Gemini Man: The Official Movie Novelization

CHAPTER 18

Clay Verris was in his office watching feeds from several different pre-dawn exercises when the guard on the ground floor called to inform him Junior was on his way up with blood in his eye. She also advised the commander that his son had sustained a GSW in his left shoulder, although it didn’t seem to be serious.

Verris thanked the guard and made a mental note to leave a plus sign on the performance sheet in her file. He didn’t like being disturbed while he was monitoring exercises unless it was important. A less perceptive guard would have figured there was no point in interrupting him to tell him he was going to be interrupted; fortunately, this one knew Junior always took priority.

Junior had been very much on his mind since this second debacle with Henry Brogan. Verris had known full well that Brogan wouldn’t be easy to eliminate. But he’d been surprised when the kid had called him from Cartagena to report the target had gotten away.

Then again, it had been a rushed assignment. Brogan had to be neutralized as soon as possible and there hadn’t been much time for the kid to study up on him, watch footage, get acquainted with his moves. Not that Verris had really wanted Junior to get a close enough look at Henry to recognize him at that point—not until he was ready to know the truth about who he was.

Originally, Verris had planned to lay it all out for him on his twenty-first birthday. But when it had arrived, he was still so damned young. It wasn’t education and training that he lacked, Verris realized, it was seasoning.

Education had been important in Verris’s family. His father had always said that training without education produced a waste of good man flesh (women included). During Verris’s time in the Marine Corps, he’d seen how true that was. The problem, however, was not so much with the man flesh involved as it was with those in command. Most of them regarded soldiers as something to be supplied and replenished, one more military consumable: cannon fodder. Talk about a waste of good man flesh! They should have been producing warriors, not fresh meat for slaughterhouses like Vietnam or Iraq.

Long ago, Verris had come to the conclusion that just as war and other conflicts had many facets, so, too, were there different kinds of warriors. Junior was the warrior Henry Brogan could have been if he’d had the right education and guidance, while the guys he’d been watching tonight were another kind altogether. When they hit the ground in Yemen, the whole world was going to sit up and take notice, especially the US. They were going to see that Gemini warriors were the new and improved future of military man flesh, women included; women especially.

He would never have been able to accomplish this in the Corps, no matter how high he rose in rank. If he had stayed in the Marines, they only would have held him back. So he had quit and started Gemini. He had thought for sure that Henry would want to be part of it—the private sector had so much more to offer, starting with better pay. But Henry had chosen to stick with government work and let the DIA recruit him. He’d always had a thing about serving his country. He was committed to it and Verris hadn’t realized how strong that commitment was; Henry had never acted like a flag-waving robot.

It didn’t make any sense until Verris considered that this was what happened when kids grew up without a father. They had to put something in that empty space and for Henry, it was his country. Admirable? Maybe, but it meant that Henry would never be able to achieve his full potential. All things considered, he’d done pretty well, overcoming his deprived background and making something of himself.

Still, Verris couldn’t help thinking how much more Henry could have accomplished if he’d had the care and guidance of a father. Verris had promised himself that if he ever became a father himself, he would be right there in his kid’s life, 24/7.

As time passed, Verris had seen he wasn’t going to have a conventional nuclear family. If he wanted to be a father, he would have to adopt. That was all right with him but there seemed to be a shortage of newborns and adoption agencies tended to favor two-parent families, not single ex-military men who couldn’t talk about what they did for a living because it was classified.

Then he had gotten wind of Dormov’s work and right away he’d known this was how he could make his fondest dream a reality—he could give Henry Brogan a do-over. He could raise him right, make him into the warrior he should have been. He could train him to grow into his strengths unhindered by the psychological damage of a childhood and adolescence living in poverty without a father.

Henry Brogan 2.0—all of the shine, none of the whine.

The road hadn’t been completely smooth. But Junior was fast becoming the warrior Henry would never be; the kid was going to achieve the perfection that Henry had never had a chance at.

Verris had wanted so much to tell Junior that but the kid simply wasn’t ready yet. Junior was educated, he was trained, he was a warrior. The problem was, there was still too much of the adolescent in him.

Gemini’s psychologists told him he had to be patient. Every person matured at a different rate, and in general the male of the species usually lagged behind the female. Verris was just going to have to watch and wait, they said, play it by ear.

So he’d done that but Junior still wasn’t ready at twenty-three and Verris was damned if he knew what was wrong. There shouldn’t have been anything holding him back. Finally Verris realized the solution had been right in front of him all along: Henry Brogan.

Junior would never come into his own as long as Henry Brogan was alive.

It was so obvious, he should have seen it right away, Verris thought. But it wasn’t just that Henry had to die—Junior had to be the one to kill him. Then Junior would be able to take his rightful place in the world as who and what he was.

Then he would be perfect.

Henry Brogan was broken and flawed. Junior was the new, improved version, and best of all, he was Verris’s son. Verris would continue to make sure Junior knew he had a father every moment of every day. That would make sure he stayed perfect.

Another soldier would have stopped at the infirmary to have his gunshot wound checked out and clean up a little before he reported in, but not Junior. Junior would know Verris had already been informed of his failure to accomplish his mission for the second time. He wouldn’t wait to account for himself.

He didn’t knock, either, to Verris’s annoyance. Verris blanked and muted the feeds. He’d been watching the exercises long enough that he had a pretty good idea of how they were all going to go. If anything blew up that wasn’t supposed to, he’d hear it.

But Jesus, the guard in the lobby had been right—Junior was very much the worse for wear. He looked as if he’d gone swimming with all his clothes on, then slept in them while they dried.

Verris waited for Junior to say something but his son just stood in front of his desk giving him a hard stare. Finally, he leaned back in his chair. “Tell me something,” he said, looking directly into those glaring eyes. “Why is it so hard for you to kill this ma—”

“Do you know how much I hate Big Hammock park, Pop?” Junior demanded.

Alarm bells went off in Verris’s mind. It was never a good sign when Junior started a conversation with something he hated. The bizarre juxtaposition of his birthday with his second failure to accomplish his mission meant he had let himself be distracted by irrelevant shit. Verris was tempted to give him a sharp, hard slap in the face, like hitting a radio with a loose connection. But a good father never struck his son in the head, not off the training field.

Maybe this was a childish attempt to divert attention from his failure, or even to deny his own responsibility: I failed to kill Henry Brogan because you’ve been forcing me to go to Big Hammock park on my birthday.

Junior should have been a little too old for that one but you could never tell with young people. Whatever was going on with him, Verris knew he would have to take it step by step and see where it led.

“Come again?” Clay said, careful to keep his tone neutral.

“Every year since I was twelve, we shoot turkeys there on my birthday. I always hated it—I mean, I was an orphan, right? How did we even know when my birthday was? But you never seemed to notice so we just kept going there.”

At least he hadn’t gone soft about turkeys, Verris thought. He had raised Junior with the idea that those who couldn’t kill what they ate were too weak to fight for their own lives or anyone else’s. But the kid still wasn’t making sense and if he didn’t start soon, he’d have to call in PsyOps.

Aloud, Verris said, “Fine. Next year we’ll try Chuck E. Cheese.”

“Yeah?” Junior tilted his head to one side. “Who’s ‘we’—you, me, and the lab guys who made me?”

Verris kept all expression off his face although he felt like he’d been punched between the eyes. “Oh.”

He had known that despite all his efforts to shield Junior from the truth, there was a possibility he might find out that very thing he wasn’t ready to know. But Verris had always thought that if such a thing happened, it would be here at the Gemini compound, where he would be able to manage his son’s reaction to some degree (and also know whose big mouth to staple shut).

Over the years, Verris had supervised Junior’s life as well as he could, restricting his contact with other personnel. That had worked pretty well throughout Junior’s childhood and his teen years, when even the best kids could become rebellious and uncooperative. It wasn’t so easy to do that with an adult, however, even one conditioned to follow orders and not ask too many irrelevant questions. The other soldiers tended to keep their distance from the CO’s son, which helped to minimize the amount of rumor, gossip, and general scuttlebutt that came Junior’s way.

This wasn’t always easy on the kid. Sometimes Verris caught him looking longingly at a group of soldiers going off for a drink together after an exercise. Whenever that happened, he would draw Junior’s attention away with something more suited to his intellectual and physical skills and abilities, and pretty soon the kid seemed to forget all about trivial shit like drinking buddies. Protecting him until he was ready to know the truth was more important than anything else.

From time to time, though, Verris had wondered if he should have told Junior everything as soon as he was old enough to grasp the basic biology. Maybe if he had grown up with the knowledge, it would have normalized everything and there would have been that much less to agonize about later.

Or maybe Junior would simply have found another reason for an existential crisis. Kids were good at that.

And it was all moot because his son was still standing in front of his desk, glaring at him, waiting for him to explain himself.

“I, uh, I always believed you’d be happier not knowing,” Verris said finally.

“Happy?!” Junior gave a short harsh laugh. “The only time I’m happy is when I’m flat on my belly about to squeeze a trigger. ”

The alarm bells in Verris’s mind were louder this time. He had heard those words before but not from Junior and he was damned sure it wasn’t a coincidence. This was worse than he’d realized. Not only had Junior failed to kill Henry Brogan again, but somehow Henry had found out about Dormov’s program and used the information to get into Junior’s head. Verris wasn’t sure what was more disturbing—Henry’s finding out about the program or his having cornered Junior long enough to tell him about it. And how the hell he could have found out in the first place—

Budapest. That Russian rat Yuri, friend to Jack Willis.

Dammit, Verris thought; if he had called in an airstrike on Willis’s yacht while he and Brogan had still been hugging it out like teenage girls, this whole thing could have been avoided. He would never have had to tell Junior he was a clone and this rite of passage wouldn’t be necessary.

No.

That would have been easier but there was something else to consider: the symmetry of Junior supplanting Henry by punching his ticket. That was so beautiful, so elegant, so perfect. And Brogan deserved nothing less. The arrogance of that self-righteous prick, putting on that hitman-witha-heart-of-gold act, refusing to come work with him at Gemini, as if he was actually better than his old CO. As if he was too good for Gemini.

Brogan must have been livid when he found out who Junior was. He had said no to Verris and Verris had gotten him anyway. Not only that, he’d raised Junior to work there, actually bred him for it. If anyone was too good for something it was Junior. He was too good for the DIA or any other crappy government agency.

“I mean, this wasn’t some mistake.” Junior planted both fists on his desk and leaned forward. “It’s not like you got somebody pregnant and then had to man up and raise me. No, you made a decision. You had a scientist make a person out of another person.”

“No, that’s not what—”

“That’s exactly what happened.” He straightened up and looked down at himself, putting his hands on his chest and midsection with the fingers splayed, as if he were trying to feel how substantial he really was. “And why, of all the shooters in the world, did you have to send me after him?”

“Because he’s your darkness,” Verris replied. “You had to walk through it on your own.”

Junior gave him a hard look. “Maybe you’re my darkness.”

Christ, Verris thought as a knot started to form in his stomach.

“That lie you always told me, about my ‘parents’ leaving me at a fire station. I believed it. Do you know how that made me feel?”

“That was a necessary lie,” Verris said.

“None of this was necessary! You chose to do all of this to me!” Junior paused, looking lost and sad. “Can’t you see how not okay I am?”

Verris had had enough. “Bullshit.”

Junior gaped at him. The kid hadn’t seen that coming.

“Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Junior,” Verris went on while the kid was still off-balance. “I’ve been in battle! I’ve seen soldiers go over the edge because more was asked of them than they had to give. And I promised myself that I would never let that happen to my kid, that I would never let anything in life squeeze the strength and spirit out of my son and toss him aside. And nothing will! That’s not you, that will never be you—I made sure of it. Because you have what Henry Brogan never had—a loving, dedicated, present father who tells you every goddam day that you’re loved, you matter! Jesus, kid, the whole point was to give you all of Henry’s advantages without any of his disadvantages—all of his gifts without his pain! And that’s what I did!”

The knot in Verris’s stomach loosened as Junior’s expression went from abject and accusing to thoughtful. He had always been able to talk the kid down and smooth him out, and thank God he still could. He got up and went around the desk.

“Come here,” he said. Junior went to him and he took his son in his arms. He was the good, loving, present father, always ready to give advice, wisdom, and comfort.

“I love you, son,” he told Junior, hugging him tighter. “Don’t let yourself down.”

At the edge of a remote airfield a few miles away from the Gemini compound, Henry and Danny waited while Baron bid a fond farewell to the Gulfstream. Saying goodbye was one of Baron’s rituals. He had told Henry once that he always tried to part on good terms with any plane he had flown. Because if we should meet again, Baron had said, and it happens to be a life-or-death situation, I want to make sure I’ll be welcome in the cockpit.

Henry had smiled and nodded politely. Pilots were a superstitious bunch. They all had their own personal rituals. Even Chuck Yeager had had a good-luck routine where he asked one of his ground staff for a stick of gum. Anything that made Baron happy and confident was fine with Henry. (And just to be on the safe side, he hadn’t mentioned breaking the mirror in the abandoned apartment building.)

“Like so many of my encounters, it was short but sweet.” Baron blew a kiss at the nose of the Gulfstream. “Thanks, darlin’. No matter what happens after this, we’ll always have Budapest.”

Danny laughed a little but Henry felt a sudden odd chill, brief but intense enough to raise goosebumps on his arms. Goose walked over my grave, his mother would say when it happened to her. It rattled him. Maybe he was getting superstitious in his old age. Or he was entering his second childhood and tomorrow he’d be stepping over cracks in the sidewalk.

“So, what’s next?” Baron said as he joined him and Danny.

“Well, we can’t stay in the open,” Henry said, “and we need some ground transportation.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s a truck around here somewhere,” Baron said. “I never saw an airfield without one.”

“When we were coming in to land, I saw an open-air barn over there, just past the tree line.” Henry pointed at the other side of the runway. “We can hole up there for a bit while we figure out our next move.”

He should have been beyond tired, Henry thought as the three of them crossed the airfield together, but somehow he wasn’t. It was as if he was running on a reserve of energy that he’d never known he had until now. Or maybe it was adrenaline afterburn. Whatever was keeping him upright, he was glad to have it. Otherwise he would have been dead on his feet.

And then just as they reached the barn, he was.

As a Marine, Henry had learned how to override his circadian rhythms and function whenever he had to, day or night. By personal preference, however, he was a night owl. Like most kids he had loved staying up late, but Henry had a special affinity for the nighttime. Nighttime was always the right time—cool stuff happened at night that never happened during the day, and a lot of daytime things vanished after the sun went down, e.g. there was no school, no chores, and best of all, no bees trying to kill him.

Unfortunately, there were other ways to get stung.

As soon as Henry felt the dart hit his neck he yanked it out, but it was already too late. He knew what it was and who had done it to him. His own fault—he’d opened his big mouth back in Budapest and told the kid how to kill him.

Well, he was going to regret that for the rest of his life, which would last for maybe two more minutes before his throat swelled shut. Unless his blood pressure fell too rapidly—then he’d skip suffocation altogether and go straight to cardiac arrest.

He was barely aware of hitting the ground. Baron and Danny were talking frantically, Baron saying something about an EpiPen and Danny telling him this wasn’t his original burn bag. Their hands ran over him in a quick search in case he had an EpiPen on him but the feel of them was far away, muted and muffled, and their voices seemed to slide away from him.

Henry’s head rolled to one side. His younger self was marching forward out of the shadows, pistol raised. On his left, he saw Danny kneel to pick something up: the dart.

“Don’t move!” Junior Hitman said loudly.

Danny held the dart up. “What was in this?” she demanded just as loudly.

“Bee venom,” said the clone.

Even in his semi-conscious state, Henry couldn’t help thinking how smart it was. A dart was like a stealth bee—he couldn’t snap one of those clean out of the air with a cap. Not even with a Phillies cap.

“You can’t! He’s allergic!” Danny took a step forward and the clone fired—two quick shots, one at her feet, one at Baron’s. Near misses, warning them to stay put.

Henry’s vision started to brown out as it became more difficult for him to breathe. Apparently he was going to suffocate after all. Not as showy as being killed with a motorcycle but more effective. Once it started, there was no fighting it off, shooting it, or outrunning it. Unless someone interrupted it with an EpiPen, it would continue to its inevitable conclusion. The end. Game over.

The dark patches in his vision were spreading as Junior stood over him. Damn, the kid looked exactly like him at twenty-three—not just his face but his posture, the way he held his weapon. Henry even recognized the mix of emotions on Junior’s face as he watched the target dying. Clay Verris had literally turned him into his own worst enemy. That was all kinds of wrong.

His thoughts faded as a new feeling took hold of him, a sensation of loosening, becoming untethered, like a boat that had been untied from a piling and was starting to drift, except the movement was upward.

This really was it, Henry thought. He was wheels up on his last flight, the one you took without a plane. Junior could finally go home and tell Daddy he’d taken out his old self.

In the distance, Danny was saying, Please, please don’t do this! And Baron was yelling, Breathe, Henry, breathe! His old friend didn’t know he was already catching an updraft.

Then somebody stabbed him in the arm.

The pain pulled him back from the edge of unconsciousness. The floating sensation was gone; he felt the hard ground under him again. He could breathe more easily now. It was a tremendous effort to open his eyes but when he finally forced his lids apart, he saw a face above him, so close it filled his vision. His own face but younger.

“Epinephrine,” his younger face said with his voice. “And an antihistamine.” Henry felt another sharp pain. “You’re going to be fine.”

Henry’s breathing was almost back to normal now. On his left, Danny started to cry with relief. He wanted to tell her not to do that, there was no crying in assassination, not even when someone was trying to kill you. You were supposed to suck it up, tough it out, walk it off. But when he rolled his head around to the other side, he saw Baron’s face was wet, too.

“Hey,” he croaked at Baron.

Baron nodded at Danny. “What she said.”

Danny laughed through her tears as she and Baron helped him sit up. A few feet away, Junior sat on the ground in front of him, long legs folded. Henry had a moment of envy; his own flexibility wasn’t what it had once been. But he was still alive, thanks to his clone’s sudden attack of conscience. The kid looked like a man who had awakened from a troubling dream to find himself in unfamiliar surroundings—unsure, bewildered, and lost. Henry could relate.

“I’m sorry,” Junior Hitman said after a bit, and Henry knew he wasn’t only apologizing for trying to kill him. He was sorry about being a clone and not knowing it, sorry the world had gotten one over on him, sorry for things he didn’t even know how to articulate yet. Henry had seen the expression before in the mirror.

“It’s all good,” Henry told him. “All this shit’s been pretty hard to accept.”

The kid looked up at him, wary.

“So, you came here to kill me with bee venom,” Henry went on. “But you also brought the antidote with you?”

The clone gave an awkward shrug. “You said you were allergic; I figured maybe I was, too, and I ought to start carrying an EpiPen, just in case.”

“You decided that when—tonight?”

Another awkward shrug.

“Guys, I hate to break up the kumbaya of it all,” Baron said. “But how the hell did you always know where we were?”

His younger self hesitated. “Do you trust me?” he asked Henry.

The question jerked an incredulous laugh out of Henry. “Damn, you’ve got nerve.”

“Yeah, I wonder where he got that,” Danny said, amused.

The clone produced a combat knife from an ankle sheath and held it up in a silent question.

Henry nodded. He did trust the kid. Strangely, he felt like he’d always trusted him.

Junior Hitman got up on his knees, took hold of Henry’s left bicep and pushed the point of the blade into a spot a couple of inches below the curve of his shoulder.

“Jesus!” Danny said, flinching; even Baron caught his breath. Henry held still. It didn’t tickle but it wasn’t the most painful bit of impromptu field surgery he had ever endured. It wasn’t even the worst thing that had happened to him tonight. Danny was rummaging around in her burn bag and Henry knew she was looking for something to use as a bandage. Ms. First Aid to the rescue.

After almost half a minute, Junior sat back and showed Henry a small black square on the tip of his knife. “They chipped you,” he said. “Remember that surgery on your torn bicep, three years ago?”

Danny was already painting the incision with something cool that stung slightly. “I feel stupid,” she said as she wound a strip of cloth around his arm and tied it. “I should have guessed. It’s so obvious.”

“ Everything’s obvious if you know,” Henry said darkly. He plucked the chip off the end of the knife and flicked it into the darkness.

“Verris—” Baron started.

“You know him, too?” The kid looked at Baron in genuine astonishment.

“We served in the Marine Corps with him—Panama, Kuwait, Somalia,” replied Baron. “Can you take us to his lab?”

The kid nodded. “Sure, but why?”

“We need to shut him down,” Henry said. “You and me, together.”

Junior Hitman nodded. “I’m parked on the other side of the runway.”

Junior’s heart beat faster as he drove toward the Gemini compound. He glanced at Henry beside him. Henry was so sure of himself, so steady and focused, a man who always knew what he was doing. Clay Verris had raised him to be like that but he could never quite get there, no matter what he did.

Like now—he knew he was doing the right thing, throwing in with Henry and the other two. He had been lied to and used and it had left him feeling wobbly and precarious. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen when they got to the Gemini lab. What was he going to do? Or maybe the real question was, what would he be able to do?

Everything had always been so clear when he had trusted his father and believed in him. Any time he was confused, his father would straighten everything out. Not any more. He’d never be able to turn to his father again for answers or clarity or reassurance or anything else. But Henry seemed to have faith in him. He could tell even though Henry had never said so.

He wanted to ask what Henry expected of him, what they were going to do not just when they got to the lab but afterwards, for the rest of their lives. But what he heard himself say was, “You grew up in Philly, right?”

Henry raised his eyebrows, a bit surprised by the question. “Hunting Park,” he said. “A place called The Bottom.”

“‘The Bottom?’” Junior frowned, unsure of what to make of that. Henry’s life was completely beyond his experience. He was quiet for few seconds, then decided he had to know. “Who was my—our—mother?”

“ Helen Jackson Brogan,” said Henry with pride in his voice. “She was the strongest, most capable woman I’ve ever known. Worked two jobs for forty years.” Pause. “And she spanked the hell out of me.”

“Did you deserve it?” Junior asked, honestly curious.

Henry chuckled. “Usually. Does being angry and stupid and never trying at anything mean you deserve it? I don’t know.” His voice turned thoughtful. “My—our—father wasn’t around much. He left when I was five.” Pause. “I could never shake the feeling that when she looked at me, she saw him. So I went off and joined the Marines, grew up, made some friends—real friends, not Badlands punks whose biggest accomplishment when they grew up would be making parole. I found something I was good at and I even got medals for it. By the time I got out with all my shiny medals on my chest, she was gone. And I became… this.”

Junior didn’t take his eyes off the dark road ahead but he could feel Henry’s gaze on him.

“You should walk away while you still can,” Henry told him.

“It’s all I know,” Junior said.

“No, it’s just all he taught you,” said Henry. “Stop now and you can still be something else.”

Junior gave a short, sarcastic laugh. “Like what? Doctor? Lawyer?”

“Husband,” Henry corrected him. “ Father. All the things this job gives you an excuse not to be. I threw all that away, man. You can do better than that.”

Junior was seized with a sudden intense desire for that to be true, even though he’d never once wondered about having any other kind of life. He had never seen himself doing anything else, never thought he would want to. That was a failure of imagination, he thought; his father had worked very hard to stifle it.

“And while I’m at it,” Henry said, “what the hell is your name?”

“Always been Junior. For Clay, Junior,” he added in response to Henry’s incredulous expression. “Only I’m not so sure about that any more.”

“That’s another reason to quit,” said Henry.

Junior let out a long breath as he took the turnoff for Glennville. He was going to quit, not just because Henry had told him to, but because after this, he would have no choice. And that would be the easy part.

The lights were on in the Winn-Dixie—the manager always came in extra early to get ready for the day. The public library on the next corner was still dark, as was the high school farther up. But the traffic lights were already in regular service; the one at the first intersection went red as soon as he was in sight of it. He never could beat the lights in Glennville.

“This is home,” he said.

Henry looked around. “Nice town.” The other two in the backseat made murmurs of agreement.

Junior blew out a short breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. Glennville had been shabby and in decline for as long as he could remember. It was a sad, rundown place that offered no future, only the remnants of an undistinguished past. The town might have already faded out of existence if Gemini hadn’t been around as life support. Gemini kept Glennville alive because it suited Clay Verris to do so. The town made great camouflage.

“It won’t be easy getting in,” Junior said.

“You’re our ticket, man,” Henry said. “With you, we can walk right in through the front door.”

Junior gave a short, soundless laugh. “Yeah? Then what?”

“We talk to him, together,” Henry replied. “You and me. If he has any humanity left in him, he’ll listen.”

Junior frowned. “What if he doesn’t?”

Henry shrugged. “Then we both kick his ass. Together. You and me.”

They were still sitting at the light when the phone in Junior’s shirt pocket rang. He took it out and showed Henry the screen: DAD.

“Guess who,” Henry said, amused.

In the backseat, Baron sat forward eagerly. “Ooh, can I answer? Please let me answer. I want to be the one to tell him we’re all BFFs now.”

For a moment, Junior was tempted; then he put the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Are you with Brogan?” Verris asked, his voice urgent.

“Why would I be with him?” Junior said, trying to sound innocently offhand and not at all like the man he was supposed to have killed was sitting next to him. “You sent me to AMF him, didn’t you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Verris said. “Just run!”

“Huh?”

“Run!” Verris yelled. “Get away from him. Now! Please, Junior! I just want you safe!”

Junior laughed, slightly bewildered. “Why? Because I’m your favorite experiment?” The traffic light changed from red to green and he put the Jeep in gear.

“No, because I’m your father and I love you, son. Run!” At the same moment, Junior saw a bright white flash ahead of him and knew immediately he was in trouble. They all were.

Releasing his seatbelt, he opened the door. “Everybody out!” he yelled and jumped.

As soon as Henry saw the flash, he knew even before he heard Junior yell that they were on the wrong end of an RPG.

“Bail!” Henry shouted. He tumbled out of the Jeep, rolling over and over on the asphalt, coming to rest not far from Danny, who already had her weapon in hand. Before he could look for Baron, the RPG hit.

The sound of the blast was merciless. Henry covered his ears, felt the ground shake as the shockwave slammed into him; he had a glimpse of Danny sliding backwards on her stomach as the explosion shoved her off the road. He put up an arm to shield himself from chunks of asphalt and dirt flying at him. The blast blew a crater into the street and flipped the Jeep into the air end over end like a flimsy toy; it was completely engulfed in flames. Squinting against the brightness and the heat, Henry saw both doors on the passenger side flapping open but only one on the driver’s side. Then, over the stink of hot metal and burning tires, that smell hit him in the face, forced itself up his nose.

“Baron!” Henry jumped to his feet and ran toward the burning Jeep but the heat was too much for him, the heat and the smell, awful, sickening, and all too familiar from his time in the Corps, the smell that told him Baron hadn’t made it out with the rest of them.

And now Danny was pulling on his arm, telling him he had to back off, she knew, she knew, but he had to stay back.

“Are you hit?” he asked her.

She shook her head and kept on trying to pull him away from the burning wreckage. Henry looked around, his eyes stinging from the smoke, until he finally found Junior standing on the other side of the street.

In the light from the flames, Henry could see the storm of emotions on his face—horror, fear, guilt, disbelief, betrayal. It hadn’t been Henry’s chip they had zeroed in on—Junior had removed it. Henry felt his heart break all over again, for Junior, for Danny, for himself, and for Baron.

Junior’s eyes met his and for a long moment, something like a powerful current of energy ran between them, holding them there in the terrible light from the burning Jeep. Henry couldn’t move, couldn’t speak; he could only stare.

You should have run, Henry thought at Junior, and it was almost as if Junior really were his younger self and it was possible to tell the twenty-three-year-old Henry Brogan that it wasn’t too late to take a different direction. You should run for your life—your real life, not whatever this is. You should run and never look back.

And then, as if Junior had heard what Henry was thinking, he turned and ran into the darkness.