TWENTY-FIVE
1957—“Teenage Monster” incident, Camden, New Jersey—Another experiment with Konrad’s work leads to a local doctor, last name Carlton or Karlton, assembling a creature from the parts of several deceased teenage athletes. After the creature murdered several people, Operative Cade dealt with the doctor and his experiment.
—BRIEFING BOOK: CODENAME: NIGHTMARE PET
The other man got up off the pavement.
He was limping, but didn’t say anything about it. He showed Cade his own badge, which ID’d him as Reyes, also with DHS.
“Mind if I pick that up?” he asked. He pointed to his gun, still on the ground.
“I wouldn’t,” Cade said.
Reyes grimaced, puffed up his chest. Looking to salvage some scrap of his pride. “You going to stop me?”
“Yes,” Cade said. Matter-of-fact. No bluff in it. Reyes considered his options and then wisely chose to join Helen, leaning against the car.
“So you guys going to give us a ride, or what?” she asked.
Cade ignored the question. “Why were you following him?”
“Your colleague was stalking one of our assets,” Helen said. “That caught our attention, you might say.”
“You’re protecting Konrad? Why?”
“I’m afraid that’s classified,” she said. “Let’s just say Konrad is vital to national security interests that don’t concern you.”
“I don’t suppose the president knows about these interests.”
“Oh, do grow up. Plausible deniability. Ever heard of it? The politicians can’t be trusted with the hard facts. You should know that by now.”
Cade stepped closer to her, radiating menace now.
“Perhaps you want to let me in on the secret.”
Zach could feel Cade’s anger. Even Reyes flinched a little.
Helen stood there, serene. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said.
Cade evaluated her for a moment. “No,” he said. “You’re not. You’re taking all of this quite well.”
“Come now, Mr. Cade. You don’t really think you’re the only extra-normal operative working for the government, do you?”
Cade’s mouth twitched. “Extra-normal. Clever.”
She shrugged. “Government jargon. What are you going to do?” Still looking amused, she didn’t seem willing to offer any more information.
Abruptly, Cade turned away and put his phone to his ear.
Which left Zach standing there, talking to the two agents alone.
Reyes glared. But Helen looked him over, sizing him up.
“How do you like the new job, Zach?” she asked.
That caught him off guard. “Do I know you?”
“Nope.” Still smiling. “But I know you.”
Christ. More mind games. Like he hadn’t had enough of those today. “Whatever you say.”
“You should listen to me, Zach,” she said, still infuriatingly calm, as if someone—some thing—hadn’t just broken her car nearly in half.
“Why is that?”
She gave him another million-watt smile. “Because we’re the good guys, of course.”
Zach laughed. “Yeah. I can tell.”
Her expression changed to pity. “You can’t. You’ve been fed a pack of lies. You joined the wrong team. I mean, really, would the good guys have a vampire working for them?”
Zach looked away from her, over to where Cade stood, phone still to his ear.
She kept pushing. “Ask him a question: how many people has he killed? Not in the line of duty. How many innocent people has he killed, just so he can feed?”
“He doesn’t feed on people,” Zach said.
“And you believe that?”
Zach didn’t have an answer.
She laughed at him. “Poor Zach,” she said. “You don’t know who ” to trust.
CADE HIT THE BUTTON for Griff. It took the man a moment to answer. His voice sounded rough.
“Yeah?”
“We’ve run into some people from the Agency.”
“You sure?”
Cade listened to the woman as she worked to turn Zach against him.
“Fairly certain, yes. What should I do with them?”
“They look dangerous to you?”
Cade almost smiled. “They never do.”
Griff thought about it for a moment. “Just get out of there. You don’t need the Agency on your ass.”
Cade looked back at Helen and Reyes. Saw the troubled look on Zach’s face. The woman was talking to him, and he was listening.
“It might already be too late,” Cade said.
He hung up, got Zach and got back in the car.
HELEN WATCHED Cade and the boy leave. She knew Zach was looking back at her. She smiled and waved.
As soon as their car turned the corner, her big smile shut off.
She checked her watch. Past three a.m. Sunrise in a little more than four hours. Cade would have to go to ground soon.
Reyes was on his phone already, calling for backup. He was bent over with pain now. He’d put up a good front, but Cade had hurt him. Helen wouldn’t have been surprised if he had broken bones.
Not her problem. Helen crossed her arms and leaned back against the trunk of the car again.
Reyes snapped his phone shut. “We’ll have a ride in five minutes.”
She sighed irritably. That would have to do. She still had another meeting tonight. She wasn’t looking forward to it, but she wanted to get it over with.
God, she hated to wait.
