“Cassie?”
A gentle hand tore her from her waking nightmare. She saw the confusion and concern clearly in Bailey’s expression. She held her hand over her mouth as she fled from the room. She didn’t know where the bathroom was so she opened the front door, leaned over the porch rail, and vomited.
“Hey, I brought you some water.” Bailey rubbed gentle circles on her back and leaned on the rail beside her as she held the glass out.
Cassie swept her hair back and twisted it to keep it away from her face. “Thanks,” she said and took the glass from Bailey with shaking hands.
“What happened?”
Cassie didn’t want to talk about it, but she knew she owed her some kind of explanation. Both of them, actually. She could hear Mrs. Richmond’s steps on the porch and offered them both a weak smile. “Sorry, flashback.” She hoped it would be enough.
Bailey’s hand never moved from her back and she found herself leaning into the comfort being offered, drawing from her strength, and wanting more.
“Yes, he was a horrid little man.” Mrs. Richmond waved them back into the house and pointed to a door. “The downstairs bathroom is there, dear.” She smiled gently. “Just in case.”
“Thank you.” When she sat down again she found the strength to look into Mrs. Richmond’s eyes. “I had my reasons, and they were all about protecting Daniela. Had I any other choice I would never have left her there. I would have had her by my side every day of my life. You don’t have to understand my reasons, and I don’t feel I have to justify my actions to you. The only person I will explain myself to is Daniela. If she wants to hear it, I will tell her everything. But that is for her, and her alone. If that means setting up a tent on her lawn and waiting for her to come back from wherever she is, then so be it.”
“She’s been through hell. I could call the police if you do that.”
“You could. But I don’t think you would.” This woman clearly wanted the best for her daughter, and Cassie was willing to bet that this was her way of ensuring that they weren’t there to hurt her. “I just want a chance to explain to her. If she tells me to go to hell, I’ll never bother her again. I realize seeing me is going to be a shock for her, but—”
“He told her.”
“I’m sorry?” Cassie frowned.
“Sterling. He told her you weren’t dead, that he’d never stopped looking for you.”
“She knows?” A part of her wanted to rejoice and the other part was terrified at what that could mean.
“Yes. It came as something of a shock, as she believed he’d murdered you until that point.”
“What?” Cassie was shocked.
“We all did. He certainly looked guilty. The printed suicide note, paid off the coroner, there were rumors in witness statements about other women. It looked like a sure thing that he’d done you in.”
“He didn’t.”
Mrs. Richmond chuckled. “Obviously, honey.”
“When did he tell her?”
“When he kidnapped her and had a gun to her head.”
“Oh, God.” Cassie put her hand over her mouth.
“The bathroom’s just down the hall.”
Cassie swallowed. “I’m okay. She’s okay? He didn’t hurt her?”
“Yes, he did. She’s alive, but that man hurt her more than you could imagine.”
That was the problem, Cassie could imagine and it was tearing her apart. “Please, Mrs. Richmond, don’t make me imagine the horrors that man did to her. Just tell me what he did.”
She looked from Bailey to Cassie and back again. “Just between us?” They both nodded. “You’re sure you aren’t a reporter?” She cast Bailey a withering look.
“You have my word, ma’am.” Bailey offered her a Girl Scout salute and rested her elbows on the table. “Cassie here hired me to find her daughter. Nothing more.”
“He betrayed her, stole her work and created a monster out of it, tried to control every aspect of her life, and the moment she tried to break away from him, he had her kidnapped and very nearly killed her.”
As terrible as it was, Cassie felt a sense of relief wash over her. Daniela had survived, he was in jail, and Daniela had been spared Cassie’s own nightmare. She had survived. They both had.
“What do you mean he created a monster from her work?” Bailey asked.
“She’s some sort of genius scientist. She tells me about her work and I don’t understand one word in ten.” Mrs. Richmond smiled fondly.
“Sounds familiar.” Bailey nudged Cassie’s shoulder.
“While she was in London, she made some breakthrough that let her combine drugs or something into a tummy bug to treat cancer. It wasn’t quite right when she left, but Sterling didn’t give her any more time. She had to marry her friend and start living the life he wanted and that just wasn’t for her. So she made her break.” She sipped her coffee before continuing. “What she didn’t know was that he’d used her breakthrough and had a weapon made.”
“Oh God, no.” Cassie couldn’t believe it—she didn’t want to believe it. He’d never given up. Never stopped. Why? She didn’t understand. Why would anyone want to create a weapon like that?
“That’s how he betrayed her. She was trying to do so much good, and he turned it into something that would kill millions.”
“That’s what the papers were talking about when they said she testified against him?” Bailey said.
“Yes. That, and the kidnap and attempted murder charges of her and Olivia. And she had to give evidence on what she knew about that poor boy’s murder too.”
“Who?”
“Her friend, Pete. The one she was supposed to marry. When he went back to London, Sterling had him shot.”
“Jesus.” Bailey stared at the old lady. “You’re joking? Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Serious as a heart attack.”
“I don’t have words to describe…” Bailey looked at Cassie. “Are you okay?”
“No.” There was no use pretending, she knew that Bailey would see through her anyway. “Where is she now?”
Mrs. Richmond shook her head. “I don’t know. And I don’t know how long they’ll be gone for, either.”
“They?”
“She and Oz, Billy and Junior left about ten days ago now. I spoke to Ellie yesterday and she told me that AJ and Charlie were flying out to join them.”
“I’m sorry, who are these people?”
“Oz is Olivia, Finn’s girlfriend. Billy is Oz’s daddy, and Junior is Oz’s cousin.”
“Close family?” Bailey asked.
“Very,” Mrs. Richmond responded. “Charlie is Billy’s younger brother, and AJ is Charlie’s youngest son.”
Cassie frowned. “Are they on holiday or something?”
“I don’t think so, but I don’t know what they’re doing. It’s classified. One meeting after another since that damn Whittaker showed up at Thanksgiving.”
“Who’s Whittaker?”
“The Interpol agent who reported on everything she went through with MI6 and the CIA, going over and over everything that happened, taking down every detail of her work. The CIA man, he was such a pleasant young man as well,” she said, but the look of distaste on her face made it clear that “pleasant” wasn’t what she truly thought of him. “Mr. Knight, but he never let up. Not for a second. She just gets free of that and then Interpol came asking for more.”
“Knight? Stephen Knight?”
Mrs. Richmond smiled. “That’s him, sat right where you are on more than one occasion. Finn was still living here at the time. Of course she moved in with Oz not long—”
“Son of a bitch,” Cassie shouted and dug her cell phone out of her pocket. She punched a button and pushed away from the table. “It’s me. I know you know more than you admitted. Call me as soon as you get this message. We need to talk.” She hung up and wanted to throw the phone against the wall. He knew Daniela and he lied about it. He knew she wanted to find her and he
told her he couldn’t help. Why? What would it have cost him? What did he have to lose by letting her know that her daughter was fine, that she was happy? The son of a bitch had sat right across from her daughter and never admitted it. The questions went round and round, and she knew she would never find the answers without speaking to him. If she was honest, she doubted that she’d get them then either.
Bailey and Mrs. Richmond watched her as she paced the room. “Do you know our dear Mr. Knight?” Mrs. Richmond asked.
She looked at Bailey and nodded. “He’s been my CIA contact for the past twelve years.”
“Wow,” Bailey said. “Let me guess, you asked him for information about Daniela and he said he didn’t know anything.”
“Bingo.”
“Well, those are the rules of witness protection. You’ve been given a whole new identity, Cassie. He has rules to follow.”
“He’s an ass.”
“Yes, he is,” Mrs. Richmond said and laughed. “Gave me the creeps. He was too nice to me to be real in that job. All phony and slimy. I felt like I needed to wash whenever he left the room.”
Cassie knew exactly what she meant, and it was one of the many reasons she hated dealing with him. “I need to see her. Will she see me?”
“She’s talked about looking for you. I’ll get a message to her. Leave me your number.”
“Thank you.” Cassie pulled a business card from her wallet and handed it over.
“Professor Sandra Burns?”
“That new identity Bailey mentioned.”
“I see. She would have had a very difficult time finding you, I’m sure.”
Cassie shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve found her.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Finn pushed the safety glasses up her nose with the back of her hand. The scent of the latex glove made her nose twitch even through the cloth mask she wore over her nose and mouth. She picked up the pipette and drew a viscous liquid out of the conical flask. She was careful to measure and double-check every single amount in each preparation. Precision was the key, and even a drop too much or too little would have disastrous effects on the results of the vaccine, effects she didn’t want to think about anymore. She was doing all she could. She’d hired a small lab several miles from her own to ensure that her research and the preparations for the vaccine plan weren’t discovered until it was done. She’d felt a little stupid suggesting her idea about an alternate lab at first, but it had been brilliantly received, and everyone had agreed it was the best way to keep their plan secret.
She depressed the bulb and watched the gel fall into the green solution of the final preparation. She swirled it slowly. The vortex that formed in the center of the fluid was hypnotizing, and her eyes itched a little, making her grateful for the safety glasses she wore, as the fumes would have made them sore if she hadn’t worn them.
She set the flask on the counter and reached for the tray of plastic fifty mil bottles with a wide variety of labels on them. Hand soap, shampoo, shower gel, sunscreen, as many different brands with the same colored contents as Oz had been able to get at short notice. Billy had thought that the teams taking on as many as four different target sites would be suspicious if they were carrying four bottles of the same shower gel. She chuckled as she began to decant the solution. He was right of course, and everyone had agreed.
“Damn, it smells like a hundred cats have been pissing in here for a week.” Junior walked between two banks of benches wafting his hand in front of his nose.
“Why do you think I’m wearing the mask?”
“Fashion statement?”
Finn raised an eyebrow at him and paused as she decanted the final bottle.
“Anyway, moving on. How we doing?” He pointed to the rows of green bottles. “Looks like you’re almost finished.”
“I am.”
“Good to hear.” Charlie walked into the room. “I’ve got thirty men in the lobby waiting for their toiletry kits.”
“Then grab those Ziploc bags and start filling them for the appropriate teams. Oz printed me a list earlier.” She pointed to the sheet of paper on top of the plastic bags.
“Organized isn’t she?” Junior said as he set to work.
“So, what do the teams need to be aware of?” Charlie asked.
“Besides the smell,” Junior said. “Who’s gonna use shower gel that stinks like this?”
“Your guys are going to catch a cold within a few days of completing the first release. That’s all. As soon as they get rid of the cold, immunization is complete. The more people they come into contact with during this period, the better spread we’re going to achieve, so tell them to work through it, rather than take to their beds with man flu.” Finn winked at him and smiled beneath her mask as he chuckled.
“What about us? How do we get vaccinated?”
“You just have been.”
“What?” Junior looked up from his bags.
“When you walked in here and smelt it, you just caught yourself a cold.” Finn held up a tiny vial. “This I’ll release when we get to the airport. Not as effective as using the ventilation systems like we plan to in all the other places, but it will ensure that everyone in our team is safe, and anyone around us will be too. Every little bit helps.”
Charlie put an arm around her shoulders and pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “I am so proud of you. Everything you’ve achieved here, how quickly you’ve managed to do it, how you’re dealing with everything. You’re amazing, kiddo.”
“Thanks, Charlie,” she whispered as Junior sealed the last of the toiletry kits and put them on the tray.
“Can I be you when I grow up, Finn? He loves you way more than he loves me.” Junior looked at them with a sorrowful expression and put on a pitiful attempt at puppy dog eyes.
“You’re almost ten years older than I am, Junior.”
“I didn’t say when I was your age. I said when I grow up.”
“Good point. Then no, because you’ll never grow up.”
“Touché.”
“Finn?” Charlie asked.
“Yes?”
“Did you have to vaccinate him?”
“Hey,” Junior shouted in protest as they both laughed.
“Come on, kids, it’s time to go. Oz and the rest of the team should be waiting in the cars outside for us by now.” Charlie ruffled Finn’s hair and grabbed the second tray of kits as Finn shucked her lab coat and safety glasses, then tossed her mask in the bin as she locked the lab behind them.
It took only five minutes to hand out the toiletry kits to the waiting teams and bid them good luck. Everyone knew what they were doing, where they were going, and most importantly, they knew what was at stake. Finn smiled as she handed the last kit into the hands of a soldier who was at once familiar to her and yet new. Evan Zuckerman grinned as he took the bag and slipped it into his backpack. AJ’s identical twin brother pulled her into a tight hug.
“It’s nice to finally meet you. All I ever hear from everyone back home is Finn this and Finn that. I feel like I already know you.” Evan was a Marine and had spent the last five years deployed in Afghanistan on one tour after another.
“Me too. Charlie’s so proud of you.”
“We need to get going. Some of us have to drive quite a way to get to our first airports.” She knew Evan was driving to Michigan to release his first batch and then he’d catch a flight to Amsterdam for his second target, then Johannesburg before he flew into Abu Dhabi. Other teams had similar itineraries, some with fewer targets. But over the next ninety-six hours, the thirty men in the lobby would circumnavigate the globe distributing the green gel she had painstakingly prepared.
She had mixed feelings about sending Lugh out into the world. She knew it was the right thing to do. She didn’t even mind picking up the cost of development and manufacture of the solution. There simply wasn’t time to go through official channels, and she felt it was her responsibility anyway. Sterling Enterprises could
afford it. She liked the idea that her father’s greed was funding this development. She just wished it would affect him more than pissing him off in his prison cell. And on the one hand, she was proud of what she had created, proud of the process she had developed. She knew now that it would work and she could use it as she had intended originally. To help people. Her theory worked and would, in time, save countless lives. But she still worried what other people would make from it. How would they twist the technique to make something evil from it?
Intellectually, she knew that every step forward in technology or scientific discovery faced the same questions. When Ernest Rutherford first split the atom in 1917, he never envisaged that his work would lead to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There was no way for him to know that his advance would lead to the threat that was the Cold War, and held the world on the brink of annihilation for years. How could she know what other possibilities existed for her breakthrough? Her creation and discoveries were now at the mercy of other scientists’ imaginations. And that scared her far more than anything else.
“No need to look so worried. We’ll get this everywhere you need it, and then you don’t have to worry anymore.” Evan squeezed her upper arm before moving away to talk to his dad, Charlie. Twenty minutes later, she sat between Charlie and Oz, and leaned into Oz’s side as they rode in the back of the car toward John F. Kennedy Airport to catch the flight to Eilat.
“What’s happening with Whittaker and Knight?” Finn asked. She’d been so focused on getting the vaccine ready she’d lost track of what the agents knew and where they fell into the plan.
“We haven’t seen Whittaker at all since we left the Rockefeller Center on Friday. Knight has been around asking when we’re leaving. Uncle Charlie told him he was arranging things through official channels and we’d let him know when things were confirmed.” Oz sniggered. “We forgot that part.”
Finn laughed. “He’s going to be pissed off when he turns up, sweetheart.”
Oz shrugged. “I don’t care. He’s been a useless waste of space on this operation. Whittaker even more so. I don’t understand what’s going on with them.”
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