Page 2 of Red Zone Awakened

CHAPTER1

“This isn’t an undercover op.It’s a suicide mission,” Mace Armstrong murmured into the throat mic that connected him with his team.

“Drama queen.”Hunter, their tech guy, was feeling brave, sitting out of retaliation’s reach.

“I’m keeping score, kid,” Mace told him.

Unlike his teammates, who were safe in their surveillance van four blocks away, Mace was on the sixty-sixth floor of the flagship research facility belonging to the world’s largest tech company.His mission was simple—blend in as a reporter, tag the lead scientist with some nanotech that would give them access to the closed computer system, and leave.Easy, right?

So how come he felt like his head was clamped in a lion’s jaw?

“Tell me again why this is our problem?”Mace grumbled.

“Because of it bein’ the right thing to do,mon ami.”His team leader’s Cajun drawl sounded in Mace’s ear.As usual, Luke “Striker” Boudreaux was laid back and unbothered by his complaints.It’s what made him a great leader and a pain in the ass as a best friend.

“People will die if that microchip’s implanted in their heads.”Friday Boudreaux, Striker’s wife, added her unwelcome ten cents to the conversation.“We can’t let CommTECH release a faulty chip.And to stop the release, we need hard evidence.”

Mace tried to ignore her voice, which was like a bee buzzing in his ear.“If people are stupid enough to shove computer crap in their brains just so they can turn their TVs on with a thought, they sure as hell can deal with the consequences.”

Friday let out an irritated sigh.Something she did a lot around Mace.“There’s a whole lot more to it than that.I’ve explained this to you.The world is run by technology, everything’s interconnected, and if you aren’t plugged into it, you’re at a disadvantage.Plus, it’s efficient.It isn’t so much the implanted tech that’s the problem.It’s that they’re cutting corners with this one data chip, which means people will die.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah…

“Still finding it hard to care,” Mace drawled.

It wasn’t like they didn’t have enough on their plate without getting involved in the stupidity of the time.If people wanted to kill themselves in order to link to the net, so be it.Anyway, the whole cyborg insanity wasn’t the only reason Mace was pissed with this mission.There was also the matter of how they’d treated their mark—the woman they’d used to sneak him into the press conference.

“I don’t enjoy blackmailing innocent women,” he told his team.

And there was the crux of the matter.He’d be the first to admit he was a bastard, but even he had lines he didn’t want to cross.

“Keiko Sato isn’t innocent,” Friday said.“She runs CommTECH’s publicity machine, which means she must know there are problems with their latest tech.”

Mace didn’t care.“We crossed a line, holding her parents hostage to strong-arm her into getting me in here.Last I checked, we were the good guys.Army Rangers don’t blackmail people.”

“FormerArmy Rangers,” Friday corrected, annoying him again.“It’s been decades since that arm of the military was disbanded.”

“I didn’t ask to get hit with an experimental weapon and wake up a hundred years after I should have died.Far as I’m concerned, the Rangers still exist, I’m still one of them, and we still have a code of honor—which we’re breaking.”

“Mon ami,” Striker said.“You can keep on spouting your righteous indignation, but all I’m hearing is guilt.I told you to keep it in your pants around this woman, but you didn’t listen.Haven’t I always told you that we don’ sleep with the mark?As soon as we get emotionally involved, it complicates things—for all of us.”

Mace growled, drawing the attention of some of the other media around him.“Damn equipment acting up,” he told them and received knowing nods.He lowered his voice back to a barely there whisper.“I’m not emotionally involved.And I didn’t sleep with her.She threw herself at me, and I just… caught her.”

“With your dick?”Hunter said.He was grinning; Mace could hear it.Their tech guy was definitely going to see the wrong side of his fist once this was over.

“I’m done arguing,” Mace declared.“I’ll do my job, andthenwe’ll talk.”He poured as much menace into his voice as he could.He’d told his team he was shit at undercover work, but they hadn’t listened.So this was on them.

“Is that a threat?”Friday asked, sounding bewildered.“I can’t tell.”

Mace ignored the scientist who’d gotten them into this mess in the first place.“Where’s Keiko?”

Striker had no right talking about women clouding Mace’s judgment when his own wife led him around by his dick.

Women—so not worth the hassle.

“For the twentieth time,” Hunter said through his earpiece, “she’s prepping the scientists taking part in the press conference.”

Mace couldn’t begin to express how much he hated the fact their tech guy was monitoring Keiko.He knew it was a sensible precaution, one that would protect the team, but it irked him that someone else was close to her.And being inside her head, monitoring her through her implanted data chips, was about as close as you could get.