The Gender Experiment: (A Thriller) (17 page)

“I’d like to go home.”

“It may not be safe there.”

“Don’t worry. I’m off the grid. I don’t even get mail there.”

Was he paranoid?
“Ok. But be careful. Do you still need the pain meds?”

“Nah. I’ve got medication at home.”

Whatever that meant. A drug addiction?

Seth, fully dressed now, stood again. “Where are you parked? I don’t know how far I can walk.”

“On the third floor of the garage. I’ll go get a wheelchair.” Jake stepped out of the room, remembering his quest to interview Dr. Novak. He would take Seth home and come back. He stopped a nurse walking by. “Can I get a wheelchair for my friend?”

She looked startled. “For Seth? He’s not ready to go
anywhere
.”

“He’s dressed and anxious to leave.” Jake gave her a charming smile. “I don’t think I can stop him, so I might as well keep him from hurting himself again.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll talk to him.” The nurse turned toward Seth’s room.

He stood in the doorway, looking pained and angry. “Fuck the wheelchair. Let’s just go.”

Jake didn’t know if he should offer an arm for the guy to lean on or not. Seth seemed a bit macho, even defensive. But discovering a uterus inside your body could do that to a guy. Jake wondered again about Taylor’s body. He really hoped she didn’t have a penis. It was stupid that it mattered to him, since they’d already decided they would just be friends. But still, he was attracted to her, so the idea of her having male body parts kind of freaked him out. He would just have to get over it.

Jake stepped next to Seth and held out his arm. The injured man made a grunting noise, but after two steps, grabbed onto Jake’s elbow. They moved slowly toward the elevator. As they reached it, the nurse jogged up behind them with a wheelchair. “Please take it easy,” she implored.

Seth flopped down into the chair and mumbled, “Just until I get some pain relief.”

The nurse handed him a white pill. “I was on my way to bring you this.”

Seth swallowed it dry, the elevator doors opened, and Jake rolled him in.

In Taylor’s car, Jake turned to his wounded passenger. “Where do you live?”

“I’ll direct you as we go. And you can’t ever tell anyone!”

“No problem.” Jake started the car and backed out. “Can I ask why it matters?”

“I don’t want my parents bugging me.”

“They’re looking for you?”

“My mother has searched for me.” Seth glanced around. “But she’s not the only one.”

He was paranoid!
“Who else is looking for you?”

“I don’t know, but someone’s been watching me since I was thirteen.”

“That seems unusual. How do you know?”

“It’s mostly a feeling, but there’s little stuff too. Like seeing the same dude in completely different places, like at the school, then two years later near the skate park.” Seth laughed, with less bitterness. “I walked over to confront him, but the chickenshit drove away in a hurry.”

Maybe Seth wasn’t paranoid.
“I wonder if watching you is part of the experiment. Maybe they’re keeping tabs on the kids as they become adults. That might be why your name was marked. They think you’re a problem somehow.”

“Yeah, everybody does.” Seth dropped his seat back and stretched out. “But stuff will calm down for me now. Discovering that thing in my body was pretty fucked up. Then I realized it explained my confusion and self-loathing, and it was a relief to know. I’m in hella pain, but my brain feels better.”

“Good to hear.” Jake cleared his throat. “But why take it out yourself? Wouldn’t a doctor remove it?”

“The bitch said it was harmless. When I pushed for the surgery, the consultant said I needed seventeen thousand cash up front. And that’s just the surgeon’s fee, not including the hospital.” The bitterness was back.

“Well, I guess you got it done.”

“Damn straight.” Seth sat up for a moment. “Head toward the old part of town. I live in the basement of a friend’s house.

Jake made a left out of the parking garage. “I have to drop you off and come back to the hospital. There’s a doctor I need to talk to. In fact, he delivered you.”

Seth snapped his head toward Jake. “The one who gave my mother the drug? I’ll fucking kill him.”

Oh boy, this guy was a hothead.
“The doctors at the clinic may not have known what was going on. They have been told the drug was beneficial. I hope to get more details soon.”

“You have to tell me, man. I want to know.”

“I will.” Jake made another left and glanced in the rearview mirror. Was that a black SUV? Yes, but the vehicle pulled off the street and he lost sight of it. He decided to tell Seth about Taylor and the others. “I know about all of this because I found one of the dead subjects. Zion was on the hit list too. So was Taylor. She works in the morgue and figured out what was going on.” Jake choked up and could hardly continue. “They abducted her yesterday.”

“No shit? People are dead and missing?” Seth’s macho receded a little.

“I called the FBI, and they’re sending an agent, maybe even a team, from headquarters.”

Seth crossed his arms. “I’m not talking to the feds. Count me out.”

Jake tried to ease the troubled man’s mind. “I won’t tell them where to find you. Hopefully, they’ll be focused on locating Taylor and the assassin.”

“This shit is too weird.”

Jake kept quiet. He was plotting his next move. If Dr. Novak wouldn’t talk to him, then it might make sense to leak some of the story to a friend at the Denver Post. If the media reported certain events—like Taylor’s disappearance and Seth’s self-surgery—it might actually protect all of them. Media coverage could backfire too. The people who’d conducted the experiment might panic and destroy all the evidence—including Taylor.

An hour earlier, Stratton Research Complex

Devin stepped into the major’s office and tensed. Something was wrong. He had that stiff, flushed look she knew so well. “What happened, sir?”

“Seth Wozac is in the hospital. Paramedics carried him out of his house after he cut open his abdomen. His monitor thinks he tried to commit suicide.”

That would be convenient.
“Did he succeed?”

“Don’t be a smart ass. He’s in the ICU at St. Paul’s, and I don’t think it was a suicide attempt.” The major was still standing. “Maybe Wozac is mixed gender too. Some hermaphrodites have extra sex organs on the inside, so maybe he tried to remove something. As fucked up as he is, that wouldn’t surprise me. We need to silence him and keep this out of the press.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll get it done.” Devin recalled the discussion about the need for the terminations. “You knew the pyromaniacs couldn’t be trusted not to bring media attention to themselves and the clinic.”

“I was worried about a major arson fire, not a damn self-surgery.” The major scowled. “The hospital will probably insist that Wozac undergo a psychological evaluation. If he discusses his gender issues or his birth circumstances, we could have trouble.” Her father poured a shot and downed it. “Others in the first group have undergone counseling and two committed suicide. Colorado Springs is a small town, and some shrink or physician will start putting it together. Sometimes, I think we should shut down all the original subjects.”

Kill thirty more people?
The thought horrified Devin. “But most of them moved away. I don’t think that will be necessary, sir.” She also had to reassure the major that she would handle the last two targets and that things would smooth over. The hospital setting was challenging though. What about an overdose? Could she slip in and out without being seen? Patients in the ICU were closely watched.
Show no weakness!
“People die in the hospital all the time,” she finally said. “I’ll get it done.”

“Today!” The major’s expression shifted, and Devin couldn’t read it. The old man paced as he talked. “We need to silence Jake Wilson immediately too. Can you handle both, or do I need to bring in someone else? The CIA director has offered one of his operatives.”

Devin flinched. Why did he doubt her? She’d taken care of all the other pyro subjects and brought in Lopez without incident. “I can handle it, as I have the others.”

The major nodded. “You’ve done well, son. But now it’s about timing. We no longer have the luxury of carefully planned terminations.”

The praise surprised her, and Devin took a moment to savor it. “I can act quickly. I believe the reporter is staying in a motel near the clinic and driving Lopez’s car, so he’ll be easy to locate. The ICU will be more challenging, but a diversion might be a successful tactic.”

“The director thinks Wilson downloaded files from the clinic, so search and destroy.”

He was dismissing her. “Yes, sir.” Devin saluted and strode out. Every minute counted now. But it wasn’t her fault that Seth Wozac had finally spiraled out of control. When the major had assigned her to terminate the four subjects who’d become obsessed with fire, she’d been given a flexible deadline. A secondary objective was to make them look like accidents so no one ever linked their deaths or their bodies. But Taylor Lopez had made the connection and shared her findings, so now expediency was critical.

Devin doubted that Lopez would make a good operative. She was too old to start the training. Most of the other Peace Project operatives had been conditioned and placed in their respective countries as teenagers. Devin was grateful to be stateside. She didn’t know if it was because her father hadn’t wanted to risk her life in a foreign country or because he liked having her around. Or maybe she just wouldn’t have blended in well enough. The major had talked about the operatives and their long-term mission a few times when he was drinking heavily and it was just the two of them having a late dinner. Devin loved those moments when she felt like his confidant. They almost made up for the commander-subordinate way he treated her most of the time.

She stopped in the mess hall, grabbed some rations, and headed out of the compound. She needed a shower and some sleep, but both would have to wait.

After a dozen phone calls, she located the motel where Wilson had stayed the day before. The Jetta wasn’t in the parking lot, and a stop in the office revealed that Wilson hadn’t paid for another night. He was moving around. Smart. But not good for her. She decided to check out Wozac’s situation in the hospital before she spent more time looking for the reporter. Wilson might have fled back to Denver.

The biggest concern was that Wilson would go to his friends at the Post—or write and publish an exposé himself. He had to be stopped. Devin still didn’t understand how the morgue attendant and the reporter had connected. Unless they were old friends. The staff that monitored the subjects kept only intermittent track of them, unless they displayed problematic behavior like the fire-starting tendency. The four pyros had been under close supervision for a year before the major had decided to shut them down. The monitors, desk clerks mostly, were not privy to that order or suited to carry it out.

At a traffic light, Devin keyed the hospital’s name into her GPS and promptly circled back. Located near a big city park, St. Paul’s was easy to find. As she drove, daylight faded in the cloudy western sky. Devin welcomed the coming darkness. She would need all the cover she could get for the hospital mission.
So risky!
Waiting for Wozac to be released would make the termination so much cleaner. Could they afford the time? She pulled over, found the number, and called the medical facility. Pitching her voice lower, Devin said, “This is Detective Miller with the Colorado Springs Police Department. I need to question a patient, Seth Wozac. Is he still in the ICU?”

“Just a moment.” The woman put her on hold for a second, then said, “Yes, but he’s stable, and they’ll probably move him to another floor tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

“I can transfer you to the second-floor desk, so you can ask about talking to him.” The hospital clerk lowered her voice to a whisper. “You should know there’s a psych consult requested for him.”

“Why? What did he do?” Devin wanted details.

The clerk cleared her throat. “As strange as this sounds, he operated on himself to cut out a uterus.”

“That is strange,” Devin said, reacting how she thought a cop might. But it wasn’t strange to her. She thought about the ovaries in her otherwise mostly male body. She’d never give them up. They made her who she really was. “Don’t bother transferring my call. I’ll come in.” Devin clicked off. Now that she knew Wozac’s injuries would keep him in the hospital for days, she had no choice but to move forward immediately. An idea began to form, and her shoulders relaxed. She might just pull this off—without getting arrested. But if she were detained, she would go silent. Her father’s secrets were safe with her, even if she were convicted and sentenced.

The tension returned to her body. She was about to take two more lives. She would honor them, like she had the others, with tattoos that represented their souls. As a fire-starter like the other three subjects, Wozac would be another flame added to the fire inked on her forearm. She would have to think about a new design for the reporter. But not now. Devin got back on the road and worked through her plan. She needed a jacket like a detective would wear and a needle full of dope. A stop at the Goodwill, followed by a smash-and-grab in Heroin Alley. This might even be fun.

The short block near Highland Park where many of the city’s heroin addicts hung out was strangely empty.
Fuck.
Now she needed a new plan. Devin cruised the street slowly, just in case a druggie emerged. No luck. As she was about to drive off, a silver Toyota turned down the block. After it passed, Devin parked and watched the vehicle in her rearview mirror. Two shaved-head thugs in baggy jeans got out and walked toward a seedy apartment building.
Go now!

Devin shot out of her SUV and sprinted down the sidewalk, closing the gap in seconds. They heard her coming at the last moment and turned, with startled expressions. She punched the taller guy first, coming from underneath to break his nose. The second thug started to run, so she slammed a foot into his back and knocked him to the ground. The first guy swung at her, his other hand gripping his bloody nose. But he was dazed and slow. She easily blocked the punch, snapping a bone near his elbow. The sound echoed in the empty street. The pussy bellowed like a steer on its way to slaughter and dropped to his knees. The second guy, already on the ground, rolled over to face her. Eyes wide with terror, he shouted, “What the fuck?”