The Chemist

CHAPTER 28

Alex spoke quickly as she laid out her plan, emphasizing the details she was sure of a little more than necessary. She tried to make it sound well thought out, like she was confident about it. Daniel seemed to be buying her version, listening intently, nodding at certain intervals, but Alex couldn’t read Val at all. Her eyes were focused toward Alex, but almost like she was looking through Alex’s face to the back of her head. Her expression was politely distant.

Alex talked through the conclusion, which wasn’t nearly as fail-safe as she would have liked it to be, and she could tell she wasn’t selling the outcome as well as she had the preliminaries. She looked down at Einstein’s face resting on her leg instead of at the human faces, petting him more frequently as her discomfort grew. Trying to wrap it up on a positive note, she went on a little longer than she should have. She was still midsentence when Val interrupted.

“No,” Val said.

“No?” Alex repeated. She said the word like a question, but she was already resigned.

“No. I won’t do that. You’re going to get killed. It’s nice that you want to go back for Kevin, but be realistic, Alex. This isn’t going to work.”

“It might. They won’t be expecting this. They won’t be ready.”

“It doesn’t matter if they’re ready or not. There will be more than enough of them to make up for it. So you get off a lucky shot and take one down. The guy next to him will get you.”

“We don’t even know how many people will be there.”

“Exactly,” Val said in a flat voice.

“Val, they won’t pay attention to you. You’d just be an anonymous aide. These people see hundreds of assistants every day. You’ll be invisible to them.”

“I have never been invisible in my life.”

“You know what I mean.”

Val looked at her with a perfectly smooth face. “No.”

Alex took a deep breath. She knew it wasn’t fair to involve Val. She would have to make do.

“Okay,” she said, wishing her voice sounded stronger. “I’ll do it by myself, then.”

“Alex, you can’t,” Daniel insisted.

She smiled weakly at him. “I can. I don’t know how well I’ll do, but I have to try, right?”

Daniel looked at her, torn. She could see that he wanted to argue. He wanted to say no, she didn’t have to try, but that would mean walking away, leaving Kevin to die in agony. His was an untenable position. Now that there was any hope at all, how could he turn his back on it?

“Together, we’ll be able to get the first part done,” she told him. “It won’t take more than the two of us.”

“But the second you’re separated from Carston, he’ll double-cross you.”

Alex shrugged. “I’ll just have to sell my threat. If he thinks betraying me means the hostage dies, maybe he’ll play it clean.”

“You won’t know how he’s playing it. You won’t be prepared.”

“Val doesn’t want to risk her life. Can you argue with her?”

Val watched Daniel with half-lidded eyes as he hesitated.

“No,” he said. “But I can do her part. We’ll trade. Val, you could do mine, right?”

Alex squeezed her eyes shut and then slowly opened them again. “Daniel, you know that won’t work. Even if you weren’t Kevin’s twin brother, these are the people who put your face on the news.”

“Val can fix me up, can’t you, Val? Make me look different enough?”

Val’s expression shifted abruptly, became more engaged. She examined his face closely.

“Actually… I think I could.” She turned to Alex. “It’s not like anyone is going to be looking for him there. Trust me, a lot more people would look at me – even as a nameless assistant. I think I can make him different enough for them not to give him a second glance.”

“I’m not doubting your abilities, Val… but they’re twins.”

“Let me try?” she asked, an unfamiliar pleading tone coming into her voice. “I do want to help Kevin.” When she said his name, Einstein looked up. “I just won’t die to do it. Let me do something.”

Einstein put his head on Alex’s leg again.

“I guess I could let you try. But it’s a waste of time and we don’t have enough of that as is.”

“It won’t take me that long.”

“And you’d be willing to do Daniel’s part of the plan?”

“Sure, that’s easy. No one will be shooting at me.”

Alex winced.

What was she contemplating here? People would be shooting at Alex for certain, she’d already come to terms with that. But if Val could disguise Daniel enough, which Alex couldn’t even imagine, then they might be shooting at Daniel, too. She reminded herself of all the reasons they had to go after Kevin. He had too much vital information. If he told the bad guys everything he knew about Alex and Daniel, the cars they were in, the places they had to go to ground, the way Alex operated, it wouldn’t be that hard for the Agency to track them down. Val, too. Most likely, they’d all die anyway.

Die like cowards, running.

But the reasons were moot. If there was a way to save Kevin from what was happening to him, she had to do it. There was a bond there now that she hadn’t even realized was forming. He was her friend. Her second liability. They were hurting him, even as she sat here considering. She had to stop it.

“Get to work, Val. This first part will take me two hours, if I’m lucky. When I get done, we’ll reevaluate.”

Though she’d lived in DC for almost a decade, Alex had never visited the National Zoo. She’d always thought of it as something for children, but there seemed to be plenty of adults attending today unencumbered by offspring.

There were still many, many children – it seemed like thousands of them yapping in high-pitched voices and flailing around their parents’ feet. All appeared to be under the age of five, so she guessed school wasn’t done for the year yet, though it must be close.

She tried to think how long it had been since she’d first met with Carston, but she couldn’t tally up the days in a way that made sense. Daniel had had around three weeks left of school then. More time had passed than that… hadn’t it? Maybe Daniel’s school finished earlier than average.

Alex’s first stop was the rental line at Guest Services. It wasn’t long. Most of the visitors would have arrived earlier, in the cool of the morning. Lunchtime was approaching, with the sun beating down almost directly overhead. Some people would leave then, avoid the high prices of the food inside the park. Head home for naptime.

She had quite a bit of information about Erin and Olivia, all gleaned from Erin’s Facebook page. It was the same place that, months ago, she’d found the picture of Olivia that hung around her neck now.

Alex knew Olivia was three and a half. Still small enough that she would fit in a stroller. Alex knew what Erin looked like from nearly every angle and had a good idea of the kinds of clothes she wore. She knew Erin was a late riser and probably wouldn’t have gotten to the zoo right as it opened. She knew Olivia was most excited about seeing the pandas.

Alex paid nine dollars cash for a single stroller, then put her backpack in it and headed into the park. She craned her neck around, searching. It made sense that she would be looking for someone – maybe her sister and nephews, or her husband and their child. There were lots of other patrons looking for their parties. She didn’t stand out.

Erin and Livvy would be past the pandas by now, probably thinking about lunch. She analyzed the map she’d gotten with the stroller. She’d try across from the apes first, then near the reptiles.

She walked fast, ignoring the turnoffs and viewing areas.

Erin had the fair skin of a redhead, like her father. She’d posted pictures of herself sunburned and moaned about freckles. Erin would be in a hat and probably light long sleeves. Her hair was bright and hung halfway down her back. It would catch the eye.

Alex scanned the crowds as she moved quickly through them, looking for a woman with a child, ruling out those with friends and spouses and multiple children. For a while, she followed a woman with her hair rolled up under a wide-brimmed straw hat pushing a single stroller, but then the child climbed out to walk with her – it was a boy.

A quick loop around the big cats, and then down toward the petting zoo. All the while, she was conscious of how she looked – map in hand, vigilantly searching for her companions. She wore a straw hat of her own over the dark blond wig and wide-framed sunglasses. She had on a plain T-shirt, boyfriend jeans, and the sport-shoe/ballet-flat hybrids that would let her run if she had to. Nothing about her would be particularly memorable.

Several shades of red hair had grabbed her attention throughout the course of her search, but many of them had been clearly unnatural. Others had been on women too old to be Erin, or too young, or holding extra children. Now she spotted one headed along the trail toward the Amazon exhibit – a long braid of golden-red hair swinging from beneath a white bucket hat. The woman was pushing a single stroller; it looked exactly like Alex’s, tan molded plastic with a dark green shade. She wore a sleeveless tank, and her arms were thick with freckles. Alex walked quickly after her.

The woman wasn’t moving fast; it didn’t take long for Alex to pass her. Alex kept her head down and glanced into the stroller as she walked alongside it.

The little girl looked right. Her face was turned away, but the fluffy blond hair seemed the same. Her size fit the profile.

Alex kept walking and beat the mother and daughter to the exhibit. She parked her stroller in the designated space beside the bathrooms, inconspicuously wiping the handle with the hem of her shirt before she removed her backpack and shrugged into it. Now that she was fairly certain the woman was Erin and that Erin had her own stroller, she didn’t need this one.

She located the woman and child dawdling along the trail. A larger group had caught up to them and flowed around them from both sides. Alex could see the woman’s face clearly now – it was definitely Carston’s daughter. Erin had paused to offer Olivia a sippy cup.

The path was getting more crowded. It was hot, and the wig was making her head itch and sweat. The straw hat wasn’t helping.

Alex focused on an empty bench about ten feet ahead of the duo. There was another large crowd behind the first. If she timed it right, she could intercept Erin at the bench while the second crowd was passing.

Alex moved purposefully back the way she’d just come, watching through her dark glasses to see if anyone was paying attention to her. The first group – a loud extended family, it looked like, with several toddlers, multiple parents, and one older woman in a wheelchair – enveloped her for a moment. She dodged through them and then slowed a bit.

The second crowd was all adults – foreign tourists on a day trip, she guessed, many of them wearing fanny packs – and they reached Erin as she was almost to the bench. Alex moved against the flow until she was just ahead of her quarry. As Erin passed a foot away from the bench, Alex turned, twisting around an older man, and pretended to stumble. She reached out and grabbed Erin’s hand on the stroller handle. Her palm mashed the pouch of clear fluid and forced it empty with one strong squeeze.

“Hey!” Erin said, turning.

Alex ducked back, twisting partially behind the closest guest. Erin came face to face with the bald septuagenarian.

“Excuse me,” he said hesitantly to both of them, not sure how he’d become entangled. He pulled free of Alex and stepped around Erin and the stroller.

Alex watched as Erin blinked once, then again. Her eyelids seemed to get stuck on the second blink. Alex jumped forward and grabbed Erin around the waist as she started to crumple, then jerked her toward the bench so that they fell heavily onto it together. Alex jammed her elbow against the wooden back; it would leave a bruise, but one she could easily cover. Erin was taller and weighed more than Alex, so Alex wasn’t able to keep them from slumping awkwardly. Alex loosed a slightly manic laugh – hopefully anyone watching would think they were playing around.

The little girl was singing to herself inside the stroller. She hadn’t seemed to notice that she’d stopped moving. Alex extricated herself from the mother and pulled the stroller closer, angling it so that Olivia was facing away from Erin.

Erin lolled on the bench, her head falling onto her right shoulder and her mouth hanging open.

A third conglomeration of visitors moved past them. No one stopped. Alex was operating quickly, so she couldn’t keep close tabs on any reaction, but no one had raised an alarm yet.

She pulled the bucket hat lower over Erin’s face, shading her lifeless expression. Out of the side pocket of her backpack, Alex drew the little perfume bottle. She reached around the edge of the stroller’s shade and pressed the nozzle down for two seconds. The singing ceased, and then Alex felt the light thud through the plastic frame of the stroller as the child fell back against the seat.

Moving as casually as she could, Alex patted Erin’s shoulder, then stood up and stretched.

“I’ll get her some lunch, you go ahead and rest,” Alex said, smoothing the wig under her hat in case her tumble had disarranged it. She glanced around, eyes hidden behind her glasses. No one seemed to be focused on the little tableau she’d created. She grasped the stroller’s handle and started moving back toward the parking lot. At first she kept the pace easy. She looked toward the animal cages like the others were doing. As she got farther from the bench, she began moving faster. A mother with an afternoon appointment.

Outside the bathroom at the visitors’ center, she parked the stroller and pulled Olivia into her arms. The child had to weigh over thirty pounds and felt heavier because her body was slack. Alex tried to arrange the unconscious child into the same position she’d seen other parents use – straddling one hip, legs on either side, head cradled on the shoulder. It didn’t feel like she’d gotten it right, but she had to move anyway. She gritted her teeth and walked as quickly as she could through the gate. She wished she’d been able to park closer, but eventually, with sweat soaking her T-shirt, she reached the car.

Alex hadn’t had time to get a car seat. She glanced around surreptitiously to see if anyone was watching, but the area of the parking lot she was in was mostly full, and the people arriving now were far away. The early quitters had already left; she was alone.

She laid the child on the backseat and wrapped a seat belt around her waist. Then she covered Olivia with a blanket to conceal her.

Alex straightened up and checked for witnesses again. No one was nearby; no one was watching her. She pulled a syringe from the inside pocket of her pack and leaned in to administer the drug to the sleeping child. She’d calculated the dose for someone weighting thirty to forty pounds. It should keep Olivia under for about two hours.

Alex turned the car on and cranked up the air-conditioning. She started breathing again for what felt like the first time since she’d entered the zoo.

Phase one was successful. Erin would wake up in forty-five minutes, more or less. Alex was sure that paramedics would be attending to her by then. When she woke, she’d sound the alarm about her missing daughter. The zoo would be searched first, then the police would be brought in. Alex had to be in position when Erin realized her daughter had been taken, that she’d not merely wandered off while her mother was having some sort of seizure. Alex was 85 percent sure which call Erin would make first.

She really hoped that Val would be done working her magic by the time she arrived at the new hiding place so Alex would know exactly which plan was moving forward – not because she’d made up her mind as to which outcome she wanted most. Going in alone… that was suicide. But taking Daniel… was that murder-suicide?

Maybe Val’s confidence in herself was misplaced. Maybe Daniel would just look like himself in a wig.

Alex could do it alone. She’d just make it very clear what would happen to Olivia if she, Alex, didn’t live through the night. That would keep Carston in line, wouldn’t it?

She didn’t want to think about the things Carston could set in motion. The traps he could lay so that once he had Olivia back, Alex would be his.

Alex called Val as she approached the new building, and when she pulled into the underground garage, Val was waiting by a set of elevators with a wheeled cart – it looked like something a hotel visitor would receive room service on. The garage was otherwise empty of other people. Alex couldn’t spot any cameras, but she kept her body between the open back car door and the best view inside. Neither Val nor Alex spoke. Alex shifted the sleeping child to the bottom shelf of the cart, then rearranged the blanket around her so her shape was obscured.

This elevator was more normal than the one that led to Val’s penthouse – just a silver box, as in most of the buildings where Alex had lived. It made her nervous that the box would suddenly slow and the doors would open, exposing them. Val must have felt similarly. She kept her hand on the button for the sixteenth floor, as if holding it down would guarantee them express service.

While the elevator climbed, Alex noticed Val’s expression for the first time. It was… a little too stimulated. Alex hoped Val wasn’t heading into some kind of power-mad version of a sugar rush.

The elevator doors opened to an empty hallway. It was a nice building, with fancy moldings and marble floors, but it looked pedestrian after Val’s other place.

Val pushed the cart down the little hall, motioning for Alex to go ahead.

“Number sixteen-oh-nine, on the end. It’s not locked,” she said, and the eager tone of her voice made Alex wary again. Though maybe if Val got hyped up enough, she’d change her mind and come with Alex for the main event.

Alex walked into the apartment in a hurry – there was a lot to set up and she needed to be fast. She barely took in the routine living room-kitchen spread, the fabric-shrouded windows, or the beige color scheme. She noted an open door on the far wall, revealing a brightly lit room with a queen bed, and headed for it. She could see some of her duffel bags leaning against the flowered bedspread.

She was halfway to the door before she really absorbed the whole space, and then her eyes focused on the man standing in the dimly lit kitchen.

Even though she’d been expecting something, it didn’t stop her from spooking. She jumped a step back, her thumbs automatically going to the little hatches of her poisoned rings.

“Well?” he asked.

The tall man in the cheap black suit waited, fighting a smile.

“Told ya,” Val said from behind her, and Alex could hear the smug grin on her face without looking.

The man looked Nordic with his fair skin and pale, white-blond hair. His blond beard was neatly trimmed and reminded her of a college professor’s. His eyebrows were so pale against his forehead they were nearly invisible, completely changing the look of his eyes and his forehead. The hair around the edges of his head was straight, short, and neatly combed. The top of his head was pale, shiny, and totally bald. It changed the perceived shape of his head and made him look ten years older. He wore thin silver glasses, and his cheeks were unexpectedly round. His most striking features were his bright, icy-blue eyes, framed by nearly white lashes.

“You look like a Bond villain,” Alex blurted out.

“Is that good?” Daniel asked, his voice not quite right – it was clipped, somehow, a little slurred.

Alex felt her heart sink as she more closely examined the transformation. If she hadn’t been looking specifically for a disguised version of Daniel, she would have walked right past this man on the street. Even if she had been looking for Daniel, only his height would have made this man a suspect. As the despair settled sickeningly into her stomach, Alex knew she’d really been counting on Val’s failing.

“Val did a good job,” Alex said, and then she started moving again. “Let’s get Olivia set up.”

Einstein was sniffing around the blanket-covered child. He whimpered quietly, ill at ease.

“Is it good enough?” Daniel persisted while pulling the child out from under the cart and cradling her against his chest.

“Let me think about it while I do this,” Alex hedged.

Daniel laid Olivia on the flowered coverlet, smoothing the sweaty fluffs of hair back from her forehead. It took Alex only a few seconds to get the IV bags hanging. One clear, one white and opaque, and then a very small bag with a dark green fluid inside. She quickly placed the IV catheter using the smallest needle she had and then started the fluids.

“Back out of the way,” she told Daniel.

Alex pulled up the camera on a phone Val had given her – left behind by a friend, Val said – and snapped a few pictures of Olivia sleeping. She flipped through them and found one that she decided would do.

“This is my least favorite part of the plan,” Daniel muttered.

She glanced up and saw his pained expression. It looked strange on his new face.

“Let’s hope Carston feels similarly.”

His frown deepened. Alex took his hand and pulled him from the room. The way he was holding his mouth made the round shape of his cheeks more prominent.

“What did she do to your face?” Alex asked.

Daniel stuck two fingers in his mouth and pulled out a little piece of plastic. “These make it a little hard to talk.” With a sigh, he replaced the plastic, and his cheek rounded out again.

Val waited for them in the big living room, eyes still lit up with her success.

“That baby’s not going to wake up, right?” she asked.

“Right.”

“Good. I wouldn’t know what to do with a kid. Now, what do you think? Totally altered, yes?”

Alex looked at Daniel again, and her shoulders slumped. He was thicker around the middle, too; she hadn’t noticed that before. It all looked so real.

“You don’t think it’s good enough, do you?” Daniel asked.

“It’s good enough,” Val answered for her. “And she knows it. That’s why she looks so glum. She’d much rather risk my life than yours.”

Daniel looked at Alex, waiting for her answer.

“Val’s right. Except for the part about risking her life. I don’t want to risk anyone’s.”

Val snorted.

Daniel grabbed Alex’s hand and pulled her against his chest. “It’s going to be fine,” he murmured. “We can do this together. Your plans always work. I will follow your instructions to the letter, and we’ll make it through. I promise.”

Alex squeezed her eyes tight, trying to force the tears back into their ducts.

“I don’t know, Daniel. What am I doing?”

He kissed the top of her head.

“Cut it out,” Val interrupted. “You two are making me jealous, and that’s never a safe thing to do.”

Alex opened her eyes and pulled away, brushing at Daniel’s suit to make sure she hadn’t left any makeup on it.

“I see you had time to get the things I needed from the Batcave. This toolbox is perfect.”

“More than perfect – check the fifth drawer down. I packed the rest how you asked,” Daniel told her. “Do you want to go through it before I put it in the car?”

“That’s a good idea.”

The silver toolbox – one of the props from Kevin’s stash, she assumed – had wheels and a pull-up handle, like a suitcase, but unlike a suitcase, many locking drawers that pulled forward out of its face. She went swiftly through the top drawers, identifying the location of the different drugs by the color rings on the syringes. The syringes were stacked in the rubber trays she usually stored them in. The next drawer down had a variety of scalpels and razor blades. She wouldn’t need so many; the point was to make the drawer look full. Saline bags and tubing were next, along with needles and catheters in different sizes. The next compartment was deeper. It held her pressurized canisters and several random chemicals from Kevin’s stores.

The second-to-last drawer was key. It held another tray of syringes – these empty – and seemed shallower than the last. She traced the edges of the bottom of the drawer – of course Kevin would have something like this. She could fit her fingernails around and lift up the false bottom. She peeked at what was underneath.

“Let’s hope Carston’s up for some Oscar-level acting,” she murmured to herself.

She went through the final, deepest drawer, where Daniel had stowed her more ostentatious props – the blowtorch, the wire snips, the pliers, along with several arbitrary tools Daniel had added from the items available in Kevin’s hoard.

There was one more useful thing she needed – just a tiny configuration of wires that she’d picked up the first time they’d visited the local Batcave. She pulled it from her backpack now and hid it in the third tray of the first drawer, under a syringe. She would want easy access to that one.

Alex straightened. “Perfect. Thank you.”

“You,” Val said, pointing to Daniel. “Get to the rendezvous point. You,” she continued, moving her index finger toward Alex’s face. “Let’s fix you up and get going. The clock is ticking.” She motioned to a set of double doors across the room.

“I’ll be there in thirty seconds,” Alex promised.

Val rolled her eyes. “Fine, have your little good-bye scene.” She turned and walked through the doors.

“Alex -” Daniel began.

“Wait.”

She took his hand again and led him out the front door, pulling the toolbox with her free hand. He had the big first-aid bag slung over his shoulder. Einstein tried to follow and then whined when she shut the door on him.

They walked down the quiet hall to the elevator. Alex pressed the button. When the doors slid apart, Daniel walked in and she followed, putting one foot across the breach to hold it open. She dropped the toolbox’s handle and reached up to hold Daniel’s face between her hands.

“Listen to me,” she said quietly. “In the glove compartment of the sedan there’s a manila envelope. There are two sets of IDs – passports, driver’s licenses, and a bunch of cash.”

“I don’t look that much like Kevin now.”

“I know, but people age, lose hair. You can toss the glasses, shave, dye your hair back to brown. And if things go badly, you’ll need to do all of that. Then get to the nearest airport. Get on any plane that’s leaving North America, okay?”

“I won’t leave you behind.”

“When I say go badly, I mean that I won’t be around for you to wait for.”

He stared at her with that odd new version of his troubled face.

“Okay?” she repeated insistently.

He hesitated, then nodded.

“Good,” she said, trying to sound like that discussion was closed. She wasn’t feeling the conviction behind his nod, but there wasn’t time to argue about it.

“You stay quiet tonight,” she instructed. “Don’t speak to anyone unless you have to. Think like an underling. You’re just there to drive the car and carry the bags, okay? This is just a paycheck. None of what’s happening means anything to you. No matter what you see, it doesn’t affect you. You have no emotional response. You got that?”

He nodded seriously. “Yes.”

“If things get dicey, it will make sense for you to run. This isn’t your problem.”

“Right,” he agreed, but his answer was less decided this time.

“Here.” She yanked the gold ring from her finger. It was the bigger of the two. She removed his arms from around her and tried it on all his fingers. As with Kevin, it fit only on his pinkie. At least she was able to get it all the way down over his knuckles. Hopefully it wouldn’t look too out of character.

“Be extremely careful with this,” she told him. “Slide this little hatch out of the way if you need to use it. Whatever you do, don’t touch the barb. If you’re not in the act of using it, keep it closed. But if you’re trying to get out, and someone’s in your way, all you have to do is put that barb in contact with his skin.”

“I got it.”

Alex looked into the startling blue eyes, searching for Daniel behind the strangeness of his oddly simple disguise. She was out of instructions, and the feelings she wanted to share with him didn’t seem to have corresponding words.

“I… I don’t know how to go back to my old life,” she said, trying to explain. “I don’t know how to do that anymore, without you. Having you as my liability is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He smiled just a little bit, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I love you, too,” he whispered.

She tried to smile back.

Daniel put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her for one lingering second. Then he smiled at her again, unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. She took a step away from him.

“I told you I’d be there when you needed backup,” he said.

The elevator doors closed.