Page 5 of So Deadly
“Yeah.Looks that way.”
“Damn.Can’t say a part of me isn’t impressed.”
A wan smile crossed Faith’s face.“He’s nothing if he’s not brave.
“Bold, one might say.”
Faith chuckled softly.“Thank you, Michael.”
“Should I pick you up?”
She nodded.“Yes.Actually, no.I’ll meet you at headquarters.David doesn’t want me to come after him, but considering everything, I think I need to.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Michael said.“Let’s not meet at headquarters, though.It’s a zoo there.I’ll meet you at the café we like in Stafford.”
Faith nodded again.“Sounds good.I’ll drop Jessica off at her car and head there.”
“I can come with you guys,” Jessica said.“I’ll help.”
Faith shook her head.She appreciated the offer, but Jessica was a young agent with a promising career ahead of her.Faith’s career as a field agent was likely over after this.Michael didn’t have ambitions past SAC, and he had connections in multiple government agencies to help him get past the fallout they were about to bring down on themselves.
Most importantly, she and Michael had well over a decade of experience putting their lives in extreme danger.Jessica had very little of that experience.
She could still be of use, though.“I want you to manage things on the home front for me,” Faith said.“Run interference with Smythe and the media.Make sure the vultures descend elsewhere.”
Jessica nodded.She looked disappointed, but she didn’t argue.“All right.”
“I’ll see you soon, Faith.”
Faith put the car in gear, backed onto the road, and headed back to Quantico.Jessica placed her hand back on her shoulder and offered her an encouraging smile.“This is good news.David is all right.”
Faith nodded, but it didn’t feel like good news to her.It felt like foreshadowing, like David was about to enter a burning building, and Faith was about to watch him never come out.
CHAPTER TWO
David lowered the phone and wiped a tear from his eye before he put it back in his pocket.Next to him, a bag of potato chips crackled as his captor and companion, Lieutenant Jayce Broward reached in for a pinch of the fried snacks.David frowned at him, and he smiled sheepishly.“I eat when I’m nervous.”
The sheepish smile and the compulsive consumption of snacks did little to encourage David, but this manhadkidnapped him from the FBI Academy’s parking lot after easily disabling two far larger and more intimidating men, so he could clearly handle himself in a fight, healthy eating and timid personality notwithstanding.“Okay, so what now?”
Jayce swallowed the chips, set the bag down, and brushed the dust off on the legs of his khaki pants.He opened a small laptop and tapped a few keys.“Okay, so the facility’s about twenty miles outside of the city.Officially, it’s an inactive oil field, but unofficially, the last well ran dry ninety years ago.It’s been maintained specifically for the Company to run these kinds of under-the-radar projects.Before TK9, it was MKUltra, before MKUltra, it was TITAN—thatwas a weird one—and before TITAN, it was…”
His voice trailed off when he saw David’s face.He cleared his throat and said, “Point is, we need to get into that facility, get the information, and get out.It isabsolutely criticalthat weonlyget information.No trying to be heroes.Honestly, I wouldn’t even be doing this if my security clearance allowed me access to the proof I needed to bring everything down.I wouldn’t be bringingyouexcept I need someone to watch my back, and… well, I trust that you’ll see this through.”
David thought of Faith, and a pang ran through him.Hewouldsee this through, but he wouldn’t take unnecessary risks.“Why would we try to be heroes?”
“They might have the dogs there.”
David’s frown deepened.“More dogs?”
“Maybe, but also the ones from Quantico.They know that they’re not the ones who kidnapped you, so they’ll at least suspect that you ran and are trying to do something stupid.It’s actually a good thing that the FBI freaked out and came after you.They’re going to retreat deep into their shell.If the dogs aren’t moved here, then they’ll be moved somewhere, but they’re going to end up here eventually.”
David thought of Sierra, the German Shepherd who visited his office and gave off signs of trauma and depression that first clued him into the fact that something was going on at the base.If he saw her suffering, could he really just walk away?
“You have to,” Jayce said, almost as though he could read David’s mind.Which, considering what the 93rdwas trying to do with dogs, wasn’t out of the question.“You try to rescue the dogs, you’ll just get us both killed.And they’ll probably kill the dogs too if they can’t just take them back.Please keep in mind that you’re a veterinary doctor, and this is a CIA facility.”
“Right.Get in, get info, get it to the authorities, make a lot of noise, convince the CIA it’s not worth the headache.Then how do we make sure the dogs don’t get euthanized?”
“Part of the information we’ll be looking for is footage of the dogs.The world will see them being abused.They’ll see the locations where testing took place.There will be mobs of people here livestreaming their protests.The CIA isn’t a group of vicious murderers.Like I told your wife, they’re not vindictive.This is just business.They knew going into this that it was a risk.Now the risk is going to be too much for the reward, which, let’s be frank, isn’t very great.In the modern world, it’s all about drones.Telepathic bonds between agent and dog are cool, but it’s a relic of the past that Chastain’s trying to hold onto because he has delusions of grandeur that he can translate that to telepathic bonds between handler and agent.”
