Peril (37 page)

“What I did—without getting into too much scientific minutia—was harvest neural grafts, doctor them with a chemical, and graft them into the brains of men who were part of private security forces fighting overseas.”

A voice shouted at him from the front row. “Weren't these men at one time serving in the military?”

“How old were these fetuses, Dr. Reeves?” another woman interrupted.

Reeves's throat began to swell. Grainy ultrasound pictures filled his mind. The ones from his relentless nightmares when he'd helped harvest donor tissue.

“I'm sure my research protocol will be fodder for all those on both sides of this debate, but for the sake of the lives currently being held hostage at Sacred Heart Children's Hospital, please allow me to finish.”

The room fell silent once more.

“The volunteers began to suffer side effects. Seizures. Stroke-like symptoms. I thought maybe it was a biological response of the participant's body rejecting the graft, so we began to look for closer donor matches.”

Reeves felt bile percolate in his gut.
Would I have been so cavalier that even Lilly's baby would have been considered for donation? And if not, why would that be different?

He turned his focus back to the crowd. “In two cases, I used neural grafts from the volunteer's progeny. Children they'd helped to conceive.”

All Reeves could focus on were the accusatory, stunned glares, like a sea of disembodied marbles. He blinked.

“These research volunteers are two of the three men holding my daughter hostage right now. Scott Clarke and Dylan Worthy.”

There was a low murmur building among the reporters.

Reeves sensed his control of the press conference slipping. He wanted to disappear. If lightning could just strike him from the earth. The noise level of the room hummed in his ears. Hands shot into the air, but he ignored them.

“Detailed records were kept of the condition of the donor at the time of the graft retrieval.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

“What is happening to each of these men is a reflection of his donor's condition at time of death.”

Reeves skimmed his hands over his face. “In Mr. Clarke's case, after the graft had been placed, the traumatic event the donor suffered—the loss of a limb—became real to him, and he experienced nonuse of that limb.”

A strange silence settled over the throng.

“Let me ask all of you here today, what is it that makes us human? What is it that differentiates us from animals—even intelligent ones. Is it awareness of self? Is it the ability to comprehend and understand pain? Is it self-preservation? Is it the ability to form and recall memories?”

Reeves sipped from a glass of water under the podium. It did little to quench his thirst.

“I was asked once to assist in obtaining a neural graft. What I saw in those sonogram images was a
baby
trying to protect itself. Others will ostensibly have another opinion. But what has been ingrained in me as a scientist is to deduce the most logical reasoning, even if it points to something that is contrary to my belief.

“When the graft was implanted, somehow the recipient exhibited a subconscious manifestation of what the donor experienced. How else could that occur if this traumatic experience wasn't transferred between the two?

“Based on these findings, I am terminating this research protocol. I can only hope those whom I have injured will forgive me.”

People were coming up out of their seats. Reeves looked directly into the red glare of the camera that broadcast his confession to millions.

“Scott, I used your son in your procedure. I paid your wife a very large sum of money to accomplish this goal. I am sorry you were unaware of her desire to participate as a way to retaliate against you. I wanted to make you a man like no other on this earth.”

Reeves swallowed hard.

“What I can say now is that I deserve society's condemnation for my acts. For those who think my work was within the bounds of ethical research, I only ask you to offer an alternate explanation for the data before you decide my theory is not plausible.

“Memory is a sense of self. Sense of self is humanness. And what I learned is that these things are present in utero. And because of that, I can't continue this work.

“Some will be ready to commit me to the closest psychiatric unit for
my understanding of what's happened in this experiment. That's fine. But this is why I think Mr. Clarke and Mr. Worthy have taken my own daughter hostage. Because they recognize that I killed their children, and they want to exact revenge on my daughter.”

Reeves placed his hands together. The lights caused sweat to pool at his lower back. He began to shake.

“Scott, Dylan, asking forgiveness is foreign to me, and I know it will likely sound hollow to you, but I do ask your forgiveness. I know I can't bring back the life of your children. But I beg that you spare the life of my daughter and those others you are holding captive.”

The wave of screamed questions hit Reeves full force.

Chapter 43

1630, Saturday, August 11

F
OR SEVERAL SECONDS
, Scott Clarke just stood motionless, staring at the television.

The cacophony of reporters screaming questions at Reeves stalled him for several minutes. Dylan seemed unsatisfied with the news, restless, the muscles in his arms bunching as he gripped his weapon and paced a tight circle between the doors and the shrouded bay of windows.

It was brief, but Morgan saw a black shadow of resolution cross over Scott's face. He thumped the top of the television with a clenched fist and stormed her direction. Morgan backed up a few steps, but there was no exit. He was upon her in seconds, his fingers once again gathering up her scrub top. This was different. She knew this look. She knew what it meant. It was the look she saw in her own mirror every morning.

He no longer wants to live.

And so he didn't care what happened from that point.

“I thought if I knew it would be better, but it isn't,” he seethed.

Morgan held her hands up, exuding as much submissive calm as she could. “Scott, we have both lost babies. I understand your grief.”

“You don't live with it,” he shouted. Particles of acrid spit dotted her face. His breath was as fetid as the death he was about to deliver.

To all of them.

Unless Morgan could change something about the trajectory of the moment as it had been given to her. She didn't care about her safety. But others were counting on her—of all people—to do everything she could to get them out of it alive.

“Explain to me,” she said.

He jabbed his index finger into his temple. “In here. Nightmares. Visions of torture. Is it true what your father says? That's what I'm remembering? His murder?”

“The only way for you to know for sure is to get out of this alive.” Morgan swallowed hard. She reached to hold his hand. He edged it away. “Scott, you're an American soldier. Murdering your fellow citizens goes against everything you hold honorable.”

He twisted her top and pulled her close. “You don't get it. I don't think that way anymore. Not after what's been done to me”—he spat the last words out—“for love of country.”

Scott holstered his sidearm and then drew what looked like a hunting knife. He shoved Morgan back, slid his hand down her arm, pushed up her long sleeve, and then clamped onto her wrist like a vise. He set the cold blade against the skin over her dialysis shunt. The knife ticked like a metronome at her increased heartbeat.

Tyler came up out of the bed. Yanking the IV line free from his arm, he stumbled in her direction. Her heart broke to see him struggle. To see what those words from her lips had wrought on his life.

All choices have consequences.

“Scott, please,” he yelled. “You can't do this to her. If you cut open that shunt, she'll die in a matter of minutes. None of us will be able to save her.”

The soldier drew the sharp metal edge away from her arm and pointed it at Tyler. “This is something that I want you to live with. Seeing her life bleed from her.”

He set the blade again and looked at her—not with a killer's hatred but with a shared spirit of commiseration. “Don't you want this, Morgan? Isn't this what you really want? To leave this earth and find your daughter—wherever it is she might be? Heaven? Another dimension?”

It is what I—

Tyler's voice interrupted her silent confession.

“Morgan, you have to fight. I know you don't think you can do that anymore, but I'm not leaving you. I know you think there is no reparation for choosing me over Seth. But I forgive you. I don't blame you. I know there's love in your heart for me and what we can still have together.”

She shook her head against his words. The question of life was always an interesting one. When did it start? When did it end? These questions were thin chalked lines on a blackboard—easily smudged by whoever held the eraser.

But her inaction, her denial had led to Teagan's death. For this she should be punished.

Tyler edged closer. “Morgan! Don't leave me alone. I can't do it. You blame yourself for not seeing what happened to our baby. I am just as responsible. I'm a doctor, too. I work with kids every day. I should have seen, and known the signs of abuse. And I didn't. I didn't want to see it. I'm the guilty one.”

Her chest burned as she held her breath. A hard life? An easy death? Tears coursed down her cheeks. Wouldn't it be fitting to die in the same place her daughter had been set free?

“Morgan, I am begging you to hold on to our life. Don't give him permission. You have to fight.”

She clenched her teeth as she eased her free hand into her pocket and edged the cap off the needle.

“Morgan,” Scott sang to her as he pressed the blade harder into her skin.

She opened her eyes and settled them on his. It was the first time she'd seen a difference between them. His gray, hardened eyes still surrendered to death.

She felt in her own eyes a tiny ember of life trying to light under the oxygen-fueled breath of Tyler's love.

Clutching the syringe in her hand, she said. “Go ahead and do it.”

Scott concentrated on drawing the blade across her arm.

She chose then to act.

Morgan pulled the syringe from her pocket and sank the needle into his thigh. She squeezed the plunger with all her might.

He was quick and batted the needle away in one swift move . . . but the change in his position altered the direction of his knife.

Blood from her shunt pulsed from her arm in a thin, fine spray.

“Morgan!” Tyler yelled.

She looked at the small slice and was surprised at how quickly she bled. She clasped her hand over her arm and held it tightly. A tingly sensation washed over her, and her mind settled on the resolve that it was okay to die.

Scott eyed her like a wild-eyed wounded hunter. He rubbed his hand against the injection site. “What did you do?”

“It's a paralyzing drug,” Morgan answered.

He wobbled down onto his knees. His hand gripped his chest. He reached for his sidearm again but didn't have the strength to lift it from the holster.

Dylan advanced to their position. “Whatever you gave him—fix it right now. If he dies, you die.” He pointed the weapon right at Drew's chest.

“I need Morgan to help me. Let me dress that cut and we'll give Scott the antidote.”

Morgan knew Drew was lying. There was no reversal agent for succinylcholine.

He waved his weapon. “Go, fast.”

Drew pulled packages from the cart to place a pressure dressing on her cut. Tyler had short stepped back to lean against the bed.

Scott slumped to the floor. Drew hurried to her and slapped several 4x4s over the wound, then wrapped it tight with an elasticized dressing that would stick to itself.

“Hurry,” Morgan said.

“I don't want to,” Drew replied, wrapping the bandage tighter. A small dot of red was already showing through the gauze.

“You have to.”

“Not after what he's done to us.” Drew began to add more layers to the dressing.

“He'll stop breathing.”

“I know.”

“It's murder.”

“Call it what you want.”

Without warning, Morgan's world blew up.

It took her a scattered moment to register that a SWAT team had blown a gaping hole in the wall behind the nurses' station. Six SWAT officers were inside the unit in seconds.

Dylan didn't hesitate. He rushed to Morgan and yanked her away from Drew. Then he pulled her against his chest, abandoning the larger automatic weapon and drawing his sidearm instead. He dug the muzzle into her ribs.