The World Beneath

Chapter 36

Ozan eased the window latch to the side with his knife. He’d disabled the motion sensor on it a long time ago.

“Ozan?” asked a soft voice from inside the room.

“Just me,” Ozan whispered. “Remember, it’s our secret.”

He lifted the window and climbed through it, careful to close and latch it from this side. Sometimes the staff did late-night bed checks and also checked the windows. He could hide under the bed when they came, but he didn’t want them to see an open latch. If they asked Erol about it, he’d tell them the truth.

A few seconds later, he stood next to his brother’s bed, looking down at the peaceful manatees on his bedspread. Slow, fat, and happy, they munched through an endless sea of blue. He bet they never got headaches.

“You came to tell me a story?” Erol tucked the blanket under his armpits.

“I did.” Ozan sat on the edge of the bed.

In a voice hardly louder than a whisper, he told Erol the story of The Rainbow Fish. He’d never particularly liked it. It was wrong that the fish had to slice scales off its own body and give them away to make friends. But Erol loved the story, so he told it to him every time he visited. Erol was asleep again before he got to the end, so he stopped telling it, leaving the fish with most of its shiny scales intact.

Ozan wished that he could have told his brother about his day — his good kill of the tennis instructor, his fruitless pursuit of the computer genius and his dog, how he’d finally gone back aboveground to shower and shave and nap. How a quick nap had restored most of his strength.

Whatever bug he’d been fighting off, he’d conquered it. Maybe that sweat bath had been good for something. Or maybe it was just getting solid sleep. Either way, he felt like his old self again.

Once he’d gotten cleaned up and fresh, he’d contacted an old friend with the CIA, Rash Connelly, and told him what he knew about Tesla and Subject 523. Dr. Dubois had links into the CIA, so Rash probably knew most of this stuff anyway. What he didn’t know, he’d keep to himself.

“Why didn’t you get this Tesla after you killed 523?” Rash asked.

“Not my orders.” Ozan didn’t mention that he’d failed to kill Joe twice, or that he’d taken out the kid in front of the station.

“The police say that the tennis player was killed by a professional, but they won’t give us the name.”

Ozan counted to three, thinking it over. “That was me. New orders. I thought the kid was my target — he looked like the guy, he was wearing the guy’s company clothes, and he had the guy’s dog. It was an accident.”

Rash sat silent on the other end, probably trying to decide how much sympathy to have for the accident. He must have decided that the tennis instructor wasn’t worth fighting over, because he said, “Why are you calling me now?”

“I want on the team. I want to bring Tesla down.”

“That’s unorthodox.”

“I’m on the job regardless.” Ozan let him think that those orders came from Dr. Dubois. “And I think it’ll be easier for everyone else if I’m in the loop. It’ll keep accidents from happening.”

Rash had hesitated again, longer this time. “I’ll see what I can do.”

It turned out that he could do a lot. He’d called Ozan back during dinner to tell him that he was officially on board. The CIA’s orders were not to apprehend Tesla — they were to kill him. He was considered armed and dangerous, having killed two civilians and maybe a cop, and was believed to be in possession of sensitive classified information.

Ozan found that the perfect ending to a difficult day.

Tomorrow he’d go back underground with the morning shift. He’d find Tesla, interrogate him, then kill him, and be done with this job. After that, he’d take a long break, enjoy his restoration to health. Maybe take Erol on a trip to Florida to see the manatees. He smiled down at his brother.

He couldn’t tell Erol of the possible vacation until the job was over and the trip was a sure thing. So he watched his brother sleep and ate some of the pink marshmallow snacks that Erol kept in a box by his pillow. He envied Erol his happy, simple life.

Eventually, he took a spare blanket from the closet and stretched out on the carpet under Erol’s bed to get some rest. He didn’t mind the floor — he’d camped out on worse. He slept best when he could hear the regular, untroubled sound of his brother’s breathing.

His days might be filled with cold death and bloodshed, but here he had an island of peace. He set his watch alarm for seven a.m. That would give him plenty of time to leave before the staff came to wake Erol.

Tomorrow he would take care of Tesla and finish this chapter of his life.