Working Stiff

Chapter 11

The pain slowed its rush through Bryn’s system to a merely unbearable ache. She tried not to look at her hands, or catch any hint of a reflection, but even so, her eyes wouldn’t stay away from seeking out some sign of regeneration.

By the time they’d switched out of the Pharmadene van to another car, her fingers were starting to look human again. Sickly and bruised, but living.

She was so grateful that it was hard not to sob again, but she couldn‘t. Not now. Not when Pansy and Joe had risked so much, and they were all still in danger.

Joe Fideli had all kinds of unexpectedly criminal talents; he could boost cars (a cargo van from a rental-car lot, taken from the “fixed” part of the repair area, which would cause the most confusion and delay), he could circumvent alarm systems (like the one at the veterinary clinic, where he took surgical supplies and animal tranquilizers), and most important, he had an RFID scanner and blank credit cards.

He sent Pansy for a walk at the Westfield Horton mall with the scanner tucked into her small clutch purse, and taught her the fine art of butt scanning. “Men are the easiest,” he said, as Bryn rested in the passenger seat of the newly stolen van, downing bottle after bottle of water from a twelve-pack he’d taken from the vet’s. “Credit cards are in their back pockets. Just brush the scanner up against them and listen for the tone in the earpiece. A good scan will chime. Get as many as you can in fifteen minutes; then meet us back here.”

Pansy hesitated, looking at the two of them. “You’re sure? You don’t need me to help with this?”

“It’s not going to be pretty. Better leave it to me,” Joe said. “Go on. Get us some money; we need it.”

Pansy went out the back, and Joe watched as she walked across the parking lot and entered the multilevel jumble of the mall. “Bryn? You ready?”

“I guess.” She finished the bottle and set it aside. She felt better. Stronger. Almost herself again. “Where do you want me?”

“Here.” He flipped levers and laid down one of the rear seats, creating a long, flat space. She climbed over and sat on it. “Lie down.”

Bryn complied, trying not to wince, and looked into his eyes as he bent closer. “How bad’s it going to be?”

“Nothing like what you’ve already had,” he said. “How’s the throat?”

She cleared it experimentally. “Not too bad. I sound like a whiskey bum, though.”

“It’s a little bit sexy. All right, I’m going to give you a shot. I’m not sure how long it’ll last; from what Pat said, painkillers wear off quicker than normal, since the nanites clear them from your bloodstream, but we’ll give it a try. I’ll work fast.”

She nodded and tried not to think about it much. The shot was familiar by now, a bright pinpoint of pain, then a flood of warmth that quickly sank into a blissful warm numbness. “Oh,” she murmured. “Nice.” Then she couldn’t talk at all.

“Yeah, I gave you an elephant load,” he said. “Here we go.”

He lifted her right knee up. She felt it distantly, like something in a dream, and then he rolled her over on her side. That felt good, too. She smiled and tried to tell him how it felt but her lips wouldn’t make words, just bright bubbles of sounds.

His knife cut a slash in the back of her thigh.

Bryn made a wordless sound of surprise, betrayal, and pain; even with the numbness and happy, drugged warmth, she felt the invasion, and kept feeling it as the knife cut deeper, separating muscle, digging, probing. She tried to wiggle away from it. Joe’s hand clamped down hard, holding her in place. “Steady,” he said. He sounded weirdly out of tune. “Almost there. It’s in deep, and I’m going to have to pry it off the bone.” She felt another small, bright star of a shot. Another cascade of warmth. This time, it didn’t crest quite as high, and it receded much faster, leaving her cold and horribly aware that the knife was in her, moving, prying. She whimpered and panted and tried not to scream, and then something happened with a white-hot stab of pure agony and she screamed into Joe’s muffling hand and couldn’t stop until it began to subside.

“Good,” he said. His voice was low and soothing. “You did good, Bryn. It’s out. The wound’s already closing. Relax now; relax.”

She kept on shuddering and whimpering, and a heavy warmth dropped over her—a blanket, smelling of cigars and wet dog. She didn’t care what it smelled like. Anything helped.

Pansy came back about ten minutes later. She froze, silhouetted in the opening for a second, then climbed in and slammed the door fast. “God, it looks like a slaughterhouse in here,” she said. “Is she all right?”

“She will be. Here.” Joe handed her something wrapped in a piece of tissue. “Take that; throw it in the back of a truck that’s getting ready to pull out. Go.”

She handed him her purse and bailed out again without any questions. Joe took the scanner out and looked at the stored results.

“Hey,” Bryn whispered. “Did it work?”

“The scanner? Yeah. I’ve got six cards I can work with here. It’ll get us what we need.”

“Can’t they trace them?”

“Sure. But we don’t use them. We make the clones and sell them on, and use the cash we get paid for it. That’s untraceable.” He glanced back at her. “You doing all right?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed and tried not to think about the mess of her leg. “It still hurts.”

“No doubt. I had to take out a pretty good chunk of bone. It’ll heal, but it’ll hurt while it does. Best thing for you to do is stay horizontal.” He uncapped another bottle of water and handed it to her, and helped her sit up to sip. She almost threw it back up, but the nausea passed quickly.

She was healing. Another half an hour, maybe, and she’d be almost normal again. McCallister would be impressed with the speed of—

McCallister. Bryn remembered in a horrified rush that she hadn’t told Fideli about Harte’s orders … and McCallister wasn’t with them. “Joe? Where is he?” Her voice trembled.

“Pat’s on the run, like us. I’ll get in touch with him and let him know you’re okay.”

“But he’s alive?”

“Yeah. She sent a team to get him. Didn’t work out so well for them, I understand. Harte sent one of her revived men after him, and Pat sent him back in boxes.” He slid a credit card blank into the machine and pressed buttons. “He’ll join us when it’s safe.”

“It’s never going to be safe. Do you know what they were doing in there?”

“Ramping up the program.” Joe sounded grim. “Harte was getting pressure from the CEO to go to the military with the drug, and he was going to get his way. She had to move if she wanted to keep control. She did, I guess. That place is a death factory. She addicts everybody, and then nobody can cross her.”

“It’s worse than that,” Bryn said. “They’re going after politicians. Bankers. Leaders of all kinds. She’s out to take over, Joe. Really take over. And she has to be stopped.”

“Nice idea, babe, but we had a hell of a time shooting our own way out. I don’t think waging a three-person crusade is going to get us anywhere. Four, if we can hook up with Pat. Five, if you count Manny, which I don’t.” He shook his head. “Best we can do is blow the whistle loud and hard, now that we have you.”

“Have … me?”

“Without you, we’re paranoid schizophrenics babbling about the zombie apocalypse. With you, maybe we’ve got a fighting chance to have someone believe us.”

“Is that why you—”

“No,” Joe said. “McCallister was going to come get you himself. He said he promised. It would have been a disaster; no way could he have gotten in without being caught, much less gotten you out. Me and Pansy, we’re not really on their radar. Well, weren’t, until then. I gotta tell you, Pat and I don’t come to blows real often, but we did over this thing. He was damn sure going to get himself killed for you.” He gave her a long, assessing look. “You do know why, right?” She shook her head, but it was a pro forma lie, and he smiled. “Hey, I’m the last one to point fingers about getting personally involved. I met a girl on a job once. Look how that turned out.”

“You mean Kylie?”

“Exactly. Being professional will only get you so far, and then you’ve got to be human.”

Horror flooded her, on the heels of that warm moment. “Joe—your family—”

“They’re safe,” he said. “Pat saw them moved out to a secure location, as soon as he knew this was going south. Nobody’s going to touch my kids, or Kylie.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, well, it’s going to take a bouquet of roses the size of the frigging Rose Parade to make this up to her, but my wife knew what she was getting when she married me. And the kids think it’s a cool adventure.” Fideli shrugged. “Which it is, right?”

Unbelievable. “You got shot.”

“Eh, I’ve been shot for worse causes. And we just rescued you, shot our way out, had a car chase. Plus, there’s this whole coming-back-from-the-dead thing. My kids would be very impressed.”

“I’m very impressed, too.”

“Well, it wasn’t a clockwork operation, but it’ll do. At least you’re on the mend.”

For now. Bryn swallowed again, miserably aware of her own vulnerability. “Joe … I’m going to need another shot,” she said. “And one tomorrow. And one the day after. What exactly are we going to do about that?”

Fideli kept his eyes on the credit card machine. “You want me to lie to you and tell you I’ve got a brilliant plan on that?”

“Would you?”

“Probably not. I’m hoping McCallister does.”

Pansy slid the door back, jumped in, and slammed it shut, panting from her run. “Done. I put the thing in the bed of a truck with Texas plates. As far as I know, they’ll chase him all the way back to San Antonio,” she said, and took a moment to lay her hand gently on Bryn’s head. “You doing okay?”

“Peachy,” Bryn murmured. “I have a giant hole in my leg, and we were just talking about how much Returné we don’t have.”

Pansy gave her a slow, delighted smile and said, “You two don’t think I’d let you down, do you?” Even Fideli turned to look at her when she said that, eyebrows raised. Pansy picked up a small box from the floorboard. “Et voilà.” She opened it.

Inside were vials filled with clear liquid. Seven of them.

“How …” Bryn’s voice failed her.

“Where do you think I got the shot to give you? I made sure I was the one Harte tapped to pull it from the supply. They had two boxes out on the cart, since they were assembly-lining the staff. I grabbed one. We’ll need to pick up syringes—that’s all. Oh, and just in case …” Pansy handed her a gold-edged Pharmadene ID. “Irene Harte’s. It probably won’t work, but just in case you ever wanted a souvenir, that’s probably the best you can get. Manny won’t let me keep it. He’ll assume it’s bugged.”

“Is it?”

“Not anymore.” Pansy gave her a cheery smile.

“I’d kiss you if I could get up,” Bryn said. “God, thank you.”

“No charge. Well, no extra charge. Joe’s already paying me.”

“Paying you …”

“I don’t come cheap, sweetie,” Pansy said. “Manny doesn’t like it when I leave him all alone. He’s got another batch of inhibitor ready, by the way, so when you take me home, you can get your booster on that, too.”

A week. A whole luxurious week of life, guaranteed right there.

And what about after that? But for the first time, Bryn felt the tight fist of anxiety in her chest ease, just a little, and as Fideli and Pansy spoke in low, quiet tones, and Fideli pulled the van out to drive on, she finally surrendered to her need to rest.

When they finally arrived at Manny Glickman’s lab, hours later, it was chaos. Even Pansy seemed shocked when, as she helped Bryn in the big fire door, she ran into a giant pallet of neatly stacked boxes. “Great,” she said, staring at them. “Just great.”

“What’s going on?” Fideli asked, from behind them.

“Get in and stay right here,” Pansy said. “Whatever happens, don’t go all Rambo on me, all right?”

That didn’t sound good. Neither did the tension in Pansy’s voice. Edging around the boxes, Bryn saw why; the place was crowded with boxes stacked everywhere. No more lab equipment; it was all packed. Big machines were crated and secured, ready for transport. The curtains at the back of the big room were open, and more pallets of boxes were stacked there.

“Freeze!” a magnified voice said from overhead, and Bryn looked up sharply to see a figure above them on a narrow catwalk. It was almost obscured by the lights, and she squinted and just barely made out Manny Glickman’s form up there.

He worked the action on a pump shotgun, and the crisp chunk-chunk sound made them all obey. Even Fideli. Bryn raised her hands in surrender.

“Jesus, Manny, it’s me.” Pansy sighed. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Moving,” he said. “You were supposed to be back four hours ago.”

“I told you it wasn’t guaranteed, baby.”

“Four hours ago.”

“You didn’t pack all this in the last four hours.”

Manny was silent for a few seconds, then said, “Are you vouching for them, Pansy?”

“Of course I am, or I wouldn’t have brought them up here, would I?” Her voice was gentle, but as Bryn glanced at her, she saw that Pansy was worried. “It’s all right. Trust me. Her tracker’s gone, and we weren’t followed.”

“I thought about blowing up the van,” Manny said. “You know that, don’t you? You didn’t come in the right car. You said you’d be in a red sedan.”

“Pansy, what the hell …?” Fideli murmured. She shushed him.

“We had to improvise. Things were crazy. But we got out, and everything’s fine, and I brought you a present.” She held up a single vial of Returné. “Enough to run tests on for months.”

It was a shiny treat, but Manny failed to take the bait. “Make them sit down on the floor, right now. Hands behind their heads.”

“Manny—”

“Now!” His shout rattled the rafters. Pansy sighed and turned to Bryn and Joe.

“Please,” she said. “I need to back him off the ledge.”

Kneeling down with her stiff and still-healing leg hurt, but it was better than risking Manny going all hair-trigger on them; Bryn was more concerned about Joe, who’d had a very full day for a man with a recently collapsed lung. He shrugged off her silent concern, though, and sat down a lot more easily than she did. By unspoken agreement, they kept their hands in the air.

“Okay, they’re down,” Pansy said. “Can I please come talk to you?”

“If they move—”

“They’re not going to move. Can I?”

He hesitated for a long moment, and then said, “I’m coming down. Stay there.”

His heavy footsteps clanked overhead and down a staircase somewhere in the shadows to the right. When Manny finally came back into the glow of the overheads, he was dressed in black—black turtleneck, black pants, a black tactical vest with pockets bulging with ammunition. He carried the shotgun at a neutral but ready position.

And his eyes were more than a little crazy. He didn’t take his gaze away from Bryn and Fideli, except for a very fast glance at Pansy.

He handed her a syringe.

“What’s this for?”

“Blood sample,” he said.

“She’s okay, I told you—”

“Not from her. From you.”

“Jesus, Manny!”

This time, the glance he sent her lingered, and was half-apologetic. But still half-crazy. “I need to know that you’re still you. They could have revived you. You could be acting under protocols.”

She didn’t try to talk him out of it, and Bryn thought it was sad that Manny’s paranoia was actually quite practical now; she wouldn’t have believed that kind of thing two weeks ago, but now, it was surprisingly rational. Pansy just walked over to the nearest flat surface, drew a sample of her own blood (not something Bryn thought she could have accomplished with nearly as much aplomb), and handed back the full syringe. Manny backed up, keeping his eyes fixed on all of them, opened up a box nearby, and took out what looked like a sheet of paper. He squirted a small amount of the blood onto the surface. It soaked in quickly, and a blue ring spread out from the crimson blot.

Manny’s body language visibly relaxed. “You’re okay,” he said. He sounded shaken. “You’re really okay.”

“Of course I’m okay, idiot.” Pansy took the shotgun from him, broke open the stock, and set it aside. Then she hugged him, hard, and kissed him. “Thanks for worrying.”

“I always worry.”

“Okay, worrying more than normal.”

Manny looked over his shoulder, first at Bryn, then Fideli. “I know about her. What about him?”

“He’s all right.”

“Test him. Prove it.”

“Okay. First, we don’t need a whole syringe full, right?” She took the syringe from Manny’s fingers and disposed of the rest of the blood in a haz-mat container off to the side, grabbed a test sheet from the box, and went to Fideli’s side. “Knife?”

“Yo,” he said, and took one out of his belt—a big, wicked thing with an edge sharp enough to cut the light. Pansy pressed it lightly to his thumb and smeared the thin crimson line that appeared onto the paper.

Blue halo.

“See?” she asked, and handed Fideli’s knife back. “You can get up now. It’s okay.”

Manny clearly didn’t agree, but he didn’t argue. “We can’t stay here,” he said. “I’ve already called the vans. We’ll be moved by the end of the day and in the new location.”

“Manny, there’s no need to do this. We can stay here.”

“No. I need to move. Too many people in and out. It’s not secure.”

Pansy rolled her eyes. “Not what I needed today. All right, we’ll move. But first, Bryn needs her inhibitor booster, and then I’ll send them on their way.”

“All right.” Manny pointed at a set of boxes across the lab. “Third carton from the bottom. I packed it underneath the extra saline.”

The boxes weren’t labeled, Bryn realized—not a single one. “Do you remember what’s in every one of them?” she asked.

Manny looked at her. “You can put your hands down,” he said. “I’m not going to shoot you.”

“Yeah,” Pansy said, as she walked toward the indicated boxes. “But only because I took his gun.”

“You really remember what’s in the boxes. There must be two hundred of them!”

“Two hundred thirty-six,” he said. “Not counting the crated machines. Yes. I do.”

“What happens when they mix them all up in moving vans?”

“I pay them to make sure they get stacked and delivered in order.” His green eyes were less crazy now, and he frowned as he looked her over. “You don’t look so great.”

Bryn laughed a little. “It’s been … stressful.”

“They were letting her rot,” Fideli said, “for science.”

“Really?” Those eyes gleamed suddenly. “Did you get any records? Video? That would be very useful.”

“Jesus.” Fideli raised his voice. “Pansy, you really sleep with this guy?”

“I keep one eye open,” she called back, as she restacked cartons—keeping them, Bryn noticed, in precisely the same order as they’d been. “Got it!” She held up an IV bag and needle kit. “Manny, stop being so creepy. It was awful for her. It really was.”

He didn’t look noticeably sorry. “I’m sure it was, but still, the opportunity to study something like that …”

“Yeah, well, I hope you won’t have the opportunity to do it on me,” Bryn said. “Where do I sit?”

“Over here,” Pansy said. She hooked the IV bag on a rolling stand that hadn’t yet been packed and pulled over a straight-backed chair. Bryn sat and let Pansy numb the back of her hand, then guide in the needle. It still, as always, hurt, but the cool rush of fluid into her veins soothed things nicely. “Should take about an hour. I’m going to get you some more water. Anything to eat?”

Food. Bryn’s stomach rumbled, and she realized that she hadn’t really even thought about food for so long, it was an abstract concept. “Uh, anything,” she said. “Whatever isn’t packed, I guess.”

“I’ll find something. Joe?”

“I’ll have what she’s having. Minus the IV.” Fideli put his back against the wall and leaned. Now that he wasn’t under threat of death, he allowed himself to look tired. He nodded to Manny. “So you’re the FBI guy, right? The one McCallister knows.”

“You know McCallister.”

“Yeah, old friends. I kinda work for him.”

“Then I suppose you’re all right,” Manny said grudgingly. “He’d probably take it badly if I’d shot you.“

Fideli grinned, a surprising flash of white, even teeth. “I’d like to think so. Glad I didn’t shoot you, too.”

Manny raised his bushy eyebrows. “Do you think you could have, before I fired the shotgun?” Fideli stared back. He didn’t answer, and he didn’t need to, really. Manny nodded and sat down on the edge of one of the wooden pallets. “Interesting.”

“Mutual, if you do half the stuff he says you do.”

“Interesting that he’s talked to you about me, and not to me about you.”

“I’ve known him longer,” Fideli said. “And he meant to bring me over here. He just didn’t get the chance.”

That made them fall silent for a moment. Bryn felt the anxious flutter in her stomach at the thought of McCallister, still missing, and she knew Joe was feeling it, too. Maybe even Manny was, as well.

Pansy came back with cups of instant soup all around, and by the time they were emptied, the four of them had formed a fragile kind of trust.

For now.

Manny kicked them out as soon as Bryn’s IV was finished. So much for trust.

Pansy walked them down to the van. “Sorry about this,” she said. “Once he gets in this mood, I can’t talk him out of it. We’ll move the lab; he’ll settle down; things will go back to normal. But I can’t take you with us. I can’t even tell you where we’re going, because he won’t tell me either. I’ll contact you later.” She passed Bryn a bundle of things. “Here. I think they’ll fit. You can’t run around in some numbered paper jumpsuit and expect not to get noticed.”

“Thanks.”

Fideli nodded to her, too. “Thanks, Pansy,” he said. “Nice working with you.”

“You too, Joe. It was good to get out and stretch my legs again.” Pansy hugged Bryn, and she hugged her back, surprised but pleased. “You, girl, you take care of yourself. I’ll see you in a week for your booster.”

“Promise?”

Pansy silently crossed her heart. “Get going. The moving vans will be here soon, and that makes him extra paranoid, even with all the background checks.”

“How the hell do you put up with it?” Joe asked, climbing into the van’s driver’s seat.

“I love him,” she said. “And he’s not just paranoid. People really are out to get him. And hey, seems like we’re all in that boat now, right?” She leaned in to put a kiss on Joe’s cheek. “You take care, sweetie. Call me anytime you need a partner in crime.”

Bryn buckled her seat belt and rolled down the window as they left the safety and shadows of the warehouse to let a fresh breeze blow through the van. The inside of the vehicle frankly reeked; the smell of her blood made her a little light-headed, or maybe that was the inhibitors taking hold. She was feeling herself again, finally; her leg’s ache had subsided, and when she ran her fingers over the back of it, she felt only a faint and fading scar.

“You can change clothes in the back,” Fideli said. “I’m not gonna peek.”

“You saw it all anyway.” She sighed. “It’ll be nice to not be dressed in paper.”

And it was, very nice, from the soft cotton underwear to the long-sleeved thermal tee and jeans. Pansy had included a pair of slip-on flats for shoes, which would have to do, for now. At least it wasn’t cold outside.

Bryn climbed over the seats and buckled herself back in place. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Safe house up in the hills,” Fideli replied. “Strap in; we don’t need a ticket when the back of the van looks like a butcher shop died in it.”

“Is McCallister there …?”

“I don’t know where Pat is,” Fideli said. “When he’s ready to contact us, he knows my number. We’ve both got disposable burner phones. It’s the best we can do, for now.” He was quiet for a moment, watching traffic, watching the rearview mirror. Road noise hissed through the cabin. “You probably ought to know something.”

“What?”

“McCallister made me promise something. If I couldn’t get you out, or if … if you were too far gone, he made me promise to …”

“To end things for me,” Bryn said. “So I wouldn’t suffer.”

“Yeah. I thought you’d want to know that.” He pulled in a deep breath and let it out, slowly. “These are some fucked-up times if that’s romantic, Bryn.”

It made her smile, and it made her eyes well up at the same time. She turned her face away and let the wind whip against her cheeks to dry them as tears rolled down. “Thanks,” she said. “I did want to know that.”

He turned the radio on after that, and surprised her by singing along to it. He had a good voice, baritone, and did a mean version of Harry Nilsson’s song about the limes and coconuts. It almost felt … normal.

That was something Bryn realized she craved most. Normality. The feeling that her reality was still the same one that all these other people shared, the ones driving on the freeway next to them. They were headed to work or play or home or shopping. They had lives, goals, plans, challenges that didn’t include rotting away inside a dead shell of a body.

She envied them all, so strongly that it hurt. Somehow, without ever meaning to, she’d become an alien, stranded in a strange yet achingly familiar landscape.

“Bryn?”

“What?”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Joe said. “My family’s stuck somewhere halfway across the country, if not outside the country, and I don’t know when or if I’ll ever see them again. Deal with your shit and don’t wallow in it.”

“You—” She bit back her angry retort, and took a deep breath. “I am. I will. I just feel—”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, more gently. “Lost. There’s a lot of that going around.”

A phone was ringing somewhere, a harsh distant buzzing sound that brought Bryn up out of a restless light sleep in a strange bed. Her eyes snapped open, and for a moment she didn’t know where she was—a darkened room, with streetlights casting slanted shadows across the carpet through the blinds. The place smelled stale and unlived-in, and she finally remembered that she was in the safe house, a nondescript ranch house with a pathetic straggly lawn and secondhand furniture in the run-down rooms.

The phone was ringing down the hall, where Joe Fideli was sleeping. She heard him answer it, although she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

Exhaustion pinned her flat to the bed until she heard a light knock on her closed bedroom door, and she rolled out to swing it open.

“You’re dressed,” he said. He sounded surprised, although he was still in his clothes, too.

“Yeah, I figured we’d better be ready for anything.” That, and being dressed made her feel less vulnerable. She’d spent way too much time in that paper jumpsuit. “You got a call.”

“McCallister.” Fideli didn’t sound thrilled, and that made her muscles tense in anticipation of the bad news. “Listen, I think you’d better sit down, Bryn.”

That really didn’t sound good. She backed up without thinking about it, and eased down onto the bed. He stayed where he was, talking from the doorway. “He’s been tracking down your mysterious supplier, and he says he found him.”

“So … that’s good news, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Who is it?”

“Some guy named Mercer. Jonathan Mercer. Sound familiar?”

It didn’t, but then it did. She remembered, far back at the beginning of this nightmare, that McCallister had mentioned the name Mercer…. “Mercer and Sams,” she said.

“They … created the drug. Right?”

“Sams offed himself after Pharmadene started the Returné trials; couldn’t take the guilt. Mercer’s been quietly working like a good beaver ever since, until about a week ago when he went on vacation.” That last was said with air quotes. “He dropped off of Pharmadene’s radar. Translation: he had a heads-up that the big conversion push was coming from Harte, and he didn’t want to end up strapped onto a table with a bag over his head. So he bailed, and they’ve been ripping up streets looking for him ever since. That’s stirred up a lot of information, including the fact that apparently Mercer had been quietly setting up his own production line for Returné.”

“He could ruin everything for them.”

“The only reason he hasn’t so far is that it’s in his interest to keep this thing a black-market enterprise. They need to shut him down hard and fast. Mercer’s a bigger threat to them than any of us are, but he’s also damn smart; we all checked him out and found nothing on him until he bolted.”

“Joe,” she said. Her fists clenched where they rested on her thighs. “Why am I sitting down? What are you not telling me?”

“Mercer wants to make a deal,” Joe said. “McCallister’s full resources and protection of his fledgling operation, in exchange for keeping you supplied with the drug.”

That wasn’t so bad. It was for McCallister, obviously, but … “What else?”

This time, Joe just gave up and said it. “He has leverage,” he said. “He has your sister Annie. She never made it to the airport when she left your apartment, and he says he’s going to kill her if we don’t take a meeting and make a deal. We’ve got just under two hours. He wants you there.”

Annie. Bryn sat frozen; she’d expected … Well, she didn’t know what she’d expected. She hadn’t thought they’d go after her family. She was used to thinking of her people as safely distant, away from all this … but Annalie had walked into the middle of it. Made herself a target.

And Bryn hadn’t seen it coming.

“Bryn? Still with me?”

“Yes.” She stood up, feeling unnaturally calm and focused. “When do we leave?”

Joe cleared his throat. “That’s just it. We don’t. McCallister says it’s better to keep you out of—”

“Give me the phone, Joe.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Joe.” She held her hand out, staring into his eyes. “She’s my sister. Give me the phone.”

He shook his head and handed it over. “His number’s in the call list.”

Bryn dialed, listened as it rang on the other end, and heard McCallister’s voice say, “Bryn. I thought you’d call.”

He sounded tense, but there was a kind of animal comfort to hearing him again, hearing him say her name. She shoved all that aside and said, “I’m going to the meeting.”

“You can’t do that. He’s already got too much leverage over—”

“He asked for me, specifically. You know him; you know how ruthless he is. If I don’t show up, I’m signing Annie’s death warrant,” she said. “I’m getting her back, one way or another.”

“You’re emotionally involved. Let me negotiate this. He will work with me. He doesn’t have a choice.” He paused for a bare second, and then continued. “You have to trust me to handle this for you. He could be setting us up, and I can’t have you complicating things.”

“I do trust you,” Bryn said. “But I’m still going. Either you tell Joe to drive me or I will find a way to contact Mercer myself. I’m not letting you shield me anymore, McCallister. Not from this.”

That brought an even longer silence, and finally, “Put Joe back on the phone.”

“No. You tell me where this meeting is. If I let you talk to him, you’ll probably tell him to drive me around for a while and knock me out when I’m not looking.”

McCallister’s laugh was dry and humorless. “You know me too well already. All right. Here’s the address.” He read it to her, and she burned it into her memory; no chance she’d ever forget it. “Leave Joe out of it. He’s putting on a good front, but he’s hurting, and I don’t want to be responsible for landing him back in the hospital. Or the morgue.”

“Just you and me, then,” she said. “That sounds right.”

“Bryn?”

“Yes?”

He was quiet for so long that she thought she’d lost the connection, and then he said, “I wanted to get you out of there myself. You know that, don’t you?”

“I do,” she said. All the fight went out of her, and she clutched the phone hard, wishing she could see his face. “You told him to kill me if it went wrong. Thank you.”

“I keep my word, Bryn. Always. And I promise, we’ll get your sister back.”

She hung up the phone and slipped it into her pocket, then held out her hand, palm out. “Keys, please,” she said. “You’re staying here. If you don’t believe me, call him back and ask.”

Fideli looked at her for a few seconds, clearly trying to decide whether or not she was insane, and then fished the keys out of his pocket and handed them over. “Go in heavy, and go in hot,” he said. “You understand what I’m talking about?”

She remembered the same conversation, back on a sweltering afternoon as she labored under the weight of body armor, ballistic helmet, weapons, and the stare of her commanding officer. We’re going in hot. It hadn’t ended well that day. Too many IEDs, too many snipers on the rooftops taking out their supply convoy. She could almost taste the grit of blown sand. “I understand,” she said. “Rest. I’ll be back.”

He reached in his pocket and took out a silver tube. “Don’t forget this,” he said. “This one’s not coded to a particular administrator. You can give it to yourself if you need to.”

“Thanks.”

She saw him at the window as she drove away into the night, and wondered whether she’d ever see Joe Fideli again. Wondered whether he’d ever see his family, too.

So much had been torn apart, and she still had so far to go.

Going in hot and heavy.

That pretty much described her entire relationship so far with Patrick McCallister, come to think of it.