1
Sunrise.Long tendrils of red streaked across the sky in the waking dawn, like God’s own oil painting of blood and fire. A stark reminder that they were always atwar.
Diggs folded around the trunk of the tree, not feeling the rough bark digging into his arms and chest as he held himself easily suspended in the air. The ground, littered with a fresh blanket of dry multicolored leaves from the first blush of fall lay over 20 feet below. A cool breeze sifted across his skin, tempered by the head to toe camouflage covering hisbody.
He hadn’t used ropes or climbing gear to ascend to the site – he’d only needed his bare hands and feet – one of the few good things that had come from his association with General Rainier. A man who Diggs’ Special Forces team had once thought of as a worthy commander. A man who’d convinced them that the physical experiments with Project Mayhem would help them further serve their country. A man who would gladly shackle them once more beneath his control to continue his experiments whether it killed Diggs and his team ornot.
Diggs felt the shift in the wind, the slightest rustle of leaves from fifty yards out. Juarez, a man who before their enhancements had been one of the best forward snipers in the entire forces recon and now was the best in the entire world, moved with a blurring speed nearly untraceable to the naked humaneye.
“In position.” Diggs pressed the button at the center of the neck loop around his throat activating the high-tech communication system. “Radar detected movement in the southwest quadrant. Tiny, fast. Possibly unmanned personal aircraft.” A.k.a. adrone.
“Roger.”
Diggs had been in charge of watching the monitors overnight when he’d detected a tiny blip on the radar over the property just before sunrise. He’d roused the rest of his team from their required three hours of sleep to begin their self-imposed rigorous daily training schedule. Their team leader, Reaper, insisted on the grueling physical activity and exercise. Not that anyone on the team would complain, the truck load of energy from the serum constantly feeding their muscles and brains required a continuousoutput.
If they sat on their asses too long inside the compound they tended to get a little antsy, something the Team couldn’t afford. One mistake or slip up could alert Rainier to their secret location and their entire past six months of hiding and recuperating from their captivity would be for nothing. After demolishing Rainier’s lab, which had been hidden in the northern territories in Africa, his team had destroyed and stolen all the data and serum Rainier had used for Project Mayhem and kidnapped the only living scientist, Dr. Melissa Averton, with knowledge of how to create more. She’d been forced to work tirelessly for them ever since to stabilize the serum recipe so the men wouldn’t have to receive weekly injections or risk terrible sideeffects.
They’d ruined Rainier’s plan to create a vast supply of enhanced soldiers and sell them to the highest bidder. Then Diggs and his team found a 150-acre estate a few hours outside D.C., bought it under a foolproof fake I.D. and made it into an impregnable compound. It had a huge mansion surrounded by dense woods, with the closest neighbors miles from the perimeter of theproperty.
They’d been secure there, until three months ago when they’d been forced from cover to rescue Dr. Averton’ssister.
A tree limb rustled in the opposite direction of Juarez, and Diggs instantly brought his lightweight assault rifle to his shoulder, training his sights in the direction of the foreign movement. The rest of the team had remained at the compound, set up on the rooftop and in the lower levels guarding the perimeter in case there was a breach. Juarez and Diggs were the forward scouts. There shouldn’t be another human being within ten miles ofthem.
Another leaf rustled. Diggs adjusted his sights and inched to the left. There, on one of the uppermost limbs of an old ash oak sat a fat little gray squirrel, his beady black eyes fixed on Diggs. The creature’s tiny heart pulsated against his chest at an erratic rate, his fear palpable. The squirrel had probably thought himself alone out here,too.
Diggs lowered his weapon and turned away, giving the animal the permission it needed to go about eating its breakfast without fear of having its head blown off. Diggs wasn’t hunting squirrels thismorning.
“Team one, check-in.” King, the biggest, burliest son of a bitch Diggs had ever laid eyes on, said through their communication system. He’d be propped up on the roof under heavy camouflage, a sniper rifle cuddled up flush against hisshoulder.
Diggs answered, “Nomovement.”
Juarez echoed the same and the line went silent. Too much chatter increased their chances of detection if the enemy was close by. Special forces warfare was a deadly art his team had mastered long ago. They’d been trained in guerrilla and urban warfare, could deflate and act with the speed and accuracy that was incomparable. And despite the fact there weren’t any innocent civilians to worry about this time, there was something even more atstake.
Histeam.
Even though they’d escaped Project Mayhem, they’d kept the name, dubbing themselves Team Mayhem as the only remaining super soldiers in existence—the only remaining live subjects whose blood contained enhancements from Mayhem. Which meant once General Rainier recovered from the devastating blow of losing his entire works, he would be actively hunting them every second of everyday.
If General Rainier had discovered their location, he’d be conducting recon on their compound in order to determine the best way to breach and attack. And if Rainier got his hands on any one of them, or worse, Dr. Averton, then the entire world had a reason to be afraid. Rainier would do to them what he’d done to their team leader’s fiancé—knock them out and hook them up to a permanent IV, draining their blood for more experiments. Slowly killing them to create more serum so he could sell his super soldiers to the highestbidder.
The thought turned his stomach. Diggs would kill himself before he’d let Rainier use his blood to fundterrorism.
They allwould.
“Headquarters, any sign of a drone on themonitors?”
The infrared cameras set up throughout the entire property would alert them if anyone stepped foot on the ground and the aerial detection system they’d ‘borrowed’ from the Air Force and set up on the roof of the compound kept a constant watch on the skiesoverhead.
Hicks’ voice came through the system, low and steady. “Negative. Nodisturbances.”
Something was out there, Diggs knewit.
Holding radio silence for the next hour, Diggs and Juarez did not even shift to alleviate the pressure on their hands and feet where they held themselves aloft. Frustration had started to work its way around Diggs’ shoulders, pulling his muscles tense and tight. They should’ve detected something by now. Even if the drone had crashed into the woods their infrared cameras would’ve picked up its heat signature. Satellites overhead would catch it in the air. For all accounts and purposes, it appeared as though there was absolutely no threat at present but Diggs felt it. He felt the menaceapproaching.
Reaper’s deep gravelly voice sounded in his ears. “If there was something here it’s gone now. We’ll pull extra watch today and tonight. Let’s regroup and regather. We’ll assign shifts at the mansion. Fall backboys.”
No.He couldn’t leave, not yet. The threat wasn’t gone. Diggs could tell it by the way the animals shifted nervously in their homes. The squirrel had been the single brave one, but the fox that lived on the property was remaining oddly quiet. Even the birds wereabsent.
The last time Diggs had relaxed his guard, one of his teammates had lost his life. Maybe if he would’ve tried a little harder, or if he’d been stronger he could’ve fought off the migraine. If he had been faster he would’ve been there sooner. But he’d been weak and he’d given in to the pain and now Quantum was in a coma and Dawson wasdead.
