The Chemist

CHAPTER 8

Batman ripped the black glove off his right hand and pressed two fingers to Daniel’s carotid. He bent down to listen to Daniel’s breathing. She examined her attacker’s hand – pale skin, fingers so long they almost looked like they had an extra joint. They looked… familiar.

Batman shook Daniel’s shoulder lightly and asked, louder, “Danny?”

“He’s sedated,” she volunteered.

His face jerked up toward her, and though she couldn’t see it, she could feel his glare. Suddenly he was on his feet, launching himself at her. He grabbed her arms and yanked them over her head again as he shoved his masked face into hers.

“What did you do to him?” he shouted.

Her concern for Daniel’s safety evaporated. Danny was going to be just fine. The one she needed to worry about was herself.

“There is nothing wrong with him,” she said calmly, dropping the injured-damsel routine. “He’ll wake up from the sedation in about two hours, feeling fine. I can bring him around sooner if you want.”

“Not likely,” he growled.

They had a staring contest for a few seconds, one she wasn’t sure if she’d won or lost. She could see only her own face in the reflective mask.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get you situated.”

In a smooth move, he had her hands behind her back, wrists held tight in his gloveless right hand, probably holding the gun in his left. He marched her into the room, toward the folding chair by the desk, and she went along docilely. The dog’s hot, heavy breath was close, following right behind.

She was almost 70 percent sure she could twist her hand into a position that would put the left barbed ring against his skin, but she didn’t try. It was a risk, but she wanted Batman alive. There was a large hole in her picture of what was going on, and Batman would have at least some of the answers she needed. She carefully nudged the covers over the barbs again.

She didn’t resist as he sat her – none too gently – in the chair. He pulled her hands in front of her and zip-tied them together.

“I feel like you’re the kind of person whose hands I want to keep an eye on,” he muttered as he bent down to secure her ankles to the chair legs. All the while, the dog’s face was directly in front of her own, eyes unblinking. A few drips of warm drool fell onto her sleeve and soaked through. Gross.

He zip-tied her elbows to the chair back and stood up, towering over her now, dark and menacing. The long, silenced barrel of his HDS was just a few inches from her forehead.

“The switch for the overhead lights is right there.” She jerked her chin toward the power strip on the back edge of the desk. Two standard outdoor extension cords were plugged into it.

He stared in that direction, and she imagined he was eyeing the switches warily.

“Look, anything that can kill you is going to kill me first,” she pointed out.

He grunted and then leaned away and punched the power button.

The lights flared overhead.

Suddenly the tent looked less threatening. With all the medical equipment, it could have been a medic’s tent in a war zone. Except for the torture implements on the tray, of course. She saw his face orient toward them now.

“Props,” she explained.

She felt the glare again. He whipped a look back at Daniel, naked and clearly intact on the table. His focus swung back to her.

“What’s the flashing light?” he demanded, gesturing to the little black box with the keypad.

“It’s telling me the door is unarmed,” she lied evenly. In fact, the box wasn’t hooked up to anything. It was just a nice red herring to distract from the real trap.

He nodded, accepting that, then leaned over to look at her computer. There were no open documents, no files on the desktop. Her background was just a pale geometric design, little white squares on a faintly darker gray field.

“Where are the keys?” He jerked his head toward Daniel.

“Taped to the bottom of the desk.”

He seemed to be eyeing her again through the mask.

She willed herself to look calm and compliant. Take it off, take it off, take it off, she prayed silently.

He kicked her chair over.

She held her neck tight as her left arm and thigh smashed into the ground with bruising force. She was just able to keep her head from hitting the concrete again. She wasn’t sure if she was already concussed, and she really needed her brain working right.

He grabbed the back of the chair and yanked her upright. In his right hand he held the keys.

“That wasn’t necessary,” she said.

“Einstein, control.”

Growling in her face, more drool on her chest.

Batman turned away and quickly unlocked Daniel’s shackles.

“What’s in the IV?”

“Saline in the top one, nutrients in the lower.”

“Really.” Sarcastic. “What happens if I pull the tubing out?”

“He’ll need a drink when he wakes up. But don’t use the water bottles on the left side of the minifridge outside the tent. Those are poisoned.”

He turned, pulling the mask off his head so he could glare at her more effectively, yanking the sweaty watch cap off at the same time.

Yessssssssss!

She kept the relief off her face as he dropped the mask on the floor.

“You’ve changed your tactics,” he noted sourly, running his free hand through his short, damp hair. “Or are the ones on the right really the poisoned bottles?”

She looked up at him calmly. “I thought you were someone else.”

And then she really looked at him.

She didn’t have the resources to keep her face from reacting now. All the theories spun around again, and a bunch of things fell into place.

He smirked, realizing what she was seeing.

So many clues she’d missed.

The pictures that were Daniel but at the same time weren’t.

The holes in the file on Daniel’s history, the missing photos.

Time, dates, birth dates – the easiest small changes to make if you wanted to hide something.

Daniel’s strange reluctance to believe what he was seeing when he looked at the spy images.

His struggles with loyalty.

Those long, long fingers.

“Other Daniel,” she whispered.

The smirk vanished. “Huh?”

She blew out a breath and rolled her eyes – she couldn’t help it. It was all too much like one of her mom’s ridiculous soap operas. She remembered the frustration of every holiday she and her mother had spent together, the afternoons lost to the incredibly slow-moving, implausible dramas. No one was ever really dead; everyone came back. And then there were the twins. Always with the twins.

Batman actually didn’t look that much like Daniel, as far as identical twins went. Daniel’s features were refined, his aspect gentle. Batman was all hard angles and tightly gripped expressions. His hazel eyes seemed darker, maybe just because his brows were pulled down, putting them in shadow. His hair had the same color and curl but was cropped close, the way she would expect in an agent. Judging from his thicker neck, she would guess Batman had the gym musculature to Daniel’s sports build. Not immensely bulky or he wouldn’t have been able to pass for his brother in the pictures. Just harder, more defined.

“Kevin Beach,” she said in a flat voice. “You’re alive.”

He sat on the edge of her desk. As her eyes followed him, she didn’t let them rest for even a second on her computer’s clock right by his elbow.

“Who were you expecting?”

“There were a few options. All of whom would want both me and your brother dead.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I fell for this.”

“For what?”

“Daniel’s never even met de la Fuentes, has he? It was always you.”

His face, which had begun to relax, was suddenly guarded again. “What?”

She nodded to the photographs scattered on the floor. He seemed to notice them for the first time. He leaned over to examine one, then bent down to grab it. Then the one underneath, and the next. He crumpled them in his fist.

“Where did you get these?”

“Compliments of a small department working for the American government – entirely off the books. I used to be in their employ. They asked me to freelance.”

His face contorted in outrage. “This is highly classified!”

“You wouldn’t believe my clearance level.”

Back in her face, he grabbed the front of her T-shirt and lifted her and the chair a few inches off the ground. “Who are you?”

She kept herself calm. “I’ll tell you everything I know. I got played and I’m about as happy about it as you.”

He set her down. She wanted to count in her head, mark the time, but she was afraid he would notice her distraction. He stood over her, arms folded.

“What’s your name?”

She spoke as slowly as she thought she could get away with. “It used to be Dr. Juliana Fortis, but there’s a death certificate with that name now.” She watched his face to see if any of this information meant something to him; it didn’t, as far as she could tell. “I operated under the direction of the department – it doesn’t have another name. It doesn’t exist officially. They worked with the CIA and some other black ops programs. Interrogation specialists.”

He sat back down on the edge of the desk.

“Three years ago, someone decided to dissolve the department’s two key assets. Namely, me and my mentor, Dr. Joseph Barnaby.” Still no recognition. “I don’t know why, although we had access to incredibly sensitive information, and I’m guessing something we knew was the motive. They murdered Dr. Barnaby and tried to murder me. I’ve been running ever since. They’ve found me four times. Three times they tried to have me assassinated. The last time, they apologized.”

His eyes were narrowed, evaluating.

“They told me they had a problem, and they needed me. They gave me a stack of files on the de la Fuentes situation and named your brother as his collaborator. They said that in three weeks Daniel would be spreading the supervirus across the American Southwest. They told me I had three days to find out where the virus was and how to stop de la Fuentes from implementing his plan.”

He was shaking his head now.

“They told you that much?” he asked in disbelief.

“Counterterrorism was always the main component of my job. I know where all the warheads and the dirty bombs are buried.”

He pursed his lips, making a decision. “Well, since you already know the details, I guess it’s not a huge breach of policy for me to tell you that I shut down the de la Fuentes situation six months ago. De la Fuentes’s death is not common knowledge. What’s left of the cartel is keeping this quiet so they don’t appear vulnerable to the competition.”

She was surprised at the relief she felt. The weight of knowing that so many people were doomed to painful execution had been heavier than she’d realized.

“Yes,” she breathed. “That makes sense.”

The department wasn’t that cold-blooded, apparently. They’d used a nightmare catastrophe to motivate her, but they weren’t messing around with civilians still in danger.

“And the Serpent?”

He looked at her blankly.

“Sorry, department nickname. The domestic terrorists?”

“My associates bagged two of the three ringleaders and took out the entire southern chapter. No survivors.”

She smiled tightly.

“You’re an interrogator,” he said in a suddenly icy voice. “A torturer.”

She lifted her chin. “Yes.”

“And you tortured my brother for information he didn’t have.”

“Yes. The very initial phases, at least.”

He backhanded her. Her head snapped to the side; the chair bobbled, and he shoved it down with one foot.

“You’re going to pay for that,” he promised.

She worked her jaw for a second to see if anything was broken. When she was satisfied that nothing was seriously compromised, she responded. “I’m not positive,” she said, “but I think that’s why they did this to him. Why they fed me this whole elaborate story.”

Through his teeth. “What reason?”

“They haven’t had the greatest success in killing me. I guess they thought you would get the job done.”

He clenched his jaw.

“What I don’t understand, though,” she continued, “is why they didn’t just ask you to do it. Or order you, I suppose. Unless… you’re no longer with the CIA?” she guessed.

The gun had been the giveaway. From her research, she was pretty certain that the HDS was the gun most commonly carried by CIA agents.

“If you didn’t know about me, how do you know where I work?” he demanded.

About halfway through his question, she saw the bright white rectangle in her peripheral vision go black. Trying to be inconspicuous, she sucked in the deepest breath through her nose she could manage.

“Answer me,” he growled, raising his hand again.

She just stared at him, not breathing.

He hesitated, brow furrowed, then his eyes went wide. He dove for the mask on the floor.

He was out before he hit the ground.

Another thump – the dog collapsed into a puddle of fur beside her chair.

Under testing circumstances, she’d once held her breath for one minute and forty-two seconds, but she’d never been able to repeat the feat. Usually she ran out of air at about one fifteen, still way above average – lung capacity had become a priority in her life. This time, of course, she hadn’t been able to hyperventilate beforehand. But she wouldn’t need a full minute.

She hopped her chair over to Batman’s inert form and pushed herself forward, bracing her knees against his back. With her hands secured in front of her, it was easy… ish. Kevin Beach had left Daniel’s gas mask on the floor; she hooked it with one finger and then tilted the chair back until all four legs were on the ground. She leaned her face as close to her hands as she could and slipped the mask over her head, pressing the rubber rim tight to her face to create a seal. She blew out her air in a big whoosh, clearing the chamber, and then took a hesitant breath.

If some of the chemical had lingered, she figured she still would have been okay. She’d built up a decent resistance and would not have been out as long as the others. But it was especially nice to have such a big head start.

She scooted to the desk and rubbed the zip tie around her wrists against the edge of the scalpel on her props tray. It popped quickly against the pressure she was generating. It was easy work to slice the rest of the ties, and then she was free.

First things first. She reset the screen saver on her computer to come on after fifteen minutes of inactivity.

She couldn’t lift Batman, sprawled facedown on the floor beside his brother, but his arms and legs were close enough to Daniel’s that she could use the restraints that had been around Daniel’s left wrist and left ankle to secure Kevin’s. He’d thrown the key carelessly on the table by Daniel’s side; she pocketed it.

She didn’t resecure Daniel. Maybe it was a mistake, but she’d already done so much to him, it just felt unfair. And underneath it all, she wasn’t afraid of him. Another potential mistake.

She stripped Batman of his guns and removed the cartridges and firing pins from the rifle and the HDS. She put the safety on the SIG Sauer and tucked it into the back of her belt. She liked it – it looked more serious than her PPK. She went out to the barn stalls to find her PPK and then shoved it in beside the SIG Sauer. She was more familiar with her own. Better to keep it handy, too.

She found her shoes, stashed the other guns, and then grabbed the movers’ straps on her way back into the tent. The dog was too heavy to move easily, so she wrapped the straps around it and hauled it back to the bunk room. At first she simply closed the door and walked away – dogs didn’t have opposable thumbs. A moment later, though, she changed her mind. The dog’s name was Einstein; who knew what it was capable of? She looked for something to drag in front of the door. Most of the heavy machinery was bolted down. After a few seconds of thought, she walked around to the silver sedan. It just fit between the tent and the stalls. She pulled it right up to the bunk-room door, wedged the front bumper tight against the wood, and then put it in park. She threw the parking brake on for good measure.

She closed the barn door and rearmed it. A quick look outside told her that it was almost dawn.

Back to Other Daniel. The Batsuit was a chore to remove. The fabric between the Kevlar panels was thick and ribbed with fine cables, almost like gristle. She snapped two blades on it before finally quitting at his waist. She settled for peeling back the top half and patting down his legs, which didn’t have as much Kevlar to disguise them. She found a knife holstered in the small of his back and one shoved into each boot. She pulled his socks off. He was missing the pinkie toe on his left foot, but he had no other weapons that she could find. Not that he’d need any if he got his hands on her again. His whole body was roped with lean, hard bands of muscle. His back was a mess of scars – some from bullets, some blades, and one bad burn – with one more telling scar under the edge of his hairline. He’d removed his tracker, too. Definitely no longer with the CIA. A defector? A double agent?

But how had he found his brother?

She remembered the droning of the noisy prop plane, the booming thud of the improvised crash landing – someone in a hurry, she’d thought. Someone for whom time was the biggest problem.

She turned to look at Daniel; it seemed another examination was in order. She’d done a more thorough job going over his back, so she looked closely now at his stomach, groin, and thighs. Something she should have done before, but she’d misread the situation badly.

It was the idea of time – the hurried way Batman had arrived and attacked – that pointed her toward what she was looking for. An ordinary tracker would indicate only where the subject was, and Daniel wasn’t really that far from home, not far enough to cause his dead brother to panic and run in guns blazing. So this tracker must monitor something more than just location, and it would have to be placed in the right spot.

She wanted to kick herself when she saw it – the little red tail of a scar sticking out from the edge of the tape she had used to secure the catheter tube against his leg. She pulled the tape now – always better to do that when the subject was still under anyway – and then removed the catheter. He’d be getting up soon.

The scar was tiny, with nothing raised under the skin. She figured the device must be more deeply implanted, next to the femoral artery, no doubt. When his blood pressure had gone crazy with the first round of interrogation, or maybe even from his fear when he’d first woken up, it must have tipped off his brother. And whoever else was monitoring him. The tracker would have to come out.

She had enough time before he woke up, so she got her first-aid kit. After snapping on some gloves, she numbed the site and sterilized the scalpel – good thing she hadn’t broken all of them on the Batsuit. She scrubbed the skin with iodine, then made a quick, neat incision on top of the old one, though a bit longer. She didn’t have forceps or tweezers, so she just poked around carefully with one finger on the inside and one on the outside. When she found the device – a little capsule about the size of a throat lozenge – she was able to pressure it out fairly easily.

She cleaned up the site and then superglued the edges together.

After that, she treated the raw skin on his wrists and ankles, cleaning and bandaging everything. Finally, she put the blanket over him and got him the pillow.

The capsule she left to cool on the steel table. To anyone watching the tracker on a monitor, it would appear that Daniel Beach had just died. She had a feeling that his death wouldn’t bother anyone in the department. She had a better sense of the other side’s plan now, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t all about her.

She exited the tent to attend to her own face, first wiping off the blood and then trying to determine the extent of the damage. The lip was swollen, and the tear needed a stitch; she applied a drop of superglue. Her cheek was missing a few layers of skin and she was going to have a matched set of very pronounced black eyes. Her nose was swollen and crooked, so she took advantage of her current painless state to push it back into shape as well as she could.

The pain would return fairly soon, though she’d given herself the maximum dose of the drug she’d privately named Survive. It wasn’t meant to work long term; it was just for making it through an attack like the one she’d just endured. Kind of like the adrenaline her body naturally generated, just much more powerful, and with some opiates to block the pain. Survive wasn’t on the books; her list of duties had not included creating anti-torture concoctions, but she’d thought it might be something she’d need someday, and she’d been right. This wasn’t the first time she’d used it – she’d overreacted to those earlier assassination attempts – but it was the first time she’d actually suffered through a decent beating with Survive in her system. She was pleased with its performance.

She didn’t have anything to stabilize her nose with, so she would have to try to be more careful with her face for a while. Luckily she was a back sleeper.

The face was going to be a problem. A big problem. She couldn’t exactly walk into a grocery store right now and escape notice.

When she had done everything she could think of to do, she lay on the cot for ten minutes, just gathering her strength – or what was left of it. The drug still made her feel strong, but she knew she’d sustained some damage. There would be repercussions to deal with. She needed time to rest and heal – time no one was going to give her.