Monkey's Uncle Read online

  After working with Mac for nearly a week, India had decided to let go of any misgivings she’d initially had about his secret “research project.”

  He was an MD, he knew his stuff, and she wasn’t about to complain about him to CMI. The world was a different place than it was even nine months ago. Doctors Without Borders, the WHO, the Red Cross and Red Crescent—every organization with any kind of pull and money, including groups far smaller than CMI, were trying to throw their weight into developing a vaccine for Kite.

  After lunch, India took a walk over to the store for groceries. She thought about all these things as she carried her purchases back to the clinic. Sweat trickled down her back, between her shoulder blades.

  That was another thing she missed besides air-conditioning—supermarkets. Stores where she could buy everything from chicken to condoms to apples to deodorant, all in the same place.

  The same farking air-conditioned place.

  When she returned to the clinic, she was surprised to see the doc wasn’t alone in the building despite them being closed for siesta time. There were three men and a woman talking to him in the waiting room.

  All three of the guys looked like hunks, but two of them especially caught her eye, blond-haired and blue-eyed twin hunks.

  Twunks.

  Whoever they were, they resembled the local population about as poorly as the doc did, standing out not so much like sore thumbs as missing limbs. She’d dealt with military before, but the Mexican guys, who’d been sent to the area for earthquake drills two years earlier, and who made periodic checks in their region to search for drug activity, looked nothing like these men. These guys appeared to be some of America’s best and brightest, straight off a US military enlistment poster.

  The woman definitely struck India as being a civvie, but if the three guys weren’t military, she’d eat her own bra. They were everything the locals weren’t, including well-armed.

  India set her groceries on the table by the entrance that functioned as Mama’s desk when they were open, and India’s formal dining room table when they weren’t.

  “Hey, doc,” she cautiously said. “What’s going on? Who are they?”

  The doctor’s face went red. “They’re, uh—”

  “We have a mutual friend,” the guy who wasn’t one of the twunks said.

  India’s internal bullshit meter immediately blared a warning at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She really regretted not having her gun on her. It was locked in the closet in her room, usually not something she needed while in town. To get to it, she’d have to make it through the strangers first.

  “Don’t worry,” the guy assured her, “we just got here ourselves a moment ago. We’re trying to confirm a few things before accusations fly.”

  Even in the heat, the not-twunk’s choice of words chilled India’s blood in her veins. “What?”

  Holy fark, please don’t let Mac be a Heisenberg!

  There wasn’t any cartel activity in their region. None that she was aware of. She hadn’t treated any drug overdoses, or heard of anyone dying from them, hadn’t seen any evidence of it in newborns or teens. Some alcoholism, a little homegrown pot, and even smoking-related health issues, sure.

  But drugs? The people here were too poor and too busy growing food to get involved in that. They had run the cartels out years ago.

  It didn’t mean someone from the outside, someone from another farking country who didn’t know the region’s history on the subject, couldn’t be involved in something illegal and looking to find a quiet place to set up a brand-spanking-new drug lab.

  What was Mac researching and experimenting on, anyway? Was he using her people—and that was exactly how she felt about them—as guinea pigs to develop new drugs, legal or not, despite what he’d said?

  India stared from the guy to Mac and back again before finally settling on Mac. “What is he talking about?” she asked him. “Who are these people?”

  “You are Dr. Peter McInnis, I presume?” the guy asked Mac.

  India couldn’t process that. “Wait, what? No, his name’s Dr. Peter Peters…”

  India recognized how stupid that sounded as soon as the words emerged from her mouth.

  The doc went red in the face again as she also realized that one vital thing about him she’d stupidly overlooked.

  His face-flushing was his built-in lie detector.

  “Yes,” the doc softly said to the man. “I am.”

  India held up her hands. “Wait, what? Why did he just call you Dr. McInnis?”

  “Because that’s my name,” Mac said, his face going even redder. “I am Dr. Peter McInnis.”

  “You lied to me? You farking asshole!”

  The woman smirked. “Oh, let’s see. He was only part of the team that helped unleash the Kite virus on the world, and you can’t believe he lied to you? Here’s my shocked face.” The woman schooled her expression into a humorless mask, her lips pressed together in a straight, thin line.

  Now India’s blood went from chilled to icy and she reached out a steadying hand to hold on to the table. “What?” It came out a whisper because that was about all the strength she could muster for it.

  The woman pointed at Mac. “Dr. Peter McInnis. You know, the guy, well, one of the ones, from The List. Don’t tell me you don’t even have a sat-linked computer here in this backwater outpost to keep up on current events? You know, like that little incident of China making North Korea go boom in a bunch of mushroom-shaped clouds after the psychos created Kite, and then people infected with it were released across the North Korean border into China?”

  The ice in India’s veins exploded into a full-blown blizzard.

  I’m an idiot.

  She hadn’t paid any attention to The List after it’d first been released and distributed. Hell, she didn’t think she had a snowball’s chance in, well, here, of ever crossing paths with any of those people.

  But, yeah, now that the woman mentioned it, India did recognize his name, and his face. Although the picture she’d originally seen had been a small one online. That explained why he had initially rung a bell in her mind, but she hadn’t been able to place him.

  “Sooo…you weren’t really sent here by CMI?” India asked Mac, now feeling really farking stupid.

  The woman snorted. “Nope. He’s on the run. Him and his cronies are the ones you can thank for Kite the virus.”

  India stared at him, shock slowly taking over. Millions, hell, hundreds of millions of innocent people were dead or dying, due to China’s attack and the virus and the resulting riots and other lovely side effects of global turmoil.

  India straightened. She felt her fingers clenching into fists, her short nails painfully digging into her palms. “You fucking asshole!”

  “I’m terribly sorry, Indy. I never meant to deceive you. I simply wanted to—”

  When India lunged at the lying, ginger-headed sack of monkey shit, Twunk One grabbed her, hauling her back and well out of striking range.

  “Easy there, sister.”

  “No!” She struggled, trying to kick Mac even as the twunk held on to her. “Let me go! Let me at him!”

  “Ease up, lady,” Twunk Two said. “We need him alive and in one piece. You can take a chunk out of him after he and his buddies come up with a vaccine.”

  Those words stilled her struggles. “A vaccine? For Kite?” She finally focused on Twunk Two. “They’re working on a vaccine for Kite?”

  “Not for farking homesickness,” the woman snarked.

  India didn’t even mind that Twunk One wasn’t letting go of her and one of his hands covered her left boob.

  Hell, she hadn’t been with a guy since she was in college. She’d settle for a brief grope in public with a guy—two guys?—as hot as this one. These ones. These one?

  Fark, they were twins. Cute twins.

  Really cute twins.

  Wait, I’m getting distracted. And off topic.

  It beat the alternativ
e of trying to process what these people seemed to be saying. She looked at Mac. “You mean you’ve been working on a vaccine the whole time you’ve been here?” she asked him.

  Mac wet his lips. “I’ve been trying. Since before, even. I had to move locations due to violence in the area. I really was down in Brazil. That much was true. We’ve been working together, all of us, as much as we can. Long distance, as it were, via sat-link with the other members of the team—”

  “Team? You have a farking team?” She felt like she had to pick her jaw up off the floor. “So more of you are alive? Why haven’t you contacted anyone? You could be in a state-of-the-art lab right now and—”

  “It’s a long story,” the woman interrupted. “And, of course, it unfortunately isn’t that simple. Trust me, you’ll want a stiff drink when you hear our little globe-trotting tale.”

  India was having trouble processing everything at once, so she focused her ire on the woman. “Who the hell are you?”

  She smiled. “You can call me Pandora.” She was a redhead like Mac, but a different, darker shade than him. She wore her long hair back in a braid. She also had a distinctively American accent, as did the men with her. She pointed at the not-twunk dude. “This is Papa. The guy with his grubby mitts on you is Yankee. I think.”

  “I’m Yankee,” the other twunk said.

  “Sorry,” Pandora said. “I still mix them up sometimes. Then the guy holding you is Oscar. And you are…”

  “India Pelletier. Just who the hell are you people, anyway?”

  Papa took over. “We’re the Drunk Monkeys.”

  “It’s a nickname for the unit,” Pandora quickly added. “Not an official moniker nor an apt description of their skill sets.”

  “And you expect me to believe a bunch of people named the Drunk Monkeys are going to, what, exactly? Save the world?”

  The woman smiled. “Stranger things have happened.” The smile faded from her face. “You got a few minutes to chat? We’ll fill you in.”

  “Uh, you sure that’s a good idea?” Oscar asked.

  “She might as well know,” Papa said. “She already knows who he is.” He sent a stern look to Pandora. “I told you we were running late. We could have been out of here.”

  “Hey, it was either stop and let me out, or I was gonna pee myself right there. It’s not my fault Quack and Lima had both seats occupied in the outhouse before we left.”

  India shrugged free from the man holding her, but he stood ready, as did the man she assumed was his brother, to grab her again if she lunged. “If you’re not going to let me beat the crap out of Mac for lying to me, then yeah, start talking. You owe me that much.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Twenty minutes later, India had downed her second full mug of tequila, as well as shared the bottle with the others.

  And she also had a head full of information she wished she didn’t have.

  She glared at Mac as he leaned against the counter in the storeroom, where they’d moved to for story time. “I want you out of my fucking clinic.” She jabbed a finger at him. “Right fucking now. You and all your shit. Gone.”

  His face turned red but he nodded.

  “The only reason I’m not picking up the phone and turning your ass in is because these guys are probably right that someone would put you all in a hole instead of letting you create and freely distribute the vaccine.” She tipped up the bottom of her mug and finished the tequila inside. “And you goddamn well deserve to be in a fucking hole.”

  “We’ll get him out of your hair,” Papa said. “Sorry to be the bearers of bad news.”

  She blew out a long, tequila-laced breath. “I don’t know if it’s bad news or good news,” she admitted. “If you’ve now got two of these assholes in one place, that’s something, right?”

  “It’s not a vaccine yet.”

  “But it’s hope.”

  “It’s about all it is at this point.”

  “So then why’d you tell me?” she said. “Why not just cart him out of here before I got back?”

  “Well, for starters, because you returned before we could. Secondly, that probably would have looked even stranger, and possibly would have raised even more questions if you put out alerts about a missing doctor. We’d hoped to talk to him before you returned and then worked out how to extract him without it raising an alarm.”

  “Oh. Good point.”

  “And, no offense, we have a friend who already ran a background check on you for us. They told us that when it came time to get him out of here, our best option would be to approach you head-on, with the truth about what we’re up against. That you would likely help us out.”

  She wasn’t sure if she should be creeped out, impressed, or pleased by that.

  Maybe a combo of all three. “I don’t know how much help I can be. I’m not a scientist. I’m a nurse practitioner. You need something stitched up, or a baby delivered, sure. Lab work and research aren’t my forte beyond basic tests.”

  “We have a…situation,” Papa said.

  “Why you’re cut off from your head guy?”

  He nodded.

  She hooked a thumb at Mac but addressed her questions to Papa. “How do I know you’re not just feeding me a sack of lies, too? How do I know you’re not really the bad guys?”

  “Because if we were, we would have killed him, or just taken him, and killed you when you showed up, and then left without a look back.”

  “Indy,” Mac said, “I’m truly sorry you’ve been dragged into this.”

  She shoved herself away from the counter and at Mac again. One of the twunks grabbed her, again, and held on tight.

  “I’ll stay with her,” the twunk said, “if you guys want to start getting him moved before the clinic reopens.”

  She struggled and kicked at the air, trying to reach Mac, but the twunk pulled her back out of range. “Sorry, lady. You can kick his ass all you want later, once he and his brain trust fix this mess. I’ll even help you hold him down.”

  She stopped struggling and craned her neck around to look him in his gorgeous blue eyes. “Promise?”

  He chuckled. “Absolutely.”

  His brother paused at the door. “You going to be okay with her?”

  “Yeah. Go on.”

  Then a thought hit her. “Wait,” she called out. Everyone stopped and turned. “Mac’s got to be here, at least for the afternoon session. Mama will wonder where the hell he went, and I can’t make up an excuse as to why he disappeared over lunchtime. Plus we’re going to be packed. I kind of need him here today.”

  Papa frowned. “She’s right. Plus we don’t need the extra attention of moving his stuff around in the middle of the day.” He pointed at the other twunk. “You two stay here with them. To guard him. We’ll come back after the clinic’s closed and move him.” He smiled. “Make sure she doesn’t harm him.”

  “You mean hurt?” the second twunk asked.

  “No, harm.” He grinned. “Don’t let her take too big a piece out of him.”

  “Wait,” the one holding her said. “How are we supposed to explain who the fark we are?”

  “I’ll say you were sent by CMI to train,” India said. “That you’re passing through on your way to another clinic and wanted to see how we run ours.”

  Papa nodded. “That’s good. You think fast on your feet. I like that.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s sort of been my survival mode for most of the past four years. Especially over the past five months.”

  Once Papa and Pandora left, she shrugged free from the twunk again. “How do I tell you two apart?” Now that she could get a good look at them, and the tequila had grabbed hold of her a little, she realized they weren’t the worst guards in the history of the world.

  The other one smiled and pointed at his jaw, to a small scar. “Me, Yankee.” He pointed at his brother. “Him, Oscar.”

  “You, Tarzan. Me, Jane.” She grabbed the empty mugs and washed them in the sink. “Just stay o
ut of our way this afternoon, and try not to talk any more than necessary. Nod a lot when I talk to you, even if you don’t understand a word I’m saying to you. Think you can handle that?”

  She turned. The men nodded.

  Mac still hovered in the doorway, his face red. She walked over to him and slapped him hard enough to make her hand sting like a motherfucker. When Yankee ran to grab her again, she held up her hands as she backed away from Mac. “That’s it. I’m done. Hey, your own head dude said I could hurt him.”

  Now Mac’s face was beet red, except for her handprint on his left cheek, which was white and rapidly filling with color. She pointed at the locked door to his room. “I suggest you get as much packing done as you can before Mama and the next round of patients get here in an hour,” she said.

  He hurried off.

  She turned to see the twunks smiling at her. “What’s so funny?”

  Oscar—well, she thought he was Oscar—shook his head and held up his hands. “I damn sure don’t want to be on your bad side, woman. You’re something else.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve had to be something else to keep this place running all by my lonesome.” She retrieved her groceries from where she’d forgotten them on the table and brought them back into the storeroom. She unlocked the food fridge and put the perishables inside before tucking the canned goods and produce into the cupboard. “This place doesn’t run on unicorn farts and fuzzy bunnies, you know.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Unfortunately, by the time Mama returned after siesta, the effects of the tequila had worn off for the most part, leaving India with a brain full of information she didn’t want to think about right at that moment. She’d also dashed off a note to CMI asking them to disregard her previous e-mail because she’d gotten her wires crossed about a different doctor just passing through town.

  She hoped they believed her, and that it didn’t cause additional confusion or delay the arrival of a replacement doctor.

  India quickly told Mama the excuse about Oscar and Yankee being from CMI and visiting for a few days to observe on their way to another clinic.