"Oh, Lola, huh? Sorry," Alex murmured, too low for the men to hear. "I shouldn't have assumed."
Lola appeared to know she was being addressed. She stared up at Alex hopefully, and her tail pounded against Alex's leg. Alex leaned down quickly to pat her on the head.
Kevin made a disgusted sound and she straightened up to see him staring at her.
"Lola likes everyone," Kevin said to Daniel. "Great nose, poor taste. I'm trying to breed out the lack of discrimination while keeping the olfactory genius."
Daniel shook his head. "Enough already."
"I'm not kidding. I expect better instincts from these animals."
Alex squatted to scrub her fingers along Lola's sides like she'd seen Daniel do, knowing it would drive Kevin crazy. Lola immediately rolled over, offering her belly. Abruptly, the giant dog lay down on Alex's other side, and she was nearly positive he was also looking hopeful. She carefully patted his shoulder with one hand, and he didn't bite it off. His tail beat the ground twice. She took that as encouragement and scratched behind his ears.
"C'mon, Khan, not you, too!"
Both Alex and the Great Dane ignored him. She twisted down so that she was sitting cross-legged with both dogs in view and her back to the brothers. If she was going to be surrounded by furry killing machines, she might as well have a few of them on her side.
Lola licked the back of her hand. It was disgusting, but also kind of sweet.
"Looks like Alex has a fan," Daniel said.
"Whatever. Over here is where we keep the chow. Arnie picks it up every other week in Lawton. We've got most of what we need for..."
The rest of what Kevin said was lost in the yips and grumbles of the dogs left behind.
She stroked the dogs for a few minutes more, not sure how they would take it when she quit. Finally, she rose cautiously to her feet. Both Lola and Khan were quickly on all fours and seemed totally happy to follow her as she walked back to the house. They escorted her right to the door and then made themselves comfortable on the porch.
"Good girl, good boy," she said as she went inside.
Kevin had probably meant to intimidate her, but she liked the way it felt as if the dogs were actually looking out for her, rather than keeping an eye on her. She supposed it was what they were trained for. It was a comfortable feeling. If she had a different lifestyle, it might be nice to add a dog. Except she didn't know where she would get a dog-size gas mask.
Arnie was on the couch in the great room, parked in front of a flat-screen TV that was mounted on the opposite wall. He had a microwave dinner in his lap to which he was assiduously applying himself; he didn't react to her entrance.
The smell of the food--macaroni and Salisbury steak--had her mouth watering. Not a four-star meal, but she was really hungry.
"Um, do you mind if I help myself to some food?" she asked.
Arnie grunted without looking away from the baseball game. She hoped it was an affirmative, because she was already en route to the fridge.
The refrigerator--an impressive, double-wide stainless-steel affair--was crushingly bare. Condiments, a few sports drinks, and a supersize jar of pickles. It also needed to be cleaned. She checked the freezer drawer and there found pay dirt: it was stuffed full of dinners like the one Arnie was eating. She heated a cheese pizza in the microwave and ate it on a bar stool scooted up to the island. Arnie seemed completely oblivious to her presence the entire time.
If you had to add another person into the equation, Arnie wasn't half bad, really.
She heard the men coming back, so she headed upstairs. They'd all been forced into close quarters on the ride here, but now that there were rooms to retire to, it was possible to give one another some space. She knew Daniel and his brother had a lot to sort through, and there was no reason she needed to hear any of it.
There wasn't a ton to do in her storage room. She refilled her little acid syringes, though she couldn't think of a scenario where she would need them here. She could have worked on harvesting the kernels out of her peach pits, but she'd left them in the barn. It wasn't worth taking the chance to try to connect to the Internet, just in case she was going to be here for a while, and she didn't have any reading material. There was one project she'd been thinking about, but part of her violently rejected the idea of writing any of it down. Though national security hadn't exactly been her friend for a while, she still wasn't going to put the public in danger. Writing her memoirs was not an option.
But she needed to think it all through in an organized way. Maybe if she just wrote some key words to help her remember?
She was sure of one fact: Something she'd overheard in the six years she'd worked with Dr. Barnaby had been the reason for the lab attack and for every assassination attempt that had followed. If she could pinpoint the information involved, she would have a much better idea of who was behind the murder agenda.
The problem was that she'd heard a lot of things, and all of it was insanely sensitive.
She started to make a list. She created a code, designating the biggest issues, the nuclear ones, as A1 through A4. Four big bombs that had been controlled during her tenure. Those were the most serious projects she'd worked on. It would have to have been something of the gravest nature to merit destroying her section.
She hoped. If it was some petty whim by a cheating admiral who thought he might have been mentioned in an investigation, she had no chance of ever figuring it out.
T1 through T49 were all the non-nuclear terrorist actions she could remember. There were minor plans--ones that hadn't come to much--that were slipping through her memory, she knew. The major plans, T1 through T17, ranged from biological attacks to economic destabilization to importing suicide bombers.
She was trying to come up with a system to help her keep all of the different actions separate (the first letter of the city of origin plus the first letter of the target city? Would that differentiate the events enough? Would she forget the meaning of her notations? But listing the full place-names was too much information to commit to writing) when she heard Kevin calling for her.
"Hey, Oleander! Where are you hiding?"
She snapped her computer shut and walked to the top of the stairs.
"Did you need something?"
He came around the corner and looked up at her. Both of them held their position, keeping the length of the stairs between them.
"Just a heads-up. I'm taking off. I left a phone with Daniel. I'll call when I'm ready for you to send the e-mail."
"Prepaid disposable?"
"This ain't my first rodeo, sister."
"Well, good luck, I guess."
"Don't turn my house into some death lab while I'm gone."
Too late. She suppressed a grin. "I'll try to rein myself in."
"This is probably it. I'd say it was a pleasure..."
She smiled. "But we've always been so honest with each other. Why start lying now?"
He smiled in return, then was suddenly serious. "You'll keep an eye on him?"
She was slightly taken aback by the request. That Kevin would entrust his brother to her this way. And even more shocked by her own response.
"Of course," she promised immediately. It was disturbing to realize how sincere her answer was, and how involuntary. Of course she would keep Daniel safe to the best of her ability. It wasn't even a question. She remembered again the strange feeling that had first surfaced in the dark of her torture tent--her premonition that the stakes had doubled from one life to two.
Part of her wondered when she would be free from this feeling of responsibility. Maybe this was always how someone felt after interrogating an innocent person. Or maybe it only happened when that person was as... what was the right word? Honest? Virtuous? Wholesome? Someone as good as Daniel.
He grunted, then turned his back and headed toward the main room of the house. She couldn't see him anymore, but she could still hear him.
"Danny, c'mere. We've got one more thing we need to
do."
Curious--and procrastinating; the catalog of nightmares past was beginning to give her a headache--she walked quietly down the stairs to see what was happening. She knew Kevin well enough to be sure he wasn't calling Daniel over for a heartfelt good-bye, complete with hugs and snuggles.
The front room was empty--Arnie had cleared out--but she could hear voices through the screen door. She went out to the porch, where Lola was waiting for her. She absently scratched the dog's head while she took in the scene, lit by the porch lamps and the headlights of the sedan.
Einstein, Khan, and the Rottweiler were all lined up at attention in front of Kevin. He looked to be addressing them while Daniel watched.
Kevin started with his star pupil. "Come, Einstein."
The dog stepped forward. Kevin turned his body to point at Daniel. "That's your honey, Einstein. Honey."
Einstein ran to Daniel, tail wagging, and commenced sniffing up and down his legs. From Daniel's expression, he was just as confused as Alex was.
"Okay," Kevin said to the other dogs. "Khan, Gunther, watch."
He turned back to Einstein and Daniel, dropping into a wrestler's crouch and approaching slowly.
"I'm gonna get your honey," he taunted the dog in a growly voice.
Einstein wheeled around and put himself between Daniel and Kevin's advance. The hackles rose at least six inches off the top of his shoulders, and a menacing snarl slid from between his suddenly exposed fangs. The demon dog she'd first met was back.
Kevin feinted to the right, and Einstein blocked him. He dove left toward Daniel and the dog launched himself at his master, taking him down with a solid-sounding thud. In the same second, Einstein had his jaws wrapped around Kevin's neck. It would have been a frightening picture if it weren't for the smile on Kevin's face.
"Good boy! Smart boy!"
"Kill! Kill!" Alex whispered under her breath.
Einstein released and jumped back, tail wagging again. He pranced a few steps back and forward, ready to play another game.
"Okay, Khan, your turn."
Once again, Kevin identified Daniel as the Great Dane's honey and then made as if to attack. Einstein stayed with Khan; supervising, Alex imagined. The big dog simply shoved one massive paw against Kevin's chest as he attacked and toppled him backward. Khan used the same paw to pin him to the ground while Einstein moved in for the jugular.
"Kill!" she said again, louder.
Kevin heard this time and shot her a look that clearly said: If I weren't in the middle of teaching these dogs something very important, I would have them tear you to shreds.
Khan sat out the next round, while Einstein supervised again. The barrel-chested Rottweiler took Kevin down even harder than Einstein had. She heard the breath crush out of his chest; that had to hurt. She smiled.
"Do you mind if I ask what all that was about?" Daniel asked as Kevin heaved himself to his feet and started brushing the dirt off his dark jeans and black T-shirt.
"It's a command behavior I created for personal-protection dogs. These three dogs will guard you with their lives from here on out. They'll also probably be under your feet a lot."
"Why honey?"
"It's just a word. But, to be honest, I was mostly picturing it being used for women and children..."
"Thanks," Daniel retorted.
"Oh, relax. You know I don't mean it that way. Think of a better command and we'll use it with the next generation."
There was an awkward pause. Kevin looked at the car, then back to his brother.
"Look, you're safe here. But stay close to the dogs anyway. And the poison lady. She's tough. Just don't eat anything she tries to feed you."
"I'm sure we'll be fine."
"If anything happens, give Einstein this command." He held out a little piece of paper, about the size of a business card. Daniel took it and stuck it in his pocket without looking at it. Alex thought it was odd that Kevin wouldn't say it out loud. Or maybe he just wrote it down because he didn't trust Daniel's memory.
Kevin looked now as if a hug was actually on his mind, despite what she'd imagined before, but then Daniel's posture stiffened slightly, and Kevin turned away. He kept talking as he walked to the sedan.
"We'll talk more when I get back. Keep the phone on you. I'll call when things are set."
"Be careful."
"Wilco."
Kevin got in the car and revved the engine. He put his right hand on the back of the passenger headrest and watched out the rear window as he maneuvered the car to face the road. He didn't look at his brother again. Then the red taillights were fading into the distance.
A weight seemed to lift off Alex's chest with his leaving.
Daniel watched the car for a minute, the loyal three all sitting close to his feet. Then he turned and walked thoughtfully up the porch steps. The dogs moved with him. Kevin hadn't been kidding about them staying underfoot. Daniel was lucky Khan kept to the rear or he wouldn't have been able to see where he was going.
He stopped next to Alex and turned to face the same way she did, both of them staring out into the featureless black night. The dogs arranged themselves around their feet. Lola got muscled out by the Rottweiler and whined once in protest. Daniel gripped the porch railing in both hands, holding tight like he was expecting a shift in gravity.
"Is it bad that I'm relieved he's gone?" Daniel asked. "He's just... a lot, you know? I can't process everything with him always talking."
His right hand relaxed its hold, then moved to rest on the small of her back in an almost automatic manner, like he hadn't consciously decided to place it there.
The way he was always touching her reminded Alex of the experiments she and Barnaby had done years back with sensory deprivation tanks. It was an effective means of getting someone to talk without leaving any marks, but on the whole, it took too much time to be the best option.
Anyone who went into the tank, though, no matter his level of resistance, had the same reaction when he was let out: he craved physical contact like a drug fix. She thought of one memorable experience with an army corporal--a volunteer they worked with in the initial testing phase--and the very long and somewhat inappropriate hug she'd received upon his exit. They'd had to have security peel him off her.
Daniel must feel a lot like that soldier. For days he'd been completely out of touch with anything he considered to be normal life. He would need the reassurance that another warm, breathing human being was there next to him.
Of course, this diagnosis also applied to herself; she'd been out of touch with normal life for much longer than Daniel had. While that meant she was used to the lack, it also meant that she'd been starved of human contact for a very long time. Maybe this was why she felt so improbably comforted whenever he touched her.
"I don't think it's a bad thing," she answered him. "It's natural that you'd need space to deal with all of this."
He laughed once, a darker sound than his earlier fit of hysteria. "Except that I don't need space from anyone but him." He sighed. "Kev has always been like that, even when we were kids. Has to be in charge, has to have the spotlight."
"Funny traits for a spy."
"I guess he's figured out a way to suppress those instincts when he's working--and then it all comes surging out when he's not."
"I wouldn't know anything about it. Only child."
"Lucky, lucky you." He sighed again.
"He's probably not so bad." Why was she defending Kevin? she wondered. Just trying to cheer Daniel up, maybe. "If you weren't stuck in this very extreme situation, he'd be easier to deal with."
"That's fair. I should try to be fair. I guess I'm just... angry. So angry. I know he didn't mean to do it, but his life choices have suddenly destroyed all of mine. That's so... Kevin."
"It takes a while to accept what has happened to you," Alex said slowly. "You'll probably stay angry, but it gets easier. Most of the time, I forget how angry I am. It's different for me, though. It was people I didn't k
now very well who did this to me. It wasn't my family."
"But your enemies actually tried to kill you. That's worse; don't even try to compare what happened to you to what's happening to me. Kevin never meant to hurt me. It's just hard, you know? I feel like I've died, but I have to keep on living anyway. I don't know how."
She patted his left hand on the rail, remembering how that had made her feel better in the car. The skin over his knuckles was stretched tight.
"You'll learn, like I did. It turns into a routine. The life you had before gets... dimmer. And you get philosophical. I mean, disasters happen to people all the time. What's the difference between this and having your nation overrun by guerrilla warfare, right? Or your town destroyed by a tsunami? Everything changes, and nothing is as safe as it was. Only that safety was always just an illusion anyway... Sorry, that might just be the world's crappiest pep talk."
He laughed. "Not the very crappiest. I do feel infinitesimally better."
"Well, then I guess my job here is done."
"How did you get started with all this?" The question rolled out lightly, as if it were a simple thing.
She hesitated. "What do you mean?"
"Why did you choose this... profession? Before they tried to kill you, I mean. Were you in the military? Did you volunteer?"
Again, the questions were spoken lightly, like he was inquiring how she had become a financial planner or an interior decorator. The very lack of emotion was its own tell. He kept his face forward, staring out into the darkness.
She didn't evade this time. She would want to know this, too, if fate had saddled her with one of her peers as a companion. It was something she'd asked Barnaby in the early days of their association. His answer wasn't much different from hers.
"I never actually chose it," she explained slowly. "And no, I wasn't military. I was in medical school when they approached me. I'd first been interested in pathology, but then I shifted focus. I was deep into a particular vein of research--you could call it a kind of chemical mind control, I guess. There weren't many people doing precisely what I was doing, and there were a lot of roadblocks in my way--funding, tools, test subjects... well, most of it came down to funding. The professors I was working under didn't even fully understand my research, so I didn't have a lot of help.
"These mysterious government officials showed up and offered me an opportunity. They picked up the tab for my massive student loans. I got to finish my schooling while focusing my research toward my new handlers' goals. When I graduated, I went to work in their lab, where every technology I could dream of was at my disposal and money was never an object.