by E L Russell
“Are you telling us Katya called Donahue on the phone and told him to kill himself?” Meret asked.
Piero nodded. “According to Henri, who is scared to death of her, Katya's conditioning relies on visual, tactile, aromatic, and auditory suggestion, Make that her voice. She triggers the behavior she needs combining her voice certain catch phrases or words. Henri calls it mind fucking, “He glanced at Meret. “Sorry. Crude, but it sounds pretty accurate. He was not sure how it works but vowed to never go near her again.”
“Are drugs involved? Meret asked.
“I personally believe she supplements this with drugs. How could she not? Anyway, what she does, works. She can make her puppets dance from a distance or up close, which is what happened to Henri. In spite of his vows, she got him to come to her apartment and do a job for her he totally balked at, yet when he became aware of ‘himself’ again, the deed was done.”
Meret scooted to the edged of her chair. “This is the information we need. Yes? What was it he did he do for her?”
“He claimed she erased his memory, except for the keywords and phrases she uses to control him.”
“Then how does he know he did something despicable?”
“Gut feeling.”
Meret snorted. “What a load of crap.”
Granger chortled. “Don’t knock it. It has served me well over the years,”
She continued. “You’re telling me that Katya, in one of her forms, seduces her target, conditions them to her will and then has the capability to take on a new persona that is brought out by voice, touch, or smell? Ridiculous.”
Piero placed his empty cup on its saucer. “It’s real, Meret. I know of it from personal experience that the best conman gets as much from knowing his marks reactions to emotional keywords as physical tells.” Piero continued with quiet authority. “The persona she assumes is chosen based on the subject's psychological profile. This woman is brilliant and dangerous.” He rested his arms on the table and leaned closer to her. “You’re mind is very quick, Dr. Mather. How would you disable her?”
“Katya, you mean? Ah, I see. Supposing I accept she has this ‘skill?’ Let me think. I’d remove her ability to speak and move properly.”
Piero touched his forehead with one finger. “Short of killing her, your suggestion is impossible.”
She ignored his dismissive gesture and typed in her cell.
Zhen, get Katya’s and Debby’s DNA ASAP
While she typed, Granger continued with his questions. “We need to find Henri. What more do you know?”
Piero eyed Meret then folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Finally, we get to the reason I contacted you.” He placed a memory stick on the table and using his index finger, slid it slowly toward him. “After your tech guys scan this for intrusive malware, and I suggest you do, you will find a short list of Henri's favorite rabbit holes. Also, I discovered, or more likely was allowed to find, Debby's new handle on TOR. Your people might use it to locate more, but she also may change it at any time. She used ‘Henry VII' as recent as yesterday.”
Meret added, “Nice. Too simplistic for most hackers, but I like it. Maybe she’ll move on to Henri VIII.”
Piero tapped on the table. “Remember, Henri’s freaked out over Katya and has stopped taking voice messages. I doubt if that rabbit ever leaves his hole.”
Granger took the memory stick. “We have to know where the attack is taking place.” He raised his voice. “What’s the target?
Piero sighed, “I guess this will put me in for another long stay in Hotel CIA, but I tell you truthfully, I really do not know.” He waited and then continued, hunching over his arms, which were folded on the table. “But that’s the wrong question. You must discover what their goal is behind the attack. Then the target becomes clear. After that, all you need to know is the place and the time.”
Granger glanced at her and nodded.
She rolled her eyes to the upper right and spoke to the ceiling near the corner of the room. Dr. Zhen, show Piero you new friend.”
A fat fly dropped from an ornate ceiling light and hovered just beyond Piero's reach. It began to rise It rose a foot then dropped a foot. Piero raised and lowered his chin with the movement.
Meret rapped table with her knuckles. “Piero, within one minute of entering this room you were chemically tagged by the bot you’re watching. Because of it, we can find you at anytime, anywhere in the world. That allows us to avoid locking you up.”
Granger added with a cold observation. “Not only can we find you, we can kill you.”
“Why is this happening?” the Italian said sitting back, away from them. “Why would you do that?” He glared. “Tell me.”
Meret extended her arm with an open hand. “We don’t want you locked up somewhere in a cage just to protect our interests. You can do that much better as my highly paid asset while you keep your day job or whatever it is you do for the Italian government. What we need from you is your knowledge and hacking skills to help us stop the coming Genecaust. Will you work with us?”
He frowned. “Can you protect me from Katya?” He couldn’t keep the worry from his eyes. Even now, they shifted toward the door.
As you can appreciate, the CIA needs to vet and interview you thoroughly. I'm offering you a personal suite here at the Zalea with an armed guard on your door until you have completed your,” she paused and then added, “discussions.” She glanced at Granger, “Granger will show you your room and talk about your relationship with him.”
He stood and offered his hand. Piero took it. “Thank you.”
* * *
They met in the new lab facility Meret had set up in a building next to the Zalea. It was seven o’clock in the morning, but she needed the early start. Time was closing in on them and she had to create a protective antidote to a tag DNA that they coming close to know. She decided they would work as they ate. Poppy supplied a finger food breakfast of tiny burritos with Tostitos and Meret brought coffee. Meret had also included Special Agent Richbane, who arrived with a bag of donut holes.
A woman wearing a white lab coat entered the lab with a set of new test tubes. Zhen waved her over. “Allow me to introduce our new colleague, Ling Chang. It was she who designed the nonmetallic, highly flexible needle we incorporated into the SuperFly’s proboscis.” His hands moved in the space in front of his face as though he had a large model of the needle. “Once injected it uses the host's natural source of electricity to generate and release a preprogrammed signal in micro bursts sending the cloud GPS coordinates of its location.” He raised one finger for emphasis. “Of course, it remains dormant if it detects scanning devices.”
“Wow.” Richbane explained. “That’s seriously amazing.” He pulled his chin back and swallowed some coffee. “It’s freaking special.”
Meret laughed. “You’re absolutely right, It’s going to raise the investigative power of agents everywhere.”
Her cell went off and the Richbane’s ear bud exploded with crackling. “Son of a bitch.” She ran for the door and shouted over her shoulder. “Piero tried to jump through the glass door of the fifth-floor balcony of his room and Granger was injured trying to stop him. Both are bleeding from life-threatening cuts.”
58
Evidence
November, Hotel Zalea - another attack
Meret shouted over her shoulder. “Poppy, call 911, We have two serious bleed outs with injuries. Hold an elevator until they arrive.” She ran toward the elevators in the Zalea followed by Richbane, who shouted into his walkie-talkie watch.
After the slowest elevator ride ever, she charged down the deserted hallway and entered a room full of chaos. “Richbane, help your partner with Piero. I got Granger.”
She fell onto his body and attacked the pulsing bleed out from his neck with firm fingers while assessing the flow of blood from the crown of his head and another on his arm. She gulped a sob and glanced toward the two agents. Each had both hands compressing wounds
on Piero. Their only chance lay with the timing of the paramedics. No one had a free hand. Granger was one major cut from death. She had to hope they were not a serious threat because there was no way she could release her fingers from the base of his neck. She heard sirens, and prayed it was coming this way, but living on Main Street in the hospital district, there was a high volume of emergency vehicles. It wasn’t necessarily headed their way.
When Zhen arrived, she shouted at him to throw them some towels. She pressed one hard on Grangers neck and another to his head. “Call Helen Deal,” she added. “Tell her what they can expect. Granger is O-negative. That's all I know, hurry. Tell Poppy to let the paramedics know these men must go to Hermann Memorial.
“Piero? “How is he?” she called glancing that way.
“Not good. Parker shook his head. “It looks like he went through first. It’s a lot of blood.”
She explored, “Can you see any pooling of blood around Granger other than his head?”
The closest agent to her craned his neck and rocked from side to side. “Not unless his torso is covering something. You seem to have the worst under control.”
Frustrated that none of them could free a hand to risk making a phone call, she held tight and spoke to Granger. “You're alive. You damn well better make sure you stay that way. Help's coming, hold on.”
Granger, who had been unresponsive, flickered an eyelid then lay still.
Meret wanted to shake him. “Are you listening to me? I said keep breathing. Help is here.” But where the hell was it?
Running feet from the hallway. Yes. Two gurneys appeared in the room and a hand, gentle, but firm wrestled her away and replaced the towel with a compression bandage. While the EMT continued to apply pressure on the laceration, two burly paramedics searched for other wounds. Meret watched in a haze of horror as they bandaged his head and arm, applied a big pad to his stomach and inserted an IV drip. Then they lifted him to the gurney and whisked him out the door.
Dear god. Let him live. Meret, on rubbery legs, ran after them.
When the gurney passed through the automatic doors of the ER, Meret was gratified to see it swarmed by medical people in scrubs and face masks. She had grabbed Granger's hand and felt an all too feint pulse. She released her grip as a nurse pulled her back and an orderly pushed the gurney into the operating room.
She knew the drill, and couldn't shake the premonition that he might not make it.
A million doubts assailed her. How hard had he hit his head on the sliding glass door? Did Piero break through enough of the window to clear a path for Granger? Would he live? Please let him live.
* * *
Her hands shook so badly she couldn’t hold the soap. She stood in a daze and watched the blood rinse off her body and down the drain. Dear god. So much blood. How much in a human body? She knew the answer to that. Five liters in a normal male. But Granger was bigger than that. He had more. But how much did he have now after all that bleeding? Tears ran down her cheeks, blending with the shower.
Someone wrapped a large towel around her and a pleasant face wearing an OR cap held a syringe. “It will be two hours before you can see Granger, Dr. Mather. I'm giving you a sedative to help you sleep for an hour so you can be with him when he wakes.”
“No, no. She pushed the hand away, but it did no good.
“You have deep cuts in your thigh and arm. They need to be cleaned and sutured. We’ll take care of them while you—
* * *
Meret woke confused. She wore clean scrubs and in the dim light, she couldn’t get her bearings. A headache hammered the back of her skull and her hands hurt. Strange.
Memory flooded back and she turned on her side to scramble out of bed.
Granger faced her. Someone had wheeled their beds side-by-side. His neck was wrapped and so was his head. In fact she couldn’t see much of his dear face, but he was alive. Thank god. Alive. She read his monitors. Steady. They were all good. She eyed his IV the realized she had one too. What for?
A nurse came to attend to Granger. “He’ll fully recover, Dr. Mather. You saved his life stopping the arterial bleed. He’ll be weak for a bit but not long.” She checked his bandages then examined hers as well. “I hope you’re feeling better. You were pretty sliced up, too, from the glass on the floor, as I hear tell. You have five stitches in the arm and 13 in the leg. Don’t worry though, they shouldn’t scar. Dr. Witson is a marvel. Same with the butterfly bandage on you brow.”
When will—” She couldn’t finish.
“Here you go,” the nurse said, presenting her with an adult Sippy cup. “Dry throat. It’s from the shot we gave you. When will the Agent Hawking wake up? Was that the question?”
Meret nodded and took another sip of the water that slid down her throat like healing nectar.
“It could be soon, perhaps a few hours.”
“What about—” She coughed and sipped again, “the other man. Our prisoner?”
The woman shook her head. “He used his head as a battering ram and has a serious concussion. He’s also lost a great deal of blood. The doctor said his chances are considerably less than fifty-fifty. He is unconscious and I was told no one was to visit him.”
“That’s correct. No one should visit him.”
The nurse lowered her voice. “We know. The authorities have filled us in.”
Meret added with renewed urgency, “Also, and this is vital, for security reasons, he cannot use the phone or take any calls.” She paused. “And I need my cell.”
When the nurse returned her cell, Meret speed-dialed Special Agent Fairchild. “Steve, has the hospital kept you up to date with everyone?”
“That was one hell of a thing. You saved Granger’s life again.”
Meret rubbed her cheek. “Yeah, well I wish he’d quit needing it. What the hell happened?”
“We don’t know. There’s speculation that the woman who we believe got to that Director of PSICorp, also got to Piero.”
“God, Steve, it’s Katya, she’s responsible.”
Steve shook his head. “I can’t believe it, could she really have done with simple word on the cell phone?”
“He had been right to fear her.”
It was beyond belief. The damn woman did have powers that were hard to believe.
Katya came close to making her plan work.
“The question, Meret, is how could she have benefited from Piero’s death and what can we do about it?”
Steve’s questions surprised her. After all, while she considered herself a competent CIA advisor, her wheelhouse didn’t support most of this spy business. “Listen, Steve. I have an idea. It’s crazy but it might work. What if we tell the press that an unnamed visitor in the Zalea committed suicide by jumping from the fifth floor and an anonymous, would-be rescuer died from loss of blood while trying to save him. If Katya thinks she was successful, maybe she’ll make a mistake somewhere. What do you think?”
“Could work. At this point we’re up against a wall of fog. Let’s give it a try.”
Meret heard the desperation in his voice. Time had to be closing in and this disaster was eating into that precious time. As soon as she was assured Granger would really be okay, she had to get back to the lab and get working on finding that Sniper protein they needed to prevent massive deaths.
Before she could end the call, another nurse entered their room. “You have guests. A Poppy Smith-Essen and a Dr. Zhen Jianjun have been waiting. We'll move your bed to the other side of the room until they leave if you want to see them, Dr. Mather.”
She nodded and ended the call to Fairchild. They turned her bed around and removed the curtain, revealing, a tired and worried pair of friends. Zhen held his hands in prayerful position under his chin while Poppy carried a cardboard container of four large paper coffee cups. When the nurse departed, she passed them around. “It's beer. We all need some serious carbs.”
After the usual talk of recovery, Poppy asked, “Why would that Italian blo
ke want to suicide?”
Meret pushed up to a sitting position and winced as parts of her protested. “I have no idea. We gave him a free-pass and protection for becoming Grangers asset. Maybe Granger said something.” She shrugged, sipped her beer and asked Zhen, “Any chance you have an idea of how we might obtain recent DNA trace from Katya?”
Zhen grinned and reached into his pocket. “Yes.” He held out a small glass vile. “While you were recovering, Poppy and I visited the PSI Corps office. The misogynistic culture of PSI Corps made it a relatively simple task to search for a woman’s trace. We were only able to find DNA trace for three distinct women and knowing where Katya did her work helped us eliminate two of them.”
Poppy offered, “And speaking of recovery, I am beginning to know you well enough to know you, Meret, that your mind has been working on a solution to contain Katy’s powers once we get her.”
Meret raised her chin and gave a few short silent nods. “There are some rather powerful viruses that usually gave a bad cold that also induces acute laryngitis and voice loss that starts suddenly. It shouldn't prove too difficult to hack them into weapons to use against Katya.” She looked at Zhen and grinned. “And what's your preferred method of delivery of those viruses?”
He slapped his knee. “That’s easy, we inject by SuperFly. But don’t we have to find the woman first. Am I correct that we do not know Katya’s location?”
Meret almost shouted, “Yes.” She shook two fists in the air. “But now we know why she wanted to kill Piero. He knows her hangouts!”
High fives were passed around.
Before anyone could speak, Meret asked Zhen, how fast can you put out an app that lets you target a specific person on your screen by touching their image?”
Zhen nodded, looking pleased with himself. “Ah, yes. Many existing apps can be mashed up to do what you ask. Maybe two, three days before I can release it for distribution.”