Lethal Cure

by S A Gardner

  “You did before. You will again if you believe I’m wrong. And you do.”

  He let out a furious chuckle. “When have I ever believed you were right, amor? And yeah, I stood against you, only to protect you. But when the chips were down, I was on your side, no matter what you did, or what it cost. You remember the lengths I went to. Dios—I’m every bit as crazy as you are.”

  “I can’t count on that now. Can’t discount the possibility you’d decide to protect me against my will. Too much is at stake. And anyway, you haven’t pinpointed the plant’s location. The best bet is retracing my friends’ steps to find the thread that will lead us to the plant. Maybe even our samples. This means going to the tugurios. So who do you think would look less suspicious going in there? A medical team or a black-ops one?”

  “It can be like last time, with us working together.”

  This was going nowhere. I turned to the door. This time I kept on walking. “As if last time was all that great! God, maybe I’m succumbing to the agent, too. I don’t know what I thought I was doing, coming to the cat to help me save the cream!”

  Nineteen

  Ocean-blue eyes regarded me across the room. Squaring my aching shoulders, I regarded right back.

  Yep. There it was. The forbearance that always reduced me to the nineteen-year-old he’d first singled out to be his protégé. Still wondered why he had. A med school dropout, or rather a kick-out, with a lousy record and a worse attitude. He should have taken one look at me and tossed me out, and my application in the bin.

  Instead Sir Howard Ashton had bent all rules to take me on, to enroll me in GCA’s unorthodox medical licensing program. He’d gone above and beyond to give me the most intensive education and training. Then I’d been his groundbreaking Combat Doctors Program’s prototype.

  According to Damian, Sir Ashton had initiated it for me. He’d turned me over to Damian, to shape me into the entity Sir Ashton believed this world needed, a surgeon/black ops hybrid.

  Suave hands went to said eyes, thoughtful fingers pressing their hooded lids. A grave sign. He had no answer for me. Nothing definite.

  But he had to have something! He had to come through for me!

  The aristocratic head turned at my fidgeting on his real-leather dark olive couch, an eloquent sigh stalling for more seconds than my suspense tolerance could handle. Talk already!

  He did only after he started preparing tea, his British accent deepening. Another bad sign. “You ask nothing for years, you’re incensed when you discover I offer you covert assistance, tell me you would never voluntarily accept any help from me, then suddenly your demands come fast and furious. First you had me putting whole avant-garde labs to work exclusively for you. Now this. When you do ask, you don’t ask for much, do you, Calista.”

  I bet the smile I flashed him was hyena-like, matching the demented giggle that followed. “Only much is worth being asked of the legendary Sir Howard Ashton.”

  “Buttering me up?”

  The phantom smile didn’t fool me. I’d heard him guffawing belly deep once. The laughter software I’d thought missing in the six years I’d served under him was installed. He just ran it in extreme situations. Like when he’d contacted me about the Russian mission after four years of silence, and I’d four-letter-worded his pants off.

  “Sure. Still, it’s true.” And it was. Sir Howard Ashton was a living legend. Had been for almost forty years now. And he was only a few years older than my father. He was nowhere as pro-heavyweight-boxer built or inclined, but he was in perfect health and shape. Not to mention eternally on. Made my five-hour-a-day sleep pattern feel lethargic. Must be how he’d done what it took half a dozen mortals to achieve in as many lifetimes. Doctor, discoverer, adventurer, lobbyist, medical industrialist, billionaire philanthropist.

  It was only true when I added, “If I needed something less than the impossible, I wouldn’t have come to you.”

  “I would have hoped you’d come to me anyway, first, in anything, trivial or momentous.”

  Reproach. Would never get used to how Sir Ashton seemed put out by my preferring my father’s help. Truth was, I was lousy at depending on others. Whoever they were.

  I jumped to my feet, leaving misgivings on the couch. “I’m here now, and it’s momentous with a whopping capital M. So—was it worth the cab fare, or are you going to turn me down?”

  He motioned me to resume my place. I did. He probably wouldn’t continue otherwise.

  “Ideally, I’d need more time….”

  “Ideally my friends wouldn’t be in a coma, or the tons of investigations would have hit on a diagnosis as to why they are. I have no more time because I don’t know if they do. If any of us does.”

  “I thought they were stable.”

  “They are. But I have no way of knowing whether they’ll take another spiraling dive. I don’t know how much time whatever they have in their systems needs to overcome our intensive supportive measures, and their own immunity, and finish them off.”

  He gave the tea one last stir. “Your pessimism is probably well-deserved. Still, getting GCA to launch such a massive effort in twenty-four hours, or at all, with that objective…”

  He brought me my cup, a graceful bend placing it on the solid mahogany side table. “GCA may prove intractable about putting their names on this mission. They’ve been panicking since being conned into sponsoring PACT’s Russian mission, expecting the truth to come out, for the world to accuse them of using their humanitarian organization to cover paramilitary operations. They do know you were not to blame, but if anyone finds out what happened, all of your actions under their flag will be attributed to them.”

  “You don’t need to tell them what I’ll be doing there, or that I’ll be there at all! And anyway, any non-medical actions I take won’t be traced back to either my team or GCA. The ABCs of covert ops, actually. Damian taught me well. But that’s another reason why we need to be there last week.”

  The still expression concealing his lightning processing powers came a true standstill, waiting for that reason.

  It was hard to articulate it. To overcome the pain of knowing it was possible. “I have to beat Damian to it.”

  “You think it will come to that?”

  So, that’s how he looked when surprised. I shrugged. “Can’t afford to put it to the test. His people are already there, while we’re wasting time haggling! They may be destroying every scrap of evidence I need to save my friends, and to get to the bottom of this.”

  His lids slid down in acknowledgment. So he thought that scenario plausible. Could also be his readiness to believe the worst of Damian. He’d made it clear he considered PACT tarnished by the same terrorist mind-set of those they wiped out.

  Weird, these two’s relationship. Sir Ashton had been the one to pick Damian to train his Combat Doctors Program’s prototypes. To train me. I’d discovered they’d been at each other’s throats over me, when Damian was getting me kicked out of GCA and medicine. Then they’d joined forces, again over me, to forge their “help Calista in spite of her crazy self” operation.

  Still couldn’t work out how Sir Ashton’s “fixing the law and not breaking or circumventing it” methods meshed with Damian’s “just fulfill the damn objective by any means necessary” ones. Or was Sir Ashton only financing Damian’s surveillance-assistance op? And where did they stand now?

  “Speaking of friends,” he said. “Even if I manage to secure you your needs, what would you be doing for human resources?”

  “I’m taking my war-ready people, Dad’s providing his IT specialist and some muscle, and I’m calling in a couple of whiz HazMat and anarchy science affiliates. All should be ready within twelve hours. Just get me my hands on GCA’s Surgical Trailer Suite and Mobile Lab, and those legitimate permits and credentials.”

  He pursed his lips. “The STS and ML you used in Russia have been dismantled, to erase evidence of your using them as weapon-smuggling decoys. To put them back together withou
t alerting GCA to the nature of your mission—the logistics alone are staggering.”

  I pulled a well-duh face at him. “Yeah. I know. So?”

  This had to be his longest gaze ever. I waited it out, breath-free. He blinked first. Gotcha.

  “Very well. You will get the STS and ML. I will personally finance the mission. But you may have to move without GCA’s name. Or…” His gaze left mine for a second. Something “momentous” passed in his mind during it. No telling what. “Perhaps there is no ‘or.’ I will arrange it. Your mission to the tugurios in Soacha will be assembled in Bogotá in twenty-four hours.”

  Oh. Wow. Nice to wield that kind of power. Even nicer to have someone else wield it but have it at my disposal.

  This could get addictive.

  No, it wouldn’t. This was a one-off. Anyway—got what I wanted.

  I jumped up. “Thanks, Sir Ashton. Appreciate it. Wish me luck.”

  “Finish your tea, Calista.”

  Uh-oh. “Have to run…”

  His arctic gaze’s Sit! would have dropped a raging bull.

  Kept his psychic whip concealed under those extra-refined manners of his, didn’t he? Had me forgetting about it, about how he had forged his recruits into whatever he wanted.

  Not me, though. I’d been his greatest gamble. His greatest failure. Or—maybe he had wanted me to turn out this way? So I could remind him more of his daughter? The reckless adventurer who’d been infected with his zeal for discovery and none of his rationality, who’d gotten herself killed in a hostage situation after managing to save every one of her fellow hostages.

  Always thought it weird he’d voluntarily relive his ordeal in perpetuity, picking a sort-of-surrogate daughter who was a far worse daredevil than the one spawned from his own flesh. Not only that, but he’d gone ahead and given me the means to become a professional one.

  Maybe it wasn’t enough for him to see his daughter’s substitute alive. Maybe what made a difference to his suffering was seeing me survive. Against all odds.

  And you know what? It made sense. There had to be something weird going on in that ultra-cerebral mind of his. No one could be that poised or perfect.

  I dropped down to the couch and drank my tea.

  Twenty

  “Watch that baby drop its load!”

  A thunderclap echoed in my chest.

  That voice. Rafael Menendez’s suave, barely accented drawl. Dad’s second-in-command, the guy I had settled for instead of Damian. Being Argentinean-born, he’d provide Spanish translations just as well. I stood a better chance of understanding said translations, if my heart didn’t bang in my head every time I heard his voice.

  For over two years now, I’d equated said voice with hearing from Dad, with all the tagalong emotional mess. I’d gone Pavlovian.

  Should pop some anti-conditioning medication now that he was my mission partner. That voice wouldn’t be delivering any coveted news of Dad for the duration. Or—maybe it would. Maybe he’d fill in the spaces Dad purposely left out. Who better to give me the lowdown on Dad’s tangled business than the right hand who orchestrated his eyes, limbs and fists on the outside?

  I turned from signing the last release form, handed it back to the airport official, faced Rafael. I found his awestruck eyes glued to the Surgical Trailer Suite and Mobile Lab disembarking from the cargo jet.

  He had good reason for his fascination. The sheer size of the six-engined, An-225 Cossack Antonov cargo jumbo was humbling. That that bulk actually rode the winds was mind-boggling. It hadn’t been dubbed Mriya, or Dream, for no reason. The largest plane in the world, as high as a six-story building, with a wingspan of almost three hundred feet and a cargo capacity of two hundred and fifty tons, you could transport a house in it. It had easily accommodated both trailers.

  The aircraft had just touched down at El Dorado International Airport, Bogotá’s one and only, an hour after our charter plane had. Rafael and I had gone ahead to receive and release the STS and ML, leaving the others handling our luggage, customs and picking up the other vehicles Sir Ashton had provided for us. We needed to be on the road in an hour max.

  I squinted against the steep slant of the six thirty a.m. sun. Glare, no heat. It had come as a surprise to most of my team to get out of the plane and breathe in the rarified, cool air. Seemed they’d assumed that Colombia, being equatorial, would be sweltering year-round. Seemed also that they hadn’t heard our flight captain giving the usual info on our destination as we approached Bogotá. That it was the third-highest capital in South America and was located on a mountain-rimmed plateau known as the Sabana de Bogotá, high in the Cordillera Oriental of the Andes Mountains, at an elevation of about nine thousand feet. He’d said we might even feel a bit dizzy coming from sea-level Los Angeles, and advised us not to be too active for the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours until we adjusted to the higher altitude.

  Yeah. Sure. Good luck with that.

  “So, what are we doing here?”

  There we went again. He spoke, wham. Should tape his mouth shut for the rest of the mission.

  I turned. “You don’t know?”

  He shrugged. “How can I? I hooked up with your team half an hour before we boarded the plane, time you spent introducing me around, then you all zonked out on me the whole flight. Missing a meal of miraculous quality for plane food, I must add.”

  I blinked as if seeing him for the first time. And really, I was. In all our fleeting meetings, he’d just been the messenger wielding the message I craved. Now I gave him my first good look, taking stock of my new co-leader.

  Just a couple of years older than me, Rafael came in a solid, six-foot, in-shape package. The usual Latin coloring, black wavy mane, and teeth that had me blinking stars every time he flashed them against his tan complexion. But it was his vibe—that radiation of artless charm, that ease, that overshadowed his considerable aesthetic attributes. Kind of laid-back and unassuming. Until you looked closely into those eyes. Then you could believe he was a world-class hacker, someone who’d had a three-year tenure in hell, who now dealt with hell spawn on a regular basis. Dad’s foremost general in his war.

  So had Dad thrown him in my lap blind? Or was the outgoing Rafael just being chatty? One way to find out. “Dad didn’t fill you in? Were you having trouble securing communications?”

  “Actually I’m untraceable and un-interceptable. Then there is always code if he wants. No, he just told me to gear up, to hightail my way to report to you.”

  Dad. Never let anyone know anything for certain, huh? “Left it up to me to fill you in, or leave you in the need-to-know dark, huh? Just cracked his whip and told you to hop to it?”

  Those brown eyes joined a wide, easy-smiling mouth in a fond grin. “Youch. But hey, I go wherever he sends me.”

  I bet. Dad sure had himself one adoring slave here.

  He’d given me the basics on Rafael the first time he’d told me the man would be our go-between. Rafael had prospered in computer crimes since the impressionable age of thirteen. He’d been suspected, but no one could ever trace him, or prove anything. Until the day a planted girlfriend confirmed to her bosses, cyber-pirates whom he’d caused some crippling damage, that he’d been behind their losses. When she couldn’t get any evidence, they’d framed him for something different and condemned him to three years hard labor in a maximum-security prison. He hadn’t been supposed to survive his first week.

  Dad, also on his first week there, had stepped in. But even after he’d foiled the first liquidation attempt, the young, good-looking geek amidst a repeat-offenders’ swarm had been in constant jeopardy. Dad had kept him under his protection.

  Along with his life, Rafael owed my Dad everything else, from dignity to sanity to humanity. He’d reciprocated by pledging himself to Dad’s cause. And did it all with the flair of a selfless knight in the service of his worshiped liege-lord. And from what I heard, did it superlatively well indeed.

  He now followed me as I went to inspec
t our rides. We reached the STS first. Didn’t look like much on the outside, to avoid whetting appetites to commandeer us. Inside, it was a surgeon’s and humanitarian operative’s wildest fantasies come true, in glorious post–space-age alloys and gadgets.

  I jumped ahead of Rafael through the entryway at the left side of the vehicle that had taken us through Russia and seen us through hundreds of surgeries. Through Damian’s surgery…

  Rafael whistled once. Then again. I turned to him, eyebrow cocked.

  A sheepish smile curved up at me. Very effective. Would get anyone with a five-percent decency component to forgive him anything.

  “Not that I understand what any of this is for—but whoo-hoo, impressive.”

  I nodded. “Whoo-hoo is right. In the cutting-edge mobile surgery units arena, this is the equivalent of a massacre.”

  He guffawed. “Now I know I’ll be very comfortable working with you. With that sense of humor, it’ll be just like being with the Boss again. You sure are your daddy’s girl.”

  A whimsical twist to my mouth acknowledged his insight. “Uh-huh. Sure am. You’d be the first to like that about me.”

  I slid panels and inspected instruments and add-on facilities, my hands itching to use them on some patients. Rafael still stood at the threshold, looking around.

  “But—uh, shouldn’t it be, I don’t know—bigger?” he asked.

  “That fooled you, huh? Never fear. This is a much more compressible model than anything that came before it, to allow us to go on very narrow and rough roads up hills and through jungle areas if need be. The trailer alone now measures fifty-five by ten feet but expands to a full hundred and twenty by twenty feet, and also expands vertically, to a final height of ten feet.” I pointed to the ingenious mechanisms where the trailer expanded. “I’ll teach you how to operate the expansion controls once we’re on the road.”

  He whistled again. “Is this made to your specifications?”