Dane nodded and beckoned me inside. “What the man said. Come on, Callie Mae. We don’t have time for you to laze about.”
We loaded up three trolleys with mops and cleaning supplies from a closet, then advanced to the factory floor. Rows of CNC machines occupied half the open space, with bright yellow stripes marking off the stations from the aisles. On the far side of the building I spotted the wide doors for the loading dock. Running down this side were a couple glass-walled offices, a break room, and of course the restrooms.
It all looked so ordinary—except for the second armed security guard patrolling on the catwalk overhead, and an unmarked door near the loading dock doors, with what looked like an ID access pad, leading into another section of the building.
Oh, yes. That would be where we find Dr. Sa’id.
“Missy, Charlene.” Owl rapped out the names. “Y’all start on the shop floor. Billie, Callie Mae, you take care of those two offices.”
“Lemme guess,” Raven said. “That means I gotta clean those damned bathrooms. Again.”
“You and me together,” Owl said. “Can’t say any fairer than that.”
“Maybe I could,” Raven grumbled. But she dutifully followed after Owl, dragging one of the trolleys after her. Missy and Charlene headed onto the main floor with the second trolley. Dane took charge of the third and chivvied me over to the closest office, as if I were a not-very-bright child. “I hope to God you know somethin’ about mopping and dusting and such,” she muttered. “Unless Gramma lied about that.”
“Course I do,” I muttered back at her. “Didn’t I already tell you, I done cleaned plenty of motel rooms when I was a kid?”
I sniffed, as if annoyed.
Dane gave me a side-eye, as if to say, Don’t overdo it.
We both bowed our heads, both acting annoyed for the white men and their cameras. Missy and Charlene were already hard at work, sweeping dust and metal shavings from the factory floor. Dane headed into the first office with me following after.
Both offices swept and cleaned, and none too fast. After we finished, we reported back to Owl, who looked us over with that same suspicious gaze I’d come to expect since I was eight years old and finished my chores too soon.
“Sure you all done?” Owl said.
“Sure I’m sure,” Dane said. “We don’t dawdle like some folk.”
Owl rolled her eyes. “Well, then I guess you get a treat. You and Callie Mae go on and do those rooms in the back.”
She signaled to the guard on the catwalk, who nodded and pulled out a cell. A couple minutes later, a third security guard came in through the employee entrance.
Three guards for one factory. Scratch that, three guards I can see. And all of them armed with rapid-fire assault weapons.
My skin crawled with dread. Ours was a mission impossible. How could we even talk with Sa’id, never mind rescue her from this prison?
The guard sauntered through the yellow-lined aisles, to the unmarked door. He slid a plain white card through a reader slot, and the door clicked open. Then he handed a second card, this one with a metallic strip, to Dane.
“You know the drill,” he said.
Dane ducked her head. “Yes, sir. I know. Don’t even try to go into that office. Don’t go into that laboratory.” She drew the last word out in a drawl. “Just stick to the kitchen and those bathrooms. Oh, and remember to sweep the hallway this time.”
“And don’t forget to give me the card back”
“Course I will, sir.”
“The new girl is your responsibility. She makes trouble, you get trouble. Understand?”
“Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”
It was so odd to watch Dane play meek and deferential. She even managed to appear smaller in the face of this armed white man. A code switch of body, as well as speech. I felt the hot bubble of rage inside my chest, but I swallowed that rage and bent my head to the white man.
One day, my rage whispered, we won’t be so biddable.
But not here, not tonight.
Dane tucked the card into her uniform pocket, and we guided the trolley through the door and into a large windowless cube, with one door opposite us and a light fixture overhead. Dane had warned me about the security cameras and audio pickup in this section. No doubt the light fixture doubled as another means of surveillance.
The door behind us closed. Seconds later, the other one opened—like an air lock, though whether the air lock operated automatically, or whether the security guard had to activate it, I couldn’t tell.
Our new door opened into a corridor running the width of the factory. Recessed lamps overhead lit the moment we entered. More cameras? Definitely high tech. Someone had spent a great deal of money on this section. I wondered if that would be the Brotherhood, or Adler, or a very wealthy entity who saw a benefit in what took place here.
The door from the air lock clicked shut, leaving us in this bright blank corridor. I tentatively tried the handle. Locked, of course. There was an ID pad with a card reader on this side as well. Hmmm.
So, nobody gets in or out without being authorized.
“Stop playing wi’ things,” Dane grumbled, for all the world sounding like an older cousin scolding her not-so-bright younger cousin. She pointed to a door at our end of the corridor, which had a palm-print ID panel and a card reader. “That be the office. Man says don’t go in there, so we don’t. Only the boss lady goes in there. Our business be through that other one. Come on, girl, and stop gawking. We got lots of work ahead of us.”
We guided the trolley to the door at the opposite end of the corridor, which Dane’s card unlocked. “Fancy card,” she said quietly as we continued through. “Man told us that first day all about it. How it don’t work except nights. How it don’t unlock this door unless all the others be locked. Goddamned card even counts how many times we use it.”
“Huh,” I said with my best impression of gawking. “That is fancy.”
Dane’s expression told me I wasn’t doing nearly as good a job pretending as I’d thought. With a great sigh, she jerked the trolley through the door and swung it around with a practiced air. I followed into what turned out to be a combination kitchen and break room.
Like everything else on this side of the factory, the kitchen was outfitted with all the items you’d expect—stove, sink, dishwasher, coffeemaker, refrigerator. Everything you’d need to cook meals or prepare a quick snack. Everything bright and gleaming and new.
But not nearly as bright and new as the laboratory, visible through a large window on our left. Though I knew little enough about biochemistry, I sucked in a breath of astonishment at the expensive equipment in that room. Racks of jewel-bright reagents. A dozen different workstations with microscopes, analytical scales, and other devices I couldn’t begin to guess at. Opposite the kitchen, another window overlooked the lab. That would be the forbidden office.
In the center of the laboratory, two women stood on opposite sides of a cluttered worktable. I stopped and stared, unable to help myself.
I recognized Adler at once. Here was the woman who had shot me in the back, last October. Here was the woman who had murdered all those soldiers and veterans. All those photos from the newsfeeds had burned themselves into my memory. Publicity stills, with Adler dressed in a corporate suit, her hair clipped close. Young and ambitious and confident.
Nadine Adler today barely resembled those photos. The past six months had aged her a decade at least. She was older, thinner, more anxious, her pale brown skin drawn taut over her bones. And though her hair was neatly clipped, it had furrows as though she’d spent the past six months raking her fingers through it. Good, I thought.
The other woman could only be our biochemist, Dr. Salmah Sa’id. Sa’id was clearly a much older woman, her silvery hair tucked behind her ears. She was of middle height, but still half a dozen inches taller than Adler. They stood on opposite sides of a worktable, Adler with both hands flat and leaning forward, while Sa’id gestured
emphatically. The thick glass muted their voices, but clearly this was not a friendly discussion.
“Don’t stare,” Dane said in a low voice. “Boss lady in there? She don’t like that. If she sees you dawdling, she’s gonna get unhappy. We don’t want that.” In a softer, worried tone, she added, “She ain’t almost never here at night. Musta come inside while we was cleaning up those offices.”
We set to work, scrubbing down the table and counters, all the while conscious Adler could see us if she glanced in our direction. If she did, she would see two minions, contract labor assigned the dirty and undesirable tasks. Dane was a known quantity, as far as Adler was concerned. I was the new girl, and therefore suspect, but Adler had never caught a glimpse of my face during that almost deadly confrontation last October.
At least, I hoped that was true.
We had progressed to sweeping the floors when Adler exited the lab into the kitchen. Her gaze swept over us and she paused. My pulse thrummed faster, and it took all my will to keep my head bent. The moment passed, and Adler slapped her palm against the ID pad. The door hissed open and she vanished into the outer corridor.
“Whew, boss lady gone for the day,” Dane said with obvious satisfaction.
“How you know that?” I said.
She nodded in the direction of the office window. “She sees us, but we see her. Always good to know when the boss lady’s about.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
We finished sweeping. Dane emptied the garbage can. I filled the mop’s canister with cleaning fluid and began scrubbing the floor. Several moments later, Sa’id came into the kitchen and fixed herself a cup of tea from the supplies on the counter. She paid no attention to us, and we kept our attention on our work.
Cameras, I told myself. But damned if I hadn’t glimpsed a moment of tension in her eyes when she spotted me.
We finished up with the kitchen, leaving Sa’id to her tea, and continued through a short passageway into a larger space that included the showers, locker rooms, and toilets. Another door, also without a lock, stood at the far end. Was that where the lab employees lived? Or were they permitted to go home, while Sa’id and her sister remained here?
Three toilets. Two urinals. A single shower stall. Half a dozen lockers. Not a big staff, then, wherever they lived.
Dane pointed me toward the toilets, while she set to scrubbing the sinks. We worked slowly and steadily. After about fifteen minutes, Sa’id marched into the room and locked herself in the nearest toilet. Not one I’d already cleaned; thank god for small favors.
Dane wrung out her rags and flung them into a bucket on the trolley. Then she picked up a can of air freshener and knocked it against the side of the toilet stall.
“Hush,” Sa’id said sharply.
“You told me there weren’t any cameras in here,” Dane said.
“There aren’t. At least that I’ve discovered. I just . . .”
She broke off with a sob. Terrified. Not that I could blame her.
Dane and I waited for her to recover. At the same time, we couldn’t dither around forever in these back rooms. I made a sign to Dane, who nodded.
“You’re afraid,” I said. “I understand. I’m afraid too.”
A moment of uncomfortable silence followed this.
“You’re the surgeon?”
No, girl, I just like pretending, all so I can put myself in danger.
“Who else would I be?” I said crisply. “And I have a few questions for you.”
I could almost hear her eyes go wide. Perhaps she had never encountered someone with more salt than her. After the previous two weeks of dodging the FBI, the CIA, and the New Confederacy, I had more salt than the Aral Sea.
“Very well,” she said. “Ask your questions.”
I didn’t answer right away. I squirted cleaning foam over the toilet, then wiped down the surfaces. Next to me, I heard Sa’id breathing harshly and felt a twinge of regret. I didn’t want to punish her. I only wanted her to see me, to see the Resistance who had risked so much for even this brief conversation.
“You wanted a surgeon for your sister,” I said. “What kind of operation does she need?”
Now it was her turn to hesitate. “The whole mess is my fault. I should have left that goddamned company months ago. But no, I told myself, I was making important discoveries. Important.” She spat on the floor. “I knew better, I just didn’t want to go through another round of applications for visas.”
I could understand that. I made an encouraging noise.
“Besides”—Her breath hissed out—“I had my own lab and my own budget. I was going to invent the perfect medical device to combine scheduled doses with internal monitoring, one that could be dissolved by remote control.”
I’d read about such work in the medical journals. Such a device would reduce the number of invasive surgeries, which itself could increase the speed and likelihood of recovery.
“Then came disaster. Livvy shut down. Everyone detained for questioning. All my work confiscated by the investigators.” She spoke faster now, as if she had released a flood tide of memories. “I’d begun a search for a new job when those terrorists, that Brotherhood, sent me a message. They had taken my sister hostage. They had robbed my laboratory of my work. They even had my latest experimental model. They said . . .”
Her voice failed. I bit my lip, wanting to shout at her to hurry up. I thought I could hear the minutes and seconds racing past. Any moment, a guard might wonder why we took so long at our work. Any moment, the security system might do the same.
Dane waited silently, patiently, for her to continue.
“They claimed they had implanted one of my own devices into Kalila. If I refused to work for them, she would die. I . . . I was afraid. I said I would.”
“What is in this particular packet?”
“Poison. Snake venom. From a black mamba.”
Oh. God. Yes. My skin shivered.
“Where is the packet located?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral. “And does your sister have any allergies? Latex? Antibiotics?”
“No allergies. Just below her rib cage. Right side, immediately under the skin. I could remove the damned thing myself with a razor blade, but they warned me that if I tried, they would execute her in front of me. And if my sister and I did escape, they would trigger the packet to dissolve.”
Thus losing their hold over her, but tonight was not the moment to point this out.
“Doc here can take care of that,” Dane said. “We will rescue you and your sister both. I promise.”
“But you don’t understand. Adler—she’s the dangerous one. She’s the one who told the Brotherhood about my sister. She’s the one who told me exactly how Kalila would die if I did not follow orders. And she’s the one who planned out the Bloody Inauguration. A trial run, she called it. I was supposed to design the packets to release the poison. Her pet surgeons in Washington, DC, would implant the packets and monitor the outcome. I knew what she wanted, even if she didn’t say it. Monsters, all of them—”
I leaned against the wall of the toilet stall, fighting against a wave of dizziness. I could still see the bloody and broken bodies in the streets. And Adler had simply used them for a fucking experiment.
“Do you know what she intends?” Dane was asking. “And why the sudden change in plans?”
“Assassination. A senator. I don’t know his name. He was scheduled for a stent implant in June. Adler was excited because the implant meant a drug implant and a remote monitoring unit. Then a few days ago, Adler got word the senator had rescheduled his operation to next week. He wanted more recovery time before the peace negotiations.”
I sucked in my breath. Oh, dear Christ, this can’t be possible. But all the pieces fit together—A senator. A stent that could deliver drugs at regular intervals, coupled with remote monitoring. I didn’t want to know the answer, but I had to ask.
“Which hospital?”
“She didn’t say, but I
can guess. Georgetown. Georgetown University Hospital.”
Of course. Georgetown was the favored choice for senators and high-ranking government officials. Georgetown had the best surgeons. We even had our new standard procedure to insert medical packets before we discharged patients in high-risk categories.
Could the traitor possibly be Hernandez?
My thoughts skittered away from that possibility.
The consequences were all too clear, however. If a senior senator were assassinated, especially one who favored negotiations between the Federal States and the New Confederacy, that would destabilize both governments. Especially if that death could be laid at the New Confederacy’s door.
But . . . But . . . My brain yammered at me about the many holes in this explanation. How had a tiny fringe group like the Brotherhood managed to create this extra-secure facility in just a few months? Or was this part of a much older, much bigger plan?
Let’s table that question for later. Back to Sa’id and her sister Kalila, and the mystery of Georgetown.
“Did Adler tell you which surgeons were the traitors?”
Sa’id made an impatient noise. “No. I only know what I overheard that one time. And Georgetown is but one player in the game, as she calls it. She has friends, several friends in very high places.”
“But who—”
“No more time. I need to get back.”
Sa’id flushed the toilet and marched out of the stall. She made a show of washing her hands before she hurried through the kitchen and back into the lab. Cameras or no cameras, I knew enough not to detain her. Dane herself continued to mop.
“Should we try again?” I asked. “Tell her when to expect a rescue?”
Dane shrugged. “Maybe better if it’s a surprise.”
Maybe. Maybe not, as Joseph said.
We finished our assigned work in the showers and toilets. Back in the lab, Dr. Sa’id was bent over a microscope. The office window was a dark blue blank. Nothing unusual, nothing outside the ordinary. Dane did a quick tally on her task list, then nodded for us to exit back to the factory.
Her card admitted us into the outer corridor. We had just maneuvered the trolley around when Nadine Adler came storming out of the air lock room.
The Hound of Justice Page 22