Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
“In a lot of ways my story is similar to Ash’s.” Adam looked at his hands, and the tattoo on the inside of his wrist. The one Ash had noticed the day they’d met. “Different country. Different bad guy. Same result.”
Noah shook his head. “We need more of an explanation than that.”
“Telling you puts you in danger. Kind of like saying it out loud makes it more real.” Adam winced. “It’s been so long you’d think some of the details would be fuzzy, but I remember every second of it.”
“You were captured.” It wasn’t a question, because Noah knew. They all did.
Why hide the scars when he had so many? “The army didn’t want the scandal. They wanted it all to disappear.”
Noah stared at him. “Why not just give you a couple million to keep your mouth shut?”
“It was your parents who did that,” Adam said, “and in the process they gave me my life back.”
Still, he’d have to explain. “We were on special assignment. Turned out it was about endurance research. Our endurance. It was a secret base. Small detachment. Eighteen of us went in, and two of us came out. The other guy killed himself later, and…” He couldn’t even say the name.
“It was the base commander, the colonel in charge of the installation.”
Sickness roiled in Adam’s stomach.
“He should’ve been locked up.”
“You were tortured by an army Colonel?” Noah said.
Adam heard the tone in his voice. “I know how it sounds. But no one rang the doorbell and did spot checks to see how things were going. Montrose reported in personally on his trips to Washington, and the assignment called for no communication for the length of the deployment. No phones or internet.”
“So you were trapped there.”
“Under the authority of a psychopath who demanded the highest security clearance for his so-called experiments and had enough autonomy that the brass left him alone.” Adam swallowed back the sickness threatening to come up.
“He wanted to better understand human endurance, and we were the soldiers he used to find out what a person can handle.”
“That sounds like something from centuries ago, or darker times when there weren’t checks and balances.”
Anger flared in Adam. “I know what it sounds like!” He gasped. “I tried to tell anyone who would listen, but Colonel Montrose told them all I’d lost my mind on the deployment. That the isolation got to me, and I’d cracked. He had me committed to a mental institution. And then he visited me.”
Noah flinched.
“I escaped. With a little help from some friends.”
Ash walked over to him and held his hand out. Adam clasped it, trying not to hold on for dear life, but it was close. A hairsbreadth from a bro-hug, they stuck like that for a second. Because Ash knew that he couldn’t get through this story without human contact that had nothing to do with pain.
“You don’t have to finish,” Ash said. “They’ve heard enough, and you don’t have to convince anyone.”
“He’s still out there. It won’t ever be over.”
Ash nodded and stepped back, letting go of Adam’s hand. “Not unless you give me the word. He slips and falls in the shower. Or his car goes off a cliff.”
Adam didn't know what to say. Part of him wanted to take his friend upon the offer.
Ash said, “I’m keeping tabs. He’s dormant. For now. But the guy is a psychopath. Sooner or later, he won’t be able to avoid his nature any longer. Someone will get hurt.”
Adam squeezed his eyes shut for a second.
“No one believed you,” Noah said, backtracking a little on Adam’s tale.
Adam wanted to shrug but couldn’t. “Turns out one of his buddies at the Pentagon is actually his brother-in-law. Knew all about the colonel’s proclivities toward torture and human experimentation in the name of advancing research.
Even lauded the results he came up with.
Championed him so much the guy became untouchable. ”
“I know who you’re talking about.” Noah’s mouth tightened. “You should’ve told me. I’d have put a bullet in him myself.”
Adam stared at his hands. “Even a former SEAL can’t get that close to him. He believes he’s untouchable…because he is.”
“How’d you get out of the facility?”
“Killed three orderlies and a doctor, and escaped.” Adam lifted his chin. “I met this guy on the highway. He picked me up when I stuck my thumb out—perfect timing. Said his name was Kyle and he had an offer for me.”
Adam shook his head, thinking back on his reaction before he continued, “I tried to kill him, too. But he convinced me he was legit. Dropped me at a homeless shelter with fresh clothes and a hundred bucks. After the second attempt to capture me failed, he came by again. Offered me a new ID, new name.”
“The military didn’t want anyone to hear your story.”
Adam shook his head.
“They were gonna bury you.”
“And let Montrose continue his ‘experiments’ in the process.” Adam drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “I didn’t win, but now I’m free. Thanks to your parents.”
“You would’ve taken their secret to your grave.”
Adam nodded.
Noah scratched his chin. “I wish you’d told me. But I get it.”
“I get now why you’re overly sensitive about one of us getting captured,” Jay said from his left.
Dan, over on his right, nodded.
Marina swiped a tear from under her eye.
“Don’t cry for me, Marina.”
She sniffed. “Don’t tell me what to do. I’ll cry if I want to.”
God knew Adam had shed plenty of tears. “The Lazarus Protocol gave me a life. A new ID. I can’t have the life I had before, but I like this one.
I’m not giving it up, and I’m definitely not willing to let this team fall apart because I didn’t tell you something I swore not to.
” He let go of a little of the tension he’d been feeling now that the story had been told, and he knew the team would stick with him.
Not that he’d been worried, but with the truth out, he felt a little less like he was lying.
Noah nodded. “I’d love to know how to find them.”
Adam stared at his friend, knowing exactly what missing family felt like.
He had his sister back in his life, and he even kind of liked her husband.
“I’ll give you the number I have. It’s an emergency contact.
” He’d reached out to them in the apartment when it was clear Johannsen was missing. Sent a text they had yet to respond to.
“What about Kyle?” Dan said. “You mentioned him before.”
“Johannsen.”
“Wait. He’s a Lazarus Protocol…person? Enrollee?” Dan got up to pace. “He works for Earthnet, right? He was y’all’s contact getting the job.”
Ash said, “He’s the one who hooked us up with it.”
Noah glanced around. “Seems like my parents might be in more of this than we knew. If they’re drawing the team into Earthnet business, they’ve got a man on the inside—”
Marina cut him off. “And they contacted my cousin.”
“It could all be connected,” Adam said. “But how does it help us find Vesper and get Kai back?”
Ash disappeared out the side door, and if anyone noticed, they said nothing about it. Per protocol he’d be reaching out to their contact. Noah’s mom or dad, or someone else entirely.
“The Phoenix Network.”
Dan turned from his pacing the length of the room. “That’s where you got Nix from?”
“The Phoenix Network,” Noah echoed.
Adam winced. He’d really said that aloud? “They said I could use it.” He looked around. “Marina, any idea who sent those drones to kill us in Kyle’s apartment? It looked to me when we were there that he was using it to surveil the ship where they had that lab.”
Dan sat on the edge of a desk. “So he infiltrated Earthnet to find out where their lab was, then he was reporting back to whoever sent him in?”
Adam figured that was close enough.
“My parents are still in the game.” Noah’s tone had a note of awe in it.
“You’re glad about that?” Adam said. “Even if it means you never see them?”
Noah shrugged. “I have to come to terms with it all, but if they’re saving people like you? People like Ash who thought they were serving their country and found their lives destroyed because of their choice? I think I’m going to be okay with it. Eventually, at least.”
Marina turned in her chair. “Earthnet sent those drones to kill you guys.”
Adam nodded. “They were herding us away from the lab, but Steph knew there was something on that ship. She’s the one who turned the boat around to go look.”
“And as a result of boarding that boat, Kai was captured.” Jay leaned forward in his chair, forearms on his knees. “That’s why I didn’t say no when she took off with Ice to chase after them.”
“Kai being captured isn’t her fault,” Adam said. “Earthnet is up to something, and whatever Vesper is doing, she needs to be stopped. We need to know what happened.”
“And we need to get Kai back,” Jay said. “Before this Vesper woman does something we’re going to have to kill her for.”