by Dana Lyons
“I’m going to start calling you Benjamin Buttons. You look younger every time I see you.”
He smiled. “I could say the same to you.”
His defenses down, she noted relaxation around his eyes she’d never seen before. An aura of calm replaced his usual frenetic energy.
Exhaustion? Or something else?
“How’s Nobility doing in Europe?”
Before answering, he watched as the FBI team came on board. A dozen tough-baked men carried on cases of assault equipment. They filed past, an in-your-face reminder of how high the stakes were.
Lazar’s expression clouded. Tiny muscles rippled in stressful reaction as the men went by, a clear sign of his aversion to death and the purveyors thereof.
He coughed and cleared his throat to answer her. “Nobility is splendid, performing exactly as I predicted. I’ve shipped quantities of the formula on to Paris, Rome, Berlin, and Madrid.” He chuckled. “By the time I left London, all the staff were asking me for samples for themselves.”
“Did you give them Nobility? How does that make you feel? Isn’t Nobility for humanity what you always wanted?” She peered close, wanting more than just his words.
“It doesn’t matter what I want. It’s what’s best for the world that’s important,” he added as he glanced out the window.
His answer was an unsatisfactory evasion. She wanted to hold his face still and interrogate him under close inspection. He’s definitely up to something.
Rhys looked over his shoulder at her from the next row of seats. He can take care of himself. Get some rest.
A couple hours in the air to Florida then they changed to a smaller plane to Puerto Rico where they picked up a helicopter large enough to carry the assault team for the last stretch of flight.
Once in the air on the helicopter, the FBI team leader went over the operation briefing. He spread out a map of the island. “This is a pre-dawn landing so we’re going in dark, but we’re not silent. We’ll have to make up for our approach with quick execution after we land.
“Satellite intel gives us a total of eighteen people on island. There are ten individual cabins on property located here. Agent Love tells us there was a celebration of about ten to twelve people by her estimates; Echo team is going to flush the cabins for these guests.”
He pointed elsewhere on the map. “We have a main house structure and two separate facilities we believe are house staff and security quarters. At the same time that Echo team collects the guests, Romeo team will advance to the security quarters. Once security and the guests are subdued, Lima team will cover the other staff building. Go ahead, agent.”
“With Jarvis in the lead, Morgan, Kingston, Sinclair and I will take the main house and Getz. Jarvis will serve the warrant.” Dreya passed around the evidence bag with the blister pack. “This is what we’re looking for. If it’s what we think it is, you’ll look to find them in personal belongings still filled with a pill, or find the empties in the trash. Any questions?”
With the details settled, they took their seats and waited to land. Dreya settled in, surrounded by Rhys and Quinn, with Simon next to Quinn. They were closing ranks around her. She didn’t think there’d be trouble at Getz’s, but the FBI team always expected trouble. By virtue of their presence, emotions were high. In spite of her thoughts, the tension was catching.
She didn’t know what to expect from Getz. Was he so confident he was above the law that they would find him unawares? Or was he committed to the end, planning on going out with a blaze of glory?
* * *
Day 3 Late Night Prospect Island
Richard Getz paced his office. He fumed, wanting to wrap his hands around the one responsible for this disaster.
The FBI agent? Lazar? The bungling operative he learned of named Harper?
All these years of work and preparation, moving pieces around the chess board, making deals, other previous attempts and their failures, all culminating in this one day that should have been world changing.
Instead, the fatality numbers were plummeting. The entire pandemic had collapsed before it got started.
A knock at the door. “Come in.”
An inebriated senator poked his head through the door. “WTF Dick?”
Richard rubbed his face. These pre-bedtime floggings were getting old. “What is it, Senator?”
“Another day with deflating numbers? What happened to your beautiful, finely executed virus? Huh? What the fuck?”
“Unexpected circumstances, Senator.”
“Well, it’s all a bust. My contacts in the CDC say they’re reevaluating the lockdown. I’m blowing out of here tomorrow.” He waved an empty vodka bottle and sneered. “Thanks for the party.”
Richard closed the door and sat at his computer. He tapped the keys and an image of the woman FBI agent and Lazar filled his screen. He expanded the screen until their faces were all he could see.
The two people behind the demise of his perfectly executed operation.
“What now? We were so sure of success with Operation Patience we didn’t make any contingency plans.” He rubbed his face with exhaustion, giving up on the day. With a new set of problems to maneuver around, he collapsed into bed.
Sleep was fitful until the early morning hours. He had just reached deep sleep when the bedroom door burst open.
* * *
The helicopter landed and men jumped immediately to the ground. The Romeo and Echo teams slinked through the darkness. Team Leader Johnson held his arm up; everyone tensed with anticipation as he waited for their report. He gave a thumbs-up and Lima team took to the ground.
Dreya asked Jarvis. “You good on point?”
“Your Nobility good with sending an old man in first?”
She ducked her head to hide a grin. “We can always put Johnson first,” she offered.
He pretended to bristle. “You think I’m too old?”
“Not today, sir.”
“Good. You and your team stay behind me.”
Johnson gave the signal and they slipped to the ground. With the security disabled, Jarvis opened the front door and they went straight to the master bedroom.
They waited at the door to listen. Dreya’s hearing gave her the slow breaths of someone in deep sleep. She signaled Jarvis.
He kicked in the door and they rushed through, weapons drawn in a semi-circle around the bed.
Startled out of a deep slumber, Getz bolted upright in bed, shrieking. One hand covered his chest and his sleepy eyes bugged open. The moment froze in Dreya’s mind. Got you, you bastard.
“What the hell’s going on?” he screamed.
Jarvis stepped up with the warrant. “I have a warrant to search your premises signed by Chief Justice Robertson.”
Getz stumbled from bed and grabbed the document. “What are you searching for?”
Dreya held up the evidence bag. “Look familiar?”
His eyes bugged again and he sputtered in protest. “I’ll have all of you held responsible for this.”
Dreya stepped up and pulled his arms behind his back. “In the meantime, you’re going to sit out of the way.” She latched the cuffs on him with intense satisfaction. Every minute she lay on that airport tile floor, all she could think about was placing cuffs on the maniac responsible.
She pulled him into the dining room and set him in a chair. “Sit. Stay,” she commanded. Simon, Rhys, and Quinn stood at her back. Their emotions flooded her with relief, joy, excitement, and pride.
Hot damn, Simon exclaimed. Did we just save the world?
Sure feels like it, Quinn agreed.
Getz rose to a threatening stance. He jutted his chin out. “Get me my phone. I’m calling the President.”
“No need,” Simon said, pushing Getz back into the chair. “He already knows we’re here.”
This guy gives me the creeps, Quinn complained.
Me, too, Rhys added.
She said, Simon and I have this. Bring in Lazar, then join the
search.
Getz glowered at them but kept his seat. Simon still simmered with disbelief over plans for genocide. How could anyone plan such a thing?
They’re called monsters, she answered.
Lazar entered, his hands in his pockets, a somber expression on his face. She tugged Simon aside as Lazar approached Getz.
“So, it’s the young man with high aspirations,” Getz said.
“Richard, how could you possibly do this?”
“Do what?” Getz spat. “Be responsible? Think out of the box? Do the right thing? Understand the problem? Is that what you mean?”
“This is your way of solving problems?” Lazar accused. “Mass genocide? Killing innocents, even children?”
“No one’s innocent,” Getz argued. “And no one’s above sacrificing for the greater good.”
“And whose idea of greater good are you referring to? Yours?”
“People with certain physical and behavioral traits don't do humanity any good. I speak of that which is beyond us and for the benefit of the species. You of all people should understand how undesirable DNA can debase the human gene pool.”
“You would breed people like stock? They have a name for that.” Lazar turned his back on Getz, disgust marring his features.
“Why not?” Getz proclaimed. “You breed out lesser traits from fine stock. Why should it be any different for a higher species? There are just those who don't deserve to live.”
“And you,” Lazar asked, “are a self-appointed God that gets to decide what’s desirable and what isn’t? You get to decide who deserves to live?”
“People decide for themselves,” Getz blurted.
Lazar turned his back on Getz again, giving Dreya a view of his face. She remembered a day when she thought Lazar suffered from the same affliction of self-appointed God complex. His face tensed, then he smiled. She wished she had a mind link with him, wanting to know what prompted him to smile like that.
What is he up to?
He turned back to Getz. “You look at humanity and see what you think should be discarded. I look and I see the beauty and potential in a creature made by God. Even you, Richard, have potential. Even you don't deserve to be killed.”
In a shocking display of tenderness, Lazar stroked Getz’s cheek with the back of his hand as he spoke. “Nowhere in time has murder been accepted unless in self-defense. Honoring ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is the benchmark of morality, of decency, of a higher consciousness. It’s a benchmark even you can still attain.”
Lazar abruptly turned and walked over to Dreya. “I’ve done all I can now. I’ll wait in the helicopter.” He marched off, leaving her again to wonder what he was up to.
Simon joined her watching Lazar leave. “I agree, he’s up to something.”
She asked Getz, “You have a safe. I have the right to it in the terms of the warrant.”
“Find it.”
Keeping her eyes on Getz, she told Simon, “Go out to the maintenance shed and find a sledge hammer or something big enough to tear this place apart.”
“Stop,” Getz moaned.
With an abrupt change of emotion, a wave of surrender came as his shoulders slumped. “In my master closet. The mirror pulls out from the wall. You’ll need me for the voice and eye scan.”
He acquiesced so quickly, she wondered if he had the safe wired to an explosive. She glanced at Simon; he shrugged. Let him open it.
They led him back to the closet. Dreya pulled out the mirror, stepped to the side and tensed. He calmly said, “Richard Getz,” and placed his eyes in range for the scan. The door to the safe popped open.
She pulled Getz aside as Simon explored the safe’s contents. His smiling face peeked around the safe door. “Guess what I found?” He waved a card of blister packs labeled 22-b and grinned. “Getz, next stop—Gitmo.”
Epilogue
The Oval Office
“Dr. Lazar, Agent Love—humanity owes you both and your team a tremendous debt,” the President said.
Dreya, with the boys at her back, accepted the President’s words. He had gratefully agreed to honor them privately in the Oval Office.
“Thank you, sir. Just another day on the job.”
“Well, you’ve certainly earned your country’s gratitude, indeed the world’s. I’d like to think if your country needed you and your team, that you’d answer the call?”
She glanced at her boys.
I think he just made us an offer. What do you say?
Where you go, I go, Rhys answered.
I’m in, Quinn voted.
Are you kidding? Simon exclaimed. Hell, yeah!
“Of course, sir. Any time.”
His secretary rushed in and pulled him aside. While they whispered, Dreya walked over to Lazar. “Headed to Congress for another dog and pony show? I can’t believe you’re going to press the flesh with them. You hate those people. Are you going to lobby for dispersal of Nobility?”
“I don't think that will be necessary.”
Something in the tone of his voice alerted her. His words once about delivering Nobility to all of Congress echoed through her memory. She grabbed his arm and raked her super eyes over him. “What have you done?” she hissed.
All the moments she’d thought ‘he’s changed’ skipped through her mind until she stopped herself. Why didn’t I see it sooner?
She laughed. “You took it, didn’t you? You took Nobility.”
“I had to in order to make the decision,” he said calmly.
A chill shot down her spine. Getz wanted to make decisions for people. “What do you mean, make the decision? Decision to do what?”
He looked her in the eye without pretense. “To make Nobility transferable with nothing more than a hug or a handshake.”
Background noise telescoped away. The sound of his steady beating heart filled her ears. His face was open to her, declaring his sincerity.
Her mind processed what she saw and felt from him along with his words until one question remained in her mind. She spoke slowly, afraid of what he would say. “Are you saying you already made Nobility like that?”
He blinked slowly, telling her ‘yes’.
“And all the Nobility you released for the pandemic is—”
“Contagious and spreading rapidly.”
“So that’s what you’ve been hiding,” she said. She recalled his tender moment with Getz and her mouth popped open. “That’s why you did that. And right afterward he surrendered!”
“I hear he’s asking for a checkbook so he can start dispersing his funds for truly philanthropic causes,” he said.
Her eyes bugged as she realized the extent of what he’d done. She glanced about to make sure no one could hear them, and hissed in his ear. “You shook hands with the President!”
He smiled with no contrition. “I did. And I sleep better for it.”
Snapping her mouth shut, a sudden thought arose she had to clarify. “No more shifters, right?”
“No more shifters by my hand. Nobility has evolved past that.” He glanced at the team chatting with Jarvis and the President. “Do you regret what being shifters has done to your life?”
She couldn’t look at her men without a deep well of happiness, desire and satisfaction filling her heart. “No regrets,” she exclaimed. “You’ve done something wonderful for us, and now for humanity. How long before Nobility drives us out of work?”
He chuckled. “I expect you have a few years yet.”
“So, you took Nobility in order to decide whether or not to deliver Nobility to humanity. Only you would come up with that solution.”
With utter humility, he shook his head. “I couldn’t decide on my own. I couldn’t be sure if I was making the decision or my ego was. In the end, if I wanted other people to experience Nobility, I had to go first.
“Now that I’m Nobilized, every decision is clarified with Noble logic. Ultimately, the pandemic pushed the decision. If Getz hadn’t done this, Nobility would still be in
the lab. But I’m satisfied with my decision and actions. Knowing what I know about Getz and his kind, the decision boiled down to one reason.”
How many times had she proclaimed humanity needed Nobility, but making the decision for all people? Curious, she had to know what ultimately drove him. “That being?”
“The children. Let children of all races and ages never again suffer in any way at the hands of people like Getz.”
The president waved and called them over. “Dreya, you and your team are welcome to the White House any time. I hope you have our number in your contacts.” He shook their hands robustly as they gathered at the door. He pulled Lazar aside. “Congress has asked to meet our savior of the day.”
Knowing the President had been Nobilized, Dreya read his face. His eyes were more relaxed, exuding a confidence beyond what she noticed before. She glanced down, knowing the path Lazar had set the man on … and everyone else.
On the way home, she shared the news. “Lazar made Nobility contagious and released it.”
Sudden pressure raced from mind to mind before everyone released a communal, Ah ha!
“So that’s why he went to Congress,” Quinn said.
“Good,” Rhys agreed. “I could go for a Nobilized world.”
“Hell, yeah,” Simon crowed. “Let the masses have it.”
Hating to put a damper on the good vibe, she mentioned, “Nobility is out, but we aren’t.”
“That’s a shame. I could have gone with the exposure,” Simon lamented.
“Maybe if there were other shifters,” Rhys added. “But being the only ones …”
A rapid thought raced through their collective mind.
We’d be freaks.
This was followed by an emotional shudder.
“Yeah,” Dreya said abruptly. “I think the world’s not ready for our secret.”
It broke her heart to say the words. In spite of being Nobilized, she still retained a measure of pride for what they were, what they were capable of. “Maybe when Nobility spreads and people become less judgmental.”
