Page 61 of Shadow Boxed (Shadow Warriors #2)

Chapter forty-nine

“I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nantz said as soon as the door opened, and Wolf and Aiden entered the interrogation chamber. Their captive’s words were slurred, courtesy of his split lips and swollen mouth.

Bootsteps rang out, echoing between the stone walls and floor as Wolf and his javaanee advanced farther into the room. Beneath the bare lightbulb burning overhead, Wolf clearly saw fear flickering across their captive’s bruised face.

“Where’s Leonard? I want to see him immediately.” Nantz was trying for an authoritative tone, but fear glazed his eyes above his bruised and puffy cheeks. Nantz squirmed, tugging at his wrists, which were cuffed to the armrests of his chair.

“Embray isn’t who you should be worried about,” Aiden said, his voice even icier than his face.

His javaanee stalked up to their captive, who recoiled into his chair. Circling him, Aiden grabbed the back of his chair and yanked it onto its back legs, then dragged it into the middle of the chamber before letting go. The chair rocked for a moment, almost tipping over before stabilizing again.

The shriek of wood against stone bounced from wall to wall. There was no reason for his javaanee to manhandle their prisoner, other than proving who had power in this room—and by extension, who didn’t.

A shabby, rectangular table crouched in the middle of the chamber, surrounded by four chairs.

Wolf grabbed one of the chairs, spun it around until it faced their captive, and straddled it.

He braced his forearms along the top rail and silently studied their captive.

Despite Nantz’s bravado, Wolf could clearly sense the woohanta ’s nerves.

See the fear flickering across his puffy face.

The bruises were vivid beneath the hanging light.

So was the blood splattering the expensive fabric of his soiled suit.

“Do you realize what you’ve done? Who you’ve kidnapped?” Nantz stammered. His fingers were white from the death grip he had on the armrests. “I’m on a first name basis with the president. I can pick up the phone right now and get patched through—instantly—to anyone in the Pentagon.”

“No shit?” Aiden followed Wolf’s lead and dragged one of the chairs back from the table, then straddled it. “Too bad none of your Pentagon pals know where you are.” The smile he directed at Nantz was predatory.

Nantz flinched, then stiffened, his gaze skittering away.

“Your answers to our questions were...disappointing,” Wolf announced mildly. “We’ve given you time to...consider your predicament. Now you will tell us what we want to know. This can be done easily, or—” his gaze lingered on their prisoner’s bruised face “—not so easily.”

The three-day grace period they’d afforded their captive hadn’t been due to Wolf’s generosity, but rather Doctor Brickenhouse’s cautious nature.

Brickenhouse had worried that the drugs they’d injected into Nantz in London would react negatively to the interrogation treatment.

He’d recommended waiting seventy-two hours to allow the first two drugs to clear their prisoner’s system.

They’d debated waiting. Shadow knew the woohanta wasn’t talking, even with Aiden’s physical encouragement.

And their captive’s knowledge was crucial to counter the wanatesa weapon.

Wolf was inclined to ignore the doctor’s recommendation and use the drug anyway.

At least until Brickenhouse reiterated that they were risking a stroke, or even death, if the drugs reacted adversely.

Which would prevent Nantz from ever answering their questions.

A three-day delay was better than permanent silence.

Particularly with the inaccessibility of Nantz’s hard drive.

Wolf had recalled Capland early when Tomas couldn’t break into Nantz’s files.

Hopefully, their captive’s hard drive wouldn’t prove as difficult for Cap, who’d returned to Talkeetna on Embray’s Citation the day before. Wolf had sent the bell to pick him up.

“You can relax. I won’t try to knock the answers lose this time,” Aiden taunted. “We got a nifty little drug we can use on you now that you’re past the three-day window. Fifteen minutes from now you’ll be singing like a canary.”

Nantz sat up straighter, his shoulders rigid. “I already told you. I had nothing to do with what happened in Karaveht.” His swollen face turned toward Aiden. “Or to your SEAL team. I swear. You have the wrong guy.”

The door creaked open, this time admitting Brickenhouse, who had a stethoscope hanging around his neck.

The wheels of the cart he pushed into the room rattled with each rotation while the glass vials in the top tray clinked.

Brickenhouse rolled the cart up to Nantz’s chair and stooped to remove a blood pressure cuff from the cart’s middle tray.

As the doctor wrapped the blood pressure cuff around Nantz’s bicep, Wolf’s cell phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket. Capland blazed across the screen.

He punched the green talk button. “Cap?”

Capland didn’t bother with a greeting. Just started talking in a tight voice. “You need to get down here. Now.”

Wolf’s eyebrows lifted. While Capland was often intense, he was never demanding. Never wired. Both of which were in his voice now. His gaze wandered to their captive. Brickenhouse was removing the blood pressure cuff.

“I cannot leave. Our captive is about to tell us everything,” Wolf said mildly.

“The interrogation can wait. This can’t. You need to see what I found on his hard drive.” Cap’s voice was tight enough to give Wolf pause.

“You accessed it?”

“I did. And we’ve got a problem. A big one.” Cap’s voice was clipped. “You’d need to see this. ASAP.”

The tension in Capland’s voice brought Wolf out of his chair. Cap was never tense. Indeed, he was almost robotic, immune to anxiety and fear. His closed nature was part of what made him such a good warrior. This reaction was new. And worrisome.

He turned to Brickenhouse, who was reaching for a vial on the top shelf of the cart. But before the doctor picked up the vial, his hand hesitated and then retreated.

“ Betanee. I need to speak with you.” His head turned to the door and his long silver braid swayed against his lean back. “Outside.”

Wolf studied the physician’s troubled eyes. “When I return. Hold off on the drug for now.”

Nantz relaxed at the order. Aiden scowled.

“What the fuck bro?” Aiden snapped, following Wolf to the door.

Wolf paused with his fingers touching the doorknob. “Cap found something on Nantz’s hard drive. Says we need to see it. ASAP.”

Aiden scoffed. “And that’s more important than finally getting our answers from this asshole?” He thrust his thumb over his shoulder.

“Apparently....” Wolf turned to glance at his javaanee over his shoulder.

Scowling, Aiden shoved his fingers through his hair, leaving it spiky, a silent expression of frustration. He turned to glare at Nantz, who was looking tenser than ever. “Don’t get too comfortable. We’ll be back.”

“Did Capland say what he found?” Aiden asked, following Wolf out the door.

“He did not.” Wolf’s gaze touched on the warriors to the right and left of the door. “Guard Brickenhouse. If the prisoner requests to relieve himself, double the guard.”

Capland’s computer lab was down the hallway from the war room, which was across headquarters from the interrogation chambers.

Intelligence reports were part of mission briefs, which required Cap’s presence.

Having the computer/intelligence specialist close to the war room simplified matters.

However, the distance between interrogation and Capland’s lab made for a five-minute hike.

Wolf hadn’t spent much time in Capland’s domain.

Unlike Samuel, a technological mind was not among his gifts.

Since Samuel understood computer interfaces and programmer lingo, his Caetanee had always deciphered the tech department’s jargon.

Then passed the information on to Wolf in the most basic of terms.

The memory launched a wave of loss. His Caetanee’s absence, both physical and mental, gnawed at him. He doubted he’d ever grow accustomed to the empty spaces Samuel had occupied.

Wolf paused in the entrance to the computer lab, surveying the orderly shelves and tables strewn about the room.

The tables held an assortment of computer equipment: monitors, terminals, the occasional laptop.

More monitors and terminals filled the steel shelves that ringed the walls.

Power cords hung from brackets on the shelving.

Everything was organized, neatly labeled, and easy to get to.

“Over here.” Capland looked up from where he sat hunched over a laptop on a stainless-steel table. As Wolf and Aiden approached, he rolled his chair back and to the side.

“I found this among Nantz’s files when I broke into the drive.” Cap’s face was tight as he nudged the laptop around until it faced Wolf, and by extension, Aiden. “This file accesses a live camera feed. But there are hours upon hours of recorded footage in other files.”

Wolf leaned in for a closer look. The window showed a bunch of people amid the bright chrome of a lab.

He looked from person to person on the screen.

A couple of them were clothed. But most of them were not.

He leaned in even closer, staring at one woman—her head, from ear to neck, was missing. Yet....she was standing.

His breath left him in a hiss. Not people then. The naked ones at least were among the dead, yet undead. He tapped the image of the woman with the missing chunks in her head. “Can you zoom in on this one?”

The image enlarged. White spiderwebbing crisscrossed through the missing sections of her skull. It looked like the same strange substance knitting together the dead SEALs in the isolation chamber.

The unclothed in this room were obviously dead and reanimated, like Shadow Mountain’s guests in isolation.