Jasmine’s sobs began to subside as Caitlyn rocked her.
But it didn’t help the little girl’s scraped knees.
As Caitlyn stroked Jasmine’s hair and soothed her with a low humming noise, Caitlyn had a thought that she tried to dismiss. But couldn’t.
The three had led him to Caitlyn, where Mason’s viewpoint of the shanty allowed him a clear view of Caitlyn as she slept. He was tempted to rush in and brush past the children playing tag on the hard-packed dirt.
But watching Caitlyn and daydreaming about the ways he would make her scream provided a nice diversion as he waited, and he was also aware that taking Caitlyn by force right now might have complications. Short of killing her, he’d have to fight her the entire distance he’d need to go to be alone with her. He didn’t want to kill her. At least not quickly.
So he continued to wait and watch.
One of the smaller girls fell and began to shriek. For Mason, it was a sound like nails against a chalkboard.
When Caitlyn picked the girl up and stroked her hair, Mason relaxed, but didn’t lose his focus on Caitlyn and continued to stare at her with his one eye.
Then she did something that puzzled him.
She brought the girl back to the wall of the shanty and held the girl in her lap with one arm.
With her other arm, Caitlyn reached behind her and pulled out a short dagger.
That wasn’t what puzzled him, however. He’d already known about the knife from Everett.
It was what she did with the knife.
Caitlyn punctured one of her fingertips. Then smeared her blood across the little girl’s bloody knee.
To Caitlyn, within minutes after spreading her own blood across Jasmine’s knees, it seemed like a thin, pink fabric slowly grew across the edges of the bleeding scrapes. Before the advancing fabric had fully knitted into a scab, a second layer began to spread across the first, gradually began to cover the thin layer of pink. This new layer was light-colored marble skin. As it advanced, it looked like new skin had been grafted into place.
Caitlyn was mesmerized.
And terrified.
SEVENTY-ONE
The train was slowing for its next scheduled stop when Pierce opened the bathroom door and backed into the swaying corridor.
Razor had been standing in front, as if waiting to use it, ensuring no one would enter while Pierce bound the woman who had been using the fishing line garrote. He caught a glimpse of the woman curled up inside on the floor. Just above a swatch of hair that covered her lower face like a beard, her eyes were wide—fury, maybe, or fear—but it looked like Pierce had done a good enough job binding her using the fishing line, shoelaces, and lengths of cloth ripped from the loose black jacket Razor had been wearing earlier.
“Nice touch,” Razor said. It wasn’t necessary to mention what Razor meant. Pierce had stuffed the wig deep inside the woman’s mouth, wrapping it in place with a strip of ripped cloth, hair sticking in all directions.
Pierce shrugged. “She can breathe.”
Razor was trying to put this together. He had painstakingly thought through every detail to set up a meeting with Pierce without risking his own capture. Getting Illegals—the kid and the hooker—to deliver his messages had been simple. Timing the train was a little more complicated, but worth it; if Pierce had tried to take other agents onto the train, Razor could have escaped easily, and he’d been watching Pierce’s approach from the train window to ensure Pierce was alone.
Razor had seen two women get on the train with Pierce and had waited stop after stop, trying to decide if either was connected with him or to him. When Razor had made the final approach, in his simple disguise, he’d seen the woman behind Pierce. Thinking trap, he’d noticed something much different instead.
But why had Pierce been a target?
“May be better if she can’t breathe,” Razor said. Throwing it out there to see what he could learn from the answer.
“Be my guest,” Pierce said, hand on the door, ready to open it. “All you’ll need to do is pinch her nostrils. She’s not in a position to stop you.”
The answer had given him nothing.
Didn’t matter too much, Razor thought. He still had the leverage he’d planned to use with Pierce before this complication.
Razor had Caitlyn.
Pierce didn’t.
“Killing’s not my style,” Razor said.
“Mine either,” Pierce said. He rubbed his neck. Gingerly. The fishing line had cut through in a few places, and when he pulled his hand away, his fingers were smeared with blood. “But I was tempted.”
Pierce gave the door handle a quick twist, breaking it off.
Razor noticed that Pierce tucked the handle in his pocket instead of dropping it. That did tell him something. Pierce was careful. And smart.
“An old move,” Pierce said. “But effective. It’ll give us a couple hours. Enough that we can make it back on the train in the opposite direction.”
He paused before asking Razor, “You like coffee?”
Five minutes later, they’d crossed the platform and caught the inbound train. They found the restaurant compartment, where Pierce had ordered coffee.
What Pierce hadn’t told Razor was that while he was tying up the assassin in the bathroom, he’d made a call behind the closed door. There’d be someone in New York to collect her. He also hadn’t mentioned that if Razor had called his bluff and tried to kill the woman, Pierce would have stepped in to stop it. Dead women can’t talk; Pierce wanted her alive and held because what she knew would be helpful, sooner or later.
He’d called in a few favors to his New York contacts. They came from the rough side of town, and they’d get answers from her. First thing Pierce wanted to know was if the kill attempt had been authorized by the agency or the military. That would make a big difference to Pierce’s long-term future. Short term, though, he had an unlikely partner.
Pierce looked over his cup at this new partner, who’d chosen cola, on ice, wedge of lemon.
“How old are you?” Pierce asked. It was more a rhetorical question. As a lead in. Pierce already knew the kid was twenty-two.
“Not ancient.” Leaving it unsaid. Like you.
“When you’re ancient,” Pierce said, “you know that a couple of colas a day adds up to a lot of sugar. Keep doing this, by the time you get to my age, you’ll weigh double.”
“You pick your poison. I’ll pick mine.”
“Fair enough.” Pierce sipped at his coffee, waiting. Razor had been the one to make the move for them to get together.
“I can’t see you having any reason to trust me,” Razor said.
“Which is another way of saying you’re not going to trust anything I say. How about let’s get straight to it. What do you want?”
“Let me ask first. That woman who tried to kill you, it have anything to do with Caitlyn?”
Pierce continued sipping his coffee. He was confident his face wouldn’t reveal any answers.
“I doubt someone from the agency wants you dead,” Razor said. “You were on the train to make contact with me. Why get rid of you before getting me? So it had to be someone outside the agency. If it was about Caitlyn, who else knows what’s happening? And how do they know? It wasn’t until night before last that the Enforcers picked her up.”
Same questions Pierce wanted answered. Or rather confirmed. His guess was the military, stirred up after Wilson tracked down who had been at Swain’s the night before.
“What do you want?” Pierce asked Razor.
“Maybe we should be working together,” Razor said. “I can keep you in safe places over the next few days.”
“We’re opposite sides of the table here,” Pierce said. “My job is to put you in custody. Not look for sanctuary.”
“Because you want Caitlyn. I got that figured out.”
“Yet here you are.”
“And here you are. Haven’t tried anything to put me in custody. Like pulling an emerge
ncy cord, stopping the train, and getting it put in lockdown. Or taking me down right now and getting someone on the train to call in that you’ve got me captured.”
“Maybe I made a call while I was tying up the woman. Maybe agents will swarm us at the next stop.”
“You’re not that stupid,” Razor said. He hadn’t touched his soda yet. The glass was sweating slightly, bubbles still accelerating up the sides. “Can’t be coincidence that someone tried to take you out. It’s possible that it’s unrelated, but come on. What are the chances that with all that’s happening, there’s some other factor involved?”
“Tell me why you wanted to meet,” Pierce said. “Or are you too stupid to figure out I’m not interested in talking? Just listening.”
“I’ve lost a lot of motivation to talk,” Razor said. “I’ve just learned that someone wants you dead, and it’s got to be someone well connected. Until I know who and why, I’m going to wonder if you’re still in a position to help me.”
“Depends what you want.”
Razor finally picked up his soda. He drank through the straw, keeping an eye on Pierce. He drank all of it. Slowly. Like he was taking time to think.
“Here’s my bet,” Razor finally said, setting the glass aside. “Whoever wants you dead is outside the agency, and the reason is because this ‘whoever’ also wants Caitlyn. That means whoever it is doesn’t have any fear of the agency or doesn’t expect the agency can help you. So you’re going to need Caitlyn, either to save your own life or to give the agency some leverage. I bet we end up on the same side of the table.”
Pierce had to admit, only to himself, that the kid was sharp.
“That would mean you’d have to trust me,” Pierce said. “I don’t see that happening.”
“As long as I hold on to what you want until I can get away safe, I’ll be fine.”
“Fair enough.” Pierce felt the coffee kick in. Or maybe it was a delayed buzz from his near death. It had been like this a few other times. In the moment, all you can do is react. Later, when it was safe, the shakes would start.
But it wasn’t safe yet. Wilson and his son were in danger. Pierce needed more information to decide if he and Wilson had been given up by the agency.
“That mean I won my bet?” Razor asked.
“I don’t make bets I’d lose,” Pierce said. “And yes, I might need a safe place for the next couple days.”
“Then I’ll go first,” Razor said. “There’s a guy named Swain. He thinks I’m going to deliver Caitlyn this afternoon to an address of his choice. An old-fashioned exchange. The girl for money.”
“You’re not going to deliver?”
“Depends on who will give me more for her,” Razor said. “My plan was for this to be a negotiating session. Highest bidder wins. You need to prove to me you’re in a position to deliver whatever you promise to get her first. So start by telling me why the agency wants her so bad.”
SEVENTY-TWO
I was sent into Appalachia not long ago,” Pierce told Razor. He was going to play this cautiously, give out as little as he could. If it turned out the agency had nothing to do with the assassin on the outbound, he still had his duty. On the other hand, if the agency had cut him loose, he couldn’t afford to give up all his knowledge on this. It was becoming obvious that secrets were leverage and that Razor had more than a few himself.
“Our government worked out a deal with the Appalachians,” Pierce continued. “My job was to bring back a scientist who’d fled there before the Wars.”
“Jordan Brown,” Razor said. “Destroyed the genetic research, took a surrogate mother with him, the woman pregnant with Caitlyn. Jordan left Swain behind to play the straight man. You missed catching him, and Jordan sent Caitlyn Outside to go to Swain.”
“You know so much, why bother asking me about it? Or you just like showing off?”
“Letting you understand that if you start lying to me, chances are I’ll figure it out. Then you and me are done. I’ll just deliver her to Swain without you.”
“Or I make sure you don’t leave this train unless you’re in custody.”
“You already told me you want a place to hide. That doesn’t sound like someone who can take me in and expect either of us to survive. I love games, but here’s the time and place it makes sense to come at you straight.”
Razor leaned back and lifted his shirt. “See this scar? Guy named Melvin cut me good. I know you know that. You saw it on tape.”
Pierce raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Razor said. “That surprises you too. But I had a good talk with Leo. You’ll remember him from security. Not so skinny. Not so smart. Smells bad.”
“I’m on board,” Pierce said quietly. “No games.”
“What’s significant here,” Razor said, “is that you’re looking at a scar. Not a day-old cut that’s barely had time to scab.”
Razor dropped his shirt.
Pierce leaned forward. “Show me that again.”
Earlobes. That was it. Jimmy’s ear. There had not been much of a scab.
Razor obliged. Pierce looked closely. Razor had the flat belly of youth. The scar wasn’t even pink anymore. Pierce couldn’t think of any way that Razor had faked this. It had been clear on the video review that Melvin had hit Razor with the knife. Pierce had seen blood splatters on the floor.
“He slashed Caitlyn too,” Pierce said.
“She stopped bleeding by the time we were in the penthouse suite. Something like that shouldn’t happen. You’re telling me you didn’t know about this?”
“My job was to find Jordan and Caitlyn. I’d been briefed on why he was a fugitive and likely places to find him. Later, what they told me about the girl was the genetic altering. We knew it was wings. We’d seen copies of the x-rays.”
“You had no idea about the blood?”
“Here’s me coming at you straight,” Pierce said. “I knew it involved genetics. That’s all, not the specifics. Our goal was simple. Bring her in. Best case, we wanted her alive. Worst case, we were told that her body had enough genetic information to meet the agency objectives.”
“That’s cold.”
“I had to stop thinking about what was cold and what wasn’t a long time ago. I don’t make moral decisions.”
“What happened was her fingers were smeared with her blood,” Razor said. “I touched my cut after my fingers were smeared with her blood, and a couple minutes later my belly is warm and I look down and the bleeding’s stopped. Two hours later, it’s a fresh scar. Today, looks like I’ve had this scar all my life. Is that as scary to you as it is to me?”
“Yeah,” Pierce said. Blood. Pierce thought of the vials he’d seen in the woman’s purse.
“I don’t make moral decisions either,” Razor said. “Chances are I’m colder than you’ve ever been. Selling her to the highest bidder is going to be what keeps me alive. Whoever gets her can do what they want with the miracle properties of her blood. Help the human race or sell it for a million dollars an ounce. Doesn’t matter to me. Reason I’m coming at you straight is because it’s going to be helpful to both of us to understand how much is at stake here.”
“You know all I know so far,” Pierce said. “I wasn’t able to get either of them in Appalachia. Agency mounted a priority hunt for her Outside.”
“Including a search for Billy and Theo.”
“Want to tell me how you got the glasses with the tracking device?”
“So far,” Razor said. “I’ve told you a lot more than I’ve heard. I’d like to listen.”
“They weren’t difficult to find. Appalachian refugees are given work permits, allowed a chance to integrate. We had them followed, kept close surveillance on them, hoping they’d make contact with the girl. I got all the reports. Agency was watching them close and had to rescue them from a soovie camp. We decided at that point it would be easier to track them by GPS and we let them go. About the same time, our computers tracked that she’d been picked up by Enforc
ers. You know the timeline from there. Video from Melvin’s wheelchair gave us enough of a face profile that we found you when you made a visit to Swain. Caitlyn sent you to him, right? Why?”
“You don’t get that information yet. Let me ask you again. Who tried killing you?”
“Don’t know,” Pierce said. “Someone in New York—someone I can trust—is going to find out from her. That’s why I dumped her where she could be found when the train gets there.”
“The assassin’s worth more to you alive than dead. Cold. I like that.”
“There’s more,” Pierce said. “I turned over the operation files to someone inside the agency. It means nobody’s going to give up hunting you just because I’m out of it. My guys know I went on the train to meet with you. Whether or not the agency set up the kill attempt, with me missing, they’re going to throw ten times the manpower at this to find you.”
“I appreciate the warning.”
“Isn’t you I’m worried about,” Pierce said. “The longer you stay alive, the longer I stay alive. So make sure you’re just as good against them as you were against me.”
Pierce gave Razor a tight smile. “Like you said. Cold.”
SEVENTY-THREE
Pierce glanced at Razor as Wilson answered. Pierce put it on speaker. “What did you find out?” Pierce asked. “Did the agency send the woman killer after me?”
“No,” came the answer. “Definitely not. You don’t have to worry about anyone inside the agency. It’s an outside source. My guess would be your guess. You triggered something by asking about the visitor last night.”
“That something won’t be going away. I want to play this safe.”
“Safe?”
“I’ve got a source that can lead me to her,” Pierce said. Another glance at Razor.
“Who? Where?”
“Not so fast,” Pierce said. “I trust you. Let’s be clear on a plan of action. I’m thinking if the agency gets her and protects her, she’s important enough that nothing is going to happen to your son while we hold her. Stalemate. We have her. They have your son. Gives you time to negotiate for your son. Time to find him.”
Flight of Shadows: A Novel Page 24
