Night Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page B

ful magazine. Her heart skipped several beats as
    adrenaline surged. “Exactly the same MO.”
    “Exactly. Yeah?” he said, clearly speaking into his headset. He listened for
    several seconds. Then said “Fuck” quietly under his breath. “Reported.” He
    was speaking to her this time. “A hundred and ten confirmed deaths in
    Moscow. Tangos released LZ17, then blew the railway station to hell and
    gone. The hostages we liberated were infected before we got them out.
    Dammit.”
    She hated to do it, but Lexi made a mental note to report that far from
    remaining at the scene to liberate the hostages, Alex had cut out early,
    and had been napping back at the safe house while his team members did
    what they could. She hated to even think it, but possibly, if Alex had
    remained at the station, there might not have been any deaths to report.
    Possibly his help would have gotten the people out before the coronavirus
    was released.
    “You and the team managed to get seventy-seven percent of the people
    out.” She had to credit him with that, at least.
    “Twenty-three percent of them died, ” he said tightly. “God damn it. This is
    overkil , and doesn’t make any frigging sense. This is the same
    frankenvirus used in the London subway last week. Same as Paris
    yesterday. Where the hel are these people getting this shit? Who’s
    making it? Who are they? What the fuck do they want?”
    “Not the six mil, obviously,” she responded, even though she knew the
    questions were rhetorical. “They aren’t even making a pretense of
    waiting.” It wasn’t a frankenvirus. “LZ17 is that new, lethal coronavirus,
    right? Similar in effect and composition to SARS, but ten times more
    deadly.” Really, he should call a spade a spade. Was he going to put
    frankenvirus in his report? He was irreverent enough. Probably.
    She’d boned up on it during her flight, the real flight. On a plane. Not that
    there was much intel on how to defeat the new designer virus, just details
    on the gory effects. She caught the faint movement as he nodded.
    “Impossible to detect until people present with horrific symptoms, and it’s
    too late to treat.” Lexi didn’t have a very active imagination, but even she
    wanted to shudder at the idea of bleeding from every orifice while writhing
    in agony. Mental y pul ing up her big-girl panties, she glanced at the
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    brightly lit building beyond the dark alley, then back at Alex. “Are we
    going in alone?”
    He tilted his left wrist to look at his watch. “Psi team rendezvousing here
    in . . . sixteen seconds.”
    Faster than a regular team, but stil . Did every op have to be manned by
    wizards ? Regular operatives managed to do their job with skill and smarts,
    without having to resort to hocus-pocus. “By which time, everyone could
    be dead.”
    “By which time, everyone could be dead, yeah.”
    She wanted to rub the chill from her arms. But under her clothing the
    LockOut suit kept her comfortable. Almost a second skin, it maintained an
    even body temperature of sixty-seven degrees. LockOut, invented by T-
    FLAC science guy Jake Dolan, was a modern miracle of fabrication and
    engineering. It was practically indestructible, kept out water and fire, was
    impervious to nicks and cuts. It was even self-healing if something did
    manage to tear it. If one wore it.
    The injury on her shoulder itched just to remind her that it wouldn’t be
    there if she’d fol owed the rules as she was supposed to. She shook her
    head in disgust and tuned back in to Alex’s version of briefing. “How many
    guests?”
    “Seven-fifty on the official guest list. Three hundred assorted staff.”
    Silence throbbed as they both considered what was happening inside the
    museum right that second. “The displays are rotated once every three
    months.” Lexi said quietly, now preternaturally alert and itching for action.
    “Which means sixty thousand pieces can be viewed in a year. It would
    take someone