Authors: W. Michael Gear

The Athena Factor (35 page)

BOOK: The Athena Factor

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The effort of pulling on her pants almost tumbled her face-first onto the floor. Finding the sleeves in her blue blouse almost defeated her. Her coordination wasn't what it should be. She took a deep breath, stretching, feeling the dull ache in her muscles. Then she grabbed the handle on the metal door and twisted. Locked.

She glanced around, cocking her head. What the hell had Hank done to her? She tried the smaller door, opening it to find a compact toilet and sink.

She turned back and hammered on the big steel door with the flat of her hand, yelling, “Hey! Open this up!” The heavy portal seemed to suck up the worst of her violence.

She stopped, listening, as panic rose in her breast She could only hear a faint humming, the noise that of distant engines.

“Hank! You asshole!” She hauled off and kicked the door, feeling a spear of pain in her foot.

How long did she stand there? Her room had grown dark. So the sun had been setting? Then she'd lost an entire day? Or had it been more? A terrible fear, like nothing she had ever known, slipped needles along her spine.

She had noticed the switch on the wall, pressed it, and was relieved when the recessed safety light in the ceiling came on. She tried the pitcher. It contained water. Gratefully she drank, aware of her dehydration. Then, opening the toilet door, she stepped in and relieved herself. Urinating proved uncomfortable enough that she checked for blood, and was relieved to find none. The bathroom wasn't much bigger than a phone booth. Outside of the sink a toilet paper dispenser was the only furnishing.

She stood, pulled up her pants, tried the sink, and was rewarded with hot and cold water.

“So, I won't die of thirst,” she muttered before walking back to stare out the porthole at the darkness. She turned off the light to see better. Out there, on the ocean, she could see no lights, nothing but an endless darkness.

Swallowing hard, she whispered, “Dear God, I'm scared.”

G
iven his name, Sean O'Grady should have had red hair, freckles, and mischievous green eyes. Instead the Bahamian native looked anything but Irish, with his smooth black skin, angular jaw, bony face, and African features. He had agreed to meet with Lymon and Sheela through Sid's intercession. The “tame FBI guy” was already proving his worth.

O'Grady and Harness sat across the booth from Lymon and Sheela. O'Grady had picked a Studio City Burger King for the meeting. The wreckage of the agent's dinner consisted of a Double Whopper wrapper, empty box of fries, and a soft drink cup, half-full, on the plastic tray.

Sid sipped at a cup of coffee and kept a notebook in his hand. Lymon and Sheela shared an order of fries, having eaten earlier. Sheela had dressed in stealth mode, wearing a loose Lakers T-shirt, faded jeans, sunglasses, and a scarf over her head. She looked more like a housewife than an internationally known film star.

“We got this,” O'Grady said, reaching into the pocket of his coat to pull out a little blue spiral-bound notebook. “Recognize it?”

“Yeah â¦ well, maybe,” Lymon granted. “Christal used one that looked something like that.”

O'Grady passed it across. “Flip through to the last page.”

Lymon thumbed through the pages, seeing Anaya's neat script. He noted that true to her Bureau training, each notation
recorded the place and time of her writings. The last pageâdated as 22:15 hours on the date of her abductionâconsisted of a series of quickly jotted notes under the heading “Genesis Athena.”

He read:

Genesis Athena. Athena sprang full-blown from the head of Zeus. Sheik didn't pick that from random. DNA is the key. He's the twenty-first-century version of the traditional Southwestern witch. But he is stealing more than just a person's soulâhe wants it all. DNA from the rich and famous? What the old-time witches would have given for this technology!
?: If DNA is so easy to get, why make such a production of stealing it?
?: How much would an obsessed fan pay for a celebrity baby?
?: How do I break this to Sheela?

Lymon frowned, glanced at Sheela, and tried to decipher her pensive expression.

“That mean anything to you?” O'Grady asked. Sid had stood, stepping around the table to peer over Lymon's shoulder.

Under his breath, Lymon whispered, “Son of a bitch.”

“What?” Sid asked, bending closer to stare at the page on the notebook.

“Where'd you find this?” Lymon tapped the notebook as he looked up.

“The floor. When the ERT went through Anaya's room at Residence Inn, it was under the couch along with a tube of lipstick. The only prints we've lifted off it are Anaya's. We went through her place from top to bottom. In the process we got a blood sample on a paper towel, a couple of smudged prints, several hairs, and some evidence from the registration desk that we're running down. Rubber from the scratch they laid in the parking lot matches the compound in the rental van's tires.” He smiled. “Someone hosed the inside
of that van down with bleach and a high-pressure system before they returned it The credit card it was rented under led us to a PO box in Long Beach. Somebody named Lily Ann Gish had rented it.”

“Lillian Gish,” Sheela said softly.

“You know her?” Sid asked, slipping back into the booth beside O'Grady.

Sheela gave him a faint smile. “It's an alias. They're playing with us. Lillian Gish was one of Hollywood's first superstar actresses back in the black-and-white silent film days.”

“Same name Copperhead gave Manny, wasn't it?” Lymon asked, trying to remember everything Christal had told him. He glanced at O'Grady. “You might check the police report See if that matches.”

O'Grady nodded, writing in his notebook. “That business in the notebook press any of your buttons? About the DNA, I mean?”

Sheela took a deep breath. “I can tell you how much an obsessed fan would pay for a celebrity baby.”

“How much?” Sid asked.

“As much as they could leverage,” she answered flatly. “People would mortgage their houses, sell their cars, take out all the loans they could.” She turned her sunglasses on Sid. “Some would sell their souls, not to mention their bodies, and the very blood in their veins.”

Sid frowned. “And the business about DNA?”

“Christal thinks the celeb hits were about stealing DNA,” Lymon supplied. “But if you'll recall, we've had that conversation â¦ and discarded it.”

“Stealing â¦ DNA?” Sid asked absently, his face tightening in that old expression Lymon knew so well. Damn it, he was onto something.

“The problem is,” Lymon continued, “like Christal says in her notes, why go to the trouble and risks? You can steal someone's DNA without sticking your neck out. You want Sheela's DNA? Swipe the napkin off her table at Morton's when she's done with lunch.”

“Do you think that's really it?” Sheela asked softly, her head lowered.

Lymon glanced around the table and shrugged. “Hell, I don't know.”

“It's wild, but possible,” Sid muttered, reading Sheela's deflated posture. “You'd be surprised what people can do with DNA these days.”

“Like what?” O'Grady asked.

Sid made an open gesture with his hands. “I've been working a series of kidnappings. Geneticists. In the process I've had to learn something about the science. Some of the things they can do? You wouldn't believe it. Remember Dolly, the sheep? That was just the tip of the iceberg.”

Sid had their attention, so he leaned back, one arm on the seat back. “Look, you've heard the bits and pieces on the news, right? Ted Williams being frozen? Those extinct marsupial wolves in Australia? The frozen mammoth in Japan? The news is always telling us about something. Remember the calf they cloned from a piece of steak? The jellyfish genes in the monkey?”

“Man, those are just animals!” O'Grady muttered derisively.

Sid gave him a flat look. “You think there's a difference between cloning a sheep and a human?”

“Well, it ain't the same thing! I mean, man, people are a whole lot more complicated than any sheep!”

Sid slowly shook his head. “That's your emotional reaction, Sean, not reality.”

“Well, bro, you fill me in, then.” O'Grady had set his bulldog chin.

“When you're dealing with DNA, a sheep is every bit as complicated as a human being. Sometimes, even more so. One of the guys we've been looking for cloned extinct marsupials in Australia. Used DNA extracted from museum specimens. Now, that, let me tell you, was complicated shit compared to taking a sample from living tissue, isolating the DNA, and inserting it into another woman's egg.”

Sheela seemed to be wilting as Sid talked. Lymon placed a hand on her shoulder. “What is it?”

In a small voice, Sheela said, “It's all starting to make sense, Lymon. All of it. Christal just handed it to us.”

“How's that?” O'Grady asked. “You know why she was abducted?”

Sheela barely nodded as she stared down at her lap, head bowed as if in prayer. “Marketing.”

“Huh?” Sid asked. “How does stealing Christal equate with marketing? Marketing what? Felonious behavior?”

Sheela took a deep breath, lifting her head and removing her dark glasses. She looked from one to another, the deadness in her eyes affecting Lymon as no words could. “DNA is easy to obtainâI understand that. But if someone like Krissy wanted a Sheela Marks baby, how do you prove you can actually provide it?”

Lymon felt a cold wash of understanding. “Oh, my God!”

“That's right,” Sheela said woodenly. “You've got to be able to
prove
the DNA comes from the person you say it does. The customer has to know beyond a doubt that you've got the real thing; that he's not being bilked.”

“I'm dense,” O'Grady growled. “What the hell are we talking about?”

“The reason for the celebrity hits.” Lymon swallowed hard. “It's advertising. Don't you get it? If you're going to offer your client a chance to have a baby with Mel Gibson's DNA, you have to prove it's the right stuff. I mean, you can't show someone a pile of DNA and say, âThat's it. Meet Mel Gibson's DNA.'”

“Son of a bitch,” Sid whispered, a half-vacant expression on his face as his mind worked it over. He sat back, stiff-armed, unblinking.

“The questionnaire,” Lymon added, another piece falling into place. “Christal wondered what they were screening for.”

“Excuse me?” O'Grady asked as he scribbled furiously in his notebook. “What questionnaire?”

“It's the Genesis Athena web site,” Sid filled in. “I sent a copy to Tanner down at Quantico. We're going to want to access that site and have Tanner play with it for a while.”

O'Grady chewed at his lip, his dark face furrowed. “You're telling me that someone is stealing DNA from movie stars, and â¦ what? Selling it to whom? People to
have babies with? Now, I don't know that much, but doesn't having a baby mean you've got to have a sperm and an egg?” He gestured with one hand. “It's not like a piece of skin or a hair follicle can get a woman pregnant. You read?”

Sid worked his jaw back and forth. “That was then, Sean. You ought to see the things they can do now.”

“But, sure, that sheep Dolly and all. But it takes a laboratory, right?”

“Yeah,” Sid agreed. “These cutting-edge labs can mix and match, do just about anything with DNA. It's like ordering a car made to custom specs. You can choose everything.”

“So,” O'Grady asked, “where's the laboratory?”

Sheela whispered, “Find Krissy, and you'll know.”

“Who?” Sid asked.

“The lunatic who's having my baby,” Sheela said softly.

But, beneath it, Lymon could hear the cracked-glass tone in her voice.

Christal was contemplating her growling stomach when a low knock brought her bolt upright and out of bed. She was on her feet, prepared for anything when the doorâor was it a hatch?âopened and swung back.

A young man stood just beyond the threshold. The first thing she noticed was his inquisitive brown eyes. They seemed to sparkle with anticipation. She figured him for his midthirties, with sandy blond hair, a strong-jawed face, and a tentative smile. Two muscular men in coveralls stood behind him, darkly visaged, with close-cropped hair. Arabs? They had a menacing air about them. Security, perhaps?

“Ms. Anaya?” the brown-eyed man's voice was laced with a seasoning of Scottish. He wore a white-knit sweater and brown cotton pants.

“Who wants to know?” She propped her hands on her hips, knees flexed, ready to flee or fight.

“Dr. Gregor McEwan, at your service.” His smile deepened. “Hungry, perhaps?”

“Why would I be hungry?”

“It's been two days since ye've eaten. Come, then. Let's take you off to the cafeteria.”

She glanced over his shoulder, and he read her concern as she eyed the guards. “Oh, don't be worrying about them, now. They're more for my protection than yours.”

“Really?”

“What if it turns out that ye're not friendly? EX-FBI? Against a marshmallow like me? You could probably pull my arms out of their sockets and twist off my head.” He waved her out. “Come. Let's eat. Surely you can't plan your escape on an empty stomach.” His smile mocked her, an unsettling arrogance in his sparkling eyes.

Christal considered her options. Her belly wasn't going to fill itself based on the dreams she'd been having of steak, enchiladas, and cheeseburgers. Nor would she gain any understanding of her situation by staring at the walls of her prison. “Sure.”

When she stepped out into a white corridor the air seemed fresher. The steel walls were lined with piping, thick wire, and welded braces, all covered with a heavy coat of paint.

“This way, then.” McEwan started off, motioning her to walk at his side. The corridor was just wide enough for the two of them.

“So, where am I?”

“Aboard ship. Her name's the
ZoeGen.”

“And just where are we, exactly?”

“I can't say â¦ exactly. Navigation's not my thing. Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic. Well, maybe a couple of hundred miles off the Maine coast, actually.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “How long was I unconscious?”

“Aboot twenty-four hours. Maybe a tad longer.”

“Why did you kidnap me?”

BOOK: The Athena Factor

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