Sleeper Agenda

  Tom immediately felt a sense of relief, thoughts of the woman’s further betrayal of him dissolving like smoke. He had started down the stairs to aid her when he felt the explosion. The metal staircase shook violently underneath him, nearly pitching him over the side, and as he regained his balance, he saw the situation below go to critical.

  Kavanagh had made his move. He grabbed Victoria’s arm, pulling it back behind her body and wresting the gun from her hand.

  “No!” Tom screamed at the top of his lungs, throwing himself down the staircase with a stumbling grace.

  “Not another step closer,” the man warned, jamming the weapon against Victoria’s neck.

  Tom stopped, but his instincts did not. Almost immediately he was processing every scenario of how to remove Victoria from danger. Most of what he could attempt was too risky. He had to wait.

  “Tyler’s gone, isn’t he?” Kavanagh said.

  Tom shook his head. “He isn’t gone; he’s inside me—everything that he knew, everything that he was, whether good or bad, is part of me now.”

  Kavanagh smiled at him, revealing little warmth or humor. “That’s all pretty amazing,” he said. “We’d never planned for anything like you, but it doesn’t change what you actually are—what you were created to be.”

  Victoria struggled momentarily. “Tom, don’t listen to him. He—”

  “Shut your mouth,” Kavanagh hissed, yanking her arm farther back.

  The woman yelped in pain.

  “You’re a weapon; you were created to kill. That’s all you were ever meant to be.” Kavanagh paused; letting his words sink in. “Bet you could rattle off a least a hundred ways to kill me in under three seconds.”

  “Two,” Tom said, his anger sparking. “I could think of a hundred ways to kill you in two seconds.”

  The head of the Janus Project laughed. “A wicked sense of humor,” he said. “I like that. I made sure that they gave one to Tyler when they were filling in all his blanks. But it doesn’t change what you’ll always be.”

  The lights in the tunnel flickered, and from somewhere in the distance they heard something that sounded like thunder—but they knew that it wasn’t. It was gunfire, and it was drawing closer.

  Tom stepped forward, and Kavanagh started to pull Victoria backward toward the bullet car.

  “So what’s your favorite, Tyler—or do you prefer Tom? If you could kill me now, which one of the hundred ways would be your preference?”

  “It doesn’t have to be like this,” Tom said, an almost-palpable tension growing in the air.

  “I bet you’d prefer to use your hands,” Kavanagh said. “Can’t get any more up close and personal than that.”

  “I won’t kill you unless I have to,” Tom told him without hesitation. “Let the woman go, surrender your weapon, and you get to keep your life.”

  Kavanagh shook his head in wonder. “Listen to you,” he said. “So merciful. Maybe you actually have turned into something more than a killer”

  He continued to back toward the train. “I think I’m going to try a little experiment here,” he said. “Let’s see if you actually are more than I say.”

  Tom tensed. He was ready to move, to throw himself at Kavanagh, pushing all three of them into the vehicle. He hoped he would have the opportunity to disarm the man and …

  “Let’s see,” Kavanagh said, and the sound of three muffled shots filled the air.

  Tom watched in horror as blossoms of crimson erupted on Victoria’s chest. Then he screamed, rushing forward as Kavanagh roughly shoved her limp body toward him. He caught her in his arms, lowering her gently to the ground. The amount of blood seeping from her wounds was overpowering, and he placed his hands over the leaking holes in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding.

  “Oh my God,” he said over and over again. He knew a hundred ways to take someone’s life in seconds, but he didn’t have the slightest clue how to save one.

  The sound of rapid gunfire was closer now; it wouldn’t be long until the Pandora troops arrived. But they were too late.

  “What did you do?” he asked, cradling the woman in his arms. She was convulsing now, blood leaking from her mouth. He was helpless—totally helpless as he watched her life slip away. “What did you do?”

  He turned his rage-filled eyes from the dying woman to Brandon Kavanagh, who stood in the doorway of the futuristic train.

  “I’m going to kill you,” Tom spat, his body trembling with fury and complete and utter sorrow.

  “I thought you would have done that by now,” the man said, frowning sadly as he nodded slowly. “Maybe there is something more to you.”

  And Kavanagh closed the doors, disappearing from view as he readied his escape.

  Pandora soldiers descended the metal staircase, filling the chamber as the escape vehicle began to hum, rising ever so slightly to hover above the tracks momentarily before it pulled away from the station, the craft rocketing down the darkened tunnel, barely making a sound as it left the installation with their quarry.

  Kavanagh was gone, but Tom didn’t care.

  Tom held the woman he’d once known as his mother in his arms and felt her life slowly slipping away. In the background he heard the soldiers yelling for a medic, but he knew that she had passed beyond that point. It was only a matter of time now before she was gone.

  Her eyes were closed but suddenly came open, focusing on him.

  “So … sorry,” she said, a fresh stream of red bubbling up from the corner of her mouth. “I … I never meant to love you,” she said, reaching a blood-covered hand up to touch his face. “Just happened.”

  Tom took her hand in his and, bringing it to his mouth, gently kissed it, his inner conflict dissolving away. Now wasn’t the time for anger.

  “It’s all right,” he told her, feeling her breathing grow shallow. “I forgive you.”

  Her eyes began to close again.

  “I love you, Mom,” he said, pulling her close and whispering in her ear, wanting with all his heart for those to be the last words she heard as she left him.

  Falling into the embrace of death.

  Tom imagined it was very much like going to sleep.

  Chapter 22

  TWO YEARS LATER

  IN A ROOM at the Hotel Assa, in Nazran, Igushetia—Chechnya—Brandon Kavanagh motioned for the man to roll up the sleeve of his shirt.

  He appeared nervous and rightfully so, looking to his three superiors for some sort of reprieve. But it didn’t come, his commanders silently urging him to do as he was asked.

  The Chechen soldiers had lost their battle for independence against the Russians, but they still continued to fight and to die, these freedom fighters’ dreams filled with the day they would at last have the ability to strike back at their usurpers with a fury that would drive the enemy from their beloved land.

  Which was why Kavanagh was there.

  He was all about the fulfillment of dreams.

  From a small briefcase he removed the syringe—a small sample of the wish fulfillment he had to offer.

  In the soldier’s native tongue Kavanagh told the man it wouldn’t hurt a bit and then laughed, bringing the tip of the needle to the man’s arm and injecting the gold-colored fluid into his veins.

  The drug was something he had been in the process of developing before Janus—something that he had always believed could be a healthy fallback if things should go wrong with his primary focus. It was a derivative of the same treatment that had made Noah Wells immune to pain. But this drug would also enhance strength, endurance, speed, and aggression. A consistent regimen of injections could create an army of virtual super-soldiers, ready to take on and defeat just about any opposing force.

  Kavanagh didn’t bother to explain that constant use of the drug would cause madness and excruciating withdrawal, eventually leading to death; minor bumps in the road on the journey to granting wishes as far as he was concerned.

  The soldier’s eyes rolled back in his head as
the narcotic flowed through his bloodstream, his flesh almost immediately breaking out in beads of perspiration. Kavanagh had shown them video recordings of the drug in use, but before committing to the deal, the Chechens had demanded to see an example of the drug’s effects on one of their own. And like any good businessman, he had obliged them.

  Kavanagh despised what his life had become: hiding himself and his business away, selling the high-tech weaponry secretly acquired during his years with Pandora in the most godforsaken, war-torn places in the world. He couldn’t afford to be on the radar again; he needed to keep his head low, amassing the funds that he would need to begin his practices anew.

  Until then he would deal with any two-bit army or renegade warlord that had the funds to buy his wares.

  “Is it working?” the casually dressed older man, who he’d learned was actually a general, asked in between puffs of his foul-smelling cigar.

  “It takes a minute or two,” Kavanagh said, closing up the briefcase and handing it off to his bodyguard and driver, looking menacing as he stood coolly beside his chair.

  The soldier appeared to be asleep, his head lolling loosely on his shoulders as the drug wormed its way through his system. He wouldn’t receive the full benefit of the narcotics with only one injection, but there would be enough of a change to prove that the drug was worth its expense.

  The soldier’s eyes suddenly snapped open, and an enormous grin spread across his features.

  “How do you feel?” the general asked his soldier, hovering over the man as if searching for some hint of physical change.

  The soldier reached up to snatch the lit cigar from his commanding officer’s mouth. He smiled maniacally, puffing on the cigar’s wet end before placing the hot tip against the palm of his hand, the flesh producing an oily black smoke as it started to burn.

  “How do I feel?” the soldier asked. “Like I could take on the world.”

  And that was all the general needed to hear.

  The transaction took no longer than five minutes, the cost for the first batch of the enhancement drug being electronically transmitted to a secret account set up in a Zurich bank.

  The Chechens were the first to leave the hotel room, eager to return to the war-torn countryside to show the Russian Special Forces that the war was far from over.

  Kavanagh waited just over ten minutes before leaving himself, allowing his bodyguard to step from the room first out into the shadowy hall. He pulled the door closed behind him and turned to see a member of the hotel’s cleaning staff, a pretty red-haired young woman, coming down the hallway pushing a cart of towels and fresh linens toward him.

  He smiled politely, and she did the same, wishing him a good morning as they passed.

  It is indeed a good morning, he thought, pleased that the transaction had gone without incident, moving him that much closer to even better days ahead.

  It’s truly amazing how quickly life changes, Madison Fitzgerald thought, wheeling the fresh linens cart down the hallway of the Chechen hotel.

  “Good morning,” she said to the target, remembering to use the accent taught to her by her language coach back at the Pandora Group.

  A little over two years ago she’d been in Chicago, fighting with her parents over the fact that they were sending her to Massachusetts to live with her aunt and uncle.

  And look at her now.

  “Target has been sighted and confirmed,” she said softly, speaking into a tiny microphone disguised as the top button on her maid’s uniform. “Repeat, target has been sighted and confirmed.”

  After her involvement with the Janus affair and her parents’ incapacitation as a result, she had been temporarily placed in the home of Pandora agent Catherine Mayer, finishing up her senior year of high school before enrolling in a special Pandora training program.

  Director Tremain had done his best to persuade her otherwise, even bribing her with the offer of a full scholarship to Harvard or Yale, but she would hear nothing of it. She had gotten a glimpse of a world very few people even dreamed of, and it had changed her.

  How could it not? She had seen parts of herself she never knew existed and wanted to explore them. And besides, Pandora was where Tom was.

  She stopped the cart mid-hall, removing the pistol hidden beneath the stack of towels and placing it in the front pocket of the apron she was wearing. Then she headed for the stairs.

  “Subject has been sighted,” said a voice in her ear that made her heart beat faster. “Proceeding with apprehension protocol,” Tom Lovett said over the airwaves.

  And she found herself quickening her descent down the many flights of hotel stairs, a knot of apprehension forming in the pit of her stomach.

  Madison knew how much Tom hated Brandon Kavanagh and had to wonder if it would be possible for him to separate his feelings to capture this man and bring him to justice. Or would the killer instinct that had become part of his makeup assert itself?

  The air embraced him as soon as he stepped from the hotel lobby into the cold.

  Kavanagh pulled the collar of his heavy woolen overcoat up around his neck and looked toward the steel gray sky. Looks like snow, he thought, hoping to be gone before it began.

  He felt their eyes on him and turned to see three children standing in the street nearby, watching. They had been playing with a soccer ball in the debris-strewn Nazran street, but now they just watched him.

  His driver waited patiently, blowing into his bare hands for warmth against the damp Chechen cold. Kavanagh pulled his own leather gloves from his coat pockets and slipped them over his hands as he started toward the man. Together they turned down the alley that ran between the Hotel Assa and the burnt-out remains of what looked at one time to have been a grocery store. Normally at this time of day there would have been a police presence or at least some Russian soldiers on patrol, but he had made sure that the proper authority had been paid off, guaranteeing him the time required to do his business unhindered.

  His driver opened the back passenger door of the black sedan, and he slipped into vehicle, adjusting his coat beneath him on the cold leather seat.

  Kavanagh sat, waiting for the driver to appear in his seat up front, but the man didn’t enter the car. Annoyed, he turned, trying to look outside the frosty windows, but all he could see was the dark, dirty brick of the alley. He pushed open the door and got out, heading around the car. Suddenly his annoyance turned to shock as he nearly tripped on the body of his driver, lying on the ground in front of the driver’s side door.

  “What the hell is …?”

  And then he noticed them, just up ahead in the alley, the three children, two boys and a girl, no older than twelve or thirteen, staring at him just as they had done from the street.

  And as they started down the alley and he studied their strange, dispassionate faces, Brandon Kavanagh came to the horrific realization that he knew them.

  An image flashed before his mind’s eye of the children restrained in hospital beds, crying pitifully as they were drugged unconscious.

  Sleepers.

  His hand went to his coat pocket for the gun that he always carried. He had brought the weapon out, ready to fire, when there was a glint of something shiny and a sudden sharp burning pain in his hand. Kavanagh dropped the pistol to the ground and stared in horror at the sight of a Japanese throwing star, one of its razor-sharp points embedded in the back of his glove as well as the soft flesh beneath.

  He reached out, pulling the star from his hand, and turned to run—then came to an abrupt stop as he saw that the end of the alley was blocked by four more children.

  And a young man with murder in his eyes.

  Tom Lovett stood at the entrance to the alleyway, at last face-to-face with the man who had taken so much from him.

  He’d thought about this moment every day since Kavanagh had escaped two years ago.

  He watched as Kavanagh’s eyes darted frantically around him, increasingly panicked as he realized he was trapped.

/>   The newest children of Janus had emerged from their mechanical wombs devoid of humanity, equipped only with the rudimentary knowledge of how to kill. They, too, had been taken under Pandora’s wing, and Pandora—with Tom’s help—had done what they could to bring back the children’s true personalities. But as with himself, the killer instinct had been activated in these kids; there was nothing anybody could do to take that away. So with Tremain’s guidance these children had become Tom’s team, and today they were about to take down the most elusive of targets.

  Kavanagh lunged for his discarded gun, and the children beside Tom began to move.

  “No,” he ordered them, already striding toward the man.

  This was something he had to do on his own.

  Kavanagh snatched up the gun from the ground and spun around, but Tom was practically upon him. He saw the man’s finger twitch on the trigger of the Beretta nine millimeter, changing his path to avoid the bullet even before it had left the barrel of the gun.

  Dodging death, he remembered everything, brain crackling, his fury fueled by the memory of the events that had brought him to this point.

  You’re a weapon, the man before him had said the last time they had met. Created to kill.

  Tom reached Kavanagh before another shot could be fired, ripping the gun from his grasp.

  That’s all you were ever meant to be.

  He turned Kavanagh’s weapon on him, sighting down the barrel of the gun at a place directly between his eyes. Tom’s finger stroked the metal of the trigger, seduced by the moment he had been waiting for.

  A moment he was no longer certain he had the strength to make happen.

  Meant to be.

  “Do it,” Kavanagh hissed, leaning forward to press his forehead to the barrel of the gun. “Do what you were created to do.”

  From out of the corner of his eye Tom saw a flurry of movement as someone slowly approached. He imagined that Madison was curious if he had the strength as well.

  “Kill…”

  He had been this man’s puppet, a weapon of flesh and blood trained in the art of death, but not anymore.