"Have you come to give me bad news?" he asked.
Leo looked puzzled, then held up both hands, embarrassed. "Oh God, did you think I was sick? I'm sorry. No, I'm fine. So's Mom. Everyone's fine. Charles isn't a physician."
Livvie intercepted them. "Go through to the conservatory," she said. "I'll fetch coffee and a defibrillator, shall I?"
"Sorry, my dear. I didn't mean to scare you." Leo gave her a peck on the cheek. Rob caught Mike's eye and spotted that shaky, deflated look that followed a close call. "We've got an unusual security situation. I could use some professional help."
They sat down facing each other across the pot of white orchids on the coffee table while Rob tried to size up Kinnery, not sure what to make of him. He looked knackered and uncomfortable.
"What do we mean by security here, Dad?" Mike asked. "Are we talking generally, or is this classified? Because I doubt our clearance is as high as yours."
Livvie came in with a tray of coffee and put it on the table. "Okay, I heard the S word, so I'm going to fix dinner. What I don't know, the Feds can't beat out of me."
Kinnery looked as if he wasn't sure whether Livvie was joking. He waited for her to leave, then leaned forward, hands clasped.
"We have a vulnerable young man who's in difficulties," he said. "We need to protect him from interference."
Ah, bodyguards. That was easy enough. Rob could finally use the close protection training that the Navy had paid for. He looked at Mike, waiting for the cue to pitch in.
"Is this extraction or protection?" Mike asked.
Leo glanced at Kinnery. "Extraction to a place of safety, I'd say."
"Drugs, alcohol, joy-riding? Cult? Runaway? Relative compromised somehow?"
Kinnery looked confused and opened his mouth to answer, but Leo cut across him.
"I'm going to tell you something that might not sound credible," Leo said. "But it's a situation I can't ignore, and the only people I can trust to do things discreetly and intelligently are you and Rob."
Mike just nodded. "Okay, then, strictly within these four walls."
Leo took a folded sheet of paper from his inside pocket and held it up like an auction bid. "Taken from a web site. It might look like the usual Internet conspiracy fantasy, but apparently it's true." He put on his reading glasses and unfolded the paper. "On the subject of fringe research ... we have seen written testimony that the Department of Defense sponsored research into dynamic mimicry in human subjects, in other words the ability of an organism to change shape, colour, and form at will. Far from being another waste of taxes on paranormal research, it appears that Project Ringer, led by Charles Kinnery, successfully introduced engineered animal-derived genes into human embryos long before the pioneering hybrid research by China. One of those embryos was brought to term, reached adulthood, and was able to change his appearance."
Leo handed the report to Mike to read. Mike scanned it before passing it to Rob. "How did it leak?" Mike asked.
"The kid did it himself." Kinnery kept shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, not a happy Hector at all. "Okay, crudely put, we have a young man who's a shape-shifter. I can vouch for that. I made him. Forget all the legal and ethical questions for the moment. Right now, a biotech company called KWA will be looking for him."
"You're right, it is unbelievable," Mike said.
Kinnery didn't flinch. "By all means use the term Frankenstein if that helps you grasp the size of this. I won't mind."
Rob's first thought was that the lad might have needed protecting from Kinnery, not some biotech firm. "What exactly does brought to term mean here?"
"Paid surrogate mother," Kinnery said. "She handed him over at birth."
"Didn't she notice?"
"No. There was nothing to notice back then."
"So he can change into anything, can he?"
"Within fairly narrow human parameters." Kinnery just stared at Rob with a weary expression that said you ignorant twat. "He can't mimic objects."
Rob tried to look as if he believed every word. Whether Kinnery was mental or lying wasn't the issue. He just wanted to know why Leo was going along with this crap, because that old bugger was as sane as they came.
"Great," said Mike, straight-faced. "That makes life easier."
Kinnery didn't even blink. "So far, we're the only ones who know the boy's identity and location. We need to get him to a place of safety."
"Which is?"
"I'm working on that."
"And you believe this, Dad?" Mike turned to Leo. "You've seen proof?"
"I haven't seen it," Leo said quietly. "But I really need your help with it."
Rob expected Mike to make some excuse and haul Leo off on his own to have a frank chat out of Kinnery's earshot. He didn't. He just blinked a few times as if he was trying to work out whether to take the request at face value or not. Leo had kicked off the conversation with everyone present, so he must have had his reasons for not briefing Mike separately.
"Look, this is an eighteen-year-old boy brought up by a woman he thought was his grandmother," Kinnery said. "And she's just died. His name's Ian. Ian Dunlop. He thought he was mentally ill because nobody told him what he was until a few weeks ago. He's been isolated for years, so he needs the kind of help and protection that he definitely won't get from a government agency – or from a company that sees him as a billion dollars in research assets. They won't give a damn about his constitutional rights. You work it out."
"He's not a minor, then," Mike said, still unmoved.
"No."
"And he hasn't committed a crime."
"No. That'd be me."
"Is he mentally incompetent in some way?"
"No. He's very intelligent. Just zero life experience."
"And you engineered all this."
"Sadly, yes."
Mike did that tight-lipped look that he'd probably have given Himmler. He seemed to be taking the principle seriously now, even if he couldn't possibly believe it. Rob wondered how many minutes he'd give it before he asked Kinnery to drop the subject, fuck off, and forget the conversation ever happened.
"If that's true, then you're a sorry excuse for a human being, sir," Mike said.
"You think I don't know that?"
That shut everyone up. The silence pulsed. Rob gave up trying to work out what the real story was and left it to Mike. Rob would back him up, whatever he decided to do. Mike always made the moral choice.
"I still don't get why this is your problem, Dad."
"Well, I opposed the project," Leo said. "And that was long before I knew about Ian. But now I do know, I can't ignore it. Someone has to own this problem. Preferably not an agency."
Rob didn't believe in shape-shifters, but he did believe in the power of money. "I get it," he said. "This lad doesn't actually change into Godzilla. He's just carrying some engineered genes, they're worth a lot of money, and he's holding out for the highest bidder. Yeah?" That sounded much more likely. Companies had legal battles over patents for animals and plants. He'd seen it on the news. "So you need to grab the assets before a rival company or some foreign government gets hold of him."
"No, it's not that at all," Kinnery said. "And I fully understand why you think that. But you've got it all wrong."
"So why haven't you retrieved him?" Mike asked. "Is he dangerous?"
"KWA's got me under surveillance. I'd lead them straight to him."
"I hope they haven't tracked you here, then."
Leo shook his head. "Don't worry, Micko. We've been prudent. Hence the car. Father visiting his son after a long absence."
"Anyway, he's warned me not to visit," Kinnery said, "I'd only spook him."
"Is he going to want to come with us?"
"I don't know. He was brought up to be wary of strangers."
"Terrific." Mike made a move to the French windows. He gave Leo a look as if he wanted to take him to one side, but Leo didn't react. "Excuse us for a moment, will you? Rob and I need
to talk."
Rob followed him outside to the rear deck and onto the lawn. Squadrons of mosquitoes had come out for their nightly strafing run, dancing around in the dying sunlight as the mozzie trap lured them across the grass. It didn't look like any of them ever made it back to HQ to warn their mates not to be fooled by the green metal thing. Mike folded his arms and turned his back to the house.
"What the fuck?" He rarely swore. "Did we both hear the same thing?"
"It's complete bullshit," Rob said. "You know that. I know that. Your dad knows that. I don't know what Kinnery believes, but I just want to know why your dad's humouring him."
"And you really don't believe any of it."
"Of course I don't. I'm just uneducated, not a moron."
"If Dad wasn't involved, I'd hand Kinnery the FBI helpline number and kick his ass out of here."
"But he is involved."
"Yes. And he's never asked me for a favour before."
Rob could see Mike groping for a reason not to let his dad down. He obviously thought he was in trouble.
"This sounds like kidnapping," Rob said. "Not an arrest. I'm with you, mate, but let's be clear this might be over the line."
"I don't want you involved. If anyone does it, I will."
"Come on, I'm your mate. Besides, I owe your dad. He's done everything for me. All the paperwork and permits and green card. He's entitled to his money's worth from me."
"This is insane."
"But your dad isn't. And by politician standards, he's clean, isn't he? That's the problem. You're worried that he's done something dodgy, yeah?"
"He'd have a reason." Mike chewed his lip, shaking his head slowly. "Okay, I've got to talk to him on his own. Maybe I can work out what we're really dealing with."
"What will you do if you find out he's been a naughty boy?"
Mike looked stricken for a moment. "It'll be a test of my prissy self-righteousness, then, won't it?"
"Well, there's no harm in doing a recce and reporting back." Rob wasn't sure if there was some test for shape-shifters that didn't involve silver bullets. Fuck me, this really is mental. This definitely won't end well. "All we've got right now is the word of a nerd web site and a mad scientist."
Mike stared down at his shoes for a moment, then turned around and started walking back to the house. "I'm glad it's not true, because I'd have to shoot that bastard on moral grounds."
He just wanted to be the good American, doing good things and championing noble causes. It wasn't a bad ambition. For a bloke with an Oxford degree and combat experience in some seriously nasty shit-holes, though, it was bloody naive. Maybe he wanted to stay that way. Rob chose his words carefully.
"I didn't think you were religious. Or is this about eggs and embryo stuff?"
"Among other things."
"You just can't trust these fuckers to know when to stop." Rob could imagine how all this was getting stirred into Mike's feelings about IVF. "Are you going to tell Livvie?"
"She needs to know what I'm doing."
"Okay."
"Like I said, you don't have to come with me."
"You know that's the biggest challenge you can give a Bootneck, don't you?" Rob gave him a friendly but pointed shove as they walked. "You seriously think I'm going to be out-machoed by a bloody Septic reservist? You big girl. Stand aside and let a man show you how it's done."
"We can take a look."
"Yeah. We can."
"And I wasn't Reserves."
Rob had no idea if he'd be aiding and abetting some kind of industrial piracy, but the one thing he was sure of was his loyalty and obligation to Mike. If they hit any snags, Leo had the money and clout to make trouble vanish. Besides, they were only doing a recce. There was no law against that.
Mike walked in and stood over Kinnery, staring down his nose at him in a very Leo kind of way. It was always interesting to watch sons turning into their dads.
"Subject to the location, we'll do a recon and take it from there," Mike said. "Dad, can I have a word, please?"
They left Rob alone with Kinnery. The scientist looked at Rob as if he was waiting for him to pull a knife.
"Ian's really into the military," Kinnery said awkwardly. "He'll probably enjoy your war stories."
"How normal is he?" Rob tried to find the right word. It was a pretend conversation, but he intended to be professional about it. "Is he going to huddle in a corner banging his head on the wall or something?"
"Actually, he's more socialized than I realised. He's managed to contact a journalist and handle a funeral, which takes some doing. He watches a lot of TV. I think he mimics what he sees."
"Got a recent photo?" Well, there was no harm in asking. Rob managed to keep a straight face. "I suppose not, eh?"
"If I did, I'd have no idea what he'd look like tomorrow."
"Location?"
"Athel Ridge. Washington."
"Can you draw the layout of the house? Doors, windows, lines of sight?"
"Sure."
"Any neighbours?"
"Not nearby. They're pretty well off the grid. Maggie — Ian's guardian — was paranoid. Rightly so, as it turns out."
"What kind of off-grid? Are we going to need a fifty cal and APCs to go in there?"
"No, not crazy preppers. Hippy greens a couple of miles away."
"Dogs? Firearms?"
"Just greyhounds. Nothing aggressive. Maggie rescued strays."
"But is he armed? I know you lot like to be seriously tooled up. As do I."
"As far as I know, no assault weapons and no handguns. Just a couple of small calibre rifles or shotguns. Farmer variety."
"You know those things can still kill, don't you? Never mind. Body armour's never out of fashion."
And it's all good practice. Staves off skills fade. No different from raiding compounds in Afghan.
Rob resisted the temptation to look up the satellite view on his phone. They'd have to use paper maps or offline satnav in case someone could link the web searches to this address. When Mike and Leo came back, it was hard to tell if anything had been thrashed out. Rob would find out later. In the meantime, he'd take the planning seriously. He was a pro. He couldn't think any other way.
"Okay," Leo said. "You take my plane as far as Idaho. Then do the last leg by car to cover the tracks. That minimizes the journey time, and Ian doesn't have to mix with the public. And you can transport whatever hardware you need."
Rob loved the way Leo just lobbed in his private jet and threw them the keys like it was the family car. Hardware. Yeah. Might as well go armed and armoured, just in case. They ended up in Mike's study, poring over maps. Using Kinnery's floor plan, Rob mapped out lines of sight, identified laying-up positions, and worked out points of entry. It felt just like an exercise: you knew it wasn't real, but you gave it all you had, made it as authentic as you could, and lulled yourself into a temporary state of belief that you were at war. Rob was back doing what he knew best and excelled at. However daft the job sounded, he was looking forward to it.
"Can Ian control these changes?" Mike asked. "Can he use it to evade us?"
Kinnery gave him an odd look. Maybe it hadn't crossed his mind. "Up to a few weeks ago, he thought he was having hallucinations. So I doubt he's worked out how to do that yet. That's assuming he can control it at all."
Leo and Kinnery stayed for a quick dinner and freshened up before heading straight back to Washington. That was a lot of driving for anyone, let alone two older guys, even if they were sharing the load. Mike watched the BMW's tail lights disappear down the drive into the darkness, shaking his head.
"He's crazy," he said. "They're too old to do all that driving."
Rob was waiting for something more informative than that. "Well? What did he say when you got him on his own?"
Mike shook his head again. "That he has to take Kinnery's story at face value. I said that we'd just observe what we could and play it by ear."
"Is that it?"
"Is t
hat what?" Livvie walked up behind Mike. He flinched as if she'd pinched his arse. "Or is this opsec that you can't mention?"
"No, I have to tell you, honey," he said, steering her towards the kitchen. "It's just bizarre. Rob and I need to be away for a few days."
Rob was halfway down the hall when he heard Livvie laughing her head off. He took that as a vote for the disbelief camp. He expected Leo to call the next day to apologize and explain that it had all been some complicated sting to get Kinnery to do something. But when the call came, it was just travel arrangements to meet the Gulfstream at the small airfield west of Athel Ridge and then collect a car in Idaho.
Rob thought it over as he stood in front of the bathroom mirror, running the clippers through his hair. He couldn't see much grey. He still had time on his side. Once they'd knocked this shit on the head, they could get on with what really mattered – working out what two middle-aged blokes with experience and contacts could do next. They weren't getting any younger, and whether Mike and Livvie had a baby or adopted a kid, Mike's life was going to change more than he could possibly imagine. Nothing could really prepare him for being a dad. Rob was still grappling with it even now.
But they were professional problem-solvers. They'd work something out. Rob was certain of it.
LANSING, MICHIGAN
JULY.
Dru was probably already too late.
The clock was ticking. She tried to think like a man who'd kept a secret for nearly twenty years and had now been exposed. Kinnery would cover his tracks as fast as he could, but the trail had been cold for a long time. Her chances of turning up anything useful on him now were slim.
But I don't have to catch him. I just have to find out what he did when he left. If he did anything, he couldn't have done it alone. But why did it go quiet for so long?
All she had to do to save her job was to keep Weaver happy, but it was going to be hard to prove a negative. She gulped her coffee, impatient to leave for the office. Clare walked into the kitchen, tying her hair back with an elastic band.
"Are you back from Mars yet, Mom?'
"Pardon?"
"You've been really distracted. Is it a new man?"
If only. When was the last time I had a date?
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