by Vanessa Kier
Gabby fought back a laugh. “Ra-afe,” she chided. “I can’t stay here forever. I have work to do. Work to make you better.”
Rafe pouted. Honest to God, the man stuck out his bottom lip just like a little boy. It was so endearing, she wanted to kiss him. Instead, she forced herself to think like a scientist, chalking this up as another sign of his personality returning. Secretly hoping this meant their treatment was working.
“Want Gab-by,” Rafe insisted.
Gabby shook her head and sighed, but inside she felt lighter than she had in weeks. “Rafe, I’ll stay until you fall asleep, okay? And I promise I’ll come back tomorrow. Here, take your bear back.”
Rafe accepted the bear, placing it on his chest. “Still want Gab-by stay.”
“I can’t do that. But wait—” She reached back, pulled the scrunchie from her hair, and slipped the elastic over his wrist. “You hold this for me until I see you again.”
She checked the fit to make sure the elastic wouldn’t cut off his circulation. Even worn and stretched out, the elastic barely fit around his thick wrist. “Okay?”
Rafe tightened his grip on her hand and put his other hand behind his head. “Rafe no sleep,” he said confidently. “Gab-by no go.”
Clever, but he’d lose this one. His body had started to reclaim the need for sleep that had been submerged by Kaufmann’s drugs. Rafe now averaged about five hours a night up from the one hour he’d slept the first night here. To help the cause along, they fed him a carefully calibrated sedative with his dinner. She figured she had at most half an hour before the drug took him under. Until then, she’d enjoy the warmth of his calloused palm against hers, and treasure each sign that the old Rafe was returning.
Chapter 18
Gabby stared at the blood smear through the microscope. With a sigh, she admitted that the sample on the slide wasn’t going to change just because she wanted it to. Damn it, the new formula they’d tried wasn’t helping Rafe. It wasn’t hurting him, either, but right now she desperately needed a breakthrough. After five days on this regimen, Rafe had regained enough cognition to be able to understand his situation and feel hope.
She refused to be the one who told him he wasn’t closer to being fully cured.
The image on the slide blurred and wavered, like a mirage. She blinked several times in succession, and when that didn’t sharpen her vision, she swiped a hand across her eyes. To her surprise, her hand came away damp.
A tear trickled down her cheek and fell on top of the microscope.
Stop it! Don’t you dare give up.
There had to be a formula that would break the block on Rafe’s intelligence. Stopping Kaufmann’s steroid based drugs and applying one of her new formulas to counter Agent Styx had reduced Rafe’s rages. Some of his cognitive skills had returned. He spoke now in full sentences, although at an elementary school level. Made his own decisions, although with none of the complex strategizing he’d once been known for.
Gabby wasn’t going to give up until he could once again hold a rapid conversation with her. Until he once again teased her and embarrassed her with double entendres. Until he could lead a team of SSU operators again.
She glanced at the flashing red light on her phone. Ryker had called again today, stressing how critical it was to get the location of Kaufmann’s lab from Rafe. Apparently Kaufmann’s subjects were soon going to launch a major attack. Ryker said he couldn’t give Gabby details, but the key to stopping the attack was to shut down Kaufmann’s program and get all of the subjects into treatment. Hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people would die if the attack wasn’t stopped.
While she understood the urgency of the situation, Gabby wouldn’t rush Rafe. Each time someone questioned him about the coordinates of the lab, he flew into a rage and tried to kill the questioner. For hours after, Rafe would be in a near catatonic state. Gabby had finally insisted that no one mention the lab to Rafe. Trying to force the issue only set his progress back. Making Rafe feel safe and accepting him with his current limits, would, she believed, help his memory return in time. In the meantime, she needed to get his intelligence back up to normal.
Gabby rubbed at her temples and arched her back, easing muscles tight from hours standing at her workstation. The answer was here somewhere. She just had to try harder. She placed another slide on the microscope, comparing the results from a previous version of the drug.
Maybe if she—
“You’re going to collapse if you don’t get some sleep, Gabby.”
Gabby spun around so fast, she almost fell over and proved Kai right. “Where’d you come from?” she demanded. Pain lanced through her chest as she remembered Rafe sneaking up on her, and how that had led to their first kiss.
Kai just smiled.
She was so used to seeing him in his lab coat that she forget he was an SSU agent as well as a scientist. He’d worked undercover for years. He was trained to move silently.
Kai’s smile faded as he studied her. “Working yourself into the ground isn’t going to bring him back any faster. When you’re this exhausted, you’re more likely to miss something. Let it go for the night. You’ll do better once you’re rested.”
“I—” Gabby’s voice broke and she looked away, embarrassed. She picked at a scorched spot on the counter. “Every time I leave the lab I feel like I’m abandoning him,” she said quietly. “I can’t…” She shook her head and a few tears broke loose, wetting her cheeks. She kept her head averted, hiding behind the fall of her hair and hoping Kai wouldn’t notice she was crying.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like for him,” she continued, “being trapped in a body that’s so much faster and stronger than normal but unable to communicate any better than a seven-year-old.” Kai made a sound of sympathy and somehow she found herself looking up and meeting his compassionate amber eyes.
“Kai, how does he stand it? Because he knows. I’ve seen the frustration and hopelessness on his face.” She squeezed her eyes closed against the pain of failure. A flood of tears spilled over her lids and cascaded down her face.
“Hopelessness. From Rafe. He used to be so confident. So optimistic.” She gave up pretending she wasn’t crying and swiped her hands down her face.
“Yeah, that was Rafe,” Kai said. “Never met a situation or a person he couldn’t turn to his advantage with a smile or a joke.”
His words conjured up memories of Rafe’s smile. Of the sheer love of life he’d exuded. Of the mischievous glint in his eye before he’d made some outrageous statement.
Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was her own helplessness, but Gabby lost it. No more silent tears for her. She started sobbing noisily, her whole body shaking.
“Hey. Hey, there.” Kai pulled her off her stool and into his embrace. “We all love him, Gabby. We’re not going to let Kaufmann win. No matter what it takes, we will get Rafe back. I promise.”
She nodded against his chest, even though right now, that seemed as impossible as her sprouting wings and flying toward the moon.
CIA Headquarters
Langley, VA
Mark Tonelli knocked on the unmarked door. He’d been working as part of the CIA’s In-House Projects department for several months now, and been a member of IHP Director Wayne Jamieson’s private black ops group Kerberos for a couple of weeks, but this was the first time he’d been summoned to Jamieson’s office. It was tucked away in an area with little traffic, giving Jamieson the privacy he craved.
Mark didn’t even have his own office yet. Not that it had really mattered until recently. He’d been in Russia until just a few days ago, tidying up loose ends regarding the dismantling of a Russian lab run by Dr. Ivanov, and siphoning off as many of the research notes as he could for Kerberos.
As the door buzzed open, Mark walked inside.
The room was as opulent as he expected from a man with Jamieson’s arrogance. Rich cherry bookcases and desk, a thick Persian carpet covering the floor, and dark leather chairs with bras
s studs. What did surprise Mark was the reproduction of the Mona Lisa hanging on the wall to Jamieson’s left.
For a second Mark felt trapped by her eyes, as if she knew the secrets he carried and found them pathetically amusing. He shook off the odd sensation and turned to greet his boss.
Jamieson stood behind the desk. He held the phone to his ear while with his free hand he tapped the tip of a pen impatiently on the blotter. With a little jolt, Mark realized this was the first time he’d seen the man in person. All their previous interaction had been over the phone.
For a man in his early seventies, Jamieson still appeared to be in vigorous good health. He stood about five foot ten, with a slender frame that would have appeared fragile on a man exuding less energy. But Jamieson crackled with power. And anger. Even from several feet away Mark could feel the fury pouring off his boss. His ice blue eyes were narrowed and his thin lips flattened angrily with each syllable.
“No more excuses,” Jamieson barked into the phone. Then he slammed the receiver down. The brooding look he shot Mark had the hairs on the back of his neck rising.
“The microchip you brought out of Ivanov’s lab wasn’t Nevsky’s,” Jamieson informed him. “And the Russian scientists aren’t cooperating with Dr. Kaufmann.”
Mark ignored the chill at the base of his spine. “I did say that I wasn’t certain Ivanov had been honest with me about the microchip,” he said with what he hoped was the right shade of disdain. “Even a dying man isn’t guaranteed to tell the truth.”
Of course, he’d known all along the chip was a fake. The SSU’s Kai Paterson had swallowed the real microchip during the fight in Ivanov’s lab. Before the SSU shut the place down and turned it over to the Russian authorities, Mark had grabbed a similar microchip he’d seen in a data reader, hoping it contained enough scientific data to fool Kaufmann. A risk worth taking in order to slide back into Jamieson’s good graces.
Waiting with raised eyebrow to see where Jamieson was heading with his comments, Mark hoped the failure of the two Russian scientists to cooperate with Kaufmann wouldn’t ruin his plans. Retrieving Nevsky’s microchip had been his admission price into Kerberos. He wasn’t going to let Jamieson kick him out of the organization now.
“Lucky for you the information you brought me on that other matter proved invaluable, or I’d be wondering why I didn’t make certain you were killed in Brazil,” Jamieson said.
Mark didn’t let his surprise show on his face. He’d suspected that the assassination team he’d run afoul of on his assignment in Brazil had been sent by Jamieson, but he’d never expected his boss to admit it. So what game was Jamieson playing now? Softening Mark up by hinting that all was forgiven? Mark could work with that. Just as long as he remained part of Kerberos.
Mark had spent the past several weeks proving his usefulness to Jamieson. When his boss stated that retrieving Nevsky’s chip was no longer enough to gain Mark entry into Kerberos, Mark had played along and asked what else he could do. Jamieson had hinted that he funded a scientific program similar to Nevsky’s, and that it could use some new researchers.
So Mark had arranged for two of Ivanov’s scientists to escape from jail in Moscow and sent them to Jamieson along with as many notes from the lab as he could gather. He wasn’t a scientist. He didn’t understand the notes, so he didn’t know if what he’d provided to Jamieson had been valuable. He’d also taken half the notes he accessed and sent them to the SSU, along with copies of all the notes he’d passed on to Jamieson.
Luckily, Jamieson didn’t realize Mark had a new agenda. His boss still thought he was the same ambitious man of a month ago. The man driven by two things: the need to avenge his father’s death, and the need for such power that he’d never again feel as helpless as he had when his father died in his arms.
Before his visit to Ivanov’s lab, Mark would have looked around this office and immediately started plotting the best way to take Jamieson’s place. But the hours he’d spent at the Russian lab had changed him profoundly.
Ivanov had been proud that he’d succeeded in forcing men to commit acts that went against their personal moral code. Mark shivered. He’d thought himself immune to morality. He was the ultimate survivor, willing to commit any act to further his own agenda. Eight-year-old Mark had survived on the streets of Moscow because he’d been meaner and faster than the competition. And because he hadn’t been squeamish about doing what was necessary to bring him the money to buy food for his ailing mother.
But watching the horrified anguish in a man’s eyes as he killed his brother, unable to fight against the orders of the doctors who had him under mind control, had touched the conscience Mark thought long dead. What a shock to discover he still possessed a fragile moral code after all. Taking away a man’s free will just to turn him into a killing machine was wrong. Mark felt a flash of sympathy for Rafe Andros. He’d learned that the SSU agent had been caught and put through Dr. Kaufmann’s program.
A program Mark now realized that abused its subjects in the same way that Ivanov had. Which left Mark with the moral responsibility—he nearly gagged at the word, it was such a foreign concept—to shut down Kaufmann’s lab. And to do that, he had to destroy both Kerberos and Jamieson.
Given Jamieson’s power and the secrecy surrounding Kerberos, Mark’s best shot was to undermine the organization from within. Then, once he’d secured the name of his father’s murderer, he’d bring the SSU in to finish the job.
“You spent time at the SSU,” Jamieson commented, indicating that Mark should sit down.
Mark nodded cautiously. A few months ago, he’d been part of an inter-agency exchange program between the SSU and the CIA and had worked with freaky Jenna Paterson on an assignment in Moscow. He moved toward the armchair closest to the desk. As he lowered himself onto the seat, a flash of bronze next to the phone caught his eye.
Only decades of deception saved him from giving away his shock. It was ingrained in him to keep his gaze moving, never allowing an opponent to see what had caught his attention. Slowly, as if nothing was wrong, as if his world hadn’t just shifted on its axis, Mark sat down.
“The SSU has become an increasing threat to Kerberos,” Jamieson said. “I want your help in destroying them. In particular, we need to eliminate Rafe Andros and any other escapees from Kaufmann’s program. I need you to tell me everything you remember about the SSU’s security and the layout of their compound.”
Mark nodded, glad that Jamieson appeared unaware that the only reason Mark had been allowed to leave Russia with the scientists was because he’d struck a bargain with the SSU.
But Mark’s attention wasn’t really on Jamieson’s words. His peripheral vision confirmed what he’d thought he’d seen. A small, bronze, Etruscan horse with a dent on its left shoulder sat next to Jamieson’s telephone.
Mark had last seen the figurine in his father’s hand. It had been his father’s good luck charm, handed down through the family for generations. But the little horse had been missing from his father’s pocket the night his tortured, barely alive body had been dumped on their front lawn.
Mark had been desolate, desperately wanting the horse as a reminder of his father. Many years later, when he’d tracked down and killed the mobsters who’d kidnapped and tortured his father, Mark had demanded to know where the horse figurine was. They’d claimed ignorance with their last breath.
Now he understood why. All his martial instincts flared to life as he realized he was in the middle of a game with far deadlier implications than he’d anticipated. Jamieson had lied to him. Promised that in return for Nevsky’s microchip, Jamieson would give Mark the name of the man who’d ordered the death of Mark’s father.
His father had been a prominent judge in Massachusetts who’d earned the enmity of the mob, so no one questioned the investigators’ conclusion that his death had been a mob hit. Yet no one had ever been arrested. No one had been made to pay until Mark had joined the CIA and developed the skills necessary to ferret
out and destroy the men he believed were responsible. Then Jamieson had hinted that the real mastermind still lived.
Mark had been played. All along the guilty party was Jamieson.
He wondered if today’s summons was deliberate. Did his boss intend for Mark to see the horse? Was it supposed to be a warning that Mark was as disposable as his father had been?
Cold, hard determination settled in his stomach. No matter what he had to do, his goal had now changed. It wasn’t enough just to shut down Kaufmann’s lab and Kerberos.
Jamieson had to die.
Jamieson watched Tonelli leave the office. The man continued to surprise him. After Moscow, and Jamieson’s decision to give the man another chance, Tonelli’s attitude had remained as arrogant and ambitious as always. He appeared to be the same conscienceless man. Someone willing to do whatever necessary to get ahead. Yet the expression on Tonelli’s face had flickered briefly into disgust when Jamieson had described Kaufmann’s work.
Jamieson picked up the bronze horse and rubbed his thumb along the dent in its shoulder, trying to figure out the cause of Tonelli’s disgust. The man hadn’t visited Kaufmann’s lab or seen any of the subjects at their worst, so there was no reason for the reluctance Jamieson sensed in him about becoming further involved in Kerberos.
Most likely, Tonelli had seen something at Ivanov’s lab that he couldn’t stomach, and he’d rightly concluded that Kaufmann’s lab would be the same. Jamieson glanced over at the Mona Lisa. She seemed to smile in agreement at his deduction. He returned her smile.
It was always satisfying to find a man’s weakness. The more Tonelli showed a disinclination toward involvement with Kaufmann, the more Jamieson would push him in that direction.
Should the worst happen, and the President’s anniversary demonstration fail, Tonelli needed to be in position to take the fall. The SSU was still sniffing around, trying to find out where Andros had been held. They already had reason to distrust Tonelli, with the way he’d turned Susana Dias over to Ivanov. So it would be a simple matter to throw evidence to the SSU supporting Tonelli’s guilt. He didn’t expect the SSU would look very hard at the evidence. If, after Tonelli’s arrest, the SSU did figure out it was a setup, Jamieson would already be long gone.