by Alex Archer
"Do I have a choice?"
"Of course, of course." Hanratty bounced his head like a bobble-head doll.
"Then I'll sit." She slid into the chair and tried to relax. It was not so much for the impression she gave her captors. She knew, especially from her study of meditation and martial arts, that allowing herself to remain in a state of tension would only drain her and tighten her up so neither mind nor body could respond with rapid flexibility should the opportunity arise.
"I'm sure you will understand, Ms. Creed," Hanratty said, "that we regret the necessity of constraining your person – as well as the unfortunate incidents to which my esteemed associate referred. You must understand our position, though. We are engaged in research of the utmost importance to our nation, especially engaged as we are in a generations-long war on terror."
"Cut to the chase," Annja said. "What's with the monsters? I'm presuming they're yours."
Cogswell shrugged his big shoulders. He was dressed in the same knobbly houndstooth coat he had worn when she met him, although his waistcoat and tie were of more subdued shades. "Our experiments have enjoyed varied levels of success."
He tipped his big, round, bristle-haired head briefly to the side. "There have been various levels of side effects. Ranging, primarily, from alarming to extremely alarming."
"Why are you running your damned mouth like that, Bergstrom?" Thompson shouted. "She's a goddamned TV reporter. You want to give her the frigging story?"
Annja scowled at that characterization of her. She found it even more demeaning than unflattering comparisons with Kristie Chatham. She said nothing. There was no point in letting him know he'd scored off her.
"Now, Nils," Hanratty said, "I know you love your theatrics. But please don't exaggerate the situation quite so excessively." He clasped his hands on the old-fashioned green blotter before him and turned to Annja. "Of course everything is really going well with the project. Quite well. Indeed, we are ahead of schedule. It's just that there have been certain unavoidable side effects – "
"Like three dead and eleven injured at the sanctuary?"
His brows came together like a large caterpillar. "Well, with the best of will, you surely cannot expect us to make omelets without breaking a few eggs. Can you?"
"I always hated that cliché," Annja said. "People aren't eggs. Multiple homicides aren't omelets. Maybe I just don't see the connection."
"You have an awfully smart damned mouth on you for a woman in your position," Thompson said, though at reduced volume from before.
"How unexpected of you to notice," she said, making him blink and then glare. "My intelligence, I mean. So you're somehow letting these horrors loose to terrorize the population, Dr. Hanratty. That doesn't sound to me as if you've got the situation all under control. What have you done to the child?" she asked.
Thompson barked a laugh.
"You must be dumber than you look, if you bought all that 'baby Jesus' shit," he said.
"We don't really have words to describe our experiments," Cogswell said. "What we see, quite candidly, are results far in excess of our ability to comprehend their causes."
"So what you're telling me, Doctor," she said, looking directly at Bergstrom, "is that you are messing with forces you don't understand."
His black eyes looked right back into her amber-green ones. "Precisely."
"Wonks," Thompson said in disgust. "What the hell good are you?"
"Fortunately that determination lies in the provenance of people with larger and more powerful heads," Bergstrom said, "if only marginally."
Thompson's red face purpled. "Listen, you overstuffed sack of ivory-tower shit – "
"Gentlemen, please," Hanratty said with a briskness that surprised Annja.
"We do not wish to give our guest the impression of discord among our ranks, do we?" Hanratty said.
"In any event," Bergstrom said to Annja, "we've run into some trouble with anomalous creatures that have appeared in various parts of the state."
She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "So why are you telling me this, anyway? Why is this happening? I'm not your guest. I'm a prisoner."
Mad Jack Thompson's laugh was harsh as a steel brush on her bare cheek. "We want you in the right frame of mind when we interrogate you," he said.
"It's important, Ms. Creed," Hanratty said apologetically, polishing his spectacles with a monogrammed silk handkerchief. "You must understand the vital importance of this project..."
"Oh, stuff it," Thompson said. "After Little Miss Muffet here gets a taste of our meds, she'll be only too eager to tell us everything she knows."
He turned to Annja. "I want to know how you found out about us, who you told. Everything. We're going to discover every secret you're keeping."
Chapter 25
Carefully Annja paced the stark white cell. Four steps by four. Allowing for detours around the bed and the sink and the chrome-steel toilet, all seeming to sprout from the floor on gleaming metal pedestals.
The padding on the bed was just that, a pad, plush enough, with a pillow-like protrusion at the head end, but integral with the pedestal bed. It was covered with some soft, resilient material that resisted a tentative attempt to tear it with her fingernails. Certain that she was being constantly watched by hidden cameras, she tried nothing too extreme. The point was there was nothing, sheet or otherwise, that a captive might tear into strips to hang herself.
Not that much presented itself to hang oneself from. The light, which she had not seen dim and suspected never did, was inset in the ceiling, no doubt shielded with polycarbonate or some other unbreakable synthetic. The air vents were high up, covered with heavy grilles well bolted, and too small in any event to pass any body larger than a house cat. There would be no escape by crawling through the HVAC ducts.
Another broken promise of action movies, she thought. She was beginning to wonder if it had been such a hot idea to let herself get caught.
She sat on the floor with her back to the metal base of the bed facing the door. The white floor tiles gave slightly beneath her.
She was in total confusion over Cogswell. Was this all some bizarre setup on his part? He had to know that his role in feeding her information about the secret facility and its bizarre research – which, however elliptical, had proved all too accurate – would come out sooner or later once they subjected her to questioning under drugs.
It was my decision to blunder in and get captured, intending to bust loose at the first opportunity, find the Santo Niño and spring us both. Was it possible Cogswell – when he was acting as Cogswell, anyway – had somehow intended to put that thought in her mind all along?
She shook her head. It didn't make much practical difference at this point.
She wasn't hopelessly trapped in the cell. But if she somehow hacked her way out, the facility was swarming with heavily armed men, no doubt too many for her to fight off. Especially if she roused the whole place, while betraying the existence of the sword to those hidden cameras. She had little sensible choice but to bide her time and wait for some opening.
She closed her eyes. It was cool in the cell, even with her jacket still on. But not cold enough to be a distraction. Drawing in a deep abdominal breath, she blanked herself in meditation.
****
"Wakey-wakey."
Never asleep, Annja had returned to full awareness from her deep meditative state the instant the door of her cell hissed open. She opened her eyes.
The derisive voice, vaguely familiar, had sounded somehow wrong to Annja. Now she saw why.
Three men had entered her cell. They were young and lean and dressed in black security uniforms. They also looked as if they had wandered right out of the infirmary.
"Remember me, shweetie?" said the man who had spoken first. He had black hair and held himself so rigidly upright that Annja suspected he wore some kind of brace beneath his shirt. The distortion in his speech came from the obvious fact his jaw was wired shut.
/> He and his companions looked different from the last time she'd seen them. They were cleaned up considerably, if visibly the worse for wear.
"Yes," she said. "I do. I thought I broke your neck with that spin kick. Too bad I didn't."
"Yeah," the gangly blond guy on his right said. Like his leader's, his beard had been shaved clean. "Too bad for you." Aside from a certain puffiness to what would naturally have been somewhat craggy features, he looked the least damaged. Until he grinned. The whistle of excess air escaping when he spoke indicated that the gap in his top teeth was fully authentic this time.
"You should have made sure of us, sweet cheeks," the third member of the trio said. He was a wiry Latino with a flexible cast on his right wrist.
"I have a tendency to be merciful," she said. "I won't make the same mistake twice."
"Yeah, well, the shoe is on the other foot here," the gap-toothed blonde said.
"Won't Mad Jack have a thing or two to say if you damage the merchandise?" Annja said.
They passed a look around and laughed. "Shit, girly, he sent us here," the Latino said. "He told us to make sure you spill your guts."
The dark-haired leader's grin bared his wired teeth. It was a terrible expression.
Annja decided the time had come to act.
As the leader moved in, Annja reached out and grabbed him by the broken lower jaw. She squeezed. His dark eyes flew wide and he squealed with pain. He tried to slash at her with his fingernails.
She pushed him away from her. Hard. The back of his head struck the side of the stainless-steel sink with a crunch. His lanky body spasmed. His eyes rolled up and locked there. He slid to the floor. There was a blood-smeared dent in the side of the sink.
The blond man launched an overhand right at her face. She leaned her upper body back. His knuckles lanced off her left cheekbone.
The sword appeared in her hand. She heard the Latino cry a shrill, wordless warning.
It was too late for the blond man. Before he could recover from throwing himself off balance with his mostly missed punch, the sword came whistling down.
Its tip raked a bloody furrow down his cheek as the blade sliced his shoulder at an angle. He reeled back, spraying blood from his arm. Annja spun to her right, lashing out horizontally. The sword slashed the Latino across his screaming mouth. She stepped into him and cut him down. Then she turned back to the blond man. Clutching at his shoulder with blood spurting through his fingers, he had backed against the wall by the still open cell door. He sidled toward it, leaving a wide smear of blood, shockingly brilliant red. Then he went limp.
She looked around the cell at the fallen men.
"I told you," she said. "I wasn't going to make the mistake of sparing you twice."
Chapter 26
She sprang into the corridor with the sword ready in both hands. Her peripheral vision showed no sign of anyone to the left or right. She looked both ways quickly, confirming that she was alone. She began to walk forward.
Her nerves were jangled and her blood sang with fury. She felt as if she were about to burst with anger. And the horror of the fate she had narrowly escaped. There was something about having that hostility – that foul, purely evil intent – directed at her that was like a strange and violent drug.
She knew she had to control the rage, to keep herself from turning into a soulless killing machine, or worse, a monster who presumed to judge and execute any and all unlucky enough to cross her path. That was the burden she must bear as she carried the sword.
To her left was a small alcove. She stopped, frowning. For a moment she stood, breathing deeply. Then she plunged inside.
"You're a welcome sight," Dr. Nils Bergstrom said from the bed of his cell. It was identical to the one she had just escaped.
He had his coat off. He sat with his legs dangling over the side. His manner was mild.
He raised a dark brow at the sword she still held in her hand. "So our gangster friends were neither confabulating nor lying," he said. "You really do carry a medieval-style broadsword with you."
"Early Renaissance, actually," she said, wondering if it mattered.
He passed it off with an easy gesture. "Outside my area of expertise. Remarkable how you manage to carry it without discovery."
"Why are you in a cell?" she asked.
"Apparently I failed to cover my tracks as well as I thought," he said. "Or perhaps our friend Mad Jack was merely allowing me enough rope to well and truly hang myself before he yanked it tight. He's not as stupid as he acts. Which would beggar possibility, of course."
"Why did you pretend to be somebody named Raywood Cogswell? Who is Raywood Cogswell? And why did you get in touch with me?"
"I did not pretend, my dear," he said. "Raywood Cogswell is me. Rather, a fictitious identity concocted for me."
"Why?" Annja asked.
"To position me to spread disinformation. Are you familiar with the phrase 'giggle spin'? Enthusiasts of the paranormal frequently stray uncomfortably near to truths we would just as soon no one learn. Occasionally they trip and fall right over them. We find it useful to have our people inside the movement, as it were. To spread silly stories, to plant superficially convincing evidence that can subsequently be proved to be false, in general to muddy the waters. Ridicule and sheer obfuscation are among the most potent weapons for protecting classified information."
She drew in a deep breath and let it hiss out between pursed lips. "We're getting off track here. Why did you get in touch with me?"
"I'd hoped you might use your television connections to shed light on what this facility is doing. Get the program canceled."
"Canceled? But isn't this a U.S. government black project?" Annja asked.
"Yes and no," Bergstrom said. "The program is illegal. Or at least deniable. The black-budget money being spent here is earmarked for other researches. The Department of Defense would shut us down at once if they realized what we were up to."
He sighed. "Once I thought this research was important and worthwhile. Unfortunately, the situation is deteriorating so rapidly that time has simply run out on us."
"What do you mean by that?"
Another wave of strangeness like the one she had felt in the abandoned farmhouse passed through her. She winced, swayed.
Klaxon-style horns began to blare, a cacophony of rising-falling sounds that grated, as though across the exposed nerves of broken teeth. Annja jumped, looked frantically about. The sword seemed to quiver like a living thing in her hand, eager to strike.
"Don't worry, young lady," Bergstrom said, standing up and straightening his clothing. "That is not for us. Although it concerns us rather intimately."
"What is it?"
"Containment has been breached," he said. "The creatures are loose inside the facility now." His cell door opened, triggered by the alarms.
She stared at him. "We should go now."
"Yes."
****
Bergstrom explained as he led her through a trail of slick-walled passageways and narrow stairs. She had put the sword away and he didn't seem surprised. As he predicted, the scientists and technicians they encountered were far too preoccupied to pay them any mind, with the breach alarms still grinding away. His own detention was unlikely to be widely known. Customary practice within the facility was for those who became dissatisfied – or dissatisfactory – to disappear. Asking questions was not encouraged.
Any guards they encountered would, he predicted, have at least a fifty-fifty chance of ignoring them, as well. She was content to take him at his word. She didn't see she had much choice, especially since wandering the halls brandishing a four-foot broadsword could only lead to questions.
"Actually," Bergstrom said, in answer to a question Annja took a personal interest in, "you caught Thompson's eye first. We have – he has – a roomful of information-security nerds who constantly scan the Net for signs of security breaches. When our black flyer manifested near your dig site, and the report subsequ
ently leaked out, one of them spotted it and made the connection between you and that television series. Our Mad Colonel leaped to the conclusion that you were onto us, and preparing to do a feature on the program. Which naturally could not be permitted. So in his inimitable style he shot from the hip, sent three of his removal specialists after you. I fear he's partial to certain chemical assistance that doesn't always lead to calm reflection."
"So I've heard," Annja said grimly.
"Hanratty was terribly distressed when he found out. Dear Oliver is always flustered when confronted with the...less agreeable aspects of our work. But once an attempt had been made, and Thompson's ace operators came back in dire need of repair, he felt he had no choice but to allow Mad Jack to try to finish what he had so impetuously started."
A gaggle of techs in pastel jumpsuits emerged from a door on their right. They chattered nervously as they walked quickly past in the other direction.
"I'm sure it's a drill," said the stocky black woman in lime-green coveralls with the plastic cap on her head. "It's always a drill."
"But what if it's not this time?" asked her similarly clad white male companion, flapping his hands.
"It's always a drill."
"As top scientist for the program, I naturally found out what was happening as soon as the director did. He isn't capable of making a decision without having others around him to tell him what to do. Unfortunately, Thompson can yell a good deal louder than I can. I decided to make my own attempts to contact you."
"You didn't warn me," she said.
"Would you have listened?"
"I suppose not. And that last phone call?"
"Matters were coming to a head here. I wanted to goad you to action."
"So you weren't interrupted by Thompson's goons?"
He smiled. "I performed quite convincingly, did I not? Of course, years of playing Cogswell gave me ample practice for my thespian skills."
"If you were the top scientist here," she said, "why did you want to shut it down?"
Before he could answer, a pair of black-clad guards turned from a side passage on the run, thirty yards ahead, and made straight for them.
