Reckoning (9 page)

Christie was at the Renegade right now slipping a dose of GHB into Rodney Hammond’s drink. Then she would entice him outside on the premise of getting lucky. By the time they reached the truck, Rodney would already feel the effects of the drug. He might struggle, but not very strongly.

But back here, there was nothing to do but wait. Nate checked his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. He hadn’t wanted her here, but she knew her presence would have a calming effect on him. He’d gone berserk when he’d found out about the deaths in Chad. Not in front of his team, of course. But when he’d come back to their room, he’d thrown around a few choice items, only one of which wasn’t plastic, and it had taken her a while to find out why.

Her heart had sunk when he told her what Eli had said. It brought home too clearly that they had to succeed, and do it damn soon.

As for her, she’d barely made it to the bathroom before she’d gotten sick.

After she’d cleaned up, she’d opened the bathroom door to find Nate on the bed, his head in his hands, and he was shaking. He never trembled—not that she’d seen—not even the night of the lab attack.

She’d put aside her own troubles and gone to him. She wasn’t important now. He was. Nate was their last hope, and he couldn’t fall apart, not when there was so much to do.

“You want some tea?”

Tam jumped at Harper’s voice, brought back from her memories to the warehouse.

Nate shook his head in response to Harper’s soft question. “No, thanks.”

“Okay, then, will you stop looking at your watch? It’s making me nuts.”

He gave Harper a grim smile, and held off. At least for awhile. When he checked again, Tam got up, moved her chair to the other side of his and held his hand.

“Sneaky,” he said.

“Practical. We need Harper to be sharp when they get here. She can’t be wanting to punch your lights out.”

“I never understood the reluctance to have women in combat,” he said. “You’re all ruthless.”

Harper snorted. And then they heard the truck.

Nate was on his feet so fast he nearly knocked his chair over. But then Harper seemed just as anxious. Tam was, too, she just had her focus on Nate, not the mission. That, she knew would be successful. The team was too good to screw it up.

Nate had his weapon out, pointing at the loading dock door as it screeched open. He put it down the moment he saw Boone.

Seth drove in, and there was Rodney in the truck bed, sleeping. At least Tam hoped it was just sleep.

Harper climbed up beside him with her medical bag. While she checked his vitals, Nate and Seth set up the lights. In the meantime Cade mixed half a tube of white Mikrosil and half a tube of hardener in a bowl. After they were given the okay, the guys lifted Rodney—who wasn’t a small man—off the truck and onto the gurney. He didn’t seem the type to have attracted a woman as gorgeous as Christie. He must have thought he’d died and gone to heaven when she suggested they leave the bar.

Even Tam had to admit Christie had done her part well. She was in tight jeans, a low-cut blouse, and her makeup was perfect. She’d probably outclassed everyone in the joint. Not to mention making Tam feel as though she could win a grunge competition.

She turned back to check on Nate, who seemed a lot better now that he was finally doing something. She felt as if she were in an operating room. Everyone hovering around the subject as Cade put Rodney’s elbow in a sling so that his hand was elevated.

Cade used a wooden mixing stick to slather the putty on the man’s hand, starting several inches below the wrist. It didn’t take all that long as he didn’t want it to dry unevenly, but it felt like hours to Tam.

Finally, it was done. Now they had to wait at least twenty minutes for the stuff to dry.

Nate turned his attention immediately to Rodney’s wallet. There was no keycard, but there was an ID card, which he took over to the color copier they’d hooked up to a portable generator.

He made a dozen copies. As the clock ticked, Harper used a scalpel to cut out Rodney’s picture. When she finished with one, she handed it to Boone, who replaced the photo with one of himself. Then Nate took the fake ID and ran it through the copier again, only this time the machine laminated the card. Christie trimmed the new ID. All of this was done in silence; everyone intent on not making even the smallest mistake.

They made one ID for each member of the team. They didn’t bother to change the name. If someone looked that closely, they’d realize immediately that it was fraudulent.

She found herself pacing, wishing they’d given her an assignment. As Nate had proven once again, it was always easier to work than wait.

The deaths in Chad would haunt them all. But the news had also reinforced their determination. Not only that. The news had accelerated their timeline. They had to move fast. As fast as they could. No one wanted another village wiped out.

“Time,” Nate said.

They had finished the whole set of IDs, all except the final trim, but Christie abandoned her task to watch Cade’s next move.

He touched the cast in a bunch of places, particularly between the fingers. He must have been satisfied because he loosened the putty around the wrist, then took hold of the molded plastic and pulled it off the hand, inside out. When he was finished he had a perfect glove. Even Tam could see the ridged prints.

Harper used some alcohol pads to clean up Rodney’s hand. Then she checked his vitals again, and his eyes. “I don’t know how long he’ll be out. But he won’t remember any of this.”

“Tam, Harper and Christie, you take care of things in here,” Nate said before turning to his men. “Let’s load him up and get him back to his car.” He replaced Rodney’s wallet and they hoisted him into the truck bed.

Boone and Seth got in the front and Cade stayed in the bed. Nate checked outside, then gave them the go-ahead. The truck headed out slowly over the broken concrete outside.

Rodney would wake up sometime in the next few hours, wondering what the hell had happened. By then, all evidence that the team had been in the warehouse would be gone. They’d each have an ID card, giving them level four clearance, and one set of fingerprints that would change everything.

NOW THAT THE COMPUTERS HAD arrived, Tam found that her last three days were a lot like those she’d spent in the lab. No experiments, but long stretches of solitary work, broken up by lunch with whoever happened to be at the motel. Her assignment was to type in the data she’d compiled about the gas and the antidote. To make the heavy scientific jargon understandable to the layman. Everything had to be recorded, every trial and every observation. She kept putting off transcribing the notes of her failed dispersal system, but that would have to be included, too.

What made it all bearable were her nights. Although technically, it was her mornings. Nate worked so late he’d come to their room well past midnight. Despite his exhaustion, they made love, which saw them through the next twenty-four hours.

She saved her page and got up from the little round table. They didn’t have much in what passed for a kitchen, but she had her stock of Diet Pepsi Lime and he had his Corona. The beverages filled most of the refrigerator, but there was also a loaf of bread and peanut butter in there, too. She wished it were tomorrow.

Tonight, Boone and Seth were going to enter the chamber using Rodney’s fingerprints. The tension had the whole team on edge, and she found it safer to lock herself away and concentrate on her work. Nate, however, couldn’t lose himself in formulas. Although he didn’t carry out the missions, he felt the weight of each and every one.

The day after they’d made the mold of Rodney’s hand, Nate had gone with Vince to the machine shop. She’d been completely terrified until he’d walked back through their door, and that memory helped her be patient when he was gruff, or when he paced across the small room for hours at a time.

He held them all on his shoulders.

Just as the fizz of her soda was dying down there was a knock on her door. It frightened her as it always did, but she let her training take over. She went to the bedside table and took her weapon out from the drawer. She released the safety as she crossed the room, and only then did she look through the peephole. It was Seth.

“You busy?”

“Just pouring myself a soda. Want one?”

He nodded as he entered and didn’t blink when she put her gun back in the drawer. “I’ve had so much coffee my eyes have turned brown.”

She laughed, having noticed his striking green-gold eyes the first time they’d met. “What’s up?” she asked as she poured his soda.

“Not much. Can’t sleep, of course, and I’m annoying the crap out of Harper so I thought I’d come here.”

“And annoy the crap out of me?”

“Yep.”

“Thanks. I could use a little distraction.”

He sat down in the chair by the table and she took her drink and sank to the floor in front of the bed. “How are you two doing?”

“Fine,” she said. “Why?”

He studied the plastic glass. “Just thought I’d check in. Nate’s about the best man I know, but…”

“Go on.”

“He’s never been too keen on the whole relationship thing.”

“Ah. Well, I know that about him. Kate warned me.”

“So you know that you guys are probably not going to, uh—”

“You mean he hasn’t told you?”

Seth looked at her. “What?”

“That we’re getting married.”

His claw opened and shut, which Tam figured was an involuntary muscle spasm, although she wasn’t all that familiar with the way the prosthesis worked. “You are?”

“I suppose I should have waited for him to tell you,” she said, keeping a straight face. “It won’t be a big wedding, but you guys will all be invited.”

“Shit. Really? He never said anything. Does Christie know?”

“Seth, I appreciate the talk, I do, but please don’t worry. We’re not getting married or even going steady. We’re taking each day as it comes.”

He frowned, and she could see why Harper was always touching him. He was a good looking guy, almost as handsome as Nate. “That wasn’t nice.”

“No, I suppose it wasn’t, but I warned you I was bored.”

He drank some soda and made a little face. “What is this?”

“Lime.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Seth?”

“Yeah?”

“Was that it? Just a general warning not to fall head over heels for the sergeant?”

“Pretty much. You know the girls. They just—”

“The girls? So it’s not just Harper, but Kate and Christie, too?”

He nodded a little guiltily.

“Why are they worried about me?”

“I don’t know. I told them you weren’t a kid, but they wanted to make sure no one would get hurt.”

“No one,” she said, under her breath, “meaning me. You’re right, I’m not a kid.”

“Hey, we didn’t want to upset you, either. This is difficult enough without hurt feelings.”

“I’m curious,” she said. “Did you draw the short straw?”

“No. I volunteered. I’ve been with Nate through a lot. I’ve never seen him intentionally mislead anyone. But he always kept things short and sweet, you know?”

She studied him, sure he was telling her the truth, not just about Nate but about his motives. “Tell me about him.”

“What do you mean?”

“What’s he like when it isn’t the end of the world?”

Seth leaned back in his chair, his claw resting in his lap, his other hand around the glass. He was in the uniform they’d all adopted—jeans, boots, T-shirts. It was still cold as hell out, but his jacket wasn’t built for warmth. She knew he had a weapon on him, probably at the small of his back. They were always wary and always prepared. “Well, he was good for a laugh.”

“Nate?”

Seth nodded. “Everyone wanted to hang out with him. Even senior officers. I won’t lie to you, he liked to party. There’s not a mission we’ve had where he didn’t know the hours of the nearest bar.”

“Kate told me he was much hankered after.”

He grinned. “Nice way of putting it. But yeah, the ladies always found him. The rest of us got his castoffs.” He shook his head. “To add insult to injury, he never lost at pool. Not once. He went up against some damn good players, too.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I was there. The man knows how to play eight ball.”

“I meant about you getting his castoffs.”

Oh, she’d made him blush. How interesting. Big, tough Seth, who’d killed a man with his claw, and he was shy. She wouldn’t have guessed.

“I did okay. But I was outclassed.”

“What about when he wasn’t in a bar. Did he talk much about his family?”