Page 34 of Cade

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Cass watched her sister and the others working at the table. Carrie had always been the dancer of the three girls, elegant, petite, pure magic on stage. Celeste was always the brainiac engineer. Cass was good at painting and assessing art, but she was never quite sure it was her passion. Watching her big sister, she was intrigued, wanting to know more about what they were looking at.

“I don’t know,” said Paige, shaking her head. “Why put the mercury in the tips of the tentacles?”

“I know it’s poor at conducting heat, but I seem to remember from college chemistry that it’s a conductor of electricity. Could it help with the electrical currents in the body?” asked Cass.

The others all turned, staring at Cass. Her sister smiled, looking back down at the device. Paige grinned at her, nodding.

“Maybe,” said Paige. “That’s a great thought, Cass. I mean, it wouldn’t be a conductor in the sense of traditional electricity in the body, but if it were helping to control electric impulses in the body, maybe that’s what they were doing.”

“Hey, science nerds,” smirked Cade. “I may have found something. There’s an article on a dark website, conspiracies, everything, but this is a published article about a Korean military doctor. A few years ago, he was implanting their soldiers with a device that would stop the amygdala from functioning. In the brain, they were having issues with it basically short-circuiting.”

“Wait, why would they not want the amygdala to fire?” asked Cass.

“The amygdala causes our fight or flight to kick in,” said Bree. Ashley nodded. “If they didn’t have the ability to distinguish between danger and safety, they would always just charge in without thought.”

“Holy shit,” muttered Franco.

“Exactly,” said Cade. “There were so many complications with this, the doctor had to abandon the experiment. Everything from brain hemorrhaging, excessive vomiting, diarrhea, pains in the extremities. All of it. But. It worked. The soldiers’ amygdalae were not firing.”

“They were trying to make us follow orders despite the risks,” said Franco. He stood, staring out the window of the hotel room. “If we had followed the repeated orders given to us in the field, we would have sent half the team with the kids, and the other half would have gone after the rebels, despite the numbers.”

“I think that’s exactly what they were trying to do,” said Cade.

“Did the Koreans have any episodes of suicide?” asked Cass. Cade nodded, frowning at the room of people.

“More than a dozen of the one hundred and twenty men tested. A dozen before someone finally stopped them.”

“Who gave you the orders?” asked Trevor. Franco frowned, confused by the question. “The orders to go after the rebels even after you found the kids and determined that the intel was bad. Who kept giving you orders to continue?”

“General Pitre of USAC.”

“USAC?” asked Carrie. Cade nodded.

“U.S. African Command. His name is William Pitre. He’s been there since Bodhi and I were there.” Cade looked at his brother, Bodhi, standing from the big sofa. As he rose, his knees cracked, and he frowned.

“I take it your experience was not good,” said Doc.

“He ordered Bodhi and I to take command from a young Sgt. Major that was struggling during a mission. He was doing fine. He was just young and inexperienced. We were both fine with assisting him, but I wasn’t about to strip command from him. Neither was Bodhi.”

“He was always sending us into places we shouldn’t go because of our size,” said Bodhi. “He once sent us to intimidate an elder in a village, trying to force him to allow our troops to pass through their land. The guy was probably in his nineties and could barely hear. I wasn’t about to hover over him and scare him to death. It was offensive.” The big man crossed his arms over his chest, practically growling at the room.

Franco smirked, staring up at the mammoth. He shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck as he did.

“You know, brother, I’ve seen lots of big men, a few from your team. You’re definitely one of the biggest. I was never the biggest, but that just meant I had to be stronger, tougher, fight harder. I always knew I wanted to be a Marine, and I was-am, a damn good one. I followed orders to the letter.

“But that mission,” he said, shaking his head, “no fucking way. I would have lost every last one of my men had we followed those orders.”

“I wonder if he was testing the injections,” said Cass. All eyes turned to the beautiful young woman tucked beneath Cade’s arm. “I mean, maybe he was just trying to see if you would actually do it. If not, that meant they had more work to do.”

“That’s exactly what he was doing,” said Cade, kissing the top of her head.

There was silence in the room for a long moment. Staring from one person to another, then back at the table where they were still staring at the object. Cass finally spoke up.

“What about the other men?”

“What other men?” asked Ryan.

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