Mercury Striking

  Jax breathed out. Thank God. There was organized resistance out there.

  Lynne trembled, and he drew her nearer. Was she so relieved she was shaking?

  The message continued:

  “The president has authorized us as a military unit under martial law, and we are here to help. Contact us with the numbers of your survivors as well as location, and we’ll send troops as soon as possible. The president is also issuing a warning to anybody coming in contact with Lynne Harmony, the woman the world knows as Blue Heart. She is a carrier of a more dangerous strain of the infection, and she is a Ripper with a deadly plan. If anybody has seen Lynne Harmony, contact us immediately.”

  Jax froze.

  Ernie slowly turned around, his eyeglasses askew.

  What the hell? Jax grabbed Lynne’s arms and yanked her around. “Anything you want to tell me?”

  She’d gone so pale her lips matched her blue heart. “Remember that promise you made to me?”

  He slowly lifted his chin, keeping her gaze. “Yeah. You finally going to tell me who you want dead?”

  She swallowed, her green gaze meeting his evenly. “Yes. You promised to kill the president of the United States for me.” Her shoulders went back. “Why don’t you get on that now?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  There’s no fiercer creature on earth than a woman protecting her own.

  —Dr. Franklin Xavier Harmony

  As soon as they were inside their apartment again, Lynne slowly backed away from Jax and fumbled to twist on the lantern. Earlier, she’d tidied up the best she could, but the orange counter still hung drunkenly from the wall, so she had to be gentle with the lantern in the center. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Don’t thank me.” He leaned back against the door and crossed his arms. “I told Ernie to hold off on doing anything until I returned. I plan to respond to the military tomorrow morning.”

  Then she had about six hours to get the hell out of there. “Okay.”

  He studied her. No expression, no hint at the passion she knew lay within him. None of the anger, either. A chill swept down her spine. Jax was scarier in full control than in a fierce temper. “Care to explain?” he asked. His tone hinted she would explain, one way or the other.

  Exhaustion pummeled down on her with a strong dose of futility. She crossed to drop onto the bed. “Bret Atherton is a Ripper.”

  Jax coughed. His brow wrinkled, and his chin lowered. “You’re telling me the president of the United States is a serial killer?”

  Lynne lifted a shoulder. “You know he started out as Speaker of the House, right?”

  “Yes, but then the president died of the fever, and the vice president died of a heart attack. The Speaker was third in line.”

  How fucked up was that, anyway? “Nobody voted for the guy.” She clasped her hands together in her lap. “And the vice president didn’t die of a heart attack. Bret Atherton killed him.”

  Jax blinked. Slowly. He opened his mouth to speak, and somebody rapped on the door. “What?” he asked.

  “We have a problem.” Wyatt’s voice came through the door, strong and filled with stress. “There’s a scavenger team missing.”

  “Goddammit.” Jax pushed away from the door, then looked down at her. “We’re not done. I’m putting a guard on the door until I get back.”

  Lynne didn’t flinch. She knew Jax well enough to guess that he’d reach out to the closest thing to a military that still existed, thinking he could control the outcome. But not even Jax Mercury could outmaneuver pure evil. There had to be a way for her to get free. “Just please don’t let Ernie respond until we finish our talk.” Thunder bellowed outside as if in agreement.

  “He’ll have to wait until the storm passes anyway. Tomorrow morning, Lynne.” Jax unlocked the door and stepped outside, closing the heavy metal with a slight nudge. Several locks quickly engaged.

  Lynne dropped her head. She’d figured Bret would find her, but not this quickly. Not until she’d had a chance to find the location of Myriad. Before he did. Jax Mercury had been a distraction she shouldn’t have allowed, and he’d been even smarter about keeping her contained than she’d figured. She’d underestimated him.

  Lightning zagged sharply outside, lighting the room. She desperately needed a few hours’ sleep, but then she’d have to find a way to escape. Rain beat against the boarded window, but without the glass, droplets slid down the wall. With a sigh, she stood and pulled the bed away from the wall so the blankets wouldn’t get wet. Then she curled up, her head on her hand.

  The thrum of the angry weather outside and the meager lantern light inside lent a sense of coziness to the barren room. The fear she’d lived with for so long surrounded her. She’d rather get the battle over with and stop running, but first she had one more job to do. One more hope to chase. Or rather, one more duty to fulfill. Hope had disappeared too long ago to regain.

  She replayed the canned message in her mind. The president of the United States. The person hadn’t been named. Perhaps Bret was dead and somebody else had stepped up. If he was third in line, who was fourth? Secretary of State? Hopefully not. Though even that crackpot would be better than Bret. Anybody would be better than Bret Atherton.

  Had she ever loved him? There was a time, before Scorpius descended, that she had felt the giddiness, the sheer excitement, of what might’ve been love. Bret was the blond golden boy with an edge who had intrigued her. From a wealthy broken family that had kept up appearances, he’d excelled in school and then in the House of Representatives with sheer genius and stubborn will. He’d been ambitious, dedicated, and determined. She’d liked that in him. There was no subterfuge or hidden agenda, just a balls-out approach that had quickly propelled him into the Speaker position.

  But she hadn’t committed fully to him.

  Something, call it instinct, had whispered for caution. Every once in a while, a phrase would pass his lips that gave her pause. A view of women, no doubt colored by his drunken mother who’d worn genuine pearls and a fake smile. But Lynne had told herself that everybody had issues.

  Muttering about issues, Lynne allowed sleep to pull her under.

  The dream, she knew well. Most people found darkened alleys and faceless attackers in their nightmares. Not Lynne.

  She stood in the Oval Office, surrounded by splendor and symbols of power. Her elbows and wrists ached, as usual, from the vials of blood taken daily for the previous three months. In the early days of Scorpius, every survivor who didn’t become a Ripper was treated like a lab rat. There were so few of them, and her blue heart had made her even more worthy of study than the others.

  The president sat across from her at his desk. Pale and wan, his gnarled hand trembled when he spread out papers. “According to Vice President Atherton, you’re no more contagious than anybody else who has had the fever.” The president had nodded at Bret, who sat next to Lynne. “Including the vice president himself.”

  Lynne turned and smiled at Bret. He’d been infected somehow, yet he’d survived the contagion. Nobody had attacked him, but the bacteria could live on surfaces as well as within people, and he’d come in contact with it. Her feelings were a little hurt that he hadn’t confided in her during his illness, but that was the least of her problems right now. “I’m so glad you made it,” she murmured.

  “As am I.” Bret reached out and took her cool hand in his warm one as he turned to the president. “I asked the Secret Service to bring Lynne here so you could see she’s no more contagious than anybody else and should be allowed her freedom.”

  Lynne tangled her fingers in his, holding tight. The CDC, her former colleagues, had pretty much kept her locked down for the last three months in the emergency triage hospital created in D. C. While she’d continue to help them find a cure for Scorpius, she still wanted her personal freedoms. “Thank you.”

  The president rubbed his eyes. “Millions are already dead, soon to be billions, and I have what amounts to serial killers r
unning amok. In addition, our enemies abroad haven’t been hit as badly as we have by Scorpius, so there’s talk of a foreign attack coming. I’m sorry, Dr. Harmony, but I don’t have time to worry about your personal freedom. Much of the world blames the CDC for failing so spectacularly, and many of our enemies believe we’re hiding a cure. That you, with your blue heart, are the cure.”

  A pit opened up in Lynne’s stomach. “That’s not true.”

  Bret shook his head. “Keeping her prisoner is against everything we are fighting for right now.”

  The president nodded, his eyes bloodshot and rimmed by dark circles. “I know, but I have no choice.” He cleared his throat. “We have to make the difficult decisions now.”

  Bret stilled. “Then you should make the choices and stop sitting here being a coward.”

  The president gasped, and his nostrils flared.

  Lynne frowned, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. “Bret!”

  “The world is crumbling, and we need to make a stand. We need to impose martial law everywhere and take out the enemies we can right now,” Bret said.

  “You’ve lost your mind,” the president spat out.

  Bret stood. Since the fever, he’d somehow filled out even more, although he’d always been in good shape. He held a bound set of papers and moved around the desk. “I have the newest intelligence reports, and North Korea is about to strike.”

  The president fumbled for his glasses and placed them gingerly on his nose.

  Then Bret struck.

  Faster than Lynne would’ve thought possible, he clamped his hands around the president’s neck and yanked him to the ground. The prestigious leather chair crashed against the wall.

  “Bret!” Lynne leaped around the massive desk and jumped on his back.

  He didn’t even twitch. Instead, as the president struggled beneath him, ineffectually kicking out, Bret choked the life out of him. Spittle flew from the elderly man’s mouth, and then his lips went slack in death.

  It happened so quickly.

  Lynne scrambled away from Bret, her gaze on the wide, unseeing eyes of the president. Shock rocked through her. She opened her mouth to scream, but Bret was on her, taking her down.

  He slapped his hand over her mouth, and his body flattened hers. “Not a word,” he ground out, his face an inch away, his blue eyes hard.

  She blinked. What had just happened? His hand pressed down, and her teeth ground against her lips. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she nodded. With him on top of her, she couldn’t move.

  His eyes warmed.

  Her entire body chilled.

  “He was weak, and we need strength in this office. We’re at war on several fronts,” Bret hissed.

  Panic stopped her breath, and she started to struggle, shoving against him.

  He removed his hand. “Stop fighting me.”

  Slowly, she shook her head. A tear slipped down her face. Who was this man? “You killed him.”

  “Of course,” Bret said. “There’s important work to do, and it’s life or death.”

  Lynne breathed out, trying not to move against him. He was stronger than she was, and she was weakened by having given blood again that morning. “The fever affected you, Bret.” Did he see that?

  He slid his lips against hers. “I know, but I’m not a Ripper. I’m just more focused than before. It’s possible different individuals can be affected different ways.”

  She tried to push her head back against the floor. He was showing no regret for killing the man next to them. “Yes. But you just killed the president.” She tried to eye the door to the Oval Office. “The Secret Service isn’t going to let you go.”

  Bret flashed his teeth. “The men outside the door are mine.”

  “You have your own men.” Lynne blinked. Terror froze her body, but she could still focus. “This isn’t you,” Lynne snapped out. She glared at him. At the man she’d considered planning her life with, at the man she’d trusted.

  “Yes, it is, and I’m making the difficult decisions.” He shoved both hands in her hair and pulled it back from her face. “You’re mine, Lynne. You and I are going to heal this nation and lead it into the next phase of history. We’re going to protect and defend our people by any means necessary.”

  A soft knock echoed on the door, and an agent stepped inside. “Mr. Vice President? We need to get moving. Now.”

  Lynne’s mouth dropped open. Should she ask for help?

  Bret stood, drawing her up. “Lynne Harmony, meet Greg Lake, my new head of, well, everything.”

  Greg, his eyes darker than midnight, gave a short nod. “Ma’am.”

  Lynne didn’t move. The president lay at an awkward angle, dead in the Oval Office. “What now?” she asked.

  “We make a speech to the country, to the world, about the tragic passing of the president, and I step up.” Bret caressed her arm.

  She had to get out of there. “I need to work. In fact, I have to go check in with the outlying labs. You still want a cure, right?” Did he? Maybe he no longer wanted a cure.

  “Of course. We need the power and control a cure will give us, no matter what. America will lead the whole world if we have a cure.” He turned and pinched her chin with affection. “I’ll have you escorted to the labs at the CDC, and as soon as I take control and put everything in place, you’ll stay here.”

  She could feel the blood drain from her face. “I have a bacteria to beat.” There were some promising results from using nanoparticles to destroy the toxins caused by Scorpius, so perhaps she could still save Bret. Turn him back into the man she’d thought he was.

  He smiled. “I’ll have guards on you.”

  She forced another smile while warning skittered down her spine. “I appreciate your trying to keep me safe.” Her voice trembled, and she couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “We’re working together, right?” More demand than question lived in his words.

  She no longer knew the answer to that question. “Of course. I have too many enemies.” Which unfortunately was true. Her blue heart made her a target.

  He must’ve heard the doubt in her voice. With unreal reflexes, he grabbed her throat and yanked her face toward his, which had contorted into harsh lines. “Don’t make me one of them.”

  She swallowed, hindered by his hold. Her knees tried to buckle. “I won’t.”

  Thunder ripped across the sky, yanking her awake and back to Jax Mercury’s bed in the present. Tears cooled her face. She’d trusted a man once, and the fever had destroyed him. Or perhaps it had merely brought out the sociopath that had always been lurking inside him. Now she’d made her bed, literally, with another soldier, another strategist, another deadly man who’d survived the fever. A man raised on the streets who fought dirty and would do anything to follow whatever path he decided was just.

  Trusting again would be foolish.

  She took several deep breaths. Her subconscious had gone to work while she’d slept, despite the nightmare. The numbers, the ones she’d memorized, flitted into a pattern. A simple pattern. Numbers one and two combined into the first number of a city block. Numbers three and four equaled the next number, and then so on. Coordinates. Holy crap. She could find Myriad. Probably. If she did, and if she found the information about vitamin B there, she’d have something to bargain with. Something strong.

  But going out into the storm—going into the city alone—would be stupid. Really stupid. So her only chance lay in negotiating with Jax. If he wanted the location of Myriad, he had to vow to refrain from calling Bret. Or he had to let her go before he did so.

  Now she had something with which to negotiate. This time she had to stand firm—they were going to do things her way for once. Whether he liked it or not.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Every man, no matter how evil, is the hero of his own story.

  —Dr. Franklin Xavier Harmony

  President Bret Atherton stiffened in a leather chair once used by the owner of the three larg
est Las Vegas casinos. The impressive mansion overlooking a now overgrown golf course housed the unit traveling with him, while he’d taken over the small guest house next to the pool. Although the water had evaporated, the bottom had been painted with a trio of sparkling mermaids that amused him. He could use a generator on the house if he wished, although he needed to conserve gas, unfortunately.

  It was spring in Vegas, which meant milder temperatures and perhaps a bit of rainfall. Or not. Any day his men would find Lynne Harmony, and then they’d return to his power base in D.C.

  She’d ripped out his heart when she’d left him, and he wanted an explanation. Everything he’d done was to protect her, whether she liked it or not. And he needed to find Myriad before she did because only God knew what she’d do with the data there. The woman had been unstable since being infected with the bacteria, and he’d failed to help her. When she’d run, he’d created the Elite Force to find her and bring her back.

  A knock sounded on the double-paned glass door.

  “Enter,” he said, shifting his weight and shoving closer to the massive desk he’d had placed in what used to be the living room of the guest house. It was after midnight, but he didn’t require sleep like he had before being infected.

  Greg Lake, the leader of the Elite Force and his first in command, strode inside, all but standing at attention. “Mr. President.”

  “Vice President Lake,” Bret returned, having sworn Lake in immediately after he’d become president. “Have a seat and report.”

  Lake glanced at the leather guest chairs, and his upper lip curled. “As you wish, sir.” He took a seat, his posture ramrod straight.

  Bret wanted to ask, not for the first time, if there was an iron bar up the guy’s ass. Sitting down seemed to insult him. “Do you have a report?”

  “Yes, sir.” Lake was in his late thirties and had been a rising star at the Secret Service before Scorpius wiped out most of the agents. “The Elite Force is continuing to track Lynne Harmony to the west and is closing in.”