Page 49 of The Team

“Roger that,” Rhett replied. “Sid, you’re up.”

Within thirty seconds, Sid had a charge laid. “Set. Ready when you say, Captain.”

When everyone was braced against the wall away from the door, Rhett gave the order. “Blow it.”

The boom was loud, dust billowed, and someone inside screamed. Chen and Coyote were first in, then Rhett and Yin. Inside was a flurry of papers and smoke, and Chen and Coyote soon had the three admin staff cornered on the floor with their hands on their heads.

Rhett led the way to the stairs and kicked the lock hard enough the door swung inwards.

“You’re all clear,” Yunho said in his ear.

He made short work of the stairwell, knowing Yin,Echo, and Jay were one step behind him. He came out to an empty hallway and a locked set of doors.

“Secondary security system is down,” Yunho said.

Rhett could see the access panel was green. He opened the door, as easy as pushing the handle. “Where have you been all my life?” he murmured.

“Hey, I heard that,” Jay replied.

“You have some activity on the other side of the next door,” Yunho said.

Rhett raised his weapon and kicked the door in. The lab was exactly as he’d seen on the CCTV, but the two other lab techs were running. One frantically tapping at a keyboard, the other ran over to a wall panel, aiming for a red alarm button.

Rhett shot him in the head, and Yin took care of the guy at the keyboard. Gordian had his hands up, looking around wildly, panicked. Askarov came out of a containment, holding a small silver canister. “Don’t shoot,” he said. “My finger comes off this trigger and you all die.”

Yin moved to Rhett’s flank, Echo came up on his other side, both with their weapons aimed at Gordian and Askarov.

“Put the canister down,” Rhett ordered.

He shook his head, frantic. “You don’t understand.”

“He took your mother,” Rhett said flatly. He nodded to Gordian. “This piece of shit. He’s making you do this.”

Askarov was sweating and panicking, and he let out a manic bark of laughter. “You know nothing,” he spat. “My mother is dead. She did not understand our vision, the importance of our work. Albania and Azerbaijan must never secede to the west.”

Rhett realised then that Gordian wasn’t the mastermind.It was Askerov. And of course it was all for some political ideology.

It always fucking was.

Rhett looked at Gordian. “You’re just the buyer? Who do you work for? Who are you selling to?”

Gordian was an odd puce colour. He shook his head. “They’ll kill me.”

“I’ll fucking kill you first,” Rhett replied. Then he spoke into his comms. “Yunho, do you need any fingerprint or retina access for any of their files?”

Askarov’s eyes went wide. “You cannot stop us!”

“No. I have them all,” Yunho said. “Accessing everything right now. We don’t need them.”

Askarov waved the canister in front of him. “You do need us!”

“We don’t need you for shit,” Rhett said, then put a bullet through Askarov’s mask, right between his eyes. He fell backward, the silver canister rolling a few inches away.

“Jesus, Captain,” Echo hissed, grabbing Rhett to haul him away from the threat.

“He was bluffing,” he said. “Those cannisters are the same as the ones in the other lab. They don’t have a trigger.”

Yin sidled over and nudged the silver canister with his foot. “He’s right. No trigger.” Then Yin looked inside the room containment vault Askerov had come out of and, using his boot, pushed the door further open so Rhett could see inside. It looked like a huge walk-in refrigerator to Rhett. “There’s a lot more of those in here. Bigger ones. Test tubes, vials.”