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Grace held out her hand, and Ethan took it automatically. Her grip was strong but nonthreatening, and it gave Ethan plenty of time to feel the ridge of callus along her finger. His eyes widened, and she gave him a smile just before she used a martial arts move that had him flat on his back, trying to suck air into his lungs.
“Ouch,” Jack said. “That’s got to hurt.”
“His body and his dignity,” Gabe said, agreeing.
She held out a hand to help Ethan off the floor. “Gabe tells me I’ll eventually get used to working with you. I’m sure it will be a pleasure. I’m Grace.”
Ethan snapped his hand back as if she’d burned him and looked at Gabe with an anger she wouldn’t have guessed someone so young would possess. There were definitely hidden layers in the kid. Of course, everyone in this business had hidden layers. To the point where it was often hard to remember who you originally were or where you came from.
“Grace?” Ethan asked. “As in Grace Meredith?”
Silence lay heavily across the room. Grace wasn’t used to being the center of attention. She was used to hiding behind the rocks and taking the long, hard shots. She used Gabe as her center and didn’t break his stare as Ethan analyzed her coldly.
“Seriously, Gabe?” Ethan asked, his outrage obvious. “Have you lost your freaking mind?”
“You want to be very careful right now,” Gabe said, turning his cold blue gaze toward Ethan. “She’s not the only one who can put you on the floor. And I won’t be as nice about it.”
Grace shook her head as Ethan tried to bluster his way through. The kid had a lot to learn, that was for sure, and he’d be lucky to see his next birthday if he didn’t learn to keep his mouth shut.
“She’s a mercenary,” Ethan said, backing up a step as Gabe’s expression grew more menacing. “You can’t trust someone who’s only in it for the money. And from the things I’ve heard lately, she should be rotting in a prison somewhere.”
Jack stepped in front of Gabe before things got too far out of hand, and Grace breathed a sigh of relief. No one really knew who the three of them had to become over the last decade. The kills that had to be justified—the lies and subterfuge. She and Gabe and Jack had seen and done unimaginable things. All in the name of patriotism. And look where it had gotten them. They’d saved their country and lost their souls.
Ethan Thomas couldn’t possibly know who he was dealing with. Gabe was a good man—a fair man. But he lived by his own code and his own rules, and if Ethan Thomas overstepped or put any other agents in jeopardy with his smart mouth and careless ways, then Gabe wouldn’t hesitate to take him out. She would have done the same thing. The job was never about one man. It was about completing the mission, however it had to happen.
“She served her country just like the rest of us did,” Jack said. He kept his voice low and level. “And what she’s done with her life since she left the CIA is her business and no one else’s.” Jack lightened the tone of his voice, trying to defuse the tension. “You know how easy it is for rumors to fly. You’ve never stepped foot in the field, kid, but the rest of us have spent our lives making life-and-death decisions. And I can promise you that there’s not one of us standing in this room who doesn’t regret occasionally making the wrong choice.”
Gabe stepped around Jack and advanced on Ethan with menacing purpose. Ethan finally caught on to the fact that he’d gone too far and backed away from Gabe until he hit the wall.
Gabe’s voice was low, but each word was clear. “I assembled this team for reasons that you’ll never know or hope to understand. It’s not your place to say or questionanythingI decide to do. Everyone here starts on a clean slate. Including you. The last I checked the things you were doing with your computer back home counted as a treasonous act punishable by death. So if you have a problem with my decisions, then you’re free to leave and go through debriefing. Have I made myself clear?”
Grace winced and looked at Jack. Being debriefed was a nice way of saying that Ethan would be drugged and brainwashed until his brain was nothing more than pudding. She’d heard there were some who wanted to debrief Gabe when he resigned from the CIA. Gabe was lucky he hadn’t been taken out by an inside source.
Ethan stared down Gabe, trying to get his temper under control. “Yes, sir,” he said between gritted teeth.
Gabe nodded and backed away, avoiding Grace’s gaze as he headed toward the elevator. “Now let’s get some work done,” he called over his shoulder. “Because we’ll all end up dead if we don’t catch our next target. Conference room in five.”
ChapterFour
Tension vibrated in fine waves from everyone in the room, and Gabe sighed. Grace sat there stoically, pretending it didn’t matter what Ethan thought about her when he knew good and well that somewhere deep inside of her it did. Jack sat beside her like a guard dog ready to defend her honor. And Ethan sat sullenly on the far side of the table. By the time Logan walked in and gave him an arch look in question at the atmosphere, all Gabe wanted was a drink and maybe a good fight.
Logan took a seat next to Ethan, and Gabe slid thick black folders to each of them.
“All of this information is in your packet in greater detail, but I’ll hit the high points.” Gabe took his seat at the head of the table and flipped open his folder. “Before World War II, the United States began research on a biochemical weapon called the Passover Project. It started much like its counterpart—the Manhattan Project—as an experiment for annihilation. But it was never meant for mass destruction like the Manhattan Project was with the atomic bomb. The Passover Project was meant as an assassination tool designed for one specific target. Of course, the target at the time was Hitler. All the Passover Project needed to become viable was a single strand of DNA—a piece of hair or skin cells to add to the basic formula—and the weapon would turn live. In theory, once it was launched, it could seek out its DNA match from a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people and eliminate the target once contact was made.”
Jack gave a low whistle. “Terrifying.”
“To say the least,” Gabe said. “The core formula could be modified for any specific target by changing the DNA.”
“I’ve never heard of the Passover Project before,” Ethan said. “I’ve never even seen it mentioned in any Pentagon or CIA files.”
Gabe nodded and stood up to move around the room. He never liked being in one place very long. It made him restless.
“It never came to fruition,” he continued. “The Passover Project began production in 1939 in an underground laboratory in Nevada. The whole purpose for experiments like the Passover and Manhattan Projects was that intelligence indicated that the Nazis were already working on similar weapons. At that point, it was just a race to see who could finish first.
“Clearance was so restricted on the Passover Project that there were only four scientists on the original development team. Dr. Josef Schmidt, a biochemistry professor from Stanford, was the project’s creator and lead scientist.”
“And what happened to Dr. Schmidt?” Grace asked cynically. “Knowing our government the way I do, they wouldn’t let a man with that kind of knowledge live very long.”
