“And then what?”
“And then we use your heroic actions to move your case to the President’s desk.”
“That’s a lot of wishful thinking.”
“True, but if it works, you’re looking at getting your life back.”
I took it all in. If it worked, it would be a fucking miracle. If it didn’t, I could end up in prison. But he was right, it was better to fight for something than nothing.
“I still don’t understand one thing. Why are you helping me?”
“Because I saw something in you that first time I met you.” He shook his head, his chest heaving as he sighed heavily. “I guess you reminded me of myself. You were out there doing what you had to to survive. And when Cap brought you back here and had me work with you, I saw the fighter that was on the offensive, ready to take me down if it meant that you could survive. You and I are a lot alike-”
“We’re nothing alike,” I corrected.
He smirked at that. “If you had been there with your MIT team, you never would have gone along with the choices they made, because whether or not that terrorist got what he deserved, you have a compass that guides you on right and wrong, and what your team did was fucking wrong. Guys like you and me joined the military for a cause greater than ourselves. There was a line that we said we weren’t going to cross, and I think both of us believed that at one point.”
“And then you went and became an assassin.”
“Well,” he shrugged, “I never said I was perfect. My ideals changed when I saw my friends getting murdered.”
“And you think I fall in line with you now?”
“I think that what happened to you changed you, and now you just want some fucking justice, and you want your life back. Like it or not, I was after the same fucking thing.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Blake
“Who are we waiting on?” I asked as I sat around the conference room table with Knight, Hunter, Cap, and Parker. We were all here, yet nothing was happening.
“Sorry!” the woman from the other day rushed in. She looked super energetic for so early in the morning. “I was up all night going over stuff and it was a lot of boring crap, followed by some really weird crap, followed up with a shit ton of just crap, but then I came across some really interesting crap, but before I could sort through all the crap, I had to get like ten cups of coffee so that I could focus.”
She took a deep breath and sighed, smiling at all of us.
“But, you did bring the crap, right?” Knight asked.
“Of course. When have I ever let you down? Wait, don’t answer that,” she said quickly, walking over to a computer where she quickly started typing. A screen on the wall lit up and suddenly I was looking at everything she was doing on her computer.
“Becky,” Cap said, getting no response from the woman. “Becky,” he tried again.
“One second,” she said, holding up her finger as she continued typing with her other. “Okay, now, first of all, there is a shit ton of stuff going on at that facility, most of which I’m not sure is even legal. However, it is a research lab, so I’m not really sure on all the legalities involved. Anyway, I searched through all the files they had on their systems, and you should really be paying me a lot more for the work I just did for you.”
“We’re not paying you anything,” Cap said, almost in confusion. “You stopped working for us.”
“Well, I suggest you rectify that then.”
“What did you find?” Knight asked irritatedly.
“Geez, give a girl a break. I just spent days on end sifting through all this medical jargon. The least you could do is get me another coffee.”
“You don’t need another coffee,” Cap said, pointing to her slightly shaking hands.
“Says you, but my mind is only going at half speed right now, while my body is running a marathon. I need some balance.”
“Can we get back to what you found?” Hunter asked. “Lucy promised to have breakfast for me when I got home.”
Knight snorted out a laugh. “When was the last time that Lucy ever made breakfast for you?”
“It’s happened,” Hunter said defensively.
“Guys!” Parker shouted. “Can we please get back to what Becky found?”
“Thank you,” Becky said with a smile. “Alright, so, I’m not going to bore you with what I didn’t find, but I will tell you what’s missing. First of all, they’re a research facility and one of the things they research are viruses, diseases, infections…Basically anything that could be transmitted, they study it. They have lists of all diseases that coincide with what the CDC has on record, and they have lists of vaccines, safety protocols, etc that they are working on in conjunction with the CDC and the WHO. However, in their list of all of these things, I saw one file that didn’t match any records anywhere. I searched through histories of diseases and scoured the internet of any mention of whatever this is, but I’ve found nothing.”
“What is it?” I asked, confused by what she was saying.
“That’s just it. I have no idea. It’s listed as SNC-8374. Now, when they name a virus or disease, it’s usually in relation to a time, a place, or the name of the infection. This doesn’t seem to be anything but random numbers and letters, so I can’t reference anything that’s going on anywhere. I’ve searched every letter and number combination that uses those, but nothing pops up. It’s as if someone just stuck this random thing in with
