Triggered Response

by Patricia Rosemoor

  They’d picked a back way onto the property, along a road seldom used. Even then, they’d hidden the Jeep in a little ravine some distance away and had walked back to where they wanted to get in, just to be sure.

  Now they kept to the perimeter of the physical plant supply building. Also according to plan, Gage used his mind to manipulate the locked door. They slid inside and found the closet holding extra worker’s uniforms. Gage easily climbed into a janitor’s jumpsuit, but being bulkier through the shoulders and chest, Bray had to find the biggest one available, and even then it was a tight squeeze. He grabbed two billed caps and handed one to Gage.

  “Not much of a disguise, but it’ll have to do.”

  Gage nodded. “We’ll get by.”

  Ransacking the pockets of the jacket he’d worn into the facility, Gage pulled out two Maglites, a role of duct tape and a handful of plastic ties, which he shared with Bray. They both shoved everything into their jumpsuit pockets and then were on the move.

  They got within spitting distance of the main building before they saw the guard posted outside the back door.

  “What the hell! They didn’t have anyone posted when I broke in the other night.”

  “They didn’t know you were alive then.”

  “So how do we do this without raising the alarm? He’s not going to let us get by him without a fight.”

  “Then we bring him to us.”

  The next thing Bray knew, the security guard’s cap flew toward them, as if a gust of wind had blown it off his head. The guard cursed and scrambled after it, but the cap was on the move. A little pop like a gust of wind flipped it, and then it went spinning. The guard was so focused on retrieving his cap that he didn’t see Bray come up behind him until it was too late. Bray already had hold of his carotid artery, applying just enough force so that the man’s body was tricked into lowering his blood pressure and knocking him out. The security guard dropped like a sack of potatoes to the ground.

  Before the man could regain consciousness, Bray ripped a piece of duct tape and placed it across his mouth so he couldn’t call out for backup. Then he turned the guard onto his stomach, pulled his hands behind his back and used a plastic tie as he would handcuffs. By the time he did the same to the man’s feet, Gage had opened the rear exit door.

  Rushing inside, they stopped dead at the more formidable obstacle in their path.

  “Took you long enough to get here.”

  Claire glared at them both, spun on her heel and led the way down the corridor.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Striding down the hall toward the offices, Claire played it cool and collected when inside she was a jumble of nerves. Her chest felt too tight and her stomach was a little rocky, but she was never going to let on. A master at this game, she was never going to let Bray know how she felt about him. Or that he’d broken her heart. As far as he was concerned, she was part of the team. She’d been along for the ride to further her investigation. Period.

  Having arrived nearly twenty minutes before, she’d been ready to jump out of her skin by the time the rear door had finally opened. Now she could calm down.

  You’d think.

  “I checked to see who’s working late,” Claire said far more coolly than she was feeling. “We’re in luck. Being that it’s a Saturday night, other than the security guards and cleaning crew, no one’s working.”

  Gage asked, “You can be sure of this how?”

  “Right from the night-entry guard’s mouth. That doesn’t mean someone can’t change his mind and come into work late, though, so let’s do what we have to and fast.”

  “Where are you taking us?”

  “First stop, Hank Riddell’s office. Maybe a dead man can tell us a tale.”

  The research fellow had been assigned one of the inside windowless offices hardly bigger than a coat closet. Shelving surrounded his desk, the only furniture.

  “I’m looking for one of two things—either a flash drive or a postage-stamp-size secure digital chip that would be inserted right here.” She tapped the slot on his computer with her forefinger. “Have at it.”

  Gage stood in the doorway, back to them, and Claire figured he was keeping watch. Just in case.

  She glanced at Bray, who was touching the USB port but not seeming to get anything out of it.

  “Try sitting in his chair and relaxing.”

  Bray did as she suggested and made another attempt, then slipped his hand up to the SD slot. This time tension seemed to fill him immediately.

  “What do you see?”

  “He’s popping a secure device chip into the slot.”

  “Nothing to indicate where it came from? A cell phone, digital camera—”

  “Phone,” Bray interrupted. “Open on the table.”

  “Which the police probably have now,” Claire said with a discouraged sigh. “No doubt he had it on him when he died.”

  Even so, they took the time to search the office just in case he had a spare. Their effort proved to be in vain.

  “Where next?” Gage asked.

  “Dr. Ulrich’s office. Project Cypress is his baby.”

  She led them to the executive offices and Ulrich’s suite. They went through the same routine.

  Bray sighed and shook his head. “His wallet. He keeps his SD in his wallet.”

  “Great. Unless we find him and roll him, we’re out of luck again.”

  They went through the motions of a search even knowing they would find nothing.

  They next tried Kelso’s office, but his computer didn’t yield any visions that pertained to Project Cypress security.

  “I don’t get it,” Claire said. “Kelso is temporarily in charge of Cranesbrook Associates. And he’s in charge of security anyway. He would need access to the files.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t have the interest,” Gage said.

  Bray added, “Or maybe he’s the kind of guy who wants written reports on his desk.”

  So they searched his desk and his file cabinets for any folders containing Project Cypress information. Gage even used his telekinesis to open a locked cabinet.

  Nothing.

  “That’s it, then,” Gage said. “We’ll just have to concentrate on the Project Cypress lab itself.”

  “Which one?” Bray asked.

  Claire said, “All of them, if necessary. Lab 7 was the original.”

  “Been there, done that.”

  The way he was looking at her, she wasn’t sure if he meant the lab…or her.

  Trying to block out the personal feelings he was stirring up, Claire focused on Gage. “The project was then moved to Lab 3. But those vials of chemicals I found—those were in the Lab 12 storeroom.”

  “That was yesterday,” Bray reminded her. “The stuff could’ve been moved.”

  “Or maybe not,” Gage said. “No harm in covering as much territory as we can. What about the security guard at the front desk, though? He’ll be able to see our every move on the lab cameras.”

  “Not if he isn’t awake to do so,” Bray said. “And turn off the damn system while you’re at it. Amazing things they can do with security DVDs these days.”

  “You can manage without hurting him, right?” Claire asked Gage.

  “Yes, ma’am. And which lab are you and Bray headed for?”

  “Before we go anywhere, I want to try one more office.”

  Bray frowned. “There’s someone else involved with Project Cypress?”

  “There was. Sid Edmonston.”

  “Edmonston’s dead,” Gage protested.

  “But he had access to everything.”

  “A waste of time.” Gage shook his head. “The authorities have been through his office more than once. Local. State. Feds. If there was a cell phone or a digital camera in there, it’s long gone, taken as evidence.”

  “I’m just trying to be thorough.”

  Gage was already on the move. “I’ll meet you when I have the security guard situation in hand.”

>   “Don’t hurt him,” Claire called after Gage.

  “He’s not going to hurt someone who’s innocent,” Bray said.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I know him.”

  And now Bray knew her. It seemed his memory was back in fighting form. Why couldn’t he have remembered something helpful from the get-go? Maybe then she wouldn’t have gotten so emotionally tangled up with him.

  “We gave you a clean getaway,” he said. “Why did you come back?”

  Whatever he was feeling about them wasn’t evident unless it was irritation. Or maybe that was due to his having to baby-sit her. Well, too bad.

  “I’m part of this,” Claire said, moving out of Kelso’s office. “Someone I care for deeply is involved.”

  “Involved? You said Mac Ellroy disappeared.”

  She hadn’t been thinking of Mac, though she should have been. “He did. Then I got an e-mail from him today.”

  “So you’re off the hook.”

  Entering Edmonston’s office suite, she said, “Mac didn’t answer any of my questions, and I don’t have a clue as to where to find him. He simply told me to get out while I still can.”

  “Good advice.”

  Unable to keep the irony from her tone, Claire said, “You sound like you care.”

  She waited in vain for Bray to respond. Instead of connecting with her, he went straight into the late president’s office and sat at the computer. She let out the breath she’d been holding and followed. Bray was just turning on the system that had been shut down since Edmonston’s death.

  “So this Mac—did you ever consider he might be part of the problem?”

  “No.” At least not seriously, though she had wondered if Mac had gotten himself into something he couldn’t get out of.

  “Maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”

  “I know that he would do anything for me, even put himself between me and Mom’s boyfriend, who had about thirty pounds on him and a nasty attitude.”

  “What? You lied to your mom’s boyfriend and got him hot under the collar?”

  “Would that be a good enough excuse for him to try to rape his lover’s sixteen-year-old daughter?”

  Bray stared at her and Claire wished she could take back the horrible truth she’d never told anyone before. Well, she’d tried to tell her mom, but the woman had refused to believe her and had even suggested that it was all a lie meant to break them up because Claire was jealous of her. Swallowing hard, she tore her gaze from Bray’s and glanced at the monitor.

  “The system is up.”

  Her words registered on Bray and he turned to the computer. The moment he touched the CPU, his expression grew intent. His concentration seemed absolute, as if he were in the midst of one of his visions. Seeming dazed, he looked around the office as if he were searching for something specific.

  “What?” Claire asked.

  Rather than answer, Bray rose from the desk and crossed to the credenza, stopping in front of the iPod docked in a digital sound system. Claire’s pulse rushed.

  “Is that it?” she asked.

  He picked the iPod from the dock, his forehead pulling as he concentrated. “I believe it is.” He held it out to her.

  Their fingers brushed and a thrill shot through her as she quickly took the device from him and opened the back. Picking out the SD, she sat in front of the computer. Bray leaned in close to watch as she popped the postage-stamp-size chip into the slot. Too close. Claire clenched her jaw as the program ran the password, thousands of numerals long just as she’d expected.

  When Gage returned, Bray moved back and said, “We’re in.”

  Gage came around the desk to watch as she copied the password into an e-mail message.

  “E-mailing it to yourself?” Gage asked.

  Claire hit Send. “Making sure that if we need to, we can get back in from anywhere.”

  Then she opened the protected sector of the Cranesbrook system that she’d never seen before. There were at least a dozen folders, probably hundreds of documents.

  “Where to start?”

  “That looks like it’s going to take some time,” Bray said. “I’ll leave the two of you computer geeks to it and check out those labs to see what other memories I can scare up.”

  Though Claire didn’t like Bray going off by himself, she couldn’t stop him, so she didn’t say anything. Maybe with him gone she could concentrate.

  Gage pulled up a chair and parked himself next to her. “I’ve been trying to get into this baby for the last ten days.”

  “Welcome to the club.”

  Claire opened folder after folder to check the contents. Most files were filled with scientific data that had no meaning for her. But then she got to what looked like the original agreement between Cranesbrook Associates and DARPA—Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—an arm of the Department of Defense.

  “Here we go,” she murmured, opening it.

  She and Gage read the document simultaneously, and when they finished, they stared at each other in shocked silence.

  “Unconscionable,” Claire murmured.

  Cranesbrook had been developing a bio-chemical weapon that would be delivered by missile. Its intent—to change brain function, turning its victims into virtual zombies.

  BRAY STARTED IN the first of the three labs connected to Project Cypress. Two walls were filled with rat cages, and when he turned on the room lights, there was a lot of scurrying and squeaking.

  “Hey, fellas,” he murmured. “I’m not here to experiment on you, so relax. Just consider me a fellow lab rat.”

  Not that his assurances did any good. The scurrying and squeaking continued, but oddly enough, the activity seemed to be coming from the wall on the left. The rats in the cages on the right didn’t make a sound. They didn’t appear to be in great shape, either. They seemed subdued. Sick maybe. They looked at him through beady eyes that held no luster. Undoubtedly these rats had been forced to inhale the damn chemicals—poor guys—while the active rats were the control animals.

  He touched one of the cages and felt a sense of panic. The room appeared distorted as did the men in the lab coats and the monkeys in cages along a third wall. Great, now he was picking up rat memories rather than the twisted human ones he was trying to find.

  He let go and stared at the wall where the monkeys used to be kept. What the hell had happened to them? Had they been moved to a different lab?

  Taking a tour of the room, Bray touched everything—tables, stools, equipment, empty vials. He saw chemicals being mixed. A caged rat being transported from the storeroom to a shelf. A monkey being given an injection and sinking into an unconscious heap. Unconscious? Or dead?

  Spooked, Bray tried to pick up more about the monkey. Why would it have been killed?

  About to leave, he decided to check the storeroom himself. He opened the door and a faint odor met him.

  Bray froze. He’d smelled that same odor the night of the accident. The chemicals…

  He closed his eyes and concentrated.

  SUDDENLY he’s on the floor, fighting his way up through a head that feels like it’s split open, his stomach rumbling like he’s going to puke up his guts.

  “How the hell did it go wrong?”

  He tries to focus on whoever is talking, but he can hardly open his eyes.

  “I don’t know, but the damage isn’t that bad. No need to call the fire department.”

  He wants to tell them to call 9-1-1, but he can’t find his voice.

  “The experiment… The results are ruined!”

  “Not necessarily. We’ll get them over to Beech Grove Clinic as planned until we can see the results for ourselves.”

  As planned? He tries to lift his head, to see their faces to know who’s speaking, but the room is whirling.

  “And then what?”

  “Dr. Morton will videotape them as instructed. And he’ll make out a report as to how the chemicals affected
these victims. And then when we don’t need them any more…”

  He doesn’t finish, but the threat is clear.

  BRAY JERKED BACK to the present. The memory had been his. He remembered that after hearing the threat, he’d backed himself out of the lab while the scientists had been busy with Gage and Vanderhoven. Somehow, he’d gotten the hell out of the building without them catching him. He’d puked up his guts as he’d stumbled toward the parking lot. And then a big blank. The next thing he remembered, he’d been at the marina. Panicked and looking for a place to hide.

  A boat.

  He pretty much knew the rest from there.

  Now that he knew the truth, he really was a liability. The accident had been no accident. It had been planned to test the chemicals on human rats. Him and Gage. He didn’t know if Vanderhoven had been part of it or if he’d simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  But one thing was certain—he and Gage had never been meant to live.

  CLAIRE TOOK A BIG breath and said, “Our government really was ready to finance something this horrific?”

  “It looks to me like this was simply meant to be a test, to see if it was possible.”

  Claire shook her head. “The monetary incentives were too great to be a what-if. Someone was pushing for this to happen.”

  After ascertaining the experiment was part of a Defense Science Office project called Controlling Neural Activity, she’d given over the computer to Gage, who seemed a lot calmer than she.

  He said, “Colonel Ron Toren is the manager of the project. Toren has a reputation for going off half-cocked.”

  “And he’s allowed to run rampant?”

  “When fighting a really dangerous enemy, sometimes you have to think outside the box.”

  Gage’s saying that sent a chill down her spine. “People who are exposed to these chemicals aren’t going to be thinking much at all.” While he seemed like a reasonable human being, years in the military—seeing all that combat, burying his friends—gave Gage a different perspective.

  He was reading another document. “Here’s the justification paper for investigating this solution.” He glanced up at her. “Colonel Toren’s contribution to the war on terrorism? Make the enemy docile, take away their aggression and they won’t want to kill us anymore. Interesting. Then the military already in there could herd the enemy any way they wanted.”