Blowback (The Black Cipher Files Book 1) (37 page)

“Huh.” Hadn’t affected me that way, but I couldn’t make my mouth form the words.

“Like steroids for agents. Without the negative side effects like liver disease, structural changes in the heart, thickening of arterial wall, kidney problems, or even depression.”

Susan butted in. “But there’s a problem.”

“We can fix it. I know we can,” the old man said fiercely.

“What problem?” I tried to ignore the way the tan and green stripes on the wallpaper were undulating.

“We didn’t have this problem in the rats. Of course, it was difficult to quantify because we couldn’t tell...” He hesitated. “The human body and brain are amazing. There is so much we still don’t know.”

“What. Problem.” I repeated.

“It’s minor.” Liam dismissed my concern. “I’ve already modified it again to reduce the problem. We just need more tests.”

“On
people
,” I said snottily. Tests of a drug with a problem. That sounded great. We were all giant lab rats.

“DNA is tricky. We isolated the strand we thought controlled confidence, but it turns out several strands on different chromosomes are affected–which in turn affects the brain.” Liam had a faraway expression in his eyes.

He wasn’t really looking at me and the temptation to just bust out and get my sister washed though me again. I had to wait, keep them talking. “How does it affect the brain?”

Susan shot me an annoyed look. “Even though the drug works brilliantly on confidence levels, it also enhances the brain’s perceived weaknesses.”

I shook my head, trying to clear it, and tried to unobtrusively peek through to the bedroom again. “Explain.”

“Say you had a mild case of anxiety for...going out in public.”

“Agoraphobia.”

“This drug magnifies the fear to the point where it’s debilitating and you can’t even leave the house.” Her voice broke.

“We’ll figure it out, lass.” The old man’s voice was actually gentle and a slight pity coated his gaze.

That was a relief. That explained why I was crazy to see Bella even when I knew it was a bad idea, explained my sudden inexplicable attraction to Lucas. What it didn’t explain was who was behind the kidnappings and experiments. There had to be a government agency involved. “What branch of the government are you working for?”

Of course, they didn’t answer.

“Why kidnap us to give the antidote?”

At that Susan moved behind Liam and put her hand on his shoulder, effectively moving herself out of the range of the weapon. “Don’t tell her.”

He shrugged off her hand. “She won’t remember it anyway, lass. Not much time left.”

Okay. If they wouldn’t tell me why then maybe how. “How did you get the manpower?”

Susan’s gaze skittered toward the other room again and for a moment, I wondered why, but the thought floated away.

“That isn’t important,” Liam snapped.

“Then how did you find me?”

Susan purposefully turned her back on the other room. “We calculated probable locations and used separate intelligence branches, so no one noticed a pattern.” She paced the floor.

“You had access to my tracking beacon.” Which meant they had access to NSA computers. Could they be working for the NSA? But we didn’t have a scientific branch.

Liam said with admiration, “Until you cut it out. Very clever.”

I knew I needed more information. I just had to focus. Ask the right questions. Stall until my backup got here. If they got here. “So why didn’t you abduct me again when I got back to D.C.?”

“We couldn’t find you right away.” Susan answered slowly, “We had the wrong apartment information.”

So the NSA must not have entered my change of address into the company personnel files yet. But that also meant Susan had access to those files.

Suddenly neither was talking. Time to take another tack. “How was the original drug administered?”

“The original drug was mixed in with the quarterly vaccinations,” Liam responded.

“Aha.” We were right. We, I loved that word.

But there was no we anymore. I’d messed it up. A giant hole opened inside of me, swallowing me up and making me disappear until there was nothing left this horrible wrenching aloneness.

“Why not just inject the antidote during the next round of vaccinations?”

Susan said, “The problem was getting bigger. Agent Johnson had a need for an ultra adrenaline rush. He kept putting himself into extreme situations.”

I thought about the blank paper with the list of questions I’d pulled from my file. “So you decided to use Fitzhugh to get information?”

Liam shrugged. “I can’t perfect the drug if I don’t know how the agents feel.”

“We feel annoyed someone is using us as guinea pigs.”

He waved my comment off. “Think of it. We enhanced behavior and attitude by triggering a switch in DNA strands. The long term applications are immense.”

“This is ground breaking work,” Susan confirmed.

“The nano-technology we used as a vector to deliver the drug worked,” he said elatedly. “The possibilities are endless. Behavior modification, DNA alteration, gene therapy to treat Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, sickle cell anemia...the opportunity to stop, even cure, cancer is within reach.”

I decided to jab at him. “Who are you trying to convince?”

“I don’t have to convince anyone.”

My head started to loll but I forced it back up. Anger burned away some of the drug’s effects. “Ten people were given the original drug. How’d you pick them?”

Liam pressed his lips together. “We needed a good cross section of test subjects. Unfortunately they all had similar genetic backgrounds which probably skewed our results.”

He hadn’t answered my question. I shifted in the chair, looking for relief from my burning muscles. “How many got the antidote?”

“Seven.”

I calculated slowly, my brain full of cotton. “Three left.”

“Two are dead.”

So Johnson and Staci had been given the drug.

Susan wrung her hands. “The negative effects....”

“Are intriguing,” he said, the faraway look back. “We just need to fine tune the drug a little.”

The coldness of that statement edged down my spine. He didn’t seem to feel responsible for the consequences of giving the drug to unsuspecting agents. The drug had left them vulnerable, and two had ended up dead. “You don’t feel guilty about their deaths?”

“You, of all people Jamie, should know they were in a very volatile and dangerous profession. Their sacrifice will benefit their country, possibly all of mankind.” He gestured grandiosely, flinging his arms wide.

I tried to track everything, think through all of their revelations but I wasn’t processing quickly enough.

Seven had the antidote. Two were dead. They’d accounted for nine of the ten. That left one.

That left me. “So I was the last one?”

“The last one for what?”

“To get the antidote.”

Liam frowned. “I hate it when the drugs cause babbling. Why would I give
you
the antidote?”

Adrenaline and anger burned some of the fuzziness I was feeling away, but I kept my language slurred and short. “‘Cause that DNA drug seriously messed me up.”

The old man thumped his cane on the floor. “You never had the original drug.”

FORTY-ONE

“Then why the hell am I here?”

Liam looked at me scornfully. “Two reasons. We need that key fob back. It has the blood data on the change in DNA blood cells from the injected subjects.”

I snorted. “You kept that DNA information on portable storage? What about your main storage center?”

“We had a virus. Quite the irony.” Liam chuckled, the amusement turning into a wheezing cough. “So you investigated the information on the key fob?”

“Yeah. Us secret agent types get a little nuts when someone tries to inject us with unknown stuff. We investigate.”

I hadn’t had the drug. That fact kept circling in my head, distracting me. But I needed to focus on keeping them talking so the others could get Bella and Johnny out. They would have access either through the bedroom door to the hotel hallway or down the fire escape.

I still couldn’t hear anything from the bedroom. But Jordan Ramirez had carefully explained the first rule of hostage retrieval was to try to get in and out undetected.

“What agency are you working for?” I tried again.

There was a sudden clicking in my ear. It took me a minute to identify the morse code. It had to be Zeke. Every code geek learned morse code as a beginning basis of ciphering before moving on to more and more complex systems.

Zeke repeated the sequence again. -.-. -.. -.-.

-.-. C -.. D -.-. C

C.D.C. The Center for Disease Control?

I couldn’t process the information bombarding me. I hadn’t had the drug. If I hadn’t had it, what was all of the emotional stuff with Bella and Lucas?

And if I hadn’t had it...“Why did you kidnap me in the first place?”

“It was originally a mistake.” Susan walked over to the sink and got a glass from the cabinet. “We’d gotten a lead on Staci Grant, thought maybe our information about her death was wrong.”

“Staci Grant is dead,” I interrupted her.

“She might not be. And if she isn’t, she needs the antidote.” She filled the glass with tap water and then took the drink over to Liam. I noted how she made sure to stay out of the path between his weapon and me. “Anyway, somehow the wires got crossed and they picked up you instead.”

“I guess that solves the mystery of why you had guys on Staci Grant’s house the whole time.” I wriggled my fingers to see if she’d left me any maneuvering room in the cuffs. Some. Not enough to free my hands.

“Staci Grant’s house? No. We weren’t watching her house.” Susan had moved back into the kitchen area and began to pace back and forth, her low heels click-click-clicking on the tile, annoying me. “Our guys noticed the watchers. That’s why they grabbed her...you at the strip mall.”

“Huh.” I tried to process everything. “Why did you first give me oxycontin?”

Susan spun to face the old man. “You gave her your own drugs?”

He leaned back into the corner of the sofa cushions, as if trying to shift away from her. “Last minute changes. We had a small window of opportunity and I had to use something on hand.”

His drugs. Oxycontin was used to alleviate chronic pain. What was wrong with him?

Zeke could hear me--but did they know where I was?

“Why Seattle, why not right here at the Presidential Suites?” A big, fat clue for the boys in the van.

“I was in Seattle.” Susan evaded my gaze.

The old man piped up. “Once we figured out we had you, I thought to myself, Liam my boy, here is the next generation. Look at you, you’re smart, extremely gifted physically. You’re the best to begin with and, if we add this new enhancement, you’ll be unstoppable.”

Irritation welled up within me. “But you were going to give me the antidote. I stole that syringe.”

“You stole a syringe with the antidote?” He whipped his head toward Susan. “Why would she have an antidote, Susan?”

“Liam,” Susan started to placate.

“Why did you have an antidote with you, Susan?” Liam snarled.

“You were going to give her,” Susan gestured toward me, “the new drug.” She took a step toward him, toward the sofa. “We’d been told to stop. It wasn’t working.”

“So you prepared an antidote for the new vaccine?”

“As best I could. Then, if you injected her, I was going to give her the antidote right away.” Susan reiterated, “We were told to stop.”

Liam said coldly, “I need those new results. The new vector method was working. We’d identified the other gene sequence to target. We are close.”

“No, Liam.”

I didn’t like the sound of this. While combating targets took the heat off me, the situation was becoming more volatile. I really wished he’d put down the weapon.

“Who told you to stop your program?” My voice was more slurred than I’d anticipated. Shit. My resistance to the drug was weakening again.

Susan blinked, her gaze shifted back to me looking as if she’d forgotten I was there.

“We’re so close,” Liam said desperately.

“The tests were too dangerous,” she countered. “For everyone.”

“Who said?” I asked again, like a dog with a bone I thought if they would just tell me who told them to stop then I would have the final piece of the puzzle.

Susan’s gaze cut to the connecting door. Was the third person in the bedroom with my sister? Shit. I’d assumed she and Johnny were in that room alone.

How much time did we have left?

We needed the name of the last agent. I had to start working like the über-agent he thought I was. “Who hasn’t gotten the antidote yet?”

Susan pressed her lips in a flat line and crossed her arms over her chest. “It doesn’t matter.”

But it did. I needed that information. We had to get that agent the antidote.

I was so busy trying to stay alert it took a moment to register that someone else was in the bedroom. They were here. Relief rushed through me.

My brain finally clicked on. I remembered the list had identified nine adults and one child. “The child.”

“What child?”

“The child is the tenth subject.” I would have snapped my finger if I could have. “What kind of sick bitch gives a child an untested, unstable drug?”

Susan broke, tears leaking from her eyes. “I would never have given my daughter the drug. Her father did it.”

Shit. “The tenth subject is your child?”

Susan nodded, misery in her eyes.

I had to find a way to diffuse the tension. I raised my eyebrows and glanced back and forth between Liam and Susan. “Liam, you dog.”

“Not mine.” Liam snorted. “I would have never wasted this DNA drug on a child.”

Nice attitude. “So the reason you need the key fob?”

“All of our data results are on that key. The information is critical to getting the antidote right.” I heard the desperation in her voice, saw it in her plea.

“Are you saying the antidote doesn’t work?”

“We’re waiting for the next round of blood tests and psych evals to confirm its efficacy,” Susan sniffed, wiping the tears from her face.