Flood Rising (A Jenna Flood Thriller) (17 page)

35

6:29 a.m.

Jenna was sitting on the couch in the front room when Cort arrived, as promised, slightly less than five minutes after ending the telephone call. He looked to be about the same age as Noah, a little taller and a little leaner, but no less grizzled. His bloodshot eyes and rumpled clothing—khakis and a tropical-patterned short-sleeved shirt—conveyed the impression of someone who had crashed after an all-night party.

He gave her an appraising look, then glanced around, as if searching for someone else. “Where’s your friend?”

Jenna did not answer directly. “You’ve got cameras here, right? That’s how you knew it was me?”

Mercy had not liked the idea of waiting around for Cort to come to them, but Jenna saw no alternative. “If it is a trap,” she had told Mercy, “we’re already in it. What we have to do now is give ourselves a way out.”

Mercy was hiding somewhere nearby, keeping an eye and the barrel of her pistol trained on the house. If Cort showed up with a posse in tow, or gave any hint of treachery, she would do what she could to provide cover for Jenna’s escape. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now Jenna felt as alone as she had during the ordeal with the Villegas brothers.

Cort laughed—a short barking sound—and sank into a chair on the opposite side of the room. “That’s your first question? After everything you’ve been through?”

“This place is some kind of safe house, right? Cameras, remote locks, who knows what else. That tells me you’re working for the government…well,
a
government. I’m not sure which one. I think the men that tried to kill me work for the government, too. So…yeah, that’s my first question.”

She held his gaze, as curious about how he would react, as she was about what he would say. His eyes did not move.

Of course not. He knows all the same tricks that Noah taught me. I’ll never know if he’s lying
.

“Let’s just cut to the chase, then. Yes, I work for the government.
Our
government. Just like your father did—”

“He wasn’t my father.” It was out of her mouth before she could even think about whether it was the right thing to say.

Cort’s expression did not change. “Now see, I thought your first question would have something to do with that.”

Jenna did not allow herself to be derailed. “So you
do
work for the government.”

“Yes, but not for the people that are after you. Not exactly. It’s complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it,” she said. “Or I’m out of here.”

Cort drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. It was the closest thing to a ‘tell’ that Jenna had seen from him. She thought he might be stalling. Finally he cleared his throat. “Why don’t you invite your friend in? She might be interested in what I have to say.”

Jenna shook her head. “I feel safer with her right where she is.”

“Suit yourself.” Cort stood up. “Are you hungry? Thirsty? There are some Cokes in the fridge.”

Definitely stalling
. Jenna stood up and headed for the door.

“Wait.”

She stopped but did not turn.

“I need you to see something. In the signal room.”

“What’s a signal room?”

“It’s like an office. Come on. I’ll show you.”

“If you’re wasting my time…” She let the threat hang. She was not exactly in a position to make demands. The only leverage she had was the ability to walk out the door, and the price for that would be abandoning the search for answers.

Cort led her into a short hall with three doors. The first was slightly ajar, revealing a bathroom. The other two were closed. He opened one of the latter and led Jenna into a space that looked more like the control room of a space ship than a mere office. One entire wall was dominated by enormous flat screen television monitors. There was a long utilitarian desk with two open laptop computers, along with printers, scanners, telephones and other devices that Jenna did not recognize. Large computer servers dominated one entire wall, while the wall opposite the screens was lined with gun-metal gray freestanding cabinets.

Cort moved to the desk and started pushing buttons, waking up the computers and turning on the televisions. He tuned the TVs to different twenty-four-hour cable news networks, and in a matter of just a few seconds, the room was filled with a crowd of voices, all talking over each other. Yet, even though the voices were not synchronized, the various stations were reporting the same story—the story that had been playing when she had walked into Mercy’s bar the previous night. Each news service called it something different, but the gist was the same:
Bio-terrorism in China
.

“Are you following the story?” Cort asked, gesturing at the screens.

“Been a little busy with something else.”

“There’s been a major outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong. You know about SARS?”

Jenna nodded. SARS—Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome—was a coronavirus disease that caused flu-like symptoms, often resulting in pneumonia. It had first appeared in China in 2002, and quickly spread across the world, infecting thousands and killing almost one person in every ten infected. Since that initial outbreak, the disease had been inactive, though a similar coronavirus called MERS—Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome—had appeared in late 2012 and was slowly making its way around the globe. The original SARS outbreak had occurred when she was a very young child, but she remembered hearing the name. She had not heard mention of this latest outbreak.

“The Chinese have closed the borders and aren’t saying much officially. Unofficially they’re investigating the outbreak as an act of terrorism. See, when SARS first showed up, a lot of folks believed it was a biological weapon, genetically engineered to target a specific racial profile—people of Asian, and specifically Chinese, ancestry.” He paused to take a deep breath, as if doing so might lend gravity to his next statement. “As it happens, they were right.”

Despite the fact that the entire discussion digressed from her immediate concerns, Jenna was stunned by the admission. “SARS was a bio-weapon?”

“The 2003 outbreak was a test. A demonstration, if you will. We were very vulnerable…two wars, a recession… We had to let Beijing know that it wasn’t a good time to screw with us.”

This second revelation was even more stunning than the first. “
Us?
As in the United States?
We
turned SARS loose on China?”

Irritation flickered across Cort’s otherwise imperturbable expression, but he waved a hand dismissively. “What’s done is done. What’s happening now is…not. Not us, I mean.”

“Then who? And why?”

Cort nodded as if she had given the appropriate response. “I’ll let you think about that. See if you’re as smart as I’ve heard.”

She heard an echo of Zack’s ominous statement in his words—
they were right about you—
but just as quickly, the answer popped into her head. “It will create tension between the US and China.”

Cort made a gun-shape with his hand and cocked his thumb, as if shooting at her. “What you won’t hear on the news is that we’re in the middle of a full-scale cyber-assault. Someone is exploiting a major source code vulnerability, and when the news finally gets out—and it will get out—it’s going to…” He paused, took another breath, and then in a more subdued tone said, “It’ll be bad.

“China is the obvious suspect. We’ve been in a virtual Cold War with them for the last five years—ever heard of Operation Aurora? GhostNet? The Elderwood Group? Unit 61398?”

Jenna shook her head in response to each, and Cort just shrugged. “Well, we’ve tried to keep most of it under our hat, so to speak. If people knew how vulnerable the digital landscape was, the economy would crater. Up until now, the attacks have always been just a nuisance. They were probing weaknesses, harassing us with phishing and malware, theft and eavesdropping. But this week, the attacks escalated. Exponentially. Way beyond anything the Chinese are capable of.”

“Someone is framing the Chinese for the cyber-attack, right? The same people who are behind the SARS outbreak.” Jenna could almost hear the whir of her own mental hard drive as she processed this information. “So who’s really behind it?”

Cort nodded and rolled his hand in
go on
gesture. “Who benefits from an all-out conflict between China and the US?”

“Russia?”

Cort made another finger gun.

What does that have to do with people trying to kill me?

“Fifteen years ago,” Cort explained, “the man you call Noah Flood was sent on a mission to destroy a former Soviet research center in Cuba, a facility still being operated by the Russian government.”

“My real parents were Russians,” she said, though it was more of a question. “Somehow they were involved in all of this.”

She didn’t know how, but she could see in Cort’s eyes that she’d gotten at least some of it right. He stared at her for several seconds, then turned to one of the laptop computers. Jenna saw that the information on his computer was now duplicated on one of the wall screens. As he navigated through directories and files, he began talking.

“Does the name Trofim Lysenko mean anything to you? No? Lysenko was a Soviet scientist, their leading agricultural expert from the 1930s until well into the 50s. Lysenko believed the widely accepted theories of genetics, as explained by Gregor Mendel…you do know that name right?”

Jenna nodded. “I learned all about him in biology. Mendel figured out the principles of heredity, and how traits are passed from one generation to the next. We know a lot more about it now. Mendel lived a hundred and fifty years ago. He didn’t know anything about DNA.”

“Lysenko thought Mendel was wrong, and that the genetic traits could be influenced by the environment. The short version of the story is that Lysenko’s ideas were hogwash, and by the 1960s, the Soviets were in a big hurry to make up lost ground, especially in the area of genetic research.”

“That’s what they were doing at the place where Noah found me. It was in Cuba, right?”

Cort regarded her through narrowed eyes. “Did he tell you that, or did you figure it out for yourself?”

“A little of both.” She returned his appraising stare. “Okay, so the Russians were doing genetic research, and someone decided it had to be stopped. Destroy the place and kill everyone, right? Only Noah didn’t count on finding me. He couldn’t bring himself to murder a child, but he didn’t dare tell anyone that he’d disobeyed orders. So, he quit. No, he didn’t just quit. He changed his name and dropped off the grid so that you people would never find me. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

“Well done. But you’re wrong about one thing. We always knew what your father…” Another hint of laughter. “What
Noah
had done. He couldn’t hide from us, but he wasn’t a threat, and neither were you. Until now.” Cort returned his attention to the computer long enough to tap in a few more commands. “That facility was conducting a particularly dangerous type of research. They had already let the genie out of the bottle, and we knew we’d have only one chance to put it back in.”

“Bioweapons?” Jenna shook her head in disbelief at the evident hypocrisy. “You as much as admitted that the US engineered the SARS outbreak.”

“Who said anything about bioweapons?” Cort smiled like a magician showing the audience his empty hat. “But speaking of SARS, we’ve tracked down the source of the outbreak. A sample of the virus was discovered missing from a CDC facility in Atlanta. One of the scientists doing research there—a Dr. Kelli Foster—recently traveled to China. Her whereabouts are presently unknown.” Cort pointed at the screen. “That is Kelli Foster.”

The display showed an unflattering mug-shot style photo—taken for an official identification card or perhaps a driver’s license—of a woman in her mid-twenties. The woman had dark hair and an olive complexion that hinted at an exotic ancestry.

Jenna gaped in astonishment. But for ten more pounds and as many years, Kelli Foster might have been her own twin sister.

The image disappeared and another took its place.

“This is Jarrod Chu. He’s a special agent in the FBI cybercrime division. He practically wrote the book on how to fight hackers. If anyone could tell us how to fight this latest attack, it’s Chu. Unfortunately, he’s also missing. I think you can see why we’re very interested in finding Mr. Chu.”

Jenna stared at the ID card picture. Chu might have been thirty, possibly Eurasian if his name was any indication, with neatly trimmed black hair. There was nothing androgynous about his features, but the resemblance to both Kelli Foster and Jenna herself was unmistakable.

Dumbstruck, she turned to Cort and shook her head questioningly. “Am I… Are they my…family?”

“Family?” Cort rolled the word around in his mouth then frowned. “Maybe that’s the word for it. I don’t really know. You see, in a way Jenna, they are
you
.”

“What?”

“Kelli Foster, Jarrod Chu, you…and at least a dozen others. Jenna, you’re all the same person. You’re all clones.”

36

6:44 a.m.

Cort didn’t allow even a moment for the information to sink in. “Back in ‘99, when the order came down to destroy the research facility, we didn’t know exactly what they were up to, but we knew they had perfected human cloning techniques. We didn’t know if they were trying to engineer some kind of super soldier, or trying to create organ donors for former party officials turned oligarchs or… Hell, maybe trying to clone old Joe Stalin himself. All we really knew was that we had to stop them. So we did.”

Jenna could barely hear him over the sound of blood rushing through her ears.
A clone? I’m a clone?

She was still reeling from the news that Noah had killed her parents, and now she was being told that she didn’t even have parents. She was nothing but an experiment. Pinocchio pretending to be a real boy. Frankenstein’s monster brought to life by a mad scientist.

Several seconds passed before she realized that Cort had stopped talking. She met his gaze. “A clone?”

The man nodded.

“Did Noah know?”

“Hard to say. I’m sure someone higher up the chain knew exactly what was going on. That’s probably why they decided to let him go through with his retirement plan. They were curious to see how things would turn out for you. But yeah, I think he probably figured it out.”

Jenna swallowed. The revelation had rocked every fiber of her being, calling into question everything she believed about herself.

Her knowledge of cloning was limited to what she had seen in movies and read about in the occasional science magazine article, but that was enough to grasp the basics. Genetic material from one or more donors, inserted into a human egg cell and then implanted in a surrogate mother for gestation and birth—that was probably how they had done it.

All the years spent wondering what her mother looked like… She didn’t have a mother. Just an anonymous rented womb.

Jenna looked up at the image of Jarrod Chu. “How did they survive?”

“You have to understand that, until this week, we didn’t realize that any of them had. Our working hypothesis is that the clones were removed from the facility after a few years—probably when they were school aged—and sent back to the Motherland for education and indoctrination. Or, they might have been educated by sleeper agents in the US. Both Foster and Chu underwent fairly rigorous background checks and passed without a hitch.”

Jenna fought through the deluge of questions, most of which she doubted Cort could even answer, and tried to focus on the immediate problem. “Why now? Why come after me?”

“Something big is happening. A plan that has been in the works for a very long time. We know that much, and we know that the clones are critical to the plan.”

“How?”

“I think you already know, Jenna. You’re not like other people.”

You are dangerous.

You don’t even know what you are.

“You’re smarter, stronger. Hell, there are things you probably don’t even know you’re capable of doing.” Cort jerked his head toward the screen. “Just like them. Kelli Foster and Jarrod Chu. There are others, too, all geniuses in positions of power and influence, all around the world. Positioned like pieces on a chessboard. It took us a while to figure it out, but once we identified those two, the rest fell into place.”

“That’s why they decided to kill me?”

“Not just you. All of them. In your case, someone panicked. Your father was a senior officer who quit all of a sudden to raise you. Given what was happening, that looked very suspicious. Better safe than sorry.”

Jenna felt no reaction to the word ‘father.’ “You aren’t going to help me, are you?”

Cort took a deep breath. “Jenna, my section wasn’t involved in any of this. If I had known sooner, I could have worked with your father and arranged a safe outcome for both of you. But if you come in—”

A distant gun report interrupted him. Jenna had known the audience with Cort was almost at and end, and she was already poised for action, so when she heard the shot, she sprang into motion.

Cort moved, too, faster than she expected for someone his age. Jenna’s expectations, however, were that Cort, like Noah, would be a veteran intelligence officer, with reflexes honed by training and experience, and a repertoire of deadly skills. Whether or not this was true did not matter. She had prepared for the worst case scenario.

In the five minutes spent waiting for Cort to arrive, Jenna had scouted the safe house, exploring the rooms, identifying potential hazards, and plotting escape routes. She had memorized the layout of each room, and noted what items might be useful for defensive or even offensive purposes. In the room Cort called the ‘signal room,’ she had been particularly interested in the notebook computers resting on the desktop.

As she darted forward, Cort sprang to his feet and took a step back, one hand extended toward her, the other reaching behind him. When the hand reappeared, it held a small pistol, but before he could aim it at her, she had scooped up the nearest laptop and hurled it like a Frisbee. The heavy computer struck dead center in the middle of Cort’s chest. The projectile hit with sufficient force to knock him back a step, but more importantly, it dealt a shock to his nervous system that caused the gun to fly out of his hands.

Jenna took action before the hurled computer clattered to the floor. She pounced on Cort, driving several quick focused punches into his jaw and solar plexus. She felt an unexpected throb of pain in her left arm. The stab wound, aggravated by the sudden activity, reminded her of its presence, but she ignored the sensation and didn’t hold back.

Cort weathered the assault and caught her third punch. He twisted her arm around and attempted to pin it, but she was ready for this move. She relaxed her legs, letting her weight drop, and pulled him off balance. They collapsed together onto the floor in a tangle of limbs. Cort seized on this imagined advantage and tried to roll her over, so he could use his superior size to subdue her.

Jenna didn’t resist. Instead, she reached out with her free hand and in a single smooth motion, seized hold of the computer and slammed it against the side of Cort’s head. The blow dazed him, and she wriggled free of his grasp. In the instant it took him to recover, she found his gun and brought it up, ready to fire.

Cort froze, staring at the barrel of the pistol as if hypnotized. “Jenna, put it down,” he said slowly.

She saw in his eyes that he knew she would shoot, but she also saw that he was calculating his odds of surviving that first shot and taking the gun away from her. He was on the ground, and any move against her would require him to overcome his own inertia. The odds, she decided, were probably in her favor, but Cort knew, as she did, that the best way to deal with a situation like this was to move toward the gun.

She pulled the trigger.

The report was deafening in the small room, but Jenna did not even flinch. A spray of red erupted from Cort’s right thigh, and a curse tore from between his clenched teeth. Jenna kept the gun trained on him, shifting her aim so that it was now trained on his heart.

“Keys.”

“Jenna.” He was breathing fast, angry and in pain. “I can help, but you need to trust me.”

“Give them to me, or I’ll take them off your dead body.”

His hands came up in a gesture of surrender, then he reached slowly toward the pocket just above the spreading red stain. “You won’t make it on your own,” he said, grimacing as he brought out a key ring. “I can bring you in. Keep you safe.”

Despite his evident treachery, the offer was tempting. Cort had given her the answers she sought. He could just as easily have killed her the moment he walked in. She didn’t trust him, but if there was even a chance that he was willing and able to protect her, this would be her only opportunity to accept. If she refused, if she ran, there would be nowhere left to turn for help.

But if I’m as smart and dangerous as everyone seems to think I am, maybe I don’t need help
.

She extended her left hand, palm up. He nodded, as if somehow agreeing with the logic of her refusal, and tossed the ring to her. She thought he might try a short throw as a distraction, but the keys landed on her outstretched fingers so precisely that she didn’t even need to break eye contact for the catch. She took a backward step and then bolted from the room, ignoring his shouted parting words.

“They’ll find you! They
will
kill you!”