Page 39 of The Team

“Tell that to the three men who wanted a piece of Coyote twenty minutes ago,” Rhett said.

King’s gaze narrowed. “What?”

Rhett shrugged it off. “It’s fine. Yin de-escalated it.”

“Jesus Christ,” King murmured. “Did he kill any of them?”

Rhett snorted. “No.”

Rhett held his gaze until King released a sigh and conceded defeat. “Fine. Two of ours on their go-team.”

“Ritchie will go,” Rhett said. Sid wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

“I’ll tell Diaz,” Giardello said with a nod.

“Right,” King said, disgruntled. “I’ll go make arrangements. Team briefing in five minutes.”

Rhett didn’t wait to be dismissed. He turned and walked out, Giardello quick to fall into step beside him.

“Shit’s about to get real, huh?” he said.

“As real as it gets.” Rhett checked his watch. He opened the door into the hall his team was in to find Alpha Two in the mix. Jay was with Chen and Bisgaard, a big guy from the Jaeger Corps in Denmark.

He was a nice enough guy, from what Rhett knew of him. Kicked ass in the field and was Giardello’s right-hand man. Jay was making him laugh, which wasn’t surprising. Jay could make anyone laugh...

“Sid,” Rhett called out. He was standing with Azrael, who was talking to Audinet, a French parachute commando. Rhett thought Audinet was a bit of a wildcard but reasoned most of the parachute commandos probably were a little crazy.

Giardello called Diaz over, and Sid came straight up, serious. “Wassup?”

Rhett clapped his shoulder. “You two are in the go-team for the extraction of Kowalski and Myles. Director King will brief you.”

Sid gave a serious nod. “Understood.”

“Bring them home.”

“Yes, sir.” His gaze met Rhett’s. “Thank you, Captain.”

Sid and Diaz ran out of the room, and Rhett knew all eyes were on him and Giardello.

Rhett clapped his hands together. “Okay, team, this is how it’s gonna go.”

EIGHT

Jay was no fool.He was a trained field medic. He had medical knowledge, experience. He knew anatomy, biology. He believed in science.

And what they were told of the bioweapon being engineered in the laboratory they were about to breach scared the shit out of him.

He couldn’t even begin to understand the complexity of it. But he knew enough.

This was an engineered form of trichothecene mycotoxin. Essentially, a diverse group of over forty compounds produced by fungi. Jay knew the standard variation could make people sick enough, but this was the Godzilla variation. It would inhibit protein synthesis, impair DNA synthesis, alter cell membrane structure, eventually ceasing cellular function.

Any person or animal exposed to this toxin would eventually become a leaking bag of bones and soup.

A fucking brutal way to die.

Jay didn’t even try to understand why someone would want to engineer such a weapon, let alone use it.

And at the end of the day, the whys didn’t matter.