Separation (21 page)

“They... they came. My men were guarding the
perimeter and I was watching things from inside. I heard sounds
from outside... my men screaming for help.” He coughed and blood
ran from his mouth. “They screamed for help, so... I opened the
door...”

“And saw you?”

“Yeah, I saw me. I knew right away what was
going on. It was just a flash, but the hair, the attitude...”

He went on to say the attack had been
frighteningly well-orchestrated as well as fast. “They hit me,
killed my men, and told me they were going to take our little
houseguest with them. Then you came... how’s your wife?”

“She’s with Istvan, thanks for asking.”

Harry looped his arm around the other man’s
waist and helped him to his feet. “I still have my cellphone,” said
Overton. “I’ll call this in. You have to get Istvan out of
here.”

It seemed like the best idea. Harry went over
to the couch, where Istvan sat in a miserable ball of porcine
humanity, his mouth moving but no words coming out. “What
happened?” asked Harry, after taking a seat beside him. When Istvan
didn’t answer, he gently shook him by the shoulder. “C’mon, it’s
us. You can tell us.”

“They came,” Istvan replied after a long
silence. He licked his lips. “They came. They wanted to take me.
There were four of them, all the same as Overton. I saw them...
they came in and used weapons and...”

His voice trailed away and he started to
weep. What could anyone say in this awful situation? Out there lay
an enemy, fast and deadly, and it seemed as though a war would
break out at any moment...

Anastasia must have heard it first. It was
the sound of a steel pin being pulled. She screamed “Get down!”

A second later, a grenade whistled through
the window and went off not five feet from them. Milliseconds
before the blast, Harry threw his body over that of his wife’s and
hoped they’d survive. Then the blast happened and he knew no
more.

“Harry, wake up.”

The voice—it had not come from Anastasia.
Groaning, Harry opened his eyes and saw Istvan standing in front of
him. “Are you okay?”

A nod, quick and sharp, came from the little
man. “I am okay, but your wife... she is gone.”

Pain forgotten in an instant, Harry leaped to
his feet, adrenaline fueled by anger coursing through his veins.
“Where... who...”

“I saw them,” Overton said wearily. He
dragged himself over to where they lay. “There were two of them,
imperfect clones of me.”

Shaking his head to clear it, Harry wondered
why he hadn’t been able to smell the enemy. Overton seemed to read
his mind as he said “They were wearing containment suits. It masked
their body odor.”

Clever and dangerous, the enemy had just
played their hand and the stakes had gone sky high. Overton
informed them he’d called headquarters. “I called it in... told
them to be on the alert—”

“They won’t be wearing containment suits in
the city,” Harry interrupted, rage practically boiling over. “They
don’t smell like us or act like us... but they may fool some of
your men.”

“That’s why I warned them. Leo’s there... he
might be at risk, too.” Blinking, he asked, “Where’s your
wife?”

“They took her.”

Although he’d been injured in the blast,
Harry felt his body begin to heal. His bones crackled as did his
joints, and soon the pain left. In its place was a cold fire, the
fire of vengeance. “I have to find her.”

With a grunt, Overton levered his body off
the floor, swayed unsteadily, and bent over, panting. “We don’t
know where she is.”

A second later, his cellphone rang, and
before he could say anything, the sound of Jason’s voice,
frightened beyond belief, came through loud and clear. “They’re
here, man, they’re here...”

Silence followed, and Overton redialed the
number, but only a busy signal sounded. “Does your car still work?”
Harry asked.

“It should.”

“Then let’s go.”

By the time they reached Manhattan, it was already
six in the evening, and the traffic rush had slowed things to a
crawl. Dusk falling along with the return of the rain didn’t help
matters or tempers, either, and while Overton beeped his horn in
frustration, the other drivers yelled back at him
like what’s
your problem and can’t you see I’m driving here?

The situation went from bad to worse when
they neared headquarters. Overton let out a curse once he saw the
police cordon around the building. A group of harried officers were
trying to keep a sizable crowd from traversing the wooden barrier.
“We’re too late.”

It seemed to be that way. The crowd shifted
restlessly. In addition, the reporters were interviewing everyone
in sight and the photographers were snapping pictures left, right
and center. Everyone pressed for details in loud and very rude
voices. When Harry ran up to the scene, the cameras swung his way.
A police officer spotted him and said, “This way.”

Overton flashed his badge. “I’m in charge
here.”

His reply earned him a look of disbelief and
the officer immediately reached for his pistol. “You were here
thirty minutes ago. I remember your face.”

“That was an imposter.”

“Yeah, how do you know?” Disbelief switched
to doubt on the officer’s face as he pulled out his gun and leveled
it at Overton’s heart. “Prove it.”

“Take a whiff.”

It may have sounded like a dumb thing to say,
but the officer inhaled and then put away his weapon. “Yeah, okay,
you just stink of sweat. I was one of the first on the scene and
saw them come in. I got off a few shots, got close enough to smell
them. They stank like wet dogs—dirty wet dogs. Monsters, all of
them looked like monsters, except the ones who were fakes, like
you.”

“That’s how you know it’s them,” Overton put
in and ran his hand over his head in a quick, nervous gesture. “I
have to check with my boss. He’ll make a statement soon, but for
now, keep these people away from here!”

Authority, Harry thought, as the cop turned
back to his duties. Either you had it or you didn’t. They ran
inside and found the lobby awash in blood and bodies. Some of the
survivors were in the process of helping the other wounded.
Everyone wore dazed and confused expressions, but there was no time
to think about their plight.

A number of clones lay on the floor, along
with creatures only a mad scientist could have envisioned. Allenby
was most creative. He’d developed fine killing machines, expendable
and totally lethal.

Overton went over to one of the survivors and
spoke with him briefly. Usually, he wore an implacable expression,
but now he returned, his face a study in rage. “My man just told me
what happened. They knew exactly where to go and what to do. First,
they took all the computer information we had, everything on ASR
and everyone connected to the project.”

Clever, but wouldn’t they have backups? That
was Harry’s first thought and he voiced it. “But, you made backup
files, didn’t you? Someone must have copies of the files on hard
disc or something. I mean, isn’t this standard operating—”

Anger coated each of the words he heard from
Overton. “Standard operating procedure doesn’t apply here. They
were smart. When ASR worked with us, they also had access to our
encryption process. We changed the passwords and links, but still,
they knew. They introduced a computer virus. If we try to access
anything save basic programs, the entire system shuts down. This
guy is clever.”

“What about your boss—”

“They killed the director,” Overton
interrupted. “That means no one is in charge for now. Washington
has to know about this.”

They did, but they’d have to hear about it
later on. Harry made for the stairs. “Follow me. We need
information first.”

Downstairs, after swiping his pass card
against the wall, Overton opened the door to the monitoring room.
Jason and Maze were there, huddled against the far wall, and Maze
burst into tears once they entered. “It was horrible,” she
declared. “They came, ten of them, and they all looked like
him!”

She pointed to Overton. “I thought this kind
of crap wouldn’t happen!” After that, she broke down again, crying
uncontrollably.

While Jason tried to comfort her, he gave out
the details in a half-dead voice. Overton—the fake one—had come in,
but without a pass he couldn’t enter. “I smelled something funny,
even through the door, and then he started to say he’d rip us up if
we didn’t let him in. We locked the door, but the tapes
showed...”

His voice trailed away, but gently letting go
of Maze, he got up and pressed a few buttons on the computer.
“These are the security tapes.”

Replaying the events, the tapes showed five
fake Overtons shooting every agent in sight on the first three
floors of the building. Mere seconds after they opened fire, other
monstrosities that resembled mixtures of badgers and panthers
entered through the ground floor and savaged the remaining agents.
The tapes cut out shortly after.

“I’ll check on Leo,” Overton said, and ran
out the door.

Maze got up to wander over to the computer.
Falling into the chair, she held her head in her hands and shook.
Jason came over to hug her and neither of them said a word until
Overton returned, his face a mix of uncertainty and loss. “Leo’s
gone.”

“Gone, as in... what?” Harry left the
question hanging.

“Gone as in I don’t know if they ate him or
he escaped, that’s what.”

A pall settled over the room. Had Anastasia
not been kidnapped, Harry would have grieved more over the loss of
life, but as it was, all he felt was a cold fury combined with
helplessness.

At the bottom of it, he felt guilt and the
terrible weight of responsibility. It was as if Fate had determined
things. He’d done the research. He’d done the simulations and gone
beyond what others had. If he hadn’t started his quest, then none
of these events would have come to pass.

Still, it was too late for him to take
anything back, and his sense of reality kicked in. Even if he
hadn’t gone down this path, others had. He wasn’t responsible for
their insanity. There came a time in everyone’s life where they had
to deal with matter of prime importance and do it in the here and
now. This was one of them. “They have Anastasia,” he said.

Tears started once again from Maze’s eyes.
“Oh god, no... where did they take her?”

A pounding began behind his temples and he
furiously rubbed his forehead, hoping the pressure would take the
pain away. It didn’t, but concentrating on the situation, he was
able to shunt the pain to a different corner of his mind. Where
could they have gone?

Destinations—they were practically
limitless—and right now he was limited in what he could do. His
transponder wouldn’t be working, but Maze had mentioned something
before about power stations, surges and spikes in energy
output...

“Harry,” Jason’s voice broke through his
reverie. “You’re zoning out. Are you okay?”

Blinking, Harry nodded. His mind cleared and
he focused on what had to be done. “I need your help. I need to
find a location. You remember we were talking about power
surges?”

Maze nodded. “Yeah, but—”

“Give me everything you’ve got.”

Immediately, Jason grabbed a seat at another
computer station, but stopped typing once the screen went black.
“What in the hell...”

“Computer virus,” Harry replied. “Allenby
planned for everything.”

Maze grunted. “Yeah, he did, but he didn’t
plan on memory.” She tapped the side of her pocket and Jason did
the same thing. “You can’t erase these. Memory sticks rule.”

Smart...
“So what did you find?”

“Before the system went down, we were
tracking things, mainly power emanations.”

She pulled a memory stick from her pocket.
She then left the room, returning with another computer and plugged
it in. “This one’s an older model. I got it from storage. It wasn’t
tied into the main system, so it’s clean.”

Booting it up, she inserted the memory stick,
and soon a series of graphs sprang up. Two of them showed larger
spikes in power than the others. “Before things happened,” she
shuddered, “we were looking at power plants. The FBI said they
checked out.”

Harry swung his eyes to Overton, who nodded.
“What she said. They’re from power plants and factories, and they
check out, all except these two. One’s at Lake Shasta. The other is
from a farm out in Iowa.”

Thinking about the spikes, nothing made much
sense. Iowa wasn’t known for anything save farmland and farmers.
For anything of that magnitude to be out there was a dead giveaway.
Harry put the question on the table. “When’s the nearest flight
out?”

The charter plane, courtesy of the FBI,
landed at Ames Airport two hours later. Harry and Overton
disembarked, flanked by two other agents, and found a car waiting
for them. They drove out to the location only to find a simple
farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.

Along the way, Harry wondered how they’d
managed to get his handler’s DNA and then chastised himself for
being so naïve. The answer was simplicity itself. DNA was contained
in all parts of the body, the skin and the hair being two prime
sources. Theoretically speaking, it would only take a single hair
to make a clone.

It seemed as though Overton had come to the
same conclusion, but he added some extra information. “Just before
we cut ties with ASR, they came around and tested all of us once
more. They took skin and hair samples.”

Which were more than enough for Allenby to
work his unholy magic, thought Harry with a trace of bitterness.
Overton swiveled his head around. “Do they have your DNA?”

“It wouldn’t be hard to find. I shed.” He
leaned back in his seat and covered his eyes. This had become a
nightmare. What lay in wait—Allenby—was an even larger, more
dangerous one.