by T. K. Toppin
“And how is it that you were able to find something we could not?” John asked.
“You simply did not know where to look.”
Where had we heard that before? Adam had once said the same when we questioned him a few months ago regarding a graphic novel featuring a character called Uron Koh. A character who overthrew the evil empire in its fictitious world. And Max Wellesley had fashioned himself in the likeness of this character. John and Simon had spent long months searching for his identity and had come up with nothing.
And now…this. I couldn’t help but muse that the resources of the Lancaster government were seriously lacking.
“Then where is my wife’s so-called niece?”
“She is with me. And she would so like to meet her great aunt.”
“Introduce us, then,” John dared in his silky, low voice.
“In good time. She is a little shy, like your dear wife.”
“So the question, yet again, is: what do you want?” Simon asked.
“I want Adam,” Ho said. “And if I don’t have him, not only will I expose the truth to the world at large and make a great amount of money selling it off, but you can be assured it will make your wife’s life very uncomfortable. Oh, and I’ll kill her only remaining family. It’s your choice.”
“That’s not much of a choice you’ve given us, now is it?” Simon snorted. “Two threats in one; either way, you’re going to do one or the other. Try again.”
Ho sighed. “Adam. I want him.”
“Why?” John stared down his nose at Ho’s image, enjoying his height advantage like a schoolyard bully tormenting a small child.
“Because he took something from me. And I want it back.”
Despite the tight control over his face, John cut Adam a sidelong glance, cold, icy, and laced with fury. “Did he, now?”
Adam, who took this as his cue to step forward, cleared his throat and approached the transceiver. Hands tucked behind him, he smiled with easy effort. Practiced and regal, like one born and bred to behave so; which he was.
“Michael, a pleasure as always.” Adam’s tone was professional and confident, like the CEO of a company greeting a new client.
Ho smiled back and inclined his head. “Adam, or shall I say, Mr. Jones The Expert. Good to meet you at last, without your disguise. Obesity did not become you. But you’re looking a bit ill. Does life in imprisonment not agree with you?”
Adam shrugged, a weak jerk of his shoulders. He’d worn, because he was Adam and had his quirks, a disguise when he’d met with Ho. This had been before he knew for certain who Ho represented and what the real agenda was. Or so Adam had claimed. But we knew, through his own admission, that he had helped to create Uron Koh from the very beginning. And Max Wellesley had hired Michael Ho to be his representative. You could say, almost, that it was a reunion of conspirators.
“Not as agreeable as I had hoped, but at least I do not have to worry about life’s everyday hassles. I feel quite liberated from the stress. Rigid rules do have their uses.”
Ho inspected Adam. “You are not as young as I imagined you to be.”
“Age is but a number. You would be surprised to know my actual age.”
“I care not for a person’s age. Only their worth and use.” Ho twitched an eyebrow, annoyed. “And right now your use is the only reason I wish to speak with you. I want it back.”
“You want what back? I have no idea what you are referring to, Michael.” Adam feigned an air of puzzlement.
“Where is it?” Ho asked with a sharp bite, a hint of impatience.
John leaned forward just a bit to absorb this new bit of weakness in Ho. Simon curled a small smile on his thin lips. Clearly, I’d missed some vital point in this repartee.
Adam shrugged again. “If you are referring to the bit of money I filtered out of your European accounts, I’m sorry to say, it’s gone. I had to give it away. It was part of the requirements of my…exile. I am rather poor now.”
“I have enough money. That is of no importance to me.” Ho clicked his tongue. “I refer to something else.”
John and Simon exchanged a quick look between them. Ho’s agitation seemed to please them. For once, I wished I understood the secret language they spoke.
“Well, get on with it then,” Adam huffed. “No point with these guessing games if you don’t give us any hints. I’ve no idea what you are talking about.”
“The code,” Ho said. “Where is it?”
“The…code?” Adam seemed lost. I knew his face and mannerisms enough to know he didn’t have a clue what was going on. Nor did the rest of us. What the fuck was Ho on about?
“If you have it,” John spoke to Adam in a voice that was low and dangerously patient, “give it back.”
Adam gave his brother a befuddled shrug. It was returned by a scowl. “John,” Adam shook his head. “I’ve no idea what he’s on about.”
“Enough of this,” Ho interrupted. “Give me the code or, by tomorrow, the world will know who Josie Bettencourt really is. And if I still do not have the code, I will kill her niece.”
“Prove to us first that this person is my wife’s niece. Or no deal,” John replied.
Up until then, I hadn’t been sure of my feelings. If, indeed, I had a niece—a family member still alive—then, yes, I would most definitely want to meet her. But receiving this revelation from Michael Ho was dubious to say the least, like trusting the word of a known liar. Or placing your head between the jaws of a crocodile and hoping it wouldn’t bite.
Was he telling the truth? Had he actually found a relation of mine when all efforts by John and Simon, with their vast resources, had failed? A small, desperate part of me wanted to believe him. To feel connected once more, to be part of something that made a whole. Another part told me Ho was bluffing so I’d better not get my hopes up, that this was all to draw us out. To be brutally honest, relative or not, she was just a person I’d no idea of or any attachment to other than blood. She would be a complete stranger.
But I did wonder. Could it be?
“Proof?” Ho cracked a crooked smile. “If it’s proof you require, it is proof you will receive. DNA, however watered down through the generations, does not tell lies. Expect a sample to be delivered in a few moments.”
John raised a brow. “An electronic sample?” He actually laughed. “Come now, those can be tampered with.”
“A delivery. Expect it at any moment. A man by the name of Xiang will be found detained in your Main Entrance Hall. He speaks little English—he is ignorant. He carries with him a vial containing a single strand of hair. If he does not hand over the vial directly to either you or your lackey Simon, he has been conditioned and instructed to kill himself. If I am not mistaken, he would be at this moment creating quite a fuss with your security guards.”
Simon snorted, but pulled out his personal unit and made a call.
John cast Ho a lazy glance. “And I take it he’ll still kill himself or be killed once he has delivered this vial?”
Ho’s smile widened. “Even if you question him, he won’t know anything. His main purpose for living was to deliver the vial, and that alone. You can do with him as you like. He is just a messenger.”
“Where has this niece of Josie’s been all this time?” Adam called out.
“You will find out in due course. Who knows. When I receive the code, I may decide to let her visit with you, and she can tell you herself. But then, I have grown quite fond of her. She has the most charming disposition—quite like Josie, in a way. The resemblance is…uncanny.”
“I still don’t know what code it is you speak of.”
“Come now, Adam. Enough with the lies. I know you have it. You took it from me in Korea.”
Adam scoffed. “I’ve not been to Korea in years. You mistake me for someone else.”
Just then, Simon made a growl and gave John a look as he marched out of the room. Ho chuckled with delight.
“Tomorrow at noon,” Ho said
, and waved once.
The transmission ended and left us blinking at the space where his image had stood.
Chapter 6
A knot the size of a football twisted through my gut. We were in Aline Lancaster’s office. She had the results from the DNA tests.
Earlier, Xiang, the messenger, a fifty-odd-year-old mentally challenged man, had been detained, questioned, found insensible, and sent to the clinic’s head trauma unit for observation. They soon learned that he’d been injected with a slow-working poison. That was no surprise. The unfortunate Xiang would be dead in a few days once his body shut down. Aline and her team had tried several remedies, but none seemed to take.
“What do you mean? Are you sure?” John rose from his seat and strode to face, Aline, his sister.
Aline regarded him with a withering look. She was six years older and used each of those years to her advantage. “Of course I’m sure. I’ve run it three times to be sure.”
Aline was the Citadel’s most respected physician. Regardless of who she was, she had earned her status on merit alone. She ran the main clinic, which was for the presidential family and government officials. Like her brothers, she had dark hair and a pale complexion. Her manner was a mix of John’s stubborn calm and Adam’s quick mind. And something that was all her own: a bossy and forthright nature.
And, like them both, she had a habit of clamping her mouth into a line and administering that Lancaster stare of thorough inspection and calculation. I felt it on me now.
“So, it appears you’ve got family after all,” Aline said in her usual bluntness.
I stared back, uncertain of what to say or do. What could I do? What was there to say?
John reached for my arm, giving it a quick and reassuring squeeze. The argument we’d had earlier was gone. Our eyes met in understanding. He would feel for me, it said. He would take the brunt of whatever happened next.
Nodding, I turned away, numb and unsteady. Whatever he chose to do, it still wouldn’t take away that awful feeling of excitement tinged with disappointment. What if it was all a hoax? I shouldn’t get my hopes up for them to come crashing down as the joke was revealed. But it was three hundred years! That was a long fucking time. Any number of things could’ve happened. I could have a gazillion relations scattered around the world—perhaps that was the reason John and Simon had no luck finding them: their genes were too watered down to register. Or maybe, there was no one. No one at all, only me, and this was a grand old joke at my expense. I sucked in a breath to get a grip.
Aline’s office was a roomy and comfortable space, furnished with soft colors to calm the soul. To soothe the mind, light trickling noises came from small water fountain ornaments.
“What I don’t get is how he managed to find this relative when we couldn’t,” Simon fretted from a corner. Too restless to sit still, he stood propped against a filing cabinet while he drummed his fingers on it. He glanced across at me with a small purse to his lips. I interpreted that to be his worried look. A crease formed between his brows as if remembering something; he blinked and looked away briefly before lancing me again with those blue eyes.
I knew he saw straight to my core. Most did, it would seem. Despite the strong front I put up, inside, buried deep, I was still very fragile. Like a raw nerve, I tried my best to keep it covered and protected. I’d tell myself I was tough and that I would not let my emotions, the memories of trauma, control me. In actual fact, I was still healing from my “ordeal.” That was about the only appropriate word to describe my past and what had happened since I’d come to the Citadel. Right now, I sensed something inside me, trembling. Terror.
Simon opened his mouth, perhaps in an attempt to raise my spirits by offering a sarcastic remark, but must have caught something in my expression, because he closed his mouth in haste. I turned away and found John watching me too, his expression grim. His eyes scanned my face in a clinical inspection. With each passing second, his face grew stonier and angrier. His thoughts were plain to see on his face, especially the desire to wring Ho’s skinny little neck for causing me so much distress and uncertainty. And if it turned out to be all a lie, I knew for sure he’d break it clean with no regrets.
“And what’s this code he talks of?” Simon muttered with a frown.
John jerked, as if Simon’s voice had cast his fantasies of breaking Ho’s neck away.
“Josie?” Simon continued. “In your time at Wellesley’s, was there any mention of a code?”
I shook my head, stood, and wandered over to the window that looked out onto the brilliant expanse of the clinic’s gardens. Benches were dotted about among the immaculate lawns, as were flowering hedges and shrubs, and a winding pond weaved through them all. Small wooden bridges and stepping-stones stretched over the pond, and burbling water fountains spouted out lazy, fat trickles of water.
I needed to calm my mind, clear it. The vista before me may have helped, but I saw it through eyes that had already drifted miles away. Centuries, in fact.
I thought of my brother, Kellan. Since awakening, I’d wondered if my brother and family had survived. I knew Dad had moved my pod to Prince Edward Island, and then been murdered, but why I hadn’t been resuscitated was a mystery.
Had the people who’d killed my father also killed my brother? If not, then what had happened? Had he and his wife lived out their lives? Had their children had children, and so on?
All these questions, and no solid answers! And just how had Michael Ho gotten the answers John and I had been seeking for months? What had we missed?
During his spare time, John still ran his own investigation into the matter. I’d pretended not to notice but was aware of it. In a sense, it was John’s way of trying to make me feel connected to something, to give me back my identity, my family, a sense of belonging. Even though I’d said it didn’t matter anymore, that John was now my family, he continued to search. He knew me well enough to know it did matter.
If Kellan had lived, he would’ve known about the suspension pod and tried to reawaken me once it was safe to do so. He was a scientist, in a manner of speaking, and would’ve known what to do. I’d just assumed he’d died before being able to take care of that. After all, why else had I been left there, forgotten for all those years?
What I rarely considered was that maybe he’d lived. And decided to keep me hidden for my own safety—and for the safety of the pod and its design, since it was the prototype. But my father’s research documentation and publication had been released soon after his death. The world knew all the secrets already and there’d have been no reason for me to remain asleep, hidden. So I could only conclude Kellan and his young family had met with some misfortune. That was the only explanation. It made no sense to leave me sleeping for all those long years. Knowing my brother, he would’ve at least tried to reawaken me. And if he couldn’t, he would’ve left instructions and arrangements for this to be done. Kellan, if anything, was a perfectionist. It would’ve grated his sensibilities to have unfinished business that needed attending to.
Unless he’d been prevented. My questions always came back to that.
I worked it out. Seven generations. That sounded about right. If Kellan’s children, Conrad, who’d been five, and Fern, who was a little over a year old when I went to sleep, had grown and had children of their own, then yes. It was about right, give or take a few incarnations who may have had children later in life. Seven generations.
But how did it come to be that only one had survived? What horrendous misfortunes had occurred through the ages that there was only one?
I held no attachment to this new niece. How could I? Who was she, if in fact she was a blood relation? Blood relation, maybe, but definitely watered down through the generations. Watered and thinned so far, she was a complete stranger. A foreigner. So far distant from Kellan and I that she may as well have come from another planet.
I made up my mind in an instant, no longer confused or longing for something I couldn’t get. Instea
d, a distant anger sparked, bolstering my spirits. I was angry with Ho for bringing me to this point, for making me uncertain. To protect my sanity, I would convince myself it was trick. Denial was sometimes much better, safer, than acceptance.
And there was something else that bothered me.
“Why would he try to find a relative of mine?” I turned around, my face tightening with conviction. John, who was rarely surprised, blinked a few times and stared at me. “Was it out of curiosity? What’s the purpose of revealing this niece? If he wanted to expose me, he’d have done so, regardless. He has the fucking discs to prove it—why drag a niece into the mix? Why the double threat? To make sure we give him this stupid code when he’s going to expose me anyway? I don’t get it. It makes no sense.”
“Nicely put.” Simon smiled, his face relaxing.
“True.” John frowned. “Why, indeed? And if we couldn’t find anything, how did he?”
“There might be a way,” Aline said. She had her hip propped on the corner of her desk and a thoughtful knit on her face. “Not many people would know of it, and fewer could gain access. It’s strictly for select members of the medical profession, and even then, it has restrictions in place. Only certain groups can gain access. The medical DNA banks. It’s more detailed than the banks security authorities use. One needs specific passwords and authorization to log onto it and access the information. And even then, the amount of information available is limited to a specific sample and its links. But, perhaps, with some effort and a good hacker, anyone could get in.”
“But we’ve scanned all DNA banks,” Simon said.
“Yes, but not the detailed medical banks. These would hold key tags and specific markers, even shadows and blips that are indicative of the original DNA source. Like a fingerprint that determines the dominant characteristics in a DNA strand. The authorities, what you would have used to source information have just an overview, with the strongest spikes and tags as markers. This would work if you were trying to source something a hundred years old. But after generations of gene mixes, you would need a more detailed method of tagging someone. Ho could easily have used any number of samples from Josie that he picked up from the house as a base to screen for any similarities in the DNA banks. If he tagged something remotely similar, he’d have investigated further.”
