The River (19 page)

"We'll have to ration everything," Hawk said. "Now for the best news."

Jake held his breath.

The satellite phone.

"Yeah, baby!" TJ shouted.

Hawk grinned. "I'll call for a rescue team."

He thumbed the switch and a loud hiss of static erupted from the phone. He frowned, clicked off the phone, then turned it back on.

Dead air.

Cursing, he shook it and stared at it blankly.

Jake held out his hand. "May I?"

Cradling the phone, he removed the lithium ion battery, then popped it back in. But still nothing happened. He gave the satellite phone a shake, then rapped it against his palm. Again.

"Come on, you piece of shit!"

TJ moaned. "Don't say it, dawg."

"That means no GPS either," Hawk murmured.

Jake released a frustrated sigh.

Things weren't looking good for them. They had very little water and food. And God only knew where the others were.

"Jesus! What else can go wrong?"

"Don't ask," TJ said.

Jake shifted uneasily. "So what do we do now?"

Without warning, branches snapped behind them.

"You come with us."

Startled, Jake spun around.

A man with a blond crew cut stood between two stocky men. All three wore black army gear, and none of them were smiling. But it was what they held in their hands that made Jake cringe.

Three high-powered sniper rifles―aimed at their heads.

"I told you not to ask," TJ groaned.

Fifteen

H
ans tapped his foot impatiently. "Well?"

"Blackwell should be back shortly, sir," a young guard reported briskly. "He radioed in about half an hour ago."

"And?"

The kid, fresh out of basic training, swallowed nervously.

"I, uh…sorry. What did you want to know?"

Hans wanted to strangle him.

"Did they find them?"

His voice was glacier cold.

"They found three, sir."

Three more to add to the ones they already found, Hans thought, peering down his nose at the guard.

"You're to page me as soon as they reach the Centre. I'll be in my office. Got that?"

The kid's head jerked in response.

Hans stalked away, anxious to get back to the lab.

It was time for another meeting with Hawthorne, and he wondered how the doctor would feel after he found out his precious daughter was in a locked room on the same level as the lab.

There were
two
new women at the Centre, and Hans grew hard thinking of the other one―the redhead in the room next to Delila Hawthorne's.

Francesca Baroni, his sources told him.

A feisty little thing!

He preferred his women with a bit of fight. Made the conquering all the more exciting. And Francesca was still young. That was important too. Young…and ripe for the picking. The throbbing bulge in his pants told him he'd have to pay her a visit. The sooner, the better.

But business first. There'll be plenty of time for pleasure later.

Ignoring the elevator to the upper level, he passed Delila's room, then Francesca's. Then he detoured down a winding hall and stopped in front of two steel doors.

Project Ankh
.

Reaching into his shirt, he plucked out an ankh-shaped passkey, inserted it into a slot and waited for the light to flash green. When the doors unlocked and slid open, he stepped inside the lab.

The Project Ankh lab was filled with top-of-the-line research equipment, most of it supplied by the Canadian and US government. It featured a voice activated environmental system that controlled everything from lights to temperature to the computer terminals.

To the right, a door led to the Bot Room, where countless workers constructed miniature nanomachines. Farther down the wall, another door led to the Specimen Lab, an immense warehouse-sized room that housed the most recent lab specimens used in highly classified, experimental testing. At the far end was the entrance to the morgue―the final destination for the
husks
.

Surprisingly, it was empty.

But not for long.

He made a beeline for Hawthorne's room.

It was approximately twelve by twelve feet. Originally designed as a storage closet off the main lab, it had been used to house valuable chemical agents. But seven years ago, the room had been cleared out to accommodate the lab's most prized addition.

Without knocking, Hans entered the room.

Lawrence Hawthorne lay on the bed at the far end, reading the latest medical journal.

"What do you want now?" he asked bitterly.

Hans couldn't resist a smug grin. "Your daughter."

"I've told you before, leave my daughter out of this. Del doesn't know anything."

"She knew enough to come looking for you."

Hawthorne leapt from the bed. "That's impossible!"

"She's here. With Paughter."

"Liar!"

Hans pulled out a gun, carefully aimed it at the doctor.

"Pardon me?"

The man backed away, flustered. "How the hell would she even find this place?"

"Come on, old man! Your friend told her."

Holding the door ajar, he jerked his head and waited for Hawthorne to stumble through the doorway. He could almost read the doctor's thoughts.

But Arnold is dead!

Hawthorne started for the main exit, but Hans shook his head.

"Uh-uh, doctor. Lab first. You need to run those diagnostics."

He turned on his heel, unlocked the doors and stepped through.

"I expect a full report before you go to sleep."

"I want to see my daughter."

"Your family reunion will have to wait until you've given me what I
need."

"You'd better not hurt her."

"Hurt her? I have other plans for your daughter―and they don't include pain…unless she likes it rough."

The doors closed between them and Hans headed for his office.

Sitting at his desk, he thought about Hawthorne's daughter. He had first seen her when Blackwell's team had brought her in, unconscious and bloody.

Sometimes the crossing was hell.

He recalled
his
first time…the shooting pain, the sudden shock of being slammed into the icy cold Nahanni. Yeah, he remembered it like it was yesterday.

He leaned back, tempted to pay Delila Hawthorne a visit―just to spite her father.

His pager beeped and he jumped.

Blackwell was back.

He slowly pushed himself from the chair and poured himself three fingers of rye, straight up, no ice. Sipping it leisurely, he eyed the clock on the wall.

He'd give Justin Blackwell fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes proved to be too generous.

Twelve minutes later, Hans greeted the blond-haired chief of security and motioned him to sit in the armchair. A surreptitious inspection of Blackwell proved one thing.

The man looked ill.

Hans raised his glass. "Drink?"

"No, I'm still on duty."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Blackwell! It's two in the goddamn morning. Once the kiddies have been put to bed, you have nothing else to do but pick your nose."

He threw Blackwell a look of disgust. "How many?"

"Three. All men."

"Excellent. I'm sure we'll find a use for them."

Blackwell cleared his throat uneasily. "The Specimen Lab?"

Taking a long swig, Hans locked eyes on him.

"I'll have a little chat with them first."

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Del was floating on a cloud, disjointed.

Everything around her was hazy, out of focus. Her body felt cold and heavy, and there was a godawful taste in the back of her throat, earthy and pungent. It reminded her of Lisa's mystery tea.

A bright light came into focus.

She tried to close her eyes but nothing happened. She tried to speak but her lips wouldn't move. No sound came from her throat. There was just that peculiar, horrible taste.

Something moved above her.

Two shadows. They were…dancing.

She wanted to giggle.

Someone tipped the light away from her. When her vision came into focus, she would have gasped in horror―if her mouth was working.

She was lying flat on her back. Her head was strapped into an odd metal contraption. What terrified her most were the metal rods and clamps that forced open her eyes.

She tried to scream.

"She's semi-conscious, doctor," a woman's voice murmured.

"Give her twenty mils of Necrovan," came the clipped reply. "That ought to knock her out completely. She won't remember a thing."

Del panicked when she saw the glimmer of a syringe filled with a pale golden liquid. The sharp point moved closer to her left eye and she desperately wanted to lash out.

What were they doing to her?

No! Stop!

A familiar voice reached out to her. "Relax, Del. Don't fight it."

A vortex of nothingness claimed her…mercifully.

Lawrence Hawthorne gazed through the one-way glass as his daughter slept. Looking at her, he realized that he had never expected to see her again.

Delila.

Part of him was overjoyed. But the rational part of him knew that her presence could only lead to disaster. The Director would use her to get to the damned file.

He sighed heavily.

There was an aching in his heart, a desire for the familiar…the past.

But once something is in the past, it needs to stay in the past.
Dead. Like Neil and Arnold.

He recalled VanBuren's words―that Arnold had told Del how to find him. But that was impossible. He had seen Arnold the day he had been shot. The day they had tried to escape. Before Vance had unleashed his henchmen.

It had all started with Vance Paughter.

The bastard!

A few days into their trip to the Nahanni River, Lawrence had discovered that Paughter wasn't quite what he seemed. The young man had acted so excited about being the new intern assigned to him at Bio-Tec. At least that's what Lawrence had thought. If he had guessed that Paughter was leading them into a trap, he would have turned back. But none of them―not even Arnold―had seen it coming. One minute Paughter was the happy-go-lucky research assistant―the next he turned cold. Lethal.

It was Paughter who callously and unemotionally led them into an ambush. Two men with sniper rifles and a machete had been waiting for them at the base of Virginia Falls. When Paughter grabbed the machete, Neil tried to run.

That had been a deadly mistake.

Lawrence cringed, remembering how Neil had pleaded with Paughter mere seconds before the machete came down.
Swoosh!
A fine mist of crimson death had sprayed everywhere, staining their clothes and skin. Neil's blood.

He could still taste it.

"How's she doing?"

Lawrence spun around, surprised to see Justin Blackwell.

For a long moment, the man stood beside him, a strange look on his face as he silently stared through the glass.

"I'll see if you can visit."

Lawrence gaped at the man, speechless.

Why does he care whether I visit Del or not?

Blackwell's eyes locked on his. "I have a daughter too."

There was actually a spark of humanity in the man.

Stunned, Lawrence watched Blackwell walk away and he realized that, for the first time in seven years, he had hope. And if he had hope, then there was hope for Del. And the others.

He pressed a hand against the glass, wishing fervently that he could have stopped her from searching for him. But it was too late. She was already at the Centre.

And so is Vance Paughter.

Jake's hands were tied behind his back.

He stood stock-still while one of the armed guards removed his blindfold. As light penetrated his eyes, his vision slowly cleared and he blinked uncomfortably. Swiveling his head, he took measure of his surroundings.

TJ and Hawk stood on his left. To his right…Peter.

The kid had made it! Thank God!

Finally, he examined his captors.

All three were standing on the opposite side of the room, weapons exposed. Crew Cut was pacing the floor. Beside him, a bald guy whispered frantically to a man with spiked black hair.

Jake let his eyes drift across the room.

It was a boardroom, modestly decorated with polished wood and chrome accents. A large conference table with fifteen chairs, seven down each side and one at the head, was the main centerpiece. It was the kind of room that one would expect to see in a huge corporation in downtown Vancouver―not in the middle of nowhere.

Crew Cut strolled toward them.

"Sit down, please."

Jake cocked his head. "Kind of hard to sit when our hands are tied."

The man jerked his head and his cohorts cut the ropes.

Jake sat down beside Peter. "Where the hell are we?"

The kid shook his head, looking utterly terrified.

"This doesn't make any sense!" Hawk whispered. "I've never seen this building anywhere on the Nahanni Reserve."

Baldy glared at them. "No talking!"

"Maybe we're underground," Jake murmured as soon as the guard was occupied.

Hawk shook his head slightly. "I'd have seen something."

"Unless the government is involved."

"Yeah, I guess. Still, it's…odd."

Jake had to agree. Hawk lived in the area and knew it thoroughly. It would have been next to impossible for him not to notice a complex or office building.

He looked at the guards.

Three men.
Correction!
Three
armed
men.

Crew Cut's cell phone buzzed and Jake strained to hear, but he only caught one word.
"Director."

He snuck a peek at Hawk and TJ who sat on the opposite side of the table. Hawk's expression was one of suspicious observation. TJ's was just plain grim.