Siren's Surrender (28 page)

He wanted more, damn it. Exclusivity. One on one.

 

 

To follow the road and see where it would lead. Without lies. Without deceit. And without the government poking an intrusive nose into their personal life.

“Goddamn it.” The oath slipped out under his breath. Both he and Gwen were prisoners of someone else’s agenda and he didn’t like it one little bit. He was being manipulated just like she was. The nooses were tightening around their necks, too. The light at the end of the tunnel no longer looked like a way to freedom. It looked like an oncoming freight train, one that would smash them both flat.

The devastation could never be undone, either.

Dennis Thompson mistook his utterance for something else entirely. “Damn disgusting.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “These doctors look happier than a kid in a candy store with a twenty-dollar bill.”

Blake had to force himself to put his personal thoughts aside. Tucking away his memories of Gwen for later review, he slipped on his mask of cold indifference. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Just do. He’d always been good at following orders. It was best to continue doing so until he could figure a way out of this mess.

Face obscured behind a surgical mask, Dr. Yadira poked through the woman’s open torso, using a pair of forceps to move vital parts around for better viewing. “I see the remnants of the alien organ, what they call the symbiote,” she reported. “But there’s too much damage for any sort of extraction. It’s shriveled into nothing.”

Thompson hit a buzzer so he could be heard in the lab. “Any way to extract DNA from it?”

Yadira shook her head. “We’ve tried. The few strands we’ve extracted had been incomplete, most likely because of the decay of the body. The samples we’ve obtained from the live specimens have been promising, though. From what we can determine, the Mer DNA carries an additional gene sequence we can neither replicate nor explain at this point.”

Blake pressed his lips together. He didn’t like the term
live specimens
one bit. The scientists still considered the Mer to be little more than lab rats. “Why do you need that thing anyway?”

Thompson let his hand drop. “We’re hoping this is something we can eventually replicate in all humans.” His eyes briefly widened and flared with something akin to glee. “Everything they can do seems to be centered around that particular organ. We know they are able to breed with humans just fine, though we don’t understand the process that allows them to only engender female offspring. Something during the gestation period seems to kill off male sexual chromosomes and imprint female Mer ones.”

Blake kept his expression neutral. “Looks like you’ve been studying my reports.”

Thompson shrugged. “You’ve gotten her to talk, and that’s excellent.” He shook his head. “We’re still trying to get a bead on that scepter, whatever it may be.” He rolled his eyes. “If such a thing actually exists.”

“You might want to take what they say a little more seriously,” Blake warned. “So far we still don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with here. As primitive as it might look to our eyes, their technology far surpasses our own. Crystal-powered lasers is something we can’t even begin to touch on.”

Pondering his words a moment, Thompson puckered his lips thoughtfully. “That’s why it’s your job to keep pumping them,” he said. “We need to know everything about this species. What they are, what dangers they present and—most important—how to contain their threat.”

A spike of guilt cut right through Blake’s conscience. He hated pushing Gwen and her sisters for more details to add to his paperwork. But the girls had been very forthcoming, answering his questions as honestly as possible.

He wished he could simply date the woman instead of spy on her.

Blake forced himself to offer a nonchalant shrug. “Just doing my job.”

Thompson chuckled obscenely and gave him a slap on the back. “Now, if you could only get her into bed, Whittaker. You really need to work harder on your seduction techniques.”

It took every ounce of self-restraint Blake possessed not to slug the nasty little bastard right then and there.

Blake cleared his throat. “She’s shown no interest in me, sir,” he countered, speaking in a cold, clipped manner. The asshole was beginning to wiggle under his skin like a maggot. “I can hardly force myself on her.”

Thompson didn’t seem the slightest bit offended. “Just keep trying to work your way into her panties.” He scratched one of his two chins. “We’re just getting started on these things.”

Blake’s gaze narrowed on Thompson. “They are not
things
,” he snapped. “They are intelligent beings, able to think and feel and react just the way humans do.”

Thompson’s own wall of indifference didn’t budge one bit. “I hope you’re not taking your involvement with these things too personally, Agent Whittaker. First and foremost, the Mer have been classified as aliens, albeit indigenous to Earth. Beyond that, they are not human. And we are aware they are dangerous and can turn on people at any moment.”

It didn’t take much to drag up the incident Thompson was referring to. “What Gwen did when I was attacked was just her reaction to a moment of stress. If she hadn’t helped, I probably wouldn’t be here now.”

No need to mention that his lack of preparation and clumsy reflexes had gotten a fellow agent killed. They’d badly underestimated the hostile Mers. Even without their soul-stones, these women were well trained in hand-to-hand combat. They were also prepared to sacrifice their lives to serve their monarch.

They were damn lucky Queen Magaera and Jake Massey hadn’t managed to lay hands on Tessa. He could only imagine what it would be like to have thousands of Mer soldiers streaming into the Mediterranean Sea.

That knowledge in turn presented another dilemma. Now that they knew Tessa controlled the sea-gate, it wouldn’t be safe to let her go. Lifetime captivity seemed to loom in everyone’s future, hardly a pleasant thought at all.

“And that is why we have them in quarantine and under observation,” Thompson reminded. “We have to know what we’re dealing with on all levels.”

Blake couldn’t resist rolling his eyes. “Oh, come on,” he scoffed. “Their kind has been here as long as humans have. Maybe even longer. More people die in car accidents than from rogue mermaid attacks.”

“That we know of,” Thompson added seriously. “Who knows how many unreported incidents are out there? There has to be a reason they went into hiding.”

It was getting harder and harder for Blake to keep cold indifference in place. Arguing with Thompson was aggravating. And it was giving him a headache. Not to mention an intense desire to slam the asshole’s head into the wall. Many times, and with much force.

“Maybe because they were driven to extinction,” he retorted.

Thompson drew himself up to his full height, which wasn’t much at all. “That is not the story we’ve gotten so far,” he countered. “According to the facts as I have them, the sea-gate was closed because of tensions between the two races. Tensions, which I will remind you, still exist to this very day.”

Blake reached for calm, but it lay just beyond the tips of his fingers. Tension formed painful hard knots in his shoulders. “I will grant you the Mer of Ishaldi are hostile. But Gwen and her sisters definitely are not. They’re on our side.”

Planting his hands in his pockets, Thompson rocked back on his heels. “The sisters may have been born on our side and may have adapted to our human ways, but others of their kind do not seem to be as domesticated.”

 

 

Beneath his heavy brows his eyes became twin pools of steel. “That is, if my understanding of the story is correct. I did get my information from the report you filed, which Tessa Lonike verified with an addendum in her own words.” His gaze narrowed, threatening slits of displeasure. “If it isn’t, you’d damn well better have some corrections on my desk. ASAP.”

Blake gave in and nodded. As much as he didn’t like it, Thompson was his direct superior. He had to answer to the man. Getting emotional wouldn’t do any good. If nothing else, he must maintain the facade of distant professionalism if he wanted to be kept in the loop.

“Just don’t be so hard on the girls. They’re doing the best they can to cooperate. All they want is to go home and go back to their lives.”

Thompson smirked. “They’ll have to dream on. The chance of that happening is a million to one. Whether they like it or not, the Mer are now the property of the U.S. government.”

Their conversation was interrupted when two more attendants rolled in another body stretched out on a gurney. One of the hostile Mers was strapped to its cold metal surface. The gurney holding the corpse was removed, and hers rolled into its place. Stripped bare from head to foot, heavy straps restrained her at wrist and ankles. Her head lolled weakly from side to side.

Blake absorbed most of it in a single glance. The fine hairs on the back of his neck prickled with attention. The woman was still very much alive. So why was she in a room designed for autopsy?

The foreboding he felt intensified with every passing second.
Surely they aren’t going to try it
. He stopped that notion dead in its tracks. “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.

“They are going to attempt to retrieve samples from a more viable source,” Thompson answered simply.

Blake didn’t even want to think about it. “There’s one problem with that idea,” he protested. “She’s still alive.”

“Don’t be such a pussy. She did try to kill you. Turnabout is fair play.” Thompson waved a hand. “She will be euthanized in the most painless way possible.” His reply was coarse and direct.

“Why do they have to kill her to get it?” he demanded. “Why can’t they take samples by performing a live surgery?”

Dennis Thompson didn’t bat an eye. “The doctors have decided they want a cadaver fully intact to explore before they go trying live surgery on one of those things.” He glanced toward the unlucky mermaid. “You know this is the way science works, Whittaker. We wouldn’t be where we are today if someone wasn’t willing to do the dirty work.”

Blake could hardly believe his ears. Dirty work was one thing. He’d performed a lot of it himself, as a ranger and a sniper in the army. He knew what dirty work and double dealing was all about. But murder, plain and simple, was a whole other ballgame. One he didn’t want to be associated with. This went above and beyond the call of duty to any government.

Blake continued to stare at Thompson, all the while feeling rage and hatred rising within. “I don’t think death is painless.”

Thompson leaned closer, giving Blake a whiff of his tacky aftershave. “This isn’t the first time we’ve done this,” he said under his breath. “The Mer aren’t the first alien life-forms we’ve encountered and they won’t be the last.” He shrugged. “You know the old saying. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in men’s philosophies.”

Blake brushed him off. “I’m aware it goes something like that.” His voice was pure ice.

He didn’t think he wanted to know what else the agency had hidden away in its endless vaults. He had a feeling he wouldn’t like what he’d find if he were to take a look. The moral and spiritual ramifications were already causing him more problems than he cared to admit.

Blake forced himself to turn away from the viewing pane. He wasn’t going to watch this shit. No way. Jesus H. Christ. This wasn’t science. It was torture, little more than government-sanctioned slaughter.

And it was wrong.

An image of Gwen stretched out naked and helpless flashed through his mind.

It’ll come down to her,
a prescient voice whispered in his ear.
One by one, they’ll all go under the scalpel.

 

 

Tests. Tests. And more tests.

The damn testing was starting to get on Gwen’s nerves. She’d been run through the wringer until she was ready to scream.

At the moment, she sat in a simple white room, windowless and no exit except for a single door. The isolation was necessary, they’d explained, because they wanted to measure her cognitive psychic abilities without interruption or outside influences.

Good enough.

The room was outfitted with a simple folding card table and two metal chairs. Not much of a distraction there. The doctor running the experiment, who’d been introduced as Von Drak, was a middle-aged man, balding with a pot belly. He spoke in a thick Austrian accent. Every time he opened his mouth, all she could see in her mind’s eye was an aging, fat, bald Terminator.

She inwardly winced.
Sorry, Arnold
.

Dr. Von Drak worked a series of cards, some with letters, some with simple pictures. A yellow notepad and pen sat nearby ready to record his findings. The idea was he would envision the image on the card in his own mind, and then Gwen would supposedly pluck it from his brain.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Gwen nodded. “Sure. Fire away.”

Von Drak held up the first card. His forehead wrinkled with intense concentration. “Can you tell me what I am looking at?” he asked in all seriousness.

Gwen leaned forward, planting her elbows on the table and lacing her fingers together. She wrinkled her own brow with what she hoped was a display of appropriate intensity. “Yes,” she answered. “It is a number three.”

Von Drak’s eyes lit up. “Correct.” He placed the card to one side and drew another. “And this one?”

Gwen concentrated harder. “It is a cat.”

“Excellent,” the doctor exclaimed. “You are most perceptive.” He drew a third card. “And this?” he asked after a minute had ticked by.

Gwen paused. Really, this was too damn easy. “It’s a star,” she finally answered.

Von Drak scribbled some notes in an almost indecipherable handwriting. They went through the rest of the stack in about ten minutes.