Chapter 54

When Kiana awoke, she felt like she had been run over by a bus. She had a pounding headache, her neck was sore, and her vision was blurry. It took several minutes for her eyes to clear and when they finally did she realized she was strapped to a bed in a small room that appeared to be a cross between a medical examination room and a laboratory. She tried to pull herself free but quickly realized her bindings were so tight she couldn’t budge even an inch.

Strapped to an identical bed right next to her was Christine. Kiana was about to say something to her, to find out what had happened, when she noticed they weren’t alone. Standing a few feet away was a man Kiana instantly recognized from the photo Beckman had shown them during the mission’s initial briefing. It was the scientist, Dr. Charles Zander.

“Oh good,” he said. “You’re finally awake. Now we can begin.”

“Begin what?” Kiana asked.

“Begin an experiment. I think I’ve found a way to enhance the effectiveness of my serum. This new batch should work much more quickly than its predecessors.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t be afraid. The injection is quite painless and death should happen within a few seconds. You probably won’t even know you’ve died. And then you will resurrect seconds later.”

He turned to a nearby counter and grabbed a syringe that was filled with a thick liquid. Attached to it was one of the longest needles Kiana had ever seen.

“Keep that away from me.”

Zander smiled and instantly started walking toward her.

Christine was clearly as alarmed as Kiana. “Get away from her, Zander. Don’t go anywhere near her.”

He stopped briefly.

“Or what?”

Christine’s words were pure venom.

“I’ll kill you. I’ll snap your neck with my bare hands.”

Zander smiled. “That’s funny. You talk awfully tough for someone who is strapped to a bed. I think you’re just jealous. But don’t you worry. Your time will come, too. I have plenty of serum for you, too.”

At that, Kiana started to really get worried. There was something odd and creepy about Zander’s voice, eyes, and smile. When you put them all together, there was no mistaking that he was insane. Beckman had told them his prior company had had concerns about his mental and emotional stability and Kiana now knew why.

And if he was indeed crazy, that meant there was probably no way to reason with him. Nothing she nor Christine could say would make any difference to him. He had a plan and he was going to carry out that plan no matter how dire its consequences.

As the needle got closer and closer it seemed to get bigger and bigger. Zander lowered it toward Kiana’s arm and prepared to inject it. The needle was less than an inch away when the room’s door flew open and Olivia rushed in.

“Zander. Get away from her.”

“What are you doing here?” He was clearly annoyed his experiment had been interrupted. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?”

“I said get away from her.” As fast as she could, she charged at him and kicked him in the chest. He flew against the far wall, bounced off of it, and crumpled to the floor. He scrambled around on the floor for a second, trying to recover and regain his bearings, then rolled over and looked up at them. There was a frightened, angry look on his face as he did.

“What have you done? What have you done?”

It was at that point Kiana realized what had happened. When Zander had landed on the ground, he had landed right on top of the needle and had injected himself. The needle was still sticking out of the side of his chest.

A few seconds later, he started to shake badly, as though he were having a massive convulsion, then he started to froth from the mouth. A few seconds after that he let out a loud, pitiful cry, then fell to the side and died.

It was one of the scariest, creepiest things Kiana had ever seen.

The second he stopped moving, Olivia turned to Kiana and started unstrapping her. “We’ve got to get out of here and we’ve got to do it fast.”

Kiana was extremely relieved to have been rescued but a million questions were racing though her mind.

“What are you doing here? Do you work for Voronov?”

“Of course not. I’m an agent for MI6. For the past year we’ve been investigating Voronov since we knew he was up to something. About six months ago I was able to make contact with his assistant, Dimitri, and I’ve been working undercover ever since. My goal was to win him over and gain his trust so he’d eventually bring me here. Only recently was I able to do so.”

Kiana nodded. It was all starting to make some sense to her but there were still some parts she didn’t understand.

“If you were undercover the past six months working on a big mission, why did you take time off to come and see us? That seems odd to me.”

“I’ve always wanted to meet you and dad. When I learned Dimitri was finally going to bring me here I didn’t know what to expect and since this was my first big undercover assignment I was worried something might go wrong and if it did I might never get a chance to meet you. I didn’t like the thought of that at all so I forced my mother to finally make the arrangements and introduce us. That way, even if the mission went sideways at least I got to meet you first.”

Olivia’s story made some sense to Kiana but there was still one thing that disturbed her greatly.

“You kicked me in the face. It hurt like a mother. And it still does.”

“I had no choice. Voronov was onto us. I knew if I didn’t do something fast to ease his concerns he’d kill us both right there on the spot. It was all I could think of. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to do it. Trust me - it hurt me as much as it hurt you.”

“Yeah, right. Tell that to my neck.”

Olivia had finally managed to get her unstrapped so they both rushed over and worked together to free Christine.

“Any idea where my dad is?” Kiana asked Christine.

Olivia’s eyes got big. “Dad is here?”

Kiana nodded. “They captured us but they didn’t see him.”

“Good. We’re going to need all of the help we can get. We need to find a way to put an end to this operation of Voronov’s and we need to do it before his planes launch tomorrow morning.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“Either we need to take the compound by force or at a minimum we need to find some way to destroy the planes.”

They turned and headed for the door, Olivia leading the way. In their haste, however, none of them noticed one very important thing.

Zander, who had died just minutes before, had started moving again.