“Do you have her current location?”
“No.”
Damn it. Bret fought to keep his face calm. “Continue.”
“We have forces defending key forts and protecting sites as well as gathering weapons throughout the country. They’re reporting in to us but not really taking orders.”
Bret bit back a sharp retort. Society had gone to hell, and he desperately needed an active military to rebuild the United States. He had to shore up his own power base, add to the Elite Force he’d created to hunt down Lynne, before getting everybody back in line. “What about Deacan McDougall?” The man had been personally appointed by the former president as the leader of the Brigade, the first line of defense against Scorpius, and much of the military answered to him. If Bret could get McDougall in line, he’d regain the power of a true presidency.
“McDougall is up north dealing with NORAD last I heard,” Lake said. “He hasn’t reported in for several days, but he will. McDougall is a patriot.”
Whose wife was best friends with Lynne Harmony, yet another reason Bret needed to get Lynne under his thumb. The Brigade and the Elite Force hadn’t worked together before, and the time was coming for them to combine. “Any reports since we reached out to the public about Lynne?”
“We have the message continually looping, and we’ve received many responses. An interesting one came from a co-op in northern California.”
“A co-op?” Bret lifted an eyebrow. “Like a farming co-op?”
“Yes.” Lake smiled, revealing stark white teeth. “They sound like a bunch of farmers with a ham radio, so we could easily take their food.”
Bret rubbed his smoothly shaven chin. “Hmm. We’re going to need food, and they know how to farm. We might have to implement some sort of tax that requires their trading food.”
“For what?” Lake asked.
“Their lives. We allow them to live, and they do as they’re told.” Bret didn’t have time for niceties, and he no longer had an IRS to take taxes. “We’re under martial law, Congress is gone, the Supreme Court is gone, and only the executive branch is left. I think this time we might take a lesson or two from feudal England.”
Lake chuckled. His pure blue eyes contrasted with his sharp buzz cut in a way that made the man look like a knife. “Yes, Mr. President.”
The perfect soldier. Bret smiled. “Are you sure you haven’t been infected by Scorpius?”
“I have not, sir.”
Interesting. Lake had the rare characteristic of lacking a moral compass to mess with his life, and Bret could appreciate that fact. A part of him wanted to infect Lake just to see what he could become, but another part counseled caution. First, he didn’t want to lose the man who’d walk through fire for him, and second, he didn’t need Lake any stronger and smarter than he already was. “You are a true soldier, Greg,” Bret said.
Lake’s chin rose. “Thank you, Mr. President, although so far I’m failing you in the most important mission, considering I personally chose the men for the Elite Force.”
“Yes, but that’s not entirely your fault,” Bret said, tugging on a small USB drive he wore on a black cord around his neck. His Harmony USB drive. All of her research as well as Nora McDougall’s research was on it. He understood most of their findings and knew more information was at the damn Myriad Labs. Why the former president had kept it top secret was beyond him, and more than a little frustrating, considering Bret had killed him before gaining the information.
The flash drive also held Bret’s pictures of Lynne, and if he wanted, he could get somebody to rig an old laptop with a generator just to see her. Although he had plenty of pictures in his paper file, which he looked at nightly. “Lynne’s uncle was a retired cop, and a damn good one. Obviously, he was also very good at disappearing. Not every soldier can be that, ah, effective.”
Lake’s jaw hardened, and a vein stood out in his neck. “I will make sure we find her, sir.”
“I believe you. She has been steadily traveling west, and if she continued her trajectory, she has to be somewhere between Arizona and the Pacific. We will find her.” Bret tapped his fingers on the desk. “She’s heading west to find Myriad. Are we any closer to locating it?”
“No. The only intel we’ve gathered is that Myriad is in California.”
Another knock rapped on the door.
Lake instantly shot to his feet and stood at attention.
“Enter,” Bret said, eyeing the canister of Scotch on the far counter. He hadn’t had a drink all day.
A young soldier entered. “Sir? We’ve had contact with a community just outside of Lake Havasu City in Arizona. Five families, basically scavenging to live.”
Bret sat back. “So?”
“They helped Lynne Harmony for two nights,” he said.
Lake pivoted around. “Are they sure?”
The soldier swallowed. “Yes, sir. She was by herself, no doubt recovering from our shooting her uncle in Tucson, and they gave her food and shelter. On the second night, one of them caught the glow from her heart through her shirt, so she ran. They haven’t seen her since, but after our message, they’re afraid they’ve been infected with the stronger strain of the Scorpius bacteria.”
There was no stronger strain. Bret fought the heat of fury at hearing Lynne had escaped once again. His temperament hadn’t returned to normal after the infection, and he had to fight to control himself. “You know we invented the rumor about her in order to get people to call us back, right?”
The kid widened his stance. “Yes, sir.”
Bret focused on Lake. “How many men do we have with us?” He’d had to spread his new units out across the country gathering intel, food, and weapons as well as protecting crucial resources.
“We have twenty-five on this mission, sir,” Lake said.
“Good. Send three seasoned men to meet with the families and get all information they might have. By any means necessary.” Bret played with a pure silver letter opener that would look beautiful piercing a traitor’s throat. “Then kill them.”
The kid at the door sucked in air. “They’re just families, sir.”
“You’re excused,” Lake snapped.
The kid wobbled and then disappeared.
Lake shook his head. “The kid can shoot but lacks mental strength. He was a college kid before Scorpius.”
Bret gripped the letter opener. “You can strip him down mentally and retrain him. I have confidence.”
“Yes, sir.” Lake’s head lifted at attention. “About the five families. At some point, we’re going to rebuild society, and we’ll need, well, civilians. For the menial work.”
True. Bret sighed. “To imagine that one year ago, the United States had more than 300 million citizens.” Scorpius had truly thinned out the herd. “Now we have, what? Much less than 1 percent of our population survived; even fewer have not yet been exposed to Scorpius. At our last guess, we still have maybe five hundred thousand citizens spread throughout the country.” Many of them farmers who were off the grid and far enough from cities not to be infected. “We can take out five families who dared to help Lynne Harmony.” They were lucky he didn’t order them tortured first.
Lake nodded. “Yes, sir. Speaking of countries, any news from abroad?”
“No.” Bret swallowed. “We have no idea of the status of North Korea, Russia, or even the Middle East. They closed their borders when Scorpius began to spread, and I haven’t heard whether they were successful or not.” He needed more troops and now. “We have to assume they contained the bacteria better than we did, and at some point, they’ll attack us.”
Lake shook his head. “With all due respect, I don’t believe anybody contained Scorpius. At least we have several pilots and secured planes.”
“I know, but fuel and maintenance are issues.” Bret twirled the letter opener. “Scorpius swept through our military bases as quickly as it did the cities. We were not prepared.” Now that he was president, he’d do a much better job of
keeping his people alive.
There was a reason he’d lived when so many others had died. He’d fulfill his purpose. He was born for this.
He reached for a map to spread on the desk, eying the circles around various known survivor groups. “These are the groups we know have some sort of leadership.” And fighting ability. “When we have time to focus, we should take out the Mercenaries.”
“Yes.” Lake glanced down. “After we secure Lynne Harmony, we’ll double our efforts to reach out and start rebuilding the rule of law. Right now, these rogue gangs are living under their own leadership. That must stop.”
Bret tapped a finger on Los Angeles. “Any news about L.A.?”
Lake nodded. “From our ham radio contact, it seems the same. Several rebel groups vying for food and resources, the most powerful still being led by Jax Mercury.”
Ah, the special-ops soldier who had banded together a group in L.A. while there was still television and Internet. Known for his skills and brutality dealing with the enemy, he’d become almost a folk hero in less than a month, and everybody had been warned to stay out of L.A. if they didn’t want to join his Vanguard group. Bret rubbed his chin. “After we find Lynne, we should reach out to Mercury. He’s still in the service and will follow orders.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bret eyed the door. “Dismissed.”
Lake made a perfect pivot and marched from the room.
Bret stood and reclaimed the letter opener while igniting a lantern as he moved. He might not have Lynne yet, but he did have a woman to deal with. His boots clomped on the dusty tile as he walked through the kitchen to a small doorway for a storage room for pool items.
Now a woman sat in the corner, a chain around her ankle, her hair falling into her face. She lifted her head when he set down the lantern, hazel eyes blinking awake.
He let the letter opener glint in the muted light. While he didn’t like this part of his job, he’d do whatever was necessary to lead the country. “Did you have a nice nap, Vivienne?”
She didn’t answer. A bruise spread an angry purple and yellow across her cheekbone from when he’d lost his temper the day before.
He peered closer. When he’d kidnapped her, she’d been wearing a gray suit with skirt and red high heels. The shoes she’d lost, and the skirt was more brown than gray now. Yet he left her in it as a reminder of who she used to be. “Are you ready to tell me where Lynne Harmony is?”
“Fuck you,” Vivienne said without much heat. Exhaustion lined her dirty face, and scratches marred her bare legs.
“Okay.” He smiled and stepped closer.
Her head snapped against the brick wall. “Lynne Harmony, Lynne Harmony, Lynne Harmony.”
His dick instantly went limp. Fury bit into him with the heat of a thousand fires. “You fucking bitch.” He kicked out, nailing Vivienne in the calf.
She cried out and drew her legs closer, but triumph glittered in her eyes. “Oops.”
Smart. She’d figured out right away how to keep from getting raped. He smiled. “My heart might be with Lynne, but I could have ten soldiers here in a minute to fuck you to death.”
“Your penis, not your heart, is obsessed with Lynne.” Vivienne coughed. “I’ll tell your men you can’t get it up.”
That was only one of the reasons he’d spared her, but at some point, he was going to shackle her, spread-eagled, and watch every single man in his command take her. For now, he’d continue his campaign to break her. He glanced at the bucket in the corner serving as her toilet. “Where’s the Bunker?”
She snorted. “The Bunker is a fantasy invented by loons. There’s no Bunker.”
Bullshit. He’d seen enough hints in the documents he’d found in the Oval Office to know that there was a Bunker out there, one safe from the outside and fully stocked . . . with the cure hopefully. But that knowledge had been in the former president’s head, and Bret hadn’t realized it until too late. “The Bunker exists.”
“Huh.” Vivienne blinked.
He grimaced. “Don’t you want out of here?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured, her pink lips twisting. “I’m seeing the charm of the place.”
He studied her. Even after a month of containment, of his messing with her head, of sparse showers, she was beautiful in a tragic way. Long blond hair, blue-green eyes, aristocratic facial features. Although feminine, she had the spirit of a fine soldier. Too bad she wasn’t Lynne. “If you just tell me what I want to know, I’ll let you go. Anywhere you want.”
She snorted. “Bullshit. Even if I had the ability to find Lynne, and I don’t, you’d kill me the second you found her.” Vivienne lowered her chin. “I know you think I’m psychic, Bret, but I’m not. Never have been, and never will be.”
Oh, she was. “I’ve read your file, and I’ve seen you work. Before the fever, you had abilities beyond the norm, and you will tell me what I want to know.”
She rolled her eyes and settled her head back on the wall, her movements weary. “Listen, jackass. I was a profiler, and a damn good one, which was why they brought me in when Scorpius first started changing people’s brains. I’m just good at profiling. There’s nothing psychic about it, and I’ve never even met Lynne Harmony, so I can’t guess what she’d do.”
He shook his head, his hand tightening on the silver letter opener. “You’re lying. You solved several murders for the FBI before Scorpius hit, and your abilities were beyond normal even then. Nobody is that good.” His arm jerked with the need to jam the letter opener into her leg. “You survived the fever, so any skills you had should be enhanced. In fact, I read how the CIA used you to trace the path of the contagion through the military.”
She blinked.
His chest heated. “Yeah. I have those files. Nobody should’ve been able to figure out those stats, and yet you did.”
Her lips tightened.
“Scorpius changes brains, and it changed yours. Now tell me where Lynne is. Or I will kill you.”
“Go ahead,” Vivienne whispered, shutting her eyes.
Ah. He was getting closer. “I have new plans for you.”
Her eyelids opened. “You’re a Ripper, and that’s a fact. You know that, right?”
He shook his head. “Wrong. The fever reorganized my brain and increased my intelligence, much as it rewired your brain and gave you new skills.” Based on the research he’d studied, it was more than possible.
Her fine eyebrows arched. “Oh, you’re definitely a crazed killer. There are several types of serial killers, and you’re the more organized kind. Those whispers in your head telling you I’m physic or that you’re special? Yeah. They’re lying to you.”
The woman was a good liar, but he’d seen what she could do. Bret backed away from her. “We’ll know soon enough.”
She stilled. “Meaning what?”
He grinned. “I sent men to a former CIA location a couple of days ago, and they’ll be returning with drugs you won’t be able to beat. Finally, you’ll tell me the truth.”
“You are a damn nut,” she whispered. “Why don’t you just kill me and be done with it?”
“I’ll let the drugs do that.” He rubbed his chin.
For the first time in weeks, real fear glittered in her eyes. Yet she didn’t speak.
Yeah. He was finally getting her attention. He grabbed the lantern and turned for the door, leaving her in the dark. He had to get to Myriad in time to stop Lynne, and then he’d take her home. Soon.
Chapter Twenty
Monsters are among us, inside us, around us. It is statistically impossible for them to lose every battle . . . or even every war.
—Dr. Franklin Xavier Harmony
The rain continued to batter the earth, and only the lightning periodically piercing the cloud cover lit the way through the inner city as they searched for the missing scavengers.
Broken and empty buildings lined their way until they reached the warehouse district. The smell of the ocean, salty and briny, f
illed the air.
Jax kept low to the chipped concrete, his baseball hat shielding his face, his bulletproof vest hopefully protecting his chest. He’d been shot more than once, and at some point, the vest would just fail. He reached the south side of a building on the planned scavenger list for the night and put his back to it.
Wyatt appeared next to him, his breath panting out. “We need more vests.”
They needed more of everything. “We’re sure this was one of the scheduled locations tonight?” Jax asked.
Wyatt gulped in air. “Yes. We sent a team to scout this area of the warehouse park, looking for anything. Preferably fuel and food. Guns and ammo. Per usual.”
The team hadn’t returned by the appointed time, so Jax had ordered sets of two out to the known targets. “I don’t like sending kids out, Wyatt.”
Wyatt nodded. “Pete and Laurie are eighteen, but I get what you’re saying. Have you met them?”
Jax peered around the corner at the entrance to the warehouse. “Sure.”
“Yeah? What’s Pete’s last name? His story?” Wyatt asked.
Jax slowly turned to eye his friend. “Why would I know?”
“Exactly.” Wyatt cocked his gun and straightened his shoulders.
Jesus. Not Wyatt, too. “I’m sorry. Am I supposed to sit down with everybody in our little montage of a community and share? Bond?” Fuck. Jax was doing his best to keep everyone alive. He didn’t have time to get to know more than five hundred people.
Wyatt lifted a Super Bowl–sized shoulder. “Why not?”
A clatter echoed inside the medium sized metal building.
Jax froze. “We go in fast and hard.”
“Copy that.”
Jax jogged around the building, bunched, and kicked the door in square. It flew open, and he ran, gun sweeping out. A man in a ripped gray suit turned, his fingers wrapped in the long blond hair of a severed head, his mouth covered in blood. He chewed and lifted the head to his mouth again.