Charles Deighton yawned as his town car pulled up outside the docking station in Washington DC. He shook off his lethargy after a restless night’s sleep and swapped the car’s warm interior for a blast of cold air. A second car carrying his bodyguards pulled up and they got out. Next he saw a string of lights through the gloom. The approaching light blinded him as a convoy of black cars pulled up to the kerb. Three board members got out just as a military vehicle pulled up behind the last car. Tanya Li was among them.
He greeted Tanya, the conservative member and the liberal member with a brief, stiff handshake. They huddled together in their thick winter coats. Deighton’s icy breaths filled his mask with condensation. The oversized bodyguards talked into micro-thin wires and patrolled the stretch of pavement outside the docking station.
‘Are we waiting for someone else?’ Deighton asked Tanya.
Tanya shook her head. ‘This is it. Nobody else wanted to come. But don’t worry, we’ve enough security.’
Deighton didn’t care about security. Fewer board members meant less for him to convince about his alteration plans. ‘Are we meeting Mr Taggart and the girl on the passenger ship?’
‘Yes, I’ve arranged their travel from Sydney. Security will accompany them.’
On board the spacecraft, the tension in Deighton’s body refused to break. Taggart could be a problem and he needed a strategy to deal with his most rogue investigator. Maybe if he spoke to Taggart privately, he could convince him to see things his way. The investigator and his sick girlfriend stood in the way of Deighton’s plans to get a sample from Serena.
The spacecraft manoeuvred into the hold of the passenger ship just as Deighton felt a new tremor in his leg and hand. He squeezed his hands together to dull the tremors that usually accompanied his stress.
When the craft doors opened, Deighton stepped out into the hold of the ship. The second spacecraft had arrived and a security team buzzed around Bill Taggart as he emerged with his arm wrapped around Laura. Deighton couldn’t see her face that was covered in a blanket. But Taggart’s face, fraught with worry, told him things were not good for the girl. When Laura stumbled, Taggart scooped her up in his arms. Deighton never did understand relationships. An arrangement that required the best of a person yet yielded so little in return.
Taggart whispered something to Laura before his wild eyes sought out a member of staff. ‘We need to put her in stasis, immediately.’ He handed one of the staff three vials. ‘Give her one dose every four days. It will halt her changes for now. Stasis should do the rest until we get there. Did you get all that?’
The staff member nodded while the remaining staff, flustered by the intense security presence, got their act together and wheeled in a mobile bed. Taggart placed the girl on it. Then the investigator’s eyes cut to Deighton before he disappeared through the hold doors that led to the main part of the ship. The mood lightened and the board members, who Deighton noticed had gone still, finally moved.
A personal attendant appeared and relieved Deighton of his luggage. Genetically superior bodyguards ushered him through the doors as if he were delicate cargo.
Deighton arrived at a corridor that was housed in a separate part of the ship near the cockpit, but away from the general public. Twelve doors—six on either side and one for each board member—were before him. The others picked their rooms. Deighton chose the room furthest away from Tanya.
He entered the room with wall to wall cream carpeting. The attendant placed his bags down and closed the door behind him. A walnut four-poster bed sat against the back wall. Four chairs with cream fabric seats surrounded a marble table in the centre of the room. A chaise longue nestled against the base of the bed. The smell of dark roasted coffee hit him and his eyes cut to the sterling silver pot on the marble table. A single fine bone china cup and a plate of bite-sized lemon muffins sat beside the pot. If it hadn’t been for the Light Box on the wall that had activated as soon as he’d entered, he could have been in the 1920s.
Deighton really needed sleep but his mind wouldn’t settle as he imagined Bill Taggart poisoning Tanya Li with his lies. He would need to limit the private contact Taggart had with Tanya. Deighton had worked hard to get the Chair on side.
He opened his carry-on bag and removed a syringe. He flicked off the protective top and jabbed the needle first into his leg and then into his arm. The muscle-stabilising shots would only work a few days before he’d need another hit.
He forewent the coffee that would only keep him awake to lie on the chaise longue. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. But his sleep mirrored his waking state as he dreamt about being locked in a room with poisonous snakes that kept biting him.