“I know, but—”

“I’m not talking about tonight. Now be quiet and I’ll explain later.” She turned back to Kek and dipped her head toward the tape around her right arm. “Could you cut that, Kek? I can’t call Zero and tell him what a good job you did until you cut that tape.”

Kek loped over and Patrick gasped as the creature raised the knife and, in a move so casual in manner yet so blindingly fast in execution, slashed the duct tape with a single thrust. He expected blood to gush from Romy’s wrist, but only the tape parted, leaving her without a scratch.

“Good job!” she said as she wriggled that arm free and began the laborious task of unwinding the tape trapping her left wrist.

“Ask him if you can borrow his knife,” Patrick said. “To speed things up.” Being trapped in this chair was making him claustrophobic.

She gave him a rueful smile. “I wouldn’t advise you or anyone else to try to take Kek’s knife away from him. Even if you say, ‘Pretty please.’”

She freed her left and, then began to work on her legs. As she did, Kek retreated to a corner where he squatted and watched.

When she was finally free she rose and walked away.

“Hey!” Patrick said. “What about me?”

She stepped through an alcove and Patrick heard the rattle of cutlery from within. A moment later she emerged holding a wicked looking carving knife.

“Ginsu,” she said. “Cuts through tin cans.”

“But will it cut duct tape?”

“We’ll see.”

It did, of course, and seconds later Patrick was free. He started to rise, then sat back down. He looked at the two men on the floor, one dead, the other halfway there, then at the creature squatting against the wall, watching them, and felt weak, as if someone had pulled a drainage plug from his ankle and all his energy had run out.

“What’s going on, Romy? What have we got ourselves into?”

“Life!” she said, turning, bending at the waist, and leaning toward him. “Don’t you feel alive, more alive than you’ve ever felt in your life?” She held the Ginsu blade before her face. “This is it! This is the cutting edge! This is where your vote is counted! This is where you make a difference!”

She’s high, he thought. Stoked on adrenaline. And me? A total wreck.

“You’re very scary right now,” he told her.

“Am I?” She straightened. “Sorry. That was someone else talking.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” She pointed to the unconscious man. “Can you believe it? We’ve finally got one of them!”

“One of who?”

“They’re from Manassas, or whoever’s behind Manassas. And the people behind Manassas are behind SimGen. This blows the lid off, breaks everything wide open. We’re finally going to get some answers.”

“What if he doesn’t want to talk?”

“Oh, he’ll talk.” She turned and lifted the inoculator from the kit on the coffee table. “Do unto others what they were about to do to you, right?”

Patrick stared at the amber liquid in the vial. They’d been about to inject some of that into Romy and him.

“You think that’s the truth drug we heard about? The one they found in the dead globulin farmers?”

She nodded. “Totuus. I’d bet my soul.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know.” She gestured to the dead man. “Maybe we’d have ended up like him.”

“Speaking of him, how do we explain a dead body to the police?”

“We won’t.”

“We can’t very well say he broke his own neck.”

“I’m sure Zero will have a way to handle it.”

Romy picked up her coat from the floor. “Kek, you did good,” she said soothingly to the creature as she rummaged in a pocket.

Patrick noticed that the red coloration had faded completely from its snout, replaced now by a bright blue.

“Can I ask again: Whatis he?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said as she pulled a phone from the coat pocket. “I’ll introduce you.”

“That’s okay.”

She motioned to the creature. “Come over here, Kek. I want you to meet Mister Sullivan.”

“Really,” Patrick said out of the corner of his mouth as Kek rose and started toward them. Something about this creature stirred a primal fear in him. And the way its gaze veered to Patrick’s left and right, never making eye contact, didn’t help. “That’s okay.”

“Kek,” Romy said, “shake hands with our new friend, Patrick Sullivan. And Patrick, meet the fellow who saved your life back in October.”

“My life? You mean, when we were knocked off the Saw Mill?”

As Romy nodded Patrick relived the moment in the inky grove as the massive arms of the man named Ricker wrapped around his head and shoulders, felt them tense as he prepared to snap Patrick’s neck, and then the sudden release. Moments later, Ricker and his friend were dead.

He considered Kek’s muscular arms, sensed the power in the thick shoulders bulging through the sleeveless coverall. Yes, power to spare, more than enough to take out two hardened pros, especially if they didn’t see him coming.

“I guess I owe you big time, Kek,” Patrick said, thrusting out his hand. He still didn’t know what kind of mutant monkey thing stood before him, but he most definitely wanted Kek on his side. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you very much.”

Kek pulled back his shoulders and puffed out his chest. Finally he made eye contact. His hand was warm and dry as his long fingers wrapped around Patrick’s. He bared his teeth, revealing those fangs. An attempt at a smile?

“Does he speak?” Patrick said.

“Not more than a few syllables—one of them being ‘Kek.’ But he understands speech and he signs.”

Kek released Patrick’s hand and turned to the two men on the floor. Ponytail groaned and stirred. Kek bent, grabbed the man’s hair, and slammed his head against the floor.

“Easy, Kek,” Romy said. “We don’t want to scramble his brains.”

“Whatdo we want to do?” Patrick said.

Romy said, “Zero,” to her PCA, then smiled. “That’s what I’m about to find out.”

4

Every muscle in Luca’s body wound tight as he let himself into the foyer of Romy Cadman’s apartment building. Something had gone wrong. He didn’t know what, couldn’t imagine what, but Palmer and Jackson weren’t answering his calls.

They’d been flown in from the Idaho facility especially for this op—both of them experienced men who’d return there immediately after they completed their work. The chance of Cadman or Sullivan ever seeing either of them again was nil. They’d called in when they’d set themselves up in the apartment; they’d responded when the surveillance team in the car outside let them know that both the woman and Sullivan were on their way up.

But that had been over an hour ago. No one had heard from them since. No one had entered or left the building since Cadman and Sullivan’s arrival.

He couldn’t help remembering the first time he’d run an op against these two: a humiliating failure and two of his men dead.

Not again, he thought, almost a prayer. Please, not again.

But the previous op had been a complicated outdoor job, with innumerable variables; this one was in a small apartment, a limited, controlled field of operation that Palmer and Jackson had secured beforehand. What was wrong? An hour was more than enough for a pair of armed pros to deal with two unarmed civilians, juice them up with Totuus, and record the answers to a few questions. Like, who do you take instructions from, where do you get your money, and so on.

Luca had wanted to be there, and would have been if termination had been in the plan; but since Cadman and Sullivan were going to be released, he couldn’t risk showing his face.

He hurried up the stairs. Key in hand, he pressed his ear against the door to 3A and knocked. No sound from within, not a whisper, not a rustle. He knocked again, same result.

Steeling himself for what might lie within—visions of Ricker’s and Green’s smashed skulls from the last time flashed through his brain—Luca unlocked the door and stepped inside.