Enhancement (Black Market DNA Book 1)

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  Before Tracy could say anything else, the clatter of metal against metal sounded outside the room. Heavy footsteps drew them from their embrace and back to the window. Greg tensed, stepping in front of Jordan to protect the injured man from whatever lay in wait for them outside the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  A hand pressed against the narrow window of the room, obscuring Tracy and Chris’s view out the narrow window. Greg cocked back the IV pole, ready to strike as he stepped forward. The door swung open, Tracy and Chris jumping back, and Kaufman, his white shirt soaked with sweat, stepped in.

  “You need to follow me right now.” Kaufman held a pistol in his right hand but didn’t point it at any of them. Instead, he stared down the hallway.

  Tracy and Chris looked at each other. Greg began to swing the IV pole at Kaufman when Blue Eyes entered and pointed a handgun at him. “Drop it.”

  Greg released the pole, and it bounced on the floor with a clang. Brown Eyes stepped in. His skin was ashen and he clutched at his right shoulder even as he brandished a submachine gun.

  As Tracy reached for the pistol tucked against her waist, Brown Eyes glared at her. “Get your hands away from that.” He let go of his shoulder, revealing a long tear in his skin, evidence of a slicing knife or grazing bullet. Blood oozed from the wound as he plucked the pistol from Tracy and slipped it into the waist of his pants. Through gritted teeth, he said, “listen to Kaufman.”

  Kaufman’s nostrils flared. He leaned out the door again, his head swiveling to look down either end of the hallway. With his hand, he motioned for everyone to follow him. Tracy and Chris filed out behind him, and Greg hoisted Jordan up, allowing Jordan to lean on him for support. The two thugs followed behind. They rounded the corner where Chris, Jordan, and Greg had escaped earlier. Kaufman led them onward, breaking into a hobbling jog.

  Her eyes narrowed, Tracy stared at the back of Kaufman’s neck. She flexed her hands at her sides. Chris reached down and grabbed her wrist. When he did so, she looked at him and he shook his head. “Not now,” he whispered. “Not now.”

  Kaufman used his comm card to unlock a door that led to a flight of stairs. The winding stairs seemed to spiral up into dark shadows, with no lights to illuminate their way.

  She turned forward again. “What the hell is going on?”

  Kaufman turned back to them. “We’ve got unwelcome visitors.”

  Tracy flashed a quick grin. “Not the police, are they?”

  Without saying anything, Kaufman turned back and glared at her. “Too bad I still need to keep at least one of you alive. I don’t need them, though.” He stopped and pointed at Jordan and Greg. “Take them down.”

  Tracy lunged at him, gripping the arm that held his pistol, as his two lackeys leveled their guns at Greg and Jordan. Before either could pull the trigger, Tracy tore the handgun from Kaufman’s hand and pressed its muzzle to the side of his head.

  “Don’t,” Tracy said.

  The two lackeys froze, their guns still pointed at Jordan and Greg. They looked to Kaufman for guidance.

  “Drop ’em,” Tracy said.

  They didn’t respond.

  “Do what she says,” Kaufman said.

  Both men bent and placed their guns on the cement floor. Tracy motioned for Chris to pick them up. He retrieved the weapons, examining them as he did. With little experience in firearms, he put the strap of the submachine gun around his left shoulder and held the pistol in his hand. It, at least, felt more comfortable than the larger, cold metal grip of the other gun.

  Heavy footsteps echoed down the halls. Tracy prodded Kaufman with her pistol. “How many more do you have besides these two buffoons?”

  “I don’t know,” Kaufman said.

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “There were at least four others on our side in the firefight. It didn’t last long, but I didn’t stay to check for casualties, either.” Kaufman’s nose scrunched in a snarl again. “I have no idea how they found us.”

  “How many of you were there before the attack?”

  Kaufman didn’t respond.

  Tracy pressed the gun against his head harder, the skin turning red where the metal touched his temple. Her voice rose. “How many?”

  “Nine of us in total. Including me and Lawrence.”

  “Your brother?”

  Kaufman nodded.

  The sound of doors slamming open and voices yelling grew closer. A grim sneer spread across Tracy’s face as she choked Kaufman with her arm.

  Blue Eyes lunged. Tracy fired three shots at his chest. The bullets knocked him backward. He clutched at his chest, evidently protected by a bulletproof vest, and groaned. Tracy leveled her pistol at Brown Eyes. He ducked, but Tracy’s aim followed. Another three shots exploded from the gun barrel. One hit him, piercing his skull and causing him to collapse into a messy heap at the bottom of the stairs. She pulled the trigger once more to finish off the other man.

  The voices down the hall rose up in response to the shots, the door slamming ceased, and the clatter of shoes against the floor grew louder.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “We’ve got to move!” Chris jumped up the steps toward Tracy. He grabbed Kaufman’s collar, stretching out the cotton fabric until it ripped. “Hand me your comm card.”

  Kaufman’s lips drew tighter, and he made no move to comply.

  Chris patted the man down and reached into a pocket. Kaufman kicked at him and struggled in Tracy’s arms until she tightened her grip around his throat. Chris pulled out the comm card.

  Tracy dragged Kaufman up the stairs, her face red. “Don’t call the police.”

  The din down the hallway grew more pressing. Greg lugged Blue Eyes’s body out the door next to that of Brown Eyes and threw the door to the stairs shut. The lock clicked shut. They plunged into darkness, with only the narrow window of the stairwell door providing meager illumination.

  “We need to move,” Greg said, helping Jordan up the stairs. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “There’s no need.” Tracy pushed Kaufman forward. “If they’re his men, they won’t hurt us if we have him hostage.”

  Chris glanced at Kaufman and then back at the door. “What if they’re not his? What if it’s the group that attacked Kaufman, the one that tried to kill Veronica?”

  Creases forming across her forehead, Tracy jutted her head forward. “What do you mean they tried to kill Veronica? She’s dead.” Her eyes narrowed to dark slits.

  “No, she’s not. But we will be if we don’t move.”

  Without a word, Greg stepped past with Jordan limping beside him. Tracy followed with Kaufman in tow, overtaking them, and Chris brought up the rear. He glanced at the strip of a window once more to see shadows looming down the hall as unidentifiable pursuers came searching for them.

  Chris froze on the stairs. “Why don’t you want me to call the police?”

  Stopping half a flight above him, Tracy turned. “You know what the police think about your involvement with Randy. If you introduce this whole mess, you’re landing back in Fulton.”

  Looking down from Tracy, Chris toyed with the comm card in his hand. “Jordan’s in rough shape, we have who knows how many other people after us, and we just uncovered a goddamned illegal genetic enhancement conspiracy. If I end up back in Fulton because of that, so be it. I can’t stand for anyone else to get killed.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” Kaufman said. “You can just let me go, and we can forget about all of this. About all of you.”

  “No,” Jordan said, his voice gruff. “Call the police.”

  Chris tapped at the comm card with his hand. The card was locked, requiring its owner’s thumbprint. He grabbed Kaufman’s wrist and pressed the man’s thumb against the card. The screen lit up green. As he dialed up emergency services, Tracy threw Kaufman down the stairs at him. He dropped the pistol he held in his other hand, and it clattered down the stairs. Grabbing at the rail to stay upright, he dr
opped the comm card. Kaufman tumbled down the stairs and crumpled into a heap.

  “What the hell was that for?”

  Tracy pushed past Chris, pressing him against the railing, and fired four shots in quick succession at Kaufman. The bullets smashed into him, the blast of the gun ricocheting in the enclosed stairwell.

  Chris clapped his hands to his buzzing ears. Tracy turned back up, leveling the gun toward Jordan. Greg charged down the stairs. The muddled sounds of Tracy’s yells and Jordan’s words crashed as Greg leapt at her. She blasted two rounds into his chest. Greg’s body crashed into her. The two bodies intertwined, rolling back down the stairs to lie motionless on the shadowed floor.

  Chris took a single step down as the ringing in his ears faded.

  “She’s not on our side.” Jordan’s raspy voice drew his attention. “She called someone. Them, I think.” Jordan pointed at the door, his chest heaving. Drawn by the gunfire, shadowed faces peered in, squinting into the dark recesses of the stairwell. Fists pounded on the door, and it sounded as if someone hammered on the locking mechanism on their side. “I saw her use the comm card. She sent a message. I barely saw it, but it said where we are. Who we were with.” He glanced at Kaufman’s crumpled form and at Greg’s limp body.

  “No, that’s not right.” Chris shook his head. “That’s impossible.”

  “I’m afraid it’s true. Don’t you see? She’s not strong because she has the same virus with the same DNA you have. You’d be just as strong. No, she’s an enhancer. She works for them. Everywhere you go with her, there’s a wake of destruction.”

  “She wouldn’t do that. They broke into her apartment and stole the samples.”

  “Who broke in?” Jordan put a hand on Chris’s shoulder, his voice rising. “It wasn’t the Kaufman brothers. They tortured me to find out where those extra samples were. I can see in your eyes you know they didn’t take the samples.”

  “She staged it?” Chris cocked his head, furrowing his brow, and took a step back. He didn’t want to believe it and tried to conjure an argument that would contradict Jordan’s allegations.

  “She killed Greg, and she tried to kill me.” Jordan’s good eye filled with pitiful sorrow. “We’ve got to go.”

  Chris took up one of Jordan’s arms and helped him to scale the stairs. As they rounded the first landing again, a heavy thud sounded from below them. Tracy emerged from beneath Greg. A cut on her head bled. She wiped it with the back of her hand, studied the blood, and wiped her now-empty hands on her torn slacks.

  “Stop!” She stood at the bottom of the stairs, her hair tangled around her face, as a trickle of blood dripped from her nose. “I’ve had enough of all this. You’ve got a choice.” She glanced at the door, which several people still struggled to open, and looked back at Chris. “Jordan’s not wrong. I’m leaving with those people. You can come with me, too. All I wanted to do was find the Kaufman brothers. They were dangerous and needed to be stopped. Can’t you understand that?”

  Chris’s chest heaved, his heart thumping against his rib cage. “How are you any better than them?”

  “You know me. I can protect you. Hell, we could use a guy like you.”

  The words sounded too familiar. “I’m not going to be a part of that.”

  “Don’t act like you’re better than me. You were a part of this business before with that amateur.” She pointed a shaking finger at Jordan. “Join me. You’re smart. Think about what you could do with us. If we take the DNA you and I both have, we could expand our business. We could find a way to sell it to NanoTech like these idiots were trying to do.”

  Chris took a step down the stairs, the submachine gun still hanging from his left shoulder. It clanged against the railing. “I’m not interested. I gave all that up.”

  “Why? You couldn’t stand working at Ingenomics. All your efforts, your inventions, belonged to them. Isn’t that how you ended up in this business? Don’t you want to be rewarded for your work?”

  “Rewarded like Randy?”

  “He was a fucking idiot. Tried to start a bidding war between us and the Kaufmans. Hell, he was going to try to sell your delivery system. You saw his notebook.” She stretched a beseeching hand, the vessels in her arms dilated and pulsing.

  “I won’t work with...with whatever group you’re with.”

  Tracy sneered at him, shaking her head, her tangled hair whipping. “Where do you think you’re going to go? You’ve got nothing without me. You were going to lose your job today, too. Since you lost Randy’s protection, Claire was going to fire you. They know what you are now. So answer me this: Where will you run to?” She threw her hands up. “You’ve got nothing.” She lowered her voice, the red from her face draining, her natural skin tone returning. “Besides, we make a great team.”

  Chris took a step forward. “You lied to me.”

  “Not about everything.” She held a hand out to him, palm up.

  He took another step forward.

  Grinning, Tracy motioned for him to come closer. “See? You’re like me. You can do this too.”

  He pointed at Greg’s body. “I’ve never killed anyone. I couldn’t do that.” He bent down toward the comm card that had flown from his hand as Tracy scowled. “You’re the one that led them to Veronica, weren’t you?”

  “Don’t,” she said.

  As Chris bent to retrieve the card, Tracy jumped for the pistol that had come clattering down the stairs when she had knocked past him. She picked the gun up, swinging her arm up past him. Toward Jordan.

  Chris fumbled with the submachine gun, shouldering it and aiming it toward Tracy. She fired up at Jordan and Chris pulled the trigger in response.

  The recoil sent the barrel flying upward, the stock of the gun slamming into his shoulder, and he fell back, cracking his head against the stairs. Again, his ears rang and his vision swam. He grasped the back of his head. Warm liquid smeared onto his hand. No more gunshots, no more cries, no yells. Shadows danced at the narrow window of the stairs, wilder than before, jumping about like hyenas on a dead gazelle.

  He reached out to the metal railing and hoisted himself up with his left hand. At the bottom of the stairs, Tracy had fallen over Greg, one arm flung across Kaufman’s back. The pistol rested at the corner of the stairwell, glimmering as light hit it, reflected from the door’s window.

  “Chris.”

  Spinning around, Chris scooped an arm under Jordan. He felt a new warmth run over him as he lifted his friend. The hotness spilled from Jordan’s side and the man groaned. He was bleeding heavily.

  “Chris. The comm card.”

  The card lay on the stair again and Chris bent to retrieve it. He dialed for emergency services.

  “What’s your emergency?”

  He stammered, unsure. “Shot. Dead.” He shook his head and he looked at Jordan. “There’s someone hurt. He’s alive. I need an ambulance. The police.”

  “May I use your current location according to your comm card’s GPS?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, sir. Please remain where you are and with your comm card. Help is arriving.”

  They’d escaped. Help was coming. It would be all over.

  The pounding against the door ceased. The whine of metal against metal, the purr of a drill echoed in the stairwell.

  Jordan gripped Chris’s shoulder. “We have to move.”

  They powered up the stairs into darkness. No emergency lights illuminated their way or declared a safe exit above them. These stairs must have been obscured, hidden for such an escape. Adrenaline surged through him once more. Jordan winced with each step as Chris reassured him.

  Below them, the sound of the drilling ceased. A crack echoed up the stairwell followed by a crash. Voices rose up around them as they carried on.

  Footsteps echoed up the steel stairs. Chris’s heart pounded faster and harder. He pushed on.

  A dozen tiny white lights shone ahead. He reached out toward them, but something cool and hard blocked h
is way. When he pressed forward, it gave away. A glass window, a door. It let them out into the freezing night air onto a walkway bordering the water. Small waves splashed against the side of the causeway where they stood and stars dotted the sky.

  They hobbled toward the end of the walkway along the massive warehouse toward the street.

  Blue and red lights, appearing distant, grew closer. Lights flashed and sirens became louder. Jordan grappled Chris and pulled him into a hug with his good arm. “We made it.”

  He did not reciprocate, standing frozen. “I killed her.” His eyes gazed off, back over the water. Wave tips caught the light of the moon, the light of the city, throwing it back into the air, back at him. He stared at Jordan’s battered face. “I killed her, Jordan.” His bottom lip shook.

  “You did what you needed to do. You did the right thing.”

  But Jordan’s words fell across Chris with as much effect as a pebble thrown into the ocean. “It doesn’t feel right.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The funeral was held two weeks after Randall Nee’s. This time, Chris went with Jordan. They arrived together in Jordan’s sedan at the white-domed First Unitarian Church of Baltimore. Chris had not anticipated the sheer number of people he saw at the memorial service, shaking hands and introducing themselves as friends or family members of Greg’s. He followed Jordan through the mass of people congregating near the altar. As they grew closer, the open casket became visible as people passed and hugged, cried and laughed. Stories of Greg’s exploits as a child, as a colleague, as a friend drifted throughout the gaggle of voices.

  Jordan embraced a wrinkled woman wearing a scarlet dress that shone bright against the other mourners clad in muted, dark tones. Its folds draped her skinny frame and hung around her like a windless sail from a mast. Tears intermittently escaped her eyes, yet she wore a quivering smile. When Jordan approached her, she broke down and he stooped to embrace her. They clung together, her hand rubbing Jordan’s back.