“Twenty-three that Riley was able to discover,” he said. “It’s possible a few of those have run away instead of being taken, but if so, they’ve figured out how to beat the tracking nanites. Like you did when you first escaped.”
“I didn’t beat the trackers. I had them scraped off my bones. It wasn’t pleasant.”
“Evidently, they’ve grown back,” Zaragosa said. “Mr. Robinson says you’re broadcasting a signal, loud and clear.”
“That’s part of why I came here,” Bryn said. “Because I’m being tracked, and I can’t afford to lead the people who are following me anywhere else. You’ve got a hardened facility; you’ve got armed guards and security countermeasures, with the strength of the government behind you. Anywhere else would be vulnerable.…Where’s Riley Block?” It was a strange segue, but Bryn couldn’t keep her mind off the agent’s absence. It bothered her, deeply.
Zaragosa shrugged. “Agent Block was reassigned by her own request.”
“Agent Block asked to be reassigned when there were people she was in charge of protecting who’d gone missing? She never struck me as the type to break down and walk away from people in trouble. People she knew.”
“I only knew her professionally, not personally; I can’t tell you what was going on in her head,” he replied. “Only that the paperwork crossed my desk, I signed, and she left. It was the best thing, really. She wasn’t entirely trustworthy. Let’s get back to the issue at hand—what happened to you, exactly?”
Too much to tell you, Bryn thought, but she condensed it down, describing the failed attempt to abduct her at her funeral home, and then the successful coercive operation that had taken her to the nursing home. She skipped Jane altogether because even thinking about the woman made her also think of Patrick, and that was like putting her hand on a hot stove. Operative was a much less painful way to describe the woman. An operative questioned me at length.
“A nursing home,” Zaragosa repeated, when she was done. “You’re sure about this.”
“Completely. I can tell you approximately where it is. I wasn’t driven far before I was released from the restraints in the ambulance, so there can’t be that many possibilities. I’ll know it on sight.”
Annie hadn’t heard any of this, Bryn realized; now she had tears in her eyes, and grabbed for Bryn’s hand on the table. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “We were so afraid for you, but I didn’t know you’d be—”
“I’m all right,” Bryn said, and smiled. “Look, no scars.”
Zaragosa gestured to Robinson, who leaned over; whatever passed between them was said in a whisper, and then Robinson rose and walked out of the room. The door clicked shut behind him. “You’re sure you could recognize the location,” Zaragosa said.
“If you’ve got a laptop with Google Earth, I can show you the place right now. It’s vital you get a strike team out there and take the people that run it into custody before they have time to destroy more evidence. There was something terrible going on out there. The people, the actual patients, they’re in danger just by being around the staff. Trust me, nobody has their best interests at heart in there.”
“Robinson’s fetching help now,” Zaragosa said, and leaned forward, hands clasped on top of the table. “You said you were kept in a building that was separated from the main one. Do you have any idea what they were doing there?”
“Only vaguely,” Bryn said. “The patients kept there were in end-stage dementia, according to what they told me. They were using them as some kind of test subjects. No…” Bryn thought back, and frowned. The temperature of the room seemed to drop a few degrees. “Incubators.”
Zaragosa looked grim, and nodded. He sat back, folded his arms, and looked down, clearly deep in thought. “That’s very troubling,” he said. “You heard them say that. That exact term.”
No, she’d heard that part from Jonathan Mercer, but she couldn’t disclose that; the FBI had always made Mercer their primary target, and just now, she couldn’t afford them splitting their focus. Jane and her crew were the first-order danger, not Mercer. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”
“Incubators for what, exactly?”
“That I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound good, does it?”
“No,” he agreed. “Not at all.” There was a buzzing sound, and the locked conference room door swung open. Robinson was back, and he’d brought a small laptop, which he put down on the table in front of Bryn. She navigated the map to the area she wanted, then zoomed in and switched to the street view. It took her all of three minutes to find the right place.
“There,” she said. She zoomed in on the sign in front. “Arcadia Nursing and Rehabilitation. A division of the Fountain Group.”
Robinson nodded, closed the laptop, and stood up. Zaragosa motioned him out the door. “What do you know about the Fountain Group?” he asked Bryn.
“Nothing. It’s probably some kind of holding company—that’s all I can guess. Why, do you think they knew what was going on there?”
“If their patients are disappearing, then I’d assume someone knows. It’s unlikely all this would happen without significant funding and approval from higher up.” He seemed deeply troubled now, and tired. Zaragosa scrubbed his face with his hands, as if trying to will himself awake, and Bryn realized that he looked as if he’d not been home in days—a wilted suit, a fresh shirt that looked as if it had been taken out of the package, crease lines intact, and a wicked growth of beard that wouldn’t have been out of place on a streetlight-hugging drunk. Maybe Riley had broken under the strain. Bryn wouldn’t have blamed her, really; the trauma and emotion of any of these jobs was brutal, and so was the toll they took. “Please wait here, ladies. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Zaragosa stood and walked to the door. Annie said, “Um, if we’re taking a bathroom break, I could sure use one myself.…” Her voice trailed off, because Zaragosa had kept on going, and the door clicked shut behind him. “Wow. Rude. Is this guy some kind of friend of yours?”
“Not really. I don’t think he’s rude, just got a lot on his mind. He’s in charge of this place. It’s a lot to manage, and I just dropped some significant info on him he needs to look into.”
“Well, I think he’s rude.” Annie went to the door and pulled the handle. It didn’t open. “Huh. Did he press a secret button or something? Because it’s locked.” Bryn came to her side and tried it, which made Annie give her a roll of the eyes. “Wow. Yeah, I tried that. Like I said. Locked. There must be some sort of trick to it.…”
But there wasn’t. It was a simple lever system—push down, and the door was supposed to open. Only it didn’t.
Bryn looked around the room with its clean floor and whiteboard walls, and started feeling that bad, old claustrophobic impulse click in again. Another white room at Pharmadene. Bad, very bad. Get out. That was her panic talking; they were safe in the heart of a very strong facility, and nobody meant them harm. If Jane or her employers wanted to get to them here, they’d have a pitched battle on their hands, one that would draw public attention. Not even Jane would want that.
Bryn knocked on the door. “Hey! Bathroom break?” No one answered. She tried the speakerphone on the counter, and when the reception desk picked up, she said, “We’ve been accidentally locked in conference room C-17, and we need someone to open the door.”
“Of course,” the woman said, in a soothing, calm voice. “Let me page someone for you. You’re wearing ‘Escorted Visitor’ badges, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s why the door won’t open, then. Your encoded escorts aren’t with you at the moment, so you’re on lockdown until they return for you. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience, but I’m sure it will only be a few moments.”