“Blanchett takes priority. Bones, do not leave Viper’s side.”
“Understood,” Trevor replied.
Alexei slammed the trunk shut and signaled for Sean to follow him. Traffic around them was a mess, with some people abandoning their vehicles while others ignored the traffic lights to try to get the hell away from the expanding firefight. Sean could hear the deep sound of gunshots going off from long guns through the piercing sirens that were beginning to fill the air.
Sean stayed on Alexei’s six, keeping the MDF lettering on the back of Alexei’s tactical vest in sight. Due to the anticipated guerilla-style urban warfare they’d be heading into, the MDF had wanted them recognizable to the Metropolitan police and other military groups being called in. The less friendly fire, the better.
From their position near Lincoln Park, Sean and Alexei were eleven blocks from the National Mall. It might as well have been eleven hundred kilometers for the distance they had to cross on foot. Once they reached East Capitol Street NE and were staring down the long road to the burning Capitol Building in the far distance, Sean thought this was the worst of their problems.
Then Katie proved him wrong.
“I’ve lost mental contact with Reaper,” Katie said.
Her voice over comms was clipped in a shocked way that made Sean reach out and grab Alexei by the arm, holding onto him.
“What?” was Alexei’s furious, frightened response as he rocked to a halt.
“Someone is blocking mental communication with him.”
“Base, locate Reaper,” Jamie bit out in a voice stripped of all emotion. The tone made Sean flinch a little as he recognized the sheer flatness of Jamie’s voice as his way of trying to hold it together.
Because this was Kyle, andof fucking courseStanislav would target their weak spots by going after Jamie’s first.
“We need to keep moving,” Sean said to Alexei.
Alexei ground his teeth, the tendons in his neck standing out from the pressure. Sean could feel the tension in Alexei’s body, but he didn’t try to force Alexei to move.
Another explosion went off in the distance west of them, the sound rumbling through the air. Sean had no doubt the Sons of Adam were using Splice chemical bombs along with more conventional bombs to terrorize Washington, D.C.
“Reaper’s trackers are disabled,” Nazari said moments later. “We can’t raise him on comms. Your orders are still the same, Alpha Team.”
“Sir—” Jamie bit out.
“The nation’s capital is under attack, Apollo.You will do your duty. Are we clear?”
A beat of silence echoed strangely in Sean’s ears before Jamie came back over the line. “Yes, sir.”
Alexei jerked out of Sean’s grip, stalking forward, weapon raised and ready to fire. Sean hurried after him. If Alexei ignored orders to stay in the field and go search for Kyle, Sean would go with him.
“Inferno?” Sean said, not knowing what else to say in the wake of Kyle going MIA.
“We go to Apollo,” Alexei ground out.
Sean reached out and grabbed for the strap on Alexei’s tactical vest again. He shoved his worry about Kyle to the back of his mind. Sean couldn’t get distracted right now. He needed to make sure Alexei didn’t do anything crazy.
Like burn down every building in the vicinity, the White House included, to find his brother.
He didn’t know the number of enemy between them and their captain, but he knew it wouldn’t matter. Alexei would cut through every last person to get to the other side without hesitation if it meant backing up Jamie in order to find Kyle.
Cars had stopped on the wide street they were running down, with some drivers sitting slumped behind the wheels of crashed vehicles, bullet-ridden and shattered windshields evidence of how they’d died. The reason almost everyone had bailed was two blocks up ahead: the Cougar XE MRAP sitting smack in the middle of the intersection, the remote gunner laying down heavy fire on the cross street. Sean couldn’t hear any retaliatory gunfire, which meant the enemy’s target was either dead or alive but incapable of responding.
Sean stayed on Alexei’s six as they phased through the abandoned vehicles, keeping one hand curled around a strap on his tactical vest. Alexei kept moving, AKR-75 aimed at the MRAP, for all the good his bullets would do against the military vehicle’s armored siding. While their bullets couldn’t pierce that armor, Sean’s power could get through anything.
“I get us in, you set it on fire?” Sean asked.
“Da,” Alexei growled.
“Then keep running.”
