33. Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Day 16 Denali, Alaska
Five hours after his embarrassingly wimpy workout, Aiden awoke to a banging on his door. He grabbed his tactical pants from beside the bed and fumbled into them with shaking hands and legs. Fuck, he felt worse—a lot worse—than he’d felt prior to shucking his clothes and falling asleep. He wrenched the door open and twisted left to avoid Cosky’s fist, which—since the door was out of the way—was headed straight for Aiden’s face.
“Jesus H. Christ.” Aiden added a long step back to the torso twist, hoping to avoid a broken nose. Cosky’s summons sailed harmlessly by. “Be careful with that thing.”
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” After a quick head-to-toe scan, Cosky frowned. “You look like shit, bro.”
“So I’ve been told.” Aiden yawned. His five-hour nap obviously hadn’t done him any favors. Time to stop by the clinic.
Still frowning, Cosky stepped back. “Get your ass into some clothes. We’ve got a location on your arms dealer. Wolf has called a briefing.” A pair of black eyebrows climbed, almost disappearing into Cosky’s hairline. “I assume you want to join us?”
Aiden didn’t waste time confirming that ridiculous question. Instead, he slammed the door in his brother-in-law’s face. The clinic would have to wait. He had a briefing to go to.
He threw on a loose t-shirt, pulled on socks and his shitkicker boots, and headed for the door. Each stride felt heavy, achy. His scalp tightened beneath the pounding inside his skull. His gut gave a small but obvious heave. Just one more annoying symptom to add to his growing list of ailments. He was hot, too. Way too hot. Fever hot.
His memory rewound to those minutes on the hills above Karaveht, to the raging, insane eyes of his brothers, to rifle fire and obliterated faces.
Could these sudden symptoms be nanobot related?
The question stopped him in his tracks. No fucking way. He was sick, that was all. A flu or a cold. Maybe food poisoning. He rarely got sick—but hell—it happened every once in a triple blue moon.
The docs had found no sign of nanobot activity inside him during their endless rounds of testing. Besides, why would the bots affect him now? It was over two weeks post-Karaveht. If he’d been infected, the signs would have shown before now. Plus, these symptoms—the shakes, the queasy gut, the headache—they weren’t the ones his teammates had shown.
Still, he scowled. He’d better swing by the clinic instead of joining the rest of the boys in the conference room. If he was contagious—with anything —he couldn’t afford to infect the entire Shadow Mountain force, sure as hell not now, when they finally had a location on Kuznetsov.
“Son of a bitch!” he snarled beneath his breath.
Frustration and disgust swelled until he felt like he was about to explode. g oddammit . Things were finally moving, and he was sidelined by this shit. If he knew for certain he wouldn’t infect the entire base, he’d join the briefing, regardless of how shitty he felt.
It royally sucked being responsible.
He yanked open the door again. Cosky was gone, thank Christ. Hopefully that five second conversation hadn’t transferred the crud currently ruining Aiden’s day to his brother-in-law.
Some dude in grease-stained overalls was waiting for the elevator. Aiden took the stairs, giving the guy plenty of room to avoid infecting him. As he stomped his way down the stairs, he pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his tactical pants. Missed call after missed call lit up the call log. He thumbed the number that belonged to Wolf. His big bro answered before the second ring.
“I’m headed to the clinic. I’ve either picked up some kind of crud, or those damn nanobots are late to the party. I’m not taking the chance of infecting anyone—whether I’m carrying the flu or the bots.” He grimaced at the surge of fear that accompanied the bot part of the statement.
Don’t panic…don’t think about it…it could be nothing.
Too bad his overactive heart and adrenal system refused to listen to his brain. He hesitated, then forced himself to ask the obvious question.
“You have any of those visions? One that might concern me?” Aiden asked, trying like hell to keep his voice casual.
Wolf’s silence ate the line. And then— “There have been no visions from the Shadow Warrior. Not as of recent.”
Which must mean that no, Wolf had not seen Aiden’s imminent demise. The admission would have been reassuring, except it hadn’t been Wolf who’d dreamed of that clusterfuck above Karaveht. According to Wolf and Cosky, that lucky save had come courtesy of Benioko’s warning from the elder gods.
Maybe he should have called Benioko instead of Wolf. Nah.
One level down, two more to go. He headed down the second stairwell, his head throbbing in earnest, his boot strikes a muffled thud in his ringing ears. This line of questioning wasn’t doing his headache any favors. Time to move on. “What’s the sitrep with Kuznetsov?”
“The Taounaha has located him.”
Aiden’s eyebrows flew up. He recognized the Kalikoia title for the shaman. Perhaps he hadn’t heard correctly through his ringing ears. “Benioko? He supplied the location?”
He suspected he’d heard the name just fine, though. Dammit. Now that was a surprise. An unwelcome one. Call him suspicious, but how the hell had the old man picked up the arms dealer’s scent? Did the shaman have contacts, those not godlike? Maybe everyday ordinary spooks that provided photo evidence and GPS locations?
“Yes.” The confirmation was flat. Like big bro was expecting push back. As he should.
“How the hell did he suss that out? A vision straight from the Shadow Warrior?” Aiden winced at how antagonistic he sounded. Judging by the icy silence thickening between them, his big bro didn’t appreciate the mockery. Better dial his tone back.
On the second-floor landing, bent almost double beneath the wheezing of his lungs and cramping of his muscles, he paused to catch his breath. All this agony from walking down two flights of stairs. Stairs, for Christ’s sake.
What had they been talking about? Oh, right. Benioko and his visions. Fuck, he hoped Wolf knew what he was doing, trusting the shaman’s intel like this.
After using the bottom of his t-shirt to swipe at the sweat trickling into his eyes, he opened the stairway door to the first floor. The blood whooshed through his head in a rapid, sickening throb. The corridor in front of him was empty. Thank Christ. He turned right, the gray walls and floor bleeding into an endless, shimmering tunnel.
His head went light and started spinning. He stopped, leaning against the wall for stability, vaguely aware of Wolf’s demanding voice calling his name. He swallowed hard, fought to force the vomit back into his lurching gut, and pressed the phone harder against his ear.
“You sound like a dying buffalo. Do I need to send medical to you?”
Even with the phone pressed tight to his ear, Wolf's voice sounded tinny and distant. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
The next wave of nausea hit so hard and fast he couldn’t keep it down. He leaned over and vomited, twice, in quick succession. After a few seconds of nothing, he straightened and used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe his mouth. When he slumped back against the wall again, his legs gave out. Slowly, his t-shirt rasping against the wall, he slid down until his ass hit the hot floor. Of course, floors weren’t hot. The heat was coming from him.
Was Wolf still on the line? He didn’t ask, just started talking.
“I’m in the main corridor, twenty feet from the stairs.” So far, he hadn’t run into anyone, but that was pure dumb luck. “Tell everyone to steer clear of me. No clue what I have. But it hits hard and fast. If this shit goes through your boys…”
Out of breath, he let the warning trail off. Wolf would’ve gotten the message. His big bro wasn’t stupid. Distantly, he heard the rumble of his brother’s voice, although he couldn’t decipher the words, just the tone. A comforting rumble of worry. It sounded like his dad’s voice, which was strange. Until now, he’d never thought Wolf and Dad sounded the same.
He latched onto that familiar, comforting rumble as the gray tunnel sucked him in and swallowed him whole.
Day 16 Washington, D.C.
With a heavy sigh and slumped shoulders, Lovett rolled his chair away from the computer monitor. “It’s clear that an acid bath does not render the NNB26 prototype inert.” His white hair a crazy, tousled mess thanks to the countless times he’d raked his fingers through it, he swiveled to stare at Clark. “It’s time to explore other options.”
“Agreed.” Clark dragged his gaze from the magnified view inside the NNB26 tank. The bots were scurrying around like an angry colony of ants. The last acid bath had pissed them off rather than destroying them. It had also mutated them. They were no longer black and round, they were almost translucent and oval.
So far, all acid options had failed. Yet their other fail-safe options were a logistical nightmare. An EMP blast wouldn’t affect them. An MRI was questionable. Still, it was hard to argue against Lovett’s advice when every acid they’d dumped over the bots had failed to permanently dissolve them.
He stood, arched his back, and wandered over to the small Osmium tank sitting on the stainless-steel table. The container, which had been specially designed and manufactured to hold the prototype, while withstanding an acid wash, currently housed millions of the nanobots—somewhere around ten percent of his supply. The bots had been transferred to the chamber before he’d programmed them, when they’d been safe to handle. A larger vat made of osmium housed the rest in a secure clean room down the hall.
On paper, hydrofluoric acid should have dissolved the nanobots. And dousing them with the acid had worked…at first. They’d been a melted, charred mess for a couple of hours. But then some had revived. Then more. Then the rest of them. The damn things had used the acid as material to rebuild themselves. Lovett hit them with more hydrofluoric acid. The bots were active again within the hour. On the third dose, they didn’t dissolve at all. That same pattern had followed with each acid they’d tried. Except the revival times shortened with each test.
It was the damnedest thing. His organic prodigies were learning how to protect themselves. Clark felt simultaneously impressed with their ingenuity—like a proud papa—and thoroughly terrified.
If they couldn’t deactivate the damn things with the kill switch or destroy them with acid, how would they stop them if they escaped their tanks?
Not gonna happen…those tanks are bot proof. Acid proof. Disaster proof. They’ve held the little bastards for years. They’ll hold them for an eternity. You need to focus on matters of more concern.
The silent reassurance might have been comforting if the bots weren’t changing. Evolving. Who knew what trouble the microscopic monsters were heading toward?
“Look into alternative methods to shut them down.” Clark returned to the desk his laptop was on and picked up his phone. The nanobots weren’t the only uncertainty plaguing him.
Kuznetsov still hadn’t returned his phone calls. The silence from the arms dealer was almost as unnerving as the situation with the NNB26 prototype.
“As you wish,” Lovett frowned, fingering his chin. His mouth pursed—which gave him the look of an overly thoughtful bass. “Perhaps liquid nitrogen would do the trick.”
In other words, the fool didn’t know what would kill the bots for good.
“Keep me apprised.” Before he said something he’d regret, Clark stuffed his phone in his pocket, tucked his laptop under his arm and headed across the cold, white tile to the cold, white door. All this white on white was giving him a headache.
“Of course.” Lovett sounded appropriately chagrined.
As he rode the elevator back up to his office, Clark turned his attention to his other problem. Five days now with no return call.
Something was wrong.
There were plenty of reasons Kuznetsov might not be answering his phone. But only two of them concerned him. Someone had captured the bastard, or, hell, the arms dealer had double-crossed him.
Had Hurley’s men captured the Russian? His spy in the admiral’s office claimed they hadn’t located Kuznetsov, but someone else could have. Still, there could be a simpler reason behind the lack of return phone calls.
Kuznetsov was ignoring him.
The very traits for which Clark had hired the Russian—shrewdness, cunning, and ruthlessness were a concern now. What if the bastard had double-crossed him? Kuznetsov could set up a sale on the nanobots without Clark’s permission or knowledge. He could cut Clark out of the deal entirely.
He’d sent the Russian five vials of NNB26 with strict instructions to use all five vials in the well at Karaveht. Kuznetsov could have ignored that order and held a vial or two back. Clark had known this was a possibility, but it hadn’t mattered. Not back then.
Upon activation of the kill switch, the bots in the extra vials would become inert. They wouldn’t activate again without additional programming. Kuznetsov knew this. The Russian’s customers were every bit as ruthless and deadly as the arms dealer himself. Selling any of them an inert weapon was a death sentence. Kuznetsov wouldn’t be that stupid…would he?
But if the Russian was that stupid, if he’d sold a vial or two of NNB26, and if those bots reactivated, well, then humanity was in trouble. The NNB26 prototype had been created to replicate themselves. With no kill switch, they’d just keep creating more and more of themselves. The more people they infected, the more building materials they’d have available. They’d just keep replicating themselves, infecting as they went, until they blanketed the entire world and killed every person on earth.