Through the glass, p.20
Through the Glass, page 20
part #2 of Coyote Moon Series Series
"Yeah," Fitzpatrick said. "That's what I want to know too."
The General took another look at Dakota and went to the door. "Let me know if there are any changes. If this man dies, I will hold you personally responsible."
"Of course you will."
The General smiled with satisfaction. "It's good to be understood, Doctor."
He passed from the sealed room into an anteroom designed to catch and eradicate any contamination. There he stripped, showered and changed.
In his office, he read over Dakota Thomas's file once more, shaking his head at the inconsistencies he now found. And they called him evil.
The Department obviously had a hidden agenda where Dakota Thomas was concerned. Now all he had to do was figure out what it might be. There was no reason the Project couldn't profit from what they had already started. He always did love a challenge.
Doctor Thomas was proving to be just that.
Chapter 31
Montana decided to leave Walter and David behind, much to their displeasure.
"I don't like this, Montana. You can use all the help you can get," David said.
"Look, Dad, I know you're worried about Dak, but right now the fewer people I have to keep track of the better."
"You wouldn't have to keep track of me." David was pacing back and forth across the access road in front of the red Honda.
Walter was watching him without comment.
Ito and Damien made sure Kale's hands were secured behind his back, and pushed him into the front passenger seat. His nose was still bleeding, and he had to breathe through his mouth.
"You know, I could choke to death here." With his hands behind him he had to settle for using his shoulder to wipe dripping blood from his chin.
"Do we really need him?" Damien made a face. "I'm sure I could come up with a case for justifiable homicide if you just killed him."
Kale seemed to be trying to decide if he was serious or not.
Montana ignored them all and took his father by the shoulders. "I need you here. Please, Dad. Dakota needs you here. I have no idea what kind of shape he might be in when I find him."
It was clear David didn't like his options. "How do you expect to do this alone? I know you're good, Montana, but nobody's that good."
Montana glanced toward Maggie waiting near the car. "I have help."
David followed Montana's gaze and shook his head. "She and her like are the ones responsible for all of this. Now she tells you she'll help! How can you believe her?"
"I don't, but I don't have any other way around this. If you do, this is not the time to keep it to yourself."
Maggie came to join them. "I don't blame you for being angry, but trust me, Geoffrey doesn't want Dakota in the General's hands any more than you do. He's an asshole, I admit. But he's an asshole with an extraordinary amount of power. If anyone can get Dak out of there alive it's him."
David glared at her, turned, and walked a few steps away.
Maggie followed him. "You have every reason not to trust me. I understand that. All I can tell you is I love your son, Mr. Willows. He was the best friend my husband had. I promise you with everything I hold dear, I promise on my life, I won't let Geoffrey touch him again. I swear that one thing to you."
"We will be here when you bring my grandson back home." Walter's voice was quiet but demanded the attention of everyone in the small clearing.
Emotions played across David's face. He took a deep breath and looked out into the trees.
Maggie put a tentative hand on his shoulder. "I feel responsible for all of this." She shook her head, cutting off anything he might have said. "But Montana is right. The fewer people getting involved the better. I don't know how yet, but I swear to you on a promise I made to my husband. I will bring Dakota home to you."
David turned and touched Maggie's face. He gave her a nod, and walked over next to Walter. He kept his back to Montana and Maggie, as if watching them leave would take what little control he had left and shred it to pieces.
"I have moved the camp," Walter told Montana. "But I know you will find us. Bring my grandson home."
Montana understood his Grandfather meant the place of refuge he'd created for dozens of native people seeking a way to reclaim their heritage. Deep within the Montana wilderness, it was not easy to find and that was exactly how Walter wanted it.
Montana gave his family one last look. Without another word, he got into the Honda and waited for Maggie, Ito and Damien to join him. They pulled out of the access road and onto the paved two-lane blacktop.
What he was doing went against everything he knew was right. He was relying on information from a man sent to kill him and would be enlisting the help of another man who had no honor. If Montana had had his way, Dakota would never have agreed to participate in the research to begin with. Hindsight was as useless as a gun devoid of bullets.
Bring my grandson home.
He wanted nothing more than that. The problem was he wasn't sure he could. Would his father forgive him if he killed his own brother?
Would he forgive himself?
It was a question that ate away at the very soul of him. The General and all the atrocities he had inflicted on Michael Ricco and Dakota suddenly seemed like the lesser of the two evils.
"You're never going to get him back, you know." Kale interrupted his internal debate. "This General, he'll kill you. All of you, you're all dead."
"Shut up, Harry."
Something in the way Montana looked at him must have made it through the false bravado. For the rest of the trip back to the main highway, Harry "Stone" Kale became an obedient puppy with tail appropriately tucked between his legs.
* * * *
According to Kale, the General used one of Kale's export warehouses as a front. On the outside, everything appeared legitimate. But Kale used it for distributing illicit drugs, all with the General's assistance. His connections kept Kale out of jail and kept what local as well as federal law enforcement agencies that weren't already loyal to him looking in other directions.
The General operated three floors beneath the ground of Kale's warehouse. Who would suspect a low-life drug lord of running subversive medical experiments on human subjects?
Kale wasn't known to be that smart, so his "export business" was the perfect cover.
"What kind of security are we looking at, Kale?" Ito said from the back seat.
"Fuck you, I'm already dead. He finds out I helped you, he'll use me in one of his control groups. I don't have a clue what that is, but I don't want to find out, you know what I mean? The couple times I had to go down there... Man, you can hear the screams." He looked over his shoulder. "You guys don't scare me. You want to kill me? Go ahead. The General? He'll do far worse. He'll keep me alive."
Ito reached past the seat back and almost casually wrapped his arm around Kale's throat. He squeezed until Kale gasped and panted, his face turning crimson and then blue as he ran out of air. Just before his eyes rolled back, Ito released him. "You might want to rethink that, Harry. Because, you see, we're here and the General isn't. I have become rather fond of the good doctor, and I would take it very personally if any harm were to come to him."
He wrapped his hand around Kale's throat, but just let it sit there. "Very personally. Understand?"
Kale coughed and choked. "You're all fucking psychos, you know that?"
"Security?" Ito said again.
Kale apparently realized his precarious position between certain death and certain death. "Fuck. Okay, the perimeter is surrounded with motion detectors that activate heat sensors and bio-scanners. Anyone who works for him has had bio-scans. The fuckers don't even know it, but their DNA has been scanned. When the bio-sensors recognize them they don't set off the alarms, but they are identified. That information is sent to a central database which tells the system if they should be where they are at that particular time."
"And if they're not where they should be?"
Kale stretched his bruised throat. "Then they get to play with the General. He goes through control groups pretty quick." He managed to smile. His teeth were stained red with blood. "Bet he'd love to get his hands on you."
He waggled his eyebrows at Ito and looked over to Maggie. "And you. Oh, baby, Ricco's widow? I might get off easy if I deliver you to his door. The guy practically gets a hard-on every time that dude's name is mentioned."
Montana slapped Kale across the ear. "Shut up, Harry."
Kale yelped and edged closer to the window.
"It's all right, Montana," Maggie said. "We need him to get us past security. Geoffrey has a Special Forces team on the way now. But he wants us to get inside and secure Dakota before he makes a move."
"How much time is left?"
Maggie glanced at her watch. "Less than thirty hours until the flu virus activates. After that?" Maggie hitched her shoulders. "I don't think anyone knows. Geoffrey has a plane on standby to transport Dakota back to Maryland."
Montana gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened. "I don't want him going back there."
"It's better than the alternative."
"I hate this."
"Yeah."
Chapter 32
Army Special Forces and Homeland Security personnel half-filled the cramped confines of the Military Air Transport unit. The plane also carried a full medical team and a sealed bio-chamber, a small coffin-sized container that would safely transport a sedated Dakota Thomas back into the waiting and anxious hands of the research center in Maryland.
They had one objective: to secure Doctor Dakota Thomas before the deadly virus inside him became active in twenty-eight hours. Every member of the team, medical or military, was aware of the ticking clock. They knew if they failed it could mean their own deaths. If the deadline passed and he was not safely secured within the bio-chamber, the mission objective would radically change.
Doctor Dakota Thomas would be eliminated.
Geoffrey had a headache, right behind his left eye. He tried to ignore it, but the low pressure in the cabin made it impossible. A few days ago he'd been accepting congratulations on his success. If the Ebola proved to be nonfatal to Dakota, and he became a carrier for the deadliest known virus on the face of the Earth, Geoffrey would have been hailed as a hero.
But his research subject had gone to ground, threatening the experiment. He'd known not telling Dakota what they were doing was a risk, but one he'd believed was worth the outcome. Dakota would never have agreed to causing thousands--perhaps millions--of deaths. He would never have understood he was saving thousands more as a result.
Maggie was turning out to be another unexpected complication. He had to find a way to bring Maggie back in. At least she'd had enough sense to call him.
In five hours they would be landing at a secure airstrip in Alamo, Nevada. They'd already contacted the National Guard. The area around the warehouse was being evacuated even now. A story about some chemical leak was all it took. The warehouse would be surrounded quietly.
If all went according to plan, Maggie and her unofficial team consisting of Montana Thomas, his partner, and some lawyer should have Dakota in hand. If not, Geoffrey's team would have a go at it. Geoffrey would rather not deal with a hostage situation involving this new General, but] he knew how Montana Thomas operated.
Thomas would do the dirty work. If he happened to get a little dead in the process, Geoffrey would try to act upset.
All Geoffrey wanted was Dakota Thomas back under his thumb, with a needle in his arm.
* * * *
Dakota paced the dimly lit confines of his room. He was wearing the scrubs that had been left on the foot of his bed. They were clean and smelled slightly of antiseptic. He felt good, strong and edgy.
There was no clock, and he didn't have a watch. He hated not knowing what time, or even what day, it was. There were no windows and no way to gauge if it was day or night. Not that it mattered.
He was stiff and his body was covered in bruises. His wrists and ankles were ringed with tender purple bruises caused by his pulling against the restraints while his body was in the throes of unrelenting seizures.
But he wasn't seizing now. He couldn't remember bouncing back so quickly before.
He really wanted to go for a run. Muscles too long at rest begged for release. Energy coursed through him almost as strongly as anger. He wanted out. The room seemed to shrink around him. Stopping, he placed both hands on the smooth, cool glass window and tried to see through it, but couldn't get past his own reflection. He circled the room a dozen times or more. Every time he passed the door, he jiggled the handle, even though he knew it was locked. Even if it hadn't been, he had nowhere to go.
When walking in circles wasn't enough, he started running. Slowly at first, then building up as much speed as the small room allowed. It wasn't enough, he couldn't go fast enough. Ten laps, fifty, one hundred. Even when sweat rolled off him despite the air conditioning, he ran. On the hundredth lap he stopped in front of the dark window and threw himself at it.
He screamed his frustration as he slammed into the barrier again and again. "Let me out! I am not your freaking pet!"
The glass vibrated from the abuse, but it held firm. He started running at it, hitting the glass with his outstretched palms. The pain felt good. After a while he was leaving bloody handprints on the once spotless surface.
"Enough!"
Slam.
"Enough!"
Slam, slide.
He was backing up for another assault when the floodlights cut through the gloom.
"Yes, Dakota. I would say that is quite enough."
Dakota squinted against the glare and rested bloodied hands on his knees, while sucking in air. Fat drops of sweat fell from his hair and face, blurred the bloody hand prints on his once white scrubs and dripped on the concrete floor.
"What do you think you are doing?"
Dakota charged the window once more. He hit with all his weight on his shoulder causing the glass to shudder. He smiled when he saw a shadow jump away.
Despite the pain through his shoulder and down his arm, he laughed. "What's the matter? Can't handle it when your pets aren't docile and compliant?"
The floodlights switched off, leaving him temporarily blind. He heard the door open and, as his eyes slowly adjusted, he saw Moses's now familiar bulk cross the threshold.
"I'm glad to see you're feeling better, but you need to control yourself, Doctor." The General's voice was enhanced by the speakers.
Dakota backed away. He didn't know what Moses intended to do, but he didn't want to find out. "Or what? You'll punish me?"
"More like control you. I can't have you injuring yourself."
"Why? Want to save all that fun for yourself?"
Moses circled and Dakota put the bed between them. Light flashed off something in the big man's hand. At first Dakota thought it might be a syringe, but soon realized that wasn't what Moses held.
"We're running a controlled experiment, Doctor. I'm sure you can appreciate that. Any injuries you sustain must be factored in."
Dakota rubbed his injured shoulder. "Yeah, well, factor in this, asshole!" He went for the window again, not knowing what he wanted to prove, but tired of going down without a fight.
Moses simply reached out one massive arm and reined him back.
Dakota kicked and clawed, but Moses picked him up as if he weighed no more than a child. Dakota fought him with everything he had.
It did him no good. Once Moses had him pinned to the bed, he looked to the General.
"You want to study me? Do an autopsy. That's the only way you're ever touching me again."
The General shook his head, clearly disappointed. "I've been lenient with you, Dakota, because I'd prefer that we work together. But I do have limits to my tolerance. As you yourself said, you have no choices. You are mine. It's time you learned that." He gave Moses a nod.
Dakota saw then what Moses held. He scooted back on his elbows, his attention never leaving the thing. Sweat soaked his clothes, and ran down to settle in the small of his back.
"It is a Taser." the General said. "Very effective in controlling unwanted behavior."
"I hate you."
"So you've said. Moses."
Dakota never saw Moses move. But he felt the jolt. His muscles contracted violently. The pain was like nothing he'd ever felt. Sharp, stabbing, burning pain. It stole his breath and left him dazed but conscious. He lay helpless on the bed, involuntary tears streaming down his face.
"That was the lowest setting. Would you care to try for the next level up?"
The muscles and tendons in Dakota's neck corded as he fought to get past the worst pain.
"Will you behave yourself, or does Moses need to be more convincing?"
He tried to slow his breathing as his muscles gradually relaxed. His eyes shifted from the man casually observing him to the one standing over him. After a while he was recovered enough to see that Moses looked confused, the only expression Dakota had ever seen on his face.
Moses fingered a lever on the Taser and shook his head.
If Dakota had to guess, he would say Moses was asking him to back down. That was when he noticed the thin trickle of blood from the big man's left eye.
"Gotcha', didn't I?" Maybe if he could get the Taser, he could at least try to disable the weapon. Break it, throw it--something! He leapt at Moses.
Moses backhanded Dakota as if he were waving off an annoying bug.
Dakota tumbled over the bed and landed hard against the wall. He tasted blood, and he couldn't be sure, but he might have a broken rib or two.
Moses flipped the bed out of the way and squatted beside him.
There was nowhere to go.
Moses looked at him like a disappointed parent right before he pushed the Taser against Dakota's side and discharged it.
If Dakota could have screamed, he would have. It was as if someone put him in a red-hot vise and turned the screws. He writhed spasmodically, as his muscles contracted with the current flowing through his body.
