‘Yes, Major!’ Both Kaal and Ferreira snapped to attention and saluted with exquisite precision.
‘Good!’ She gave both men one final glare, promising them that retribution for their crazy stunt, however informal, was indeed only postponed, before turning to leave.
‘Ma’am?’ Kaal stopped her. ‘You aren’t really Major Aisha Toscano, are you?’ he said, emboldened by her easy-going and hands-on approach. No Elite he had ever met would have let him just walk away after what he had just done. Nor could any Elite have ever heard what he used to say to his men and women during the Wars when they were getting ready to fly a mission.
Ingram smiled. ‘This BCC’—she lifted her right arm—‘says something else, but trust me, what it should say is Major Aisha Toscano.’
CHAPTER 56
Olympus R&D Compound
60 km south-west of Turin
Afro-European Alliance
Thursday 30 April 2725
DAY 11
‘Major, what are you planning to do?’ Gonzalez demanded. He had accepted her decision to trust Kaal and his men with few qualms. What he did not approve of was what she seemed to be planning to do next.
‘Justice,’ the woman replied, kicking open the door to the interrogation room she had vacated a couple of hours ago. She made a beeline for the tray of nano-drugs and began assembling a cocktail.
‘Major, stop!’ Gonzalez could clearly see what she was doing and he didn’t like what it meant.
‘No, Colonel. Not this time!’ she shouted. ‘The Leeches are safe. You have all of Cassandra’s database copied and Tilly has already found more than we could have hoped for. I’m not leaving until I take care of Wagner personally. Not again.’
‘Aisha, I’m not saying you have to leave him alive. Fine, go, shoot him! Hell, use PX-47 if you want to. He’s still unconscious.’
‘Not good enough!’ Ingram growled. The PX-47 syringe she had readied before didn’t seem good enough, not after what she had seen in the basements. She finished loading a syringe and stabbed her arm.
‘Dammit, I said no! Put the syringes down! I’m ordering you to—’
‘With all due respect, sir, I can’t.’ Her hand moved and she winced as the second cocktail hit her bloodstream. It took barely a second for the two mixtures to react. Instantly, her energy was back, and so was her mental clarity. She felt glorious, her chemically enhanced body oblivious to blood loss and exhaustion.
‘Do not talk about respect while you are actively disobeying me, Toscano. Stop what you are doing.’ They both knew what the third and final syringe would contain, and what effects that would have. More importantly, with her pre-existing sensitivity to drugs, it would come with nasty consequences the moment they started to wear off, putting her already taxed body at risk. If she lived that long.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Ingram replied. She hesitated, but only for a heartbeat, before injecting a massive dose of nano-analgesics. It basically switched off her ability to feel any pain. Normally, that amount of analgesia would knock anyone out, but not when mixed with the stims she had just taken. With the powerful cocktail in her blood, she could move unimpeded, literally rip the barely clotted scab and the fine healing nano-mesh to shreds and bleed to death without feeling a thing. ‘I would die following your orders, sir, if it was anything else. But not this time. I’m going to kill him, and I’m going to do it with my bare hands. Just like I promised.’
She reached to reload the syringe with a powerful stim that would wake Wagner up. It would take mere minutes for the antidote to neutralise the effects of the knockout gas, and then she would be able to deliver justice.
‘Moretti, lock the door,’ Gonzalez ordered.
Ingram paused halfway across the room. She had no intention of ripping her wound open fighting with the heavy door. She had to save herself to deal with Wagner.
‘Sir, please!’ She wasn’t used to begging, but at that moment nothing mattered. Nothing but revenge.
‘I’m sorry, Colonel, but I can’t,’ Eloise said, and the door swung fully open. ‘He deserves to die.’ Her voice was still tired, but the heavy breathing and weakness were gone, as if the woman herself was running on powerful nano-stims, which she most definitely was. There was also more passionate determination in her voice than Ingram had ever given Eloise credit for.
‘Close the door,’ Gonzalez demanded, his voice cold and stern.
Ingram held her breath. She could dive through the door—she was that close—now that it was fully open, but something in that demanding tone made even her hesitate.
‘No,’ Eloise replied simply. ‘Major, I have opened all doors between the interrogation room and the communication centre one floor up where Wagner is. Go out into the corridor and turn left. The staircase is at the end of the corridor.’
‘Thank you, Ms Moretti,’ Ingram said, setting off at a fast-paced walk. The silence from Gonzalez was pointed, and it weighed heavily on her, but she fought to remain focused.
Wagner was a dead man. For Megan. For the 4th. For the Leeches who had died in Cassandra’s clutches. For all the Leeches who had been unfortunate enough to ever cross his path. Yes, putting a laser to his head while he was unconscious would be simple and easy, but she had promised him his death wouldn’t be easy. Ingram wasn’t a cold-blooded killer, but in this particular moment she was content to make an exception.
‘Turn right. Then another right. Second door on the left.’ Eloise’s voice guided her.
‘Roger,’ Ingram confirmed.
At first, she couldn’t see Wagner. When the knockout gas had mixed with the air the man had been standing facing a holo-display covering a wall. The display was perfect, still showing the imitation of an idyllic forest
