by Ana Calin
“Yeah, seems I suddenly have a fan club,” I sneered.
“BioDhrome’s gas works wonders on the pheromones. Imagine everything they’d had time to do with Novac during the year they had him.”
“I wish I didn’t have to imagine. I wish I knew exactly.”
“Dr. Nathaniel Sinclair’s books describe much of the upgrading process. Thank you for having led us to them, by the way, they are crucial for our purposes.”
I shook my head, the abrupt turn in the direction of this discussion making my neurons a bit dizzy. “All right, you’re losing me. How do you even know about the books?”
“I’ll be direct and clear with you, Alice. You’re our villain’s love interest, so we follow your every move.”
“Can I still count on privacy in the ladies’ room?” I spat.
Hector looked amused for a change. “We don’t have cameras installed in your house, if that’s what you’re asking. Your mother or your friend, Miss Ignat, would’ve surely sniffed them.”
“And in what way are those books valuable to you?”
“You still ask? They hold key information on how creatures like Novac are made. The content of those books is so precious it should never reach the world at large. Believe it or not, the underground archives at the county library were a perfect hideout.”
“Hector, you won’t get a formula in those pages. They’re made to elude mediocre intellects.”
He caught the insult, but bridged over it with a grin. “Of that I have no doubt. We’ve retrieved the books to send them to our professionals. They’ll work out a way of undoing what BioDhrome has done with Damian Novac. We’ll humanize him again. That’s our ultimate goal.”
A chill ran down my spine. “What would you do that for? I mean, what would be the use of re-humanizing him?”
“What would be the use?” He snorted as if I didn’t see some obvious truth. “The man is a genetically engineered Terminator, Alice. His body is steel-strong, his reflexes snake-swift and his mind blade-sharp. Not even a whole squad of our best men can take him down and, believe me, that’s no exaggeration. If we want to ever defeat him and others of his kind, we have to weaken them. You want a clear picture of what Novac is?” He walked away from me and around the room, his tone that of an actor taking the stage.
“Years ago, BioDhrome used him alone against a military squad sent for their people at a manor in the Carpathians. The place was heavily guarded, men with guns and all. Cruel mercenaries, but human mercenaries, vulnerable to bullets and blades. Our team took them down and penetrated the premises only to find a boy standing in the middle of the great hall with a dagger in each hand.
“The squad knew who he was. The Executioner. He was only sixteen at the time, but he’d already made a name for himself as a hitman, with only the highest-ranked assassins in the Far East as his equals. He already had a portfolio of fifty hits with deadly outcome. Fifty. Our squad was the fifty-first. They were twelve, and only one survived to tell the tale.
“I see this affects you. Good. Wanna know exactly how he took down the entire squad, and what his code name – the Executioner – means? Yes? As soon as they pointed their guns at him – the Executioner was to be shot on sight and not given the chance to fight – he kicked open a hatch under his feet and disappeared through it.
“The only survivor said the boy killer was faster than a cobra. He hunted down the squad one by one and sliced them into ribbons of flesh. The man could hear his comrades’ screams echoing through the manor, and later stumbled over their bodies in hidden corners and behind creaking doors. It was a horrific experience, Alice, as you may imagine.
“When the Executioner finally got to the survivor, the first thing he did was cause him to drop his weapon by breaking his arm. Screaming in pain, the survivor sent a punch with his good hand toward the Executioner, but his fist smashed into a shoulder as hard as concrete. His knuckles cracked, making him collapse in agony. The last thing he remembered before he blacked out was the impact of a punch to his face. The Executioner left the man alive to tell the tale and further his myth, since that’s how he got his reputation – by always keeping a witness alive. BioDhrome scared people into loyalty with that technique.
“Damian Novac is a villain, Alice. BioDhrome manipulated his DNA and turned him into that. Their exact methods are still unknown, but Sinclair’s books will help us begin to understand. We’re still decades away from engineering our own super soldiers to counter BioDhrome’s and the Order’s, but we’ll be able to at least weaken them.”
Hector’s words resounded inside my head. Genetically engineered Terminator, fifty kills.
“The survivor you told me about,” I breathed, “Maybe he noticed some kind of weakness, no matter how small. Did you talk to him personally?”
Hector’s eyes darkened even more, hidden deep under his thick eyebrows. “I did.”
“Can I meet him?”
“Why?”
“I think I know what to ask. How to put the matter.”
“Then go ahead.”
“What?”
“Go ahead and ask, because you’re looking at him.”
“But . . . How come? He would’ve recognized you!”
“I was wearing a face mask that night, like the entire squad, and under it my face was painted army green. Anyway, Novac never bothered to remove the mask. The rescue team found me with it on.”
He was surely wrong. That must’ve been how Damian had always known that Hector was an undercover agent. I chose to keep that conclusion to myself, though.
“Jesus, Hector, that’s . . . that’s . . .”
“Yes. And trust me, before he met you, this monster didn’t have any weaknesses at all. I’ve spent years looking for one. I made a life purpose of getting the Executioner and putting him behind bars that would be able to keep him there – no metal can restrain him, so we’ll only be able to lock him up when he’s human again.”
“But, if BioDhrome made of him what he is, it’s not his fault, Hector.”
“He has his share of guilt for his destiny. He proved such good raw material, that after less than a year among BioDhrome’s killers he became part of the Cleric – the highest ranked assassins in the world. Do you realize what this means? We cannot fight these creatures as what we are, simple men, no matter if we’re the police, the R.I.S., Marines or Seals. We don’t stand a chance. Our only hope is to strip them of their powers.”
Hector looked around, as if searching for a place to sit down. Or, judging by what he said next, a place where he could invite me to take a seat before this new blast would knock me off my feet.
“A few months after my squad was murdered in the Carpathians, your father returned from his lodge in the mountains in the company of none other than the Executioner.”
The veins in my head threatened to explode. “What? How? Where did that come from?”
“Hear me out,” Hector said, eyes on me. “Novac had been sent to Dr. Preda’s lodge to either persuade him to join BioDhrome or wipe him out. Yes, the Executioner had been assigned to either recruit or execute your father, Alice. But, by some miraculous method that still remains a mystery to this day, Dr. Preda managed to reason with him.”
“Are you saying my dad was the ranger in the mountains, the one Damian barged in on?”
“Your father was there for experiments that could only be carried out in isolation, so he chose the Carpathian woods. The word ‘ranger’ was Marius Iordache’s choice because he didn’t know who the person who’d found Novac was. He could’ve found out the truth had he tried harder, but I guess he was more interested in the sensational headlines of organ trafficking and illegal experimentation. Anyway, fact is Dr. Preda got Novac to switch sides, and join the Order of Lords.
“Soon Novac started working with your father in Constanța. He was your father’s protector, but also his partner in research, all on behalf of an organization more powerful than any you’ve ever heard of.”
“Come on, Hector,” I burst out, throwing my arms in the air. “There must be some way for the defense structures in this country to stop the Executioner.”
Hector snorted. “Those who could do something are on the Executioner’s side, Alice. They helped organize the bloodbath on Saturday. Now you understand why no one can do anything about it besides you?”
My head swam. I raised my eyebrows as if that could help understand things better. “Say what?”
Hector exhaled and put his hands in his pockets. “Listen. A few days ago, the Minister of Defense himself came to Constanța to have a one-to-one meeting with Damian Novac about the threat of BioDhrome. He authorized the massacre, Alice, and he authorized the collateral damage. And this very room is where they met. Hard to believe, isn’t it? You look around and see nothing but an empty space, stripped even of the wallpaper. You know why? Because they had to erase every trace of that meeting. To erase every trace of Novac’s DNA in a Ministry-owned space. One day they’ll erase all proof of his existence because he is a classified project in himself that mankind is never supposed to learn about. He’s goddamn superhuman.”
Hector stopped, looking out the window, lost in his own reflection. My ears buzzed in the silence. The load of information hung heavy in my head.
“You, Alice, you’re our only hope at this point,” he said. “You can manipulate him and, yes, that’s what we expect you to do. You reawakened the man in him. The cold-blooded killer now has a weakness. Alice, if necessity demands it, we expect you to go all the way.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know it’s a lot to ask.” He tried for a warmer, maybe even more compassionate tone. “You know there is blood on his hands. Hell, you now know that he’s not even entirely human. But if you refuse to do this, Alice, many innocent people will die.”
“Hector, what you ask . . . this is huge.”
“If knowing that Damian Novac is an Executioner, an engineered superhuman that will kill dozens of innocent people in a bloodbath isn’t incentive enough,” he said gravely, coming closer to make a point, “then maybe this is: I’ve gathered enough on your father to put him away for a very long time, because he works with the same assholes as Novac. But your father isn’t exactly young anymore, and he could end his days in prison, Alice. Do you realize what that would mean for him?”
I bit my lip, thinking of the ramifications.
“But if you help us, I promise I’ll forget all about him.”
Chapter Fifteen
Sorescu drove me home in silence, while I stared out the window, sunken into my own agonizing thoughts. The Executioner hadn’t mended his ways by switching sides, but merely adjusted them. There was blood on his hands, and more yet to be spilled.
Tears pooled in my eyes as I entered the back door. It was one o’clock in the morning when I tiptoed through the antechamber to my own room, where Leona waited in the rocking chair, a laptop on her knees.
She looked at me with a guilty face. I had a feeling she knew about my meeting with Hector, and that she’d helped to orchestrate it. I didn’t say anything, but sat on the edge of the bed, facing her and the nightly window in tears.
“I did some research on this Dr. Sinclair,” Leona said, her introduction careful and soft. “For some reason it wasn’t easy to find information, even though he’s some personality.”
When I failed to ask for details, still staring out the window, she continued.
“In short, he initiated the theory that people can be perfected. And he proved it. During the first years he did in-depth research on what he called nuclein. He’d adopted the term from Dr. Miescher. It’s basically what modern science calls DNA. He also investigated how to manipulate genes to turn humans into the best versions of themselves. And you know what the most shocking part is?” She paused and stared at me to make a point. “This was happening in 1885. I mean, think about it, DNA was officially discovered – or coined – in the 1950s by Francis Crick and James Watson.”
I didn’t have the energy left to deal with any of this. My brain, heart and bones felt heavy like lead.
“I think I’ve had enough for one night,” I whispered, and dropped down onto the bed. I closed my eyes and fell into a deep, dark sleep that didn’t let me out of its grip until midday.
I woke up with a headache. The shower helped reduce it a bit, but by the time I had my coffee my head threatened to blow up again.
Leona and I took the bus to the university, but neither of us had any intention of going to class. After we got off the bus, we took a turn and walked to our old haven—the lonely pub by the lake where we’d forged our plan to get Damian’s attention months ago. How lame it all seemed now, looking back.
Jenica, the small friendly waitress, brought our coffee and left us after exchanging a few pleasantries.
“That Dr. Sinclair’s work preceded and exceeded that of Crick and Watson isn’t the only surprise,” Leona said. We sat shoulder to shoulder, looking at the laptop screen.
“I leafed through his books at the library and those formulas . . .”
“That’s not the only way he was ahead of his time, I tell you,” Leona interrupted. “Take a look at this.”
She typed Sinclair’s name along with “Facets of the Nuclein” and hit search.
“The name alone triggers endless pages of something else, mostly junk. As if the guy wasn’t one of the world’s greatest scientists.”
“Or as if someone wanted to keep him hidden,” I whispered. Leona nodded.
“You need to combine the name with one of his titles, then scroll down to the end of the sixth page to find this,” she said.
The site she accessed showed the picture of a very handsome face, profound eyes looking deep into the camera.
There had only ever been one face that struck me that way – Damian Novac’s. He and Sinclair had so much in common. The beautiful bone structure, the iridescent eyes, and that air of being different from mere mortals. They didn’t look related but rather as if they belonged to the same species. Maybe that’s why I had such a strong feeling of familiarity as I stared at that portrait. Yet the most shocking part was that Dr. Nathaniel Sinclair had been either black or a mulatto.
“Unthinkable in those times,” Leona said. “That a black man should make it so far in society, let alone –” she gave the picture an askew look, “a hybrid.”
“He was an aristocrat no less,” I whispered, scrolling down and reading through the available bio eagerly.
When “Facets of the Nuclein” was published in 1891, Nathaniel Sinclair was still outrageously young, a genius who’d graduated from university and obtained his title at only the tender age of twenty. He proved a remarkable personality in many ways, which managed to attract a lot of hatred instead of admiration, especially from the part of his older half-brother. Dr. Nathaniel Sinclair disappeared from the social stage in 1899, shortly after his father’s death. Gossip-mouths of the time speculated that he fell victim to his half-brother’s jealous scheming, but this was never proven.
Nevertheless, despite his brother’s efforts of burying Dr. Sinclair’s work, his contemporaries, mostly his university mates, made use of his research and discoveries and furthered his “school”. There were rumors that, under the jealous brother’s persecution, this circle had to go underground and soon turned into a secret society. The mystery and fascination shrouding them survive to this day, and some anonymous sources even claimed that Watson and Crick and others of their league had access to these people and to classified information. Still, there was no media coverage on this society whatsoever.
“These people must all be members of the Order of Lords,” I said. “The founding fathers. They created the most dangerous killers that ever existed, they created the Executioner, and I’m supposed to stop him all by myself. I feel like David against Goliath, only that this is the real world.”
Leona grinned like an adrenaline junkie who looked forward to a free fall. “You won’t be alone,
Alice. I’ll be with you every step of the way. I already assured Hector that I’d give you my full support, and I’m going with you on Saturday.”
“Like hell you are,” I burst. “Jesus, Leona, I can’t even believe that asshole Varlam asked such a thing of you!” I threw my hands in the air, my face burning with anger.
“Damian wouldn’t hurt me, Alice. There’s a good chance he’d call off the operation even if I went to the club alone, because he knows how much I mean to you. He would never hurt you like that. Actually, I suggested to Hector that I should stay at the club if you get Novac to leave the place, just to make extra sure nothing happens.”
“I’m warning you, Leona, Hector’s using you. He’d sacrifice you anytime in order to satisfy his ambitions. I know you like him, Leona, but trust me when I say he’s not going to stick around once we’re done.”
I could say that was the first time ever that Leona scowled at me with something fiendish in her eyes. “I’ll take my chances,” she spat, and pulled away from me with the laptop, gaze down at the screen. I immediately felt guilty for my tactless manner.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled after a few moments. “I know it sounds cheap and cliché, but I only want what’s best for you. And that comes from the heart. I love you, Leona.”
She looked up at me from under her eyebrows, unable to keep the corners of her mouth from quirking up. “I love you back.”
We forged plans for Saturday and took most decisions smoothly, but I still hated the idea of having Leona at the Marquette on Saturday. But what I felt particularly guilty about was involving Tony. Leona knew what she was getting herself into, but he didn’t.
“He deserves it, Alice,” she told me as I stared at my cell phone in the living room, unable to make the decision of calling him.
“Remember all the vile things he did to you and, if that’s not enough –” She grabbed the sides of my face and made me look at her – “Remember he betrayed you not once, but twice.”