Red Zone (Red Zone 1)

Sandi glanced back at him, her eyes filled with sympathy. He looked away. This wasn’t over yet. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t, give up hope entirely until it was definitely over.

He looked down at the woman in his arms. “We’re going home, bébé,” he whispered as Mace sped through the streets of La Paz.

Chapter Forty-One

CommTECH headquarters,

New York City, Northern Territory

Miriam Shepherd stared at the images of Kane Duggan’s dead body. He lay sprawled, face down, across the desk in the head office of the La Paz mining operation. His body was swollen and bloated, almost beyond recognition. There were patches of black skin on his bare arms and neck. And he was lying in his own vomit.

“What killed him?” She kept her voice perfectly flat.

The holo-image of the man standing on the other side of her desk shuffled nervously. And he was smart to be nervous. The La Paz mine had been attacked. Buildings were destroyed, the mine had collapsed in places, the security team had been decimated, and Kane was dead. On top of that, the smuggler and the scientist had vanished. It didn’t take a genius to figure out his team had ridden in to rescue him. That put them right at the top of Miriam Shepherd’s wanted list. The only good news was that the little scientist was either already dead or hours from it.

“It seems to have been a snake bite. Um, several snake bites.”

Miriam dragged her eyes away from Kane’s brutalized body. “Snake?”

“You can clearly see it in the other footage I sent you. A rattlesnake made its way along the corridor before attacking Mr. Duggan.”

She brought up the security footage and watched the snake stalk Kane. It was almost as though the reptile had entered the room with the purpose of killing the man. It didn’t wander, it didn’t investigate its surroundings, it simply headed straight for Kane.

“There have been reports of South American rattlesnakes in the area, Director,” the security guard said. “One must have made it into the compound. They’re known for being vicious and deadly. We’ve tried hunting the snake, but it’s either long gone, or was killed during the bombings.”

Miriam tuned him out as she watched the battle between Kane and the rattler. Kane almost seemed to be laughing toward the end of it. Miriam felt a stabbing sensation where her heart should have been. She was going to miss the man. No one could best him for loyalty and a willingness to get the job done.

“What are your orders regarding the mining operation, Director?” The security guard dared to interrupt her thoughts.

She turned a glacial look on the man. “I want production back on track by the end of the week.”

“But Director…” He swallowed hard, and she noticed sweat beading on his forehead. “Half of the compound was destroyed. We’ve lost a lot of workers.”

“Find more. You have twenty-four hours to bring me good news.” She cut the feed, uninterested in his excuses.

Kane wouldn’t have argued. Kane would have nodded and then done whatever it took to get the job finished. She sent a command to her console to rerun the footage and watched the snake attack all over again. It was too convenient. Kane dying hours before the mine was attacked? She didn’t think it was a coincidence. Someone had set that snake loose. Someone had led it to Kane’s office. Which meant there was a traitor on her La Paz team. Or, someone had infiltrated the site.

She brought up the security feed from outside Kane’s office. The snake had been alone, no handler in sight. The reptile made its way along the bottom of the wall before climbing through Kane’s window. Miriam rubbed the back of her neck. Something wasn’t right. It was almost as though the snake knew where it was heading.

She sent a message to what was left of the La Paz security team, telling them she wanted all of the security footage from the site for the time leading up to Kane’s death.

It took hours, but Miriam managed to follow the path the snake had taken before entering the office. She froze the image of the its earliest appearance and sat back in her chair. She’d kicked off her shoes hours earlier, and the meal an assistant had delivered was sitting, uneaten, on her desk.

She stared at the screen. It didn’t matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find an earlier image of the rattler. But what she was seeing didn’t make any sense at all.

The rattlesnake had first appeared slithering through the bars of the cell where Kane’s captives were being held. From there, it had made a beeline through the compound, straight for Kane—as though it knew exactly where to go, and what to do once it got there.

She leaned forward and drummed her fingers on the desktop. It didn’t make sense, but it couldn’t be a coincidence. She flicked to the images from inside the cell itself. There was no sign of the reptile, but it was clear that the man and woman were still very much inside, although hidden by their makeshift shelter.

So where did the rattler come from? Had it been hiding in the room? Then how did it know to seek out Kane? Because that’s exactly what it’d done. The reptile had passed several easier targets without so much as a glance, let alone an attack. Yet, when it got into Kane’s office, it had bitten the man repeatedly.

Miriam poured herself a glass of sparkling water and worked her way through the security footage of the time after the snake killed Kane. It took hours and when she finally had the answer she was looking for, she stood to stretch her stiff muscles.

Two images filled the screen on the wall opposite her desk, the first showing the rattler slipping out of Striker’s cell.

The second showing it slip back in.

The rattler definitely belonged to the smuggler. Whether the reptile was a real snake that had somehow been modified to do its owner’s bidding, or whether it was a synthetic creature that the smuggler could program with commands, she didn’t know. What she did know was that it was a weapon she’d never seen before, one that was capable of getting past the tightest security. One she very much wanted to get her hands on.