Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel Read online

  We’ll bring them both straightaway.

  Whoever lurked at the other end of the line left the man shaking and ashen. Cranston sat for several long minutes, cell phone on his lap, not moving, staring dully out the window at the passing cotton and tobacco fields.

  Eventually, he snapped out of it and made one last call.

  To his wife.

  I’m fine, sweetheart. I wasn’t even at the clinic when the fire broke out. Maybe a gas leak. I know, I know … but I have a slew of other fires still to put out. Give Michael a kiss for me. Tell him I’ll be back in a couple of days for the parade and fireworks on the Fourth. What’s that? Yeah, sorry, I’m … losing signal. I didn’t hear what you … oh never mind.

  He finally surrendered, as reception died out in the backcountry.

  As Kat listened, she found it hard to couple this devoted family man to the horrors hidden beneath that research facility.

  Still, the conversation awakened pangs of longing for her own family. Monk should be getting the babies ready for bed about now, tucking Penny into her footy pajamas, Harriet into her crib with a mobile of bears hanging above it. She thought of Monk sliding his arm around her waist after they both settled down, pulling her close, content to be surrounded by his girls.

  As if sensing her thoughts, Lisa squeezed her hand.

  Kat appreciated the gesture, but she intended to return to Monk’s arms—which meant getting free first.

  The opportunity to accomplish that grew shorter with every passing mile. Once they reached their destination—the Lodge—she suspected escape would be impossible. Still, she had to be patient. She needed the right moment, the right opportunity.

  At last, she got it.

  The SUV turned onto a long, lonely stretch of rural road, not a car in sight. The summer sun sat low on the horizon, creating deep pools of shadows under the heavy-limbed oaks that lined the road.

  She gave Lisa’s hand an extra-hard squeeze, preparing her. “I have to go to the bathroom,” Kat declared loudly.

  Cranston dismissed her. “You’ll wait.”

  “I won’t. I’m going now—either outside or back here.”

  Cranston twisted in his seat, eyeing her, judging her determination. She didn’t break eye contact. His gaze flicked to the lonely road around them, then he sighed.

  “Fine. Stop the car.” His next words were for one of the guards. “She runs … you shoot her.”

  The Ford pulled to the shoulder of the road.

  Kat gave Lisa’s hand a small tug, trying to get her to understand.

  Lisa tightened her fingers. “I should go, too … if we’re stopping anyway.”

  Good girl.

  “You’ll take turns,” Cranston said. “I’m not taking any chances.”

  They piled out of the backseat on the driver’s side, leaving the two men up front. One gunman kept a grip on Lisa’s upper arm, resting a palm on his holstered pistol.

  Kat hiked off to the shadows beneath an oak.

  “That’s far enough!” Cranston yelled out the open window.

  Her guard had his pistol out, emphasizing the order.

  She squatted in the weeds and slipped her shorts down. After all of the drugs in her system, her bladder had been begging for relief. The guard watched. She stared right back at him, challenging him. Once finished, she stood back up and headed toward the roadside.

  The guard kept his pistol pointed, maintaining his distance.

  The other gunman pushed Lisa toward the field. “Your turn. Be quick about it.”

  That was all Kat needed.

  She swung her arm, sharply flicking out her wrist. The hidden baton extended to its full length. She might be out of range of the guard—but the baton wasn’t.

  Back on the streets of Charleston, Kat had taken the weapon from Amy after hiding her body behind the recycling bin. She had concealed the collapsed length of the baton in the small of her back, tucked into the waistband of her shorts—then tossed her pistol out, appearing unarmed.

  She had wanted Lisa a safe distance away from her captors before acting, to wait for their guard to lower.

  Like now.

  Kat cracked the baton’s hard length across the guard’s wrist, breaking bone. The pistol tumbled from his fingertips.

  Already diving forward, Kat caught the weapon before it hit the pavement. She landed on her shoulder and rolled, already firing. She blasted the guard in the knee, twisted to shoot the other gunman in the head, then back to her guard, finishing him off with a round through his throat.

  Kat lunged to the car. Her attack had been so sudden, so savage, the driver barely had time to react. She shoved her gun through the open window and fired point-blank into the side of his head. Skull fragments and blood splattered across the front seat, striking Cranston across chest and face.

  The doctor sat stunned, one hand held up, palm open. The other clutched an open cell phone.

  Sorry, bastard, no signal.

  Kat wasn’t taking any chances with him. The good doctor had answers Sigma needed. She intended to deliver him to Painter, all trussed up and tied with a bow.

  “It’s our turn to drive.”

  8:12 P.M.

  Lisa guided the Ford explorer down the country road, trying her best to ignore the gore still staining the seat. As a medical doctor, she seldom found herself squeamish, but the raw brutality of Kat’s attack still shook her. Prior to today, she had known Kat mainly as a mother or a strategist working alongside Painter. She’d never witnessed Kat’s skill in the field, her pure animal cunning and savagery.

  Though that trait had won them their freedom, it still unnerved her.

  That, and the cold blood seeping through the seat of her dress.

  After the roadside attack, Kat had forced Cranston to haul the bodies into a ditch, to hide them from direct sight of the road, though it looked rarely traveled.

  Which was turning out to be a problem.

  “Any signal yet?” Lisa asked.

  “No,” Kat answered from the backseat.

  Her friend crouched behind Cranston, a pistol in one hand, the doctor’s cell phone in the other. Cranston still sat in the front passenger seat, his wrists zip-tied to the headrest behind him. An awkward stress position, but Kat ignored his protests.

  Beyond that cold professionalism, Lisa recognized a glimmer of hatred in Kat’s eyes. While not getting the full story concerning what had happened at the North Charleston Fertility Clinic, Lisa understood enough to know whom to blame.

  Cranston was a monster hiding behind a handsome face.

  And one with great ambitions.

  “There should be a signal by now,” Kat said. “But I’m still not getting any reception.”

  After commandeering the vehicle, Kat had ordered Lisa to turn the SUV around and backtrack along their path. She wanted to reach a phone or get close enough to a cell tower to regain reception.

  “Some farmhouses off to the right,” Lisa offered. “We can turn in and ask for help.”

  “They might alert the local authorities. I don’t know who to trust out here.”

  Lisa remembered Painter expressing the same concern. The Gants owned much of South Carolina. Who knew how far that reach extended into local law enforcement?

  “Look.” Lisa pointed ahead. “There’s a sign for a turnoff to Orangeburg. Surely that town must get cell signal.”

  “Head that way,” Kat agreed, but she kept searching around the vehicle, with a suspicious look.

  Lisa made that turn and traveled a half-mile. Off in the distance, the steeple of a church poked above the tree line. That had to be the town of Orangeburg.

  Too focused on the horizon, Lisa glided through an intersection with a flashing red light. A small drawbridge crossed a hidden river. A warning gate began to drop across its entrance.

  She pulled to a stop in front of it.

  As she waited for the drawbridge to open, Lisa asked, “Anything now?”

  “Nothing.”
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  In the rearview mirror, Kat’s eyes fixed at the back of Cranston’s head. He’d been unusually quiet for the past five minutes, no further complaints about his wrists.

  A low rumble announced the raising of the bridge—but then got louder and louder—becoming more like a thumping.

  Lisa frowned, concerned about the worn mechanics of the old bridge.

  Kat’s reaction was rougher. She jerked upright and threw her cell phone out the window. She clutched Lisa’s shoulder at the same time.

  “Get us out of here! now!”

  The warning came too late.

  A sleek military-gray helicopter burst out of hiding from the riverbed to the left. It lofted high over the bridge.

  Lisa yanked the car into reverse and jammed the gas. She raced backward to the intersection, fishtailed the car a full 180, and was ready to speed off—but the helicopter was faster. The chopper cut them off, plunging out of the sky to block the road.

  Lisa braked, avoiding a collision with the whirling blades.

  Rotor wash beat at the Ford’s windshield.

  A bullhorn roared. “Throw your weapons clear of the vehicle! Exit with your hands up!”

  To make sure the order was understood, a small gun mounted on the chopper’s underside chattered, and a spate of rounds blasted into the pavement in front of the SUV.

  Lisa turned to Kat.

  She shook her head. “Do what they say.”

  Into that stunned silence, Cranston smiled. “Ladies, you’re not the only ones allowed surprises.” He awkwardly swiveled around. “Back there, I disabled my phone’s cellular receiver and activated an emergency satellite beacon built into the phone.”

  Turning it into a tracking device, Lisa realized. No wonder Kat jettisoned the phone.

  Cranston frowned. “Though I have to say the emergency response was faster than I expected. Apparently, my employers truly don’t want you to escape. But why? Who the hell are you?”

  Kat raised the pistol to his ear. “You’ll never know.” His eyes got huge as the pistol exploded, shattering away half his face.

  Lisa cringed from the sudden brutality, her ears ringing as Kat tossed the weapon through the window. Still, Lisa heard the fierce whisper that followed.

  “That was for Amy.”

  8:15 P.M.

  Washington, DC

  Painter sat in Kat’s chair, rubbing his eyes. The faint smell of jasmine that hung in the air was no longer evident. Maybe it had faded away with everyone bustling in and out of the office, or maybe he’d just become desensitized to the scent. Either way, he felt a nagging sense of loss, a foreboding.

  You’re just exhausted, he tried to convince himself.

  Jason and Linus continued their work, searching for any other sightings of the Ford. Painter had played that grainy footage over and over again, watching the shadowy shape shift frame by frame, knowing it was Lisa.

  He was relieved to find her still alive, but the longer that silence stretched, with no further word on Kat and Lisa’s true fate, the deeper that icy knife twisted in his gut.

  He forced his eyes to stare once more at the map on the monitor. It displayed South Carolina, along with parts of North Carolina and Georgia. Large swaths of red stood out from the green background. The crimson areas were landholdings of the Gant family.

  Painter suspected Lisa and Kat were hidden somewhere in that crimson field.

  Which presented a major challenge.

  The Gant family had arrived on the shores of the Carolinas a century before the founding of this country, settling in the city of Charles Town, which later became simply Charleston. Wealth and power grew rapidly, channeled through the financial support of the family’s old World connections in both France and England. As that family grew, so did its reach and influence, branching into universities, governments, military institutions, and banking circles.

  And much of that wealth turned into land.

  It was said, back at the turn of the century, that the Gants could ride horseback from one side of the state to the other—from the beaches of Charleston across the low-country counties and up to the Blue Ridge Mountains—all without ever stepping foot off their own property.

  Today, the Gants could drive a herd of cattle across the state and make that same claim.

  Painter rubbed his temples, overwhelmed by the wealth and power that opposed his small group. How could they hope to succeed against a force so entrenched? And if the enemy ever did learn Sigma was still investigating them in secret, what would their next response be?

  He could guess the answer. In 146 B.C., Rome destroyed Carthage by sacking the place, burning the city, enslaving the survivors, and salting the very earth to make sure nothing ever grew there again.

  Painter expected something worse than that.

  Jason Carter appeared at his door, ever his shadow. “Director, you asked me to let you know when I finished that special project.”

  “You’re done? Already?”

  “On our computer. But I might have to demonstrate.”

  Painter stood from the chair and relinquished it to Kat’s chief analyst. The kid hurried over and dropped into the seat. He tapped rapidly and brought up the genealogical map of the Gant clan. Painter had asked for his expert assistance at building a more detailed version, one set to his specific parameters.

  From the very beginning, something had been troubling him about the Gant family tree, a nagging sense that he was missing a vital detail. He began to suspect the problem, but he didn’t know what it signified, or if it meant anything at all. The only way to make sure was to construct a genealogical representation where no detail was left out.

  He wanted the complete picture—and asked Jason to prepare it.

  “Here’s the lineage you originally assembled,” Jason said.

  With a click of the mouse, the three-dimensional schematic of the Gant family tree appeared. Progeny and familial connections formed a monumental tapestry, a weaving and warping of heredity and genealogy that spanned two centuries, back to the founding of the country.

  It was hard to get reliable records much earlier than that.

  But apparently not for Jason.

  “Okay, director, I know what you asked for, but I took the liberty of also searching back another century—just to be thorough.”

  I want to clone this kid.

  Painter leaned closer. “And you were still able to expand the search to the sides.”

  Jason nodded.

  Painter had spent hours studying that chart, finally gleaning what nagged him. Certain tendrils of the chart showed familial lines that wove in and out of the main genealogical matrix, marking distant cousins marrying back into the family. For such a rich family, it wasn’t unusual, a typical inbreeding of power and blood among aristocrats.

  But those loose threads in the Gant family’s tapestry troubled him, because there seemed to be too many of them, even for such a rich dynasty, a suspicious fraying of the cloth. Painter couldn’t help but pick at those threads to see what they might reveal.

  He asked Jason to stretch the genealogical search to the sides of the main family tree, to follow all of those loose threads. He also instructed him to look for new ones, specifically lines of the family that strayed even farther from the fold, farther than merely distant cousins, before diving and returning to the Gant bosom.

  “Show me,” Painter ordered.

  “Be prepared. The chart is vast. No individual names will show up, just data points.”

  “Do it.”

  Jason tapped a few keys, and that original matrix Painter constructed shrunk to a size of a fist. Names dwindled away to become nodes of a network, stars in a galaxy. Around that galactic core, a hazy corona of new data points and fine lines appeared, scintillating into existence on the screen, surrounding yet incorporated into the whole.

  Painter brushed his fingertips across the new spiral arms of this galaxy. “And all of these extensions mark where a strand of the family tre
e shot away from the others—”

  “Only to eventually return again,” Jason confirmed. “The average deviation was two generations, but a few of those lines broke away for five or six generations. A couple of the prodigal relatives returning to the family were seventeenth or eighteenth cousins. But return they did.”

  “Like moths around a lamp,” Painter said. “Fluttering out, then diving back in again. Over and over again.”

  Jason shrugged. “I can probably confirm this is excessive, even for a prominent family like the Gants, but it’ll take time to work up a comparable dynasty. Still, I’m not sure what the significance is.”

  Painter wasn’t either—but his breathing deepened, adrenaline flowing as he balanced on the edge of a precipice.

  Something …

  His eyes remained glued to the screen as the matrix slowly spun in place. He sensed there was a pattern hidden inside that hazy cloud at the edges of the genealogical map. He just needed a key to unlock it.

  What am I missing?

  30

  July 3, 4:16 A.M. Gulf Standard Time

  Off the coast of Dubai

  Gray slogged through the chest-deep water toward the entrance to the Burj Abaadi. The others waited by the stairs, ready to flee up to escape the rising waters.

  Beyond the glass wall, the city of Utopia slowly drowned. A few buildings still shone with emergency lights, run on batteries. Otherwise, the island was dark. Black waves swept across the park, crashing against the tower steps. Dangerous debris floated everywhere: spare lumber, plastic trash buckets, even a toppled palm, still potted in its crate. The currents were equally hazardous.

  Gray pictured the entire platform sinking, crushing the damaged pylons beneath its weight. In the time it took Gray to cross the lobby, the water rose another foot. They needed a way to escape the flooding tower before the island’s descent became a fast plummet—or worse, the entire platform started to cant and tip, toppling buildings over like a waiter dumping a tray of tall glasses.

  He didn’t know if Jack Kirkland was alive, if he’d survived the pyrotechnics that blew out the understory of the platform. Gray had activated the homing beacon Jack had given him, hoping for the best, and left it with Kowalski, who still carried Amanda.