Page 67 of Jacob

A warning signal, red lights flashing. Entrance into a BSL-4 lab without proper gear. But the Colonel wasn’t paying any attention to the warning signs. Alex had no way of knowing whether this was because he knew there was no danger, or whether he didn’t know any better.

Inside was fanatical order, which made her feel just a little better. Order always made her feel better. Though the people creating the order here were working to destroy the world.

The two men suddenly released her arms and Alex staggered, but kept on her feet. The Colonel had taken out the prod and turned it on briefly. The buzzing electric sound made her heart beat wildly, then he turned it back off.

The point had been made.I can use this whenever I want, for as long as I want to.

“Walk around,” he ordered. “See if there’s everything you need. But if you lie, I will know. And there will be consequences.” He’d taken out a cell and was consulting a page. Probably a fellow scientist had made a list of the things that were necessary. She had to delay things but had to be subtle.

Because Jacob was coming for her. She had no idea how, but she knew that for a fact. He was coming and all she had to do was stay strong.

She made the rounds of the big lab slowly, carefully examining every piece of equipment. Everything was top of the line, machines she was intimately familiar with. She stopped at every single one, examining it minutely.

It was a well-equipped lab, more or less similar to the one at the CDC. Someone had spent a lot of money on it. Well, it looked like this was a well-funded terrorist group. Ending the world didn’t come cheap.

She had finished minutely examining the ELISA reader when the Colonel suddenly stood straight, tapping his ear. She’d seen both Jacob and Nick do that. Some in-ear comms equipment.

The Colonel’s face hardened, features drawn tight.

Without warning, he stepped quickly to her, whipped his closed fist around and punched her in the face. She had no warning, could do nothing to brace herself. It came out of nowhere. The blow was hard and her head bounced off the wall. She would have fallen to the ground, but he held her up by the arm in a brutal grip.

“We have visitors,” he growled. “You’re going to make them go away.”

Her ears rang and she barely heard the words.Visitors, he said. Could it possibly be Jacob?

He lifted the lid of a cryo container, cold ice bubbling up, and pulled out a vial. Alex could barely think, her instinct told her the vial was dangerous. With his other hand, he grabbed her upper arm and started walking fast. She was marched right out of the lab, setting off the alarms again. Her legs could barely hold her up. There was a dull pain on the side of her face and she couldn’t coordinate her limbs.

The Colonel and the other soldier held her upright as they entered the elevator. They were discussing something in Russian, and the other soldier unholstered his gun. Two years of living in Geneva had given her very good French and decent German but she didn’t know Russian at all. The Colonel was giving instructions in a furious voice and the soldier was nodding.

They reached the ground floor and the doors opened and there was a little forest of rifles pointed right at them.

ChapterFifteen

There had been relatively weak resistance at the facility. Nick’s men had arrived and they were fast and efficient, cutting through the guards.

Nick had given orders to use stun guns while inserting into the lab. To use deadly force only when necessary. Jacob wanted to kill all the fuckers, but Nick had stopped that. As long as there was the possibility of KGB operators on the premises, killing them could become an international incident.

Jacob knew he was thinking of his friend, the Minister of Defense, but he still wanted to kill all the fuckers.

They agreed that as soon as they had proof that they were preparing a bioterrorism attack, they could use deadly force.

Jacob didn’t need that. They’d kidnapped Alex. Reason enough to kill all the fuckers. But Nick insisted.

So they had stun guns and the real deal. And flashbangs and grenades and rifles and handguns. And combat knives. And door breacher guns. And for most of them, their bodies could be considered lethal weapons.

They put down ten guards before breaching the main doors, but once inside, the building was empty.

Nick tapped his ear, spoke in Russian, then turned to him. “Yuri’s men should be here in ten,” he said quietly.

The Defense Minister had promised a team of operators, but had to scramble them.

Jacob nodded. They were in a large lobby. It had a modern design, without being over the top luxe. He pointed at the four corners of the lobby and Nick nodded. Security cams, with a little red light. If there was anyone in the building, they now knew they were being invaded.

Jacob’s internal DEFCON system went to one, fueled by rage and paranoia. Alex was somewhere in this building, he was sure of it. There might even be her colleague here, Elias Field, though Jacob didn’t give a shit about him. Fucking traitor. If he was here, he’d let Nick take him into custody.

But Alex washere, in a monster’s hands.

The instant Alex was safe, they were racing to his plane and getting the hell out of here as fast as he could make it. And he didn’t ever want to feel this terror, ever again. For the first time in his life, emotions were getting the best of him. The ice-cold operator was gone. Twenty years of combat experience gone up in smoke the instant he discovered Alex had been taken.

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