Page 23 of Shadow Boxed (Shadow Warriors #2)

Chapter nineteen

Two days after ditching Gracie and Muriel at the base clinic, O’Neill stood in front of the war room’s coffee station and refilled his Styrofoam cup.

Things were about to move fast. He needed to carve out some time before things exploded and explain to Gracie why her self-defense lessons would have to wait.

His coffee cup full, he returned to the war table. Wolf and Aiden sat across from him, heads titled toward the overhead screens, where Capland had pinned their target’s dossier.

“Fuck.” Aiden linked his fingers behind his head and stretched.

“This dude’s nuts. But he hasn’t been violent.

Mostly senseless stuff, like chaining himself to trees, blocking whalers, cutting the fences on big cat reserves.

There’s nothing linking him to the Stone Agers.

He’s wacked sure, but not a mass murder. ”

O’Neill nodded as he stared at the photo Cap had pinned to the screen.

Malcolm Oura who, according to his contact, was the man they were looking for, looked like a medieval monk.

The kind he’d seen in illustrations. Black hair in a bowl cut.

Wide brown eyes with a gleam of crazy around the edges.

Round face. No chin. Thick lips and eyebrows.

Like his eyes, the dude’s smile was a little too wide. ..a little too creepy.

“You sure your contacts are right, and this is our guy?” Aiden glanced at O’Neill and then back up at the screen. “Dude doesn’t look rational enough to pull off the kind of hacking jobs necessary to fund the nanobot weapon.”

O’Neill shrugged. “He’s the name that came up. And my source is rarely wrong.”

Capland’s gaze shifted between Aiden and O’Neill.

Straightening his sliding glass, he shrugged.

“The guy’s mind is sharp enough to collect the funds necessary to purchase a decommissioned cruise ship, which he christened the Harbinger, which fits his agenda, if you ask me.

True, it’s a small cruise ship, but even small ones cost over a million.

Plus, there was the expense of refitting it.

You don’t get that kind of money unless you can function mentally. ”

Aiden nodded thoughtfully, his gaze narrowing on their target’s face. “True.”

“Plus, there’s all his security.” That more than anything convinced O’Neill they were targeting the right guy. “He’s got a dozen mercenaries guarding that ship. Why? He’s protecting something.”

“Mercenaries are not cheap,” Cap murmured. “He must have plenty of cash on hand to fund his hobby.”

Hobby… now that was quite the euphemism. Mass murder on a scale never seen before, billed as a hobby.

“The Harbinger will be a bitch to assault with those mercenaries walking around on top,” Aiden said, his voice thoughtful.

His dark gaze narrowed in though. “You boys got a Chinook? One with a ramp? If we bring a Zodiac, we can drop it and assault from the water. We’ll have to scale the side of the bastard’s floating palace, but that’s doable. ”

True. Although that didn’t stop O’Neill from wading in with a rash of shit. “Afraid of a little rope burn, are you? Aren’t you squids supposed to be the great white sharks of water assaults? Lethal on both sea and land. Hell, it’s even spelled out in your acronym. SEAL—sea, air, and land.”

“Absolutely,” Aiden drawled without looking up. “But we work in teams—with other squids—not out of shape, non-tactical, intelligence officers.” He glanced up, his dark eyes gleaming with mockery. “Guess we’re lucky we have four former squids on hand to back me up.”

O’Neill scoffed. “Mackenzie and his boys? They haven’t inserted from the water in years. Hell, they’ve probably forgotten how to swim.”

“I have scouts are watching the craft. They will identify shift changes and the guards’ assignments.” Wolf broke in with his habitual mildness.

“I’ll put my drone expert on the ship too.

But we can’t wait long for intel,” O’Neill reminded the room.

“We need to snatch it before the bastard detonates the weapon.” He took another sip of his coffee and frowned.

“If it’s on that ship, we need to retrieve it—even if that means we go in blind. We might not get another chance.”

“I hate to agree with the bastard, but O’Neill’s right.

” Aiden ran a tense hand over his head. “This nut job is out to kill every person on earth. And he’s got the perfect dispersal system in his backyard.

He’s moored that floating palace of his in near Sausalito, within spitting distance of San Francisco International Airport.

If he releases the weapon at the airport.

He’s got a good chance of infecting people headed to every corner of the earth.

The bot plague would sweep the globe, eventually infecting everyone. ”

O’Neill nodded. “Which makes SFO his likely target.”

Aiden’s scowl deepened. “If that’s the plan, the flights will be a shit show.

Most flights, both international and domestic, are long enough to allow the bots to seize control of their host’s brain while the plane is still in the air.

Whoever opens those doors on landing will walk into a nightmare. ”

O’Neill grunted, his gaze returning to the overhead screens.

“The hosts’ deaths won’t prevent the plague from spreading, either.

Unless the airlines shutter their infected aircraft and refuse access to anyone—including investigators and emergency services—the bots will infect everyone who steps aboard those planes.

Aiden’s team proved gloves and boots won’t stop the infection.

Hell, standard PPP won’t stop it either.

Anyone who accesses those planes are doomed. ”

Aiden’s sigh sounded tired, although he looked stronger today. Nor was he sucking back the coffee like he needed a mental miracle.

“How often have you seen corporations toss aside multi-million-dollar assets for the greater good?” Aiden asked, an edge to his voice.

Dude had a point. O’Neill’s shoulders tightened as tension rose. “Which is why we need to lock down that weapon now, before Oura deploys it.”

“Assuming your contacts are correct and Oura is the Stone Ager who has it,” Aiden snapped.

“This is the name the Taounaha gave you,” Wolf said, as if the reminder settled the matter. “He is the only name we have.”

“As well as the name my contact gave me.” O’Neill paused, before adding with certainty, “Oura’s our guy.”

The Shadow Warrior’s pivot around Aiden’s stubbornness was brilliant. But then, the elder gods had just as much at stake as the Hee'woo'nee. It was their creations which were in the crosshairs of extinction.

Wolf offered one clipped, stoic nod before turning to Capland. “Convene the aggress teams. We will meet and discuss strategies.”

O’Neill rose from his chair. It would take a minute to set the meeting up. He should have enough time to talk to Muriel.

But then Wolf raised his voice. “There is one other matter. Has Gracie’s spirit gift manifested itself yet?”

Capland’s head and eyebrows shot up. His gaze drifted from Wolf to O’Neill. Aiden, on the other hand, didn’t look like he was paying attention to the question at all.

O’Neill sat back down. “No. Has your le'ven'a? ”

With a shake of his head Wolf turned to his Javaanee. “Did the Taounaha walk your dreams last night?”

“He did.” Aiden lounged back in his chair and smirked. “And it’s clear I was right all along. My dreams are my subconscious at work, not your mystical gods.”

“What am I missing?” O’Neill glanced between the brothers, while Capland pretended to be engrossed in the contents of his laptop.

Winchester’s smirk deepened. “Big bro told me to ask your dead shaman a question. A question my subconscious couldn’t answer. A test of sorts.”

“There was no test.” Wolf’s voice carried infinite patience, like he was arguing with a crabby anvaa. “Did he visit you again?”

With a shrug, Aiden pushed his chair from side to side. “He did. But he didn’t know the answer to your question. Said he’d seek wisdom from the elder gods.” A long pause, before he added dryly. “Which makes sense, as my subconscious has no way of knowing the answer to your question either.”

“What did you ask the Taounaha?” O’Neill suspected he already knew.

“I asked your dead Shaman, as my brother requested, why your women folk are being given warrior animals and what they’re supposed to do with them.”

Bingo. If only the Old One had had an answer for them. O’Neill stood, then hesitated, finally turning back to Wolf. “How’s Samuel?”

Rumor had it the warrior had awoken, but with a fractured mind.

“He is awake. But…there are…complications.

O’Neill figured as much. Until two days ago, he’d been able to find the warrior on the neural net.

Even grievously injured, Samuel’s neural pathway had shone.

O’Neill could find it, sense it, trace its faint hum.

And then it had suddenly just...vanished.

He’d think the warrior had died if he hadn’t woken up.

“Is he still linked to the Neealaho ?”

“He is.” A lost expression spread across Wolf’s normally stoic face. “But the link is...inactive.”

O’Neill digested that. “Is it because of his amnesia? Has he forgotten the connection to the Neealaho ?”

Wolf shook his head. “This is unknown. There has never been a fractured mind tied to the Neealaho .”

“Perhaps the link will return once he remembers himself,” O’Neill offered, attempting support and optimism. Which was totally fucked. Those two characteristics were not in his wheelhouse.

Muriel must be hurting too. No doubt she was at the clinic, trying to jog her twin’s memory, while supporting Olivia. Although it wasn’t the best timing, now might be the only chance he’d have to talk to her. Soon, he would be buried in attack plans, mission prep, and the assault itself.

Decision made, he headed for the door. “I’ll be at the clinic if you need me.”

Wolf said nothing, just sat there...silently...looking weary and unsettled, like the weight of the world hung from his shoulders.