“Well, aside from tapping their phone and recording some conversations, I don’t know. But we have bigger problems.” That got Jake’s attention. “Here’s the thing, while your internet security was really easy to breach, getting past your actual security in your building is going to be a bitch.”
“I was afraid of that. That building was meant to withstand a nuclear bomb, an alien invasion and the zombie apocalypse.”
“Yep. Pretty much. They’re using a state-of-the-art security system created by Zephyr—best in the business. Voice recognition, laserbeam floor grid, encrypted phone lines...the list goes on and on. Honestly, dude, I don’t know how you could break into this place unless you had Gandalf on your side.”
Jake swore under his breath and leaned against his chair, closing his eyes as a headache began to pound against his temples. Nathan tried to console him. “We’ll find a way,” his brother said, but Jake knew there was no other way.
“There’s no way we’re sneaking into that building. Maybe if it wasn’t underground...but this? Hell, we’re so screwed.”
James had to agree. “I’m sorry, man. I wish I had better news. I had thought that maybe if I could breach the security through the internet connections but...Zephyr is something else. They’re the best. The only way you’re getting into that building is if somebody wants you to get in. And I can’t imagine that happening.”
At that Jake perked up and sent a sharp look to Nathan. Nathan immediately began shaking his head. “No, man. Don’t even think about it. That’s a one-way ticket to dying.”
“Not necessarily. Our biggest problem is getting in—not getting out.”
“No. It’s too big of a risk.” Nathan was adamant against it. “I’m not letting my little brother walk to his death. There’s gotta be a better way.”
“There isn’t. Besides, all I got to do is get in. Once I get in I can find Kat and then we can get out.”
“And how do you think you’ll manage that? You think that they’ll just let you waltz in, grab your girl and walk out? The minute you show your face, you’re on lockdown. Come on, you know this. You’re not thinking with your head.”
James jumped in. “Actually, he might be onto something. If he could get in I could show him how to introduce an infection into the mainframe, to disable Zephyr long enough for all systems to go down for a short time. Sort of like on Jurassic Park when the fat guy tried to steal the dino sperm in that fake can of shaving cream.” He looked to Jake. “Do you know the layout of this building?” At Jake’s nod, James continued excitedly. “Good. Then while everyone else is running around trying to figure out what’s going wrong, you can swoop in and grab Kat and get out. It’s perfect. Although, to be honest, you still have a snowball’s chance in hell to make it work, but hey, what’s life without a challenge, right?”
Nathan scowled at James, not appreciating his humor. “Watch it. You’re talking about my brother’s life. This is a high-stakes game. Any wrong move can get us all killed. Try to remember that.”
“Hey, you asked me for my help. I didn’t say that I would supply an airtight solution. That’s all I got.”
Nathan shook his head clearly unhappy with the solution. “We’ll just have to think of something else,” he insisted, but Jake was already moving forward.
“No, this is the way it has to be. They want me—they can have me. But I’m walking in packing. I’m going to need supplies. Do you think you could get me a few things?”
“Such as?” Nathan asked warily.
Jake grinned. “The fun stuff. The stuff ID specialized in—spy-cam pen, fake skin patch, stuff that will help me get out of that place alive.”
Nathan nodded slowly. “Yeah, I can get you that stuff. I still think this is a risky idea. I don’t like it.”
“It’s all we got. We have to make it work.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have to like it.” Nathan scowled. He looked to James. “You think you can make a virus strong enough to take down the Zephyr system from the inside?”
“Hell, yeah. I’ve been working on something that could shut down most of Manhattan.”
Jake looked at James. “Why do you create these viruses if you have no intentions of unleashing them?”
James shrugged. “I get bored.”
Jake shook his head, not quite understanding a person like James but glad he was on their side. “You need a new hobby. I’ll make contact with Miles and tell him that I’m coming in. He’ll be more than happy to throw the doors open for me. With any luck he won’t realize that I know he’s up to his neck in corruption. In the meantime, Nathan, I need you to send some information to Miles’s boss, detailing what we think we know. It’ll be speculation and we have no proof but it will be enough to get her sniffing around. All we can do is pray that she’s not on his side and just as corrupt.”
Suddenly James chuckled and both Nathan and Jake turned to stare. “What’s so funny?” Jake asked.
“I was just thinking how similar this is to the situation at ID. Like I said, you brothers have a knack for finding trouble. You don’t find the humor? No? Huh. Guess it’s just me, then.”
It wasn’t funny at all. Jake had long looked down his nose at Nathan’s branch of the government, considering it a rogue organization that operated on the fringe of the law. To find out that the Defense Intelligence Department was no better made him a bit sick to his stomach. It also made him wonder if he’d been fighting on the wrong side all this time. He liked to think he was the good guy. But who knows?
Nathan must’ve known about his inner turmoil and shook his head for Jake’s benefit, saying, “It’s not the same. Your department is far more cerebral than ID ever was. We were the muscle, you were the brains. There’s still good people inside of your department. Don’t lose faith. Come on, let’s focus on the important stuff, so we all don’t get our asses killed.”
Jake nodded, appreciating Nathan’s support even as a twinge of guilt followed. “Thanks, man. I might not deserve your help but I’m glad I have it.”
“There’s nothing about deserving—we’re brothers. I wasn’t there for you when you needed me, and that eats me up inside. You have no idea the guilt I carry. I know it was bad for you when I left. I was a kid and I didn’t know what to do. And I was being selfish. But I won’t put my needs above yours again. You were counting on me then and I failed. I won’t fail you this time.”
Tears burned behind Jake’s lids. He didn’t know what to say. Thankfully James jumped in to defuse the moment. “Are you guys gonna hug or something? Geesh...I feel like I’m surrounded by a bunch of girls. Let’s get a move on. We got a lot to do.”
Jake and Nathan shared a smile. Nothing else needed to be said. James was right—it was time to move on.
Besides, what mattered most was saving Kat. They’d figure everything else out later.
Chapter 21
Kat awoke with a start, realizing she’d fallen asleep at the desk again. She plucked a Post-it note from her forehead and stared blearily around her lab. How many days had it been? The state of events had begun to blur. The first batch of MCX-209 had gone terribly wrong. And her mind was numb with the horror of it. She’d made minor modifications to the formula with disastrous results. At about twelve hours, the subjects had begun to convulse. And then their brains had turned into mushy pulp. When the guards found them, brain matter had been leaking from their ears. It was horrific—something out of a movie that Kat would’ve never paid to see. And yet here she was again, getting ready to administer another sample to a new round of subjects. Her own brain felt ready to break.
Kat shoved a cookie down her throat, mindlessly chewing for the sugar rush that was keeping her synapses snapping. The door slid open and a stranger walked in, pushing a cleaning cart. Her spirits fell when she realized it was the janitor.
Miles
had already warned her that reaching out to anyone in this facility was a waste of time and dangerous to boot but she was nearing delirium and rational thought was slipping out of her grasp. “Can you help me?” she begged, sliding from her stool and walking toward the nervous-looking man as he avoided making eye contact. “Please? I’m a prisoner here! They’re making me do terrible things to innocent people.” When the man refused to answer and pushed his mop away from her, swabbing the floor quickly as if he were afraid she might jump on his back in an attempt to escape, she struggled to calm her rising hysteria and scratched out a quick note to thrust it at him with shaking fingers. “Please, take this note to the authorities. No one has to know that it was you. I’m going to lose my mind if they make me inject someone else with this drug.”
At that, the janitor peeped a quick look at her, faint horror in his expression. “You the one who killed those people?”
“What?” Kat drew back but then realized the janitor might’ve been the one to clean up the gooey messes left behind. She swallowed and nodded numbly but hastened to explain. “They’re making me do these things. I don’t want to. I told them the formula was dangerous but they’re forcing me to inject the subjects.”
“I can’t help you. Even if what you’re saying is true,” he mumbled, averting his gaze again. “Besides, how am I supposed to know if you’re telling the truth? There’s so many experiments going on in this damn place, it’s hard to know who’s talking straight because everything is so hush-hush. I keep my head down and do my work—that’s how I stay employed.”
And alive, Kat realized. New tears burned behind her lids. “What’s your name?”
He looked reluctant to share but answered, “George.”
“Nice to meet you, George. My name is Kat.”
George nodded and began pushing his mop again but Kat had to ask him another question, one that she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to. “You’re the janitor here? Are you the only janitor?”
“No, we have a night shift guy, too. Why?”
“They have my uncle here...I wondered if you’d seen him. He’s...disabled.”
George thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. “He’s an older guy? Seems kinda lost in the head?”
Kat nodded, her heart squeezing. “Yes. He has Alzheimer’s. Are they treating him well? Is he comfortable?”
Realizing she needed some kind of assurance, George nodded. “Yeah, they’re treating him real good. He’s in a decent bed and gets good food. They even have a nurse check in on him.”
She had no idea if George was feeding her a line of garbage but she accepted his answer in the hopes that it might be true. It was bad enough that she was stuck here, but doubly worse that they’d dragged her uncle Chuck into this horrid place, too. Her one saving grace was the knowledge that her uncle wasn’t truly aware of his surroundings any longer. Unlike her, he didn’t know that he was a prisoner because he was already a prisoner in his own mind. “Thank you, George,” she said, wiping at her tears.
George seemed touched by her gratitude and added, “You need to eat more than cookies and juice. Gotta keep your strength up. Load up on more protein if you can.”
“Thanks,” she murmured, suddenly thankful for the human kindness even if he couldn’t help her escape. “I’ll try.”
He nodded and pushed his cart out, leaving her alone again.
Kat returned to her stool and stared at her notes, wondering how to make the formula work. A part of her wondered if her subconscious was blocking her because she didn’t want the formula to work at all. She remembered the first time she’d realized she was onto something amazing for Alzheimer’s research. The thrill, the adrenaline rush, the potential had been seriously addicting. After that she’d worked tirelessly, almost giddily, too focused on the end game to consider the ramifications of a catastrophic failure. In some ways, she’d been just as single-mindedly determined as Miles to achieve her goal.
She wiped at the remaining moisture on her cheeks and wondered how her good intentions had managed to go so awry. Wasn’t that the way of things? The saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” was certainly appropriate here. And speaking of hell...
The door slid open and Camille brought in the first subject of the day, this time a woman. Another drug addict. It broke her heart that no one would miss them, and Kat swore if she ever managed to get out of this place she would try to find their families to let them know what had happened. She didn’t know how she would make that happen but she knew someone had to try. It wasn’t right what Miles was doing, and it scared her that this was even happening. She was living in the world of Jason Bourne, and she’d never really been a fan of spy movies. Now she was starring in one.
“This is Anna,” Camille said by way of introduction. Frankly, Kat found this little game a bit macabre. Camille seemed to enjoy it, though. “Anna is very eager to be part of this study. She has suffered from her addiction for a very long time. Haven’t you, Anna?”
Anna, skin and bones from the waste of her addiction, nodded vigorously. “I’m willing to do anything to get off the drugs. I’ve suffered for so long. I’ve lost my family, I’ve left my job, I’ve left everything that ever meant anything to me. So if being part of this test study group helps me and helps other people beat this, I’m willing to do it. Maybe if I get better I can go see my kids again.” She glanced shyly at Kat. “Do you got kids?”
“No,” Kat murmured, unable to meet the woman’s gaze, although she realized with a start that she could be pregnant at this very moment. She’d been so focused on seducing Jake because she’d been pretty sure she was going to die that she hadn’t given much thought to contraception. The realization rattled her so much that she completely lost focus and nearly dropped the syringe. Camille’s sharp voice brought her back to the present with jarring force.
“Doctor, are you all right?” Kat swung her gaze to Camille and jerked a short nod, not trusting her voice. She didn’t regret her choice to sleep with Jake and there was nothing that could make her want to take it back. Even if it meant she’d gotten pregnant. The odds hadn’t been in favor of conception because of the timing in relation to her cycle but that was no guarantee. What if one of Jake’s swimmers was particularly industrious? She smiled in spite of the gravity of her situation because she could imagine that if Jake was hardheaded and stubborn, perhaps his sperm were, too.
Camille gestured to the woman with a look in her eyes that said, get moving, and Kat advanced toward the woman with resignation, though the woman didn’t seem to notice her reluctance.
“That’s too bad. You’re young still, maybe someday. Before I got hooked on drugs, I was a good mom. I want to be a good mom again. Kids are good. They make life bearable. If I could do it all over again, I’d spend the rest of my life doing right by my girls,” Anna said with the sort of bleak wistfulness that could wrench a tear from the most stoic. Except from Camille, because she’d been created by stone, apparently.
“That’s very nice, Anna,” Camille said with perfunctory politeness. “Would you mind rolling up your sleeve so the doctor can give you the injection?”
“I hope this works,” Anna said, looking to Kat for reassurances.
The hope in Anna’s eyes made Kat want to scream, Run! You’re going to die! However, she could do nothing but smile wanly and say, “Thank you for volunteering,” nearly choking on the words. She sent Camille a withering stare, which bounced off the woman with little consequence. “This might pinch a little.” Kat administered the drug and felt a little piece of her soul die. Camille smiled and seemed the picture of kindness as she led the woman from the room.
This was the routine for the next four subjects—a scary little game where only Camille and Kat knew the stakes. After all five test subjects had been injected, Camille returned, much to Kat’s chagrin. She’d much rather spend t
ime with Miles if she had a choice, because when Camille spent time with Kat, she loved digging the knife in a little deeper about Jake, and with Kat’s current state of mind she was ready to smash a beaker over Camille’s head.
“You look dreadful,” Camille observed, her gaze trailing over the various instruments with a sense of detachment. “But then scientists like you, your looks aren’t so important, are they? Sometimes I envy people like you—plain, homely, with no expectations of beauty. Sometimes it’s such a burden to be as attractive as I am.”
Oh, boo hoo. Was she freaking serious? Kat glared. “Did you have a purpose here or was it just to bug me?”
“I’m just curious—why you? Jake has never batted an eye during a mission. He’s stoic, focused, a near-perfect soldier. Until you. You changed everything. And for the life of me I can’t figure out why. You’re skinny, you have no breasts and you sort of remind me of a mouse. It’s baffling.”
“Maybe he didn’t like shallow people,” Kat answered pointedly, her throat nearly closing on the wave of grief that followed. She couldn’t talk about Jake. It hurt so much. She’d only known him a short time but her heart didn’t seem to recognize that small fact. In her heart, she felt as if they’d known each other a lifetime. “Let me guess, you were a one-time fling? A one-and-done? Sucks to be cast aside, doesn’t it?”
Camille’s gaze narrowed. “Such a smart mouth to go with that genius brain.”
Kat shrugged. What a screwed-up conversation. She hated the idea of Jake being intimate with this awful woman. Her pretty face hid a monster’s soul. “Did you have a point?” Kat asked, done with this chat. It was bad enough knowing that Jake had betrayed her, but it was even worse knowing he was dead. She tried not to think about it, because the pain was crippling. “I have work to do. Don’t you have a job aside from pestering me?”
“You really should work on your personality. Because that’s all you have...well, I suppose you have your brains, too. At least for now.”
Moving Target Page 16
