“That’s why we sought help from a pack of Varu who had people working in the tech field and weren’t on very good terms with their Clan leader Palmer.” Johnathan nodded at Seung.
She said, “We’d heard rumors about Isaiah having a sample of Cana blood from the Cataclysm and how it was stolen when he sent it to be tested. It substantiated Grey Dekker’s claims. We couldn’t say no.”
“Seung got two pack members on the tech support team at New World,” Johnathan said. “The computers they set up sent all the data from the Utah Facility, even what Dr. Echols never wanted New World to see. Grey put together a scientific team to interpret the research on the ichor.”
“I’m surprised they even believed what they saw.” Dr. Dante finished his soup and set the empty bowl on the coffee table.
“They didn’t,” Johnathan said.
“But you did.” He made it a statement.
“Yeah. Along with the data sent to the scientists were videos of Koda’s betas in the field on clandestine operations. Grey released a simplified brief of the work being done at the Utah Facility to the rest of the team leaders like myself.
“We knew then there was no way in that facility without a body count. And my father may be a vicious bastard, but he’s not stupid. The last thing he wanted was to draw the attention of the US Government.”
Johnathan had voiced his concern when Paul let the matter go without a single argument, but Grey refused to believe one of his sons, let alone his First, would ever go against his orders.
“Also, if we went in there, whoever stole the DNA sample from Isaiah, our tissue samples, changed the Book of Anubis so you’d use the ichor on the Cana, and began manufacturing the VrK, would have gone underground.”
Dr. Dante furrowed his brow. “I thought your father made it.”
“He had scientists from all over the world working on a way to do it. And they did do it. At least on paper. But it was another ten years before he located a possible source for the tissue samples needed to make it.”
“And it wound up with New World,” Dr. Dante said.
“Yeah, along with the formula to make VrK.” Johnathan hadn’t seen his father so enraged and so broken since his mother died. The death of females seemed to be the only thing that shook the man. The death of Johnathan and Paul’s mother had come close to destroying him.
But losing the formula for the VrK had crushed him twice over.
And hardened him at the same time.
“One of his scientists talked?”
“Grey divided up the work, so no one person knew exactly what was going on.” Most of them hadn’t even spoken the same language. “Plus, money is a powerful motivator, and the threat of death is more terrifying than any NDA.” It helped when individuals were disgruntled with their country but had no way to escape. And it had been easy for them to make the choice when offered a life where they’d be appreciated, have the luxuries they wanted, and be paid what they deserved for their work.
“You would have needed at least one person to assemble the formula. A project like that isn’t a puzzle you take out of a box and put together.”
“He did, but they would have died before they talked.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because they were Mah, and if they wanted to reclaim his wolf, they had to get that formula perfected. And there’s nothing more valuable to us than the Sarvari. Not even our lives.”
Dr. Dante shook his head. “Well, someone leaked information.”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t know who?”
“Paul breached New World before Grey could find out.”
“But the people who broke in were Anu—I mean Sarvari.”
“Because they’d already taken the serum.” Paul and his team had been first in line, right beside Johnathan’s meta-pack.
“If New World had the formula? How did you get doses of the VrK?”
“My father owns the largest contracting company in the world. When New World decided to expand their military operations with the government, my father made sure we were the most logical choice for their next set of test subjects.”