Two Evils (36 page)

“Dr. Hernandez was one of our finest DOD geneticists,” Wainright replied. “When he initially conceived of IQ-56,
mixing this amino acid and that one together, he had no idea the compound would have such drastic effects. That didn’t come out until the animal testing phase. Oh, you should see the videos of the chimpanzees going—dare I say it Stan—
ape
shit!”

Wainright, Stan, and the returning Malone laughed uproariously. Billie knew then that she and Rebecca were in deep trouble—if these three could find the pitiful suffering of defenseless animals humorous, there was no telling what they’d do with two
handcuffed women. Hell, she realized, she already knew: if they weren’t killed outright, more than likely they’d end up being sold to the highest bidder.

“Hernandez was assigned to me, believe it or not, by SecNav,” the general continued. “I was told to check up on him, to see what his progress was on the serum. He admitted that it was an unfortunate failure, that while it would likely make subjects stronger and smarter in the short run, chances were likely that they would all, at some point, succumb to psychosis. But I still saw such potential in it! If we could only distribute IQ-56 to our enemies
, they’d end up going nuts and taking each other out, and all we’d have to do is wait it out until they’d annihilated one another on their own.”

Billie was having a hard time believing the gall of the man, he was so far out of it.
Purposely wanting to drive other human beings insane just so they’d kill each other off was in itself pure madness. And though she suspected she already knew the answer to her next question as well, she asked anyway, “Where is Hernandez now?”

“
He didn’t want to go through with the human testing trials, but I talked him into doing it as a control study by lauding the scientific aspects of such a test. Of course, when the signs clearly indicated that Maj. Lamacek was starting to lose it, he called it all off. Then he threatened to go over my head to SecNav directly and claim he’d been coerced, so I talked him into giving me a little more time to prepare my final report…and made sure he was the first to attempt to restrain your little friend’s brother when he finally flipped his switch. That took care of that problem.”

“What about the women?” Rebecca rasped as she pushed to her feet. “What about the
children
that you sell for sex, General?”

He snorted. “Oh, that one’s easy. I was invited to a…shall we say,
private
…facility by one of my foreign associates. Had quite a bit of fun with this fresh little piece of fourteen-year-old pussy that night—a virgin, she was. Damn she was tight. Of course, right away I saw the potential for a rather lucrative business empire, and so with a few phone calls to the right people… Pleasures was born.”

“Man, what I wouldn’t give for a fresh piece of virgin pussy,” Malone said with a leer.

“Really, Malone? I didn’t know you were interested,” Wainright said conversationally. “I do believe we’ve some fresh stock coming in on the next order. You’ve been doing your job very well lately—perhaps I will let you have first pick.”

“Thank you, General,” Malone replied with a slight bow.

“I dunno fellas,” Stan put in, grinding himself once again into Billie’s backside as he nuzzled and then licked her ear. She twisted her head away in disgust. “There’s something to be said for putting it to a woman that knows what she’s doing.”

“No d
oubt that little cunt has spread ‘em for every asshole on her team and then some,” Malone replied snidely. “Probably fucked that CIA dickhead, too.”

“
Well gentlemen, as you are both well aware, a whore’s only good for being passed around,” Wainright said then.

Billie found herself wanting to do as Rebecca had done—spit in their worthless faces. She knew perfectly well she wasn’t a whore, but that didn’t mean being accused of it pissed her off any less.
And to be forced to listen to them discussing having sex with children and virgins so callously… It made her stomach turn, and she’d been forced to swallow the bile rising in her throat as well as her mounting anger.

“Take them into the double bedroom,” the general said suddenly. “We need to mobilize and prepare to tie up the loose ends.”

Rebecca turned to her, her eyes wide with fear as Malone stepped around the table to take her by the arm. She wasn’t stupid after all—she knew precisely what that meant:

Wainright
intended to kill their rescue party before they could mount the rescue.

The “double bedroom” turned out to be
a tiny little stateroom with a twin bed on either side of it. Billie and Rebecca both were shoved roughly inside before the door was slammed shut and locked from the outside.

“Gee, what the hell are we supposed to do if we have to
go to the bathroom, assholes?
” Billie shouted angrily.

She turned and looked at Rebecca, who now sat stonefaced on the edge of one bed, looking down at her hands. Billie moved to sit beside her, guilt washing over her at the pitiful site of the soaked and bedraggled young woman. “I’m sorry, Rebecca,” she said slowly. “I never should have brought you into this.”

“I’m not sorry,” Rebecca replied, raising her head slowly to look at her. “If I’m going to die today, I’ll know it was in defense of my brother’s honor, and for all those lost women and girls. Maybe I wasn’t successful, but I tried.”

“Hey, don’t give up on me, now,” Billie said. “I’m going to try and get us out of here, and I know that John and the others are coming. They’ll come for us, Becky.”

“Billie, they’re walking into an ambush!”

“I know they are,” she said, and then leaned over, whispering into her ear as she said, “But you and I both know that they’re closer than an hour. It won’t take them long to get here and I know my guys—they’ll scout the area for all points of advantage before moving in on this boat.
”

“I’m scared, Billie,” Rebecca said with a sniffle.

“I am too, hon,” she replied.

Now her companion snorted. “Please—you’re the She-Devil. Eddie always said you weren’t scared of anything.”

Billie smiled at the compliment from her old friend, but shook her head as she said, “Just because I know how to keep my cool under pressure doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of anything. Every time I was in combat with the unit, every time I was on assignment for the company—every single time my life was even remotely threatened—I’ve been scared. I just didn’t show it. I learned not to.”

Rebecca looked at her again, amazement in her eyes. “How do you do that? I’m so terrified they’re just going to come in here and shoot us, and at the same time I’m sick of being so scared. I am ashamed to call myself a Marine—we’
re not supposed to be afraid, we’re supposed to be courageous.”

Billie held her gaze with a stern look in her own eyes. “Now Rebecca, you listen to me:
You have
no
reason to be ashamed of yourself. You broke into the office of a brigadier general based on circumstantial evidence and a hunch, and that takes a
lot
of guts. You didn’t call your mom to tell her about Eddie because you were protecting her from the very same man. I know how much you wanted to tell her, but you didn’t for her sake, and that takes courage too.

“Do you want to know why your brother claimed I wasn’t scared of anything? It’s because seeing me
be able to keep my head in the middle of nightmares made him feel better about being scared shitless himself, and I can assure you that he and the other guys were scared plenty of times. Having courage doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid, Becks. It just means that you’ve realized there’s something else more important than your fear.”

“
Like keeping Mom safe and wanting to save those girls,” Rebecca said.

Billie nodded. “That’s right. And we
’re going to save them…right after we save ourselves.”



They should have known it was a set up.

John and the team, plus Teddy, Presley, and Green, had taken their two vehicles as fast as possible back south toward the marina. They’d pulled into the lon
g drive and split, approaching dock eight from opposite sides. Each driver pulled into a parking space in a back lot and their groups approached on foot—John kept Teddy with him because it simply felt safer. He knew he’d be able to keep him from losing his shit and doing something too stupid that way. When they were in position they held, with quiet communications being relayed through Green and Presley, the only two of the group with radios.

Lifting a pair of binoculars Presley had produced from somewhere, John checked out the last
boat on the left side of dock eight. He was disappointed but none too surprised to see no sign of the women on the boat—there was no sign of anyone, in fact. In the early evening hours, under the last rays of the sun, all was strangely quiet on dock eight—on all the docks, for that matter.

The hairs on the back of John’s neck stood on end. He didn’t like this. Something was off, and he made sure Presley relayed his sense of foreboding. The return message was one of agreement, with Gabe’s voice coming over the mike saying, “
Does the state of Denmark smell rotten to you, G-Man?
”

John took Presley’s radio from him.
“Like week-old socks, Thunderhead,” he replied.

Wayne’s voice came next. “
I think we need to take the boat now—no sense waiting another thirty minutes
.”

“Then let’s do it,” John said, handing Presley’s radio
and the binoculars back to him.

H
is fellow agent tucked the items away and pulled his gun. John drew his as well, and gave the go-ahead nod to Teddy. Part of the plan—since he didn’t have a gun—was that Teddy would slip into the water and swim to the boat. While John and the others drew the general and his cohorts off and onto the dock, he was to climb aboard out of sight and get Billie and Rebecca to safety—and no matter how much she protested, he was
not
to let Billie join the fray.

“Yeah, good luck with that one,” Teddy had muttered as they hashed the plan out on the drive over.

Jogging in a crouch to the edge of the water by dock seven, Teddy was careful to conceal himself in the shade of a boat and a large, leafy tree. John watched intently from his position by another tree, his every nerve ending humming with anticipation. After walking as quietly into the water as he could, Teddy started swimming. He was halfway down the space between the docks, keeping only his head above water, when suddenly a shot rang out—a splash in the water by his shoulder had him crying out in surprise and diving for cover.

Giving up the pretense of stealth, John slipped from his hiding spot a
nd fired toward a power boat three slips closer to the shore than their target. In his peripheral vision, he saw Gabe’s group advancing from the other side, where more shots were being fired from the right-hand side of the dock. A second shooter on their side also began firing and Presley engaged him, exchanging shots as though they were in a tennis match.

A b
ullet whizzed past John’s ear and he ducked, then fired again before slipping back behind the tree next to Presley, flicking his eyes toward the water briefly to try and locate Teddy… and there he was, about to do precisely the one thing he’d kept him on his team to try and prevent: something stupid. Billie’s baby brother had swum across the distance between himself and the shooter’s boat—under the water, apparently—and right then he was easing the top of his head above the water along its side, just a few feet from the shooter.

Suddenly
John realized what his goal was and he lifted his gun, keeping up a steady stream of fire from his position behind the tree, distracting the shooter until Teddy was ready. A moment later the firefighter launched himself out of the water, clearly startling the gunman, whose turn to strike at the new threat actually became a disadvantage—it made him all the more easier for Teddy to grab a hold of, dragging him over the side of the boat and into the water. He was quickly yanked back up by the front of his shirt and decked with a hefty right hook, effectively rendering him unconscious. Teddy pushed the man away from him in disgust; he drifted away from the boat and out of the slip.

Way to go Teddy
, John thought proudly, just as Presley elicited a painful grunt and dropped to the ground. Crouching, he noted that his fellow agent had been caught in the shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“The fuck do you think? I’ve been shot,” Presley said wryly. “Unfortunately it’s my shooting arm, making it and me useless since I never mastered the art of ambidextrous gun control.”

Bullets struck the tree as John was examining the wound. It was bleeding pretty heavily but it didn’t appear that anything vital was hit. Grabbing Presley’s free hand, he slapped it to the man’s shoulder, causing him to wince.

“Sorry. Just keep pressure on it,” he said.

Just then an engine roared to life, and a sudden fear struck him in the gut. He jumped to his feet just in time to see the last boat on the left-hand side pulling away from the dock.