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CHAPTER 1
“We have a problem.”
He glanced up at Hoyt, his face serene. “What is it?”
“Whitman rabbited.”
He blew his breath out and scrubbed a hand across the two-day growth sprouted on his jaw. “Fuck. I knew that asshole was losing his nerve. Find him. Check his house and -”
“There’s more, Chad.”
Double fuck. Hoyt only called him by his first name when it was really bad. “What?”
“He destroyed the serum in the lab.”
“All of it?”
“Yeah. Walters found the vials smashed in the lab on sixth. Nothing is viable.”
“How the fuck did he take the vials from the lab when there are cameras every two fucking feet in that place, Hoyt?”
“He hacked the system, ran a loop of the video feed.”
“He’s a fucking biochemist, not a hacker!” Chad sucked in a deep breath. Losing his shit wouldn’t help the situation. “Okay, have Simpson and Edwards start cooking up a new batch of juice. The team is due for their next shots in twelve hours. It’ll be close but -”
“He took the formula.”
The storm brewing in Chad’s chest became a category five hurricane. “What do you mean he took the formula?”
“He deleted it out of the system, but Edwards is confident he took a copy of it. He saw him earlier this morning at the computer with a flash drive.”
“He had a fucking flash drive, and Edwards didn’t think that was worth telling me about?” Chad’s blood pressure climbed to stroke levels. “What the fuck, Hoyt?”
Hoyt shrugged. “He didn’t think twice about it. Whitman is the lab head, and Edwards is just a peon hired to make the juice.”
“Fucking hell.” Chad leaned back in his chair. “I told Bradmore we needed to have copies of the juice formula offsite. I fucking told him, but he refused to listen. Too fucking worried that outside sources would get a hold of it.”
He stared at the ceiling, his guts churning. “Whitman will take this public.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Hoyt said.
“Like fuck, I don’t!’ Chad snapped. “We need to find him before he blows the whole program out of the water. Take a team to his home.”
“It’s been five hours since he left the lab,” Hoyt said. “He told Edwards and Simpson he had a doctor’s appointment.”
“What the fuck, Hoyt? You’re the head of security, and you had no idea any of this happened for five fucking hours?”
Hoyt’s face reddened. “This isn’t my fault, Chad. Whitman has high-level clearance. He’s allowed wherever the fuck he wants in the lab.”
“Christ, this just gets worse and worse. Take a team to Whitman’s house. Maybe they can find a clue to where he’s hiding.”
“You want me to take Rourke and the others?” Hoyt said.
Chad shook his head. “No. They need to conserve their energy. Take a human team.”
Hoyt headed toward the door, pausing in the doorway when Chad called his name.
“All I need is the juice formula. Whitman can be cleaned and tossed. Let Jasper know where to pick up the body. Clear?”
