Sleeper Agenda

  Deacons and Stanley attacked together, and if Tremain had been a betting man, he wouldn’t have given a second thought to who the victors of this little rumble would be. After all, a kid, weighing, what, one-twenty, one-thirty at the absolute most, shouldn’t have stood a chance against two former CIA operatives.

  The kid moved like a blur, taking out Stanley—the larger of the two agents—first. He seemed to defy gravity as he leapt into the air to deliver a spinning kick that nearly took the agent’s head off. Tremain thought that Deacons might have gained the upper hand when he grabbed Tom from behind and pinned the kid’s arms to his sides. But the advantage was only temporary.

  Tom was able to squirm around in the agent’s grasp; then he drove his forehead into the man’s chin, forcing him to lose his grip.

  Tremain felt the chill of dread at the base of his neck. The boy was smiling as he delivered an open-palm strike to the center of Deacons’s chest. The man stumbled back, gasping for breath, and fell to the floor.

  That wasn’t a challenge for him at all, Tremain realized. There could have been four more agents in the room and he doubted it would have mattered. The kid hadn’t even broken a sweat. But that was what Tremain needed to see. He had to know how much of Tyler Garrett had been absorbed into Tom’s psyche. And maybe—just maybe—he could access the information that would lead them to Kavanagh.

  Tom was standing in the center of the gym, his head slowly moving from side to side as he sized up his adversaries. The three Pandora agents were gradually recovering, slowly rising to their feet, looking a bit rough around the edges.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” he heard Tom ask them, swaying gently. His eyes darted between each of the agents, recording their every movement as he readied himself to spring into action.

  Fascinating, Tremain caught himself thinking as he watched the boy. He immediately stifled his admiration; these skills had been created by Kavanagh for the sake of greed and destruction.

  The agents had given up, raising their hands in a sign of submission as they began to walk away. Tremain, believing the session to be over, headed for a nearby trash can to dispose of his empty cup. The sounds of violence distracted him, and he turned back to the center of the room, stunned to find Tom attacking the agents with abandon.

  Deacons lay on the ground, unmoving, blood from his mouth and nose forming a puddle beneath his head.

  Stanley was attempting to get away, running in a crouch toward the exit, but Tom was right behind him—a predator on the hunt. With what appeared to be little effort, Tom sprang into the air, propelling himself toward the back of the fleeing agent. The heel of his sneaker connected with the back of Stanley’s head, sending him sprawling, unconscious, to the floor.

  “Tom! Stop!” Tremain hollered, but the boy didn’t seem to hear.

  He was already moving toward Abernathy, the last of his adversaries. The agent was standing, ready for the attack, and there was fear in the seasoned veteran’s eyes.

  “Tom, stop this right now! They’ve had enough!”

  Tom sprang at Abernathy, raining a flurry of blows on his face. The Pandora agent was driven to his knees under the relentless onslaught, his hands trying to protect his bloody face. Tom grabbed him by the hair, pulling back his head, preparing to deliver a blow to the man’s throat.

  A killing strike.

  Slowly Tremain approached them. “Tom,” he said quietly, and again there was no response.

  “Tyler, stand down!” the director suddenly bellowed, his voice echoing around the gymnasium.

  The boy let Abernathy’s limp body drop to the floor. He glared at Tremain, and for a moment the director felt like he was in the presence of someone else entirely.

  “My name is Tom,” the boy said through gritted teeth, then turned on his heels and stormed from the gym.

  But as Tremain stared at his three fallen agents, he had to wonder if that was altogether true.

  Madison Fitzgerald was leaving the Pandora Group, returning to her mother’s home in Chicago.

  She didn’t have much to pack, certainly not enough to warrant the large duffel bag they had given her. A shopping bag would have been more than enough, she thought, double-checking the dresser drawers. Most of the things she’d had at her aunt and uncle’s house had been lost in the explosion that had destroyed their home as well as the Lovetts’ next door—or whoever the hell they were.

  Madison felt a twinge of lingering fear as she thought about how she’d almost died.

  She went through the bag resting on her bed in an attempt to distract herself—a few T-shirts, jeans, some sweatpants, mostly provided by the Pandora Group.

  Her aunt and uncle had been brought here too, but they’d quickly been relocated. Along with her parents, they’d been fed a story about Tom’s family being part of some radical anti-government group planning terrorist acts and told that the explosions had been caused by bomb-making equipment stored in their basement. They’d all bought it, but Madison knew otherwise. The truth was still so hard to process, though … the fact that she’d fallen for someone harder than she’d ever fallen before. And that someone, Tom, happened to have a second personality who was a cold-blooded killer.

  She shook the thought from her mind and went to the bathroom to get her soap and shampoo. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the sink, she stopped, staring at her reflection. Before all this her biggest problem had been her parents’ divorce. It almost felt like she wasn’t even the same person anymore. Madison stuffed her shampoo into the duffel with her clothes and sighed, sitting down heavily on the bed.

  Just that morning she’d gone through something called a debriefing. She’d sat at a table and been given page after page of documents to sign, each of them telling her what she could and couldn’t talk about to the outside world unless she wanted to spend some time in jail.

  Who would believe me anyway? she wondered, zipping the bag closed.

  Madison looked at the clock on the dresser and saw that it was almost noon. They’d be coming soon to drive her to the airport, the beginning of her journey home.

  Home.

  Her mind raced. Was it possible to go back to a normal life? Did she even want to? But what choice did she have—they certainly wouldn’t let her hang around the Pandora Group.

  The digital clock flashed 12:00, and she stood, grabbing her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. She was surprised that no one had arrived at her door. She’d sort of been expecting Tom.

  She crossed the room, trying not to think about why he hadn’t come to say goodbye. Just as she reached for the knob, there was a knock. She opened the door and found herself looking into Tom Lovett’s gorgeous eyes. His hair was wild, his cheeks flushed.

  “Thank God you’re still here,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I was in the gym—lost track of the time. I was afraid I was gonna miss you.”

  He smiled at her then, and she had no choice but to smile back.

  How could she ever live without Tom Lovett?

  Tom leaned against the door frame and sighed with relief. She was still here.

  “When I saw the time, I started to freak—”

  “I would’ve waited,” she interrupted, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.

  He smiled. God, she’s beautiful. It still knocked him out every time he saw her.

  “So you’re going, huh?” he said, silently cursing himself for sounding lame.

  Madison nodded. “Back to the old homestead,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “Mom’s still there, but Dad moved out a couple of months ago.”

  “It must be sort of weird, so much has changed,” Tom said.

  “Yeah, but it’ll still be home. I guess that’s lucky.”

  Tom secretly envied her at that moment, having something to return to. Everything he had known—his past, his home, and family, everything that had defined him as a person—was gone.

  Everything except Madison, and now …

  “S
o are they going to keep you here?” she asked, her striking green eyes finally meeting his.

  Tom shrugged. “I guess. They want to do more tests and stuff.”

  “Guess they got what they needed from me,” she said, smiling sadly.

  “You shouldn’t be here anyway,” he told her, shaking his head. “This isn’t the place for you.”

  “It isn’t for you either,” Madison said. “I’m worried about you.”

  He smiled. “Don’t be. I’ll be fine. There’s still a lot I have to learn about myself and about what’s been done to me.”

  “I just feel bad about leaving you,” she repeated, again refusing to look at him. “We’ve been through so much.”

  Tom swallowed, his heart racing. All he wanted to do was hold her, bring her close, kiss her the way he’d wanted to since the first time he’d seen her. There’d just been so much happening, and then here at the facility, there were always the guards around… His gaze flicked out to the hallway, and he saw it was clear. He stepped forward, about to reach out to her, when Madison suddenly turned and ducked back inside her room. He stood in the doorway, watching as she went to the bedside table and opened the drawer. She removed a pad of paper and a pen and began to write.

  “Here,” she said, handing him the folded piece of paper.

  “What’s this?” he asked, before opening it.

  “My e-mail address and phone number,” she answered.

  “Cool.” He read the address, already committing it to memory. “They haven’t given me e-mail access yet—”

  “Well, as soon as you get it, write to me,” she finished for him.

  He noticed that she was looking at something over his shoulder and turned to see a Pandora agent standing there, waiting.

  “Looks like your escort has arrived,” he said quietly, disappointment knotting in his stomach.

  “Looks that way.” She reached down to pick up her bag.

  Tom felt a wave of panic. He didn’t want her to leave—didn’t want to say goodbye to his only comfort.

  The agent glanced at his watch. “You really need to go,” Tom said, trying to sound nonchalant. “You don’t want to miss your flight.”

  Madison looked over to her escort and held up a finger asking for one more minute. The man nodded but only took a couple of steps aside, still watching them.

  “This is it,” she said, and all Tom could do was nod stiffly as he wrestled with emotions he could barely contain.

  She dropped the bag to the floor and threw her arms around him in a hug. Tom wrapped his own arms around her, holding her tightly. Her body melted into his.

  “You take care of yourself, Tom Lovett,” Madison whispered against his neck, her voice shaking with emotion.

  Tom took a deep breath and gently pushed her away. “You’d better get going.” He inclined his head toward the guard. “He’s waiting.”

  Madison kept her hands clasped around his neck, and he stared into her bright green eyes for another moment. His eyes traveled down to her lips, and again he thought about kissing her, not even caring anymore about the guard standing there. But he hesitated, and suddenly she was picking up her bag and, without another word, walking away.

  Tom watched as she turned the corner with the guard, feeling more empty and alone than ever.

  Chapter 3

  “BRANDON. WHAT KIND a sissy name is that?” the older boy asked as he cast his fishing line into the pond.

  “It was my granddaddy’s.”

  “Was your granddaddy a sissy too?”

  Brandon felt a surge of anger. He dropped his homemade fishing pole and clutched his fists to his sides. “You take that back,” he demanded.

  “Make me.” A disturbing smile spread across the bully’s face as he stepped closer.

  “You ain’t worth piss!” Brandon dismissed him with the words he’d heard his grandmother use on the hired help and bent down to retrieve his fishing pole.

  But it didn’t end there.

  Brandon Kavanagh suddenly opened his eyes. He was disoriented as he looked around the office. But quickly his mind threw off the sluggishness of sleep, and he remembered exactly where he was and how he had come to be there.

  He was a wanted man, and the thought made him smile. It’s sort of exciting being on the other side, he thought as he stretched his arms above his head. He stood and headed for the coffee machine in the corner, a little caffeine to clear away the cobwebs.

  Kavanagh filled a ceramic mug with the steaming black liquid, carefully taking a sip and wrinkling his nose at the bitter taste. He missed his former secretary—Karen. She’d made the best coffee.

  The image of the pretty older woman slumped over her desk, body riddled with bullet holes, filled his mind. Pandora had wanted him—wanted him badly. He sipped his coffee, remembering the sound of gunfire in the Janus Project’s West Virginia facility. They would have killed him if he hadn’t been prepared.

  He’d always known what it would mean to attempt to profit from the information gleaned from Janus, but Kavanagh didn’t care. He’d seen too much of this nasty old world to hold the concept of good or evil in any high regard.

  It was all shades of gray to him.

  All that mattered was staying on top. He’d learned that as a child. The lesson taking the form of a bully’s pounding fists.

  He chuckled as he returned to his desk, careful not to spill the contents of his cup. It had been years since Kavanagh had had a conscious thought of the boy who had set him on the path to being the man he was today. He reached up to touch the bump of scar tissue on his scalp and remembered how heavily he had bled.

  Hit with my own fishing pole, he recalled. Probably should have gotten stitches, but Grandma didn’t agree, and what Grandma said went.

  Miserable old witch.

  The door buzzer sounded, pulling him from his reverie, and he looked at a small monitor by his desk to see who it was.

  “Come in, Noah,” Kavanagh said into the intercom, pushing the button to unlock the heavy metal door.

  His personal assistant and head of security stepped into the new office space and stopped to look around. “Love what you’ve done with the place,” he said with sarcasm as he helped himself to a cup of coffee.

  “Just goes to show you the versatility of an abandoned underground military base,” Kavanagh said with equal derision. “I’m not going to be happy until every room in the place looks this good.”

  Wells sipped his coffee and made a face. “It’s times like these that I really miss Karen,” he said as he took a seat in one of the chairs in front of Kavanagh’s desk.

  “Tell me about it,” Kavanagh replied, watching the man set the cup down on the edge of his desk. “So, what’s the good word?”

  He had sent Wells to check on the results of an auction that was on the verge of coming to a close. What corrupt third world power or terrorist organization wouldn’t give their eyeteeth for technology that created the ultimate killing machine? Wells picked at specks of lint on his pants and said nothing.

  “That’s not very encouraging, Noah,” Kavanagh said, feeling his ire on the rise.

  “The auction fell apart.” Wells slowly made eye contact.

  “What the hell do you mean, it fell apart?” Kavanagh growled.

  “The bids were retracted,” Wells explained. “Evidently the word is out on our problems with Pandora.” He shrugged. “Some of them think we’re too hot; they’re doubting our ability to deliver.”

  Kavanagh seethed. After he’d resigned as director of acquisitions, the Janus Project had been his primary focus: taking the idea of creating the ultimate sleeper agent and nurturing it slowly, painfully to fruition. The fact that somebody—especially some two-bit dictator with delusions of grandeur—doubted his ability was almost enough to make him to want to walk away.

  Almost.

  “So where are we now?” Kavanagh asked, trying to remain calm.

  Wells shrugged again. “Nowhere, really. They’
ve all crawled back to their holes, waiting to see how this plays out.”

  Kavanagh laughed, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the huge vent in the ceiling. The stale, recirculated air of the underground facility blew on his face. “What do they mean, how this plays out? Either they want the product or they don’t. It’s as simple as that.”

  Noah plucked a silver cigarette lighter from his pocket and flipped it open. “I think they want proof,” he said, idly holding his index finger in the hungry flame. “I think they want to see that we’re not afraid—but that’s just my take.” The faint stink of burning flesh filled the air.

  Noah Wells had first come to Kavanagh’s attention as part of another Pandora project called, aptly enough—Invincible. The former navy SEAL had been a volunteer, subjecting himself to experimentation that deadened the small nerve fibers that carry sensations of pain, heat, and cold to the body. Invincible had been attempting to create a soldier incapable of feeling pain, thus making him more effective on the battlefield. There’d been some successes, like Noah Wells. But there had also been side effects: some of the drugs being used had incited violent and masochistic tendencies in the test subjects. Invincible had eventually been shut down to make way for more promising projects, like Janus.

  Kavanagh had made it a point to seek out Wells, believing him to be the perfect choice for the job he’d had in mind, and he’d been right. It was like having a really smart pit bull, and the fact that Wells no longer had the capacity to feel pain was an added bonus.

  “Do you mind?” Kavanagh asked.

  “Sorry.” Wells flicked the lid of the lighter closed and placed it back in his pocket.

  Kavanagh turned his chair to the wall, signaling the end of their meeting. He had a lot to think about. Wells rose, finishing his coffee in one long gulp before walking to the door.

  “Wells?” Kavanagh called as he pulled open the heavy door.

  “Sir?”

  “Have the doc look at that burn on your finger, would you? Wouldn’t want it to get infected.”

  Tom lay on his bed, looking up at the ceiling, smirking to himself. A kid with narcolepsy who can’t sleep; if it wasn’t so friggin pathetic, it’d be funny.