Toxic Game (GhostWalkers #15) - Christine Feehan Page 0,57

didn’t.”

That explained the three men who had died before those in the village. “Where’s the rest of it? You still have more of it.”

A sob escaped Lesmono’s throat. “I don’t know how to get rid of it. I don’t want it around me, my men or these people. This was my village. I grew up here.”

“You knew the people of Lupa Suku.” Draden made it a statement.

Lesmono nodded, his head hanging. “Yes.” It came out a whisper.

This man had taken charge, but he wasn’t happy with what had gone before him. Draden wanted to feel sorry for him, but he didn’t. Lesmono hadn’t done anything to stop his former commander from killing innocent people.

“Where is it?”

Lesmono pointed a shaky finger to the door that was on the side of the desk where he sat. Draden’s heart gave a powerful jerk of shock. What the hell were they thinking?

“Take it out.”

Lesmono shook his head. “I’m not touching it.”

“Open the door.” To emphasize that he meant business, he let Lesmono feel the very, very sharp edge of his knife, by tracing another path from the base of the skull down the right side of the spinal column, leaving a second trail of blood.

Lesmono reached down and pulled open the door. There was a small desk refrigerator built inside. Keeping the knife at the base of the new commander’s skull, Draden opened the refrigerator door. A small metal case was inside surrounded by ice packs. Clearly no one knew what they were doing with the virus.

“Take it out carefully. I’m already infected so I could care less if you accidentally drop the thing.” Draden kept his tone matter-of-fact.

For the first time, Lesmono turned his head slightly toward the window, and Draden felt him fill his lungs with air. He was far more afraid of the virus than he was the knife. Draden slammed the blade through the base of his skull. The new commander fell forward and face-planted onto the desk.

Draden checked the case. It was filled with ice, and sitting in a bed of cooling foam was a plastic ampule containing only a couple of drops, but that was all that was needed to wipe out a good portion of the world. Drops. He shook his head as he closed the case. What were the three men thinking? It was insanity.

Tucking the case inside his shirt, he moved in silence across the room to the other living space where the sunroof remained open in spite of the rain falling. The earlier, soft rain was now falling at a steady pace and the floor was saturated. He easily made it to the roof but had to lie prone, stretched out in plain sight while the guards made their rounds. Then he was on the porch and back on the ground, walking away, hood pulled up and his weapon in his arms.

Without hurrying, he made his way through the village. Because he acted completely confident and in control, no one challenged him. He kept to himself. He could speak the language, but he didn’t look like a native and he wasn’t taking chances, especially now that he had the virus. He would have used any means necessary to gain the information he needed on the whereabouts of the remainder of it, but he’d gotten a lucky break in finding the commander had a conscience.

He headed away from the river, back toward heavier forest. Somewhere, Shylah was hunting. He wanted to join her, but he needed to get the ampule back to the remote lab and inform Trap it was there. Joe would send someone immediately to collect it. He had the times Whitney had the use of the military satellite. He had about three hours. Tigers could easily leap ten feet straight up and he used that ability to get into the trees where the arboreal highway afforded him fast movement without detection.

He had been careful to close the cabinet in the desk, leaving the commander slumped in his chair for his men to find. He knew he was already going to be gaining a reputation, a phantom in the forest, one darted with the virus but sneaking into the village and killing whenever and whomever he felt like.

He began to make his way back through the trees the same way he had come, hoping to find evidence of Shylah’s work. When he reached the place they had split up, he went ten feet farther, and just under the tree he saw two bodies.