“I will be.” She frowned at the empty space where she had parked twenty minutes ago. “Soon as I find out who just stole my car.”
Chapter 2
“I
’m glad we could come to terms.” Jonah Genaro shook hands with Yutaka Hashimoto while the petite Japanese man’s entourage bobbed up and down in synchronized bows. “I’ll have my engineers send over the specs by Friday.”
“Thank you for your hospitality, Jonah. As always, you are a generous and understanding host.” Hashimoto beamed at Genaro’s secretary, Tina Segreta, before he glanced at his own assistant. “Schedule a meeting tomorrow morning with the factory managers. We will begin production as soon as the plans arrive.” After giving Genaro a final smile, he led his people out of the office.
Genaro’s secretary finished making her notes. “I’ll have these transcribed in an hour, sir.”
“Thank you.” He sat back and regarded her. “How did your evening go?”
“As expected.” Tina flipped her steno pad closed before she met his gaze. “Mr. Hashimoto seemed flattered, and was easy to please. He prefers fellatio to intercourse, and mentioned how much he likes ‘tall, blond American women.’ ”
Genaro had hired Tina for her administrative skills, which were admirable, but also for her sexual talents, which he had personally refined over time and which had elevated her to being a formidable company asset. However, she was petite and black-haired, which rendered her less of a temptation for Hashimoto. “Make a note of that in the file.” He gave her one of his rare smiles. “You did very well, my dear.”
She nodded, satisfied. “Is there anything else, sir?”
“Call Dr. Kirchner.” Genaro shrugged out of his jacket and loosened his tie. “Ask him to join me in the exercise room.”
“Right away, Mr. Genaro.”
Showering before his workout was a waste of time, as he would only have to wash again after he finished, but it kept Kirchner waiting. By the time Genaro emerged from his private bath, the geneticist was pacing around the weight equipment.
“Eliot.” He finished toweling off his face before he continued. “Hashimoto has agreed to take the contract. We should receive the first shipment by the end of the month.”
“Our preparations for the move are almost finished,” Kirchner said. “You should have them shipped to the new facility.”
Genaro adjusted the settings on his treadmill before he started the walking sequence and climbed on. “What progress have you made with the transerum?”
“None,” he said bluntly. “Since the New York operation was botched, we’ve only identified one new potential. Until she’s classified, I won’t know anything.”
“I understand your frustrations, Eliot, and I share them. But now is not the time to indulge your temper.” He increased the treadmill’s speed to a trot. “I need you to focus on whatever it takes to make the transerum work.”
“I’d be happy to, if I had what I need.” Kirchner came to stand in front of the treadmill. “The progenote was stolen and lost. None of the DNA we’ve acquired can overcome the debilitating effects the transerum has on the subject’s brain. Until we can negate it, the transerum is too dangerous to test on any of our acquisitions. We need to begin over, acquire more of the progenote and DNA from at least a dozen Primes, maybe more.”
Genaro switched off the treadmill and slowed to a standstill before he stepped down. “That is unlikely to happen. You’ll have to take another approach.”
Kirchner’s temper finally exploded.
“What would you have me do, Jonah?” the geneticist demanded. “Put an ad in the paper for superhumans to volunteer to be tested? If I’m to do the work, I must have the proper materials.”
Genaro took a fresh towel from the wall rack and slung it around his neck. “Are you finished?”
Something else replaced the ferocity in Kirchner’s eyes before he lost all expression. “I apologize. We’ve experienced so many setbacks and disappointments over the last several months that from the moment I step into the lab, I already feel defeated.”
“You should follow Yutaka Hashimoto’s example,” Genaro said as he went to the Nautilus and set the weight pins. “He works off his frustrations through oral sex.”
Kirchner, who was a celibate by preference, folded his arms. “If you provide me with what I need, Jonah, I’ll personally give you head each and every morning.”
Genaro had never doubted his chief geneticist’s commitment to the project, but the man had no sense of humor whatsoever. “I’ll look into obtaining a new sample of the progenote. In the meantime, have your people in tech step up their efforts to identify new potentials. Tell them to keep the news agencies on twenty-four-hour feed.”
“They’re doing that.”
“Look for unusual incidents as well as miraculous recoveries,” Genaro said. “The Kyndred are adept at hiding themselves, but they can’t resist using their abilities, especially during emergency situations.”
“Sometimes these things are just coincidences,” Kirchner pointed out. “People under enormous stress are adrenaline fueled. Often it gives them superhuman strength, but it never lasts.”
“We can use the mistakes as test cadavers.” He glanced over as his secretary slipped into the room. “That will be all, Doctor.”
Kirchner left, averting his gaze from Tina as she began to unbutton her cuffs.
The geneticist’s show of distaste seemed to amuse Tina, although she didn’t comment on it. Instead she stripped down to her skin and waited for Genaro’s direction.
“On the bench,” he told her as he took his position under the pull bars. He tested the weight and found it agreeable. “Tell me everything you did to Hashimoto last night.”
Tina began relating the details of the encounter, and he timed his repetitions to the rhythm of her voice. He kept her talking until he felt the burn beginning in his muscles, and then rose and walked over to her.
“Now show me what you did to him.”
“Do you need me for anything else, sir?” Tina asked once he’d finished and she’d caught her breath.
“Not today.” Genaro stood, shrugging into a robe before he handed her another. “Go home and get some sleep.”
She pulled on the robe. “Sir, may I make a suggestion?” When he nodded, she said, “Why don’t you allow me to accompany Dr. Kirchner to the new facility?”
He frowned. “Why would I do that?”
“His loyalty to the company is essential to the project,” she said. “If I go out with him, I can determine if he’s been compromised in any way.”
“I don’t know.” He thought again of the odd emotion in Kirchner’s eyes. It had looked like . . . desperation. “Sex doesn’t work on Eliot. You’ll have to use other measures.”
Tina smiled. “I can do that, sir.”
“Jesus, he’s one heavy dude,” a young man’s voice complained, grunting with effort.
A deeper voice, equally strained, snapped back. “He’s dead, you dumbass. What’d you expect him to be, a feather?”
The dead man couldn’t feel his weight or any part of his body. He seemed to be in a gray void, trapped between sunlight and shadow, drifting without substance or will. All he could hear was the two other men talking, the panting of their breath, and the sounds they made as they worked.
“Once we pick up the other one, then we hit the road, right?” the grunter asked.
“Yeah, and I’m driving.” Metal squealed as something beneath the dead man moved. “Gimme those chains.”
“Not like he’s gonna jump out the back,” the younger man said. “Okay, okay, don’t get your dick in a knot.” Chains clinked and slid across a flat surface.
Death had been his aim, the dead man thought as he floated up. The one thing that had gone right, that he had done right. He remembered the dog tags in his fist, and how tightly he had clutched them as the bullets had pelted him. He’d held on to them, even when the earth had exploded beneath him and he’d been blown into this place. They had been the last of his earthly possessions, proof of his final act of courage, the only thing he had wanted to take with him into oblivion. He couldn’t feel them in his fist anymore, and that bothered him more than the voices.
“Where’d they find the big son of a bitch anyway?” the younger man asked. “Iraq?”
“Afghanistan.” The older man paused to catch his breath. “Bought him from some poppy farmer who’d been using his corpse as a scarecrow.”
“They hung his ass in a field to chase off birds?” He whistled. “Man, that’s cold.”
“They weren’t trying to scare
crows
, moron.” A match was struck. “At least they kept him on ice. I can’t stand the ones that stink.”
“So what are they gonna do? Chop him up like the others?” A thud sounded, and the young man yelped. “Shit, Bob, I was just curious.”
“You ask too many questions, Joey.”
The dead man silently agreed. He didn’t want to know what was going to happen to his remains.
Coward.
The new voice made the harsh word sound soft, almost like an endearment. He tried to move away from it, but the void held him fast, now another prison from which he would never escape. He didn’t want to hear her words, but they encircled him, manacles of silk and sweetness.
You have run from everything. Hiding in your battle-fields and wars. Roaming the world like a fugitive. Now you would give them your life.
He hadn’t given them anything. He’d made a trade so that he could find some peace.
I am already dead. I died in battle.
No, you did not.
The voice lashed at him.
You know it. Death does not provide a listening post.
He had been so sure this time....
I feel nothing.
You will not allow yourself to feel. You are too afraid of what will happen if you do. That makes you a coward.
He had been many things because of his pride, some so reprehensible they had forever stained his soul. He knew it; she knew it. But he had never been spineless. He had fought his entire life against that indignity.
Then why are you here?
she asked, her voice turning sly.
This is not your end. This is nothing but retreat. Surrender. Despair.
“Give me the keys,” Bob said, obliterating her voice from the dead man’s head. “If you’ve gotta piss, hit the john now. And no more soda. Once we get on the road with the other one, we can’t stop.”
“Yeah, but what if we get pulled over?” Joey asked suddenly. “I mean, the truck says cold storage, man, not dead bodies. Trooper looks back there, sees them, we’re going to jail.”
“That’s why I’m driving, asshole. So we
don’t
get pulled over.” Keys jingled and a metal door slammed into place. “Hurry up,” Bob said, his voice fainter now. “We’ve only got an hour to get her before the shit we used wears off.”
Joey muttered something indistinct that trailed off as he moved away.
Did you hear him?
she asked.
You have an hour left.
He had eternity, as far as he was concerned, but he had to make one last request.
You must let me go. I want it to end.
She laughed.
I never held you here. Your pride, your stubbornness, they were your jailers. You might have freed yourself a thousand times if not for them.
As you say.
She had always burned him with her truth, but never as deeply as she did now.
What difference does it make?
You will be free of them now. But only if you choose to live.
What have I to live for?
Not for me
, she assured him.
For her.
Chapter 3
T
he big, burly sheriff’s deputy who brought Lilah home wanted to personally check inside her house, but while refusing seemed ungracious, if not a little suspicious, she turned him down. He asked again if there was someone he could call to come and stay with her.
“The guy stole my car, Deputy, not my license or my house keys,” she assured him. “He got some Staind CDs, an old blue sweater, and a transmission that occasionally slips in reverse.” And her only means of transportation, but she’d deal with that tomorrow.
The cop smiled a little, but he had the sharp, tired eyes of a veteran. “Was your registration in the glove box? That would have your home address on it.”
“I always keep it in my purse.” Along with her fake insurance card and every other piece of phony identification she possessed. “Can you tell me what happens now?”
“We’ll list your car and plates on our database and alert the patrols.” He handed her a business card with his name and phone number. “You can call me to check on the status, but unless he’s stopped or ditches the car, we probably won’t recover it. Your insurance should take care of replacing it.”
It would if she actually had some. “Thank you.”