He wasn’t sure which of those was more terrifying.
Chapter 2
Caleb leaned back in his chair in one of the meeting rooms of the Akar International Hotel in Ankara, propping the sole of his boot on the edge of the table and sipping his coffee while flipping through the half-dozen English-language newspapers scattered across the conference table. He was waiting for the other members of the team to arrive for this morning’s intel briefing, where the STAT analysts would hopefully have something to tell them concerning who’d stolen the nukes and where they might be.
The well-healed scars on his arms reminded him of those creatures he’d fought last night. They’d packed one hell of a punch, so the fact that he was still in one piece—albeit with a few extra seams—was something he could live with.
He normally didn’t read newspapers—actually, he couldn’t frigging stand the things—but he’d been curious to see if anything had slipped out about the missing nukes. Something this big should have gotten out by now. So far, though, a full twenty-four hours after climbing out of those damn tunnels, they’d yet to hear a single peep from the media.
Caleb wondered how that was possible, considering all the Turkish nationals who worked on the air base. Between the nighttime alarm, the number of dead and missing American soldiers, and the STAT team coming out covered in blood, it made sense one of them would have leaked something by now. One more thing Colonel Vinson apparently excelled at was keeping secrets.
They’d left the air base for the capital city of Ankara shortly after coming out of the tunnels, hanging around only long enough to review the video and audio files the command post had from the time of the theft. It had been difficult listening to the replay of the massacre, especially after everyone on the STAT team had lived through the same horrible experience. And knowing that many of those soldiers had been dragged away to be eaten was going to leave all of them with nightmares for years to come.
Caleb was flipping through the back pages of the last paper when he heard voices in the hallway outside the small meeting room. A moment later, the door opened, and his teammates walked in along with a new STAT agent named Genevieve Porter. Tall with long, blond hair, she had a huge binder in one arm and reading glasses perched on the end of her petite nose. She barely looked a day over twenty to Caleb, but she must have known her stuff if she’d been assigned to the team.
Forrest seemed surprised Caleb was already there waiting.
“I’d didn’t expect to see you here,” his dark-haired teammate said as he sat down on the other side of the table beside Misty. “I thought you hated these briefings.”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Caleb shrugged. “Jet lag, you know?”
He saw Jake, Harley, and Sawyer glance at him out of the corners of their eyes, expressions clearly dubious. Probably because jet lag wasn’t something werewolves ever had to deal with. But at least they didn’t say anything. Because he didn’t want anyone making a big deal out of it.
Truthfully, he hadn’t slept well in weeks. He couldn’t pin down exactly when the problem had started, but he knew it was around the time of their mission in France several weeks ago, when they’d stopped a terrorist named Yegor Shevchenko from scattering radioactive fallout over half of Europe. He hadn’t said anything to his teammates, but part of him was worried he’d gotten poisoned or something during the raid on that nuclear power plant near Calais. One of the reactors in the place had come damn close to going into total meltdown, so there’d been a lot of radiation in the air. It hadn’t seemed to bother Harley and Sawyer, who’d been right on top of the thing. But then again, they were both alphas, so maybe they were immune to that kind of thing while, as an omega, he wasn’t. Considering all the ways in which he felt different from the alphas, he wouldn’t be surprised. He’d definitely gotten the short end of the stick when it came to the werewolf stuff.
While Misty established a secure laptop connection with STAT headquarters, Genevieve helped Forrest set up the scramblers that would douse the room in high-frequency noise, making it impossible for anyone to electronically eavesdrop on their conversation. Unfortunately, a by-product of the scramblers was a constant whining sound that was irritating as hell for the werewolves, but that was just something they had to live with.
Five minutes later, they were talking to Nathan McKay, their boss back in DC. With his brown hair sporting a touch of gray at the temples, McKay looked exactly like Caleb pictured a federal agent would, down to the dark suit and wire-rimmed glasses. From the expression on the man’s face, Caleb could already tell he had something interesting to say.
“We’ve been working hard to find those nukes but have, thus far, come up with very little,” McKay said. “However, someone who may know something useful called me last night with information that could be vital to locating them. She’s just arrived at your hotel and should be joining you any minute.”
Jake frowned. “Who is it? And how do you know we can we trust her?”
McKay’s mouth turned upward in a small smile. “Actually, it’s someone you’re all familiar with. As far as whether you can trust her, I think that’s something you’ll have to decide for yourselves.”
Caleb opened his mouth to ask McKay what the hell he was talking about when the sound of footsteps in the hallway caught his attention. A second later, Tessa Reynolds, one of the senior agents on the STAT support team, opened the door.
“McKay said you’d want to talk to her ASAP, so I brought her straight here from the airport,” Tessa said without preemption, stepping aside to let whoever was with her into the room.
Caleb almost choked on his coffee. Setting his cup on the table, he dropped his booted foot to the floor and stared, transfixed, as a tall, beautiful woman walked in, her dark, mesmerizing eyes scanning the people around the table until they landed on him. He thought, for a moment, his heart might seize up in his chest simply from the intensity in their chocolate-brown depths.
“Brielle,” Jake said from the far end of the table, the surprise in his voice unmistakable. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but what the hell are you doing here?”
Her eyes stayed locked with Caleb’s for a second longer than necessary before looking at Jake. “I heard a rumor that you were looking for some missing nuclear weapons and thought I’d help you find them.”
Around the table, Caleb’s teammates exchanged dubious looks. He supposed he couldn’t blame them. Brielle Fontaine had worked for Yegor, the wacko who’d wanted to eradicate half of Europe. Using a supernatural ability that she refused to talk about, Brielle had tracked down other supernaturals to help Yegor carry out his crazy scheme. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’d also used her unusual gift to help him find supernaturals he could sell to the highest bidder to raise money to carry out his plans. It went without saying that the people who’d been sold hadn’t been treated well, and some of them were still missing.