Safe Passage (17 page)

Scott hesitated. “Yes.”

She stared at the stranger on the bed. “Jalil was my friend.”

Skye took a step, then another. She paced the room quickly, back and forth, her boots clonking on the wood floor. She had to think. Why had Malik sent Jozsef into her life? What purpose could he have had for her? She froze.

Oh, God. The blights.
She whirled, faced Scott. “That trip to Texas, and to Africa, they were for Jozsef’s business. It was at his insistence that I joined him.”

“He insisted?”

“Yes. He was doing work for an import-export company out of Europe.”

“Don’t tell me—KTS Global?”

“How do you know?”

“It’s the company that paid for the rental of the truck that was tailing us. KTS Global is held by a parent company in Belgium, which in turn seems to be a shell for another numbered company in Athens.”

“Malik?”

“It’s a good bet.”

She sucked in a shaky breath. “Jozsef took sample tins of Belgian foie gras on those trips. He had opportunity to introduce pathogens. He could have contained it in those tins.” Then it hit her. Skye’s stomach heaved, dry. “Jozsef also insisted I go with him to Ontario, just before the whitefly outbreak.” She turned slowly to face Scott. “Oh, my God. It was him. And they wanted to blame
me.
They’ve been setting me up all this time. They probably leaked the information about my travels.”

Scott struggled to sit up again. “It’s possible.” His mouth pulled sideways in a grimace. “In fact, I’d bet my life on it.” He held his hand out to her. “I just knew you hadn’t done it, Skye. I knew it,” he said softly. “Come here.”

She felt the primal tug of his gentle words at her very soul. But she held her ground. Stood steady on the floor in the middle of the cabin. It was her only way to maintain any kind of mental order. Because everything else was spinning out of control. It was too much to absorb at once. She forced her thoughts into coherency. Jozsef, alias Nakiskas. The man had demonstrated an unhealthy interest in her beetle project. Her brain reeled.
Had Jozsef meddled with her beetles, too?

Was it possible that he’d introduced something that could make them a vector for yet another disastrous outbreak, one she’d be held liable for? One the Canadian government would itself spread across the country?

Was it all part of a diabolical plan? First to introduce genetically altered whitefly. Then to infect whatever assassin bug was sent after it?

Jozsef had opportunity. He’d been in her lab at odd times. He’d had access to her computer.

It was vintage Malik. The master strategist had found her, and he was using her to do his dirty work. And he’d filtered intelligence out, making it look like she was to blame. No one would believe she was innocent once they knew of her background. She’d go down as his soldier, after all these years. He’d get the notoriety. The credit would go to Anubis. And she’d be reviled.
If
he let her live long enough.

“Scott, Jozsef meddled with my beetle project. I’m sure of it now. That’s why the core group showed those strange variations.”

“Did Charly handle those beetles?”

“Charly is
not
involved in this.”

“Skye, she
is
involved, against her will. She’s been diagnosed with Q-20. They believe she inhaled the virus somehow.”

Skye’s knees sagged. She groped for the table edge. “Inhaled?”

“That’s their best guess. The illness manifested first in her lungs.”

It
couldn’t
be. Yet the subtle changes she’d seen in her adult beetles and grubs were certainly more indicative of the African cousin of her little Asian beetle. When researching a predator, she’d ruled out the African beetle. Although it had a voracious appetite for whitefly, it had a propensity to carry a cotton-like fungus that could end up doing more damage to crops than the whitefly it was sent to destroy.

And, it was suspected, that in very, very rare cases, the dung of the tiny African beetle could host the deadly Q-20 virus. It hadn’t been proven. But it had been a major factor in her decision not to use the African beetle.

Jozsef would have seen her notes. Malik must have used the information, gotten Jozsef to introduce the African beetle or an infected genetic variation into her core group. He
wanted
her beetles to spread the cotton-like fungus across North America. And that meant Charly must have contracted Q-20 in her lab.

As far as she could recall, Q-20 first attacked the lungs of its human host. The first sign in victims was pneumonia-like symptoms. If the patient was old, or very young or immunocompromised, it would kill them at this stage. If the human host was strong, medication
might
save them. If not, the virus would move next to attack internal organs. At this point, it was almost always fatal. She prayed they’d diagnosed Charly early enough.

Skye’s heart pounded. She had to get back to the lab, to check her beetles. If she was right, if Jozsef
had
infected them, they would end up killing millions.

And they were due to be released across the country in one week.

Skye spun around, grabbed her backpack. If she took the SUV, she could make it out through the backcountry and be back in Haven by tomorrow afternoon.

Determined, single-minded, she marched for the door.

“Skye, where are you going?”

She halted, hand on the doorknob, turned to faced him. “I have a job to finish,
Agent.
”

“You can’t run anymore, you said so yourself. You have to turn yourself in.”

“I’m not running. I’m fighting. I will stop him. Myself. I will not be deceived anymore. Not by Malik. Not by Nakiskas. Not by
you.
I will
not
let him win. Not this time.”

“Where are you going?”

“To stop those beetles.”

“Let Bellona help. Turn yourself in, dammit.”

“Right. Then your job will be done. You’ll be the redeemed hero, and I’ll go to prison. You can wash your hands of me. Is that how it goes?”

“Dammit, Skye, I said I’d be there for you, and I meant it!” He struggled to get his legs over the side of the bed, to stand, but he crumpled under a wave of pain.

She winced inside. He’d be fine if he only lay still. “I’ll send someone for you.”

“We can do this, Skye. We can defeat La Sombra together.”

“Sorry, Scott,” she whispered. “I thought we were a team. I was wrong.”

She pulled open the cabin door, stepped out into the dark wilderness night. Alone.

Scott tried to force himself to his feet, to go after her, but his knee failed. He collapsed against the side of the bed, slid down to the cold floor and clamped down on a scream of pain. A sickening wave, spinning with dots of light, swirled in his brain.

The lantern light flickered, mocking in the tiny room that had become his prison. Honey quivered, whimpered, licked his face. He was too weak to push her away. “We lost her, girl. Goddammit, we lost her.” He stared at the closed door, heard the roar of the SUV engine out in the dark.

Blackness swallowed him.

Skye clenched her jaw, curled fingers tight around the wheel. All around her the dark shapes of conifers stabbed into the night sky like secret soldiers closing in on her.

She blew out a shaky breath of relief as the dirt track finally started to descend. Dawn was a distant peach-and-violet hint along the tops of the mountains. It wouldn’t be much longer now until the logging road intersected with the highway. She could be at the Kepplar labs in another six hours. Once she got to her beetles and quarantined them, she’d turn herself in, tell the authorities where to find Scott.

Malik stared, mesmerized by the little pulsing red dot on the computer screen. It emanated from the GPS device in Dimitri’s satellite phone. It had been motionless, just pulsing in the same spot for hours.

They should have reported in by now. Had Dimitri’s attack failed?

It was all going wrong.

The virus had matured too quickly—that Sheldon woman should not have gotten sick. Now the authorities had been alerted by her mysterious illness. Nakiskas was infected, too. His doctor said he’d be dead in days, if not sooner.

Suddenly, the emergency alarm shrilled from the far computer. Malik spun around to see his assistant’s face, deadly white. “The base. In Greece. It’s being raided.”

His heart stalled. This was not possible. “By who?”

“Greek military. U.S. forces.”

“Cut all communication from the ship! Blackout!” He grabbed a jacket. “Prepare the chopper. I’m releasing those beetles. Now!”

His assistant’s eyes flared in shock. “You? You will risk it?”

“Operation Vector will
not
be compromised.” He would
not
let that bitch beat him at his game. Ever.

Chapter 16

I
t was daylight when he woke.

Scott winced against the sunlight that cut across his face as Honey’s cool snout prodded him.

He moved his arm but stilled immediately as pain burst, radiated, into his neck, chest, leg.

God, he was a mess. He fought his way out of the pain-induced stupor, fumbled for the analgesics Skye had left on the table for him, swallowed with gulps from the bottle she’d set next to them. The water hurt his dehydrated throat as it went down.

What was left of his shirt was stiff with crusted blood. He was cold. He forced his eyes open, peered at his watch, pulling the figures into focus. Noon. Damn—he’d lost more than twelve hours. He had to move. But his body was stiff as a board, rigid as the splint Skye had fashioned to hold his leg together. He reached down, touched his knee, flinched. It was a bloody mess. The bone that anchored his knee joint must have cracked. The worst case scenario Dr. Singh had warned him about. All he had to worry about now was a blood clot.

But he didn’t have time to worry.

He tightened the bandage Skye had bound around his leg, strangling the pain. If he lost his goddamn limb, so be it. That wouldn’t make him a cripple. He knew now being injured was a state of mind. He’d be crippled if he failed this woman. This woman who had the heart, the guts, to take on a formidable foe. This woman who’d snagged his soul and shown him where the road lay.

The road home.

He couldn’t imagine a future if he failed her, couldn’t imagine one without her.

He clawed himself up, fumbled among the belongings spread across the table. He located the map. With his finger he followed the line of the river, recalling where he’d last heard the sound of the chopper landing.

Their attackers had been neutralized. The chopper would still be there. If he could just get there, just reach that helicopter, he might still get to her before Malik did.

Tires screeching, Skye roared into the Kepplar compound. The afternoon weather had turned foul. A wind howled off the ocean. Clouds roiled black on the horizon. Fat drops spat at her windshield.

There were no cars out front, and she remembered then it was Sunday. The labs would be empty. She rammed on the brakes, lurched out of the vehicle.

And halted.

The front doors were open. This was highly unusual. She hesitated. But she didn’t have time—she had to get those beetles. She bolted down the corridor toward her lab, her boots resounding on the floors of the dark, empty building.

She shoved open the door of her lab. It crashed back against the wall.

She stopped dead.

Her beetles. Everything. Gone. Her stomach swooped.

A muffled groan sounded behind her.

She spun around. “Marshall!”

He was slumped on the floor against the wall, his face fish-belly white. He clutched his stomach. Thick black blood welled between white knuckles.

“Oh, God, Marshall.” She dropped down beside him. “What happened?”

“The beetles,” he croaked. “They…took the beetles…shot me…”

Panic surged through her chest. “Who? Who shot you?”

“Two men… Friends of Jozsef’s.”

She grasped his face between her hands. “Marshall, Jozsef is a terrorist.”

“He…he was going to help me broker a contract. With…with the Americans. He was helping…me.”

“No, Marshall. He works for the Anubis network. He infected the beetles. They will kill millions. Where are these men?”

His eyes rolled back.

Panic kicked at her ribs. “Marshall, stay with me.”

He pulled into focus. “I—I’m…so sorry, Skye…” His chin slumped onto his chest. She felt his pulse. He was gone.

Desperate she shook his limp body. “Marshall. Oh, God, who took the beetles?”

“I did.”

She froze.

It came from behind her. The voice that lurked in her darkest nightmares.

Her mind went gray and blank as the Arctic. Ice gripped her throat. Her limbs lost sensation.

“Stand up and drop your weapon.” His Greek-accented words ground through her brain. Neither time nor distance had dulled its raw command.

Her stomach turned to water.

She was suddenly eighteen again, unable to move, to think. Powerless in the face of this black force.

After all this time, all these years, she could do nothing in the face of her nemesis. A thick viscosity oozed cold through her brain, swamping, suffocating rational thought.

All she could think of was Scott and Honey and their golden warmth. But they were gone—she was alone.

“Turn.”

She couldn’t not obey.

She dropped her gun with a loud clatter to the floor, forced herself to her feet, made her leaden body turn slowly around.

She looked first at his feet. Then up the length of his faded jeans, the bulging muscles of his powerful thighs, up the solid torso and into the sharp, striking face of the dark and obscenely powerful man.

Her brain screamed.

But she was compelled to look deep into the inky void of his eyes.

He smiled, teeth stark against olive skin. The teeth of a jackal.

God help me.

“I have waited for this moment, Zeva.” His voice curled cold and black through her veins. “Come to me.” He stepped forward, held out an olive-skinned hand. The dark, seductive power of his voice reached through time, curled around her throat.

Then she heard the sound of chopper blades gaining momentum. Dread pooled cold in her stomach. He was going to take her away.

He grabbed her arm, yanked it up behind her back. She couldn’t even flinch at the pain. She could smell him, his male strength. He jerked her arm higher, forced her forward, in front of him. She felt the barrel of the cold gun at the base of her neck.

And suddenly there was no energy, no life left in her. No will even to live.

She’d failed to make it on her own. The beetles were gone. She’d lost Scott.

She walked with Malik Leandros to the waiting helicopter outside, feeling his breath hot and humid at her neck.

She walked to certain death…and worse before it, she knew.

He’d won.

Scott left the chopper beyond the fence of the compound, Honey locked safely inside. He was spent from the effort it had taken to get this far. With rasping lungs, he dragged his useless splinted leg behind him, worked his way through the Kepplar parking lot. Sweat drenched his aching torso. He could hear rotor blades warming up on the far side of the compound.

He reached the wall, let a wave of blackness pass, found focus again. He dug his nails into the brick as his world swayed. He gagged, steadied himself, waited again for the wave to pass, his vision to return. He hugged the edge of the building, used it to prop himself up, pull himself up along through the dizzying pain.

He could see the small chopper now, near the hangar at the far end of the compound. The doors had been removed. Perfect for shooting anyone who dared give chase.

The pilot, stocky, dark-skinned, wearing an orange flight suit, was loading sealed boxes from the shed. Alone.

The pilot ducked into the chopper with a box. Scott swiped the rain, the cold sweat from his eyes, felt for the gun that Skye had left him. He held his breath, dragged himself around to the loading bay while the pilot was out of sight.

There was one last box. He lifted the lid carefully. Beetles! In sealed jars.

He dropped the lid back into position and waited for the pilot.

From behind a packing crate, he could see another man exit the far end of the Kepplar building. Very tall. Dark. He had Skye. A gun to her head. Even from this distance she looked lifeless, crumpled, pale as a porcelain doll. Hair, soaked by the downpour, clung to her face like paint.

La Sombra?

He tensed. It
had
to be him. Because Skye had no fight left. It was not like her. She’d been defeated in some very elemental way.

Anger exploded violently in him. He struggled for breath, willed his fury down. She’d be okay. He’d make it so. He watched as the man forced Skye toward the chopper. They would have to go around the hangar to get here. He waited until they disappeared from sight.

And he braced as the pilot came back for the final box.

Malik forced Skye’s head low under the lethal blades. The deafening downdraft slapped wet hair painfully around her face. She didn’t care. She had nothing left to fight for.

He shoved her up into the cabin. A pilot waited at the controls, helmeted head turned away from them.

Malik began to climb in after her.

But the pilot touched the controls, lifted the mechanical beast sharply into the air.

Skye gasped, groped for purchase, missed, fell sideways.

Malik flailed backward, as his leg slipped out the door. He cursed, grasped the edge of the seat, pulled himself back up into the cockpit with one hand, gun still clutched in the other.

“Niko!” He barked.

The pilot’s head turned. Malik gasped.

Scott!
Skye’s stomach swooped. Sweet Lord! He’d come for her. Her heart stuttered, beat back to life. Warmth flushed into her cheeks.

Then she saw the gray pallor of his skin. The black holes of his eyes. The sunken hollows in his cheeks. The sheen of fever. Oh, God, he must be in terrible pain.

She scrambled to pull herself up.

The chopper lurched higher into the air as Scott tried again to dislodge Malik.

Malik cursed and slid back toward the open door. Again his foot slipped, dangled over air. With awesome strength, he hauled himself up into the cockpit, raised the gun to Scott’s head. His finger curled around the trigger, squeezed.

Skye jerked into action. The heel of her boot cracked up against Malik’s jaw. His head flew back, spewing drops of blood. His shot went wild, piercing the Plexiglas window.

Skye unleashed another kick, connected the side of his face. His neck cracked sideways, his skin split open, blood gushed. He growled in pain.

The gun clattered to the floor.

Skye lunged for it.

Malik checked her with a shoulder of rock, cracked his elbow up into her cheekbone and lurched for Scott at the controls.

Skye slumped back, momentarily dazed. Blood oozed down her face, warm and thick. She watched, as if in distant slow motion, Malik grab Scott around the neck, tear him off the controls.

The chopper veered sideways.

Skye instantly found her focus, swung forward, seized the controls. The chopper swooped. In terror she saw they were over the ocean. She pulled on the controls, guided them out of a nosedive, then steered the buffeted craft into a violent, mounting wind.

Beside her Malik forced Scott to the ground, tightened fingers around his throat, a bestial growl rumbled in his own. Scott, on the brink of consciousness, flailed back at him. Then Malik leaned on his torn-up knee.

A terrible howl of pain filled the air, melded with the deafening roar of blades.

Images of a wolf and jackal tearing at throats sparked through Skye’s mind. He was not going to make it, she had to help him. This was her fault.

She lunged over to pull Malik off.

“Just fly the damn thing!” Scott growled. “Focus!”

Malik’s fist connected with his jaw. Scott slumped back in a grunt of pain. Malik pulled himself up, reached for the gun. But Scott dug into a final reservoir of strength, kicked up at him with his good leg. Skye took the cue, veered the craft sharply sideways. Gravity, the force of Scott’s kick, spun Malik and the gun toward the gaping maw of the door.

The gray sea lurched hungry far below.

Scott moaned, kicked one last time. Malik went over, grasping vainly at the door in a last desperate attempt to escape the churning orifice below. He missed.

But he caught the skids.

The chopper lurched.

Malik swayed below, attached by one hand.

Skye struggled to steady the craft.

Scott found the knife at his ankle, hooked his good foot in the bottom of the seat, leaned out the door, slicing wildly at La Sombra.

The skin split over his knuckles. In a scream of pain he fell, spinning, wheeling wildly down to the waiting sea, the wind sucking a terrible sound from him.

Scott clawed his way up into the passenger seat. He slumped back. Limp.

“Scott. Oh, my God, Scott—”

“Fly, girl.” His voice was like sandpaper. “Keep flying. Thank God you can fly.”

He’d lost too much moisture, blood. He wasn’t going to make it. The wind tore at them. Rain lashed at their craft. She had to get him to medical attention. But she tensed suddenly as another chopper loomed large out of the gray, closed in on them. “There’s someone on our tail.”

He struggled to look up. “Bellona.”

“Bellona?”

“Yeah.” Scott eased the helmet off, let his head flop back in the seat. His face was gray, damp with pain. His brown hair was matted with sweat. A muscle pulsed wildly in his neck. “Bellona and CSIS, RCMP, FBI…the whole freaking world. They’re after me, too, now.”

She stared, blank.

“For not handing you over.” He coughed, wheezed, clutched his chest. “I’m…on their Wanted list. Wouldn’t stand down when ordered. I took that helicopter in the forest, came after you.” He struggled for another wheezing breath. “I’m done for, baby. It’s you and me. In it together for the long haul.” He gasped when he tried to move his knee. It was at an awful angle. He tried to pull his leg back into alignment.

Oh, God. He’d compromised his job—his life—for her. She was overwhelmed with emotion. Tears pricked hot, spilled down her face in cathartic release. She wiped them away, realized she was still bleeding.

“Can you land this thing?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Take her in. They can have us now. The beetles are in back. Sealed jars.”

She stared at him. A sob jerked though her body. She wanted to fly forever. She didn’t want to go back to reality. To risk losing him. She wanted to fly them into the storm where they would never be separated.

He reached out, held her hand over the controls. It was ice cold. “Take her back, Skye,” he said softly. “I’ll be there…for you. Always. I promised you that.”