by Kyle Mills
“Do you think they know we’re here?” Carly said.
“It wouldn’t surprise me. What we can be certain of is that they’ve noticed they’re being investigated. We were following Mason’s money through his maze of bogus charities and offshore corporations when someone started collapsing it all. They’re pulling back, trying to slam the door on anything that could be used to track them.”
“Is it going to work?” Richard asked.
“Hell no, it’s not going to work,” Xander responded angrily. “When Bill gets his teeth into something, he doesn’t let go.”
Garrison acknowledged the compliment with a respectful nod. “It’s going to be tough to penetrate it all. Particularly when the people in this room are the only ones who have the big picture—”
“And that’s the way it’s going to stay,” Xander said. “One leak and we’re going to have every government hack and tabloid reporter on the planet parked on my lawn. As long as no one knows, we’ve got room to maneuver.”
By that, Richard assumed the old man meant that he was free to do whatever he wanted—like ransacking a crime scene and carting off evidence. Or worse. The desperation that made Xander such a valuable ally also made him dangerous. He was a cornered animal, and they were standing way too close.
“Dr. Draman,” Garrison said, “in order to make this drug, I assume they’d have to have some kind of a lab or production facility. Is that right?”
Richard nodded.
“Could you write me up a description of what that facility might be like? What kind of equipment it would have in it, what kind of materials they’d be using?”
“I’d need to think about it.”
“Then think about it,” Xander said. “But we need a list by eight o’ clock tonight. Do you understand? Eight o’ clock.”
Xander watched as one of his security men led the Dramans out, waiting until they were out of earshot before turning back to Garrison. “Have you found their daughter yet?”
He shook his head. “We know she’s with a retired soldier named Burt Seeger. He has a fair amount of intelligence training, though, and he’s being very careful.”
“I don’t want to hear excuses, Bill. Find her. If things don’t go our way, I need to have something the people we’re looking for want. Something I can bargain away.”
45
Upstate New York
May 17
Richard settled a little deeper into the backseat of the SUV as it trailed Xander’s limo through light highway traffic. It had been three days since Chris Graden’s house was ransacked, and they’d spent all of it confined to Xander’s compound.
The inactivity was slowly driving him crazy—there was nothing to keep his mind occupied other than staring distractedly at the pages of books he’d found in the basement library or wandering aimlessly around the grounds. Carly had taken over the cooking from Xander’s overwhelmed personal chef and was now leading the team that prepared three meals a day for the ever-expanding security force stationed on the grounds. At least it kept her from spending her days dwelling on their daughter, Mason, and everything else. Like he did.
“How did you think Susie sounded when we talked to her this morning?” Carly said in a tone that suggested she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“I think she sounded fine,” he lied.
Carly lowered her voice to the point that the men in the front seat wouldn’t be able to hear over the road noise. “Do you think we’re making a mistake not having him bring her to us?”
Richard put a hand in hers and squeezed gently. “I miss her too. But we’ve talked about this.”
At first, the army that Xander had amassed was reassuring. But it was becoming increasingly clear that the old man was taunting Mason and his people. That he was looking for a fight.
Better to keep Susie as far away as possible and hope that if Mason managed to get to them, he would lose interest in her. She was no threat to him or anyone else.
“But what if she gets sick?” Carly said. “What if we’re not there?”
“Gets sick” was the euphemism that had evolved for “dies.” Like all euphemisms, though, it had lost the power to hide its meaning after too many years of use.
“I wish I had an answer, Carly. But I don’t.”
They fell silent as they swept through the gate of a private airport and came to a stop in front of a jet with Xander’s corporate logo on the tail. As they climbed out of the SUV, the old man was already rising into the plane on a hydraulic lift. Two guards rode along, facing outward with hands hidden suggestively in their jackets.
“Richard, Carly!” Xander said, waving as they climbed into the plane. “Back here.”
His wheelchair had been secured behind a small table, and they took the seats across from him.
“How’ve y’all been doing? We making you comfortable? I hear Carly’s been cooking up a storm.” He seemed even more manic than he had that day at Chris’s house. It was clear that he was feeding off his competition with Mason, but his increased energy came off as dangerous—the blinding glow of a light bulb right before it exploded.
He opened a folder lying on the table and spread out six large photographs. August Mason was there, but Richard didn’t recognize the people in the other five.
“Who are they?” Carly said.
“Wealthy, powerful men who have died since around the time Mason reappeared, but whose bodies have never been recovered.”
“That seems like a lot,” Richard said.
“It’s more than a lot. It’s a freakishly high number,” Xander said, an arrogant smile threatening to split his chapped lips. “Based on history, the probability of all these men disappearing is more than a million to one. And I doubt that’s all of the people involved. There are probably more still in their natural state.”
“Natural state?” Richard said as the plane began to accelerate up the runway.
“People who are involved but haven’t been treated yet. Like Chris Graden. It’s not easy to orchestrate these deaths, and they’re already pushing it with the number they’ve done.”
Carly tapped the table next to the photos. “So you found these people? Is that where we’re going?”
“Even better,” he said, pressing a button on the wall that released the clamps securing his wheelchair. “Now enjoy the flight.”
They both twisted around in their seats, watching him roll up the aisle and disappear through a curtain near the front. When Richard finally faced forward again, the anger was clearly visible in his wife’s face.
“We’re in the air, and he still won’t tell us where we’re going,” she said.
“He likes to be in control.”
“This goes beyond control, Richard. Haven’t you noticed? He isn’t outraged by these people. He doesn’t care that they tried to kill us or Susie, that they’re keeping a drug that could save millions—maybe billions of people—to themselves. It seems like the only thing he thinks Mason’s done wrong is not include him in their little cabal.”
Richard didn’t respond. He’d known from the beginning that they were making a deal with the devil, but what choice did they have? The only thing that mattered was giving Susie a chance to grow up.
“Do you ever wonder what he’s going to do with it?” Carly continued.
“Use it, I would think.”
“Yeah. But after that. Will he build a company around selling it and become the richest man in the world? Or will he keep it under lock and key?”
Richard leaned his head back and let out a long breath. “I don’t know, Carly. I just don’t know.”
46
West of Boise, Idaho
May 17
His watch read one in the morning, but Richard Draman didn’t even know what time zone they were in anymore. He and Carly had been ushered off the jet and into yet another black SUV that had immediately accelerated onto a maze of unfamiliar back roads. As usual, the men in the front seat refused to answer
even the most innocuous question.
He and Carly matched the silence of their escorts, watching the dark blur of trees on the side of the road and reading street signs for clues to their location. Beyond the vaguely reassuring fact that they were in English, there was little to be learned.
A distant glow became visible through the windshield, and he quickly identified its source—a biomedical research campus similar to the ones he’d spent most of his adult life in.
“What is that?” Carly asked as they sped toward it.
Richard silently mouthed the response along with the driver. “I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”
The man inside the tiny guardhouse was definitely familiar. One of the guards who handled the dogs on the estate? One of the snipers who had been sitting in the windows of Chris Graden’s house?
They weaved through the brick and glass buildings, finally stopping in front of one at the back. Bill Garrison was standing out front, waiting patiently for Xander’s driver to complete the complex process of extricating his boss from the vehicle.
Richard and Carly took the hint and stepped cautiously from the SUV, looking around them at the spotlight-created shadows and trying not to imagine what might be waiting in them.
“It’s good to see you both again,” Garrison said as they approached. Behind him, Xander was being wheeled into the building’s heavily guarded lobby.
“What is this place?” Richard said as they were led inside.
“Let’s go on up, Doc. You’re gonna like this.”
Xander had staked out a corner in the tiny elevator, and they squeezed in next to him as Garrison inserted a key above the buttons.
They rose to the top floor where the doors opened directly into a laboratory that made his own research facility look like it was put together with stuff found at Kmart.
“This is it?” Richard said. “You found it already? The place where they’re making the drug?”
“I told you Bill was a miracle worker,” Xander said.
Garrison seemed uncomfortable with praise. “It really wasn’t as hard as you’d imagine. We just followed the sales of the equipment on the list you gave us. This kind of machinery generally goes to well-known—or at least well-documented—companies. All I had to do was focus on ones that didn’t fit the bill.”
Richard looked back at the closed elevator doors and then at the cameras angling down at them from the ceiling. Was someone watching? Did Xander even care?
“How did you get access?” Carly asked.
“They don’t own the building,” Garrison said. “They probably decided that buying real estate in the U.S. left too much of a paper trail. Easier just to rent.”
“So who does own the building?”
A broad smile spread across Xander’s face, stretching the loose skin into something grotesque. “As of this morning, I do.”
A walkie-talkie hanging from the side of his wheelchair crackled to life, and he picked it up.
“We’ve got two SUVs coming our way at high speed,” a voice said.
Xander rolled his eyes in feigned impatience. “It seems we have a leak.”
Garrison nodded serenely. “Unavoidable. Nothing to be done.”
“Nothing to be done? We can get the hell out of here,” Richard said. “Look, we’ve come up against these people before. They don’t play around.”
“And I do?” Xander snapped, spinning his chair and starting toward the covered windows. “Come!”
They did as they were told, but when Xander toggled a switch that opened the shades, Richard pushed his wife behind him. It was difficult to see through the glass into the relative darkness of the parking area, but anyone outside would be able to see them as though they were standing on stage. And as well equipped as this lab was, bulletproof glass generally wasn’t an option.
Garrison dimmed the lights, and the scene below sharpened. For the moment, everything was as still as a photograph—just empty streets and silent buildings.
The sound of racing engines and squealing tires came first, followed by two black SUVs that looked almost identical to the one they’d arrived in.
“This is crazy,” Richard said as they skidded to a stop in front of the building. “We’ve got to get—”
“Shut up,” Xander responded as four men jumped from the lead vehicle and three more from the other. They were wearing street clothes, but all had assault rifles hanging across their chests on short straps.
Carly grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him back from the glass just as Xander rolled toward it.
“Light ’em up,” he said into the walkie-talkie.
A moment later, the two SUVs and the men who had arrived in them were covered in tiny red dots. They didn’t even bother to aim their weapons, instead raising their hands and remaining completely motionless as they squinted into the shadows that had worried Richard when they arrived.
“Should we take them out?” came the voice over the radio.
Xander turned his chair and looked back at them. “What do you think, Carly? It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea. At least some of those guys are probably involved in tracking down your daughter. Should we get rid of them?”
“You mean murder them?” she said. “You can’t do that.”
“No?” he said, seeming to enjoy her horror and confusion. “I doubt they’ll have the same reservations when they finally catch up with little Susie.”
She didn’t answer, and he affected disappointment at her weakness before speaking into the walkie-talkie again. “Just hold ’em ’til we’re done. Then set ’em loose to do whatever they want.”
The implication was clear and obviously intended. If anything happened to Susie, it would be their fault. Of course, the idea that he based his decision on their wishes was laughable. More likely, he wasn’t confident enough in his above-the-law status to order the deaths of seven human beings while sitting in a lab he’d broken into.
Xander’s men separated themselves from the shadows, and their shouts were audible through the glass, though too muffled to be understood. Their captives dropped their weapons and fell to their knees with their hands behind their heads. Xander was clearly disappointed in the orderliness of the scene. Deep down, he’d probably hoped for something more visceral. Something that would run a jolt of omnipotence through his failing body.
“Do you want them questioned?” Garrison asked.
“No,” the old man responded. “They don’t know anything.”
“How can you be sure?” Richard said.
“Because Mason isn’t stupid enough to tell a bunch of hired muscle something we could use,” he responded and then pointed back into the lab. “Now quit talking, get a marker, and put an X on everything you want. There’ll be a truck here in ten minutes.”
47
1,800 Miles East of Australia
May 17
The waterfall had a perfection of flow that suggested a human hand in its design. Oleg Nazarov stood before it, staring at the sun’s reflection and letting the crash of it fill his ears. Karl was staring at the water too, but he remained silent and opaque.
“Why wasn’t the lab shut down and moved weeks ago?” he said, finally.
Nazarov’s heart felt hollow in his chest, as though it knew he didn’t have much more time. Before agreeing to subordinate himself to the group, he had wielded enormous influence—near omnipotence in his small corner of the world. Now he was nothing.
“Our manpower is extremely limited. I’m trying to make everything top priority, but obviously that’s impossible.”
“What could be more of a priority than the lab?” Karl’s voice cut through the sound of the falling water with surprising ease.
“Mason and the others—ensuring that they aren’t discovered and captured.”
Nazarov shared Karl’s distaste for excuses, and he was loath to give them. But in his current situation, it seemed wise to overcome that bias. The truth in this case was that he had been outsmarted. He’d take
n Xander’s reluctance to hide his activities as bravado— a dying man trying to wield the last of his power. And that was undoubtedly partly the case. But it had also lulled Nazarov into carelessness about watching for less overt activities—such as the sale of the building that housed the lab to a company carefully designed to look like an unremarkable real estate investment group.
Karl opened his mouth to speak but seemed to lose his thought. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Or maybe it was just the mist.
“What did he get from the lab?” Karl said.
“Everything. Computers, equipment, files. And the refrigeration unit.”
Karl seemed to want to lash out. He looked around him with awkward, jerky movements, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Projected damage?”
“They’ll get into the refrigerator and find some of the components for the therapy stored there. I spoke with Mason, and he says there’s little they can learn from them.”
“And the therapy itself? Can they access that?”
In what had been yet another stroke of devastating luck, a dose had recently been completed for one of the group scheduled for transition. It too was contained in that refrigerator.
“It’s in a separate protective case that’s all but impenetrable.”
“All but?”
“There are no certainties, Karl. But we’re taking steps to further reduce the chance that they can penetrate the container.”
“The computers?”
“Everything is heavily encrypted. I’m told by our technical people that it would take even America’s National Security Agency years to crack.”
48
Upstate New York
May 18
“Could we shorten this counter so it doesn’t go all the way to the wall?” Richard Draman said.
The contractor ran a finger along the blueprints spread out on a piece of drywall and nodded. “No problem. They told me if you want a solid gold statue of yourself twelve feet high, you get it.”
