Terminated

He listened, covered the phone’s speaker, and said, “She says glad you’re still alive, and also, they have another place here in KC. Hasn’t used it for years, but it should still be operational.” He gave her the address. “She says she can unlock it remotely for us. It isn’t as impressive as her digs, but it’ll do in a pinch.”



For all his cheerful, casual tone, Joe was deliberately not dropping any names—in case, Bryn assumed, that Calvin Thorpe turned out to be a liability, or sold information on. He was right. The last thing any of them wanted was to compromise Manny any further.



Though Manny would almost certainly burn this place to the ground and salt the earth after they sheltered there. As far as levels of trust went, Bryn figured they were well into negative numbers.



Traffic had thickened, hardening the city’s main arteries, but she used the GPS to find side streets; the last thing they needed was to be stuck in traffic, sitting ducks. And Manny’s bolt-hole was in—surprise—a decaying industrial area, which made things easier . . . at least until they came face-to-face with the massive iron gate.



Which was closed.



“And . . . ?” Bryn asked, but just as she did, a buzzer sounded, and the gate rumbled back on tracks. She drove in, and before her back wheels were through the gap, the gap began closing. “Is she watching us on satellite?”



“I think it’s safe to say she could nuke us from orbit,” Joe said. “Go straight into the underground parking. From there, she’ll open the elevator for us.”



The setup here was much the same as what Bryn had seen before, but smaller—the elevator was more claustrophobic, and when it opened up top, the lab was bare, dusty and pocked with—bullet holes? Something epic had gone on here, once. There were stains on the concrete that might have been blood.



But the important thing was that it was secure.



Bryn fired up the lights, and with them came a bank of security monitors, which was handy. “Dr. Thorpe, come with me,” she said. “Let’s find you a private room.” One with a locking door. She did find one, toward the back; it had the dimensions of a storeroom, but nothing in it but a cot, toilet, and sink. Perfect.



Dr. Thorpe sank down on the bed and stared at her with grim fury. “I’m your prisoner, then?”



“Let’s just say we don’t trust you with scalpels. Or anything sharp,” she said. “Get some rest. I’ll be back with something for you to eat.”



“I’d rather talk to the other one.”



“Riley? Not sure she’s up to talking, since you cut her—”



“The man,” he interrupted. “The human. I don’t want anything to do with you, or her.”



Bryn raised her eyebrows, returned his bitter stare calmly, and said, “I’m really not sure you’re likely to get a choice, but I’ll do what I can to accommodate your . . . preferences.” She shut the door, and found that it locked automatically. Glancing up, she found the small glittering lens of a camera pointed down at her, and waved to Pansy.



Good to have friends in high places.



With him secured, Bryn wandered the place. It was a short tour—empty lab tables, a giant walk-in pantry with canned food and bottled water, basic medical supplies, nothing in the fridge. There was a surprisingly lush bed, sofa, and entertainment center, though. Joe had already claimed the recliner, and Bryn heard water running somewhere from the right—Riley, in the bathroom, showering off the blood.



“Doc all squared away?” Joe asked, and Bryn nodded. “I’m not wild about the guy, Bryn. Of course, I’m not crazy about anybody who opens his negotiations by throat-slashing.”



“Maybe he knew she’d heal.”



“He didn’t know I would when he came at me with the scalpel,” he pointed out. “And I don’t like anybody who judges by group, not by individual. Which, you’ll notice, he does. Watch your back, Bryn. He gets half a shot, he’ll put you down.”



“If he can.”



“Isn’t that why we’re keeping him? Because he says he can?”



Joe had a hell of a good point. Bryn shook her head and wandered a little more, looking for a computer station—and when she checked the elevator again, saw another button that did nothing when she pressed it.



The speaker came on below the keypad. “Bryn?”



“Pansy?” Bryn looked up. Sure enough, surveillance stared back. “Just looking around. Is there a secure computer I can use here?”



“No,” she said. “Sorry, we stripped things out that could be traced back, or had personal intel on them. It’s pretty much just what you see. At least I left sheets on the beds and guest towels.”



“You’re nothing if not a great host,” Bryn agreed. “What’s the extra floor?”



Silence. A long one. And then, Pansy said, “It’s private. And besides, there’s nothing left up there of interest to you. It’s mostly cold case files from Manny’s lab days. Things he was playing around with, trying to unearth evidence. And he’d kill me if I gave you access to any of that.”



“Okay. So . . . what now? We have Thorpe. He says he’s got a way to kill Jane—so that means kill me and Riley, too. That’s a good thing, and a scary thing. What do you want me to do?”



“Nothing,” Pansy said. “Sit tight where you are.”



“Pansy, I can’t.” Bryn lowered her voice, hoping it didn’t carry through the echo chamber of the lab. “Riley and I need meat. I’ve got enough to get us through for now, but after that, we’re going to get hungry. When we get hungry, things are going to get ugly if we’re still locked in here. Understand? We can’t just—wait for some indefinite period. Not without some supplies.”



“Yeah, I get it. There’s a motorcycle stored in a locked closet downstairs in the parking area; it ought to be ready to ride. You can use it to go on a grocery run, but be careful, and stay away from facial recognition if you can. Oh—and there’s cash in the safe in the bedroom, behind the abstract on the wall. I’ll open it for you.”



Bryn took a deep breath and nodded. “Keep an eye on everyone while I’m gone?”



“Always,” Pansy said, and gave a warm, disembodied chuckle. “Just call me HAL.”



“Ha,” Bryn said sourly. She pressed the button to open the elevator doors.



They didn’t open.



“I can’t do that, Bryn,” Pansy said.



She sighed. “So not funny.”



“C’mon, it’s a little funny.”



Chapter 6



Bryn put out the raw meat, which was turning bad fast, and let Joe and Riley—fresh from the shower now, hair spiked and fierce, and hoarseness all but gone from her voice—know that she’d be making a grocery run. Joe ordered beer, which she ignored, and after retrieving cash from the safe—really, Pansy and Manny were taking paranoid preparedness to Zombie Apocalypse levels—she went down to find the motorcycle.



It was a simple black Honda, nothing fancy, with a simple black helmet; somehow, Bryn had been prepared for something space-age and expensive, but Pansy had clearly chosen function over form. Bryn checked the fuel gauge, and as Pansy had promised, it was still full. The battery had been taken out and connected to a charger, and it was the work of a few minutes to reinstall it, and then Bryn put the empty backpack on her shoulders, the helmet on her head, and kicked the cycle to life.



It felt pleasantly relaxing to ride again—she’d been checked out on motorcycles when she was a teen, and again in the army, but she hadn’t been on one in a while. Kansas City wasn’t nearly as much of a danger zone as most places she’d been, and she enjoyed zipping through side streets, looking for the nearest hole-in-the-wall butcher shop she could find. The town was big on meat, so it wasn’t too difficult to find one, and she bought as much as she could carry—hamburger, steaks, and salami. The salami, fully cooked, could be carried with them easily enough even when they didn’t have a home to return to.



All in all, it filled the backpack to its max, and cost her a significant chunk of cash.



Just in case—and because she’d gotten lessons in paranoia from Manny—she took loops and circles, heading back at oblique angles to the safe house . . . and that was how she noticed the helicopter overhead.



In a city this size, seeing whirlybirds wasn’t unusual; they were part of the urban landscape, usually doing traffic reports or providing air support for police and fire. There would be a few private sightseeing operations around, too, though the area wasn’t the most scenic.



What alerted her, though, was that this one seemed to stay if not on top of her, at least in line of sight. It seemed unlikely that the butcher shop would have had plugged-in surveillance and facial recognition; it seemed equally unlikely that their enemies could have been watching every meat vendor in the entire city, on the off chance of spotting one of them.



Bryn sped away on an entirely random track, heading for the countryside. The vibration of the motorcycle jolted through her, brutal and yet somehow soothing, and she watched the helicopter in the mirror. It tacked after her, swinging on a course that would pace her as she headed away from the safe house.



Dammit.



She was going to have to ditch the surveillance, if that was possible—and that meant ditching the ride.



If you want to hide a tree, you go to the forest . . . and hiding a motorcycle was relatively easy if you picked a big, well-populated biker bar.



Luckily, Kansas City wasn’t short on them, especially on the outskirts of town. A little investigative riding, and she caught sight of an old-school biker dude in a battered leather vest and bucket helmet, riding his Harley. She gunned up next to him, pacing him, and shouted a cordial howdy; he nodded, and when she asked about a bar, he pointed and told her to follow.



He led her to the mother of all bars. The thing was like a shopping mall, with more neon than Vegas, and the ranks of bikes parked there warmed her heart.