Remembrandt

by Robin King

  “Dana,” he said, using my code name again, “what is your status?”

  “I’m fine,” I whispered.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Change of plans.”

  “Well, I realized that when you didn’t meet your driver at your pick-up point. The GPS says you aren’t too far from the apartment. What’s going on?”

  “There’s something off about this whole thing. Dr. Kuzmenko isn’t what I expected. I get the sense he’s scared or something. I followed him here to the warehouse district.” I continued to watch the doctor. His hair lay plastered to his head, and the shoulders of his brown jacket were black with moisture.

  “Your mission was to infiltrate his home and see if you could find out information about the missing asset. You’ve got to get out of there! Now.”

  “If my job is to find the asset,” I said, emphasizing his depersonalization of the operative, “then I’m going to do it. If that means I have to change course, I’m going to do it!”

  “Please, Alex . . . I mean, Dana,” he said more softly, “just come back to the apartment and we’ll come up with a less invasive plan.”

  “I’m going to find out what’s going on. I’ll be careful.”

  Just then, the door in front of Dr. Kuzmenko opened and he entered the building. The door swung shut behind him.

  Now what? Something in me itched to follow him, to protect him. I didn’t understand, since he was the enemy.

  “Come on, your driver’s car is already in the area. He can bring you back,” James said.

  I needed to think.

  He droned on. “Tomorrow we can . . .”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t think with your voice in my head.” I pulled the earpiece earring from my ear and tucked it into my back pocket. I was surprised the thing hadn’t short-circuited from the rain. My hair was already dripping, my shirt clinging to my body.

  The building closest to me rose several stories high, adjacent to the warehouse Dr. Kuzmenko had entered. If I sprinted, I could easily hide in the alleyway between the two buildings and then move toward the abandoned warehouse from the back. I glanced around both sides of the utility box to make sure no one was watching me and then sprinted the fifty yards to the alley. I felt less exposed as I quickly made it through the ten-foot-wide alley to the back of the building.

  Only the sound of my breathing filled the silence behind the warehouses, reminding me that I was on my own. I crept along the back wall of the first building, dodging large garbage bins and piles of metal debris. As my breathing slowed, I no longer saw a cloud of vapor billowing out in front of me. I kept glancing from side to side, making sure no one was aware of my presence.

  It took me less than a minute to reach the warehouse. Several large metal garage doors dotted the rear of the building. I placed my hands under the door closest to me and pulled up. Nothing happened. I tried again, widening my stance to give me more strength. Still nothing.

  I glanced up. About twenty feet above me, a row of large windows ran along the back of the warehouse. Shards of glass protruded from the sides and top of a window near the center, leaving a two-foot hole. If only there was a way to get up there.

  Then I saw it—a metal pipe attached to the gray brick facade. It stretched from the ground to the roof, just to the left of the broken window. I slinked over to the pipe and gave it a tug. It didn’t move at all, the bolts holding it in place securely. I was about to find out if my physical training at The Company had done its job. I couldn’t get my hands around the pipe since it was almost flush with the brick, but since the brick edging of one of the garage doors was near, I placed one hand and foot against the pipe and the other hand and foot against the brick protrusion.

  My mind produced a memory of me scaling the hallway during an intense game of tag with Tanner. He was too big to follow me, but my five-year-old arms and legs had been the perfect length to keep out of his reach and win the game. This was no game, but somehow the memory of Tanner’s goofy smile of defeat kept me moving until my hands grabbed the ledge of the broken window. I heaved my body up until my waist rested on the ledge and I could see through the broken window and into the building.

  I stared into an abyss for a few moments before my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I finally could make out a floor about five feet below the window, though I wasn’t sure if I could trust the stability of the ramshackle flooring. I climbed through the window, careful to avoid the broken glass. Gripping the window sill, I tested the floor and found it to be solid. I let go.

  A faint light seeped through the floorboards at the other side of the room. I moved toward it, keeping to the outer walls. As I grew closer to the light, indecipherable noises penetrated through the floor—pounding, banging, and voices? At the realization that I was near people, most definitely dangerous people, panic filled me. What am I doing here? This is stupid. Maybe James is right.

  I headed back the same way I had come. That’s when I heard the yelling. Though I still hadn’t learned any Russian swear words, the cruelness of the language echoing through the floorboards could not be misunderstood. The man stopped yelling only for only a second, probably just to take a breath, before he erupted again. I lay down on the floor and peered through a crack just in time to see a husky man slap Dr. Kuzmenko, who fell from his chair to the concrete floor.

  “You have eight hours to complete it, or—”

  “I’ll get it done. I’ll get it done. Please, don’t do anything!” The distress in Dr. Kuzmenko’s voice was evident.

  The man kicked him in the stomach. “Get up and get to work, you . . .” His Russian was once again unrecognizable to my ears. Once the man left the room, Dr. Kuzmenko pulled himself up and limped back to his chair. He rested his head in his hands for a second and then picked up a pencil and began writing. Crumpled papers overflowed from a wastebasket next to the table. A long countertop with an assortment of liquids in vials and beakers filled one of the walls to the right of him.

  I almost yelled out to him from my position, but stopped when I realized the thin walls would carry my voice past the room. I tried to pull at the board under me by wedging my fingers into the crack, but it was only a few millimeters wide with no place to find purchase.

  I stood back up and crept along the wall. The darkness prevented me from seeing a way downstairs, but I used my hands as feelers to search for access to the first floor. The side of my waist bumped into a protrusion from the wall. It was a handle. I grabbed it and yanked at the door, which swung too quickly in my direction and slammed into my leg. I bit the side of my cheek.

  “Hmph!” A muffled voice filled the darkness. I followed the direction of the voice inside the room. I felt along the wall near the door for a light switch and clicked it on. A single light bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminated the space, the brightness overwhelming my eyes. I blinked several times until I saw the two people huddled in separate corners of the room.

  The muted sound came from the man on the right. His ankles and wrists were bound with industrial tape. A cloth sack on his head was tied at the neck. The figure on the left was much less a person and more a mound of bones and fabric. I stepped closer and realized it was an emaciated woman, also bound with tape. Her nearly lifeless state revealed she had been held captive much longer, though the stench of sweat and excrement in the room made me wonder at the length of time both had been there.

  I ran to the man first and untied the sack before pulling it from his head. A mop of dark hair fell across his face. I pushed it back to notice a gag at his mouth, moist with saliva. Using both hands, I yanked it free before he tried to speak again.

  “Who are you?” The ragged Russian words came out in a hoarse whisper.

  “Who are you?” I quietly countered.

  “Adr . . .” He coughed a few times. “My name is Adrian.”

  “Kuzmenko?” Could this be the doctor’s son, the same one that should have been escorting me around campus? It all began to make sense.
I had supposed the distractedness of the doctor earlier that day had something to do with Red Eye, but I hadn’t placed his son in the equation. Maybe Dr. Kuzmenko wasn’t working for Red Eye willingly.

  “You— you know who I am?” Adrian said.

  “I met your father. I’m Dana.”

  “The transfer student? But how did you . . .”

  “There’s no time for explanations.” I began ripping the tape from his wrists and ankles. “We need to get you out of here. Can you walk?”

  He nodded. “What about her?” He motioned to the stationary figure of the woman. “She worked for my father, or at least I thought she did. The last few days she has been in and out of consciousness, muttering something about a company she worked for.” Adrian rubbed at the stubble on his face.

  My eyes went wide. The woman must be the deep-cover agent from The Company. If I didn’t get her out of here soon, she would be a mission casualty.

  “We can’t leave her here,” I finished pulling free the last bit of tape and helped Adrian to his feet. He held tightly to my arm while he tested his legs and found balance. “We won’t be able to leave the same way I came in.” The memory of me scaling the brick wall flooded through me.

  He eyed me curiously. “I couldn’t see when we came in, but I think we came up on some kind of elevator. I might be able to remember the direction we came.”

  “Okay. Maybe the light from this room will help lead our way, too.” I went to the woman and undid her restraints and uncovered her head. Her matted brown hair stuck to her face. She still didn’t move, but I felt a pulse at her neck. Though her emaciated state made my heart wrench, I was grateful for her minimal weight as I heaved her up and into my arms like an injured child.

  The faint light coming from the room barely illuminated the second floor, but I could at least make out vague shapes and wall boundaries now.

  “I think we came from this direction.” Adrian motioned for us to turn right from the room. He led us to a hallway, counting his footsteps quietly as we moved forward. “Here. It was somewhere around here.”

  I searched through the obscurity and finally found the outline of a large doorway. The elevator.

  “Do you think you can carry her?” I asked.

  “I’ll try.” I passed the woman carefully into Adrian’s arms.

  I felt around for some kind of a button. Nothing. It appeared the elevator was more of a caged lift or dumbwaiter, powered manually.

  I turned to Adrian. “I don’t know what or whom we are going to find down there, but the elevator won’t be silent. I want you to wait with her inside until I tell you it’s clear. You got that?”

  “What are you going to do?” I couldn’t see his expression in the dark, but I could imagine his incredulous eyes giving me the once-over.

  “You just worry about getting out of this building as fast as possible.”

  “But what about . . .” His voice broke. “My father. I know he’s here. I heard his voice.”

  “I’ll find him. You just get far away from this building and hide.” I slid open the elevator door. Light from the floor below seeped through the edges of the shaft. We stepped inside and the metal platform moved slightly with our weight. After closing the door, I found a pulley mechanism and began to pull on the rope. The simple machine moved slowly, but without too much effort and very little noise. Maybe we would get out of this without a fight.

  I assumed we had reached the first floor when the rope wouldn’t allow me to pull anymore. As I stepped forward to slide open the door, the weight of the elevator shifted and we continued to move downward for a second until the metal of the lift collided with the actual ground level, sending both of us painfully to our knees. Clanging metal erupted around us.

  I glanced at Adrian, who still had a tight grip on the woman. “If they didn’t know something was going on. They do now. Quick!” I raised myself up and then helped Adrian to his feet. “Be prepared to run at any moment.”

  I stood in front of them and slid open the elevator door.

  “What’s this?” A gruff voice came from a bulky man in a black security uniform. The elevator door had opened at the end of a wide hallway. Three men in similar security attire stood in a line behind the first man, their shoulders so broad they stretched from one side of the hall to the other. If I’d been on my own, I would have scrambled back in that elevator. But I had a mission now—protect and rescue.

  Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in and out. The world slowed down in front of me. For an instant, a memory of William’s smile flashed in my mind. It grounded me somehow, focusing my thoughts. I knew that hand-to-hand combat with four against one would be suicide. I needed an advantage. Something. . .

  I saw it. Near the ceiling, two horizontal pipes hung from the ceiling through the hallway about halfway between us. I bent down slightly and leaped into the air, catching the closest pipe with both hands. I swung out like a gymnast on the uneven bars and raised my feet. I almost cringed at the cracking sound that echoed through the hallway as my feet met with the first guard’s jaw. He toppled onto the men behind him, and they fell to the floor like bowling pins.

  “Now!” I yelled to Adrian as I dropped down near a guard that began to rise. I threw my shoulder into his chest to knock him into the wall, allowing Adrian and the woman to get through. He looked over his shoulder and paused as if to wait for me. “Go! I’ll find you.” The guard already had his arms around my neck in a chokehold. I thrust my elbow into his nose. He screamed and fell right down, completing the dogpile of men in the hallway.

  Unlike in the movies where people remained unconscious after a blow or two, I knew I had only a few moments of freedom before the men would be after me again. I raced out of the hallway and into another one that ended in a fork. I re-created the schematics of the second level, trying to decide the location of Dr. Kuzmenko’s room. Loud machinery noises came from the left side. I was fairly certain the doctor was located in the opposite direction.

  I sprinted around another corner until I came to a doorway. I tried the handle. Locked. Attached to the door above the handle was a ten-digit key panel. That would be millions of possibilities to guess the code.

  “I’ll try this way!” I heard the shout of someone down the hallway. I searched for somewhere to hide. As I yanked uselessly on the door handle, a faint rattling near me brought my eyes to a vent attached to the wall near the floor—a vent just large enough for a small body to lay. I reached my nails under the edge of the metal grate and pulled it free, then climbed into the air duct. The metal hugged at my hips, and I was thankful for the few pounds I had lost since training with The Company. I secured the vent cover back to the wall and waited.

  Footsteps came through the hallway and paused in front of the vent. I could make out the steel-toed shoes of a guard through the diagonal vent slats.

  “No one is here,” he spoke out loud, followed by a beep that sounded like it came from a two-way radio.

  “Check the doctor’s room!” A voice from the device echoed off the hallway walls. The guard’s feet shuffled toward the door. I could no longer see him, but I heard four faint tones before the guard pulled the door open.

  “I’m almost there,” Dr. Kuzmenko’s pleading voice came through the doorway. A wave of relief spread through me. I had found his room, and he was still alive.

  “Shut up!” I heard the guard enter the room and then exit a few moments later, shutting the door behind him. “It’s clear.” His radio beeped again.

  “Then get over to the main room. They could be hiding anywhere in here.” The radio cut out, and the guard marched off.

  My impatience wavered, but I counted to sixty before I carefully lifted the panel and scrambled back into the hallway. I stood in front of Dr. Kuzmenko’s door. Four tones. That meant four numbers. But which ones? I recalled myself sitting in Golkov’s office with a new puzzle in my hands. The hardest part was deciding where to begin.

  I squinted at the code panel.
Three of the numbers appeared slightly more worn than the others—3, 7, and 9. I needed a four-digit code using those numbers. That meant one of them had to be repeated. I did the math in my head. Twelve possibilities for each number. Thirty-six combinations. I started inputting each combination, keeping track in my mind of the ones I had already entered. On 7-3-9-9, my twenty-first try, the door lock clicked. I lifted the handle and entered the room, then closed the door.

  Dr. Kuzmenko still sat at the desk, his back facing me. In one hand, he held a paper covered with chemical structure diagrams. In the other, he grasped a vial filled with a white liquid.

  “I’ve got it, I’ve got it! The solanum dulcamara had me going for a while there, but I was able to isolate the solanine in a liquid form and with a combination of . . .” He turned around to face me, his white hair no longer wet with rain and sticking up like he had his hand on an electrostatic generator. A crazed look in his eyes remained for a second before he furrowed his brow.

  “Ms. Laxer? What are you . . . how are you here?”

  “I’m getting you out of here!” I spoke to him in Russian while dashing to his side.

  He shook his head. “You speak Russian. What is going on?”

  “Let’s go. Now.”

  “But I have to trade them. My son. They have my son.” His face fell and he gripped tightly to the vial in his hand.

  “I know. He’s already on his way out. Come on.” I grabbed at the doctor’s arm to pull him out of his chair.

  He yanked his arm free from mine, crumpling the paper in his hand in the process.

  “But the formula. I did it!” His eyes went wide. The vial fell from his hand and shattered on the ground, white liquid splashing out in tiny puddles on the concrete floor. “Oh, no. I did it. I did it,” he whispered shaking his head and dropping the paper to the floor. His trembling hands went to his hair, and he began pulling at it.

  I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Dr. Kuzmenko, what did you do?” I lowered my head, trying to get him to look at me.

  He grabbed my arms, his bloodshot eyes boring into mine. His whole body was shaking now with sobs. “My years of research led me to it. But I couldn’t get it right. It was supposed to be a cure. The antidermatophytic activity of the solanine showed promise. But then they began to hallucinate and then one died. I didn’t realize . . . when they came to me, I thought they were a research company after the same cure. I should have known when they wanted it in liquid form . . .” He took a few deep breaths. “I didn’t know they wanted to use it as a weapon.” He let go of my arms and dropped his head in his hands.