“The group that you guys took down?” Ryson asked. “The task force with the president. You caught the guy, right? That General…whoever.”
“Schnell.” Jax muttered the word.
“They aren’t gone,” Zeyla told him. “They did this, and you know it.”
She turned and walked away, and when she reached the patio, she kicked a metal watering can across the lawn.
“There’s more than just one general?” Ryson asked. When Jax nodded, he asked, “What’s your next move if you are hunting for more of those sickos?”
He knew what he wanted to do, and it wasn’t what he had to do.
“I need to make a phone call.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Somewhere over Alberta, Canada
It was way past time for Ramon to check in with Kenna. To update her on what Bear’s team was up to and decide between them whether to thwart their efforts or help. It all depended on how far Bear planned to go.
Turned out it was pretty far.
The problem was, they’d taken his phone when he got on the plane in California, before they’d left to go to Norway.
Ramon scrubbed his hands down his face and looked out the small airplane window over his left shoulder, but all he could see outside was the whiteness of thick clouds.
“You should try and get some sleep.” Bear slid into the seat next to him.
“I need a phone more than I need sleep.”
Opposite them, in a seat that faced them on the other side of a table, Lief Holmberg stared at them. He hadn’t said anything since the post office, but the guys didn’t miss a chance to toss a comment his way about the death of their teammate.
Bear said, “So you can call your friends and tell them what we’re doing?”
Ramon wasn’t going to lie, because he didn’t need to. “Checking in with Maizie for information is a reflex.”
He watched Holmberg to see if there was any reaction to her name but saw nothing. Then again, the guy had been stoic since they found him. The only one in the town—or so it seemed. Waiting for them.
A town with a unique genetic profile, probably the result of aDominatusexperiment undertaken generations ago—the first of its kind. Ramon didn’t even want to know how all that went down. It made him want to shudder just thinking about it, which made him wonder if not knowing might actually be worse. That just allowed his mind to come up with all kinds of terrible ideas.
Ways humans had tortured each other for centuries. Because they could, or just wanted to, or for profit—or in the name of medical research.
Think about something else.
There was only one other thing uppermost in his mind. The fiery explosions he’d seen around the town as they drove away. Fireballs in the distance. He’d thought about it in the two or so days it had taken them to covertly traverse the country, cross the national border out of Norway, and get to the airstrip where this plane had been waiting for them.
“When were you going to tell me that destroying Vinterdal on the way out of town was the plan the whole time?” Ramon looked at Bear, thinking about that comms communication right before they left the post office.
“Who says it was?” Bear shrugged, most of his attention on Holmberg. “I could have razed the whole place, but I didn’t. What I did was strategic. Despite the fact that they cost me a brother.” He slapped his chest.
Grief had rung in his tone like a bell, calling those around him to come and participate in his sorrow.
“Americans. So sentimental.”
Ramon looked at Holmberg, their prisoner. He didn’t seem worried about what they might do to him, more than simply binding his wrists on top of each other so he couldn’t do anything with his hands.
He hadn’t said anything else or asked for anything.
Bear looked about to burst out of his chair. Ramon held his hand in front of the guy for a second to keep him where he was, a kind of check that a friend would give. Touching him was probably a bad idea.
