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CHAPTER 13
The smell of spilled blood was overwhelming.
Lucan’s heightened Gen One senses had locked on to the coppery scent of human red cells as soon as he and his team of warriors had exited the Order’s ultraviolet-shielded SUV at the front entrance of the GNC building.
Now, nearly an hour later, with the last ambulance having carried off the wounded and the dead, Lucan stood in the middle of a blood-soaked office in a state of barely restrained fury. Outside the building, sirens wailed. Inside, there was only silence.
And death.
Fifteen people killed in a hellish spray of gunfire, more than twice that number injured by three guards sworn to protect them.
“You know, I might be able to understand this better if these three assholes were new recruits,” Chase said, his fangs extended in the midst of so much blood.
Lucan grunted. “They weren’t new. They’d all been on the security detail for years with highest clearance levels. Two of them were family men, for crissake.”
When Dante glanced up, his fangs were bared too. “Which means no one can be trusted. Not when we have no idea how far Opus’s reach extends.”
“Or who’s the one calling the shots,” Tegan added gravely.
Lucan nodded, well aware that everything his comrades said was true. “Opus has had their pieces in place for a very long time, waiting for their chance to make a move. Now they’re starting to play us like fucking pawns. They’re setting us up for something big. I feel it in my bones.”
And he could see from the sober expressions of his comrades that they also dreaded what might be coming next.
Heavy boot falls in the hallway drew the team’s attention. Brock walked in, his UV helmet clipped to a tab on his weapons belt. He and Kade had been tasked with guarding access to the building after the dead and injured had been taken away.
The massive black warrior’s mouth pressed flat as he paused in the open doorway. “We’ve got company outside. Whole damned fleet of press with cameras and satellite trucks.”
Lucan cursed. “Haven’t we already got enough footage of this slaughter circulating as it is? Keep the vultures away from the building. No one gets inside.”
“Yeah, that’s not the problem,” Brock said. “The cameras and reporters aren’t the only ones who just rolled up. The D.C. arm of JUSTIS is out there too. Looks like they’re setting up for a press conference.”
Lucan’s outrage spiked. “Like hell they are.”
Stalking out with the other warriors, he headed down to the glass-fronted lobby entrance of the GNC building at a hard, furious clip. Just as Brock had described, the scene on the steps outside was pandemonium. Scores of news crews and Internet entertainment site trucks lined the street in both directions. A growing sea of humans crowded on to the broad marble stairs, most with microphones or tablets in their hands. Everywhere Lucan looked, camera lenses and video screens were trained on the building’s entrance like a thousand gaping eyes.
And at the focal point of the attention was a small company of JUSTIS officials and public relations types, all getting into position just outside the GNC’s glass doors.
“Jesus Christ,” Lucan muttered under his breath.
The press started shouting questions as soon as the JUSTIS officer in charge stepped up to the front of the crowd. A clamor of competing voices filtered through the glass where Lucan and his men stood.
“Have the three shooters been identified?”
“How long do you suspect the killers had been planning today’s assault?”
“Was there anything in their backgrounds that might have been a red flag linking them to Opus Nostrum before today?”
“After the bombing in London and now this attack, is it reasonable to say that Opus Nostrum is targeting government and law enforcement?”
“Ladies and gentleman, a moment if you please.” At the front of the gathered throng, the human JUSTIS official raised his hands in a gesture calling for calm.
It didn’t work. The questions kept coming, voices rising in demand.
“How much do we know about the assailants?”
“How can we be certain no other GNC security personnel have ties to Opus?”
