Demérs paused in the middle of his sentence, his evil grin growing even larger.
“I’m just like you.”
Daniel almost fell backwards at the revelation that he was never the first person to have the abilities that he did. All this time, he was never better than Gordon Demérs at all. In fact, he was just somehow being played by him.
“I’m pretty sure I can’t stop a bullet with my bare skin,” Daniel pointed out.
“Oh, that’s just because I never showed you how,” Horchoff jumped in.
The doctor then shrugged. “I didn’t want you to be more powerful than Gordie in case we had to kill you. Unfortunate, I admit. I really did like working with you. But we have a plan to evolve society for the greater good. You understand.”
Daniel’s mouth dropped open, wondering how such an ingenious medical doctor could be so small minded.
And why was he calling Demérs Gordie?
“Actually, I don’t understand, that’s why we’re here having this conversation,” Daniel retorted.
The doctor opened his mouth and held up a finger, as if giving Daniel the point.
“So what?” Daniel asked, still entirely confused as to the how or why, “Did you just decide to do you experiment on your own son? To upgrade him? Was he not good enough for you?”
Daniel felt his voice start to quiver as he finished his question. He no longer knew up from down, and the stress was starting to severely weigh on him.
“No, no,” Horchoff corrected rather innocently. “Gordie here was born this way. I merely wanted to recreate it in an already living human subject.”
Demérs shot Horchoff an irritated glance, letting the doctor know that he didn’t appreciate all of the information he was volunteering.
Then Demérs turned his attention back to Daniel, noticing a surprising amount of vulnerability in his young counterpart that he had not expected.
“Maybe it’s not too late,” Demérs commented, stepping over to Daniel.
“There are so many things you can do that you don’t even realize Daniel,” Demérs spoke to him softly. “I can show you. I’ve lived with this my whole life. Without a medical background you can’t even begin to understand your full potential.
“And we’ll create more like us. My father has the capability now, thanks to you and Chuck Richfield. We needed his resources from his days in the CIA to make this all possible, along with someone like you who had a will strong enough to embrace the change. Come with me. You are strong, you are special, you are Elite. Join me on my throne.”
Daniel felt an unavoidable scowl form on his face. He was disgusted by the idea that Demérs felt himself worthy of some mythical “throne” as if he were a divine ruler.
On the other hand, following Demérs into that helicopter may have been the only way to extend his life at the moment. He knew now that there was no way to defeat Demérs in one on one combat.
No, he decided. That would be a fate worse than death. Demérs was right, he was able to become what he was because of his extraordinary will. He would accept his fate now and let the FBI and Richfield find a way to finish Demérs. It was like he’d said, as long as they were both alive Jordan and his family would never be safe. At least with his death they would be.
Demérs didn’t need a verbal response to see that Daniel was not going to accept his offer. Suddenly his evil grin turned to wicked scowl, and the muscles in his body all started to tense. Daniel closed his eyes and prepared to accept his fate.
“Gordie!” Horchoff shouted to his son.
Daniel opened his eyes to see Demérs standing with his own eyes widened. He immediately seemed to forget about Daniel and turned to retrieve his bags. Both he and Horchoff then dashed out the back door toward the helicopter.
Daniel turned to see what had frightened them off. Out of the window he saw an army of black SUVs and a SWAT vehicle barreling toward the mansion. Daniel dropped to his knees and bowed his head. He never believed he’d be so happy to see a police raid coming for him.
Out the back door he heard the helicopter start to take off into the air. He saw men in bullet proof vests with yellow lettering that read “FBI” on the front hanging out of the SUVs and firing automatic weapons into the air. From what he could hear it didn’t sound as though any of the shots were enough to cripple the chopper. As the FBI vehicles pulled up to the front of the house and men and women wearing both bullet proof vests and black tactical gear like his own poured out and surrounded the house, he could hear the sound of the helicopter fading away in the background.
“We have the house surrounded!” a man yelled from outside the front door.
“Well come on in!” Daniel replied sarcastically.
Two second later a battering ram came smashing through one of the heavy wooden front doors and sent it tumbling to the ground. Five agents in full tactical then rushed in through the door, followed by three agents wearing only vests.
Two of the men in tactical pointed their weapons at Daniel’s head, each taking position on either side of Daniel.
“Hands on your head!” one of them ordered.
Daniel reluctantly did as he was told, not very appreciative of being made to feel like the bad guy—although all things considered he truly understood why they might think that. He was after all outfitted to kill a man.
The third vested agent through the door was a woman that Daniel recognized. As soon as she saw him, Agent Stone holstered her gun behind her back and hurried toward Daniel.
“I’ve got him,” she said, calling off the two men with their guns aimed at Daniel’s head.
“Are you sure?” One responded.
“Absolutely,” she replied. “I wouldn’t have ordered you to leave him to me otherwise.”
“I’m sorry about before,” Daniel told her sheepishly, unsure why he felt now was a good time to apologize. “Wasn’t my idea.”
“I know,” Eva responded with a hint of a smirk as she handcuffed his hands behind his back. “Get up.”
Daniel did as he was told and got up off his knees.
“I have a lot to tell you,” Daniel confessed to the agent. He knew he had been told not to speak to the FBI, but at the moment Daniel was so grateful for their intrusion that he was ready to sing like a canary. “I’m working for Richfield to stop Demérs.”
“Yeah,” Eva responded with uncertainty. “I might not mention that back at H.Q. when you talk to the director.”
“What?” Daniel asked, not happy to be even further confused. “Richfield told me he knows Harvell. Look, we’re all on the same side here.”
Forcefully, Eva shoved Daniel forward and led him out the door to one of the near SUVs.
“Perkins,” she called to one of the agents who appeared to have no real responsibilities at the moment.
A somewhat stouter man in a vest turned to receive his orders.
“Back to H-Q, now,” she ordered.
Perkins followed her orders and ran around to the driver’s seat of the car. Eva climbed in the back next to Daniel.
“I think we have a lot more to tell you than you have to tell us.”
Chapter 12
The metal chair beneath him was cold, and immensely uncomfortable. He tried to readjust himself without hindering Eva as she placed a new set of handcuffs around his wrists. These cuffs were bound to the heavy metal table in front of him. The chain that connected each wristlet ran through a steel loop that was bolted to the table. Both the chair in which he sat and the table he was now chained to were bolted to the floor.
“You know this isn’t necessary,” he told Eva as she latched the right cuff to his wrist. “If I wanted to go somewhere I wouldn’t have given myself up at the mansion.”
As she stood up to examine her work Daniel attempted to lift his arms. They rose up only a few inches off the table before he was restricted by the metal bracket that kept the handcuffs and whoever was attached to them from wandering too far. He looked up at Eva to assure her th
at the cuffs would serve their purpose, although he was pretty sure that if he really wanted to he could snap the chain that held them together.
“You might change your mind after you hear what the director has to say,” she replied.
“Why?” Daniel retorted, now feeling a twinge of panic. “What’s he going to say?”
Two guards entered the room, each dressed in the black tactical gear the swat team had been wearing back at the Benze estate. They took up positions on either side of the door, both holding automatic weapons strapped to their chests.
“He’ll be in in a few minutes,” Eva told him, a heinous grin on her face. She then turned and started for the door.
“Wait,” Daniel pleaded. “Eva!”
The slender female agent stopped in her tracks. She turned slowly and gave a warning glance to Daniel. “Agent Stone,” she stated. She appeared to also be attempting to send some sort of urgent telepathic message to Daniel.
“Agent Stone…” Daniel repeated, growing ever more curious of the agent.
When she was satisfied all was settled, she whipped her dark hair around and exited the small interrogation room, slamming the door behind her.
Daniel smiled. There was something about Agent Eva Stone that he liked very much. She was quirky—the name change thing had proven that. She reminded him a bit of a female version of Charlie. It must have been an FBI thing. He couldn’t help but want to know more about her—why she was the way she was.
It also didn’t hurt that she was incredibly beautiful.
“I think I’ve got a thing for her,” Daniel said aloud to the two men guarding him, never removing his gaze from the door.
“Stone?” one of the guards asked cynically. “Pssh, no way man. That’ll never happen, trust me.”
Daniel turned his attention to the guard to his right, pleasantly surprised by his willingness to turn Daniel’s inappropriate comment into a conversation.
The guard was a bulky white guy with moppy brown hair that began to curl when it reached ear length. Everything about his head was very wide, from his chin to his nose. He looked to Daniel like a lineman on a college football team.
“And why is that?” Daniel asked the guard in an overly curious tone.
“Agent Stone doesn’t go for the brawny…manly…field agent type,” he replied with a shrug, as though he had recently browsed through her online dating profile.
Daniel raised an eyebrow at the man. “I’m not an agent.”
“Yeah,” the other guard responded with a laugh, “Not yet anyway.”
Daniel turned his head obnoxiously toward the other guard. He was leaner than the first, but close to the same height. Where the other guard’s face was square shaped, this guard’s was more rectangular, and rather than a moppy hairdo he was sporting a buzzcut. Daniel also noticed small traces of stubble on his cheeks.
He must be the quarterback, Daniel thought to himself.
“What does that mean?” Daniel questioned. “What do you know?”
The guard opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by a “Tsst tsst,” from his partner.
“We shouldn’t be telling him stuff,” the wider framed guard said through his teeth.
The thinner guard nodded sheepishly and regathered himself. “You know,” he said, raising his hand palm-up toward Daniel, “you just look like you could be is all.”
Daniel smirked, not sure whether he should take the comment as a compliment.
“I don’t think I quite have the wherewithal to be an FBI agent,” he confessed. “But thanks.”
The bulky guard let out an audible breath that suggested he disagreed.
“What?” Daniel inquired.
The guard rolled his eyes and turned to Daniel. “It’s not like it’s complicated. You just run around solving crimes and shooting people. Nothing so special about that.”
Daniel leaned back in his uncomfortable metal chair as if insulted by the guard’s evaluation of what it was to be an FBI field agent.
“I think there’s probably a little bit more to it than running around solving crimes and shooting people,” he refuted.
“No…that about covers it,” the thinner guard said in complete seriousness, turning his head and nodding toward his partner in agreement.
Daniel laughed quietly and dropped his head. He hadn’t a clue why these two knuckleheads had been assigned to guard him or even how they had made it this far in their particular field, but he was glad. These guys were entertaining.
“Well in that case…” he conceded.
Daniel used the lull in the conversation to familiarize himself with his surroundings. Looking around the small, square room, there wasn’t very much to it. The floor was some sort of white tile, the ceilings were a generic white drop ceiling, and the walls were covered in some kind of grey paneling. The only objects in the room were the table and two metal chairs, one on each side of the table. Unlike Daniel’s, the other was not bolted to the floor.
The fluorescent lighting reflected off of the white floor, causing the room to feel much brighter than Daniel would have expected out of an interrogation room. There was also something else that seemed to be missing.
Daniel turned his head to ask the thinner guard a question. “Shouldn’t there be a two-way mirror in here or something?”
“No, we don’t actually do that here,” he replied. “We have cameras instead.” The guard lifted his right index finger and pointed to a security camera in the front left corner of the room.
“Huh,” Daniel responded.
“Yeah I know, kinda weird,” the guard added.
Daniel nodded out of politeness and began scanning the room again simply because he had nothing better to do. There was now a somewhat awkward silence filling the room, and Daniel was becoming more anxious to meet with the director.
“You ever wondered why the call them two way mirrors?” The stockier guard asked to no one in particular.
“What’s that?” Daniel responded, turning his attention to the guard.
“Why two way?” he repeated. “As far as being a mirror, it only goes one way. And as a window it only goes one way. Why call it a two way anything?”
“Yeah, that’s a good point,” the other guard responded, staring at the floor as if he had just made some groundbreaking discovery.
Daniel responded by simply scrunching up his mouth and brow as if thinking deeply about why that might be. He had to admit, it was a good point.
The question was not met with an answer, but rather a few more moments of awkward silence. Then, randomly, Daniel remembered an earlier part of their conversation.
“So wait a minute then,” he began his thought, pausing a brief moment so that the guards could finish their own thoughts and join in his, “are you guys not FBI then?”
“Well…” the bulky guard started.
“No,” the thinner guard cut in, turning to his partner for approval.
“Well, yes,” the bigger guard countered, returning the thinner guard’s glance. He then continued his explanation. “You see, we’re not really…”
The guard was suddenly cut off by the door to the room flying open. Both guards immediately jumped to attention.
Into the room walked Agent Eva Stone, and she was led by a tall, lengthy African-American man with a pointy and very shiny bald head. He was wearing the traditional black suit with a white shirt and thin black tie that most people associated with the FBI.
The man held the door open while Agent Stone walked through, bringing her own chair along with her. Once she was inside the man dismissed the two guards.
“I never even knew their names,” Daniel commented as the man gently closed the door behind them.
Eva set her chair in its place on the side of the table to Daniel’s left. The thin man in the suit then walked over and dropped a file folder onto the table.
“Mr. Hart,” he said, preparing to introduce himself as he removed his jacket and hung it up on the back of the las
t remaining chair.
“Well I prefer Doctor Hart, but seeing as I don’t have a Ph.D. or a medical license I suppose mister will have to do,” Daniel replied, unsure of his sudden need for sarcasm.
The man sat down across from Daniel, folding his hands in front of him and staring intently at the man he held in custody. His nose and mouth were narrow, and the whites of his eyes stood out against his dark skin.
“Sorry,” Daniel said in shame. “I make jokes when I get nervous.”
The agent chose to disregard everything Daniel had said to that moment and instead carried on with his own agenda. “My name is Deputy Director Tom Harvell.” He reached down and opened the file in front of him. “Agent Stone tells me we have a lot to talk about.”
Daniel nodded his head in affirmation. “I suppose you already know that Gordon Demérs shares my abilities.”
“Indeed,” Director Harvell confirmed.
“Then maybe you can explain to me why it is that he needed Horchoff’s experiment to work on me when he already had everything he wanted,” Daniel said in a disgruntled tone.
“Because,” Harvell began, “Gordon Demérs was born with his abilities. His father—Doctor Joseph Horchoff—spent his entire childhood trying to determine what it was that had caused his son to be born with such extraordinary abilities, but he was never able to isolate the gene that led to the production of his extra neural pathways.
“Once Gordon grew older and the Birthright discovered the young man’s abilities, they saw him as a sort of savior—their chosen one, so to speak. They saw an opportunity to grow in physical power—enough to put into action a revolution which they had spent generations planning. They demanded that Horchoff find a way to create more like his son, and after spending years trying to unlock the genetic secrets within his own son, he deduced that it would be far easier for him to develop a way to install the physical components that made his son unique into an already developed mind. You are the product of that work.”
Elite 2: The Wrong Side of Revolution Page 15