Three hours earlier

Reginald Thomas—Reg to those who knew him well—watched Faith surreptitiously as she and Hope hugged in the airport’s terminal building. While he’d known about the genetically altered CIA additions, he’d kept a very low profile after the first five women showed up.

For the best of reasons.

He’d been deeply involved in creating that race of super-humans. After two tours in the Middle East as a field surgeon, he’d seen the writing on the wall, and the message didn’t bode well for the United States. The countries they fought were ruthless and had no compunctions about using their soldiers as cannon fodder. For every man killed, two more sprang up to take his place, many not more than young teenagers.

He’d opted for some hard lab time after that second tour and floated his brainchild past the scientific community. Their level of enthusiasm surprised him. So did the reality of established breeding farms flying beneath the radar.

The upshot was he’d spent the next few years fine-tuning his model and working on creating alterations when V1 turned out to have significant flaws. Things appeared to be running smoothly, so he’d signed on for one more overseas tour and returned to Iraq and Afghanistan. Lab work was fine, but he missed the adrenaline punch of kneeling in the mud engaged in hand-to-hand combat with death.

He’d won against the Grim Reaper enough times to keep coming back for more. Like as not, he’d still be crouched in a flapping canvas field tent tending wounded, but a bullet had shattered his femur and sent him back to the States. Milton had chased him down in a VA hospital, filled him in on the CIA’s quiet little war against the freaks he’d created, and offered him a job.

Reg had struggled hard with the proposal. His leg was healing, and the Air Force would clear him for active duty again. In the end, his decision hinged on two things. Guilt and responsibility. The freaks may not have been his original idea, but he was one of three primary researchers who’d fielded the V2 configuration. No way of getting around the fact that the damage they were doing—and the lives lost as the CIA fought them—were his fault.

Also, he liked Milton. He’d served with him and Roy Kincaid and Charlie McClaren at different times in the Middle East. To be surrounded by men he respected was important. Still, it hadn’t been an easy transition. The CIA infirmary was his baby, but it lacked the grittiness of dodging bullets, grenades, and landmines…

When you cut to the heart of things, he was a live-life-on-the-edge junkie just like every other career military man.

Faith and Hope were still chatting animatedly, their green eyes aglow with pleasure. It was clear the women were close—and that Faith was delighted her friend had found a man to love.

His attempts to maintain separation from the freaks had come to a crashing halt when Charlie ended up in the infirmary—surrounded by freaks determined to save his life. Reg’s attempts to shoo them out of his nice, neat clinic failed, but that was a good thing because he’d learned a lot about how his creations turned out.

Not my creations. They manipulated the pattern I started with and made it ever so much better.

Still watching the women, because he couldn’t tear his gaze away, Reg cringed internally. He’d left before his V2 genome fully played itself out. It took a few months to unravel, but it had been an unmitigated disaster. And the pivotal event spawning the rebellion. He’d been in Afghanistan when he’d caught wind of the bad news. Not much he could do about it from ten thousand miles away, so he’d gone back to fishing for shrapnel in the patient he’d been working on.

He’d done enough doctoring, much of it could be relegated to autopilot, so he’d spent a whole lot of time feeling shitty and replaying the gene sequences to figure out where he’d gone wrong.

“Hey, Doc!” Charlie strode to his side. “I’m cleared from your end, right?”

“Yup. Just stopping by to see you off.” He extended a hand, and Charlie clasped it.

“Thanks for not chasing Frank and Tony out.”

Reg bit back a snort. “I have a funny habit of listening to people when I’ve run up against a dead end.” He let go of Charlie’s hand. “I’m pleased and fascinated their intervention worked, but I do want to see you every two weeks so I can take serum samples and see what, if anything, is changing in your physiology.”

“You got it!” Charlie grinned and walked to Hope and Faith. “Ready to go?” he asked Hope.”

When she trained her green eyes on him, they brimmed with enthusiasm and joy. “You betcha. Sooner we’re airborne, the sooner I can take over the flight computer. I’ve always wanted to fly one of those things.” She pointed out the bank of windows.

Charlie hooked an arm beneath hers. “That can be arranged.” He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Just don’t tell Uncle Miltie.”

Hope stared right at him and inquired, “Uncle Who?”

Charlie rolled his eyes. “Come on, sweetheart, before Uncle Who changes his mind.”

“Take good care of that plane,” Milton cautioned for the umpteenth time with a deadpan expression.

Charlie cast a serious side-eye at his boss, and both men broke out laughing. They were still chortling when Charlie and Hope walked through the door and out onto the tarmac. Duffels hung off their shoulders, along with an assortment of firepower.

After a final wistful glance at her friend, Faith turned to leave. Her emotions were easy enough to read. She was happy for her friend, but she wanted the same thing: a man of her own to love. Out of the four women she’d arrived at Langley with, she was the only one still by herself.

“Hold up for a minute, Faith.” Milton’s tone was stern.

“It’s past six, sir.” She twisted to face him. “Was there more work you wanted me to do tonight?” Her expression was open, unguarded. And her words had been sincere without a hint of sullenness.

Reg had to hand it to her. Most normal humans would’ve been piling arguments atop arguments that they’d done plenty for one day and could they please be excused to their quarters. Not Faith.

“One more thing,” Milton’s harsh demeanor softened.

“Name it.” She stood straighter, waiting.

“See if any of our new female recruits want to go to dinner with you. I’m sure things here still feel uncomfortable, and having a seasoned pro show them the ropes will get them into the swing of life at Langley. Make them useful agents that much sooner.”

Faith smiled, and the classic planes of her face shifted into something profanely beautiful. Reg stared at green eyes, slanted cheekbones, a high forehead, and a defined chin with a dimple dead center. Her teeth were very straight and very white.

“I’d planned to do that anyway, sir. Thanks for being so kind to Hope and Charlie.”

The corners of Milton’s mouth twitched. “Don’t spread it around. Kind isn’t how I want anyone to see me. Gets in the way of my badass reputation.”

“Your secret is safe with me.” She turned toward the door and let herself outside.

Milton turned to Reg and quirked a brow. “Feel like a cup of coffee?”

“Do you suppose it’s too early to put a splash of whiskey in it?”

Milton made a grunting noise. “Wasn’t aware booze had a time limit on it. Come on.” He pushed the door open and motioned Reg through. The whine of jet engines revving said the Gulfstream was on the move.

“Were you wanting to come back to the infirmary?” Reg asked.

“It’s closer than my house, so sure. You still bunking in Charlie’s building?”

“Yeah.” Reg shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. “I spend most of my time in the infirmary. My bed there actually sees a whole lot more of me than the one in my apartment.”

Milton made a noncommittal sound and broke into a lope once they got outside. Light was fading fast, and the temperature was dropping. Reg ran alongside him, enjoying the feel of pushing his body to work at something physical.

“Good that your leg healed so well,” Milton observed. “Shattered femurs can go either way.”

“Got lucky on that one.” Reg paused a beat, decided what the hell, and asked, “Were you ever going to tell me you got Cortexiphan?”

Milton cast a pointed, sidelong look his way. “No.”

Reg sucked in a breath, not sure where to go with that. On the one hand, everyone under his care—which included all of the CIA’s personnel stationed on this base—were supposed to reveal every aspect of their medical histories and treatment. On the other, he reported to Milton, which made things sticky.

“If I’d had any intention of letting anyone know about Frank and Tony’s Herculean efforts to save my life, that scenario would’ve played out in the infirmary. I didn’t want them to get into trouble, or be kicked out of the CIA, if they guessed wrong and I died.”

“Oh, you mean like I threatened to do when the dynamic duo did pretty much the same thing with Charlie?” Reg tried to keep a sour, disapproving note out of his voice.

“They did a whole lot more to save Charlie’s bacon than to save mine.”

They reached the infirmary, and Reg tilted his head to let the scanner read his retina. Once the latch clicked, he pushed the door open with his hip and led the way up three flights to his office on the clinic’s top floor.

Milton followed him into his domain and let out a long, low whistle. “Cyclone get loose in here?”

Reg looked at the piles of books, papers, and two printers spewing still more paper. “Been doing some research,” he admitted. “I prefer reading things on paper than on the screen, and this way, I can file things where they’re easy to find again.”

Milton pushed a stack of paper off a chair and dropped into it, folding his hands in his lap. “Research on what?” His voice was bland.

Reg dragged the room’s only other chair around, clearing its seat so he could sit too. “On the freaks, what else. Did you want anything in your coffee? I’ll get us a couple cups before I settle in.”

“Sure. A shot of booze would go down well.”

Reg moved to a coffeemaker plugged in on the far side of the room and sloshed the pot’s contents. It didn’t look too thick and sludgy to drink, so he divided what was left into two white, ceramic mugs. “Pick your poison.” He dragged bottles of scotch, bourbon, and Irish whiskey from a cabinet.

“Whiskey, please.”

“Excellent choice. It’s what I drink, but I keep the others for impromptu guests.”

“Like me?” Milton smiled.

“Exactly like you.” Reg handed him a cup, sat across from Milton with his own, and waited. He knew the CIA head of operations well enough to understand he wanted something.

“Yeah, I do want something. Actually a few somethings,” Milton latched his direct, dark gaze onto Reg.

He narrowed his eyes. “Did the ability to read minds come along with the injections, or the Cortexiphan?”

“It was there before, but it got a whole lot stronger with the addition of Cortexiphan,” Milton said. “First off, I want you to stop blaming yourself.”

“Huh? I had nothing to do with your decision to add Cortexiphan after your injection series headed south.”

“Not that. You’re still feeling responsible for the freaks’ genome malfunction.”

Breath hissed from between Reg’s clenched teeth. “It’s because I am responsible. I designed V2. Not singlehandedly, but I was the senior researcher in that lab, and I fucked things up. No way to sugarcoat it.”

Milton cocked his head to one side. “We all make mistakes—”

Reg made a chopping motion with the hand not holding his mug and belted back the coffee-whiskey mixture. “This was a whole lot more than a mistake. I know exactly what I did wrong. The V3 fix the freaks came up with ameliorated some of the problems, but not all of them. I actually believe I’ve developed a better—”

“Which would explain why you sleep here,” Milton broke in. “Damn it, Reg, the genetically altered don’t need anything further from you. They’re satisfied with V3. The ones still in compounds have discovered V4 is far worse than the V2 you came up with, but they’re not our problem.”

“When I fuck something up, I like to fix it.” Reg cringed at how the words sounded. Like a whiny twenty-year-old seeking justice in an arbitrary world.

“Yeah, we all do, but sometimes your best bet is to pack up your toys and move on. Is all this—” Milton waved an arm expansively to encompass the messy office “—research on building a better genome?”

Reg felt his face heat. “Not all, but maybe ninety percent.”

Milton leaned toward him. “I’m going to be out of line here, so be warned. In all the years I’ve known you, you’ve never had much of a personal life. Why not?”

Milton’s question caught him by surprise. He was in the process of swallowing, and he choked on the hot liquid. “That’s more than out of line,” he sputtered, wiping coffee off his chin with the back of one hand.

“That would be me. No boundaries. Are you going to answer me? Or should I just cull through your mind?”

Reg surged to his feet and placed his mug atop a stack of books on one corner of his desk. His hands balled into fists before he realized what he was doing and shook his head. “Yeah, like I’m going to keep you out of my private places by punching you.”

“Not the best idea,” Milton agreed, and took another swallow of coffee.

“You have access to my personnel records,” Reg said stiffly and unclenched his hands.

Milton blew out a frustrated breath. “This isn’t the Middle East, and you haven’t been captured. It’s not a name, rank, and serial number event. I’ve known you a long time, and I care about you. You’ve never married. What? Do you like men? I won’t judge.”

Reg’s shoulders sagged and he dropped back into his chair. “No. Not men.” He reached for his cup, and then changed his mind. “I grew up on Chicago’s lower east side. We were beyond poor. Never enough food. No heat. Often as not, the water and gas were turned off. The cockroaches and mice in our two rooms fared better than the people did. I worked from the time I could walk, and Mom and Dad just kept having more kids. There were ten by the time I left home.”

Milton made come along motions with one hand. “Keep going.”

“Not that much to tell. I got mixed up with gangs when I was thirteen. I’d have sunk into oblivion and graduated into the adult penal system, but one of my teachers in juvenile hall kicked sense into me. God only knows what he saw in a smart-mouthed kid who was hell-bent on destruction, but he hung in there with me. Eventually, I moved in with him and his wife. They didn’t have any kids of their own, and they adopted me. I finished high school with good enough grades to get scholarships, and the rest is in my personnel records.”

“Indeed it is,” Milton said. “Harvard Medical with highest honors and a residency in Internal Medicine. From there, you joined the Air Force and headed for the Middle East.”

“Actually, I joined up before medical school. The Air Force underwrote part of my training, and I owed them four years of service.”

“But you liked the military and chose to stay.”

It hadn’t been a question, so Reg didn’t answer it. He took another drink from his mug.

“Why not so much as a girlfriend?” Milton persisted.

“I had my share. In med school, a gal and I grew close during our last year, but she was also close to a few other docs in training. It was like a game for her, keeping us from finding out about each other.”

“What happened when you did find out?” Milton furled salt and pepper brows.

Reg shrugged. “Predictable. We ended up shouting at each other. She said some things that hurt. So did I. Whole thing set me off my game for days. So much so, I made a mistake in clinic. If one of the residents hadn’t noticed, I’d have killed a patient. It wasn’t a particularly complicated case, but you can kill anyone if you give them the wrong drug, or the wrong dose of the right one.”

“So you decided love and medicine weren’t good bedfellows.”

“You might say that. My patients have always been my first priority.”

“You made them that because you got scared.” Milton got to his feet. “Thanks for trusting me. I’ll never say a word, but I want you to hear me out.”

“Do I have a choice?” Reg beat back half a smile.

“No. I came from humble beginnings too. Not as bad as yours, but bad enough. Being perfect was my hedge against falling back into the slime pit I came from. Perfect in my job, that is. I took another tack when it came to women and blew through marriages. Until I decided I was done. Honor changed all that for me, and I’m damn glad she came along.”

“What exactly are you saying?”

Milton set his mug down, walked to the door, and spun to face him. “Just this. It’s a lonely life. You’re past forty. Unless you want to be sixty and still dragging test tubes and research papers to bed with you, take a good, hard look at your priorities. I wish someone had given me a swift kick in the backside, but they didn’t.”

“Why do I feel like I’ve stumbled into a bad episode of Dr. Phil?”

“Not Dr. Phil. When Roy tried to sit me down—after I pretty much blew it with Honor—I told him I didn’t do chick flicks. Regardless, stop blaming yourself for V2. If it hadn’t been for you, the genetically altered might have vanished after V1 didn’t pan out. They’re quite a gift. So what if your research model wasn’t perfect? Whose is?”

Before Reg could formulate an answer, Milton was gone. Most of what he’d said had been eerily accurate, and being dissected with such skill was damned unsettling. Reg reached for his mug and drained it. The alcohol buzzed pleasantly, soothing some of the rough edges from Milton’s advice session.

He cares about me. He didn’t have to bother, but he did.

The revelation was disconcerting. Reg did hold people at arm’s length, hiding behind his M.D. to keep a comfortable distance. Milton had smashed through his defenses like a hot knife cutting through butter.

Question was, what would he do about it?

Reg gazed about his office and really looked at how sterile it was. Outside of his ego wall, nothing graced the walls. Not so much as a photograph of places he’d been.

“Yeah, right,” he muttered. “Not the vacation type. I’ve been to war zones. They’re not exactly photographic material. Dead bodies and landmine holes. Broken buildings and rubble.”

Out of nowhere, Faith’s face flashed through his mind. She’d caught his eye while Charlie was in the infirmary, and she’d come to visit him and Hope. Since she arrived about the same time every day, it had been easy to be close by. He’d wanted to get to know her better then, and he still did. But how? His enforced solitude had spanned twenty years. Dating felt awkward and uncomfortable.

An idea bloomed. As he turned it over, looking for holes, it appealed to him. He could offer her research work in the infirmary. It would be a good fit for her computer-like brain. That way, she’d be close enough for them to chat. Maybe they could have coffee—or a meal.

At the thought of food, his stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast—another bad habit—and he got to his feet. If he was going to have dinner in the cafeteria, he needed to hurry.

His plan to get to know Faith was far from perfect, but maybe it would be a start. He strode out the door, hearing it latch shut behind him. His cock, a badly neglected appendage, sent sharp sensations shooting through him, and he pulled his lab coat closed to cover his erection. It wasn’t that he never indulged, but the last time had been months ago. Thinking about Faith kindled his libido, and he welcomed the heat spilling through him.

Beneath everything, he was still a man.

“Night, Doc,” rang from several clinic staff as he passed them on his way to the front door. He wished them a good evening in return, nabbed a coat off a hook, and walked into the night.

Even though it had been awkward and embarrassing while it was happening, Milton did him a huge favor by reaching out. Next time he saw him, he’d find a way to say thanks. His inner critic—the one that avoided anything smacking of the personal—winced.

He told it to man up and shut up.