“Cyrus, what I heard…it just wasn’t right. It was about her work and the tests she’d been running at her lab. Tests on people—invasive human tests. Vivisections on people! It was part of some new gene sequencing program she was working on.
“It was all I could do to make it through the rest of the night with her. The next day, I told William what I’d heard and he didn’t believe me. He decided to prove me wrong. He Pushed Gram and made her tell him what she was doing. That was the day he disappeared. It wasn’t until he contacted me almost a year later that I actually realized the two events were related.
“Gram’s people were the ones who took William, Cyrus,” she choked on the truth. “Gram had him locked up and drugged for almost an entire year!”
Feeling tears welling in the corners of her eyes, Ashley realized that her story was over before she was ready. Whatever case she was trying to make to Cyrus now rested on the information she had placed before him. He was in a position to shut them down if he chose. But if he did, her grandmother would continue her horrible experiments in secret. Appalling things that Ashley couldn’t abide. Not from anyone—and certainly not from her own flesh and blood.
Still, the die had been cast. Ashley swallowed her desire to sob and sat silently back in her seat instead…waiting for the next round to begin.
* * *
The story was hard for Cyrus to believe. Unfortunately, not as hard as it should’ve been. It explained the coincidence between Ashley’s and William’s abilities and Gertrude’s specific field of study. But could the woman really be capable of such atrocities?
Of course, Cyrus realized. He’d seen the best and the worst from people, with the most extreme examples coming since taking his job with the Coalition. Add to that Gertrude’s less than angelic disposition and, no, it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination by any means.
“The proof is right here,” Ashley said, placing her slightly trembling hand on the closed lid of her laptop.
Cyrus wondered, and not for the first time, about the Coalition’s true interest in Gertrude’s research. Though he was originally tasked with protecting the woman, he had no doubt that the shift in mission parameters had always been the ultimate end game. The Coalition was more interested in the research than they were in making sure Gertrude was kept alive.
“You and William are connected,” Cyrus said. There was something about the things she’d said that was bothering him, apart from what he had just learned about Gertrude. “Gert didn’t tell you what happened at the lab, did she?”
Ashley watched him closely but didn’t reply.
“You saw it all, didn’t you?” he continued. “Everything William did? Everything that happened?”
She offered a nearly imperceptible nod.
“So you know I shot him.”
“I also know that you could’ve killed him. But you didn’t. It was always a danger of William’s plan and one of many reasons I was against it in the first place.”
It was Cyrus’s turn to watch Ashley carefully. He felt certain that she was sincere. She wasn’t angry that he’d shot her brother.
“You were never part of his plan,” Ashley explained, “except for testing you at the coffee shop, which only proved to him that you were the one person he ever met that he couldn’t Push. Still, he wouldn’t change the plan when you proved more of an obstacle than he anticipated. He’s lucky to be alive.
“Drugging him was a good idea,” she continued. “For someone new to all of this, you’re picking it up rather quickly. But then again, we both know you’re not entirely new to all of this.”
Cyrus was confused by the accusation. She couldn’t Read him, but could she possibly know what the Coalition had tasked him with? Even he wasn’t sure of his ultimate goal anymore. Only that it no longer aligned with the mission passed down to him by the powers that be.
“I’ve seen the results of your blood workup,” Ashley explained. “Your genetic markers have a great deal in common with William and me. In fact, genetic analysis found chromosomes and components of your make-up that the system wasn’t able to classify. So…I’ll ask again. Who are you, Cyrus? And what do you really want?”
Caught off-guard by Ashley’s accusations, Cyrus wasn’t sure how best to respond. He was almost positive she was trying to distract or confuse him. Biology wasn’t his strong suit, but he was well aware that the human genome was fully mapped by scientists back in 2001. Her claim that analysis of his genetic make-up had turned up unknown genes was impossible.
Opening his mouth to respond, Cyrus realized that he had no idea what to say. He leaned back in his chair once more and tried to make sense of Ashley’s comment. It had to be a distraction of some kind.
Maybe she was mistaken?
“Wait,” Ashley said curiously. The furrow of her brow and the scrunch of her short nose mirrored his confusion. “You didn’t know? You really didn’t know? Then why are you here?”
For the first time, Cyrus became very interested in Gertrude’s database, understanding that it might hold entirely different interests for different parties. Certainly the Coalition wanted it. For what, he couldn’t even guess. Ashley and William wanted it. For them, it held the key to their past, and possibly even their origin. But for him, it could very well hold the answers to questions that he hadn’t even known to ask.
Ashley looked equally concerned by the revelation. It seemed that she had certain preconceptions about him when they met that afternoon, and those beliefs were now equally in question.
“We should wait for William,” Ashley said. “He’s studied genetics extensively. He’ll be able to help us sort this out.”
Cyrus met her eye with a questioning glance. What was she thinking? William was in custody following the violent attack on a secret and secure installation. He wouldn’t be going anywhere for a long time.
Unless…
It was the casual way that Ashley had made the comment, as if it were a done deal. If she really had some kind of sensory link with her brother…
Cyrus bolted from the chair and headed into the house. Even as he stepped through the sliding glass door, he had his cell phone in hand and the line was ringing. He heard the connection and was just about to speak when Ashley gently pulled the phone away from his ear.
“You can’t,” she said in a desperate but hushed voice.
Something about her tone and the steely look in her eye made him reconsider. He tapped the screen and ended the call.
Stepping forward, she placed her lips close to his ear. “My apartment is bugged,” she whispered. “Come outside so I can explain. Please?”
Cyrus knew that the sedative he’d used on William had worked. He was certain of it. It was either that, or the pain resulting from the gunshot wound had been enough to prevent the use of his ability. That meant once William was in custody, something had changed. Either his guards switched to a different sedative that wasn’t strong enough, or there’d been a gap between doses. Either way, William had regained control of his ability. With his talent for manipulating the will of others, having his cell door opened would be a simple matter. Escaping the facility, too, would be trivial. He would literally have the help of the entire security staff. They would open the doors for him, delete the security footage and, in the end, likely retain no memory of the events.
Pocketing the phone, Cyrus turned to find Ashley standing in the wide doorway, silhouetted by the afternoon sun. She motioned for him to follow.
Reluctantly, he decided to go with it for the time being and see what he thought once the dust settled. Though he’d been tasked with a job, he wasn’t a mindless drone. With no clear answer as to who was in the right, all he could do was give the case more time and sort things out as he saw fit.
Chapter 26
Undisclosed location
Hennings, South Carolina
2:40 p.m.
William heard the key enter the lock on the outside of his cell door and knew what was coming next. S
itting on the edge of the metal framed cot, he looked at the thick wrap of white bandages that engulfed his right foot like a massive sock stuffed with cotton. The sedatives they’d given him had done a better job of dulling the pain than they had at disabling his auxiliary senses. He knew that there were five men currently inside the building with him, and that the next shift wasn’t scheduled to arrive until twenty-one hundred hours. 9 p.m., William realized. He would be long gone by then.
A tall man with a short military-style buzz cut moved through the door and stepped into the room. He showed indifference to William, neither meeting his eye nor avoiding it.
They should’ve been better prepared, William thought with a smile as he pushed himself onto unsteady legs for the first time since his capture. Taking a tentative step and placing weight on his right foot, he winced as the shot of pain rocketed through his foot and up his leg. He wondered what the pain would be like once the drugs had worn off entirely. His vision still swam from their powerful effects as he hobbled across the small room and out the door.
Stepping into the hallway, William saw an orderly line of four additional men dressed similar to the man who had released him. While these men varied in height, they had similar haircuts and sturdy, muscular builds. They were the remainder of the security team charged with William’s temporary incarceration.
The four men moved single file into William’s cell, the last man turning and pushing the solid steel door shut behind him. The original guard had left his set of keys hanging from the lock on the outside of the door. William turned the key; there was a satisfying ‘thunk’ of metal on metal as the mechanism’s massive bolt slid into place. But rather than withdraw the key from the lock, he placed his palm against its wide surface and applied lateral pressure. The key quickly snapped, leaving its shaft stuck inside the lock’s tumblers. Pocketing the rest of the key ring, William ambled down the hall and headed for the main exit.
When he stepped from the front of the building, he was surprised to see that he was still in Hennings. They’d brought him to an abandoned railroad yard just outside the city. The sun was high in the sky, and while half-dozen rundown and dilapidated old one and two story buildings surrounded him, there wasn’t another living soul in sight.
After retrieving a short steel pipe from a nearby pile of discarded junk, William leaned on the pipe, using it as a cane, and stepped off the curb. The asphalt was cracked and shattered. It had once constituted the main path through the center of the railroad depot. From here, he would head north and make for the first major road where he could acquire a ride and put some distance between himself and his captors. It wouldn’t be long before they realized he was missing. The next shift wasn’t due for hours—it was information willingly divulged upon William’s simple request. Unfortunately, it was the team’s procedure to check in with their command station every hour on the hour.
Once he found a place to hold up, William’s first order of business would be to contact his sister. He had transmitted the entirety of his grandmother’s research to Ashley before his encounter with Cyrus, and he was anxious to find out what she had learned from examining the research. All they knew at the moment was that their grandmother was not who they believed her to be. She was not at all the loving and caring woman who had raised them, supposedly interested only in their wellbeing. Their entire lives had been a lie, told by a woman who was only interested in observing them like rats in some endless lab experiment. The truth was that they meant nothing to her beyond the time and effort she had invested in them as living and breathing biological experiments.
William had long since been convinced of the truth—the revaluation had resulted in his year-long incarceration in a mental hospital, drugged beyond rational thought. Ashley had been right. If he’d listened to her from the start, things would’ve gone very differently. It was just as well in the end, William realized. Seizing Gertrude’s files was the best way to expose her for the monster that she was. Without those files, they had no proof of the atrocities that had been committed.
William limped on, focused entirely on reaching the regional highway nearly a mile away. But when an uneasy tingling crept up his spine and brought a throbbing pain to the base of his skull, he stopped his aggressive hobble mid-stride. Leaning against his improvised walking stick, he turned slowly and looked down the length of street he had just walked.
Something was wrong. He could feel it. But whatever sense was triggering the alert was either foreign to him or impeded by the effects of the sedative still making its way through his bloodstream.
His eyes roamed the weathered and destroyed features of the old buildings that lined the short stretch of pavement. Siding peeled from the face of some buildings, nearly every window in sight had been shattered, and some structures even had walls that had partially collapsed, giving up to both time and gravity. It was difficult to locate an anomaly in the sea of broken and disjointed components.
It was a presence, William sensed…someone was out there. He wasn’t alone at the railway yard after all. And though he reached out with his senses, he couldn’t pinpoint the presence he was feeling right to his very core. He couldn’t even be sure it was a single person, he realized. It could be kids wasting time in the wreckage of the old trains, or it could be a support team moving in to assist the men guarding his cell. And with the sedatives still playing havoc with his mind, he wasn’t going to be able to reach out over any distance to discover who or what was watching.
Turning quickly, he began limping once more. Redoubling his effort, he focused on the only thing he could—escaping the rail station and finding refuge as quickly as possible.
Chapter 27
Undisclosed location
Hennings, South Carolina
2:44 p.m.
Sitting on a small metal folding chair that was surrounded by piles of junk, Sam Turner watched the time pass without incident. He was due to be relieved by the next shift in just over two hours, and the thought of stretching his legs was already growing on him. Still, at least he had shade in his improvised blind. And as uncomfortable as the folding chair was, it beat lying prone in the mud for days at a time. He only wished that his vantage point on the rooftop at the edge of the abandoned railroad depot had afforded him the benefit of a breeze. Some fresh air would’ve been a welcome refreshment to help the hours pass more smoothly.
It wasn’t his hide that bothered him so much, though. It was the futility of his task. He was watching the front door of a building six hundred yards away on the off chance that the prisoner in custody was able to slip past the half-dozen men guarding him, and make a run for it. It didn’t seem likely. Actually, the idea was absurd. Sam had seen the man they were sitting on. He was in his mid-twenties, a little over six-feet tall, and in the neighborhood of two hundred pounds. But for all of that, he didn’t have the bearing of a trained operator. Sam had worked with plenty of that type in his day, and he knew the look. Sometimes their physical appearance was the giveaway, in other cases it was the look in their eye that showed you the man knew how to handle himself. But the man down there offered neither indicator. He wouldn’t be escaping his cell, let alone getting past the six men guarding him.
Needless to say, when the door of the distant building opened and a lone figure stepped onto the sidewalk, Sam’s first thought was that one of the guards was breaking protocol for a smoke. But even at six hundred yards, there was no mistaking the target’s haggard stance or the trouble he had walking. When the man bent over to retrieve something from a nearby pile of trash, Sam brought a set of field glasses to his eyes for a closer look.
“Sonofabitch,” he mumbled, watching the distant figure limp out into the street, steering wide of another pile of twisted and rusted metal wreckage.
The figure had his back to him, headed away from Sam. And though he wasn’t in danger of losing his shot anytime soon, Sam’s orders had been explicitly clear: He was to neutralize the target immediately upon acquisition. Failure to act
decisively could sacrifice the entire mission.
That had been the part of the assignment that stuck him as unusual. While Sam had executed dozens of sniper assignments over the years, the particulars surrounding this op had been unusual. First of all, the job was on American soil. That was a first in his experience. But more interesting had been his CO’s insistence that it was critical to take the kill shot as quickly as possible.
But why? Sam couldn’t see how a single unarmed individual limping down a distant street could possibly pose an imminent risk. At his current rate of movement, Sam expected the target to remain in range for at least another three minutes. Still, orders were orders, and he was nothing if not an obedient soldier.
Bringing the rifle to his shoulder, Sam rested the bipod on the improvised stand he’d prepared for just such a situation. The pair of short metal legs protruding from beneath the barrel of his rifle took the full weight of the gun off his hands and offered a rock solid and steady view through the scope. The crosshairs centered on the base of the distant target’s skull when the target suddenly stopped walking. His finger, already wrapped around the rifle’s trigger, eased a bit as Sam watched what his target would do next.
The man turned in a slow circle. Even at the great distance, Sam could see his target’s eyes scanning his surroundings. The man knew that something was wrong. But how?
When the distant figure turned north once more and began limping again at an increased rate, Sam took a deep breath. It was a strange experience, and it sent his CO’s explicit orders echoing through his mind once more.
Placing the crosshairs on the back of the target’s head for a second time, Sam’s fingertip slipped into place on the trigger. A gentle squeeze let loose a single round, and the weapon’s massive report seemed somehow intensified in the silence of the surrounding area.
Dangerous Minds: A Cyrus Cooper Thriller: Book One Page 18