“All right. Tell me about the virus my brother found.”
Tenny’s eyes grew shifty, even as he sniffed and wiped his swollen, bandaged nose for the third time. His face, puffy and bruised, sported two black eyes and more than a dozen stitches, all courtesy of Angel Smith. Eric smiled.
Von and Ans stared silently, emanating violence.
“We were sent to test a vaccine.”
Eric exchanged a look with his friends.
“Wait, wait. Ford just found the virus, so how the hell’d you set up that operation so quickly?”
“He extracted it over a month before we arrived. And… this wasn’t the first time we’ve seen theFronsviridae. The Frond virus. We call it that because—”
“Focus,” Von spat in his Grim Reaper voice.
“Right. Right.” Tenny spoke, eyes darting furtively, as if anyone could overhear them. He cleared his throat. “I understand someone stole the original sample before disappearing. Took it with him. Or destroyed it. Not sure which.”
“Who?”
He shrugged. “Someone close to the…”
“To what?”
“A company. I’m not sure…”
“Spit it out.”
“Well, my funding’s through a small—”
“Don’t waste our time. We want the top of the totem pole.”
Tenny sat looking at his hands for a few long beats, breathing hard, probably considering who scared him most—the entity whose money and influence had created this hell or the motley group currently staring him down.
“Chronos Corporation.” He paused. “But it goes higher. Way higher.”
Eric met Von’s eyes. Shit. Whatever Chronos was up to, it was bad.
“Okay,” Eric said. “So explain those cells where you held the others. And tell me about—”
“I hadnothingto do with that,” Tenny insisted.
“Don’t lie to us, you murderingfuck.” Without seeming to move, Von was in Tenny’s face. Everything about Von spoke of violence: his voice, his expression, the way he held himself. Clive Tenny could have no doubt of his own mortality when faced with the wrath of Von “The Reaper” Krainik, and he was scared shitless.
“Who gave you orders? Who, specifically, sent you down there, financed the whole thing? Operation must’ve cost millions.” Eric leaned in. “I want names.”
“Uh…” Tenny swallowed and swiped at a bead of sweat trickling down his temple. “I’d…rather not say.”
“Really?” Eric had managed to keep his rage at bay up until this moment. But here, right now, this little fucking worm making up excuses was the last straw. He’d hurt him if that was what it took. One hand whipped out and wrapped around the man’s neck. Eric didn’t tighten it yet, but the threat was there. “Because I can’t imagine a single person coming to your rescue if some sort of accident were to occur on this plane, can you?”
Tenny’s eyes—already round in his bruised and battered face—had bulged out to become almost inhuman orbs, the whites enormous. He looked at Ans, then at Von, who’d pulled out his knife at some point and started cleaning his fingernails. Finally, Tenny faced Eric, his fear stinking up the air between them.
“Tell me. Now. And you keep your fingers. Your toes, your tongue, your ears.” Eric’s eyes flicked down, the threat implied. “Talk and we return you to American soil. Don’t, and we dump chunks of you into the Pacific.”
It took about three seconds for Tenny to start spewing names, places, the testing they’d planned to do on the winter-overs—on hisbrother, goddammit. By the end, Eric had the urge to open the door and throw the monster out anyway, air pressure and promises be damned.
Instead, he handed Tenny over to the other guys and returned to the cockpit to fill Leo in.
“Why?” she asked, as freaked out about the whole thing as he was.
