Bloodshot

by Cherie Priest

  Adrian glared at me.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I told him. We’re operating on a need-to-know basis here, and he needed to know. But don’t worry. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to lord the information over you. Or … I don’t know. Use it to get you into trouble. I mean more trouble than you’re already in.”

  Ian said, “Now, now, Raylene. Do you mind if I call you Raylene? I feel like surely we’ve endured enough together at this point that first names shouldn’t be so far out of bounds.”

  “Go for it.”

  “Raylene,” he said again, and I kind of liked hearing it. “I have not at any point used any of my information to bring you harm, have I?”

  I said, “No, and I’m trusting you to stay that course. Adrian, it’s okay, really. He’s covering his ass, that’s all.”

  “You can explain the politics to him later,” Ian said toward me. Then to Adrian, “I do not know what they wanted from your sister, I only know that she was there, and that sometimes she was in the same holding area as me. There were two others like us, also. I never saw them, either.”

  “Where were you kept?” he asked, and I thought it was a strange question until I remembered that yes, he was a special-forces-type guy himself and maybe he had more than a tangential interest in the particulars.

  Ian shuffled his shoulders in a move that was halfway between a shrug and a hand-wave. “Underground? Someplace without windows, I assume. It was dark and quiet, with … with …” He struggled to recall. “Fluorescent lighting. I could hear the hum and buzz of it, all night, and all day when I tried to sleep.”

  “And this compound was called ‘Jordon Roe’?” Adrian asked.

  “That’s what they called it, yes. It was on an island off the coast of Florida—a tiny, vegetation-covered sandbar with no bridges to the mainland. Everyone who came or went came or went by helicopter, or by boat.”

  “Did you ever talk to my sister?” Adrian wanted to know. “Did she ever say anything? About me, or about anybody? About anything?”

  Ian’s eyes were all but hidden behind the tinted lenses, but I think I saw them tense, and soften. He said, “I heard her crying, sometimes. And I tried to talk to her, once. I asked her who she was—I was only trying to distract her. We were all lined up in these cells, you see, with walls between us. We couldn’t have seen one another even if I hadn’t been blind by then. But I heard her, yes. And I tried to engage her, but she only told me to go perform anatomically improbable acts on myself. I didn’t take it personally,” he added. “We were under so much stress and uncertainty. She was terrified, that much was obvious. I felt sorry for her. She gave me someone to pity other than myself.”

  Cal, who hadn’t yet said a word to anyone, lifted his hand like he wanted to pat Ian’s shoulder in a show of sympathy, but he restrained himself.

  Ian sighed, took a mouthful of wine too large to call a sip, and swallowed. “I heard her talking to other people, mostly begging to be told what was happening, or arguing, or screaming to be let out—before she figured out that no one was listening, and that help was not coming from anyone, inside or out.”

  “Did you leave her there? When you escaped?” Adrian asked, his hands gripping hard on his glass, leaving a fog halo around his fingers even though the beverage inside wasn’t very cold.

  The vampire shook his head. “I escaped after … a storm destroyed the premises. I was in no position to look for her, or anyone else. But I called out to her, and to everyone else who remained—and if she heard me, she did not respond. If she survived, she must have been injured. Or perhaps she escaped, but was recaptured. I wish I could tell you more, but that’s all I know. She didn’t answer me. No one answered me.”

  He tapped one fingernail against the base of the wineglass, considering something else. I was about to ask him what it was, but he spared me the effort. “Once I heard her talking in Spanish, very quickly, to one of the guards—or scientists, or soldiers, or whatever they were there. She might’ve overheard a Spanish name, or heard him speaking, or perhaps she only guessed by looking at him that he might understand her. Regardless, she attempted to sway him—she was pleading with him, one morning when most of the residents were already turned in for the day, and trying to rest. Even when we can’t see the sun we can feel when it’s up, you see, and when we can feel it, up there or out there for very long, it makes us want to sleep—though we can delay it if we’re motivated to do so.”

  “Do you speak any Spanish?” Adrian asked.

  “I’m afraid not. She was whispering, pleading. I couldn’t pick out a single bit, except por favor, and I know that means ‘please.’ She said it several times. But whoever she was talking to, I could tell by his tone that he was telling her no.”

  Adrian exhaled and leaned back, taking his drink with him and downing the last of it. He held the empty glass against his chest. “Thank you,” he said. “I know you didn’t have to tell me any of this.”

  “I wish I could be more help.”

  The part-time drag queen shook his head. “There’s no help to be had, not anymore. She’s gone, and I’m still here. And I’ve done everything I could to keep her death from being swept under a rug, but until Raylene here stumbled across me—”

  “Hey—” I objected. There hadn’t been any “stumbling” about it.

  “I’d run out of ideas. I didn’t know what to do with what I had. The government allegedly closed the program some time ago, but I suspect it’s been reopened—maybe as a civilian operation.”

  “There’s no suspecting to it,” I sulked. “Someone’s up to something again, and I’ve got a name—Ed Bruner. I even have a half-assed idea of how he’s trying to drum up new subjects.”

  Ian asked with a hint of worry, “What do you mean?”

  “One of my properties was broken into the night you and I met. I caught the breaker-inner, and he had a number on him that lead back to a guy named Ed Bruner. The same name turned up in Adrian’s folders. You’ll see it when you read through it—or when Cal does. I don’t believe in coincidences. I think he’s fishing around for more test subjects, and he’s using a group of urban explorers as cover.”

  “Urban explorers?” Cal asked. “What, like people who take pictures in abandoned buildings?”

  “Yes, but worse. These guys—like the guy I caught on my property—they aren’t looking around abandoned buildings. Bruner is using them to try and flush out people like me, or chase down leads that might lead him to people like me. I can’t prove it yet, but I don’t really have to. I know he’s tied up in Project Bloodshot, and that makes him interesting enough to chase down, regardless of what his involvement in the burglary might have been.”

  Ian said, “Indeed,” and he brought the subject back around to its primary purpose, from his point of view. “And for now, I’d like to ask if you’d let me have those files. I’ve come a very long way to see them. Or rather”—he made a self-deprecating gesture—“to have Cal see them.”

  The ghoul took his hands off his whiskey long enough to retrieve the blue folder stuffed full of that enigmatic paperwork and place it in front of Ian—and halfway in front of himself, so he could see it.

  Ian couldn’t read it, but he seemed eager to touch it, if only to know for certain that he’d finally found it. He asked Cal, “Is it …?”

  And Cal said, “Looks like it. I think so, yes.” He flipped through the pages, licking his thumb for traction, and gave everything a cursory examination in the dim light of the Revolutionary. “It appears to be rather comprehensive,” he muttered. “But coded, like everything else we’ve found so far.”

  “I’ve also included the paperwork regarding two of the other subjects who were featured in the Holtzer Point file cabinets. Your stuff is in there, but it’s not much you don’t already have. As for the other dossiers, they’re coded, too. It’s almost impossible to tell any personal details about any of them, except Isabelle.” I’d given her paperwork to Adrian, in case it meant anythin
g to him. I theorized, “And that might be because they knew she’d been reported as a missing person, and they figured out that someday, they might have to account for what happened to her … to someone.”

  Adrian agreed, saying, “Maybe. I made a big stink for a few years there, until I tracked her down and went after her documents. Then I had to knock it off, obviously. But everything I ever found on Bloodshot was coded—and that’s not so unusual, really. The military loves nothing more than muddling things that ought to be clear. Maybe you’ll find something useful in it. I hope you do. It hasn’t been doing much for me these past few years.” He said it with irritation, but not directed at anyone at the table. I think he was irritated with himself for hanging on to it all this time and not knowing what to do with it.

  “Thank you,” Ian told him again. He dragged his fingertips across the pages as if he could osmose the text. “Cal, would you stash these, please?”

  “Of course,” replied the hipster, gathering everything together and tapping it on the table to straighten the pages. Then he stuffed the lot of it into a satchel he’d left at his feet. “I can fax them to Dr. Keene in the morning.”

  “And then tomorrow night, barring unforeseen catastrophe,” I said, tempting fate, “you and I can finally have that money talk.”

  “You’d rather not do so now?” Ian asked.

  “No. Not while there’s still work to be done.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  So I made him understand. I brought him up to speed on everything that had happened since I’d left Seattle, including details on the initial breach by Trevor and the subsequent full-scale official raid on my storehouse at Pioneer Square in Seattle. Then I told him about the Poppycock Review, and how I’d possibly been tracked by satellite.

  “And you’re certain Bruner’s behind all this?” Ian asked, worried lines crinkling around the edges of his eyes, just beyond the frames of his glasses.

  “More certain than I’d like to be. I’ll grant you, half of it’s hunch. But I haven’t lived this long by ignoring my hunches, and I think the coincidence is simply too much to ignore. What’s the old adage? I may be paranoid, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t after me. Anyway, moving right along, I’d like to bring another issue to the table of this little … meeting, or committee, or whatever we are. A little digging brought me to a couple of pieces of information that might be of use to us.”

  Adrian already knew about them, so he kept his mouth shut, leaned back, and signaled the server for another beverage. But Ian hadn’t heard yet, so he took the bait. “What kind of information?”

  “For starters, Ed Bruner’s not in the phone book, but I know where his office is located. It’s here in D.C., less than two miles from where we’re sitting right this second.”

  Cal murmured, “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, I’m serious. I guess he thinks he has nothing to hide, or maybe he’s just that arrogant. From what I know of him—which admittedly isn’t much, but none of it’s flattering—it could go either way. Regardless, he’s easy to find. At least his official offices are easy to find. How much time he spends there, I couldn’t say and haven’t the foggiest. But tomorrow night we’re going to go take a look around and see if there’s been any movement or revival of Project Bloodshot—under that name, or any other.”

  “Wait. We?” Ian asked.

  “We meaning me and Adrian. He’s got training and I’ve got moves. We’re just going to take a quick poke around the premises, bust open a safe or two, rifle through some filing cabinets, you know. Stuff like that. Depending on what we find, I might need to borrow your expertise.”

  “My expertise on the project is rather regrettably limited,” Ian said wryly.

  “Oh, don’t be so modest.” I waved at him without looking at him, because I was reaching for my bag and digging around in it for a piece of paper. “You’re a living witness to what went on there, and as you’ve demonstrated admirably, your ears and nose observed much.”

  “What are you doing?” Cal asked curiously.

  I said, “I’m looking for something. Ah. Here it is.”

  I withdrew the computer printout of a website advertisement and slapped it down on the table. “I give you the District of Columbia’s premier organization for parkour enthusiasts of all ages and skill levels.”

  Cal picked up the paper and read aloud, “Presidential Parkour?”

  “Silly name, yes I agree.” I then said to Ian, “It’s not related to Northwest Parcours Addicts in Seattle, not in any concrete sister-organization way or anything. They don’t even spell parcours the same way—the D.C. group does away with that sissy French spelling and gives it a good old Anglo-Saxon k instead of a c. In fact, the two groups only have two things in common: one, they’re both chock-full of military wannabes who like to run around and climb on stuff; and two, they both have a surreptitious connection to the army.”

  “Bruner’s affiliated with this group, too?” Ian asked.

  “Yup. And he uses similar groups in Seattle to recruit. This one advertises that it comes with soldier oversight in the form of Tyler Bolton, a lieutenant with somebody or another—they aren’t too clear on the website as to who, precisely, he lieutenants.”

  Adrian made a harrumphing noise and said, “Tyler Bolton. What a name.”

  “I know, right? It’s almost worse than Trevor,” I mused aloud. “Regardless, we’re going.”

  “We?” Ian asked. “You and Adrian, again?”

  “Actually …” I gave Cal an appraising look. “Adrian’s a poor choice for this particular mission, since he’s been AWOL for quite some time.”

  Ian was frowning, anticipating where I was headed. He asked Adrian, “Do you know this Tyler Bolton?”

  Adrian shook his head. “No. But army guys are like cop cars—you never see one by itself. And if this is a front for only marginally legal activities, or for a resurgence of Project Bloodshot, that’s all the more reason I should stay away. They know I took the original paperwork, so there might be a file on me that gets passed around to interested parties. It may sound paranoid, but …”

  But I’d already used the line about how they might still be out to get us, so he stopped himself there. Instead he said, “It’s best that I stay away for now, that’s the short version. Until we know if there’s any connection to the program, anyway.” He was understating for effect, of course.

  Ian frowned harder and said to me, “I can’t imagine it’s too much safer for someone like you, given the circumstances. I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but this whole thing sounds like a trap.”

  “You may be right, but I’m the only one who’s had any experience with these yahoos, and it was my building they raided.”

  “All the more reason it sounds like a terrible idea, in my opinion.” He did not sound happy. “They’re luring you out, Raylene. This whole thing looks like a setup.”

  “But they don’t even know that I’m not in Seattle,” I insisted. “Somebody knew I made it to Atlanta, but the fact that they were checking out my home turf in the Northwest proves they think I might’ve hightailed it home. They aren’t looking for me here.” It was a gamble, and I knew it. But I put on a brave face and swore to the contrary. “Worst-case scenario, they’re scouring the gayborhood in Atlanta and wondering where the hell I’m holed up.”

  “Worst-case scenario,” he muttered. “I suppose I’ll pass your worst-case scenario on to Dr. Keene and tell him to stand by. The poor man must think I’m sponsoring someone to take a vacation across the nation.”

  I tried to sound sympathetic, warm, and downright motherly when I took one of his cold hands in mine and patted it with authoritative gentleness. “Ian, if this program isn’t shut down for good, it can only come back to haunt you. To haunt us, even. They caught you once and you got away, so they know you’re out here someplace. And we already know they’ve got an eye on me. Better to shut it down now while we’re so close, and while they th
ink they have us on the run.”

  He sighed and withdrew his hand. “It’s not that I disagree with you …”

  “Great!” I said, deliberately interrupting before he could give me the rest. “Then it’s settled. Me and your buddy Cal here will swing by tomorrow night’s field club meeting for the D.C. parkour program.”

  Cal gave a wet little gasp, and Ian lifted a finger as if he had something to contribute before I went any further, but I ignored it and kept talking.

  “Because obviously, that’s the only way this is going to work. I can’t take Adrian, because there’s too much risk of him being spotted, recognized, and outed. I can’t take you, because, well, bless you darling, but you can’t see, and we don’t have any trustworthy third parties we can bribe or bully into reconnaissance, so that leaves me and your ghoul.”

  “Why don’t you just go alone?” Cal asked.

  “Oh, I plan to. We’re going alone together, which is to say, we’re arriving separately and pretending we don’t know each other—because if they figure me out and make a play to bring me in, somebody has to tell Ian and Adrian what’s gone down. If you’re right, and this is a setup, and they’re on to me … you can bet they’re on to you, too. And you can bet this program is going to be up your ass again, sooner as likely as later. Cal is the party least likely to be identified as one of us. It has to be him.”

  Ian said, “I don’t like it,” but he didn’t sound like he was going to put up a fight.

  Cal also said, “I don’t like it,” which surprised no one.

  I turned to Cal, trying to stare him down and take him seriously—or possibly gauge how seriously I could expect to take him. He looked worried and a little nerdy in that contrived way, like he got bad haircuts on purpose and deliberately chose aggressively retro clothes that were only marginally flattering. But he didn’t look stupid, and he didn’t look particularly fragile. He wasn’t a big man, no. Nor a fat man, either. Underneath that slacker uniform he had slim arms and square shoulders that were thin but didn’t look like bird bones. The more and the harder I looked at him, the more I could’ve guessed him for a runner, or a cyclist maybe.