Code Name: Dove

by Leon, Judith

  Jean Paul hadn’t lifted a finger. She ran to the wall and turned off the light. The room crashed into near darkness, the only illumination coming from the hallways. In the corridor, she heard the sound of male laughter. She ran to Jean Paul and put her arm around him and checked his face to reassure herself he wouldn’t call to them.

  “Are you trying to harm Helmut?” he asked intently. She put a finger over his lips.

  The men passed by the door through which she and Jean Paul had entered. She waited, listening. The voices turned south and walked past the second door. She heard the sound of another door opening and closing, and risked a peek into the hall.

  “Stay here,” she whispered firmly, praying he’d do what she asked. “Will you stay here and do nothing?”

  “Yes.”

  The door the men had entered said Water Closet. She pulled out the Beretta, opened the door, found them with their hands to their flies. She commanded in German that they lie down. They hesitated, obviously wondering if they could jump her before she shot them. Apparently deciding it wasn’t worth the risk, both got down flat on their bellies. Using the Beretta, she knocked out one and then the other, and then bound them.

  “Nova?”

  She nearly leaped out of her skin. There stood Jean Paul, more animated now. Why hadn’t he done as she asked!

  With three men down, the odds of stopping Hass felt better. Jean Paul again followed her down the hallway. She kept checking her rear. The computer room was dark but the Communications room was lit and discharging human voices. Hass might be here.

  Jean Paul walked to one side and slightly behind her. She put a warning finger to her lips. They moved near the door. She slowed, then sprinted the last ten feet and flattened against the wall next to the opening. Jean Paul copied her.

  She listened several seconds. One man complained about something. Then she heard a wheezy voice say, “You’ll get no argument from me. I told him to fetch The Founder.”

  Wheezy Voice had been speaking in German. When he’d said, “The Founder,” he’d used the feminine form of the noun. Die gründerin, not der gründer. It was as if—But that didn’t make any sense.

  She grasped the butt of the gun with both hands, spun around the door jamb into the room and barked in German, “Don’t anybody move.” Five men swiveled to face her; their jaws dropped open. One was Maurus. He grabbed for his gun.

  She fired three times with the Beretta.

  Maurus fell dead to the floor like a telephone pole crashing onto concrete. Communications equipment shattered and blacked out. She had the horrid thought she might have just destroyed her only way to contact Cupid. She yelled, “Get on your knees!” She could feel Jean Paul slightly behind and to her right. “Remove your weapons. Slowly. Put them on the floor in front of you.” The remaining men obeyed. “Push them away. Gently!”

  Again they obeyed.

  “Jean Paul, pick up their guns and put them in the trash can!”

  Jean Paul picked up the first and second weapon, but instead of going behind her to reach the third, he crossed in front. Another man lunged for his gun. Two more quick shots from her Beretta. In a kind of balletic slow motion, the man collapsed.

  At the sound of another gunshot, she felt a sudden pain and spun right. A third guy had nicked her right biceps.

  Her Beretta spat twice again, and her aim was better than his. Bloody mess!

  Hass would come quickly now, probably with reinforcements. She stepped to the remaining man, cowering on the floor and, using the Beretta’s butt, whacked him.

  From behind her a woman’s voice yelled in commanding tones, “Kill her, Jean Paul. She will destroy everything.”

  Nova straightened and pivoted. Hass stood in the doorway, his lips contorted, his skin a bright pink, his eyes rimmed with red. But behind him stood Braunwin. Dressed in a dramatic scarlet suit, Braunwin radiated power.

  The meaning of Wheezy Voice’s use of the feminine form of Founder exploded into surety. Braunwin was The Founder, not the sicko White Praying Mantis. Hass was a front, Braunwin the fanatic visionary. Braunwin the one determined to make their father’s dreams reality. Joe, Cupid, even Nova, they had all been thoroughly duped.

  Hass screeched, “Kill her, Jean Paul!”

  Nova looked at Jean Paul. His face was a mask of confused agony. A gun was in his hand. It pointed right at her heart.

  “This is necessary, Jean Paul,” Hass again screeched in German. “Do what I say. Kill her!”

  Braunwin turned, ran down the hall, fetching reinforcements or escaping.

  Jean Paul stood between Nova and the door. Their guns were barrel-to-barrel, four feet apart. “Put the gun down, Jean Paul. You would never hurt me.”

  He put his left hand to his temple. His eyes were glazed and their edges pinched. One corner of his mouth turned up, the other down, and his jaw muscles clenched and unclenched. Disbelief paralyzed her. He was actually going to obey Hass.

  From her right she heard a loud scuffling noise. Jean Paul heard it, too. His gaze shifted toward the noise. Hass straightened, a gun from the wastebasket now in his hand, its barrel pointed at Nova.

  Facing Hass and shouting, “No!” Jean Paul stepped between Nova and the albino.

  The sound of a gunshot exploded once more. Jean Paul went rigid, fell to his knees and then sideways to the floor.

  “No, no, no,” she heard herself screaming as she switched her aim to Hass and pulled the Beretta’s trigger. Hass crashed facedown to the floor, the back of his head a bloody red hole against white hair and skin.

  Jean Paul lay on his side. Nova dropped down beside him. His image swam in front of her, and she couldn’t hear clearly because the world seemed suddenly muffled in cotton padding. Nothing appeared to be moving or real.

  She set her gun on the floor, noting dispassionately that it was covered with her blood: she’d only been nicked, but she was bleeding freely. Some part of her said it was wrong, terribly wrong, to put her gun down, but the voice was dim. She lifted Jean Paul’s head and rested it against her thighs. He rolled onto his back. She laid the palm of one hand against his cheek, felt his warmth, the shaved stubble of his beard.

  He smiled. “This way is better.” Like everything else, he, too, sounded far away and muffled. “There is…” He stopped, coughed.

  A different voice, in her head, intruded. You’ve discovered The Founder, and The Founder may be escaping!

  “There is something wrong with my mind.”

  Blood oozed from a wound in his chest, though mercifully not fast like an artery. He might bleed to death on this floor. She felt icy-cold. He might die because she had used him: she had brought him here rather than send him away. And he had stepped in front of her and taken the bullet meant for her.

  She said, “It doesn’t make any difference now what they did to you. I heard them, Jean Paul. The conditioning was only to The Founder. If The Founder is dead, your mind will be okay. I promise. You’ll have yourself back. You must hang on.”

  The insistent voice in her head said, If Braunwin Hass escapes, others will continue to die.

  Jean Paul lifted his hand. She clutched it. “You do love me, don’t you?” he said.

  She kissed his palm. She laid his palm against her cheek. “Oh, God, Jean Paul. I do love you so very much.”

  She’s escaping! yelled the voice in Nova’s head. “I have to stop Braunwin.”

  He tried to squeeze her hand, but had lost his strength. “Do it then.”

  She kissed him. “You hang on for me, love. I’ll come back for you.”

  He nodded.

  She let his head slip down her thighs to the floor, picked up her gun and ran into the hall, down the corridor in the direction Braunwin Hass had taken, toward the computer room. Its door was open, the lights on. The screen was up—but blank. Nova would stop Braunwin. Then she would go back to Communications and call Cupid. If the equipment was still functional.

  Braunwin was fleeing and would want to
erase Singh’s work, to keep the secrets for herself. That would explain why the computer screen was on but blank. Somewhere, though, there would be backup disks. Nova dashed into the hall, guessing that Braunwin might go to the area with the unique security code. Halfway there another thought yanked her to a halt. She released the Beretta’s magazine and found one lousy bullet.

  Why hadn’t she snatched another gun!

  At the far end of the corridor, Braunwin stepped into the hallway. Their stares locked. The Founder held a square silver case in one hand, a gun in her other. She fired four shots. All wild. She ran, disappearing northward into the long corridor that led to the exit into Research Building No. 1.

  Backup disks had to be in that case.

  Nova sprinted down the hall.

  She careened around the corner and peered down the long corridor. Braunwin was three-quarters of the way to the security door. Nova pulled to a halt. Her traumatized right arm trembled like a struck piano wire. She switched the Beretta to her left hand—just like Joe, she was lousy with her left hand—took aim at Braunwin’s back, inhaled a breath, held it, fired.

  Missed.

  Braunwin had dodged right at the last second, into the big lab. At this moment, Braunwin would be stumbling over Singh’s body.

  Expecting that Braunwin would escape through the lab’s north door, Nova dashed past the first door, grabbed the wall to help her round the corner, half expecting to crash into the fleeing woman. But Braunwin was still in the lab.

  Nova barged into the darkened room. Three more shots exploded, glass shattered, metal pinged. She didn’t see where the shots had come from, but all had missed. Nova crouched beside a wall counter.

  When Nova had been framed in the doorway, she’d made a beautiful backlit target. But Braunwin Hass was clearly no marksman and she was expending too many bullets too fast. Already she’d used seven. How many did her gun’s magazine hold? Seven? Ten? More?

  Nova needed a weapon. Fast!

  She listened. Nothing. Braunwin was probably still at the room’s far end. Nova rose to a crouch, ran forward ten feet. Three shots, three flashes of white.

  Got her! Braunwin was cornered. One way or the other, she would have to pass Nova to make either door. But Nova still needed to get her to use up her ammo.

  Nova scuttled across the aisle between the counter and the closest lab bench. Three more shots rang out. Good! Thirteen she said to herself. Then she noticed pain as her left leg buckled. The Queen Mantis had made a lucky hit, right through one of the four knee-level holes spaced along the lab bench’s length. Nova fingered where she’d been hit, low in the calf.

  “Put your gun down and come out, Braunwin. I have both doors covered. There’s no way past me.”

  Though Braunwin was taller and outweighed Nova by many pounds, Nova was a trained fighter. But she now had an injured right arm and left leg. Even Braunwin could probably thrash her senseless. There was the knife, buried in Singh at the other end of the lab. But to reach it she’d have to move from this spot and leave the lab’s north door uncovered.

  Singh had used a ring stand. Nova squinted into the near darkness. Nothing looked like a ring stand. Only glassware or equipment too heavy to lift or too flimsy to be of use.

  The vials! She looked behind her to the location of the small compartment. Unfortunately no mask sat on the counter, but four masks did hang outside the door to the cubicle. If she could corner Braunwin in the cubicle….

  It wouldn’t be long before Braunwin decided to make a move. Like a lopsided crab, Nova scuttled back to the counter. Half crouched, her head below the counter, she reached an arm over the edge and felt for the knob. She twisted it and slid the lid back. Blindly she reached in. Remember, she coached as her fingers curled around a small, cool cylinder, you don’t want to break this thing till you mean to. She pulled out a vial and tucked it into her bra.

  To use the drug on Braunwin, Nova must somehow maneuver Braunwin into the cubicle. Fortunately, both its outer and inner door stood open. She snatched a beaker from the counter and dumped its contents—goo reeking of sauerkraut. Nova eyed the counter, rolled the beaker along its length. At the spot right where she wanted, the beaker hit the wall and shattered.

  Two shots from Braunwin’s gun.

  Then a soft click.

  Ha! Braunwin had to run now. And she did, exactly as Nova hoped, to the right. Just outside the cubicle’s outer door, Nova grabbed Braunwin’s arm and yanked the case from her hand. She limped past Braunwin, entered the outer door and threw the case inside the inner chamber.

  “Bitch,” Braunwin screamed. “Filthy bitch! You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  Braunwin dashed past Nova into the inner chamber. Nova, her leg on fire, turned, stumbled, limped back toward the outer door. Braunwin scooped up the case, whirled and started back out. Nova yanked a gas mask from a peg and looped its straps over her left arm. But at the inner door, before she could fetch the vial from her bra, Braunwin caught up to her.

  “You stupid woman,” Braunwin screeched. “You’re interfering with greatness.”

  Nova smashed her palm against the woman’s chest, aiming to push Braunwin back inside, but Braunwin’s fingers caught Nova’s shirt pocket. She heard a ripping sound, but her pocket didn’t come completely free.

  Braunwin slammed her arm across Nova’s chest, tried to slither past and through the outer door. Nova grabbed Braunwin’s arm, but her fingers slipped. Panicked, she threw herself against the larger woman. “You’re not great. You’re crazy!”

  They grappled, scuffled, twisted halfway around in the inner doorway. The mask flew off Nova’s arm and rolled into the inner chamber’s far corner. Braunwin was wriggling free! With the sound of her blood pounding deafeningly in her ears, Nova piled her full weight against Braunwin and wrapped her arms and legs around Braunwin’s body.

  Together they fell into the chamber, then rolled left in a frantic embrace.

  This was all wrong! Nova wasn’t supposed to be in here. She couldn’t use the ampoule’s drug now. And what kind was it? She hadn’t looked. She balled her fist, looked for a chance to smash Braunwin’s larynx.

  Hot breath brushed her face. Braunwin’s hands were all over the place, pushing, clawing. Braunwin’s weight pressed onto Nova’s injured calf. In Nova’s head a dizzying black cloud mushroomed.

  Braunwin grabbed Nova’s arm directly over her wound. Wave after wave of pain rushed up and outward from the contact point. Braunwin squeezed. Another surge of darkness hit. Nova twisted her left wrist free. Whatever the vial held—oh, God—whatever it held, she had to use it. She snatched the vial from her bra.

  She sucked in air, lifted the vial to bring it down against the floor. At the same moment, she and Braunwin both saw that the colored band at the neck was purple.

  Braunwin, her eyes full of horror, grabbed Nova’s wrist.

  Nova wavered, the horror in her soul a mirror of Braunwin’s terror. What if she inhaled? She couldn’t do it to herself. To die would be better.

  Braunwin lifted them both halfway off the floor. Her right arm came free of Nova’s grip. She grabbed the hand in which Nova held the ampoule. Do it. Do it! Nova’s mind screamed. There is no other way!

  She sucked in a breath. Another. Braunwin guessed her intention. Frantically pushing upward against Nova’s arm, Braunwin, too, sucked in a breath. One last breath and Nova rotated her arm, wrenched it from Braunwin’s hand, brought the vial’s neck to the floor.

  The soft sound of a click of breaking glass and the Pacification Inducer began to flood the chamber—Singh’s proud equivalent of a prefrontal lobotomy.

  Braunwin released Nova, clawed frantically toward the corner and the mask. Nova clung to her. Braunwin dragged both of them across the floor. Don’t breathe, don’t breathe, don’t breathe, don’t breathe. Again, Braunwin squeezed Nova’s wound. A searing fire raced through Nova’s chest, exploded in her head.

  The Founder’s lower body thrashed in frenzy, fight
ing to break the python-like grip of Nova’s legs. The prospect of being dead while alive clearly terrified Braunwin as much as it did Nova. Nova tightened her predatory hug.

  God, how she wanted to breathe!

  Braunwin stiffened. Nova looked up at the beautiful face—now swollen, flushed, eyes bulging, hate-contorted. In a great wheezing gasp, through a lipstick-smeared mouth, Braunwin sucked in air.

  Nova kicked away, rolled to the mask, slapped it against her face, purged it of residual air, frantically sucked in a breath. And another. And another.

  Her hands trembled; she pressed the mask harder against her face. Did she smell coffee? No. That was good! Quaking from head to foot, she sent her mind in search of pain. If she could feel pain, wouldn’t that mean the drug hadn’t reached her? Her arm and leg stung as though someone had stabbed her with white-hot pokers, and relief poured through her.

  Braunwin lay still, face calm now, blue eyes utterly blank.

  Nova sat rigid. She didn’t dare move—not the slightest move—lest gas leaked around the edges of the mask and the blank look on Braunwin’s face happened to her. The Queen Mantis lay motionless, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. From now on, others would be running life for this control freak.

  Singh had told Wyczek to either purge the cubicle or to wait ten minutes. Nova glanced at a wall clock. She had no idea how to purge the cubicle. She must force herself to wait. Then she must try to reach Cupid. And then see to Jean Paul.

  The aluminum case caught her attention. Listening to the mask’s amplified sounds of her slowing breathing, she stared at the case, trying to decide. What was the right thing to do? Destroy or save Singh’s work? If she destroyed it, this dreadful means of controlling minds might never be rediscovered.

  Provided she was very thorough. Again she checked the clock. Six minutes to wait.

  The backup disks, the labs, anything that might reveal any details would have to go. Fortunately, the disk Joe had copied held nothing scientific. If she could find the electric cart, she’d at least have that disk to give to Cupid.

  What you’re thinking is illegal. In its way, unethical. The Company pays you. You’ve never cheated on them before.