“We need a list,” Gunny murmured and reached for her phone. “A hideaway, cabin, any place he’d go to ground. You knew him, Alpha, better than anyone. You might hate the sonofabitch, but you still knew him.”
My brother stared at the open folder on the raw oak desk and the scattered pencils and pens and shook his head. What could you say in the face of such utter betrayal, where the blood in your veins was the same blood in his?
When that man would leave behind his most prized possession—to save his own skin?
“I can’t…” Alpha took a step, rounding the desk. “I can’t fucking think.”
“You’ve got that place on Long Island, right?” she urged. “The one you keep hinting at for a city break.”
He shook his head. “It’s too in your face. It’d be crawling with the military by now.”
I moved past the cabinets filled with crystal carafes and silver stoppers. There wasn’t a crack in the glass, nor the shelving. Not a scorch to the cabinet, or a whisper that a life was taken in the most horrifying way.
You could almost be forgiven to think it never happened at all.
I lifted my hand to the cabinet. Blood coated the handle like thick weeping tears. Alpha wrenched his head toward me with a fleeting look of blind panic. The muscles of his throat tightened, until he slowly nodded his head. I gripped the handle and pressed the lever, opening the cabinet doors.
Files were crammed in one side of the cabinet from the floor until just over head high, and on the other side, low down were drawers hidden behind glass shelves. Gold shone so perfectly under the crimson glow of his wife’s blood. Rows upon rows, lined up like little soldiers. I gripped the edge of the cabinet and yanked.
The gold heart shuddered, but stayed still, pinned in place by the purple ribbon. Next to it sat a Bronze Star. All those awards, and the sacrifice, the men and women under his command—ones depending on him to make the hard decisions and get them home to their families.
My gut clenched as I remembered the life he refused to save.
The heavy thud of a drawer filled the space, pens and objects rattled. I turned to the files and yanked the sleeves free. Names, places…military operations, most I knew.
“So if personal places are out, then it has to be someplace else.” Gunny moved close, reaching over the top of me to probe the files. “Some place military, out of the way, hidden. He wouldn’t go down there…would he, you know to Hell?”
She stilled and glanced at me. Her dark brown eyes sparked with something I’d never seen in her before—fear.
“Let’s fucking hope not,” I answered. “But if it comes to that, then I’m good to go. Get me in first—that’s all you need to do Gunny…just get me in there first.”
The glint in her stare brightened, turning into something I’d seen many times before. She clenched her jaw and gave one sharp nod before she dropped her gaze. Her brow narrowed as she stared. “The safe, you know the combination?”
I tracked the sound of his boots as he rounded the desk. “No…maybe. Hell, let me try.”
I backed up, leaving him to push in. Thick fingers punched with precision. Tiny beeps echoed, still the lock stayed shut. I left him to scowl and stab and made my way through the study. Sheer black curtains stuck bloody against the wall. Newman Slater liked the finer things, I’d give him that. I stood behind the desk staring at the shining crystal and the sleek furniture.
Gunny shook her head and muttered as Alpha stabbed the display.
“You’re gonna lock it for good,” she muttered giving him a glare.
But Alpha was Alpha. There was no telling him. Not once he set his mind to something. I yanked the back of the leather chair and pulled the seat out of the way.
The desk sat in the middle of the spacious room. A handset sat to one side, spilled pens had come to a stop in the middle of the desk. Three drawers took up the space on one side. I knelt and yanked the top open. It was thin and fast, flying out harder than I expected. But there was barely anything in there. A few lose pieces of paper. Nothing of importance.
The next drawer had personal items. A spare pair of reading glasses, and a small silver flask beside a photo of Alpha and Margaret. I yanked the thin metal frame free. It’d been taken some time in the three years before we left the Military. I knew it by the look of raw power in my brother’s eyes. A look that said he was solid, that he knew where his fate lay, and it was wherever his commanding officer told him.
It was an honest look…a peaceful look—a naive look.
I crammed the photo back into the drawer as Alpha punched the steel safe. The goddamn thing blared in response.
“Now look at what you’ve done,” Gunny muttered and bent low to peer at the blazing red error across the display. “Just shoot the goddamn thing next time. Put it out of its misery.”
Alpha dropped his hand to his waist, reaching for his gun as I shoved the drawer closed. A thunk sounded. Something slipped. A sheath of some kind, enough to draw my gaze. Empty drawers…too damn neat. I ran the tips of my fingers over the outside and underneath.
The tiny slip of paper came away to fall into my hands…on it printed in perfect scrawl was a set of six digits. “One-nine, zero-two, two-zero, one-one.”
They stilled, both wrenched their heads toward me and stared at the paper in my hand. The error display blinked once and disappeared. Alpha waited, and then with slow movements punched in the numbers exactly as I read them…February 19, 2011.
I stared at the date, as the safe gave a squeal and the lock disengaged. Alpha looked over his shoulder, urging me to his side without saying a word. I pushed from the floor as he swung the door open. A stack of files were shoved inside…accounting for the bare drawers. The edges of the folders were buckled, some of the pages had escaped, as though the Major General shoved the files inside in a hurry, desperate to hide whatever information they held.
“What are they?” Gunny craned her neck, reaching for the lower half of the small pile.
Alpha let her take what she wanted and moved to the edge of the desk. A grainy black and white photo slipped free and floated to the floor. I bent, and plucked the edges from the mess and swiped the front across my jeans.
“These look like compounds…look at this… Yeah, this is the first one where they had the Doc.” Gunny lifted the open folder.
“This one too,” Alpha muttered as I turned back to the photo.
It was grainy…taken a long time ago, maybe in the sixties, or the seventies, and looked like the inside of a lab, one just like we found at the compound. Only this one was trashed.
Buckled steel gurneys were slammed into the wall. Scalpels embedded into walls. Files and papers were scattered around a long slew of bodies. Doctors, nurses, and soldiers covered every inch of the room. They stared at me with lips parted…and the same goddamn silent scream I saw hours ago in that goddamn derelict house—and in the background was the biggest damn beast I’d ever seen.