“What department do you work for here at the facility?” Winfield asked patiently.
Nina made another face and shrugged. While Winfield’s resurrected libido seemed to be reveling in this awkward exchange, Conlan was less impressed.
“Do you work in our Research Departments?” Conlan asked.
Nina nodded.
“Which department?”
Nina shrugged again.
“Maybe you don’t work here at all,” Conlan accused. “In fact, I don’t see an I.D. badge.”
Winfield patted Conlan’s shoulder, the signal for him to stop. “Easy, Dr. Conlan. Let me speak to her. Miss, do you have a name?”
Nina nodded again.
“What is it?” Winfield asked.
“Nina.”
“Well, Nina. Why don’t you stay by me and don’t get in the way, OK? Are you doing anything later, Nina?”
Nina shook her head.
“Good, good,” Winfield said. “I want to test out a few things. Maybe you can help me out with that.”
Nina shrugged.
Winfield whispered in a kind, sugar daddy way. “Just don’t get in the way.” Nina retreated a few steps back. “That’s it, sweetheart.” Turning to Conlan, he preened, “Dumb and built like a brick house. That’s just the way I like them.”
Conlan didn’t understand nor did he care to, and for the first time the word “idiot” crossed his mind when he thought of the General.
“All right, how do we get out of here?” Danny said, his faith in Felice at this point, unshakable.
“The exits should all be locked by now,” Felice said. “Even if we were able to get through that door, everything else will be sealed off.”
“How about up there?” Danny said, pointing at the observation booth now layered in shattered glass.
“I don’t see how we can get anyone up there,” Felice said.
Caine, ever the alpha dog, started to bark. “Why don’t we just grab these two and demand they let us go or we’ll splatter their brains all over this place?”
Vogel laughed too loud and way too long. “That’s a plan,” he snorted. Danny gave Vogel a withering look that got him scratching his arm. “Well, it is,” Vogel insisted.
Danny knew he had to negotiate with the psychopath and articulate his ideas very carefully. “I’m afraid we’re dead whether we decide to kill the hostages or not.”
“We’re willing to take that risk,” Caine said confidently.
“I’m sure you are but there’s got to be another way,” Danny insisted. “I don’t know about you dumb suckers, but I want to use my head to see if there’s a way for us to come out of this alive.”
“Seeing how you’re the golden boy—give it a go, Einstein,” Caine said.
Danny turned to Felice again. “You said before the Army is in on this?”
“The Defense Department.” Felice hesitated and then looked into the expectant eyes of Danny and the others and she overrode any remaining reserve she had. “They’re involved because of Project Talon.”
“Project Talon?”
“Highly confidential. Only a few top dogs at the Pentagon are supposed to know about it.”
Danny listened intently while Caine exaggerated a yawn of disinterest.
Sarkis had heard enough. He spied a small knife used for utility purposes on the shelf inside the podium and palmed it in his hand.
Felice Bennett was using her hands now, like a professor lecturing students. “Project Talon was created in 2014 by a select group of high ranking officers operating inside the Defense Department. These officers controlled the budget that went to Special Projects and Research. The idea was—”
Danny was the first to see the flashing blade in Dr. Sarkis’ hand lunging at Felice, and knocked it to the ground. Felice’s face was barely missed by inches. After the threat was disabled, O’Neal punched Sarkis from behind, dropping him to his knees.
“You traitor! You traitorous bitch!” Sarkis screamed, his eyes bulging and turning pink.
“Easy,” Caine said to Sarkis, for once appearing to mediate against violence.
A tear ran down Felice’s cheek although she felt at a loss for emotion. She took a deep breath, allowing her gaze to leave her attacker and make a sweep across the room.
“Are you OK?” Danny asked. When Felice didn’t respond but just stared to a space above his head, Danny turned and saw what had transfixed her. The observation booth was now a nest of snipers in full riot gear with rifles fixed, each with a bead on one of the other five processees.
Caine, his instinct for self-preservation always sharp, already had his gun pressed against the back of Felice’s head. “Put down the guns or she’s dead!” Caine shouted. O’Neal crouched behind the podium. Seven Williams attached himself to a recessed wall. Dobie hid himself behind one of the upturned tables. Vogel just stood out in the open, grinning. Sarkis started to back away out of the line of fire.
The deafening silence filled the void left by an absence of a response. And then over the speaker system, General Winfield’s voice like a malevolent God expressed its will.
“If I wanted it,” Winfield addressed Caine, “you would already be dead.”
“Fuck you!” Caine screamed.
“Would you like me to demonstrate?”
A single shot rang out, a thin draft of smoke leaving a sniper’s gun barrel. Seven Williams, a clean bullet hole through his forehead, fell to the ground.
Everyone in the room flinched including Caine and Danny. Vogel, who looked like he wanted to cry, lowered his weapon.
“What do you want?” Caine shouted.
“I want to speak with Mr. Fierro for a moment.”
Caine looked at Danny with a mixture of anger and respect. Felice reached for her throat.
Danny looked around the room at the fear strangling everyone. “And what if I say no?”
“Then you’ll all be dead in five seconds,” the resonant voice declared.
Caine looked up at the five snipers taking dead aim at him. “Well,” he said to Danny, “get your ass up there and talk to the man.”
“How do I know you won’t harm these people once I leave this room?” Danny asked.
“I give you my word.”
Dobie was shaking behind the table. “Don’t do it, Danny. We’re all dead if you leave us.”
“Let him go,” Caine said. “Let’s see what our special lab rat can do for us.”
Danny looked over at the only one he trusted. “Felice?”
“I don’t see too many options, Danny,” she said.
Unfortunately, neither did Danny.
When Danny was escorted from the conference room to the corridor outside, he was astonished to see Nina in her ill-fitted lab coat leaning against a wall a few feet away. He hoped she wouldn’t see him and create a stir but he could not prevail against the randomness of human movement. Nina tilted her head down and then up but when it tilted to one side, her face broke open with recognition. She hopped up and down in excitement at the sight of Danny, her hands flapping rapidly. Danny opened his eyes like a disapproving cartoon face and shook his head not conspicuously but just enough for Nina to get the message. Nina’s frown was back and her body collapsed inside her own disappointment. She watched him walk by and drooped like a wilted flower.
Danny was led into another white room, an office belonging to one of the facility’s supervisors evacuated some time ago, now being utilized as a site of great importance, where a discussion would take place that would affect the future of the company and perhaps the nation itself. A framed photograph of the supervisor’s handsome wife and their two durable children sat prominently behind the desk where General Winfield now sat. He got up to shake Danny’s hand and then reseated himself. Danny sat and listened as his escorts receded from the office, leaving him and the General totally alone.
“I am General Ronald Winfield.”
“Are you one of the officers responsible for Project Talon?�
�
“Oh, so our Dr. Bennett has told you.”
“No, we were interrupted by her associate who would rather kill her than let her discuss it with us.”
Winfield smiled. “Ah, Dr. Sarkis. His loyalty is commendable. Now there is a man who believes in keeping secrets.”
“About Project Talon—” Danny persisted.
“Hmm.” General Winfield thought carefully and then leaned forward. “You know, MacArthur had it wrong. Old soldiers don’t fade away. They just get old. And then they die. And the country dies a little with them.” Winfield gauged Danny’s expression and knew he had his captive’s interest snagged on his hook. “What do you know about leadership, Mr. Fierro?”
“I know it when I see it. A lot of people think they have it but most of the time, they don’t.”
“I’ll tell you what leadership is,” Winfield said. “Leadership is the ability to inspire someone to do something they would not normally imagine themselves capable of doing. And it isn’t limited to inspiring individuals—it could pertain to inspiring the country as well.” Winfield tilted his head in a slightly grandiose way, as if he were convinced of the significance of what he was saying. “The United States is in a crisis, Mr. Fierro. The people responsible for the safety and well-being of this country are getting older. And worse, they’re dying. For the sake of the future of this great nation, we cannot afford to lose our greatest leaders to the onslaught of passing time.”
“Everybody gets old. Some faster than others,” Danny said.
“Well now, thanks to Dr. Conlan’s research and a unique individual such as yourself, we stand poised to control the ravages of aging. I lost a valued brother-in-arms—General Harold Dawson—because he couldn’t face getting older. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, to him a terminal death sentence. So instead, he went off into the woods and shot himself in the head.” Winfield shook his head. “Such a waste. Such a goddamn waste.” Winfield’s eyes had drifted with the sobriety of his thoughts but now they returned to Danny, and they grew narrow and sharp. “If he had waited, he would be alive, healthy and whole. We can retard the aging process—thwart cancer, coronary disease, Alzheimer’s…Think of it.”
The pieces were coming together. “Project Talon,” Danny said almost with reverence, like the last answer on the $64,000 Question. “And who gets the benefit of this miracle of science—you and your buddies at the Pentagon?”
Winfield smiled unashamedly. “Mr. Fierro, if you were in a plane at thirty-nine thousand feet and everyone was suddenly rendered unconscious, who would you run to, to revive first—the flight attendant? A passenger, maybe? Or the pilot?”
“And my blood is the key?”
“That’s right,” Winfield said.
“There will be others,” Danny said.
“Maybe. But we don’t know when or if that will happen. Until then, we have—you.”
“Let the others go,” Danny said.
“I can’t do that, Mr. Fierro.”
“How old are you, General?” Danny asked.
“In actual time, I have been walking this earth for seventy-four years,” he said.
Danny looked at Winfield’s face. “You’re looking closer to a man of forty-five.”
“That is the miracle of Serum 59,” the General said.
“No, I’m the miracle,” Danny said. “Without me, Serum 59 is dishwater. You know, General, in actual years, I should be twenty-six years old. You’ve replenished in years what I’ve lost. And what will you do with this newfound youth? How will you lead us? Run for office? Run the Pentagon for the next hundred years? The CIA? The White House?”
The General could not deny that he enjoyed the conclusions Danny was reaching. “It opens up many options, Mr. Fierro.”
“Do you know how many lives you’ve destroyed with Bio-Justice?”
“I have nothing to do personally with the Premium Sentencing program,” Winfield said.
“The politicians are voting on this. They give the contract to Conlan. He’s making money, his partners are making money. But Conlan really works for you, doesn’t he? Your people are funding his research. If it turns out his research finds a way to turn human misery into profit, so much the better.”
“I disagree with your characterization,” Winfield said, “but I would not expect a murderer to share my world view.”
“It’s all about control, isn’t it?”
“The history of the world is about the struggle for control—over enemies, disease, overpopulation…and now aging.”
“What about control over evil?” Danny said.
Winfield looked unfazed by Danny’s interrogations. “That is always a component in every civilized society.”
“Did you order Louis to be murdered?” Danny asked starkly, without emotion.
“You have to look at the big picture,” Winfield said. “The objective.”
“Fuck you,” Danny said, as if something vile had spilled on him. “I want to go back now.”
Winfield’s face tightened. “I’m afraid I can’t let that happen. Don’t you know everyone in that room will be dead in two minutes?”
“You gave me your word.”
“It worked well, didn’t it?” the General grinned.
“What about Dr. Bennett? She’s down there.”
“The objective, Mr. Fierro. You always have to focus on the objective.”
“I am, General. In fact, I have something that I brought with me,” Danny said, holding up a capped syringe filled with a brown fluid.
“And what is that?”
“Our friend, Mr. Wilson Caine introduced it to me once. It’s a lovely cocktail of battery acid, anti-freeze—oh, and a dash of Drano. There have been some, let’s say, dark moments during my new life after Bio-Justice when things didn’t seem very rosy. I’ve carried this with me, like a poison pill—in case…well, in case I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Mr. Fierro,” Winfield said, trying to deny the encroaching doubt creeping into his consciousness.
“I’m going to inject this little mixture into my blood stream and you can kiss your ADP-5 platelets goodbye.”
Winfield rose from behind the desk as Danny uncapped the syringe. “Go back and join the others, Mr. Fierro.”
“I knew you would appreciate that. Now call off your snipers and let the others go.”
CHAPTER 26
When Danny emerged from the office after General Winfield, Nina was waiting nearby. And when she saw Danny, she practically jumped on him.
“Danny! Danny!”
Danny turned and saw Winfield’s disturbed face as Nina gushed over him.
“Easy. Are you OK?”
Nina nodded.
“Are you sure?”
Nina nodded again.
“Good. Come on with me,” he said.
Entering the conference room with Nina was a situation, Danny realized almost immediately, that he had not thought his way through. At the sight of Nina, Caine was all over her.
“Hey, baby. Over here!” Caine said.
“She’s with me,” Danny said. “Lay off.”
Caine was hardly deterred. “You need to learn to share, my friend.”
Nina scurried behind Danny and hid.
“What did the General say?” Felice asked Danny.
“He kept talking about the big picture,” Danny said.
“He’s going to kill us all,” Dobie said.
“No, I forced a deal with him.”
“Danny, look—” Felice said breathlessly.
Above in the gallery, the snipers were pulling gas masks over their faces.
“Shit,” Danny said.
“Bad word,” Nina whispered.
Suddenly, gas canisters were lobbed from above. Noxious clouds began blossoming in different corners of the room. Swirls of gray, gauzy gas twisted like tentacles and circled the captives as they tried not to breathe.
Conlan had firmly reminded Winfield that the us
e of gas posed a genuine risk of chemical contamination of Danny’s blood. The General, as if poised above a battlefield with no good options, made the decisive move. “The risk is greater that Fierro is shot or killed, by accident or by the animals he’s bound with,” Winfield reasoned. “I want Fierro now, any way I can get him.”
As the gas threatened to overtake them all, Dr. Rhys Sarkis made a calculation to save his life. As the stakes got higher and the criminals more desperate, Sarkis concluded he could be murdered at any moment, such was the whim of such mentally and emotionally deficient monsters such as Caine. And with everyone falling over themselves to protect Danny Fierro and keep him from harm, Sarkis needed a bargaining chip to offer his captors so he could cash out from this unpredictable and dangerous game. Felice Bennett had proven herself to be disloyal, a traitor to the compact, and for her, Sarkis only wished her the worst fate. But now the room was panicking and the craziest individuals had the most destructive and efficient means of extinguishing his life. So Sarkis played his trump card.
Sarkis shouted to Danny, “There is a secret passage out.”
Danny and Caine grabbed onto the bait. “Where?” Danny cried. Caine roared, “Where, you ugly bastard?” For Felice, her disdain for Sarkis made her wonder about a trap being set.
“Behind the podium, there is a slide panel,” Sarkis said. “Dr. Conlan installed it when he used to grow weary during media events and wanted to exit the room discreetly.”
Danny looked to where Sarkis had indicated and saw the outline of the secret door camouflaged by the slatted material that made up the rear wall. “I see it,” Danny said, as the gas was threatening to take them.
Making his way to the back of the conference room, Danny felt along the edge and found the lever for the door, pulling it open. “Come on,” Danny screamed, “let’s go!”
Dobie was the first to rush through the opening, then Felice, a semi-hysterical Nina, and O’Neal. Caine hung back, watching Danny scramble through the portal. The snipers, witnessing the sudden exodus, snapped their weapons to their fixed positions. That was enough for Caine who disappeared with haste through the secret door. That left Sarkis, who deliberately lagged behind, and Vogel who laughed as he took in the spectacle before turning to leave.
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