4

"Laurie! A round for the house! On me!"

Jack had been sitting in Work and sipping a draft pint while pretending to read a copy of Kick. He looked up and glanced around at the sound of Bolton's voice.

He'd been starting to think he'd been wasting his time, that Bolton would be persona non grata here after the fight, but apparently he wasn't the type to be easily deterred.

One good way to assuage hard feelings was to buy a round for the house.

Bolton had a distinctly unhappy-looking Dawn in tow. He spotted Jack on his way by, nodded, but didn't stop. Now he stood surveying the room as the two dozen or so habitues bellied up to the bar for a freebie.

Jack stayed where he was, watching Dawn. She stood at his side, holding a cola of some sort and looking embarrassed and red-eyed, as if she'd been crying. Trouble in paradise? If so, and if he could find out what it was, maybe—

"All right, everybody," Bolton said, holding a bottle of Bud aloft. "I want you all to meet my lady, Dawn."

Dawn's face reddened as the crowd murmured ragged hellos.

"I just want to let all of you know that today Dawn has made me the happiest man in the world."

Oh, shit. They're getting married? Christy would—

"Because today I found out that she's going to make me a daddy!"

Dawn turned crimson as everyone shouted their congratulations. Jack could only stare at the beaming Bolton as he lifted his glass higher.

"To Dawn!"

The crowd echoed the words and drank—all except Jack and Dawn. Her expression said loud and clear that she wasn't into this pregnancy. He had a feeling she'd be even less into it when she learned the father of her baby was her uncle.

And Christy… if he'd thought she'd go ballistic at the idea of a wedding, she'd be off the charts with the pregnancy, especially when she learned—

Then he noticed a grinning Bolton coming his way, dragging Dawn by the hand.

"Hey, Joe? Y'hear?"

"Sure did." Jack raised his glass and let Bolton clink his against it. "Congrats, man. And to you too, young lady." Dawn only nodded.

Bolton said, "This here's Joe Henry, darlin. Met him the other day. He's a gamer and a good one too."

"Pleased to meet you," Jack said. The next words resisted being spoken but Jack forced them out: "With you two as parents you gotta know it's gonna be a beautiful baby."

Pardon me while I find a shovel.

"More than beautiful—special. Special in so many, many ways." He pointed to the book lying on the table in front of Jack. "He'll never have to be dissimilated because he'll never be assimilated. A kick-ass Kicker from the git-go."

Jack tapped the stick figure on the cover. "Right on!"

"Ain't you finished that yet? You must be a slow reader."

"I'm studying every word. I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying it."

Jack glanced at Dawn's midsection. He now understood the "project," the "mission" Bolton had mentioned. Was this the "Key" he'd spoken of?

He shifted his gaze to Bolton himself and wondered what the hell was going on in his head. Then he finished his beer and rose to his feet.

"Wish I could hang around for the party, Jerry, but I've got places I've gotta be."

"Sure I can't buy you another beer?"

"Have to take a rain check."

Jack's plan had been to meet up with Bolton here and hang with him in an attempt to find out what he was up to and where he thought he was headed… glean a little more info before his meeting with Christy. The impending-fatherhood announcement had made that unnecessary.

It also had made Jack dread seeing Christy.

But he had an important call to make before he met her.

5

"Are you on a cell phone?" Levy said when he came on the line.

Jack leaned against the side of an open booth on Queens Boulevard. It had taken him a long time to find a public phone. They used to be everywhere. Now…

"I'm in one of the last telephone booths in Queens. Just listen. You know the fellow we're interested in—the one dating the young girl?"

Levy's tone was cautious. "Yes."

"Well, she's pregnant, and our friend is the father."

A pause, then a gasp. "Dear God, if she inherited her mother's…" He seemed to be searching for a code word, a neutral term, anything but oDNA. "Her mother's…"

"Special sauce?"

"We're not talking about a hamburger!"

"In a way, we are."

An exasperated sigh. "I don't believe this. Very well. If she inherited her mother's special sauce, and that combines with our friend's special sauce, then—"

"Then we wind up with one hell of a Big Mac."

"Yes… yes, we do."

"That's got to be what he's been looking to do all along: create a super sauce."

"You think this is intentional?"

"He went looking for this particular girl. What else can I think? This is kind of scary."

"Yes and no. Here's the thing: The girl might not have inherited her mother's special sauce. You don't inherit a carbon copy of your mother's genome; only half. The other half comes from your father. So there's always a chance the girl is sauce free."

"Unless, of course, the girl's father was heavy on the sauce."

"Yes. In that case the odds of inheriting a large portion of the sauce increase dramatically. Dramatically. You must learn who the father was and where we can find him."

"And if I do?"

"Then you obtain a sample of his, um, sauce and we find out what we're dealing with."

"And if I can't?"

"Then get a sample of the girl's so we can see how much she's carrying. If she missed out, then the experiment was a failure—thank God."

Something in Levy's tone bothered Jack.

"You sound upset."

"I am. There's genetic manipulation going on here—it's old-fashioned, barnyard-style breeding, but genetic manipulation nonetheless—and I want to know why. Someone has a purpose here, and I want to know what it is. Because that special sauce is potentially explosive. It's TNT, which is dangerous enough. But this makes me start to think that someone has spent generations trying to make an atom bomb."

To blow up what? Jack wondered. Who or what was the target?

6

"No!" Christy cried, feeling her heart leap into her throat. "That's not possible!" They sat together on the front seat of her Mercedes, parked along the northern end of Meadow Lake, a peaceful haven hunkered between the roaring ribbons of the LIE, Grand Central Parkway, and the Van Wyck Expressway. Jack had thought it better if he stayed away from her house. He'd said Bolton, and now Dawn, knew what he looked like and either of them seeing him entering or leaving Christy's house would greatly complicate the investigation.

He'd said he had news, but she never dreamed… Jerry Bethlehem… her half brother? It was crazy! "I'm afraid it's true."

She studied Jack's face. Was he up to something? Pulling some sort of sleazy scam?

But no. She sensed genuine reluctance in him. He hadn't wanted to be the one to tell her.

Her tongue tasted like tin.

"But… how?"

"The usual way, I assume."

Not funny.

"No, damn it! Where did you find out? How did you find out? And why did you even check?"

"I knew from my talk with Bethlehem at Work the other day that his father's name was Jonah and that he had one eye."

That rocked her. One eye… her father had worn an eye patch. At least that was what she'd been told. But millions of people had lost an eye.

"So?"

"When I spoke to you yesterday you said your mother told you your father was swallowed by a whale."

And there it was, smacking her in the face.

"Oh, God… Jonah."

He nodded. "Yeah. And since, as I told you, I was looking for some sort of connection between you and Bethlehem, that sent up a bright red flare."