"Too bad about that." Shana made a beckoning motion for Olivia to hand her the laptop. "On the other hand, I'll bet the wireless connection I have in my house will extend over this far. Let's rev this baby up and check out Maria island."
"Or city, or hotel, or — well, you get the picture," Brittany said while Olivia handed the laptop across the coffee table.
Shana smiled as she unfolded the computer. "Don't you worry, baby. I'm a whiz with the search engines."
"What about your perfume?" Olivia thought to ask, turning to Brittany.
"What about it?" Brittany asked.
"Did it have a name?"
"How should I know — ? Wait." Brittany went very still. "Wait...It did have a name. There was a little tag attached, with something handwritten." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "But if you think I can remember what it was, forget it."
"That's okay," Shana allowed. Excitement was audible in her voice as she looked up at them. "Because I've found Maria Island.
"You're kidding." Brittany sounded both amazed, and in dread.
"I kid you not." Shana leaned over to show the screen to Brittany. "There it is."
Brittany took the computer and squinted at it. "I take it back," she said, in a strange, choked voice. "I do remember the name printed on my perfume's tag." She pointed to the screen. "Because it's right here on Maria Island. Marchmont. That's what was on the tag. And that's the name of what is supposed to be a university, right in the center of the island."
"Holy Cow," Shana breathed. "Gimme that." She took the computer back from Brittany, stared at the screen and punched a few keys. "It says here that Marchmont University aspires to build a world-class laboratory in the life sciences." She looked up at them. "Life sciences including, I would imagine, drug research."
"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle," Brittany breathed. "We actually found her."
Excitement was singing in Olivia's veins like opera. "We've found her."
"Now all we have to do is go to Maria Island and talk to her," Shana said.
Brittany choked. "Go there?"
"Sure." Shana tapped the top of the computer. "We can't get in touch with her any other way. Remember her phone got lost, and she wouldn't dare answer an email, even if she could. Not to mention the guys probably have our telephones tapped."
Wild-eyed, Brittany's gaze went to the land line sitting on the end table beside her. "No," she muttered. "They wouldn't. He wouldn't."
"They would. Even he would," Olivia told her ruthlessly. "The only way to talk to Anja, is to go to Anja." She lifted a shoulder. "She even gave us clues so we could find her."
"But — we can't go." Brittany's eyes flitted frantically around the room, as if searching for an excuse. "What about your clients?" she asked Shana.
"It's Friday night." Shana gave a careless shrug. "If we left tonight we could be back by Monday."
"I'm with Shana," Olivia declared. Her excitement was now a buzzing, exhilarating thing. "Anja had a good reason for taking herself off. My lying, controlling husband was in charge of security for her project. She needs some support. She needs help getting out of this. I say we go. Tonight."
Brittany dolefully shook her head. "No way I'm letting you two fly off on such a cock-eyed expedition without a level head like myself, and I can't go."
"Oh." Olivia stopped. "Your kids."
"My kids," Brittany agreed.
"So what, your kids?" Shana wanted to know. "There's such a thing as a babysitter, isn't there? In fact, you've got one right now, don't you?"
Brittany laughed. "A thirteen-year-old. The kind of babysitter who'd stay the weekend can't be found on a moment's notice."
"No?" Shana tilted her head and arched an eyebrow. Then she looked down at the computer and punched a few keys. Eyebrow still arched, she turned to show the screen to Brittany. "Whaddaya know? There are at least three babysitting agencies right here in River City."
"An agency?" Brittany looked horrified. "They'd charge me through the nose."
"You can afford it. Come on. Do you care about the fate of the world, or not?"
"Well, hell, if you put it that way... Gimme that screen." Brittany took the computer from Shana and reached for the land line on the end table next to her. She gave Olivia a dark look. "You really think Peter would bug my phone? Or yours?"
"I'm sure he already has," Shana replied sweetly.
"Then I better be careful what I say to this babysitting agency," Brittany muttered, squinting at the computer screen while she dialed the phone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There was only one ancient ceiling fan in Hagar's office, and it was doing nothing to prevent sweat from breaking out beneath her sarong as the big man with the potato-skinned face loomed over her desk.
"She got away," he told Hagar.
Looking up at the big man, she did her best to appear superior. "That is not my concern. I told you where she was. I made certain she was...incapacitated. It is hardly my fault if you and your men were too inept to capture her." Privately she wished her 'friend,' Mr. Hollister, had agreed to make a deal with her to buy Anja. Not only would Hagar's conscience have rested easier, but she wouldn't be left to deal with this brute, Leo. This particular 'friend,' Hagar was deciding, was not quite right in his head.
Leo did little to alter Hagar's opinion of his sanity by smashing his fist into the top of her desk. There was a resounding slam and the crack of splintering wood. She looked down and the sweat between her breasts chilled. Leo had dented the nearly solid wood of her desk.
"You must find her," he demanded.
Calmness, calmness, Hagar instructed herself. She must not lose the appearance, at least, of having the upper hand. So she released a haughty laugh. "I cannot find her. Not any more. You have scared her off, and she was terribly cautious to begin with."
"She has to be somewhere." Leo commenced pacing about Hagar's office. The shelves and tables were filled with the figurines and knick-knacks that Hagar had spent years collecting. She felt a lowering certainty Leo meant to destroy them all — if she didn't manage to give him something.
"I believe you are right," she told him. "You have men watching the port. She cannot have left. She is somewhere on the island."
Leo spun around and snarled. "Where?"
Hagar lifted her hands.
He appeared to expand, like a balloon taking in air. His face reddened. "You were paid," he reminded Hagar, "but I do not have my goods."
Now Hagar was trembling. That money was hers now, hers. Besides, she couldn't pay it back. She'd already sent it overseas to a bank in Switzerland. "I was paid," she agreed, and thought quickly. "To give you something that would be invaluable in your...quest. But you do not need Dr. Andropov in person. I have what you need."
Leo's small eyes managed to narrow. "You do?"
Hagar did her best to control her trembling. "What you want is the virus, the mechanism that will deliver the disease. I have it."
Leo's nostrils flared. "Why didn't you tell me so before?"
Because she'd wanted to save the sample she'd taken from Anja's petri dish for herself. Now that she knew what it was, she knew how to grow and multiply it.
She'd planned to sell it to yet another buyer. In fact, Hagar already had someone making bids, another...friend.
"I did not tell you because you paid for Dr. Andropov, not the virus," Hagar explained, careful to sound righteous. She stood up from her desk chair. "However, I will be happy to give it to you now. As...as a gesture of goodwill, since you have been so disappointed."
Leo grunted. He put his hand on the gun displayed prominently on his belt. "Where is it?"
"In the lab." Hagar pretended she didn't see his gun. "Follow me." She stopped, though, on her way out of the room. "But you should be aware there is a safeguard, a 'back door,' a way to switch the virus off." Hagar now realized this was what Anja had been doing in her lab, creating this switch.
"What will switch it off?" Leo's head tilte
d and his hand tightened on the gun.
"I don't know." Hagar heard her own frustration in the admission. "The virus will work. I just wanted you to know that there is something, one substance, that will turn it off." She shrugged. "The chance of your coming across this one substance is negligible."
Leo's eyes narrowed. "Negligible."
"Anja would have made it that way. Do you want the virus, or not?"
Leo grunted, which Hagar took to be assent. If she was very careful, she might get out of this on the plus side yet.
~~~
The lab's lounge, never particularly cozy, had begun to take on the atmosphere of an existential hell by Saturday afternoon. The sense of hellishness expanded as Gideon and the others heard what Henry, the head lab tech, had to say about the result of stringing together their various clues.
"It doesn't work." Henry stood in his white coat with his mousy brown hair sticking up at odd angles. Dark rings hung under his eyes. It was obvious he'd been up all night.
"What do you mean it doesn't work?" Peter sprang from the broken lounger. "We brought you everything."
Henry only shook his head, apparently too tired to take offense. "It wasn't everything. Not enough. From what I can make out there is one significant chunk missing."
Dash, who was settled in a patched-up beanbag chair, released a short expletive.
Gideon would have liked to respond in like vein, but was aware he'd been the one to keep Henry up all night, working on reconstructing the virus. Besides, it wasn't Henry's fault. "You did good work." He patted Henry on the shoulder. "Go home and get some rest."
"Is that an order?" Henry looked hopeful.
"Absolutely."
The next thing they saw was Henry's back as he hurried out the door.
"Shit," Gideon then said.
"I'll second that," concurred Peter.
Gideon took a pace to one side. "It appears we did not find all the clues that Anja left." He turned slowly and looked at Dash. "There must be another one out there."
Dash, who was holding a big pile of paper clips, gave Gideon a narrow-eyed look. "Well, you can count me out. No way I can go back and try to find any more clues in Shana's house. No. Way." Dash took one of the paper clips and tossed it toward a plastic bowl set in the middle of the coffee table. "I'd rather face a terrorist squad with a dull-edged saber and beheading on their minds."
Peter started when Gideon turned his way. "Hey, don't look at me."
"Why not? From what you reported, Brittany isn't mad at you." Gideon tried to keep the envy from his voice.
But Peter shook his head, and the expression on his face didn't look any happier than Dash's. "It's all over for me and Brittany."
Gideon turned and rubbed the back of his neck. "And I can assure you, I will be getting no cooperation out of Olivia." In more ways than one. He turned toward the window that gave onto the lab and fought back a tidal wave of frustration. Everything was topsy-turvy and wrong, not the way it should have been.
They should have been able to find all the clues. Anja should have trusted him to begin with, instead of taking it into her head to hare off to parts unknown. And Olivia — Gideon drew in a steadying breath. Olivia should have understood, dammit. She was utterly impossible and obstinate and blind. Couldn't she get his position? He had secrets to protect. He had her to protect. Why did she think he'd moved Anja in across the backyard from her in the first place? Anja, he could justify paying a sentry to guard. Olivia, he couldn't.
Gideon turned to face the men. "Walter," he said.
"Yeah?" Peter had sunk back into the lounger. "What about Walter?"
"Maybe he's got a lead by now."
"I think he'd have called you," Peter muttered, but Gideon paid no heed. He unfolded his cell phone and dialed Walter.
Though Walter was a quarter of the globe away in Antigua, he answered on the third ring. "Oh." His voice was distinctly uneasy when he heard Gideon identify himself.
"What happened?" Gideon said, already tensing.
Walter heaved a deep, unhappy sigh. "I lost him."
"You lost Hollister?" Gideon tried, but failed, to keep the anxiety from his voice.
"Oh, boy," Peter sighed, and leaned his head back.
"It only needed that," Dash commented, and tossed another paper clip.
"He took off in a private yacht. During a storm," Walter explained over Gideon's cell phone. "I couldn't find anybody crazy enough to go out after him."
"I understand." The hell of the thing was, Gideon did. Everything about this case eventually turned to shit. "Don't worry. We'll pick him up again. He's not easy to miss with that crazy entourage of his."
"No." But Walter sounded as if he were about to cry. "I was gonna smash him one. Right before he grabbed Anja, I was gonna smash him."
"You'll still get your chance."
Walter huffed. "Assuming he survived the storm."
Gideon flicked closed his phone and turned back to the interior window. He rested his forearm on the windowsill and restrained the deep groan in his throat. They'd lost Hollister, their one and only lead. Was there anything, anything, that was going to work right regarding this case? Behind him he heard the light chinks of Dash making each and every basket with his paper clips. To Gideon it was like the ticking of a clock. Time was running out, and he hadn't been able to accomplish a damn thing.
Not even with Olivia.
Gideon whirled around. Dash did not hesitate in his next toss, which also hit the center of the plastic bowl on the coffee table. Peter remained with his head back on the filthy old chair.
"There's only one thing to do," Gideon said.
"Search Anja's house for the final clue?" Dash guessed. He lifted a shoulder as he tossed another paper clip. "Already been done."
"No." Peter lifted his head. Energy began to replace his recent lethargy. "Gideon's right. There's only one thing we still have any possibility of being able to do."
Gideon's smile was thin, but at least they were on the same wavelength. "With Hollister out of sight now, we can't assume anything."
Dash's next paper clip missed the bowl completely. It skittered over the smooth tabletop and onto the floor. He looked up at Gideon. "You're saying we can't know if the women, themselves, might become targets of some unfriendly?"
Peter took up the argument. "If we think they know too much, it stands to reason somebody else might assume they know something, too."
Gideon nodded even while a part of him, the logical part, acknowledged this was an utter stretch, and just a miserable excuse to stay close to Olivia.
But Dash, ever-logical, was out of his beanbag chair and supplying all kinds of helpful rationalizations. "Sure, we replaced Walter with another sentry in the van across the street, but that sentry is green."
"He doesn't know the habits of our women," Peter added.
"We'll meet at the sentry van," Gideon said. "And for God's sake — keep your heads down."
Dash scoffed. "You think you have to tell us that?"
In about three seconds, they were all out the door.
~~~
"What do you mean, you don't know where they are?" Gideon could hear his voice gaining volume as he loomed over the rookie. Gideon didn't much care if he frightened the little shit, however. The kid was the only body they'd been able to spare as sentry in Walter's place, but he was no Walter. He'd been yawning over a copy of Playboy in the driver's seat of the van parked across the street from the women's houses, oblivious, when Gideon, Peter and Dash had climbed in through the vehicle's side door. They'd been attempting to keep out of sight of the women. The women who, Gideon was just finding out, weren't at home anyway.
The rookie leaned as far as possible from Gideon, who'd planted himself in the front passenger seat. Peter and Dash hung over the conversation from their position in the second row. "How should I know where they are?" the rookie said. "I was told to stay right here. I'm here. They left."
Gideon had to admit some a
dmiration of the incompetent jackass. He was defiant, even in the face of what Gideon knew was an impressive fury.
They'd see how long such defiance lasted. Gideon lowered his voice to a menacing purr. "How long ago did they leave?"
Gideon hadn't been promoted to head of the Agency for nothing. The defiance drained out of the rookie's face. "I — I guess I could look it up in the log."
"That," agreed Gideon, "would be a good idea."
Fingers trembling, the kid picked up the loose-leaf binder Walter kept as a log. He opened it and flipped a page. "Ahem. It looks like they left at nine-thirty, sir. They all went in the same car. It was subject Brittany Wells's Expedition."
"Nine thirty?" Gideon straightened, the menace dropping from his voice. He relaxed and looked at his watch. It was only one p.m. So they'd only been gone a few hours.
"They might have gone shopping," Peter suggested.
"Yeah." Now Gideon felt foolish. It appeared he'd been making a mountain out of a molehill. Just went to show how tightly strung he'd been since Thursday and his big blow-out with Olivia.
"Wait a minute." Dash had reached forward for the logbook and now frowned into it. "These times are not recorded in military format. They left at nine-thirty — last night."
Peter, Dash, and Gideon all turned to look at the rookie, whose Adam's apple bobbed as he squeezed against the door. "I thought they were going out on the town. Friday night, right? Some old lady showed up at the Wells house — " He was babbling now, managing to scoot even further away as Peter reared toward him. "Figured she was the babysitter."
"Is that what you figured?" Peter's voice was now as soft and menacing as Gideon's had been earlier. "And it didn't occur to you they ought to come home?"
The rookie opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Gideon waved a hand. "It doesn't matter now. The point is they're gone."
Peter turned to meet Gideon's eyes. Dash's nostrils flared.
"Abducted?" Dash dared to say what the others were only thinking.
Indiscreet Ladies of Green Ivy Way Page 21