by Hinze, Vicki
She chewed up the note, swallowed and soaped, rinsed then soaped again, letting the delicate fragrance soothe her raw nerves. Being around Kunz had made her feel dirty, and she wanted to feel clean again.
Common sense warned she had only a narrow window of time to develop a plan. With Colonel Drake already accepting her double, a very narrow window of time. And the plan had better be the best created in her career. Failing was not an option. The costs were higher than any of them even imagined. Bluntly put, they were astronomical.
If Kunz and GRID succeeded, they would decide the economic and political structure of the United States. And the United States fed a large share of the world, and provided grants for medicine and humanitarian aid essential to sustaining life. Kunz and GRID would effectively choose the quality of life for the entire world, and he would choose who lived and who died.
There was no way she could allow that kind of power to fall into the hands of a sadistic, twisted man like Thomas Kunz—or any one man, for that matter.
All necessary means, Princess.
All necessary means. She swallowed hard. Question was, would her “all” be enough?
* * *
Overbite survived her takedown at the chopper. She hadn’t intended to kill him, but the way he’d gone down, she hadn’t been sure he’d withstood the altercation. He apparently had since he stood on the sidewalk, watching Amanda’s bedroom window. She turned off the light.
Minutes later, he sat down on the grass, leaned back against the trunk of the old oak in the front yard and lit a cigarette. He definitely considered her down for the night.
In the dark, she pulled on black pants and a long-sleeved top. The heat would be murder, but she’d have more protection than with her skin exposed to any light. According to Joan, they were safe from night vision glare. Amanda hoped she was right. She tugged the sleeves down to her wrists, then covered her hair and most of her face with a black scarf she found in the top right dresser drawer. That gave her the heebie-jeebies; that Kunz even had duplicates of her things in the exact place she kept them at her real apartment. How many times had her home been invaded and she had not known it? Or had Kunz had all that done during her three-month absence? Or by her double?
Unable to answer any of that, she slipped out the bathroom window and slid down the outer wall into the hedge. Taking cover from trunk to trunk, she followed the thicket of trees splattered throughout the yard toward the path to the golf course. It was pitch dark, no moonlight. If she could make it to the course, she could make it to the safe zone undetected.
The air was hot and heavy. She moved quickly to the seventh hole, to the safe zone, and was glad to see Joan’s silhouette.
“Mark’s with me at the lab now,” Joan said without preamble. “At the moment, he’s okay.”
Amanda had to choose. She could trust Joan, believe that she wasn’t working with Kunz to test Amanda, or she could try to do what needed to be done alone. Her odds for success in the latter case were slim to none, which left her with no choice at all. “Kunz showed me my double today,” she said. “The woman’s already inserted into my life. How many doubles are there?”
“I don’t know exactly. I’ve been here less than six months. But in the last two months, Kunz and Reese have really ramped up the process.”
Cold shivers slammed into Amanda and she rubbed her arms. “Listen, Joan. I’m not sure you’re aware of the magnitude of all this. If Kunz effectively manipulates U.S. operatives, he can effectively manipulate world events.”
“I know.”
“And I understand now how GRID is so successful at getting accurate intelligence to broker on the black market. There are fail-safe protections in place, security measures to prevent this type of thing. But his doubling scheme is so complex... Who could have anticipated that?”
“No one without an evil, diabolical mind.”
“Problem is, it’s working.” Amanda scraped her damp forehead with the heel of her hand. “I—I don’t know how pervasive it is, but my instincts are telling me every U.S. operative and mission worldwide is in jeopardy.”
“I’d say that’s a fair assessment.”
“Exactly what kind of doctor are you?”
“I’m a psychiatrist with extensive experience in psychological warfare. Specifically, in memory manipulations.” She looked haunted. “I wanted to help Alzheimer’s patients. Instead, I got myself and my family hijacked by a sadist.”
“How?”
“He threatened to kill my family.”
Amanda shrugged. Threats against loved ones weren’t uncommon. “And you caved on that?”
“Not at first,” Joan admitted, her voice soft and thick. “Not until he killed my parents and my husband’s parents on the same day, and told me Simon and Jeremy were next.”
Revulsion raced through Amanda. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.” The sorrow in her eyes was a window to the wound in her soul that would never heal.
“Do you do the plastic surgeries on the doubles?”
Joan shook her head that she didn’t. “He has a staff of surgeons, former Soviets, who are all experts. They do the surgeries.”
“Why?”
“Money,” Joan said. “And it’s one of the last places in the world where they can experiment on live subjects. The idea appeals to the twisted psychos.”
“Are they here?”
“No, they left about a week ago. I wasn’t told where they were going.”
Amanda gave Joan a level look, her face swept in shadow. “You know he gave me twenty-four hours to decide whether I’ll train GRID operatives in S.A.S.S. operations or die.”
“I didn’t.” Joan sucked in a sharp gasp. “You can’t do it, Amanda. We’ve got to stop him. I don’t know how or by what means, but we’ve got to do something to stop him.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Amanda stepped closer, dropped her voice lower. “Where are the records on all the doubles?”
“I don’t know. He has sweepers clean off anything on the computer system and takes all the records out of the clinic before he inserts the doubles. I have no idea what he does with the files or disks. They could be in a vault here or in another compound.”
“Do you know where the vault is? Or how many compounds there are?”
“No, I don’t. Paul Reese might, but I sincerely doubt anyone else does. Kunz keeps everyone as much in the dark about operations as possible.”
“Do you have any idea who the doubles are, or where they’re inserted?”
“Only the thirty I’ve debriefed.”
Thirty? Oh, God. Thirty? “If you had to guess, how many doubles would you estimate he’s inserted overall?”
“Hundreds. All over, not just in the military. FBI, CIA, NSA, INS, Secret Service, OSI—everywhere. His goal is to infiltrate Congress, Amanda. Knowing Kunz, he won’t stop until he’s tapped into the White House.”
Amanda’s blood chilled to ice. “We’ve got to take him down and find out how far he’s gotten. But we need serious help to do it.”
Joan looked down at the ground. “You know he’ll kill us and Simon and Jeremy if we’re caught.”
Amanda held her steady gaze. “Yes.”
“And Mark.”
“Yes.” A knot formed in Amanda’s throat. “Mark has to come with us.”
“That’s risky. Really risky—”
“That’s not negotiable.”
Joan let out a deep sigh, resigned herself and stiffened, steeling herself for what she had to do. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I’ll manipulate Mark’s debriefings. I won’t drug him. You rescue Jeremy, Simon and me. We get out of here, and then we work from the outside to bring Kunz and GRID down—and that scumbag Paul Reese.”
“Did he hit you, too?”.
“He raped me in front of my husband and son.” Joan’s voice trembled with anger.
Shock coursed through Amanda. “Paul Reese? The white knight?”
“So he claimed. I n
ever saw any evidence of it.” Joan’s voice went flat. “I couldn’t repair his face. So I had to be scarred, too.”
Amanda had damaged his face. Guilt flooded her. He had raped Joan to retaliate against Amanda. “I—I’m so sorry, Joan.”
“You didn’t rape me, Amanda, he did. But I lived.” She lowered her gaze. “I’ve been talking with Jeremy about it. I think he understands. It’s horrible to have to explain something like that to a child.”
“Oh, God, Joan. I—I—”
“What?”
“I scarred him.” Amanda’s stomach roiled and knotted. “It’s my fault.”
“No. It’s not. He’s responsible, Amanda. Only him.”
She swallowed hard, trembling with outrage. “Don’t worry about Reese anymore. I’ll handle him.”
“How?” Joan parked a hand on her hip. “What are you planning to do?”
Amanda looked her right in the eye. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Can you do that?” Joan sounded torn between horror and fascination.
“Yes, I can.” Amanda didn’t elaborate or justify.
Joan licked her lips. “I’m scared, Amanda,” she whispered. “I mean, really scared.”
“You’d be nuts if you weren’t.” A furrow formed, pulling at the skin between her eyebrows. “The question isn’t if you’re afraid—it never is. It’s whether or not you’ve got the courage to do the right thing in spite of being afraid.”
Joan paused, looked off into the distance. Quiet resolve slid down over her face. “I’m not a particularly brave person—I never have been. But I have to do this or I’ll never again be able to look myself in the face.”
“That’s my standard criterion for taking on outrageous risks.”
“We have to do this, and I know we can.”
Glad to hear it, Amanda dragged her mind from Reese and the rape back to GRID. “Explain to me how things work in the compound—and tell me, where exactly are we? It’s supposed to be the Middle East, but the humidity says—”
“The soil says Texas. South Texas, somewhere off the I-10 stretch. I’m not sure exactly where the nearest town is or what it is.”
Amanda had been that route several times. You could drive all day and see nothing for miles and miles. Even gas services were a hundred miles apart in places. Egress out of here was going to have to be by air. Mark flew helicopters, so they were covered on piloting. But they’d have to steal a chopper—one with a full tank of fuel. “Where are the helicopter hangars?”
“Hangar Row,” Joan said. “Two buildings down on the left from the one with the screening room you were at today.”
“Where is Simon being held?”
“In the cabins off the third hole on the golf course. They’re off to the right, about two blocks. There are several rows. All the detainees whose doubles have been inserted are kept there.”
Detainees. Prisoners kept alive indefinitely to answer any questions or assist their counterpart doubles. Kunz was one sick puppy. And one smart one. “Is everything on the compound centered on the golf course?” That struck her as extremely odd.
“Yes, it is.”
“Why?”
“Kunz and Reese are into golf.” Joan shrugged. “Many of the operatives play as well, so the doubles have to practice and play. In fact, you played often while you were here.” Amanda stared in utter disbelief. “I don’t play golf.”
“You did when you were here before.”
So this was her Middle Eastern complex, too. Unwilling to ponder what else she’d done while here, Amanda turned the topic back to Joan’s husband. “Which cabin is Simon’s?”
“The second one on the second row.”
“I need access to Mark, in order to plan.”
“Wait here.”
Amanda stood in the clearing and heard more than saw Joan disappear into the night. Minutes passed. Almost too many. Then Mark joined her in the safe zone. His face was bruised, his hand swollen. He had been tortured during interrogation. Her heart hitched. “Joan said you weren’t being tortured, but—”
“Shh, I’m fine.” He hugged her to him, his heart beating hard and fast against her chest. “You okay?”
“So far.” She stroked him, wanting to comfort him without getting maudlin, remembering too well how fragile she’d felt after the tomb, and how much she had resented that fragility. “You?”
“Ticked to the gills.” He looked down at her. “They’re inserting doubles, Amanda. Joan’s explained the entire process to me. It’s outright diabolical.”
“Worse,” she said. “It’s working.”
“One of the doubles for a CIA agent in Europe had seventeen plastic surgeries to perfect his appearance before he was inserted. That’s why the absences. They need time to make the changes and program—for lack of a better description—the doubles.”
“Mark, are you getting what happened with Harding and Sloan?”
He stilled, looked down at her.
“The doubles did the killing,” Amanda said. “Kunz couldn’t have a wife or significant other noticing details that a wife would notice. When Harding’s wife, Sharon, made the appointment with the OSI to report something ‘troubling,’ Kunz had her killed.”
“And then withdrew the double and reinserted Harding into his own life to take the blame,” Mark said. “Harding really didn’t have a clue what had happened to Sharon. He wasn’t there. He was here.”
“Or somewhere like here. There’s more than one compound.” Amanda said. “So why didn’t Harding remember it?”
“Joan says it’s a combination of amnesia-induced drug therapy and reprogramming. She used the analogy of erasing that sector of a person’s hard drive.”
Brainwashing? Amanda recalled a security briefing about a new laser technology that destroyed neuron firings in the brain, which destroyed memory paths. This was technologically possible. The use intended had been to help trauma victims, but corrupted, it could be used to destroy healthy, unwanted memory. “If there are hundreds of doubles, Kunz can’t go around killing off spouses and everyone tied to all of them to protect against exposure.”
“Many of us don’t have spouses or anyone tied to us. You and I don’t have spouses.”
His point hit her. “He’s targeting loners. Only going for operatives with spouses or significant others when he must have them in position.”
“Reasonable conclusion in my opinion.”
One thing was patently clear. Kunz had resources and the ability to carry out high-level, extremely sensitive and difficult maneuvers. Stopping him wasn’t going to be easy. He had far too much to lose.
She couldn’t help but shiver. “You ready to get out of here?”
“Yeah. We can do what we need to do outside. But we’ll have to move fast or Kunz will go underground and take all the detainees with him.”
“We’re not leaving them here.” Harry could be one of them—if Kunz hadn’t killed the ornery cuss.
Mark softened his tone. “We can’t rescue everyone, Amanda.”
“How many detainees are on-site?”
“Shh!” Mark shoved Amanda toward the trees. “Look.” Amanda dived onto her belly, burrowed under a clump of some spiny, sour-smelling bush and watched the light on a golf cart shine on the ground. “Is this routine?”
“Not according to Joan.” Mark peeked out from between thorny branches. “The course is typically deserted at night.”
“Great.” Amanda resisted the urge to grind her teeth. “They’re looking for me.”
“Meet me back here at 3:00 a.m.,” Mark said. “We don’t have much time. Kunz oversees Joan’s work. She’ll have to put me through the paces. We have two days at most.”
“We have less than twelve hours,” she corrected him. “Kunz gave me twenty-four hours to agree to train doubles as S.A.S.S. operatives or die. And that was ten hours ago. I could swear on my mother’s grave I’d train doubles, but he’d know I was lying. He’s going to kill me, Mark.”
/> “He just inserted your double. He’s going to make sure she doesn’t hit a brick wall first.”
“I’m not willing to bet my life on it,” she said. “I ticked him off, taking down his guards. He knows I’m going to be a thorn in his side, and he doesn’t want the bother.”
“Then we’d better move fast.” Mark thumbed her chin. “I’m not ready to lose you just yet,” he said, then slithered on his stomach across the course and disappeared in the darkness.
They connected. It was special. And she wasn’t ready to forfeit that connection, either.
The light swept closer. She considered just standing up and walking back to the apartment, but if she did, Kunz’s men would watch her like a hawk every minute. She had to get back without being discovered, to have the freedom to meet Mark later.
The light came closer, shone directly on her. Flat on the ground, her hands buried under her chest, she resembled a small black lump and nothing more. Come on, light. Be too weak to expose me. Be too weak!
“Whoa. Back up.” Beefy’s voice carried across the course. “Over there.”
Amanda’s heart nearly stopped. Her pulse thrummed in her head and she broke into a cold sweat. The light crossed over her back, just above her, and shone into the trees. A raccoon scurried through the grass, dodged behind a tree, hiding from the light.
“It’s just a raccoon, man. I’m telling you, Frank said she’s lights out in her bed. Why are you so paranoid about her?”
“She broke my freaking nose. She took down three of us, stole a car, nearly stole a chopper, and you’re asking why I’m paranoid? Why are you stupid? She’s going to try to escape. It’s just a matter of when.”
“So what if she does?” the second man countered.
“Mr. Kunz will kill us, you idiot.”
“Try to keep up, okay? Say she escapes. Where’s she gonna go? We’re two hundred miles out in the middle of nowhere. Even she can’t hike two hundred miles across desert-like land, man. Not unless she’s got superpowers.” He chuckled. “Does she have superpowers?”.
Beefy belted the guy, and he fell out of the cart and onto the ground. He scrambled up mad and took a swing at Beefy. In seconds, the two were tumbling on the ground to the sounds of fists hitting flesh, breaths swooshing and bones crunching.