Page 19 of The Lazarus Protocol

“You did this on purpose.” Maybe she could even hear him. “Anyone trying to reach your house goes crazy before they can even get there, right?”

No answer.

It was another mile at least before the terrain opened up and he realized the road was now a makeshift runway that stretched to the east. On the left side was a huge barn with the doors open, and a small red plane inside. The structure beside it was a small cabin that had to have been there for over a hundred years. Nothing about it looked new. Not the yellowed windows, or the porch with a missing beam.

“Your house is gonna fall down with the next stiff breeze.”

“No, it won’t.”

He spun to see her behind him and watched her crack a smile. Noah didn’t want to consider it the most beautiful thing he’d seen in thirty-four years. And certainly, if he did happen to think that, he wouldn’t say it.

What he needed to tell her and the rest of the team was the change in their situation that’d happened at his visit to the CIA. But for some reason, he couldn’t quite make himself say those words, either.

Noah cleared his throat. “You asked me to come?”

Marina had long blond hair that fell past her shoulders, and right now all of it had a pink tint. She wore black cargo pants and a gray T-shirt with a blue denim jacket over it. Sunglasses pushed up on her head. “They made it to the trucks.”

“Good.” Noah nodded. “Where did you come from?”

There were few people in the world who’d ever been able to sneak up on him, and fewer still who lived to tell anyone they’d managed it. The part of him that had made it through BUD/S, Navy SEAL training, bristled at the fact she could’ve attacked him from behind, but he trusted her enough to know she never would.

Marina smiled wider. “Come on.”

But she stepped to his left and faced back the way he’d come, then let out a series of short whistles.

Noah glanced over his shoulder and saw two Belgian Malinois dogs race out of the woods. One was the animal he’d spotted to his right. “There was a second dog on my left.”

“Platz!” The command was loud, sharp, and higher pitched than the tone she usually spoke with. Both dogs stopped so fast they almost tripped over themselves, lowering with their bellies to the ground. Tongues hanging out.

She raised a brow toward him. “You saw Roscoe?”

“I don’t know that I saw him. More like a sense there was something out there.”

“We’re gonna work on that.” To the dogs Marina said, “Let’s go.” She trudged over the long grass to the open doors of her barn, and the dogs raced past her into the structure.

He followed her in. “That your plane?”

She chuckled but didn’t turn back. “Yes, and I actually have a license.”

“I’ve always wanted to learn.” Noah scanned the terrain, because the alternative was watching her walk. He didn’t need her to look back and see him staring at her. Inside the barn smelled like oil, and something else he couldn’t place. “How do you connect to the wider world from here?”

She led him to a workbench covered with mechanical tools and pointed at a map of the surrounding area on the wall. One specific spot that looked like the top of a mountain. “Defunct military satellite relay station.”

“Sure, that explains it perfectly.” If only he had a simple explanation like that for the fact they were now the Division Zero team. With no pay.

“Probably better if you don’t know the ins and outs.” Marina smiled. “Plausible deniability and all that.”

He returned her smile, but she looked at him funny. “I’m guessing the military conveniently lost track of it?”

“What they don’t miss won’t hurt them.” She ducked through a doorway into a back room, and he followed, trying to forget about the CIA for now.

He found himself in a small office with some dusty papers on the desk and a stack of junk mail next to an aging computer that didn’t look like it had been turned on in a decade. This could be the nerve center for the defunct military satellite, or whatever it had been, but he didn’t think so. It was more like a misdirect for anyone snooping around.

The dogs had disappeared.

Marina touched the mouse on the aging computer, sliding her thumb down the left side. Behind her, a panel in the wall slid back to reveal a tunnel that didn’t belong in a barn. Over her head, fluorescent lights flickered to life. The air smelled clean but not in an artificial way. When the door slid closed behind them, it sealed in a way he knew this place was airtight.

Noah ducked his head and followed her. “Secret nuclear bunker?”