When Swanset finished, he swiveled around on his chair and gave them a charming, apologetic smile.
"It takes a few moments to activate. Why don't I ring for coffee while we wait? Or cognac, perhaps?"
Doc eased the slight pressure on his gold cuff link. The tiny device implanted in it had recorded the audible clicks of Swanset's keyboard and translated them into digital impulses. With that translation, Doc could duplicate Swanset's computer access code at will.
"Coffee would be fine," he replied, his relaxed tone giving no hint of his gathering tension.
This was too easy.
It didn't feel right.
Swanset was playing with them. Had been playing with them all night. Doc knew it with a gut-deep instinct honed by years in the field. What he didn't know was why.
He found out moments later.
Both he and Paige turned as the elevator door hummed open once more. The stately gray-haired butler stepped out, the handles of a footed silver tray gripped in both hands.
"Put the tray on the table by Miss Ames, if you would, Peters."
The butler inclined his head and moved forward with a measured tread.
His every instinct on full alert, Doc beard the faint click of the keyboard. He turned his head and caught Swanset's bland smile.
Beside him, Paige gave a small gasp. Eyes narrowed, Doc swung his gaze back to the butler.
It was Peters. And it wasn't. Before Doc's eyes, the man's features blurred.
He heard another soft click of the keyboard.
The butler's gray hair darkened imperceptibly at first, then with deeper and deeper shading. His bushy eyebrows followed suit. A shadow appeared along his chin, then sharpened into a pointed beard.
Swanset pressed the keyboard once more.
Peters's faded blue eyes took on a dark hue.
"Oh, my God!" Paige shrank back in her chair as the Dark Baron approached her, silver coffee service in hand.
"Will you..."
The keyboard clicked, and Peters's pleasant tenor changed pitch, dropping with each syllable until it became Swanset's deliberate, dramatic baritone.
"...take milk and sugar with your coffee, Miss Ames?"
Her hands pushing against the chair's armrests, Paige strained away from the hovering butler and stammered an incoherent reply.
Doc rose and moved to stand between her and the attentive server.
"I don't think she cares for anything right now."
"Very good, sir."
Peters, in the living, breathing guise of a young Victor Swanset, turned aside to set the tray on the nearby table.
Even Doc, who understood the limitless, as yet untapped, power of virtual reality and image projection, had never seen anything like this. A cold sweat trickled down his spine, but the face he turned to Swanset held only professional approval and admiration.
"Remarkable."
Victor—the older, white-haired, liver-spotted Victor—chuckled in genuine delight.
"It is, isn't it? Quite remarkable."
Doc turned to the eerie image standing quietly, his hands tucked behind his back.
"I assume you ingested some kind of material that reflects the digitized images?"
Peters nodded. "Mr. Swanset assures me it's entirely harmless, quite like the dye a patient ingests before an MRI or CAT scan or similar procedure."
Doc searched the man's eyes. The pupils were the slightest bit out of focus, like a TV screen that needed a fine adjustment. "Why would you consent to an experimental procedure like this?" he asked slowly.
"For the money, of course. Even butlers need retirement funds. I shall exist quite comfortably on what I've put by these past few months."
"Assuming you exist at all," Doc murmured, turning back to his host. "Do you really believe he'll experience no ill effects from this transformation?"
Swanset waved a thin, veined hand. "None at all. The process is all but perfected."
Doc raised a brow. "All but perfected?"
The film star's brilliant smile dimmed a bit. "The ingested material is quite safe, I assure you."
"But?"
Swanset gave a small shrug. "But, as you can see from Peters's eyes, I've encountered annoying difficulties in the image transfer software. I must break the visual images down into minuscule particles, small enough to be projected from the lining of living cells. I've developed a scanner that does that. All I need now is a conveyor with sufficient capacity to handle the transfer of the millions of data bits involved."
The man's voice gained in dramatic fervor. "Think, Dr. Jensen! Just think what this imaging technique can mean! No more unsightly deformities. No pathetic wrinkles and sagging jowls. At least none that the eye can perceive. We can all look like—" he nodded toward the Dark Baron "—like that."
Good Lord! Swanset had just confirmed Doc's worst fears. This insane man had been experimenting with unproved technology in an attempt to project images onto living cells. No wonder the medical examiners had puzzled over the poor dead cook's tissue damage. And no wonder the aging film star had been so eager to acquire the fiber-optic technology.
He wasn't interested in the high-speed transfer of information via the burgeoning Internet. He didn't intend to tap into or divert military command-and-control networks. He wasn't out to expand his own communications empire.
He wanted the increased data transfer capacity to project his own image at will. To surround himself with himself. To relive his past glory every day of his life.
The implications of his process were staggering, even to Doc's trained mind. This was genetic engineering taken to its highest plane. Why wait for medicine or selective breeding to perfect the species? With Swanset's imaging technique, a click of a keyboard could change hair texture or skin tone or even speech intonation to more "acceptable" patterns.
Paige grasped the implications only moments after Doc. Her eyes wide and unbelieving, she pushed herself out of the armchair.
"You.. .you want to populate the world with dashing, youthful Victor Swansets?"
His smile encompassed her from head to foot. "My dear Miss Ames, not only with Victor Swansets. The world will also need women with your fresh, luminous beauty."
"Forget it." Doc rapped the words out. "You're not experimenting with her."
The star gave him a pained look. "I'm well past the experimental stage, I assure you."
"And I'm well past the diplomatic stage. Listen, and listen good, Swanset. You try any of your imaging techniques on her, and you won't live long enough to see yourself projected on anything."
"I was afraid that might be your attitude, Dr. Jensen. I can understand why you're taken with her. She's really quite lovely, isn't she?"
"She is, and she's going to stay that way."
Swanset folded his hands across his cane and heaved a dramatic sigh. "I had so hoped a man of your brilliant vision would be more receptive to my program, Dr. Jensen. In fact, I thought to persuade you to assist me."
"You thought wrong."
"I'm afraid I must insist," the older man said softly. "I haven't much time left. My heart, you understand, among other disgustingly feeble organs, is failing me."
His gaze shifted to Peters, to the image of himself in his prime. His eyes took on a glitter that raised the hairs on the back of Doc's neck.
"With your assistance, I can perfect this program. Then I will live forever. As I once was."
At that moment, the missing piece of the puzzle fell into place. Doc finally grasped the tiny bit of illogic that had nagged at his subconscious all afternoon.
Swanset hadn't invited them up here to retrieve the microdot from Paige. If that had been his sole objective, he would have found a way to accomplish it at the Palais des Festivals. He'd invited them to his villa because he wanted Dr. David Jensen's help in eliminating the last annoying bugs from the program that would ensure his immortality.
With sudden, chilling certainty Doc un
derstood Paige's role here tonight. She was the leverage Swanset needed, the means to guarantee Doc's cooperation. Somehow, some way, the film star must have discovered her true identity and her relationship with David Jensen.
Her purse! Damn, the purse she lost when she fell off the gangplank! It had held her passport, her wallet. Swanset must have recovered the damned thing from the bay. With his vast communications empire, it would have taken him only a few moments to verify who she really was.
The man's next words confirmed Doc's gut-wrenching certainty.
"I'm afraid I must ask Peters to escort Miss Lawrence next door for a little while."
Miss Lawrence, Doc noted. Not Miss Ames. The wily bastard had known all along.
"Peters can give her a tour of the real dungeons," Swanset said, with a smile Doc ached to wipe off his face. "They're quite interesting from an historical perspective. You and I have work to do, Dr. Jensen."
Doc didn't need to turn around to know that Peters had a weapon trained on Paige. With the speed of Swanset's supercomputer, he composed a mental list of all possible options.
A—he could cooperate and wait for Maggie to bring in the extraction team. Without a second thought, he nixed that option. Paige wasn't going into any dungeon. Not while he was alive to prevent it.
B—he could try to talk Swanset out of his mad scheme, which wasn't really a viable option at all.
Or C—he could terminate the mission now and get Paige the hell out of here.
Chapter 16
The next few minutes contained enough excitement and adventure to last Paige through several lifetimes.
She was never quite sure what happened first. It might have been the sudden blow from David that knocked her sideways. Or Swanset's shout. Or the gunshot that exploded somewhere behind her and plowed into one of the white boxes with a sickening splat.
Whatever it was, Paige went flying. Her heel caught in her long skirt, and she went down on all fours. The chain of her evening bag twisted around her wrist as she reached behind her and wrenched frantically at the snagged material.
The skirt came free, and she pushed herself upright just as David sent Peters crashing to the floor. Across the room, Victor raised the tip of his cane.
Too late, Paige remembered a scene from The Baron of The Night, the one in which a dark, brooding hero brought down an attacker with the rapier hidden in his walking stick. Although the ivory-handled instrument Swanset held clutched in both hands was similar to the cane in the movie, Paige suspected it now housed something far more lethal than a rapier.
"David!" she screamed as she lunged toward the console. "Lookout!"
She didn't have time to dig either her mascara or the switchblade out of her bag. Instead, she used the small gold purse itself as a weapon. Swinging it by the chain, she slammed it into Swanset's outstretched arm with every ounce of strength she possessed.
The walking stick bucked in his hands a split second before Paige's purse connected. She glanced over her shoulder and gave a terrified sob as David crumpled to the floor.
"You bastard! You damned bastard!"
Raging with fury, she swung the bag once more. Swanset threw up an arm to block the blow to his head and jerked backward. He toppled over, just as Paige had during her first encounter with him, taking the console chair and the keyboard with him. The monitor teetered unsteadily on the console table for a second, then settled back with a thud.
Paige kicked the cane out of the fallen man's grasp, then whirled and raced across the lab. Ignoring the semiconscious, twitching Peters, sprawled a few yards away, she dropped to her knees and dragged David into her arms.
"Are you all right? Where were you hit?"
She knew the answer as soon as her palm made contact with his shoulder. A sticky warmth smeared across her hand and oozed through her fingers. Her arms convulsed around David, who grunted and gave a little jerk.
"Stay still!" Paige panted. "Let me take a look at the wound."
"I'm-I'm all right."
"No, you're not! You're bleeding!"
Cradling him in her right arm, Paige stretched out her left to unbutton the black dinner jacket and peel it back. The spreading blossom of red on David's shoulder sent terror streaking through her every vein.
"Don't move!" she sobbed, clutching him even tighter while she grabbed at the hem of her gown and wadded it against his shoulder.
"I'm all right." He twisted upright in her arms, his voice slowly gaining in strength. "It's just a flesh wound. I'm all-Jesus!"
At the startled exclamation, Paige threw both arms around David and crushed his head against her breasts. She was determined to shield him at all costs from this new threat, whatever it was. Shoulders rigid, nerves screaming, she waited for the attack.
None came.
"Paige." His voice was muffled against her breasts. "Sweetheart. Let me go."
Reaching up, he pried loose her stranglehold and eased himself out of her arms. With another small grunt, he pushed himself up on one knee. The effort sent a ripple of pain across his face, and he paused, panting a little. Paige watched him, her heart in her throat.
Only then did she absorb the unnatural stillness in the lab. There was no sound but her rasping sobs and David's breath whistling through his clenched teeth. No movement other than the lift of his body as he forced himself to stand upright.
She twisted around on her knees, searching for the other two men. Peters she saw immediately. He was lying only a few yards away. His limbs were grotesquely rigid and outflung, as though he'd suffered some sort of electrical shock. A trickle of blood had traced a path from the corner of his mouth and pooled on the floor.
His jaw tight, David knelt beside the butler and searched for a pulse. After a moment, he reached up to close the eyes that would remain forever blurred.
"He's dead."
"How-?" Paige gasped. "What-?"
In answer, David swiveled on his knee and looked toward Swanset.
The aging film star lay sprawled where he'd fallen, his eyes fixed sightlessly on the ceiling, his lips blue. One bony hip rested squarely on the keyboard, depressing half its keys. On the console above him, a steady stream of electronic messages raced across the computer screen.
"Evidently his program wasn't as far past the experimental stage as he thought," David said grimly. "When he fell on the keyboard, he sent several million bits of visual imaging data pouring into Peters's cells. The poor bastard must have exploded internally."
While Paige watched, stunned, David crossed to the unmoving Swanset. Hunkering down in a stiff, awkward movement, he felt for a pulse. After a few seconds, he shook his head. Easing the keyboard from under the man's body, he set it on the console. The screen flickered, then went blank.
"Oh, my God," Paige moaned, burying her face in her hands. "I killed him. I killed them both."
David covered the short distance between them in a few strides. "No, you didn't."
"I did!" she cried, rocking back and forth on her knees. "I hit Victor in the head with my purse. I knocked him out, and he fell on the keyboard. I killed them both."
Using his good arm, David reached down and pulled her to her feet. It took some doing, but he finally managed to pry her hands from her face.
"Paige, listen to me. You didn't kill him. You didn't kill either one of them. Swanset had a heart attack. He was probably dead before he hit the floor."
She turned her tear-streaked face up to his. "What?"
"His lips are blue. He had a heart attack. A massive coronary, by the looks of it."
"Are you sure?"
Doc folded her into his arms. This wasn't the time to remind her that he was an engineer, not a medical examiner.
"Yes, I'm sure."
He held her until her sobs dwindled to watery hiccups. She lay against his chest for a moment longer, then jerked out of his arms.
"Oh, David, your shoulder! Let me look at it."
Doc stood quietl
y while she fumbled with the studs on his shirt and lifted the edge to peer at the wound. He'd had enough experience in the field to know that the hit wasn't fatal, although white-hot pain ripped through his shoulder with his every movement and bright red blood seeped from the wound. Paige's face whitened when she saw the ragged hole in his flesh, but she swallowed a couple of times and glanced around the sterile lab. Her gaze fell on the footed silver tray.
Shuddering, she stepped around Peters's rigid body and snatched up a handful of white linen napkins. Within moments, she had eased off Doc's dinner jacket and shirt and pressed the folded napkins against the bullet hole. While he held the compress in place, Paige dug Henri's switchblade out of her evening bag and sawed a long, ragged strip of green satin from her full skirt. Her brows knitted in fierce concentration as she brought the makeshift bandage under his armpit and wrapped it around his shoulder.
Doc gritted his teeth against the lancing pain and focused his concentration on Paige. This frowning, intent woman held little resemblance to the Paige he'd kissed and left behind in L.A. less than a week ago. This one looked as though she'd been through a small war. Which she had.
Her hair had tumbled free from its elaborate braid and hung in wisps about her face. Her brief bout of tears had left smudges of mascara under her eyes. When she buried her face in her hands, she'd smeared his blood across her cheeks, and one of her gown's tight sleeves had ripped at the shoulder seam when she swung her lethal little purse. Yet her hands were steady as she tied the edges of the green strip, and her eyes intent as she surveyed her handiwork.
"You're pretty handy to have around in a tricky situation, Jezebel," he told her, his lips curving into a smile.
"Yes, well, I'd prefer to avoid tricky situations in the future, if you don't mind. And don't grin at me like that! I know I insisted on being part of this team, but I do not want any more excitement like this. Not in this lifetime. Or the next! Or the one after that!"
Undercover Man Page 19
