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by J. D. Glass

  “It’s really quite simple,” he told them. “By herding all those he considered undesirable into the horrible conditions he did—people already molded by generations of constantly being forced to adapt and overcome, people, thus, already a bit of an improvement over average—he weeded out the weakest of them. Think about it—it was only those with the strongest physiologies who survived the worst of conditions, only those with the ablest minds who escaped.”

  He paused and took another sip of his coffee. It was atrocious, but it was a civilized action, and he was a civilized man. Besides, it gave him a moment, the moment he needed to perfectly phrase the words he wanted to say, thoughts he hadn’t shared with even his closest of associates. “Those that suffered, survived, and reproduced—Hitler’s wrongheaded policies made the best even better.”

  He waited and watched them both for their reactions.

  “That definitely has a certain…Darwinian…poetry to it,” Charli said finally, seeming suitably impressed.

  “Man, that’s just…that’s so…” Ben shook his head. He glanced up and met John’s eyes with his.

  “It is,” John agreed. “Now imagine, just imagine, if that sort of breeding—selection for better stock, as it were—was done purposely and irrespective of cultural conditions.”

  Ben appeared stunned at the very thought, but not Charli. She jumped right on top of it. “What do you mean, purposely?”

  The question made him smile—he didn’t want to tell her, or Ben, or any of them, just yet. It was a special surprise and it needed the right moment to be sprung.

  “The Nazis were not the only ones to play with genetics,” he said solemnly, “and right now, there are other, more pertinent issues for us to discuss.”

  Charli sat back and cocked her head inquiringly. “Is this where you explain why you needed to hit a major investment system?” He studied her carefully. There was nothing in her tone to indicate anything other than a genuine curiosity, and the corner of her mouth quirked in a way that suggested that instead of upsetting her, it amused her.

  “Ben deserves the credit for that, Charli.” He could see that Ben was visibly anxious about the revelation, but what John wanted to see, what would be the “tell” to what she really thought and felt, was Charli’s reaction. There were several that he expected, but to his great surprise, she laughed.

  “Good thing your plans move now—or a few people would have ended up so fuckin’ fired!”

  That she could laugh and make a joke about it—he considered it a good sign; she was rapidly adjusting.

  “You see, Charli, money changes value with time. In order for it to have roughly the same value a few years from now that it does today—in order for the variations to be moderate, rather than extreme—certain things must happen. Some industries must be allowed to dominate, and others to die. Governments, by playing with interest rates, by manipulating the economy, also play their parts. There must always, always,” and he held up a finger for emphasis, “be a part of the population that’s on the dole, always a segment unemployed, or these rates won’t provide the returns investors require. Billions suffer—so millions can be made.”

  Charli nodded. “That makes mathematical sense.”

  Ben jumped in again. “It sure does,” he said, nodding enthusiastically. “And anyone who’s able to see it—” He drew his finger across his neck.

  All in all, John felt the discussion and discovery had gone very well and now, while they refreshed and recharged, there were only a few steps left.

  The situation at Plum was a unique one—the installation was government funded but no longer under the direct control of any single agency. This allowed for plausible deniability should any of their discoveries prove to result in something that was as tactically effective as napalm had been, as well as the same complete public relations nightmare.

  The secrecy they enjoyed and operated under meant that they were able to hire outside contractors—several private firms—to handle aspects of security, research, and cleanup. This permitted another level of deniability should there be any aspects of research to violate federal law. The scientists could claim that as investigators, they were unfamiliar with certain particulars, or that the particulars didn’t concern them since they were civilians, while the facility administration could claim they had no idea of what the research would involve.

  However, they were officially and at least on paper partially government funded as well as recognized as a biosafety level 2 facility—which meant they could work with communicable agents that were generally transmissible via ingestion, mucous membrane exposure, or intradermal exposure, such as measles, salmonella, hepatitis B, things that had either an immunization or an antibiotic treatment available. Some protective gear, lab access restrictions, strict sanitation standards, and a double venting process for air were required.

  But in actuality, despite its bio level 2 set and origin, Plum operated at bio level 3 and investigated agents that could also be spread via aerosol, like tuberculosis and encephalitis—a particular favorite which still had no real cure.

  This was the true reason that the operation, which in reality was funded almost solely by tax dollars, had to pay outsiders to handle it properly. Plainly, that made sense. Only those who worked outside of national restrictions and military reporting conventions would have access to the information, to the materials, to the proper procedures required, since some of what was done on Plum was beyond the bounds of federal law. And if the government turned a blind eye to whatever was discovered, then it was able to pretend its collective hands were clean when it swooped in with an official “no, we don’t condone that, but since it’s here, we should be the ones to decide its proper use and disposal.” It was hypocrisy at its absolute bald-faced best.

  It made John laugh—he’d met so many of these researchers and scientists during the course of his investigations and operations, a natural by-product of his career path.

  He had literally worked with, owed, and was, more importantly, owed to by a select handful of these intelligent investigators and one of them…well, this particular one was quite special as well as useful.

  Dr. Chul-Moo Seung was, thanks to a series of lucky meetings, his own personal determination, and some words in the right ears at the right time, the current director of research at Plum.

  His chance at freedom and education he owed to John and they both knew it. That knowledge, combined with his cultural sense of pride and honor, meant he would have helped John anyway—of that, John was certain. Honor between men, the debts of loyalty for deeds and blood shed, bound them in ways inexplicable to those who had not experienced them.

  It was those ties, combined with an almost blind drive to be the first to make heady inroads into the delicate research he performed and the offer of the money necessary to bring the station to the next level necessary to facilitate the research, that made the difference between promised word and accomplished deed nothing more than a matter of time. The deal was done, needing only the exchange of funds to complete it.

  With Chul-Moo’s knowledge, it was easy to find the right mix of bioagents that would provide exactly the solutions John needed—so much more efficient than the clumsy use of spraying lower-income neighborhoods with pesticides after disseminating the misinformation that they were all in danger from mosquitoes, of all things, that carried a disease heretofore unheard of in this region.

  It was, as far as John was concerned, yet another perfect example of government inefficiency: not only had both the insects and the disease come from the very place the group was headed to, but the method was haphazard. It didn’t differentiate between the worthy and the non. It also proved John’s case as well as Ben’s: even the air people breathed was being poisoned, all part of the plan for the prison planet.

  Another ally delivered the appropriate badges, and it was almost an afterthought to create the situation that would effect the exchange. And in just a very little while, one click, one electr
onic transaction at the speed of light, would leave him in possession of the cure—the cure for mankind.

  Technology was a wonderful thing. It meant Chul-Moo practically slept with his phone and his pager next to him. Waking him to modify plans by a dozen hours or so had therefore been easy. And as that plan changed, so had another.

  Originally, John had planned to leave Charli on the boat, letting Ben handle the technical aspects, but now… It was Charli who had made the leap in logic that made the funding possible, Charli who cut through his arguments with lightning quickness and then synthesized theory and fact. It was Charli who’d withstood the shocks of the night like a trouper. He wasn’t a monster, he rationalized; much of what she’d experienced over the last few hours was certainly out of her normal experience, and certainly there had to be some sort of adjustment process to be gone through. But even with that, she had fallen in with him and both his immediate and larger plans, had demonstrated that she understood everything perfectly, and that deserved a reward. Let her witness the important first step, the very thing that would be the beginning of the new world order.

  The program is running. Exit anyway? (y or n)

  Synchronicity

  She knew, as she’d texted rapid-made plans with equipment requests, slung the pager on her belt, and searched for what she needed through the apartment, that there would never be enough time to scramble a team to get them out to Charli in time, or at least before they reached Plum Island, and she knew timing was everything. No field operative had clean hands for very long, and Romello had quite the kill list in addition to the rest of his accomplishments. Yes, technically she was no longer an active outside operative, but there was too much at stake here for her to sit idly by. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d never been part of a recon or extraction team before—and she’d performed admirably, even if she did say so herself. Besides, weren’t those successes the reason she’d been pulled into a different sector? She was grateful that her handler had agreed—because she knew she would have gone on her own.

  Plum Island had some quirky security—she’d known she needed to be creative and had to go a little lo-tech, at least on the approach. She would have had to anyway; returning to her apartment was not an option, especially since she was aware that she had two hours or possibly less before the Treas was on her. When she considered how quickly Romello’s operation with Charli had gone down, she’d also known there simply wasn’t enough time to gear up at the Smith’s Point safe house.

  She’d gone through Charli’s apartment. The wet suit, her surfboard, her PDA, her laptop. That had been enough to start. She paged her handler with the info she had, the plans she’d made, and the list of equipment she needed.

  A car had been dropped off for her use fifteen minutes later, and it had what she’d expected: the tools she required, and more importantly, weapons.

  Now, not quite two hours later, she was waiting at the shore off Greenpoint for the tide to turn, for the flow tide, the very beginning of the returning rush of water, that would help her get onto the island.

  This particular spot of Long Island Sound had a nickname among those who depended on it: the Race. The mouth of the Sound had a vicious rip and current—it made for great kayaking, but dangerous surfing and even more dangerous swimming.

  There was also the report she’d been forwarded, brief but thorough: radar, sonar, and cameras running offshore, but no infrared or motion on the perimeter. The reason listed was harbor seals; they made it their home, and there were other animals, including deer, left to roam wild on the rest of the island that had been left as a preserve.

  Since this part of the Sound was actively commercially trafficked—mostly by tugs and barges, recreational kayakers, some braver surfers, and Jet Skiers—there were no water patrols for her to be concerned with.

  A recent strike by both the security team as well as the contractors used for decon supposedly made their scheduled foot patrol a bit more erratic as the staff-reduced substitute crew adjusted to the needs of their client. The good ol’ Mark 1A Eyeball, she smirked to herself, accept no substitutes. That was the least of her worries, the human eye. She was after all, a fully qualified and field proven Company operative. She was CIA—disappearing was what she did, and did well.

  Her plan was simple, but there was no reason for it to be anything but what she wanted it to be: damn effective. She’d come in off the water, under the board if she had to. She was too small an object to show up on most detecting devices, especially since they’d be calibrated to ignore things like seals and deer, animals that could approximate a single human in size. The true concern at Plum was a water vehicle–based insertion, bearing a small but well-trained cadre. As for the interior itself, she had no concerns; that was the easy part. She knew too many ways to disable, disarm, or simply evade the majority of detecting devices, and she doubted very highly that Plum deployed a technology she hadn’t yet met or been trained in.

  She shivered, more from anticipation than from the predawn cold, then glanced back over her shoulder, back toward the dark rise that signaled the presence of Orient Point County Park, her point of departure.

  The tide chart was what she had to rely on, and as soon as it shifted from low to high, she’d move, too. She was about to enter the Plum Gut, a spot that the waters of Long Island Sound rushed through during ebb tide at currents exceeding five knots. The whitecaps and riptides along the mile-wide passageway were challenging for even the most experienced mariners, for just beneath the water lay Oyster Pond Reef.

  That had factored into her decision to use the board, combined with the distance: two thousand meters, or one and a quarter miles. She had planned her departure point carefully. The board would carry her right over the hidden reef, which was especially dangerous during low tide; the flow, the incoming rush, would bring her a bit south of the ferry dock on Plum itself.

  Not too much longer, she told herself as she cast the quickest beam from her lens across the water. She observed the shoreline where the wavelets were coming in rapidly, then doused the light. She tucked it into the belt around her waist, then quickly checked the rest of her setup.

  Satisfied, she decided there was no time like the present and quashed the human instinct to take a breath as she waded into the water—if she could ride the tide in, it would make her job that much easier. She felt the weight and swirl of the water pull at her calves as she stepped carefully over rocks, through frozen grasses and ice, registered the cold as cooling through the military-issue neoprene that hugged her from head to toe in sealed, seamless—well, it wasn’t true warmth, but it was protection.

  The slippery mix of ice, water, and slimed-over organic debris thinned a bit when she reached a mid-thigh depth. She held on to and balanced the board one-handed, pulled the small paddle she’d attached to the board with a bungee cord with the other, and began the work it would take to get her to the center channel. It was an easy enough plan: get to the shore off Orient County, then get to Plum. Once there, she’d attempt to isolate both Romello and Cooper, as well as obtain or contain whatever horror of science the target acquisition was.

  Despite the go-ahead she’d been granted to attempt insertion, the orders she’d received had been explicit: she was not to take any of them—Romello, Cooper, and whoever might be helping them within Plum—down. Based on the intel she’d provided as well as her recommendations, a team had already been scrambled. They would arrive within two hours of her original request. Given their different methods of travel to the location, that more than likely meant she’d spend anywhere from five to seven minutes on her own once she’d penetrated the location. She glanced about again, and assessed the weather. Feels a heck of a lot like snow. Maybe I should make that twenty minutes, just in case they get caught up and delayed in this.

  She set herself on the board, felt the first cold wet flakes hit her face, and blinked them out of her eyes. She pushed away from the shore. Free of the first few feet of the treacherous mix of wat
er, slush, and ice, the board simply shot out onto smooth, black glass. Plum Island was a deeper black area in an almost unrelieved red-tinged darkness ahead of her. Snow fell in earnest now, accompanied by the almost silent splash of the oar. She checked her chronometer: she was on track.

  Out in the distance, she saw a single point of light in the unrelieved black. Probably a tugboat, she assumed.

  In the waterproof sack she’d attached under the board was a change of clothes, lightweight and warm, her communications device, and her conceal-carry device: a SIG 229—and while she carried a .40 SW, it was loaded with .357 SIG. She’d hesitated a single second before loading, the memory of Cooper’s expression as he drew and fired a quick flash through her mind’s eye, then shrugged as she slammed the cartridge home, the sting of it against her palm somehow very satisfying. Besides, she had rationalized, it had better accuracy under repeat firing, and while she hoped it didn’t come to that, she wanted the advantage of superior power and accuracy if it did.

  She paused in her review, let her mind go where it wanted to while it could, when all she had before her for approximately the next quarter of a mile was the monotonous pull of the paddle. Charli.

  Charli wasn’t far from her mind, her thoughts, or even, she admitted with an ache of surprise, her body. Even under the thick and heavy wet suit she wore, Charli was still a silken brush against her chest, a heated breath followed by a whisper of touch that tightened the muscles in her stomach, a taste in her mouth, a flavor on a tongue that still made room for hers. She could still feel the skim of Charli’s fingers through her hair, the sensitive line behind her ear, and her palms still bore the warm memory of the shape of Charli’s shoulders and the length of her spine under her hands. She allowed herself to recollect and reflect on the last real conversation they’d had, the one before Cooper’s frantic pages, before the confirming revelation of not only who was responsible for the inside part of the job, but also of the outside operator.