Rebel Heart

Brady surveyed the mess before him, admiring the ability of the bio-elimination field to destroy on touch. The fed's facility had been armed as well as the hospital, and one of his commo guys intercepted the call for help only an hour before. Even so, Brady and his team had arrived too late.

Nothing remained. Rather, no one remained.

"They left everything in storage. Didn't take a damn thing," Dan reported from his position inside the building.

Brady rested his laser gun on his shoulder, taking in the undisturbed minefield and pieces of bodies remaining after several of the intruders tried to cross the bio-elim field before it was disabled. The fed building smoldered before him, the scent of metal and burning plastic thick in the air.

"No survivors out here," he said. "Looks like they were here to kill, not loot."

"Some good shit back here, though."

"The feds always have the best shit," Brady said.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?" Dan asked.

"That this was a fed-on-fed attack?"

"No one else uses this ammunition except for us, and this wasn't one of our ops. It's military grade."

Brady walked the area between the double walls, looking for anything or anyone in a large enough piece to provide clues as to what was going on. The compound was a nuclear power plant. The reactor area, the storage and logistical areas, and the hazardous waste areas appeared untouched. Just the barracks and office areas had been attacked.

Whoever attacked didn't want survivors or to destroy a perfectly functional facility. Someone would be coming back to take over the facility, he assessed.

"I hate being too near this stuff," he muttered. "Won't know if there's an issue 'til you're dead."

"Or your dick falls off. We'll loot fast," Dan promised.

Brady pushed chunks of body parts blown out of the minefield and knelt to retrieve a thumb keypad. He didn't understand the significance of the seemingly benign keypads. This one was similar to the other his team found, only there was no biohazard sign, and the serial was in blue. He'd spent days fighting to reach the Peak with the first one, and Lana had nearly gone off a cliff for another one.

He'd tried hard not to think of her or their night. He'd betrayed his own sense of responsibility, not to mention his promise to Tim. God, but she was worth it! She'd proven as lively in bed as she was timid outside of it. Her heart was in everything she did, and she'd loved him back with both tenderness and passion.