Body Double (11 page)

Amazing, but if she hadn’t seen him face-to-face again, she would have sworn the man in the photos was Thomas Kunz, just as Intel had purported. Yet on seeing him, she’d immediately known the truth.

Mind games. He loved the “miracles of modern medicine” and, while that memory surprised her, she’d be foolish to forget that he included corrupting those miracles.

“Turn right here,” Gaston said.

Amanda turned and walked to where Gaston stopped, two doors down. He held open a door for her. “I’ll wait here.”

“Thank you,” she said, then walked into the room.

It was semidark, shadowy, a screening room of sorts. Three rows of six red-cushioned theater seats were centered before a large blank screen.

Thomas Kunz sat front row center. He turned to look back at her. “Ah, finally. Come and join me, Amanda.”

She sat down on the row’s end seat. “I need a shower,” she explained. “I was out for a run.”

“Considerate.”

Kunz’s smile stunned her. He looked so charming and innocent. How could he look so at ease with himself and at peace with his conscience when he’d done so many horrible things?

She crossed her ankles. “You summoned, I presume, for a reason.”

“Oh, yes.” Kunz shifted to face her. “I have something I want you to see. I suggest you watch carefully, my dear, and with as much emotional detachment as possible. It might be a little discomfiting, but it will prove to be in your best interests.”

“I’ll do my best to muddle through it, Thomas.”

“I’m in no mood for amusements, so kindly refrain from engaging in flippant remarks and sarcasm.” He looked at her, his eyes cold and empty.

The sunny-to-frigid change startled her. Burying her reaction to him, she shrugged. “So what is it you want me to see?”

“Your fate.”

Fingers of ice tapped at her spine, squeezed her heart. “Okay, then. Let’s take a look.” She tried to sound breezy, knew she’d failed, but he obviously took her comment as sass and not substantive because he again frowned.

Kunz lifted a hand and the lights dimmed to dark. The screen before them flickered, and the “movie” began. The first image had Amanda’s heart slamming against her ribs and her throat swelling shut.

She was the star in this film. And she was in uniform, meeting with Colonel Drake and Kate in Colonel Drake’s office at Providence. Only it wasn’t Amanda. She wasn’t there.

It was her double.

Living Amanda’s life.

Thomas cued up the sound. The double was speaking, and she sounded like Amanda—right down to her slight southern drawl.

“After intense investigation and conferring with Captain Cross, ma’am,” the double told Colonel Drake, “I’m convinced there are no links between the three-month-absence cases.”

“But, Amanda,” Kate interceded, flipping a hand through her soft blond curls. “The last time we talked, you were certain there was a connection. Mark believed there was one, too.”

“We were wrong, Kate,” the double said simply. “We scrutinized everything and then double-checked ourselves. We found nothing. No evidence whatsoever to suggest any link. It just wasn’t there.”

“Well,” Colonel Drake chimed in. “In the absence of evidence, we have no choice. I’m downgrading the necessity for Special Project status on this. Lower the priority code on GRID right away, Amanda.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kate looked less than happy. Actually, she looked pissed. And she would be because she knew Mark and knew the quality of his work. He had felt something was there, and Kate would respect that. She also eyed Amanda’s double warily, though Kunz didn’t seem to notice. But then, he wouldn’t. Kate was merely Amanda’s peer. She lacked jurisdiction or authority over her. Colonel Drake was Amanda’s superior officer, the commander of S.A.S.S., and Kunz would be hot-wired to her reaction to Amanda’s double.

Inside, Amanda started to shake. Whether from fear or outrage, she couldn’t tell. If honest, she had to admit it was probably a fair share of both.

Kunz turned to look at her. “I thought you should see this
yourself. You can be amazingly stubborn about accepting the truth.”

“What truth is that, Thomas?”

“Colonel Drake believes your double is you. She’s totally accepted her.”

“For the moment,” Amanda conceded. Verification of the reason for the three months of plundering the depths of her mind became terrifyingly clear: familiarity studies for her double.

Kunz smoothed a hand down the thigh of his slacks. “No one will ever doubt her. She’s worked very hard and done an excellent job at becoming you.”

Amanda slid him a cold look. “I don’t care if you have half the medical community working around the clock, you’re not going to learn everything about any person in three months, Thomas. Things come up. Judgments have to be made. Little details get screwed up. Something happens and the truth comes out. It always comes out.”

“Of course,” he said. “Little details do happen.” He rocked back in his seat and lit a cigarette. As I told you at our last meeting, keeping you alive makes you available to your double at all times, doesn’t it?”

It did. It also gave her endless opportunities to pass coded messages to Drake that would reveal the truth…maybe. “How many times have you inserted doubles? Have you just infiltrated the air force? It and the CIA?” He had known about the CIA drop zone in Carolina. Harry was supposedly dead, but he was here. “Or have you pulled these switches in all U.S. security forces?”

Kunz declined to answer.

“What?” She pushed. “I’m stuck here forever. I want to know.”

“Ask me two years from now, and I’ll answer you, Amanda.”

He knew she would get out of here before then, or die trying. She had to. The amount of trouble her double could wreak with her clearances could devastate the nation. Amanda had access to all U.S. intelligence agencies—including those that didn’t exist on paper. Every operative and mission around the globe was in jeopardy.

Kunz’s double had taken over Amanda’s life. Become her.

And for the moment, Amanda was doomed to sit and watch her live it.

A
manda returned to her apartment with more questions than answers and more worries than solutions. She grabbed a glass in the kitchen and walked straight to the fridge.

Joan had left a note in the ice bin—and had snitched most of Amanda’s ice as a pretense.

Amanda palmed the note and dropped a couple cubes into her glass, filled it with water and drank heavily, then headed for the shower—the only place in the apartment, according to Joan, where Kunz prohibited monitoring equipment. Cranking on the water, Amanda stripped off her damp clothes, stepped into the tub and then shut the curtain behind her.

Then she read the note.

S.Z. 11 P.

Safe zone at 11:00 p.m. Joan was confirming their earlier conversation. It was about 4:00 p.m. now. Amanda could shower, eat, snoop around a little and then meet Joan. Anticipation rippled in her stomach like the water rippled over her
skin. She needed to talk to Mark in a bad way. They had to somehow break down this machine Kunz had built—before it broke down the government.

She chewed up the note, swallowed and soaped, rinsed then soaped again, letting the delicate fragrance soothe her raw nerves. Being around Kunz had made her feel dirty, and she wanted to feel clean again.

Common sense warned she had only a narrow window of time to develop a plan. With Colonel Drake already accepting her double, a very narrow window of time. And the plan had better be the best created in her career. Failing was not an option. The costs were higher than even imagined. Bluntly put, they were astronomical.

If Kunz and GRID succeeded, they would decide the economic and political structure of the United States. And the United States fed a large share of the world, and provided grants for medicine and humanitarian aid essential to sustaining life. Kunz and GRID would effectively choose the quality of life for the entire world, and he would choose who lived and who died.

There was no way she could allow that kind of power to fall into the hands of a sadistic, twisted man like Thomas Kunz—or any one man, for that matter.

All necessary means, Princess.

All necessary means. She swallowed hard. Would her “all” be enough?

Overbite stood on the sidewalk and watched Amanda’s bedroom window. She turned off the light. Minutes later, he sat down on the grass, leaned back against the trunk of the old oak in the front yard and lit a cigarette. He definitely considered her down for the night.

In the dark, she pulled on black pants and a long-sleeved top. The heat would be murder, but she’d have more protection than with her skin exposed to any light. According to
Joan, they were safe from night vision glare. Amanda hoped she was right. She tugged the sleeves down to her wrists, then covered her hair and most of her face with a black scarf she found in the top right dresser drawer. That gave her the heebie-jeebies; that Kunz even had duplicates of her things in the exact place she kept them at her real apartment. How many times had her home been invaded and she had not known it? Or had Kunz had all that done during her three-month absence? Or by her double?

Unable to answer any of that, she slipped out the bathroom window and slid down the outer wall into the hedge. Taking cover from trunk to trunk, she followed the thicket of trees splattered throughout the yard toward the path to the golf course. It was pitch dark, no moonlight. If she could make it to the course, she could make it to the safe zone undetected.

The air was hot and heavy. She moved quickly to the seventh hole, to the safe zone, and was glad to see Joan’s silhouette.

“Mark’s with me at the lab now,” Joan said without preamble. “At the moment, he’s okay.”

Amanda had to choose. She could trust Joan, believe that she wasn’t working with Kunz to test Amanda, or she could try to do what needed to be done alone. Her odds for success in the latter case were slim to none, which left her with no choice at all. “Kunz showed me my double today,” she said. “The woman’s already inserted into my life. How many doubles are there?”

“I don’t know exactly. I’ve been here less than six months. But in the last two months, Kunz and Reese have really ramped up the process.”

Cold shivers slammed into Amanda and she rubbed her arms. “Listen, Joan. I’m not sure you’re aware of the magnitude of all this. If Kunz effectively manipulates U.S. operatives, he can effectively manipulate world events.”

“I know.”

“And I understand now how GRID is so successful at getting accurate intel to broker on the black market. There are fail-safe protections in place, security measures to prevent this type of thing. But his doubling scheme is so complex…Who could have anticipated that?”

“No one without an evil, diabolical mind.”

“Problem is, it’s working.” Amanda scraped her damp forehead with the heel of her hand. “I—I don’t know how pervasive it is, but my instincts are telling me every U.S. operative and mission worldwide is in jeopardy.”

“I’d say that’s a fair assessment.”

“Exactly what kind of doctor are you?”

“I’m a psychiatrist with extensive experience in psychological warfare. Specifically, in memory manipulations.” She looked haunted. “I wanted to help Alzheimer’s patients. Instead, I got myself and my family hijacked by a sadist.”

“How?”

“He threatened to kill my family.”

Amanda shrugged. Threats against loved ones weren’t uncommon. “And you caved on that?”

“Not at first,” Joan admitted, her voice soft and thick. “Not until he killed my parents and my husband’s parents on the same day, and told me Simon and Jeremy were next.”

Revulsion raced through Amanda. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.” The sorrow in her eyes was a window to the wound in her soul that would never heal.

“Do you do the plastic surgeries on the doubles?”

Joan shook her head that she didn’t. “He has a staff of surgeons, former Soviets, who are all experts. They do the surgeries.”

“Why?”

“Money,” Joan said. “And it’s one of the last places in the
world where they can experiment on live subjects. The idea appeals to the twisted asses.”

“Are they here?”

“No, they left about a week ago. I wasn’t told where they were going.”

Amanda gave Joan a level look, her face swept in shadow. “You know he gave me twenty-four hours to decide whether I’ll train GRID operatives in S.A.S.S. operations or die.”

“I didn’t.” Joan sucked in a sharp gasp. “You can’t do it, Amanda. We’ve got to stop him. I don’t know how or by what means, but we’ve got to do
something
to stop him.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” Amanda stepped closer, dropped her voice lower. “Where are the records on all the doubles?”

“I don’t know. He has sweepers clean off anything on the computer system and takes all the records out of the clinic before he inserts the doubles. I have no idea what he does with the files or disks. They could be in a vault here or in another compound.”

“Do you know where the vault is? Or how many compounds there are?”

“No, I don’t. Paul Reese might, but I sincerely doubt anyone else does. Kunz keeps everyone as much in the dark about operations as possible.”

“Do you have any idea who the doubles are, or where they’re inserted?”

“Only the thirty I’ve debriefed.”

Thirty? Oh, God. Thirty?
“If you had to guess, how many doubles would you estimate he’s inserted overall?”

“Hundreds. All over, not just in the military. FBI, CIA, NSA, INS, Secret Service, OSI—everywhere. His goal is to infiltrate Congress, Amanda. Knowing Kunz, he won’t stop until he’s tapped into the White House.”

Amanda’s blood chilled to ice. “We’ve got to take him
down and find out how far he’s gotten. But we need serious help to do it.”

Joan looked down at the ground. “You know he’ll kill us and Simon and Jeremy if we’re caught.”

Amanda held her steady gaze. “Yes.”

“And Mark.”

“Yes.” A knot formed in Amanda’s throat. “Mark has to come with us.”

“That’s risky. Really risky—”

“That’s not negotiable.”

Joan let out a deep sigh, resigned herself and stiffened, steeling herself for what she had to do. “Okay. Here’s the deal. I’ll manipulate Mark’s debriefings. I won’t drug him. You rescue Jeremy, Simon and me. We get out of here, and then we work from the outside to bring Kunz and GRID down—and that bastard Paul Reese.”

“Did he hit you, too?”

“He raped me in front of my husband and son.” Joan’s voice trembled with anger.

Shock coursed through Amanda. “Paul Reese? The white knight?”

“So he claimed. I never saw any evidence of it.” Joan’s voice went flat. “I couldn’t repair his face. So I had to be scarred, too.”

Amanda had damaged his face. Guilt flooded her. He had raped Joan to retaliate against Amanda. “I—I’m so sorry, Joan.”

“You didn’t rape me, Amanda, he did. But I lived.” She lowered her gaze. “I’ve been talking with Jeremy about it. I think he understands. It’s hell to have to explain something like that to a child.”

“Oh, God, Joan. I—I—”

“What?”

“I scarred him.” Amanda’s stomach roiled and knotted. “It’s my fault.”

“No. It’s not. He’s responsible, Amanda. Only him.”

She swallowed hard, trembling with outrage. “Don’t worry about Reese anymore. I’ll handle him.”

“How?” Joan parked a hand on her hip. “What are you planning to do?”

Amanda looked her right in the eye. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Can you do that?” Joan sounded torn between horror and fascination.

“Yes, I can.” Amanda didn’t elaborate or justify.

Joan licked her lips. “I’m scared, Amanda,” she whispered. “I mean, really scared.”

“You’d be nuts if you weren’t.” A furrow formed, pulling at the skin between her eyebrows. “The question isn’t if you’re afraid—it never is. It’s whether or not you’ve got the courage to do the right thing in spite of being afraid.”

Joan paused, looked off into the distance. Quiet resolve slid down over her face. “I’m not a particularly brave person—I never have been. But I have to do this or I’ll never again be able to look myself in the face.”

“That’s my standard criterion for taking on outrageous risks.”

“We have to do this, and I know we can.”

Glad to hear it, Amanda dragged her mind from Reese and the rape back to GRID. “Explain to me how things work in the compound—and tell me, where the hell are we? It’s supposed to be the Middle East, but the humidity says—”

“The soil says Texas. South Texas, somewhere off the I-10 stretch. I’m not sure exactly where the nearest town is or what it is.”

Amanda had been that route several times. You could drive all day and see nothing for miles and miles. Even gas services were a hundred miles apart in places. Egress out of here was going to have to be by air. Mark flew helicopters, so they
were covered on piloting. But they’d have to steal a chopper—one with a full tank of fuel. “Where are the helicopter hangars?”

“Hangar Row,” Joan said. “Two buildings down on the left from the one with the screening room you were at today.”

“Where is Simon being held?”

“In the cabins off the third hole on the golf course. They’re off to the right, about two blocks. There are several rows. All the detainees whose doubles have been inserted are kept there.”

Detainees. Prisoners kept alive indefinitely to answer any questions or assist their counterpart doubles. Kunz was one sick puppy. And one damn smart one. “Is everything on the compound centered on the golf course?” That struck her as extremely odd.

“Yes, it is.”

“Why?”

“Kunz and Reese are into golf.” Joan shrugged. “Many of the operatives play as well, so the doubles have to practice and play. In fact, you played often while you were here.”

Amanda stared in utter disbelief. “I don’t play golf.”

“You did when you were here before.”

So this was her Middle Eastern complex, too. Unwilling to ponder what else she’d done while here, Amanda turned the topic back to Joan’s husband. “Which cabin is Simon’s?”

“The second one on the second row.”

“I need access to Mark, in order to plan.”

“Wait here.”

Amanda stood in the clearing and heard more than saw Joan disappear into the night. Minutes passed. Almost too many. Then Mark joined her in the safe zone. His face was bruised, his hand swollen. He had been tortured during interrogation. Her heart hitched. “Joan said you weren’t being tortured, but—”

“Shh, I’m fine.” He hugged her to him, his heart beating hard and fast against her chest. “You okay?”

“So far.” She stroked him, wanting to comfort him without getting maudlin, remembering too well how fragile she’d felt after the tomb, and how much she had resented that fragility. “You?”

“Pissed to the gills.” He looked down at her. “They’re inserting doubles, Amanda. Joan’s explained the entire process to me. It’s damn diabolical.”

“Worse,” she said. “It’s working.”

“One of the doubles for a CIA agent in Europe had seventeen plastic surgeries to perfect his appearance before he was inserted. That’s why the absences. They need time to make the changes and program—for lack of a better description—the doubles.”

“Mark, are you getting what happened with Harding and Sloan?”

He stilled, looked down at her.

“The doubles did the killing,” Amanda said. “Kunz couldn’t have a wife or significant other noticing details that a wife would notice. When Harding’s wife, Sharon, made the appointment with the OSI to report something ‘troubling,’ Kunz had her killed.”

“And then withdrew the double and reinserted Harding into his own life to take the blame,” Mark said. “Harding really didn’t have a clue what had happened to Sharon. He wasn’t there. He was here.”

“Or somewhere like here. There’s more than one compound.” Amanda said. “So why didn’t Harding remember it?”

“Joan says it’s a combination of amnesia-induced drug therapy and reprogramming. She used the analogy of erasing that sector of a person’s hard drive.”