by Maya Daniels
Martin waited for a second to see if she was done.
“Well?”
Apparently, she was.
Martin squared his jaw and said the three words that were sure to fuel the flames of her ire.
“I don’t know.”
He stared at her, and she glared back at him. He could see the logic synapses firing in her brain.
If anything, she was the brightest he had. Hell, the brightest he’d ever known. If he could have had just a few more years with her in the field, there was no telling how many cases she would have closed.
As it was, Mother Nature was being a real black-hearted bitch. Bethany Anne had a very rare blood disease, one they hadn’t even had the ability to check for until recently. The doctors, although not a hundred percent sure, pretty much agreed she had less than six months to live.
With her only twenty-eight years old, it was a crying shame. Martin admitted doing a little crying himself when no one was looking.
Besides the physicians, he was the only other soul who knew.
She hadn’t even told her father. He had raised her on all the male testosterone bullshit he had been indoctrinated with in the military. Figures, Martin thought. Treat her like a boy, and see what you get. Never easy to get close to. Her mom had died at almost exactly the same age of unexplained causes, so it was most likely genetic, and she had been their first and only child.
Having reached the end of her logic chain, she narrowed her eyes. “If my father so much as mentions my condition before I can tell him, I will fly back to Washington and kick your boys so hard you will sing falsetto until Christmas!”
Martin put up his hands. “Duly noted, Bethany Anne, and for the record I’m innocent. I wouldn’t abuse your trust like that.” Martin didn’t even bother with the insubordination. Bethany Anne never meant to hurt friends, but her temper was also apparently genetic, considering the rumors about her father’s famous rages.
Cooling down, Bethany Anne strode over to the two chairs in front of Martin’s desk and sat in one. She tapped the paper against one of the Christian Louboutins she really enjoyed wearing when working in the office.
Martin could only identify them because of the red soles.
He counted silently in his head, expecting to hit thirty before her next question. He got to seventeen.
It was evident this paper she was tapping on her shoe was orders and she was still gainfully employed. “If you didn’t tell the General, and I’m still on the team, why the hell am I being sent out to the middle of the country?”
“That,” Martin stated, “is the question of the morning.”
Chapter 2
Military Base, Colorado Mountains
“Sir, everything is good. The air inside the vault is now fresh, and the issue with the envelope was nothing, really. The vault must have been hermetically sealed; basically a perfect preservative. Everything in there was exactly how it was when it was sealed.” The scientist, one Dr. John Evenich, rattled off the whole thing as if he were giving a lecture.
The General, his sergeant, and a number of techs were down on Level Five.
Reynolds looked at the smaller man and chewed an unlit cigar while thinking this through.
“And exactly when, John, did that happen?” the General asked. There were two more scientists going through the room, although there wasn’t much to see. It was approximately ten feet wide and fifteen long, with a conference style table in the middle and four chairs—one on each side and the fourth at the far end as if it were the head of the table. There was a knife on a stand in the center, with a phrase engraved on the hilt. No one touched it. Lance couldn’t be sure what it said since it was in a different language, but he could guess.
Dr. Evenich looked at his paperwork. “Um, August 24th, 1945.”
“So, about two weeks after they dropped the atomic bombs?” General Reynolds continued chewing on his cigar.
“Yes.” Dr. Evenich was feeling a little less excited under the scrutiny of the base commander. While not officially his superior—different chain of command—the scientists were here on his “continued good pleasure,” which was shorthand for “don’t piss him off.”
“Well, give me the envelope. I’m going up to my office. It’s too hot down here.” With that, he gestured to have the envelope pulled off the door.
Dr. Evenich’s eyes grew wide. “But General, the significance! We can’t just grab it and go. We need to see what is on it; test particulates. It will be scientifically ruined just by our hands touching it!”
General Reynolds’ eyes narrowed and he stared at the doctor, still telegraphing his demand for the envelope.
“Dr. Evenich, this says ‘To the Base Commander, On His Honor.’ Trust me, when someone from 1945 said that, they were not thinking about scientists looking at it for clues. I believe this is important. This isn’t a democracy, and I’m done discussing the subject. Sergeant, get me that envelope. Men, come out of that room. Leave one guard here to make sure there are no more intrusions. Get those men out, and no one—and I mean no one—is to touch that knife until I say it’s okay. Am I clear?”
A heady chorus of “Yes, sirs!” rang out.
“John?” The General very pointedly eyed Dr. Evenich until the envelope was brought to him.
Dr. John Evenich, seeing his prized historical object taken away to be pawed by apes after he and others had worked eight months on the base, just shook his head.
Maybe it would be okay to shine a light in there and get some pictures? Dr. Evenich started calling instructions to his people.
New York City, New York
Carl waited until Michael, the patriarch of the family, came out of his personal suite inside the massive home. Michael was dressed in a very well-fitting three-piece suit of dark blue with light-gray pinstriping, white shirt, and silver cufflinks. Michael looked to be a young and robust fifty, but Carl knew he was much older physically. He just wasn’t sure how old. There was barely any gray in his black hair.
It had taken about two hours for Michael to appear from his inner sanctum once Carl had requested his presence. Unlike a normal sleeper, it took a lot to get through Michael’s torpor when he was hibernating.
While he was externally calm and collected, one had only to look into Michael’s piercing blue eyes to realize the anger that boiled within.
He walked past Carl, who bowed and followed him out of the residence portion of the converted building into the business and operations area. Carl noticed he was just as well built and muscular as he remembered him being five years ago when he had gone into hibernation.
It was as if he hadn’t aged a day.
Michael had been expecting to be awakened in five more years. He had checked the date on awakening, and this was too early. He had immediately released his senses to confirm the residence was safe, then checked on his connection to his grandchild here in America.
When he couldn’t feel William, he knew the reason for being awoken. Now he wanted answers.
Carl spoke up. “Sir, I’ve edited a video clip of the operation. It’s ready for you to view.”
Michael sat down at his desk and woke up his laptop, which was a five-year-old model. Since Michael had no ability to keep up with operating system changes while hibernating, he kept the old operating system until he became accustomed to using the laptop again. At least this wasn’t as bad as last time, when he’d had to come to grips with the Internet.
He hit the Play button on the machine and watched the fifteen minutes of relevant material on how his grandchild had died.
By the end, he had some ideas about what might have happened—not that he could figure out how they had been able to retrieve the serum, or had known what to do with it. Both of those questions needed answering.
However, it did indicate one vital concern. He couldn’t just find a good candidate and train them, or have one of his children’s children take William’s place as he had done for a long time.
No, th
is time, he needed someone fully trained within the military here in the US. Rejuvenation was also a consideration if he was going to be involved in this campaign.
He would have to request a pre-trained candidate. He had to call on the debt owed his family.
“Carl, did you start the request through the primary contact?”
“Yes, sir. Frank is still with us, so he’s taking care of a lot at that end.”
“Good. Confirm my request officially with Frank. I want to know who they’re going to send us before I go to the vault. I want to know as much as I can about the three candidates who will be waiting for me.”
Here we go, thought Carl.
“Sir, we have a preliminary report from Frank. I’m sorry, but since the last time we implemented the request for Debt of Honor, the military has gotten very good at filtering out potentially unhealthy recruits. The military doesn’t want to invest in training, only to find out that investment will die soon.”
Carl thought about the requirements for candidates. As he understood them, they were pretty simple. The candidates had to be trained and top twenty-five percent in martial skills, very bright, live with purpose, and (strangely enough for a vampire) very religious. Finally, while the religion requirement tended to cut their options, the last one very nearly did them in.
They had to be expected to die in the next six months.
Washington, D.C.
Frank was notified Michael was awake and the Debt was being called in.
Frank sighed. It wasn’t that the request was unexpected. In fact, since Bill had been killed, Frank could have won a major bet that this time the requirements were going to be very strict. The last time this had occurred was before any of the current military or spooks had tied their first bootie or put on their first baby shoe.
This was going to ruffle a few feathers. God help them all if someone didn’t step up.
Frank was old enough—he had been around last time Michael’s Debt of Honor was demanded. Most of the military people on the base had lived through that night because one—just one—of those guys had had the honor Michael demanded.
Unfortunately, it had taken two hundred and fifty deaths before anyone figured out Michael was not joking about what was due his family.
More than a few heads had rolled that night.
Military Base, Colorado Mountains
Up in his office, the General was alone with Patricia and the sergeant.
“Kevin, give me some privacy but stay close. Patricia, hold my calls.”
Sergeant Kevin McCoullagh waited for Patricia to step through the door and then shut it, remaining outside the door at parade rest.
Patricia went to her phone bank and routed the General’s calls to her station.
Lance sat down behind his desk and just looked at the envelope for a second. Well, nothing would get accomplished if he just stared at it.
He opened his left topmost drawer and pulled out a metal letter opener with a bald eagle on the handle, its feet clutching the blade. The relic was as old as he was.
When he slid the blade through the crease, it felt like it was a fresh envelope. He opened the letter and started reading.
August 24, 1945
Attn: Current Base Commander
If you are reading this document, then you are in trying times. If you are not aware of any problems, I can state confidently it is due to ignorance.
You will receive a call explaining both this vault and your responsibilities on your honor (there was that phrase again) to support the request of Agent Smith (I don’t know his real name, nor does anyone else.)
Be aware that this situation is extremely sensitive, and most information about it was held very close to the vest. In fact, most people won’t believe you even should you speak about it.
Lance stopped reading and punched a button on his phone. “Patricia!”
“Yes, General?”
“Call down to Five and tell John and his henchmen they are kicked out. If he gives you any lip, tell Kevin to go down with a few guys and bring them up.” With that, he punched off and went back to reading.
“Without giving more information than is my right, I will say on my honor that without the help and support of Agent Smith and his family, we might have failed to catch the actual danger coming from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and selected different cities. There were three agents, not Americans, who went into the cities and brought us proof Japan was creating mutated soldiers and was getting ready to deploy these troops in the war.
In order for there to be no doubt that the base, the soldiers, and the scientists were still inside, these three agents stayed close to the base to verify nothing left before the strike occurred.
They were there when the bombs were dropped.
We owe them so much. We returned so little.
When this vault opens, a charge against our debt—our honorable debt—is being made.
On my honor, this day I plead with you to honor our debt.”
Lance read it a second time. Family helped us? Lance thought that was strange. Maybe they were from Japan?
He slid the letter back in the envelope and lost himself deep in thought for a few minutes.
His phone’s shrilling pulled him out of his thoughts. He yelled at the door, “Patricia, I said hold ALL calls!” Damn, she was getting a little out-of-bounds, not listening to orders. That needed to stop.
The phone switched to speaker mode without Lance touching it.
“General,” said a deep, gravelly voice, “I assure you Patricia took all the right steps. It took me an extra thirty seconds to bypass her control panel to contact you directly.”
“And you are?” asked the General, staring at the phone as if he were deciding whether to shoot it or just beat it senseless. No need to be up this guy’s ass until he knew who to give the verbal enema to.
“The man who is going to tell you about the past, the future, and the vault.”
New York City, New York
Michael looked up at Carl, who was standing on the other side of his desk. “Carl, are you telling me that throughout the whole military there is, and I quote, ‘only one’ candidate who can fulfill the Debt of Honor?” His blue eyes were piercing.
Michael was very, very touchy about Honor. To him, the word was always capitalized.
“Unfortunately that’s the case, sir.”
Pursing his lips, Michael asked the follow-up question. “And this candidate is a woman?”
Not knowing where Michael was going with this—he’d never seemed sexist to Carl—he simply agreed. “Yes.”
Michael looked down, becoming quiet and reflective for a moment.
Michael could hear Carl’s thoughts, and he was right. Michael wasn’t sexist in the least. However, Michael, with all his children over the years, had never had a direct daughter.
He had a granddaughter in Europe by the name of Gabrielle, but he’d never met her. She was one of his son Stephen’s children…and that child had never created a daughter again.
Not that he’d ever heard negative things about her activities; she’d always produced results. Michael just got the impression the results came with a little baggage.
While that was one consideration, a more significant concern was how often female conversions failed. So far, they’d only had two successful turns in eight centuries—Gabrielle, and one other in Asia. He called that granddaughter “Sunshine” because her full name was too much to deal with.
Many women decided the pain they went through during the transformation was too much to endure. All too often, death was a welcome respite. Better to choose death than become a Nosferatu and be killed when they awoke.
Michael knew this since he had literally written the rule stating they were to be killed.
Michael looked up at Carl again.
“She meets all the candidate requirements?” While Frank was excellent, and Michael didn’t doubt his ability, he wanted Carl’s thoughts on the matter.
&n
bsp; “Yes, sir. Actually, she is a rare achiever. She’s top three percent in martial prowess—while she’s strong, she isn’t a male, and therefore there is a slight deficit. She ranked in the top percentile in intellectual capability on all her tests. She comes from a family where both sides have been military for decades, and her father is presently a general. Her drive is to protect the people.”
“Her faith?”
Carl had known the question was coming and was prepared. Finding out about a person’s true faith was a little harder, with so many people professing faith but attending their house of worship only once or twice a year. It made it difficult to positively assert any real answer to this question.
“Sir, we were able to get a read on her when she found out she was diagnosed with a strange and rare blood disease. She didn’t drop out or ignore her responsibilities after understanding she had little time to live. Her comment was, and I quote, ‘all within God’s grace and God’s design.’ The only thing that seems to bother her, as far as we can tell, is not being able to close her cases, and having failed so far to tell her father she’s going to die soon.”
Michael had looked up from the Bethany Anne Reynolds’ dossier while Carl was giving him an overview. “Would she lie?”
Carl hesitated a moment to get his thoughts together.
“No,” Carl opined. “I just get the impression she’s stoic, like her father. I believe she has a genetic condition inherited from her mother, who died when she was also twenty-eight. Since the doctors give Bethany Anne four to eight months, she might make twenty-nine.”
“Our cutoff is six months, Carl.” Michael’s voice indicated no malleability on the time frame.
“Yes, sir. However, from what Frank has uncovered in the doctor’s report and what’s in her official record, it looks like she will live five or six months only if she is very fortunate. More than likely, sir, she has three.”