Piranha Assignment (20 page)

“That's the spirit,” Felicity said, hopping over and kissing his cheek. “It's a good place to wait to come here. Or see here. Now, who was it?” She began to pace the floor of her little room. Her right hand was in the crook of her
left elbow. Her left pointer finger tapped her lips. She wandered around the room in no particular pattern.

“Let's say someone wanted to watch the sub being built,” Morgan said, pulling out a piece of paper. He took notes in pencil as their conversation continued.

“Aliens from space,” Felicity said, straight faced. Barton looked at her, then at Morgan for a clue.

“Not likely,” Morgan said, equally serious. He turned to wink at Barton. “What use would they have for a submarine?”

“Right,” Felicity said. “Well then, how about drug dealers. They might want to steal a sub, and use it to smuggle large quantities of cocaine, undetected. Or maybe some Middle Eastern shah wants it to protect his oil.”

Barton sat on the bed with legs crossed. This was a pure brainstorming session, and as tempted as he was to participate, he held back, preferring to get a look at how this woman's mind worked.

“I found evidence of visitors on the island,” Morgan said. “They left the remains of a fire, and I found food containers, but they were the remains of military rations, not civilian food.”

“Aha! Okay.” Felicity's eyes brushed Barton's face on her circuit and she blew him a kiss. “What about Chuck's theory? Russian soldiers. They were here to check out the sub before taking delivery. When it sails out they'll overcome the crew with nerve gas and drive it to the Russia.”

Barton couldn't resist this time. “No good, babe. If they were Russians they'd be Spetznatz. Special Forces. No way you'd find their junk. They'd bury the trash three feet deep and disperse the evidence of a fire completely.”

“Good point,” Morgan said, spinning around in his chair. “The best of the Russians are unbelievably good. But
Cuban soldiers…”

“Sloppy,” Barton said, nodding. “Very sloppy, even their elite. Yeah Cubans…what am I saying?”

“It makes sense to me.” Felicity bounced onto the bed next to Barton. “It's nearby. Castro's pretty much broken with the Russians anyway, being just about the last of the serious communists, aside from that nutter in North Korea. He'd die for a submarine like this. He was known to consort with Noriega before his fall, so he's probably still got good ties within Panama. I'm thinking it's a workable theory.”

“Sounds like just the kind of thing they sent us here to look for,” Morgan said. “All we need is to know where The Piranha's going on her maiden voyage and feed that to Roberts with our other evidence.”

“I've got an idea for that,” Felicity said. “Let's plan to get into Panama City tomorrow. No offense, Chuck, but your safe house might not be real safe anymore.”

“No argument from me, sweetheart.”

“Well, I think this calls for a celebration,” Felicity said. “Morgan, pick up that phone over there and get us some lemonade.”

“Sure, and I'll order something a little more bracing for us grown-ups.”

It was the ghosts that sent Morgan padding quietly down the carpeted halls after midnight. He moved slowly through the darkness, but with a sureness of tread born of a hundred night operations. Moonlight filtered through an occasional window, deepening his somber mood. He did not like running away.

Sometimes, during a lull in an assignment, he slept too lightly. Sometimes, at those times, they would visit. The ghosts of past campaigns would wander through his half awake mind. He could count every soul he had hurried on its way to the next plane during his long career as a soldier. He knew his personal body count. He carried no regrets, but the dreams always shook him.

Only Claudette, lover and long time friend, had ever helped him through one of those nightmares. She was an industrial spy he had met on mercenary business years ago. Now that he was a legitimate business man, he had occasional thoughts of making an honest woman of her someday. If only she was in Panama now, instead of working in Brussels. She could hold him close and get him through the night.

For now, he had another solution in mind. He headed for the gym downstairs in shorts and a tee shirt. He planned to stage a marathon workout, drive himself to exhaustion, and collapse into a deep sleep.

At the bottom of the stairs he turned left, feeling for the
soundproof gymnasium door. As his fingers wrapped around the handle, Morgan felt a familiar tingle at the back of his neck. His instincts were warning him of impending danger. He froze for a moment, debating whether to follow his instincts or satisfy his curiosity. What danger could be waiting for him in a gym?

Morgan didn't know he had made a decision until his hand turned the lever and eased the door open a crack. The odor of sweat rushed out at him.

Without overhead lights on, the heavy bag threw eerie shadows across the center of the room. Ropes hung from the ceiling like huge snakes waiting for a passerby to happen into them. Massive nautilus machines stood lined up against the gym's walls like bulky guards. Morgan suspected Doctor Nunez kept them for testing Herrera's strength. The set of free weights now arranged in the middle of the room had to be Herrera's real training equipment.

A long bench stood at the other side of the room, nearly fifty feet away. Nunez sat beside it in the light of a single lamp. Herrera lay face down on a nautilus bench, his legs curling, lifting weights in a slow, steady rhythm. A tube connected his right arm to a bottle hanging from a stand. Nunez, in his long lab coat, and Herrera, one with the bench, cast their own monstrous shadow figures in the gloom.

The bench squeaked and weights clanked in rhythm as they moved up and down. Morgan could not resist a closer look. He slid into the room along the floor. Semi-darkness and the echoed clanking of the weight bench covered him. Silently he crept through the thick shadows thrown against the wall by the nautilus gear until he was within twenty feet of the room's other occupants. He crouched with his back against the wall and drew his aura in, assuming a stone like
rigidity and sending out no energy for anyone to detect. He became part of the darkness, and focused on the other men's voices.

“How much longer must I lie here?” Herrera asked, glaring at Nunez.

“You know I must monitor you carefully,” Nunez said, flicking a finger at a long syringe. “I must document your reactions carefully if my research is to be accepted.”

“I care nothing about your research, only that my endurance and strength remain at their peak.”

“Of course, my friend,” Nunez said, trying to pacify his muscular patient. “But it was easier when we only used your own stored blood. Now that we're adding red blood cells from other donors we must be very cautious. I've cross matched the blood types a dozen ways, but you could still reject it. Remember, no one else on earth is doing this right now.”

Morgan's eyes widened in the darkness. Blood doping! That hanging bag was adding to Herrera's blood supply. He had read about this. Doctors would store a couple of pints of an athlete's blood. After their bodies created enough blood to replace what was taken, the athletes would get the red cells from the stored blood transfused back into their bodies. The athletes experienced a short term increase in aerobic capacity, and more oxygen in their blood translated into greater endurance.

So Herrera's amazing stamina was artificially boosted. He, or Doctor Nunez, had come up with a new twist on vampirism. He used other people's blood to increase his own vitality. Had Nunez found a solution to the increased risk of clotting and heart failure? If so, his technique really was a breakthrough.

Morgan relaxed the cramp beginning in the small of his back and wondered what other surprises Herrera's bulk hid.
While he watched, Nunez reached over and slid the long needle into Herrera's shoulder. The big man did not seem to notice, and went right on with his leg curls.

“You should take a break from these soon,” Nunez said as he withdrew the needle. “Even with the megavitamin and mineral supplements, Even with human growth hormone enhancement, there are side effects that…”

“No!” Herrera's head snapped around, teeth bared beneath the long mustache.

“But the Olympic committee…”

“Fears the competitor who will do anything to win,” Herrera said. “Maybe a lesser man's body, or will, can't handle the steroids, but I can.”

Morgan was shaking his head in silence. He should have guessed. The red eyes were a dead giveaway. And the man's muscular bulk, so angular and chunky, so atypical of Hispanic men. Herrera showed all the signs of the effects of anabolic steroids, including his emotional state. Morgan guessed that he was pretty aggressive before he ever heard of chemical enhancements. Steroids would increase his strength and toughness, but they would also make him more violent, more volatile, and even more aggressive. In any competition, he would keep going until he won. In a fight he would lose touch with reality and focus on the fight until it was all he knew.

This, Morgan reflected, would be a very tough animal to kill..

“I don't think you realize how fortunate you are to be involved in such ground breaking research,” Nunez told Herrera. “Your genetic makeup made you a perfect candidate for my experiments, giving you an unparalleled chance to contribute to mankind.”

Herrera grunted.

Nunez rambled on. “My work in blood enrichment alone
will one day aid deep sea divers, jet pilots, astronauts. And the parallel chemical enhancement work is equally valuable. In combining the testosterone, erythropoietin and human growth hormone, I've just about found the synergistic peak. Imagine a new world of physical fitness for the handicapped, for accident victims, for recovering coma patients.” When his words drew no response, Nunez sighed and said, “All right. The waiting period is over.”

Herrera's legs continued their rhythmic pumping. Frozen in the shadows behind the machines, Morgan could feel Nunez's disappointment and Herrera's boredom. Nunez began storing his lab equipment in the locked cabinets. While he did, Herrera stood and performed a series of stretching exercises. Then he turned off the lamp and led Nunez across the pitch black room and out of the gym.

The door thudded home, reverberations filling the high-ceilinged room. Morgan released his last held breath through puffed cheeks. He rose to his full height, shaking the kinks out of his back, his legs, his mind. He switched on the bench lamp, and then wandered over to a bench set up for presses.

So Herrera was not a natural athlete. No, Morgan corrected himself as his hand rested on the weights up on the stand, he probably was in the usual sense. His natural gifts were probably remarkable. And it was obvious that he worked hard with consistent dedication to build himself and improve his performance. He was just a natural athlete who used the latest technology to amplify the gain he worked for.

Anabolic steroids and blood doping would let Herrera train longer and harder, to speed the muscle building process. Testosterone too would offer him greater strength, more endurance, and faster recovery. Erythropoietin did the same things blood doping did. Human growth hormone did
it all, increasing muscle mass, aerobic capacity and recovery speed, and thickened your bones in the process. Sure, all these things had side effects but nothing that will kill you as far as Morgan knew. Was it worth it?

Morgan stretched out on the bench and stared up at the bar, considering the side affects nobody ever talked about. He had seen an analogous situation in Vietnam. Primitive men in black pajamas had outfought American soldiers. One reason was that the Americans depended on their advanced weapons and equipment instead of their own natural abilities.

Hard work and dedication did not erase the fact that Herrera was leaning on artificial aids. Morgan preferred to remain a natural man. He raised the bar from the stand above him, and then lowered it to his chest. It was more weight than he usually used. More, in fact, than he weighed. Oh, well. He would have to work hard to stay even with the competition. Some people would do anything to slant things in their favor.

Morgan threw himself into his workout as if he had something to prove.

At ten minutes before eight the next morning, Felicity O'Brian opened her room door, stepped into the hall, and held out her elbow. Without breaking stride, Morgan Stark slid his arm through hers and they moved down the hall toward the stairs.

“I've stopped wondering how I know when you're there,” Felicity said. “I just enjoy the comfort of knowing.”

“You look lovely this morning,” Morgan said. “Do I detect a certain glow?”

“Not the glow you mean. I sent Chuck away as soon as you left. I needed time to think about today.”

Felicity wore a bright, rainbow striped skirt that fell just above her knees. Her blouse was white with French ruffled cuffs. Her hair was down, held at her neck with a wide green ribbon that exactly matched her eyes. She grinned into Morgan's face, and he wondered if she had formulated her lipstick herself, as it was just the right shade. Plus, she wore a scent that was chemically designed to make a man say yes to anything.

“New perfume?” Morgan asked.

“Like it? It's called ‘Trouble.'”

“Figures,” Morgan said. “So what do you think about today?”

“I think I know just what our friends back home would want most, and I can get it this morning.”

“Wonderful,” Morgan said. “I've decided how best to
get the message to them. I hope you agree.”

They made detailed plans in the scant minutes before they reached the dining room. Morgan and Felicity spoke in a peculiar shorthand consisting of partial sentences and incomplete ideas, as if they could read each other's thoughts.