“We should check the news,” Darren said. They both rose, he went to the computer on the desk. Daniel made a few phone calls, including one to their contact, the one who’d salvaged things in Kabul. The one who’d told them about the man in Lancerton.
Riah was the kind of person they were confident could help them. Not only because of her expertise in deep-brain stimulation but because of who she was inside — how much like them she was. Even though she might not’ve been aware of what she was really capable of, they could tell. It’d become more and more clear to them over the last few months.
She would be here soon and they wanted to tell her everything.
True, they would have to kill her when this was over, just to be safe. But she could be of use to them in the meantime in completing their assignment.
The two brothers hadn’t yet decided which of them would eliminate Dr. Colette. That little detail was still up in the air.
At the FedEx Office, I buy two clipboards, one for me, one for Charlene. No government inspector impersonation kit would be complete without them.
“You do know,” Xavier tells me, “we’ll probably get in big trouble with this.”
“I’d say almost certainly.”
“Too bad there isn’t any fine print somewhere, a way to skirt around possible prosecution.”
I kick that around for a minute. “You know what, let me get in touch with my lawyers. They might be able to come up with something that Fionna can add to the forms, noting that we’re there for entertainment or educational purposes only, or that by allowing us to access the facility, the guards release all liability. Something like that.”
Xavier looks at me skeptically. “You really think your lawyers can come up with something that’ll cover our butts?”
“Hard to say, but that’s what lawyers do best. And my lawyers are very, very good at what they do.”
“Well, you pay them enough.”
“True. And it’s not like the guards would take the time to try to translate the legalese double-talk.”
“No one reads fine print on forms like that anyway.”
“That’s true too. They don’t even read iTunes updates.”
“I do.”
I pause. “I know. But honestly, regarding a waiver, when you know what you’re doing, you can create a disclaimer big enough to cover your butt even if you were to steal the moon.”
“Steal the moon?”
“I don’t know. I was trying to think of something big.”
“You keep using analogies like that and you’re going to start giving Fionna a run for her money.”
Now he was just being mean.
I gesture toward the cards he’s holding. “The lamination machine’s over there in the corner.” Then I fish out my phone and make the call to the law firm.
Riah arrived at the R&D facility and passed through security.
She was still uncertain what all this was about, but she sensed that helping the twins was a good thing, the right thing, to do.
If that was indeed the case, it looked like she would get a chance to help the government stop terrorist threats by working with Daniel and Darren to do whatever it was they actually did when they thwarted that potential suicide attack in Kabul.
“We let him do it,” they’d told her last night.
How did they “let” the suicide bomber do it?
She wasn’t sure, but obviously it had something to do with her research and Dr. Tanbyrn’s findings.
Hundreds of people might’ve been killed at that mosque, and if she could assist in stopping things like that, help to remove terrorist threats, that was probably an honorable, perhaps even, in one sense, a noble thing to do.
Preemptive justice?
One way to look at it.
She was obviously no expert on morality, but even she could anticipate that if the man in the video had been shot or arrested, insurgents would’ve claimed that he was an innocent civilian who’d been unjustly killed or imprisoned by imperialist Americans. After all, news is all about spin, almost never about truth. Scratch away at the surface of what people say and you’ll always find an agenda lurking beneath the words.
That was one thing she’d learned about human nature. One thing she knew for sure: you can’t take what people say at face value.
And spin like that would put more American soldiers at risk.
Yes, if there really was a way for her to help the twins eliminate threats without endangering the military’s intelligence assets or personnel, it would certainly help the war efforts, probably save lives, and—
It would be the right thing to do. A way to serve the greater good.
So, yes, the greater good.
As she walked down the R&D facility’s east corridor toward research room 27B for her meeting with the twins, she became more and more curious about what exactly she could do to help them kill.
Or eliminate targets.
Whichever term you preferred to use.
The Recruit
Dr. Tanbyrn died.
We receive the news while we’re gathered in Xavier’s and my room getting ready to head out.
It shakes us, all four of us.
Personally, I hadn’t been seriously considering the possibility that he would pass away but rather had settled on the expectation that he would recover.
The tragic announcement lends a renewed sense of focus and intensity to what we’re doing. Now Dr. Cyrus Arlington is not only somehow connected to the death of Abina but also to that of Dr. Tanbyrn, the researcher he and his company had spent millions of dollars funding.
And Arlington was somehow connected to the video of the three men in Kabul, although how he might be tied to their deaths was still unclear.
We quietly take the elevator to the lobby, step outside, and find our two executive cars waiting for us out front.
Charlene and I climb into one of them, Fionna and Xavier disappear into the other, and the four of us leave the hotel to find out how RixoTray Pharmaceuticals was entangled in arson, terrorism, conspiracy, and murder.
Cyrus was waiting outside the vice president’s office when he saw on his phone’s news feed that Dr. Tanbyrn had died.
So.
Atabei had come through for him.
Or the fire did, that coma did. Tanbyrn could’ve simply died from complications brought about by smoke inhalation.
Possibly, but—
“Dr. Arlington?” It was the receptionist, jarring him out of his thoughts. She wore a telephone headset and was tapping the receiver by her ear to end a call.
“Yes?”
“The vice president has been held up talking with Congresswoman Greene. He told me he’ll be here within the hour. He apologizes for any inconvenience.”
“Not a problem.” Buoyed by the news of Tanbyrn’s death, Cyrus didn’t mind waiting another hour for the vice president of the United States. “Not a problem at all.”
“Please, Riah, have a seat,” Daniel told her.
She positioned herself across the table from the two brothers. The mammoth MEG machine took up the far end of the room. Countertops covered with medical instruments lined the walls. A sink, two computer desks, and a small conference area rounded out the room. All familiar to her. All part of her everyday world.
“Last night,” she began, “you told me that you would explain how I could help you do… well, whatever it was that happened in Kabul.”
“What do you think happened?” Darren asked.