The old man looks sad, but manages a chuckle between gasps. “Got to hand it to you, Bryan . . . You really had me going. Funny—I could have sworn you . . . looked just like me. Goes to show how much I . . . wanted it to be true.”
“It is true!” Malik blurts. “I mean—not the way you think it is.” He swallows hard. “Have you ever heard of Project Osiris?”
Gus frowns, thinking hard. All at once, his eyes, which were practically closed, widen into a shocked stare. “Osiris? They did it? That’s you?”
We both nod.
“So you’re not my son. You’re . . . me?”
“Physically, anyway,” Malik confirms. “You as a kid.”
The mob boss digests all this.
“Sorry,” Malik murmurs. “I shouldn’t have lied to you.”
“Are you kidding?” Despite his feebleness, Gus breaks into a grin. “This is even better! It’s like I’m . . . still alive, out of jail. And the cops will never know!”
I speak up. “Can you tell us what you remember about Osiris at the very beginning? They approached you in prison, right?”
“I thought it was all . . . hot air. Cloning? What is this, Star Wars? . . . But she offered to get me transferred from North Carolina to Joliet—my own backyard. And the procedure was nothing—like getting a flu shot. She said it might not . . . even work.” He slumps back onto the pillow, exhausted from this speech. “So I forgot the whole thing.”
Malik’s eyes meet mine.
“She?” he asks. “Didn’t you meet a guy named Felix Hammerstrom?”
Gus tries to shake his head, although he only moves a fraction of an inch. “This was a lady—a real rich broad. Said she started some big computer company.”
“You mean Tamara Dunleavy?” I breathe.
“That’s the one. Fancy type. Full of herself.”
It’s a major shock. When we tracked down Tamara Dunleavy in Jackson Hole, she swore she’d never heard of Project Osiris. We were pretty sure she was lying. Now we have proof.
Gus is still smiling. “I envy you, Bryan. You’ve got . . . my whole life ahead of you.” He looks pleased with that clever remark.
Malik shoots me a sideways glance, and I can read what he’s thinking. He may have come to Chicago admiring the gangster lifestyle. But now that he’s had a taste of it, he knows it’s not for him. Malik and I weren’t friends in Serenity, and we’ve been fighting nonstop since we broke out. But I’ve never been as proud of him as I am at this moment.
“I’ll try to use it well,” Malik promises in a strangled voice.
Gus closes his eyes for a moment. Then, in an incredible show of determination, he lifts his wasted body halfway to a sitting position, and peers into Malik’s eyes, a match for his own. “Listen to me!” he croaks urgently.
“What, Gus?”
Malik leans over and the old man whispers something into his ear. Then Gus falls back to the bed and lies unmoving.
Malik is still poised over him, waiting for more.
“I think he’s gone, Malik,” I say quietly.
He’s shell-shocked.
“I’m sorry.”
His eyes never leave Gus’s inert form.
“We better tell Lenny,” I add. “He’s in charge of everything now.”
His face pale, Malik crosses the room to open the bedroom door. Standing there with Lenny and the rest of the crew are two policemen.
Malik’s face is suffused with outrage. “You cops are something else! Can’t a guy be dead for ten seconds before you vultures pounce on him?”
But I’ve already recognized one of the cops by the mashed potato smears on his uniform. He must have seen me get into the limo and checked to see who the license plate was registered to.
“They’re not here for Gus,” Lenny explains. “They’re here for the girl.”
I’ll bet even Mickey Seven never managed this one. Surrounded by the most notorious crime organization in the country, and the only person under arrest is me.
12
ELI FRIEDEN
The second time I meet Blake Upton is in our little bungalow on the Atomic Studios lot. Tori brings him in and plunks him down on the couch. Even though Tori said she would do it, I have to admit I’m pretty blown away when it really happens. Apparently, she can get her hands on people the way Yvonne-Marie Delacroix got her hands on people’s money.
Blake looks uncomfortable, but he’s here, and that’s all that matters.
I try to put him at ease. “Sorry for pretending to be you. We had to get your attention.”
“Well, you got it,” he growls. “My manager’s fielding complaints that my autographs are fake because they don’t match yours, which are all over Twitter. Thanks a lot.”
“Sorry,” I repeat. I guess Twitter is even more important in the outside world than I thought.
“The point is,” Tori interrupts briskly, “that the two of you look too much alike for it to be a coincidence. Like it or not, you’re both related to Bartholomew Glen.”
He doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t say no either. “Not according to my parents. They also told me there’s nobody in the family who could be my twin.”
“All those people on Twitter don’t think so,” Tori reminds him.
His shoulders slump. “What do you want from me?”
“Bartholomew Glen is at Noranda State Penitentiary, about seventy miles from here,” I reply. “We have to go see him.”
His eyes widen. “You want to go to a jail to visit a serial killer? Why?”
“He must be the missing link between us.”
“If we’re so identical, what do you need me for?” Blake challenges. “Go yourself and tell him to multiply by two.”
“You have to be there,” I insist, sticking to the story of myself as an orphan. “I’ve got no past, but you do. If we can get this guy to talk about himself, you might recognize an old family memory or a distant relative or something.”
He has another concern. “Will they let us in to see this guy? Don’t we have to be on some kind of visitors list?”
“You’re already on it,” Tori informs him.
He gawks at us in disbelief.
“I’ve got kind of a knack with computers,” I supply.
“You hacked in?” His famous face—our face—screws up like he’s about to bawl. “To a jail?”
Actually, it isn’t even a new experience for me. I hacked into the Kefauver Federal Detention Facility when we busted C. J. Rackoff out. But I keep my mouth shut.
“And if I say no?” he persists.
Tori’s voice stays friendly, but she’s firm. “How could you not want to know?”
He’s defiant. “I do want to know,” he admits. “I just wish there was a better way than showing up at the state pen and asking to see the biggest psycho there.”
“It creeps me out too,” I confess. “But it’s the only way.”
At least Blake is probably just a relative. I’m the psycho’s second coming.
Twenty minutes later, Blake and I are on the freeway, heading north in the chauffeured car the studio provides for him. That’s definitely safer than taking the sedan we stole in Amarillo—especially since we’ll be rolling up to a place that’s surrounded by security cameras. And anyway, I’m relieved that I don’t have to explain why I’m driving when Blake doesn’t even have a license, and I’m younger than him.
It’s just the two of us in the backseat. We left Tori in the bungalow. Noranda is a maximum-security prison, and Bartholomew Glen is surely its most maximum-security inmate. In Texas, it was pretty easy to visit C. J. Rackoff, who Hector was cloned from. But that was medium security, and Rackoff never killed anybody; he just bamboozled them. He sure bamboozled us. An audience with a serial killer is probably harder to get. It’ll be tough enough for two of us to get in. Three might have put us over the top—especially if the third was a twelve-year-old girl.
It’s an uncomfortable trip, even though the car is pretty cushy. Bl
ake and I have nothing to say to each other, and for sure nothing we want the driver to hear. As it is, the man’s not too thrilled about driving a couple of kids to a notorious jail.
After a very long silence, Blake bursts out with, “What are you going to say to him?”
For once, I’m able to be honest. “I’m kind of hoping he’ll recognize us and solve the mystery right away.”
He nods. “Even if that doesn’t happen, he’s bound to notice how much we look alike. So maybe that’ll be a starting point for the conversation.”
It’s the first sign ever that Blake is actually on board with what we’re about to do. He still hates me—or at least hates what I represent. I was probably the first sour note in his perfect life. He’s famous, everybody loves him, he’s starting to get rich—I think TV stars make a lot of money. If Tori and I hadn’t forced him into this, he would have loved to pretend I didn’t exist. Now, though, it’s like he’s finally accepted that there’s something going on that we have to get to the bottom of. We’re not allies, exactly, and we’ll never be friends. But at least we have a common goal. It makes me feel slightly less alone.
Noranda State Penitentiary is like an immense gray cube that dropped from the sky and buried itself three-quarters of the way into the California landscape. There are no fences or towers or prison yards, just vast windowless concrete walls. I remember thinking that C. J. Rackoff’s prison in Texas had to be the most awful place on earth. I stand corrected. The unfortunate inmates here never see the light of day. Not that someone like Bartholomew Glen, who killed nine people, deserves to be treated as anything but the animal he is.
“Wow,” Blake breathes. “Remind me never to break the law.”
“This isn’t for your average cheap crook,” our driver tosses over his shoulder. “This is for people who’ve forfeited the right to be human.”
And I’m an exact copy of the worst of them.
Even though we’re on the list, we’re questioned, searched, questioned again, and led through a metal detector. We tell our cover story at least two dozen times: No, we’re not twins, but we are brothers. Blake is fourteen months older. Bartholomew Glen is our mother’s brother. This is the first time she’s given us the okay to visit our infamous uncle. We hand over the phone number of our bungalow at Atomic Studios so they can call “Mom” for confirmation. They actually call, and I bite my lip for a couple of anxious minutes while the supervisor talks to Tori.
I shouldn’t have worried. No one lies like the clone of Yvonne-Marie Delacroix.
The supervisor hangs up. “All right, you two. Follow me.”
He leads us into a meeting room that looks totally normal at first. Then I realize that the space is cut in half by a thick sheet of bulletproof glass. There are holes, which look like bubbles hanging in the air, so that sound can pass through. A sharp snap behind us indicates that we’ve been locked in.
Blake looks uncomfortable. “Amos will kill me if he ever finds out about this.”
I bite back my own dread. What do I have to fear from Bartholomew Glen? I’m exactly him, only younger and stronger.
We’re alone there for a long time, too scared to speak, even to each other. It’s at least twenty minutes—and feels like twenty months—when the door opens on the other side of the glass, and the Crossword Killer is just a few yards away from us.
Killer. The word reverberates inside my mind. The Osiris subjects are all cloned from criminals, but even among that group, Bartholomew Glen stands out. Sure, there were many deaths from Mickey Seven’s bombings; Yvonne-Marie Delacroix’s daring robberies claimed casualties; Gus Alabaster ordered hits on his gangland enemies; and people were certainly ruined in C. J. Rackoff’s frauds and swindles, even if nobody actually died. This man is different. The lives he took were not in pursuit of any goal, regardless of how horrible or lawless. He killed for the sake of killing. Nothing could be worse than that.
I don’t know what I expect him to look like, but this isn’t it. I remember an internet photograph of a wild-eyed maniac with a shaved head. Bartholomew Glen is bald, but that’s where the resemblance ends. First off, he’s a lot smaller than I expected, compact, yet physically fit. His eyes are interested, alive, and reveal a keen intelligence. His expression is open, almost friendly.
He looks back and forth between Blake and me. “Which one of you is Jesse Jordan?”
Blake’s jaw drops. “You watch Jupiter High?”
“I watch everything. I have a lot of spare time.” There’s something about Glen’s tone that I can’t quite put my finger on. Then it hits me. It’s not tone; it’s pronunciation. Every syllable is enunciated to perfection. The eyes stop on Blake. “I believe it’s you. And this one”—indicating me—“a brother?”
I’ve come so far and been through so much to see this man. But now that I’m in front of him, I’m struck dumb. It’s weird—I’ve only been in Glen’s presence a few seconds, but I know that he would never be struck dumb. His sharp mind would always have something to say. Why am I so different? I’m supposed to be the same person.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m finally confronted with my genetic donor—the person whose DNA created me. Much closer than any parent, he’s actually me—an older version, anyway. I realize that, from the moment I first learned I was a clone, everything in my life was building up to this meeting.
Blake shoots me a sharp glance. Since this whole thing was my idea, he wasn’t expecting me to clam up. “I’m an only child,” he supplies. “We came to you because we were wondering—well, maybe you could explain how come we look so much alike.”
Bartholomew Glen is one of those people who’s always thinking, calculating almost. It’s right there on his face—he’s sizing up every situation, figuring the angles for his best advantage. But like a computer that’s been given an instruction that makes no sense, he’s confused by Blake’s words. “I can explain why you look alike?”
“You—you know”—Blake’s stammering a little—“because you guys are related.”
The Crossword Killer’s penetrating gaze shifts to me, and he folds his arms in front of him. “Do tell.”
I find my voice at last. “What do you remember about an experiment called Project Osiris?”
His arched eyebrows shoot up. “Osiris! I recall it well.” He regards us, head tilted. “You two—a clone, perhaps? And a second-generation clone?”
Blake’s expression is pure shock.
He gets even redder when I say, “I’m the clone. He’s real.”
Blake is sputtering now. “You’re a clone? Of me?”
I shake my head sadly. “No. Of him.”
A slow smile of understanding spreads over Glen’s pale face. “So that’s why you boys came to see me. I have an answer for you. Would you like to hear it?”
It’s the last thing on earth I want to hear. But if it sheds any light on who or what I am, I need to know. “Tell me.”
“I was the first candidate approached by this lunatic scheme, their top pick, if you will. I refused, of course. There can only ever be one of me. I am unique.”
I gawk at him. “I’m not your clone?”
“You’re welcome,” he tells me sarcastically. “No one can be cloned from DNA that was never harvested. That ridiculous woman couldn’t seem to accept that all her billions could not purchase a single cell from my body.”
Hope surges inside me. I’m not an exact replica of this horror show? Suddenly, I’ve never wanted anything to be true quite so much. “Billions,” I manage, heart pounding. “You’re talking about Tamara Dunleavy.”
“Tamara Dunleavy?” Blake blurts. “She’s my dad’s aunt!”
I have a giddy vision of the one time we met the tech billionaire—the time she told us she’d never heard of any Project Osiris. She stared at me like she couldn’t take her eyes off me. We all noticed it. Now I understand why. I’m a dead ringer for her grandnephew.
Glen laughs out loud. “Well? Are you there yet? Have you
figured it out?”
I’m so emotionally drained that I haven’t gotten past the fact that I’m not the Crossword Killer, version 2.0.
Blake’s even more confused than I am. “How do you guys both know my aunt Tammy?”
Glen seems highly amused. “Quite a puzzle, isn’t it? I suppose I’ll have to solve it for you. When Ms. Dunleavy was unable to acquire my DNA, she must have used her own. That explains the family resemblance between the two of you. You’re not my clone; you’re hers.”
“But—but—that’s impossible!” I stammer. “I can’t be cloned from her! I’m a guy!”
Glen smiles tolerantly. “A lab capable of human cloning might be capable of taking the next logical step—converting female to male.”
“You can do that?” I ask, aghast.
“We’re already talking about rogue science here,” he explains pleasantly. “Highly illegal, but equally brilliant. An XX chromosome is what makes a person female. If that were to be altered to XY, the clone of a woman would be born male. You are identical to Tamara Dunleavy in every way except your gender. I hope this means you can get your hands on some of those billions.”
The floor tilts under my feet, and it’s all I can do to remain upright. It’s crazy, but in a way, it makes perfect sense. I have nothing in common with a guy who kills people and designs crossword puzzles about it. But a computer innovator—that’s me in every way.
Blake is staring at me. “This is too weird! You’re not my aunt! You can’t be! There are no clones! Just that sheep, right? The one in England?”
He looks so baffled that I can’t help feeling sorry for him. This has to be a whole lot worse than just seeing yourself giving autographs on Twitter when you know it isn’t you.
“I understand why you’re an actor,” the Crossword Killer comments mildly to Blake. “You have no imagination so you require a writer to put words in your mouth.”
Payback Page 9
