Page 86 of Shadow Blind

Had Hurley’s men captured the Russian? His spy in the admiral’s office claimed they hadn’t located Kuznetsov, but someone else could have. Still, there could be a simpler reason behind the lack of return phone calls.

Kuznetsov was ignoring him.

The very traits for which Clark had hired the Russian—shrewdness, cunning, and ruthlessness were a concern now. What if the bastard had double-crossed him? Kuznetsov could set up a sale on the nanobots without Clark’s permission or knowledge. He could cut Clark out of the deal entirely.

He’d sent the Russian five vials of NNB26 with strict instructions to use all five vials in the well at Karaveht. Kuznetsov could have ignored that order and held a vial or two back. Clark had known this was a possibility, but it hadn’t mattered. Not back then.

Upon activation of the kill switch, the bots in the extra vials would become inert. They wouldn’t activate again without additional programming. Kuznetsov knew this. The Russian’s customers were every bit as ruthless and deadly as the arms dealer himself. Selling any of them an inert weapon was a death sentence. Kuznetsov wouldn’t be that stupid…would he?

But if the Russian was that stupid, if he’d sold a vial or two of NNB26, and if those bots reactivated, well, then humanity was in trouble. The NNB26 prototype had been created to replicate themselves. With no kill switch, they’d just keep creating more and more of themselves. The more people they infected, the more building materials they’d have available. They’d just keep replicating themselves, infecting as they went, until they blanketed the entire world and killed every person on earth.

Chapter thirty-four

Day 16

Denali, Alaska

O’Neill paused in the doorway to the war room and looked for a place to park his ass. It wouldn’t be in a chair, that was obvious. Wolf’s Alpha and Beta teams were in attendance, which pushed the constraints of the space. The room was overflowing with huge, muscled bodies, some with long hair, some with short. All with impassive, flat faces and watchful eyes. A good chunk of those eyes had turned toward him as he stepped through the door. He could almost hear the internal groans as they caught sight of him.

He was still jie'van. Unwelcome. His gaze skipped from hard face to hard face, all so righteous in their moral superiority. His muscles seized beneath the ever-familiar rise of frustrated irritation. Nobody in this room knew a damn thing about him. None had given him the chance to prove himself. He was still caught in the same fucking riptide of his childhood, held to a standard nobody had bothered to explain.

He glimpsed the crown of the Taounaha’s head with its gray, braided hair. Perhaps there was one in the room who knew him well, even too well.

The chairs surrounding the table were occupied. Those warriors who hadn’t grabbed a chair leaned against the walls. The scent of coffee overshadowed the smell of sweat and male musk. Testosterone amped the air. He’d never seen so many warriors in attendance at a strategy meeting. Hell, even the woohanta were here. Except for Winchester.

That realization brought him up short. Where the hell was the Shadow Warrior’s favorite squid? Apprehending Kuznetsov was at the top of Winchester’s wish list. Hell, the bastard was obsessed with bringing the Russian in. Understandable, sure, but that obsession should have propelled him front and center for this meeting.

He glanced toward the three former SEALs propping up the wall beside him. Winchester wasn’t the only one missing. So was his brother by marriage. Their absences had to be connected. Then again, Wolf’s little bro had looked like shit earlier this morning in the gym. Complete and utter shit, as a matter of fact. Like he’d had a hell of a hangover, or he was coming down with a nasty bug. Was that why he was missing this mandatory meeting?

Not that he was going to ask.

“Hey, asshole,” Mackenzie snarled from O’Neill’s right. “How about you move your ass so we can close the damn door?”

That was Mackenzie for you, snarling rather than asking, referring to everyone as asshole rather than by their names, constantly exhibiting his generally shitty disposition. No wonder Wolf called him umbretan. The former commander was best described as the human personification of a thundercloud. How the hell did the bastard’s wife put up with him?

“Since you asked so nicely…” O’Neill sent him a saccharine smile. Ignoring the stiffening of Mackenzie’s body, he pushed into the bastard’s personal space, then turned around and parked his ass against the wall—shoulder to shoulder with the umbretan himself. “That better?” Another saccharine smile, this one with lots of teeth.

Shock seized the dude’s muscles. His hawkish face darkened past his habitual thunder cloud mimicry. Lightning flashed in his black eyes. Commander Squid was not pleased with O’Neill’s intrusion into his coveted personal space.

Too damn bad.

He snared the edge of the door and swung it shut, ignoring the ominous vibrations seething in the air to his left.

“Now simmer down there, skipper.” A soothing drawl started up as Rawlings tried to intercept the brewing explosion. “Man’s got to stand somewhere. Not much space left, as you can see.”

O’Neill suppressed a grin. Mackenzie was so damn easy to detonate.

It was amazing the guy had ever passed BUD/S, earned himself a spot on the teams, and then climbed all the way to Commander of ST7. Explosive personalities didn’t fare well in WARCOM. They burned through their allies and contacts quickly. Mackenzie certainly fell into that category. After all, nobody had stepped up to save his ass when his career had gone up in flames.

He’d heard about the guy long before the commander and his men had hit the skids with USSOCOM. Discovering they’d joined Shadow Mountain had been a surprise. Nobody in SEAL Command or among the soups knew where they’d disappeared. Some believed they’d been killed, although Zane Winters remained in contact with his family and Simcosky in contact with his mother. Mackenzie and Rawlings, they didn’t have family and hadn’t reached out to anyone. Hell, the whole lot of them had simply vanished.

It all made sense once he found them tucked away in Wolf’s Mountain. Shadow Mountain might just be the biggest military secret of the century. Nobody would have found them here.

“It don’t seem natural, Aiden missin’ out on this and all,” Rawlings said from the other side of Mackenzie. “He’s been the one gunnin’ for Kuznetsov. After what happened to his team, this takedown is personal. He’d want to be here.”

O’Neill tuned into the conversation. Mackenzie’s internal vibrations had eased. At least he wasn’t vibrating with the intensity of an off balance, fully loaded missile that was about to self-destruct.

“Nothing to be done about it.” Winters’s voice was matter of fact. “Can’t do much when you’re out cold in the ER. Cos says the docs don’t know when he’ll wake up, or even if he’ll wake up. Hell, they don’t even know what’s wrong with him.”

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