If he could stick the Russians behind a few cars at a traffic light, that would buy him enough time to lose them permanently. Checking the road map of the area he kept in his head, he pulled a left at high speed.
“Are they behind us?” Morgan called out.
“No. I can’t see them,” she said.
That was good. That meant that he would have enough time to get to the commercial district less than half a mile away. There would be some lunchtime summer traffic to tie the Russians up while he slipped away.
He was on a straightaway and got the car up to eighty. He was close now.
“Let me know if you see them,” Morgan called out.
“Okay,” Jenny replied, her voice tense but surprisingly calm.
Half a mile now.
“Dan, I see them,” Jenny said.
“How far behind—”
And then he saw them, at the intersection less than quarter of a mile ahead of them. Two black SUVs. But it was impossible. They couldn’t have gotten in front of him.
Unless it was two different cars. Four was bad. It meant a greater level of sophistication and coordination—and more resources. Who the hell wanted him this badly?
Morgan hit the brakes as he turned the car hard to the left. The maneuver threw the Mustang into a backwards skid. He said a quick thanks to Shepard for not putting anti-lock brakes into the car. Most government motor pools wouldn’t release a car to an agent without the feature. But most federal motor pools were run by morons.
The new brakes were safer for most driving conditions and were good at preventing civilians from ending up in uncontrolled skids, but they made what Morgan was now doing impossible.
The Mustang had executed a full 180-degree spin and ended up facing the other way, while coming to a full stop from eighty-some miles per hour in record time. Morgan was also now in a perfect position to make a right turn onto an even smaller side street.
As he made the turn he saw two Escalades nearly on top of them. Too close, he thought. He had to get Jenny out of here, and fast.
Morgan opened up the Mustang again but he almost immediately saw the construction signs ahead.
Damn, he thought.
There weren’t just signs; the road was completely blocked by heavy equipment. They were almost out of road—and options.
There was a single left up ahead. Morgan committed to it without hesitating, but even as he made the turn he saw the yellow Dead End sign.
Too late, he realized. He was already on the street, with less than a quarter mile of pavement ahead of him. But he wasn’t done yet.
Morgan saw the steel barrier at the end of the street and cursed inwardly. He slowed down. Maybe he could drive around the barrier and—
Into the trees behind it.
Damn. Damn, he thought.
The car could handle a field, an unfinished road, almost anything.
But it couldn’t drive through trees.
Morgan swung the car around again, in time to see the four black SUVs converging and making the turn onto the dead end.
Our dead end, Morgan thought.
“Dan,” Jenny said.
“It’s okay, honey. I will handle this,” he said, having absolutely no idea how he was going to do that.
* * * *
“I hope this is going to be quick.” Alex said.
“Why?” O’Neal replied, as they walked through the quad.
“What?” she replied.
“Why would you hope the meeting is quick? Making contact with this group is our mission. Therefore, the longer the contact, the better the…”
Alex waved O’Neal off. “I mean—” She hesitated for a minute. What did she mean? She meant that she wanted to get this part of the day over with so she could keep her lunch date with Jason.
Of course, she couldn’t say any of that. It wasn’t professional. It wasn’t serious of her. And it definitely wasn’t on mission.
And yet a couple of hours with Jason sounded a lot better than a long meeting with the kind of cranks she’d met at the APS get-together.
“What I meant was that I don’t expect much from this meeting. It will be our first contact with potential radical elements at Berkeley. I suspect that establishing trust and getting any useful information will take multiple meetings over time. The quicker we’re finished, the closer we are to real progress.”
It sounded weak even to her own ears but O’Neal seemed to accept it. That made sense; numbers and high-level cognitive thinking were O’Neal’s world. Alex was counting on her for that. On the other hand, O’Neal was counting on Alex to handle the human aspect of the mission.
I’ve just told a white lie to my partner, she said. Not a great start to my career as an undercover operative. She chided herself to keep focused. The fact was that they had been lucky to receive this invitation.
She wouldn’t blow it because she’d been distracted by some…well, by anything.
They arrived at the lecture hall at exactly eleven-thirty and found it empty. Alex checked her watch. They were right on time; it’s just that no one else was there.
Alex led the way to the front of the large hall. It was the kind of room used for introductory classes, where there were fifty or more students.
Alex took a seat and then Karen did the same. “We’ll wait for a few minutes…” Alex began, but she heard footsteps before the words were out of her mouth.
A tall blond girl entered the room, followed by a guy with a scruffy beard and something in his ears. No, not something. Rather, he had large black hoops embedded into each ear lobe.
Then Alex remembered both of them. The girl was Margaret, who would have guessed was a cheerleader. She’d seen them last night at the APS meeting.
“Hi Alex, hi Karen. This is Avery,” Margaret said. “Glad you could make it.”
“Looks like we were the only ones who did,” Karen said, nodding to Avery.
Margaret ignored the comment. “It was nice to meet you both at the APS meeting. What did you think of the APS crowd?”
Alex was sure Margaret was fishing, though she couldn’t figure out what she was fishing for. She decided to play a hunch. “They were all over the place.”
Margaret seemed amused. “What do you mean?”
To Alex’s surprise, Karen spoke. “The group had no common set of concerns, not unifying interests, nothing that usually defines a group of that nature.”
“Interesting,” Margaret said, while the guy with the rings in his ears just stared at them.
“We saw one of Professor Spellman’s lectures and we thought we could be part of something here,” Alex said, tentatively. She watched Margaret carefully for her response.
“You mean the Dr. Apocalypse lecture?” Avery said.
Margaret shook her head. “Doctor Spellman hates that nickname.”
Alex saw that it was time to stop dancing around the issue and move this meeting forward. “The name’s unfair. He wasn’t talking about the end of the world. He was talking about a new beginning,” Alex said.
That got Avery’s attention. “You think so?”
“It’s not a matter of opinion. The planet has no future if people continue to do…what people do. If nature took humans out of the equation, the Earth would take a few years to recover and then it would begin to thrive. In a hundred years…”
“You’d have a real paradise,” Margaret said.
“And all the problems that everyone in that APS meeting was talking about would just disappear. It’s a good dream,” Alex said.
“What if it wasn’t a dream—or not just a dream?” she asked. Margaret was probing her, Alex realized.
“Well, hypothetically. If someone was going to help bring that about, I—I mean we—would love to be a part of it,” Alex said.
“That possib
ility is what attracted us to Dr. Spellman. That and his work with bacteriophages,” O’Neal said. Her tone was dead earnest.
“This is very serious. If you’re not serious, we don’t need you,” Avery said emphatically.
“We’re talking about saving the world, preserving it forever. We are very serious about that and we would do whatever was necessary to make that happen,” Alex said. She could see that Avery was about to speak but waved him off. “And, yes, we all know what we’re really talking about here.”
Margaret broke out into her best cheerleader smile.
“Look, we had to be sure. We are very serious about Dr. Spellman’s work.” Then she turned to Avery. “Our work.”
“And nobody likes a tourist,” Alex said.
“I think you will fit in great,” Margaret said.
“So this was a test?” Alex said.
“More like a compatibility questionnaire. We do have to be careful, we can’t let just anyone into our organization.”
“Does your organization have a name?” Karen asked.
“We call it ‘The Club,’” Avery said.
“‘The Club, ’ really?” Alex said. “Kind of non-descript.”
“Exactly!” Avery said. “You have to be careful what you call yourselves. The NSA has computers that search emails and web pages and even phone conversations, looking for keywords. But if they catch one of our messages and all it says is The Club…” He leaned in to them and added, “Keeps from raising any red flags.”
“Very clever,” Karen said. “I’m sure it will keep you from prying eyes.”
“It has so far. And it’s not like we’re doing anything illegal. We’re relatively new and we’re in the pure research phase of our project,” Margaret said, her smile blazing. “By the way, that’s what we call our work, ‘The Project.’”
“What happens now?” Alex asked.
“Now you come with us to the real meeting. It’s in one of the labs. That’s Dr. Spellman’s idea. We’re scientists, we belong in a lab, even when we’re just talking about our work. Lecture halls are for transmitting information, but our labs are where we are going to change the world.”
“It sounds great,” Alex said.
“It is, but remember. This is a long-term project. If you’ve followed Dr. Spellman’s work you know that he’s brilliant. And even if we all help and contribute, Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
Alex had to stop herself from chuckling. Margaret and The Club were planning the deaths of every man, woman, and child on Earth and she was comparing their work to the building of Rome.
“We’re right in here,” Margaret said, pointing to the door ahead of them. “You’re about to meet Dr. Spellman.”
Chapter 14
Morgan ran through a half-a-dozen scenarios in his head. There were four things he would try if he were with Conley. And two others he would risk if he were alone.
But he was with Jenny and all of those scenarios were simply too risky for her.
He had his Walther and this car had more than a few tactical surprises. However, they worked best when the car was moving. If it came to a firefight, the eight Russians in the four SUVs (which were no doubt armored themselves) could just pound the Mustang until it was destroyed.
He’d considered trying to ram his way out, but the Russians’ vehicles would be too difficult to push through at the low speed he’d be able to make in the short distance between them. And while the Mustang had a number of advantages, the SUVs had size and mass on their sides.
In his years with the agency and with Zeta, Morgan had faced death more times than he could count. He’d made peace with the idea of his own death—not because he wanted to die, but because he knew that whatever happened to him, Jenny and Alex would be okay. And he’d worried about his partner on missions, but Conley was an agent who knew the risks of the job and was prepared for them like Morgan was himself.
There were a few times where his work had put Jenny in danger. During those times he wasn’t at peace; he wasn’t worried—he was terrified.
He only saw one option. He’d have to get out of the car and take the fight to the Russians. The Mustang would keep Jenny safe as long as she stayed inside, particularly if Morgan stayed in the fight long enough to draw the attention of the local police.
With luck, the Russians would be satisfied with taking him out and get out of dodge before the police arrived. Morgan opened the glove compartment and grabbed his two extra clips. That gave him a total of 21 rounds, 21 chances to surprise his new friends.
“What are you doing Dan?”
“I’m going to take care of this,” he said.
“Honey, there are six men out there and I don’t see how that is going to work if they’re hostile. And since they just chased us across Cape Cod I’m going to guess they are not old friends.”
On impulse, he kissed her quickly. “Jenny, you know me. This is what I do. I will go out there and do whatever I have to in order to keep you safe. But I can’t do it if I have to worry about you. Right now I need you to stay in this car and keep it locked. Whatever happens, you should be okay.”
“What about you Dan?” Jenny asked.
“I’ll be fine, as long as—”
“Don’t lie to me,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“Yes you are. And you are terrible at it. Now look me in the eye and promise me, promise me, that you will be all right,” she said.
Morgan grinned at her. “I love you.”
Jenny gave him a stricken look as he turned away and reached for the door handle. In their life together, Jenny had almost never seen him lose his temper. That had been a choice he had made. The fact was that there were sides of him he never wanted her to see. He’d made a promise to himself that she never would, and he had kept it—mostly. Now, whatever happened, he knew he was going to break it completely. The last thing his wife was going to see him do was to show a side of himself he had spent a lifetime trying to hide from her.
Damn, he thought. It couldn’t be helped though. At least she would be safe. He only hoped that, in time, she would forgive him for what she was about to see.
Morgan stepped out of the car, keeping his attention focused on the SUVs. The six figures inside them didn’t move, but he knew they were watching him closely.
He moved back carefully, keeping the car between him and the enemy, feeling time begin to slow as it did before a big fight, or an important one. He kept his Walther in his right hand and waited for the sound of an SUV door opening, the sound of the first gunshot. What he got instead was the sound of the Mustang door. He saw what happened with his peripheral vision, even though he brain rejected it.
Before he could even say no, Jenny was standing by his side, her own gun drawn and pointing at the black vehicles.
“Jenny,” Morgan croaked.
“What can I tell you. I’m a real maverick. I just have trouble following orders. Must run in the family.”
* * * *
Margaret led the way into the lab. Alex found she was actually excited. She was about to meet the figure who was ground zero for the radical movement within the biochemistry and molecular biology community at Berkeley.
On the one hand, it was easy to dismiss Spellman and his movement as crackpots. On the other hand, there was no denying that she had already been to her first APS meeting, then been recruited into the secret society, and now she and Karen were about to meet Dr. Apocalypse himself and learn about his plan to destroy the world.
And it’s just my second day of undercover work, she thought, suppressing a grin.
Alex noted that the sign above the door read: Macrolab. She made a mental note to review the briefing material that Karen had prepared so she would know what that meant.
If her cover was going to hold she would have to get very serious about molecul
ar and cellular biology. The lab itself was a large open room with a few small, glassed-off rooms on the outer walls.
She had expected tables full of beakers and bubbling liquids. And while there were some traditional beakers, Petri dishes, and lab equipment on the rows of lab tables, there were even more computers and devices that resembled washing machines or refrigerators or oversized printers.
Near the center of the room a group of about twenty students were facing Professor Spellman, whom she recognized from the video. It seemed like he was holding court and the students were all gazing at him raptly.
Spellman was good-looking in a generic sort of way but a bit soft, an impression that was completed by a weak chin. He wore slacks and a white shirt with the collar open and the sleeves rolled up. It was a uniform that said he was serious, professional, but ready to get to work. No, she realized—it wasn’t a uniform, it was a costume. After all, it was a weekend. The only reason to dress like a professor was to establish his position of authority as the leader of The Club.
Alex noticed that Margaret visibly brightened when she saw him. He turned when they came in.
“Margaret, you’ve brought us some new members,” he said. Alex noticed that his voice was nasal, not the booming or deep voice you would expect from someone nicknamed Dr. Apocalypse. All in all, Alex thought, he was a disappointment as a super villain.
Then, as an afterthought, he acknowledged Avery with a nod. “Avery.”
Turning his attention back to the newcomers, he stared at Alex and said, “You’re the transfer student? From Drew?”
“I am,” Alex said.
“Welcome,” he said. “And you are my new lab assistant, Karen?”
“Yes,” Karen said simply.
Dr. Spellman seemed to make eye contact with her for a long time. Then his eyes wandered a bit.
Gross, Alex thought. Then she saw with her peripheral vision that Margaret visibly tensed when that happened.
Threat Level Alpha Page 12