Generation 18: The Spook Squad 2 (13 page)

Ford had taken several bullets in his left knee when a mission went sour. Though doctors had replaced the shattered joint, he’d been left with a permanent limp. At only thirty-five, he’d been too young to retire, and too young to send to the vaults. The way he’d sent Sam to the vaults. Gabriel ignored the momentary stab of guilt. “Do you still carry that knife in your boot?”

Ford smiled. “Yeah. It comes in handy when the recruits get uppity.”

The youngster driving grinned. Obviously, knives and dour instructors didn’t worry him. Gabriel returned his attention to Haynes.

“We’re taking you to SIU headquarters. You should be secure there until we find out who’s behind these murders.”

Haynes scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “What about Cooper?”

“I’ve sent another team out to retrieve him.”

“I still don’t understand why you couldn’t have told me this at home. I would have gone with you willingly. So why knock me out and haul me away?”

Gabriel wasn’t about to tell him the truth, especially if the military were listening in. “Because I believed we had very little time to play with.”

Haynes grunted. “I left the damn heater on at home. It’ll probably burn the place down.”

Gabriel glanced at Ford. “Can you secure Mr. Haynes’s place once you drop me off?”

“Yeah. No problem.”

“Thanks,” Haynes muttered.

Gabriel nodded, then leaned back in the seat, watching the traffic roll by. It didn’t take them long to reach the city and SIU headquarters. The redheaded driver swung the car into the underground parking lot and stopped next to the elevator.

“Nice driving, kid.” The youngster looked seriously insulted at the compliment, and Gabriel half-smiled and looked at Ford. “Be careful at Haynes’s place. You could have company.”

Ford’s brown eyes narrowed slightly. “What type?”

“Kite.” He hesitated. Though there were scramblers down here that should prevent their conversation being overheard, he didn’t want the powers-that-be behind the chip to know that the SIU was well aware of what was going on—at least where the microchips were concerned. But, by the same token, Ford needed to know there might be trouble. In the end, practicality won out over wariness. “The military might also be present.”

“Treat them as hostile?”

“Unknown.”

Ford nodded. Gabriel climbed out and walked around to assist the old man out of the car and into the elevator. He swiped his security card through the elevator slot and pressed B25. Not only did that floor have short-term apartment cells, but it also possessed the latest in both electronic and psychic deadeners. The military would not be able to hear or track them.

The elevator swept them downward. When the doors opened again, Haynes made a surprised noise.

“It looks like an upmarket hotel,” he murmured, as they walked out onto the plush mauve carpet.

“It is, in many respects.” Gabriel strode toward the desk. “We’ve found over time that people cooperate more fully if you look after them.”

Haynes gave him a sidelong look. “And if they don’t…cooperate?”

Gabriel met his gaze. “Then we make them.”

Haynes’s gaze narrowed at the threat. Gabriel looked at the security officer. “Mr. Haynes needs a room. Full service.”

The blonde nodded. “Room 25-4 is ready.”

“Thanks. And tell me when team nine brings in Jake Cooper.” He hesitated and glanced at his watch. “Has Agent Ryan reported in yet?”

The blonde pressed the com-screen. After several seconds, she looked up. “No, sir.”

“Let me know when she does.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gabriel escorted Haynes down the corridor. Like the rest of the cells on the twenty-fifth floor, room four was divided into three areas—bedroom, living room and bathroom. There was no need for a kitchen, as meals were provided. Every room was monitored twenty-four hours a day.

Haynes dropped down onto a well-padded armchair and regarded Gabriel somewhat stonily. “Now that we’re here, are you going to tell me the truth?”

Gabriel swung a chair around and sat down, resting his arms on the back. “I told you. We believe your life is in danger.”

“And like I said, you could have told me that at home. You brought me here for a reason, Assistant Director.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “Are you aware that the army put a tracking and listening device in your side while you did service at Hopeworth?”

Haynes snorted. “Yeah, it was policy. But that was twenty-five years ago. They removed it when I retired.”

“We have reason to believe they didn’t.”

Haynes stared at him for several seconds, brown eyes sharp. “Are you saying the military are trying to kill me?”

“No, I’m not. But I have reason to believe they’d do whatever it takes to prevent you from helping me.”

Haynes crossed his arms, a hint of confusion in his expression. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Does the name Emma Pierce mean anything to you?”

“Emma Pierce.” Haynes frowned. “She…worked with us in Hopeworth.”

“She was one of your test subjects,” Gabriel corrected. “On something called Generation 18.”

“How did you know that? No one’s supposed to know about those projects.”

Those projects?
How many attempts to manipulate nature had there been? He wondered how many of them had been successful—and what exactly they’d created. A kite-monster, perhaps?

“I’ve been talking to Mark Allars.”

“Allars?” Again the frown flicked across Haynes’s thin features. “The name seems familiar.”

“It should be. He was one of your lab rats on something called Penumbra.”

“Damn fool.” Haynes shook his head. “The military will kill him for speaking to you, you know. Just like they’ll kill me if I say anything.”

So the military
were
willing to murder to protect their secrets. Interesting. “This room is fully shielded. They won’t ever know.”

“It won’t matter.”

“Why not?”

“Because the mere fact that you’ve brought me here will be enough.”

“Better here than out there. As I said before, Lyle, White and Benson have recently been murdered—and by a creature I doubt is natural.” He watched the realization dawn in the older man’s eyes. “If that’s true, the military might well be after you already.”

“But that makes no sense. I mean, the projects were shut down years ago!”

“But the Hopeworth staff are still experimenting, aren’t they?”

“Very likely.”

“So what if some of those projects have been revived? The people in charge might not want any word about what happened in the past to leak out.”

“They wouldn’t fear that, because most of us can’t speak about them.”

“Why not?”

Haynes tapped his head. “Because they tampered with our memories when we left the military. I can’t tell you anything truly vital because the information was removed and blocked.”

“Was it just the scientists who had the memory alterations?” he asked, wondering why Allars seemed to remember so much.

Haynes nodded. “There was no real reason to alter the memories of the test subjects, as they didn’t know all that much about the inner workings or logistics of the projects.”

“Mind if I test just how thorough the erase was?” When Haynes shrugged, he added, “Tell me about Penumbra.”

Haynes frowned. “Nope. No can do.”

“Lyle, Benson and White, along with you and Cooper, are the only survivors from the fire that destroyed the Penumbra project—is that true?”

Haynes nodded.

“From what Allars said, it sounded like an inside job.”

“Impossible. We were tagged and watched, twenty-four hours a day.”

“What was Penumbra?”

“I can’t say…I can’t.”

“The five of you also worked on Generation 18, that right?”

Haynes nodded. Yes and no answers were outside the limits of the blocks, it seemed.

“Emma Pierce was one of the test subjects?” Again a nod. “From which you took her ovaries?”

Haynes looked uncomfortable and dropped his gaze from Gabriel’s.

“Generation 18 test subjects were either shifter or changers. What were you hoping to achieve?”

“Hy…Hyb…” Haynes scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck, his expression uncomfortable.

“Hybrids?” Gabriel finished. Haynes nodded.

So the military were trying to develop shifter-changer hybrids—something that occurred only rarely in the natural order of things.

“What about Penumbra? What were you trying to create there?”

Haynes could only shrug. The conditioning was stronger for that project than for the more recent one. Gabriel wondered why.

“Did the Generation 18 project succeed?”

A brief, sharp nod, and a hint of pride in the old man’s eyes.

“How many successful crosses did you achieve?”

The other man shrugged. Either he wasn’t sure of exact numbers or he couldn’t say.

“Were there many failures?”

“All experiments have failures.”

“What happened to them? Did they all die, or did some live?”

Another shrug. Haynes either didn’t know or didn’t care. Maybe both.

“Would the military have farmed the failures out for adoption?”

“I don’t know. I was not privy to that sort of information.”

Gabriel rubbed his chin. Emma Pierce had entered the military and had lost her ovaries to Generation 18. Given that she’d entered the military in her twenties, she was unlikely to have had children before then—not if having any family at all would have disqualified her as a test subject. And yet, the first two victims listed Emma Pierce as their birth mother. They
had
to be rejects from the project. The question was, why did the military have them adopted rather than simply killing them? If they were worried about security, surely death would have made more sense.

“Is it possible that one of the hybrids has gotten loose and is going after her less successful sisters?” A hybrid certainly fit the puzzle pieces in the doctor’s murder, at least.

Haynes somehow managed to force an answer. “Tagged…Alarmed.”

So if not a rogue hybrid from Hopeworth, then who? Was it Rose, the sister no one had known about?

He glanced at his watch again. Half an hour had passed. Sam should be back by now, and hopefully she had finished the search. He wasn’t going to get much more from Haynes until the conditioning had been neutralized.

“I think you’d better rest for a while.” Gabriel rose and walked to the door. “I’ll send someone back with some food.”

Haynes nodded and picked up the remote near the chair. He was taking his confinement well—maybe a little too well. Gabriel walked down to the security station. “I want a breakdown team assigned to Mr. Haynes. And get him something to eat.”

The blonde nodded.

“Has Agent Ryan checked in yet?”

“No, sir. Not yet.”

He swore softly and glanced at his watch. An hour and a half had passed since he’d left her. More than enough time to deposit Allars at a safe house and get her butt back here. Unless, of course, something had gone wrong. He strode over to the elevator. He’d call the safe house and see what was going on. And if she didn’t have a real good excuse for her tardiness, he’d banish her to the vaults permanently. At least that was one way to ensure she was safe.

Sam glanced at her watch. An hour had passed since she’d left Gabriel. Given his desire to get rid of her, he’d no doubt hit her with an official warning about her tardiness. Three warnings and you were out, she’d been told.

She slammed the door shut and ran down the stairs. Allars had been almost impossible to accommodate. He’d insisted on the latest in TV and satellite connections, and, because of his inability to walk very far, had required an apartment with few steps. Unfortunately, most SIU safe houses tended to be in buildings that had no elevators—simply because a would-be assassin might make more noise climbing stairs than taking the elevator. In the end, she’d told the watch team to carry him up to his room.

Why the hell Gabriel simply didn’t house him in the short-term accommodations back at headquarters was beyond her. Sure, Mark might well be pissed off at Cooper and Haynes, but she couldn’t see him providing any real threat to the two men. But keeping them separated
did
make sense when it came to
not
keeping all their eggs in one basket. There was no saying to what lengths the military just might be willing to go to protect their secrets; maybe even as far as bombing the building. Which might have seemed over the top, except for the fact that the military might be behind the creation of the kites—and they’d blown their creature to smithereens rather than letting it get caught.

The brown-eyed security officer near the front door looked up from the monitors as she approached. “Is the grump settled in okay?”

“Yeah. Give him whatever he wants—within reason, of course. And don’t fall asleep, Murphy. We don’t want the military getting their hands on him until we’ve had time to question him some more.”

“How likely is it that the military will try to spring him?”

That depended on several factors—what the military thought Allars might tell them, how much they knew about the SIU, and how quickly they could hack into SIU programming and get a list of current safe houses. “We don’t really know. But your priority is getting him out of here if it happens.”

Murphy nodded, and Sam swiped her ID through the slot. The front door opened and the wind gusted in, thick with the promise of rain. She lifted the collar on her jacket and headed out to her car.

Rain spotted across the pavement. She raised her face, enjoying the feel of the cold droplets against her skin. There was something almost soothing about it.

“Samantha.”

She froze. The voice was deep and warm, yet it held a hint of caution. It was the voice of a man who’d once saved her life. The voice of a man who wanted Gabriel dead.

The voice of a man who was neither friend nor foe, but something in between.

S
AM TURNED AROUND SLOWLY.
T
HE
hirsute stranger leaned against the building’s brick wall, half-hidden by the shrubs and bottlebrushes that overhung the pavement.

“Just who the hell are you? And why do you keep popping up?”

The stranger smiled, though how she knew this, she wasn’t entirely sure. She couldn’t see his mouth through the forest of beard.

“When you are ready to know, you will find the answer here.” He pressed a grimy hand over his heart.

She raised an eyebrow. “What are you? Some kind of mystic?”

This time she did see his smile. “Some days I believe I am. We must talk, Samantha. There is a small café just around the corner that serves excellent coffee.”

He made a sweeping movement with his hand, indicating she should precede him, but she didn’t budge.

“Tell me one good reason why I should go with you.”

The stranger regarded her for a moment, brown eyes intense and somewhat sad. “The answers you seek will not be found through the man in this building.”

She glanced briefly at the building. “What do you know about Allars?”

“I know he cannot help you.” He hesitated and crossed his arms. It was an oddly defensive gesture. “At the very least, you owe me ten minutes of your time, Samantha.”

She owed him a hell of a lot more than that, because he’d saved her life. But that didn’t mean she had to trust him.

“Ten minutes, then.”

He nodded, then smiled when she motioned for him to go first. She fell into step behind him. Despite his disheveled, unwashed appearance, there was nothing of the streets in his walk. He had the stride of a soldier—purposeful, balanced, and powerful.

A man ready to move, to fight, at a second’s notice.

The café came into sight. The stranger chose a table under the awning, out of the rain. He sat down with his back to the street, letting her take the chair near the wall. Not that she felt any safer for it. She had an itchy feeling that this man could kill her faster than she could react.

Once they’d placed their orders, she leaned on the table and regarded the stranger steadily. “So what did you want to talk about? And how do you know so much about me?”

Her hirsute friend leaned back in the chair. He looked relaxed, almost sleepy, but she knew it was all an act. She could see the tension around his eyes, if nowhere else.

“We are two of a kind, Samantha. Two halves of one whole.”

“What is it with these riddles? Can’t you speak plain English?”

He smiled again. “When you are ready for the answers, you will see them—in your dreams and in your heart.”

She licked her lips. This man knew about her dreams of Joshua. Maybe he was even responsible for them. “What are you doing to me?”

“I’m doing nothing. I’m merely watching and waiting to see what side you fall on. To see if you found what you started searching for so long ago. Though I think, perhaps, the answer is already clear.”

“Not to me.” She leaned back in her chair, smiling as the waitress placed her coffee on the table. “Why did you say Allars can’t help me?”

“Allars was little more than a piece of meat the scientists were using. He was one of eight. He was told nothing and knows nothing—despite the presence of his name on your birth certificate.”

This man knew too much about her. And though he could read her thoughts, she sensed he wasn’t doing that now. “How do you know about the certificate?”

“I sent it to you.”

“No, you didn’t. Jack did.”

His eyes were as shuttered as his face, yet she could almost taste the wariness in him. Its touch was so strong she might have named it fear in any other man.

But this man didn’t fear. Didn’t care.

And how the hell she knew that, she couldn’t honestly say.

“Yes, I know.” He tilted his head to one side. “You cared for him, didn’t you?”

She dropped her gaze. “He was my friend.” Or at least, she had thought he was—but that had turned out to be another great lie in the story of her life.

“And now?”

“Now I have only my work.” And a partner who didn’t want her.

“Sometimes it is better that way.”

Only a workaholic or the dead would think that. But her private life was not something she wanted to discuss with this man.

“Jack said he got that information from Sethanon. Are you Sethanon?” If he was, she should be shooting him rather than talking to him. Especially when Sethanon was the number-one villain on both the SIU’s and the Federation’s hit lists.

“Sethanon is not a name I ever gave myself.”

Truth or lie? She couldn’t tell, and that worried her. “Allars told me he was involved in a project called Penumbra. That four of the eight involved were a changer, a shifter, a vampire and a werewolf.”

“And the other four were psychically endowed. Mike Shean was a strong telepath and empath. Jeremy Park was a fire-starter. Rae Messner’s gift was psychometry, and Fay Reilly was an emotive.”

She stared at him. “How the hell do you know that?”

“Simple. Because I was there.”

“You were one of the scientists?” She couldn’t help the incredulous note in her voice. She could believe he might have been in the military, but a scientist? No way. This man was a killer, born and bred.

But then, with what she was beginning to learn about Hopeworth, maybe that wasn’t so far off the mark.

He laughed—and it was an oddly familiar sound that scratched at the back of her mind.

“Not a scientist. Not even a test subject.”

“Then what?” If he’d been involved with security, surely he wouldn’t have known so much about the project.

“Samantha, you have all the answers you need. All you have to do is look for them.”

“So, we’re back to the riddles again.” She sipped at her coffee. It was strong and sweet, with just a hint of hazelnut.

“Your favorite, I believe,” he said softly.

This time he
was
reading her thoughts. She put her coffee down and leaned back, crossing her arms. “Tell me your name.”

He hesitated. “I go by many names these days.”

“Give me your birth name, then.”

He looked away, but not before she’d caught the hint of anger in his eyes. “I was never given a name at birth. The names I have are ones I’ve collected over the years.”

“Give me a name, or I get up and walk away.”

His hesitation was briefer. “Call me Joe Black.”

“What are you, a funny man? Joe Black was the name Death gave himself, in that movie.”

He shrugged. “You asked for a name; I gave it to you. When you have no name of your own, you steal others that appeal. And that one appeals.”

“Okay, then, Mr. Black—”

“Joe,” he murmured.

“Mr. Black,” she continued, ignoring his almost bitter smile. “What do you know about Jake Cooper and Liam Haynes?”

He sipped at his coffee for a minute. “Both worked on the Penumbra project. And both worked on Generation 18.”

“What can you tell me about Generation 18?”

“Nothing that your partner doesn’t already know.”

He said the word
partner
like it was a curse. She raised her eyebrows slightly. “Why do you want him dead when you haven’t even met him?”

“That would take longer to explain than we have.”

She frowned. “And what makes you so certain Gabriel knows anything about Generation 18?”

“Because the logical step after the first three murders is to pick up and question the two remaining scientists. And Stern is nothing if not logical.”

“How do you know about the murders? And how do you know that there are two men remaining?”

“I’m a mystic, remember?”

“Yeah, right. Maybe you’d better accompany me downtown for some questioning.”

“Do not push me, Samantha.”

Though there was no threat in his voice, no threat in the way he sat, fear surged and Sam swallowed. This man could reach out and kill her without even moving. Could snuff out the flame of her existence with merely a thought. How she could be so certain about something like that, she couldn’t really say. But she
was
certain.

“If you wish to find some answers,” he continued, “look at the pin I gave you.”

The pin? The one he’d given her when he saved her life? She frowned, trying to remember where she’d put it. Somewhere in her desk drawers, she thought. “Do you mean answers to the murders, or answers about myself?”

“Perhaps it would be a start for both paths.” He drained his coffee in one gulp and rose.

“We shall meet again, soon,” he said. “In the meantime, be careful. Your abilities will not protect you from the kites if you get too close.”

“The kites? What do you know about them?”

A smile ghosted across his face. “I made them,” he said, then raised his arms to the sky. His body shimmered, then began to blur, briefly resembling putty being molded by unseen hands. Then he leapt skyward on black wings.

A crow. The harbinger of bad news. The messenger of death. An oddly fitting choice for the stranger.

Could he be believed when he said he’d made the kites? She’d sensed no lie in his words, and yet it hadn’t seemed the entire truth, either.

And that made a whole lot of sense, didn’t it?

Snorting softly, she finished her coffee, then picked up the bill and paid it. She glanced at her watch. Another hour had passed. Gabriel was going to kill her.

It took half an hour to get back to headquarters. By that time, her head was pounding again. She went straight to her dark little hole.

“Computer on.” She threw her coat over the back of the chair and sat down.

“Afternoon, sweetness. How’s your day been?”

“Just peachy. You got those test results back yet?”

Izzy swung her boa, her expression a little startled. “My, we are a bit abrupt right now, aren’t we?”

Sam rocked her chair back against the wall and rubbed her eyes. Now her damn com-unit was telling her off. These things were definitely becoming
too
human. “Sorry, Izzy. I’ve got a bitch of a headache.”

“Perhaps you should see a doctor.”

There was something almost coy in Izzy’s voice. She opened her eyes and stared at the pink fuzz-ball. “And can you recommend one?”

“I can recommend five, actually. Funnily enough, they’ve all bought Heat in the last month.”

“Izzy, you’re a doll. Did you cross-reference the results with our records?”

“Certainly did, sweetie. There’s one match. Our doctor is a changer, but that’s it, I’m afraid. Definitely no sister.”

She tapped her fingers against the desk. The murderer was definitely a shifter; that much they knew. But that didn’t explain how she was getting in and out without being seen. There was something else, something they were missing. “Make an appointment for me to see her.”

“You might want to reconsider that. The doctor in question is a vet.”

“Then I’ll find a dog to take along. What about the Jadrone search? Is that finished yet?”

“I’ve been working my butt off here, darlin’. Of course it’s finished.”

“Was Emma Pierce listed?”

“No. But Harry Maxwell was.”

“What?” Sam let her chair thump back. If Harry had a legal prescription, why did he need an illegal supplier? Had his need for the drug grown stronger than his legal prescription would allow?

“That’s right, sweetness. Also listed were Raylea Burns, Anna Jakes and Dr. Brandon.”

Along with Harry Maxwell, all victims of their serial killer. Sam rubbed her forehead. “Are these recent prescriptions?”

“Yes, though all four had been taking the drug since their mid-teens, from the look of it.”

“Do a check on the prescribing doctor. And get me his address.”

“Consider it done, sweetie.”

“Thanks.” Sam watched the purple boa rotate for several seconds. “Izzy, are any of the four on file as being shifters?”

The boa twirled a little faster while Izzy searched the records. “Not a one.”

Then why the hell were they being prescribed Jadrone? Especially at such a young age? “Get me the autopsy results for Jakes, Burns and Brandon.”

“Onscreen.”

The three reports tiled onto the screen and Sam quickly read through them. No evidence of Jadrone had been found in the toxicology or blood reports. So why were they being prescribed the drug if they weren’t actually using it?