by Titan Books
Danny felt a rush of shame for being so scared. She wasn’t doing this alone. Henry and Baron had her back and she had theirs. The three of them were a team.
Her steps began to slow until she came to a stop, with a church on her left and on her right a statue sitting on a bench, mostly in shadow despite the spillover from the lights outside. Count Sándor Károlyi, according to the information she’d downloaded to her phone, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember the name of the church opposite. Then she discovered that she couldn’t get her feet to move, either.
“Forward march,” she whispered between clenched teeth. “Yo left, right, left.”
Nothing; her feet might as well have been super-glued to the bricks.
“Yo left, right, left,” she whispered again—still nothing. Maybe she should try counting cadence. I had a dog, his name was Blue, Blue wanna be a seal too…
No, she was damned if she was going to make a fool of herself while clone-Henry watched. And he was watching her, she saw, from behind an iron gate off to the side of the church’s front door. Danny felt an intense surge of hostility and indignation. How long had he been there? Could he tell how spooked she was? Goddammit, it was after midnight in a castle that had been Bram Stoker’s inspiration for Dracula’s crib. Anyone not creeped out would have to be made of stone.
Well, apparently he was. He didn’t look even mildly nervous as he opened the gate and beckoned to her. He was a clone made of stone. A stone clone. Danny had to bite her lips to keep from laughing. If she did she might not be able to stop, and hysteria was hardly the most constructive course of action.
She gave him a hard glare as she walked past him into a small courtyard. He was still watching her closely. Was he wondering how long she could keep it together without losing her shit? Let him, she thought; she would show him she wasn’t some poor little victim he could bully.
The moon was high in the sky. It was on the wane but still bright enough that, along with the flow-over from the lights outside the castle, Danny could see his face quite clearly, in more detail than the few glimpses she’d had back in Cartagena. This wasn’t simply a strong resemblance—it really was Henry’s face, his and none other, minus a few years and maybe some mileage. The way clone-Henry was staring at her so coldly, with no sign of recognition, was even more unsettling than Dracula’s castle at midnight. It was like she had taken a wrong turn and walked into a parallel universe where she and Henry had never met on the dock, and instead of teaming up with Baron they had become enemies.
“Lovely courtyard,” Danny said. It was a silly thing to say—the courtyard was lovely but only if you wanted to make a horror movie where everybody died horribly in the end. She had just wanted to see if she could speak without her voice shaking and was surprised at how calm and undaunted she sounded.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Henry’s clone said with Henry’s voice, “but before we go any further, I have to ask you to strip.”
Danny gaped at him. Her attention had snagged on the word ma’am. “I beg your pardon?”
“So I can check you for a wire,” he added, as if that made it reasonable.
“Wait a second,” she said. “Did you just call me ‘ma’am?’”
“I was raised to respect my elders,” he told her in a slightly reproachful tone that suggested he thought her upbringing left a lot to be desired. “Your clothes, please.”
That ma’am was going to cost him dearly, Danny vowed as she took off her top. His death would be slow and merciless; it would last for weeks. No, months. She toed off her boots, pushed her jeans down and stepped out of them. Now she was standing in the middle of a horror movie set at midnight in her underwear. And her socks. She stepped back into her boots but she was pretty sure that wasn’t an improvement. At least she had put nice underwear in her burn bag—not that she had ever imagined this scenario. Although it was a good bet that someone somewhere did, frequently.
She tried to block the idea but it was too late. What had been thunk could not be unthunk, as her grandfather used to say. Meanwhile, Henry’s clone stood in front of her in his fatigues and his Kevlar vest and his combat boots. Was he enjoying this? Did he feel powerful because she was half-naked and vulnerable? That was the whole idea, of course, to make her feel weak and powerless. But why was he just standing there? What was he waiting for—another opportunity to call her ma’am?
Or wasn’t she naked enough?
A cold rage bloomed inside her. She didn’t know what she would do if he went there. But if she just stood in front of him waiting for it she might begin to tremble, and she was goddamned if she would let him see that.
Danny put one thumb under her bra strap and pulled it away from her shoulder slightly, her expression both questioning and hostile. No, she was wrong—she did know what she’d do. Screw the plan.
Clone-Henry shook his head awkwardly, averting his gaze for a moment before he looked at her again and then away, over and over. It was as if he was trying to look at her without looking at her.
The memory of Henry in her bedroom turning his back while she got dressed popped into her mind and suddenly she understood. This wasn’t a power trip for clone-Henry—he was embarrassed. No, it was more than that—he was ashamed.
Good, she thought at him. Suffer, you bastard. And that was only the truth—clones were bastards. They didn’t exactly have mothers, either, which made them double bastards. Maybe she could find some way to work that into the conversation before the night was over.
“Turn around, please,” he said.
Danny made a snappy about-face and allowed herself a fleeting smile of spiteful triumph. Then he came up close behind her and she wished she hadn’t just snapped to and obeyed him like that. She had already yielded to his authority over her by undressing; obeying his next order so promptly told him she accepted him as being in charge. Lesson learned: the next time somebody ordered her to strip at gunpoint and told her to turn around, she was going to flat out refuse. What were they going to do, kill her? If they planned to do that anyway, she didn’t have to make it easy for them.
And the other lesson learned: she was a cockeyed optimist to posit next time when she didn’t even know if she’d survive this time.
Her optimism dwindled considerably when the clone’s Kevlar vest touched her bare back. She forced herself not to flinch as he ran his hands quickly over her body from neck to thighs. But even as he did it, she could sense he was trying to be impersonal, detached, to touch her without touching her the same way he had tried to look at her without looking. He almost managed it… almost. Being impersonal and detached was impossible when you were ashamed of what you were doing in the first place.
It was only when he ran his fingers through her hair that she actually jumped. “I see you like to be thorough,” she said.
“Caution has kept me alive, ma’am,” he said, and she added another week of suffering to his miserable future. “You can get dressed now.”
As soon as she was decent again, he handed her a phone. “Call him.”
Danny hesitated, then decided there was nothing to be gained by giving him a hard time now. She punched in the number; he took the phone back from her and put it on speaker.
It rang once. “Yes?” said Henry.
“In twelve minutes, I’m going to put two bullets into the back of Agent Zakarewski’s head,” clone-Henry said.
Danny all but heard Henry’s blood pressure jump a hundred points. “Your orders were to deliver her safely—”
“My orders were to kill you,” the clone said, and Danny felt a cold chill run down her spine. Their voices were as identical as their faces; it was like listening to Henry argue with himself in the throes of a dissociative breakdown. “Do you know the Quartz Chamber in the catacombs?”
“Oh, hell no,” Henry replied angrily. “We’re doing this someplace visible. Where I can see you.”
“And now we’re at eleven minutes,” the clone said and hung up on him. For all th
e tough talk, he looked unsettled. Danny wondered if he’d also heard the similarity of their voices. Then he noticed her watching him and motioned at the gate. “We’re going for a ride.”
She added another week to his slow, painful death, just on general principle.
* * *
The taxi had an official-looking strip of black and yellow checks under the windows on either side and a light on the roof that said taxi. But Henry’s clone told her it was a hyena , which was some kind of widespread scam aimed mostly at tourists.
“The scam also works on anyone too drunk to see straight,” he said as he motioned at the driver with the Glock. “Yeah, that’s right, buddy, take the rest of the night off. And tomorrow, find a new line of work,” he called after the fleeing man. “Any cab without a company logo showing on the doors or the hood is a hyena,” he went on to Danny. “That’s how you can tell the honest taxis from the scammers. Now get in, you’re driving.” She did so and he climbed into the back seat directly behind her.
“Okay, buddy, where to?” she said with a nervous laugh.
“You’re not a real cab driver,” he said sourly.
“According to you, neither was the guy you chased off,” Danny said evenly. “Either way, you still have to tell me where we’re going if you actually want to get there.”
“Jaki Chapel,” the clone said in a low voice that was practically a growl.
“Jaki Chapel, huh? Sounds nice. You’ll have to direct me,” she told him.
“I can’t do that unless we’re moving.”
Danny started the car and put it in drive. Hungarian taxis weren’t much different from most other cars, although when she shifted gears, it felt like she was using a crowbar to move thick, heavy chunks of metal. Steering was even more of an effort. Fortunately the Budapest streets were deserted at this hour so she was unlikely to hurt anyone except herself and clone-Henry. Most likely herself; she had a feeling this model hadn’t come with airbags.
“Taking this cab was a smart move,” she said after a bit, adjusting the rearview mirror so she could see him. “Where are you from anyway?” His eyes met hers. “Your formality—it sounds Southern to me.”
Clone-Henry looked annoyed. “No disrespect but I’d prefer not to chat just now.”
“There it was again,” she said, stubbornly cheerful. “Georgia? Texas?”
“It’s better if we just don’t talk.”
Danny didn’t ask him if that was because a butcher never made friends with cattle; there was no need to rile him unnecessarily. But she had no intention of making things easy for him, either. She wasn’t cattle.
“Look, if you’re going to use me as bait and possibly murder me, the least you can do is indulge me with some conversation.” She gave his reflection a brief, pointed stare.
The clone let out a heavy, resigned breath. “I was born just outside Atlanta.”
“I knew it!” Danny hit the steering wheel with one hand in triumph. “You and Henry have a lot in common.”
“I doubt that,” the clone replied.
“You’d be surprised,” she assured him. “You know, I started out surveilling him, too. Then I got to know him. He’s got a big heart.” Pause. “Like you.”
She practically heard his hackles go up. “What would you know about my heart?”
“I know you have one,” she replied. “And I know it’s telling you that something about this job you’ve been given isn’t right.”
There was an almost imperceptible moment of hesitation before he said, “A job’s a job.”
* * *
“This is nice, actually,” Danny said as she parked the taxi in front of a church. “Usually when I travel I don’t get to do much sightseeing.” Clone-Henry yanked her out of the driver’s seat without bothering to close the car door. “And I love old churches,” she went on inanely as they went in through the front entrance. “So this is Jaki Chapel. It’s Romanesque. Beautiful. Ow,” she added as he poked her in the back with the Glock to make her walk faster down the main aisle.
When they got to the communion rail in front of the altar, the clone yanked her into an alcove on the right and pushed her toward a set of stone steps going down.
“Basement?” she said, forcing a light tone. “You must really know your way around Budapest churches.”
“I watch a lot of Nat Geo.” He motioned at the stairs. “Down.”
The steps were narrow and uneven and she was afraid of losing her balance and falling because he kept prodding her with the Glock. That would be another two weeks added to his agonizing death, she thought poisonously.
When they reached the bottom he gave her a nudge into a passageway lined with shelves and lit by bare bulbs strung overhead, spaced about fifteen feet apart. Were they five watts? Less? She could barely see, and if clone-boy poked her with that Glock one more time, she was going to shove it up his nose sideways—
Her toe hit something and she stumbled, nearly falling on her face before she caught hold of a steel rod sunk solidly into the floor. Which, she saw now, wasn’t hard-packed dirt as she had originally thought but concrete covered with ages of dust and grime. She looked up and suddenly found herself staring into the dark, empty eye sockets of a very, very old skull. It was one of many on the shelf in front of her. No, actually one of thousands on a multitude of shelves on either side of the passageway, all stacked one on top of another, from the gritty cement floor up past the string of bare light bulbs and disappearing into the shadows above.
“Wow,” Danny breathed, staring upward. The clone gave her another push. “I wonder how many people are buried down here.” He didn’t answer and she resisted asking him if he had missed Catacombs Week on Nat Geo.
There was a rusted iron gate ahead; as they got closer, Danny saw part of a broken padlock hanging from the hasp. Signs in four different languages, including English, declared, This Area Strictly Off Limits.
The clone gave her another poke with the Glock, motioning her forward. Whoever had raised him to respect his elders had obviously failed to mention it was rude to poke them with a handgun. Instead of giving in to the urge to stick the Glock up his nose, however, she pushed the gate open. “But it says off limits.”
“That’s very funny,” he said, his voice flat.
The passageway ahead was even narrower and more dimly lit. He caught her arm. “Stand over there,” he said, pushing her up against another steel support rod. “Don’t move.”
Danny watched as he wedged a grenade into the mouth of a skull on a shelf one up from floor level, then attached a tripwire, which he connected to another skull on the shelf opposite. It was about six inches off the ground and, in this light, invisible.
Messing with the dead like this had to be some kind of serious desecration, Danny thought, the kind of thing even a hard-headed non-believer would want to avoid. But clone-Henry wasn’t fazed in the least. Maybe he really was a stone clone. Or maybe he’d just never seen a horror movie.
He reached up with the Glock and shattered the bulb above them. As they continued along the passageway, he broke the rest of them so that the only illumination came from his flashlight.
“If you knock out all the lights,” Danny said, “how are you going to see your own tripwire on your way out? A grenade is no joke. I mean, I get what you’re doing—darkness neutralizes his biggest strength. And close-quarters favors you, right? He can’t throw a grenade without killing me, too. But what if he uses tear gas? Or a sleep agent?”
He shoved her through another doorway into a large round area with a few dim naked bulbs dangling well out of reach. This must be the Quartz Chamber, Danny thought. It, too, was lined with shelves of skulls and bones bolstered every few feet by metal support rods. As far as she could tell, there was no other way in or out. The clone dropped his backpack on the cement floor and pulled out what seemed to be a compact gas mask equipped with night vision. He put it on but left it sitting up on top of his head.
“Okay, I see you’re
way ahead of me,” she said. “Gas mask and night vision together, very smart. But can I ask you something?”
“Would you actually stop talking long enough for me to answer?” clone-Henry said with a fed-up edge in his voice.
Danny smiled inwardly. She was getting to him. “How much do you know about Henry?” she demanded. “What have you been told?” He dragged her over to one of the steel support rods. “Did anybody tell you why they want him dead? Did you even ask?”
The clone gave a heavy, put-upon sigh. “The guy cracked,” he said, pulling some zip-ties out of his backpack. He bound her wrists with the rod between her forearms, positioning them so she couldn’t try chewing herself free and so tightly she couldn’t slide her arms up or down. That was a real problem; pretty soon she was going to lose feeling in her hands, and if she complained he’d make them tighter. “He killed eight ops in a single night. And his spotter.”
“That’s what they told you?” Danny said incredulously.
“That’s what he did,” the clone corrected her.
“Not exactly!” Danny fumed, forgetting she was trying to make him lose it. All at once, she was close to tears and didn’t care if it showed. “I was with him the night all those operatives got hit. They’d been sent to kill him. And me—by Gemini. Think about that: Henry saved my life even though I was surveilling him!” She was shouting at him now, full of rage at the way everything she said just bounced off him while he rummaged around in his backpack.
“And not that it matters,” she went on at high volume, “but his spotter was shot in Virginia, the rest of those men went down in Savannah. Henry can shoot long distance but not that long. I—”
Clone-Henry suddenly stood up again. “You know what?” Without waiting for an answer, he mashed a thick piece of duct tape over her mouth, pressing hard for a couple of seconds. “That’s better,” he said.