Mine, page 19
An over-the-burner-phone connection was a poor substitute for Rubik being on-site and getting hands-on with the cyborg. But Daniel’s brain was a sponge, and he had retained most of what had been explained.
Unfortunately, with the power plant being so wrecked, there was no way of working with the thing. He’d been hoping to reverse engineer the unit, and send it back to its master with a tracker. A Trojan robot, so to speak.
All that was a no-go, so Daniel was making other plans. Staring into the face of the steel soldier, he began to do mental gymnastics involving risk management and the execution of strategies—all of it so spinningly manic, too manic to truly be effective. Then again, his brain had been centrifuging out even before he came here to try to do something that made a difference.
“Daniel?”
He shook himself back to attention and stared into those whiskey-colored eyes he loved so much. “I really want you to leave here.”
“Not unless you come with me.”
Her words were spoken softly, but they landed like a holler—because he wanted to talk sense into her. He was almost out of time. She had her whole life ahead of her. Their situation was already a tragedy—the last thing they needed was her getting herself killed in the middle of this mess they didn’t create, couldn’t escape. And yeah, sure, from a physical strength perspective, he probably needed to go to safety before she did, but he was hungry for an enemy he could fight.
He might be weak physically, but he could still hold a gun. And bullets worked against these cyborg fuckers if you had enough in your magazine.
“I’m not leaving,” he said remotely as he stared at all the metal and wires.
“And that’s one of the many reasons I love you.”
“Because I’m stupid?”
“Because you don’t run.”
At that, Lydia leaned into him and stroked her hand over his head. Then she kissed him. And kissed him again.
“And I’m staying, too,” she whispered against his mouth.
With the rushing buzz of Jack Daniel’s on an empty gut, a sudden surge of energy raced through him, and he pulled her in against his chest. Searching her face, with the warmth of her body registering against his own, he cursed. The idea that her vitality, her life-force, would be anywhere near one of those killing machines? He felt like shitting himself.
And that made the anger in him threaten to boil over.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
He couldn’t wait to get her away from the fucking vault, and when they were on the far side of the lead-lined cylindrical coffin, he shut the heavy panel with relief that struck him as shortsighted. She was right to worry about the unit waking up. He was worried, too—even though he’d now seen with his own two eyes that the lithium battery was compromised, and so was the circuitry that ran up the back of the neck into the CPU.
But more were coming for them. And the fight was going to be brutal because they were just that deadly.
According to Rubik, when the guy had designed the robots, he’d decided not to try to improve on one of Mother Nature’s miracles of invention: After five million years of evolution, with the process of natural selection solving problems left and right, why, the guy had said, would he reinvent such a functional platform? And then there was the advantage of it appearing to be a human.
Fit in well. Confuse the enemy.
Rubik had four units that he was working with, refining, testing. So all of his were accounted for. But someone, clearly from his program, had leaked the plans—as well as the sources of materials and know-how, including the propriety formulation of the skin and the programming of the CPU.
The loose lips was a big problem for the secret program, but it was not Daniel’s concern—and all things considered, it was nice to turf anything off to someone else. He also told himself that in claiming his favor, he’d done the man a favor in return. Rubik had had no idea that he had an independent actor on his ship.
“We’ll figure something out,” he murmured. Mostly to himself.
Putting an arm around Lydia’s shoulders, he drew her against him, and as they walked down to their bedroom, he tried to ignore the fact that he was split in half, only part of him with her, by her. The tactician in him was churning with defensive ideas and plans for the attack that was coming—maybe tonight, maybe at dawn. Maybe at twelve noon—maybe at three p.m.…
As they arrived at the foyer, he glanced over his shoulder. In that statue alcove across from the front entry, the guard standing at attention, so fit and strong, was a grim reminder that, sure-shot trigger fingers aside, the reality was he really only had thoughts to contribute to an effort he was not welcome to participate in for so many reasons.
He was totally on the sidelines, and not just of any attack, but of everything that mattered…
Regardless of what he’d promised to C.P. about going after Gus’s abductor.
Regardless of the vow he’d made to himself.
Yet here he was, a husk on fire with aggression that could go nowhere, the burn in his veins making his blood rush… a savage hunger enlivening him. This was not the healthy stuff, not the measured focus and determination to get to a goal. What he had now was the unhinged drive of combat, conflict, war.
And he wanted to release it.
Through an expression that was carnal.
At the door to their suite, he stopped and turned his woman to him. Frustration ate away at his internal organs—or at least it felt that way. “Lydia, I…”
As he struggled to find the words, she shook her head. “I know. You don’t have to say it, just kiss me.”
“I can’t. Not tonight.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to be gentle.”
“Then don’t be.”
He closed his eyes. Things were complicated on the surface, but simple down deep, not that the clarity helped him. “I want to fuck you. Right now—I just want to fuck you. And I can’t—”
“You can—”
“I can’t!” Without warning, his anger got the best of him and he pounded on the door. “Damn it.”
Breaking off from her, he paced around in the hallway, going back and forth like a Ping-Pong ball, his hands on his fucking bald head, his bad-balance, weak body listing to and fro like he was on the deck of a boat, his lungs incinerating from emotion.
Or the cancer.
Or both.
“I’m just so fucking mad at nothing and everything.” He wanted to grab on to his hair and pull at it, but there was nothing long enough to grip. “I’m sick of this shit. I can’t do anything—it’s a fucking triumph if I can get on my Harley and leave the driveway. I can’t fight for shit, I can’t protect you—I’m an old man and I’m useless and I’m fucking done with it.”
He had no idea what he was saying. So he shut his mouth, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at the glossy stone floor, telling himself to get a goddamn grip—
“Don’t go silent on me now,” Lydia murmured. “You need to let it all out.”
“That solves nothing.”
“Well, think of it as some exercise. Cardio is good for people, right?”
He looked up again. In the overhead light from the ceiling, Lydia’s face was stunningly beautiful, her features soaking in the illumination like she was one of those movie starlets from the forties, everything highlighted and deeply shadowed at the same time. With her hair loose around her shoulders, and her lips slightly parted—because he’d clearly surprised her with the outburst—it was as if she had been properly kissed.
Properly taken care of by a man who loved her.
“I want you,” he said hoarsely.
“You can have me—”
“No, I can’t—”
“Daniel—”
“You want to know why I went to Gus’s frickin’ hospital room as soon as I got home?” he snapped. “It wasn’t to see how he was doing. I wanted some Cialis so I could maybe get it up for you—and you know what he told me? My heartbeat’s fucked up so he ‘wouldn’t advise it.’ ” Daniel dragged a hand down his face. “The punchline? That fucking drug is used to improve the effectiveness of some cancer treatments. Ha ha. I’m a fucking outlier only when it bites me in the ass.”
As her face tightened in commiseration with his disappointment, he had a fresh wave of anger that he was putting her through so much shit.
“I’m sorry…” He rubbed his eyes and then closed them again. “The last thing you need is me going off the deep end. But I feel like I’m already dead and I—”
“Look at me.”
“—don’t know what I’m doing, what I’m saying—”
“Daniel.”
“What.” When she didn’t answer, he had no choice but to glance over. “I…—”
His breath caught. She had taken her fleece and shirt off, and was standing before him bare-chested and unapologetic about it, her breasts bathed in that light, her nipples standing out in stark relief.
“Fuck me, Daniel,” she said in a guttural voice. “Now.”
TWENTY-FOUR
JUST AFTER LYDIA and Daniel backed into their bedroom and kicked their door shut, Cathy walked down to her study and closed herself in her workspace. As she glanced around at the austere decor, she thought, Christ, would it kill her to add a little color. In a rug, maybe. A fricking throw pillow.
A damn bouquet of flowers?
Annoyed with herself, and so many other things, she went to her desk and sat down. Out of reflex, she leaned over the glossy top and checked her reflection.
“Holy shit.”
As opposed to the perma-composure she had always cultivated, her hair was a floppy mess, all kinds of blond stalks shooting off in all kinds of different directions. Running her hands through things, she tried to put some order into her follicles, but really, the stuff growing out of her head was just half the problem. The bags under her eyes were something you’d have to check at TSA, and the lack of makeup really let the sallow cast to her skin shine.
She was clean; that was about all she had going for her—and it was going to have to be enough.
Sitting back, she wrapped Gus’s fleece around herself and crossed her legs. She needed to check her email, but she knew what she was going to find there. She needed to check her phone messages, but she knew what she was going to find there. She needed to…
Start wrapping things up.
Glancing around again, she’d always intended to die here in this house: This was supposed to be her toe-tag property. For most people, that was an old-age thing, but not for her. Still, that had been the plan. The banks, however, weren’t going to let that happen. The debt she’d taken on was attached, like its own kind of cancer, to any asset she had—and as with metastasis, it had spread through her stock portfolio, this real estate, the equipment in the lab, her cars, the art. She had pushed her leverage as far and as hard as it could go to buy herself time to run the lab with all of its employees and expenses. Each day and night was another advancement in experimentation, results analysis, and new compound ideas, even as Vita-12b had been the real horse to bet on.
So much had been riding on that initial human test, and the fact that she’d been prepared to do it herself had been a kind of poetic justice, a money-where-her-mouth-was moment. Except then the pregnancy had happened, and Gus had left the company—and everything had gotten even worse after that.
She had never once considered leaving the drug to any child she might have or had any second thoughts on those documents she’d signed. The compound really was Gus’s, the result of his brilliant mind and all his hard work. Besides, she had done some very ethically questionable things in pursuit of her business goals.
Contaminating her baby with all that had been a wrong-foot-start that she hadn’t been interested in.
Putting her hand on her belly, she felt the ache in her heart kindle up. The sorrow and emptiness behind her sternum were on a rheostat, she was discovering, flaring and subsiding depending on what her focus was at any particular time. But they were never not there—
A light flashed underneath the desk’s plane of glass, and she closed her eyes and shook her head. Then she reached under the lip, pushed a button, and a seam opened on the expanse. Like Cinderella’s glass slipper on a tufted pillow, the black office phone presented itself as a gift, its base rising up. There was no sound associated with the incoming call, just the light. She hated ringing.
On the digital display, instead of numbers, the word “BLOCKED” appeared.
She didn’t want to answer things, but she reached out and picked up the receiver. “Gunnar, it’s the middle of the night.”
“Getting closer to dawn, actually, for you.”
“How’s the weather in Houston.” She swiveled toward the long windows even though there was nothing to see out of them. “Or did you have something else on your mind.”
“Must we play these games,” he said with a sigh of defeat.
“Apparently.”
It was their typical banter, yet neither was putting much effort into it.
“What can I do for you?” She rubbed her temple as it began to pound. “And before you ask, no, I still don’t know where Gus is.”
The lie was smooth off her tongue. Then again, she had been posing in front of business competitors for the last decade and a half at the negotiating table. Hell, her whole life was a front.
“I have to say, I’m not sure why I’m calling.”
“Then I’ll help you out.” She let her head drop back on the chair’s padding. “You’re going to behave like a superior asshole, I’m going to call you on your shit—”
“Must you be so crass—”
“—and we’re going to end with me having the upper hand and you steaming as you hang up on your end.”
“That is not how things go.”
“The fuck it isn’t. Sorry, ‘fudge.’ ”
There was a period of silence, and she imagined the man—dressed in his European-cut suit, with his tie right up to his throat even though it was late—grinding his molars as he sat in an office every bit as streamlined as her own. The picture of irritation was so satisfying, she wanted to go another couple rounds of prognostication peppered with cursing calisthenics.
And how’s that for a mouthful—
“You were right.”
Cathy blinked. Then frowned. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I am not repeating those words. I have no idea why I am saying them in the first place.”
“Well, this is a surprise. And if you keep up with the compliments, I’ll add you to my speed dial.”
There was a shuffling sound, as if Rhobes were rearranging himself. “That was not a compliment. Merely a statement of fact.”
“I’ll take it as I wish—and you’re wasting that holier-than-thou expression with your eyebrows up along your hairline. This isn’t a Zoom call.”
“I despise you, Phalen.” Except there was a chuckle behind the statement. “And the reason you were right is that the car was in the garage.”
“I’m sorry.” She sat forward. “What?”
“I endeavored to send an attorney to Dr. St. Claire’s condominium so that the employment documents could be signed and notarized. You remember, that gentleman works for me now?”
“I despise you, too,” she muttered.
“Yes, I am aware of that. At any rate, I had emailed and phoned Dr. St. Claire late that evening to arrange such a visit. Having received no response, I was concerned that you were working your feminine wiles on him.”
“FYI, I was not.” Gus had turned her down the one time she’d tried to kiss him. “And Dr. St. Claire does not go against his word. If he told you he’s with your company, then he is.”
“I hope that your high opinion of his loyalty holds out if he returns. When he returns, rather.” Tension tightened the accent in that deep voice. “In any event, I found your accusation quite maddening.”
“Which one? That you’re an asshole? As you say, that was a statement of fact.”
“I shall take it as I wish, Phalen.”
She had to laugh a little. “Fair enough. But all kidding aside, what are we talking about here?”
“Dr. St. Claire’s car. You accused me of lying about its location, and then insinuated I was the abductor myself.”
“I don’t think I insinuated the latter. I was pretty up front about it. But I’m very sure you weren’t personally the one taking him out of that condo. You probably don’t even buy your own suits. So you would delegate any kidnapping to—”
“That is quite enough, thank you.” A string of quickly spoken syllables suggested Rhobes was cursing in German. But then he got his control back. “After I could not reach St. Claire for a protracted period of time, I sent a representative to his home.”
“Representative? Again, is that what you’re calling those henchmen you use?”
“And you employ—what do they call them? Boy scooters?”
“Scouts,” Cathy said. “And now I’m picturing a Vespa wearing a sash of camping patches right now, so thank you for that—”
Rhobes cut her off briskly. “The representative was the one who informed me of the car’s location—and after I enjoyed your conversation ever so much, I attempted to reach him. For the last twelve hours, I have been unsuccessful.”
Interesting, she thought. So whoever the guy was was either a deserter or had, in the words of Daniel Joseph, woken up dead. Unless Rhobes was lying again to cover his tracks—which seemed a more reasonable conclusion than him admitting to a person he considered a professional enemy that one of his private guards had gone AWOL.
“Maybe his phone is charging,” Cathy hedged carefully.
“Do you honestly think we have not been to the man’s abode,” Rhobes muttered. “He had worked for me for about two and a half years. His credentials were impeccable, even if he was… a bit dodgy, shall we say. These private for-hire guards are a bit of a black market, are they not. I am aware you know to what I refer.”
