The Cure (22 page)

22

ONCE BROCK WAS
on hold, Fuller filled his visitor in on recent events while Hernandez reached for several bottles on the bar and mixed himself a drink. The limo’s ride was so smooth it was hard to tell it was even moving much of the time.

“So your people missed everywhere?” said Hernandez, shaking his head in disbelief. “They missed at the university
and
they missed getting Drake in Yuma?”

Fuller nodded.

“I thought you had him dead to rights. I assumed you’d make sure to use overwhelming force.”

“He was very clever. He had booby traps we didn’t see coming. And the men he had, while they couldn’t stand up to our force for more than a token few minutes, bought him enough time to escape through a system of tunnels.”

“You’re positive it was him?”

“Yes. And we’re all but certain we’re not dealing with a squeamish, tree-hugging pacifist anymore who wouldn’t know sound military strategy from his asshole. Assuming he has one, of course. I’m not an exobiologist. But we’re now dealing with a different animal altogether. Plus he had access to a lot of money, and his preparations showed. And he only cared about his own escape. Didn’t seem to give a shit about the rest of his people at all.”

Fuller paused to sip from the glass he was holding. “Even with all of this, we still aren’t absolutely sure how he did it. He might have used advanced technology, but we don’t think so. We really only have a sketchy idea of what we’re up against. Even after he escaped, four members of the team picked up his trail. Three of the four are still unconscious—have been for hours. We think we’ll be able to revive them, but how long this will take is unclear. The thing is, they don’t appear to have been touched. We have no idea what happened to them. The good news is that one of them did come to about ten minutes ago, and I’m expecting a preliminary report any second.”

“Any guesses?”

“None. Maybe Drake used some kind of fucking Jedi mind trick. Anything is possible.”

“So where do we go from here?” said Hernandez.

Fuller was about to reply when he was interrupted by a call. He stayed on the phone for several minutes and then hung up. “That was my preliminary report,” he told Hernandez. “Right on schedule. The commando who regained consciousness said he was closing in on Drake when he was overcome by the most intense pain and fear he had ever felt; so intense that he passed out from it.”

“Must have been what happened to all of them.”

“Almost certainly,” agreed Fuller. “And these men are hardened soldiers with a tolerance for pain that is off the charts, not weak-kneed schoolgirls fainting when they see a needle.
Intense
must be an understatement.”

“Was any kind of device pointed at him?”

Fuller shook his head. “Not that he remembers. But he isn’t positive. We’ll learn more when the rest regain consciousness.” He paused. “Anyway, before the interruption, I believe you were asking me where we go from here.”

“That’s right.”

“The answer is that we pull out all the stops to reacquire Drake, Erin Palmer, and Kyle Hansen, that’s where. All the stops. We found Hansen’s phone. Drake had sent him a text message instructing him to bring Erin Palmer to a certain destination, and that Drake would contact them there.” Fuller checked his watch. “In a little over thirty-two hours from now.”

“Certain destination?”

“We think it might be Colorado, but we can’t be sure.
CO
could well be a code for something else. The good news is that Drake told them not to attempt to contact him until then.”

“Why is this good news? If they attempt to communicate, this gives us a better chance of finding them.”

“Because only Erin Palmer knows which treatment works. So we have thirty-two hours to find either Drake or her. As long as they’re isolated from each other, incommunicado, we have nothing to worry about. But if Drake gets the information he’s after, he’ll deploy the cure as soon as possible. We’re not sure exactly how, but our best guess is a genetically engineered virus. Probably the common cold.”

“So she and Drake are like binary liquid explosives,” said Hernandez. “As long as they don’t touch, they’re safe. Mix them together and you’ve got a problem.”

“Right. She knows which therapeutic mixture works, but has no means to spread it. We assume he has the virus ready to go—just needs to put on the finishing touches. So he has the means to spread it as soon as he learns the combination. Together—well, let’s just say we’re fucked.”

“And you have no doubt that this treatment will perform as advertised? And that the effect will be permanent?”

“None,” replied Fuller. “The inmates I had examined had normal brain physiology. And the repaired genome will maintain its integrity all the way into the germ line.”

“Any leads on Drake?”

“None. But I have a feeling this girl will be the easier target of the two.”

“Why?” asked the man from Homeland Security. “She’s done a great job of playing hard to get so far.”

“Just intuition. The other target has an alien mind—more alien than we can begin to imagine—and unclear capabilities. But we can make some educated guesses with respect to Erin Palmer’s behavior. Put ourselves in her shoes and try to predict her moves. But trying to think like an alien, or outguess one, is a fool’s errand.” Fuller paused. “But she is key to his plans. So if we catch her, he’ll have to come after her.”

“Just for the sake of argument, wouldn’t it be safer to kill her?
Before
she gives up what she knows? Then her knowledge dies with her.”

Fuller shook his head. “And then Drake goes to ground and we don’t know what he’ll do next. But it’s likely that he’ll just find another way to identify the right therapy. Without using a patsy this time.”

“No chance. Not when we’re alerted to this possibility.”

“He won’t use inmates,” said Fuller in a tone that suggested his patience was wearing thin. “He could just kidnap subjects off the street. From gangs, cartels, and other groups enriched for psychopaths. Separate out the true psychopaths from the pretenders, and test the shit out of them.”

“So you think if we acquire her and keep her alive, she’ll be bait he won’t be able to resist?”

“Exactly. He’s only days away from releasing this virus.
If
he has her information. Being this close, he’ll decide it’s worth the risk mounting a rescue attempt. And we’ll make sure we have some obvious weaknesses in our security—to make it even more tempting.”

Hernandez nodded. “You’re the boss. If you think keeping her alive at this point makes sense, we’ll keep her alive.”

A thoughtful expression came over Fuller’s face. “There’s also the potential for a much deeper game. Higher risk, but higher gain. Winning would be a good thing, don’t get me wrong.” He pursed his lips. “But we may be in a position to do more than just win.”

Hernandez nodded thoughtfully. “I’m listening,” he said.

23

THE HELICOPTER HAD
landed, but Brock was still in his seat, feeling like an idiot. The pilot had already left the craft. Finally, five minutes after they were on the ground, the image in front of his eyes came to life. Fuller and Hernandez filled his world once again.

“Okay, Captain Brock,” said Fuller, still inside the limo. “I’ve decided to let you redeem yourself. First, you’re already in the inner circle, but you know how much I value secrecy. And I wanted the nature of the current situation to be on a need-to-know basis. Well, now that this simple operation has gone completely off the fucking tracks, I’ve decided you need to know.”

Finally,
thought Brock. It was about time Fuller came to his senses.

Fuller spent the next twenty minutes bringing Brock fully up to speed, while Hernandez sat beside him in silence, nursing his drink. “So here’s the drill with Erin Palmer,” Fuller told Brock when his briefing was completed. “We’re going to make this girl radioactive. We’ll have the cops and everyone else in the Southwest turning over every last cacti to find her. We’ll put out a very public fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information as to her whereabouts. If this doesn’t force her to panic and make mistakes, nothing will.”

“Given her importance,” said Brock, finally understanding exactly how Erin Palmer fit into the scheme of things, “why only fifty thousand?”

“Any more and it would raise eyebrows. Fifty is the right amount. But here is the key. I want her captured, not killed. This hasn’t changed. So like before, make sure every man on your team has nonlethal weaponry. If one of your men shoots her by accident, I’ll shoot the bastard myself—
on purpose
. Have I made myself clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“Good. So we’ll make sure the cops have very clear instructions that their job is to help locate her. If they do, they act as spotters. You’re the hunter. Even if we told them not to kill her, if she starts resisting arrest, who knows what could happen. So they don’t move in under
any circumstances
. Robert here will use Homeland Security to make sure this gets the attention—and care—it deserves. Everyone will be told that you’re the point person from DHS, and not to take a piss without your say-so. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“And there is something else. Something that will require some skill on your end, but could be extremely important. It’ll make your job more challenging.” He went on to describe what he wanted. “You know how much is riding on this,” said Fuller. He leaned closer to the camera embedded in his laptop and spread his hands. “I’m a generous, forgiving man by nature,” he added with a humorless smile. “But don’t test me. This is your last chance. See that you don’t let me down again.”

24

KYLE HANSEN’S HEAD
wouldn’t stop spinning. Everything was happening so fast. He hadn’t dated in years, ever since he had joined Drake’s efforts, knowing that certain sacrifices came with the privilege of working with an alien emissary, and also of staying off the grid. The most important of these involved giving up entanglements with other human beings—particularly those of the opposite sex. Unless, of course, he was able to develop a romantic connection with one of the women who were also part of the team, even though they wouldn’t be aware of Drake’s identity as an alien.

But talk about your small dating population. Hansen now knew how Adam and Eve’s kids must have felt. Lots of excitement to be a part of something new—in their case, the human race—but when the only people on the planet were in your immediate family, it couldn’t have been easy to find a date for the prom. So far only three women had been part of the team since he had begun to work with Drake, and he had had zero interest in any of them.

Erin would be the fourth. The odds of finding your perfect match in a population of four women were too long to bother calculating. Yet here she was. And here he was, having made love to her repeatedly, first ravenously and then tenderly. Both of them insatiable.

Yet his interest in her went far beyond the physical—which given her looks, was saying quite a lot. She was bright and had a sense of humor he hadn’t expected, given she spent most of her life inside a bleak prison, and given the trauma she had suffered at a young age. She truly was remarkable. But he still could be deluding himself. After all, they were in a tense situation, with adrenaline and emotions running high.

But if he
was
deluding himself, he decided, he never wanted the delusion to end.

They had slept soundly through the night, sometimes entwined in each other’s arms and sometimes on separate sides of the bed, neither clingy nor making it a point to show a need for space. Usually this was the point in a budding relationship when a couple—who really sensed an emotional and not just physical connection—would stay up for hours trading intimate stories about their lives, hopes, and aspirations. Getting to know each other on a deeper level. But this hadn’t happened. They had both been utterly spent after sex, physically and emotionally, and had quickly drifted into a deep sleep.

This was interrupted when Erin awoke at three thirty in the morning, shrieking as if someone were twisting a corkscrew into her eye. The screams had gone directly to the panic center of Hansen’s brain and he had jumped out of bed like he was shot from a cannon.

He had held her and tried to comfort her, telling her it was only a nightmare. He knew their long philosophical discussion on the ethics of curing psychopathy must have brought painful memories to the surface. He wasn’t surprised that the ultimate waking nightmare she had experienced as a child would escape from her subconscious once she was asleep, eager to haunt her yet again.

She had said he was right, and this had to be nothing more than a nightmare. But she also insisted that while she had had nightmares as a girl, she hadn’t had one in her adult life. And if it had been a dream, she couldn’t recall a single element of it.

“If I had any self-esteem issues,” he had joked, “the fact that I had sex with you and then you had the only nightmare of your adult life might be seen as a bad sign.”

She had laughed, kissed him gently on the lips, and told him the only nightmare she might have in connection with him was learning she had only imagined him, after which they slept through the night without any further incident.

They had awakened, made love yet again, this time more tenderly, and she was now getting ready for the day. He heard the shower running in the tiny bathroom next to the bed, and he had the small television turned on for background noise and to reestablish a connection to the real world. His shower would be next. He had thought to suggest they shower together, but he didn’t want to act like a horny eighteen-year-old, and they
were
running for their lives, so he decided to keep this thought to himself.

He was feeling too many conflicting emotions to keep track of. The fate of humanity depended on launching this virus, which might never happen if he and Erin, and separately Drake, couldn’t stay out of Fuller’s way. He was on the run facing a deadly and powerful adversary. And at the same time he felt euphoric at having found Erin. Physically his entire body was practically singing it was so satisfied. Given they had both been suffering through a long drought, the sex had been epic. In fact, the word
epic
didn’t even do justice to what it had been.