No One Lives Twice (A Lexi Carmichael Mystery) (27 page)

“Maybe they planned it that way.”

“Either way, there’s no sense in crying over spilt milk,” Elvis said. “They’re in and we’re in. At this point we know they desperately want you to lead them to Judyta.”

“But for what end purpose?” I murmured.

“You’ve got to decide how to play Slash,” Xavier warned.

“I’ve got a feeling Slash is going to be a problem,” I said glumly. “I think we made a big mistake bringing him in on this.”

“You wanted speed and he was instrumental in helping us get in,” Elvis said bluntly. “Xavier and I could have done it alone, but with Slash we made time in a big way. If I remember correctly, that was a priority at the time.”

“It was,” I said, sighing. “Clearly I had no idea of the scope of the problem. Now I don’t know who to trust anymore.”

Xavier took a swallow of his beer and leaned back in his chair. “Well, if you ask me, I’d say Basia should save her own skin. I’d urge her to go to the nearest American Embassy and ask for help.”

“She won’t do it,” I said flatly. “She won’t abandon her cousin. Besides Judyta wants to keep the baby.”

Xavier whistled. “Do you think she’d change her mind after she heard the baby contained none of her own genetic material?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I think she should have the opportunity to choose.”

The twins fell silent and I tried to settle the chaotic swirl of thoughts in my head. Typically I’m the kind of person who needs quiet time to ruminate and reflect in order to figure things out. Unfortunately the luxury of uninterrupted thinking time didn’t seem in the cards for me anytime soon.

“Did either of you happen to notice any mention of anything to do with terrorism, Yemen or anything like that when looking through the Acheron file?” I asked the twins.

“No, but it’s a huge file and we’ve only scanned it,” Xavier said. “We’ll keep looking.”

Elvis shook his head. “Lexi, this is one hell of a mess. Still, it seems to me that you have a lot more to fear from the brass at CGM than just about anyone else. The execs are likely to go to extreme measures to protect themselves if they discover you’re on to their profitable little secret.”

I shivered. “You don’t have to warn me. I’ve already had enough experience this past week with guns and threats of bodily harm to last me a lifetime. I’m only sorry I dragged you guys into this.”

Xavier shrugged. “In my opinion, there are greater forces at work here. Either way, I’m okay with it. The question is what are you going to do now?”

I honestly had no idea. “Well, maybe things will become clearer if I approach this logically and analytically—like a math equation, I guess. The problem is the shifting and hidden variables. It seems like everyone has a personal agenda—the FBI, NSA, CIA, Yemen government, Al-Asan, CGM and possibly even Vatican intelligence. And that’s not to mention Basia and Judyta herself. Who knows who else is vested in this? But what is the common denominator?”

Elvis and Xavier looked hard at me in silence.

I held up my hands. “Okay, other than
me,
what is the common denominator?”

Xavier lifted the bottle of beer to his lips and took a swallow. “Honestly, I’m not seeing one. But if we pick it apart, I guess I’d say that on one end, the U.S. government and the Vatican definitely want to put an immediate stop to the cloning.”

“Yeah, but I’d venture a guess that their primary goal is to keep it quiet,” Elvis offered. “I mean, think about it. If Judyta’s pregnancy actually comes to term, the knowledge of a successful human cloning could potentially be more dangerous than the attempt itself.”

I could see where they were going with this. Once the scientific breakthrough had been made, the floodgates would open. Any ethical, moral and religious concerns would be drowned in scientific excitement.

“Okay, now on the other end of the spectrum, where does a royal Saudi prince with a desire for a clone and the Yemeni government fit in?” Xavier asked.

“Well, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” Elvis commented.

I pressed my fingers to my temples. “I don’t get it. Why don’t U.S. authorities just go in and shut down CGM? That would certainly put an immediate stop to the cloning attempts.”

“That might have worked months ago,” Elvis said. “But now it’s too late. CGM has already implanted the clones. What’s left is to track down everyone and acquire, or perhaps even suppress, the evidence.”

That sounded pretty darn ominous to me. “Okay, I can see why no one wants it to get out that human cloning is taking place, the Vatican included. But I just don’t buy the idea that the U.S. government, and especially not the Vatican, is systematically hunting down innocent women and executing them because they carried or are carrying, a clone of a Saudi prince. After all, the women weren’t even informed of Project Acheron.” I sighed. “Jeez, I just don’t have a clue here. What am I going to do?”

Elvis put a hand on my arm. “You have to do the only thing you can do, Lexi,” he said. “You have to play your advantage.”

I looked up hopefully. “I have an advantage?”

“Of course. You’re the only link between all of these groups and Judyta Taszynski. Basia isn’t going to trust anyone but you, and every player in the game knows it.”

“Then why did someone try to shoot me in front of the disco club?”

“Apparently someone wants to stop you from revealing Judyta’s whereabouts.”

“CGM?”

“That’s the most likely candidate.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my forehead. Elvis was right. I did have an advantage and it was a big one. But how was I supposed to use it? This whole situation had gone so far beyond the scope of my expertise that it was breathtaking. I was nothing more than a junior techie who liked chocolate éclairs, doing crossword puzzles on my lunch break and drinking Diet Coke for breakfast. Excitement for me meant answering the final Jeopardy question correctly while eating my nuked dinner off a tray. Human cloning, terrorists and people with guns were for experienced field agents or movie stars, not a desk-jockey, geeky computer nerd/mathematician like me. Yet here I was. So what was I going to do about it? Whine and mope, or do something useful?

Think, Carmichael, think.

I resumed pacing and chewed at my fingernails. “All right, if I’m to use my so-called advantage to help Basia, I need to know exactly what I’m up against. Slash isn’t talking and the NSA is apparently playing me blind in this. So that leaves me with only one course of action. I’ve got to stop being a doormat and start making things happen the way
I
want.”

“Now you’re talking.” Elvis smiled encouragingly.

“What do you have in mind?” Xavier asked.

My heart pounded furiously and I wondered if real field agents nearly had a heart attack each time they were about to embark upon a dangerous and daring course of action.

“I’ve got to figure out a way to bring all the involved parties to the table, minus Judyta, of course,” I said slowly. “It’s kind of like when James Bond leads the good guys to the bad guys and then they have it out on a deserted island surrounded by lots of sharks.”

The twins stared open-mouthed at me, so I smiled. “Just kidding. About the shark part, at least. But I really mean it about bringing everyone together. I’ve got a gut feeling that things will break wide open if I can initiate a surprise confrontation between all the parties involved. If every player is forced to show his or her hand, maybe I’ll have enough data to determine who is out to help Judyta and who wants to hurt her.”

“Sounds iffy,” Xavier said doubtfully. “So many things could go wrong.”

“These days, iffy is the story of my life.”

“Actually, I approve,” Elvis said, tapping his chin. “It gives you some measure of control.”

Yeah, like I felt even remotely in command of this situation. But Elvis was partially right. It did give me at least the illusion of control. Either way, I preferred that a heck of a lot more than being manipulated every time I turned around.

Snatching a piece of paper and a pencil from a nearby table, I started to write. Elvis and Xavier peered over my shoulder. I scrawled:

S
_s
=R* · M · C · N · F · I
_c
· V
_†
· S
_t
· Y
_i

“
S
will equal the percentage for success of all parties meeting in Sweden at the same time,” I explained. “First, we make a variable for each national and international agency interested in finding Judyta and estimate the probability for each to follow me to a showdown. I figure that to be relatively high.” I scratched some more figures down. “Second, I’ll insert a calculated psych average that people will do the expected under predictable circumstances.”

“What’s predictable about that?” Xavier asked.

“They all want to find Judyta. The difficult part is including the unknowns, like someone deciding to shoot or stop me along the way, or planes, trains or natural disasters putting the timing off. So, I’ll weight that with a twenty percent margin of error.” I took a moment to calculate that in my head and marked it down. “Then, taking into account all the known and unknown variables, I have a forty-three point eight percent chance of success in getting all parties to meet in Sweden at the same time. Not great, but doesn’t suck either.”

The twins studied it thoughtfully. “Quantum bogodynamics,” Xavier said.

“Optimum,” Elvis added.

I let out a deep breath. I always felt better when my world was defined by the rigid logic of mathematics, even if some of the variables were rather questionable.

“So, I’m thinking that we send an ‘invitation’ to some of the players, sort of like how you brought Slash into this in the first place,” I continued. “The others I’ll bring to the party myself. They’re watching and following me, so presumably they’ll go everywhere I go. Then, boom, we’ve got everyone together who has an interest in this thing. That’s when I’ll start the auction.”

Elvis raised an eyebrow. “Auction?”

“An information auction. Those willing to put information on the table regarding their reasons for wanting to find Judyta might get some information in return. I can’t begin to figure out how to best help Judyta until I know what all her options are. That includes knowing what each group plans to do with the baby if she births it successfully.”

“Do you intend to bring Basia to the table, too?” Xavier asked.

“Absolutely. She’s critical as she’ll be representing Judyta in all this.”

“How are you going to bring her here if she’s in hiding somewhere in Sweden?”

I considered for minute. “I don’t bring her anywhere,” I finally said. “I’m going to take everyone else to her.”

I saw the twins’ eyes widen, but I could tell each of them was weighing the odds, and calculating the risk.

“So you bring all these groups together,” Xavier said slowly. “What will stop them from shooting you or each other the moment they show up at this unexpected information auction?”

“Because they all want the same thing—Judyta Taszynski. I’m not saying it will be pretty, but I think at the very least
I’ll
be safe as long as the NSA is present.”

“But you can’t entirely trust the U.S. government,” Elvis pointed out. “You have no idea what they want with Judyta. Will they permit her to birth the clone? And if so, will they want to study it, dissect it or eliminate it? Or possibly all of the above.”

I shivered. “I know. It’s risky as hell. Do you guys have any other ideas?”

The twins shook their heads and I nodded. “We go ahead. I’ve got a feeling we don’t have much time. Judyta and Basia are not going to be able to avoid such a determined search for much longer. We have to put things into play while we still have the advantage.”

“All right, I’m with you so far,” Elvis said. “Details?”

I had already chewed my thumbnail to the quick, so I started on my pointer finger. My mind raced with possibilities as I determined, adjusted and discarded ideas.

“Okay, the key here is surprise,” I finally said. “I don’t want it to be too obvious that I know what I’m doing. So let’s say I pretend to give those U.S. government agencies watching me the slip and head for Basia in Sweden. They already know she and Judyta are hiding there, so as soon as I disappear, that’s the first place they’ll look. Since I have no official training as an agent, my pathetic attempts at avoiding detection will naturally seem amateur.”

“They
will
be amateur,” Elvis pointed out.

“True,” I said. “And all the better for me, I guess. The point is I
want
the U.S. government to follow me, but I
don’t
want them to know I’m leading them.”

“All right, keep going,” Elvis said. “Presuming that you are able to bring the U.S. side to this illusory table of yours, how do you intend to bring along someone like Rashid Bouker?”

“Clearly I’ll need to tip off Bouker somehow,” I said. “He’s critical to the plan because we have to figure out how Yemeni intelligence plays into this. We’ll have to fashion his invitation carefully. I’ll have to drop a clue, provide a tantalizing intelligence tidbit. You know, something subtle like that.”

“I’m sure I’ll be able to do that,” Elvis said quickly. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to hack into the embassy network and fabricate a piece of information to pass along to Yemeni intelligence.”

“Jeez, hack into an embassy computer?” I said, shaking my head. “No freaking way. I’ve already led you guys far enough down the path to perdition. I’m a small fish, but both you guys have important reputations and brilliant minds to protect. Besides, this isn’t your fight.”

“The hell it’s not,” Xavier interjected angrily. “We helped Slash break into CGM, so that means we’re already up to our necks in this situation.”

“Still, it’s not too late to back out. I appreciate you all serving as my sounding boards, but I really can’t ask you to do any more.”