Athena Force 7-12

by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees

  “Very possible,” she agreed woodenly. She had a sudden vision of William London as she’d seen him the previous night, his white hair wildly unruly, his still-bright blue eyes excited with the realization that his theory might not have been wrong, his insistence on sharing his container of undrinkable tea with her. Despite his irascibility, London had a childlike quality about him, perhaps because his whole life had been devoted not to gaining the money and awards that had been a by-product of his genius, but simply to the pursuit of pure truth.

  It would be incomprehensible to Sir William that someone might want to kill him for that truth. But the man sitting across the table from her would see no problem in giving such an order if he deemed it necessary…which was just one more reason to feel relief that Peters hadn’t chosen anyone else for this job.

  “Well, then.” Peters pushed his chair back, taking care as he did so not to touch the sticky tabletop. “I believe this meeting is at an end. I’m glad we straightened out our little differences, Dawn.” He paused. “There is one last thing I should touch on. You asked me why I sent you on an assignment when I already had my suspicions about your capabilities. The plain and simple answer is that I had no one else to send.”

  “But I’ve reassured you on that point,” she protested. “You know now that my symptoms won’t get in the way of my doing my job, so—”

  “I wasn’t sure of that four days ago in my office. And during the months you were AWOL, I had no choice but to assume Lab 33 had lost its best assassin. I decided that’s not a position I will risk being in again.”

  “You’ve chosen a replacement for me.” This was what he’d meant earlier when he’d said he’d been forced to face reality and deal with it, Dawn thought. It was a relief to know her fears that he’d set up a hit on her were wrong, of course, but something about his casual assumption that someone else could take her place with Lab 33 stung.

  Which is totally insane, O’Shaughnessy, she argued with herself. You hate the fact that you were Aldrich’s favorite killing machine, so how do you justify feeling a sense of professional pique over his giving that title away?

  It didn’t make sense. But she still felt an illogical spark of anger, and Peters’s reply only fanned it.

  “Not yet, but I intend to. I’ve drawn up a short list of qualified candidates and I’ll be making my decision soon. None of them have your unique capabilities, of course, so I expect some of them won’t return from the test assignments I’ve given them.” He stood, his figure leanly spare in the immaculately cut gray suit. “But some are bound to succeed. Those who do will be the nucleus of Lab 33’s newly formed assassination squad—a squad that will answer to you.”

  Dawn stood too, her legs feeling strangely rubbery. “I like the idea, Doctor,” she said, forcing a smile. “And the test assignments are a practical way of weeding out the excess candidates. What exactly are their assignments?”

  Peters’s smile was characteristically brief, but for once it was shaded with real satisfaction. “Each assassin has been given the name of one of the Athena Academy graduates known as the Cassandras,” he said as he stood aside for her to precede him to the exit. “Their missions are to kill their targets or die in the attempt.”

  The Cassandras had been warned, Dawn thought in relief an hour later as she waited for the feeling to come back to her limbs. She looked over her shoulder at the high-voltage fence she’d just scaled, still feeling the tingling residue of the electricity that had surged through her body and stopped her heart for a few seconds, but her thoughts weren’t on her surroundings. Kayla Ryan herself had answered the phone when she’d rung the emergency contact number from a gas station pay phone, and Ryan hadn’t wasted time in asking questions.

  “I’ll get the word out immediately,” she’d said after a moment’s stunned silence. “Some of the members deal every day with threats on their lives. Sam St. John once told me that she simply assumes that at any given time some creep somewhere in the world has a price on her head, and she never lets down her guard. But a few of the others will have to be provided with round-the-clock security.”

  “And my sisters?” she’d reminded Ryan, her tone curt with worry. “Aldrich may not know about Lynn and Faith yet, but we can’t assume he won’t find out and try to take them.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Kayla promised. Her tone softened. “And you take care of yourself, Dawn. I know this is how you wanted to handle the Lab 33 angle, but ever since the other Cassandras and I agreed to let you play this dangerous double game with Peters I’ve regretted our decision—more so since he sent you on this undercover assignment. You’re absolutely sure he doesn’t suspect you?”

  “Not absolutely sure,” Dawn said. She sensed the other woman’s apprehension and tried to lighten it. “But like my Uncle Lee always said when I was worried, if it’s close enough for government work, why sweat it?”

  She spoke unthinkingly. It wasn’t until Kayla didn’t respond to her that she realized what she’d said, and by then it was too late. She’d done it again, Dawn thought angrily. When was she going to stop remembering Lee Craig as if he had really loved her?

  Before she could berate herself further, Kayla’s voice came over the line once more. From her tone it was clear that she wasn’t talking as a police lieutenant or a fellow Athena Academy student, but as a friend. “I told you once that Craig deliberately chose the dark side. I still believe that, Dawn. But I’ve also come to accept there was a part of him that he never relinquished to the dark. You were the part of him he kept separate.”

  “Still trying to help me heal, Ryan?” Dawn gave a short laugh. “I appreciate the thought, but as I once demonstrated to you, it’s not necessary. If you really need to worry about me, worry about the damn SAS officer who’s been on my case since I showed up at London’s lab. Des Asher’s proving to be one major pain in the butt.”

  “Really?” There’d been a smile in Kayla’s voice. “In my experience, that’s the only kind of man worth getting to know. After I deal with the current situation, I might just pull some strings and ask a contact of mine to fax me a photo of this Des Asher. I’d be interested to see what your major pain in the butt looks like, O’Shaughnessy.”

  Well, for starters, Ryan, he doesn’t have pitch-black hair and a drop-dead gorgeous smile like Lover Boy, Dawn thought now as she slowly got to her feet. A reluctant grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. As usual, when it came to her, Kayla had it all wrong. If she’d been looking for a little R and R—which I’m definitely not, Dawn firmly assured herself—Mr. SAS would be her last choice. The man whose motorcycle she’d returned was much more her type, even unconscious.

  Although he seemed to be coming around by the time I dumped the Harley by him and left, she thought, keeping to the shadows as she silently headed toward the dark shape of the lab and living quarters building a few hundred feet away. That phone call to Kayla was vital, but it definitely shot my schedule all to hell. I’d planned to be safely tucked up in Dawn Swanson’s bed by now.

  But the hard part was over. She’d breached the perimeter fence, had given her body several minutes to repair itself after taking the volts that had slammed through it, and now only had to cross the grounds that some obliging landscape architect had apparently designed with her needs in mind. Clumps of ornamental grasses were artfully dotted here and there like living fountains, massive boulder arrangements lent a solid contrast to the grasses, and desert-loving shrubs and cacti provided enough cover for a herd of elephants to sneak up undetected.

  I bet Ash took one pissed-off look at this when he arrived to take command and promptly sent out a high-priority requisition to Washington to have the whole freakin’ area bulldozed, she thought. Too bad for him his requisition was obviously turned down. Getting out earlier this evening was a snap and getting back in is going to be just as—

  “It ever occur to you that you’re letting this damned baby-sitting detail get to you, pal?” Dawn froze into position behind
a boulder as the unfamiliar voice floated faintly through the darkness. Actually, it wasn’t unfamiliar, she thought a heartbeat later. She’d heard it once before, a couple of days ago. She pictured the speaker—the Ranger officer whose boyish features had been tight with strain as he’d held his weapon on both her and Des Asher and who’d later sheepishly admitted to making the mistake over her name. She tried to recall his, but just then it was given to her.

  “Yeah, Keifer, it’s occurred to me.” Asher’s speech was different from his uncle’s: harsher, less precise, and with a mid-Atlantic intonation to some of his words that implied he’d spent enough time in the past liaising with the American military that his accent had blurred. She realized he and Keifer were approaching her boulder as his voice gained in volume. “And I decided I don’t give a flying—”

  She heard his footsteps halt. Keifer’s lighter step stopped too. “What’s the matter? You hear something, Ash?” he asked in a low tone.

  Dawn held her breath. She heard Asher’s footsteps start up again, and exhaled in noiseless relief.

  “I didn’t hear anything.” Wonder of wonders, there was an edge of wry amusement in Mr. SAS’s voice, she noted. “But if you can believe it, I thought I smelled barbecue sauce for a minute. That’s what I get for working through lunch and dinner, I guess.”

  Barbecue sauce! Her cupped hand flew to her mouth and she breathed into it. God, she did have barbecue breath, she thought, appalled. Just the slightest trace, but apparently the damn man had a nose like a bloodhound.

  “Another example of letting this assignment get to you,” Keifer said. “As the senior American officer here, Asher, I gotta tell you I think you’re riding everyone too hard—yourself, the men…hell, even that poor dweeb of a lab tech you nearly blew away a couple of days ago. What were you thinking, man?”

  “I was thinking that posing as a dweeb of a lab tech would be one smart way to infiltrate this place,” Asher said shortly. “I was thinking that seven years of self-defense classes wouldn’t teach her the kind of speed and ruthlessness she showed. I was also thinking that if you looked real close, she wasn’t a dweeb at all. She was doing a good job of disguising her looks, but when the two of us were at each other’s throats I couldn’t help but notice.”

  “If you say so.” There was patent disbelief in Keifer’s tone, but Dawn wasn’t reassured. This was bad, she thought tensely. Back at Lab 33 she’d assured Carter that her deception wouldn’t depend on his efforts but through her own, and in the past that had always been true. Her knack for assuming an undercover persona had never let her down before now, but if Des Asher had seen through Dawn Swanson, then obviously that knack was one more skill she could no longer take for granted.

  Aldrich Peters had said she’d made good progress so far. But it wasn’t good enough—not when she had no idea which of her degeneration symptoms would next reveal itself, or how. She’d gotten close to Sir William, but she needed to get a lot closer if she was to find out where the obsessively suspicious genius concealed his research notes.

  “…still say this latest idea you’ve implemented is taking things way too far.” Keifer was speaking again, and she realized he and Asher were now directly in front of her boulder. Their footsteps stopped again. “You’ve got razor wire, an electrified fence, guards at the gate and doing perimeter spot-checks. Our people and the lab staff know they have to follow procedure if they want to leave the compound, and they also know that this area between the fence and the walkways is off-limits after dark. I don’t see why you think you need—” He broke off abruptly. Dawn heard him exhale sharply. “That’s them, isn’t it,” he said in resignation. “They’ve only just arrived and already you’re putting the poor sons of bitches to work. Since I haven’t been formally introduced yet, I think I’ll just hustle my butt back to the unrestricted area, if that’s okay with you.”

  Mr. SAS had a sexy laugh, Dawn thought in faint surprise. Too bad it was part of a package deal that included his crappy personality. Keifer appeared to be his one friend here, and even he seemed to have problems with Asher’s tight-ass personality—a prime example of which was his apparent insistence on increasing his guard roster without giving the newcomers a chance to settle in.

  He’s going to have to walk them around the area, at least, she thought, sliding down into a more comfortable sitting position and crossing her arms over her chest in irritation. Even he can’t expect that all he has to do is snap his fingers and order them to get to work immediately. It’s a drag, but I guess I’ll just have to wait until he leaves with the poor—

  “Slasher! Ripper! Come!”

  Even before Dawn heard Asher snap his fingers and issue the abrupt order, her eyes had widened in appalled comprehension at the sound of eight running feet on the crushed-gravel path. Keifer’s description had been dead accurate, she thought hollowly as she peered far enough around the boulder to get a glimpse of the two black figures now sitting obediently at Asher’s feet. The new guards were sons of bitches…literally.

  Sons of Doberman bitches.

  “Good lads.” His back to her, Asher bent and scratched each dog briefly behind an ear. He straightened, and his voice took on an unmistakable air of command.

  “Slasher! Ripper! Hunt!”

  Chapter 6

  Status: seventeen days and counting

  Time: 0337 hours

  The Dobermans leaped into action, torquing away from Asher’s side so quickly that gravel spurted up behind them. They made straight for the boulder, their fangs bared and menacing growls coming from their throats as they went for Dawn.

  She glared at them.

  As if they’d suddenly thudded into an invisible concrete wall, the two dogs fell backward into each other. They scrambled to their feet, took a few snarling steps toward her again and then stopped. Right on cue, both of them started shaking at once. Their growls were now fearful, their formerly pricked up ears flat to their heads and their stubs of tails plastered to their hindquarters. Very slowly, and without taking their eyes from hers, they began backing away.

  Dogs didn’t just hate her, Dawn thought resignedly. They really, really hated her.

  Even Peters didn’t have an explanation for her effect on them. Craig had given her a puppy for her fifth birthday and it had howled in despair for as long as she was in the room, only to revert to normal puppy behavior as soon as she was gone. The pup had been returned to the pet store, but the one that had replaced it had acted the same way, and so had the third. By then Aldrich’s scientific interest had been aroused, and he’d run test after test with dogs of all breeds and temperaments.

  Even the pit bulls had crouched in fear at her five-year-old feet, Dawn remembered. Deciding that the dogs could sense something different about her, although he never did pinpoint what it was that alerted them, Peters had finally given up on the experiments and Lee Craig had brought her home a kitten.

  “Fluffy liked me,” she muttered as she walked past the cringing Dobies and around the side of the boulder just as Des Asher came running toward it. He saw her and a look of alarm crossed his features.

  “Slasher! Ripper! Stand down!”

  “They already did,” she informed him. She fixed a Dawn Swanson scowl on her face. “I don’t see a bag in your hand. I suppose you thought if you walked your two mutts after dark you wouldn’t have to stoop and scoop after them. If I step in something the next time I can’t sleep and come out here to clear my mind, I’ll certainly know who to blame.”

  Rule number one in bluffing, she reminded herself, was that no matter how outrageous the bluff, no matter how disbelieving the person you were trying to scam, you couldn’t falter. Even if they presented you with proof positive that you were lying, you had to keep to your story.

  Works for politicians, she thought. No reason why it shouldn’t work for me. She began to walk past Asher’s solid bulk, but he sidestepped with the same instantaneous reaction he’d shown two days previously when he’d drawn his weapon. He
faced her, his features hard.

  “No.” His tone was flat. “We’re not playing it your way this time. Instead of spending the next half hour going round and round the mulberry bush, you’re going to cut the crap right now and tell me what the hell you’re doing in a restricted area at this hour of night.”

  “What do you mean, a restricted area?” If there was one thing that pissed her off royally, Dawn thought in irritation, it was having to look up at a man. She was tall enough that the problem didn’t occur often and in heels she could go eye to eye with just about any male under basketball player height, but right now she was wearing Dawn Swanson’s scuffed runners and she was definitely having to tip her head back to talk to Asher. Six-five, she estimated. But a well-placed jump kick brings even the big ones down to size, buddy.

  “You saw the signs. You would have had to walk right past them on your way here from the bughouse.” His frown deepened. “The lab and staff quarters building,” he corrected curtly.

  She looked past him, ostensibly to search for the signs he’d mentioned but really to hide the fact that she’d nearly been startled into a grin. She’d overheard one of the guards using the term the day before, but hearing it come inadvertently from Asher was way better. She almost wished she didn’t have to use his slip-up against him.

  Almost.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not wearing my glasses. I’m probably not the only one on staff who takes them off to give my eyes a rest when I’m not working, so I suggest that if you really want to keep this area to run your overgrown pets in, you edge it with a small ornamental fence or something.”

  His jaw tightened. “They’re not pets, they’re trained—”

  “One more thing you should bear in mind, Mr. Asher,” she cut in, deliberately omitting his rank. “You may not respect Sir William and the work he carries on here, but the rest of the world does, myself included. Despite the fruit flies we use in our genetic experiments and the somewhat eccentric behavior of some of the scientists working with your uncle, calling this place the ‘bughouse’ is offensive. If it happens again I’ll have to lodge a complaint.” She gave him a dismissive nod. “I’ll try to watch out for the signs next time. Good night, Mr. Asher.”