Claimed, page 32
Even though they were well underground, the air smelled fresh, like it was being blown in from the surface.
“Back in the seventies and eighties,” the woman said as they walked forward down a well-lit corridor wide as a living room and long as—well, the damned thing seemed to go on forever—“there was word of experiments being done on things that didn’t exist. Things that had no evolutionary basis and supposedly no existence outside of Halloween myth.”
The floppy disks, Lydia thought. The vampires.
“As I told you, I’ve been in the pharmaceutical sector for my whole career, investing in companies, promoting their research and development. I heard the whispered talk. I didn’t believe it. It was just too fanciful, something out of a novel.”
Lydia glanced around. There were no doors, no cameras, no offshoots from the main drag. No sounds other than the soles of her boots and C.P. Phalen’s stilettoes over the concrete floor, either.
“I brushed the stories off as gossip told by drunks at annual meetings, nothing but drama created by businessmen who had to believe they were more powerful than Charles Darwin. But then something changed in my own life and I decided to look into it further. That’s when I discovered it was true, all true. There were facilities, hidden out of sight, protected, defended, doing groundbreaking work that could change the landscape of human life. Over time, however, many of them had been abandoned, either from lack of funding or from incompetence. Or accidents.”
No reason to ask about the “accidents,” Lydia thought.
Finally, a corner, up ahead.
And then a door.
C.P. Phalen put her thumb on a reader and there was a loud, hollow thunk! The stainless steel panel seemed to open on its own, and on the other side…
“Holy shit,” Lydia breathed.
“Welcome to my laboratory.”
Lydia forgot all about the other woman as she stepped over the threshold. The open area was easily as big as a sports arena, and it was filled with people in white coats at stations full of equipment. No one looked up or paid any attention to her or the lab’s owner. No one was nervous or afraid. It seemed like… a legitimate operation.
“The FDA and the regulatory systems of this country strangle innovation,” C.P. Phalen said. “I got sick of it. I decided to just do it on my own and deal with the consequences if the breakthrough I expect comes through—and it will. Maybe it already has. Immunotherapy is in its infancy, and the medical community is thinking too small. It’s not just about curing cancer, it’s about prolonging life. The immune system is so much more than merely the guardian of the human body’s health. It’s part of the expiration date for life. But it doesn’t have to be.”
The woman turned to Lydia. “You’re right. I did pay Peter Wynne and he did what he had to at the Wolf Study Project with Rick to get me what I needed. But this hybrid thing you’re talking about? That was never part of it. Yes, I broke the law, and I’m not going to apologize for that. But it was about the work I wanted to do here, that is now being done here after I renovated this old facility and staffed it. My relationship with Peter and Rick was coming to an end. They’d fulfilled what they’d promised to do for me, so we’d completed our business. And immune system work was all I was a part of. That’s as far as I went. I don’t have a goddamn clue what you’re talking about with humanoid experiments. That is not my field of interest at all.”
Lydia walked forward, not sure how much to believe of that speech. “This laboratory is…”
“Magic in test tubes,” C.P. Phalen said. “That’s what we’re doing here. Come on, let’s keep going.”
As they proceeded along the periphery of the stations, the woman kept talking. “We’re so close. I can feel it. I just need a little more time—which is what we all need, right? Just more time to be alive, stay alive. And be healthy while we’re here.”
She opened the door into a conference room with a long table and projection screens at both ends. A couple of sideboards set with water bottles and soft drinks created an odd—and misplaced—sense of security. Because the boardroom was a spot of normal in a sea of not-normal-at-all.
With the door closing them in, the sounds of the laboratory drifted off, but through the glass wall, Lydia could continue to watch the scientists striding back and forth to each other’s work areas.
“I already run a company that does DNA sequencing,” C.P. Phalen said as she sat down. “As well as one that does ancestry profiling. I have mined the data of millions and millions of people—”
Lydia glanced over her shoulder. “You can’t do that.”
The woman held up her forefinger. “Oh, but I can. It’s in the disclosures that every single person who paid for the services had to sign. It’s not my fault if they don’t read what they’re getting into, and besides, all the data is blinded. No names or addresses, just demographic information. It’s entirely legal, trust me.”
As Lydia looked back out, the woman said, “When you were standing in my foyer, you honestly expected to be killed on my premises. I can assure you, you’re free to go. You can walk out and drive away anytime you want. And I’m not going to try to stop you from going to the authorities—if you haven’t already. You’re not going to get far with all that, though. I’ve set things up so that the legitimate businesses are a full cover for what we’re doing here, and I’ve already had challenges, even from the U.S. government. Like you, though, they’re free to sniff around. I have unlimited resources, the very best lawyers money can buy, and you’d be amazed what things people will look away from, under the right circumstances.”
Lydia blinked and saw the wolf lying on its side, suffering. “Did you know they were poisoning the animals.” She looked over her shoulder. “Did you?”
C.P. Phalen’s brows went together. “No, I did not. Which is why I believed you when you said it was the hotel.”
“You’re lying,” Lydia snapped. “Rick ordered the poison and administered it, and he was doing it for you.”
“No, he wasn’t.” The woman leaned forward in her leather seat. “That was never part of the agreement. What we injected into those wolves was intended to strengthen their immune systems. It was otherwise harmless—”
“Bullshit!”
C.P. Phalen shook her head. “I did not have a program that involved poisoning the wolves.”
The woman’s eyes were so direct, so steady, she was either the best liar on the planet or—
“So who else were they working with?” C.P. Phalen said softly. “Who the fuck else was paying them.”
* * *
Hours and hours later, dawn light came across C.P. Phalen’s backyard and illuminated the newly created brick walkways, the pool that was in the process of being dug, the rear terrace. As Lydia sat in a window and stared across the vista, a plate of eggs, bacon, and toast was placed in front of her by a butler.
On the other side of the circular table, C.P. Phalen was likewise staring out over the landscape.
“It’s a ghost. A goddamn ghost,” C.P. said.
Lydia looked back at the laptop she’d been working on for the last two hours. She couldn’t say she exactly trusted the other woman. But she did trust the facts as she knew them: None of the science being done in that underground lab had anything to do with trying to create another species. She’d spent all night reviewing the data, which had, in fact, been generated out of Rick’s clinic at the WSP. She knew this, because identical reports had been in his binder.
Along with others that were clearly unrelated to what C.P. was doing.
“I know what I saw in Rick’s documents,” Lydia murmured. “Your experiments were in there. But there was so much more.”
“I believe you.”
Glancing across the table, she started eating. “Why are you trusting me with all this?”
C.P. sipped coffee out of a porcelain cup. “I told you, I’m not scared of anything. Trust only comes into play when somebody else can hurt you. No offense, but you can’t touch me.”
Lydia thought it over. Then shrugged. “Fair enough.”
The food didn’t taste like anything, but then the whole world felt like it was a dream. Maybe it was the exhaustion. The heartache. The disbelief.
The deaths.
“It all started for me six years ago,” C.P. said remotely.
“What did?”
“This whole… wild goose chase.” The woman pushed her own full plate away. “I was diagnosed with leukemia. I’d never thought about death—ironic, right, for somebody in the pharmaceutical business. I just decided… I had to save myself. The kind I have is going to come back. It’s inevitable. So if I find a way of prolonging life, I may have a chance at a future.”
“You’re sick?”
“Not at the moment. But I will be at some point. All the money in the world, and I’ve still got a grave waiting for me.” C.P. jogged her coffee cup to punctuate her point. “But I’m going down with a fight. That’s my nature, and who knows, maybe I can save some others and win a Nobel Prize in the process.”
“But what about the illegalities?”
“Details. Just details. You’re telling me the robber barons were legal? The steel industry? Big Tech in the present? Please. Don’t be naive. And don’t get me started with the U.S. government.”
Lydia fell silent and finished what was on her plate.
“Hybrids,” C.P. murmured as if she were deep in thought. “I wonder if that’s even possible. A human and a wolf.”
“I think you’re working on enough, don’t you?” Lydia said dryly.
“Yes.” C.P. smiled a little. “You’re probably right.”
Did she know about the vampire experiments? Lydia wondered.
“We’re going to find out who the fuck else they were doing business with,” C.P. announced. “One way or the other, we’re going to get to the bottom of all this. Are you in?”
Lydia stared out at the dawn light. And thought about the wolves that had been killed.
“Yes,” she answered grimly. “I am.”
DANIEL WORKED HIS way through the trees of the preserve, moving as silently as he could, staying behind trunks when he was able. The pack on his back was weighted down with tools for the job, as well as explosives, and his body was strung with weapons. In spite of his grim purpose, however, his feet were heavy in a way that had nothing to do with what he’d strapped on to himself. Fucking hell, he felt like he was pulling a car behind him.
And yet he kept going across the mountain, currently on a slight decline.
Overhead, the sky was cloudy, and soon enough, rain started to fall, but it was the lazy kind, just drops floating down that he ignored even when they got in his eyes. He just really didn’t give a crap about anything.
Which made him a bad bet, didn’t it.
People with nothing to lose were very unreliable. Then again, he did have one thing to care about, didn’t he.
Sad as fuck that he’d already lost her.
As he continued along, the path he followed was a trail of deliberation that purposely made no sense, his forward progress full of double backs and random turns. With his thousand-pound boots, he was adhering to good tracking protocol for no other reason than habit—and as he took his own sweet time getting to his final destination, he really wasn’t in a hurry.
With “final” being the operant word.
He was going to take a page out of Rick’s book, just without the chain-link fence—or the interruptions.
And there was one, and only one, thing he could count on. Just like they would kill Lydia if he didn’t do this… if he followed through as he planned, she would, in fact, be safe. Fuck Blade’s honor bullshit. The more dead bodies, the more possibility for exposure, and with what Daniel was about to do, he was going to cast a whole lot of attention on exactly what they were trying to deal with discreetly. After his little boom-boom firework show here? There was going to be so much follow-up by the regular authorities that when it came to Lydia Susi, it was going to be in Blade’s best interest to leave her alone. Otherwise, the man would be risking too much scrutiny and a loss of anonymity and autonomy.
Lydia would be safe because actions had ramifications, even for those existing outside of the law.
God, he was ready for this to be over.
Pausing, he looked through the trees. He was halfway up the mountain, and if his memory was correct—and it never failed him—he didn’t have far to go.
Goddamn, he was so close.
As his legs started up again, his body went along for the ride and took his mind with it, the latter nestled in the stagecoach of his skull. And it wasn’t much farther until the line of “No Trespassing” signs made an appearance, everything exactly as he remembered—
There it was, up ahead. The hatch—although it was no longer flashing any of its metal. So Eastwind must have moved the pine needles back into place. The downed tree, however, had been left as is, and that was how Daniel knew he was in the right place.
Closing in on all the “No Trespassing” missives, he took a last look around, and then didn’t hesitate as he crossed over onto the property. As he kept hiking onward, he stayed aware of his surroundings. The worst-case scenario? He got plugged by someone on the final goal approach and Lydia died not because he was noncompliant, but because he was sloppy and exhausted and got shot because of it.
Destiny had a sick-ass sense of humor, though, didn’t it.
And then he was at the hatch.
His boots stopped and he glanced to the left. To the right. All was clear that he knew or could sense.
Bending down, he brushed the ground cover away, exposing the hatch’s face. There were supposed to be four of them in total; that was what the building plans for the underground facility had provided. But they only required one to get inside.
That stupid woman Phalen should have left the shit well enough alone.
But nooooooooo, she had to go get some bright ideas and try to resurrect the past. This was all her fucking fault, and if innocent people were collateral damage? It was on her.
Stripping off his pack, he opened the thing up. The acetylene torch with its tanks was heavy as fuck; the explosives had not been the weight issue.
Kicking more of the pine needles away, he knelt down, got out the red Bic that Susan had sold him along with his guilt-branded packs of cigarettes. With a crank of the gas and a flick of his thumb, he had himself a handy-dandy yellow flame.
He went to work on the seal of the hatch, the steel heating up to a glow, the going slow. But like he gave a fuck.
He was going to burn through this bitch, get down under, set the charges around the facility—and then have a last Marlboro before everything went Fourth of July.
The cleanup was going to be a bitch, and he wasn’t talking about the damage to the landscape. But the spin, at least as far as the outside world, was already in place.
Animal activists. Protesting that hotel for what they were supposedly doing to the wolves. The headlines wrote themselves, and he could just picture the social media hashtags. And that was another reason Lydia Susi was going to be okay. She had no history of activism, no arrests, no criminal record of any kind. People who blew shit up did it either as a pattern of behavior or in a moment of psychosis, and she fit neither of those descriptors.
If they killed her, and tried to pin the explosion on her? It wasn’t going to pass editorial review.
Besides, Blade had his own problems internally. Always had.
Daniel was hollow as he stared at the hissing flame. Dead, though he lived—except he was going to take care of the last part of that tag. Really fucking soon—
The bullet was soundless as it came at him. And the hit in the center of his chest was nothing but a pfft.
The impact, however, was like a cannonball, pitching him backwards off his crouch, the torch going flying, his visual field swinging from the hatch seal, to the pines, to the gray sky above as he flew back and took his sight with him.
As he landed on his back and gasped, his legs churned in the pine needles and his hands flopped on his pecs to find the lead slug’s entry wound. But like that was going to help?
The footsteps coming toward him were muffled, although maybe that was because his hearing was failing already. And when he coughed and tasted blood, his brain struggled to come up with a plan to save himself—
The face that entered his visual field was not a surprise.
“Hi, honey, I’m home,” Mr. Personality drawled.
LYDIA JOGGED THROUGH the mountain’s forest, dodging trees, jumping over rocks, hopping across streams. She’d been careful to enter the preserve not through a trailhead, but on a convoluted course from the WSP headquarters. And in spite of all the sleep she hadn’t been getting, adrenaline made her hyperaware and fast on her feet.
Breathing hard, she hit a decline and then doubled back up. She was close, she was so close…
And then she slowed. Stopped.
Scrambled over to lock in behind a pine tree.
The main trail was up ahead, the broad concourse empty of hikers. But she waited, just to make sure she was alone and in the correct place.
Satisfied with both, she crossed the packed dirt and kept on going into the preserve, fifteen feet. Twenty. Thirty—
“Oh, God,” she gasped. “Oh… God.”
As she tripped on her own boots, she couldn’t believe she’d been correct: The body was stretched out face up, the arms and legs tied to stakes that had been driven into the ground. The clothes were unmistakable. Gray flannel slacks. Blue blazer.
“Peter.”
She approached the remains slowly. The dead man’s eyes were open in his pasty face, and as she stared down at him, it was unclear what he had died of.
Well, murder. Yes. But what had killed him? And who?
Looking him up and down—she saw no clues to the former. But the latter was answered. Words had been scratched deeply into a cleared stretch of dirt in the bed of pine needles.
