"Then she, who?" Brandt asked, confused.
"Um, Maria. Your pregnant wife, remember?"
Oh, yeah. Her.
Rebecca carefully positioned the cross-section of bone. This microscopic splinter of James's bone was the only thing left from their near-fatal quest to find the savior's remains. She had lost so much in that darkened smoke-filled cave. Everything, really, she just hadn't known it yet.
Sure, Brandt and she had a whirlwind romance, then a surprise engagement at the Taj Mahal, but shortly thereafter reality crashed in. A reality by the name of Maria. It seemed a one-night stand had resulted in a pregnancy. It had happened several months before Rebecca and he had met, and she'd been sure they could get through it, but Brandt's damned Catholic sense of honor and duty had forced him to break off their engagement and marry the mother of his child.
She caught tears at the edge of her eyes. Not wanting to, but unable to stop herself, she looked up to the second shelf above her workstation. A diamond sparkled at her. Her engagement ring. It was still where Brandt had left it. He had refused to take it back. He had said it was his final gift to her. She should have thrown it at him, screamed at him, done something besides let him walk out that door. Now she couldn't bring herself to move the damned thing. It sat there mocking her. Reminding her of the life that could have been, that could never be.
But she couldn't dwell on the past. Or at least not the recent past. She still had the "smart" gene to prove. And somehow through the fifteen thousand debriefings she had survived, of course lying through her teeth at each one of them, Rebecca had kept this tiny, tiny shard of James's bone hidden.
All the preparations had been made. All the calculations done. Today was the day she would drill into the bone and extract a minute quantity of DNA from the bone marrow. Given the fragment's extremely small size, she would have only one chance at this.
Rebecca needed her mind and hands focused. She needed to block out everything but this piece of bone and her microknife.
Taking a deep breath, Rebecca double checked her instruments, then looked through the microscope. She could see the tiny spicules of bone, interlaced before her. She knew within this tiny lattice, the DNA she needed lay hidden.
Closing her eyes, Rebecca steadied her nerves. Whether or not she was ready to have her theory proven correct or debunked, James's bone was ready.
Slowing opening her eyes, she found a spot between two spicules that looked especially promising and moved the joystick into position. Ever so carefully, Rebecca moved the joystick forward, angling the microblade toward the position. She would have to coordinate the cut and the sterile vacuum to collect the material before it turned to dust.
She was ever so close to fulfilling her life's work when the door burst open.
"Dr. Hottie Monroe! Are you ready for some Latin love?"
In her shock, Rebecca not only drove the microblade through the entire section, but she broke the seventy-thousand-dollar tip off as well. "No!"
Months of preparation ruined. James's bone destroyed.
Rebecca spun around, ready to lay waste to whoever had ignored her huge sign warning anyone not to enter, but found Lopez with his arms spread wide. Behind him a figure hung back in the doorway.
Their eyes met over Lopez, locked in some kind of painful flashback. God, had Vincent's jaw gotten even squarer? Were his eyes more crystalline than before? And his biceps. How easily she could remember them holding her.
Even though Lopez was no slouch in that department, his fierce hug felt completely hollow.
"What, you don't have any love for an old comrade-in-arms?" Lopez asked, feigning hurt.
She punched him in the arm. "You trashed my experiment, Ricky."
"My bad," the corporal said, but his grin told a different story.
Two other men entered the laboratory. She didn't know them nearly as well, but by Brandt's constant complaining about them not living up to their predecessors she knew the shorter, darker-haired one was Talli and the redhead was Harvish.
All eyes were upon her. Well, upon her then flickering back to Brandt. Clearly they had come on some military need, despite their business casual clothes, but that didn't change the utter awkwardness that choked the room.
"Dr. Monroe," a voice called from the other room. "Is there a problem?"
Rebecca willed the man to stay back. She announced, "Sam, everything's fine!"
But the younger man, his face a riddle of reconstruction scars, came around the corner. His features were so distorted that it took a moment for Brandt to recognize who stood in front of him. Lopez was quicker on the draw.
"Davidson!" Rebecca rushed to get between them as Lopez whooped, "Dude! You are alive!"
But that might not last for long, as Brandt pulled a gun from his belt and aimed at Davidson. The red laser light glowed against her previous enemy's, now assistant's, forehead.
Brandt growled, "I've been waiting a long time for this."
Rebecca shoved herself in front of Davidson, knocking Lopez back. The corporal looked to Davidson, then Rebecca, then to Brandt.
"Um, I think I missed something," Lopez commented, backing out of Brandt's line of fire.
More like a lot of something. Like a world of something.
"Get out of the way, Dr. Monroe," Brandt ordered.
The fact the man she loved called her Dr. Monroe hurt possibly more than that damn gold ring on his finger announcing he was another woman's. And since when did he think he could boss her around? Hadn't he learned that lesson back in the Ecuadorian jungle?
"Not until you listen," she retorted.
"Yeah, Sarge, I kind of have to agree with the doc, here," Lopez stated. "What's going on?"
Brandt glared at his second in command. "Before you go all BFF on Davidson you might want to ask why he was the mole for the Knot."
Lopez's head spun around, looking for Rebecca to somehow dispute Brandt's words, but she couldn't. They were true. Davidson had in fact been a part, an integral part, of the organization that had tried to kill them all last year.
"He's the one that told the Knot where we were every step of the way," Brandt pressed.
"But..." Lopez stuttered. "That's who got Svengurd killed."
Rebecca sympathized with Lopez. She herself had to reconcile the young, enthusiastic, and devoted Private Davidson with the insidious snake in the grass Davidson. Clearly as Lopez raised his own Gloc, the corporal was getting the picture.
"How could you?" he hissed at Davidson.
"I can only ask forgiveness," Davidson said, although his words came out slurred due to the burn damage to his lips. If you didn't know better you might assume he sounded like the young man had a stroke. It took a little getting used to in order to understand him fully. Especially if he was stressed. Like right now with a gun pointed at him.
Brandt's arm was up. His finger wrapped around the trigger. "I am going to warn you one more time, Monroe. Get out of my way."
By now the other two of Brandt's team had taken up position around the lab. There was no backing out of the room. No escape.
"Sarge, do we have shoot-on-sight orders?" Talli asked.
"No," Lopez answered quickly, still obviously conflicted between his previous brotherly bond with the private and this new, damning information.
Brandt however seemed crystal clear. "Only because she lied and reported Davidson was dead."
Rebecca's cheeks burned red hot. She had lied, but only in an attempt to put the ugly events to rest. What good would it have done for them to hunt down Davidson? After everything else that had happened in that cavern under Rome, what did one man matter?
"He saved us," Rebecca explained to Brandt. "You. Me. Both of us."
"Good for him," he responded, grinding his jaw, looking to find a shot.
"He's not the same man," Rebecca pleaded. "Please, just look at him."
Davidson cringed but held steady under the scrutiny. Ever since she'd found him in a clinic in Morocco, he'd hidden his labyrinth of scars and melted flesh behind a hoodie and glasses. Unless he was in the lab. This space had become sacred to both of them. Somewhere to hide from a world that had been unkind to them both.
"If you don't think he's already been punished for his crimes..." Rebecca added. This was why she hadn't turned Davidson in herself. The man who had betrayed them no longer existed. There were just the shattered remains of a life to rebuild.
"Doesn't work that way, Monroe," Brandt answered through clenched teeth. "Step aside."
Rebecca had no intention whatsoever of doing such a thing, however Davidson moved out from her shadow.
"I am ready, Rebecca," he said with only a slight lisp. "I must answer for my crimes."
She fought back tears as she scanned Davidson's ruined features. He'd become a younger brother to her. A beloved younger brother. A family where none had existed before. Rebecca knew Brandt though. He wasn't going to let this go. Not even for her. Or maybe just to spite her.
"Zip tie him," Brandt ordered.
Lopez stepped forward, bringing out the tough plastic restraints.
"Please," Rebecca begged, "the tissue on his hands and wrists is still too fragile to-"
The entire room shook as a blast wave knocked over beakers.
"Get down!" Brandt ordered.
Rebecca was already on her way to the floor.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Fire alarms sounded as sprinklers sprayed down. Screams echoed from the hallway.
Brandt sheltered Rebecca's body with his own, waiting for another RPG to hit the building yet none did. His body begged to stay here with Rebecca. Who could blame him? His arms wrapping around her were only protecting her. He wasn't breaking any vows. Then his training kicked in as he released her from his embrace.
"Report," he barked, trying to cover the huskiness that had suddenly crept into his voice.
Harvish was at the window. "The explosion looks like it was twelve doors down,"
"RPG hit, you mean?" Brandt questioned.
The redhead shook his head, spraying water. "No. The directionality of the blast is outward. That explosion happened inside the room and blew out."
"So maybe this is an accident? A coincidence?" Talli asked.
Even if it weren't an RPG there was absolutely nothing accidental or coincidental about Rebecca, him, and a bomb. Nothing.
"Harvish, check the hallway," Brandt barked. "Prep for evac."
Then he grabbed Davidson by the arm and jerked him up nice and close. "What the fuck is your game?" Rebecca tried to force herself between them, but Brandt would have none of it. "Well?"
"I have no idea what is happening," Davidson said, trying to sound all convincing.
"No!" Rebecca urged. "He had nothing to do with it."
Brandt kept his fists at Davidson's collar. "I'd like some proof of that."
"Damn it, Brandt," Rebecca protested. "He couldn't." This time she was able to wedge an arm between the two men, which she then used to leverage Brandt back an inch. He'd forgotten exactly how strong the researcher could be when she wanted to. "If you would just break your death glare and listen."
Oh how he wanted to sucker punch Davidson. Really just smash his fist into the bastard's face. But this wasn't about the private's betrayal, this was about staying alive right now.
"The laboratory that was hit was my first lab," Rebecca explained as red emergency lighting strobed the room.
"Remember?" she asked Brandt.
The incident Rebecca wanted him to recall felt like another life. Back when he and Rebecca were engaged. The tour of the London Research Institute had been a blur. Honestly he'd just nodded his head and oohed and aahed at whatever Rebecca was saying in an attempt to get them back to the hotel quickly so they could make the most of the last three days of his leave. Then Maria showed up.
That had been a bombshell, but now he needed to worry about an actual bomb.
Rebecca pressed on. "That lab didn't have the ultracentrifuge I needed plus a bunch of other equipment that had been promised to me."
"So," Lopez said as his eyes narrowed. "They bombed your old office. And if Davidson were behind it, he kind of would have known which lab to blow."
"Exactly," Rebecca said as her head bobbed. "Yes."
As much as Brandt wanted this to be about Davidson, it didn't seem to be.
"Harvish, the hallway?"
Before the point man could answer, a scream sounded...from right outside their window. Brandt didn't have to order anyone down, they were already flat on their bellies.
Another scream from not far away. "That's sniper fire," Davidson whispered in his weird slurred voice. "Far-sighted, accurate sniper fire."
Damn if the bastard wasn't correct. Lopez rose halfway up, peering through the blinds. "They're taking out anyone trying to escape the building out the western exit."
The exit they would have been taking had Brandt not been ragging on Davidson. He was not going to give the private credit for that either.
"Harvish, still waiting on a sit rep."
"Just people fleeing from-" Harvish jerked back from the cracked open door. He closed it gently. "Gunmen in the hall."
Damn it. This was an organized attack. It wouldn't take whoever had planted that bomb long to figure out Rebecca wasn't in that lab. Then the door-to-door search would begin.