Bret stood, drawing her up. “Lynne Harmony, meet Greg Lake, my new head of, well, everything.”
Greg, his eyes darker than midnight, gave a short nod. “Ma’am.”
Lynne didn’t move. The president lay at an awkward angle, dead in the Oval Office. “What now?” she asked.
“We make a speech to the country, to the world, about the tragic passing of the president, and I step up.” Bret caressed her arm.
She had to get out of there. “I need to work. In fact, I have to go check in with the outlying labs. You still want a cure, right?” Did he? Maybe he no longer wanted a cure.
“Of course. We need the power and control a cure will give us, no matter what. America will lead the whole world if we have a cure.” He turned and pinched her chin with affection. “I’ll have you escorted to the labs at the CDC, and as soon as I take control and put everything in place, you’ll stay here.”
She could feel the blood drain from her face. “I have a bacteria to beat.” There were some promising results from using nanoparticles to destroy the toxins caused by Scorpius, so perhaps she could still save Bret. Turn him back into the man she’d thought he was.
He smiled. “I’ll have guards on you.”
She forced another smile while warning skittered down her spine. “I appreciate your trying to keep me safe.” Her voice trembled, and she couldn’t meet his eyes.
“We’re working together, right?” More demand than question lived in his words.
She no longer knew the answer to that question. “Of course. I have too many enemies.” Which unfortunately was true. Her blue heart made her a target.
He must’ve heard the doubt in her voice. With unreal reflexes, he grabbed her throat and yanked her face toward his, which had contorted into harsh lines. “Don’t make me one of them.”
She swallowed, hindered by his hold. Her knees tried to buckle. “I won’t.”
Thunder ripped across the sky, yanking her awake and back to Jax Mercury’s bed in the present. Tears cooled her face. She’d trusted a man once, and the fever had destroyed him. Or perhaps it had merely brought out the sociopath that had always been lurking inside him. Now she’d made her bed, literally, with another soldier, another strategist, another deadly man who’d survived the fever. A man raised on the streets who fought dirty and would do anything to follow whatever path he decided was just.
Trusting again would be foolish.
She took several deep breaths. Her subconscious had gone to work while she’d slept, despite the nightmare. The numbers, the ones she’d memorized, flitted into a pattern. A simple pattern. Numbers one and two combined into the first number of a city block. Numbers three and four equaled the next number, and then so on. Coordinates. Holy crap. She could find Myriad. Probably. If she did, and if she found the information about vitamin B there, she’d have something to bargain with. Something strong.
But going out into the storm—going into the city alone—would be stupid. Really stupid. So her only chance lay in negotiating with Jax. If he wanted the location of Myriad, he had to vow to refrain from calling Bret. Or he had to let her go before he did so.
Now she had something with which to negotiate. This time she had to stand firm—they were going to do things her way for once. Whether he liked it or not.
Chapter Nineteen
Every man, no matter how evil, is the hero of his own story.
—Dr. Franklin Xavier Harmony
President Bret Atherton stiffened in a leather chair once used by the owner of the three largest Las Vegas casinos. The impressive mansion overlooking a now overgrown golf course housed the unit traveling with him, while he’d taken over the small guest house next to the pool. Although the water had evaporated, the bottom had been painted with a trio of sparkling mermaids that amused him. He could use a generator on the house if he wished, although he needed to conserve gas, unfortunately.
It was spring in Vegas, which meant milder temperatures and perhaps a bit of rainfall. Or not. Any day his men would find Lynne Harmony, and then they’d return to his power base in D.C.
She’d ripped out his heart when she’d left him, and he wanted an explanation. Everything he’d done was to protect her, whether she liked it or not. And he needed to find Myriad before she did because only God knew what she’d do with the data there. The woman had been unstable since being infected with the bacteria, and he’d failed to help her. When she’d run, he’d created the Elite Force to find her and bring her back.
A knock sounded on the double-paned glass door.
“Enter,” he said, shifting his weight and shoving closer to the massive desk he’d had placed in what used to be the living room of the guest house. It was after midnight, but he didn’t require sleep like he had before being infected.
Greg Lake, the leader of the Elite Force and his first in command, strode inside, all but standing at attention. “Mr. President.”
“Vice President Lake,” Bret returned, having sworn Lake in immediately after he’d become president. “Have a seat and report.”
Lake glanced at the leather guest chairs, and his upper lip curled. “As you wish, sir.” He took a seat, his posture ramrod straight.
Bret wanted to ask, not for the first time, if there was an iron bar up the guy’s ass. Sitting down seemed to insult him. “Do you have a report?”
“Yes, sir.” Lake was in his late thirties and had been a rising star at the Secret Service before Scorpius wiped out most of the agents. “The Elite Force is continuing to track Lynne Harmony to the west and is closing in.”
“Do you have her current location?”
“No.”
Damn it. Bret fought to keep his face calm. “Continue.”
“We have forces defending key forts and protecting sites as well as gathering weapons throughout the country. They’re reporting in to us but not really taking orders.”
Bret bit back a sharp retort. Society had gone to hell, and he desperately needed an active military to rebuild the United States. He had to shore up his own power base, add to the Elite Force he’d created to hunt down Lynne, before getting everybody back in line. “What about Deacan McDougall?” The man had been personally appointed by the former president as the leader of the Brigade, the first line of defense against Scorpius, and much of the military answered to him. If Bret could get McDougall in line, he’d regain the power of a true presidency.
“McDougall is up north dealing with NORAD last I heard,” Lake said. “He hasn’t reported in for several days, but he will. McDougall is a patriot.”
Whose wife was best friends with Lynne Harmony, yet another reason Bret needed to get Lynne under his thumb. The Brigade and the Elite Force hadn’t worked together before, and the time was coming for them to combine. “Any reports since we reached out to the public about Lynne?”
“We have the message continually looping, and we’ve received many responses. An interesting one came from a co-op in northern California.”
“A co-op?” Bret lifted an eyebrow. “Like a farming co-op?”
“Yes.” Lake smiled, revealing stark white teeth. “They sound like a bunch of farmers with a ham radio, so we could easily take their food.”
Bret rubbed his smoothly shaven chin. “Hmm. We’re going to need food, and they know how to farm. We might have to implement some sort of tax that requires their trading food.”
“For what?” Lake asked.
“Their lives. We allow them to live, and they do as they’re told.” Bret didn’t have time for niceties, and he no longer had an IRS to take taxes. “We’re under martial law, Congress is gone, the Supreme Court is gone, and only the executive branch is left. I think this time we might take a lesson or two from feudal England.”
Lake chuckled. His pure blue eyes contrasted with his sharp buzz cut in a way that made the man look like a knife. “Yes, Mr. President.”
The perfect soldier. Bret smiled. “Are you sure you haven’t been infected by Scorpius?”