43
In the back of an Escalade, with grim-faced federal agents seated to either side and tinted windows obscuring his view, Hutch knew only vaguely where they were when they finally turned into a parking structure.
The vehicle stopped at a security check, then proceeded through a roll-up steel door. They parked, and the man to his left opened his door and the one to his right nudged him to slide out. There wasn't much else he could do. Another Escalade pulled up, and six more people got out. The men all seemed cut from the same bolt of cloth, short hair, cut, but the woman among them stood out. She was shorter, severely tailored, and didn't look at him as they all moved toward another door.
Then his phone rang.
They all stopped as if controlled by the same puppeteer. The woman turned, her eyes fixing on him before the second ring.
She touched the lapel of her coat and said, "Cellular call incoming. Parking garage, level B-two. Isolate and triangulate." She stepped up to him. "Answer your phone, Dr. Hutchinson."
He pulled the prepaid phone from his pocket and pressed the green icon. "Hello."
"Are you okay, Hutch?"
Her voice…she's alive!
"I'm fine. How are you?"
The woman stared at him, not giving any direction or instruction.
"Alive. Derrick got away."
"Aleksi, some people came. They got there before the police."
"I saw them. They're the ones who tried to kill me."
"I'm with them now."
Silence… Then she said, "They're tracing this call, Hutch."
"Yes, we are," the woman said, as if she'd heard Aleksi's voice on the other end. Maybe she had.
"They're listening, too, Aleksi."
"Great. I better—"
"Give me the phone, Dr. Hutchinson." The woman held out a hand.
"A woman with them wants to talk to you, Aleksi. I've got to hand over the phone."
"Just do whatever they say, Hutch. This has nothing to do with you."
"Okay." He handed over the phone.
"Miss Rychenkna, this is Dr. Johansen." After a short pause, she added, "No that's not my real name, and neither was it my predecessor's. He's been replaced. I'm sorry for what happened earlier."
Hutch heard Aleksi's raised voice over the phone and could not help but smile. She had certainly expanded her vocabulary.
"That was before Derrick Penningly escaped our control. He's gone completely rogue, Miss Rychenkna. I'd like to talk to you about how we might work together to resolve this issue."
Another stream of expletives.
"I'm not asking you to come in. We can talk by phone or meet in person. You choose the time and place, and I'll be there."
Aleksi said something too quiet for Hutch to hear, but the woman's raised eyebrows were enough to tell him that it wasn't expected. She looked at her watch.
"Can you give us a half hour?" She pulled the phone away from her ear and covered the receiver. She started to mouth something to one of her associates, but Aleksi interrupted her.
"No. Now or never. And bring Hutch." He heard that clearly and smiled.
"That's impossible, Miss Rychenkna. Dr. Hutchinson is in our custody."
"He shows or I don't! And no goddamn snipers, or I'll disappear and you can deal with Derrick Penningly on your own."
Dr. Johansen paused, seeming to consider. "Very well, Miss Rychenkna. We'll be there as soon as we can."
"Fine."
Johansen looked at the phone, and Hutch knew Aleksi had hung up. She touched her collar and said, "Position?"
Hutch heard no answer, and a glance confirmed that she and her cadre all wore earpieces.
"Okay, assemble a team." She gestured to the SUV. "Dr. Hutchinson, it seems we're going for a ride."
"Were to?" He couldn't very well say no.
"The Prudential Tower."
What the hell? Hutch thought as they stuffed him into the back seat of the Escalade. What in the world are you thinking, Aleksi?
I just hate this 'Word From On High' bullshit, sir. They walked away with two of our people and the primary witness!" Jasper was still livid; by the time the feds had let them onto the scene, there had been nothing left to investigate. "They even took our fucking car!"
"I don't like it any more than you do, Jasper, but my hands are tied. When my boss says shut up and follow orders, I do just that. You'd be wise to follow suit." Fisk hadn't moved from behind his desk since Jasper arrived. It was almost midnight, and the forensics team was still crawling all over Hutchinson's apartment and the condo parking lot, not that there was anything to find. The feds had been thorough.
"I'll follow orders, sir, but I'm worried about our people." He was worried about more than that, but it was the only lever that might move Fisk's ass out of his chair.
"And don't suggest for a second that I am not, Sergeant." Fisk's glare would have scared a rookie detective into submission, but Jasper was no rookie.
"I'm not suggesting anything, sir, but you should have seen how they took over the scene. That Johansen told me the chief was calling me before I even answered my goddamn phone!"
"Well, if it'll make you feel any better, the Boston PD got the same call. We're off the case until further notice. National security."
"They must have loved that, with two of their cops dead." Jasper tried to imagine the rug being pulled out from under a cop-killer investigation.
"Well, there was not much they could do, but yeah, everyone's fuming over this. There's also a gag order to the press and all evidence is being confiscated."
"Nice." Jasper rubbed his eyes, wondering what the hell he could do to bypass the bullshit. The answer was, not much. "What about that blood work on Penningly? Did they at least get a match?"
"No, and you're not going to like that either. They fucked up the sample somehow. Not only was the blood not Penningly's, it wasn't even human. They think maybe a dog or rat contaminated it."
"You're kidding me?" Jasper thought back to the scene at the condo parking lot. Not human… The hood of the unmarked police car had been crumpled and cut up like something out of Junk Yard Wars.
"I don't kid about shit like that, Jasper." Fisk took a deep breath and let it out slow, a sure sign that his temper was coming down. "For now, we just move on. Anything you find out about this case should come directly to me and I'll pass it up the line."
"Fine." Jasper's mind clicked to the only other lead they had. He didn't want a replay of what had happened at Hutchinson's apartment. "I think we should warn the guys watching Julie Parks."
"Think he'll go after her?"
"He might, and the feds aren't going to do jack-shit to protect her." He started for the door, then turned back. "I'll tell you one more thing, Commander; after seeing the hood of that car and the inside of Hutchinson's apartment, I'm going to want something with a little more knock-down than my Glock the next time I see Derrick Penningly."
The indignant assurances of the Prudential Building security guards that nobody could have gotten onto the Skywalk floor after hours seemed only to amuse Dr. Johansen. Nothing amused her entourage of four dark coats. Hutch found the entire situation maddening. He practiced his breathing during the long elevator ride up the tower, trying to calm his nerves. Aleksi had to know that she was cornering herself by arranging a meeting at the top of a fifty-story building.
Trust is something you earn, he remembered telling her, and you've earned mine.
He had no choice but to trust her now, though after the fight with Derrick, he didn't see how she could be in any condition to defend herself. He didn't know if their IDs were legitimate, but that his escorts were with the government, he had no doubt. Nobody else could intimidate the police and spirit away witnesses and evidence like that.
The elevator chimed and the doors opened. Two of the dark coats moved out of the elevator and took station to either side of the doors.
Johansen gripped his arm with one slim hand. "Shall we, Docto
r?"
He felt like jerking out of her grasp but settled for giving her a scathing smile. With two more goons behind him, there wasn't much else he could do. They walked into the open viewing area that surrounded the restaurant, the floor to ceiling glass displaying an expansive vista of Boston. The two men behind them looked left and right, but there was no sign of Aleksi.
A ruse? he wondered, unable to guess Aleksi's motive for such a ploy other than to distract them from her real whereabouts.
Johansen spoke into her lapel. "Team one. Once around. No guns."
The two stationed by the elevator began a slow circuit of the viewing floor and restaurant, their hands in plain sight, though Hutch had no doubt that they could produce weapons readily enough. They completed their circuit and shook their heads.
"Well, it would seem that Miss Rychenkna has sent us on a wild goose chase."
"Or you need people with better eyes."
The voice spun everyone around, hands reaching into coats, but still there was no one there.
Hutch smiled. "I'm here, Aleksi."
"I know." Her voice sent a thrill up his spine.
Johansen nodded to her men, and they started to fan out.
"Keep them right where they are, Doctor." Aleksi sounded very different when she spoke to Johansen, harsh and suspicious. "If I see one gun, you'll be the first person to die."
"Nobody's going to die here, Miss Rychenkna." Johansen nodded to her men again. They took station on either side of her, hands empty. "Do we talk face to face, or do you stay hidden?"
Shadows moved where the ceiling met a support column, and Aleksi dropped to the floor. She landed without a sound and then rose from her crouch to step into the open. She still wore her tattered niqab, the hood back. She kept her hands folded in front of her, clutching the torn and bloodstained cloth closed. Her eyes scanned the group, lingered on Hutch's for a moment, then shifted to Johansen.
"Thank you for bringing Dr. Hutchinson."
"Thank you for agreeing to meet."
"I'm sorry about your home, Hutch." Her eyes never left Johansen.
"It's just an apartment, Aleksi. Just things. It's not important." He smiled at her, wanted to go to her, take her in his arms and hold her, but knew he couldn't. "I was thinking about remodeling anyway."
"I'm just glad you weren't hurt."
"I'm fine."
Her eyes flicked to his for a moment, then back to Johansen. "I'm here to listen to you, Dr. Johansen, but you may as well know now that I'll never come in to be your guinea pig."
"I'm not asking you to."
"And I want you to release Dr. Hutchinson. He's not a part of this and he's lost enough already."
"Right now, we're keeping him, but our only interest is to find out how much he knows about…your condition."
"Less than you do, if you had Derrick in your lab. How did that work? Did you offer him amnesty for murdering Bob Tomlin if he came in and told you where to find the samples that infected us?"
Hutch felt Johansen's grip tense on his arm. The scathing suspicion in Aleksi's tone made her nervous.
"Something like that, but I wasn't the one who made that deal, Miss Rychenkna. It was a bad call, and we're trying to rectify that mistake."
"And how's that working for you?"
"Admittedly, not very well. Derrick's out of control. That's why I took over this project from my predecessor and why I wanted to speak with you." She let go of Hutch's arm and held out her hands imploringly. "You seem to be very much in control, and quite capable of confronting Penningly. I'd like to know why you think you're less mentally impaired by the changes you're going through, and I need to know how to find and neutralize Penningly."
"Let me ask you something first. You did blood work on Derrick. What did you find?"
"The results were inconclusive. The DNA in the samples was…unstable."
"No, it wasn't. It was changing, being rewritten by the infection. Gene switching, recombination, recoding. It seemed unstable because the changes aren't complete yet."
"What will he…and you be when the changes are complete?" There was less incredulity there than Hutch would have suspected.
"I don't know, but I won't be the same as Derrick Penningly. We're…different. This…" She raised one clawed hand and extended the two webbed fingers fully, now a foot longer than her other digits. "…evolved to protect humans, but in him it didn't. It may work differently in men than women. Whatever he is, the changes, his violent impulses, are out of control."
"Interesting." Dr. Johansen licked her lips and cocked her head in a mannerism that sparked a twinge of familiarity in Hutch. "So, how do we get him?"
Where have I seen that before? He looked closely at the woman again, but her face sparked no memories.
"Watch more closely than you have been, but you already know that." Aleksi took a couple of steps closer, into the brighter light. Her angular features glowered at them, the prominent brow and hard cheekbones framing her bright yellow eyes like a glittering golden sculpture. "As to how to neutralize him, I don't know if I want to tell you. Anything that will help you kill Derrick will help you kill me, which you've already tried to do twice."
"The first time was not under my direction, as I said, Miss Rychenkna, and the second time we weren't aiming at you, only Penningly." Now it was Johansen's turn to use a hard tone. "That won't happen again. You're much too valuable to us alive."
"How so?"
"This meeting proves it." She flicked a hand, a graceful gesture that sparked another twinge of familiarity. "You're willing to speak with us. You're an asset, Miss Rychenkna. We don't waste assets."
"I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong, Doctor."
"What am I thinking, Aleksi?"
"You want to create some kind of…weapon out of this." She gestured to her own face with one clawed hand, and Hutch noticed Johansen flinch. "You're playing with a fire you can't control. It's more dangerous than anything the human race has ever discovered. It'll destroy civilization if you let it loose."
"We have no intention of letting it loose, Miss Rychenkna." Johansen sounded like a parent telling a child that there was no Santa Claus. "We only want to understand it, to discover how it evolved, and why it vanished. I would like your opinion, as a paleontologist, why there is no fossil record of it."
"I'm still formulating theories about that, but you've had more time with the specimen than I did. The interior of the sample was crumbled to dust, but not from heat fracturing. There was nothing left, but it was still infectious."
"How could this evolve, Aleksi?"
"I don't know." Aleksi lifted her webbed fingers again. "I have dreams…genetic memories that aren't consistent with what I'm…experiencing. I'm not sure what I'm going to be."
"Any theories on that?"
"Some. Unless your laboratory comes up with a cure, and, no offense, I don't think that's very likely, I'll find out eventually."
"Not likely, perhaps, but it is possible." Johansen took a short step forward. "Work with us, and I promise you, we'll try."
"You'll forgive me if I don't trust you, Dr. Johansen." She smiled, and her pronounced canines glinted in the light like knives. "Your people shot me, remember?"
"I'll concede that we've not earned your trust." She stepped back and nodded toward Hutch. "I'll agree to free Dr. Hutchinson on the condition that he agrees not to speak to anyone or publish anything about you or this project, and I'll see that your name is cleared. We can manufacture any story you wish to satisfy the press and your family."
"And what do you want in return?"
"Help us neutralize Penningly."
"You mean kill him for you."
"That, or lure him into a position where we can capture him."
"If you think you can capture—" Aleksi's head cocked, and her eyes snapped into hard slits. "I should have known better than to trust you!"
"Wait, Aleksi!" Johansen shouted, but Aleksi was already moving. "They're
just for surveillance! We're not—"
But her assurances were cut off by the crash of shattering glass and the whir of helicopter rotors.
Tempered glass exploded around Aleksi in a glittering cascade, ten thousand diamonds falling with her as she ripped free the last tatters of her shredded robe. As the fabric fluttered away, she saw that the helicopter she'd heard was still some distance off, but too close for comfort. In the open side door a black-clad man held a rifle.
Aleksi flung her arms wide, extending the two elongated fingers that she usually kept folded down along her forearm. The membrane that had formed between those fingers and all the way to her ankles, snapped taut like a sail in a hurricane. She couldn't actually fly yet, but she was betting her life that she could glide enough to evade her enemies.
She banked to the northeast, but immediately knew that her glide angle was too steep. Instinct told her that if she tried to flatten her trajectory, she would stall. She needed someplace to land or…
Without thinking, she banked back to the right, aiming for the rounded glass monstrosity of another building. She pulled up hard, aiming for one of the terraced rooftops. Wings billowed, clawed toes scraping the lowest terrace an instant before she barreled right into one of the glass walls. Thinking of all the bugs she'd seen hit windshields, she folded her wings and balled her fists.
The glass shattered, and she slammed through office furniture as she tucked and rolled. She came to her feet and burst through a door into a maze of cubicles. She kept moving, dashing the length of a long, open isle and glancing to her left for an opening. A balcony there drew her attention and she turned, increasing her speed again. Movement through the windows caught her eye before she plunged through the glass and launched herself into the air.
The helicopter had followed her decent, but the pilot had not predicted her change in direction. It banked around the building, its rotors a deadly disc of flashing blades. She caught a glimpse of the pilot's astonished face, mouth agape, as she plunged past, missing the rotors by mere feet with her wings fully extended. The prop wash buffeted her, but she was already banking away, swooping around another building, this one mostly gray concrete. She spied her goal and pulled up, killing her speed in a stall as she approached the roof of the Boston Public Library.
Dragon Dreams Page 38
