“Right on time,” I said as I reached him.
“Always.” He grabbed the case for me and carried it up the stairs. He kept his voice low. “Bobcat got an update from HQ while I was on my way. They’re questioning the analyst who tipped off the Carabinieri about Fenix.”
“And?”
“No connection to Lark or Fenix yet, but they’re still digging.” He glanced over his shoulder one more time before opening the door for me.
“Something else bothering you?” I asked as I retook control of the case.
“I was followed for the first mile after leaving our hotel. Two men, nondescript, but they had the moves.” He guided me to the left, following the signs for the chemistry lab. “I’m confident I lost them, but we should be careful.”
“Carabinieri?”
“Probably. HQ is still trying to leverage government connections to get the Italians to back off, but bureaucracy moves slowly. For now, we’re still under surveillance.”
“Noah—the inside man Reynolds is dealing with—implied one of the Fenix captains ordered it. He also said Fenix doesn’t know about the Reynolds team being in town.”
“You think we should cut off contact?”
“No, but we need to be careful. As long as you shook your tail, we should be good.” I tightened my grip on the handle of the case. “Either way, let’s get these suits to Dr. Norris and get out of here.”
Returning to the academic setting was strangely comforting. I’d spent so much of my life in places like this—clean, orderly environments where the rules were clear and the problems solvable. Unlike human relationships, chemical reactions were mostly predictable when you understood the components.
We found Dr. Norris’s lab in the heart of the department. The moment we stepped through the doorway, I had to fight my legs to keep moving forward. Memories of him yelling about the decontaminant lotion flooded my brain. Him praying. The hint of wonder in his voice as I lay on a cold floor, screaming.
Dr. Trevor Norris sat at a small desk beside the door. He had a stocky build and glasses pushed up into his thinning salt-and-pepper hair. And the same perpetual scowl I remembered. The biochemist had been part of our science team in Afghanistan. The one who’d dismissed me as ‘the Canadian girl’ from themoment we met, and who questioned my competence at every turn.
Two younger men and a woman busied themselves around a glass-fronted enclosure containing pipes, gauges, and mechanical components. From what I’d read about his lab, they were currently focused on simulating industrial process lines in miniature, attempting to improve scalability.
He swiveled in his chair and frowned. “Percy. McAllister.”
“Dr. Norris,” Percival said evenly. “Good to see you again.”
No, it wasn’t.
“And you.” Norris’s eyes traveled from Percival’s face to mine, lingering on my high-necked sweater. His Boston accent was faint, but still obvious. “Both of you survived, I see.”
The clinical detachment in his voice made my skin crawl. Our team’s mission had been put on pause shortly after the lab raid that left Percival with burn scars on his arm and me with… much worse.
“Thank you for making time for us on such short notice,” I said, pushing the memories to the back of my brain, where they belonged.
“Hard to refuse when the American government makes requests.” He folded his arms, not even bothering to stand. At least his lab assistants paused to smile in greeting. “I thought I was done with that when I took this job.”
Deep breath, Brooke.
“We’re in town unexpectedly on an important job; otherwise, we would have arranged to have this done elsewhere. We have field gear that requires a protective coating against chemical agents.”
His eyes narrowed with sudden interest. “What kind of chemical agents?”
“A Lewisite derivative, with modifications that increase penetration and tissue damage.”
He unfolded his arms and stood. “Like what we found in Barin Kala?”
I swallowed hard, refusing to touch my collar despite the burning sensation creeping along my scars. “Similar, yes.”
Norris gestured for us to follow him deeper into the lab. “Show me the gear.”
I unzipped the case and carefully removed one of Will’s thermal incursion suits. “These are custom-designed field suits with integrated monitoring systems. We need them treated with a tri-layer protective coating.”
