Dangerous to Know

by Merline Lovelace

  “Of…of course.”

  Paige fumbled with the clasp of her evening bag. Her fingers shaking, she withdrew the slithery halter and passed it to him.

  “Ah.”

  Intense satisfaction gave his voice a vibrant depth as he lifted the sparkling collar up. The shimmering gold sequins caught the bright glow of the lamps that marched at regular intervals along the hall. Flickering, dancing light swirled around and around in the endless mirrors, until Paige felt dizzy and a little sick. She swallowed hard against the nausea that gripped her stomach.

  Just when she thought she might have to beat an undignified retreat to the throne and toss up the thimbleful of sherry she’d allowed herself, Victor lowered the collar. He folded the halter carefully and slipped it into his pocket.

  “You will be suitably recompensed, of course,” he murmured absently, as if such mundane matters as money were of little interest to either of them. “Please, take your time, my dear. We’ll go in to dinner when you rejoin us.”

  The moment the mirrored door closed behind his stoop-shouldered form, Paige slumped against the opposite wall. Her heart was hammering so hard and so fast it hurt. She gulped in several deep breaths and willed her lungs to pump the air to the rest of her body. She was sure they hadn’t operated at full capacity since Victor had led her from the library.

  Slowly her eyes focused on the image in the opposite mirror. A pale, slender woman in a green-and-gold designer gown and crystal drop earrings stared back at her. A stranger. A sort of secret agent. An almost call girl. An honest-to-goodness, full-fledged adventuress.

  She’d done it!

  She’d passed the microdot to Victor Swanset!

  The heady realization gave Paige the spurt of energy she needed to dash to the throne. Just in time, she rid her heaving, swirling stomach of the damned sherry.

  Paige passed the next few hours in a blur of unimaginable, unabashedly sybaritic luxury. The butler seated her next to her host and across from David at a polished table half a mile long. She gazed at the forest of sparkling crystal stems in front of her with some consternation. After suffering from the combined effects of the champagne and sherry, she wasn’t about to court any more trips to the throne room by working her way through that maze of wineglasses.

  A small army of servants set course after course before her, each nestled on a baroque gold charger emblazoned with a scrolled S. Paige nibbled at each dish, contributed her share to the wide-ranging conversation, and resolutely stuck to sparkling water. To all intents and purposes, her part in this mission was over, but she didn’t intend to start celebrating until she and David were safely back at the Carlton.

  Later, she promised herself. They’d celebrate later.

  A mental image of a scrap of lemon lace sent a sudden spear of heat through her belly. Half startled, half embarrassed by its intensity, she studied the man opposite her from beneath lowered lids.

  If David was the least bit nervous about pulling off his part of this mission, Paige couldn’t detect it. He lounged against the high back of his chair, one big hand loosely wrapped around a fragile crystal stem as he conversed with their host. The candlelight hid the subtle red tints in his dark brown hair, but Paige knew they were there. She’d seen them often enough in the bright light of day. She curled her fingers into fists, wishing with all her heart that this dinner was over and she could reach up to disturb the disciplined order of his hair.

  She wanted to feel its springy softness. To taste his mouth on hers. To forget these nerve-racking hours and lose herself in the solid, soaring passion that David brought her.

  Later, she promised herself.

  After what seemed like two dozen courses, the parade of servers bearing new dishes finally dwindled to a trickle, then slowed to a halt. At the butler’s murmured query, Victor gave his guests a choice.

  “Shall we take coffee in the library, or would you like to see my laboratory first?”

  David rose. “Your laboratory, by all means.”

  Victor’s pleased smile softened as he turned to Paige. “Would you care to wait for us in the library, my dear? My little demonstration at the Palais yesterday was a bit unsettling for you, I’m afraid.”

  “A bit,” Paige admitted dryly.

  “I wouldn’t want to startle you again.”

  “Now that I’m familiar with your propensity for stepping through walls, I think I can handle another demonstration.”

  He chuckled in delight. “Good. Good. Come with me, please.”

  His cane clicking on the black-and-white tiles, Victor led them through the central hallway, toward the rear of the main tower, and ushered them into a paneled elevator. In contrast to the Carlton’s clanking wrought-iron cage, the doors to this one slid shut with silent efficiency and the elevator plunged downward.

  Victor rested his hands on his cane. “We’re descending to what used to be the dungeons. They were quite primitive, originally, as you might expect.” His dark eyes glinted. “I’ve done some rather extensive modifications.”

  Without realizing that she did so, Paige nudged closer to David. For some unexplained reason, her euphoria at having completed her part of the mission dissipated with every foot they dropped downward.

  “We’re descend…what used…to…dungeons.”

  Swanset’s voice fuzzed.

  Maggie shot up out of her chair. “We’re losing them!” she said, her voice a rasp.

  “Done…mod…”

  The entire team stared at the receiver as the broken transmissions degenerated into an indistinct hiss. A second or two later, even the hiss disappeared.

  “Dammit, we’ve lost them.”

  Maggie yanked a folded blueprint out of the pile on the table and spread it out in front of her.

  “According to these floor plans, the dungeons are approximately forty feet below the villa’s ground floor. The communications folks swore that we’d be able to hear all transmissions from them.”

  Frowning, she shoved a hand through her hair. “Santorelli, get hold of the technician who inserted that device in Jezebel’s earring. I want to know why that transmission failed, and fast!”

  Paige held her breath as the elevator door hissed open at last. She expected another fantastic scene from one of Swanset’s movies. An early version of Frankenstein, perhaps, or The Prisoner of Zenda.

  But Victor’s subterranean lair held little resemblance to either a mad scientist’s habitat or a medieval dungeon. Bright fluorescent light bathed a large environmentally controlled chamber that contained only a few scattered armchairs with a table between them, a single computer workstation and a bank of small, innocuous-looking white boxes.

  Paige had worked for a major defense firm long enough to recognize the logo on those boxes instantly. They were components of the most powerful, most sophisticated supercomputer in the world, one whose sale was rigidly restricted by the United States government and whose price hovered at about a hundred million dollars.

  Her disbelieving eyes met David’s. She could tell by the set to his jaw that Swanset’s acquisition of this computer for private use was an unwelcome surprise to him, too.

  “Please,” Victor said, gesturing toward the armchairs, “make yourself comfortable while I access my latest program. I think you might find the application interesting.”

  Interesting wasn’t the word for it.

  Frightening came close.

  Terrifying even closer.

  But by the time Paige could recover her power of speech, it was too late to even try to categorize what she’d seen.

  At Victor’s invitation, Doc seated Paige and then himself in an armchair. For long moments, nothing happened. No walls moved. No swashbuckling pirates materialized before them. No sounds disturbed the stillness except the subdued clatter of the keyboard and the discreet whirring of the small white boxes.

  When Swanset finished, he swiveled around on his chair and gave them a charming, apologetic smile.

  “It takes a
few moments to activate. Why don’t I ring for coffee while we wait? Or cognac, perhaps?”

  Doc eased the slight pressure on his gold cuff link. The tiny device implanted in it had recorded the audible clicks of Swanset’s keyboard and translated them into digital impulses. With that translation, Doc could duplicate Swanset’s computer access code at will.

  “Coffee would be fine,” he replied, his relaxed tone giving no hint of his gathering tension.

  This was too easy.

  It didn’t feel right.

  Swanset was playing with them. Had been playing with them all night. Doc knew it with a gut-deep instinct honed by years in the field. What he didn’t know was why.

  He found out moments later.

  Both he and Paige turned as the elevator door hummed open once more. The stately gray-haired butler stepped out, the handles of a footed silver tray gripped in both hands.

  “Put the tray on the table by Miss Ames, if you would, Peters.”

  The butler inclined his head and moved forward with a measured tread.

  His every instinct on full alert, Doc heard the faint click of the keyboard. He turned his head and caught Swanset’s bland smile.

  Beside him, Paige gave a small gasp. Eyes narrowed, Doc swung his gaze to the butler.

  It was Peters. And it wasn’t. Before Doc’s eyes, the man’s features blurred.

  He heard another soft click of the keyboard.

  The butler’s gray hair darkened imperceptibly at first, then with deeper and deeper shading. His bushy eyebrows followed suit. A shadow appeared along his chin, then sharpened into a pointed beard.

  Swanset pressed the keyboard once more.

  Peters’s faded blue eyes took on a dark hue.

  “Oh, my God!” Paige shrank back in her chair as the Dark Baron approached her, silver coffee service in hand.

  “Will you…”

  The keyboard clicked, and Peters’s pleasant tenor changed pitch, dropping with each syllable until it became Swanset’s deliberate, dramatic baritone.

  “…take milk and sugar with your coffee, Miss Ames?”

  Her hands pushing against the chair’s armrests, Paige strained away from the hovering butler and stammered an incoherent reply.

  Doc rose and moved to stand between her and the attentive server.

  “I don’t think she cares for anything right now.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Peters, in the living, breathing guise of a young Victor Swanset, turned aside to set the tray on the nearby table.

  Even Doc, who understood the limitless, as yet untapped, power of virtual reality and image projection, had never seen anything like this. A cold sweat trickled down his spine, but the face he turned to Swanset held only professional approval and admiration.

  “Remarkable.”

  Victor—the older, white-haired, liver-spotted Victor—chuckled in genuine delight.

  “It is, isn’t it? Quite remarkable.”

  Doc turned to the eerie image standing quietly, his hands tucked behind his back.

  “I assume you ingested some kind of material that reflects the digitized images?”

  Peters nodded. “Mr. Swanset assures me it’s entirely harmless, quite like the dye a patient ingests before an MRI or CAT scan or similar procedure.”

  Doc searched the man’s eyes. The pupils were the slightest bit out of focus, like a TV screen that needed a fine adjustment. “Why would you consent to an experimental procedure like this?” he asked slowly.

  “For the money, of course. Even butlers need retirement funds. I shall exist quite comfortably on what I’ve put by these past few months.”

  “Assuming you exist at all,” Doc murmured, turning back to his host. “Do you really believe he’ll experience no ill effects from this transformation?”

  Swanset waved a thin, veined hand. “None at all. The process is all but perfected.”

  Doc raised a brow. “All but perfected?”

  The film star’s brilliant smile dimmed a bit. “The ingested material is quite safe, I assure you.”

  “But?”

  Swanset gave a small shrug. “But, as you can see from Peters’s eyes, I’ve encountered annoying difficulties in the image transfer software. I must break the visual images down into minuscule particles, small enough to be projected from the lining of living cells. I’ve developed a scanner that does that. All I need now is a conveyor with sufficient capacity to handle the transfer of the millions of data bits involved.”

  The man’s voice gained in dramatic fervor. “Think, Dr. Jensen! Just think what this imaging technique can mean! No more unsightly deformities. No pathetic wrinkles and sagging jowls. At least none that the eye can perceive. We can all look like—” he nodded toward the Dark Baron “—like that.”

  Good Lord! Swanset had just confirmed Doc’s worst fears. This insane man had been experimenting with unproved technology in an attempt to project images onto living cells. No wonder the medical examiners had puzzled over the poor dead cook’s tissue damage. And no wonder the aging film star had been so eager to acquire the fiber-optic technology.

  He wasn’t interested in the high-speed transfer of information via the burgeoning Internet. He didn’t intend to tap into or divert military command-and-control networks. He wasn’t out to expand his own communications empire.

  He wanted the increased data transfer capacity to project his own image at will. To surround himself with himself. To relive his past glory every day of his life.

  The implications of his process were staggering, even to Doc’s trained mind. This was genetic engineering taken to its highest plane. Why wait for medicine or selective breeding to perfect the species? With Swanset’s imaging technique, a click of a keyboard could change hair texture or skin tone or even speech intonation to more “acceptable” patterns.

  Paige grasped the implications only moments after Doc. Her eyes wide and unbelieving, she pushed herself out of the armchair.

  “You…you want to populate the world with dashing, youthful Victor Swansets?”

  His smile encompassed her from head to foot. “My dear Miss Ames, not only with Victor Swansets. The world will also need women with your fresh, luminous beauty.”

  “Forget it.” Doc rapped the words out. “You’re not experimenting with her.”

  The star gave him a pained look. “I’m well past the experimental stage, I assure you.”

  “And I’m well past the diplomatic stage. Listen, and listen good, Swanset. You try any of your imaging techniques on her, and you won’t live long enough to see yourself projected on anything.”

  “I was afraid that might be your attitude, Dr. Jensen. I can understand why you’re taken with her. She’s really quite lovely, isn’t she?”

  “She is, and she’s going to stay that way.”

  Swanset folded his hands across his cane and heaved a dramatic sigh. “I had so hoped a man of your brilliant vision would be more receptive to my program, Dr. Jensen. In fact, I thought to persuade you to assist me.”

  “You thought wrong.”

  “I’m afraid I must insist,” the older man said softly. “I haven’t much time left. My heart, you understand, among other disgustingly feeble organs, is failing me.”

  His gaze shifted to Peters, to the image of himself in his prime. His eyes took on a glitter that raised the hairs on the back of Doc’s neck.

  “With your assistance, I can perfect this program. Then I will live forever. As I once was.”

  At that moment, the missing piece of the puzzle fell into place. Doc finally grasped the tiny bit of illogic that had nagged at his subconscious all afternoon.

  Swanset hadn’t invited them up here to retrieve the microdot from Paige. If that had been his sole objective, he would have found a way to accomplish it at the Palais des Festivals. He’d invited them to his villa because he wanted Dr. David Jensen’s help in eliminating the last annoying bugs from the program that would ensure his immortality.

&nbs
p; With sudden, chilling certainty Doc understood Paige’s role here tonight. She was the leverage Swanset needed, the means to guarantee Doc’s cooperation. Somehow, some way, the film star must have discovered her true identity and her relationship with David Jensen.

  Her purse! Damn, the purse she lost when she fell off the gangplank! It had held her passport, her wallet. Swanset must have recovered the damned thing from the bay. With his vast communications empire, it would have taken him only a few moments to verify who she really was.

  The man’s next words confirmed Doc’s gut-wrenching certainty.

  “I’m afraid I must ask Peters to escort Miss Lawrence next door for a little while.”

  Miss Lawrence, Doc noted. Not Miss Ames. The wily bastard had known all along.

  “Peters can give her a tour of the real dungeons,” Swanset said, with a smile Doc ached to wipe off his face. “They’re quite interesting from an historical perspective. You and I have work to do, Dr. Jensen.”

  Doc didn’t need to turn around to know that Peters had a weapon trained on Paige. With the speed of Swanset’s supercomputer, he composed a mental list of all possible options.

  A—he could cooperate and wait for Maggie to bring in the extraction team. Without a second thought, he nixed that option. Paige wasn’t going into any dungeon. Not while he was alive to prevent it.

  B—he could try to talk Swanset out of his mad scheme, which wasn’t really a viable option at all.

  Or C—he could terminate the mission now and get Paige the hell out of here.

  Chapter 16

  The next few minutes contained enough excitement and adventure to last Paige through several lifetimes.

  She was never quite sure what happened first. It might have been the sudden blow from David that knocked her sideways. Or Swanset’s shout. Or the gunshot that exploded somewhere behind her and plowed into one of the white boxes with a sickening splat.

  Whatever it was, Paige went flying. Her heel caught in her long skirt, and she went down on all fours. The chain of her evening bag twisted around her wrist as she reached behind her and wrenched frantically at the snagged material.