Chapter 1

Hammer and Vadar stared down at the hospital bed, as did Walter Plack. They were in an underground hospital never seen by civilian eyes. It was a hospital for people who did not exist: high-profile operatives, witnesses, or prisoners who could not afford to be recognized. Though the facility wasn’t so large in size, it was one of the best in the country, specializing in treatment such as topweaponry bullet removal, “torture recovery,” and blood loss.

“Please explain to me again how this man got anything whatsoever out of his sock,” Plack growled at the guard.

“Like I said, we were escorting him to the toilet. He sat down on the bucket and leaned over. I thought he was tying his shoe until I saw him reaching in his sock. I yelled for him to stop, but by the time I got to him, it was in his mouth. I hit him, but that didn’t stop him from swallowing it. Then he got this sick look on his face, and about two minutes later he slumped over onto the floor, unconscious.”

“No one searched him before he was unchained from the chair?”

“We searched thoroughly for weapons. Even in his mouth. The pill was attached just under his ankle. No one saw it until it was too late.”

“You’ll have to excuse us, gentlemen, but we’ll need a moment alone with him,” Vadar announced.

Plack left with the guards and left Vadar and Hammer alone in the room. From of their bags, they pulled several medical apparatuses and then lifted the patient’s gown. They did not have anything that would restore life to the prisoner, but it was the next best thing.

“We must work quickly,” Vadar instructed. “We don’t know what was in that pill.”

They attached the devices in their designated spots and activated them. Upon activation, tiny needles from the devices inserted themselves into the captor’s skin and began to extract DNA chromosomes. Vadar carefully placed a dark, strange medical mask over the patient’s face.

“Twenty over forty,” Hammer read from the gauge of one of the devices.

“Tube one, 50%,” Vadar murmured.

“Tube six at 90%,” Hammer read from another of the gauges.

“Bio is too high; he won’t make it,” Vadar announced. “Let’s grab the goodies and get out of here. This stuff gives me the creeps.”

“It’s not the highlight of my day, either,” Hammer countered.

After a few more minutes, all the tubes were filled, and the device gauge beeped twice. Vadar and Hammer quickly deactivated the devices and returned them carefully to their bags. Both men left the room together and told Plack to find out what was in the pill and to contact them on the ComLink if the prisoner pulled through. They both knew what the pill was designed to do, and thus, they also knew that the chances of the prisoner’s recovery were slim to none. The captured terrorist who bombed the cruise ship would be pronounced dead within hours.

Sparrow wasn’t terribly fond of truth duty. It meant verifying the aliases of AEGIS, her covert special-ops team members. At given points in assignments, it was necessary to save the life of the agent in play. Like today, too much was at stake. They had set up a meeting with the man who had had foreign diplomat Epifanii Yuklivitch assassinated on the White House steps, billionaire elitist Gary Klingner. Klingner had agreed to set up a meeting with Felix and the liaison to Amerus, the team who had executed the hit. The cover story would be that Felix needed to hire them to steal some priceless artwork. The real story was that Amerus struck fear into the heart of the Oval Office, and AEGIS had been cleared to use any methods needed to find them and stop them. This included hiring them to steal artwork, then once they came out of the shadows, killing them. It was a possibility that Gary’s Klingner’s contact would ask for verification of Felix’s identity. Someone would call the number on his business card or drive by the location that was listed as his address or employ other concise research methods to check the person out and confirm the veracity of the person’s identity. “Truth duty” was what AEGIS had nicknamed this responsibility.