The Chemist

  Daniel looked up at her, wild-eyed. "What?"

  She glanced at him and shook her head. "Not like that. Just a normal exchange of information." She turned back to Kevin. "Can we talk calmly for just a few minutes, please? Then I'll get out of your hair."

  "In your dreams, psycho. We've got unfinished business."

  She raised her eyebrows over her blooming black eyes. "Can we talk for a few minutes before I put you into a medically induced coma, then?"

  "Why would I do anything for you?"

  "Because your brother's safety is involved, and I can tell that's something that matters to you."

  "You're the one who pulled Danny into this--"

  "That's not entirely accurate. This is as much about you as it is about me, Kevin Beach."

  He glowered at her. "I already don't like you, lady. You really don't want to make that feeling stronger."

  "Relax, black ops. Hear me out."

  Daniel's eyes were flashing back and forth like he was a spectator at a tennis match.

  Kevin glared.

  "The CIA thinks you're dead?" she asked.

  He grunted.

  "I'll take that as a yes."

  "Yeah, that's a yes, you--"

  Daniel backhanded the top of Kevin's head and then scooted out of the way as Kevin made a grab for him. Then Kevin refocused on her.

  "And I'm going to keep it that way. I'm retired."

  She nodded, considering. She opened a blank document on her computer and typed a line of random medical terms.

  "What are you typing?"

  "Notes. Typing helps me think." Actually, she was sure he would notice if she kept "accidentally" touching the computer to keep it awake, and she might need that trap again today.

  "So what does it matter? I died. Danny shouldn't be a target anymore."

  "I was a target?" Daniel asked.

  Kevin propped himself up on his right elbow and leaned toward his brother. "I worked deep undercover, kid. Anyone who connected me to you would have used you as leverage. It's one of the downsides of the job. That's why I went through the whole prison charade. As long as on paper Kevin Beach was away, the bad guys wouldn't know about you. I haven't been Kevin in a long time."

  "But when I visited--"

  "The Agency hooked me up with the warden. When you were on your way, if I could, I'd fly in and do the meeting. If I was unavailable--"

  "That's why you were in isolation. Or they said you were. Not for fighting."

  "Yep."

  "I can't believe you lied to my face for so many years."

  "It was the only thing I could do to keep you safe."

  "What about maybe picking a different job?"

  She broke in when the vessels in Kevin's head started to swell again. "Um, could we put the reunion drama on hold for the moment? I think I've got it pieced together. Listen, please. And you'll tell me if I'm wrong, I'm sure."

  Two nearly identical faces regarded her with nearly opposite expressions.

  "Okay," she continued. "So, Kevin, you faked your death--after the de la Fuentes job, right?" Kevin didn't respond in any way, so she went on. "That was six months ago, you said. I can only conclude that the Agency was concerned about the lack of a body--"

  "Oh, there was a body."

  "Then they were concerned about the inconsistencies with that body," she snapped. "And they thought of a plan to draw you out, just in case."

  He frowned. He knew his former bosses, just like she knew hers.

  "Daniel's your weak spot--like you said, their leverage against you. They know this. They decide to take him, see what happens. But they know what you're capable of, and no one wants to be the one left holding the bag if you do turn up alive."

  "But--" Kevin started to say. He stopped himself, probably realizing whatever argument he'd been about to make wouldn't hold up.

  "You're a problem for the CIA. I'm a problem for my department. At the top, the people involved in both our former workplaces are pretty tight. So they offer me a deal: 'Do a job for us, and we'll call off the hunt.' They must have had it worked out pretty solidly before they contacted me. Fixed the files, got ready to feed me the crisis story I can't turn my back on. None of them make a move on me because they've already sacrificed three assets trying and they don't want any more losses. They knew I'd come in prepared for anything like that. But, if you were really good, maybe I wouldn't be prepared enough for you."

  Kevin's face had changed while she was working it out. "And either way," he concluded, "one problem gets solved."

  "It's elaborate. Sounds more like your agency than mine, if I had to guess."

  "Yeah, it does sound like them, actually," he agreed grudgingly.

  "So they put us together like two scorpions in a jar and shake it up," she said. "One way or another, they get a win on the books. Maybe, if they're really, really lucky, we take each other out. Or at least weaken the winner. No chance of any losses on their side."

  And they had weakened her--reduced her assets and damaged her physically. A partial success for them.

  "And it doesn't bother them that my brother is also stuck in the jar," he said furiously. "Only he's an ant, not a scorpion. They just throw him into the mix, don't even care that he's completely defenseless."

  "Hey," Daniel protested.

  "No offense, Danny, but you're about as dangerous as hand-knitted socks."

  Daniel opened his mouth to respond, but a loud whine from the bunk room interrupted. The whine was quickly followed by angry snarls and a few sharp barks, then a strident clawing at the wooden door.

  She was glad she'd gone the extra mile in securing the wolf.

  "He's upset," Kevin accused.

  "The dog is fine. There's a toilet back there, it won't even get dehydrated."

  Kevin just raised his eyebrows, not as concerned about the animal as she would have expected. The clawing and snarling didn't let up.

  "You really brought a dog?" Daniel asked.

  "More of a partner." He looked at her. "Well, what now? Their plan failed."

  "Narrowly."

  He grinned. "We could go another round."

  "As much as I would dearly love to inject a few things into your system, I'd rather not give them the satisfaction."

  "Fair enough."

  The dog was scratching and growling in an unbroken stream through all of this. It was getting on her nerves.

  "I do have a plan."

  Kevin rolled his eyes. "I bet you always have a plan, don't you, shorty?"

  She regarded him with flat eyes. "I can't rely on muscle, so I rely on brains. It appears you have the opposite problem."

  He laughed derisively.

  "Um, Kev," Daniel interjected. "I'd like to point out that you are chained up on the floor."

  "Shut up, Danny."

  "Please, boys, if I could get one more second of your time?" She waited till they looked at her. "Here's the plan: I write an e-mail to my ex-boss. I tell him I got the truth, the real truth, and both of you are out of the picture. I really don't appreciate the manipulation. If he tries to contact me in any way again, I'm making a personal visit to his kitchen pantry."

  "You claim the win?" Kevin asked in a disbelieving voice. "Please!"

  "Chained on the floor," Daniel murmured under his breath.

  "It's a gift," she snapped back. "You get to be dead again. No one is looking for either of you."

  Kevin's cynical expression dissolved. For a second, the twin thing was a lot more evident.

  The sound of the dog was like a howling wood chipper in the next room. She hadn't really planned to stick around for her security deposit, but it clearly was not an option now.

  "Why would you do that for us?" Kevin asked.

  "I'm doing it for Daniel. I owe him. I should have been smarter. I shouldn't have taken the bait."

  It was all so completely obvious now: How easily she'd slipped through their surveillance--because there hadn't been any. How simple it had been
to snatch Daniel--because no one was trying to stop her. The heavy-handed way they'd given her a deadline with plenty of time for her to act. It was embarrassing.

  "Then what happens to you?" Daniel asked quietly. She almost had to read his lips over the noise of the dog.

  "I haven't decided yet."

  She had learned a few things from this exercise in gullibility, maybe things they didn't want her to know.

  There weren't going to be any helicopters or elimination teams. Carston--the one name she could be absolutely certain of at this point--and whoever else wanted her dead had sent only the occasional lone assassin because that was all they had. Her enemies had been driven to this wild collaboration, and she knew it wasn't because the department didn't have the resources. It could only be because she wasn't common knowledge. And Carston--and whoever his confederates were--couldn't afford to have her become so.

  She'd assumed, when she'd seen the obituary for Juliana Fortis and read about the cremation, that everyone involved was in on the scam. But what if it was just a few key people? What if Carston had promised his superiors that the job would be done and then was afraid to admit he'd missed on the first swat?

  Or--revolutionary idea--what if most people at the department thought it was a lab accident? That she and Barnaby had mixed the wrong test tubes and punched out together? What if Carston's superiors hadn't wanted her dead? What if only those few key individuals had wanted that, and now they had to keep their attempts to finish the job under the radar? That would change everything.

  It played. It fit with the facts.

  It made her feel stronger.

  The ones who had arranged her death had been afraid of what she knew, but they had never been afraid of her. Maybe it was time for that to change.

  There was a sudden earsplitting noise--an explosive fragmenting of wood. And then the enraged snarling got a lot closer.

  CHAPTER 10

  It took her one second to realize what had happened, and by that time the rabid wolf was bounding into the tent.

  There was still a little bit of extra adrenaline in her system, apparently. She was on top of the desk before the animal was all the way inside, and her nervous system, not satisfied with that distance, launched her toward the PVC framework overhead before she had time to realize what she was doing. She caught hold with both hands, flipped her legs up and crossed her ankles around the pipe, then wrapped her elbows tightly around as well. She turned her head to the side to see that the creature was right below her, big paws on the desk as it strained to get its teeth into her. One paw mashed down on the keyboard, which was too bad. A little gassing would help a lot right now, and she already had both masks.

  The dog snarled and slavered under her while she tried to maintain her hold. She'd used the heavy-duty five-inch-diameter, class 200 pipe, but it was still shaking from her sudden attachment to it. She was sure it would bear her weight... unless someone attacked the base. Hopefully Kevin wouldn't think of that.

  Kevin started laughing. She could imagine how she looked.

  "Who's chained to the floor now?" he asked.

  "Still you," Daniel muttered.

  At the sound of his master's voice, the dog gave a little whine and looked around. It dropped off the desk and went to examine Kevin, with one parting growl in her direction. Kevin patted its face while the dog leaned down to lick him, still whining anxiously.

  "I'm okay, buddy. I'm good."

  "He looks just like Einstein," Daniel said, wonder in his tone. The dog looked up, on guard at the sound of a new voice.

  Kevin patted Daniel's foot. "Good boy, he's cool. He's cool." It sounded like another command.

  And sure enough, dropping the whine, the huge beast went to Daniel with its tail wagging furiously. Daniel stroked the gigantic head like that was the most natural thing in the world.

  "That's Einstein the Third," Kevin explained.

  Daniel scratched his fingers through the thick coat appreciatively. "He's beautiful."

  Her arms were getting tired. She tried to readjust while still watching, and the dog bounded right back to the desk, snarling again.

  "Any hope of your calling the dog off?" she asked, trying to keep her voice composed.

  "Possibly. If you throw me the keys."

  "And if I give you the keys, you won't kill me?"

  "I already said I'd call the dog off. Don't get greedy."

  "I think I'll just stay up here, then, until the gas knocks you all out. Daniel's probably got enough brain cells to spare."

  "See, I think I'll be okay. Because even though Einstein can't reach you, Daniel can. And if the gas hits you after he relieves you of those masks... well, the unconscious fall to the floor won't kill you, obviously, but it won't do you any favors."

  "Why would I do that?" Daniel asked.

  "What?" Kevin demanded.

  "She's on our side, Kev."

  "Whoa there. Are you insane? There are two very different sides here, kid. Your brother is on one, and the sadist who tortured you is on the other. Which side are you on?"

  "The side of reason, I guess."

  "Good," Kevin grunted.

  "Um, that's not your side, Kev."

  "What?"

  "Calm down. Listen, let me broker a truce here."

  "I can't believe you aren't reaching up there to throttle her yourself."

  "She was only doing what you would have done in her place. Be honest--if you knew some stranger was going to kill millions of people and you needed to find out how to stop him, what would you do?"

  "Find another solution. Like I did. Listen to me, Danny--you're out of your league here. I know people like her. They're sick. They get some twisted high off other people's pain. They're like venomous snakes; you can't turn your back on them."

  "She isn't like that. And what's the big deal to you, anyway? I'm the one who got tortured. What do you even know about that?"

  Kevin just stared at him, deadpan, for one moment, then pointed with his secured left hand to his secured left foot. He wiggled his four toes.

  It took a few seconds for comprehension to hit, and then Daniel sucked in a horrified gasp.

  "Amateurs," she scoffed from the ceiling.

  "I don't know," Kevin said coolly. "They seemed pretty good to me."

  "Did they get what they were after?"

  He made a disbelieving noise in the back of his throat. "Are you kidding?"

  She raised one eyebrow. "Like I said."

  "And you could have made me talk?"

  Her lips pulled into a bleak smile. "Oh, yes."

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daniel shudder convulsively.

  The dog was quiet now but still alert underneath her. It seemed unsure of the situation, with its master talking so calmly to its target.

  "Hey, I know who you are," Kevin said suddenly. "Yeah, the girl. I heard rumors about you. Exaggerations. They said you'd never had a miss. You were batting a thousand."

  "Not an exaggeration."

  His expression was skeptical. "You worked with the old guy, the Mad Scientist, they called him. The Agency called you the Oleander. Honestly, I didn't put it together at first because I heard you both died in some lab accident. And also, I always imagined the Oleander was pretty."

  Daniel started to say something, but she interrupted.

  "Oleander? That's just awful."

  "Huh?"

  "A flower?" she growled to herself. "That's so passive. A poison doesn't do the poisoning, it's just an inert agent."

  "What did your unit call you?"

  "The Chemist. And Dr. Barnaby was not a mad scientist. He was a genius."

  "Tomato, tomahto," Kevin said.

  "Back to the truce I was speaking of," Daniel interjected. The way he looked at her hands and arms, she thought he might have guessed how much they were hurting her. "Alex will give me the keys, and Kevin, you will call off Einstein. When I think everything is under control, I'll let you out. Alex, do you trust me
?"

  He looked up at her with his wide, clear hazel eyes while Kevin spluttered in inarticulate fury.

  "The keys are in the left front pocket of my jeans. I'd hand them to you, but if I loosen my hands, I'll fall."

  "Be careful, she'll stab you!"

  Daniel didn't even seem to have heard his brother's warning. When he climbed onto the chair, his head was actually higher up than hers. He had to stoop, his head pressed against the foam roof. He put one hand under her back, supporting some of her weight, while he fished gently in her pocket for the key.

  "I'm sorry my brother is so socially inept," he whispered. "He's always been that way."

  "Don't you apologize for me, you moron!" Kevin yelled.

  Daniel smiled at her, then took the key and stepped down. She was actually in agreement with Kevin. How could Daniel be like this with her? Where was the totally natural resentment? Where was the human desire for retribution?

  "I've got the keys, Kev. Do you have a lead for the dog?"

  "A lead? Einstein doesn't need a leash!"

  "What's your suggestion, then?"

  Kevin glared at him balefully. "Fine. I'd rather kill her myself anyway." He whistled at the dog. "At ease, Einstein."

  The dog, who had followed Daniel anxiously as he approached Alex, now went calmly to its master's head and sat down, his tongue lolling out in what appeared to be a smile. A very toothy smile.

  "Let me out."

  "Ladies first." Daniel climbed up on the chair again and offered her his hand. "Need some help?"

  "Er, I think I've got it." She dropped her legs toward the desk, her arms extending as she tried to touch down with her toes. How had she gotten up here? Her tired hands started to slip.

  "Here you go." Daniel caught her by the waist as she fell and set her carefully on her feet, one on the desk, the other with a clang in the middle of the prop tray. His blanket skirt loosened; he quickly grabbed the fabric and tightened it.

  "I can't believe this," Kevin muttered.

  Alex stood cautiously, watching the dog.

  "If he tries anything," Daniel murmured to her, "I'll distract him. Dogs love me."

  "Einstein isn't stupid," Kevin growled.

  "Let's not find out. Now your turn." He climbed down from the chair and crouched beside Kevin.

  Alex slithered off the desk as quietly as she could, one hand reaching out for the keyboard. The dog didn't respond; it was watching Daniel release its master. She opened the system preferences. Screen saver wasn't the only way to release the sleeping gas, and she still had both masks.