part0022

J eremiah pulled in alongside the pub that he’d punched into the navigator in his car and glanced around quickly to make sure he was in the right place. He tended to avoid Irish pubs, although he didn’t hold them in active dislike. They simply weren’t his kind of scene. He could get behind English pubs which generally had a more subdued environment and a homier look. He even liked the occasional sports bar when he felt raucous.

This place appeared to be reasonably quiet and more upscale than what he was accustomed to. He couldn’t believe he had fallen for this trick—to actually call Jessica Coleman for a date with the express purpose of pumping the good doctor for information. It was a sleazy move and he knew it, but at least he could offer her a pleasant evening while he sucked her brain for corporate secrets like some kind of mind vampire.

“You look uncomfortable, Jer,” Anja said. She sounded like she enjoyed seeing him in that awkward kind of situation. “Do you think you should get a drink to calm your nerves? How long has it been since you’ve been on a proper date, anyway?”

“Would you be surprised if I said that it’s been years?” he asked. “Wait, no, of course you wouldn’t be shocked. You’ve probably dug into my life so deep that you know me better than I know myself right about now.”

“Yeah, take that tone,” she responded with a laugh. “And no. I can do my research as much as anybody else, but when it comes down to people I have to interact with on a daily basis, I try not to pry. You never know when you might find something that has been hidden deep for a reason, after all.”

Jeremiah nodded, knowing that she could see him from the camera across the street. He knew a thing or two about what she was talking about. Probably not to the extent that she did, of course, and he also knew there was a story hidden in there somewhere that would explain why she felt the way she did. But that was a story for another time. They had bonded over the past couple of days, and the more he got to know her, the more he grew to like her.

He doubted that anything he might find out would change that, but why take the chance?

“So, what were you able to dig up on our Dr. Jessica Coleman?” he asked as he crossed the road to the bar.

“Well, for one thing, she’s already there,” Anja replied. “And she started the party early, from the looks of her drink tab.”

“That, or she’s as nervous as I am,” he said. “I’m play-acting to get something that I need, and I’m good at that. Well, decent enough. I’m okay.”

“Way to feel confident there, tiger.” Anja chuckled.

“My point being that as far as she’s concerned, this is a real date,” he continued and didn’t bother to respond to her barb. “She has a reason to be nervous. What else do you know about her?”

“Ah…” The hacker paused—to pull something up on her screen, he assumed. “Well, she got her PhD from Johns Hopkins. Actually, she got her bachelor’s and master’s there too, all three with a full ride. Her parents are locals and both alums, and she lived with them until she finished her PhD at twenty-five. She’s had offers to work all around the country— and all around the world—but it doesn’t seem like our girl likes straying too far from home.

“Her income is a comfortable six figures a year and while she’s taken vacation days, she hasn’t ever gone on any kind of vacation. Her life is her work. She lives three blocks away and comes to this bar, and this bar only. She has friends, mostly academics like herself, as well as a couple of boyfriends—mostly academics too with the exception of a biker bad boy a couple of years ago. I think she needed to break free from her trend of brainy paramours.”

“And time,” he said as he paused outside the entrance. “Is there anything that you don’t know about her at this point?”

“I don’t know her mother’s shoe size,” Anja said. “And that wasn’t for lack of trying, but she doesn’t do much shoe shopping. It’s annoying, really.”

“Well, you’re terrifying, and I have to go in.” He brushed his hands over his leather jacket. “How do I look?”

“That depends. Do you have your story right?”

“Raymond Burrows, born in Seattle, two brothers, one died.” He recited what he’d committed to memory. “Joined the army after being caught on a couple of B-and-Es back in his teenage years and a judge offered him the choice of serving for the military or serving jail-time. He picked the Army, served his first tour in Iraq and the second all over the place, with the last few months in the Zoo before a couple of runs got him enough money to be honorably discharged at the same rank as he entered, Buck Private. He had a problem with authority. A friend got him a job in a security company. He’s quiet, no wife, no kids that he knows about, and stays away from social media.”

“And all the rest I’ve covered for you if our gal decides to do some research of her own,” she said. “Nice job memorizing all that, by the way.”

“I have a great memory,” he said. “It’s one of the perks of being me, blondie.”

“I’m not blonde,” the hacker protested.

“Worth a shot.” He steeled himself and stepped into the bar. Dance music played loudly, which meant that he had definitely walked into happy hour. It was a common tactic for bars. Mondays and Tuesdays tended to have a lot less traffic than the weekends, which meant they would inevitably lower prices to almost cost price to encourage people to come in. From the crowd that already gathered, he could only surmise that it was working.

That said, it wasn’t long before he found the woman he was looking for seated in a corner booth. She saw him a second later, raised her hand, and waved him over.

“Don’t you clean up well?” she asked, stood, and offered her hand. “Nice to see you out of the uniform and in civilian clothes. Come on. I’m a regular here, so they keep this booth for me.”

He took it and grinned cheekily as he raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. “Well, I have to say, you look a lot better than you did when we first met. I have to imagine that having the stress of the move out of the way should let you relax more.”

“A lot more,” Jessica agreed. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone this, but they handed out pink slips to all the project managers over the weekend. I got mine in the mail this morning and was happy to see the very hefty severance package they gave me. It’s not exactly retirement money, but still.”

Jeremiah chuckled and slid into the seat across from her. “Well, I have to say, you’ve taken being fired with a lot more positivity than anybody else might. You actually seem like you’re relieved.”

“I liked my work with Pegasus, I really did,” she responded with a smile. “I couldn’t stand the bosses, though. They were judgmental and demanding, for one thing. And most of the time, they didn’t understand the science of what they wanted, but they wanted it anyway. I’ve had job offers for the past few hours. Many companies want what Pegasus has and are willing to pay through the nose for it, but I don’t think corporate research is really what I want anymore. I haven’t made my mind up yet, but I’ve considered a job teaching rather than another Pegasus-type scenario.”

“Really?” He regarded her with open curiosity as a waitress came over to their table. “Where would you want to teach?”

“I’ll have another Daquiri, please,” she said to the woman and he wondered if she had a reason to avoid his question aside from the obvious presence of a third party. “And he’ll have…” She turned to him and waited for him to complete the order.

“I’ll start with a boilermaker,” he said with a smile. The waitress nodded and headed back to the bar. They had their drinks on the table in less than a minute later.

“To answer your question…” Jessica sipped her drink through the straw. “I wanted to go back to Johns Hopkins. It’s my alma mater, and I’ve missed the place. I still have a lot of friends there.”

“Huh.” He nodded casually and picked up the shot glass to pour the contents into the beer pint. “I don’t think I could ever see myself as a teacher. Honestly, imparting wisdom isn’t my thing. Don’t get me wrong, I respect the hell out of the people who can, but I don’t think I have the patience for it.”

She shrugged. “Well, it’s not for everybody, but I think I could do it. And if it turns out I’m wrong, they have a significant number of promising research positions at the university. As an Ivy League School, they never lack for funding—or for interesting topics to research. True, they’ll be about six months behind what I did for Pegasus, but that’ll be part of the challenge.”

Jeremiah smiled. She was passionate, but that was what made most people in her line of work do what they did. It was the passion that enabled them to dedicate their lives to the advancement of mankind. There were consequences to that single-mindedness, though—like not even noticing that someone who wasn’t a security guard but had posed as a security guard now sat and enjoyed drinks with her. It was that kind of head-in-the-clouds thinking that changed science to science fiction or nuclear power into atomic bombs. And DNA research into Jurassic Park.

It wasn’t a bad thing, but the fact that there were people like Carlson out there—people willing to take advantage of their curiosity—made them a danger to the world, whether they knew it or not.

He sipped his drink and savored the mix of the beer’s bitter taste and the smooth burn of the whiskey. It made for an interesting libation and was one of his favorites. Thankfully, it was also the kind that buzzed without shoving him too deep in his cups.

“I’m sorry,” he said and shook his head. “I know I’m not exactly the best company. It’s not like we have that much in common, right?”

Jessica shrugged. “Look, I haven’t been on a proper date in forever. I’m buzzed and plan to be more so as the night goes on. I’ve dated all kinds of men in my time, one of whom actually went on to win a Nobel Prize in biology.”

“Way to make a guy feel insecure,” he said, and his chuckle suggested that he wasn’t insecure at all.

“Well, you should know that the geniuses I’ve dated in the past all had their personal neuroses and complications. Usually, those made it impossible to be around them while they were sober,” she pointed out. “Sometimes, I need someone who isn’t from my little world. A man who’s simple. Some offense meant.”

He smirked. “Some taken.”

His gaze flickered to the entrance of the bar where people constantly came and went. Happy hours were created to exploit the high turnover scenario. People arrived and left again without too much of a break in the flow, and yet a couple of men stood out. He studied them unobtrusively, his instincts keen. Their jeans hung low but not enough to cover the high laces of combat boots. Despite the increased heat inside, they kept their jackets on—heavy and dragging with more weight than the leather they wore.

“Did I lose you?” Jessica asked.

Jeremiah turned his attention back to the woman he was supposed to focus on with a smile. “Sorry, I thought I saw someone I recognized. Wait, so you said your research in Johns Hopkins would be months behind what Pegasus has. What does that mean?”

“Well, a third-party security company wouldn’t know much about it, but Pegasus actually has a lot of military connections.” Jessica leaned in, already a little drunk judging by the way she had to hold onto the table to keep from planting her face on it. “I’m not supposed to know that, of course, but you hear things.”

He raised an eyebrow encouragingly, and she almost giggled before she lowered her tone. “Things like what happens in the Zoo, and the fact that Pegasus somehow gets their hands on specimens that are only revealed to everyone else months later. It’s hard not to notice it when you have the inside track, you know? Well, of course you do. You were in the Zoo, right?”

That had come a little out of left field, he noted. It was a probe on her part, which told him that she didn’t entirely trust him. Also, perhaps, that she had wanted to get him drunk in order to find any chinks in his armor. She’d also made the rookie mistake of reaching the drunk goal herself way before he did.

“Exactly like we practiced,” Anja whispered softly in his earpiece.

He still wanted to hear the story of how she knew so much about what happened in the Zoo, but right now, he would simply leave himself in her hands. If Jessica was to really believe him, he needed to nail this.

“Well, I was only in there for a couple of trips.” He focused his gaze on his beer and channeled some residual shame from his last operation into his performance. “I don’t think I really have what it takes to be a regular in there. There are some who survive and even thrive. I wasn’t one of those, and I doubt I ever will be. My first trip wasn’t that eventful—in and out to get some of those Pita plants. I was really surprised by how beautiful the place was. It was like walking on an alien planet right here on Earth. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

She nodded and leaned in closer. Like a trout on the hook, Savage mused. All he had to do was ease her in.

“It was the second time that—” He rasped in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and drew on the impotent rage he felt at losing all the men on his squad. His hands gripped the side of the table and he clenched his jaw.

“We went in there on another trip to get more of the plants,” he continued, careful to pitch his tone high enough that she could hear him over the music but not much more. “The first few days went by without incident. Then, there was this…massive thing—like a T-Rex, I suppose, although I know that sounds bizarre—right there with a blood-curdling roar.

“But we were a team of six, all dressed in the best armor the military could buy, and we managed to kill the damn thing…but barely. When we killed it, though, something in the Zoo changed. It was as if everything in the jungle suddenly wanted to kill us all. We only had a couple of seconds until all these monsters attacked in waves to avenge the death of the Rex. Things got blurry after that, like we were stuck in a repeat of shooting at waves and waves of monsters of all shapes and kinds. Every last one of them attacked wildly like they didn’t care about their own lives.

“Reload and start firing again. Fighting and fighting with no end in sight. It was afternoon when we started, but it was morning by the time we got out. Another team had come over and joined us. We were bolstered by their numbers, but we still lost about half our people. It’s weird.” He chuckled. “For the life of me, the whole thing is a blur, but thinking about going back…”

He let his voice trail off, drew in a deep breath, and took a long sip from his drink. For a second, he wasn’t sure if his performance had convinced her, but when he put his glass down, she put her hand on his.

“I’m so sorry you went through that,” Jessica said and squeezed his hand gently. “People don’t understand how everything in the Zoo doesn’t play by the rules of the world. Even our testing seems to be all over the place. There’s a set of rules in there, and we’ve scratched at the surface, but nothing along the lines of what we’ve seen before.

“I worked to test the goop they got out of the Zoo a couple of weeks ago. When it interacts with something human, it has the reaction that most people desire—it prolongs life and makes them younger, stronger, faster, and more virile. That’s why people buy it. Put it in with animal DNA, though, and there are all kinds of different reactions. I won’t go into it now, but there’s a different reaction between species. It’s difficult to put into words.”

Jeremiah nodded. She was really passionate about this stuff, he realized. Again, that wasn’t a bad thing, but the fact that she worked for someone like Carlson said that she needed to get a grip on her curiosity. She didn’t strike him as being the shady type, but she was vulnerable. Self-control was necessary if only to ensure that the benefits weren’t reaped by the wrong people. Or that she didn’t unwittingly participate in human torture or the nefarious scheme behind some evil science experiment.

He breathed deeply and prepared to resume the conversation, but his gaze flickered back to the men he’d noticed before. They hadn’t moved. While they weren’t close enough to hear the conversation between him and the doctor, they were obviously waiting for something. He simply wasn’t sure what. There was a possibility that someone had recognized him, of course, but he doubted that.

Concern prickled behind his calm. He needed to get away. Right now, he needed to be able to talk to Anja in private.

“I’m sorry,” he said and cringed inwardly at how abrupt it sounded. “I need a second to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

“Of course.” Jessica nodded. She looked a little embarrassed like she felt bad for drawing out what had to be bad memories. If they actually had been his, he wouldn’t have felt too much empathy with her feelings. But considering that he was the liar in this case, he couldn’t help but feel bad for the situation he’d put her in.

He pushed up from his seat, gulped the last of his drink, and replaced the empty glass on the table before he turned and headed toward the bathroom. He put a little effort into the show and staggered every third step to make it seem that he was drunker than he really was. He wouldn’t try to oversell it, though, as he hadn’t been there long enough to make fully drunk even remotely plausible.

It was possible that he was a little tipsy. That was something that could happen after you’d downed a full pint of beer and a shot of whiskey on an empty stomach. He moved closer to the bar and confirmed that the men eyed him every step of the way. Savage coughed and slid his hand over the bar top as he glanced casually around to check that the men maintained their surveillance. The bartender, rushing to fill orders, placed one of the empty plastic bottles of soda on the counter. When he turned away, Jeremiah calmly picked it and held it casually at his side.

Instinct told him that he should prepare for a fight. He needed it to be both fast and quiet. Obviously, he didn’t want his date to realize that they had been followed there, but the question remained—were they there for him, or for her?

The way the two men slid from their seats to follow him told him that it was the former. They were there for him, and they weren’t there to watch. Which begged the question of how they knew who he was. The limo driver at the compound had seen him, of course. While it had only been a glimpse, that would be enough for a smart man. And Carlson seemed like the kind of man to make sure that the people in charge of his safety were the best of the best.

That was…worrying.

“What are you doing, Jer?” Anja asked. She had her eyes on the security feed, and she could tell that he now moved toward the bathroom and held a bottle in his hand.