Never Say Die

Chapter 17

Dr. Quentin Radcliff was a man who didn’t panic, even in the worst adversity, but rather kept his wits about him, challenging his colleagues and subordinates to do the same. He was, in short, a problem-solver.

He had launched the project he called Lazarus to benefit mankind. He might still achieve that goal, if bureaucrats and other meddlers would but leave him to his work. Of course, the termination of his early funding from the government had left him at loose ends, but he had solved that problem in his own inimitable style. Another mark of genius, that was, turning his adversity around and using it to prove his theories were correct. Correct and practical. If he had turned a tidy profit in the bargain, what was wrong with that?

America was built by people looking out for number one. The idiots in Washington should get down on their knees to thank him for his work, instead of treating him like a pariah, some demented modern Frankenstein.

Radcliff had been there, and he knew the truth: mankind would doggedly resist improvement to the bitter end.

Advances were still possible, of course, but why should any work done on behalf of an ungrateful race be viewed as charity? Drug companies made billions from the treatment of disease, with hospitals and doctors rioting for their own place at the trough. Public officials, pledged to serve the common good, were never shy in voting raises for themselves or lapping up the perks that came with electoral victory. Evangelists begged constantly for cash to help them live in luxury while they were saving souls.

Radcliff had no regrets—except that he had failed to see the latest problem coming. He had been distracted by his work, and left the details of its application in the field to others, lesser intellects, but that was changing now. Henceforth, he would exert a more direct control, the hands-on method, even if it meant more hours on the job.

Perhaps he could have been more cautious in his choice of clients, more selective in the use to which his children had been put, but mercenary soldiers did what they were paid to do, without debating the morality of a specific cause or customer. What good was an assassin with a conscience, after all?

Inevitably they had suffered losses. All the preparation in the world would not make any man invincible. From the beginning, Radcliff knew that losses were unavoidable, but he always hoped they could be minimized, protracted over time and space to keep the law from catching on. Bad luck, or maybe Fate, had intervened, two losses in the past twelve months—and then another four, within a week.

The first two had been unavoidable, perhaps. When news of the arrest in Florida reached Dr. Radcliff, he had waited to be sure his child would go the limit, as programmed, and sacrifice himself to frustrate the authorities. It had gone off like clockwork, perfectly, and Radcliff’s clients had been duly satisfied. No comebacks on the operation meant they could proceed with business, rolling up their profits once the problem was resolved.

The mishap in Wisconsin, while regrettable, was likewise an event for which Radcliff had long prepared himself. He didn’t have the details, didn’t want them, but he understood some negligence had been involved. His man had missed a federal agent, going in, and wound up dead because of the mistake, but he had done the job before he died. His death itself ensured that there would be no grilling by authorities, no test of his resolve.

In theory, one dead soldier should have cleared a list of pending cases in America and Europe, but a second loss, so soon after the first, had obviously touched off an alarm somewhere in Washington. What happened next—the questioning of Yuli Cristobal, Devona Price’s disappearance—told Radcliff that he was perilously close to trouble. Once they made the link to Thomas Hardy, only incredulity itself could help save Project Lazarus. The Feds would not, could not, believe, and therein lay the doctor’s hope.

He had done everything within his power to cut their losses, reaching out to silence Cristobal and Jasper Frayne. The fact that they had quickly lost another man in Florida disturbed Radcliff, as much for how it happened as for the mere fact itself. Whoever had eliminated Frayne’s assassin didn’t stick around to file reports or take the credit—which told Radcliff that the person had not been a cop. From what he had been able to discover unobtrusively, from sources near the scene, the mode of death had also been unusual: no guns involved, perhaps a bludgeon, though the medical examiner’s preliminary findings leaned toward something in the field of martial arts.

Before Radcliff had managed fully to assimilate that information, he had been confronted with the problem at Ideal Maternity. Two orderlies found dead, one of the breeders missing. There had been no choice but to abandon the facility. Three of his children had been left behind to watch the grounds, report if the police or Feds showed up, and deal with any trespassers who didn’t wear a badge. Instead of cleaning up the mess, however, all three had themselves been killed—again with no apparent weapons used, by someone who slipped in and out, left nothing of himself behind.

At least the other breeders were secure, for now. He would be forced to find more permanent accommodations, start from scratch on that end of the operation, but luckily the farm was still intact and undisturbed. While that remained, he was in business.

He would have to guarantee that no one found his children while their education was in progress.

Dr. Radcliff sipped his whiskey and prepared a mental list of who would have to die to keep his secret safe and sound.

The Scotch burned Chelsea Radcliff’s throat, but that was normal. She restricted her intake of whiskey to “medicinal” occasions, when she needed something less than Valium but more than transcendental meditation for her nerves.

Like now.

It had been foolish, going out to dinner with the newsman. Even then, she could have salvaged something from the situation, if only she were better at suppressing her emotions where her father was concerned.

It was ironic, Chelsea thought, that despite her training in psychology—a doctorate, no less—she still had problems sometimes, when it came to self-control. If someone pushed the “daddy” button, she was off and running, rising to defend him, even when he obviously did not need her help.

When did he really need her, after all? The man was self-sufficient, always had been. Chelsea had no doubt that he appreciated all her work around the clinic, but she knew that any competent psychologist could do the job. Sometimes, despite her self-confidence, she had to ask herself if it was simple nepotism that had prompted him to put her on the staff at the Family Services Clinic, or something else.

Perhaps an understanding that his little girl could keep a secret.

And she had. She didn’t understand the technical minutiae of her father’s work, but she had seen and heard enough to recognize his genius, realize that he was years beyond his rivals in the field. He had not come so far by lavishing attention on himself, his family. Her mother should have understood that from the start.

It had been worse than foolish, dredging up the story of her parents’ separation when she spoke to Remo Washington. Chelsea had hoped that it would help to soften her father, maybe add the human touch, offset the chill that always seemed to blight his contacts with the press. Now she was worried that it may have been a grave mistake.

Who was this Remo Washington? She hadn’t checked him out at Newstime yet, though that was still an option. It ran against the grain for her to trust him on such short acquaintance, and she didn’t yet. His charm was a facade, as with all men; it didn’t move her…much. In other circumstances, possibly…

She caught herself and made a sour face, sipped at her drink and tried to get her focus back. How could the newsman jeopardize her father’s work? He wasn’t even in the ballpark yet, much less acquainted with the details. She had come that close to telling him at dinner, maybe dropping hints that he could follow on his own, but Chelsea’s sense of honor had restrained her in the end.

She owed her father everything, for hanging in there when her mother left, not sending her to live with relatives as she had feared. Their time together had been limited, of course, considering his work, but that was only natural. She understood and held no grudge. His work was her work now, at least to some extent. They were together, and she would do nothing to betray his trust.

Chelsea considered warning him, but wasn’t sure what she would say. A journalist had bought her dinner and requested that she ask permission for a second interview. There was no crime, in that, no threat that she could see…but what if she was wrong?

She could report the meeting to her father, tell him everything. She would have to anyway if they were going to discuss the prospect of a Newstime article about his work. She had a sneaking hunch how that idea would be received, but asking wouldn’t hurt. He might even surprise her and agree to do the piece. It could turn out to be a feather in his cap.

Not that her father cared for public recognition.

There had been a time, admittedly, when he had fumed at criticism from his peers. She knew it still upset him when lesser intellects received huge grants and public honors for achievements Dr. Quentin Radcliff had surpassed a decade earlier. It galled him, watching plagiarists and sycophants presented to the world as innovators of the day, but there was nothing he could do about it, short of going public with his work. And that, as Chelsea knew too well, was something he was not prepared to do.

Sometimes she wondered at the secrecy. She understood the fear that “colleagues” might attempt to steal her father’s work and claim it for themselves. That risk was real enough in scientific circles, as in industry, the garment trade or any other field where new ideas could make a fortune overnight. Still, there were times when she was moved to wonder if her father didn’t take his passion for security to an extreme.

And then she thought, what of it? Who was she to question him, his motives or his understanding of a situation that was very possibly beyond her grasp? He knew the stakes involved if his discoveries were broadcast prematurely. It was not her place to think on his behalf, perhaps to jeopardize the labors of a lifetime in pursuit of crass publicity.

Still, she would ask…but not tonight. It was a subject that could wait until tomorrow, the journalist’s deadline notwithstanding. Chelsea had been taken with him, in a way, but his request was no emergency. He had not even talked the story over with his editor as yet.

Tomorrow was soon enough, she thought. Perhaps next week.

And in the meantime, she had work to do, a stack of files to read. Her normal days were filled with counseling the clients who approached her father for assistance in their efforts to conceive. She helped them deal with issues ranging from the pain of longterm infertility to the adjustments called for by the presence of a new child in their lives. Her father, rarely called upon her to examine any of his “special” girls, and while she knew about that aspect of his work—some of it, anyway—she understood that they were screened before acceptance to the program, so that nothing would go wrong.

There had been one occasion, going on three years ago, when one—named Jane—apparently attempted suicide with sleeping pills. Chelsea recalled the urgent summons in the middle of the night, her drive up to Ideal Maternity, where lights were burning late. The girl had been sedated, when she got there, obviously frightened. Chelsea’s father would not leave the two of them alone, insisting that he had to monitor his patient’s physical condition. There was talk of vague anxiety, the kind of thing young women often felt with first-time pregnancies, but nothing Chelsea could detect that should have triggered off a suicidal episode. There was no evidence the baby had been damaged, though you couldn’t always tell with chemicals, and Chelsea never saw the girl again. When she had asked her father once or twice thereafter, he said that Jane was doing fine. She marked her calendar to ask about the birth when it was due, and got her father’s reassurance that there were no complications in the case.

Somehow Jane kept haunting her.

She felt a burning pang of guilt, the very thought of questioning her father tantamount to treachery. He was a certified genius, well off the scale on any test you could name, a man who should have had procedures—even hospitals—named after him, by now. The time would come when he was recognized for his achievements, both at home and around the world.

Still, she was troubled by the thought that she should warn him. Remo Washington seemed harmless, but you never really knew about news types, the way their information could be twisted and misused, even the pieces that had started out with good intentions. There was no telling who had sent him here or put him up to all those pointed questions. She should let her father know.

Tomorrow.

There was no point in disturbing him tonight, she thought. His schedule put him at the boys’ home in the morning; she could always catch him there and brief him on her conversation with the journalist and let him decide what should be done.

It was the only way to go.

She stripped her clothes off, showered—trying not to think of Remo Washington, his hands and powerful ^:wrists while she was lathering her body—brushed her teeth and took a sedative to calm her nerves before she crawled in bed and killed the lights.

With any luck at all, thought Chelsea Radcliff, she might even get to sleep.

“I understand completely,” Morgan Lasser said. He listened for another moment, frowning at the mouthpiece of the telephone, but otherwise displaying no emotion whatsoever.

“Yes, of course,” he said at last. “I’ll see to it myself… In person, yes, that’s right… We’ll pull out all the stops…you know that. Doctor… Yes, indeed… I will… Good night.”

He cradled the receiver, fought an urge to slam it down with force enough to crack the plastic. Swiveling his high-backed chair toward Garrick Tilton, Lasser found his number two regarding him with nervous eyes.

“Sounds like he’s freaking out,” said Tilton.

“Let’s say he’s understandably concerned.”

“That’s what I meant to say.”

“We haven’t done too well for him so far,” Lasser stated.

“Morgan, I explained—”

“Of course. The problem with an explanation is, it always covers failure. If you were successful, if you did your job, no explanations would be necessary. Am I right?”

“I guess so.”

“What?”

“You’re right, okay? We blew it.”

“We?”

“Well, hey, the drones. I wasn’t even there, you. know?”

“Was that the problem, Garrick?”

“What? Hey, no, I didn’t mean—”

“Forget it. We’ve got more important things to think about right now.”

“Okay.” Relief was audible in Tilton’s voice. Smart bastard thinking he was off the hook.

Not even close.

“Do we have any kind of handle on what happened at Ideal?”

“Not really,” Tilton said. “The move was nice and clean to start with, and I left three of the drones behind to watch the place, just like you said.”

“Their orders?”

“Were verbatim what you told me,” Tilton said. “Hang out and keep a low profile. Take off if any Feds or uniforms showed up. If someone else stopped by, they were supposed to find out who he was, pin down his interest in the place.”

“And now they’re dead,” said Lasser.

“Right. I can’t explain it, Morgan. I mean, someone took them out, that’s obvious, but as to who, your guess would be as good as mine.”

“We don’t have any time for guessing games, goddammit! Blowing the ldeal Maternity connection puts us all in danger. Do you understand that, Garrick?”

“Sure.”

“When I say all of us, that means you, too.”

“I hear you.”

“Relocation may not be enough,” Lasser declared. “Radcliff hasn’t mentioned anything about the breeders yet, but we already know he lost one before he called us in.”

“He can’t blame us for that,” said Tilton.

“Blame’s beside the point, for Christ’s sake! It won’t mean shit who’s guilty if we all go down the tube together.”

“Can we fix it?”

“Maybe. You got rid of the two losers they called orderlies, correct?”

“Deep six,” said Tilton, with a wary smile. “They’re gone for good.”

“All right, then. Say the girl finds someone to believe her story and the cops come looking. There’s an empty building, with no forwarding address. So far, so good.”

“Except for Radcliff.”

“Right. He’s on the paperwork, and people know about him in the town. It won’t take long to trace him back to Brandenburg.”

“The clinic’s covered, right?”

“Should be. I mean, it’s ninety, ninety-five percent legit already, and you’d need a scientist to spot what’s cooking in the lab. No way an Indiana sheriff’s going to see through it. Even if they bring the FBI along, they’ll need a special team and have to know exactly what they’re looking for.”

“We’re covered, then,” Tilton concluded, starting to relax.

“Unless they stumble on the farm.”

“Aw, shit!”

“‘Aw shit’ is right,” said Lasser. “They won’t need a fucking Sherlock Holmes to figure out there’s something wrong about that place.”

“So, are we moving them? The drones, I mean?”

“Not yet. With things stirred up right now, it’s risky, drawing more attention than we have to. Think about it. We don’t know for sure this runaway—what was her name?”

“Joy Patton.”

“Right. We don’t know where she is or who she’s talking to—if anyone. She may be satisfied to get away and let it go at that. File says she was a hooker in L.A. before she came on board the project. That’s a knock against her credibility, right off the top.”

“But, still…”

“We need to take it easy for a while and see if anybody else shows up in Dogpatch.”

“That’s ‘Dogwood.’”

“Whatever. Radcliff still has people on the payroll there, and we can tap into the cop shop if we have to.”

“Jesus, Morgan.”

“Jesus, nothing. This one is. for all the marbles, Garrick. If you haven’t grasped that yet, it’s time to give your brain a wake-up call.”

“I hear you. What’s the plan?”

“We’re staking out the farm ourselves. We leave in twenty minutes.”

Tilton blinked. “You’re going?”

“What did I just say?”

“Well, hey…that’s great.”

Lasser could well imagine what his number two was feeling. Disappointment, even anger, tempered with a measure of relief. It was demeaning to be pushed aside and have the boss take over, like a slap across the face, but Tilton also had to realize that full responsibility for any more snafus would fall on Lasser’s head. That wasn’t quite the safety net that Garrick Tilton would have wished for, but he wasn’t about to find himself a better deal.

“Who are we using?” Tilton asked him.

“Drones. They’ve got eleven trained and ready as it is. The rest of them can treat it as an exercise.”

“That’s pretty smart,” said Tilton, trying on some flattery for size.

“It makes more sense than having independents on the grounds. We’ve had too many problems lately, as it is.”

“I’d better pack.”

“Forget about it They’ve got everything we need, already.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Remember, Garrick, this one is for keeps. Two reasons why we’re doing it ourselves. The first is, Radcliff asked me to come out, but more importantly, when I sign off on something, I expect it to go down as planned. No explanations, no excuses, no mistakes.”

“I hear you, Morgan.”

“Good. Let’s roll.”