Mark was sitting up in the hospital bed, champing at the bit to get dressed and get out, waiting to be released by the company doctor who’d been sent to see him. The doctor, a slight elderly man with more hair on his eyebrows than his head, was currently conferring with the ER doc who’d been taking care of Mark until Uncle Sam had taken over. They were waiting for lab results to tell them precisely what Rudy had given Mark. All Mark knew was that it had been injected with something like an EpiPen. He’d only been able to get in two or three good punches to Rudy’s midsection before blackness descended.
Billy had called one of his Agency contacts right after we’d finished taping up our former captors, using way more tape than they’d used on us. (Intelligence: learning from your mistakes. Wisdom: learning from someone else’s mistakes.) He’d told the contact to get somebody out to the auditorium immediately, if not sooner. Mark and the venue proprietor had been found tied up and unconscious in a supply closet and brought to this hospital. Mark had awakened before we got to the hospital, and apparently hadn’t been the most genial and cooperative of patients, judging by the looks on the nurses’ faces.
Once we’d been assured of some privacy in Mark’s room (the nurses were only too glad to leave him to us), Billy and I explained why Rudy had done what he did. Mark’s face had remained hard while we were talking, and even now I couldn’t pick up a clue as to how he’d be dealing with it. One thing was certain—he was not happy. Whether he would accept Rudy’s children being taken as a mitigating factor was still up in the air.
The kidnappers were now in the custody of Agency officials. We’d stayed right where we were until the men in the black SUVs had shown up to take them off our hands. One of the agents had driven us to Dr. Phil’s house, where we’d dropped our assumed auras. Dr. Phil and Misha were both “invited” to come to a local Agency facility to answer some questions. Mark was currently frothing at the mouth to talk to them. To Rudy, too, though he’d apparently disappeared into the ether with Simon and Phoebe. Couldn’t say that I really blamed him.
“Billy, could you do me a favor and track down my clothes? And my phone. I mean, I’ll walk out of here in this hospital gown if I have to, but I’d like it better if I can avoid mooning strangers in the elevator.”
“I’ll see what I can do. For the sake of the strangers.” Billy grinned and left.
Mark waited until he was safely out of earshot to address me, quietly. “Have you started your period yet?”
Whoa. Blunt much? I felt a blush rising to my cheeks. “I … I … no. But I’m sure I will soon. The tests were all negative.”
“You weren’t wearing your patch when we were together”—trust him to be so annoyingly observant—“and had received a dose of fertility hormones.”
“True, but I’d only had the patch off for a short while. I’m sure I’m fine.”
“Look, you and Billy have obviously worked things out. But I want you to know if there are consequences to the other night, and Billy isn’t okay with it, my offer still stands.”
I swallowed. Twice. “Thank you. It means a lot to me. I’ll tell you when … um, when you can stop worrying.”
“Why didn’t you get married when you were at the city clerk’s?” Again with the blunt.
“Al or Candy?”
“Both. They work for me. Did you think they wouldn’t tell me?”
I shrugged. “I suppose not. Doesn’t matter now anyway.”
“It does to me.” Mark’s eyes were intent.
I sighed. “Al brought me flowers, and I realized I couldn’t get married without my dad walking me down the aisle. It wouldn’t be right.”
He nodded. Understanding, I thought, but also a little … disappointed? Had he been hoping I hadn’t been able to go through with it for another reason?
“Mark, listen—” I stopped myself when I caught sight of Billy in the doorway.
He carried a short stack of clothing sandwiched between a pair of shoes on the bottom and a cell phone on top. “Where did you find this suit, anyway? Big Lots? Seriously, your hospital gown is more flattering.”
Mark summoned a grin. “Are you dissing my fade-into-the-background working-stiff clothes? I’ll have you know I paid seventy-nine bucks for that suit.”
“Worth every penny. As are your—Payless?—loafers.” Billy handed him the stack.
“Thanks, bud. I owe you.”
“You do. Ten dollars, to be precise. That’s how much I had to give an orderly to tell me where they were hidden.”
“Why’d they hide your clothes?” I said.
Mark twisted his mouth wryly. “It’s what they do when you threaten to leave against an Agency doctor’s orders. Okay, anyone who doesn’t want to see my pale fuzzy butt better leave. Wait for me downstairs. I may need you when I talk to Dr. Carson and her husband.”
I stopped myself before I blurted out his butt wasn’t fuzzy at all, but from the amused look Billy was giving me, the thought might have been plain on my face.
* * *
Dr. Phil looked as shocked as I’d ever seen her. Misha was looking a bit gob-smacked himself. They were seated in a small parlor in a safe house on the outskirts of Houston, having a cup of coffee with Mark. They ignored the cookies on the coffee table.
Billy and I were watching from behind a small two-way mirror. It was framed on the parlor side, and so looked more like a regular mirror. Still, it wasn’t likely to fool anyone with half a brain, and both of Mark’s “guests” kept glancing at it nervously.
My eyes kept darting back to the cookies. They appeared to be chocolate chip, and not from the grocery store shelf either. Bakery, or possibly even homemade. How could anybody sitting next to those, sipping coffee, not eat one? Or, you know, half a dozen?
“Is that your stomach growling, cuz?” The amusement in Billy’s voice was plain.
Damn, I was starving. “Maybe. But a gentleman wouldn’t comment on it.”
He hugged me from behind. “A gentleman wouldn’t do a lot of the things I do.” Leaning his head down close to my ear, he whispered the less-than-gentlemanly activities he had planned for later, some of which included feeding me cookies. And ice cream. Naked. Unless, of course, I preferred him to act like a gentleman.
I squirmed. “It’s possible gentlemen are overrated.”
Billy laughed and turned up the volume on the speaker a tiny amount. “Shh. I think we’re supposed to be paying attention to this.”
“In that case, stop breathing on my neck. It’s distracting.”
Dr. Phil put down her coffee cup, folded her hands in her lap, and looked Mark right in the eye. “You’re saying it should have been me. From what you’re telling me, it would have been me, if not for my kidney stone.” Her voice sounded tinny coming from the speaker.
“That’s what your brother told my colleagues,” Mark said. Calm. Cool. Professional.
I chewed the inside of my bottom lip. “Why’d he have to tell her? Can’t he see it’s upsetting her?” I knew how it would make me feel if one of my brothers had planned to set me up like that.
Billy gave my hand a small squeeze, like he understood what I was thinking. “That’s the idea. He wants her upset. It’s harder to hide what you know when you’re emotionally off balance.”
Phil stared for a minute into the middle distance. Finally she nodded, accepting what Mark had told her. “I understand why,” she said at last, sounding like she was trying to convince herself. “His kids were in danger. He didn’t have a choice.” She looked at her husband, the love blooming in her eyes. Was she thinking of her own future child?
“Where is he now? Where did he take the kids?” Mark’s demeanor still showed no outward emotion.
“I don’t know. And that’s the God’s honest truth. I imagine he’s taken them somewhere they won’t be found by the Russians.”
Mark gave Misha a hard look. “We’ll be talking more about the Russians later. For now, tell me about Alec Loughlin. I suppose you don’t know where he is either.”
Misha shook his head. “No. He came to me at my office—once—after he failed to capture Ciel on the day of the flight. He kept ranting about government-controlled imposters and how they’d replaced ‘his’ Phil with some sort of alien. He wanted to know if I was in on it. Held a knife to my throat and demanded to know where the real Phil was, so he could do what he was paid to do.”
“Did you tell him about adaptors?” Mark wasn’t bothering to keep the steel out of his eyes, or his voice, anymore.
Misha had started to sweat. “I told him to take me instead. I was the one the Russians really wanted. He said no, they had insisted on Philippa because without her they would never be able to control me.” Misha leaned forward, extending his hands toward Mark in a gesture that begged for understanding. “They were right. There is no way I would let them control my company, and what it does for the United States. But if they had Philippa…”
“Did you tell him about adaptors?”
“Yes! I had to. He would have slit my throat and gone after Philippa.”
“And Rudy? Did you tell Loughlin you’d learned about adaptors from your wife’s brother?”
Misha sagged against the back of the sofa. “Yes. I did.”
Mark seemed strangely relieved by his answer.
“Why is he okay with that?” I said softly to Billy. He knew what I meant.
“Because it means Loughlin doesn’t have some sort of magical ability to recognize adaptors. Or an adaptor-spotting technology. That is what scared the spook the most, and I can’t blame him.”
“I can see how Loughlin might have guessed I wasn’t Phil, if he knew her that well. But he saw through the other astronaut aura I borrowed, too.”
“Can you be certain he didn’t see Phil’s ID tag or name patch?”
I thought back. “No, I can’t be absolutely sure. But what about the Japanese aura I was wearing at the skating rink?”
“Rudy could have easily found out who was assigned to your security detail, which would lead right to you no matter whose aura you happened to be wearing. And if Loughlin was threatening to make sure the Russians hurt his kids … well, let’s just say if Rudy was willing to give up his sister for them, I doubt he’d have any compunction about endangering a few stray adaptors.” Billy’s voice was wryly understanding, but his underlying anger was apparent. I had a strong feeling he was on the same page as Mark with regard to Rudy.
Mark had refilled all the coffee cups, pulling back from his foray into “bad cop” territory, taking a moment to digest what Misha had told him. “So Loughlin, in his head at least, had reason to go after adaptors.”
Misha nodded. “It seemed to give him a new purpose. He was … I don’t know, offended by the idea of adaptors. Said your existence was dangerous to ‘real’ human beings.”
Lovely, I thought. He could take a page from Billy’s birth mother’s book.
I glanced at Billy—his jaw was tightly clenched. He must’ve had the same thought. I took his hand and leaned my head against his shoulder. He stiffened at first, but then put one arm around me and pulled me to him. That was good. He needed to know I was there for him.
“Is there anything else you can tell me about Loughlin?”
Misha hesitated. Mark jumped on it. “What?”
“My drone. I gave it to him.”
Mark just stared at him.
Misha leaned toward Mark, hands upturned, his body language begging for understanding. “I thought if I gave him the technology, he could give it to the Russians instead of giving them us. Don’t you see? It was a way to get rid of Loughlin and the Russians, too. He was supposed to leave us alone after he got it.”
Mark twisted his mouth briefly. “How’d that work out for you?”
Misha flushed. “Not as well as I’d hoped. As you know.”
“Does Rudy know?”
“About the drone? No,” Phil said quickly. “We didn’t want to involve him in something the government might not approve of. By then we knew he was already going to be in enough trouble without that.”
“Is the technology classified?” Mark asked.
Again, Misha hesitated. “No.”
“But?” Mark said, voice hard.
“It might be, once the government gets wind of what it involves. But I haven’t finished the design. There are still bugs to be worked out.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“It depends on who sets its controls, and what they’re delivering,” Misha said.
“Does Loughlin know how to operate it?”
Misha nodded bleakly. “I showed him. It was part of the deal—he was afraid the Russians wouldn’t accept it as payment otherwise.”
“Anything you want to add? Did you hand the Russians anything else they might weaponize and use against our country?” Mark couldn’t quite keep the disgust out of his voice.
“No! I swear that’s it. And the Russians have scientists working on similar technology—it was only a question of who would get there first. That is the drone’s only possible value to them, to beat the Americans to the punch. But that in itself is worth a lot to them.”
Mark rose to leave.
“What now?” Misha asked. “Are we going to prison?”
“No,” Mark said. Though he kind of looked like he wouldn’t have minded sending them up the river. “Now you’ll be taken back to your home. Your security detail will be tripled until we find Loughlin. Dr. Carson, your mission will go on as planned. No one wants to jeopardize its success.”
Relief flooded her features, spilling out of her eyes. “Thank you.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but couldn’t seem to find the words.
“One thing—if you hear from Rudy, you have to let me know immediately. He may think he can guarantee his children’s safety, but he’s wrong. It would be a whole lot better for him—and the kids—if we find him before the Russians do. Or before Alec Loughlin does.”
Dr. Phil nodded. “What will you do with him?”
“It’s not for me to decide.” Mark’s neutral expression gave nothing away, but I suspected it was a good thing for Rudy that Mark wasn’t going to be the one judging his actions.
* * *
The cookies were every bit as heavenly as I’d thought. Combined with the rich flavor of the coffee, it was like chocolate and caffeine were doing a happy dance on my tongue. (Yeah, yeah. Sue me. I wasn’t going to feel guilty over half a cup of coffee when I was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure there was no way I was pregnant.)
Mark had brought us into the parlor after Dr. Phil and Misha were taken home. We were discussing our next move. Well, Mark and Billy were discussing. I was mostly listening, because it’s rude to talk with your mouth full.
“So, how worried should we be about that drone?” Billy said.
“It’s certainly something to add to the list,” Mark said. “Misha was an idiot to think the Russians would take it and leave them alone. Why settle for a golden egg when you can control the goose?”
“Naïve,” Billy agreed. “Speaking of idiots, do you think Rudy gave Loughlin inside info on adaptors?”
“I do. Loughlin knew the Russians had Rudy’s kids. He could have used it to coerce all kinds of useful information out of him, like how there’s a relatively large enclave of adaptors in New York, and, later, where Ciel lived in D.C. He’s one of the few people who had clearance to access my personal files. God damn it, I trusted him. He should have trusted me.” He paused to take a breath, reeling back the little emotion he’d allowed to show. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
Billy nodded, obviously understanding how dangerous trust can be in the world of covert operations. “So, Aunt Helen? Loughlin killed her only because she was, what, the first adaptor he came across once he got to New York?”
“Possibly. If he even killed her himself. He might have employed the same guy who went after Ciel at the skating rink. We’re matching his DNA against traces on all the victims.”
I shuddered at the memory, almost choking on a cookie. There’d been a hell of a lot more than a trace of his DNA on me. I’d been covered in it.
Billy patted my back. Mark got me a glass of water from the bar in the corner and continued speaking. “I suspect Aunt Helen was first because her routine was so regular. She walked in Central Park every day at the same time, no matter what the weather. She was old, slow, and an easy target. Plus, it was a good bet her funeral would draw most of the adaptors in the area in to one spot where they could be easily photographed. Once he had pictures, he could always take his time and pick them off as he came across them.”
Billy nodded. “And right now he’s probably waiting until adaptors are easier to get to. He has to know such a high level of security can’t be maintained indefinitely.”
“That would be my guess,” Mark said, and then looked at me thoughtfully. “Except in Ciel’s case. He might have something against adaptors in general, but he seems to have fixated on her for some reason. He didn’t wait to try for her in D.C., or at the ice rink either.”
“What the hell makes me so special?” I muttered.
“Could be he blames you for his failed attempt to snatch Phil. Whatever the reason, I don’t want you to go anywhere alone until we get him.” He might have been talking to me, but he was looking directly at Billy.
Billy got the message. “I won’t let her out of my sight.”
I twisted my lips. “Well, damn. That’s going to make wrapping your Christmas present problematic.”