasn’t nearly as well shielded. “I need to get down to Coronado, but Wolf’s ignoring me.”
“Demi’s safe,” Cosky reminded him. “Forged Security is making damn sure of that. If anyone goes after her, they’ll step in and whisk her to safety.”
The reminder wasn’t much help. He’d been lucky nobody had gone after her already. But it was coming. He could sense it. Tag, Tram and the rest were good in a pinch, but she was safest in Aiden’s care. Her presence on this earth was essential to his survival. Even if they split, just knowing she was out there, living her life, would be enough to keep him grounded.
He’d burn the world to ash to keep her safe. He couldn’t ask that of Forged Security. She was just a client to them.
When Cos reached for the dish of applesauce that had accompanied the chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes, Aiden’s hand shot out to grab it first. Not because he wanted it, but hell—it was his lunch, not Cosky’s.
With a shrug, Cosky sat back. “Have you reached out to Hurley? Shadow Mountain is shielded. Hurley’s boys won’t trace the call back here.”
“Not yet.” The sweetness of the applesauce turned to ash in his mouth. He dropped the spoon back in the dish and stared down. “Can’t quite stomach their damn questions.”
He didn’t know, not for sure, if WARCOM was responsible for what had happened. But he didn’t know that they weren’t either.
It was fucking hell not trusting your superiors.
“If SEAL Command was behind what happened,” Kait said, echoing his thoughts. “If they were testing something,” she continued quietly, “then you can’t go back to your team—”
“My team’s gone.” Aiden’s throat tightened. Still, he knew what she meant. She meant the SEAL community. Lead filled his chest, pressed against his heart. He waited for the loss to hit. But there was too much rage and bitterness, along with grief, over Squirrel and Lurch and the rest of his squad brothers. The thought of walking away from the teams just felt numbing, not painful.
He took a deep breath and focused on Kait, shaking off the hollowness. There was still one person out there who pierced that emptiness. “I need to get to Demi.”
If Wolf didn’t pony up a plane, he’d check himself out of the base and find one for himself. He was done waiting. The protective detail didn’t mean she was safe. Shadow Mountain was the only place they couldn’t get to her.
“I still don’t get why you wouldn’t let me talk to her about flying up.” Kait sounded hurt.
Kait and Demi had been talking every day, but not about flying up and not about Aiden.
“If her line’s tapped,” which it probably was, “it’s safer not to give the bastards a heads up. I’ll fly down and just show up, grab her, and run.” Of course, they could still try to interfere, but he was prepared for that.
His pulse jumped when his cell vibrated against the plastic tray. He picked it up and accepted the call, frowning at the lack of caller ID.
“Aiden?”
He recognized the flat voice, and it wasn’t Wolf.
“Tag?” Aiden jerked up, his heart suddenly pounding. Tag wouldn’t be calling unless something had happened. Something bad.
“Yeah.” Tag’s voice was hard. “We’ve got a problem.”