Red Zone (Red Zone 1)

Future.

She wasn’t sure she had one.

The lift stopped, and the doors opened, letting them out into a nondescript corridor that was badly in need of a makeover. It was hard to tell the pattern on the faded wallpaper, and the carpet had worn bare in places. She followed Striker through the emergency door at the end of the corridor and up the concrete stairs to the roof. There was a one-way lock on the roof exit, and he made sure to prop the door open, lest it slam shut behind them and trap them on the roof. Together, silently, they crossed the flat expanse to look down into the street.

Striker stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders as they looked out over La Paz. It took a minute for her to understand what she was seeing. The explosion must have been huge, as several buildings were damaged. But the one in the center of the devastation, the one where the explosion occurred, was entirely gone. There was nothing but a pile of smoldering rubble where it once stood.

It wasn’t until she felt hands tighten on her shoulders that she forced herself to compare the scene before her to the map of the area she’d memorized in the car. Her knees went weak when she realized which building had been destroyed.

The clinic was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The penthouse, New Amsterdam Hotel

New York City, Northern Territory

“I’m telling you,” Serge Abramovich said as he helped himself to some top-shelf Scotch. “Miriam knows we interfered. She knows we sent a team after the scientist.”

“She knows nothing.” Sandrine crossed her legs as she sat back in the corner of the sofa. Serge was wearisome. His lack of courage grated on her.

“You should have let me pick the team who went after the scientist. Yours obviously didn’t know what they were doing.” He sprawled in the armchair facing her, every inch of him screaming “entitled rich boy.”

“There was nothing wrong with my team.” She wasn’t entirely sure what had gone wrong—seeing as none of her men had made

it back to tell her. “Miriam’s team didn’t succeed, either. Last I heard, the scientist is still alive and on the run.”

Serge chuckled. “You haven’t heard the latest then.” He pointed at her with the glass, making the whiskey slosh about. “Friday Jones took Interferan-X. She’s hours from death and trying to get to the only clinic in South America that stocks the antidote. The thing is, Miriam beat her to it. She sent her pet ghoul to blow the building. The girl is dead. One way or another. The plan failed.”

Sandrine raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow. Now that information changed things. She wished she’d had it before she’d gone to the expense of sending a retrieval team after the scientist. The chances of anyone picking up the woman before she succumbed to the poison were minute. A wasted effort.

“That would have been useful information to have at the start of this plan.” She narrowed her eyes at the man. Had he held out on her?

He shrugged. “I only just found out myself. The same time as I found out Miriam suspects our interference. She isn’t pleased.”

Sandrine waved a dismissive hand. “Nothing pleases the great Miriam Shepherd.”

“Yes, but she’s particularly displeased that we intended to release the video and use it against her.”

“She can’t know that for certain.”

“She doesn’t need to, does she? Even if she suspects, it will cause problems for us.”

Sandrine was unfazed. “She can’t touch me.” There was nothing in her life that Miriam could use against her. She had no family. No friends. No pets. Nothing. There were no weak spots for her enemies to exploit.

There was a knock at the door. “Oui?” Sandrine called.

Her personal assistant poked her head in, blushing at the sight of Serge and making Sandrine wonder if this was yet another woman the man had bedded. She frowned at Angela. “What is it?”

She snapped her eyes from the Russian. “We have a problem, Madame President.”

“What problem?”

“May I?” Her assistant pointed to the screens covering one wall of the suite.

Sandrine nodded, and all Angela did was blink and send a mental command to the screens. A second later, several news channels filled the wall. They were all showing the same footage.

Sandrine shot to her feet, her hands on the hips of her exclusive designer dress. There was nothing she could do but stare in horror at the images of herself sitting behind her wide wooden desk. She knew exactly what she was looking at. A meeting she’d taken three years earlier when she’d first become president of her company. A meeting between her, the head of research at one of her companies, Jang Pharmaceutical, and Ju-Long Lee, CEO of Lee-Chan Medical. Ju-Long wasn’t in the frame. In fact, the camera angle betrayed him as the one who had filmed their meeting. And it was a damning meeting.