“You’re very observant, Maritza.”
“Hey, it’s my job.”
“And clumsy.”
“I fall down constantly,” she said, laughing. “It’s part of my Chicana charm. Pull in here.”
As I approached the guard shack I could hear Cake’s “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” coming from a portable radio. I wanted to tell the guy to turn it off. Maritza grabbed her ID from her purse and dangled it past my face. I could smell her lavender perfume faintly. It blended wonderfully with her body’s natural scent and for a moment made me wish I had a future. The guard waved us through and I headed towards the opposite end of the parking lot nearest the building complex and past a sea of gigantic satellite dishes.
She got out, smoothed her skirt and jacket and removed a business card from her purse. Using her Sharpie she wrote something on the back. Then she leaned into the cab and handed me the card. I tried mightily not to stare at her cleavage.
“In case you decide to come clean,” she said. “My cell is on the back. Call me anytime.”
“I really don’t know anything.”
“Yeah, you do. Thanks for the ride, David.”
“It’s Dave.”
“You see, the thing is, I’ve decided it’s David. Hope those men in the grey suits don’t catch you.”
“They won’t.”
She smiled in a way that got to me—a little girl trapped in a smokin’, grown-up body. If I could’ve wished for anything at that moment it would be to have those hazel eyes looking down at me as I lay dying. She closed the door and walked off without looking back. As I watched her I realized that I was smitten. Minutes had passed and I hadn’t even thought about Holly. Weird. None of it mattered, though. Things were in motion. I was already approaching the darkness.
CHAPTER THREE
The Russian Girl
My plan was simple. Confront the evil and let everything else fall into place. Lame, huh? It was obvious that I was walking into a deathtrap, but I didn’t care. The hate I carried had eaten away everything soft and left behind a dry, cauterized shell drenched in a single purpose. The smart thing would have been to work with the cops—maybe even Maritza—to uncover the secret of Baseborn Identity Research and expose it to the world before it was too late. But no one had ever accused me of being smart.
I had left instructions with Cuco to wire my money to Guthrie in Mt. Shasta. I told him to sell the weapons and keep the cash for himself. He was a stand up guy and would do as I asked. These things would serve as my last will and testament.
I parked on a side street half a mile away from the industrial park. After locking the truck I walked to a nearby public park, found a seat on a bench next to a restroom and watched. The entire property consisted of low, drab buildings whose color echoed the grey, lifeless sky. Surprisingly, there were no walls or electrified fence—only ordinary, nondescript buildings with numbers.
I wiped the fog from my binoculars and scanned the complex. I’d been through this routine and had learned a lot. The operation was twenty-four seven. They had three shifts. The first started at midnight and went till eight. The second went from eight till four. And the last from four till midnight. Trucks came and went at all hours—mostly during the first shift. Deliveries were rare except for food. Every morning a Sysco truck would pull in, presumably to deliver supplies to the pizza and sandwich shops that were intermingled with the office buildings.
Baseborn Identity Research or “Hellborn,” as I came to call it, stood in the middle of the complex in one gigantic rectangular structure. Few deliveries came directly to the main entrance. A private delivery truck brought the mail to the front door, but I never saw the driver enter the facility. Someone always came out to receive the mail. And neither FedEx nor UPS ever dropped anything off. As for the black Escalades, I never saw a single one.
The bench I was sitting on was wet from the rain. It was noon and I was hungry. The second shift had ended and people were pouring in and out of the building. I still didn’t know what they did in this place, but there were a lot of employees—mostly men in regular clothes. Every so often, though, I would see a military uniform. I suspected that inside, scientists dressed in lab coats and hazmat suits carried on their dark experiments as they had in Tres Marias and Mt. Shasta.
As I said, my plan was simple if misguided. I ran across the street and headed directly for a side parking lot where I noticed a well-dressed woman walking briskly towards a silver Honda. It was Becky, Walt Freeman’s assistant from Tres Marias. I recognized the reddish-brown hair, red lips and pudgy build. I couldn’t see her eyes—she was wearing designer sunglasses—but it was her. Fortunately, the shift change was over so there was no one else around. As she took her keys from her purse, I came up behind her and jammed my Glock into the small of her back. She froze.
“Don’t scream,” I said.
Grabbing her arm I turned her around sharply to face me, which terrified her.
“Dave?” she said, her voice warbling. “What are you—”
“Where’s Walt Freeman?”
“I . . .”
I felt feverish as I thought of Holly falling onto that cold cave floor, dead from a bullet to the head. That single memory made hurting Becky easy. Though Walt hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger, he was ultimately responsible.
“Where?” I said.
“He’s in a meeting.” Her startled eyes darted from side to side behind her sunglasses.
“There’s no one else here,” I said. “Take me to him. Now.”
Becky was not cut out for this kind of work. She was an admin—nothing more. A voluptuous, sexy tool who liked to dress well and didn’t mind seducing the occasional city official when necessary. But she didn’t like getting her hands dirty.
“I can’t,” she said.
Something told me she wasn’t as weak as she pretended to be. Without hesitation I butt-stroked her on the jaw, which sent her glasses flying.
“I won’t ask you again.”
Tears of pain ran from her eyes, ruining her makeup. She was shaking now. She touched her jaw and looked in horror at the fresh blood on her fingertips. Then she backed away from her car and led me towards a secure side door.
“I need to use my card,” she said, barely able to get the words out.
Her hand jittering badly she reached into her purse, removed her ID and swiped it through the card reader. I opened the door and pushed her through. The long hallway was beige and devoid of interior design with a series of locked doors on either side. The walls had been recently painted. We walked slowly towards a set of double doors.
“He-he’s in a conference room, but I don’t think you’ll make it inside.”
“That’s my problem,” I said.
When we reached the doors, Becky hesitated. Then she raised her card key and was about to swipe it when a deafening alarm sounded, echoing through the hallway. My heart racing I looked around quickly.
“What happened?” I said.
“I didn’t do anything, I swear!”
Shoving her aside I peered through one of the small windows and watched as men and women in business casual clothes moved in an orderly fashion and lined up against the walls as armed security guards swept the area, searching under desks and between file cabinets.
“What are they doing?”
“Someone’s escaped,” she said.
As I continued observing, Walt Freeman emerged from a conference room along with that scarred, black-suited undertaker that I’d seen in the Escalade. Both joined the others along the wall. Walt looked exactly as I remembered him—fifties with thinning grey hair, a ruddy face with swollen jowls and a bulbous nose dotted with burst blood vessels. His gut was huge as ever under his suit jacket.
The blood was pounding in my head. There was no way I would be able to get to Walt now—not with all those guards around. So I grabbed Becky by the shoulders. When she tried screaming I pressed her against the wall and put the gun to her temple.
With my free hand I grabbed her purse and dug through it, searching for her wallet. Then I found her driver’s license. The name read Rebekkah Loring, home address near West Hollywood. Dropping the purse I pointed the gun at her forehead. Like a robot in maintenance mode she stared straight ahead.
“You tell Walt I’m back,” I said, “and that I’m coming for him. Tell him!”
As I backed away she collapsed into a sitting position, twirling her hair like a child. Then I turned and ran back down the hallway and out of the building.
Outside, the rain was coming down hard, the water rushing down the asphalt in oily sheets. A guard was sweeping the parking lot. I ducked behind a row of parked cars and tried to slip quietly past, but he had spotted me.
“Freeze!” he said.
I scooted down another row and waited. I could hear the guard radioing for backup. Gripping my weapon, I waited. Then I got to my feet and, seeing the guard coming towards me, I opened fire. He wasn’t wearing body armor and dropped like a dead bird, his torso bright with blood.
Something moved across the side mirror of one of the vehicles nearby. As I turned, a burst of excruciating pain buckled my knees and I lost my weapon under a car. Then a different guard came at me with a riot stick, his gun still in his holster. I rolled away and scrambled to my feet.
“You’re not going anywhere, son,” he said.
He glared at me with tiny, bestial eyes and raised the riot stick threateningly. As he came at me I ducked and the stick struck the passenger window of the car behind me, shattering it and setting off the car alarm. Then his radio crackled and he took his eyes off me only for a second.
Seeing my chance I punched him in the throat, damaging his windpipe. Choking, he dropped to his knees and desperately grabbed at his neck as if a vise were closing it down. As he struggled for air I pushed him out of the way and retrieved my weapon. The door to the building burst open and at least a dozen more guards poured out, each with his weapon raised. Scrambling, I headed out of the parking lot.
“Halt!” one of the guards said and fired his weapon, the bullet missing me by inches. When I reached the street they stopped shooting. The wide road was dangerous with cars whizzing past in both directions. I glanced back at the approaching guards and ran into traffic. I was nearly halfway across when a semi bore down on me, nearly hitting me. As I continued past, the driver blared his horn and swore at me. Once I was across the street I looked back again. The guards were trying to cross. One of them ran ahead and was struck by a fast-moving pickup truck, his body flying up and over the vehicle and landing in the street where he was crushed by other passing cars. I kept moving.
By the time I reached the park, I was out of breath. My knee ached where the guard had struck me with the riot stick. I needed to get back to my apartment and regroup. There was no way I could return to this place. I would have to think of something else.
My truck stood at the head of a line of cars parked along the road. As I approached it I noticed someone’s head in the rain, bobbing and moving behind the cars on the side nearest the sidewalk, hesitating at each vehicle—till they came to mine. It was a young woman dressed only in a white hospital gown that was soaked, frantically yanking at the handle of my passenger door. I put away my weapon and, as I got closer, I could hear her muttering in a foreign language.
“Hey!” I said, hurrying towards her. Turning quickly she tried to run, but I was able to grab her arm. “I’m not going to hurt you.” She continued to struggle. “What do you want with my truck?”
She didn’t respond. Her cold, naked body was easily visible through the flimsy gown. Goosebumps had sprouted like bug bites up and down her arms and legs. There was something familiar about the gown she wore. It was printed with a field of lilacs. I’d seen that pattern—at the isolation facility in Tres Marias.
The girl was pretty with long, light brown hair and frightened blue-grey eyes that were almond-shaped—slightly Asian—and ringed with dark circles. Her full lips were pink and moist, her skin fair and blemish free. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. I looked at the back of her hand and noticed a red needle mark—probably from an IV.
“Are you in danger?” I said.
Still nothing. I glanced left and right to see who might be watching. Then I released her arm and took a step back, my open hands away from my pockets. I thought she would bolt, but she stood there unsure, looking at her bare feet, which were dirty. Her shoulders jerked up and down and I realized that she was crying. I remembered what Becky had said when the alarm went off—someone’s escaped.
I wasn’t sure what to do. She must’ve broken out of Hellborn, and now they were looking for her. I didn’t want to leave her there—not like this. She needed help. But I didn’t want to get mixed up with a kid. Griffin, the girl Holly and I had rescued in Tres Marias, had turned out well—and I thanked God for her—but I needed to be alone to complete my mission.
“I’m Dave,” I said. “What’s your name?”
She looked at me steadily. I didn’t know what new hell I was signing up for. It was pretty obvious that it would involve more than slipping her twenty bucks and wishing her good luck. When she spoke my blood went cold.
“Don’t let them find me!” she said.
She waited for me to answer, but I didn’t say anything. She had what sounded like a Russian accent. I could hear my heart racing, the blood pulsing rhythmically in my ears. Someone’s escaped. Could she be part of the experiment? Infected with the virus?
Across the street, the guards were halfway across with cars swerving and horns blaring. When she saw them her eyes got huge and her lower lip quivered. Moving fast I unlocked the passenger door and waited for her to get in. She just stood there.
“We don’t have much time,” I said. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”
In a few seconds it would be too late and I’d have to start shooting. She looked at the approaching guards. One of them had slipped on the wet asphalt and was cursing as the others tried to hold back traffic. Chewing her lip she said, “Da,” and climbed in.
We tore out of there before the guards could make it over to our side. In the rearview mirror I saw them entering the park. I was pretty sure they hadn’t spotted her. I didn’t know where to go. What do you with a stranger dressed as a hospital patient? I decided to take it one step at a time.
“We need to get you into some dry clothes,” I said. She didn’t answer me. Instead she kept turning and looking out the back window. “We’re not being followed.”
Sighing, she scrunched down in the seat and stared emptily at the beating windshield wipers. “That was close,” she said. Shivering, she closed her eyes, held herself and appeared to go to sleep. Maybe it was the first sleep she’d had in who-knew-how-long.
I decided to leave her be.
The rain had abated. As I pulled into the parking lot of an Old Navy in Montebello, the Russian girl opened her eyes. Disoriented, she looked at me strangely like she didn’t remember how she had ended up in my truck.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just going to pick up a few things for you. You can’t go around dressed like that.”
I knew she didn’t trust me yet—why would she? But I made it a point to stay calm. Maybe she had a family. I could get her some clothes—and something to eat—then take her to a relative’s house. That would be best. Then I could return to my plan.
The store was located in a busy shopping center. It was a risk, but I could get in and out of there fast. I parked at the end of the parking lot well away from other cars.
“What size are you?” I said.
“Nohl.” When I continued staring she smiled self-consciously. Her teeth were straight, which told me she’d been looked after growing up. “Zero,” she said.
“Great. And what about the shoes?”
“Eight.”
“I want you to lock yourself in the truck. Understand? Keep your head down. I’ll come back as fast as I can.”
Sh
e looked at me with searching eyes. She didn’t know me—I could be setting her up. But I didn’t know her either. Maybe without words we’d established a tenuous trust—enough to get us through the next few hours. I climbed out and could hear her locking the doors as I jogged towards Old Navy.
The store wasn’t crowded. On the sound system Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” was playing. That was just wrong. I headed over to the women’s jeans section. As I began flipping through the stacks on the wall, a young woman with purple hair and various piercings strolled over.
“Help you find somethin’?”
“I’m looking for size zero women’s jeans.”
Dismissively, she waved me back and proceeded to pull out multiple pairs in various colors. “Girlfriend?” she said, not looking directly at me.
“Niece.”
She signaled for me to stick out my arms and dropped a stack of jeans on them and, smiling, said, “What about tops?”
I didn’t mind the treatment. She had seen that I was in a hurry and made the process as efficient as possible. Not long after I returned to the truck carrying two large plastic bags. The Russian girl was still inside. When she saw me she unlocked the driver side door. I pushed both bags in and she arranged them on her lap.
“Let’s find a restroom so you can change,” I said.
As we got back on the road I kept my eyes open for black Escalades. By now, Walt Freeman would have any number of people out looking for the Russian girl. And whatever it was they needed her for, they’d stop at nothing to acquire her.
The girl dug through one of the bags and pulled out a pair of black lace-up boots and a grey sweater-knit pom-pom hat. Holding up the hat she looked at me curiously.
“I kind of went crazy in there, okay? I blame the aggressive salesperson.”
I found an independent gas station that didn’t have a mini-mart attached to it, so no security cameras. I pulled around back by the restrooms and parked. Then I ran into the small office and got the key. I kept an eye out for strangers as the girl got out and, carrying the bags, let herself in the restroom.
Even The Dead Will Bleed Page 3
