Edge of Danger (31 page)

 
“You trust MacBain and not me?” he asked, one dark brow arched for emphasis.

 
“Yes. MacBain didn’t kidnap me. MacBain didn’t lock me inside this castle. MacBain didn’t—”

 
“Get to hear those soft little moans you make when you come.”

 
Startled, she took a deep, calming breath. “True, but irrelevant.”

 
She reached out her hand to see how fast he could move. Pretty damn fast, she thought with a glimmer of amusement as he stepped out of reach once again. If she didn’t laugh at the absurdity of it, she’d cry.

 
She knew he wanted her with a hunger as powerful as her own. Why he was resisting her touch now, Eden had no idea.

 
She exhaled. He couldn’t be any plainer about his feelings if he’d rented a sky writer to make his point. Eden told herself she wasn’t in the least little bit disappointed. If feeling as though she’d fallen out of the sky writing plane,
onto her head,
wasn’t disappointment.
Idiot.

 
“I want you out here, with MacBain at your side while I speak to the agent. Making Rex was foolish and now he’s in the wrong hands. I’m not about to fork over instructions to build another one without being completely sure that I can trust you.”

 
Gabriel flicked his fingers and suddenly MacBain was standing in the hallway. He seemed more annoyed than surprised, letting out a loud, disgusted breath as he kept the paring knife poised above the partially carved radish in his other hand.

 
“Och! What is it ye want now?” he said irritably. “As ye can verra well see, I was in the midst of preparin’ a garnish for the canapés. Be a good lad and send me back to the kitchen so I can finish my chores, aye?”

 
“Sorry, old man, she wants you here.”

 
MacBain turned to Eden. “Do ye have a special request then, Dr. Cahill?”

 
“Watch him,” Eden told him. “Every second.”

 
“Aye. Watch him do what, precisely?”

 
“Stay right here,” Eden pointed to the floor at Gabriel’s feet. “I don’t want him moving from this spot. Not an inch, not a millimeter. Not an eyelash.”

 
“As ye wish.”

 
“Dr. Cahill?” Dixon called from inside the library.

 
“Coming,” Eden called back, holding MacBain’s eyes. “Promise?”

 
“It will be as if he was glued to the floor, Doctor. Go on about yer business with a clear mind.”

 
Eden knew that wasn’t damned likely. Not when she had to tell Homeland Security that she’d been less than honest with them ever since Theo’s murder. Oh, yeah, and there was the whole thing about Rex and his capabilities.

 
She walked back into the library. Sebastian Tremayne was looming over Agent Dixon. “Your presence is requested outside. Close the door firmly on your way out.”

 
Gabriel’s friend had very expressive eyebrows, Eden decided as he passed her. “Yes, ma’am,” he said dryly. The door closed quietly behind him.

 
Dixon was running his fingers along the leather volumes lining the library walls. “Impressive collection,” he murmured, turning and offering a forced smile.

 
Indicating a chair, she sat on the end of one of the sofas, waiting until he was seated across from her to begin. Where to start? Lies or robot? Too bad there wasn’t a column C among the options.

 
In the end, she simply decided to suck in a deep breath, and let it all spill out at once. She told him about Rex. About how the robot was indestructible, capable of reasoning, and with the right programming adjustments, the reasoning could include the logical extermination of the human race. Rex had everything in the way of artificial intelligence, advanced sequential reasoning, anticipated optional response, everything any machine would need to respond to any emergency or situation. Everything but humanity.

 
“While Rex can’t factor empathy or redemption into his circuitry,” Eden told him, “the right tweak in his memory board could make him the perfect weapon for terrorists. A fearless, conscienceless, indestructible killing machine able to deliver on a massive scale.”

 
Dixon’s expression was carefully neutral. “You speak of it as one would a child, Dr. Cahill.”

 
“I worked on Rex for six years, Agent. It’s impossible
not
to anthropomorphize something that was such a big part of my life.”

 
“Is that why you made the robot indestructible?”

 
Eden gave him a startled look. Had she done so subconsciously? Had she wanted Rex in some way to be the one constant in her life? The child she’d never have? Had she, at some point, given up on the idea of ever finding someone to share her life with? God. That was pathetic.

 
“No,” she told him, not sure of anything at the moment. “We manufactured it that way so it could do its job. It cost millions of dollars to fabricate each unit. Having it destruct every time it performed its function wouldn’t be cost-effective. There is one way Re—the Rx793 can be destroyed.”

 
Dixon looked surprised. “There is? How?”

 
“Another bot.”

 
He frowned. “I thought you said the lab was destroyed. Hard drives wiped. Schematics stolen or destroyed.”

 
“True. But that’s where Gabriel Edge comes in.”

 
Dixon rose, then started to pace in the small area between the chair and the sofa. “I’m glad he contacted us.” He bent to pick up the heavy Bible Gabriel had left on the coffee table. “So was Mr. Verdine.”

 
As he talked he flipped through the pages. He glanced up to find her watching him, and the look in his…the
unpleasant
look he gave her made the little hairs on the back of Eden’s neck stand up. Why, she couldn’t say. He had never given her the willies before.

 
She’d just told him that there was a way to destroy the bot. Yet he’d segued off the subject without turning a hair. She tried to read his expression. But he had the same knack Gabriel did of keeping his features expressionless. A little shiver skittered across her nerve endings. A goose walking over her grave, as Grandma Rose used to say.

 
“He’s been worried about you,” he told her, glancing down as he turned a page. “He went so far as to offer to pay any ransom demanded just to get you back.” This time when he looked up at her, Eden knew she’d imagined that look. He was a government agent, with no personal agenda.

 
Because of the circumstances she was reading things that weren’t there.

 
It was flattering to know that a man like Jason Verdine was willing to use his personal finances to secure her safe return. Okay. Not exactly her safe return. The safe return of her brain and skills. Still—“Tell him thank you for me.”

 
“Tell him yourself,” Dixon insisted. “I’m taking you back to Tempe with me.”

 
“It isn’t that easy. To repeat what I told you a minute ago. There
is
no way, no
thing,
no device that can destroy this robot. Nothing. If what everyone suspects is true, and terrorists do have Rex, then I have to build another robot with even better capabilities and strengths. And
this
time I’ll include a self-destruct device so that once the new bot destroys the first we never have this situation again. Like against like. It’s the
only
way to destroy it.”

 
Dixon tossed the heavy Bible down on the coffee table with a thump loud enough to make her wince. “All the more reason to get you back to Tempe as quickly as possible.”

 
Eden shook her head. “I’ll do it here. There’s a state-of-the-art lab upstairs, and frankly, having Gabriel Edge, and T-FLAC, here to protect me will be considerably safer than going back to a lab that has already been broken into.”
Twice.

 
“T-FLAC?” Dixon said blankly. “I’m sorry. I’m not familiar with—Is that part of the robot you made?”

 
Okay. This was wrong.
He
was wrong.

 
Eden stood. Too fast, apparently, since it made her a little lightheaded. She braced a hand on the arm of the sofa. “
T-FLAC.
I don’t remember what it stands for, but Gabriel said you’d know them. Know the group he works for. They do,” she paused to swallow, hoping that might alleviate the persistent buzz ringing in her ears. It didn’t, and she hurriedly sat down again hoping to hell she wasn’t going to pass out.

 
She moistened her lips. “They’re a counterterrorist organization. They’re on our side.”

 
Special Agent Dixon gave her a worried look. “Never heard of them, and my dear, if such an organization existed, I can assure you I would know. There is no T-FLAC,” he told her. “Look, this Edge guy is well known to us. He’s certifiable, Dr. Cahill. Delusional. We’ve got a file two inches thick on him. He claims to be everything from a master swordsman to a wizard.”

 
The room wasn’t spinning so much as it was melting. Eden tried to hold her focus, but it seemed as if she were looking at the world through the bottom of a glass. “He…he can…be per…persuasive.”

 
“That’s too bad,” Dixon said, his voice suddenly harsh. “I had hoped you wouldn’t fall under his spell, but since you have, I’m left with no other alternative.”

 
Than what,
she tried to ask as Dixon floated over to her. She flinched as he stroked his fingers almost lovingly up her throat, then leisurely wrapped both hands around her neck. He squeezed, and at the same time pulled her to her feet. God, he was strong. She wanted to fight him, but her body felt incredibly heavy and frighteningly unresponsive.

 
Gabriel?! Get in here!

 
Their eyes met as Dixon supported her entire body by his chokehold on her throat. He was mad. Insane. God…determined. He held her so tightly that her ears buzzed and her vision went black in undulating waves of darkness.

 
Gabriel.

 
“I can’t allow you to replicate or destroy the bot, Dr. Cahill,” he told her harshly. “Your prototype is already in production.”

 
“No!” She tried to claw at his wrists as his fingers tightened inexorably against her windpipe. Black and silver dots danced sickeningly in her vision and she felt her consciousness drain out of her body.

 
“You should have died that night with Dr. Kirchner, Eden. Your research should have died with you.” His thumbs pressed down hard. She gagged, struggling to drag in a sip of air. “Supply and demand, babe. Supply and demand. Now I’m in control of both.”

 
With her last bit of strength Eden flattened her palms against his chest, tried to push him away.

 
Her hands went right through him.

 
“What the hell? Did you hear—” Gabriel slammed open the library doors from ten feet away. They crashed against the inside wall as he burst into the room, Tremayne and MacBain hard on his heels.

 
He’d heard Eden shout his name.

 
Heard her inside his head.

 
He looked around the well-lit room.

 
Jesus. Empty.