Semper fi.
“There were always rumors about the agency lab and their experiments,” Henry said as the three of them walked through a Budapest park together, on their way to meet Yuri. In the aftermath of the bomb Danny had dropped on him, he had all but forgotten why they’d actually come to Budapest in the first place.
“How is it even possible?” Baron said.
“It’s complicated,” Danny told him, “but doable. They take the nucleus of a somatic cell from a donor—in this case, Henry. Then they take an egg cell, pull the genetic material out of it, transplant the donor cell into it. That’s the science.”
Baron looked openly impressed. “You get that from your lab friend?”
Danny shook her head. “Google.”
Henry blinked at her, incredulous. The world had spun so wildly out of control that anyone could find instructions on cloning on the goddam Web. “I always thought if they could do that they’d make more doctors or scientists, not more of me,” he said. “They could have cloned Nelson Mandela.”
“Nelson Mandela couldn’t kill a man on a moving train from two kilometers,” Danny pointed out.
Henry grimaced. If she was trying to cheer him up, she was doing a lousy job.
“Hey, I’m not happy about this, either. I risked my life for them,” Danny said. “So they could do this?”
“You risked your life for your country,” Henry corrected her. “Like your father did.”
“My country.” She gave a harsh, bitter laugh. “I don’t think I like the way that’s working out.”
“The DIA is an agency—it’s not your country,” Henry said. “Be glad you didn’t have to wait, say, twenty-five years to find that out.”
Baron patted her shoulder. “Listen, if you ever want to junk it all and come be VP of Baron Air, I’ll make a position available.”
Danny gave him a sad smile. “If my father were here, he’d find out who was responsible for all this and beat the crap out of them.” She sighed. “But he’s not here.”
“Then I guess it’s up to us,” Henry told her.
The Széchenyi Baths were not a single building but a whole complex of magnificent old structures built around thermal springs. Yuri had waxed rhapsodic to Henry about the beautiful architecture and how relaxing and therapeutic the baths were, and yes, the buildings were gorgeous, great architecture, yeah, yeah, yeah. But standing with Danny and Baron on a balcony overlooking the multitude of happy bathers enjoying themselves in the sunshine, Henry had a hard time appreciating Yuri’s choice of meeting place.
When Yuri had said baths, Henry had imagined Turkish baths with steam rooms, popular among spies and mobsters because you couldn’t wear a wire or hide a weapon when you were dressed only in a towel. He had been fully prepared to strip down and sit in a steam room for the sake of getting some answers.
Instead, he was meeting Yuri at what was essentially a gigantic municipal swimming pool.
Although in hindsight, Henry supposed he should have known—the mention of thermal springs should have given him a clue that there was more to the place than steam and whirlpool baths. He could see the pools weren’t very deep; the average adult didn’t have to tread water to not drown. There weren’t any children, either—apparently thermal springs weren’t advisable for little kids—so there wasn’t a lot of laughing and splashing.
No, Henry realized, he was wrong—there wasn’t any. The people here were practically sedate. He spotted a couple of older guys who had set up a chess board on a marble surface near a set of stone stairs; Henry watched them in astonishment. He’d seen people playing chess in parks—retirees making a game last all day, or young show-offs playing speed chess with ten people simultaneously and beating all of them for ten bucks per checkmate. But who the hell would go to a swimming pool to play chess?
Well, these guys, obviously—and now that he was looking, he saw they weren’t the only ones. But even seeing it with his own eyes, he was having trouble getting his mind around the idea that anyone woke up in the morning and decided to go to a swimming pool for a game of chess.
Of course, when he’d woken up this morning, he hadn’t thought clones were possible, let alone that someone would clone him. He couldn’t get his mind around that, either, and he wasn’t sure he ever would. God only knew what he’d find out when he woke up tomorrow.
If he woke up tomorrow—the younger version of himself was trying very hard to keep that from happening.
Where the hell was Yuri, he wondered, listening to happy Hungarian conversation over the musical sound of rippling, bubbling water. “Everything okay with you?” he asked Baron, who was now keeping watch by the stairs to his left.
“All good, no worries,” Baron replied.
“Copy that.” Henry glanced at his watch, feeling on edge, and not just because Yuri had made him come to a giant swimming pool and was now about to be late. As of today, he would probably feel on edge for the rest of his life. The world had become a very unfamiliar place in the brief period of time since Monroe and Jack had died and Verris had sent a hit squad to kill him and the exemplary agent standing next to him, an agent who had never gotten a single demerit. Congratulations, here’s your reward: a bullet in the head.
“Henry,” Baron said.
Henry turned to see a man standing in the doorway behind him. He was dressed in the standard outfit for anyone not actually in the water—a bathrobe and flip-flops—but unlike the other baths patrons, he didn’t look at all innocuous. He was shorter than Henry but built like a brick wall.
“Mr. Brogan!” The man smiled brightly and beckoned for Henry to join him.
Henry shook hands with him and then turned to Danny and Baron. It was obvious that Yuri’s warm greeting didn’t extend to them. They both nodded to indicate they didn’t mind waiting for him on the balcony. In a situation like this, only one on one was acceptable; two plus one was asking for trouble and three to one would result in casualties all round.
In any case, Henry was sure that Yuri wasn’t going to try anything tricky in a place like this, not in a bathrobe and flip-flops. But he did insist that Henry trade his street clothes for the same outfit—Yuri had even brought bathing trunks for him, which he said Henry was welcome to keep. He had to insist, he added when Henry hesitated, looking dubious. They needed to blend in. People didn’t come to the baths to hang around fully dressed. Henry’s friends should do the same, Yuri said with an appreciative look at Danny, but it wasn’t as important. They could remain on the balcony and the locals would assume they were American tourists with body image issues.
Henry put on the bathing trunks and bathrobe, leaving his clothes in a changing room, and was greatly relieved when Yuri led him to a nearby bench and invited him to sit. He had been prepared to bite the bullet and go into one of the pools if Yuri had insisted, but apparently the bathrobes were camouflage enough.
Henry could see why Jack Willis had liked the guy. Aside from the fact that his slightly florid complexion indicated a fondness for vodka, Yuri exuded an air of cheerful corruption and casual treachery, qualities that were absolutely necessary for survival under a corrupt, treacherous regime. He was a spy’s spy—he probably had dirt on Putin and Putin probably knew it. Putin probably also knew that as long as he left Yuri untouched and happy, the dirt would stay under the rug.