Savage Reborn (Team Savage Book 1) Page 14

  “I don’t give a fuck who I follow,” he snapped, and his tone of voice immediately sucked the testosterone out of the air. The fact remained that neither of them was the one in charge of this shindig.

  “Of course, sir,” the man in armor said and turned without further comment to guide them toward the building. As per his original request, all markings of who it belonged to were erased. The only people who knew that the facility belonged to Pegasus were the ones who handled the paperwork, and not even them, sometimes.

  God, that pill was working miracles, Carlson thought. He would have to ask Linus what it was when they were alone.

  “And you got this information how, again?” Savage asked in a hushed whisper as he moved through the tall grass.

  “I followed the paperwork,” Anja replied and sounded much calmer than he felt. “Continue in that direction, and you should reach the junction.”

  During the days leading up to this moment, he had taken the time to buy some equipment that he might need should push come to shove. The one purchase he definitely didn’t regret was the heavy clothes. Anyone else in his position would have gone for a ghillie suit, but he didn’t have the time to crawl secretly closer and closer to the facility over a couple of long days in the sun. He had never done that himself, although from what he knew of the few truly skilled snipers he’d met in his time, they had been men and women of incredible focus and patience and had ice water running in their veins.

  Thankfully, the Russian had filled him in on the details as he’d shuffled in closer. Three hundred yards could be covered fairly quickly when he didn’t have to worry about outside security. A place like this didn’t rate the kind of security that usually came with government testing facilities. It made sense since what the government wanted these third-party companies to do was lower the cost of the testing they needed.

  The price was usually accommodated by lowering security standards. In this case, it was replaced with the remoteness of this location and the fact that there wasn’t much in evidence that could identify it as a testing facility. For all anyone knew, it was a place that tested lipstick on bunnies. Anyone who broke into the place would find themselves up against some angry people with guns, and that would usually be sufficient to scare them off.

  If it didn’t…well, it was an isolated place with a lot of open space in which to bury the bodies.

  “Fuck,” Savage grumbled under his breath.

  “What?” Anja asked and sounded distracted.

  “I’m really glad I don’t believe in ghosts right about now,” he admitted. He’d reached the fence surrounding the facility and started to circle around it.

  “Well, thanks for that very random piece of information. Do you anticipate that ghosts might be a problem if you did believe in them?”

  “I’m merely wondering how many bodies have been buried out here,” he explained as he finally reached the junction that she had mentioned.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing, really,” he responded. “But I would imagine that these people don’t really turn any intruders over to the police. So the real question is how many people would be stupid enough to break into a place like this.”

  He paused beside a massive upheaval of dirt that had clearly been removed from a hole under the fifteen-foot fence.

  “I wish to amend my previous statement.” He dropped quickly into the hole that came up to his waist and allowed him to slip through the gap under the fence without any difficulty. It even amused him that he didn’t need to do much more than bend over at the waist. “What the hell kind of paperwork would tell you about the work of the world’s largest and most industrious dog?”

  “They planned to restructure the sewer system in the facility. About six months ago, the paperwork went through for the construction of the new sewer line and it got clogged in the local bureaucracy until about a month ago when it was authorized.”

  “You’d think that companies like Pegasus would be able to jump to the front of the line,” Savage commented, now safely inside the facility’s fence.

  “Come on, you’ve worked with the government.” Her chuckle was definitely derisive. “You know better than that. Six months is the front of the line.”

  “Fair enough.” He sighed. “How did you know that it wouldn’t be covered up by now?”

  “Well, all construction work was put on hold when Carlson sent out the alert that the place would close down,” she explained. “There wasn’t any paperwork to hire people to fill the hole in, and since the people working in this place aren’t exactly the most ambitious of creatures, I assumed it would still be open.”

  “You assumed?” he mused with a smirk. “You gambled the success of this mission on an assumption?”

  “It worked, didn’t it?” She sounded suddenly defensive.

  “Hey, I’m not criticizing,” Savage whispered as he eased closer to the front of the facility. “It was an informed guess and a good gamble that paid off, so that’s the end of the discussion.”

  “Well, that conveniently moves us on to the next problem,” Anja continued. “All I can do is get you inside the fence. There isn’t any paper trail that will magic you a way into the building proper.”

  “You have your magic, I have mine.” He took a deep breath as he hugged the walls. He couldn’t see any cameras in place, which meant that they really hadn’t put too much money into the outside security on site. It didn’t matter, though, since he couldn’t walk through walls.

  “Are we going through with this magic metaphor?” Anja asked. “Because I think I like it. I do all my stuff from afar, and that makes me a spellcaster, while you’re a battle magic sort of guy. You like to get all hands-on. What do you think, Jer? Jer?”

  He didn’t answer because it really wasn’t an option. Voices drifted closer—a pair of them, two men walking at a leisurely pace. There were other voices too, but they were further away and sounded fairly heated like an argument was in progress.

  If he could have talked, he would have disagreed. Like anyone with a hint of sense, he had to say that he didn’t particularly enjoy getting up close and personal. But still, he was pretty damn good at it.

  Savage slid back behind the wall as the men moved even closer. He drew the knife he’d bought from Max out of its sheath and tucked it into his jacket. While he wasn’t sure what he would do, he knew that he needed it to be quick and precise. He doubted that he would have the chance he’d had in the Pegasus building in Philly.

  “Like, I knew she was doing the open relationship before we started dating, you know?” one of the men said as they circled toward where he had been forced to drop back. “And she keeps saying that everything’s great and why change it if it’s going so well? I don’t want to say it, but it’s not really going well for me, you know?”

  “She’s not acknowledging your feelings, Ray,” the second guard said, patted the man’s shoulder, and shook his head. “You need to talk to her about this, and if she’s not willing to put up some kind of commitment for you, you need to let her go.”

  Jeremiah almost felt bad for what he was about to do. He could understand that the guy had some girl problems and he didn’t really want to do anything to make it worse. But he was there to do a job, and he could only hope that the guy ending up in the hospital would buy him some kind of sympathy from the woman he had trouble with. Honestly, he’d never really seen the kind of open relationship that the man described. He had heard of them and it actually worked, from what he’d been told.

  It didn’t mean it wasn’t complicated, though, and he was about to put a whole heap of complication on top of that. Work troubles tended to spill out into relationships.

  He remained close to the wall as he advanced on the men. The fact that they moved from where the sun was shining on the building and into the shade would hopefully give him enough time as their eyes adjusted to close the distance.

  Anja wasn’t the only one who gambled in this. He could only
hope that his had as good a payoff as hers.

  The men’s eyes flickered to the side as he sprinted toward them, but their eyes were drawn to where he had been a half second before. It gave him time. Not all the time in the world, but in these situations, seconds might as well be decades.

  The man on his right—the one having girl troubles—was the first one he closed on. He didn’t have a kill on his mind, but he needed the fight to be finished quickly so used the momentum of his advance to crack the handle of the knife on the man’s skull. His eyes immediately went blank as he slumped. Savage was already on the move and spun before the first man had even fully fallen. He dropped to his knees as the other man tried to track his movements.

  Dammit, what was his name again? The first guy just said it a few seconds ago? Ray? He wasn’t sure why it mattered, but it did for some reason.

  Savage used the power provided by his spin and drop to ram the blunt end of the knife as hard as he could on the inside of Ray’s knee. He could feel the crack and pop that told him of a possible tear in the ligaments as he pushed up from his kneeling position and hammered his gloved fist under the man’s jaw. The pain of the impact flared up his arm, but the damage done to Ray was much, much worse. The man’s head snapped back as his knees immediately buckled and his eyes rolled to show the whites. He caught the unconscious man by the collar and dragged him and then his friend into the shade cast by the building.

  “Sorry about this, guys.” He made a quick guess as to which man wore what was closest to his size and selected the lovelorn unfortunate as his best match. There wasn’t time to strip the man down, but thankfully, his own dark pants and boots were similar enough to pass a quick inspection. All he needed was the blue coat and Kevlar vest that the man wore.

  “You really should talk to your girl about committing more to you,” Jeremiah said softly once he had finished donning the uniform and dragged the two men over to the hole under the fence. “I’m not saying that open relationships are easy, but if you can pull it off, they can be rewarding. So talk to her, and maybe get to know the other guys she’s dating. If you can be friends with them, all the better.”

  Savage paused once he’d dumped Ray into the hole first, followed quickly by the other man. “You might want to see a concussion doctor first, though. Just my opinion.”

  He inspected the radios and IDs that he’d retrieved from both men. Again, a quick judgment call was needed, but in this case, he actually looked a lot more like Ray—brown hair, green eyes, and rugged features. The man actually had a nicer jawline than he did, but nobody would peer too closely at the two-by-two picture that he pinned on his chest. He retained one of the radios and smashed the second. No need to have either one of them wake up and call for help at the worst possible time. Ray also had a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in his coat pocket, which he kept. There was no telling when those could be useful.

  “Let me guess…you want someone to be alerted that these boys are down too?” Anja asked in his headset.

  “How did you know?” he asked and adjusted the jacket. As it turned out, the lovelorn dude had broader shoulders than he did himself. It would be a little uncomfortable, but he would simply have to manage.

  Savage circled toward the group that lingered near the vehicles. They were engaged in what appeared to be a battle of wills between a couple of the men who looked like they were in charge and wanted to be more in charge than their opponent. They yelled and generally attracted the attention of the others, which was why he was able to slip into their ranks.

  The weakest part of any security system would always be the human element. When would people actually understand that?

  Well, he really hoped it wasn’t soon. Otherwise, his part in this sordid business of cloak and daggers would rapidly come to a very ignoble end.

  Carlson stepped in quickly to remind everyone that he was actually the man in charge. He pulled the reins on the two and briskly told them to get moving. Just in time, too, as Savage didn’t want to hang around in one place for too long and risk being made. He moved toward the door leading into the facility as the others fell in behind the leaders. It was necessary to stay in formation and remain a nameless, faceless part of the horde. Anderson was right. He did have some theoretical training in how to do this.

  His experience called for other skills, though. The kind that had taken care of the two men who had loaned him their uniforms and radios.

  Savage grabbed the door quickly and held it open as the executive passed him.

  The man didn’t even glance at him and looked like he was on that magical bridge between being drunk and being hungover. Savage wondered how much of a scene he would have to make before the man realized that he wasn’t part of his security detail. The men who were actually guarding him were in a similar situation. They appeared to be more focused on the job than who they were working with.

  “Thank you,” Carlson grunted, removed his glasses, and stepped inside. The operative was right behind him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The research facility was run-down and surprisingly shabby. The pale-blue walls had faded, and dirty handprints and assorted stains marred every surface. The linoleum, which might once have been glossy with industrial wax was scored with deep, black grooves and scuff marks. A glance inside some of the glassed-in offices revealed piles of paperwork and garbage strewn about as if in the aftermath of a storm.

  For now, there wasn’t much Savage could do except follow the rest of the procession as they moved deeper into the facility. He couldn’t break away from them like he had at the Pegasus building. Unlike his previous mission, his sole focus now was to stay close to Carlson and make him feel superior and secure in the thought that no one would try to take him down in a building like this.

  Well, he was there to do precisely that, if indirectly, but the man didn’t know that. For all he knew, Jeremiah was merely one of the new guys. His scheming and plotting notwithstanding, the executive seemed to trust his inner circle despite not knowing a thing about them. It wasn’t a terribly clever trait, but it was one he could exploit.

  Carlson looked like he was recovering from his earlier condition fairly quickly. He didn’t say much as the man in charge of securing what was carried in and out of the facility explained the process to him.

  “It’s not easy to move an entire scientific testing facility,” one of the team explained. “I was here for about five days, talking to the people who run this place as they complained about the problems that arise when you move tests in progress. As it turns out, jostling a collection of Petri dishes in an armored car isn’t good for the percentages or something.”

  That man has to be stripped of the armor he’s wearing, Savage decided. He recognized it from some of the military installations he’d been in. There were power functions to the armor that allowed the people wearing it to carry heavier weapons and take heavier fire. Of course, they weren’t as good as the full suits they had started to roll out for the grunts in the Marine Corps. And no, he didn’t begrudge soldiers some way to keep themselves alive in the field of battle, but that wasn’t the point.

  The point was that if the big man in armor noticed that he wasn’t a part of the original security team, there wasn’t much that he could do to defend himself. He could handle men in Kevlar, especially with a knife. But that man’s suit wouldn’t give him any opportunities like that. Worse, a punch from one of those bad boys would dent his face in ways that didn’t buff out.

  Oh, well, closed-casket funerals are all the rage these days, he thought with a small sneer.

  “I don’t care about a few ruined tests,” Carlson said and rubbed his temples with obvious irritation. “These people work for me, and I’m sure they won’t mind if their work is pushed back a couple of weeks so long as the funding checks continue to come in.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, sir,” the man inquired and looked sheepish. “Why are you moving all this out of here?”

  “I do mi
nd,” he grumbled. “But considering that I’m happy with how you’ve managed to get the move back on track, you should know that a few weeks’ delay in the deadline of these tests is a small price to pay. The people who have taken over the company are the kind of buzzkills who don’t see the big picture. They’ll bring everything to a stop for months or maybe years and…you’d believe me if I told you that I was doing this to save the world, right?”

  “Sir, with all due respect,” the man in armor said, and Savage could see a small smile on his face. “For three hundred large for two month’s work, I’ll believe whatever the fuck you want me to believe.”

  “I normally don’t approve of that kind of language used by my employees,” Carlson said with a small smile. “But I am paying you a small fortune for your opinion. And I’m not some prude who gets all up in arms about language.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  Wasn’t this a happy circle jerk, Savage mused. They continued deeper and deeper into the dingy facility. Most of the place was abandoned, but there were a handful of labs still in operation. Some of the men and women in white coats seemed to be in a hurry, and from the looks of things, they were forced to work around the clock and with minimal supplies.

  He couldn’t help but wonder what it was they were doing that was so important. Saving the world? Was the man that egomaniacal, or did he really think that what he did there was saving the world?

  Of course, there was always the possibility that he was merely a lying prick, but that wasn’t as much of a problem. He didn’t really care whether they could stop global fucking warming at this point. His task was simply to stop him.

  At the same time, he didn’t trust his own moral compass that much. He knew he had a couple of screws loose in his head. But then, there were guys like Anderson. Men who really had an idea of what people were supposed to fight for, and Jeremiah, while he lacked that, knew how to identify someone whose ideas he could trust. He also knew how to spot the kind of men who sounded like they knew right from wrong but were more than willing to do wrong. These were simply pricks who knew all the secret codewords to make people follow them.