Red Awakening (Red Zone 2)

Mace noted that she didn’t request access to a comm link, she just stated what she had to do. It was sexy as hell.

“We’ll let you contact them later,” Striker said. “In a controlled manner.”

Oh, she didn’t like that. Her eyes blazed before they narrowed at him. “How very thoughtful of you.”

Striker’s lips twitched, but he managed to not smile. “I’m a thoughtful kind of guy.”

“A criminal one.”

He gave her a Gallic shrug. “C’est la vie. Let’s get down to business.”

“Oh, yes, let’s.”

“We’re ready,” Striker said through the comm unit to their tech guy, Hunter, who was holed up in one of the many bedrooms in the penthouse.

Hunter came scurrying out, looking like a college kid who’d woken late and forgotten to brush his hair. It was hard to believe he’d been a newly minted Army Ranger when they’d started their chemical-weapon-induced sleep. He’d been assigned to their team when their old tech guy retired just before the war, and although it didn’t look like he knew his way around a rifle,

let alone how to kill a man with his hands, Mace knew firsthand that Hunter had deadly skills.

But as usual, his attention was on his tech. Under his arm he held an old-fashioned keyboard, and his eyes were on the datapad in his hands.

He got halfway into the room before he looked up and screeched to a halt. “Whoa,” he said, his eyes on Keiko. “You are way hotter than your on-screen image.”

Mace growled loudly at Hunter. The kid had no filter.

“Stop it,” Keiko snapped, looking at him for the first time since she’d pushed him into the pool.

“He needs to show some respect,” Mace said.

“Like you did?”

“Trust me, I respect the hell out of you, princess.”

Keiko dismissed them with a haughty look before turning back to Striker. “Can we get on with things? Tell me what you want from me.”

“What we want is simple,” Eyepatch said. “We need you to add Mace to the list of reporters who have been vetted by security for tomorrow’s press conference.”

She barked out a laugh. “That’s never going to happen.”

“You might want to reconsider. Because”—he glanced at Mace, who glared back at him—“if you don’t, we’ll be forced to release proof that your parents are members of a terrorist organization. Of Freedom.”

“I told you,” Mace said through gritted teeth. “You’re dealing with her the wrong way.”

“Like you would know the right way,” she snapped at him before turning back to Striker. “My parents aren’t terrorists. They’re academics who’re more interested in studying the past than dealing with the present. And seeing as Freedom wasn’t around hundreds of years ago, I doubt they even registered on my family’s radar. Whatever you think you have on them is false. You’ve wasted your time.”

Striker held up a data crystal. “Like I said,” he drawled. “I have proof.”

He tossed the data crystal to Hunter, who did his thing. A few seconds later, the wall of screens filled with recorded video of Keiko’s parents.

There was footage showing them sneaking into meetings with known Freedom terrorists, followed by messages they’d written that revealed they’d been conspiring against CommTECH. The government of the Northern Territory and the company Keiko represented to the world. Their actions were treasonous. Their sentence would be death.

Mace didn’t watch the screen—he’d seen it all before, anyway, when he hadn’t known their target intimately. Now, he watched the woman who’d broken through every defense he’d put up against her. Her life was being torn apart before his eyes, forcing her to question everything she believed. And he found himself hating his team for doing this to her.

“I’ve seen enough,” she said at last, and the screens went blank. Her chin wobbled a little as she looked Striker straight in the eye. “But it doesn’t change anything. I have no intention of helping you to get into CommTECH’s research facility.”

“Even if it means the lives of your parents?” Striker’s eyebrow went up, and Mace could almost hear him thinking that Keiko was just as cold as the team told him she’d be. He was wrong. Keiko was smarter than any of them had factored into their planning.

“Do you think I’m completely clueless?” she said as though reading his mind. “Whether I help you get into the building or not, this doesn’t end well for me and my family. Once the press conference is over and CommTECH realizes someone’s had unauthorized access to the building, they’ll launch an investigation. Which, no doubt, will lead to the same evidence you’ve amassed on my parents. They’ll assume I’m the traitor who let you in, and they will be right.”