Two Weeks' Notice tr-2

by Rachel Caine

  “You’re talking about the same ones who slaughtered those people at Graydon,” Zaragosa said. “The ones who’ve been picking off our Revived employees, one by one.”

  “You knew about that?”

  “Yes. Riley kept me informed of the disappearances, and the developments at Graydon.”

  Don’t trust Riley, he’d written on the back of his business card, yet he’d trusted her himself. Odd. “How many of your people have gone missing?” she asked.

  “Twenty-three that Riley was able to discover,” he said. “It’s possible a few of those have run away instead of being taken, but if so, they’ve figured out how to beat the tracking nanites. Like you did when you first escaped.”

  “I didn’t beat the trackers. I had them scraped off my bones. It wasn’t pleasant.”

  “Evidently, they’ve grown back,” Zaragosa said. “Mr. Robinson says you’re broadcasting a signal, loud and clear.”

  “That’s part of why I came here,” Bryn said. “Because I’m being tracked, and I can’t afford to lead the people who are following me anywhere else. You’ve got a hardened facility; you’ve got armed guards and security countermeasures, with the strength of the government behind you. Anywhere else would be vulnerable.…Where’s Riley Block?” It was a strange segue, but Bryn couldn’t keep her mind off the agent’s absence. It bothered her, deeply.

  Zaragosa shrugged. “Agent Block was reassigned by her own request.”

  “Agent Block asked to be reassigned when there were people she was in charge of protecting who’d gone missing? She never struck me as the type to break down and walk away from people in trouble. People she knew.”

  “I only knew her professionally, not personally; I can’t tell you what was going on in her head,” he replied. “Only that the paperwork crossed my desk, I signed, and she left. It was the best thing, really. She wasn’t entirely trustworthy. Let’s get back to the issue at hand—what happened to you, exactly?”

  Too much to tell you, Bryn thought, but she condensed it down, describing the failed attempt to abduct her at her funeral home, and then the successful coercive operation that had taken her to the nursing home. She skipped Jane altogether because even thinking about the woman made her also think of Patrick, and that was like putting her hand on a hot stove. Operative was a much less painful way to describe the woman. An operative questioned me at length.

  “A nursing home,” Zaragosa repeated, when she was done. “You’re sure about this.”

  “Completely. I can tell you approximately where it is. I wasn’t driven far before I was released from the restraints in the ambulance, so there can’t be that many possibilities. I’ll know it on sight.”

  Annie hadn’t heard any of this, Bryn realized; now she had tears in her eyes, and grabbed for Bryn’s hand on the table. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “We were so afraid for you, but I didn’t know you’d be—”

  “I’m all right,” Bryn said, and smiled. “Look, no scars.”

  Zaragosa gestured to Robinson, who leaned over; whatever passed between them was said in a whisper, and then Robinson rose and walked out of the room. The door clicked shut behind him. “You’re sure you could recognize the location,” Zaragosa said.

  “If you’ve got a laptop with Google Earth, I can show you the place right now. It’s vital you get a strike team out there and take the people that run it into custody before they have time to destroy more evidence. There was something terrible going on out there. The people, the actual patients, they’re in danger just by being around the staff. Trust me, nobody has their best interests at heart in there.”

  “Robinson’s fetching help now,” Zaragosa said, and leaned forward, hands clasped on top of the table. “You said you were kept in a building that was separated from the main one. Do you have any idea what they were doing there?”

  “Only vaguely,” Bryn said. “The patients kept there were in end-stage dementia, according to what they told me. They were using them as some kind of test subjects. No…” Bryn thought back, and frowned. The temperature of the room seemed to drop a few degrees. “Incubators.”

  Zaragosa looked grim, and nodded. He sat back, folded his arms, and looked down, clearly deep in thought. “That’s very troubling,” he said. “You heard them say that. That exact term.”

  No, she’d heard that part from Jonathan Mercer, but she couldn’t disclose that; the FBI had always made Mercer their primary target, and just now, she couldn’t afford them splitting their focus. Jane and her crew were the first-order danger, not Mercer. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”

  “Incubators for what, exactly?”

  “That I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound good, does it?”

  “No,” he agreed. “Not at all.” There was a buzzing sound, and the locked conference room door swung open. Robinson was back, and he’d brought a small laptop, which he put down on the table in front of Bryn. She navigated the map to the area she wanted, then zoomed in and switched to the street view. It took her all of three minutes to find the right place.

  “There,” she said. She zoomed in on the sign in front. “Arcadia Nursing and Rehabilitation. A division of the Fountain Group.”

  Robinson nodded, closed the laptop, and stood up. Zaragosa motioned him out the door. “What do you know about the Fountain Group?” he asked Bryn.

  “Nothing. It’s probably some kind of holding company—that’s all I can guess. Why, do you think they knew what was going on there?”

  “If their patients are disappearing, then I’d assume someone knows. It’s unlikely all this would happen without significant funding and approval from higher up.” He seemed deeply troubled now, and tired. Zaragosa scrubbed his face with his hands, as if trying to will himself awake, and Bryn realized that he looked as if he’d not been home in days—a wilted suit, a fresh shirt that looked as if it had been taken out of the package, crease lines intact, and a wicked growth of beard that wouldn’t have been out of place on a streetlight-hugging drunk. Maybe Riley had broken under the strain. Bryn wouldn’t have blamed her, really; the trauma and emotion of any of these jobs was brutal, and so was the toll they took. “Please wait here, ladies. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  Zaragosa stood and walked to the door. Annie said, “Um, if we’re taking a bathroom break, I could sure use one myself.…” Her voice trailed off, because Zaragosa had kept on going, and the door clicked shut behind him. “Wow. Rude. Is this guy some kind of friend of yours?”

  “Not really. I don’t think he’s rude, just got a lot on his mind. He’s in charge of this place. It’s a lot to manage, and I just dropped some significant info on him he needs to look into.”

  “Well, I think he’s rude.” Annie went to the door and pulled the handle. It didn’t open. “Huh. Did he press a secret button or something? Because it’s locked.” Bryn came to her side and tried it, which made Annie give her a roll of the eyes. “Wow. Yeah, I tried that. Like I said. Locked. There must be some sort of trick to it.…”

  But there wasn’t. It was a simple lever system—push down, and the door was supposed to open. Only it didn’t.

  Bryn looked around the room with its clean floor and whiteboard walls, and started feeling that bad, old claustrophobic impulse click in again. Another white room at Pharmadene. Bad, very bad. Get out. That was her panic talking; they were safe in the heart of a very strong facility, and nobody meant them harm. If Jane or her employers wanted to get to them here, they’d have a pitched battle on their hands, one that would draw public attention. Not even Jane would want that.

  Bryn knocked on the door. “Hey! Bathroom break?” No one answered. She tried the speakerphone on the counter, and when the reception desk picked up, she said, “We’ve been accidentally locked in conference room C-17, and we need someone to open the door.”

  “Of course,” the woman said, in a soothing, calm voice. “Let me page someone for you. You’re wearing ‘Escorted Visitor’ badges, correct?”

  “Yes.”


  “Well, that’s why the door won’t open, then. Your encoded escorts aren’t with you at the moment, so you’re on lockdown until they return for you. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, but I’m sure it will only be a few moments.”

  Right on cue, Bryn heard the door lock buzz behind them, and smiled in relief at Annie. “Thanks—they’re here,” she said, and hung up the phone as she turned. “So, can we have a bathroom…” Her voice died, locked tight in her throat.

  Because Jane Desmond Franklin walked into the room, and behind her came Mr. Robinson, and his three armed security guards. Jane had on basic black that mimicked fatigues, and she’d tied her hair back in a sloppy bun, but it was definitely her.

  She can’t be here. She can’t.

  Jane smiled in slow delight at the look on Bryn’s face. “Awww,” she said. “That’s really adorable. You just don’t get it, do you, sweetie? Frying pan, fire? Escaping into prison? I have to hand it to you, it would have been a really good strategy, except for, you know, being entirely wrong.” She turned her gaze on Annalie, and the smile widened. “And who’s your little friend? Oh, that’s right. Annalie. Your sister. Nice to meet you, Annie.”

  “Uh—” Annie shot a look at Bryn, and was evidently unnerved and confused by her stillness. “Hi, I guess?”

  “Sit down,” Jane said to both of them. “You aren’t going anywhere until I let you.”

  “Where’s Zaragosa?” Bryn asked. She licked suddenly dry lips. No, no, this can’t be happening. He’s FBI. This is a government-run facility.…

  Yeah, and you should always trust the government, right? She could almost hear Joe Fideli’s lightly sarcastic response in her head. They’re always so damn trustworthy.

  “Mr. Zaragosa has delegated responsibility for this particular operation to me,” Jane said. “You won’t be seeing him again, which is probably a blessing, right? Boring man. Accountant, you know, all about the numbers. The funny thing is, nobody blames the accountants; they seem so unthreatening. But I guarantee you, accountants have killed more people in this world than soldiers.” She read the sudden wild impulse to fight in Bryn’s shift of body weight, and shifted her own to match, going from languid to feral in a second. “Don’t.” It was a blunt, cold word. No smile this time, no sweetie. “You’re both Revived, and so am I. You might be able to take me, Bryn—I’ll give you credit for your ferocity, if not your skills. But the fact is you can’t take me and make it out the door before one of my friends here shoots you dead. So let’s not play. If I was you, I’d bide my time, wait it out.”

  That, Bryn thought, was good advice, even coming from Jane. She eased up, took a slow breath, and glanced at Annie. Her sister was milky pale, and very confused. “Bryn? You know her?”

  “Oh, we’re almost related,” Jane assured her, and draped herself over a handy chair like a sun-drowsy lioness. “I’m Patrick’s wife.”

  “Ex,” Bryn said. Just for the hell of it. That earned her a flicker of a cold glance.

  Annie’s face was so blank that it strongly resembled the whiteboard. “That’s impossible,” she said. “You mean Patrick Patrick?”

  “No, I mean the other one. Yes, dear, that Patrick. Under whose roof you’ve been living these past couple of days. The one who’s fucking your sister.” Jane outright laughed at the expression on Bryn’s face. “Do you really think I don’t keep track of who’s around him? That last was just a guess, by the way, but it was pretty safe. I knew you were playing house together, and since you aren’t five, I’d assume you were getting busy. Trust me. I know he’s hard to resist.”

  Annie’s mouth opened, then snapped shut. Bryn thought about trying to rip Jane’s throat out, again, but the same logic that had held her still thirty seconds before still held true. Jane wanted her to attack, was prodding her to do it like a picador with a bull. She wanted Bryn angry enough to ignore opportunities, and she was waving the red flag of Patrick to do it.

  You have to be smarter.

  “What’s this about—the nursing home? No, I’ll bet it was something else,” Bryn said. “Zaragosa got nervous once I talked about incubators. He was asking questions to find out how much I knew, and once I knew those things, it was obvious I knew too much. Right?”

  “Oh, don’t beat yourself up. He was going to kill you anyway, whatever you did or didn’t know; fact is, he called me at Arcadia and told me to just get rid of you. I was all for keeping you alive until we knew everything you knew. It’s Zaragosa who wanted you sent straight to the oven.”

  “It’s been Pharmadene all along,” Bryn said. She felt a little numb, and bizarrely unsurprised. “Graydon was your janitorial staff. You’ve been eliminating the Revived. But if that’s true, why send me to them at all? Zaragosa could have killed that.…”

  “Riley was the one who made the connection,” Jane said. “And she made it public above his pay grade. So Zaragosa had to be seen to take action. He figured by using you we could send you into a trap, get you blown to bits, and take care of two birds with one stone. Like I said, he’s an accountant. All about saving resources. And it isn’t Pharmadene, sweetie. Pharmadene doesn’t exist anymore, except as a name on a letterhead. The government controls it—you’re absolutely right about that—but you know what the government is particularly good at doing?”

  “Screwing up?” Annie said.

  “Huh,” Jane said, and gave Annalie a longer, more thoughtful look. “That’s a valid point. But no. They like to give work to contractors. The FBI is overworked and underpaid, and they’ve got terrorists to chase, not to mention interstate bank robbers and kidnappers and serial killers.”

  “So they outsourced,” Bryn said. “Outsourced what, exactly?”

  Jane put a finger to her lips, crossing an impish smile. “That would be telling,” she said. “Would you like to guess?”

  “The incubation?”

  “Nice, for shooting blind.”

  “Why did he make me point out the facility?”

  “Killing time.” Jane shrugged. “I was late getting here. And I guess he just wanted to confirm that you really did know where you were kept. Last nail in your coffin, Bryn. By the way, FG runs about a thousand other medically related businesses, but their real business happens to be in bioweapons research and development. Who told you about the incubation process?”

  The question was slipped in smoothly, in the same lazy tone, but Bryn’s nerves were raw and razor sharp. She didn’t answer. She and Jane continued to exchange stares for so long that Bryn lost count of her heartbeats, and then Jane finally shrugged.

  “Doesn’t really matter,” she said. “You have a pretty limited circle of friends, Bryn. We roll them up; we get everyone who might know. Sorry, Annie, but that includes family, too. You’re just along for the ride. Sucks, I know.” Jane looked over her shoulder to Robinson. “Pete, do we have a twenty on Patrick?”

  “Not at present,” he said. “I have a team at the estate, but nobody’s home. She even brought the dogs with her, which means McCallister and the butler aren’t planning to come back.”

  “Do you know where they are, Bryn?”

  “Not a clue,” she said. “And he’s not a butler.”

  “Amusing that you think that matters, Bryn. All right. This has been really nice, and Annie, lovely to meet you, but I’ve got to get back to work tracking down all the cockroaches running from the light. Tedious.” Jane rose and went to the door, opened it, and said, “In case you’re wondering, the oven you saw on the surveillance? That’s here. It’s where they dispose of live Revivals they’re done using. Sorry I can’t watch, but I’ll be sure to run the tape later.”

  The door slammed shut behind her with a boom, and Bryn and Annie were left with Robinson and his three guards. The man had a blank, soulless look in his eyes. There was no point in appealing to his humanity, Bryn realized; he didn’t see either one of them as remotely like him.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Now.”

  Chapter 1
6

  There was a time for fighting for their lives, and it came as they stepped outside the conference room.

  Annie had been the first one out, and her flinch and attempt to pull free of the guard holding her was Bryn’s first clue that something was wrong—more wrong. Then she caught a glimpse of the two medical gurneys lined up in the hallway, complete with restraints, and experienced a horrible flashback of being strapped down, Jane, the spoon, the surveillance video of Jason screaming in the incinerator’s flames.…

  And Bryn snapped. Hard and clean.

  Her elbow caught the first guard right where it should—squarely in the nose, shattering it and sending him reeling back off-balance. Bryn spun and followed with a sharp heel-of-the-hand blow that drove the broken bone up into his brain.

  His eyes rolled up to show whites, and he dropped. Dead, or so badly disabled it wouldn’t matter in terms of the fight. Bryn went down with him, which led to a confusion of people tripping over their bodies as she wrestled the gun out of his limp, warm hand.

  She rolled, sending another guard reeling for balance, and while he was gaining it, she shot him three times. The bullets entered under his chin and exited through the top of his skull in a bright red mist.

  Two down, but her window of opportunity had snapped shut. These weren’t mall cops; they were highly trained security personnel, most likely with military backgrounds themselves. As she reached to retrieve the second guard’s gun, she took fire from the third, the one holding Annie as a shield.

  The bullets hit her in the side, the back, and the shoulder—not the head, which would have stopped her. The damage was probably fatal, but not immediately so, and she didn’t fucking care. At all. Bryn’s legs went numb, but she twisted around and aimed left-handed.

  The agent was almost completely covered up by her sister, and he fired again, missing Bryn’s head by inches.

  “Annie, drop!” she yelled, and shifted her aim to Robinson, who was in the process of drawing his sidearm. She killed him with three shots to the face, counting on the fact that it would take Annie a second to process her instructions, and sure enough, her sister had just decided to release her knees and drop when Bryn guided the muzzle back.