by Jack Soren
“I . . . I’m sorry,” Tatsu said. She left his view again, and a moment later he heard the door open and close.
Hank tried to stare at the ceiling again, but he couldn’t get the tiles to come into focus. Then he realized he was about to die in a building devoted to extending life, and he couldn’t help but laugh again. It was the last thing he ever did.
PER WASN’T SURE if Dr. Reese’s disappearance was connected to the bombings, but in his experience, coincidence was rarely unremarkable. And the harder it was to get an answer out of anyone, the more sure he became. Of course, what he really cared about was the enigmatic words left at each bombing. If he managed to find out what “Dead Lights” meant, the continuance of the attacks meant nothing to him. He’d already decided to dump his babysitter when they were done here, wherever Green was.
The technician finally returned to the office Per was waiting in. The man’s face told Per all he needed to know.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Broden, she wasn’t in either,” the technician said. “Like I said before, most of the head scientists and their assistants are already en route to that conference I mentioned.” Apparently there was some kind of longevity conference happening this weekend on a yacht off the coast of Japan. The entire lab had been invited—free of charge—and that was reason people were still working at such an ungodly hour. When they completed their assignments, they could all fly out.
Unfortunately, Per was finding that because of the conference, no one who had worked with Dr. Reese seemed to be on-site. Still, Per refused to believe that every scientist was out. Especially when the catwalks were rife with people in lab coats. Though the technician before him—Darrell something—had already explained they were all just technicians and engineers.
“And there’s nothing you or any of the other technicians can tell me about Dr. Reese’s work? Surely, you must be able to do that, at least.”
“It’s just not that structured, here. Everyone helps everyone, but there’s not really a way to—” Darrell stopped talking as something in the hallway caught his eye. “Just a minute.” Darrell stuck his head out the door and called: “Mark! Mark!” Darrell waved for someone to come over.
Per stood up. A young blond man came over, and Darrell put his arm around his shoulders and ushered him into the room.
“What’s up?”
“This is Mr. Broden. He’s doing some work for Mr. Harcourt, and I was hoping you could help us out since everyone else has already left for the conference,” Darrell said. Per noticed that at the mention of Harcourt’s name, Mark’s demeanor seemed to change. Not much and probably not noticeably to most people, but Per caught it loud and clear.
“I’m trying to discern what Dr. Reese was working on before he disappeared,” Per said. The change in Mark’s behavior this time would have been noticeable to a blind man.
“Disappeared? Oh, I mean, no, I don’t know what he was working on,” Mark said quickly. Per tilted his head and stared at the man.
“If Dr. Reese didn’t disappear, then where did he go? I’m going to assume that you had more than a working relationship with him, and that’s why Darrell brought you in here. That being said, and a given, you do not seem particularly concerned considering that your friend disappeared without a trace. To be honest—Mark, is it?—you should be asking me questions right about now.”
“Uh, what?” Mark said after a moment.
Per just looked at him. The air in the room seemed to slow down and thicken. Per observed everything in great detail—the man’s Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed, his labored breathing, the sweat suddenly trickling down his temple. And then, just a microsecond too late, Per realized something.
He’s going to run.
Mark shoved Darrell at him and launched himself out of the room. Per ducked Darrell’s pinwheeling arms and let him crash into a desk before hitting the floor. Per vaulted out the door and looked up the catwalk past several people in lab coats. It took him a second to eye his prey. Mark was already halfway to the stairs. Per knew he could never get through the throng of bodies in time to catch him.
The catwalk had a railing that was three inches wide, plenty of room for the human foot. Per jumped up on the railing and without even a glance down at the cement floor twenty feet below, he ran after Mark. People turned at the clanking of Per’s shoes on the metal railing and threw themselves back against the glass office walls as he passed.
Mark had reached the stairs and gotten about two steps down them when Per maneuvered around the bend in the railing and launched himself into the air. Mark looked up just as Per slammed into him. The two men rolled down the stairs and came to a stop on the landing. Per easily got the upper hand, but he knew he only had moments before others got to them. He put his robotic hand around Mark’s throat and squeezed only slightly, until Mark gasped for air.
“Where is Dr. Reese? You have two seconds to tell me, or I’ll crush your windpipe and search your home. The choice is yours.” Per eased up on Mark’s throat so he could talk.
“I . . . I don’t know where he is,” Mark said when he stopped coughing.
“As you wish,” Per said, and started squeezing again.
“Wait, wait! I don’t know where he is, but I know someone who does!”
Chapter Ten
TATSU COULDN’T BELIEVE she’d missed her chance. Per had run right by her on that railing. All she’d had to do was push him off, and her job would have been complete. She would have been headed to the Jirojin Maru with plenty of time before the conference started, and Umi launched her attack. But the sight had shocked her along with everyone else, and she’d just stared. She knew her hesitation had to do with stabbing Hank, who was no doubt dead by now, but knowing that didn’t help her. And worse, as they walked back to the room, she’d heard them mention Dr. Reese.
This was bad.
Tatsu had met Dr. Reese months ago on board Umi’s ship. She’d been there when he’d, for all intents and purposes, killed Mikawa, Umi’s husband. She knew better than anyone why he was now imprisoned on the ocean floor. But if Per knew about Dr. Reese, he might know about Nagura. She had to find out what else they knew. There was a good chance she was going to have to forfeit her safety, but if it kept Umi safe and gave her time to finish, Tatsu was more than willing to do that.
Crystasis security was all over the place, now. If she made a move, she would likely end up killing more innocents—or she’d end up dead herself. But how could she get the Crystasis staff out of there? As she thought, she looked up, but before her gaze reached the massive skylight overhead, it stopped on the top catwalk. She looked at the office she’d been in a few minutes ago—the office where she’d just killed someone.
“YOU’RE SURE YOU don’t want me to call the cops?” the security officer named Hastings asked Per.
“I’m quite sure, Mr. Hastings,” Per said. The last thing he wanted right now was the involvement of the police. “I just need to have a conversation with our friend here. And some privacy.”
“Whoa, don’t leave me alone with this freak,” Mark said. He was seated on a stool in the same room where Per had first met him, but this time his hands were bound behind him with a plastic tie.
“Put a cork in it, buddy,” Hastings said. When Per had identified himself, Hastings had made it plain that he’d received Harcourt’s memorandum. He wasn’t going to do anything unless Per said it was all right. But there were limits.
“Hastings,” a voice sounded from the radio affixed to Hastings’s collar.
“Go,” Hastings said after pressing the mic’s button.
“You better get up here, Dr. Canard’s office.”
“Why’s that?”
“There’s a dead body up here. Stabbed. Blood everywhere, man.” And then after a pause, “It’s somebody named Hank Green.”
Per, as
was his nature, kept his reaction to the news internal. But he was torn. The chances that an irate employee had stabbed Hank was slim. More likely, someone knew they were poking around the Dead Lights attacks. Per would have loved to run up and see if they weren’t too late to find the assailant, but he had to deal with Mark first. And that would only be easier without the audience.
“There’s a wha . . . I’ll be right there,” Hastings said. “What the hell is going on here, tonight? You okay if I leave, Mr. Broden?”
“I’ll be fine, Mr. Hastings,” Per said. Hastings left, and Per slowly turned and looked at Mark, whose eyes were wide and confused.
“What are you going to do?” Mark asked, as Per moved between him and the door to prevent the need for any further chases.
“I’m not going to do anything,” Per said. “On the contrary, it is you who are going to do something. You’re going to tell me who knows where Dr. Reese is.” Per sat on the corner of a metal desk with his hands in his lap.
“Look,” Mark said, seeming to relax a little with Per not hovering over him. That was the intent. “I was scared. You were choking me. I would have said anything to make you stop. I don’t know where he is.”
Per didn’t have time for this. It wouldn’t take them long to determine that Hank had arrived with him and to turn their investigation to him. Those were questions—and time sinks—that Per wanted to avoid.
He stood up and took off his glove. Per displayed and flexed his robotic hand. While shaped like a human hand, it was obviously artificial. The palm and jointed fingers were dark black metal, and his fingertips were white, molded-rubber nubs. As he flexed, the carbon nanotube filaments were visible between the joints.
Mark, whose Adam’s apple bobbed up and down—no doubt thinking about the appendage being around his throat a few minutes ago—was having trouble breathing.
“What the fuck are you, man?”
Per made a fist and, using a small portion of the strength available to his arm, punched through the top of the heavy metal desk.
“The name,” Per said, as if he were asking Mark to pass the potatoes.
“Nagura. His name is Nagura. He’s got a restaurant in Tokyo. Nagura’s Emporium. That’s all I know, I swear.”
Per would have liked to work Mark some more, to be sure he wasn’t holding back any information, but he was pressing his luck with Hank’s body upstairs. But what about Mark? Per didn’t like the idea of leaving him behind to reveal what he’d told Per. The last thing he needed was someone’s tailing him all the way to Japan.
Then, like someone had heard his thoughts, Mark’s life ended with a thwack and a gurgle. A knife handle sticking out of his throat, Mark worked his mouth as if he were trying to speak, blood bubbles the only thing to come out.
Per spun around and saw a lab-coated figure with flaming red hair on the far walkway, easily thirty meters away. The fact she’d hit Mark from that distance with such accuracy was only part of what concerned Per. She was cocking her arm back to throw again, and Per had no doubt who her target was. Her arm flew forward at incredible speed, the knife rocketing across the expanse between them. Per barely had time to raise his robot arm to protect himself. The knife, which would have hit him right in the heart, tinged off Per’s metal hand and changed trajectory.
He’d only barely managed to deflect the weapon, but the knife sliced his forehead just above his eye. Reflexively, Per turned away. By the time he turned back, the assailant was gone.
Per touched his forehead with his human fingers and looked at them. Blood. It wasn’t deep enough to need stitches, but he’d carry the mark for a long time. Slipping his glove back over his metal hand, Per thought about the last picture Harcourt had given him. A young woman on a motorcycle with flaming red hair.
PER MOVED MARK’S body out of sight and closed the office door as he left. Then he headed up to the highest walkway, where employees stood, desperately trying to see into the murder scene. Hastings was clearing everyone off the walkway and sending them away. Per looked through the glass wall but could only see Hank’s feet sticking out past the desk and a pool of blood seeping out from under it. Another security officer was standing behind the desk, making notes.
“I secured him in the office,” Per said when Hastings asked where Mark was. “Have you called the local authorities?”
“Yeah, but we’re out of the way, here. It’ll be awhile before they show up,” Hastings said.
“I’ve had some experience with this kind of thing,” Per said. “Want me to take a look?”
“Uh, sure. Mr. Harcourt will probably want as many reports on this as possible. It’s obvious he trusts you,” Hastings said, stepping aside. Per went in.
“Campbell,” the other security officer said, extending his hand. Per shook it.
“Broden.”
“Yeah, Hastings told me about you.”
“You can barely see him from the walkway; how’d you know he was here?”
“Someone called and told us he was here,” Campbell said.
“Someone?”
“A woman. She didn’t identify herself.”
Per nodded, realizing the call had likely been meant to get Hastings out of the office downstairs.
Per moved around, examining the body. A single stab wound to the abdomen and the color of the blood said Hank’s liver had been hit. Death would have been rapid. At least he wouldn’t have had time to say anything to any witnesses, Per thought. He noticed that someone had ripped Hank’s sleeve off and put it on the wound. Curious.
“You mind?” Per said, kneeling beside the body and holding out his gloved hand to indicate he wouldn’t contaminate the crime scene. Campbell shook his head and returned to writing in his notebook.
Per checked Hank’s pockets and, when he was sure no one was looking, took the car keys from Hank’s pocket, also noticing that his cell phone was missing. Then he looked at the makeshift pillow under Hank’s head.
“Was that there when you found him?” Per asked, pointing at it.
“Yeah.”
Using his gloved hand, Per gently pulled the pillow out and set Hank’s head down on the floor, his authoritative manner keeping the rent-a-cops from complaining about a contaminated crime scene if they even knew to make such complaints. He unrolled the material and saw that it was a black hoodie. With his back to the two security officers, he stood up and put it on a chair against the wall. He checked the pockets, and when he felt some paper in one, he surreptitiously slipped it out and into his pocket.
A few minutes later, Per apologized that he couldn’t be of more help and excused himself to go call Mr. Harcourt. Hastings and Campbell both asked him to make sure he mentioned their diligence to their boss. Per promised he would. Then he very calmly walked downstairs to the lobby and exited the building.
Inside the car, dawn still a few hours away, Per flicked on the interior light and unfolded the paper he’d taken from the hoodie—a motel receipt.
Per had seen more than his share of murder scenes, and this one was odd. The killer—obviously the woman who had killed Mark and put a slice into Per’s forehead—had tried to help Hank stop the bleeding but hadn’t wanted him calling for help. Then she’d put what seemed to be her hoodie under his head for comfort.
She was the most curious killer he’d come across in a long time.
Per looked at the receipt in his hand. He called ahead and booked his flight to Tokyo, but he needed to make a stop first—the Lakefront Motel. There was only one flight out in the next couple of hours, but he couldn’t pass up a chance to question the Dead Lights bomber herself. Though he doubted she was the mastermind behind whatever this all added up to. He checked his watch as he started the car.
He’d have to make this quick.
Chapter Eleven
London
11:00 A.M. Loca
l Time
WHEN JONATHAN AND Lew pulled up in front of the address the voice on the phone had given them, Jonathan thought they must have the wrong place. He checked the note he’d made during the call and confirmed they were where they were supposed to be. His stomach fell like he’d just been dropped.
“What the fuck is this?” Lew said from the passenger seat.
It was a gallery, all right, but it was about the size of a New York bodega. It didn’t look like it could have hung more than a handful of paintings, and it certainly wasn’t the HQ of the mastermind who had tapped into their call last night and saved Emily from George. The windows had some kind of foil on them and nothing could be seen beyond the facade. That was disconcerting, but worse was the block they were on. Run-down didn’t even begin to describe it. Whatever businesses had once been there left long ago; nothing but boarded-up doors and windows remained. And the “gallery,” of course.
“We’ve been scammed,” Lew said, voicing what Jonathan was thinking. He highly doubted they were going to find any answers here.
Jonathan tried calling Natalie again. No dice. The lines were acting like the phone didn’t exist. Like it or not, the only possible place for an answer was in there.
“Come on,” Jonathan said, opening his door.
“Whoa, hang on,” Lew said. “You’re just going to walk in there? What happened to being Juan Solo?”
“Han,” Jonathan corrected, never taking his eyes off the dirty window with the simple word “Gallery” etched into it.
“Whatever. There’s nothing in there, Jonny. If we haven’t been scammed, we’ve been set up. Emily and Natalie sure as shit aren’t here.” Lew put his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. He turned and looked at his partner, who was making an incredible amount of sense. “Jonny, it’s New York all over again. The little hairs on my neck are screaming for us to get out of here. Now.”
“What about Emily?” Jonathan said, knowing he was trying to play Lew. “This is the only lead we’ve got. If we walk away from this, we’ve got nothing.”