Frostfire Read Online Free PDF Page A

her talking until he felt the burn beginning in his muscles, and then rose and walked over to her.
    “Now show me what you did to him.”
    “Do you need me for anything else, sir?” Tina asked once he’d finished and she’d caught her breath.
    “Not today.” Genaro stood, shrugging into a robe before he handed her another. “Go home and get some sleep.”
    She pulled on the robe. “Sir, may I make a suggestion?” When he nodded, she said, “Why don’t you allow me to accompany Dr. Kirchner to the new facility?”
    He frowned. “Why would I do that?”
    “His loyalty to the company is essential to the project,” she said. “If I go out with him, I can determine if he’s been compromised in any way.”
    “I don’t know.” He thought again of the odd emotion in Kirchner’s eyes. It had looked like . . . desperation. “Sex doesn’t work on Eliot. You’ll have to use other measures.”
    Tina smiled. “I can do that, sir.”
     
    “Jesus, he’s one heavy dude,” a young man’s voice complained, grunting with effort.
    A deeper voice, equally strained, snapped back. “He’s dead, you dumbass. What’d you expect him to be, a feather?”
    The dead man couldn’t feel his weight or any part of his body. He seemed to be in a gray void, trapped between sunlight and shadow, drifting without substance or will. All he could hear was the two other men talking, the panting of their breath, and the sounds they made as they worked.
    “Once we pick up the other one, then we hit the road, right?” the grunter asked.
    “Yeah, and I’m driving.” Metal squealed as something beneath the dead man moved. “Gimme those chains.”
    “Not like he’s gonna jump out the back,” the younger man said. “Okay, okay, don’t get your dick in a knot.” Chains clinked and slid across a flat surface.
    Death had been his aim, the dead man thought as he floated up. The one thing that had gone right, that he had done right. He remembered the dog tags in his fist, and how tightly he had clutched them as the bullets had pelted him. He’d held on to them, even when the earth had exploded beneath him and he’d been blown into this place. They had been the last of his earthly possessions, proof of his final act of courage, the only thing he had wanted to take with him into oblivion. He couldn’t feel them in his fist anymore, and that bothered him more than the voices.
    “Where’d they find the big son of a bitch anyway?” the younger man asked. “Iraq?”
    “Afghanistan.” The older man paused to catch his breath. “Bought him from some poppy farmer who’d been using his corpse as a scarecrow.”
    “They hung his ass in a field to chase off birds?” He whistled. “Man, that’s cold.”
    “They weren’t trying to scare crows , moron.” A match was struck. “At least they kept him on ice. I can’t stand the ones that stink.”
    “So what are they gonna do? Chop him up like the others?” A thud sounded, and the young man yelped. “Shit, Bob, I was just curious.”
    “You ask too many questions, Joey.”
    The dead man silently agreed. He didn’t want to know what was going to happen to his remains.
    Coward.
    The new voice made the harsh word sound soft, almost like an endearment. He tried to move away from it, but the void held him fast, now another prison from which he would never escape. He didn’t want to hear her words, but they encircled him, manacles of silk and sweetness.
    You have run from everything. Hiding in your battle-fields and wars. Roaming the world like a fugitive. Now you would give them your life.
    He hadn’t given them anything. He’d made a trade so that he could find some peace. I am already dead. I died in battle.
    No, you did not. The voice lashed at him. You know it. Death does not provide a listening post.
    He had been so sure this time.... I feel nothing.
    You will not allow yourself to feel. You are too afraid of what will happen if you do. That makes you a coward.
    He had been