Page 13 of Scarred Sunrise

“This is for me. I want a life. I want a future, whatever that may look like.”

“Then that’s what I’ll help you achieve. Be at my office at fifteen-thirty, and we’ll get started on a plan to put your life back on track.”

“Thanks, doc.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Smithy. This is going to be the hardest thing you have ever done.”

Smithy hung up the call and slipped the phone into his jeans pocket with a feeling of lightness. It was good to take back some control for a change.

Moving through the hallway of Fortis, he pushed through the conference room door and noted he was the last to arrive. Every team member was there, as well as Roz and Bebe from Zenobi, and Alex and Decker from Eidolon. Both were secret groups with very different agendas but they had a common goal in their desire to take down the Divine Watchers.

Smithy took his place near the back of the room as Zack began the meeting.

“Firstly, let me say how good it is to have Smithy back with us.”

Smithy nodded awkwardly, not wanting the attention on him in this way. Talking to a group about a mission or even giving orders was easy, but this made him uncomfortable. He’d never had a lot of affection growing up; his mum was usually knee-deep in a bottle of cheap vodka before he got home from school. On the rare occasion she was sober, she was tactile and loving, but those times had been few and far between.

“Thanks, guys.” He nodded and looked away.

Zack must have sensed his awkwardness because he moved on. “Smithy, would you like to give us an update on what’s going on at the compound?”

“Yeah, sure.” He sat forward the knot of tension in his gut finally easing as he fell into a place where he felt safe. “So, since I spoke to you last a few big developments have occurred. We’ve seen a steady increase in new soldiers coming in, but I don’t think they were all ex-military. Some definitely were, although I think they weren’t as experienced, more likely a couple of years in and not Spec Ops. I think the others were possibly ex-street kids or addicts.”

“That makes sense, nobody would notice homeless people missing, and if they are addicts, they would be easier for her to control.” Roz leaned in nodding as she spoke.

“Exactly. I’d say there are around five hundred soldiers now at that compound. I know she has one other bunker where she is, but I still don’t have a location.” Smithy blew out a breath. “That’s not all. I heard she has a new lab, where she’s manufacturing both of the drugs, the control drug and the annihilation drug. My bet is she’s in the same place because she will want to oversee it all. I also heard from two men who were sent to the compound yesterday that she plans to put the drug into a pipeline, but that isn’t confirmed and was something I overheard.”

“It makes sense, though.” Zin tapped a pen on the desk as he spoke. “If you get the drug into the water system or some other pipeline, then it will disseminate easily without any way to stop it.”

“I need to speak to Meg about that. From what I understand of the annihilation drug, it won’t disperse in water properly, but will in air or gas.” Smithy frowned as he thought about the implications of that and what it might mean.

“Will, draw up a list of all possible pipelines that might work for this kind of thing. Work with Meg if she has time.”

“She doesn’t.” Daniel folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “She’s already working eighteen hour days. Can Lucy do it?” He glanced at Lucy, who had her hand resting on her baby bump.

“Yeah, I can do that as long as Will provides the strawberry pencils.” She offered a smile, and Will laughed.

Drew leaned back in his chair and took a swig of his bottled water. “I can help with that, too.”

“Fine.”

“Dane, Daniel, you work on finding out where these soldiers are coming from. Look into missing persons and speak to your contact at the MOD see if there are any soldiers listed as missing, or worse, whole units. She’ll probably try and cover it as missing in action, so check the middle eastern deployments.”

Zack turned to Kanan and Smithy admired how he could just take a situation and coordinate all the moving parts. It was what made Zack a great leader, and having worked under him he’d seen it first-hand before Fortis was ever born.

“K, can you do some digging and find possible locations where her lab and compound might be?”

“Sure.”

“Zenobi can help with that. Pax is good with that sort of thing.” Roz took out her phone and typed a message.

“I actually have a better idea.”

All eyes turned to him when he spoke, waiting patiently as if what he said mattered. It hit him then; they never looked at him as if he were the man who’d betrayed them or the man who was about to go off the deep end any second. To these people, he had as much value now as he’d ever had. He was the one who’d lost faith in himself and for a good reason, but they never had.

He swallowed to force the lump in his throat down and then coughed to disguise the emotion. “When Ice, Simon, and Stoner rescued me last night, Nazareli was there.”

“Yes, we saw that, and?” Zack’s eyes were razor-focused on him.