Lynx On The Loose(10)
“This is better than me swarming down on this camp with dozens of cops, isn’t it?” he snapped.
“Yes. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I genuinely want to get a chance to talk to you, and I am really hoping that you’ll finally come to your senses. Just tell me what the hell you’ve done, and why. Why were you meeting with humans? Why did you give them samples that you stole from the clinic? Come on Isadora, I’m begging you.”
“I must say I like the sound of that,” Isadora said as they slogged through the woods.
He couldn’t help but smile, and he tried not to inhale her feminine scent, with a hint of cinnamon mixed in with her female musk.
“Really. This is me, Dash Battle, asking nicely. When does that ever happen?”
“Under other circumstances, I’d love the fact that you’re begging me. And I might even give you what you were begging for – if it were anything but this,” she said. “But I can’t. I’ve got to go now.” She made a sudden gesture with the handcuffs – and then looked surprised and angry when they didn’t fall off.
He permitted himself a smug smile. “Oh, did I forget to tell you? I have specially designed handcuffs made just for you. Pick-proof. Come on, Isadora, I’m not an idiot. You would have shook those handcuffs off just now, shifted, and shot straight up that tree.”
“Fuck you.” She scowled for a minute as he hurried her along, but finally a tiny smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “All right, I’ll give you props for thinking outside of the box, for once.”
“Ouch.” He pretended to clutch at his heart. “That really hurt, Isadora. Come on, I had handcuffs specially designed for you. That’s got to count for something.”
She actually laughed out loud. “Are you flirting with me, Dash? This is a whole new side to you.”
He sighed. It was, wasn’t it? Under other circumstances, this could be the hottest thing he’d ever experienced.
But it was time to get serious.
He stopped and fished his phone out of his pocket with his free hand. “Last chance. Isadora, please tell me what’s up or you give me no choice. I came here with a group of Wardens. I’ll have to call Warden Kerrigan. Cody’s here with us, he’ll compel you to talk.”
She shrugged. “Call, already.”
He sighed, and dialed the number. “It’s Dash,” he said. He described where he was. “I’ve got Isadora.”
“We’ll meet up back by the cars, then,” Kerrigan said. “It’s going to take a little while; we’d headed off in the opposite direction.”
“No hurry. She’s not going anywhere,” Dash said.
Isadora stuck her tongue out at him.
Really? Even now, she couldn’t be serious for one minute?
“Warden Redthorne wants you to call him,” Kerrigan said.
He hung up and called Warden Redthorne as he and Isadora walked.
“I’ve got Isadora. I’m heading back to meet up with the other Wardens, so we’ll have answers soon,” he said.
“Good job! I knew I did the right thing by sending you after her. I’ve got to tell you, I was a little concerned that you might be sweet on her, but you came through for us,” Warden Redthorne said.
“She can hear everything you’re saying,” Dash said. Isadora was quietly snickering. “I’m not against a little police brutality when it’s called for,” he told her, shoving her with his shoulder.
“Ooh, baby. Don’t stop,” she said loudly.
“That lynx won’t be laughing when I get my claws on her,” Warden Redthorne said. “And by the way, the Timber Valley Medical clinic just informed us that one of their nurses has disappeared.”
“Kidnapped?” Dash said, alarmed.
“No. The day after Isadora broke in, the nurse apparently said that she was going on vacation. The clinic owner happened to mention it to me in passing. As soon as he told me that, we started doing some checking. We went to her house; she’d cleared out. Turns out she goes on vacation a couple of times a year, and when we checked with shifter authorities on the Caribbean island she’s been visiting, it’s clear that those vacations were way too expensive for the salary that she earns.”
“She’s in the wind then,” Dash said.
“Yes. We have an APB out on her the same as we did on Isadora. We’re working on trying to find any secret bank accounts she might have. We’re also trying to figure out what she was up to.”
Isadora was pretending not to listen, but she was clearly eavesdropping.
Dash shot her a reproving look. “Thanks for the update. I’ll call you to discuss it in more depth after I turn over the prisoner.”
“Hey, can we start with the police brutality now?” Isadora asked hopefully, as he hung up the phone.
Chapter Seven
Colonel Bradwell looked out the window of the cabin, twitching with impatience. He couldn’t wait to get out of the country so he could stop looking over his shoulder. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a month. Every sound he heard outside the remote cabin made him jump out of his skin, sure that the shifters had finally found him.
He’d hoped that if he laid low and kept his head down long enough, the shifters would start to lose interest and the hunt for him would die down. However, his source had kept him informed on what was happening, and that was not the case.
He wasn’t giving in to despair. He’d come too far, and the prize was too tempting.
Once he’d succeeded in developing a formula that would change humans to animals, he’d have the world in the palm of his hand. Everybody would come to him. He’d be the only source. He could turn humans into ultimate weapons.
Damn it, it had been done once. It had worked, and he’d seen the proof. Those idiot scientists he’d hired hadn’t been able to reproduce it yet; he wasn’t sorry they’d been wiped out. He’d been on the verge of terminating them all with extreme prejudice and starting over anyway.
Soon, he promised himself. He’d have another lab, in a country where the laws were laxer than in the U.S. They’d capture more shifters. They’d start over. They’d managed to save a lot of their research; it wouldn’t be like starting from scratch.
Right now, though, he was on edge, nervously checking out the window all the time and jumping at every noise.
He had half his men here with him. He wished that he could hire more men, but he didn’t dare trust anyone new at this point. From what he’d been told about the raid on the lab, two of the newer mercenaries that he’d hired had betrayed him, shot his own men, and helped the shifters break out. He had a pretty good idea how they’d gotten the fake credentials that led to their hire.
Nicholas Almassy.
He blamed Zador for this. The stupid bastard. Unfortunately, he still needed Zador if he wanted to be able to continue to work with the arms brokers – for now, anyway.
Zador should have warned him about Almassy. How much he hated Zador, how he’d never stop hunting him, which meant that everyone associated with Zador was in Almassy’s crosshairs as well.
It was all right. Once Zador had developed the formula, Bradwell wouldn’t need him any more.
A sound outside the cabin made him start. A wolf’s howl. It was long and high and eerie, twisting up through the air.
Bradwell tensed and glanced at Alan Robinson, one of his mercenaries. Alan met his gaze, chewing on his lower lip. They were both thinking the same thing.
Shifter, or just a wolf? It was impossible to tell.
He cursed his luck. He’d fled his home and was hiding in this remote cabin in Idaho for two reasons. Firstly, it came with its own private landing strip, and secondly, because it was too dangerous for him to stay in any city, even under a fake ID. The advantage of being here was that there were no prying eyes out here, nobody to stumble on him accidentally, but the disadvantage was that the woods were crawling with wildlife. It meant that he never knew if the animal sounds that tormented him came from a human or a shifter. It was still possible that they could find him out here. The shifters had turned out to have access to technology and tracking skills that he never could have dreamed off.
He still had a couple of spies in the shifter community, and as far as he knew the shifters still didn’t know where he was staying.
He was paying his shifter spies massive bribes to keep the information stream flowing to him. Once the lab had been raided and he’d been forced to go on the run, they’d jacked their price up outrageously. It infuriated him. Some day, he would have them killed, but for now he needed them.
Another howl drifted through the air, long and drawn out. He groped at the AK-47 that lay on the table near him, clutching it for reassurance.
“I doubt it’s a shifter,” Alan said. “They’d have attacked us already…wouldn’t they?”
“Maybe not,” Colonel Bradwell said, panic swelling in his throat. “Maybe they’re gathering their forces.”
Alan swallowed hard, his face pale. He wasn’t a coward, but the prospect of going up against dozens or hundreds of enraged shifters was enough to frighten even the most stalwart soldier.
He grabbed his walkie talkie. “Delta Echo 3, this is C1, are you hearing that wolf howl?” he radioed, talking to one of the men they had stationed outside.