“Here,” he pointed to a picture. “My great-great-great-great grandfather. Soldier for the Russian Imperial Army.”
The picture showed a dozen men in military uniforms who all looked alike. Standing next to them were some children. Then I looked closer. One of the children had a beard, and the little girl had breasts any woman might be proud of. Not children, adults. And if the woman was even five-feet tall, then the soldiers were all at least as large as Nowakowski.
He turned the pages, showing me a lot of big men. Some pretty big women, also.
“You come from a long line of tall men,” I said.
With a chuckle, he said, “Yeah. The Russians had a breeding program. Wanted to create a force of super soldiers.”
His expression took on a bit of a leering quality. “You’re pretty tall yourself. Bet you have trouble finding men that fit.”
“Not as much as you might think,” I said, pushing the book off my lap onto his and standing up. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Nowakowski. You’ve been very helpful.”
He stood, his bulk between me and the door. “If you decide you’d like a little fun, you know where to find me.”
“Ah, yes, I do. Thank you.” I sidled around him. He wasn’t wearing any cologne, and he smelled clean and masculine. I could see why Stella, or any other woman, might be attracted to him.
I made it to the door, twisted the knob, and pulled it open. Turning to say good-bye, I found he was only inches away from me. My eyes traveled up his broad chest to his face. My nose filled with his scent, and my mind fogged a little.
“Until next time, Elizabeth,” he purred.
“Uh, yeah. Bye.” I fled down the stairs far faster than I’d climbed them.
While I waited for Wil at An Poitin Stil—my favorite Irish pub—I did a search on ‘super soldiers and genetic engineering.’ It didn’t make me want to volunteer for any scientists to study my mutations. As my dad had said, some of the experiments produced very strange results. Reading in one article that scientists ‘were forced to destroy the offspring’ was rather sickening, since the article was talking about breeding humans and not animals.
My second search on ‘genetic engineering and pheromones’ was equally enlightening. That research stretched back to the twentieth century. Much of it involved insects and plants back then, but in the twenty-first century corporate scientists got more involved in creating substances containing pheromones for marketing purposes—such as makeup and lipstick and perfumes.
One article said the Second Russian Empire had a breeding program that included genetically-modified spies. I wondered if Nowakowski’s great-great-whatever grandfather got together with a spy lady who had enhanced pheromones.
“The bottom line,” I told Wil after he arrived and we were eating our lunch, “is Grenier is a potential stewpot of mutations. The breeding programs were carefully monitored, but after the Empire collapsed, they could have had all kinds of mixes and matches going on.”
Wil shook his head. “Can you imagine? In addition to all the random mutations, dozens of countries and at least that many corporations had their own genetic programs going on.”
“Yeah, and then take a look at such things as parallel evolution. I read there were at least five different mutations in different parts of the world that conferred malaria immunity. What happens when one mutation for big earlobes meets a different mutation for big earlobes and the people fall in love? You could end up with earlobes down to your waist.”
He seemed to think that was pretty funny.
“Did you get Grenier’s genetic profile?” I asked.
“Yeah, I did.”
“Great, send it to me and I’ll get it analyzed.”
Wil said, “I can send it to our labs. They’ll send it to the university in Montreal, and they’ll run an analysis.”
“Uh, huh. And how long will that take?”
“If I tell them to put a rush on it, a week or two.”
“Lord, give me strength,” I prayed. “We don’t have weeks. Send it to me.”
He stared at me for a few moments, then hauled out his tablet. When my tablet dinged, I pulled up the file, sent it to the server at my house, logged in there, and ran a program. It took a little longer than normal because I had one hand busy shoving fish and chips in my mouth. I’d forgotten to eat breakfast again.
“So, how is whatever you’re doing going to be faster?”
“I inserted our file into the queue for the genetic analysis computer at the university. We’re now first behind the analysis currently being run, instead of at the end of the five thousand jobs that are waiting. We should have our results later this afternoon.”
“You’ve done this before,” he said, his voice deadpan.
“Sure. When I was at university, I used to do screenings of potential husbands. Bring me his DNA, and for five thousand creds, I’d tell you if he had any horrible diseases or mutations. I got the idea when I took a genetics class.”
“You’re illegally hacking into someone else’s computer systems.” His shocked outrage was kind of funny.
“It’s for a good purpose.”
“That’s not the point.”
“So, you’re telling me that stopping a serial killer should take a backseat to a corporation’s analysis of a new ingredient for their cosmetics. We should just let a few more people die because I’m delaying the analysis of a new acne drug by a few hours. A gold-digging bride’s curiosity about her boyfriend has priority over stopping Grenier torturing another teenager. Wow, you should examine your priorities. They’re all out of whack.”
“That’s not what I’m saying!”
“Oh, okay. Good.” I went back to my fish and chips.
“Wait. I gave you a file with Grenier’s genome already mapped. When those girls brought you their boyfriends’ DNA, how did you do the initial mapping?”
“A grad student in the genetics program used the university’s equipment. I split the money with him. But you’re right, the university in Montreal has the best analysis and interpretation program. A really elegant piece of software. I was impressed.”
“So, you sent the mapping to Montreal?”
“No, I sent it to Geneva. Their computer is a lot faster. I’m not a delayed-gratification kind of girl.”
“But their software isn’t as good.”
“It’s the same software.”
He shook his head slightly and blinked his eyes a few times. “So, Montreal shared their software with Geneva?”
“No, I sold the software to the university in Geneva. Look, if you want me to tell you about all the ways I made money when I was a student, it’s going to take a long time. Finish your lunch and let’s go see if those drones recorded anything interesting.”
“By the way,” Wil said between bites. “I got a look at Grenier’s school records.”
“Oh? Anything interesting?”
“A couple of incidents of assault, an attempted rape, and the time when the biology teacher caught him dissecting guinea pigs after school.”
“Nice guy. So he started with guinea pigs?”
“Yeah. Live guinea pigs. No anesthesia. It was the squealing that gave him away.”
Chapter 15
I realized that I forgot to change clothes when we entered the war room and everyone stared at me, and continued to stare at me even after we said our hellos. I wasn’t sure if it was the first time they realized I was a girl, or they were shocked at how well I cleaned up.
Devon conducted a briefing showing the disposition of their force and the ‘plan of battle.’ After questions and ensuring everyone was comfortable with their roles, he brought up surveillance vid from the drones.
“For the most part, we didn’t pick up anything. A few lycans and other locals passing through. But I thought this was interesting. We picked this up around dawn this morning.”
The vid showed the door to the tunnel shaft opening, and Grenier emerging, his arm still in a sling. After
closing the door, he walked off to the north, toward the edge of the enclave and the city. The drone’s camera followed him for a little while, then the scene changed, and I realized we were seeing vid from a different drone. Grenier walked toward the camera, then beneath it, and disappeared from sight.
“He came back about two hours later,” Devon said. The vid showed Grenier walking away from the camera, but the view of the street was the same as the previous shot. He had a bag slung over his left shoulder. Devon switched to the drone above the door and the store, showing Grenier taking the bag down into the hole.
“Probably went out for supplies,” Devon continued. “We checked, and there’s a market in the direction he went. From what Miss Nelson has told us, he’s still healing up from a bullet wound, so I wouldn’t expect this to be a daily trip. We should find him home tomorrow when we launch the attack.”
“And why aren’t we going in after him today?” I asked.
“Well, we planned on doing it tomorrow.”
I looked at Wil. “We know where he is now.”
“Are all our forces in position?” Wil asked.
“They can be within the hour,” Devon said.
“Then we launch in an hour.”
Wil followed me on a quick trip home to change clothes and leave my bike. After my previous encounters with Grenier, I put on my best protective clothing, including my motorcycle helmet. I’d noticed that he tended to shoot people in the head—a convenient way to kill people wearing bulletproof vests.
“Rather fashionable body armor,” Wil said as I climbed into his car.
“You like it? Designed it myself. It doesn’t actually fit the definition of combat body armor, but I can move in it. The corset underneath meets the standards for CC bulletproof vests, though.”
“And the motorcycle helmet? Let me guess. Kevlar?”
“I keep telling people you’re more than just a pretty face,” I said with a grin.
Thinking about what lay ahead, I said, “Wil, I need you to watch my back.”
“Of course I will.”
“No, I mean that quite literally. If I need to shift into chameleon mode, I need you behind me. I really don’t want to get shot.”
“Do you think you’ll need to do that?”
“If it gives me an advantage. Grenier will be in a situation where he doesn’t need to be careful. He can do anything, and who knows what he’ll do if he panics. He doesn’t give a damn about killing people, but there’s nothing in his background that shows he’s had any training. His mother told me he’d never been taught to shoot.”
We drove to the staging area and transferred to an APC, changing out our filter masks for gas masks. I’d never been in an armored personnel carrier before, and I was surprised how cramped it was. Of course, we were all armed and wearing body armor, but if we had to drive hundreds of miles like that, it would get really uncomfortable.
A set of screens at the front of the passenger compartment showed views around us as we traveled. The streets were deserted, but occasionally I caught a flash of someone moving away from us. I didn’t blame them. A force such as that invading the enclave boded no good for the inhabitants.
Three of the APCs drove toward the target. The other three took up stations in a rough circle a thousand yards from The Old Store.
The APC I rode in pulled to a stop facing the store. The vehicle behind us wheeled around to face the trapdoor I’d found. A few moments later, a voice came over the intercom, “Striker One in position.”
“Striker Two in position.”
“Striker One, fire,” Wil said.
The thirty millimeter cannon fired, causing the heavy vehicle to shudder. I heard another cannon shot from Striker Two as the boarded-up door of The Old Store exploded.
“Go!” Wil yelled. “Go, go, go!”
The doors opened and we piled out into the street. The soldiers raced to both sides of the door, and one tossed a gas grenade inside. A quick glance over my shoulder showed men from the other APC diving into the tunnel across the street.
The CC troops all carried assault rifles, but I had a riot gun—a sawed-off shotgun. In our confrontations with Grenier, Mike and I emptied a couple of clips without hitting him, so I had little faith in my ability to shoot him with a pistol or a rifle.
The front room of the store was fixed up as a living room and bedroom. Two washroom doors in a short hall were kicked in by men in front of me. A small kitchen in the back showed some use, along with evidence of a pirated electric line. Another small room off the kitchen had an open trapdoor in the floor.
“Stand back, lass,” a burly sergeant said.
I stepped aside and he dropped a gas grenade down the hole. After it exploded, he counted to five aloud, then dropped into the hole. Another man followed him, and I followed them. I landed with a splash about eight feet down and found myself ankle-deep in water in what I guessed was either a sewer tunnel or a stormwater tunnel running north and south.
About twenty feet in front of me, the sergeant and his friend met with men coming from a side tunnel.
“He had to go straight,” Wil said from behind me. “Unless he branches off someplace, we have the next exit above ground covered.”
“How fast can you run?” I asked.
“Pretty fast. Why?”
“I don’t think your soldiers can keep up with me, especially with all the equipment they’re carrying. Grenier is fast, so if we’re going to catch him, we’d better get moving.”
“You run?”
I almost cracked up at the astonishment in his voice. Turning so I could see his face, I said, “Five miles, three mornings a week.”
“You know what morning is?”
“Believe it or not. I find exercise less painful if I do it before I wake up.”
Other than the glow of our thermal signatures, the tunnels were completely black. Luckily, it’s hard to get lost in a tunnel. I took off, and after a few seconds, I heard Wil splashing along behind me. I regretted the noise, but Grenier couldn’t be quiet, either. The gas mask and thermal goggles bouncing on my face caused a bit of distraction. I glanced back once, and saw Wil keeping pace, his long legs eating up ground. In the distance, and falling farther behind, came the soldiers.
A cross tunnel loomed ahead. Our feet stirred up the muck at the bottom of the tunnel, and I could see a minor temperature difference in the water where Grenier had gone. The side tunnels looked undisturbed, so I didn’t even slow down.
The trail of disturbed water took a left at the next cross tunnel. I blurred my image, rounded the corner, and crouched low with the riot gun pointed ahead of me. In the distance, there seemed to be something light, but not being used to looking through infrared goggles at distant objects, I didn’t know if I was seeing a person, or an optical illusion.
“Wil,” I whispered.
“Right here,” his voice sounded above and behind me.
“Look down the tunnel. Do you see anything?”
“Maybe. Hard to tell at this distance.”
“Stay close to the wall on the other side, and drop twenty or thirty feet behind me,” I said. “Ready? Let’s go.”
I took off running again, staying as close to the left side of the tunnel as I could. Gradually, the light spot in front of me grew larger, then it disappeared. It wasn’t a surprise when I came to another cross tunnel. Actually, it was a main tunnel, as large as the one under the store. Easing to the corner, I looked around and saw the light spot, heading north again. It seemed closer than it should be. Either Grenier was tiring, or…
I crossed the tunnel to the other side, then looked back at the wall around the corner where I had been standing. Very faintly, I made out a wire.
Wil stood in the cross tunnel near the intersection. “Wil.” I unblurred my form and pointed. “Booby trap? Trip wire?”
He nodded and I blurred my image again, then entered the tunnel, stepping high and placing my feet carefully. After a few feet, I started forwa
rd again, but carefully, trying to minimize the splash and the noise. The light spot grew larger, indicating that whatever it was had stopped moving.
Enhanced night vision was a common mutation. Vampires, lycans, and a number of other mutants often called trogs were primarily nocturnal. I didn’t know if that was one of Grenier’s mutations, but it was a common enhancement in super-soldier programs. But if he didn’t have infrared technology, I doubted he could see Wil, let alone me.
Sliding along the tunnel wall, I moved closer to him, and the thermal signature grew larger, slowly resolving into the size and shape of a man. He was holding perfectly still against the tunnel side opposite from me.
I raised the riot gun, but hesitated. The chances the person in front of me wasn’t Peter Grenier were miniscule, but I had to be sure. There wasn’t any excuse if I shot some innocent lycan kid.
“Grenier! Throw down your weapons and get on your hands and knees,” I shouted, then moved several feet down the tunnel and crouched.
The muzzle flash of a pistol illuminated the tunnel, and the report of three shots sounded like a cannon in the enclosed space.
My riot gun going off was even louder. The problem with a shotgun, though, was it’s a close-range weapon. Grenier fired back. Then Wil cut loose with his assault rifle, the automatic weapon chattering as he swept the tunnel over my head.
Grenier cried out, then began running, the glow of his signature receding and then disappearing. We ran forward until we reached a small cross tunnel midway up the wall. I shoved the riot gun into it, fired three shots, then leaped up, caught the edge, and pulled myself into it.
The new tunnel was dry, but only about three feet in diameter, requiring me to crawl on my hands and knees. I slung the shotgun across my back to keep it dry, pulled my pistol out, tucked it into the front of my shirt, and started after Grenier.
Chameleon's Challenge (Chameleon Assassin Series Book 3) Page 12
