Girl Undercover 12: Showdown (12 page)

He faced me and smiled, again appearing like a kindly university professor.

“Yes, I was aware of all that you did. Well, mostly. I had men surveilling you at all times. Your switching phones did make it a lot more complicated to keep track of you, but we finally caught up with what you were up to. I really do admire all the precautions you took. You were doing an
excellent
job trying to stop me. That’s why I want you to take over the empire once I’m gone, Ian. You’re much smarter than Jonah and born to be a leader. He’ll be upset, but eventually he’ll understand that I’m only doing what’s best for everyone involved. I will always do what’s best for everyone involved.”

“You’re crazy if you think I will have anything to do with the brave, new world you’re trying to create, Stenger,” Ian hissed over the speakerphone. “Maybe it’s better if I just stay the course and kill Jonah…”

“No!
Please
don’t hurt him.” Stenger sounded truly terrified. “He’s already hurting enough. Please just come here and see me. At least give me a chance to explain why I’m doing all of this. Why it will be better for
everyone
in the long run. Every living person.”

“Fine. I’ll come if Gabi agrees it’s safe.”

I looked around the spacious study, at the aging, power-crazed man in the wheelchair. What harm would it do if Ian came here and heard him out? I couldn’t see anything gained from him driving all the way back to his brownstone only to show Stenger that we had in fact captured and tied up Jonah. It seemed the man had no doubt we were serious about this anyway. Plus, Brady was aware about Jonah and where we were, so he could save us were Stenger to try and do something to us.

“Yes,” I said, “come here. It’ll be okay.”

“Fine,” Ian said. “I should be there in fifteen minutes. I’ll drive fast. Tell your men to let me in without a hitch. I don’t want them to feel me up to see if I’m carrying a weapon. If they do anything suspicious, I’ll head right back and cut Jonah’s head off.”

“I’ll tell them to send you straight in,” Stenger confirmed, looking pale. “Don’t worry. They won’t put a hand on you. They didn’t put a hand on Gabi, either”—he glanced at me—“and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she is armed.”

He was right about that; under my hoodie there was a handgun in my hip holster. One with a silencer so good you could barely hear the shots when it fired. I would never have agreed to enter the mansion without being armed. But I didn’t see the point in either confirming or denying this to Stenger, so I just looked at him with a blank face.

Ian was also aware that I was armed and surely took my refusal to reply as a silent agreement to proceed.

“I’m turning around the car as we speak,” Ian said. “Expect me shortly.”

The minutes felt like hours as Stenger and I waited for Ian’s arrival to be announced. He offered me refreshments twice more and I finally agreed to a bottle of water, insisting on drinking directly from the bottle. I kept wondering if maybe it was better that I left when Ian arrived so that we weren’t both here at the same time. Head to Ian’s apartment and make sure that Jonah was safely in place. If Stenger had kept us under surveillance all this time, he surely knew where Ian lived and where Jonah was kept. Which meant that they could break in to Ian’s apartment and free Jonah any time they wanted. But something told me that they wouldn’t, or they would have done so already. They would have done so while Ian was inspecting Stenger’s property for hours yesterday if that’s what they had in mind. Maybe they didn’t realize Jonah was at Ian’s place.

Maybe Stenger was exaggerating when he claimed to know what we had been up to all this time… I could only hope this was so. It sure behooved him to make us believe he was in complete control of us. Be that as it may, if Ian and I were both armed, there was little Stenger could do while alone with us. He would have to do what we wanted or he would die.

When ten minutes had passed, I couldn’t take the silence any longer, so I asked,

“Why did you kill my husband?”

Stenger pressed his lips into a thin line, looking truly contrite. “I’m really sorry about having to kill Nick, Gabi. But he just knew too much. The case he was investigating contained too much information about what The Adler Group was doing. I couldn’t risk him revealing our mission to the world. I know he was a very good detective.” He sighed. “Too good for his own good. And I of course needed to make it seem like someone else was behind his murder so that we sent the cops in the wrong direction. That’s where Cardoza came into the picture. Since he’s part of our movement and knows he’ll be released from prison as soon as I take over, he had no problem giving my men careful instructions as to the methods he used to eliminate rats.”

I winced at the levity with which he said those words, like he was discussing something as innocuous as the most effective method to lose belly fat.

I glared at him, silently urging him to go on talking.

“I really thought the matter was taken care of by making it seem like Cardoza was behind your husband’s murder. Who would’ve thought your
boss
would be such a good investigator and find two of the men involved in it?”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “Thankfully, fate helped us out by giving your captain a heart attack before he got a chance to interrogate them. That, combined with us removing the cup with the fingerprints, saved the two men’s lives. I really would have been loath to kill those two. They’re not bad men. Because I was in a good mood and realized what a great opportunity had been provided us what with your captain lying in the hospital, I decided to use him as a test instead of killing them—which would have led to unnecessary suspicions anyway.”

He smiled big at me as he refilled his tumbler with whiskey.

A hunch told me to play stupid. “A test? What kind of a test?”

“Your captain is now one of ours.”

I made myself look shocked and confused at the same time.
He obviously does not know
all
that we do then,
I thought. If he did, he would not sound so incredibly smug about Brady having become an untouchable right now.

“What?” I exclaimed. “What do you mean? Have you hurt him?”

He waved a dismissive hand at me. “No, no, silly. Why would I ever hurt him? Let’s just say that there are things we can do to people that convince them our cause is worthy of pursuing. When Ian gets here, I’ll explain in more detail. But don’t worry. Captain Brady is and will remain fine.”

I wondered just how much Stenger knew about what I had learned from the doctors. From Dr. Kelly especially. So far, it seemed he didn’t know too much—certainly not that we’d cured Brady—which was a huge advantage. But how long would it take until he and his team realized that Brady was no longer executing the commands sent to him via the man in his head?

It must be only a matter of time before that happened.

An intercom on Stenger’s desk sounded then and a voice announced that Ian Armory had arrived to see him and that Stenger expected him.

Stenger pressed a button on the intercom and said, “Yes, that’s right. Send him to my study right away. He’s family, so no need to frisk him.”

Neither of us said a word as we awaited Ian’s arrival to the study. It took less than a minute before there was a soft knock on the door to the study, then the door opened.

The same square-faced man from before stuck his head in, saying that he was bringing Ian Armory.

“Please send him in,” Stenger said to the man. “It’s my eldest son, who’ll be your boss when I’m gone. Take a good look at him. Remember him.”

I stared at Stenger, stunned by the confidence he displayed when speaking about the future. What made him so sure that Ian would want to take over the horrific empire he was only days short of realizing? He must be completely mad. Or think he had an offer too attractive for Ian to ever be able to reject. He clearly didn’t know
this
son well.

Well,
I thought. Mad or not, he was in for a rude awakening when he got to know Ian a little better.

Ian came in to the big room, his cheeks flushed and his blond hair ruffled, like it was windy out and he didn’t care if he looked neat or not. He must have hurried like crazy to get here.

Squareface left the study and the three of us were alone. Ian’s eyes found me first where I sat in the stuffed leather armchair. “Are you okay, Gabi?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I said.

Ian marched up to me, stopping before Stenger, his hands on his hips and his chin high. “So you are my real father then? I can’t say I see much of myself when I look at you.”

“That’s because you look more like your mother, but also because your genes were slightly altered when you were only an embryo,” Stenger replied.

Ian’s face got tight. I couldn’t blame him; I myself stiffened significantly. Was Stenger trying to tell him that he was a hybrid?

Stenger must have been able to sense what both of us were thinking because he quickly continued, “There are no animal genes in you, son. At the time you were an embryo, using animal genes were still not considered entirely safe. We only used them sparingly. All we did to you was making sure that you didn’t carry any defective genes—I didn’t want you to inherit your mother’s schizophrenia, for example—and that you looked more like my father, who was more handsome than me. Let’s just say, I was looking out for you. Jonah, on the other hand, does have animal genes in his genetic makeup. Sadly, he didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped. But you’re a gem. Brilliant and strong, as well as handsome and charismatic. A true leader. The people will love you, every one of them.”

Ian snorted and shook his head. “You’re one insane little man, aren’t you?”

Stenger chuckled good-naturedly, which made me think of Santa Claus. “I take that as a compliment, dear son. No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”

He rolled his wheelchair around the desk and over to Ian, stopping right before Ian, who was towering over him. “It’s so good to meet you at last, Ian,” he said. “Together, you and I, we’ll change the world. We’ll make it a beautiful place. We’ll eradicate all that’s ugly and sick.”

“You’re one twisted bastard, aren’t you?” Ian hissed between clenched teeth, looking down at Stenger’s shining face. One could clearly tell how much he loved Ian from the look in his eyes. Stenger looked over at me then, around Ian’s body.

“It’s so sad that he doesn’t appreciate what he’s being given. All I want is for him to be happy, which is why I decided to keep you alive in the end. I realized he loves you, you see. Wouldn’t you like to be first lady, Gabi? That’s what you would become when I’m gone and Ian’s leading the world?” Stenger gazed up at Ian and said, “She’s smiling and nodding yes, son. She was always a smart girl. Look for yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Ian turned around to look at me. It was only then that I realized how Stenger was playing us, and my cry of warning was meaningless.

The needle was already deep in Ian’s thigh, the plunger pushed all the way in.

Chapter 10

In a matter of seconds, I had pulled my gun and was behind Stenger, who had removed the emptied syringe from Ian’s thigh and thrown it on the floor beside him. I held my gun to the man’s head at the same time as I removed the blanket from his legs in case he was hiding more needles there. But his lap was empty.

“What did you do to him?” I demanded while pressing the mouth of my gun to the evil man’s temple, dreading the answer. Ian himself was grabbing the area on his thigh that had just been assaulted, stumbling backwards until his knees suddenly gave out and he crashed to the floor.

I stared at Ian where he lay in a heap on the expensive-looking Persian rug that covered most of the hardwood floor. He appeared lifeless, his eyes closed.

“What did you
do
to him,” I hissed in the old man’s ear, my eyes glued to Ian’s motionless body on the floor. Had the bastard
killed
him?

“I did to him what I did to your captain,” Stenger replied calmly. “The two of you gave me no choice.
He
gave me no choice.” He tskd. “He’s such a pigheaded individual, only able to see one side of things. Now he’ll actually
want
to do what’s best for him and the world. When he comes to, he’ll be as pliable as a blind old lady. He’ll do exactly what I want him to do because he’ll want to do it. And there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

I released the breath I’d been holding from the moment I saw that Stenger had stabbed a syringe into Ian’s leg. So he was alive then at least…

I tried to think as quickly as I could, figure out what to do next. It didn’t seem like Stenger had any idea that I had found a way to undo what they had done to Brady. I needed to use that to my advantage. Thankfully, Ian would need to undergo the second part of the transformation, take Zoc 2 pills, until he became like Brady, an empty shell they could fill with evil. I had to find a way to get Haldol into his system before that happened.

“What do you think you’ll gain by holding that gun to my head, Gabi?” Stenger asked then, interrupting my thoughts. “I know you won’t kill me.”

“How do you know that?” I said with scorn. “How do you know that I won’t kill both you and Ian, then kill myself? I don’t want to live in the kind of world you’re creating, with Ian being like you, so there’s little that’s preventing me from using the bullets in my gun.”

I made sure I sounded crazed so that Stenger wouldn’t doubt that my threats were serious. “Of course, if the two of you are dead, there won’t be any coups… Plus, no one will know just how much I know. On second thought, maybe I won’t have to kill myself...” I let out a mad laugh. “Yes, what was I thinking? It’s enough if I only kill you two. Fortunately, I have a silencer on my gun—a really good one—so your guards won’t know that you’re dead until I’m long gone from your house.”

“Good luck with that.”

Ignoring him, I found my phone that I had stuck in my hoodie pocket and texted Brady’s cell, telling him to text me right away, that I needed help. Ian and I had spoken to the captain late last night, informing him of our plan so that he could assist us if we needed help was something to go wrong. Like it just had. During our conversation, I told Brady where Stenger’s mansion was located and that he should start thinking of who could come to help us. He told me that the man in his head had made another appearance finally, but that he instantly chased him away by having his wife inject him with a shot of Haldol.