CHAPTER 24: KICKSTARTING A STORM

The old hangar still smelled like oil and melted snow, even after all those years since KAS decided to make it their unofficial meeting place. Rust bit at the rafters, half the lights flickered like they were dying in protest, and one of the side doors never closed all the way. But it was theirs.

And they had made sure that no one knew about it. In fact, Lachlan had even gone so far as to have completely erased it from any map. This was their safe house, the one that not even their individual handlers knew about.

In the center of the massive room sat four couches, a television, a round dining room table, and a small kitchenette with an industrial-sized fridge and freezer combo in the corner.

Three of the men sat at the table, a deck of cards splattered on the table in front of them as three killers played a round of ’Go Fish’.

Elias entered without a word, flanked by two uniformed assistants. One carried a clipboard. The other rolled in a tall portable cooler marked with hazard tape and government clearance codes.

Lachlan spotted them first ,and the smile on his face quickly faded. "What happened to this being just for us?" he demanded, nodding to the two men on either side of Elias.

"They were blindfolded and had noise-canceling headphones on the entire time," shrugged Elias as the two men stared into space. There were a lot of rumors about KAS, and everyone knew that to go against them was to ensure you never came back from your next deployment.

Lachlan’s trademark grin returned to his face as he leaned back in his folding chair and lifted a half-empty beer. "Then I trust they know how to keep their mouths shut?" he purred as he pulled out two knives from seemingly thin air. "I would hate for something to happen to them on their way home."

"Hossaini?" grunted Elias, turning to their team leader, expecting him to be on his side.

"Why did you call us here?" Zubair asked instead. He put his cards on the table in front of him, face down, his face completely expressionless.

"We need to be vaccinated," replied Elias, placing the briefcase in his hands on the table in front of him. He didn’t care about the game as the cards became lost under the heavy metal case. "We have finally created a working prototype for the vaccine. You need to take it in order to continue on with work."

He pulled a syringe with a stylized logo and placed it in the center of the table. "This will keep us all safe."

"Naw, mate," Lachlan said cheerfully, tapping a boot against the concrete. "I already promised I’d sprint the second I saw that logo. Don’t make me go off running now. Put that shit away and have a drink with the rest of us."

The Hydra sticker on the cooler gleamed under the buzzing light. It was the new version—stylized and sterilized—seven silver lines forming a spiral around a red dot. Harmless to the untrained eye, but not to Lachlan.

Zubair shifted in his seat near the corner, arms folded across his chest, gaze steady as ever.

"Has it been tested?" he asked flatly, the only one not smiling.

Elias removed his gloves and walked to the front of the room. "It’s going through human clinical trials now. Military and government get first crack before it’s mass-produced."

Alexei groaned dramatically, twisting around in his chair. "So, not only are we cannon fodder, we are guinea pigs too?" He tilted his head toward Lachlan. "I’m with Lucky Charms. Dat needle isn’t going near me. Nyet."

"For the last time," Lachlan sighed, dragging a hand through his hair, "I am not from Country C. I’m from Country A. No leprechauns. No pots of gold. Just heatstroke and bad beer."

"Pah," Alexei waved him off. "Lachlan, leprechaun—sounds de same. And you both wear green sometimes."

"I wear green because it’s our uniform, you clown."

"Exactly," Alexei said with a shrug. "Uniformed misfortune."

Zubair gave a slow exhale and muttered under his breath, "How do I lead a team of children."

"You love us," Lachlan grinned. "You’d miss me if I dropped dead."

"I’d quickly remember how much I missed silence," Zubair replied, deadpan.

Elias let the exchange go for a moment. They needed their jokes. It was how they processed pressure. But it was also why no one ever took things seriously until the damage was already done.

He slapped a folder onto the nearest table, loud enough to jolt a few heads around.

"I know what this is," he said sharply. "I’ve spent every day monitoring Dr. Orhan’s work. Every calculation. Every projection. Every single control group. This is a vaccine. And according to the simulations, there’s no problem with it."

Zubair didn’t blink. "And if we don’t take it?"

Elias turned toward him, voice tight. "Do you not trust me?"

Zubair’s silence stretched longer than necessary before he finally said, "I trust you believe what you’re saying. That’s not the same thing."

Elias opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again.

Why didn’t they see it? Why couldn’t they understand that this was a necessary step? The mutagen was coming. If this vaccine wasn’t real, then they were already dead. But if it was—if it worked—then they had the key to survival. The data was clean. Too clean, maybe. But thorough.

He ran a hand through his hair, exasperated. "This isn’t politics. This isn’t propaganda. This is science. And we need to be protected."

"Sorry, mate," Lachlan said with an exaggerated wince. "But I’ll be killed if I let that crap near my bloodstream."

"Don’t be dramatic—"

"It’s not drama," Lachlan cut in, tone losing its humor. "It starts with a girl too pretty to be real, and the way she looked when she saw that Hydra logo. You didn’t see it. I did."

"Of course," Elias snapped. "You’d bring it back to a pretty girl. Have you ever considered that—at almost thirty—you might try growing up?"

He was met with a round of snickers from the rest of the unit.

Lachlan leaned forward with a grin. "Oh, I’ve grown. I just haven’t outgrown survival instincts."

"Maybe it’s not instinct," Alexei said, resting his chin on his knuckles. "Maybe it’s just cowardice in different accent."

Lachlan pointed at him. "Says the guy who ran from a goose last week."

"That goose had dead eyes," Alexei muttered. "Fucking cobra chickens."

Zubair groaned quietly. "I should’ve taken that posting in the arctic wasteland. Less noise. Fewer birds."

Elias had had enough.

He pulled a syringe from the cooler, held it up, and jabbed it into his own arm without ceremony.

A collective hush fell over the group.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t look away.

"See?" he said, letting the empty syringe clatter onto the metal tray. "It’s perfectly fine."

------

Elsewhere, beneath layers of cement and steel, Dr. Layla Orhan stepped into a quiet lab booth with a burner phone in one hand and her tablet in the other.

She didn’t need to check if the room was secure.

She knew it already was.

"No, sir," she said, voice low and even. "Just like the vaccines in Country M, there has to be an airborne trigger in order to fully activate the vaccine. Until then, it remains inert."

She glanced toward the secure vault where the remaining doses were stored—lined neatly in rows, each one labeled, catalogued, and trusted.

"The compound looks perfectly harmless..." she continued, her voice a thread of silk, eyes gleaming in the reflection of the glass. "Until you decide otherwise."