He reached the midway point and stopped. Had he seen something flicker in the distance? He started forward again, then jumped off the path when he caught a glimpse of movement in the bowels of the cemetery.
Two men in field jackets walked past him, twenty feet apart, scouring the cemetery. Siti started to shake, and time seemed to both stop and accelerate.
They knew
.
He spotted more men through the fog; his employer had an army now. He huddled behind a crypt and tried to think, but it was hard to form a coherent thought through his fear. He decided staying put was his best bet, and he scrunched his body against the cold stone. Someone would have to check behind this particular crypt to find him, and the five cemeteries comprising the City of the Dead stretched for miles.
Siti didn’t hear a sound, but the first thing he saw in that terrible silence was the foot stepping around the base of the crypt, bandaged toes turning to point towards Siti. Siti’s eyes followed the foot upward, to the rest of the thing that could not be. Then he started to scream.
T
he meeting was set for five p.m., at the client’s hotel on the Upper East Side. Dominic Grey began to walk as the streets began to darken, the shadows cast by the buildings merging with the soft cloak of dusk. It was the sort of late March day that belonged more to winter than to spring: overcast, branches rustling in the wind, the electric undercurrent of an approaching front.
Grey shrank into his woolen coat as the wind whipped his dark hair into his face. He’d forgotten how cruel Manhattan weather could be, and it didn’t help that his lean frame had become even more spare. He had been taking more jogs than meals.
This was his first official assignment since leaving Diplomatic Security and agreeing to work with Professor Viktor Radek, professor of religious phenomenology at Charles University in Prague. Viktor consulted with police agencies worldwide, and sometimes private clients, on the pathology of dangerous cults. He had needed a partner skilled in the more secular aspects of his dangerous investigative work, and Grey, an ex-Marine Recon and Japanese Jujitsu expert, was a perfect fit. Viktor made his pitch after he and Grey finished a case together investigating the disappearance of a diplomat in Zimbabwe—a case Grey would just as soon forget.
A step into the unknown, to say the least: from the rigidity of government life to freelance investigation of bizarre religions. The fact that Viktor had doubled Grey’s meager government wage had eased the transition.
Viktor was busy with a ritual murder in Berlin, and had asked Grey to check out a potential client who called concerning a corporate theft. Grey had no idea why someone would call Viktor concerning stolen property, but the client was on a business trip in Manhattan, and if Viktor wanted him to check it out, then he would. At this point he’d investigate a stolen church hymnal in northern Canada.
Anything to fill the day, Grey thought. Anything to push away her last knowing gaze that was stamped onto his mind.
Nya
.
His corner in a crowded room, his quickening. What happened to her in the caves beneath Great Zimbabwe, the torture that had left her nearly catatonic for weeks, had changed her. She would smile, invite Grey to tea, stroll with him through her garden, but three months later she still hadn’t let him touch her.
Maybe it was her scars, maybe it was something else. Maybe she’d seen something in him, a permanent silhouette of violence she could no longer accept. When he voiced his thoughts, she’d turned her head to the side. It was best, she said, if they took different paths.
He wasn’t the type of guy you had to tell twice. He left Zimbabwe a month ago and bought a one-way ticket to the States. He had wanted a direct flight, a U.S. city, and crushing anonymity.
New York it was.
Since then he’d done nothing but question. Maybe he had made the wrong choice. Maybe he’d left too soon. He didn’t know; his mistakes had a way of staying hidden until fully embraced. What he did know was that her sweet vibrant memory was fading, and he was sad. She was there but she was not. The lingering doubt became his shadow he would never reveal to the sun, for fear of losing her entirely.
He’d checked into a moderate Midtown hotel and waited for the call from Viktor. He jogged and he read and he trained and he thought. He found himself taking the subway at random, to the frontiers of the city, ducking into stores in small ethnic neighborhoods, watching faces. Everyone seemed to know exactly who they were and what they were doing. They fingered tomatoes and selected wines and flashed familiar smiles at the checkout clerks. They did those things, he imagined, day after day, week after week, year after year. They did them because it was what they did.
Alone and on the move, he found himself in familiar territory. But it was dark, this place. Black.
• • •
Grey approached the hotel, a column of brick and banded stone halfway down one of those austere tree-lined streets on the Upper East Side that he found more interesting in black and white photographs than in person.
He stepped into a foyer cloaked with old world snobbery, and glanced at the piece of paper in his hand. Room 1501. The bellhop looked the other way, chin high, as Grey strode past reception to the elevators.
He pressed the brass doorbell to the fifteenth floor suite, and at first Grey thought a large child had opened the door. Grey was six-foot-one, and the person in front of him couldn’t have been more than five feet tall.
His first impression turned absurd. The swarthy man standing in front of him in a dark suit struck Grey as the polar opposite of a child, the cold eyes and set mouth suggesting the man had seen and done things which had erased all traces of innocence. He was almost as wide as he was tall, and his squat, pockmarked face topped his square body like the stopper on a bottle of cologne. Tufts of black hair congregated in unkempt patches on his head, as if stuck on in afterthought. The suit looked out of place, too refined for the person underneath. His face possessed the mixture of hardness and fat common to ex-bodybuilders.
The room was a dim antechamber. When the man moved to open the door on the far side of the room, Grey noticed a protrusion on the upper middle of his back, an ugly hump that stretched like a swollen tumor against the fabric of his suit.
The humpback held the door as Grey stepped into a sizeable parlor. There was an olive-colored couch against one of the walls, two matching armchairs in the center. Muted track lighting maintained the theme of thin illumination. The air was scented with a heady musk, and a sense of manufactured calm enveloped the room, like the waiting room at a doctor’s office.
A man in a silken green robe entered the room from the corridor to Grey’s left. He walked with a serene gait, almost gliding into the room. He had a hawkish nose and chin, and stood level with Grey. He looked somewhere over fifty, but his skin possessed a healthy, vigorous sheen. The top of his head, high and narrow and bald, suggested urbanity.
“I’m Al-Miri,” he said, then motioned to two chairs. “Forgive my lack of hospitality, but this matter is of the utmost importance. I’ll pay twenty thousand dollars upon acceptance, and one hundred thousand upon completion, not inclusive of costs. Before we begin our discussion, you must know that I require two things: your undivided attention for the duration of the matter, and absolute secrecy. Both of these requirements begin immediately.”
“Nice to meet you also,” Grey muttered to himself. He couldn’t quite place the man’s accent and coppery skin tone. Middle Eastern? North African? “Confidentiality isn’t a problem. Viktor has another case going on, so I can’t make any promises on undivided attention.”
“Viktor assured me your involvement is sufficient. You agree, then, to my terms?”
Grey felt a prickle of satisfaction that Viktor had entrusted the decision to him. He agreed and took out a small notebook. The man crossed his legs and folded his hands into his lap.
“I am the principal of a small private company, New Cellular Technologies. We engage in biological research and development. What has been stolen involves an innovative technology. The science is extremely complex.”
“Where was it stolen from?”
“Someone inside the company was responsible for the theft. The product has not been brought to market, it has not been reported in journals, it has not been outside the laboratory. It was stolen and, most likely, sold.”
“Where’s your company located?”
He hesitated, for the briefest of moments. “Cairo.”
“The inside man?”
“Our priority and concern. If we discover anything of use, we’ll forward the information.”
“I’ll need to interview your employees by phone.”
“We prefer to conduct the internal investigation ourselves.”
Grey pursed his lips as he regarded Al-Miri, but let it go. “Tell me about this technology.”
Al-Miri unfolded his hands and drummed his long fingers against his thighs. “Every word of this conversation, every element of our association, is under the strictest code of silence.”
“I already gave my word.”
Al-Miri inclined his head. “My company is involved in biomedical gerontology, the science of aging. Are you familiar with it?”
“No.”
“We’ve been working on a project that could have a revolutionary effect on research in our field.”
Al-Miri hesitated again, and Grey held his gaze and waited for him to continue.
“A test tube of liquid was stolen, the result of many years of research. The composition is nothing you’d be familiar with—it’s nothing someone outside of this field would comprehend.”
“Does it have a name?”
“Once we’re finished with analysis and refinement of the product we shall give it a proper name.”
Grey chuckled and rubbed at his three-day stubble. “Look. You need to break it down for me. Asking random questions about an unnamed test tube might get difficult.”
“Are you knowledgeable about senescence at the cellular level?”
“I’ve never heard that word before.”
Al-Miri reached into his robe and took out a gold medallion hanging from a silver chain. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over the medallion, and seemed to be making a decision about something. Finally he turned the medallion over and held it up for Grey to see. The medallion was engraved, quite beautifully, with an image Grey stored in his memory.
“The logo of our company. You’ll find this image engraved into the test tube.”
“What if someone moves the liquid into another container?”
“A proper scientist would not take the chance.”
Grey took another look at the smooth gold face of the medallion. It was half an inch thick; if that was real gold, it was worth a fortune. Grey had the feeling that it was. “What if the test tube was used up?”
“It will have been sampled, tested and then guarded. Whoever has taken possession of the test tube—it will remain in their possession, and it will, except for test drops, remain intact.”
“You’ve reported the theft to the Egyptian authorities?”
“We’re quite certain our product has left the country. There are no other companies inside Egypt with the expertise and personnel necessary to comprehend the technology.”
“So we’re talking corporate espionage. I have to ask—why contact us?”
“There are certain… groups… who concern themselves with the possibilities of human life extension. Some of them are quite radical. Some of them fear the prospect of death to such an extent that they would go to any length to acquire a technology that seeks to combat its approach.”
“Why wouldn’t they just let your company develop it?”
“They believe there are limits on that which an ethical corporation can accomplish.”
Grey ran a hand through his hair and left his hand cupping the back of his neck. He had expected Viktor’s cases to be bizarre, not the clients themselves.
Al-Miri continued, “The product will have to be tested by a company that performs research similar to ours. Such an endeavor will take knowledge, resources, and time. Days, if not weeks, to gain a basic understanding. It was stolen less than a week ago.”
Al-Miri kept a cool expression, but Grey sensed an underlying urgency. “So regardless of who stole it,” Grey said, “what we’re looking for now is a laboratory, and unscrupulous scientists in your field.”
Al-Miri gave a slight bow in approval.
“Who are your competitors?”
He took a piece of paper from his robes and handed it to Grey. It contained a list of seven companies. “While a multitude of governments and companies conduct biomedical research, biomedical gerontology is much more rare. Even fewer possess the knowledge and resources to conduct the proper tests on our product.”
“If we find who has your product, how do you want to proceed?”
“My company will handle it from there.”
Grey raised his eyebrows. “You’ll handle it?”
“We’ll report the theft to the authorities in the proper jurisdiction. We must be careful not to prematurely disclose our intent, or the product might be spirited to another location. We have attorneys ready to orchestrate a legal seizure of the property.”
Grey gave a slow nod. “That’s probably the best way to go about it, depending on what country it’s been taken to.” He glanced at the piece of paper. “You might want to hope it’s not with the company in China.”
“Yes.”
“I have to tell you, there’s not much to go on.”
“I understand the difficulty of the assignment. Contact me as you need. I remind you that with a product such as this, with the promise of biomedical application that it offers, there are those who will go to great lengths to protect it.”
Grey wondered to what lengths Al-Miri would go.
“You agree, then, to accept this engagement?”
Grey had known his answer before he walked in the door. He agreed, and they both stood. Al-miri bowed again, his silk robe and sinuous figure reminding Grey of a pampered snake.
On his way out Grey passed the doorman again. The man stood with folded arms and didn’t acknowledge him.