Fast (78 page)

            Bora kept hold of the chain, as though at any second he might snatch the tags from King’s fingers.

            ‘If you want them, close you hand and take them,’ challenged Bora.

            ‘What do you want with me?’

            ‘Close your hand.’

            It took all King’s willpower to make his damaged hand close around the cold metal. It felt like plunging his arm into liquid fire. Breathless from pain, he hissed, ‘Next time I see you, I’m going to kill you.’

            Bora looked at the plant on the bedside table. ‘We’ll see. You’ll need to be in better condition next time. Get strong, then come and find me. One way or another, you’ll get your chance.’

            With that, Bora left the room as quietly as he’d arrived.

            King closed his eyes and laid his head back, hardly noticing where the dog tags cut into his clenched fist. Nor had he noticed that during the entire exchange, Bora had been reading his lips.

#

For a moment Coleman saw the back of another visitor, a big man in a smart business suit, but then he reached King’s room and slid open the door.

            King eyes were closed. Asleep or resting, Coleman couldn’t tell.

            His hand was clenched.

            It’s a good sign that he’s getting the use of his hand back.

            Coleman backed from the doorway, not wanting to disturb his friend. Shutting the door quietly, he noticed a small orange flower on the floor. It was no larger than a penny.

            He picked it up. It must have dropped from a bunch that someone had delivered. Maybe the other visitor that Coleman had just glimpsed.

            He checked his watch.

            The surgery was in the city, and the busy sidewalk was full of people as Coleman wove down the street and into the corner diner.

            Vanessa and David waited in the diner. Vanessa lowered her newspaper as Coleman scooted into the seat beside David. Coleman put his arm around his son, kissing the top of his head. ‘Move over, big guy. You’re hogging the whole seat.’

            David wriggled down the seat, pulling his breakfast down the table. ‘You can have my tomato if you like, Dad.’

            ‘Sure. In a bit.’ Coleman just stared at his son. He’d spent a lot of time with David in the past week, but it never seemed enough. Hopefully that was going to change. Vanessa had agreed to arrange things so he and David could spend a lot more time together. When Vanessa went back to work, David would spend the next month living with Coleman. Before now, a week was usually the longest they could spend with David away from his mother.

            ‘When do you have to get back?’ Coleman asked.

            ‘When your brass stop asking me questions. The papers don’t say much,’ she remarked. ‘Your people responsible for that?’

            Coleman waited until his coffee was poured. He smiled at the waitress as she left. ‘I’d expect so. It won’t be covered up, but the incident will be very carefully managed. The details will definitely change.’

            Vanessa nodded. ‘I was not so tactfully reminded about our staff confidentially contracts. I had to sign that thing myself.’

            Coleman sipped his coffee. ‘What happens under the desert stays under the desert?’

            ‘Something like that.’

            David stopped chewing. ‘But I can tell people, right?’

            Coleman winked at him. ‘You sure can. You don’t work for anybody. But maybe next time wait until you mouth isn’t full of breakfast, huh?’

            ‘Sorry.’ David looked relieved and started chewing again.

            ‘I never thanked you for saving my life.’ Coleman settled his coffee cup down. ‘And David’s.’

            Vanessa folded the paper neatly. ‘In the life-saving stakes, I’m pretty sure that you’re ahead of the game.’

            ‘That’s not true.’ Coleman tapped the paper with his good hand. ‘Those people are only alive because of your eleventh-hour solution. It was a stroke of genius.’

            ‘Let’s call it a joint effort then, huh? Speaking of which, how are the others?’

            ‘Recovering. King’s surgery went well. Forest will be out of action a few months yet.’ Coleman sipped his coffee.

            ‘I’ll have to get back soon,’ said Vanessa, meaning back to the Complex. ‘There’s lots of work to coordinate. Decisions to be made. But first I need to understand something.’

            Coleman smiled, guessing her question.

            ‘It’s about my lab’s security system,’ she began. ‘I worked in that lab for three years and couldn’t figure out how the system identified people, yet you knew that it would recognize me underwater. How could you have known that?’

            ‘Sometimes a fresh perspective is needed,’ offered Coleman enigmatically.

            She sat back and waited. She wasn’t leaving without an answer.

            Coleman thought for a moment, then summed up the answer in two words. ‘Body language.’

            Vanessa cocked an eyebrow, skeptical but interested. ‘Go on.’

            ‘You said the system could read your mind. You were right, but there’s nothing supernatural about it. Every person in the world has unique body language. It’s impossible to duplicate. Body movements can be recorded and analyzed like any other type of data. We communicate ninety percent with body language. The security system in your labs analyses your body language through the concealed fiber optic cameras in the walls. The longer you’ve worked in the lab, the better it knows you, and the more data it has to analyze about you. So the better able it is to know who you are and what you want.’

            Coleman continued, ‘I knew that you spent more time in that lab than anyone else, so if the system could recognize anyone underwater, it had to be you.’

            She shook her head in wonder.

            ‘And that’s not all,’ added Coleman. ‘The more you think about it, the more incredible it gets. The security system gets smarter in an emergency. When its key personal are showing signs of stress, it has the ability to read your body language and make decisions to save lives. The system must hide this ability most of the time, otherwise it wouldn’t take too long before you uncovered its secret.’

            ‘We’ve got a security system that plays dumb?’

            ‘Exactly, but it’s not dumb at all. In fact, it is very, very smart. Smart enough to call for an elevator when your life depended on it, and smart enough to recognize your body language underwater.’
            Vanessa thought back. ‘I always had security difficulties when Gould was in my labs. The system must have been sensing that I didn’t trust him.’

            ‘Exactly,’ confirmed Coleman.

            ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked. ‘It might have made things easier.’

            ‘Because it also might have made things harder. The system functions under the premise that you
don’t
know how it works. If you suddenly knew, your body language might have changed.’

            ‘So you couldn’t tell me, because I was the walking key.’

            Coleman smiled and nodded. ‘And telling you would be like filing the teeth off the key.’

            Vanessa sat back, impressed. ‘You should have been a scientist.’

            Coleman shook his head. ‘If I’m so smart, then let me ask you a question. Why did Cairns give me the templates before he died?’

            ‘Obvious. Because you won,’ she answered. ‘You earned them in the only contest that he had any respect for.’

            ‘Or maybe he wasn’t trying to pass them to me at all,’ countered Coleman. ‘My ability to read body language isn’t as good as your lab’s security system.’

            Vanessa looked down into her coffee. ‘I think that you know what he was doing.’

            Coleman was absently spinning the small yellowy-orange flower between his thumb and forefinger.

Vanessa leant forward over the table. ‘Where on earth did you find that?’

            ‘This?’ Coleman held up the flower. ‘I found it in the hospital just outside King’s door. Someone dropped it. I picked it up.’ He shrugged, nothing more to tell.

            Vanessa’s jaw dropped. ‘That’s the flower of
Ibicella lutea
. It’s also called Devil’s Claw. It’s a much misunderstood plant, but many botanists consider it carnivorous even though it doesn’t produce the right types of enzymes. It grows in the desert around the Complex. It’s also one of the species I use in my research, Alex. Part of that plant was in the creatures.’

She sat back and stared at the flower in Coleman’s hand. ‘Why would there be a flower from that particular plant outside King’s door?’

            Coleman paused for a moment, and then continued twisting the flower between his fingers. He thought of the glimpsed man in the suit walking away from King’s room.

            Sitting back in his seat, twisting the flower between his fingers, Coleman reflected on the strange sense of honor between good and bad men.

#

Harrison waited in the busy restaurant.

            He nervously refolded his napkin for the tenth time.

            Stupidly, he’d arrived early enough to worry about every miniscule detail. Had he tipped the maitre d’ enough and gotten the best table? Had he dressed alright? Would she even arrive?

            He checked his watch.

            The very idea that a woman like her could be sitting across from him seemed gloriously ludicrous. It was the kind of thing that just didn’t happen to a guy like him.

           
Just sit here with your hands still and wait. She’ll come. She said she’d come, and she will. Dinner was her suggestion, after all. Hell, she’d sounded happy to hear from you on the phone, but what does that really mean?

            Just wait and see.

            And then she was there, standing just inside the restaurant door, scanning the tables until her eyes alighted on Harrison. She waved, said something to the maitre d’, and then wove through the bustling tables towards him.

            Harrison felt like the entire room had stopped except her. Like someone in a painting had come alive and was walking through the picture. She wore a pale mauve top and matching trousers. A purple sash was wrapped around her hips. Her hair was pinned back at the sides.

            Harrison felt like someone was using a jackhammer in his chest. He jumped up to pull out her chair.

            She stopped and looked at him, a huge smile blossoming. ‘So this is what you look like out of uniform? It took me a moment to recognize you without the big gun.’

            ‘Sorry.’

            She positively glowed. ‘For heaven’s sake, why?’

            ‘I don’t know,’ he said awkwardly, swallowing and then pushing in Dana’s chair.

            She looked completely at ease. She placed her small handbag on the table and looked straight into Harrison’s eyes as he settled across from her.