Memoria (39 page)

"Which capsules?" Frank closed his eyes. Too complicated.
Claney
was too smart for him.
Too many questions to ask and answers to hear. He didn't have the time.

"The capsules
...
introduced during the Vaccination. The vaccinated
subjects
will obey
Claney
's orders."

The researcher closed his eyes again. A spasm shook his body.
Had he not been strapped, he'd have fallen off the bed.

"
Talk
!" Frank squeezed the man's sharp chin. "Can you hear me?
What's the objective behind the Vaccination?
"

"
Destroy
...
the migrants. Make civilians into puppet soldiers. And then
...
" he stopped.

"Then what? Use the capsules to give them fighting skills? To attack the camp?
And then what?"

Bow didn't answer. His body sl
ump
ed.

"Bow?" Frank patted his cheek. "Wake up!"

Someone pulled the doorknob and knocked. Frank looked around.

"Bow? We're ready," a voice said. "We're waiting for you."

"Coming!" Frank
gave a loud cough, waited and pressed his ear to the door.

Footsteps, barely heard, proceeded along the hallway to
the left. Frank glanced at Bow
. He seemed to be out for quite a while. Frank looked himself over and opened the cabinet. In less than a minute,
he
had on
a clean T-shirt:
shoulders too narrow, but when he draped a la
b coat over it, he looked like one of their mnemotechs.

He still needed to get himself an electronic bracelet. Without it, he couldn't get out of the building.

Frank picked the syringe
up
off the floor
and removed the bent needle. He came close to Bow and took his hand. Turning it palm up
ward
to expose the bracelet
, he p
laced
the
end of the
needle into a barely visible slot
,
just like
Barney
had taught him. It
click
ed. Frank pressed the titan
ium
links one by one,
and the bracelet
o
pen
ed
.

Using the same method, he locked the bracelet on his own hand. After a moment's hesitation, he decided to give Bow a body search.
The only thing he found in his pockets was a crumpled piece of paper. But on his neck hun
g a small round key on a silver
chain looking very much like one of those used to unblock a computer. Frank
had a funny feeling it might come in handy. He
hung the key around
his own neck and gave the place one final check.
He had a bad feeling about something, but couldn't quite p
ut
his finger on it. Only when he stepped to the door and raised his hand to unlock it, he noticed the bloodied
cloth. Too
conspicuous. He had to redress it.

Frank removed the dirty cloth, rinsed his hand with water and
reached for some plaster out of the first-aid kit. The hand was still damp, but the plaster held. Then he
walked
back
to the door and unlocked it.

Before he could step out, a tall dark-haired man
in a lab coat ste
pped in, nearly knocking him over
.

"Who the hell are you?" the man said.

"I'm the new intern," Frank bluffed.

"The new what?"
the man frowned.

Frank punched him in the stomac
h
. The man doubled
up
. Frank grabbed the tech and dragged him inside
.
After two more knee kicks to the
face, he hurled the man onto the floor and locked
the door
behind him
.

Shit. If this was one of the tech team, the others would
soon start looking for him.

Frank
quickly
replayed everything he'd heard within the last hour.
Claney
had
told Bow to finish
here and get busy with the girl. The researcher
had
replied that the team was ready to start the moment he arrived. Which meant
the techs were
all
waiting for him
now
.

The man on the floor groaned and stirred. Frank turned him around, grabbed his
lapels and jerked him up into a sitting position with his ba
ck to the wall.

"How many techs in the team?" he gave him a good shake.
"How many of you
are
there?"

"Three," the man froze, open-mouth, staring at the bed behind Frank's back.

Admittedly, Bow's bloodied frame
lying
on the bed meant for his
victims
would have scared anyone. Even that fish-eyed blond bastard. Frank gave the tech another shake.

"Take
me first to the girl. Next, to
Barney
.

"To whom?"

"The old boy in the intensive care.
Understood?" Frank hissed into the tech's face.

"Yes!" he nodded readily.

"If you try to
fuck me
," Frank produced the syringe out
of his pocket, "you'll get a dos
e of this."

The man's eyes opened wide. He groaned. Frank rose pulling him up by the collar.

"Come on, then.
And no tricks
." He was dying to find out what that was in the syringe th
at scared the techs shitless
. But he had a hunch not to ask now.

"And
...
" the man started, his eyes fixed on Bow.

"Don't worry about him," Frank opened the door and pushed the tech out. "I've
given him first aid."

He had to flaunt the syringe in front of the man's nose before
the tech
could concentrate on his orders.
Finally, he
worked out what Frank wanted and walked along the right side of the hallway. There was only one door in that direction.

"Is the girl
in
there?" Frank glanced behind his back.
There, next to the surgery he'd jus
t left, was another door, and after
another ten paces or so,
two glass panels. On the wall next to them, an electronic lock flashed a red light. Above them
, a semisphere of a
security
camera clung to the ceiling.

Frank stood up straight and followed the tech trying to walk as naturally as he could. They had only two meters left to cover when the
door in the end of the hallway opened
,
letting out another
lab
coat
.

B
ud Jessup hurried to board the chopper waiting on its landing
pad
in front of the stadium. He could use some rest.
He'd never thought
that one day
he'd have to choose between honor and duty.
Still, Salem needed him in town where he and his men tried to stay in control.
Th
e radio in his hand didn't stop.
R
eports
were
c
oming
in from all over New York. Long queues were already lining up at Memoria's branches
, getting longer with every minute. The "skill sale" had begun.

Its first hour had been the hardest for Jessup.
Memoria's security had uncovered his team
who
'd
had to abort
the
surveillance of Binelli.
Listening to their frequencies hadn't given him much, either. He had the Feds and the Secretary of Homeland Security on his back
, but Jessup chose to ignore their calls knowing it would cost him his job. Probably, already had
.

The chopper
pilot
saw him, reached up and started flipping switches overhead.
The i
gnition
went on.
The motor
pulsated
.
Slowly, t
he
rotor blades
started turning
.

The reporter sat in the back. He hunched
up
in his seat
, too scared to move, afraid of whoever might be watching. Jessup shared his
anxiety. He didn't want to let the reporter out of his sight. It
was unlikely Memoria would go so
far as to
kill
them both
together, but still.
Gizbo might not be the only mole in his department. That would explain Memoria's quick reactions to their HQ surveillance
as well as
their
switching to
scrambl
ed messages. Jessup didn't want to lose his only trump card, albeit
insignificant. He knew they would do whatever
was
necessary to seize the reporter.

"Captain, sir?" he
thought he
heard to his left.

A
sentry on the guardhouse balcony
waved and shouted, his words drowned out by the chopper drone.
Another couple of seconds, and
he wouldn't have heard him
.

"Would you come
over
here, sir?"

Jessup stopped. He glanced at the helicopter and crossed his arms in front of him, signaling to the pilot to kill the motor. Then he hurried to the guard house. Could they
have received
a message from the camp?
The leaders could have complained
about
Memoria's invasion on the radio. They could have sent a messenger
to the
guard house.
Also not unlikely, some of the migrants could
express their desire
to leave the perimeter in order to participate in Memoria's "skill sale"
. He could tell Jessup what was going on in the camp.

"What's up?"
the rotor noise had almost stopped by the time Jessup reached the turnstiles.

"Come quick, sir! He's wounded!"

"Who now?" Jessup flung the staff room door open. On the bench by the wall lay Nicholas Floyd.
Jessup's long-time camp informer.

The duty officer
leaned over
him
, the opened first-aid kit by his feet on the floor.
Floyd's
neck and chest were
dressed with bloodied bandages.
The duty officer pulled the
syringe
out of Floyd's shoulder
and turned his wide weather-worn face to Jessup.

"Not good.
Got two bullets to
the
neck and heart area, sir. He could barely speak."

"What did he say?"

Floyd lay with his eyes closed.

"He brought you this, sir," The duty officer handed Jessup an opaque plastic
con
tainer one-tenth of an inch thic
k.
"He wanted you to have it."

"What for? What is it?" Jessup opened the container. Inside was a memory chip. "Call the meds!" he looked at the door. "Get him into the chopper!"

He lifted the
transmitter and
contact
ed
the police clinic for an emergency surgery.

Floyd opened his
eyes and gave him a weak smile. Then he started gasping.

"His heart
might stop!" the duty officer shouted
. "Get the defibrillator!"

One of the cops was already running to the bench with a plastic box in his hands. He pushed the lid open and
brought out
the electrodes.

The duty officer
grabbed a knife and cut through the bandages. But Floyd had already stopped breathing.
His eyes glazed over.

"
Charge
?"
the cop placed the electrodes onto Floyd's chest.

"
Full charge
,"
the duty officer said.