Ghostwalker 05 - Deadly Game

doing whatever needed to be done."
    "Whitney wouldn't just give you that information."

    "No, but I have friends. Not everyone involved agrees with what he's doing. One of the women is already pregnant, Ken. He's going to take her baby away from her if we don't get her out of there. I have to go back and help them."
    "You wouldn't have to if I let Whitney get to me."
    "No! He'd never let you near the others. He'd have you in a lab and dissect you so fast you wouldn't know what happened."
    Jack returned, handing Mari the jeans, his gaze narrowing when he saw the blood running down her leg.
    "He's thinking of allowing Whitney to take him prisoner," Mari said. "You can't let him do that."
    "Actually that's one way, but I'm thinking maybe the admiral can get me assigned to the compound. If he's using the military as a cover, and he has soldiers guarding the place, then we should be able to get assigned," Ken said. "Put your arm around my neck. I'm going to lift you a little so we can slide the jeans on. There's no need for you to be nude with a bunch of men around."
    "She's bleeding again. Why the hell is she bleeding so much?" Jack asked.
    "Be careful," Ken cautioned as he watched Jack clean up the wound. "Did she reinjure it?"
    Jack was gentle as he slid the jeans over the light cast on her leg. The doctor had put on more of a splint than an actual cast, because he wanted air to get to the bullet wound.
    "Doesn't look like it." Other than the excessive bleeding, her body seemed remarkable, healing at such a rapid rate that both men knew it was impossible even with genetic enhancement. "Whitney shot you full of an accelerant, didn't he?" Jack asked, his voice grim. "I should have expected he would do something like this."
    Ken's fingers tightened to the point of pain on Mari's shoulders. "He gave you Zenith?
    Oh, God, baby, tell me you didn't let him shoot you up with that stuff."
    "We're always given a shot of it before every mission, just in case we're wounded. Isn't everybody?"
    "When?" Ken snapped, jumping to his feet, Mari in his arms. She had to grab his neck and hold on as he took off for the Escalade at a dead run. "Damn it, Mari, when did he give you the shot? Day and time. Tell me now."
    Fear put her heart into overdrive. Both of the Nortons were alarmed. "What do you know about Zenith that I don't?"
    "It can kill you, Mari. Tell me now, how long has it been in your system?"

    Logan held the door open and Ken practically leapt inside, Jack after him. "Tell Lily to send a plane. Not military, private. One of her company planes."
    "We can't risk that, Ken," Logan protested. "What's going on?"
    "They shot her full of Zenith before they sent her out," Ken replied. "We have to risk it."
    Neil put the vehicle in motion, racing down the road. "I can get us there by morning.
    We're a few hours out. How much time does she have?"
    Ken swore bitterly, his silver eyes glittering with far too much menace as he exchanged a long look with his brother.
    "Have Lily send the plane, Logan. Tell her to meet us at one of the labs with a medical facility. Tell her we need the antidote for Zenith."
    "Ryland isn't going to let her risk her life." But he flipped open his radio and began talking into it.
    Mari held herself very still. They weren't joking around. The tension in the Escalade could have been cut with the proverbial knife. Zenith, the drug used to accelerate fast healing, was dangerous, and they all knew it. Why would Whitney pump all of his men full of it before he sent them out on a mission if he knew the drug was dangerous? And if these men knew it was dangerous, Whitney had to know. He was the inventor of Zenith.
    "I should have known; you were healing way too fast even for a GhostWalker. Damn it."
    Ken smashed his fist on the seat in front of him. "What the hell was I thinking?" But he knew. And Jack knew. He could see it in his brother's eyes. He was so fucked up thinking about sex, he hadn't given much thought to anything else.
    "There's an airstrip about eighty miles from here. A small farmhouse with a crop-dusting plane. Lily says to make it there and she'll have a pilot waiting, a friend of hers, not military. She'll meet us at the underground laboratory where Ryland and his men were first imprisoned. It isn't far from her house, and no one would think twice about her going there.
    She works there often. Kadan will be with her to protect her, along with most of Ryland's crew, so no worries on that score," Logan