Chapter One.
"Those fuckers!" Dana's shout was loud enough to be heard by the neighbours in the seedy block. Alex was by her in a flash. "Those murdering fucking arseholes!"
"Dana, quiet." Alex pointed urgently to the paper-thin walls of the fleabag motel as he peered at her screen. "Blackwatch?"
"No, no." She simmered down slightly, her eyes still snapping with anger. "No, I thought these fuckers were dead. They promised me they were dead." On screen she had two articles up, one a terrorist attack from '94, the other an article from six months ago with a terrorist group claiming responsibility for the New York outbreak. Mercer straightened up, furious, wondering what sick bastards could want to be responsible for all those deaths. He'd show them the price soon enough. The image captured with the claim video, Dana had cropped and enhanced, to show the face of one of the terrorists.
"Who is that?" he asked, wanting his target's name.
"A fucking bastard," she spat. Alex agreed, but that wasn't useful, and he paused confused. Dana looked at him and hesitated.
"How much do you remember of our childhood?" she said, voice softening. Truthfully he remembered nothing because it wasn't his childhood, but he knew the files backwards.
"Our mother was a crackwhore. Dad was in and out of jail and it sucked." Dana put her hands on the table and took a breath.
"You don't remember anything do you?"
"No," he admitted, and saw her face fall. He'd hurt his sister again and he couldn't seem to stop doing that, but he was trying to be the best brother he could.
"That's not your fault. Those shits at Gentek fucked up your brain." She put a hand on his shoulder. "It's all lies."
"What?"
"Mum and Dad were working on some really classified stuff. Some terrorists outed them and then kidnapped them. You were in college at the time." She looked down, wiped a tear away angrily. "Then they snatched and nearly killed me because Dad wouldn't do what they wanted." He'd rip their fucking heads off.
"They're still alive?" Not for very fucking long.
"Let me finish. Dad was away a lot, trying to kill them. Mom was trying to protect us but the strain got too much. Then Dad died. They didn't even give us the body. We buried sandbags, Alex!" She sniffed again, and he flinched, offered tissues awkwardly. His sister was hurting and there was nothing he could do.
"Last month these arseholes claimed credit for the outbreak. I thought it was a different group with the same name, but I know that fucker at the back."
"It was twenty years ago."
"He snatched me off my motorbike and put a gun to my head!"
"He's dead," Mercer growled, and knew he'd said something right as Dana smiled and squeezed his hand.
"Thanks. Best brother ever."
#
"Sir!" Colonel Rooks looked up as the intelligence analyst came to attention. The man had put in a priority request to speak to him, so this had to be important.
"Do you have a lead on the Mercers?"
"We've traced them to Boston, sir, but we've discovered something critical about their background." Rooks raised an eyebrow. Alex Mercer had passed Gentek vetting. His background and family should have been an open book, and Rooks had read it several times.
"What was missed?"
"Sir, it was fake, sir." Rooks was on his feet instantly.
"What?" That should be impossible.
"Everything before Mercer's last year of college had been selectively edited, sir. Mercer's qualifications were genuine, but his family background was altered."
"How?" Rooks didn't bother asking if they were sure, the analyst wouldn't waste his time with a wild claim if they weren't. "And who?" If Mercer was a terrorist plant from day one, that explained everything. Everything except how he'd slipped through the vetting process. If their security had failed that badly, there might even be plants inside Blackwatch itself. And the group behind it would still be out there to try again.
"False identities were created in the system when Mercer was in his final year of college, sir," the analyst reported. "Dana was a teenager. Family name was changed, and they became a pair of siblings with absent parents. Jail and drugs were used as a cover for the fact that both parents worked away a lot." That took a lot of organisation, Rooks thought. Christ, this could be just the tip of the iceberg.
"The parents?" That could be a lead, if the pair had been brainwashed from an early age. It was possible they weren't even siblings.
"The kids were drilled to forget them. Alex went along with it but Dana didn't, even when told it was for her protection. She never forgave the government."
"An agency killed their parents? NSA?" Rooks could get access to their records if he had to, but it would be difficult.
"No sir, terrorists killed their parents." The analyst paused, and Rooks knew this was going to be bad. "Both parents were CIA operatives."
"Shit." No wonder they'd been having trouble catching them. "Dana Mercer is an agency brat?"
"They both are, sir. Alex and Dana Mercer are Alex and Dana Tasker."