Page 69 of Jacob

Nick side-eyed him.

“Had to,” she mumbled, shaking. “Couldn’t go back down there. Just couldn’t.”

He had to stop himself from shaking, too. Alex on the floor with her head blown off was playing in his mind, on a loop.

They stood there, clutching each other, backs to the bodies.

“Hey.” Nick put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll take care of this, take out the garbage, secure the place. Yuri’s men are at the entrance. Why don’t you take one of the vehicles and take Alex back to the hotel?”

“We’re going straight to the plane and straight back stateside.”

“Yeah.” Nick nodded. “But we have a biohazard. A big one. I’m going to bring in my pal the Minister.”

“Blow the place to hell, Nick.”

Nick nodded. “Actually I was thinking of ordering up a MOAB from the air base at Vicenza. With the Minister’s permission and notifying DOD. Blast that motherfucker to molecules. Sorry, Alex. But would that work?”

Alex sighed into his chest. “What’s a MOAB?”

“Massive Ordinance Air Blast. Also known as the Mother of All Bombs. The equivalent of 18,000 pounds of TNT. Destroy the entire complex. Designed to annihilate underground bunkers and buildings.”

Alex straightened. Looked at Nick. “Yes. That. Bomb it to hell, including the research. It should disappear off the face of the earth.”

Nick nodded. “Yeah.”

“Oh, and Elias Field is in the building. On this floor. He’s probably still unconscious. He was tortured with an electric prod.”

“So were you.” Jacob’s dark eyes were cold as he gently touched burn marks on her neck.

“Yes. But not as badly as Elias. Though he probably deserves it.”

“And will spend the rest of his days in prison,” Jacob growled. “No question.” That motherfucker was the origin of all of this.

“He will,” Alex sighed. “But alive. I don’t want him to die.”

“If he were in the military he’d be tried for treason and put to death. But he’s not.” Jacob’s mouth tightened. “More’s the pity.”

Alex clearly read what was going on in Jacob’s mind and she turned to Nick as the reasonable one. “Nikolai Garin. You will rescue Dr. Elias Field, who is in this building. I do not want to read later that he somehow died. Oops. His head fell on a bullet. That’s an order.”

Jacob opened his mouth but Nick answered quickly, “Aye aye. Field is in the building, and we’ll get him out. Yes, ma’am. Understood.”

Jacob was getting impatient. He held a wounded and exhausted Alex in his arms. This had gone on long enough. For the first time in his life, he yielded executive power. He had other priorities. “Nick, take care of this. Contact who you need to, do what you have to do to get rid of this devil virus and erase all signs of it.”

Nick raised his eyebrows. He knew that Jacob was yielding power, knew how unusual it was. He gave an ironic two finger salute off his forehead. “You got it. I’ll work with my friend the Minister. He has no desire to have this monster virus in his country. We’ll take care of it.”

And he would. Jacob trusted Nick to take care of it, exactly as if he were the one doing it. Nick was offended by this as much as he was. This was what they’d been born to do, what they’d been forged to do. But for the first time in his life, there was something besides duty in his head.

He nodded at Nick and his men. “So we’re going straight to the airfield, and then straight back home. Bomb the shit out of this place.”

“After getting Elias out,” Alex said.

“Yeah, that.” Jacob ground the words out. “We’re leaving now.”

“I’ll get your stuff to the plane before you take off,” Nick called after him and Jacob lifted his hand in acknowledgement. He didn’t care about their stuff. He just wanted to get Alex away.

He had plans.

ChapterSixteen

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