by Jen Blood
“Right,” Juarez said abruptly, breaking the smolder between him and the blonde. “Strategy is important.”
“You’d think so, but if you two need a little time alone first—” I began. Diggs kicked me under the table, none too gently. I shot him a killing glare; he smiled winningly at me. I moved on. “Right. Strategizing is good.”
“There’s a place in Mexico where we can meet before the exchange,” Diggs said. “I’d like to rendezvous there first, have some time to go into some depth on this.”
“No way,” I said firmly. “We can meet you and Jamie in Coba, but otherwise we shouldn’t be in contact. It’s way too risky.”
“So you just want them to show up on Friday and hope we’re all on the same page?” Diggs asked.
“We’ll do whatever you’re most comfortable with,” Juarez said smoothly. “But I tend to agree with Diggs—with something like this, we should have at least a couple of opportunities to ensure we’ve coordinated things properly.”
“What’s to coordinate?” I pressed. “We show up. You show up. Jenny shows up. We give her the memory card; she gives us Kat. We all drive off in separate directions. Sounds pretty straightforward to me.”
“Until something goes wrong,” Diggs said. “What if Kat isn’t there? Or Jenny pulls something? We should know the layout, have some kind of contingency plan in place.”
I looked at Jamie, who was following the conversation in silence. “What do you think?”
She considered the question for a second or two before she answered. “I understand your perspective, but the guys are right. Going into something like this blind is a recipe for disaster. You’ve already got things working against you. You said you’re doing this exchange in Coba? That’s a red flag right there, if you ask me. Have you been there?”
Diggs nodded. “It’s got some great sites if you want to play tourist,” Jamie continued, “but otherwise it’s not exactly a hot spot. And it’s remote enough that if something happened, no one would come running.”
“But we’re not doing it at midnight,” I argued. “This is six o’clock on a Friday night, at the ruins. The place will be packed. Or at least well-traveled.”
“All the more reason to make sure we have things well-coordinated,” Juarez said. “Otherwise, we run the risk of some sightseeing couple from Cleveland getting caught in the crossfire.”
“I’m not fighting about this,” Diggs said. He was focused on me now, the rest of the room falling away. “There’s a hotel in Tampico. We meet there Thursday night, then we catch a commuter plane into Valladolid on Friday. End of story.”
Before I could tear into Diggs about the innumerable ways his whole ‘end of story/end of discussion/my word is law’ routine drives me sideways, Sally burst into the kitchen. Her face was flushed, her eyes wild.
“We have a problem,” she said. “There are some guys in town asking about you. Keira ran into them when she was running some errands.”
I looked accusingly at Juarez, who shook his head. “You know better than that—I didn’t bring them here.”
“Well, someone did,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” Diggs interrupted. “We need to get out of here. You’ve got the back gate open?” he asked Sally.
“Gate’s open, truck’s ready to go,” she confirmed.
“How much time do we have?” I asked.
“Ten minutes if you’re lucky—she said she saw ‘em headed out this way. Got directions from goddamn Curt Mires up to the Quicky Mart.”
“We’re already packed,” Diggs said over his shoulder, headed for the stairs. “I’ll grab the bags and we’ll get you in the truck.”
Einstein ran after him, got halfway out the door, and headed back for me. His side was shaved and bandaged. He’d lost weight in the past few days, and he got panicky now whenever I was out of sight for more than two minutes. I called him back and crouched to meet him, ignoring the agony in my side, dimly aware that Juarez and Jamie were debating their next move. Meanwhile, Diggs had grabbed our bags and was barreling back through the kitchen door.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked. “Get him in the truck—we need to move.”
Einstein whimpered uneasily, tail wagging, head lowered to butt against my chest.
We were going to Mexico. I didn’t even know how Diggs and I would cross the border, forget getting the dog over there. And Diggs was right: One of us could have died yesterday. If it had been Einstein, I wasn’t sure how I could live with myself. If it had been Diggs, I knew I never could.
“You need to go,” Juarez said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Diggs shake his head warningly once he realized something was up.
“She knows. Give her a second.”
I hugged Einstein tightly. He licked my face, pawing at my chest.
“We can’t take him,” I said numbly. “There’s no way. Sally...”
She nodded without making me finish. “No problem. He’ll be in good hands until you get back.”
If we got back. The dogs started barking out front. Willett was here. Einstein shook pitifully against me, sensing the worst. Diggs laid his hand on my shoulder.
“We have to go, Sol,” he said quietly.
“I know,” I said, nodding. I hugged Einstein one more time and whispered into his fur. “I’ll be back before you know it, Stein. I promise.”
Diggs offered his hand, pulling me up gently. A door slammed out front. Stein knew something was up—he didn’t even bark, totally focused on me instead.
“Erin—” Diggs said.
“I know,” I said, stuffing down the anvil in my throat. “I’m ready.”
We went out the back, Diggs supporting me as I gimped along. Every move I made sent pain rocketing straight through me. Stein barked after us—a couple of sharp, high-pitched yelps before the barks gave way to a desperate howl.
“You made the right decision,” Diggs whispered as he helped me into the truck carefully. “Jack will handle Willett, and Sally will take good care of Einstein.”
I nodded through tears, and kept my eyes locked straight ahead. Diggs started the truck. The last thing I heard before we drove off was the sound of my dog barking and men’s voices, raised in pure, unadulterated rage.
Chapter Twenty-Three - Kat
“You’re good at this, you know,” Adam said. Kat had been on Payson Isle for a week, watching over her patient around the clock most of that time.
Her patient.
The truth was, Adam Solomon was more than a patient—she knew that, even then.
“Just got lucky,” she said with a shrug. He tried to sit up in bed, but fell back with a groan. “But luck will run out fast if you don’t take it easy. You have a long recovery ahead.”
And not just from the shooting, either.
Adam’s blue eyes were intense, mournful, his body nearly emaciated. He’d been shot twice: once in the thigh, once just above his kidney. The idiots on the island had been praying over him, but otherwise they hadn’t done a damn thing to try and help him. Kat wanted to call her father in, but Isaac Payson wouldn’t hear of it.
And so, at seventeen, Kat had operated in a makeshift OR inside the massive Payson boarding home, on her own. She removed the bullets, stitched the wounds… And only then, when Adam was resting and there was nothing more to be done, did she settle in and do what everyone else had been doing all along: She prayed like hell.
And now here he was—alive. Recovering.
“How long do you think it’ll be before I can get out of here?” he asked. “I’d like to be useful, at least.”
“Not for a while,” she said firmly. “You’ll be useful down the road. Right now, you’re at my mercy.”
She actually felt herself blushing when he smiled at her, his eyes lingering on hers.
“Well, I guess there are worse things in the world,” Adam said.
A sharp slap on the cheek brought Kat back to the present: Hands behind her back, trussed like a Chri
stmas goose in a twin-engine plane flying high. Cameron was beside her, also tied.
“Don’t go too far, Katie,” Jenny said. She was smiling, but Kat noticed how the girl avoided looking at Cameron. She barely spoke to him; certainly took no pleasure in having him there. “I don’t want you to miss any of this. We’re gonna have some fun.”
Frustration rode dangerously close to the surface. Kat’s temper had always been a problem. If she ever got free again, she planned to take full advantage of it.
“Look, you stupid bitch, I don’t know what you think any of this accomplishes—”
Jenny backhanded her, her knuckles grazing Kat’s mouth. She tasted blood and blinked back tears. It wasn’t the worst blow she’d ever taken, but it wasn’t pleasant.
“You don’t want to test me,” Jenny said. The words were tight, and deadly serious. “I’ve got orders not to kill you, but there’s a lot that can be done before the heart gives out. Trust me, there’s no one I’d rather test that on than you.”
“Why?” Kat asked. She leaned to her left and spat blood onto a rubber mat at her feet, testing her teeth with her tongue. Everything was still intact. “What, exactly, did I ever do to you? The way I see it, I have a lot more right to hold a grudge.”
Light came to Jenny’s eyes, a slow smile to her lush lips. “Daddy didn’t tell you, then? Well... This will be fun.”
“Jenny,” Cameron said. A warning.
“Dear old Dad broke up our happy home over you and your little girl. You didn’t know that, did you?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Kat said.
“He never had the gumption to say it to your face,” Jenny continued. “But you were always the woman he wanted. ‘A woman with some fight,’ he always used to say. Someone who stood up for what she believed in. ‘No one would ever push Katherine Everett around...’ Isn’t that what you used to say, Daddy?” She smiled sweetly at Cameron, the expression in direct contrast to the bile in her eyes. “It turns out, all it took was a threat to your little girl and my father switched sides. He’s been betraying us for years, all thanks to you.”
“Well, I sure as hell didn’t ask him to,” Kat said, temper flaring again. “Look, you little bitch, I never—”
“Stop!” Cameron said. His voice was quiet. Deadly. The blood had turned to a deep brown on his shirt, his nose swollen—no doubt broken, Kat thought. “Katherine didn’t have anything to do with turning me. I saw what I was doing—I woke up after the fire on Payson Isle, and everything had changed. It wasn’t Katherine; it wasn’t Erin or Adam or a single life I’d taken… It was all of it together.”
“Spare me,” Jenny said. She turned on him, looking her father in the eye for the first time since she’d taken him. “You left us… You left me. You left Mom. You know what that did to her. Don’t paint yourself a victim here. You killed those people. You chose it, everyday—the same way I choose it. The same way Mom chose it. We work so the Project works.”
“We work because we’ve been drugged and conditioned and… dehumanized,” Cameron said calmly. Kat recalled the way Adam had told her this story, tearful and broken, so many years ago. They took our lives. They made us monsters.
Cameron had no tears, though. His voice stayed strong, steady, as he continued. “They did it to me; they did it to you. They’ve done this for years, and now they’ll continue to murder more innocent people if someone doesn’t stop them—”
“No one is innocent,” Jenny said coolly. “It’s one of the first things you taught me. People will die, yes—weak people. There are too many of them, anyway. It’s time to let the strong stand. We’re paving the way for a new country... A new world. And you’re here sniveling over a few lives, semantics that don’t matter. That never mattered.”
“You realize that they would say the same about you,” Cameron said calmly. “That your life isn’t worth sniveling over to them, either.”
“The good of the many versus the good of the few,” she returned. “You’ve obviously forgotten that. They would be right in thinking that. My life doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme.”
“I disagree,” he said. “I think your life matters a great deal.” Kat watched the way his eyes changed, reminded of their conversation the night before. His dream of retirement, grandchildren, a corner bookstore.
The briefest flicker of doubt, maybe even confusion, crossed Jenny’s face before it vanished. She turned her back on them both. “We’ll reach our destination in a few hours. I suggest getting some sleep. This will all be over soon.”
She strode back to the front of the plane. Kat leaned in toward Cameron.
“Way to go—now she’s psychotic and conflicted. That’s so much better than what we had to work with before.”
“Give her time,” he said, his eyes lingering on the spot where his daughter had stood. “I know who she is—who she was, growing up. If I could get away from the Project, I know she can.”
Kat looked at him doubtfully. It was a nice thought, but she sure as hell wasn’t ready to bet Erin and Diggs’ lives on Cameron’s daughter suddenly growing a conscience.
There had to be another way.
Chapter Twenty-Four - Diggs
Solomon and I hit Texas at seven o’clock Tuesday night. Sally’s truck didn’t have much in the way of shocks and no air conditioning to speak of—which was unfortunate, given the direction we were headed. And while I was sorry we weren’t traveling in Jamie Flint’s handy commuter plane, in this particular instance, I was fairly sure Solomon was right: Jenny and her people might not know every detail of what we were doing, but at this point she was coming pretty damned close. If she found out Jamie was flying us out, Kat was as good as dead.
We caught a few hours of sleep at a rest stop not far beyond the Texas border, but I had a destination in mind and a deadline to make. We didn’t linger.
Understandably, it wasn’t one of our best road trips. Between the pain and the blood loss and the dog loss and the fact that her abusive mother was being held captive by a psycho, Solomon was bordering on catatonia. Usually, we’re both pretty good at pulling each other out of a funk when the need arises, but this one was beyond me. For the most part, she slept and I drove, and the miles slowly passed beneath us.
Thanks to Cameron’s IDs, an inside tip from Juarez about when and where to cross the Mexican border, and a very healthy bribe, we managed to get out of the country with almost shocking ease. By the time we reached Tampico, it was two o’clock Wednesday afternoon. The meeting spot Jenny had chosen was another thousand miles south, but I didn’t care. Clearly, Solomon needed a break.
She came back around when I pulled up in front of a massive white resort, consisting of block upon block of beachfront stucco.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting us a room,” I said. “Hang tight, I’ll be right back.”
“We don’t have the money to stay here.”
“Actually, we do. And I have no idea what will happen in Coba, but for all we know this will be the last night we can do something like this for a while. And so… I’m getting us a room.”
A distant, barely-there smile touched her eyes when she took in the stretch of sand and surf. “Okay. Maybe that’s not a terrible idea.”
Considering her state, I took that as progress.
Our room had a king-sized bed, Jacuzzi tub, balcony overlooking the beach, and access to all the resort amenities: golf course, health club, restaurant and bar, hotel masseuse, and about half a dozen different pools of varying shapes, sizes, and operating hours. Bedraggled as we were, Solomon and I were hardly the ideal patrons, but I managed to get a room on the first floor reasonably isolated from other guests without causing too much of a stir.
That afternoon, we cranked the air conditioning, Sol popped a couple of pain pills, and we laid down together. She was out within minutes, but sleep was hard to come by for me. I lay beside her, listless and uneasy, going over our options for the comin
g days, weeks, and months. There were too many variables, too many ways this could all go to hell. When it was clear that Solomon wasn’t waking anytime soon and I sure as hell wasn’t sleeping, I gave in and got up.
I showered, ordered some food up to the room, and then focused my attention on deconstructing the rest of the coded numbers from the memory card. I was sure Mae had been right about how the numbers were arranged and what they were; what I wasn’t sure of was what each entry in the list represented. The entries with significant dates in history were simple enough to figure out. What worried me was the fact that nearly half of the dates listed extended as far as five years into the future.
From what I could gather, Solomon and I were now officially in possession of a list predicting a long series of atrocities I had no clue how to stop.
As this nightmare had unfolded over the past few months, I’d been powerless to stop the reporter side of my brain from writing this story, if only in my own head. The narrative was staggering: the men and women involved; the government cover up; the hundreds—thousands—of victims who had fallen prey to J-932 over the years…
The problem, however, was getting any proof about all of it.
Not that I should be thinking that way, I reminded myself. Because telling the story, after all, was not what this was about. Regardless, I couldn’t imagine Sol just letting this go—not when she knew the body count we were talking about. Not when she knew they would just keep doing this, keep killing, keep moving toward whatever diabolical endgame they had in mind, unless someone stopped them.
And then there was Jack Juarez’s role in this whole thing. On the trek from Kentucky, Solomon had filled me in on her conversation with Juarez at Sally’s place. I wasn’t surprised that he had suspicions about being another subject of J-932; I’d been thinking the same thing myself. What worried me now was whether or not there was a possibility that he was still under J’s control. And if he wasn’t, how had he escaped from them at thirteen years old? Who had helped him? And did the higher-ups at J know who he was now?