The Blonde (17 page)

“
That s it. Just space.
”

“
To see other people.
”

“
No. Not at all.
”

“
Space, ” he repeated
.

Hurriedly, a package was prepared: USB key, documents, samples of Proximity in vials. She packaged one set and mailed it anonymously to MIS headquarters
—
the Thames House in London. Another she packed in her travel bag, the one she carried with her everywhere. The one with Kelly Dolores Whites license, credit cards, and passport
.

When she could stand no more, she set a dinner date with hi?n at La Stampa. The same restaurant as their first date. She insisted he order the sea bass
.

And when the pinot noir was poured, she told him, “You’re not going to finish this project.
”

All he could do was stare at her
.

She continued: “What we’ve been working on and what you’ve told me are two different things. I thought I was helping you build a tool that would save lives. You ‘re creating a weapon that can kill thousands with the push of a button. You’re accountable to no one. I’ve checked the finan-cials, Matt. We ‘re not a quiet MIS research facility. We ‘re rogue. You plan to create this thing, then sell it to the highest bidder. You even have someone inside the American government willing to help you. Well, I’m going to stop you. Both of you.
”

“
Really, ” he said
.

“
MI5 has all of the evidence they need, Matt. You’re finished.
”

“
Interesting, ” he said
.

The pinot noir sat in their glasses, undisturbed
.

“
So are
you
finished?” he asked
.

Vanessa nodded warily. What was he doing? Just staring like that?

Matt, the Operator
—
both fictitious names; Christ knows what handle he’d been born with
—
slapped somethi?ig on the table. A thick envelope. Vanessa recognized the handwriting
.

The envelope full of evidence she’d mailed to MIS. Postmarked but not delivered. Retrieved from the mailbox. How had he known?

“
And I know about the virus you uploaded, ” he said
.

An hour before dinner, with a disc she’d purchased on the black market
—
a superlethal data corrupter. She ‘d inserted it into every drive in the lab, then executed the program. She thought she’d killed the Mary Kates
.

He reached out across the table and grabbed her hand. “Let me tell you about needing a little space.
”

She didn’t see it until the last second. The thick needle in his right hand. He stabbed her in the meaty part of her right forearm and thumbed the plunger home
.

“
Space, ” he said. “The final frontier.
”

“
Women like you don’t deserve space. So I’ve fixed that. A matter of a simple command I inserted into the program. Before you fried it. And you know what? You ‘re going to be very sorry you did that. Because I’ve prepared something very special for you.
”

“
What have you done?” she asked, but deep inside, she knew exactly what he had done. He’d tried to get her to play guinea pig for months now, but she’d resisted. He’d wormed his way into her life easily enough without them. Imagine what he would be like with the Mary Kates inside her
.

She was about to find out
.

“
Unless you have someone within te?ifeet of you at all times, ” he said, “you’ll die.
”

He enjoyed a long drink ofpinot noir, nearly draining the glass
.

“
Looks like you Ye going to be a guinea pig after all. With special emphasis on the word
pig.”

He took the napkin from his lap, slid back in his chair, stood, folded the napkin, and rested it on the empty plate in front of him. They had ordered, but the food hadn’t arrived yet
.

“
Good luck, slut
, ”
he said. “VII be looking forward to reading your autopsy report
.”

Sybian Lounge

T
he dial tone, then ten digits, punched rapid-fire. The cell phone pressed to his ear. Ring tone. “Tell her, ‘Hi, honey, it’s me.

Ring tone. Ring tone. Ring tone.

“Okay, you’ve proved your point, stop it. …”

“
Hello?
” Theresa’s voice sounded weird. Maybe it was dry from sleeping with her mouth open.

The cell phone was shoved into the side of his head. His ear started to throb.

Tell her, the curly-haired man pantomimed.

“Hi, honey,” Jack said. “It’s me.”

“What? Who is this?”

The curly-haired guy took the phone away and put it to his own face. “Hey there, Mrs. Eisley. How are you doing this morning? Hope I didn’t wake you. Look, I’ve been hanging out with your husband, Jack, and I have the most amazing thing to tell you.”

“
Don’t do this
, ”Jack whispered between gritted teeth.

Curly Head glanced in his direction, then rolled his eyes and
started walking across the room. He put his palm up to Jack, as if to say, Quiet, boy- I’m talking to your wife.

The Aryan rotated the wing nuts, removed them from the metal clamps around Jack’s wrist and elbow. “Hold still,” he warned. Once he was free of the apparatus, Jack wriggled the fingers of his right hand. Pins and needles.

“Hey”

Jack looked up at the Aryan. The Aryan launched a jackham-mer blow to his stomach. Jack folded in half, dropped to his knees.

The Aryan grabbed Jack by his shirt collar and started dragging him across the concrete floor.

At least he isn’t leaving me alone in the room, Jack thought, and then he coughed, and he swore he tasted blood.

The Dublin Inside Her Head (continued)

T
he first few days she spent in and around Dublin, afraid to go anywhere else, afraid to go home, for fear of involving her family. So she went to the pub, then to the bedroom of an ex-boyfriend from college; she figured she could hole up with him for a week, try to contact someone at MIS. But he was just interested in one-time-only revenge sex; he had a new girlfriend now. “And now that Tve had you again
, ”
he said, “I remember you were always rubbish in the sack
.”

He said this to her at a party; she ended up with the host of the party, his best friend, a pimply guy named J.J. She knew he had always lusted for her. They didn’t sleep together. A few stragglers who didn’t want to drive home crashed on J.J. ‘s living room floor, and Vanessa and J.J. joined them. He kissed her for a while. Felt her tits. Tried to feel her below, but she kept his focus on her tits
.

The next ?norning, J.J. ‘s cell started buzzing while they were all still
crashed out on the floor. J.J., feeling full of himself for finally having bedded the elusive Vanessa Reardon. Vanessa, meanwhile, worrying herself into a sickened state. What was she going to do next? She couldn ‘t stay with this guy forever. And she had to go to the bathroom very, very badly. And not just pee, either. But the bathroom was more than ten feet away, off the living room, in the corner of the flat
.

J.J. closed his cell. His face was ashen
.

“
It’s Ken, ” he whispered
.

Her ex
.

“
What?” Vanessa asked
.

“
Ken’s dead. Donna found him in the bathroom. He bled to death.
”

J.J. lost it. He put his hands to his face and wept. Vanessa didn’t understand. Ken? Dead? The prick was only twenty-four years old. Couldn’t have been drugs. Ken was as straight-edge as they come. She’d been with him the previous evening, and
…

Wait
.

No. That couldn’t be right. The Mary Kates couldn’t transfer that way. They had to be injected directly. For them to transfer through saliva meant that they had to replicate at an unprecedented
—
and unstoppable
—
rate
.

Unless the Operator had changed the program
.

Fuck. That was what he’d done. The mad bastard
.

That’s when she first appreciated the depths to which the Operator had sunk. This wasn ‘t about her. This was about every person she loved. Or lusted for. Or kissed
.

During her reverie, J J. had pulled himself out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom. She hadn ‘t been paying attention. Why would she? People went to the bathroom all the time. For men, the morning piss was
—

And then it occurred to her
.

“
J.J.,”she called
.

No answer. She stood up, legs full of pins and needles, and stumbled across the sleeping bodies toward the bathroom. No one else was awake yet. She heard running water on the other side of the door. She leaned against it. The bathroom wasn’t that big. Certainly no more than ten feet separating
her and J.J., who was probably at the sink, slapping cold water on his face, trying to wash away the tears. You needn’t be embarrassed, she wanted to tell him. Especially not in front of me. The woman who killed your best friend
.

“J.J.”

Nothing
.

Then came the honible realization, and she flung open the door, and saw J.J. on the cold tile floor, and all of the blood. Everywhere
.

Vine Street Expressway/II-616 West

T
he Operator spent the duration of the cab ride fantasizing about her. He found himself glad she’d survived this long. She had always been resourceful, despite her facade of bookish helplessness. He’d known she would go the distance. He never would have guessed two weeks, though. Vanessa must have tapped into some truly deep wells of ingenuity.

The cell phone in his jacket hummed. He plucked it from his pocket, flipped it open. It was his contact in CI-6. The woman he’d met during their tour of his facility six months ago. Back when he was still flirting around with Homeland Security, showing them a few impressive gewgaws and whatnot.

The one who was handling the buyers.

What was that Pet Shop Boys song about brains and looks and making lots of money? Well, he had the perfect killing machines. She had the contacts. It stood to reason that lots of money would follow.

Thanks to Nancy. His little shop double agent. Pretending to track down this mysterious “Kelly White” on one side of her
mouth, arranging a virtual auction with the other. Nancy, with the pouty lips. She was no Vanessa, but… hey, he couldn’t fault poor Nancy for not being Irish. No one would believe that’s why he’d set up operations there in the first place. He
loved
Irish women.

“I’m in Philadelphia,” he told Nancy.

She mumbled something vaguely apologetic, which was unusual for her. But then again, she had failed him. He’d have to remind her of that when they met again, face-to-face. Now wasn’t the time.

“Have you decided where you’re going to be handling the business?”

“Tijuana,” he said. “Some friends from college went during spring break one year. Kept raving about it. I’ve always wanted to check it out.”

“And it happens to be conveniently located in Mexico.”

“There’s that, too. I’ll call you when I’m settled. Right now, I’m about to pay my last respects to the slut, so I’m turning off my phone. I don’t want anything to disturb our final moments together.”

Not true. If Vanessa were alive, he’d be keeping her alive for as long as she amused him. No need to get Nancy jealous, though.

The Dublin Inside Her Head (last call)

I
t was the sight of J.J. s blood that pushed her over. Something snapped, permanently. What she saw, she was not able to unsee. She would never be the same. She hated the Operator for that
.

And for the fact that even when presented with the sight of the blood-soaked corpse of a man she’d been kissing just a few hours ago, the most pressing need on her mind was this: Use the bathroom. She didn ‘t know if she’d have another chance. Maslows hierarchy of needs. She’d learned
about it in high school. Urge to eliminate waste versus respect for a human corpse? No contest. The urge would win
.

She used the bathroom, her body contorting to avoid touching any part of J.J.‘s body. She hated herself for it. But she hated the Operator worse for having put her through these indignities
.

It was the scorched-earth policy from then on
.

She’d do what she must to destroy hi?n
.

Vanessa mastered many skills in the next few weeks: Meeting married men, seducing them. Not that it took much. Half the time, they were ready to rape her in the bar But she ‘d say, “No, not here. ” She ‘d have them take her to their flat or a hotel room. Preferably a hotel. Buy her room-service dinner. Invite her into bed
.

The next morning, she’d call for a cab and insist the driver escort her to it; she ‘d claim her companion had been abusive. Nobody would question that. And the subject would be most likely happy to get rid of her, once she started crying and raving. Happy until about ten seconds after she left. The Mary Kates only needed a few hours to replicate and spread throughout a bloodstream enough to kill
.

They usually didn’t scream, which was good. And it didn’t bother her too much after the second subject. These men were adulterers, after all
.

By the fifth murder, she thought someone surely would have come after her. The trail of bodies was too long to ignore. Didn ‘t anyone do a blood test? See so?nething a little off in there? She had been hoping for a public outcry: SHOCKING MURDERS, MEN FOUND ACROSS THE COUNTRY, BRAINS EXPLODED IN THEIR SKULLS. Once the nation was horrified, and Anderson Cooper was talking about it on CNN, she planned on turning herself in to the New York Times
.