The Athena Factor (37 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear

BOOK: The Athena Factor
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She watched his lean body as he bent, fingered the fabric-upholstered pad to ensure that no lotions, oils, or other liquids could soil his suit, and seated himself.
An image of her father flashed in the back of her mind: He was bent behind a cow in the squeeze chute; his arms buried up to his elbows in her rear; blood, amniotic fluid, urine, and manure dripping down his brown-duck Carhartts. She could see the expression on his face as he struggled to turn a breeched calf to free a stuck leg.
The image came from light-years beyond Felix Baylor and his immaculately tailored three-thousand-dollar suits.
What kind of men have we bred in this business?
Aloud, she asked, “What have you found out?”
Felix straightened his white cuffs where they protruded from his suit coat. “Genesis Athena is quite an organization.” His brown eyes were thoughtful. “You asked me to contact them, see what kind of information they had on Sheela Marks. Well, it appears to be substantial. They forwarded a fairly complete biography of you and your achievements. The document we received would have done Dot proud.”
“Flattering or derogatory?”
“Most flattering.” His expression left little doubt about that. “Sheela, you asked me to contact them in behalf of the name Jennifer Weaver. May I ask why?”
“A hunch, Felix.” She gave him a weary appraisal, then asked, “Who are you?”
“What?”
“I asked who you are, Felix. Really, deep down inside your bones and soul, who are you?”
“I …” He shrugged, perplexed. “I'm an attorney. Your attorney. Um, the father of three. Some of my cases—”
“Yes, yes, but do you
know
yourself? If I stripped all that away, dropped you on a desert island like Tom Hanks in
Castaway,
would you know yourself? Would you still have that kernel of ‘self' on the inside to cling to? Or are you a paste-up of your various images? A collection of events and actions stuck together with no discernible order to become this rendition of Felix Baylor?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She studied his wary expression, reading complete bafflement in his brown eyes. “I'm talking about
being,
Felix. Not just, What am I? Or, What do I do? But what I
am
inside, at the heart, the soul, in the marrow of the bones.”
He blinked, expression thinning. “Oh, I get it. You're doing some sort of preparation for a role. Rex wanted me to talk to you about—”
“Fuck him. Fuck you, too.” She closed her eyes, rubbing them. “Felix, I'll tell you this once. I'm tired. Exhausted. I've done three films a year for the last ten years. Through all of that, I've clung to something, deep down inside. It was a piece of me.” She tapped her breastbone. “Way down in here. Deep. Do you understand?”
He just listened with no change of expression.
“A couple of days ago, I asked Christal Anaya if she, too, depended on me. And do you know what?” She didn't wait for his blank look. “She honestly told me no. Finally, one person had the balls to tell me no. But more than that, that same woman told me that if I wanted, I could depend on her. And she really meant it. Now, isn't that a switch?”
“But she's the one who's missing.”
“No shit!” Sheela narrowed her eyes. “I'm at a real rocky place in my life right now. I checked the accounts. You and your firm have made a little more than three and a half million off me and my production companies. That doesn't count the additional work that my reputation has brought your firm.”
“But that—
“I'm
not
complaining. You earned every cent of it that you
didn't get by padding the billing.” She gave him a wry smile. “And you'll be paid for your time now.”
“And that is to do what? This Jennifer Weaver thing?”
Sheela nodded. “Pay attention. Here is what you need to know: Jennifer Weaver is thirty-four, single. With the sale of her deceased father's cattle ranch, she has a portfolio worth a little more than ten million. She lives in LA and has been fascinated with Sheela Marks for the last ten years. She has seen all of my movies at least ten times. She attends every venue she can, hoping to get a glimpse of me. She wants to know if Genesis Athena can get her close to Sheela Marks.”
Felix looked confused again. “But, I don't get it.”
“That's your assignment. Make it happen, Felix. I don't care what you have to do. Build an identity for Jennifer Weaver. Driver's license, passport, address, billing history, whatever it takes. You can make it happen.”
“What's the point?” He spread his arms. “Genesis Athena is a big company; we've checked their stats. Financially, they're huge, but they're not players. If someone wanted to get close—”
“They're players, Felix.” She narrowed her eyes, using all of her skill to hide her fragile and wounded soul. “They've stolen part of me. Part of that core knowledge of who and what I am. They've stolen part of my essence, my being, if you will.”
“Sheela, this sounds nuts! Maybe you should talk this over with a friend of mine. She's a psychologist. A real one from Stanford. Not one of these astro-babble psychotherapists, but the genuine—”
“You are not to discuss this with anyone. Period. Every shred of attorney-client privilege is now in effect. If you so much as breathe a word, even to Rex, I'll have your balls.”
He made a pained expression. “So what am I going to do?”
“You're going to make it so that I can find them. Genesis Athena is doing something with DNA.
My
DNA. Genetics, cloning, whatever. You're going to set it up so that Jennifer Weaver can buy whatever kind of piece of Sheela Marks that they're selling.”
She watched him finally glom onto the realization that whatever happened, legal action was looming at the end of it.
He said, “Let's say they take the Jennifer Weaver bait.”
“Then you set up an appointment for Ms. Weaver.”
“Sheela, you're one of the most recognizable—”
“I'm also an actress. Just in case you've forgotten. And, in spite of what some of the critics say, a damn brilliant one! I'm going after them. Then, when I find out everything, you can have them.” She gave him a predatory smile. “If they're as well fixed as your research indicates, you could clean up a tidy bundle—and add to your reputation by making some interesting new law, too.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“The key to this game is deception. And no matter what your objections, or the counseling you're going to feel obliged to give regarding my safety and ethics, and all the other bullshit, I'm doing this.”
“Sheela—”
“Dammit! Don't you understand?” She felt a tear in her soul. “If I don't,
I'm going to lose what little is left of me!”
T
he knock was louder this time, more demanding. Christal sat up on her bunk and called, “Come on in! It's only locked from the inside.”
She wasn't terribly surprised when the portal swung open and Hank Abrams stepped in. He was dressed in a dark blue blazer, light blue button-down shirt, Dockers, and white running shoes. His hair looked slightly mussed, as if he'd been standing out in the sea wind. A faint flush lingered on his cheeks, and his eyes gleamed as he studied her.
“Hey, Christal. How's it going?”
She balled her fists, gauging the distance, wondering if she could stand, swing her leg back, and land a kick in his crotch hard enough to blast his testicles up past his ears.
He read her expression, and stepped back with enough haste that she decided her opportunity had vanished.
“Look,” he said softly, hands out, “I'm sorry. You had some people worried.”
“Yeah, well, perhaps you've forgotten the things you used to know in your old job, Hank. Like the statutes on abduction … legal curiosities like the Mann Act, reckless endangerment, breaking and entering, assault, and a whole list of fractured or broken legal codes I'm only beginning to get hints of.”
“I told them that they'd be wasting their time.”
“Who's wasting their time?” She narrowed an eye. “Copperhead?”
“Who?”
“The redheaded bitch that accompanied you to my apartment.”
“Ah, April.”
“She your latest, Hank? Wow! After Marsha, you've fallen to new lows.”
A faint quiver of his lips betrayed him. “I wouldn't bring up the women I've fucked. You might be surprised at who we'd discover was right up front in that list.”
Christal let it go, watching him, struggling to see inside his skin. “I don't get it. Did I really read you that wrong? This whole time were you really just a shit? Or did you cover it so well that no one guessed? I mean, damn, it's not just that you fooled me, but the whole Bureau: Wirthing, Harness, even the folks in the academy who are trained to spot bad apples.”
“You know, I was just as dedicated as anyone else.” His eyes hardened. “And I was doing a damn fine job until I ran into you. You fucking wrecked my life, Anaya. I tell you, it was God damn biblical! You're the damned anti-Christ. One minute I was on top of the world. Then you fucked me blind that night in the van. When I could finally see again, I'd lost everything. My wife, my career, my self-esteem. Everything.” He made an explosive gesture with his hand. “Slam-bam! Gone.”
“Gee, Hank, I'm going all weepy for you. I remember that
night in the van really well, but my hearing must have been bad, ‘cause I don't remember you crying ‘no' over and over as you ran your hands up under my bra, or when you unsnapped my pants. I don't remember you battling mightily against my wiles as you slipped your erection inside me. And, come to think of it, you didn't pull out again until long after you came. Even then you lay there until I reminded you we didn't want to make a mess on Ben's pad. As I recall, we spent another two hours talking about how good it had been. Remember that? You were half of the postcoital conversation—you, with that idiotic happy expression on your face.”
“You bitch!”
She waved it away. “Forget it. Gonzales won. You landed on your feet, flush in your new career as a big-league felon. You know, I'm going to have the time of my life when I finally bring you down.”
He crossed his arms. “Christal, they don't want a fight with you. They want to come to some sort of settlement.”
“What? Bribe me? It was a bad choice, sending you down here to negotiate.”
He sighed in mock despair. “You know that we're in the middle of the fucking ocean, don't you? You've got a lot of time to think about it. I'm going to say this one more time: No one wants any trouble.”
“They got it the first time your sweet April slugged me in the gut. They got more of it when mousy Gretchen shot at me. And, on top of that, I'm not inclined to forget that some bastard stuck a needle into my neck and carted me off to … where the hell are we? The Atlantic?”
“They just want a little more time, that's all. They'll pay you for the insult done to you, for your inconvenience, and, it seems, for the privilege of patenting your DNA.”
“You don't get it, do you?”
“Get what?” He spread his arms. “Christal, Genesis Athena is the coming thing! I've seen their lab. Jesus! It's amazing some of the things they can do.”
“Yeah, cloning the dead? Your pal the Sheik just backhanded Dr. Frankenstein right across the chops. Talk about one-upmanship.”
“Christal, it's not just that.” He was grinning at her now in the old way that used to excite her. This time it only incited fury. “The technology is the thing. It's about who actually has the right to control DNA. Genesis—”
“Bullshit! It's about money! The right to control DNA? They stole Sheela's. Snatched it right off her tampon! They're involved in theft! Grand larceny. You're a bunch of fucking witches!”
“Huh?”
“Soul stealers. Predators of the body and heart. Raising the dead for unsavory purposes, just like in the old stories. You're purveyors of the ancient evil. Grandmother's old-time Pueblo witches, but you're wearing modern clothes, doing it with twenty-first-century technology.”
“Oh, shit! Here we go again. Not good old Grandma and her quaint Mexican ways! I heard enough of that crap to last me a lifetime.”
“But this is different,” Christal continued stubbornly. “It used to be superstition, metaphysical tales told to raise the hackles on dark winter nights. No, you're right uptown now. Santa Monica Boulevard, doing it for real.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why, Hank? Why are you on the other side now?”
He stared at her floor for a moment, shrugged, and said, “Because, as you no doubt recall, I've got nothing else. Not only that, but as I came to find out so recently, it's inevitable. The Raelians and Clonaid, with their little publicity stunt, were just the harbingers of things to come. Genesis Athena—or some other company like it—is the coming thing. Big, funded, multinational, they'll be to molecular genetics what Microsoft is to computers.”
“You really believe that?”
“The technology is here. It will be used. You can't stop it. So just accept it.”
“What? Without even thinking about what it means to people?” She tried to see past his calm. “Something else is driving you, Hank. What? Pissed because you got your hand slapped? Is that it? You got caught with your pecker dripping, and now you'll pay back the whole world?”
“Fuck you!”
She paused. “That's right, isn't it? In your whole life, you've never been knocked down before. Never took a fall. You were a golden-haired boy who never had to learn what it was to lose, to fail and have to live with it.”
“God! You, of all people, have a hell of a lot of nerve to analyze my life. Why don't you go straight to fucking hell?”
“Or is it just the money? Huh? You sold out for bucks? Is that it? Money over legalities?”
“We're not breaking any laws. Look, we're in international waters. You're riding in a legally registered vessel flying the Yemeni flag. Genesis Athena has a second lab—bigger and better—in Yemen, where this is all legal. They have corporate offices in Doha, Qatar, where there are also no laws against it.”
“Seems to me I recall Genesis Athena operating on American soil, where we've got laws. As a federal agent, you damn well know it.”
He chuckled. “Look, there's no winning an argument with you. As to the ethics, I don't know. If someone wants to buy one of Sandra Bullock's clones, why should I care? What's DNA anyway? It's a molecule. Like water, or benzene, or a polymer. You blast thousands of DNA molecules out every time you sneeze. That night in the van I filled you full of eight million little copies of my DNA. But for a matter of timing—and your IUD—your DNA and mine might have wrapped around each other and made someone new. It's what life's all about, right?”
“Go to hell, Hank.”
“I already did. And it was you who took me there. Believe me, I've paid through the nose for it.” He slapped the wall absently, looking around her small cabin. “Think about what it would take to settle with Genesis Athena. They want to make things right. Find an amicable solution. They'll be reasonable if you will.” He turned to the door. “The one thing you've got plenty of right now is time.”
And with that he was gone.
In anger, she threw her pillow, watching it bounce harmlessly off the cold steel.
 
 
Rex sat at the Formosa bar, elbows propped, his butt on a red leather stool. Across from him, he caught his partial reflection through the bottles shelved in front of the back bar mirror. His broken reflection displayed a man with a sour disposition. A glass of Macallan, neat, and a water back stood before him. He toyed with the scotch glass, rocking the amber fluid back and forth.
For this meeting Rex had chosen a dark blue Armani sport coat over a light blue pinstriped shirt. Gray flannel slacks were snugged with an ostrich-hide belt.
He was making faces into the partially obscured mirror, trying to understand what had jerked the rug out from under him, when Tony Zell came striding through the door, slowed to look around, and met Rex's eye.
Zell's golden jewelry caught the light, shining from his neck, wrists, and watch. White leather loafers contrasted with the wood as he walked across the parquet floor. A white sport coat over a blousy black shirt accented his faded jeans.
“What's up, Rex? Sorry I'm late. Had a thing with a client, you know?” He smiled, white teeth flashing in his perfectly tanned face.
Tony slid onto the barstool to Rex's left. “Got your message. Bruckheimer's bummed. He's going with Catherine Zeta-Jones. Can you imagine? It's like, wham! Out of the blue, Sheela just craters. It's not like her.” He turned, waving to the bartender. “Hey! Got a Remy XO?”
“Yes, sir,” the man called, turning to reach for a high bottle.
Rex spread his fingers wide, seeing the contrast between his skin and the bar wood. “She's falling apart. It's a lot of things, I guess. A big one in particular.”
“Anything I can do?” Tony was watching him, wide-eyed, as if expecting some truth to come tumbling out like wisdom from the Buddha.
“Can you walk up behind Lymon fucking Bridges, slit his throat, and dump his guts on the ground in a pile?”
“Lymon, huh? What's he got your rice steamed over?”
“I think he's porking Sheela on the side.”
“No shit?” He paused, thinking about it. “So? Why should we care who greases Sheela's snatch?”
“He's playing out of bounds. He's the hired help, for God's sake!”
“Uh-huh,” Tony agreed solicitously as the bartender placed a brandy snifter on a napkin before him.
“My tab,” Rex told the man, who nodded and walked back to the end of the bar. “Hell, it's more than that. It's bad enough that he's screwing her. Worse, he's trying to wrap his damned wings around her. I'm starting to feel like I need Lymon's permission if I want to see my client.”
“That's what went sour on the Bruckheimer deal?”
“Yeah. Part of it, at least I know for a fact he was telling her not to do it.” Rex balled a fist “We just watched the bodyguard tell Sheela to kiss off a twenty-million-dollar deal.”
Tony frowned down at his drink, picked up the snifter, and scented the aroma before he took a swallow. “You're sure about this? About Lymon, I mean? You're sure it's not just the publicity? The thing with her tampon and all the shit that came down after that?”
“Stuff like that happens in this business. The nuts are everywhere. Sheela's been through shit like this before. Maybe not so personal, but, you know, times she and her lovers were splashed on the front pages. She never folded then.”
“What's the deal about Christal's disappearance?”
“Sheela's taking it pretty hard. Did you know that Lymon and Sheela saw it happen? They were out flitting around on Lymon's bike. What's he doing running her around town in the middle of the night? And on a motorcycle, for God's sake? His job is to protect her, not get her killed.”
Tony straightened. “They
saw
Christal's abduction?”
“Yeah, and that's another thing: What were they doing there? Huh? I mean, what's Lymon doing taking her to one of his employee's hotel rooms?”
“You're sure they saw it?” Tony was watching him with a sudden curiosity.

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