Payback Page 12

  He needed to get the data to Ryker. But first he had to figure out where he was and, if possible, get some clean, dry clothes.

  Most importantly, he needed to return to Faith. He didn’t care how secure his safe house was. He wanted Faith under the protection of the SSU before he went after her brother.

  Glancing around, Mark wondered which way he should walk. In both directions trees pressed to the edges of the two-lane road. He didn’t see any intersecting roads, houses, or even any mailboxes that might give him a clue as to his location. He might as well be in the middle of nowhere.

  He thought back, trying to remember the landmarks he’d seen before being thrown out of the van. There. That tree with the dead limb had been on the left, back the way they’d come.

  Stepping onto the pavement, Mark began walking.

  Faith paced around the first floor of the safe house. Mark had been missing for forty-eight hours and she was getting ready to bolt. Best case scenario, he’d fallen critically ill or had an innocent accident and was in the hospital, unable to contact her in a secure manner.

  Worst case, he’d been taken just like Toby.

  Knowing the second option was more likely, Faith should have fled when Mark didn’t come home after work that first evening. But she couldn’t bear abandoning him. So she’d waited around until the next morning, then donned one of her last disguises and spent the day at a nearby library searching for any mention of Mark in the news. Not finding any reference to him only made her more convinced Jamieson’s men had taken him.

  Still, she’d snuck back to the safe house that night after making sure no one was following her. She’d followed the same routine today and from the anxiety knotting her stomach, she was in for another sleepless night.

  Knowing she wouldn’t do Mark or herself any good if she didn’t rest, she went into the downstairs bathroom to grab a glass of water so she could take one of the sleeping pills she occasionally needed.

  “Faith!”

  Mark’s voice sounded so close, Faith screeched and spun around. The glass went flying and shattered against the basin.

  “Mark!” He stood at the back door, turning the lock. “Oh, my God, where have you been?” She ran toward him, threw herself into his arms, and plastered his face with kisses. To her shock, he shoved her away.

  “Pack your things. We’re leaving.”

  “Wait. What? You vanish for forty-eight hours, show up so suddenly you scare me half to death and expect me to obey your demands?”

  He reared back. “Forty-eight hours? I’ve really been gone that long?”

  She nodded. “I’ve been worried sick.” Giving him a quick visual once over, her eyebrows shot up. His face looked like he’d just stepped out of a boxing ring. His face was swollen, bruised and cut. “My God. Mark, what happened? And…are those coveralls you’re wearing?”

  He scowled and his eyes narrowed. “You haven’t seen me for two days and yet you’re still here in the safe house? What the hell were you thinking? What if I’d been compromised and gave them this location?”

  “I wasn’t going to leave you! The only way you had of contacting me was if I stayed put.”

  “Aggravating woman.” Mark stepped forward and kissed her. The kiss was hard and passionate and she could taste blood from his split lip. Still, long before she was ready for it to end she found herself being half-propelled, half-dragged down the hall.

  “Mark, what hap—”

  “No time.” He grabbed her arm. “If you want any chance at saving Toby, you have to leave with me now.”

  “What’s wrong?” she demanded as he tugged her up the stairs. The tension radiating off him scared her.

  “Pack your things,” Mark ordered. He let go of her arm and nudged her toward the bathroom while he pulled a rolling carry-on suitcase down from the top shelf in the master bedroom. He winced as the case banged his right shoulder on the way down and Faith wondered how many other areas of his body were hurt.

  “Mark, what’s going on?” Whatever had happened was bad enough that he was ignoring what must be considerable physical pain. Dozens of questions danced across her tongue, but she bit the inside of her cheek and kept silent. Some sixth sense told her he was barely holding onto his control, so she obediently went into the bathroom and starting filling her toiletry case. “What happened that has you dressing like a repairman?” She tried to make her question casual, thinking he’d be more likely to answer if he didn’t suspect she was on the verge of freaking out.

  “The SSU discovered the location of the lab.”

  “What? You learned the location of the lab and didn’t tell me?” Faith closed her eyes and tried to pretend that this searing pain in her chest wasn’t a sense of betrayal.

  “No. That’s not it.” Mark’s voice was muffled, and when Faith leaned back so she could see into the bedroom she discovered that he was inside the closet, tossing clothes randomly onto the bed. She winced at the haphazard heap, but she wasn’t going to waste time folding things neatly. Picking up on Mark’s urgency, she just wanted to get out of here.

  With the last piece of clothing freed from the closet, Mark began shoving items into the suitcase. “No one gave me the location of the lab. The SSU doesn’t trust me that much. I’ve only recently become an ally. Their director, Ryker, called tonight—er—the night I went missing to tell me that Rafe Andros, the SSU agent who’d been one of Kaufmann’s victims, finally remembered where he’d been held.”

  Faith jammed the last of her toiletries into the case.

  “Ryker gave me a heads up that the SSU was in the process of launching a raid on the compound. Before I could get out of the building, I was knocked out.”

  Mark finished stuffing her clothes into her suitcase as she put the toiletry case into her backpack. Her hands shook at the realization of how close she’d come to losing him.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  She nodded and reached for the backpack, but he shot her one of his patented arrogant looks before swinging the bag over his shoulder. Noticing the way he flinched when the bag’s shoulder strap hit his shoulder, Faith slapped his hand away from the suitcase handle. “Stop trying to be Mr. Macho and let me help,” she snarled.

  Shooting her an annoyed glare, Mark let her take the suitcase and gestured for her to head downstairs.

  “You still haven’t explained exactly what happened,” she said.

  “Jamieson had me knocked out and tied up. After admitting he’d ordered my father’s death, he gave his men orders to kill me, then left.”

  Faith gasped and ground to a halt at the bottom of the stairs.

  Without looking at her, Mark reached out and grabbed her hand, tugging her forward. “The strange thing was,” he said as he snatched their jackets and the bag of prepaid cell phones and headed for the back door, “that I didn’t care that much about dying and losing my chance for revenge. My main concern was that I didn’t want to leave you.”

  Filled with tenderness, Faith squeezed his hand. “How’d you escape?”

  “I’m lucky,” he said. “One of Jamieson’s assassins hates what’s going on at Kaufmann’s lab. He set me free.” Mark shook his head. “Then he tossed me out of the back of the van we were in. He said he’d tell Jamieson they’d dumped my body in the ocean.”

  Faith wanted so badly to hold him. It terrified her that she’d almost lost him and would never have known why. But he was in such a hurry, tossing their bags into the trunk of the car and striding around to the driver’s door, that she couldn’t allow herself even the small comfort of hugging him.

  “My clothes were torn and muddy by the time I made it back to civilization.” He attempted a rueful smile as he slid behind the wheel of the car.

  Faith kept her mouth shut instead of insisting that she drive.

  “These were the only clothes I could find at the time. I stole them out of the back of a truck.” He backed the car out of the driveway, then drove at a moderate speed down the road.


  “Where are we going?”

  “To the SSU.” Mark’s eyes kept roving from the street to the mirrors, checking for tails. “I bought a prepaid cell phone and called Ryker.” Mark smiled as she scoffed. “Yes, I really did go into a convenience store looking like this. Unbelievable, isn’t it?”

  “There’s the arrogance I know and love,” she said with a laugh.

  Mark sobered. “I love you so much, Faith. I honestly never thought it possible. But I’m so grateful you’re in my life.”

  Faith leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on his bruised cheek. “I love you, too. So, are we driving to the SSU?”

  “No. They only have a small administrative office in Washington, D.C. Their main facility, complete with training compound, is in Oregon. That’s where we’re going. Ryker is going to have a plane waiting for us at a private airstrip about an hour from here.”

  “Both of us?”

  Mark nodded and she nearly sagged with relief. She’d been certain he was going to dump her and go off on his own.

  “I can’t go back to the office. I’m supposed to be dead. Besides,” he dug into the front pocket of the coveralls and pulled out a flash drive. “My rescuer gave me this. He claims it’s the battle plans and personnel roster for the upcoming attack. If Toby wasn’t picked up in the raid on the lab, then he’s probably participating in the attack. The SSU will use the data to try and stop the attack.”

  Her eyes fixated on the small piece of black plastic. After worrying for so long about her brother, it was almost paralyzing to think her wait might be over. “If Toby is part of the attack team, what are the odds of him coming back alive?”

  “The SSU is an honorable group. Their teams will do everything possible to protect your brother.”

  Faith settled back against the seat, knowing there was no guarantee. In the heat of the moment, or if Toby became aggressive and attacked the SSU soldiers, he might very well be seriously injured or killed. “I’ll keep my fingers crossed, then, that he was safely rounded up in the raid.”

  Chapter Eleven

  SSU Compound

  Oregon

  During the flight to the SSU compound, Faith learned that Toby had not been one of the men rescued from Dr. Kaufmann’s lab. However, the flash drive provided by Mark’s rescuer confirmed that her brother had been assigned to one of the Kerberos teams that would be participating in the upcoming attack.

  Her disappointment that Toby remained under Kaufmann’s control was tempered by knowing that most of the men recovered from the lab had been in bad shape. Many of them had shown significant deterioration of their mental abilities. Several had physically declined past the point where the side effects could be reversed.

  “What are the chances that you’ll be able to return Toby to normal?” Faith asked Dr. Gabrielle Montague. The doctor sat across the table from Faith and Mark in one of the conference rooms in the main administration building.

  “The fact that Toby is capable of participating in the attack means he’s still physically and mentally stable,” Dr. Montague said. Scratches and bruises marred the skin on her face, and dark circles bagged under her eyes. According to Ryker, Kaufmann had ordered Dr. Montague kidnapped and brought back to his lab. He’d tried to force her to make changes to the drug formula that would eliminate the negative side effects. After being rescued during the SSU’s raid, Dr. Montague had thrown herself into trying to find an antidote for the poison that was suspected to be the main weapon in the upcoming attack. She’d also led the effort to reverse the side effects in Kaufmann’s victims.

  Faith had to admit to being surprised by both the SSU compound and Dr. Montague. The combination training and administrative facility looked like a sprawling college campus set deep in the heart of the Oregon woods, complete with picturesque Victorian style houses, a state-of-the-art medical facility, and even a wildlife rehabilitation center that recovering agents worked at as part of their recovery process.

  She’d imagined Dr. Montague as being one of those brilliant women who wore a perpetually distracted look and was socially awkward. Instead, Dr. Montague was an attractive woman with chin length blonde hair, intelligent hazel eyes and an air of both efficiency and compassion.

  However, Faith noticed that the doctor’s attitude cooled significantly when she talked to Mark. An indication of a long history of bad blood between the SSU and Mark, including a time when he’d left Rafe Andros to die.

  “Your brother’s prognosis is good if he’s brought to us within the next couple of days,” Dr. Montague added. “Unfortunately, there’s a point past which the mind and body rapidly deteriorate. Based on the timeline you’ve given me, I suspect your brother is nearing that deadline.”

  Faith bit her lip, then nodded. So, the urgency in her dreams had been correct.

  “I have to warn you,” Dr. Montague said. “This video I’m about to show you is from the extensive library of recordings Dr. Kaufmann made regarding his subjects. It contains graphic and disturbing images of violence. Are you certain you want to watch it?”

  Faith nodded. She felt Mark’s eyes on her but she didn’t turn her head. She didn’t want to see the worry in his eyes. He’d tried to talk her out of this, but she didn’t care if the footage of Dr. Kaufmann’s subjects gave her nightmares for years to come. She needed to see for herself what Toby had been put through.

  Part of her would rather have Toby be missing than to have him turned into a monster. Because, what if she saw him and instead of feeling sympathy and love she felt fear?

  Stop courting heartbreak before it rounds the bend. Just look at the damn video.

  Faith straightened her spine. No matter what she learned today, she was resourceful. Strong. She’d take what she learned and make something positive of it.

  Mark squeezed her hand, reminding her that she wasn’t alone.

  “I’m sure,” she said firmly.

  Dr. Montague pressed her lips together but didn’t make any further attempts to change Faith’s mind. That made her respect the doctor even more.

  Dr. Montague pointed the remote at the video screen. “Just let me know when you want me to shut it off. And feel free to jump in with any questions. For people not familiar with the program, some of what you’re about to see probably won’t make sense.” Dr. Montague rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “I’ve been exposed to at least one of the drugs the men were given intravenously and I can tell you that the burn of the chemicals as they move through your bloodstream is excruciating. I can’t imagine what it’s like to experience that day after day for weeks on end.”

  Faith swallowed a lump of fear and gave a thumbs up. As Dr. Montague started the video, Mark put his arm across Faith’s shoulders. She reached up and clung to his fingers as horrific images filled the screen.

  It didn’t do any good to tell herself to just look at faces, scanning for Toby. There was too much pain. Too much desperation, fear and rage. Faith stared in revulsion as the scientists put the men through horrific exercises, testing obedience to orders the men clearly fought against obeying. All the while, the scientists took notes and conferred with one another with clinical detachment. Oblivious to the suffering going on around them.

  “We’re only holding on to the tapes until we’re certain everyone responsible for the program has been punished,” Dr. Montague said tightly. “And, of course, we want to make certain that all of the victims have been identified so that their respective agencies can close their investigations and notify any next of kin. The notes you turned over, combined with the data pulled from Kaufmann’s lab before it was destroyed should make this a fairly straightforward task.”

  Watching the violence, and the brutal reactions of the men to the simplest command, Faith prayed that she got to Toby soon. And then she prayed some more that Dr. Montague would be able to restore him.

  Faith glanced at the doctor and saw that she had her hands clenched into fists. “Dr. Montague? Are you okay?” The doctor wore the frozen expressio
n of someone enduring past her limit. Still, she gave a curt nod.

  That’s right, Dr. Montague had been tortured by Dr. Kaufmann. Not only would the video remind her of her own ordeal, but also of what her lover, Rafe Andros, had suffered.

  When the video finally ended, Faith gave a sigh of relief. That had been more difficult to sit through than she’d expected. But necessary. Now she fully understood that Toby might be beyond rational thought when Mark found him. Her brother might not understand language enough to grasp that Mark wanted to help him. Or Toby might have been conditioned to consider every stranger an enemy.

  Faith glanced over at Mark, knowing that the plan was for him to leave with the SSU team tonight on their mission to stop the Kerberos men. “How is Mark going to get through to Toby when he finds him?” According to the data recovered from Kaufmann’s lab, Toby had not been part of the one group whose members were controllable via a code phrase. Her brother had been trained to respond only to direct orders given in person by his handler.

  Dr. Montague rubbed the back of her neck. “That’s a good question. You’ll have to think of something that serves as a trigger to better memories. With Rafe, it was a scent that we piped into his room.” She blushed, and Faith figured the scent must have triggered a memory of their romantic relationship.

  Dr. Montague cleared her throat. “I don’t think that will work in this case, since Mr. Tonelli will mostly likely be confronting your brother outdoors. I suggest using an audio recording, instead. Is there some silly phrase you used as kids? Maybe a song you used to sing together?”

  “Yes. Toby always loved the lullaby our mother sang to us.”

  “Good. Hopefully, when Mr. Tonelli plays the recording the familiar sounds will stall Toby long enough so Mr. Tonelli can tranquilize him before he attacks.”

  Faith froze. Stupid. Stupid. Her heart had blinded her to so many truths these past few weeks. Why hadn’t she realized that Toby might try to kill Mark? She glanced over at him. The thought of her lover fighting for his life against her enraged brother made her vision waver.