Page 18 of The Team (The Milvus Files #3)

TEN

The laboratory was fifteen kilometres into the mountains northwest of Tehran. One road in, one road out. A stark white compound glinting in the afternoon sun, surrounded by nothing but rocky outcrops and electrified razor wire, the chopper covering easy miles.

Azrael’s cool, calm, and collected voice sounded in Rhett’s earpiece. “In position and eyes on target.”

“Roger that,” Rhett replied. “What do you see?”

“Three vans parked to the east; two green, one black. Three guards on foot at the south entrance: one at the gate, two at the main door. MPT9 submachine guns, door looks solid steel.”

Green BMW vans...

“Roger that.” Rhett looked at Sid, and Sid gave a nod.

Rhett could see on his screen what they were walking into. Exactly what Yunho told him. This was the type of intel he was used to. This level of real-time information.

“Reinforced concrete buildings, minimal windows,” Yunho explained through the speaker.

“Surveillance cameras and motion sensors cover every inch of the perimeter. You can see on the blueprints, the basement level has a second security system, airlocks, decontamination chambers with a negative pressure system, and a biometric access point control entry. This is the high-contamination risk zone. Heat signatures show three people on the ground level. Basement has six people: three upright and moving, and a quarantined room with two men, both supine. I would bet those are your two missing agents.”

Rhett had seen the satellite images of his men being dragged into this compound, so he knew they were in there. And he agreed with Yunho. “Affirmative,” Rhett replied.

“Okay, rooftop insertion in twenty seconds,” Yunho said. “They are about to lose power in three, two, one... They will have backup secondary power, and when that kicks in, we will have eyes inside the building.” Yunho paused. “Aaaand we’re in.”

Just like that.

Rhett kept his eyes on the satellite images.

Everything flickered for a second and then he could see the CCTV footage of inside the laboratory.

Rhett could see the three people on the ground level, all looking concerned about the loss of lights and power.

He could see the elevator, the halls, inside the secure rooms downstairs.

He could see Gordian in a lab coat, Askarov in full PPE, and two other men, one in a lab coat, one in overalls, and they were checking monitors, looking up at the lights.

But Rhett wasn’t concerned with them. Because in an isolation room, on two gurneys, were Kowalski and Myles.

Hooked up to machines and god only knows what.

Jesus fucking Christ .

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Rhett asked.

“I am,” Yunho replied. “Do not breach that quarantine room until I can confirm the readings. Do you hear me?”

Rhett grunted a response that was somewhat affirmative. And as the chopper approached the roof, Rhett put his hand to his earpiece. “Azrael, you’re up.”

The three armed guards at the front ran out into the open, looking up and confused by the Iranian military helicopter but yelling into their mics.

Tink , tink , tink .

All three guards fell to the ground, their brain matter now swirls of mist and sand in the downwash.

The chopper’s skids touched down, and Rhett signalled for his teams to go. Giardello’s team would take the back, Rhett’s team the front. They took the service stairs, Rhett shooting the padlock and kicking the wire gate open at the ground level.

“I cannot open the main door for you,” Yunho said.

“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.”

“Don’t touch anything,” Rhett ordered.

Gordian stumbled backwards, blood spray across his face, and Yin quickly stood over him, his rifle trained on him. “Do not move.”

“I don’t know who the buyer is,” he cried, shaking. “Everything came through encrypted servers. Not traceable.”

“Yunho, you hear that?” Rhett asked.

“Everything is traceable,” Yunho said. “We have the files and the networks they used. It won’t take us long to access. You can leave him for the Iranian government to deal with.”

Gordian made a strange, pitiful sound. “No, no,” he wailed, fumbling hands reaching for his inside coat pocket. He produced a black handheld trigger and scrambled for the silver canister on the floor.

Yin and Echo both fired at the same time, and Gordian’s lifeless body slumped to the floor, blood and brain matter pooling from where the top of his head used to be.

“Captain?” Jay called out. He was at the back of the lab, through another door near the quarantine station. It was essentially a glass room inside the lab. “Kowalski and Myles are here.”

“Don’t go in there,” Rhett yelled back. “Yunho, I need clearance for that quarantine room.”

Rhett could hear Yunho tapping away at a keyboard. “There is an advanced filtration system and it’s not showing any airborne pathogens. The air is clean, but your two men aren’t moving, and I cannot guarantee the safety of anyone who goes in there.”

Giardello and two of his men came in, with Chen on his heels. “Perimeter is secure,” Giardello said. He then noticed the very dead men on the floor. “Guess they won’t be selling any bio-shit today?”

“Not unless it’s in the afterlife,” Rhett said. And it was then, he noticed Jay pulling on a hazmat suit. Jesus Christ. “Medic, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“My job,” Jay replied, still pulling the suit on. “Someone’s going in there and it may as well be me.”

Rhett headed toward him. “I don’t think so.”

Jay smiled at him as he zipped up the helmet. “Is that an order, Captain?”

“Does it fucking need to be?” Rhett snapped back at him.

Jay sighed and fixed the filter on his gas mask. “It’s completely sealed and has a self-contained breathing apparatus,” he said. “See? I’ll be fine.”

Rhett growled, and as much as he hated it, he knew someone did have to go in there. And as the team medic, it should be Jay. Didn’t mean he had to like it, though.

“First compartment is a negative pressure airlock,” Yunho said. “Ouston, move everyone else out.”

Rhett hesitated for just one split second. Could he leave Jay? Could he let Jay go in there alone?

“Now,” Yunho snapped.

Echo took Rhett’s arm. “He’ll be fine,” he murmured, leading him out. They closed the door, and Rhett could do nothing but watch.

Watch as Jay opened the door to the airlock. Watch as some kind of ultraviolet light scanned him up and down, and watch as the door to the inside opened.

Jay ran into the first bed. “It’s Myles,” Jay said. “Jesus fucking Christ.” Jay looked up at where Rhett was watching. “ He’s alive... He has blisters, skin lesions. Myles, can you hear me? It’s Medic. We’re here to get you out.”

Rhett couldn’t be sure, but it looked like Myles spoke. Or tried to.

Jay turned to the second bed. “Kowalski... Fucking hell. Kowalski’s in worse shape. We’re gonna need a full medevac.”

“A team is already on their way,” Yunho said.

“Who?” Rhett asked. “Who’s coming?”

“Director King called in MI6 for containment,” Yunho said. “And a specialist medical team from Tehran.”

MI6? And Tehran?

That meant King had bypassed the Milvus council. He’d gone over their heads, outside his jurisdiction, evaded the leak.

“That whole compound is about to be a little busy,” Yunho said. “Your team needs to leave.”

“Roger that,” Rhett replied. “Medic, you need to get out of there.”

“I need to—” Jay tried.

“Agent Lin, fall back now,” Rhett barked.

And Jay knew Rhett meant business.

He gave a nod, said a quick goodbye to Myles and Kowalski, told them help was coming, and he re-entered the airlock. The light scanned him again, the air flushed out, and after the longest two seconds of Rhett’s life, of locking eyes with Jay and waiting, the light turned green and the door opened.

“Breathe,” Yin mumbled, nudging Rhett in the side.

Rhett shot him a look, which he only seemed to find amusing, then he watched Jay strip out of the suit in the decontamination chamber and stand there, arms out, with the goddamn audacity to smile at Rhett through the glass.

“Okay, Captain Ouston,” Yunho said. “Your team needs to leave now. Medical team is on its way for your two men. ETA ten minutes. You cannot take them with you.”

Rhett knew that. But fuck, he didn’t like leaving them...

Goddammit.

Jay put his vest back on, then his helmet, and came to the door.

“How are they?” Sid asked.

Jay’s eyes flinched and he shook his head. “Not good. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Azrael’s at the rendezvous point,” Yunho said, and it was the push Rhett needed.

“Everyone back to the chopper,” he said.

The team all filed through the doors, up the stairs to the admin level. “What about these three?” Giardello asked, pausing where the three admin staff now sat against the wall, their hands zip-tied.

“Leave them,” Rhett ordered. “Not our concern. Keep moving.”

Rhett was the last one up the stairs to the roof, the last one to get into the chopper. As soon as he was in, the door shut and the skids lifted off the roof.

Jay sat beside Rhett, as he always did, and gave him an inconspicuous nudge with his knee. Rhett growled at him. “What you did in there? Yeah. We’re gonna talk about that when we get back.”

Jay laughed, his grin wide. “Can’t wait. ”

Sid groaned out a sigh. “We’ve all got audio, you know.”

Jay laughed, and Chen did too. Even Yin smiled. Rhett resisted sighing and even considered telling everyone to shut the fuck up, just as Yunho said, “You’re being diverted to Tehran where you will rendezvous with Azrael, Velasco, and Director King. From there you will fly back to London.”

“Roger that,” Rhett said, relieved.