‘OK, OK.’ Slowly, he lowered his P226 to the floor.
‘Take five steps back; take off your webbing and radio with one hand. If you go for your pistol, I’ll drop you.’
Jay measured the steps carefully, no sudden movements. When he reached the fifth step, he removed his webbing and radio. Once they hit the floor, Nasira dropped a pair of plasticuffs in front of him.
‘Put them on.’
She wasn’t close enough for him to attack. All he could do was pick up the stupid plasticuffs. He wrapped the nylon cable over both wrists, fed one end through the ratchet on the other. Slowly, he turned to face her. He didn’t hesitate to lock gazes with her. He wanted her to know how pissed off he was.
Nasira stood with legs shoulder-width apart, one slightly forward. A modified Weaver position. Jay felt uneasy knowing he didn’t have his wingman this time. He’d known Nasira for a while now. A few hours. Long enough to know she’d kill him if he gave her good reason.
He held out his wrists. The plasticuffs hung loosely over them. He’d leave it to her to tighten them. If she was stupid enough to come any closer it was her fault really.
She remained where she stood. ‘I’m sure you have some brain cells left. Use your motherfucking teeth.’
Jay forced a smile, then brought his wrists up to his mouth and bit on the pointed tip of the cable. OK, so she wasn’t stupid, but he’d make sure she paid for this. He pulled the tip. The ratchet scraped over the jagged teeth of the cable tie. The plasticuffs were designed so once the tie ran through the ratchet it couldn’t be pulled back. It could only be pulled tighter.
He lowered his wrists, firmly bound.
‘Tighter,’ she said.
‘That’s what she said,’ he mumbled to himself.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ He tightened the plasticuffs until his fingers tingled. ‘Why are you doing this?’
Nasira gestured with her pistol for him to walk. ‘Because I don’t know if you can be trusted. And right now, that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.’
From ten feet behind, she gave him instructions. Before he knew it, he was in a public bathroom and she was ordering him to sit between two urinals.
‘For fuck’s sake, I could be helping you!’ he yelled.
She looped another set of plasticuffs around a water pipe. ‘You could also be sabotaging us. Fasten your cuffs to the pipe.’
Jay did as she requested.
Once she was satisfied, she said, ‘How do I get to the auxiliary power station?’
‘Maybe you shoulda thought of that before you screwed me over.’
She leaned in slightly, but not enough that he could use his legs to trap her arm or neck.
‘Don’t talk to me about betrayal,’ she hissed. ‘Your loyalties are indecisive at best. You know what that makes you, big boy?’
‘Definitely a Gemini.’
Nasira ripped off his throat mike and earpiece, then unclipped the radio from his belt. ‘It makes you a piston agent. Shifting loyalties whenever it fucking suits you.’
‘Considering I’m sitting between two urinals, that’s more like a “pissed on” agent, right?’ He smiled.
She flinched, but held still. He’d almost had her. She’d nearly moved into range.
‘Once I reach sub-level three,’ she said, ‘how do I get to the station?’
Jay ground his teeth. ‘I guess you’ll have to work that out for yourself.’
‘That arrogance of yours is such an endearing asset.’
‘Why, thank you. It was either that or get my nipple pierced.’
‘Where’s the station, Jay? It’s really quite fucking simple. Tell me or I make you tell me.’
‘What are you going to do, huh? Torture me? You don’t have the time.’ Jay tried to laugh, but got a lungful of urinal cake odor. ‘And even if you did, I wouldn’t tell you. Sister.’
She shrugged. ‘I can be quite persuasive.’ She pointed her pistol, one of those 007 jobs, at his leg. ‘Give me the directions or I disable your legs.’
Jay breathed in through his nostrils. He stared her down. ‘Let me go now or I disable your head.’
Nasira cocked her pistol.
‘First right. Continue about 200 yards. The door says Auxiliary Power Station.’
Nasira wiped sweat from her forehead. ‘I’d really like to kill you right now, but just in case you’re on our side, I’ll let you live.’
She walked out. Just left him there.
‘You stupid fuck,’ he muttered to himself. ‘You fucking stupid fuck.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sophia found the Vector labs unguarded. There was one main entrance and it happened to be a bottleneck, flanked with equipment once used to program and torture her as a child. A chill crept across her shoulder blades. She suppressed the urge to shudder.
With one hand securing her P90, she pulled a stolen Blue Beret pistol from her holster, pulled the slide back and put the safety catch on. Cocked and locked. She offered it to Benito. It was a Browning High Power; bulky for close quarters, but it would do.
Benito shook his head.
‘Take it.’ She planted it in his hand.
His fingers closed unwillingly over the grip. She pointed out the safety catch. All he needed to do was take it off and he was ready to fire. He didn’t seem too impressed by that, but didn’t have a choice.
She checked her watch: 04:08.
Four minutes until Denton had the Chimera vector code ready.
Eighteen minutes until the facility was hit by a bunker-buster bomb.
She noticed Benito touching the ring on his wedding finger again.
‘When you were a boy,’ she said, ‘did you ever think you’d end up here?’
Benito laughed. ‘Not in a million years. I wanted to be a rally car driver when I was young.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘I almost did.’
‘Almost?’
‘I actually started. Learned to navigate first. Began working with some of the local drivers. We competed. One driver, Rickson, he taught me how to handle the wheels. He was really talented.’ A smile crept along his face. ‘I got pretty good at it. Thanks to him.’
‘And what happened?’
He snorted. ‘My father told me to get a real job. A real education. So I did.’
‘I see.’
‘He was right in the end. I needed steady money, so I needed a steady job. And so here I am.’ He glanced at her. ‘What did you want to be when—’ He broke off, looked down. ‘Sorry. That was stupid.’
She watched him restlessly slide his wedding ring back and forth from his knuckle.
‘So you settled down, got married?’ she said.
He nodded, but didn’t say anything further.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I’ll get you back to your family.’
He looked at her, covered his glance with a laugh, brief, ironic. His teeth were a dull white, but his smile was somehow calming to her.
She walked away from him, heading for the sliding glass doors. Anyone coming in here would have to come through these doors. She’d spotted a Class D fire extinguisher on the way in and decided to rig it so it would go off when someone entered.
‘You know, I named my daughter after you,’ he called after her.
She laughed, mostly to dispel her tension. ‘Does she know she’s named after a programmed killer?’
‘She’s not with us any more,’ he said. ‘It’s been three years.’
His words were quiet, as if he hoped she hadn’t heard him.
She couldn’t help but think of her parents, then felt selfish.
She stopped halfway to the fire extinguisher. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
He pushed his glasses up. ‘They were at my sister-in-law’s wedding.’ He removed his wallet and showed her some photos. ‘My flight was grounded because of a blizzard. I never made it.’
Next to a photo of h
im wearing a helmet and standing beside a rally car, there was a photo of a little girl. Sophia was twenty feet away but she’d recognize that little girl’s face anywhere.
‘Just like now,’ Benito said. ‘Wrong place, wrong time.’
Sophia felt sick. She found herself searching for words as though they’d been spilled across the floor. She could smell the sweet scent of the flowers little Sophia had given her. She wanted to vomit.
The first fracture in her programming had happened that day. The day she’d gone ahead and blown little Sophia up along with everyone else at the wedding reception. She could’ve gone against her programming; the fracture was there. She could’ve snapped out of it. But she didn’t. She took the easy way out. She killed them all.
If they both made it out alive, she promised herself she would tell Benito the truth. He deserved that much.
* * *
The reaction chamber was rectangular, the center neatly sliced out like an avocado seed. A narrow, metal-meshed walkway arched over the concave space. Nestled within was the reactor, like a pearl, concealed by an ever-present turbine that hummed sweetly over the hair on Damien’s arms. It felt as though the chamber was alive. The air stank of sweat and it took him a moment before he realized it was his own.
He stepped onto the walkway. Something inside his mind needled for attention. He ignored it at first but it persisted: an overwhelming desire to leave the chamber immediately.
He crossed the walkway carefully, his gaze fixed on the dome of fire below. He knew he shouldn’t be here. But there was no other option. He’d committed to it now.
A small part of him was unsettled by the choices he’d made. Was Sophia on the right side? They’d killed Blue Berets to get inside the facility. Surely that wasn’t right. But neither were half the operations he’d been assigned to. The people he’d killed. He had no sense of knowing who was innocent and who was guilty. And did the guilty deserve his death-dealing? What did he deserve?
In the center of the walkway, a ladder descended to the reactor. Damien climbed down until he was standing before the reactor itself. He noticed the circuitry that regulated the coolant temperature. He placed his hand over it and focused. Enough with the pseudogenes; it was time to use his innate ability.
Warmth spread down his arm, through his palm. It was an odd sensation: a tingle that was both warm and cool at the same time. He pulled his hand away when he smelled something burning. He’d fried the circuitry. Just like he’d fried Ernesto in the olive grove.
He climbed back up to the walkway. Footsteps in the corridor outside, feather-light but sure.
From the clinging darkness, a figure emerged. A shocktrooper. Damien took no comfort in recalling that shocktroopers always traveled in pairs. As if to confirm his thought, a second shocktrooper peeled away from behind the first. Both silent as cats. And, judging by the shape of their silhouettes, female.
Fear leaped from his stomach, forcing bile up the back of his throat. He made no effort to reach for the MP5 slung over his shoulder or the P229 holstered on his thigh. He retreated along the walkway, drawing the shocktroopers in.
The first plotted a path directly towards him, stepping onto the walkway, while the second one circled the reactor to block him from the other side. A sliver of light revealed the first shocktrooper’s face. It was Grace.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Jay’s arms hung above him, fastened to the water pipe. Yep, it didn’t get any better than this. What if a shocktrooper or Blue Beret walked in right now? There was nothing he could do to stop them putting a round between his eyes. They could just wander in to relieve themselves and he’d be screwed. What was he going to do: offer to shake it for them when they’re done?
With his back against the wall, he bent his knees one after the other and inched his way into a crouch. He turned to face the wall, but only made it halfway. The plasticuffs cut into his skin. He grunted in pain. If he wasn’t tied to the pipe, he could’ve used the 550 paracord he'd laced his boots with as a friction saw to melt right through the plasticuffs’ polycarbonate resin in seconds. Or if he had a knife.
He tried to raise his hands up and pull them down hard on his body. The force of his wrists striking his ribs would snap the plasticuffs. Problem was, his arms were cuffed too high above his head. Another option would be to remove a bobby pin from his belt and shimmy the cuffs off. Kind of hard to do with your teeth. He should’ve had another means of escape, but being tied to a urinal wasn’t exactly something he’d anticipated.
Hell, this whole shit-fuck wasn’t something he’d anticipated. Lucia was probably going to slot Damien. Why not? Damien’s worth had expired, just like his own. Jay shook his head. There was Damien worrying about Denton screwing them over. And it turned out to be Nasira. That Sun Tzu guy had it right: deception was the art of war. And he’d been deceived like… well, like someone being deceived. Now he was basically useless.
What he couldn’t understand was why Nasira had left him alive. Did she want him to suffer the embarrassment of being beaten by a girl? At least until he was vaporized by a missile, anyway.
He couldn’t save Damien. He couldn’t even save his own brother all those years ago. His mind rolled back through everything significant in his life, only to find there wasn’t much. God, he was pathetic. It made him feel empty just thinking about it, so he stopped. Not much point doing anything really. He just sat there feeling sorry for his nondescript canvas of a life. It was all shit.
He had no idea why, but his eyes were filling with tears. He rubbed his face on his arms before any could escape. He pressed his teeth together. His fingers closed into fists. The thought of the pointlessness of everything made him angry. At what, he hadn’t a clue. But it burned inside.
‘Right, so I’m just going to sit here and wait to die?’ He laughed. ‘Fuck that.’
He pulled himself to his feet and his bound wrists dropped to the right side of his chest. He tested the plasticuffs against the pipe. Nasira had pulled them tight. They had nowhere to go but tighter. He took a few deep breaths. Calm. Think. Something sharp.
His eyes ran across the pipe to the left and then the right. There was nothing that immediately drew his attention.
No, wait.
There was a slight protrusion on the right side of the pipe. He ran his wrists along the pipe, stepped around the next urinal. But the cuffs hit a bracket and refused to go any further. Swearing, he kicked the ceramic urinal. It disconnected from the wall and smashed at his feet. He stared at it, surprised it had been mounted so poorly.
He looked back at his wrists, at the pipe they were attached to. He tried to clench his fists but his hands weren’t responding. Placing a boot on the wall, he pulled hard. The pain was unbearable. The ties cut deep into his wrists. He pulled harder. The pipe groaned. The bracket snapped. The plasticuffs sliced flesh. Then the pipe split.
Jay fell back. His shoulder blades crunched against something hard. A restroom door. The pipe had broken; both ends swayed before him like a pair of large antennae. His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. His wrists were still bound, close to his chest. He glanced down at his restrained arms and realized he probably looked like a Tyrannosaurus Rex on acid.
He straightened up and went straight for the paper-towel dispenser, pressed the nylon plasticuffs against the metal teeth and raked them back and forth. The dispenser moved with him; it wasn’t even bolted to the wall properly. He growled, and pressed his head against it to keep it in place while he worked the cuffs. The dispenser came free from the wall, sending him reeling backwards. It bounced off his knee and landed on the floor.
His wrists were still bound. He kicked the dispenser into the wall.
Vaguely aware of how stupid he must’ve appeared, he sat down in front of the dispenser and clamped it between his legs. It might’ve looked like some prenatal birth maneuver, but from there, he was able to saw the plasticuffs off.
He kicked the dispenser for good measure and got
back to his feet. The red cuts on his wrists were slowly becoming thinner and thinner, until they’d disappeared entirely. Circulation returned, pricking his hands with invisible needles.
The ceiling lights dulled and flickered, then resumed their garish luminescence. Hiccup. Nasira had disabled the emergency power. He was meant to contact Damien when it was done. He reached for his throat mike, then remembered Nasira had taken it.
‘Fuck.’
He punched the wall. Tiles shattered; flakes of plaster fell on his head. He caught sight of himself in the mirror. It looked like an extreme case of dandruff.
Boots echoed down a corridor nearby. Shocktroopers. Nasira was in trouble.
Well, that’s her problem, he thought.
But then he reconsidered.
She was an arrogant bitch, but at least she hadn’t killed him.
* * *
Jay could hear the faint sound of metal being cut open with a blowtorch. An elevator further down from where he was. Guessing sub-level three, he got in the elevator, hit the SL3 button and the close door button at the same time, overriding any other requests.
The elevator took him down the north shaft, stopped one level below the other elevator in the south shaft. Nasira had to be inside. He crawled out the emergency hatch on the left side of his elevator and up onto its roof, then climbed through the upright zigzag of steel beams to get to the south shaft. Staring him in the face was the emergency hatch on the side of Nasira’s elevator. He could see the actinic glare of a blowtorch as it burned the outer elevator doors on sub-level two.
He thrust his foot against the hatch door. It cracked inward. He yelled Nasira’s name, then prayed she didn’t shoot him. Her face came into view. He offered her his hand. She ignored it and crawled out to the steel beam beside him.
‘What are you doing here?’ she snapped.
‘Your knight in shining armor.’
‘Moron in tin foil,’ she said.
Jay heard someone entering her elevator. Clasping his hands together, he gave Nasira a boost. She leaped to the elevator roof.
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