The Descartes Evolution

by N. J. Croft

  The force of the blast blew out the door. Seconds later, two guards appeared, weapons in their hands, only to be taken out by the snipers still on the perimeter walls.

  “Okay, let’s do this.”

  He followed Callum through the door. The snipers would keep watch outside; his job was to ensure no one interrupted while Callum set the explosives. The building was one large room, a huge steel vault in the center. Callum worked quickly, setting the charges around the base.

  “Boss?” Talbot’s voice came through his comm unit.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s a call for you. You need to hear this. I’m patching it through.”

  Luke frowned. What was so important Talbot would interrupt the mission? “Yes?”

  “Mr. Hockley, I presume.”

  A woman’s voice, but one he’d never heard before. “Who the hell is this?”

  “My name is Lauren, and I’m here with a friend of yours.”

  After a moment’s silence, Jenna’s voice came down the phone. “Luke? Whatever she asks, don’t agree. Finish this. Remember what I—”

  She was cut off, and Luke swore softly. What the hell had happened at the house?

  “What do you want?” He kept his voice controlled while inside he was raging, his mind frantically searching for options.

  “I want you to stop what you are doing. Get out of there with my chemicals intact, and perhaps I’ll let your friend live. In fact, I’ll definitely let her live. I can’t wait to get her into the lab and find out what makes her tick.”

  “Don’t touch her.”

  She laughed softly, and Luke gritted his teeth together to stop himself from ranting.

  “I’ll touch her, but I won’t hurt her. In fact, I’ll help her. I’m probably the only person who can at this point.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you come out of this alive, I might tell you. Before I kill you. For a second time.”

  “A second time?” The words made no sense to him. Then it all became clear, and a tidal wave of black hatred flooded his body. “You murdered them.”

  “If you’re referring to your wife and baby, yes. Not actually by my hand, but I gave the order. I suppose I was also responsible for your father. I’m telling you this because you need to know I’m sincere in my threats. You have five minutes to get out of there. Any explosions, and she dies instantly.”

  The phone went dead. Luke stared at it for long moments then forced himself to move. They had to get the hell out of there. All he could think of was Jenna; she filled his mind.

  “I heard,” Callum said.

  “We’re getting out of here.”

  “The hell we are. The explosives are nearly set. I’m finishing this.”

  “I gave an order. Stand down.”

  “What the fuck are you thinking?”

  “She has Jenna.”

  “Yes, and I heard what Jenna said to you. Finish this. It’s what she wants.”

  “She doesn’t understand.”

  “Of course she does. She saw that film. Would you want to live knowing you were responsible for the death of thousands, maybe millions? Think!”

  Slowing his breathing, Luke tried to shift his brain from the fog of panic, and Jenna’s words came back to him.

  I couldn’t bear to be responsible for doing that to anyone. I’d rather be dead.

  He smashed his fist into the wall.

  “Luke?”

  “Get on with it,” he snarled. “And fast. They’ll be coming for us.”

  Off to the south, the rising drone of helicopters told Luke time was running out. He spoke into his comm unit. “Everyone stand down. Get back to the vehicle.”

  Callum set the last charge and ran toward him. “Let’s go.” He raised his hand, showing a small rectangular detonator. “We have ten minutes to get out of here.”

  “Callum, they’ll kill her.”

  For a moment, Callum’s face softened. “Maybe. Maybe not. You heard what that woman said. They want to study her.”

  He was right—they might not kill her straightaway. If they got out of this alive, and if he could track her down a second time…

  Too many damned ifs. But hadn’t he always known this would never have a happy ending?

  The hum of the approaching helicopters was louder. As the lights of the first burst out from behind the cover of a steep hill, he stared off to the south.

  “Too late.”

  The shots tore up a strip of ground in front of them as they dove for cover behind a low stone wall.

  “Fuck,” Callum groaned.

  Luke turned sharply. “You hit?”

  “Yeah, lower leg. It’s okay.”

  Luke peered over the wall. The helicopters were nearly on top of them. “If they land, will they have time to deactivate the explosives?” he asked.

  “Maybe.”

  Luke thought of all he had tried to do, how many years he had spent chasing the monster. At least he could finish this one thing. They could still do this…if they manually detonated the explosives. Of course, that was likely to be fatal for both of them. “Give me the detonator.”

  Callum shook his head. “No way. You have a woman to rescue. And I can’t run. At least one of us can get clear. So piss off out of here.”

  Luke’s gaze flashed to the detonator. Callum’s finger hovered over the switch. From here, he would be caught in the blast. There was zero chance of survival.

  “What’s the range of the detonator?”

  “A mile.”

  “Let’s go, then.” He grabbed Callum by the shoulder and hauled him to his feet. The bullets chased them across the open ground, and he felt the moment Callum was hit again as he sagged against him, and Luke nearly went down. They weren’t far enough, but they’d run out of time.

  He crashed to the ground with Callum beneath him. For a second they locked gazes. Luke gritted his teeth. “Do it.”

  The roar of an explosion filled his head. The blast slammed into him like a solid wall of darkness as the building disintegrated in a ball of fire, hurling debris through the sky.

  Luke covered his head with his arms, but it wasn’t enough. Something hit him from behind, and everything went black.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  They were driving through country lanes in Lauren’s huge limousine. One guard sat on the seat beside Jenna, his grip hard on her upper arm as though he expected her to dive out the window. A second man sat facing her, a gun pointed directly at her head. She could have taken the man who held her—could probably have taken both of them—except she was cuffed, and she was pretty sure she couldn’t take a bullet in the brain.

  “Shit,” Lauren said from her seat opposite Jenna.

  She closed the lid on her laptop and looked across at Jenna, her eyes narrowed.

  Jenna had heard Lauren’s ultimatum to Luke and could only hope he would go ahead. He must know she wouldn’t want any more deaths on her conscience.

  From Lauren’s furious expression, she presumed he must have succeeded and blown up the stock. Jenna’s muscles tensed as she waited for something to happen. Would they kill her straightaway?

  Christ, how far had she come that she could consider such a possibility and not be reduced to a quivering heap of fear?

  Too far.

  Lauren frowned at her for a moment. “Let her go.” She spoke to the man who sat beside Jenna, and the grip on her upper arm loosened.

  “Don’t worry,” Lauren said. “I’m not going to kill you. Though I have to admit it goes against my better judgment to not carry through with a threat.” She drummed her fingers on the top of the laptop and stared out the window. After a moment, she picked up her cell phone and hit speed dial. “Mark, did you see that?”

  Her ear close to the phone, she
listened for a moment so Jenna couldn’t catch the other side of the conversation.

  “Send in a cleanup team. If Hockley is alive, keep him that way.” She ended the call and placed the cell phone on the laptop.

  Had Luke been hurt? She forced the question out. “What happened?”

  Lauren pursed her lips. “To your boyfriend? We’ll have to wait and see, but from my experience, he’s not that easy to kill. No doubt, he’ll turn up again.”

  Jenna pushed down her panic but sent up a silent prayer that Luke was alive and unhurt. Then she put the thought of Luke aside. If she was going to die, at least she wanted the truth first.

  “I don’t suppose you’d uncuff me?”

  “Why not? You might be strong, but you’re intelligent enough to know you won’t survive a bullet.” She nodded to the guard, and he pulled a key out of his pocket.

  Jenna shuffled around so he could reach her wrists and a moment later, she was free. She sat back and rubbed at her arms through the thin material of her T-shirt as she studied the other woman. It was hard to believe she was a contemporary of her father’s. He would have been fifty-six this year. This woman appeared nowhere near that age, with her smooth skin, pale blond hair pulled up into a perfect chignon, and dark blue eyes.

  She caught Jenna’s stare and raised an eyebrow. “So, tell me, what’s been happening to you?”

  The question took Jenna by surprise. “What? Aren’t you going to torture it out of me?”

  Lauren laughed, genuine amusement in the sound. “You are so like your father.”

  “How did you know him?”

  “I met him when we were at university in Cambridge. He was a brilliant student.”

  “Were you…?” She paused, not sure whether she wanted to know the answer.

  “Were we what?”

  “Lovers?”

  Lauren frowned. “Hardly. Your father was gay. He was sleeping with your friend Merrick at the time. I believe they resurrected the affair later when they were working for me.” Lauren studied her. “You seem shocked. You mean he never told you?”

  Jenna admitted it to herself—she was shocked. Not that her father was a homosexual, but that he had kept it a secret from her for so long. Christ, she’d been a fool. But he must have had a relationship with a woman at some time, otherwise where had she come from? Unless he wasn’t actually her father. She was finding it hard to believe her father’s whole life had been a lie.

  “Was he really my father?”

  “Oh, yes. You can see it clearly in your face. Your bone structure comes straight from John.”

  “My father was dark. His eyes were brown.”

  “Your hair and eyes come from your mother.”

  Jenna bit her lip. “Who was she?”

  A small almost mischievous smile curved the corners of Lauren’s lips. “Well—” She broke off as the car slowed to a crawl. “We’ve arrived. I think this conversation will have to wait until later.”

  Jenna wanted to scream her frustration, but she knew it would do no good. The car came to a halt in front of a set of double steel gates that slid open, and the vehicle drove through. Jenna peered back over her shoulder and saw the gates close behind them.

  She should be afraid, but instead, a sense of fatalism settled over her. If she was to die, so be it. At least Luke had succeeded, and the poison was destroyed, so they had done some good.

  They drove slowly along a curved drive and finally pulled up outside a large Georgian manor house. It stood four stories high, and lights gleamed from the ground-floor windows.

  A man hurried down the stone steps in front of the house and opened the car door. Lauren stepped out and gestured for Jenna to follow. She did, climbing from the car and looking around her. The grounds were set in smooth lawns dotted with oak trees. The gates had disappeared around a curve in the long drive, but she could see a tall stone wall that ran around the property.

  Could she make it to the wall if she ran?

  Her muscles tensed. As if sensing the movement, Lauren’s head swung around. She stared at Jenna, one arched eyebrow raised. “Don’t,” she said, and Jenna took a deep breath, felt the tension drain away.

  The man who had opened the car door was late middle-age but looked lean and fit in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie.

  “This is Summers,” Lauren said. “He takes care of the house for me.”

  The two of them set off up the wide stone steps. Jenna hesitated a moment before following. At the top, a set of oak doors led into a hallway, while off to the right a sweeping staircase hugged the wall. Lauren came to a halt at the bottom.

  “Show Ms. Young to the blue room, Summers.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She turned to Jenna. “There are a few things I need to do. Your friend has made life a little difficult for me. My people do not take kindly to failure, and Hockley has managed to delay our timetable considerably.”

  Jenna frowned. “So you’re not in charge of the Conclave.”

  Lauren glanced away as if deciding how much to reveal. Then she shrugged. “Some of it. Some of the time. Maybe one day I’ll explain how it works, but not right now.”

  Five minutes later, Jenna stood in the center of a large, elegant bedroom. The walls were a pale eggshell blue, the carpet and soft furnishings a deep, rich sapphire. After waiting until the door closed behind Summers, she crossed the room and pulled aside the brocade curtains to peer out into the darkness. There were bars on the windows, and through them she spotted an armed guard directly below her and another under the trees a little way off. Dropping the curtain back in place, she sank down onto the bed.

  The world had taken on a surreal quality. She was being treated like a guest, but that could change any moment—she was pretty sure those guards would have orders to stop her should she try to leave—so it looked like for now, she was stuck here. But she desperately wanted to know how Luke was. Was he even still alive?

  The strange thing was she felt no fear of Lauren. She had to remind herself this was the woman directly responsible for the murder of Luke’s family. That she had been part of a plan to release a poison into London that would have killed thousands, if not millions. Yet she didn’t seem evil.

  Leaning her head against the bedstead, she hugged her knees to her chest and waited.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Luke regained consciousness slowly. He lay facedown on the hard ground, his cheek tacky with drying blood. His whole body ached from the force of the blast, but he couldn’t identify any specific problem areas.

  Intense heat bathed his right side. He forced his lids open, the lashes sticking together. The buildings were engulfed in flames. At least Callum had succeeded—the poison was destroyed.

  Closer, he could see the mangled remains of a helicopter still burning, but over the crackle of flames, the roar of others grew louder. They were close, the drone of the engines changing as they hovered, ready to land. He peered upward as they backed off slightly, no doubt looking for a safe spot, and he knew he had to move.

  Rolling onto his side, he saw Callum.

  His friend lay a few feet away, sprawled on his back, his eyes closed. Luke stumbled to his feet and lurched across, collapsing to his knees beside him. Pressing his hand to the warm skin of Callum’s throat, he felt the faint, unsteady pulse against his fingertips.

  A long shard of steel stuck out from his chest, and a pool of dark blood surrounded his friend. When Luke drew his knife and cut away the material around the wound his breath hitched, and he sat back on his heels and stared. The entry was to the right of Callum’s heart, but directly over his lungs. He daren’t pull the metal free.

  “Luke?” Callum’s lashes fluttered open. His eyes slowly focused, and he turned his head to the side to stare at the burning building. “Did it work?”

  “Yes, it worked. The chemica
ls are destroyed. Now lie still, while I work out what to do.”

  Callum laughed softly, but the sound held no humor. “You’re wasting your time, and we both know it. You need to get away from here.”

  “Not yet.”

  “We had to do it.”

  “I know.” And he did. He just wished it hadn’t ended like this.

  “But I hope they haven’t killed her. I hope you find her.” Callum swallowed, and a grimace of pain passed across his face. “Maybe I didn’t want you to have a normal life, but I was wrong. Leah would have wanted you to be happy.”

  He fell silent.

  Luke clasped his hand. He sat for long minutes, his mind numb. Callum had been a part of his life for so long—the only family he’d had left after Leah.

  Across the lawns, the first of the surviving helicopters had landed, and its cargo of men was fanning outward. But he couldn’t seem to care. He stayed unmoving, Callum’s hand held tightly in his, until he knew his friend was gone.

  Rage seeped into his mind, overriding the mind-numbing sense of shock. The Conclave had taken somebody else from him.

  The men had spread out from the helicopter, and in the flickering light from the fire, he saw them clearly. Staggering to his feet, he cast one last look at Callum and turned and ran for cover, crouching close to the ground. He heard no commotion to signal he’d been spotted, and he made it to the relative shelter of the main house.

  Was Jenna alive? Or had that evil bitch carried out her threat and killed her when the laboratory exploded? He didn’t think she could be dead, because he was sure he would feel something. He had to keep believing. The alternative wasn’t acceptable, and until he knew for certain, he would presume she was alive.

  As he made his way around the house and back through the woods to where the vehicle was parked, Talbot stepped out of the shadows of the trees.

  “Where’s Callum?”

  “Dead.”

  “Shit.”

  Talbot had served with Callum in the British army for many years. The men had been friends, and Luke knew this must hit him hard, but the time for grieving would be later, after he had Jenna back. He needed a bargaining tool. He needed a plan.