Skin Dive

by Ava Gray

  “No, sir. I’ve come seeking information about your grandson.”

  “Tyler? We ain’t see that bastard in ten years and good riddance, I say.” He spat into the weeds that grew around his ankles.

  “Anything you can tell me about him would be helpful—his friends, his habits, his usual haunts. What do you recall?”

  A greedy look dawned on Golden’s face, but before he could capitalize, the door to the shack opened up, and a woman with her brown hair caught up in a ponytail came out. She didn’t look old enough to have a grown son, except around the eyes.

  “You’re here about Ty?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Could we come in for a moment?”

  Her eyes went to Kestrel, who couldn’t—under any circumstances—be considered a threat. It had been a stroke of genius to bring her along.

  “Of course.” She extended a small hand, which he shook.

  “I’m Dani Golden. I’ve got a pitcher of tea made. We’ll have a glass and talk.”

  Inside, it was just as hot as it had been outdoors, and the small rooms didn’t help. He didn’t know how anyone could survive this place. Maybe Golden was a lucky bastard after all; he’d gotten out, at least, whatever had happened since then. Everything was worn and threadbare, cheap furniture years past its prime. On the walls, someone had hung dime-store art and yard-sale pictures of Jesus. He sank onto the sagging pink couch. That would slow his reaction time, should it come to a fight. Mentally, he reckoned how to compensate and waited for their hostess.

  The woman brought three glasses of iced tea and then sat down in a rickety rocking chair. “Did you find him?”

  Interesting.

  “I’m afraid not. But that’s what I’m trying to do, so any information you can provide would be helpful.”

  “Who’s your quiet friend?”

  “This is Kestrel.” Best not to elaborate, or try to explain her silence. Let Dani make of her what she would.

  “Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  He’d worked out the cover story ahead of time, and she was the kind of person who would buy it—hook, line, and sinker. “No. But he participated in some drug trials a while back. There’s since been a class action against the pharmaceutical company, and I’ve been hired to track down the participants, so they have an opportunity to opt in and possibly receive benefits from the lawsuit.”

  Someone who knew more about such things would ask who the hell would hire him to do that, but she merely nodded, trying to look worldly. “Is he gonna get sick?”

  “He might be already, which is why it’s imperative I locate him.”

  “Well, like Daddy said, we ain’t seen him in years. I had him young,” she confided, as if he hadn’t discerned that from her face. “I was fifteen, a kid myself. I tried to do right by him.”

  It was clear she wanted to talk so Cale let her. Maybe he could learn something about his target from his mother’s memories.

  “But I guess he was about nine or ten when he started showing signs he wasn’t right. I always thought maybe it was my fault... ’cause I drank and smoked before I knew I was pregnant with him. I did stop, soon as I figured it out, but—” Guilt shone from her like a beacon, creating sad lines beside her mouth.

  “It’s not your fault,” Kestrel said softly, unexpectedly. “Tyler’s problems didn’t come from one cigarette or a couple of beers. There are indications now that schizophrenia is linked to genetic markers, zinc finger protein 804A and the chromosome six HLA. If there’s no history of mental illness in your family, it might have come from his father’s side.”

  Cale glanced at Kestrel in shock, both at her knowledge and her kindness. Dani Golden smiled in a grateful haze, her hands trembling so the ice in her plastic tumbler of tea rattled. To cover his reaction, he took a sip of the tea: over-sweetened but cold. The atmosphere in here felt cloying, as if nothing ever moved. No fresh wind, no progress, just slow stagnation, echoed in the mossy-mold smell from the swamp. From the old man came the sound of another beer can cracking open.

  “I guess you’re a scientist,” Dani said. “Somebody who worked for the drug company, but then you realized the product was bad, so you turned whistleblower?”

  That was a surprising analysis from a woman he had taken to be completely credulous. He revised his list of queries accordingly. If he made her suspicious, she would throw them out before he learned anything.

  Kestrel’s answer came soft and slow, an astonishing word. “Yes.”

  Really? Or is she just playing along? Now he wondered if she had, in fact, worked for the Foundation at some point. But surely they would have told him. Cale had assumed she was a former test subject, like T-89, and Gillie Flynn, but hunter’s intuition told him now that perhaps she had layers and secrets. If he could peel them back and learn her truths, he might be better able to make use of her.

  “Well, you’ve sure set my mind at ease. I always blamed myself.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Kestrel said.

  “He had his moods, that boy did. Sometimes he would seem normal as a blue sky, and sometimes, he was downright twitchy. But in either frame, he couldn’t wait to light out of here for city sights and loud music. When he wasn’t having one of his spells, he did like to party. Nobody could light up a room like Ty.” The woman smiled, soft with nostalgia, as if remembering the sweet moments her son had given her.

  He couldn’t have asked for a better priming of his subject. Relaxed with relief, Dani Golden was ready to yield everything about her son. Smiling, Cale began his questions.

  It was a cold, snowy day, not unusual for this time of year or this altitude. Tanager watched the man through the window of the café; her target was inside, all warm and cozy, drinking a cup of coffee. He gave no sign of a guilty conscience over what he’d done. She hadn’t wanted to believe it at first, but gradually, the clues she uncovered spoke for themselves, and once she had clearance to go after him, the leak would be plugged once and for all.

  This part of Denver was excessively trendy, SoDo or LoHo, or whatever the hell they called it, lots of upscale places and a pedestrian mall. But she liked winter because it let her wear her most kick-ass boots and jackets, so unless she was on vacation, she gravitated toward the cold. Fortunately, her work permitted certain flexibility.

  She took care not to let the mark see her. To that end, she went into a shop across the way and dialed Mockingbird. Come on, ring me back. Green-light this.

  The minutes ticked away. She pretended to shop, looking at overpriced knickknacks. From behind the counter, the clerk eyed her with a mixture of scorn and trepidation. Tan obviously didn’t look like she could afford the prices in here.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked at last, obviously hoping she’d move along.

  Well, she would be damned if she’d wait in the cold, but she had to stay close. From here, she had a perfect view of the coffee shop across the way. It was tempting to use her voice to shut him up, but she couldn’t afford to do that. Not after what happened in Dubuque.

  But she wanted to; darkness stirred. Something in her liked breaking men to her will, leaving them helpless to resist any terrible thing she asked. This man was middle-aged, presumably innocuous. Yet he exuded a superior air, as if the fact that he sold expensive gewgaws for a living made him better than the rest of humanity. It would be sheer pleasure to humble him a little. Tan resisted the urge.

  “I’m just looking,” she said, forcing a smile.

  “For anything particular?”

  “My mom’s birthday is coming up. She likes fancy stuff.”

  “Ah.” He decided perhaps she belonged after all—even hoodlums loved their mothers—and stopped pestering her.

  Tanager paced, though she concealed the movement by meandering through the store, ostensibly seeking the perfect gift. Near a selection of expensive cut-crystal perfume bottles, she pinged Mockingbird for the second time and received no reply. If this were a life-and-death matter, she’d already be dead. That coul
dn’t be good; it had never happened before. Ever. It took half an hour for him to reply, and it was with a text, not a call.

  Get your laptop. Somewhere private.

  And that was all.

  Oh, shit. Something is spectacularly wrong.

  To keep from sticking in the clerk’s memory more than she already would, in case someone came asking questions, she bought a pretty carved jade fan. “I think she’ll like this.”

  Or she might, if she wasn’t more than ten years dead.

  Smiling, the man rang her up and became even friendlier when she paid cash. “A lovely choice. Come back anytime.”

  As she stepped out into the cold, she took one last look at the man in the café and shook her head. She couldn’t take him out without talking to Mockingbird first, and it sounded like he had his own problems. His welfare took priority over her suspicions, no question. Tanager made tracks back to the bolt hole; the resistance had a number of them around the country. Ordinarily, she’d use her voice to find someplace nicer to stay, but they were on high alert at the moment and couldn’t afford to have her playing cowgirl, just for the satisfaction of making some bastard let her stay in his penthouse. This was a pretty humble place by comparison, a studio apartment with basic furnishings, but it got the job done.

  Tanager sat down on the couch and opened her bag. Though she preferred traveling light, netbooks were small enough to tuck into a purse, which changed her policy of refusing to carry a laptop. She fought down unreasonable panic as she powered it on. While the thing ran through its system checks, her heart pounded like a freight train, roaring in her ears.

  Calm the fuck down. It’s probably nothing, or at least, not as bad as you think.

  Five minutes later, her phone pinged again, giving her the IP address where she could connect to him. This stuff was above her pay grade; she didn’t understand half the shit MB did for them, but she could follow his lead. When giving instructions to a tech dummy like her, he followed the KISS system.

  Within seconds, his avatar appeared on her keyboard. Hell of a chat room. This wasn’t something other people could do. Though they had never talked about it, she was sure of that.

  “I’ve got problems,” he said without preamble.

  Tanager put aside her personal fear and sat forward. “What can I do to help?”

  He laughed, though the sound held a darker current. She didn’t think that was feedback. “I wish you could, Tan . . . and I love that you asked with no regard for what trouble I might be in. I don’t have many people who would.”

  “You’re freaking my shit out.” She tried for a light tone and failed as foreboding settled into her bones.

  “Goes with the territory with us, doesn’t it? I appreciate you, love, but there’s nothing you can do. I have to handle this myself.”

  “Handle what?”

  “It’s . . . a transition, of sorts. I’ll figure it out, but things may be a bit shaky for a while. I’m routing all my pings to your cell phone. Hopefully this won’t take long.”

  “I don’t like where this is going.”

  Dammit.

  Never had she hated the distance between them so much. Mostly, it was easier to see him as words on a screen or pixels in the net, but lately he had become more real, a friend rather than someone she used or who used her in turn. There had been damn few of those in her life.

  “I’m putting you in charge in my absence.” He paused, a thread of weariness or pain woven through his words.

  No. She didn’t want this. Bad, bad idea.

  His instructions went on, inexorable, horrible. “I’m sending logins and passwords to databases that will help keep things running. When people call, you can answer many queries by running a search. In these files, you’ll also find the accounts from which I make payments to our agents. You’ll have complete control of all finances while I’m gone. Finally, I’m sending a voice scrambler to the place in Denver. Using it, you can pretend to be me, live, if necessary.”

  “I can’t hold this shit together without you. I don’t have your mojo, Mocks. I can’t scan the net and find escape routes or dig out the dirty stuff for leverage. Please don’t put this on me. I’m gonna fail them. People will die.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  And then he disappeared in a flicker of light.

  CHAPTER 18

  Taye wasn’t surprised to learn Oliver had signed on. Of course, his name was Gull now, and he hadn’t seen him since they cleared the warehouse a few weeks back. Mockingbird had sent the total headcount, and in the end, they saved eighty-seven of those coma patients. They’d lost a few in the crossfire, of course, and some of the other subjects had died protecting them.

  He’d watched the news special on the incident with great amusement. The government called it the biggest case of unsanctioned medical testing in the country’s history. Investigations were ongoing, of course, which meant important people would be bribed, and the story would be buried after the initial furor.

  In ten minutes, he had to meet Hawk. Since he was the junior agent, he never sat in on the assignment calls with MB; his partner brought the targets and they struck without mercy. The property damage alone had been astronomical. If I can do nothing else well, he thought with dark humor, I can blow their shit up.

  Since he was constantly on the move, it made no sense for him to have a home base. Consequently, he spent his downtime alone in seedy motels—and he missed the sense of home he’d had with Gillie like the phantom pain of a missing limb. He had fought so hard to keep her at a distance so his remaining days wouldn’t seem like such a barren wasteland, all for nothing, it seemed. Because she had him; she haunted him. He couldn’t close his eyes without dreaming about her, which would’ve been painful, except that she supplanted the nightmares.

  Taye forced her out of his head, and dressed; he had gear now, all black from head to toe, and a flak vest. After catching his hair back in a short ponytail, he pulled on the black knit cap. Now he was ready to go meet Hawk. Bulbs flickered as he went by, responding to the lightning in his veins. Fuck. I gotta quit that. But his control wasn’t getting better, which meant Mockingbird had to get his money’s worth fast.

  Hawk waited for him at the midpoint of the bridge, as arranged. He didn’t know where the other man lived—or maybe he was like Taye, and just crashed wherever, a different place each time to make him harder to track down. Anonymous cell phones and e-mail accounts enabled them to set up such meetings.

  “You don’t look great, man.”

  “That’s good since I feel like shit.”

  “Sure you’re up to this?”

  “Fuck yes, I am. Let’s do it.”

  Via his inside link to the Foundation’s network, Mockingbird had gotten intel on experiments being performed in an old factory, so they were heading over to check it out. As always, it was late, and nobody was abroad but them. It saved answering awkward questions on why they were dressed for a Special Forces black op.

  Hawk just nodded and led the way. “I scouted the place yesterday, found the entrances. There don’t appear to be any cameras or security measures in place.”

  “That doesn’t strike you as wrongity-wrong?”

  “It’s possible they built downward. As we learned at Exeter, sometimes the best disguise is not to have the place surrounded with high-tech shit announcing something’s there. But I’m prepared for the possibility that there’s something skewed in this picture, too.”

  “Good to know,” he muttered. “When I get my ass shot off, at least we saw it coming.”

  “You’re manstrual tonight.”

  Taye laughed despite himself. “Sorry. I’ll get my head in the game.”

  “Thanks. My girlfriend would appreciate it if you don’t let me die.”

  Whoa. He’d never thought of Hawk as that guy, a family man, so to speak. He was huge and sort of ugly, even with the hair grown back. But he had noticed the difference in him, as if happiness had set him
free, and when he fought against the Foundation, it was a job, but not one that owned his soul. He went home at the end of the day.

  “How’d you meet her?”

  “Dug her out of a rock pile.”

  “Dick. Fine, don’t tell me.”

  Hawk cut him a grin. “Not kidding, actually. We survived the earthquake in Ecuador together . . . and then I went to work for Mockingbird after I got back stateside.”

  He remembered hearing about that on the news; they were still trying to rebuild. “So you haven’t been together long.”

  “Comparatively, no. Feels like I’ve known her forever, though.”

  “And she’s cool with the freelance violence?”

  “She was with me when some Foundation mercs tried to end me . . . and her as collateral damage. I guess that helps her see my point of view.”

  Taye couldn’t imagine bonding with a normal person; it was beyond his scope. But he also couldn’t bone up for anyone but Gillie Flynn. So he probably wasn’t the best gauge of what relationships could work, long term. If the woman could see past Hawk’s terrifying exterior, then she probably was a keeper.

  “I’d like to meet her sometime,” he said, before he remembered that wasn’t allowed.

  No fraternization; those were the rules. Hawk knew that as well as he did, but he didn’t point out the dumbassery of the comment, for which Taye felt grateful.

  As they talked, they covered the ground between the bridge and the factory. Now they stood a hundred yards away; the structure sprawled over several acres with smokestacks rising against the dark. The gray concrete gave it an ominous air, and the rows of windows added to Taye’s feeling that anything could be waiting inside. He hadn’t been this unsettled at the warehouse, so he thought maybe thinking about Gillie had gotten to him.

  “The fencing is down on this side.” Hawk strode off, leaving him to follow. “There’s an inner yard full of industrial junk with some utility buildings. They seem to be newer construction . . . and it’s brick, not cement.”