Fear (9 page)

“That's great,” said Josh.

“Now,” said Glenn. “Tell me why you're not out surveying subject B?”

“I finished my shift.”

“Not according to my schedule,” said the doctor. “You should be there for another two hours.”

Mentally Josh measured the distance to Glenn. Fifteen feet. Only three or four quick steps across the room. It was possible that he could cover that distance before the scientist pulled out the weapon he was hiding.
It was also possible that Josh could end up with a hole in his chest.
It was time to try a different tactic.

“Listen,” he said. “I've just come from seeing Heather. I mean, from observing subject B. The girl is in trouble.”

“That's not unexpected,” said Glenn. “We knew the injection might have some strong effects.”

Josh shook his head. “No, she's in real trouble. If we don't do something to help, she'll probably be dead before the night's over.”

Glenn frowned. “So, what do you propose?”

“The counteragent,” Josh said quickly. “Let me take it to her now, and I think we can save her.”

For a moment Dr. Glenn was silent, and Josh let himself hope that the man was actually going to agree. But then Glenn shook his head. “No. We've already seen that the first round of the treatment was flawed. We'll move on to the next round. Go back and complete the observations until the subject fails. That will give us enough data.”

Josh nodded. “Okay, if that's what you want.” He took one step toward the door, pivoted on his left heel, and leapt for Dr. Glenn.

The thing behind the clipboard was a gun. Some kind of small revolver. Josh didn't have time to make out the details, but he did see the
dark opening of the barrel
as the scientist hauled out the weapon and directed it toward him. Before Glenn could get off a shot, Josh landed a solid right at the angle of his jaw. The doctor went down in a heap. The notepad skittered off to the left. The gun went sliding away to the right.

Josh stepped back and straightened his jacket. “Sorry about that, Doc,” he said to the unconscious man on the floor. “But I need that counteragent.” Josh walked back over to the IV stand and picked it up again. He reared back, took a breath, and swung the base of the stand toward the cabinet.

The glass top of the cabinet shattered and shards of broken glass flew around the room. Josh tossed the metal stand aside and reached through the broken top of the cabinet. The sharp edge of the glass top cut into his hand as he felt around inside, but he managed to find and remove some unbroken tubes of the counteragent. He turned for the door.

Loki was there. Somehow the tall man had come into the room without Josh hearing or seeing a thing. “I don't suppose you would like to explain yourself?” asked Loki. His voice was calm, way too calm. Josh had heard that tone before. It usually meant that someone was about to die.

“I did this for you,” Josh said.

“For me?” Loki took a slow step toward him.
His polished shoes crunched on bits of broken glass.
“This should be an interesting explanation. Exactly how did you do this for me?”

This time Josh didn't bother to do any calculations in his head. If it came to fighting, he would fight, but he knew that it would be hopeless. No matter his level of skill or strength, he knew that Loki was both far better and far more brutal. “Heather is valuable to you.”

“Valuable how?”

“She's the only human subject,” said Josh. “She can tell you things you can't possibly learn from all these damn monkeys and rats. Things like the memory problems.”

“We knew there would be minor problems with short-term memories,” said Loki. “Dr. Glenn predicted that much.”

Josh shook his head. “These problems aren't minor. Heather is getting so disoriented, she can't keep a thought in her head for more than thirty seconds. And it's not getting better; it's getting worse. Did Glenn predict that?”

“No.” Loki folded his arms and leaned against the door. “No, he didn't.”

“That's just one of the reasons why Heather is a hundred times more valuable to you than some caged monkey.” Josh waved at the empty Plexiglas boxes. “Even if you get this stuff fixed so it won't kill you, do you want to take it and find out it scrambles your brain? You need Heather.”

“Dr. Glenn doesn't seem to agree with you,” said Loki. He glanced down at the fallen scientist. “And it appears that you disagree pretty strongly with the doctor.”

“I couldn't convince him,” Josh said. “And I didn't have time to negotiate.” He held up one of the tubes of counteragent. “Unless we give this to Heather, and I mean right now, she's going to die.”

Josh paused for a breath and watched Loki. The tall man seemed to be considering what he had said, which was a little surprising. Loki wasn't exactly known for listening to other people. Josh was actually quite pleased with himself. The things he had said sounded reasonable and were even pretty well true. There was a chance he could get out of this with his head attached to his shoulders and still save Heather.
A small chance, but a chance.

“You're right,” said Loki.

“I am?” Josh was stunned.

Loki nodded. “The subject is too valuable to waste. We should collect all possible data from her.”

Josh almost fell over with relief. He took a step toward the door. “Great. That's great. I'll get the counteragent to her right—”

“No.”

“No? But you just said—”

“I said we need to get all the information we can,” said Loki. “But that doesn't mean I'm prepared to end the experiment. Not at this stage.”

“So what are you going to do?” Despite himself Josh took a step closer to Loki. “You're going to send me back to take notes while Heather goes into convulsions and dies?”

Loki's mild expression never changed, but all the warmth fell out of his voice. “I wonder just where your loyalties lie in all this? You seem to have a lot of sympathy for this girl.”

Josh felt like he had stepped into a freezer. “No. No. It's just like I was saying. She's an asset. We can't afford to waste her.”

“Exactly,” said Loki. “That's why you're going to go retrieve her.”

“Retrieve?”

The tall man nodded. “Yes. Bring Heather Gannis back here. We'll monitor her situation closely.”

Josh stared into Loki's pale eyes. “And if she needs the counteragent?”

“If I and Dr. Glenn agree that the counteragent is needed, we'll give it to her. And speaking of counteragent.” He held out his hand. “Please give me the vials you took from the cabinet.”

Josh hesitated. Heather's life was in his hands. If he could only get this to her—

“Josh? I'm beginning to have serious doubts about your loyalty in this affair.”
Loki loomed over him like a wave that was ready to break.
“I think you care more for this girl than you're willing to admit.”

“Care for her?” Josh dropped the vials into Loki's hand and gave a quick laugh. “She's a test subject. Nothing more than that.”

Loki nodded. “All right. Then go and get her.”

“Right.” Josh stepped around the tall man and headed for the door.

“And Josh?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Have the girl back here within thirty minutes. Otherwise I'll be forced to send someone to bring you both.” Loki smiled at him, but no one that saw that smile would think for one second it was friendly.

DOES EVERYONE IN NEW YORK
city have to wear black? Is it a rule or something?

Tatiana turned around slowly, scanning the people on the street corner for anyone that looked out of place.
America might be the land of the free, but it was also the home of the fashion slave.
Half the people in this city seemed to dress alike. There were certainly several odd-looking people scattered among the rest. But there were always odd-looking people in New York. The real question was: Did any of them look familiar?

The businessman with the strange plastic backpack buckled over his three-piece suit. Hadn't she seen him before? What about the woman in ragged jeans with the spiky orange hair? The twenty-something guy with the skateboard clamped under his arm seemed familiar. It seemed like he had been at the last stop, only maybe he had been wearing a different coat, and maybe his hair had been a different color, and maybe he had been a completely different guy.

She sighed. This was turning out to be a lot more difficult than she had expected. At first Tatiana had thought that all she would have to do was to walk around and write brief descriptions of the people she saw. Like one of those books where you had to find one little image hidden in a bigger picture. For the first couple of hours, it had been exciting. The next couple had been interesting. Since then it had only been tiring.

She had followed Gaia's blond head for blocks around Washington Square Park, through the NYU campus, and on a long hike all the way east to the waterfront. There had been subway rides north. Subway rides south. Even a little trip on a bus. Through all of that, the only constant had been the back of Gaia's head. Surely if one person had been following them all that time, Tatiana would have spotted them by now.

A sharp breeze caught the edge of her scarf and peeled it back from her hair. She tugged it down and tied it more firmly. Gaia was probably right about the disguise.
Wearing a scarf and a pair of sunglasses would not turn Tatiana into a spy.
It only made her look as out of place as the man with the ugly plastic backpack. The disguise was stupid. The whole plan was stupid. This morning it had seemed like such a good idea, but after she'd walked and ridden all over town with no results, it seemed terribly foolish. Worthless.

For a brief moment Tatiana thought she might actually start to cry. Right there in the middle of Sixty-sixth Street. Ever since her mother disappeared, Tatiana had been struggling to hold herself together and tears had been very close to the surface. She put on a good act at school, and she managed to keep Ed from learning too much, but her mother kept creeping into her thoughts. Natasha might really be a spy. She might be locked up in some dark cell. They might be torturing her. They might even. . . no, Tatiana wasn't going to think about that.

She checked her watch. It was time to move on. She hadn't even seen Gaia in the last twenty minutes. For all she knew, Gaia could have given up on the whole plan and gone home. Tatiana shoved her notebook back into her bag and started walking.

The next leg of the instructions took her west toward Central Park. There were only a few more directions left on the page she had cooked up. A couple of jogs inside the park, then a pitch back east that would take them to the apartment on the Upper East Side. The truth was, Tatiana had never thought they would get this far. Long before now, she thought she would be standing over one of the spies, demanding information about her mother. That daydream was gone, and so was most of the day.

Tatiana had been so intent on watching the people that she had barely noticed night was approaching quickly. The sun had already fallen behind the tall buildings on the other side of the park, and the shadows reached out over the trees. It was time to take off the sunglasses.

If Tatiana had known that the plan was going to go on for so long, she would have never made the last part of the trip run through Central Park. It wasn't like she was a complete wimp. She knew how to take care of herself. But long before her mother said they would be moving to New York, Tatiana had heard stories about Central Park. According to the people back in Russia, any girl that so much as took one step into the park after sundown would be robbed, or murdered, or worse.

Now that she had been in the city for a while, Tatiana no longer believed all those stories. Still, there was danger here. No matter what the mayor said about crime statistics, going into the park at night was still not a good idea. Tatiana knew how to handle herself,
but there were some kinds of trouble—gun trouble, knife trouble, multiple-bad-guy trouble—that even the best roundhouse kick in the world wouldn't solve.

She reached the entrance to the park on the east side and stood on tiptoes to peer over the thinning crowd. Tatiana almost wished that she would see nothing so she would have an excuse to go home. After all, it was clear that this whole thing was not going to lead to helping her mother. But this time she spotted a tall blond figure slipping through the entrance of the park.

As usual when crossing any street in New York, Tatiana took her life in her hands and followed. She charged up onto the sidewalk on the other side and headed onto the path that led west across the park. She caught another glimpse of Gaia no more than a couple of hundred yards ahead and decided to pick up the pace. If she could catch Gaia, they could go home now, before it got too late.

By the time Gaia turned on the wide path heading north toward the reservoir, Tatiana was only about fifty feet behind. There were only a few others on the trail with them, few enough that Tatiana cast a nervous look toward the dark bushes on either side.
She increased her pace again.
She was only thirty yards from Gaia. Twenty.

She was just about to yell at Gaia to slow down when she noticed the guy on her left. He was an ordinary-looking guy. Late twenties, maybe early thirties. He had on neatly pressed khakis and a gray cable-knit sweater, which seemed a little light for the cold weather, but other than that he was an average guy. Average height. Average looks. Average.

He was the kind of guy that you might overlook in any crowd.
A guy so normal that he might as well have been invisible.
Only Tatiana thought she had seen him before. Not just once. Not even just three times. But all day long.