Flight of Shadows: A Novel

by Brouwer, Sigmund

  The compartment was nearly empty, and the sleek bullet train had almost lulled Pierce to sleep when he felt something flick at his hair. Like the fluttering of a moth. Then a light touch on his nose. Before he could reach up with his hand to get rid of it, however, something bit fiercely at the skin of the front of his neck and pulled him backward to the headrest behind him.

  “That’s fishing line,” a voice whispered from behind him. “I’ve made it into a garrote. You’ll be all right if you don’t move. Hands on your lap and stay relaxed.”

  Pierce kept his head very still. He’d learned to coldly assess situations under pressure. Because of the agency’s training in all weapons, Pierce knew the effectiveness of a garrote, especially if the assassin used a stick to tighten the ligature like a tourniquet. The nylon would be strong enough to partially decapitate him before it snapped. At the very least, once it started cutting through skin and muscle, it would be no different than a knife across his throat, and it would be a race to see if he died from blood loss or strangulation.

  Brilliant.

  Thin nylon line and a stick. A few feet of fishing line. A thin rod of some kind, maybe even a pen. Easy enough to move undetected through the security portals at the train station.

  Ahead, the compartment door opened. One of the train’s stewards entered, a thin, stooped man in black trousers and a badly fitting red vest, pushing a drink trolley, head down.

  “Don’t ask for help,” the low soft voice warned Pierce. “You’re going to want to hear what I have to say.”

  Because there were so few passengers this far into the run, the steward reached them almost immediately. Pierce had no intention of asking for help. The steward stopped beside them. “Refreshments?”

  “Nothing, thanks,” Pierce said, head upright, expecting that the nylon line around his neck would be invisible. Stupid thought crossed his mind. He’d been hoping to buy coffee. Even if it did come in a cup of recycled paper. Now he’d have to wait for the steward to come back.

  The steward pushed on.

  “Refreshments?” the steward asked the person behind him.

  Only silence. The reply must have simply been a negative head shake, the turning stick of the garrote undoubtedly shielded in some manner.

  The trolley creaked as the steward moved through the rest of the compartment, then exited.

  “All right, Timothy Ray Zornenbach,” Pierce said. “How about less pressure with the garrote, and we get right to your questions.”

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Swain said you were a number.” Billy closed his eyes in concentration, making sure he would get it right. Slow was better than fast. If given a choice, Billy would rather remain silent than make a mistake. “CZ8513. They had embryos. One-cell embryos. All with numbers.”

  It was worse because now Billy would be talking about Caitlyn. “You know about cells, right? They didn’t teach us about cells in school in Appalachia.”

  “Jordan talked about it with me at times,” Caitlyn said. “But he was a scientist from Outside.”

  This was why this conversation was worse. Each of them knew that Jordan had done something to Caitlyn that made her the way she was.

  “So you know about genes too?”

  “The DNA information inside each cell,” Caitlyn said. “It programs how the cell works in the body.”

  She was making it easier on him, talking like it didn’t matter. Like this was about someone else or something else.

  But it did matter. Billy knew. And she had to know.

  “If a change is made to the genes in a skin cell,” Billy said, hearing Swain’s patient explanation in his memory, “those changes aren’t passed on to other cells.”

  He felt embarrassment at what he had to explain next. “But we all start as one cell. And when the egg cell is, you know…”

  Part of Billy’s embarrassment was the memory of what he’d learned from Swain about human reproduction. In Appalachia, that subject was only for married people.

  “Fertilized,” Caitlyn said. “It becomes an embryo.”

  “Yes,” Billy said quickly. He didn’t want those pictures in his head. Not with Caitlyn right here. He focused instead on the memory of Swain drawing a circle. Then splitting it into two. And four. “One cell divides into two. Into four. Into eight. And it copies the gene with the same information. Then the cells specialize, and they only use a short piece of the information. A skin cell uses the skin information. But the cell doesn’t specialize until after it’s divided into four. So once it got to four, the scientists would pull them all apart, so those four cells each started over like the original embryo and began to divide again. Doing this again and again gave them hundreds of single-cell embryos, all identical.”

  Caitlyn smiled encouragement at Billy. But she didn’t want to interrupt him.

  “If a change in the thread of genes is made in the very first cell, every cell after that will keep the change.” Billy lowered his voice. “That’s what happened to you, Caitlyn. Some DNA was inserted into the first embryo cell so that you were programmed for…”

  “Wings.”

  “That’s not what I was going to say. But that’s part of it. Some of your cells that would specialize and grow into muscles had a change in the gene threads. To make them stronger.” Billy went through his mind and patiently waited until he was sure he remembered correctly. “Swain said the gene change blocked myostatins. Myostatins keep muscle to a certain size so they don’t grow too big. You don’t have blockers. You’re as strong as someone twice your size.”

  “To support my wings.” Caitlyn paused. “I don’t need to know how. Tell me what Jordan wouldn’t tell me. Why they did this in the first place. Why they made me like I am.”

  Billy’s temples hurt. He rubbed them.

  “William,” she said. “Tell me.”

  “Swain said the scientists were experimenting. To see what would happen if they tried making a hybrid human. They used the gene thread from the embryo of a giant eagle on you.”

  “What?”

  “Not Jordan,” Billy said, reading her reaction of outrage. “And Swain said he wasn’t part of it either. He said they both worked at a place where other scientists could splice the gene threads into embryos at the one-cell stage. They had thousands and tried lots of things. They’d see if the embryos survived in a test tube. And if one lived long enough, then it would go into a woman to keep growing. See if it could come to term naturally.”

  “Experimenting,” Caitlyn repeated coldly. “More like playing God.”

  “Swain called it a gene map. They have the gene maps of all kinds of animals. Swain said little changes to gene threads could make big changes in animals and humans. That’s why there are so many different species. He said they were playing with it like clay but using proteins instead.”

  “Stop,” Caitlyn said, more forcefully than she’d intended. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hear any more.”

  Billy looked at her and was silent for a moment. “He said the agency wants to find why your gene map is different, what let you survive when all those other embryos didn’t.”

  “So they can experiment more?” Caitlyn spat. “What do they want, an army of flying soldiers?”

  “No,” Billy said. “It’s your blood. It carries some cells that are like the opposite of cancer cells. Healing cells.”

  She swallowed and closed her eyes. “Go on.”

  Billy paused to make sure he’d been correct about that too, then repeated it. “Embryonic stem cells. Cells that haven’t specialized yet. They can become any kind of cell. Repair any kind of cell. Swain said your gene thread must produce stem cells that float in your blood. That maybe that’s what keeps you alive and feeds your muscles. He doesn’t know. But the government wants to know, and that’s why he told me to tell you everything. He’s worried something might happen to him now that you’re Outside.”

  Billy rubbed his temples again, speaking without looking up. “There’s more. You
won’t like it.”

  “Tell me.”

  “When they made changes to the gene map…”

  “Yes?”

  Hayflick Limit. It was the last term he had to tell her. He thought slowly. He’d gone to a lot of effort to listen carefully to Swain because of the importance of this. And every day, he’d found a quiet spot to repeat everything in his mind so he’d be sure not to forget. “They wanted to see if they could eliminate the Hayflick Limit. The amount of times a cell can divide before the copies of the gene thread break down. If the Hayflick Limit is gone, and if cells could always replace themselves…”

  “People wouldn’t get older.”

  Caitlyn was silent. Billy thought he understood her silence. She was trying to absorb this, just as he had barely been able to comprehend.

  “Swain said that when Jordan found out the scientists went past experiments with the Hayflick Limit and started trying to make animal hybrids, he didn’t want to be part of it anymore. He decided to get out.”

  Now Billy couldn’t read Caitlyn’s continued silence, especially since she’d looked away.

  “The government doesn’t want you because of your wings,” Billy said. “They want you because your wings didn’t destroy you. Because your blood and muscles let you survive the gene thread experiment. And it’s all related to something in your genetics that has stopped the Hayflick Limit. Swain told me you might be able to live a hundred years longer than anyone because of all this. Like some of the people in the Bible.”

  He wished he didn’t have to tell her anything else. But he couldn’t lie to her. Even if it was holding something back.

  “There’s one other thing,” Billy said. “Gene-line therapy. That’s when a change is made to a fertilized egg that can be passed on to the next generation.”

  She turned her eyes back on him.

  “Your… differences,” Billy said carefully. “They’d be passed on to your children. And to their children. For generations. Until there is a new race of humans who are twice as strong and live twice as long.”

  SIXTY-NINE

  Call Wilson,” the soft voice said from behind Pierce.

  Pierce blinked a few times. How had the kid learned enough about the agency to know about Wilson?

  The invisible noose tightened, and the voice behind him became more insistent. “Call Wilson. He’s waiting for it.”

  Pierce used his phone, knowing the call would be encrypted automatically. Wilson answered in one ring.

  “It’s Pierce.” He had the phone to his ear, opting out of visual contact on the screen.

  “They said you’d call,” Wilson said. “I need your help. Bad.”

  “They?”

  “Someone has Luke,” Wilson said. “All they ask is why NI is tracking the head of World United. I don’t have a clue because my calls to you don’t make it through. They tell me you’re going to call and I’m supposed to get the code to the op-site. I’m supposed to wipe out the site and all the intel. Or my boy comes back to me in little pieces.”

  Strict NI policy meant only the op leader had full op-site authorization. Part of checks and balances. Once Pierce gave Wilson the code, both were breaking national security laws.

  “There’s more,” Wilson said. “I need to deliver the girl. Not to the agency. To them. It’s my boy on the line. Anything else, I wouldn’t be asking.”

  Wilson was speaking slowly. Pierce doubted anyone else knew Wilson enough to understand that’s what he did under stress.

  “I’m in,” Pierce said. Pierce knew that it wasn’t T. R. Zornenbach behind him. Whatever calls Holly had made earlier had triggered something. Wouldn’t have been difficult to set this up. Take out Theo and move the glasses to a place where Pierce would believe Razor had been. Make it look like Razor was setting up a meet. Pull Pierce into it step by step, get him into a position with no backup agents and no weapons. Have someone waiting on the train from a few stops before it reached Pierce.

  The garrote was classic. Few defenses against it. None, in Pierce’s situation. The fishing line was in place; the seat back was protecting his attacker. No way to get his fingers beneath the line. He didn’t have a knife to cut it—the weapon would have been detected at the body-scanning portal.

  “I need the op-site access now,” Wilson said. “They said if I don’t get it, I hang up the phone and my son’s dead. No negotiations.”

  The ten-digit password would give Wilson access to all the files of a specific operation, plus computer contact with all the field agents, in effect letting him run the operation. Or wipe out all intel completely.

  Pierce wondered if Wilson knew that as soon as Pierce gave it, Pierce was dead. If Pierce was reading this right, once Pierce gave up op authorization, all Pierce’s leverage was gone. Wilson had been put in a position of choosing his son over his friend.

  What choice was there? For either of them?

  Pierce gave him the password. Twice. Speaking slowly.

  “Get to my office as soon as you can,” Wilson said. “I’ve got a way we can move forward under the radar.”

  Hope sprung eternal. Even an agent as experienced as Wilson wanted the illusion. That he’d get his boy back. That Pierce would return. Unless Wilson knew there was no hope and wanted to leave Pierce with some.

  “Yeah,” Pierce said. “Be a couple of hours.”

  Wilson hung up. Pierce didn’t. He left the phone in place against his ear.

  “Got to tell you a couple more things about the operation that aren’t on file,” Pierce said into the silent phone. He kept speaking, outlining the situation.

  Pierce couldn’t think of any way out. He couldn’t stand. Even if he managed to turn sideways, it wouldn’t take the pressure off his neck.

  All he could hope for was that someone else would enter the compartment and he could wave for help.

  “You got any guarantees you’ll get the boy back?” Pierce asked the silent phone. “Any indication where we can make a trade once we get the girl?”

  This was too cute. Once he was dead, the person behind him could walk away, leave the ligature in place, holding Pierce upright by the neck, bound to the headrest, fishing line invisible in the folds of skin. It would look like Pierce was asleep. Might not be until the last stop that anyone noticed he wasn’t. By then, the assassin would be long off the train.

  “Your wife know anything about this?” Pierce asked the phone.

  Why was he fighting for extra time? He was going to be killed once he hung up the phone. Or he’d read it completely wrong, and he wouldn’t be killed. Either way, what did a few more seconds matter?

  The compartment door opened. A woman entered. Jeans. Loose black jacket. Looked young, but hard to tell because her head was down. Dark hair covered most of her face.

  Now Pierce had another decision.

  Person behind him was a killer. If Pierce waved for help, just the three of them in the compartment, might also guarantee the death of the woman. The garrote would kill Pierce in a few tight twists, leaving the assassin plenty of time to deal with the witness.

  Pierce kept talking into the phone, letting the woman pass.

  He heard the door at the back of the compartment open and close.

  “You’re done,” the whispering voice behind him said. “Drop the phone.”

  Irrational as it was, Pierce began to turn. It wouldn’t help him; he had no chance. But he couldn’t just let it happen without a fight.

  That’s when the noose tightened, delivering a horrible thin bracelet of liquid pain. Instinctively, Pierce brought his hands up to pull. Another futile effort. His fingers were useless claws, scrabbling against his skin.

  His scream of frustration and rage came out as a gasp.

  In that moment, there was a muffled thud. The noose slackened.

  Pierce wedged the phone between the fishing line and his neck, used it to leverage more slack. Panting, he pulled it away. Spun to see what was happening behind him.

  It w
as the woman. Wig askew. Rubbing her elbow.

  “Don’t know if she’s okay,” the woman in the loose black jacket said, only it was a man’s voice, and the hand pointed in the seat, where another woman was slumped sideways. “I had to hit as hard as I could. Didn’t see much choice though.”

  Pierce remembered the voice. From surveillance tapes yesterday.

  It meant the woman in the skewed wig and the loose black jacket had been the one to set up this meet.

  “Razor,” Pierce said.

  “Yeah,” he answered. “Good move, wasn’t it? Walking past, opening and shutting the door and sneaking back. It’s why they call me Razor. Fast. Sharp. Dangerous.”

  Razor pointed at the unconscious woman lying across the seat, blood seeping from her jaw. The barely visible fishing line in a long, loose thread. “Want to explain what’s happening?”

  SEVENTY

  Caitlyn was half asleep, sitting upright against the outside wall of the shanty, when a high-pitched wail snapped her out of the pleasantness of warm sunlight and emptied thought.

  It only took her seconds to understand what had happened.

  A couple of the older children had been playing with Jasmine, the sickly three-year-old girl. Jasmine had tripped, skinning her knees. It was probably the shock of falling; she seemed inconsolable, her face contorted as she wept.

  Caitlyn had never thought of herself as motherly, but then again, she’d never been around children much. Although it was just skinned knees, and rationally Caitlyn knew it was a minor issue, she couldn’t help feeling a rush of compassion at the girl’s sorrow.

  The older children crouched over her, but Jasmine brushed away their attempts at comfort.

  Caitlyn rolled to her feet and scooped up the little girl, who clung to her neck.

  No one had ever depended on her like this, trusted her so completely, and Caitlyn clung back, startled at how good it felt to hold a child like this.