Ryan said nothing, gripping the dash with his fingers to brace himself against every twist and turn on the windy mountain road. He knew this road. He’d driven it many times, so none of the turns were a surprise, but he still had to avoid getting jostled with every twist.
Finally, Ashton pulled off the side of the road behind two other vehicles that Ryan assumed belonged to Haines and Mclean. “Don’t suppose you’re going to stay in the car?” Ashton said as he jumped down from his side.
Ryan didn’t comment on that statement either. He climbed out of his side at the same time as Blair and crouched low to inch forward with her still at his back. The two men in front of him had their weapons drawn. One of them was speaking softly into a mic attached to his sleeve.
All four men were dressed like Blair and Ashton—medium blue shirts, navy pants, the standard uniform at the front gate. These guys were not your average mall cops. They were well-trained. Ryan was certain most if not all of them had served in the army.
Ryan took the binoculars someone handed him and scanned the area. The Hummer and the sedan were nowhere in sight. Ryan was staring at a modest mountain home. It looked so innocent.
“They must have parked in the garage,” Haines suggested, twisting his neck to glance at Ryan. Ryan had known Dalton Haines for years. He’d never seen him this serious. “She’s in there. We’re going to get her.”
Ryan wondered what the fuck they were waiting for.
Brock Mclean was crouched next to Dalton. He had thick infrared goggles and was scanning the area slowly. “Four people inside besides Zorich. Looks like they’re all in the same room. Upstairs. Living room. I’m going to assume Zorich is seated in the middle. The other four are standing around her.”
Ryan’s skin crawled. What the fuck did these guys want? Information?
“I’m gonna get closer,” Dalton whispered. “Set up a mic.” He stooped low and made his way between the brush toward the house.
“What’s he mean?” Ryan asked Blair, who had crouched next to him.
“He’s got a device that will pick up the conversation inside and amplify it so we can listen to whatever they’re saying. More info. It’ll help us know what we’re up against.”
Ryan took a deep breath and blew it out. He hoped to God that Emily didn’t get killed while all this preparation was going on. If he was in charge, he would have stormed the house, gun drawn. But he wasn’t in charge. And that was probably a good thing.
* * *
Emily lifted her gaze as the man she hadn’t seen until arriving at the house tugged a second chair over from the kitchen and took a seat two feet in front of her. The first chair they’d brought into the room was currently occupied by her, and she was secured to it with about fifty unnecessary feet of rope. Her arms were wrenched behind her back, the pain in her shoulder now a dull throbbing. She assumed it wasn’t broken. Just sprained.
The man had on a dark gray, pinstriped suit. He had a full head of white hair. Distinguished. She would bet he was the one who hired the other three men in the room to kidnap her. The Hummer hadn’t joined the sedan at the house, which meant two of the five men were no longer with them, the driver and the guy who had been shot. Hopefully his injury had been enough to take him to the hospital where they would at least have a record of him later.
“I’m Dr. Bazil. You can relax. I have no intention of harming you.”
Did he really think his words helped? She said nothing. Half of her wanted to laugh at the stupidity of his statement. The other half wanted to spit at him. If he hadn’t wanted her dead, perhaps he should have informed his men not to run them off the road, guns blaring.
“I have a few questions.”
She ignored him, noticing the three men in black had left the room. They’d stepped outside before pulling off their masks, giving her a view of the backs of their heads through the window. Whoever they were, they had no intention of her being able to identify them. She could see them pacing on the front porch, and then they disappeared, probably to take up posts around the property.
“You can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your choice.”
She didn’t see how she had much of a choice at all, but she shuddered to ponder what the hard way might entail.
“Is it true that you were reanimated a month ago after a decade in suspension?”
“That’s been publicly released. Not a secret. How did you get my name?” The question was moot. Obviously people had her name by now. She’d known that since a reporter had been waiting for her outside her parents’ home. Had someone sold this man her identity too?
“That’s not important.” The so-called doctor continued, “What’s important is that the government found a way to bring you back to life and keep you that way.”
She took several breaths, thinking. She needed to keep him talking while she tried to figure out a way to escape. “Apparently.”
He nodded slowly. “How many people are frozen inside that bunker, Ms. Zorich?”
She narrowed her gaze. No real doctor would call the state of preservation frozen. He should know better. If he wasn’t familiar with the term vitrification, he wasn’t a doctor at all. “There’s a lot you don’t know about cryonics,” she pointed out without being specific.
He smiled. “Of course. That’s why you’re here.”
“You want to sell my story?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Not at all.”
She needed to turn the tables. Concentrate. Keep him talking until the Project DEEP team could find her. Though she realized the chances of that were slim. She was on her own. She needed to be smart. “If you’re not interested in selling information, then what are you interested in?”
“Knowledge.”
“You had five men kidnap me at gunpoint because you’re feeling curious?”
He chuckled again. “You have a sense of humor.”
She didn’t think so.
“How about if I ask the questions? Yeah? You aren’t really in a position to protest.” He pointed at her restrained hands and legs which had been secured behind the chair and to the front legs respectively.
Ryan, I hope you’re looking down every damn street on this mountain. She knew he would move the entire mountain to find her. The question was how long would it take and would he be too late? What did Bazil intend to do with her after he got his answers?
She figured they had driven for almost an hour to get to this remote mountain home. The car was in the garage. The Hummer was nowhere to be seen. Even if Ryan and Blair and fifty other people from the bunker were driving down every road in this area of the country, they could easily miss her.
“What do you want to know? I’m afraid I don’t have all the answers. After all, I was the one preserved for the last ten years. If you really wanted details, you would have needed to kidnap someone who was working on reanimating me instead.” This was true. This Bazil guy definitely wanted more than a sweet little question-and-answer session.
His laugh was going to annoy her quickly. It was a deep rumble that was already under her skin. “Do you remember the circumstances of your preservation?”
She narrowed her gaze. “How could I possibly remember those details? I was dead.”
He nodded slowly. “Were you?”
She forced her eyes wider as if she were shocked. “Well, I sure didn’t consent to being vitrified alive.”
He lifted one brow. “You’re sure about that?”
She narrowed her gaze. “Look, I don’t know who you are or what your motive is, but you’ve lost your mind. No one would agree to being preserved alive.” This was all true. She was wording it in the way she’d been instructed dozens of times.
She wasn’t lying. They had all been legally dead at the time of vitrification. After all, their blood had been drained and replaced with a cryoprotectant. The fact that her heart had been stopped under controlled circumstances instead of stopping naturally on its own would go to the grave with her. Semanti
cs. Even if this man decided to torture her, she would reword her sentences in such a way as to never give up the integrity of the project.
The question was, how did this man seem to know enough to doubt her clinical death?
Bazil tapped his fingers over his lips. “Tell me about the revival.”
She rolled her eyes. “Once again, I wasn’t present for that part either. I woke up fully revived.”
He shot her a glare and leaned forward, elbows to knees. “Stop playing games with me, Ms. Zorich. You’re mincing my words.”
“On the contrary, it would seem your questions are absurd. Since I’m the first member of the team to be revived, it would stand to reason that I have not participated in that stage of the process.”
“I assume others are being reanimated as we speak.”
“And I can assure you I have no specific knowledge of such subjects since I’ve spent the better part of the last month working to restore my own health. I’m still not at one hundred percent. It’s not as though I awoke and immediately returned to the lab. I’m ten years behind on all scientific research.”
He glared at her. “You expect me to believe you haven’t asked ten-thousand questions about your own revival and pored over the data related to whatever medical developments have enabled you to be sitting in front of me today?”
She shrugged. “Honestly, I have spent a lot of time studying data and research, but not with regard to the reanimation of my team. I’ve been working hard to bring myself up to speed on the latest medical research. Cryonics is not my field.” How long could she keep him talking like this? She glanced around, trying to listen for approaching vehicles. Nothing. Silence.
“And I assume you have received the cure for whatever killed you?”
“Hopefully, or you’re going to need it also,” she pointed out.
Another chuckle. “I’m quite certain I’m safe, but thanks for your concern.”
Cocky bastard.
He leaned back, crossed his legs, and folded his arms in front of his chest. “I’m going to draw blood samples after we speak, so it won’t do you any good to lie about anything. I’ll be able to ensure you’re completely healthy without your word.”
“Have I lied?” And what the hell would blood samples do to prove anything? Why did he need her to be in good health?
“So far you haven’t said much of anything.”
“So far you’ve only asked me questions I couldn’t possibly answer.” Fuck you.
“Ms. Zorich, I have done enough research to know you were indeed frozen for a decade. Photographs of you from ten years ago show no evidence of aging. Besides, I have no reason to doubt the government’s claim that you were reanimated. What I want to know is how that process was accomplished and how reliable it is.”
She cocked her head to one side. Either this guy was interested in preserving someone or he had a loved one preserved he wanted to revive.
“I’ll cut to the chase, Ms. Zorich. You were one of the most renowned members of your team ten years ago. I’m quite certain the government has a lot invested in you. I would hate for them to lose such an important member of their medical staff.”
She flinched. A bad taste filled her mouth. It would seem he thought she knew more than she did. Cryonics was not her specialty. That wasn’t a lie. If he wanted her to somehow bring someone else back or preserve someone else, he was going to be very disappointed. And did he think she could do so right here in his home? “What do you need me to do for you, Mr. Bazil?” She intentionally didn’t use his MD title.
“Reanimate my daughter.” He stood and began to pace, agitated. “She’s currently at the civilian cryonics facility in Michigan.”
Emily swallowed over the lump in her throat. This was personal for him. She also realized something very important. He wasn’t going to kill her. He needed her. At least as long as he thought she was useful. If he believed she could somehow revive his daughter, she sure shouldn’t continue to try to convince him otherwise. She needed to change her tune. “What did your daughter die of?” she asked quietly.
“Leukemia. There have been tremendous advances in that area since then. Her type of cancer is curable today.”
Holy shit. This guy was crazy. “What sort of doctor are you?”
He flashed her a smile. “Psychology.”
No wonder he didn’t have a firm understanding of cryonics. Although he should have known more since he’d preserved his own child. “How old was your daughter and how long ago was she preserved?”
“She was eight, and she was frozen twenty-one years ago.” He stopped pacing to face her. “I’m under the impression that the length of preservation isn’t important.”
“It’s not. You’re right. But the type of illness is.” His daughter would have been very sick before she died. Her body wouldn’t have been in optimal condition. Not with leukemia.
It seemed important to give Bazil hope, however. It would keep Emily alive. “Why aren’t you having the institute reanimate your daughter? Don’t they have the capability?” She assumed they did. The facility in Arizona was reanimating people.
He shook his head. “They aren’t willing to take the risk. They say she isn’t a good candidate at this time.”
She probably won’t ever be… Emily took a deep breath. “Look, the reanimation process is complicated and time consuming. You need special equipment. The only place that has that equipment is at the cryonic institute where she’s preserved.”
He growled. “Your people obviously have all the equipment necessary at that bunker or you wouldn’t be sitting in front of me today.”
She stared at him. Yeah, he was cracked if he thought there was any way in hell she could bring a hopeless civilian case to the bunker and reanimate the patient. “I’ll need to see your daughter’s medical records to get an idea of her viability.”
He nodded. “Of course. I have everything you’ll need.”
What she needed was her arms. And she needed them for far more than looking through his notes. But it was a start. “You’re going to have to release me if you want me to help you.” She glanced around. “It’s not like I could escape. You have the place surrounded.”
Her words were completely untrue. She had every intention of escaping at the first opportunity. The question was, what lengths would Bazil go to stop her? Would he have her killed? Or did he see her as a necessary piece in the puzzle?
The reality was she wasn’t even close to necessary to his proposed scheme. She wasn’t useful at all. There were a dozen people inside the bunker who had far more knowledge of reanimation than she did. But for some reason this man seemed to think she was invaluable. It would be safer for her to continue to let him believe that, but it made her very nervous wondering what his motives were in taking her specifically.
Insanity. If she were the last person on earth, she still didn’t have the knowledge or skill to bring someone back from vitrification. She had worked for years with two dozen doctors on AP12 and other diseases. Not cryonics.
None of the original team knew much about reanimation. Several of them had gotten up to speed on how to preserve themselves cryonically, but none of them would have known a thing about how to bring the patients back to the living. The process hadn’t been invented. Cryonics was Damon’s specialty. That’s why he had been brought onboard.
The fact that the bunker had been built with a cryonics facility one floor below them had originally been nothing noteworthy to the team. Until disaster struck. Until they all needed that room.
Bazil left her in the room alone, presumably to get the medical file on his daughter. When he returned, he untied her without a word and pointed at the kitchen table. “Don’t even think about escaping. My home is secured. You wouldn’t even be able to get out a door.”
She shook her arms, wincing at the dull pain in her shoulder. Next, she flexed her feet several times to restore blood flow and then stood on wobbly legs to make her way to the thick file on the
table. “Could I get a glass of water?”
“Of course.” He kept his gaze on her as he grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it from the tap.
Letting her gaze roam the room and out the windows, she opened the file.
“Amanda would be twenty-nine now. I can’t believe it’s been that long.” Bazil set the glass of water on the table and pulled out a chair across from Emily. For several moments he seemed perfectly normal, a grieving parent who simply wanted to save his child.
And then he pulled a gun from the back of his waistband and pointed it at the file. “You wanted to see it. Hurry up.” He sat in the chair, clutching the weapon against the mahogany surface of the table.
She needed to stall any way possible. If he figured out she was useless to him, he might change his tune and dispose of her. “Is Amanda’s mother still living?” she asked.
Bazil shook his head. “Passed away five years ago. She suffered from depression for those sixteen years. She was never happy again.”
“Understandable. Sorry for your loss.”
He narrowed his gaze for a moment and then tapped the file again with the gun. “Whatever you need to see, do it quick.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and hit a button on the screen. Seconds later, he spoke into the cell. “Everything okay?”
She couldn’t hear the response, but it must have satisfied him. After he pocketed the phone, Emily lifted her gaze. “I’m going to need time to look over this file. I don’t know anything about your daughter’s case.”
“You know enough. I told you there’s a cure now. That’s all you need to know.”
“There may very well be a cure, but I’m not familiar with any medical advances in the last ten years. We can’t just reanimate your daughter without all the facts. It won’t do her any good if she dies anyway because we weren’t prepared.” Keep talking. Drag this out as long as you can.
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