The Paradise Key (Harvey Bennett Thrillers Book 5)

by Nick Thacker

  The Hawk nodded. “Sure. Of course, Ben. Please, sit.” He beckoned with his hand at the chairs opposite him at the table. Reggie examined the gesture. They would be sitting facing the gorgeous ocean view, the deep blues of the underwater scene broken up by brilliant rays of sunlight that tore through the water, lighting the near surroundings. Fish danced and swam outside the windows, oblivious to the tension mere feet from them.

  Rather than oblige, Reggie pulled his chair around and sat with his back to the glass, opposite the table from Garza but facing the same direction. If the table hadn’t been between them, the two men would have been shoulder to shoulder. Ben sat in the chair next to Reggie, pulling it out diagonally so he was facing Garza.

  “Thank you for meeting with me,” Garza said.

  Reggie smiled. “Thank you for meeting with us. Glad you found time in your busy schedule to sit down with us.”

  “Of course,” Garza said, returning the smile. “It’s been in my calendar since you all got here.”

  Ben shifted in his seat. “It — it was?”

  Garza threw his head back and laughed. “You think I don’t know everything that’s happening here at Paradisum? This is my security team. My protocols, my contracted installations of every camera and security measure. All of it, mine. I know everything that happens on any of the rings.”

  “So… you already planned on meeting with us?”

  “I made the appointment with Crawford the minute you landed. I told him you’d be along sooner or later to ask for a meeting, so I had this time and place carved out.”

  Reggie looked over at Ben. Something doesn’t feel right about this.

  “Listen, Garza. We’re here to talk to you, and you alone. That’s it. We have no interest in this place, or Crawford, or —“

  “I know what you’re here for, boys.”

  Reggie glared at him. We may have walked into a trap, he thought.

  “I know you want revenge. You want to kill me, is that it?”

  Reggie felt his fists clenching into tight balls. “That — that’s a start. And your men, eventually.”

  “Right. You want to get back at me for offing your friend back in Philadelphia. Jefferson, right? Joshua? Seemed like a good kid. Good soldier, even. He’d have done just fine in —“

  Reggie slammed his fist down on the table, the silverware from a previous place setting clinking and rattling. The napkin dispenser slid a good five inches toward Ben. “Don’t you dare talk about him like you knew him, you bastard. You murdered him, and I’m here —“

  “I know, I know,” Garza said. “You’re here to kill me.” He sniffed, sat up a bit in his chair, and took a sip of the coffee sitting in front of him. “I got that. Here’s the thing, though. I’m one step — at least — ahead of you. Always have been, always will be. No changing that, so you might as well stop trying to get the jump on me.”

  “I could kill you right now, asshole,” Reggie said. “Pick your weapon. Fork? Knife? How about this for a blunt object?” he grabbed the black metal napkin dispenser and rotated it in his hand.

  As he did, he noticed something else in his peripheral vision. The scientists who had been sitting in the corner of the room had stood up and started walking toward their table. They were grinning, but it wasn’t the sort of grin one used when appreciating a friend’s joke.

  And, worst of all, Reggie realized he recognized one of the men.

  We definitely walked into a trap.

  “Ben,” he said.

  Ben looked at him. The Hawk’s smile grew.

  “Ben,” Reggie said again. “We need —“

  He never got the rest of the sentence out. The man closest to them opened his lab coat, a convenient disguise for what he was hiding beneath it, and pulled out a small subcompact machine gun. The other two men sped up, their long white coattails floating along behind them as they took up positions on either side of the table.

  The janitor suddenly seemed to be interested in the goings-on at The Hawk’s table. The short, mustached man placed the mop he had been using down and leaned it against the cart. He stared at the scene for a moment and then began walking over to the table.

  You’ve got to be kidding me, Reggie thought. Him, too?

  The janitor unbuttoned the top two buttons of his one-piece blue uniform and reached into the area in front of his chest. He withdrew his hand a moment later, revealing a matching submachine gun.

  “So,” Garza said, capturing Reggie’s attention once more, “are we ready to talk?”

  “We have nothing to talk about,” Ben said.

  “In that case, this meeting is adjourned. I am still quite busy with the soft launch happening next week.”

  The men surrounding the table stepped closer at The Hawk’s words, lifting their weapons and aiming them directly at Reggie and Ben.

  Ben’s head dropped. “Looks like our little plan failed before we even got here, buddy.”

  “Our plan?” Reggie asked.

  “Take them to the security main,” The Hawk said. “We can leave them in the brig until Crawford has a better idea of what to do with them.”

  Two of the men stepped forward and grabbed Reggie’s shoulders, riveting him in place. The janitor and the third scientist held Ben down as well.

  “I’m assuming you boys aren’t actually scientists?”

  “Or janitors,” the janitor said.

  “Reggie, Ben,” The Hawk said. “You remember my boys from Ravenshadow? They were really looking forward to meeting you once again. The rest of my team is also looking forward to meeting the rest of your team as well. You wouldn’t happen to know where they are?”

  Ben flashed Reggie a glance that said, when this is all over I’m going to kill you, too. But there was also a hint of fear in the man’s eyes. He was thinking about Julie.

  Reggie was, too. And he was thinking about Dr. Sarah Lindgren, as well. The women were somewhere in this ring, looking around the laboratories and trying to discover whatever they could about Dr. Joseph Lin and his creepy pictures. Whether they had made any progress on that front or not was unknown to Reggie, but of one thing he was certain.

  If the women in their group were seen by any of the Ravenshadow crew, this mission was as good as over.

  30

  THE LABORATORY AREA BENEATH THE surface of the second ring was mysteriously empty. Julie had expected a bustling community of scientists and researchers, running around the curved level as they worked on whatever experiments and projects they’d been assigned. But there was no one in the hall. No doors opened, and no sign of life whatsoever greeted them as they walked along.

  In spite of the brightly lit corridor, Julie was a bit creeped out. “This is weird,” she said aloud.

  Sarah nodded. “You got that right. There’s no one here.”

  “Maybe they’re all inside? Working?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But it seems like we’d hear talking, or see something, right? At least —“

  She stopped. She turned to her left, looking at the wall. In this section of the ring, the wall was made of glass, and the view allowed Julie to see into the dark blue waters of the ocean waiting just outside the hallway.

  “What it is?” Julie asked. She shuddered, thinking once again of their encounter with the strange beasts they’d seen from inside the Subshuttle.

  “I — I think I saw… there!” she cried out and pointed up at the top edge of the glass wall.

  “What was it?” Julie asked. All she saw was something whitish in color, floating gently upward until it was gone.

  “A jellyfish,” Sarah said. “I think. I couldn’t get a good look —“ she interrupted herself again, studying the glass. Julie waited, her face plastered to the glass. “There’s another one!”

  Julie saw where Sarah was pointing. Sure enough there was a small, semi-opaque jellyfish swimming in their direction. Two more floated behind it, each following the natural forces of the water that guided them, oblivious and incapab
le of controlling their direction. One of the specimens floated close to the glass, providing both women with an up-close examination.

  Still, it was hard to see the jellyfish. The entire bell was only a few millimeters wide, and they were only visible when the tiny creatures were just about pressed up against the glass. They may have been small, but Julie had to admit they were strikingly beautiful. Bluish in color, with a hundred or so strands of tentacles piling out from beneath them, and a heart-like reddish object pulsing from within the center of the bell.

  “Those are the stomachs,” Sarah said. Her voice was filled with reverence, her eyes wide and glistening as she pressed up against the glass to get a better look. “Turritopsis dohrnii, I believe. Found in the Mediterranean Sea and off the coast of Japan. It’s no surprise they’re able to survive in these warmer waters.”

  As if the jellyfish were putting on a show for the two women, the area on the opposite side of the glass suddenly lit up in a brilliant display of blues and reds. The three they’d been watching suddenly turned into hundreds, all of the specimens floating toward the glass and spreading out to fill the entire window. The stomachs, the reddish heart-shaped portions of the minuscule creatures, flitted around the glass, their long, blue tentacles following behind wherever they went. The lighting from inside the hall seemed to have been designed to reflect the glorious colors and opacity of the creatures.

  “It’s beautiful. And interesting,” Julie said. “But why are they on display? They’re almost microscopic. If you’re going to have jellyfish at an ocean park, why not get ones you can see?”

  Sarah smiled. “No idea. These are fascinating creatures, though. Lots of marine biologists are studying them right now, due to their ability to live forever.”

  “Wait, what?” Julie stopped looking at the jellyfish dancing around on the other side of the glass and turned to face Dr. Lindgren.

  “Yeah, they’re called the ‘Immortal Jellyfish.’ Somewhat of a misnomer, too, really. They have the ability to regress back into their polyp state if they want.”

  “If they want?”

  “Well, under special circumstances — temperature changes, environmental threats, predation. Yeah, they basically can flip a switch and ‘start over’ from scratch. Technically the cells are what start over, not the organism itself, so saying that they’re ‘immortal’ is, like I said, a bit of a stretch.”

  “How do you know about these guys?” Julie asked. “You have a PhD in marine biology too?”

  Sarah laughed. “I wish. No, I’ve been interested in them from an anthropological standpoint. They’re called the ‘Immortal Jellyfish’ because of their unique properties, and those properties aren’t terribly removed from what some scientists think stem cells are capable of.”

  “Wait,” Julie said. “You’re saying that people might be able to do that, too? Revert back to a previous state? Like turn into a fetus once again?”

  “Well, no. But it’s intriguing science nonetheless, and the fact that we don’t know how these jellyfish cells are able to operate is grounds for plenty of research funding. I’d bet OceanTech is doing just that sort of research — maybe hoping to study these creatures and be first to market with a new form of medication or healing procedure for damaged skin cells, for example.”

  Julie nodded, looking once again out at the tiny little red and blue orbs dancing across her vision. “They’re cute, I guess. Still, it seems like sort of a waste. All this water, and they fill it with super-tiny jellyfish?”

  Sarah shrugged. “This isn’t technically the park, remember? This area is for research and study. I doubt the public will even be able to come over here.” She paused, a slow grin growing on one side of her mouth. “And besides, these jellyfish aren’t the only things OceanTech’s got on display.”

  Julie knew immediately what she was talking about. “You know what those things were?”

  “I think, yeah,” she said. Her face turned upward and to the side, deep in thought. “It’s just a hunch, but I think they were crocodiles.”

  “Crocodiles?” Julie was incredulous, but she realized that everything she’d seen from within the Subshuttle fit that description. The long, slender tails, the whip-fast way they slid through the water.

  And the size.

  “They were huge,” Julie said.

  Sarah nodded. “Yeah, I noticed that, too. And it’s saltwater out there, so I’m guessing they were saltwater crocs. The kind found off the coast of Australia, usually in swamps and low-lying areas.”

  “But again, why here?” Julie asked. “Wait, don’t tell me. Saltwater crocodiles have a special ability as well? They can regenerate?”

  Sarah laughed once more. “No, thank God. They’re just animals. But they’re still interesting, the little that I know about them. All crocodiles, and especially the saltwater ones, seem to have been stuck in an evolutionary standoff. They haven’t really changed in millions of years, which is odd. They’ve gotten a bit smaller I believe, but that’s about it.”

  Julie thought about the ones she’d seen in the shuttle. They’re still humongous.

  “So OceanTech has them here, because why not? They’ve got microscopic jellyfish and saltwater crocs. Every kid in America is going to be dying to come visit, in that case. Who cares about Disneyworld when there’s a hard-to-reach floating theme park featuring obscure animals and lots of learning nearby?”

  Sarah laughed, harder this time. “I was thinking the same thing, actually. Seems odd they’d build it here, on top of a shipwreck, then spend all this money building individual enclosures for these animals.”

  “Odd, to say the least. It doesn’t make any sense.” Julie paused, taking one last look at the beautiful jellyfish floating around mere inches from her. “Want to keep moving? We need to figure out if Dr. Lin is still around, or if anyone’s seen him. And I’d bet the boys are making good progress. I’d guess they’ll be ready for a drink soon.”

  31

  THE RAVENSHADOW TEAM SURROUNDED BEN and Reggie and led them back through the main doors of the cafeteria, toward the elevators. Before they reached the entrance to the elevators and the Subshuttle, however, The Hawk turned left and swiped a security card over a panel mounted on the wall next to a door.

  The door was unassuming, a slightly off-white color compared to the curved wall of the inner ring, giving it the look of an afterthought. It hadn’t been designed and pored over like the hotel and tower’s interior.

  Security, Ben thought. It looked like the entrance to a janitor’s closet, which he knew would be a perfect location for the entrance to a security headquarters.

  He was proven correct as he stepped over the threshold and noticed what was on the inside of the room. White walls, fluorescent lights, and a simple desk off to one side with a man sitting behind it, a couple computer monitors in front of him. Nothing else on the walls, nothing else in the room. No fake plants or standing lights suggesting that at least some effort had been spent decorating the room.

  Ben had seen rooms like these before. He had spent plenty of time in government offices as a park ranger, briefing someone on this or that petty crime or being debriefed on this or that new policy change. Government offices, especially the public-facing ones like the Department of Motor Vehicles, Social Security Administration, or public health facilities, all gave the same, bland, stale-out-of-the-box impression.

  This room was hardly better, but it wasn’t government. The other place he’d seen rooms like this were deep inside organizational headquarters, hidden to most of the world. Casinos had them, just past the wall of smoke, and after the last row of penny slots ended in a linoleum-marked pathway to the restrooms.

  It was a security room. Specifically, it was the room before the actual security vault began. An entrance to a larger facility hidden behind, this room was simply a staging area for whatever security the organization required. A desk jockey — in this case the Ravenshadow recruit sitting behind the desk, warily examining the two n
ew faces — and a computer were all that was typically required.

  When Ben and Reggie were finally in the room, the man stood and saluted Vicente Garza.

  Garza ignored the show of respect. “Any update?” he asked the man.

  The man shook his head. “No sir. The rest of the group was last seen leaving their rooms this morning. We believe the women may have headed out to the outer ring for some sight-seeing.”

  Garza glanced at Ben and Reggie. “I highly doubt they’re here to sightsee, Jacobs. Don’t we have a feed from the tower and hotel floors?”

  The man gulped. “Those — those feeds aren’t quite ready yet.”

  “Not ready yet? Why the hell not?”

  “We’re waiting for the tech. He’s scheduled to be here tomorrow afternoon, when they fly in supplies for the soft launch, and —”

  “Get over there and fix it, Jacobs. Yourself. Get my cameras online or you’re going to be on that same flight off this station.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jacobs said.

  Garza turned to Ben. “I apologize, Harvey. It appears your friend Juliette is currently missing. We have a pretty good idea of who’s doing what inside the walls of this facility, whether in the hotel tower or the rings, but apparently our systems aren’t quite ready for use just yet.

  “Rest assured, my men will find them. And then we’ll all be together again.”

  He paused, ran a hand through his thick, black hair, and smirked at Reggie. “Together again, just like in Philadelphia.”

  Ben lunged forward but felt the vice-grip clamps of the two Ravenshadow mens’ hands holding him back. Reggie was similarly detained, but it didn’t stop him from struggling against the bonds.

  “I’m going to kill you,” Reggie said.

  Garza turned and stared at Reggie. “I’m not sure your reputation lends much credibility to that statement, Gareth. Wasn’t only a few years ago you were begging me for a slot on my team?”

  Ben knew it had been longer than that — Reggie had tried to become a Ravenshadow member following his military service, before he knew what sort of a company it was, but he hadn’t made it through the gauntlet of tests the organization required.