Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel Page 24

  He tapped an intercom. “Petra, we’ll need the surgical suite readied.”

  Her tinny response followed. “For what procedure?”

  He told her, picturing again what he’d witnessed at the Fertilization and Incubation Clinic, that flawless representation of scientific purity, where morality held no sway, a world where only methodology and outcome mattered.

  He felt bile churn in his gut.

  Poor Amanda.

  24

  July 2, 6:39 P.M. EST

  Charleston, South Carolina

  Kat stepped across the threshold.

  Amy followed, shadowing behind her, quiet now after her initial cry of shock and dismay. The large steel doors shut behind them, closing on their own with a pop of pressure.

  Kat knew they didn’t have much time until their escape was discovered.

  With the doors sealed, the ambient light remained low, tinged slightly red, reminding Kat of working in a control room of a submarine during her years in navy intelligence, where the unique lighting preserved night vision. Or maybe the subdued illumination was meant to blunt the horrors residing in here.

  A long hall stretched ahead, splitting two rows of tanks full of a pinkish gelatinous fluid. Thin translucent drapes that lined the front of the rows failed to hide what rested in those tub-size steel vessels. Kat stepped to the side and parted one of the curtains.

  “Don’t,” Amy moaned, clutching her stolen baton in both hands, but she still followed, clearly needing to stay near Kat—not for protection, merely to remain near a flicker of humanity in such an inhuman lab.

  Kat had noted the sign hanging above the hallway.

  Fertilization/Incubation Lab

  Here lay that purpose given flesh.

  A naked woman floated shallowly in semi-viscous fluid, a gelatinous bed to prevent bedsores and to keep tissues moist. Her abdomen swelled with gravid promise, navel protruding, close to parturition. Her breasts hung loosely, never to suckle the life growing within. The patient’s head hung over the edge of the tub, eyes taped shut, neck arched back, as if waiting for her hair to be shampooed. But there was no hair. The bald scalp shone in the weak light, revealing sutured scars and wired electrodes snaking into the skull. Other tubes violated mouth and nose, all running to a rack of monitoring, ventilating, and liquid-feeding equipment.

  “What have they done?” Amy asked in a horrified whisper.

  Kat stared down the long row, at the other women resting in identical tanks, posed in the same frozen posture of torture, all in various states of fetal gestation. She understood what she was seeing. The women here had been reduced to no more than living brainstems—with only one clear function.

  “They’ve turned them into mindless human incubators,” Kat said, trembling between impotent rage and bone-deep sorrow.

  She gaped, unblinking, bearing silent witness.

  This is where I would’ve ended up.

  Amy wore the same mask of revulsion.

  Kat shied from imagining herself here, unable to balance this monstrous act with the simple wonders and mysteries of her own pregnancies, of carrying those tiny lives inside of her. She staved off the paralysis of horror by remembering her babies’ first cries, the suckle of a tiny mouth on a tender nipple, the grip of little fingers, so demanding, so needy.

  She pictured the other four buildings of the clinic complex, of the levels of research and development performed here: the cutting-edge retrieval and cryopreservation techniques for ova and sperm, the advancements in in vitro fertilization procedures, and the latest innovation in embryo culture and transfer. Many of the greatest reproductive and genetic scientists from around the globe worked here or had in the past. How many, if any, knew what trickled down from their groundbreaking research, seeping like toxic waste to pool here with poisonous purpose?

  Kat swung away, knowing she had only half the answers to the mysteries here. She knew where to find the others.

  “C’mon,” Kat said, sensing time running short.

  She returned to the central alleyway between the rows. She had noted glass-enclosed offices at the back and headed there, striding quickly, with Amy in tow. As her mind raced, she considered various exit strategies. There was not likely to be a back door out of this lab, not with what this facility was hiding down here. The only escape was back the way they’d come, through those red steel doors and past that gauntlet of armed guards.

  She searched as she strode to the end of the room—for a weapon, for some other means of escape.

  She wasn’t the only one searching.

  Amy gasped behind her. “Denise …!”

  Without turning, Kat reached an arm back and grabbed Amy’s wrist before the young woman could dart to the side, toward one of the shrouded tanks. Amy had come along with Kat to discover the fate of her sister.

  “That’s not her,” Kat said, drawing Amy closer. “That’s just a husk, a shell. Your sister died when she was taken through those doors.”

  Amy resisted for a couple of steps, then surrendered—knowing Kat was right. They hurried together, each needing the warmth of the other.

  The hallway ended at a line of three glass-walled offices, all facing the horror show. Other hallways branched to the left and the right, likely leading to smaller labs, storerooms, and mechanical spaces.

  Kat noted the names etched on the three doors. She memorized them, intending to hold the persons accountable if she ever got out of here. But she moved to the centermost and largest of the three. The name on the door read NANCY MARSHALL, M.D., D.Sc., PH.D., A.B.O.G. It seemed the more abbreviated letters followed a name, the less humanity remained.

  Through the glass door, Kat spotted a computer glowing with a screensaver depicting a slowly spiraling helix of DNA. She found the lock unfastened and hurried inside, crossing to the computer.

  She reached to wake the monitor up, then paused, noting something odd about the screensaver. The glowing, high-definition image detailed a thick double helix of DNA, slowly spinning, all color-coded, mapping out nucleotides, codons, and chemical bonds. She leaned closer, studying a strange abnormality: a third strand of protein wound within the double helix, entwined into the genetic matrix like a snake in the grass.

  Biology and genetics were not her specialty—but she knew someone at Sigma who could better analyze this data. Reaching to the mouse, she woke up the computer. A standard desktop appeared. She needed to secure as much of the data stored on that hard drive as possible and transmit it back to DC, but she also knew she didn’t have time to crack whatever passwords locked this system from the outside world. There was no way to e-mail or send files electronically. The firewalls around this complex were fierce and military-grade.

  She would have to improvise and hope for the best.

  Reaching to her breast pocket, she removed her surveillance pen. The camera’s video and audio were recorded to a secure digital SD card linked to a cellular transceiver—but the data could also be manually ported over if necessary via a built-in USB connection. She twisted the pen, shedding the camera features, leaving behind the two-terabyte storage card linked to a USB adapter.

  Working fast, she found the USB port in the desktop’s tower and shoved the drive in place. Her intent was not to download the card’s content, but to upload files to it, hoping they’d eventually reach sigma. With the guts of her pen exposed, Kat noted the cellular transceiver glowing a pinpoint green. It remained active, but was anyone picking up the signal?

  She straightened as a new icon blinked onto the screen’s desktop, representing her flash drive.

  A rumble drew her attention around. Amy stood at the open office door, staring back to the far end of the lab. The steel doors had begun to slowly open, unsealing and cracking with a sliver of light.

  Dr. Marshall’s sharp bark carried through: “Find them!”

  Kat returned to the computer.

  No time to be picky about which files to grab.

  Using the mouse, she dragged the
image of the computer’s hard drive and dumped it all onto the thumbnail for the SD flash drive.

  Files immediately began transferring.

  That’s all she could do for now.

  Except survive.

  6:41 P.M.

  “What the hell was that?”

  Painter stared over at General Metcalf. He’d never heard the man swear, seldom saw him lose composure. The pair stood before the bank of monitors in the communications nest. Minutes ago, the technician monitoring Kat’s surveillance pen reported new feed coming from her second device. This was the first video transmission since the pen had been activated. They’d picked up some initial audio, snatches of conversation, but nothing afterward.

  Then suddenly the screen had bloomed to life.

  The first few minutes were a jumbled confusion until the camera settled on a set of red metal doors with a cross symbol emblazoned on them.

  Metcalf had just been leaving when the monitor sprang to life, exciting the technician. The general accompanied Painter to observe what was picked up. Together, they viewed in growing dismay as Kat surveyed a dark lab, revealing rows of women in tanks. Then she continued to some offices at the back of the room.

  “Did you get those names?” Painter asked the technician. “The ones on the office doors?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After that, the monitor went dark once again.

  “Is that everything?” Metcalf asked. “Where was this footage taken?”

  Painter knew he had to come clean—about everything. He drew the general back into the side office. Once inside, with the door closed, he explained, “Captain Bryant was investigating a fertility clinic in South Carolina, the same facility where Amanda had her in vitro fertilization performed.”

  But it hadn’t been just Kat conducting that investigation. Lisa had gone down there, too. Fear for her stoked brighter, but he had to stay focused.

  Metcalf turned toward him. “What fertility clinic are you talking about? Who authorized—?”

  Painter cut him off before he worked up a full head of steam. He needed to shock the man into listening—for all of their sakes. “Amanda may still be alive.”

  As he expected, those few words knocked the man back a step.

  Painter continued, not letting the general recover. He needed to present the entire picture before Metcalf started to put up mental roadblocks. Only the complete story could win this stubborn man to their cause.

  Painter started at the beginning, with Amanda’s kidnapping and his belief that it was tied to the unborn child she carried. They ended in front of Kat’s office computer. Painter showed him the cross atop the island of Utopia, realizing just then that it matched the symbol on the red steel doors.

  What did that mean?

  Metcalf sank into the desk chair, his eyes fixed to the screen. The general was a tough man, a skilled player in the ways of power and politics—some would say even an opportunist—but that was a requirement to function in the Beltway politics of DC. Painter also knew the general to be a shrewd strategist, capable of putting logic before emotion.

  He hoped that proved to be the case now.

  “And all of these properties are owned by the Gant family, the president’s family?” Metcalf asked, staring at the island. “And you’ve already received confirmation that Amanda was taken there.”

  “Yes.”

  Behind that glaze of shock, Painter saw the gears churning through all the evidence.

  Finally, Metcalf shook his head, not in disbelief, more like defeat. “Dear God … if you’re right …” He placed a palm on his forehead and stared Painter square in the eye. “Even if the Gants are the puppet masters behind the Guild, how could the president involve his own daughter with something like this?”

  The general glanced to that dark monitor in the other room, obviously picturing the horror show from a moment ago.

  “James Gant may not know,” Painter explained. “We don’t know which of the Gants are in that inner circle, the True Bloodline. That’s why I’ve been playing this game so cagily. I have a gut feeling that inner circle is not without internal friction or dissent.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Something sent Amanda running to the Seychelles, almost like she was tipped off. Like someone was trying to protect her.”

  “Or maybe they purposefully tricked her into fleeing in secret so she could be nabbed out of the public eye.”

  It was a more cynical hypothesis, one Painter hadn’t even considered, proving yet again that Metcalf was an expert chess player.

  “You’ve built a case against the Gants,” Metcalf conceded, “but it’s far from solid. None of this is strong enough to confront them, especially the administration. If we tried, we’d end up tipping our hand too soon, exposing that we’re onto them. The backlash would burn us down. And that Bloodline would bury itself even deeper. There’s only one solution.”

  Painter understood. “We need Amanda.”

  Metcalf met his eyes, confirming this. Any hope for Sigma to rise from these ashes depended on recovering and securing the president’s daughter—and surely the Bloodline knew that, too.

  A knock at the door drew both their attentions. It was Kat’s chief analyst, Jason Carter. Painter motioned him forward, but the kid only stuck his head through the door.

  “Director, we’re receiving new data from Captain Bryant’s device.”

  Painter stared past the young man’s head. The monitor was still black. “Is it new video … or just audio again?”

  “Neither. They’re digital files.”

  Painter’s eyes pinched with momentary confusion—then realized what Kat was doing: downloading information off one of the lab’s computers.

  Clever, Kat … very smart.

  “Start forwarding those files to me,” Painter said.

  Jason nodded and ducked back out.

  Metcalf waited with Painter. “I wish you hadn’t told me any of this,” he said. “I’d certainly sleep better not knowing. For that matter, why did you tell me? Why trust me? Who’s to say I’m not on the Guild’s payroll?”

  It was a good question—and Painter had only one answer.

  “Because you’ve been a thorn in sigma’s side from the beginning.”

  “You mean I’ve been an ass.”

  Painter didn’t argue with his wording. “But you’ve also had our back, sir, when we’ve truly needed it. And besides, I can’t do this on my own. Not any longer. I need an ally, someone to hold the wolves at bay if we’re to have any chance of recovering Amanda.”

  “You’ll get it—but there’s only so much I can do. After what happened in Somalia, Sigma has a big target on its back. And you know Washington … once they smell blood in the water …”

  The feeding frenzy begins.

  The intercom buzzed. “Director, the initial files are up on your desktop.”

  “I’ll leave you to this,” Metcalf said, standing and letting Painter take his seat. “This castle’s about to be stormed, and I’m better off manning the gates and fortifying the ramparts.”

  Painter knew his statement was more than a metaphor. Sigma headquarters lay in the bunkers beneath the Smithsonian Castle, within the shadow of the White House—even now, the battle lines were being drawn between them.

  As Metcalf left, Painter turned his attention to the computer, to the files gained at such risk. He worried about Kat … and even more about Lisa. Still, he sensed that all the mysteries, the true pulse of the Bloodline, lay in the life or death of another woman.

  Gray, you must find Amanda.

  25

  July 3, 2:44 A.M. Gulf Standard Time

  Off the Coast of Dubai

  Gray held the man’s neck in the crook of his arm, the flat of his hand against the side of his head. A twist and a sharp crank on the chin shattered the guard’s cervical vertebrae. The strangled body fell limp.

  He lowered the guard to the lawn and began stripping off the man’s helmet
, vest, and shirt. The gear was identical to that worn by the commandos back in Somalia, offering further proof that Amanda had been moved here.

  In his earpiece: “Done.”

  That was Seichan. She had taken down her man.

  As Gray strapped on the dead soldier’s helmet, he glanced at the phone in his hand. On the screen, a dog’s-eye view revealed a lone guard posted beside a park bench. Kane moved nearer, drawing the man’s attention, while Tucker closed in from behind with a blade. As silently as the others, he dispatched the last guard that stood between Gray’s team and the twisted spire of the Burj Abaadi, the Eternal Tower.

  “Move in,” Gray radioed.

  He ran low through the remainder of the nighttime park, still wary in case Kane had missed any hidden guards. But no alarm was raised as he reached the edge of the grounds.

  As he waited for the others, he looked up at the sheer majesty of the slowly turning tower, each floor revolving independently of the others. He imagined the view must be breathtaking from up top, the scene eternally changing, spanning from the panoramic brilliance of Dubai’s skyline to the dark mystery of the starlit sea.

  Still, something bothered Gray as he stared upward.

  Something about its ever-changing shape …

  A rustle drew his attention back to the ground. The others converged from different directions. Seichan and Tucker came similarly outfitted in stolen gear. Kane kept out of sight, slinking wide upon a signal from his handler.

  As they gathered to him, Gray studied the front entrance to the Burj Abaadi. He expected there would be cameras watching the steps and lobby, possibly other guards inside. The disguise was a feeble one, but the ruse could buy them an extra few seconds of surprise if needed.

  Kowalski finally pushed past a grove of palms, struggling to pull a small vest over his wide shoulders. The helmet sat on top of his head like a crown. “My guy was pint-size,” he explained.

  Gray pointed his rifle at the big man. “Drop all of that and put your hands on your head.”

  Kowalski frowned. “What the hell, Pierce?”