THE FLENSE: China: (Part 2 of THE FLENSE serial) Page 8

Just as Jamie had said, the latch was rusted through and useless. Angel expected the door to snap against a chain, but there was none. In fact, it yielded easily, swinging wide open against the force of their combined weight and banging against a rusted metal railing.

  They stepped out onto the landing, blinking against the sunlight just as a loud bell began to clang. The sound echoed down the street and into the building behind them. Through the clamor came a distant shout.

  Jamie pulled Angel out of the way, then swung the door shut and wedged a board beneath the handle. She gave it a hard kick just as someone slammed against the other side of the door. The two women jumped back against the railing. Jamie turned to Angel, and grabbed her. This time, her grip felt weak and shaky. "Please tell me you have a car nearby."

  Chapter Thirty

  Alvin Cheong stood with his back against the door and slowly peeled off his gloves. It was always a relief to do so, and so rare outside of the safety of his own home. But it was an unusually warm day, and the shut-up windows and turned-off air conditioning made the apartment hot and stuffy. The backs of his hands itched terribly, but he resisted the temptation to scratch them.

  He looked around him appreciatively. The apartment was well-appointed, simply and tastefully adorned with high-end materials and furniture, though perhaps a tad messy: a tumbler on a side table, its contents long since drained or evaporated away; a crystal ashtray beside the stove, the twisted stub of a hand-rolled cigarette in it. He didn't need a closer look at it or a sniff to know that it wasn't tobacco. His report had already told him that the apartment's renter occasionally got high.

  Then there were the pieces of clothing placed randomly about, a trail leading from the couch to the bedroom door — a shirt, a pair of black stockings, a brassiere — though he got the distinct impression that the pattern signified nothing of an erotic nature, rather a careless lack of attention. A light jacket was folded casually over the back of a chair in the kitchen.

  He noted that the table contained only two chairs. One was pulled out, the other tucked in. The one that was pulled out had a stack of papers on it four inches thick.

  He let his eyes wander about the place as he stepped carefully around the edges of the room, his gaze jumping from one object to the next, to whatever drew it. He tried to block out the noises from the surrounding rooms, the men conducting the detail work. He focused instead on the apartment as a whole, how it was set up, how it was decorated, trying to understand its occupant more fully. He tried to block out any thought of what the men might find during their search, hoping to avoid anything that might color his impressions of the woman's home.

  But no matter how hard he tried, his thoughts kept coming back to that nagging question: Was Angelique de l'Enfantine more than they thought she was?

  To be honest, he didn't know what to expect from this intrusion. Proof, maybe. Evidence that she was exactly who she said she was and nothing more. Evidence to the contrary.

  A laptop sat on top of the bar. It had been shut when they entered, but it was now open and turned on. One of the tech guys had managed to gain access and was cloning it onto a flash drive for later analysis. While the disk copied, he sifted through the stack of mail on the counter, zipping open an occasional envelope using a small device in his kit and quickly scanning the contents before replacing them and resealing it. He looked over as Cheong approached and gave him a quick headshake.

  The order to recruit Missus de l'Enfantine had come from higher up in the 6X food chain. Cheong had no idea how high, nor exactly why someone had specifically requested that he bring her on board. With the few hours notice he'd been given the other day, he'd barely had enough time to gather a minimum of background information about her before sending his man to intercept her in Seoul, and even less time to prepare a recruitment strategy.

  But clearly it hadn't been enough prep time, had it? He'd been caught off guard on at least one detail, and it angered him that his aides had provided him faulty information on such a basic point as the woman's current marital status. He hoped his discomfiture during their dinner meeting hadn't shown. Regardless if she noticed or not, he'd wasted no time chewing out the individual responsible for feeding him the incorrect data. He hated being seen as anything but in complete control, especially when just a little more digging would have easily ferreted out the truth.

  Well, he'd taken pains to rectify that, and any other potential insufficiencies since then. This was just another step in that process.

  In a way, that singular, seemingly innocent, error had piqued his curiosity. He wanted to understand why his bosses picked her to be the one to investigate the category III global threat events which he and his team worked so diligently to identify, the sort of events which they believed were preparatory to category IV, or extinction-level, disasters. After all, he could easily come up with a list of a half dozen or so other investigative reporters with equal or better credentials. What made this particular one stand out?

  A little more digging had rewarded him with some intriguing possibilities. First and foremost was her former husband — scratch that, her estranged husband — David Eitan. The American-born and educated scientist had impressive early career credentials: a doctorate in synthetic biology from Princeton, a genius fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation at Stanford. But after abandoning a failed start-up just prior to his marrying Angelique and launching a second one on her family's money, he seemed to have faded into obscurity in recent years. His company's website, SynGencia Bio, was still active, but it was little more than a landing page and some investor information. There wasn't even a contacts page, and cached versions going back no further than two years ago provided nothing else.

  The last scientific publication in Eitan's name was four years old, a methods paper on the development and intracellular introduction of reprogrammable gene-editing molecular scaffolding. Based on his citation score, the article had received scant attention. Apparently, the technology was of little interest to either the academic or tech sectors; it was probably too undeveloped to even be considered for potential medical applications.

  By all accounts, it seemed that the man had simply flamed out.

  Even so, Cheong needed to make sure, which is why he'd sent his best man to dig up more on him. Eitan's last known address was here in Manhattan, but though the apartment was current on its rent, a quick visit told them it hadn't been occupied in months. Instead, a clue led them to DC. Cheong was eager to get the update on the man's status, if only to set his mind at ease.

  Then there was her father, Gaétan H. de l'Enfantine, a self-made multimillionaire in the high tech industry. His niche had been internet security systems and protocols, firewalls and local area intranet codex structure and multi-layered protective algorithms. His company, which had been sold off a few years after Angelique left for medical school in the States, had developed a novel method of iterative learning that allowed servers to recognize typical user activity and distinguish it from those attempting to access it for malicious purposes. The technologies had been incorporated by private companies and government systems around the world, and next-generation protocols based on his original specs were still employed in many places, including the International Alliance of Internet Service Providers, a grandchild of the original ARPANET.

  Both Gaétan and his wife, Sophia, had died tragically in a car accident in St. Moritz during the summer between Angelique's second and third years of residency at Stanford Medical Center. The tragedy had so shaken her up that she'd immediately dropped out of the program. It was about this same time that she met David.

  As far as Cheong knew, the woman's parents were both buried on the family estate in Lyon, which was his next destination after this. Angelique had moved back there about a year after the tragedy to study journalism, and now occupied the house alone, maintaining a small staff of occasional helpers to keep the place clean and stocked. She split her time between there and here in Manhattan.

  Finally,
there was Angelique's brother, Jacques. Of all of the people close to her, he was either the most mysterious, or the least. Seven years her junior, Jacques had attended university in Saint-Étienne to study literature, but after receiving his baccalaureate and a brief residency in Paris, he simply fell out of sight. All Cheong's men had been able to find on him were some medical records from the local hospital in Lyons that indicated he'd suffered a terrible accident some two years after their parents' deaths. But other than a couple brief notations of follow up visits in the ensuing weeks, there were no more records, at least none that his men could hack from the national health network.

  Strange, Cheong thought, how the people in her life have a tendency to disappear.

  The sound of the laptop lid closing drew him out of his thoughts. The technician stood up out of his chair and shook his head again. "Nothing obvious here," he said. "But we'll analyze every single file, her search history, her accounts, ghost files. If something comes up, we'll get it to you ASAP."

  One by one, the other team members emerged from their various searches and assembled around Cheong. He still hadn't donned his gloves, not yet willing to sacrifice this small pleasure just yet. Instead, he buried his hands into the pockets of his jacket and listened to their reports. They found nothing suspicious. By all appearances, the woman was single and a freelance journalist, just as they'd thought. But they still had several hundred photographs of every inch of the apartment on their phones to analyze.

  Cheong checked the clock on the kitchen's microwave. The entire operation had taken them eight minutes. "Where's Tom?"

  They turned to find the last team member slipping up the darkened hallway toward them. He extended his hand, as if to offer Cheong the object in it, though the exchange didn't happen. "Found it at the bottom of the bathroom trashcan." He rotated the prescription bottle in his fingers so that the label faced up.

  "Lithium carbonate?" Cheong took a step back, and his shoulders slumped as he saw her name on the bottle.

  "What's it mean boss?"

  "It's a chemical," Cheong replied, "used for depression, bipolar disorder, and sometimes schizophrenia." He shook his head. "It appears that our girl may be undergoing treatment for some mental . . . conditions."

  Chapter Thirty One

  "You need to tell me what the hell is going on," Angel said. "What the hell are they doing in that factory back there? What were those people who died on the train doing? What did they know?"

  "It'll be easier if we go back to Wenbai."

  "The factory?" Angel shook her head. "That's the first place they'll be looking for us. Those men back there— I can't be absolutely certain they're not the same ones I saw back at the factory this morning, but they're dressed the same way, and they were armed. Now that they know you're alive, they're going to do whatever it takes to find you. They'll assume you're going to head for the factory or the village."

  Jamie shook her head. "I don't think so. It doesn't make sense. My gut is telling me to run in the opposite direction, to escape. They'll know that, so that's what they'll expect me to do."

  She gestured out the window and winced from the movement, then pressed a hand to her side again. Angel was relieved to see that when she drew it away, there was no new blood soaking through the shirt she'd dug out of her spare bag in the trunk. Whatever wounds she'd reopened at the hospital, they'd clotted shut again.

  "They'll be expecting me to run to Chifeng," Jamie continued. "That's where they'll be looking for me. There, or possibly Beijing. Not Wenbai. Besides, you said you wanted my help."

  Angel turned to her and frowned. "I do. But after what happened back there, I don't think going back is the wisest thing to do right now. Whether or not you know anything, or think you know, they're not going to take any chances. They're going to want you quieted."

  "And you, too."

  "I'm not the one who knows something."

  When Jamie didn't take the bait, Angel sighed. "That's your cue to start talking."

  "I can't," Jamie whispered. "I mean, I'm not exactly sure of anything myself, that's why I have to go back. I have some theories . . . ."

  Angel huffed in frustration. "Theories? I thought you knew—"

  "I tried to explain it to you back there," Jamie said. "I saw the look on your face yesterday. I saw the way that boy that was with you looked at me. I know it all sounds crazy, but I am not crazy, I swear to you." She stopped, as if suddenly realizing something, and frowned. "By the way, who was that boy?"

  "One of the villagers. He was my interpreter."

  "What happened to him?"

  "He's dead. They killed him."

  Jamie blinked in surprise.

  "You see how serious this is?"

  "Is it because of . . . because—"

  "Because of all this? Yes. Those men— I told you they're bad news." Angel gripped the steering wheel and focused as hard as she could to keep her voice from breaking. "They murdered the entire village. Everyone. Just . . . gone."

  Jamie let out a strangled cry. "Just like the people on that train. But— How? Why?"

  "How? They incinerated it. Firebombed it by air. They burnt it all to the ground. They even torched the burial site last night. I saw them the day before sterilizing the crash site with napalm. They're trying to get rid of evidence."

  "I— I guess I always suspected," Jamie whispered, "but—"

  "What don't they want anyone to find?"

  "Me."

  "Besides you."

  "No, you don't understand. What they're trying to hide, I've got it. That's why you have to take me to the factory."

  "I have to get you someplace safe."

  Jamie slapped the window hard with her palm, then lurched forward in pain, clutching at her stomach. "I told you," she groaned. "He'll find me no matter where I go, the dark man. He'll know. He's probably with them. If that's true, then I'm already a dead girl, unless . . . ."

  "Unless what?"

  "I don't know!" she wailed.

  "Then tell me exactly how are they going to find you?"

  Jamie winced as she lifted her bottom out of the seat and pulled down the sweat pants Angel had given her, exposing her thigh. She pointed at the wound. For a moment, it looked to Angel as if it were smaller than she remembered it, even since their escape from the hospital a half hour before. But she knew that couldn't be.

  "The scar?"

  "What's inside of it!" Jamie shouted impatiently. She raised her hand again, but stopped herself from hitting the window. "That's how they got them inside of me! The bone. It infected me!"

  Ever since yesterday, and then again during the strange encounter inside the shower, alarm bells had been quietly ringing inside Angel's head, but now they were jangling at full blast. Once more, the girl was spouting nonsense. What the hell could she be talking about? First it was bad spirits, then something infecting her. Which was it? And what did it have to do with the Americans finding her?

  Angel tried to remain calm. "I don't understand."

  "I didn't either, not exactly. Not even yesterday. But I've had a lot of time to piece it together over the past few days. The game on the train, the touching. And then, when I saw my body in the shower . . . ." Her voice trailed off. "That's when I knew for sure. They're inside of me, doing things to me."

  "You suffered from a horribly traumatic event. It's understandable that you might not . . . that you might not be thinking clearly."

  She was afraid Jamie would get angry again, but all the girl did was nod and gesture at her body again. She seemed almost to deflate. "I should have died a week ago. I thought I was lucky, managing to escape the crash without any broken bones. But I lost a lot of blood, more than should have been survivable. And I'd hit my head hard enough that I was in and out of consciousness."

  "You were lucky that someone found you and brought you to the hospital."

  Jamie's face twisted. "I don't remember much— stumbling through the wreckage, calling out. Flashes of memories. A
nd then the . . . the dark man." She lifted the shirt again. "I had massive bruising to my abdomen, possibly even organ damage."

  Angel drew her eyes away from the road and glanced quickly over. Yesterday, there had been large patches of yellowish-green discoloration on the woman's torso, though it seemed that they were less colorful now. She hadn't given it very much thought at the time, especially given the confusion, but even if she had, she would have guessed that they weren't a result of the crash. After so few days, any such bruising would still be dark purple or, at best, brown, as the bilirubin in the leaked blood began to be broken down and reabsorbed by the body.

  "I don't think so," Angel said.

  Jamie rolled up her sleeves and showed her arms. They were deeply bruised. The lacerations were still raw, and some were still crusty with clotted blood and lymph. "Four days ago, my stomach looked as bad as this," she said.

  Angel frowned.

  "You still don't believe me."

  "I have a degree in medicine, Jamie. The human body just doesn't heal that quickly, particularly fatty tissues of the trunk. Massive bruising — abdominal bruising — would take weeks to clear and the color to fade. It's been barely a week. The timeline doesn't fit."

  "Exactly. Pull over."

  "But—"

  "I said pull over."

  They were on a rather long, flat stretch of road heading toward Chifeng with good visibility for miles in either direction. After checking the mirror and confirming that they were alone, Angel guided the car over to the side of the pavement and pulled the hand brake. She didn't shut off the engine.

  Since leaving Bairin Zouqi, she'd been keeping an eye on the fuel gauge. They still had a long way to go to get to Chifeng, and she was beginning to fear that they would need petrol before getting there. She still had some yuan in her pocket, but they would also need to buy some food.

  She turned fully toward Jamie, and was startled to find the girl climbing out of the car. She reached over for her but missed. "Get back in here! Where are you going?" She pushed her way out through her own door and hurried around the front.