Mirrored Man: The Rob Tyler Chronicles Book 1 (48 page)

“We’ve been better,” Tiong lamented. “I
thought you said you were taking us to California. It feels like we
ought to be in Australia by now.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We’re almost there.”

“Great,” Tiong exclaimed, feigning
excitement. “I always wanted to see a kangaroo!”

Schultz smiled. “Yer too funny Juan. Naw, I
meant that we’re almost to the docks.” He produced a white paper
sack from under his raincoat and handed it to Yeoum, who
immediately handed it off to Tiong, having no interest in whatever
was inside. “Here. When we stopped fer breakfast, I got y’all a
couple of sausage‘n’ biscuits and hash browns. Sorry I couldn’t get
ya somethin’ ta drink, but the other guys would’a noticed. They’re
a mite cold, but I figured they’d be better‘n’ granola bars.”

“After nearly ninety-six hours of nothing
but horse feed”—Tiong opened the sack and inhaled deeply—“this it
the best-smelling stuff in all of human history.” Even Yeoum perked
up at the aroma filling his nostrils. Tiong removed a couple of
sandwiches and the hash browns, handing one of each to Yeoum.

“There’s some jelly in there too, boys. I
like mine with strawberry m’self,” Schultz said.

Tiong took a bite of the fried potatoes and
his eyes rolled back. “Ohhh! That tastes so good.” Yeoum was also
grateful for the menu change. He took a bite of biscuit, savoring
each morsel. But when their captor reached inside the raincoat
again, he eyed Schultz warily.

“Look what else I got, Professor.” He
withdrew a travel-sized folding chessboard. “I don’t know how ta
play, but I figured you and Juan wuz getting’ tired o’ solitaire
and rummy and Uno, stuff like ‘at. Look!” He opened it, revealing
all of its pieces neatly nestled away in tiny foam compartments,
“They’re magnetic! So you can play even if it gets bumpy,” he said,
smiling. He handed the game set to Yeoum.

“Thank you,” Yeoum said curtly. He took the
board and laid it on the floor, taking another bite of hash
browns.

“Hey, Schultz,” Tiong said. “You know, that
sounds stupid. Do I still have to call you Schultz?”

“’Fraid so,” he frowned. “That’s the one
thing that the other fellers kept sayin’. That I better not tell
y’all my name. That y’all’d turn me in to the cops if I did.”

“Aw, c’mon, man. Do you think that we’d do
that?” Tiong asked innocently.

Schultz gave him a rare knowing look.

“Okay, have it your way.” Tiong took another
bite. “How come you’re being so nice to us?”

Schultz looked down at the floor. “I don’t
know. I ain’t got nuthin’ against you fellers. Emmitt said—” His
eyes flew open wide when he realized his mistake, but he
not-so-quickly made something close to a recovery. “That’s his code
name. Emmitt. Like I’m Sergeant Schultz, he’s Emmitt.”

“Okay,” Tiong said.

“Anyway,” Schultz continued. “I figure,
we’re almost to”—he stopped himself—“the place, and I didn’t know
when y’all’d get another good meal.”

It was all Yeoum could do not to make a
derogatory remark about their “good meal,” but he allowed Tiong to
continue without interruption.

“So California isn’t the last stop
then?”

Schultz shook his head. “I don’t know. They
didn’t tell me.”

“Well, thanks for being so friendly to us,”
Tiong said as he stood. “I really appreciate—” In a flash he
covered the short distance between them and grabbed the shotgun,
knocking Schultz to the floor.

The man stared up at Tiong in utter
disbelief as he chambered a round and leveled the weapon at his
chest.

“But I thought—”

“Shhh!” Tiong held a finger to his lips.
When it was clear that Schultz understood his predicament, he
added, “Would you like a biscuit?”

* * * * *

DON STARED AT THE
images Jimmy had up
on the monitor inside the communications trailer in the parking lot
of the Lightning Quik Mart. The Air Force had begrudgingly turned
over temporary custody of the equipment to Eddie's investigation
with the assurance that Colonel Talbot would take
responsibility.  Don was becoming more and more impatient as
Jimmy tried to enhance the resolution of an image from the lab just
after the clone was removed from the nursery. “Look at the right
side of his back below his kidney.”

Don studied the picture. “Perez is going to
kill you if you don't come up with something usable. What're you
focusing on this stuff for? We know what happened.”

“Look,” Jimmy snapped. “I’ve spent five-plus
days going over the security feed. There’s nothing usable from the
time of the attack, and there’s only about eight minutes before
they spray-painted the lenses that we can see anything at all.
Talbot says it’s next to worthless.”

“Well, have you at least made any headway
figuring out who impersonated General Stillman? Who called and
ordered all of you out of the complex?”

“Not yet,” Jimmy said, his frustration
growing. “It was piggybacked on at least a dozen satellites, but it
originated in the southeast, that much I’m sure of.”

Don whistled. “Whoever it was would have to
be pretty capable to pull that off.”

“What I’m tryin’ to show you here is a lot
more important! Fer cryin’ out loud, would ya just shut up and
look?”

Don frowned at the Canadian and turned his
attention to the monitor again. “Okay, so Orson has a dimple on his
butt. So what?”

“SIS,” Jimmy spoke into the microphone.
“Split the screen and display the copy of Commander Tyler's
physical condition report, including all known scars.”

“Right away, Jimmy,” the female voice
replied as the requested material flashed on the screen.

“That's not a dimple.” Jimmy pointed to a
diagram of the human form showing Rob’s scars. “He was shot there
nine years ago on some classified mission.”

Don scrutinized the area. “It does look more
like a scar, now that you mention it.” He straightened up, and they
looked at each other. “I still don't understand why this is so
important right now. There are people dead and missing that you
should—”

“Shhh!” Jimmy tapped some keys, bringing up
a different image, this one of Orson's left hand. “Greg was
emphatic about how sure he is that the real Commander Tyler is here
and the clone was with June. He even kept pointing out the cut on
his hand that he stitched up right before the scan.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it and I’m convinced, too,”
Don said, not understanding where Jimmy was going. “Maybe you
should go and talk to Rob yourself.”

Jimmy punched some keys and zoomed in on the
image. “Look at this.”

Don tried to focus on the blurry image.
Batting his eyes, he realized what he was seeing. There was a dark
spot on the fleshy part of Orson's hand, between the thumb and
index finger. He smiled. “Nice one, Jimmy. It looks good, like
Rob’s scar in fact, but not too much detail. You had me going for a
second there.”

Jimmy stood. “That's not me! That's
real!”

Don’s expression soured. “Seriously, Jimmy,
this is no time for practical jokes. Perez will hurt you if you
keep wasting time on stuff like this.”

“But—” Jimmy tried to protest but he was
startled by Talbot's unexpected voice.

“Stuff like what?”

They turned to see the colonel climb through
the open door.

“Stuff like what, Jimmy?” Talbot asked
again, leveling his gaze on the Canadian.

“Umm.” Jimmy scrambled to clear the screen.
“It’s nothing. You’re right Doctor Cook. I should be doing some
serious work.” He smiled nervously and looked at the colonel. “I
was bored. Been staring at the security images for so long, I
needed to have some fun.”

Don eyed his reaction closely.
Sure,
Jimmy could get himself into hot water with the Air Force for
goofing off. He has several times already
,
but he wouldn’t
be intimidated by Talbot over something like this.
He thought
about his conversation with Greg at the hospital and his concerns
about the man who was recuperating there, the man they believed to
be Rob Tyler. He suddenly found it impossible to stop the wheels in
his head from turning.

Talbot, however, had more pressing concerns.
Keeping his face grim, he looked at Don. “The FBI found the
professor and Doctor Tiong.”

“Where?” they asked in unison.

“Inside a cargo container sitting on the
dock in Ensenada, about to be loaded onto a ship bound for
China.”

“China?” Don asked. “Who was taking them to
China?”

“We don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Jimmy shouted in his
normal disrespectful tone. “How could you, with all your spy
satellites and interdepartmental United States friggin’ cooperation
possibly not know?”

Talbot shot him an angry look. “Watch
yourself,” he warned. “The rednecks who were driving the truck
didn’t know who hired them. They were paid in cash and were either
too smart or too stupid to ask any questions.”

“Are they alright?” Don asked.

“They’re fine, physically.”

“What do you mean ‘they’re fine
physically’”?

“Well, Tiong seems fine, but Yeoum hasn’t
said a word. The only person he’ll talk to is Tiong.”

“Well, that’s no surprise,” Jimmy said,
giving Don a knowing look. “When will they be back?”

“Not for a while,” Talbot replied. “They
want to see Perez and he’s still tied up with Doctor Phillips in
Florida.”

“What about the chimps?” Don asked.

“They were with them in the trailer,” Talbot
answered.

“Thank all that’s good in the world,” Don
sighed. “Are they okay?”

Talbot nodded again. “As far as I know,” he
said. “That only leaves one individual unaccounted for.”

“Orson,” Don said.

“You mean June doesn’t know where he is?”
asked Jimmy.

“Either doesn’t know or won’t say,” answered
Talbot.

“June wouldn’t keep it from Eddie if she
knew,” Jimmy scowled.

“And you would know this for certain, how?
You’ve known the woman for what, less than two years? She is an
environmental activist, isn’t she?”

“Hold on just a minute,” Don interrupted.
“Let’s not go off half cocked and start pointing fingers. She’s
been with Perez and his team for five days, and I haven’t heard
that she’s been placed under arrest.

“And any moron would know that an activist
wouldn’t have anything to do with animal experimentation,” Jimmy
added.

“Unless it suited her agenda,” Talbot shot
back.

Jimmy didn’t have an answer for that one, so
he changed the subject. “How did the FBI find Juan and the
professor?”

Talbot smiled. “Well, it seems that Doctor
Tiong left a few things off his resume’.”

JUNE WAS JOSTLED FROM
her musings
when she realized that the Mazda Miata she rented was bouncing to
the rhythm of her nervous leg. When she forced herself to stop, she
felt her fingers tingling. She was gripping the gearshift so
tightly that her knuckles were white. Releasing it, she rubbed her
hand vigorously on her thigh to start the blood flowing again. She
looked at the house across the street from where she was parked.
Rob had made her memorize the address when they were on their
excursion to Florida, just over a month before.

She’d barely had time to get a good night’s
sleep in the hospital before Special Agent Eddie Perez, accompanied
by Cal Warren and Geri Hughes, had arrived in Apalachicola. She had
been very forthcoming to both the NCIS agents and the local sheriff
about the events that had transpired after the truck crashed, as
well as the fact that she had no idea who she could trust. But
Eddie had been in no rush to make her feel too comfortable until
she had answered all of his questions and he was satisfied with
what she had to tell him. She had spent the next week sequestered
in a private room while Eddie coordinated with local investigators
in examining the storage facility, the hotel room where she and Rob
had stayed, the stores they had visited, and the hangar at the
airport. The Coast Guard had found the plane itself off of Stock
Island in the Florida Keys the day after he left, which was the
same day an area marina reported that a sailboat had been
stolen.

Everyone involved had been stunned by her
story. She told Eddie everything that Rob had told her of his plans
to go to South America where he could formulate some kind of plan,
but she had not a clue where he might go from there. She was
relieved when they informed her that of all the people who had been
in the truck when it crashed, the only casualties besides Benny
were Jo Turner and the driver. When she asked about the rest of her
team and the clone, Eddie told her that they were all safe, but he
wouldn’t provide any details.

She learned that Covington’s injuries were
severe enough that he had been transported to a trauma center in
Jacksonville, where he was in intensive care. Initially, there had
been some doubt whether he would recover at all. But he did, and it
did much to strengthen June’s position when he refused to answer
questions and immediately invoked his right to counsel.

It was a week later, after being held in
protective custody and subjected to countless interviews with a
multitude of government agencies, that Eddie had told her the fate
of the others in the truck and what had happened inside Sistema
Chac Luum. He’d also told her about the cross-country adventure
that the professor and Tiong had been subjected to, along with her
“babies.” The most shocking news of all, though, was that Rob had
recovered from his coma. He had been released from the hospital and
allowed to return home to his family. June insisted that they had
made a mistake, and that the real Rob Tyler was still on the run
somewhere in South America. So adamant was she that they forced her
to under go everything from lie detector tests to a battery of
psychological examinations over the next two weeks. But she
remained convinced. No matter how much they insisted, even assuring
her that the entire cloning team agreed that the man who had been
in the hospital in Georgia was Commander Rob Tyler, she wouldn’t be
swayed from her belief. They tried explaining it away using her own
words. That she had actually been with the clone, that their theory
about it only retaining Rob’s most recent memories had, instead,
worked in reverse. They claimed that the clone retained only base
memories of his past. In the end, she lied and agreed with their
conclusions, but only to gain her freedom. Even then she had been
instructed, under threat of imprisonment, not to attempt to contact
any members of the cloning team, Rob, or his family under any
circumstances. It was further dictated to her by Senator Kitchens
himself that if she spoke of any of the events during her time with
project Pine Tree with anyone at all, she would find herself in a
very unpleasant place for the rest of her existence. She was to go
about the business of getting on with her life. She was forced to
accept the fact that she would never see any of them again.