Safe Passage

by Loreth Anne White

  “Tell me about Charly.”

  The words sliced into the comfortable silence. He hadn’t spoken much in the past two hours since they’d left the motel.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “What does she do at the Kepplar lab?”

  “She’s my right hand…my friend.”

  “She works with you on your assassin bugs?”

  “Yes. I was counting on Charly to convince Marshall to halt the beetle project until they could do more research.”

  His eyes darted to her. “They?”

  “I mean ‘we.’” She’d slipped up. She didn’t want him to know she had no intention of returning to her life in Haven.

  He studied her briefly. “You think he’ll hold off?”

  “No.”

  “Is that something that worries you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But not enough to go back?”

  Was he testing her? “I’ll be no use dead,” she said bluntly.

  He nodded. It surprised her, his acceptance. She had a sense something in him had shifted. Since he’d seen those men in the restaurant. It was as though he was buying into her story.

  “What’s the worst-case scenario if they release your beetles as scheduled?”

  She gave a dry laugh. “That’s a tough one. That’s why I need more time, to assess the possibilities.”

  “When you spoke with Marshall on the phone, you mentioned anomalies showing up. What are they?”

  “When I checked into the lab, just before we left Haven, I noticed some very slight color differentiations in my core samples.”

  “Is that serious?”

  “Maybe not. But you can’t release something foreign into an ecosystem unless you’re damn sure what you’re dealing with. And, even if you are, there are still always unknown variables, still an element of risk.”

  “Like the introduction of new pathogens?”

  “Yes. My beetles could become a vector for new disease. God, I hope Marshall does the right thing.”

  “Well, it’s his company on the line. I’m sure he’ll take that into account.”

  “I hope you’re right, Scott. Because the whitefly epidemic has spread into the States and Marshall wants to be right there behind them. He’s had the Canadian government contracts sewn up for several years, but now he’s after the big fat carrot—the U.S. Department of Agriculture contracts. And he’s in a race with his corporate competition to prove Kepplar can be the best and the fastest.”

  “So Marshall is ruled by greed over caution?”

  “That’s putting it mildly. He’s so obsessed sometimes I think he’d create a blight just to win a contract to arrest it.”

  Scott’s eyes flashed to hers. “He capable of doing that?”

  Skye swallowed the last of her coffee, mulling over the notion. She’d never vocalized it before. Only entertained the idea in the periphery of her brain, almost as a joke.

  But now, nothing seemed funny. Now things were deadly serious.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I believe he is capable.”

  “They lost them?” He lurched to his feet.

  “Only the visual. The tracking device is still working. They’re on the move right now. Have been since early morning. The device shows they’re headed south. Already nearing the outskirts of Victoria. And we have an ID on the man she’s with. He reserved a table under the name Scott McIntyre. We’ll have more on him within the hour.”

  Malik spun around, glared at the portrait. The silver eyes of the woman who was once his stared coolly back at him. And for the first time, worry dug at him. Operation Vector was designed to use her to destroy herself.

  Had he been too arrogant, playing her this long? Would she now end up destroying him?

  No! He smashed a fist onto his desk.

  He’d invested too much in this. For the prephase of Operation Vector he’d paid disenfranchised Soviet scientists handsomely to do the bio work in his Anubis labs.

  Then he’d inserted Jozsef, who’d dispersed mosquito eggs infected with Rift Valley fever when he crossed the border into Texas. Then Jozsef had delivered the mutated whitefly to Canada. Armed with this knowledge, his operatives had played the stock markets accordingly, helping to fund the entire project.

  Next, details of Skye’s travel plans had been carefully leaked to link her to the RVF outbreak. The whitefly links would be divulged later, once her beetles were released.

  As expected, the Kepplar labs had picked up the government contract for the whitefly plague. If Kepplar hadn’t, Malik would have gone to one of his backup plans.

  But it had worked. And that meant sublime justice. Jozsef had interfered with her beetle project, inserted the genetic variants, and now the Canadian government itself was set to unleash a scourge such as North America had never before seen.

  The beetles would become a vector for a deadly plague. People would die by the thousands.

  And Skye would be blamed. Posthumously, if necessary.

  Because the next step would be to release proof of her identity fraud, captured from Jalil’s office, along with evidence of her terrorist background. A smile tugged at the corners of Malik’s mouth. She even bore his mark on her hip. The world would think she had served him until the very last. A sleeper, activated to unleash a scourge Anubis would take credit for. Thanks to her, fear and terror would shatter the economic monster of the United States. He ran his tongue over his teeth.

  The tracking device would lead his men to her.

  He’d still triumph.

  There was no sign of their tail in his rearview mirror as they drove into Campbell River. Scott breathed a sigh of relief. “Looks like we lost them.”

  “Thank God. That means we have a clear run to Zeballos, right?”

  Scott nodded. “But there’s no real town between here and there, apart from Woss. We should stop for supplies. Tell me about the cabin, what’s it equipped with?”

  “Not much. It’s real basic, really. It belongs to Mike Henderson. He’s the owner of the general store in Haven. He was to give me away at my nonexistent wedding.” She paused. “He’s been like a father figure to me. He brought a group of us out this way a couple of years ago, said I could use the cabin anytime.”

  “Why does he have a cabin out in such a remote area?”

  “That’s exactly it, remote.”

  Scott pulled into the parking lot of a mall that boasted a supermarket and a large camping goods store. “I take it any water we might need up there comes from a river?”

  “Yes, it’s pretty primitive.”

  “I’ll get some water purifiers.”

  “No need, the water’s fresh from heaven.”

  Scott frowned, motioned with his head toward the car radio. “You heard the forecast. Major storm brewing.”

  Skye made a face. “Looks clear as glass to me.”

  “The weather in these parts has a way of sneaking up on you. The kind of precipitation they’re predicting could muddy up a river real good. The cabin got a woodstove?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ax and stuff like that?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Scott nodded, mentally checking off equipment he thought they’d need for a stay in the wild. As for how long they’d be there, that was anyone’s guess. They’d best be prepared. He opened his wallet, pulled out a wad of cash, handed it to Skye. “Here. Can you handle the grocery supplies?”

  “Oh, no.” She held up her hands. “I’m not taking that. I don’t want your money, McIntyre.”

  “Just take it.”

  She shook her head “No way. You’ve done enough for me. I can handle this.”

  “Skye—”

  She reached for the door handle, swung open the passenger door, slipping out of the car before he could finish his sentence.

  “Oh,” she said, ducking her head back into the vehicle. “What kind of food you want for Honey?”

  He couldn’t help but smile as he once
again watched her neat rump, her long, sleek legs carrying her determinedly through the parking lot.

  “She may be a criminal badass, Honey, but I have to hand it to her, she’s got something.” He chucked the dog under the chin. “And she’s real pretty,” he added softly.

  Scott loaded the new gear into the back of the Land Rover, slammed the door shut, made his way around to the driver’s side. That’s when it caught his eye. The sign. It hung above a small store at the far end of the mall. It drew him, more out of curiosity than anything else. “C’mon, Honey. Let’s go take a look.”

  The golden retriever at his side, Scott hobbled across the parking lot. He stopped outside the store window, looked up at the sign that hung over the door. It was made of wood, old and out of place in this newish mall. It displayed a fish—a trout—leaping for a fly that flicked at the end of a long loop of line.

  “Sit, Honey. I won’t be long.” Scott pushed open the door. The jingle of a little bell announced his presence and he blinked into the gloom.

  It was as if he’d stepped back in time.

  Even the white-haired man tying flies behind the counter at the rear of the store looked as though he hailed from another era.

  The whole scene, right down to the smell of the place, reminded Scott vividly of being a young boy growing up in British Columbia. Of going camping with his dad, stopping off in small rural towns to buy bait and fishing tackle.

  The man behind the counter looked up. “Good day, sir. What can I do for you?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Scott could see Honey smearing up the store window with her hot breath and cold snout, her tail whapping to and fro.

  The man behind the counter looked at him expectantly. But Scott had lost his tongue. For one brief instant he was eleven again, and his black lab Merlin scratched at the window. His dad stood by his side, talking about tying flies and whether the salmon were running.

  Scott swallowed, momentarily shaken.

  Then he cleared his throat, stepped forward. “Sorry…about the window.”

  The man shrugged. “No problem. I got one of ’em at home. A black lab. Hasn’t been able to sit still for the last sixteen years. I’ve given up hope.” His smile was broad and genuine, the twinkle in his eyes real. But to Scott, the man was a ghost from the past. A ghost with a black lab.

  He fingered the wood of his cane, straining for a sense of present, reminding himself he was all of thirty-nine years old, a battered agent who hadn’t cast a fly line for almost a decade.

  “So what can I do for you?”

  Scott looked down at the fly pinched in the vise on the old man’s counter. It was the hackle that caught his eye, made from the ringneck saddle feathers of a pheasant. “That a Carey Special?” he asked the old man.

  The man raised thick white brows above pale eyes. “Not many people would recognize that first off. You a keen fly-fisher, then?”

  “Haven’t cast a line in a while.”

  “Well, you still seem to know a thing or two.” He released the fly from the vise, holding it up for Scott to see. “My version of the Carey Special. They’re what’s happening up at Sweetwater Lake about now. Trout are going wild for ’em. I’m going to give this baby a shot this evening. You should come along.”

  “I—”

  The door bell jingled. Scott swiveled. Skye stood silhouetted against the bright light of the morning.

  Again Scott blinked.

  “So this is where you two are,” she said, coming up to join him at the counter. “Can you bring the car around the other end of the mall so I can load the ton of groceries I just bought?”

  The old man chuckled, winked at Scott. “Missus is callin’.”

  “She’s not my—” He bit back his words. The man had shaken him. He didn’t have to justify himself, his relationship with Skye to anyone. He straightened his spine and pulled the frayed edges of his memories into check. But he couldn’t quite seem to stuff them all back into the box.

  Then he felt her cool hand on his arm. “You okay, Scott? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

  “It’s nothing.” He pulled out from under her touch, handed her the keys. “Here, you take the car ’round. I’ll be right out.”

  She studied him with her pewter eyes, reading something. “Sure,” she said gently. “Take your time.”

  He waited for the tinkle of the bell as the door swung shut behind her, then turned his attention back to the storekeeper. “I’ll take a couple of those Careys. And one of those rods and line and one of these reels.” He pointed them out as he spoke.

  “Starter kit?”

  “More of a restarter kit, I guess.”

  The man took a rod from the rack. “So what kept you from the fishing for so long?”

  Scott hesitated. How could he tell the old man that shunning the sport that had been so much a part of his youth, part of his dad, part of Leni, the sport that had once given them all so much pleasure, was just a lame attempt at burying the past? “I’ve been busy. Working.”

  “Well, this should set you right.” He rang up Scott’s purchase. “It’s always good to see someone get back to old pleasures.”

  “Thanks.” Scott signed the slip, then tucked his card back into his wallet. “Nice place you got here. It looks old school. Doesn’t quite fit with the shiny-new-mall image.”

  The man gave a wry smile. “I used to be down by the water. Then they redeveloped the strip and the high rents squeezed old-timers like myself out.” He gestured around the store with a wrinkled hand. “This is my love, but I don’t turn over enough stock to pay the big bucks they were demanding. Had to move out here.”

  “Well, you’ve brought the old world to the new. You’ve done a good job.”

  The old man was quiet for a second. Scott felt as though his eyes were seeing straight into him, right through his alias to the naked boy inside. It was unnerving. Then the man spoke. “You’ve got to try to take the past with you into the future, you know. That’s my philosophy. You stay true to yourself that way.” He handed Scott his purchases. “You get lost otherwise. Can take a long time to find that road back home.”

  Scott stepped out of the store, blinked into the bright sun. He felt a little nauseous. He’d been right. This was turning into a trip down memory lane. He’d known it would be the minute Skye had blurted out the word “Zeballos.”

  She was physically forcing him down that old road and mentally beyond the memory of his wife. She was making him face himself.

  His hand tightened on the bags that held his purchases. He gritted his teeth, limped toward the car.

  Fishing gear and food supplies safely loaded into the car, the threesome headed north out of Campbell River as the sun rose in the sky and the warm spring day invited open windows.

  Scott hadn’t said a word since they’d left the fly-fishing store. Skye figured something back there, in that dim shop, had rattled him. It made her even more curious about him. Because Scott McIntyre struck her as a man not easily shaken by much in life. And the scientist in her couldn’t let a curiosity pass without poking at it, without hypothesizing.

  She finally let her interest get the better of her. “So what was that about?”

  “What?”

  “Back there in that store. You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

  He said nothing. Just stared ahead at the road. She watched the small muscle at the base of his jaw pulse.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry.” She should have known better. He’d thrown up new walls since he’d mentioned his wife and child.

  He shot her a quick glance. “No. It’s okay. That old-timer, he just took me on an unexpected trip down memory lane. That’s all.”

  “Not a happy trip?”

  “Made me think of my dad.”

  “Is he deceased?”

  “Lord, no. I just haven’t seen my parents for a while. Lost contact.”

  She smiled. “It’s guilt that’s eating you, then, McIntyre.”


  He clenched his teeth, said nothing. She realized she’d angered him.

  He turned suddenly on her, his words brusque. “What about you? What about your parents, Skye?”

  “I—I don’t have any parents.” It was close enough to the truth. “They died when I was really young.”

  “Where?”

  Dammit, she didn’t want to go there. He’d turned the tables on her. She should have anticipated it, kept her mouth shut. She hesitated. “In Amsterdam. I’m from Holland. I immigrated to Canada when I was twenty-two.”

  He nodded. “That would explain that hint of an accent you have. I was wondering what it was. You still speak Dutch?”

  “I don’t have an accent,” she snapped. She’d worked hard on erasing it, assimilating.

  He raised his brows, said nothing. She felt suddenly wary again.

  “Well, do you? Can you still speak Dutch?”

  “Of course I can.” Dutch was only one of the five languages she was fluent in. Her education at the camp had prepared her for deployment into several countries.

  “You speak any other languages?”

  “No.”

  He raised a brow. “I thought most Dutch kids learned several languages at school.”

  She hesitated. “Well, I—I have a smattering here and there.”

  “Is Greek one of them?”

  Her heart tripped, thumped rapidly against her chest. Her mouth went dry.

  Why is he doing this?

  Chapter 11

  “No,” she said as flippantly as she could. “I don’t speak Greek.”

  “You were speaking in your sleep last night. Sounded like Greek.”

  The blood drained from her head. She turned quickly away so he wouldn’t catch her reaction. And she cursed herself. She was slipping. It must be the tension of the last few days getting her. Or the man.

  She took a deep breath, swiveled in her seat, faced him square. “You were mistaken. I don’t speak Greek. Maybe what you heard was Italian. I speak a little Italian,” she offered.

  “Sounded Greek.”

  “What makes you so damned sure of yourself?” she snapped.

  His eyes pierced hers. “No need to get snippy, Doctor. I speak Greek myself. I know what it sounds like.”