“I have her,” Allison said. She sounded tired. “You’re not far from her.”
Rafe glanced at his watch out of habit. It was 7:26 p.m. He copied the address that Allison gave him as adrenaline spiked within him.
Chapter 23
D ressed for the night and the rain that blew nearly sideways, Rafe closed on the apartment building. The extra clothing was necessary in the galing winds and the rain, but it also helped hide the bulky Kevlar vest he wore and the pistol he carried at his hip. If he got caught with the weapon here on Chinese soil, he was going straight to prison.
If they didn’t put him in a pine box.
Cheerful thoughts, aren’t they? he chided himself. He slogged through the rain as he headed for the building’s main entrance.
Xiaoming flanked him. She was so slight he would have thought she’d have been blown away in the wind, but somehow she seemed to walk through it without being touched.
Hua was stationed on one of the nearby buildings with a sniper rifle. Jintao and Zhenrong covered the apartment building’s rear entrance. Xiyue drove the SUV and remained ready in case they needed to be exfiltrated.
All of them wore earwigs and remained in constant communication. Allison was also in the loop.
“Eyes,” Rafe said in Cantonese as he walked through the doorway. Rain dripped off him and left a wet spot in the hallway.
“Yes,” Hua responded.
“Anything?”
“No. I see no movement inside the room.”
“She was just there twenty minutes ago,” Allison said.
“Maybe she’s lying down.”
“I see the bed clearly,” Hua said. “She’s not there.”
“Maybe she’s taking a bath.”
The possibility reminded Rafe of the bubble-covered angel he’d seen in the tub at the hotel in Washington. Tension tightened his chest. He was thinking way too much about way too many things that weren’t even supposed to be on his radar.
“She didn’t come here to bathe,” Rafe growled. He went up the stairs. According to Allison, Shannon was on the third floor in the south beachside apartment.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” Xiaoming said.
Rafe felt embarrassed that the young woman had even felt moved to tell him that. He wasn’t acting completely professionally and he knew it. He hadn’t made it all the way back from North Korea yet.
Or being around Shannon, always on the periphery and knowing she was in danger, had jacked his thinking.
He made himself breathe out. Just chill. This is something you’ve done a hundred times.
On the third-story landing they stepped out of the stairwell together. The hallway was empty.
“Back door,” Rafe said.
“We’re here,” Jintao said.
“No sign of her,” Zhenrong added.
Rafe went straight for her door because there was no reason to beat around the bush. When he reached for the door, he discovered it was already open.
He looked back at Xiaoming as he drew his pistol. The young woman already had hers in hand. She nodded at him.
He pointed to himself, then pointed up. Then he pointed at her and pointed down.
Xiaoming nodded again.
“Door’s open,” Rafe whispered for Allison’s benefit. “Eyes.”
“I’m on the room,” Hua said.
Rafe silently hoped the woman wasn’t trigger-happy. He opened the door and went through. He stayed high while Xiaoming went low.
Covering each other as they went, Rafe and Xiaoming quickly scouted the room.
“She’s not here,” Rafe said in disgust. He holstered his weapon. “Control? Did you—”
“I heard you,” Allison said. “All I know is that when she was last on the phone, she was in that room.”
“Well, she’s gone now.”
The monsoon delivered rain in blinding sheets. For the most part, pedestrians and vehicles stayed off the streets. Restaurants and bars offered light and warmth against the night and the storm’s darkness and chill.
Clad in a nylon jacket, Shannon peered out from under the hood and made her way to The Mizzen, the restaurant where Kwan-Sook had arranged the interview. The restaurant’s interior had a distinct nautical theme and was definitely English in atmosphere.
She gave her name to the maître d’, then provided the false identification when asked. Once the man was satisfied Shannon was who she actually wasn’t, she followed him up to the second floor and the private dining room.
“Would you like a glass of wine?” the server asked.
Shannon briefly considered it, then declined. She wanted to be at her best. She asked for water.
Dr. Chow Bao was evidently late. But only by ten minutes.
“Please forgive me,” he said in unaccented English when he arrived. He hung a drenched umbrella on a peg on the wall. “The weather is atrocious.”
Shannon agreed.
The doctor was of medium height and a little paunchy. His black hair was longish and showing gray. He could have been anywhere from forty to sixty.
“You look like your picture,” he said, peering at her more closely. “Very beautiful. You have good bone structure.”
“Thank you.” The attention only slightly bothered Shannon. Television required being stared at intently a lot.
“Have you had a chance to study the menu?” Chow asked as he sat on the other side of the small table.
“Not for very long.”
“May I take the liberty of ordering for you? I know the cuisine here very well.” Chow smiled a little.
“Of course,” Shannon said.
Chow crooked a finger at the server, who’d been standing off to one side. He rattled off an order so fast that Shannon didn’t know for sure what she was getting.
“You’ll enjoy it,” Chow assured her.
Shannon liked the idea of a man ordering her dinner, but it usually worked best if the man doing the ordering knew her well enough to do it.
The server went away.
“Now, since our time here is precious,” Chow said, “perhaps we’d best get started.”
“Of course.” The man’s directness surprised Shannon.
“I’m told you represent a consortium of investors who would like to put money into my research.”
“Yes,” Shannon replied. That was the cover Kwan-Sook had told her she’d arranged.
“Would you mind telling me who some of them are?”
“I can’t go into names, Dr. Chow. I hope you understand.”
Chow smiled. “Understanding is not too important. The million-dollar endowment I was given to have this interview with you was quite convincing.”
Shannon was amazed. Kwan-Sook hadn’t mentioned that. A million-dollar signing bonus would be a big enticement. Not for the first time, she wondered about her mysterious benefactor.
“I’ve read a lot of papers on Dr. Peters’s work,” Shannon said, steering the conversation in the direction she wanted it to go. “He seems to have divided the genetic-engineering camp.”
Chow nodded and smiled like a genial grandfather. “Aldritch did. And he enjoyed the fact that what he was doing was a hot button for so many people. He liked having an audience and he liked starting controversy. Even more so when it was over something he’d started.”
Shannon reached into her pocket and used the speed-dial function on her phone to call Gary. When they’d talked earlier, he’d agreed to tape the interview.
Chow, like most scientists and deep thinkers Shannon had met, rambled on at length about the genetics field and the probable outcome of what geneticists would one day learn and how they would be able to improve the quality of life. It all sounded wonderful on paper, but she knew Chow was deliberately not addressing some of the technical problems of those successes.
She let him keep talking till the arrival of dinner. It was a fifteen-minute diatribe that she’d heard before. She’d also heard the diatribes of the naysayers. I
t was an issue that divided a lot of people and one about which she wasn’t sure how she felt.
Then she got down to the questions she’d come there to ask. It was time to nail the coffin shut on the Athena Academy once and for all.
Although he was seriously concerned about Shannon Connor’s welfare, Rafe forced himself to move slowly and thoroughly. He and Xiaoming searched the apartment in tandem without saying a word.
Xiaoming yanked the chest of drawers open one at a time, starting with the bottom and working her way up. It was a technique an experienced investigator used. Rafe knew that because the NSA had trained him.
They didn’t speak.
Rafe concentrated on the contents of the closet. He’d already linked the computer in the room to the satellite-driven Internet so that Allison could plunder its contents.
Then Xiaoming said, “This is interesting.”
Rafe turned to her. “What?”
Xiaoming held up a wispy babydoll negligee. “You said she was here alone?”
“Yeah.” Rafe stared at the garment and imagined that outfit on Shannon. His mouth was suddenly dry. He silently cursed himself for his reaction.
“Then she was meeting someone.” Xiaoming studied the garment. “Someone I’d say she wanted to make an impression on.”
Jealousy burned inside Rafe. He had to force it aside and only managed that by thinking of the attack on Shannon at the airport. Whoever the other party was that was tracking her wasn’t pulling any punches.
You can’t afford any distractions, he told himself. If you get distracted, you can’t help her.
“What do you think?” Xiaoming looked at him.
Rafe wondered what Allison had told the woman and he wondered if Allison had sabotaged him to some degree. Maybe he was the stalking horse leading Allison’s team to Shannon. Evidently there was a lot at stake that he didn’t know about.
He had to make himself believe in Allison, but he knew that Allison was as motivated in her own way as he was. Possibly even more so.
“What do I think?” Rafe growled. “I think that if that flimsy excuse for underwear doesn’t have a map and directions for finding Shannon Connor, it isn’t a whole lot of help.”
Xiaoming smiled, folded the negligee neatly and returned it to the drawer. She continued working.
“I have her again,” Allison said over the earwig. “She’s on her phone and staying in place.”
Thunder boomed outside and made the balcony doors jump in their runners. Lightning streaked the sky as the wind howled.
“Where?” Rafe asked.
“Not far from your position. I’ll lock you in as you go. Get moving.”
But Rafe already was—and he was hoping he wouldn’t be too late.
Chapter 24
“A ccording to the files I was given,” Shannon said, “Dr. Peters was convinced he could improve upon the basic human design.”
“Yes. He was. He’d found a way to do it. I worked with him on the early permutations of the work. It was brilliant. Simply brilliant. He started working with egg harvesting long before anyone else did. Removing them from the uterus of the donor, fertilizing them and replacing them within surrogate mothers—all those things were done well ahead of many practitioners. Only Aldritch did all those people one better.”
“He tampered with the genetic coding.”
Chow grinned. “Tampered? No, he gave more promise to the idea of what it is to be human—or more than human—than anyone ever had before. People seeking to correct the DNA of diseased patients or eliminate particular illnesses or defects owe a lot to what Aldritch perfected.” He shook his head. “He was just clearly ahead of his time. More to the point, he was working ahead of the moral compass points of the world at large. Anyone seriously working in this field is doing that.”
“And he broke the law. He was conducting illegal genetic experiments at Lab 33.”
Chow hesitated. “Yes. But the news that was released regarding that matter was skewed. People heard about the experimentation, but they didn’t hear about his successes.”
“What successes?”
“Imagine,” Chow said more quietly and intensely, “if you can, what it would be like to be able to pay for extra abilities for your child.”
“Like intelligence, strength and speed?”
“More than that, Miss Connor. Suppose you were able to graft on abilities that people have never before had.”
“Like what?”
“The ability to heal more quickly. The ability to breathe underwater.” Chow shook his head. “So many things that we take for granted in other creatures and simply think we can’t do. The possibilities are staggering. Of course, one of the downfalls of his work was that the DNA resequencing could only be done with females. The Y chromosome just throws everything out of kilter. There are even some who believe the male of the species is gradually being bred out of the human race.”
“Did you ever think Dr. Peters would succeed in those experiments?”
Chow laughed. “Think?” He shook his head. “Aldritch created some of those changes in the lab where I worked with him. I helped him implant the first three egg-babies he created in that lab. This was before he was allowed to use harvested human eggs at Lab 33.”
“Why was the lab located next to the Athena Academy?” Shannon asked, though now she feared she knew the answer.
“Because of the girls, of course. Aldritch needed a steady supply of eggs. He could get plenty of surrogates, but young donors—girls who didn’t have the threat of sexual disease or genetic damage or even age—were hard to come by. Third World countries weren’t the answer because most of those children aren’t healthy enough.”
Shannon thought she was going to be sick, but she hid those feelings behind a mask of self-control.
“You just don’t always get a good genetic sampling in Third World countries,” Chow went on. “No, the answer was to use American girls. The genetic diversity is stronger there, and the overall care is much better. Lab 33, located in the Phoenix area—which was then, and still is, largely unpolluted by today’s accepted levels of toxicity—was one of the perfect places to find donors.”
The cold, blunt way Chow stated his case offended Shannon on so many levels she almost couldn’t react quickly enough to shut them down. She’d interviewed other people who had the same lack of qualms when it came to the lives of others. They weren’t just politicians, either. They were economists, sports figures, celebrities and others. Even other journalists.
“When that location was made available to him,” Chow said,
“along with the girls’ academy and government protection—though that turned out not to be as great as he’d been led to believe—Aldritch relocated his work immediately.”
A cold chill washed through Shannon and suffused the rage and sickness she’d been experiencing. “Eggs were harvested from the girls at the school?”
“That was the plan, yes. I don’t know if Aldritch actually did that, but I wouldn’t have put it past him. The American military general, Eric Pace, was very much a part of the decision to move Lab 33. Until that time, Aldrich had only been able to work with a few human test subjects.”
“The reports I read didn’t mention that.”
“It was horrid. Most of the babies that he worked with at the time aborted naturally. Only a few drew a breath of fresh air. Most of them didn’t live long.”
“You had a working relationship with Dr. Peters as he developed the process.”
“I did.”
“What broke that relationship?”
Chow put his knife and fork away. “The things that usually destroy good partnerships among scientists. Ego and money. Aldritch didn’t care to share either.” He spread his hands and shook his head. “I should have seen the writing on the wall when Aldritch forced me to dismiss my staff. Some of my people had been with me for years. It was a very sad occasion. I was left without the funding and access to resources I needed to contin
ue my studies. You can’t investigate the nature of life itself, like Dr. Frankenstein did in those ghastly movies. You need a proper lab and materials.”
Shannon thought Chow sounded more broken up over losing the funding than losing his people.
“Aldritch also felt threatened,” Chow said. “My own studies were approaching the level of his. I have to admit, I learned a lot from him. But I was also developing procedures that were mine. With the funding I get from your people, I’ll be able to enhance everything Aldritch Peters was doing.”
Shannon’s phone vibrated against her thigh, signaling an incoming call. She debated answering the phone, then chose to at least check to see who was calling.
While Chow was going on at length about how he was hoping to graft DNA strands, Shannon pulled her phone out and checked caller ID.
It was the L.A. number Kwan-Sook was using.
Shannon slipped the phone from her slacks while Chow turned his attention to his wine.
“Hello?”
“You’ve got to get out of there,” Kwan-Sook said breathlessly. The beeping in the background sounded more agitated. “They’ve found you.”
“Who?”
“Allison Gracelyn and Rafe Santorini.”
Shannon was stunned. “How?”
“I don’t know yet. Dr. Chow has his phone turned off or he’s forgotten it again. Get him out of there and—”
At that moment a ruby dot centered on Chow’s forehead. He was smiling at Shannon, patiently waiting for her to turn her attention back to him.
Shannon knew what the red dot signified. She’d been around the military on different interviews. Laser spotting scopes were mounted on several kinds of weapons.
“Get down!” Shannon yelled as she tried to get up from her chair and go to Chow. It was only then that she realized she might have a similar ruby dot on the back of her head.
Chow’s smile went away. Then the top of his head went away in a violent rush of blood and bone. Slowly, almost comically, he fell over backward in his chair.
Shannon threw herself to the floor and resisted the urge to curl up on the floor. She had to get out. Then she saw the ruby dot sliding across the floor toward her….
Beneath the Surface Page 18