Shiva by Carolyn McCray Read Free Book Online Page A

Having no other way to apologize, Rebecca just threw her sweaty, grimy, torn wedding - dressed self into Ricky ’ s arms.
    He laughed, picking her up, swinging her around , so she was pointed in the direction of the private plane hang a r. “ That ’ s more like it. ”
    * * *
    Brandt felt his body slosh over. Actually , not slosh. There was no water , yet that ’ s what it felt like. Had someone replaced his muscles with lumpy oatmeal? Or Jell-O, maybe Jell-O. Whatever the hell it was, it wasn ’ t responding to his mind ’ s repeated, urgent request to get up. Now .
    The best Brandt could manage was to crack open his eyelids. He was on some kind of air cargo plane. Not US military. It felt Italian in manufacture. Although his brain was about a hundred times more functional than his muscles, he wasn ’ t about to ask it to come up with the exact make and model. Besides, it didn ’ t matter. The Disciples probably stole it from a maintenance yard or plane graveyard making the transport nearly impossible to trace.
    His limited, ground level vision swept the area in front of him. Pairs upon pairs of combat boots were lined up. A tactical team. No great surprise there either. The Disciples were transporting him from South Carolina to somewhere not in South Carolina.
    Even if he had full, or even minimal use of his limbs, he probably couldn ’ t figure that out. Not without one hell of a fight ending in a huge body count. One of those probably being his.
    No, instead , he needed to concentrate on his tooth.
    Closing his eyes and marshaling every reserve he had left, which wasn ’ t much, Brandt tried to clench his jaw. The best he got was his incisors barely grazing each other. That was not going to do.
    Brandt clearly remembered the briefing by the scientists. They were so giddy. “ All you have to do is chew, ” they said , nearly giggling.
    It sounded so fucking simple. Chew or , more appropriate in Brandt ’ s case, grind your teeth , and the motion fueled the transmitter. So simple.
    So not happening.
    “ Just ten good chews and the activated transmitter will send out a burst with your coordinates. ”
    Ten good chews. Who couldn ’ t chew ten times? Apparently Brandt. Plus , come to think of it , what about i f you had a ball gag in your mouth? How could you chew then?
    Yeah, those were two scenarios the squints hadn ’ t thought of.
    Knowing that his life depended on his ability to masticate, Brandt bit down harder. He nicked the side of his tongue , but who cared? Pain shot up from the broken shard of porcelain cap. Concentrating, Brandt bit down again and again and again. At least ten times, but nothing.
    The first time he ’ d activated the tracker, the damn thing had given him a little jolt in the gum. Now nothing.
    Ten chew s his ass.
    Clearly , that had been an optimistic number.
    Taking in a slow, deep breath, Brandt prepared for another round of overriding a massive paralytic.
    He could only hope someone was watching on the other end.
    * * *
    Davidson allowed the whine of the plane ’ s engines to soothe his jangled joints. The last few hours had not been kind to any of them. This was the fourth plane they had lifted , and Lopez was having a harder and harder time staying clear of any civilian or military ’ s radar.
    But they needed to stay close to Charleston. To strike out in any one direction could cost them hours later if Brandt had been taken in the opposite direction. So they had stayed as close to the church as they could. However , word had clearly gone out that their team was AWOL. The Pentagon was probably spending as much time tracking down them as they were Brandt.
    No one was taking the waiting harder than Rebecca. She sat across the aisle from Davidson on the twin-engine prop plane, her stained and tattered wedding dress a visible accounting of the hell they had all been through.
    Her veil, the anchor of it so firmly tangled in her hair that the best they could do was cut off the