Strange Robby (44 page)

"Yes," Mark spat back.

"And do you understand?"

"Yes," Mark said.

Fritz turned to one of the SWTF guys. "Leave the little bastard tied up. It will be good for him."

Fritz and Francis left, and the SWTF guys started to file out behind them.

The one with the prod hit the boy again, and Mark screamed.

Jason grabbed the guy by the collar and shook him.

"What the hell was that for!" Jason hissed in the man's face.

The man smiled and shrugged. "For the fun of it. It ain't like they're gonna let him live, anyway. He's a fucking freak; he ain't human."

"Don't do it again," Jason ordered. He left the room following the guy with the prod. His palms were sweaty, and he felt sick.

Mark was glad when he heard the door close. He started to cry. He knew they were watching him, but it wasn't the same as them being in the room.

Another crew of men came in and started putting Spider in a straightjacket.

"Leave her alone!" Mark screamed. "Leave her alone!"

"Shut up, kid!" one of the men screamed at him. "We ain't hurting her, just making it where she can't hurt herself."

Mark kept telling himself that they were going to get away. That they were going to get away and kill all of these assholes. It was the only way he was going to make it through whatever they were going to do to him next.

"Well, what have you got for me Denisten?" Carrie asked.

Justin looked at the woman. She was not nearly as attractive as he remembered her being. Her eyes had black circles around them and were sunk back in her head. Her skin was gray looking, and she looked like she'd lost a bunch of weight. Obviously, she was getting even less sleep than he was.

"It's not easy. Without drawing attention to the fact that I'm checking out the SWTF it's hard to get to those files. Harder still to do it without leaving any traces. So far I have found a kind of pattern. Seven cities keep cropping up in the files. Shea City, Washington DC, LA, Denver, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Seattle." He walked over and loaded the disk onto Carrie's computer. "If you'll look, you'll see that the numbers go up every five years. I'm assuming that by subjects they mean these hybrids. You can also see that they introduce approximately five new subjects to these areas every five years. Now I don't have a list of names, yet, but we do have dates of birth. If we match the birth dates to the cities . . . "

"We'll get a list of babies born on that day, and we'll be able to track them down that way."

"Bingo," Justin said. "We have a few problems—most relatively small—but one rather large."

"Problems, we don't need no stinking problems!" George said. Carrie and Justin turned and stared at him, he laughed nervously and shrugged. "Just trying to lighten things up a bit."

"Well, don't," Carrie said. "Go on, Denisten."

"First, I don't know how much the FBI knows. It looks like they started to investigate the SWTF and someone very high up the food chain threw out a red flag and stopped the investigation. The notes I've found with the files would certainly lead me to believe that they had no idea what they were looking at. If the FBI knows exactly what's going on with the SWTF, then they're covering for them. If they are, that means we're dealing with two government agencies, not just one, and the FBI has considerably more man power than the SWTF.

"Second, all of the agents that did the initial investigation on the SWTF met with unfortunate accidents. All either in the line of duty or under unquestionable, or at least unquestioned, accidental circumstances. No investigations. No arrests. No loose ends.

"And last, the crème de la crème. If you'll look at this list carefully you'll notice that these subjects have all been tested."

"What does that mean?" George asked.

Carrie sighed deeply. "If they know they are being tested, then they know what they are, what they're being tested for, and why. It means at least some of these human weapons may be willing participants in the program. It means they may be working for the SWTF. Which means my whole plan just got scrapped."

Denisten nodded silently, then added after a moment. "So, what now boss?"

Jason walked into the diner for lunch, although he was almost afraid to eat. He had never been so confused or tormented in his life. He openly admitted that he had done terrible things for the agency before, but torturing a nine-year-old boy was hitting a little too close to home for him.

The girl set the menu in front of him. "Coffee today, Mr. Baker?"

He just nodded and started looking at the menu. The girl came back with the coffee.

"Ready to order?" she asked.

"I'll just have the soup and some crackers, Helen." He forced a smile for her, and she smiled back and hurried off to fill his order.

Robby grabbed Helen in the kitchen and pulled her aside. "That man out there."

"Yes?"

"Give him this napkin," Robby said.

Helen nodded silently and took the napkin. She tried to make her hand stop shaking as she handed Jason his soup and crackers. She put the napkin down by his bowl. "Enjoy your meal." She moved quickly away.

Jason picked up his napkin and started to flip it open. But when he saw the writing, he quickly put it beneath the table and unfolded it over his lap. He looked down and read the note.

If you don't want the boy to die, meet me in the bathroom.

Jason took a couple of bites of soup, then he purposefully spilt a mouthful down the front of his shirt. "Damn!" he cursed and started wiping it off with the napkin. Then he got up, napkin in hand, and headed for the bathroom.

He walked in and heard someone slide the lock closed behind him. When he turned around to look, he found that he wasn't too surprised by who it was.

"So, you're the Fry Guy," Jason said. "I could turn you in and make myself the pride of the agency, get myself a healthy bonus, too."

"We both know you'd never get the chance," Robby said. "I know what's in your mind. What kind of man you are, and what kind of man you wish you were. You want to redeem yourself, and I can help you do that if you help me."

Jason nodded. He threw the note into the toilet and flushed. "OK, buddy. Tell me what you think I can do."

When Spider came to she was hanging from the ceiling in a straightjacket again. Not exactly the best position to be in. Mark was still strapped to the chair, and from the wet condition of his pants they had left him there quite awhile.

The door opened, and this time Spider hit the SWTF man on the other side hard.

As Fritz started to walk through the door someone in the control room screamed. "Fritz! We've got a breach and we've got psychic activity!"

About that time the SWTF man grabbed Fritz in a headlock. He was about to break Fritz's neck when one of the other guards hit him with a tazer. The only real plus being that it shocked the shit out of Fritz, too.

They hit Spider with the lightning bolt and hurried in, closing the door behind them. Spider realized that she had shot her wad and blown her one real shot.

"No more stalling," Fritz said rubbing at his throat. "Give us the Fry Guy."

The SWTF guy stood ready to hit the boy with a cattle prod.

Spider swallowed hard. "His name is Fred Brown. Lives on forth and Brooklyn in the projects."

"If you're lying . . . " Fritz started.

"All that would do is buy me a little more time," she said.

"And you can both stay right where you are till we're sure."

"You'll never take him alive," Spider said. "He'll kill you all before you even get close."

Fred had lived in the projects all his life and he knew the heat when he saw it.

He crawled out his window and up the fire escape onto the roof, and then he just kept running.

The SWTF crashed the door on apartment sixteen as their man on the street screamed into their comlinks. "He's up the fire escape heading for the roof!"

They went out the window and started after him. Neither one wanted to get too close unless they were sure they could squeeze off a shot first.

Fred heard something ping close to his head as he jumped over the edge of the building and started sliding down the pipe. These bastards were shooting at him without even screaming for him to give himself up! What was more they were using silencers, and the things they were shooting at him looked more like darts than bullets. What kind of heat was this? He took off down the alley, jumping the fence just as two more showed up. Damn! He couldn't remember having to run this hard since those two pigs had tried to chase him down. That Chink had damn near caught him that time.

Fred kept running.

"What do you mean they don't have him!" Fritz screamed into the receiver. "Well get him . . . Keep looking . . . It's not that big an area. Where could he have gone?" Fritz hung up he looked at Francis. "We won't know whether she's told us the truth or not if we can't catch the guy, and she knows that." He was mad. He didn't like it when he was played for a fool. The only thing worse was waiting around to have his foolishness confirmed.

"All we can do now is wait," Francis said.

"She's almost too clever," Fritz said, rubbing his throat.

"What do you mean?" Francis asked.

"I mean that if we let her live there is a very real chance that she
will
kill us."

"But we need her for the program. All her previously harvested eggs have been turned into embryos. If we're going to breed her to the Fry Guy . . . "

"We don't need her, we just need her eggs for the program. If she's dead, we can take all of them and no one will be the wiser."

"Such a waste," Francis said.

"She's served her purpose," Fritz said matter-of-factly. "She's more trouble than she's worth, and nothing we could do would control her."

"We've got to move now," Jason told Robby. They had met in the bathroom at the park. "She's given them some other guy's name, and when they catch him and find out he doesn't have any power they're going to torture and then kill the boy."

Robby nodded. He'd said good-bye to Helen, and he was ready to go—to get it over with one way or the other. "Did you get the stuff?"

"Yeah. Here." He handed a bag to Robby.

Robby pulled out the lab coat and put it on. Then he almost dropped the bag. "Jesus fucking Christ!" Robby said making a face.

"What?" Jason said in disbelief. "You run around frying people's brains and blowing them up, but a disembodied hand in a baggy freaks you out. Give me a big break."

"How is that going to help me get in the building?" Robby asked, making a face.

"The handprint. You're going to need the handprint to get in," Jason said. "You just hold it at the wrist up under your sleeve, and when you get to the door . . . "

"All right, all right, let's just do it."

Jason helped him put on the fake mustache and sideburns.

"How do I look?" Robby asked.

"You'll pass. Now, come on, let's go."

The guys at the front gate were easy. They looked in the car, but mostly it was their job to let the car in. If it had the right sticker, they let it in unless they had other orders. The guy at the front door kept staring at Robby; even after his palm print opened the door. He must have noticed some discrepancy in the photo that popped onto the computer as being Dr. Herbert Todd.

Jason was waiting behind Robby, and started bitching. "Christ on a crutch! Am I going to have to stand out here all night? Come on, I'm in a hurry here. I don't come to this dung hole for my health, you know."

The guy let Robby pass, and then passed Jason in.

"Follow me," Jason said and started walking.

They passed a garbage can, and Robby stopped long enough to toss the hand away. The building was a maze of corridors, and at every door—even to get on the elevator—a guard checked their badges.

Robby's insides flinched every time the elevator stopped and the doors opened. His gut was sure that he was going to be facing a wall of armed guards at any moment. Finally, the doors opened on the top floor, their ID's were checked again, and they started down a series of maze-like corridors. There was no way he could have found his way to Spider without Jason's help, and Robby told him so.

"Yeah, I'm a real prince," Jason said. They rounded a corner and Robby was looking at a big steel door covered by four guards. "She's in there, but don't go in that room. You go in that room and your power is neutralized. I'll stay here and cover your back."