by Toby Tate
As he continued scrolling, Abel noticed something strange. “I’m seeing a lot of hits for desert construction contractors, as well as sites related to science.”
“Science? What kind of science?” Gordon asked.
“Wormholes and negative energy, the earth’s magnetic field, biotechnology, and blueprints for the construction of several types of lab facilities. These go back over twelve months, about the time he left the facility.”
Gabe and Gordon looked at each other.
“What the hell has he been building out there?” Gabe asked.
* * *
Gordon called several of the construction companies that Cain had visited online and found one—Wardat al-Sahraa, or Desert Rose—that had heard the name Thomas Barrow. In fact, the woman said the CEO of Desert Rose Construction, Mr. Maktub al Qasimi, had personally supervised the project, and was still on site. Unfortunately, she couldn’t divulge any specifics. Gordon thanked the woman and hung up.
Gabe and Gordon looked through the rest of the house, but found nothing that would help them as much as what they had found on Cain’s computer. Gabe called Langley and had them access the iMac and copy everything from the hard drive, just in case there was something they missed that they could use later.
They wiped away any fingerprints and tried to leave the house the way they found it, but Gabe knew somehow that Cain would figure out they had been there.
They left through the front door, the dog trying his best to follow. It seemed he didn’t want to leave his new-found friend.
Gabe looked down at the shepherd and smiled. “Well, looks like you two bonded.”
“Yes,” Abel said, stroking the animal’s muzzle. “An unexpected side-effect of telepathic impression. I think we should take him along. If Cain discovers the dog let us go into the house, he may destroy it.”
“Really?” Gordon said. “Geez, what an asshole.”
Gabe pulled the door shut and Gordon used his lock picking tools to reset the deadbolt. They turned and headed back toward the Range Rover. Gordon opened the locks and started the engine with the electronic key, and just as they were about to get in, there was a voice behind them and all three whirled around to see two Arab men staring at them, both holding pistols. Gordon recognized them immediately—they were the two men who had accosted them at the Riyadh airport with al-Shamari, and who had almost removed one of Gabe’s fingers at the science facility.
“Thank you for leading us to Cain,” the short one said in thickly accented English. “We couldn’t have done it without you.”
Chapter Forty
“How long have you been tailing us?” Gordon asked.
“Since you left Saudi Arabia. We know about your little operation—we suspected it was you who helped Abel escape, and not the Russians. The Russians did not even know about him. But you did.”
“So, does your government know, too?” Gabe asked.
“Not yet, and they don’t need to. If you cooperate and give us both Cain and Abel, we will let you live. If not, then you die. It’s very simple.”
“We don’t have Cain.”
“No, but you will have him soon. Then, you will deliver him to us.”
“What makes you think we’ll cooperate?” Gordon asked.
“Because we will have insurance. We will keep the woman until you bring him. She will remain unharmed as long as you do not try to cross us.”
“How do you expect to control Cain? He’s not going to just go along with you willingly, and you sure as hell can’t take him by force.”
“We will deal with that when the time comes.”
“So what’s in this for you?”
He nodded his head toward Abel. “Can you imagine how much a country would pay for two men like this? We would live like kings for the rest of our lives. If you help us, we may even give you some of the money.”
“Gee, that’s mighty white of you.”
“That is your choice. Either cooperate and live, or cross us and die.”
Gordon sighed. “Well, I guess there isn’t much we can do. You seem to have the upper hand.”
The short man grinned. “You are a very intelligent—”
The shepherd, which no one had been watching, had circled around behind the two men and leaped with his full weight onto the back of the short one. The impact sent him sprawling to the ground, his pistol flying off into the yard. The second man was momentarily startled, just long enough for Abel to do something that Gabe couldn’t mentally process—in less time that it took to blink an eye, he was standing in front of the other would-be assailant, holding the man’s gun on him. Gordon rushed toward the one on the ground and put his foot on the man’s back.
“Gabe, grab some flex cuffs out of my go bag in the Rover, will you?” Gordon said. “He glanced down at the dog, who was panting, his paws still on the short man’s back. “Good dog, Fido. You’ve earned your keep for the week.”
Abel glanced over at him. “Actually it was telepathic impression. I told him to circle around and attack from behind.”
“Thanks, but let’s give a little credit to the dog. He deserves it.”
“His name is Sampson, by the way.”
“How come you didn’t know the dog would be here?”
“I did. But I knew he wouldn’t attack.”
Gordon snorted. “Well, maybe next time you can let us in on it.”
They cuffed both men and took everything out of their pockets, then put them in the back seat of the Range Rover. Gordon rode in the back with them, while Abel rode shotgun and Sampson took one of the center seats, his tongue lolling happily out of his mouth.
Gordon looked over at the two men and smiled. “Comfy?”
They said nothing and kept their eyes straight ahead.
“What will we do with them?” Abel asked.
“There’s a CIA black site near here,” Gabe said. “I’m afraid we’ll have to put hoods on you and the prisoners, Abel. We’ll drop them there for interrogation. Then we’ll head back to the base.”
“Yeah, plus we owe shorty, here, some payback,” Gordon said. “I have a pair of wire cutters that need sharpening.”
Gabe looked in the rearview mirror and saw the prisoner’s eyes grow slightly wider, but he remained silent as Gordon pulled a black hood over his head.
You can sweat on that for a while, you bastard, Gabe thought.
* * *
Gabe called Langley and talked her bosses into sending in some interrogation specialists. Two operatives arrived the following day, both of whom Gabe and Gordon had worked with before. Gabe told them all they needed to know about the project, that the two prisoners were with Saudi intelligence, and asked them to get everything they could about the Saudi government’s involvement with Cain: how they had trained him, operations they used him for, whether there were any more clones, and anything else they could discover.
They left the two Saudis in capable hands and headed back to the base.
“So, do you think those two guys really know anything?”Gordon asked. “I mean they seem kind of like paid goons to me, more so than intel specialists.”
“No. But we can’t just let them go,” Gabe said. “They’ll either come after us again, or go to their government with the information they have.”
“There’s another problem we have right now,” Abel said from the passenger seat.
Gabe glanced over at him. “What’s that?”
“Cain knows we’re onto him.”
* * *
They were inside his house.
Cain had been sleeping, dreaming about a distant planet, when something pulled him back, yanked his subconscious out of the cosmos and put him down in Dubai. He saw them—three of them—a woman and two men. The man and woman he knew, but the third man he had never seen before. It was strange, but the third man looked like him. Cain didn’t understand how this could be, but he wasn’t one to question visions. He saw what he saw and would consider it from every angle unti
l he arrived at some kind of conclusion. But they were inside his house, this he knew. He wasn’t even sure how the vision had happened. He was still discovering things about himself, things he had never known he was capable of, like walking through walls. The man he had been sent to kill was in another room and the door was locked, but rather than break it down, it simply hit him that he could pass through the solid material as easily as passing through air. So he did. The man had been so petrified with fear by the sight that he was literally frozen in place. If Cain had a sense of humor, he would have laughed.
The people in his house, whom he knew to be CIA, were looking for something on his computer hard drive. The man that looked like him knew his passwords and was able to read all the files on his iMac. This would have made him angry if it wasn’t for the fact that he stored everything on a flash drive, which he kept with him. Unfortunately, they would probably discover the websites he had recently accessed.
They had also taken Sampson, his German shepherd. It was a good thing, since he probably would have killed the animal for failing to guard the house properly.
Whoever this man was that looked like him, Cain knew he was dangerous. He needed to find out more. He didn’t think there was much these people could do to stop him, but it was possible they could put a crimp in his plans. He would have to head back immediately and see if he could piece together exactly what they were up to. He didn’t like missing out on accumulating an easy five million dollars, but it couldn’t be helped. He would have to cut his assignment short.
He sighed deeply, pulled out his cell phone and called his agent.
Chapter Forty-One
They got back to Al Dhafra Air Base by late afternoon and called a meeting with Scooter and his men in one of the Quonset huts.
“So did you find anything useful, besides a dog?” Scooter asked, taking a swig from a water bottle as he eyed Sampson.
“Desert Rose construction has been building something in the desert southwest of here for the last year or so,” Gabe said. “Whatever it is, it’s big. I’m thinking it may be some kind of weapon.”
“It’s not a weapon,” Abel said. Everyone turned their attention to him as he sat at the table, his silver eyes gleaming in the sunlight that streamed in through one of the dusty windows.
“How can you be sure?” Gordon asked. “You said you didn’t know what he was building because it was clouded by emotion.”
“Because I know him like I know myself. His goal is not destruction. However, it might be an unintended consequence of his actions.”
Gordon rolled his eyes. “Okay, well, that makes it so much better.”
“If it causes destruction, even unintentionally, we must treat it as a weapon,” Gabe said.
“He has many people working on the project,” Abel continued. “Scientists, construction workers, engineers. Some of them are being controlled.”
“Controlled?” Gabe said. “You mean with the parasite?”
“Parasite? What parasite?” Scooter asked.
Gabe glanced at him. “Every Lilitu has the ability to control humans by way of a bodily excretion. We call it a parasite because it lives off the human body and controls the will. Once it leaves the body, it dies within seconds unless it finds another host. They enter the host via sweat, saliva, semen, blood—any type of bodily fluid. It usually takes place during sex, which they seem to be fond of.”
Gordon smiled. “Isn’t everybody?”
Gabe ignored him. “The CIA invented a cocktail a couple of years ago that actually kills the parasite. But they can also be destroyed through will power.” She was silent for a beat, and then continued. “I had one inside of me when I was taken hostage in the Australian Bush. I started remembering things about who I was and I sort of latched onto those thoughts and pushed my way through until all my memories came back. That was when the parasite left me and I regained control and escaped.”
“Do you have any of that serum?” Scooter asked.
“I have a Beretta M9 tranquilizer pistol loaded with a full magazine of the stuff.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Always be prepared.”
“So, what’s our plan of action?”
“We take the highway to Arrada Ghayathi al-Ruwais Road and follow it until we hit desert,” Abel said. “Then, we turn off.”
“Turn off where?” Scooter asked.
“Onto a road that isn’t there. I’ll know it when I see it.”
“Great. Good thing I have all-terrain vehicles.”
“Scooter, what about the Little Bird?” Gabe asked.
“Max will stay behind and then we’ll send him our coordinates when we get there, that way he’s not flying around wasting fuel.”
“Sounds good. I guess we’ll get started first thing in the morning, then.” She glanced down at Sampson, who lay on the floor looking forlorn. “Anybody have any objection to bringing Sampson along?”
The dog suddenly perked up at hearing his name.
“Not from me. We could use an extra hand. Or paw. But what are you going to feed him?”
“I’ll hit the commissary and pick up some dog chow.”
Scooter and his men left, but not before Gabe noticed One Shot giving her a wink on his way out the door.
* * *
Abel and Lydia lay together in the darkness of her tent as he listened to her breathing. He loved the sound—for a while, he had been deathly afraid that he would never hear it again.
Although he could perceive her thoughts, he kept himself from it. It would be like an intrusion of privacy, and he respected her too much for that. He wanted their relationship to progress naturally, not because he heard her thoughts and tried to be her genie in a bottle, fulfilling her every secret desire. That wasn’t how real love worked.
He turned his head and gazed at her profile, thinking how much it reminded him of an Arabian princess. Her eyes were closed, but he knew she was awake.
“Do you really have to do this?” she asked. “Why not let the professionals go? They are better equipped—it’s what they do.”
“They need me to get them where they’re going. They would never find him in all that desert.”
“But I thought he had a tracking device?”
“He does, but it only works within a certain distance. They have to be close.”
“What will you do when you find him?”
“There is nothing we can do but destroy him, unfortunately. He will never be taken alive, and we can’t let him live. We have to destroy him and his operation.”
“What will become of us?”
The question hit him in a place he was familiar with, a deeply emotional place that tied the pit of his stomach into a knot.
“I don’t know.” He reached his hand over and caressed her face. “I only know that I love you. I’ve always loved you, ever since I was a boy.”
Lydia smiled, laid her hand on his. “That was only a few months ago.”
“It seems more like yesterday. I can’t imagine what my life would have been without you.”
He rolled over on top of her and kissed her deeply as she slid her arms around him. If he could forget the rest of the world and stay here with her forever, he would. But he couldn’t. There were too many things at stake, too many lives in danger. For now, however, there was only Lydia. He raised his head and stared down at her, looking into her soul. In her, he saw all the things that were good and right about humanity. He leaned down and kissed her again, and they made love well into the night.
Chapter Forty-Two
The following morning everyone was up by five-thirty a.m. and Abel and Lydia said their goodbyes. Gabe did her best to reassure Lydia that they would be coming back, but doubt gnawed at her deep down inside and she could see that same doubt in the young woman’s eyes. By six a.m. Scooter and his men crowded into the Range Rover and Gabe, Gordon, Abel, and Sampson into the rented Suburban and they headed for the airstrip hangar where Scooter’s equipment was
being stored.
Gordon had grown lazy in his months of island life and Gabe could see that he was feeling the effects as they rode toward the airstrip.
“Do people really get up this early?” he groaned, nursing a cup of hot coffee.
She smiled as they turned the corner onto Main Street. The sun was just beginning to rise. “What’s the matter, Gordon? You getting old, or hungover?”
“Yeah, hungover from too much Arabian coffee. Actually, I’m just not a morning person. So don’t talk to me for at least another hour.”
They pulled up to the hangar and Gabe called to Sampson, who jumped out the door after her. Inside the building stood the huge C-5 and beside it, Scooter’s oversized UNICAT RV, MRAP and the Little Bird helicopter.
“Well, everything’s fueled up and ready to go,” he said. “We’ll put Abel up in front in the Range Rover with Gabe, Gordon and Sampson, One Shot and Bio in the MRAP and Mad Dog, you ride with me. Like I said, Max is gonna hang out here until we reach our destination, which I’m guessing should be about eight hours from now.”
Gabe took the driver’s seat in the Rover as Abel slid in next to her and Gordon grabbed one of the center seats.
“I sure hope you know where we’re going.”
Abel glanced at her. “You still doubt me after finding Cain’s house?”
“That was different. This is in the middle of a desert with no discernible landmarks.”
He smiled and she found it quite disarming. “Trust me.”
She drove out of the hangar and glanced in the rear view mirror. The UNICAT pulled out behind them, and she thought that it looked like some kind of desert behemoth on tractor tires instead of legs, as they drove off base and toward the highway.