by Vanessa Kier
“Abernathy!” The bellow of the chief of security filtered through even the thick door of Mark’s office.
Abernathy turned ice white. “Hide me. Please!” He clutched at Mark’s arm. “You don’t know what he’ll do to me if he finds out that I obeyed an order from someone else.”
“You had no choice.”
The guard shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. He can’t find out! Please. Help me.” His eyes pleaded with Mark, his terror evident.
Mark hesitated. His mission was greater than one man. In the cutthroat intelligence game, sometimes individuals needed to be sacrificed in order to achieve results that would benefit all of society.
But he was no longer a man who could turn a blind eye to Abernathy’s fear. What if this had been Toby? How would he explain to Faith that he hadn’t done everything in his power to help protect the man?
Mark took a deep breath, realizing that this decision might destroy all his hard work toward getting revenge on Jamieson. “There’s a back door out of my office into a secure stairwell,” he said, indicating for Abernathy to follow him.
“Thank you!” The overwhelming gratitude and relief on the man’s face made Mark uncomfortable.
Abernathy reached for the door handle.
Mark slapped his hand on top of Abernathy’s. “Touchdown Tiger Rose,” he snapped.
Abernathy went still.
“You will forget you met with me,” Mark ordered. “You will forget everything that happened since I called your name. You will take the hidden staircase to the exterior, at which point you will leave this facility and its grounds and never speak of our encounter again.”
“Yes, sir.” Abernathy’s wooden tone caused Mark’s nascent conscience to wince, but he ignored it.
“Good luck.” Mark lifted his hand and let Abernathy open the door. Once the man had disappeared into the dimly lit stairwell, Mark shut and locked the door, then forced himself to return to his desk and resume work as normal.
He snuck a quick peek at the names in the report Abernathy had retrieved. Toby Andrews was listed under the heading of most recent acquisitions to Kaufmann’s program. Mark stared at the name for a moment and his heart knocked against his chest. Then he closed the file and tucked it and the other copies Abernathy had made safely away in his desk drawer.
When the second knock he’d been expecting sounded on his door, Mark schooled his features into his usual arrogant disdain. “Yes?”
“We’re looking for a missing guard,” the head of security announced as he stepped into the office, his gaze darting around the cramped space.
“As you can see,” Mark replied coldly, letting annoyance seep into his tone, “there is no one here but me.” He held his breath, but the man finished his survey without lingering on the spot where Abernathy had exited.
“Thank you, sir. Please let us know if you see this man.” The security chief handed Mark a photograph. “He may have become unstable.”
Mark lifted one of his brows and gave a curt nod. After one more visual check of the office, the man left.
Mark slowly blew out his breath. So, the security chief didn’t know about the hidden door. Interesting. His temporary office was one of three offices hastily partitioned out of a secure conference room. Apparently, no one had realized that the original room had an escape route, or that his office had ended up with the door. Good to know.
Hoping that Abernathy had made it outside without being spotted, Mark continued working until his normal quitting time several hours later. When he finally shut down his computer and headed toward the elevators, he ended up behind a group of administrative staff.
“Did you hear?” one of them whispered loudly to her friend. “Abernathy failed his assignment. They decided he wasn’t stable enough to handle being a guard here. They sent him back to his training facility.”
A chill raced through Mark.
“Such a shame. He was a hottie.”
The first woman giggled. “Yeah. Weird, but definitely fantasy material.”
The women turned down a corridor, leaving Mark with a couple of the security staff. “Heartless bitches,” a man Mark had seen a few times muttered. “The guy’s dead.”
“Excuse me,” Mark said. “Did you say that Abernathy is dead? How? When? The chief of security said he’d gone missing.”
The man hesitated, as if uncertain what he was allowed to reveal.
“It’s okay, George,” a second man said. “He’s Mark Tonelli, remember? The one who’s been working directly with Jamieson.”
“Ah. Right.” He raised a brow. “You mean you haven’t heard?”
Mark wondered if Jamieson had become aware of his use of Abernathy and decided to withhold information on the man’s death. No. His boss would flaunt it. “I didn’t see any alert go out,” he replied.
“Wasn’t an alert. We just heard about it because one of our buddies was there.” The man glanced around to make certain they weren’t in danger of being overheard. “They caught Abernathy trying to escape into the woods. Since his behavior was suspicious and against protocol, they decided to send him back to the training compound where he came from. My friend said he was terrified. He fought the men assigned to escort him to the transportation. Just went totally berserk and attacked his guards. In the ensuing struggle, he was shot and killed.” The man shook his head. “My friend thinks Abernathy was so scared of his punishment that he chose suicide by guard instead.”
An unfamiliar, icy horror seeped through Mark’s veins. My fault. If I hadn’t ordered him to get the file for me, Abernathy would still be alive. Unused to feeling regret at the loss of life, he tamped down his uncharacteristic feelings. “That’s a pity,” Mark said, wishing he could say so much more. “I didn’t know him, but he seemed to be a decent fellow. I’m sorry for your loss.” The words tasted like ashes as they passed his lips.
The man nodded. “Thanks. He might have been one of the freaks, but he was a good guy. Didn’t always get our jokes, but he really tried to fit in.”
For some reason, that comment made Mark’s throat tighten. Needing to be alone in order to process these strange reactions, he bid his companions good-bye and took the stairs to the parking garage.
Faith. He needed to see Faith. To hold her and have her warmth thaw this insidious cold taking over his body. Not that he deserved her compassion. Right now he hated himself.
What have I become?
Faith knew something was terribly wrong when Mark let himself into the safe house. There was a bleak, dazed look of shock in his eyes that made her want to pull him into her arms and offer him the comfort of a hug. Yet the tight set of his mouth and the way his normally perfect hair showed furrows where his fingers had run through it, warned her that he was holding on to his control by a hairsbreadth. Instead, she accepted his brief kiss, then pushed him gently toward the couch while she headed for the kitchen.
She pulled down a bottle of vodka and poured a hefty dose into a tumbler, then set both glass and bottle next to him on the end table. He’d already torn off his necktie and loosened the first few buttons on his dress shirt. Grabbing the glass with the desperation of a drowning man latching onto a life preserver, he tossed the drink back with such force she wondered that he didn’t give himself whiplash.
Not knowing what else to do, she curled beside Mark on the couch, letting him know silently that he wasn’t alone. Only after his second drink did she venture to speak. “Can you talk about it?”
Mark sighed deeply, sank back against the cushions and put his arm around her. She glanced up and saw his head was tipped back against the sofa and his eyes were closed. “I have the list of men who were sent to Kaufmann’s program,” he said.
Excitement slid through her and she started to rise, but he tightened his arm. “What’s wrong? Wasn’t Toby’s name on it?”
Mark gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, Toby was on it, all right.”
Faith’s heart lifted, then immediately sank. If Toby was
still alive, why was Mark so upset? “What has you so wrung out?”
“It’s…” Mark sighed. He opened his eyes and looked down at her. There was something lost in his gaze that made her heart clench. “It’s what I had to do to get the list.”
He shifted his glance to the ceiling. “I am not a good person, Faith. People call me arrogant. Cold. Ruthless. All of which is true. I purposely became those things in order to pursue revenge for my father’s murder.”
Mark fell silent and Faith waited patiently for him to continue.
He took a healthy sip of vodka. “I’ve never cared much for other people’s feelings or their opinion of me unless they were important to my goals. Hurting or killing people who stood in my way has never bothered me. In fact, if you’d asked me three months ago if I possessed a conscience, I would have said no. But what I saw in Moscow at Dr. Ivanov’s lab changed me.”
Mark reached out and poured himself another shot of vodka. “When I saw what Ivanov had forced his patients to become, I felt empathy. Pity. Anger on behalf of his subjects. I knew I had to stand against such abuse of the human mind and body. What I did today…”
He shook his head and she felt the motion in her soul. “Did you kill someone you liked?”
“No. Worse. There was a guard at our office who had graduated from a new part of Kaufmann’s program. A program with the goal of creating super spies and assassins. The man was undergoing a trial period to see whether he could blend in with normal colleagues.” He took another shot of vodka.
“I overheard one of the supervisors giving the man an order that was prefaced by an odd phrase. It didn’t take much to realize that using that phrase activated the man’s mind control. Whoever spoke to the man using the correct code would be able to order the man to do anything at all. So—” His chest heaved. “I used that phrase to order the man to bring me the data I needed.”
“But—”
“I took away the man’s will,” he snapped. “I gave him an order I knew would probably bring him to the attention of the other guards. I deliberately ordered him to access Jamieson’s office and bring out a copy of the list of who was in Kaufmann’s program, plus any information on Kerberos and Kaufmann’s lab he could find.” He made a sound of disgust. “I sent him into danger that I wasn’t willing to risk.”
“But you didn’t have access to the office, did you?”
“That’s not the point!” Mark’s vodka glass sailed across the room and shattered against the fireplace. “I hate what’s been done to these men. Faith, at Ivanov’s lab I witnessed a man bludgeoning his brother to death. The look of confusion, then horror in his eyes as he stared at his victim still haunts me. You’ve never seen such torment in a man’s eyes. Tears streamed down his face and he sobbed with each blow he delivered. He even begged the scientists to let him stop. But they ignored him. The head scientist bragged to me that they’d finally found the key to break down the man’s resistance. I never thought…”
A muscle in his jaw twitched and his lips firmed as he cut off whatever he’d been about to say. “I realized then that there are some lines even I consider inviolable. Interfering with men’s minds and bodies to this extent is one of those lines.” He grimaced. “Kaufmann’s program might even be worse than Ivanov’s.”
Part of her didn’t want to hear any more. Didn’t want further proof that Toby might be so fundamentally changed that he’d never return to being the big brother she knew and loved. But she owed it to him not to shy away from the truth, no matter if it turned her stomach.
“Think about it, Faith. If Kaufmann has created a trigger, anyone with knowledge of the key phrase can give orders to the enhanced men, just like I did. Abernathy didn’t have a choice but to obey me. What if I’d asked him to kill an innocent?”
Faith shivered.
“See?” Mark said. “You hate the idea of mind control, too. How could any decent human being not be afraid of being turned into nothing more than a slave based on certain words being spoken?” He picked up the vodka bottle and took a long drag.
“Yet at the first opportunity, I became just like the scientists, manipulating one of their subjects to get me the information I needed. So much for my reawakened conscience. At heart, I’m as selfish and cowardly as ever.”
Faith lightly caressed his chest with her fingers. She’d never seen him this emotional before. “Shh, I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think. He—”
“He handed over the papers and turned to go. Just then we heard his supervisor hollering for him. God. I’ll never forget the terror in his eyes. He looked at me, begging me to save him from the man’s wrath. I knew then that I’d made a mistake. That helping me could cost him his life.”
His self-recrimination surprised Faith. Mark wasn’t one to doubt himself.
“I showed him the secret exit out of my office, then ordered Abernathy to forget everything I’d said to him. They caught him, Faith.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed so hard she gave a squeak of pain. “Killed him.” His chest heaved. “The story is that he went berserk as they were taking him out to the transport that would return him to Kaufmann. That he died in the ensuing fight. I think he was so terrified of being returned to Kaufmann that he attacked his escorts and provoked them into killing him. Either that, or they outright executed him and the berserker story was just a cover.”
“Oh, God, Mark, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry won’t bring the man back. I should have done more to help him. Created a diversion. Or found a place to hide him, then asked the SSU to come pick him up. Their doctors have experience counteracting Kaufmann’s drugs. But no, I couldn’t risk. Couldn’t risk. Letting him use the escape route was as far as I was willing to go. When did I become such a fucking coward?!”
Faith flinched at Mark’s uncharacteristically crude language. “What else could you have done?” she murmured after she’d let several minutes pass in silence. “You had no way of knowing they’d catch him, let alone kill him.”
“The danger was so great, I couldn’t risk going into Jamieson’s office myself, but I had no compunction about ordering Abernathy to do it. Don’t you see? I judged his life to be worth less than mine,” Mark shot back. “What kind of man does that make me?” His laugh was bitter. “Not a man who deserves you.”
“Mark, I—”
“What? Because of me a man is dead. Don’t you understand? Because I gave Abernathy no choice on how to act, he wasn’t able to save himself.”
Tears filled Faith’s eyes. The dead man could so easily have been Toby. She grabbed a tissue, then turned her face away from Mark while she blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes. Crying wouldn’t help her brother. And if they could find Kaufmann’s lab, not only could they rescue Toby, but they could free all the other victims as well.
“You hate me, don’t you?” Mark asked quietly.
Faith spun around and glared at him. “Whatever makes you say that?”
“I—” The confusion and fragile hope in his eyes reminded Faith that his life had been deficient of unconditional love.
“Mark, you did the best you could with the information you had. You tried to help Abernathy escape. Stop blaming yourself.” Faith couldn’t stand hearing the pain in his voice. Pain she bet most people never saw, because he hid it so well under a thick veneer of arrogance. She reached out and stroked his cheek. “Two months ago would you have even tried to help the man?”
Mark shook his head.
“See? No matter what you’ve done in the past, you’re now a better man than you think.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips gently to his. “And I still like for you. Very much.”
“Oh, God. Thank you.” Mark pulled her into a crushing hug.
A long while later, he released her. Looked down at her with a renewed strength and peace. “You’re too good for me, Faith.”
She gave him a saucy smile. “Maybe. But you’re not getting rid of me that easily.” Then she sobered. “We still nee
d to rescue Toby and the others from Kaufmann. So, where is he being held?”
Mark pushed to his feet and paced across the room, stopping in front of the bookcase next to the fireplace. He picked up one of the seashells she’d placed on the top shelf in an attempt to make the safe house a little bit more homey.
“That’s the problem, Faith,” he said after he’d arranged the shells in a precise line, biggest to smallest. “All I managed to obtain was a list of men who have already been sent to Kaufmann. I still don’t know the location of the lab. Now do you get it? Abernathy died in vain, because we’re no closer now to finding Toby and Kaufmann’s lab than we were yesterday!”
Faith stood up and walked over to him, then wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her body against his back.
He turned and pulled her into his arms.
“But at least we know he’s alive,” she said. “Or was alive until recently. That’s something.”
“Not anything good. Faith, stop fooling yourself. We’re not talking about mild, easily-reversible changes to your brother’s mind and body. If we find Toby, he won’t be the same man you remember. He’s more likely to be a monster.”
How dare he feel sorry for her? But then, he’d already admitted to being stunted when it came to caring for another person. He couldn’t possibly understand what it meant to love someone so much you’d do anything to protect them. “Mark, no matter what shape he’s in, Toby is my brother. I’m going to bring him home.” She took a deep breath. “But if the guard was killed just because he helped you, then you’re in danger. I—”
Mark placed his finger over her lips. “Don’t even try to suggest that I give up now, Faith. I’m still going to help you. I just wanted to make sure you understand that if we do rescue Toby from the program, he might try to kill you.”
She bit her lip, then nodded.
“There is some hope. The SSU has been collaborating with a scientist who defected from Kaufmann’s program. She’s been working toward reversing the damage done to one of their soldiers. Maybe she’ll be able to help Toby.”
