The Blue Zone

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Kate could hardly work the following day.

She did her best to put it aside: the assault of questions brought on by her father’s photo from the night before. She peered into the scope, recording the rate of stem-cell division, the phagocytic cytosis of Tristan and Isolde. But all she could see was his face in front of that gate, that chilling name.

Kate understood now that much of her life had been a terrible lie.

After staring at the photo, Kate had looked up the town of Carmenes on the Internet. It wasn’t in Spain, as she’d thought. It was in Colombia.

Colombia. Where the Mercados were from.

In that instant everything in Kate’s life changed. She wanted to believe in him, to think of him as he had been. But for the second time, she saw her father as someone different than the person she always thought she knew. Not as a victim but as someone with a past-a past unconnected to hers. With a terrible, powerful secret to hide. A secret that changed everything. And it scared her. Terrified her.

Her family’s life had been ruined, her best friend shot. People had been killed in the protection of that lie.

What are you doing in front of that sign, Daddy?

Did the WITSEC agents know about this? Did her mother? All these years? Was everything just a lie, every story of his past, his work, the trial? Every time he put his arms around her?

She remembered her mother’s voice: “There are some things I’ve been holding back for a long time now that you need to know…”

What things? Kate stood up from the scope.

What were you trying to tell me, Mom?

The previous night, when Greg finally came home, he could see in her face immediately that something was wrong.

She was leafing through a stack of old e-mails and letters she had received from her mom and her brother and sister over the past year. She needed to feel close to them. Mom had let Emily go to her first concert alone. Third Eye Blind, Em’s favorite group. Kate could almost feel Em’s excitement. She was on cloud nine…

“What’s wrong, Kate?”

Kate handed him the photo of her father she had found.

At first he didn’t seem surprised. Or even angry. As he focused on the letters above her father’s head, his eyes opened wide.

“I don’t understand… There has to be some reason, Kate.” An uncomprehending look crept onto his face.

“What reason, Greg? What sort of reason could there possibly be? That he’s a liar. That he’s been hiding something from us all my life. That he’s actually connected to these awful people. How is it possible, Greg? That he actually did those horrible things.…

“I’m sorry,” Kate said. “I just can’t hide from this anymore. I have to know.”

“You have to know what, Kate?” He put the photo down and sat at the table across from her. “That your father wasn’t who you supposed he was? This is our life now-not his. I don’t know what he’s done, but I do know you’re not going to find out by looking under a scope. This is dangerous, Kate. These people outside-we need them. I can’t even think of what happened to Tina happening to you.”

Greg is right, Kate knew, staring out at the lab. The answer isn’t under a scope.

It was real and scary, and she didn’t know how to go about finding it, or what she would find there when she did. Or even whom she could trust.

But she had to know. The picture changed everything.

Because the name on the gate that sickened her-Mercado-meant it was no longer just about him, her father. The name on that gate was about her, too.

About every memory, every touch she had felt. Every moment of laughter in her life.

The WITSEC agents wouldn’t let Kate see her family. She had to find another way.

Greg was right, the answer wasn’t under a lens.

It was right out in the open. And Kate had an idea where.