Chapter #22Cleaning Up the Mess You'd Made by: Seuzz   "Send me a copy of the footage," Montague says. "Pray you don't look as incompetent as you sound. What happened after the incident?"
"We put things in lock down, and I pulled Diana back from her job. We'd copied Koudelka onto her and sent her out to listen in case the OIC man really was working with the targets--"
"Are you certain that this man himself wasn't the shapeshifter?"
"I'm not certain of anything, sir. If he's a shapeshifter, it could explain how he eluded us. But Lillis put him through the wringer, and it looks more like an invisibility trick. If he's got Diana's skill set, it's built on a different theory."
"And what is the present disposition of your assets?"
"As I said, I pulled Diana back, in case she became a target. She's at my apartment now. So's Lillis. But I took a gamble and dumped the OIC agent we were already holding in the countryside. I thought we might stir up the OIC ant heap, see if something shakes loose from that." You pause. "I'll take full responsibility for anything that goes queer from that."
"Of course you will," he snaps. "Still, it's not a bad idea. And what are you doing about security?"
"Whatever I can. We've swept and swept the building, but turned up nothing. I think he's gone."
"In which case he'll be back. Or he hasn't left, and is pretending to search the facility while actually spying it out. What have you done about the Diana machine?"
"It was still bolted in place when I left."
There's silence for a bit. "I won't mince words, Dey," Montague finally says. "I'm deeply perturbed. We have to assume that your facility has been thoroughly compromised. Start closing it down, now. We'll send a team in tomorrow morning to purge the systems. Send all Delta- and above employees to Enfield."
* * * * *
Paige is propped up in bed with a book when you check in on her a few minutes later. She looks very sexy in her reading glasses. But she'd look sexy without them, because she's changed into the form of Barbara Abbey.
You groan long and low as you crouch over her and suck up a deep, luxurious kiss. Only Dey and Paige know that she has a copy of the supermodel tattooed to her skin; Dey had pulled strings to get Abbey to show up at the opening of a Fane plant, and had arranged for a small "accident" to conveniently knock her out so she could be put under Mavin's light pen. The real woman had been brusque and unpleasant even before the accident, and had threatened a big stink when she'd woken up in the infirmary. But Dey had mollified her with a chunk of money drawn on his expense account. It was worth it, so that he could sleep with "her" whenever he wanted.
And here she is now, and so delectable. Long, honey-colored hair that falls loosely around an oval face with big green eyes and a long nose and pert lips. A classic hour-glass figure with great globes balanced over a shallow, pedestal-like tummy, which rests on broad hips and long, firm, tapering legs. Soft, soft skin. You drink her up and become very stiff with desire. Paige kneads the back of your neck with fingers that her lover likes to suck and nibble on. "This isn't a goodbye kiss, is it?" she whispers when you break off rub her neck with your nose.
"I don't know," you sigh. "But it's all I can give you right now. I have to go back in to the office.
"Oh, baby, can't you tell me what happened? What I can do to help?"
"Nothing." Then with another groan you clamber back to your feet. "Get some sleep. Dream about me." You raise her hands to your lips and kiss their tips. "It'll probably be tomorrow night before I see you again. If I see you again."
Pain comes into her eyes, and you turn your back so you won't have to look at them as you trudge heavily out of the bedroom.
The sexy girl notwithstanding, you're not sure you want to see her again. She's almost certainly using her "talent" to manage and control Julian Dey, and the man you're impersonating at least suspects as much. Paige Knotts is a vicious and unprincipled killer, and likes to laugh afterward about the various petty ways she has "fucked up" the lives of those she's imitated.
* * * * *
Montague's orders threaten to upend all the advantages you thought you'd gain by replacing Julian Dey, but in the short term you're pleased to carry them out, for they'll make it easier to pull off what you yourself need to do. As you ride down in the elevator you check the cell phone, and find a text from Hal. You follow the link: it goes briefly to a website, and then the phone's OS crashes. Ten minutes later, when you're in the car, it reboots with a new interface and a new message from Hal. The text explains the changes: like Taylor's, Dey's phone can now emulate several independent numbers, which you can reach by swiping an obscure command on the main screen. You use the new contact info to send a message to Frank, telling him to bring Marta's mask to the Fane office as soon as possible; you'll meet him out front after he texts his arrival.
It's two in the morning when you get to the plant, so there's only a skeleton staff on hand (aside from the security teams). You set them to work shutting down all the computer and power systems. Back in the main offices, you copy Lillis's data from the examination of "Taylor Koudelka" and transfer it to Dey's laptop. You review it before sending it on to Montague, but the numbers and notes don't mean anything to you. To Dey, Lillis had only said that Koudelka was "who he zeems to be" and nothing else; but Dey himself had a hunch that Koudelka was the Stellae agent who had killed Professor Jameson Hyde-White nearly ten years. That's why he put you under a disguised lie detector: the stenographer was noting all the places where you told a falsehood; and your denials at knowing Hyde-White and Phil Dawes were enough to tell Dey that his hunch had been correct. Luckily, he hadn't told anyone before you made your escape; and you yourself have ordered the mental flensing of the only witness to the interrogation.
Speaking of which: You load up the video footage of the session and edit it down so that it only shows the fight, not your brief transformation into Adrianna. You send that to Montague as well.
A little after five you get a text from Frank: he's just down the street with Marta's mask. You go out to meet him--shifting into a new face as you pass through a dark spot--and tell him to wait, for you'll send Dey out while the sending is good. Back inside, you stop in the facility's locker room to collect a uniform, then go to the examination room where Dey is. You lock the door behind you and open the metal cabinet. Dey--still unconscious--falls out.
You put the mask onto him. Marta, looking a little disoriented, appears, but not long enough to speak before you starting flipping through the mask's other faces. You settle on Brian Heddis: a "military" type face you'd picked up years ago, and which is used to following orders without questioning the person giving them. You hand him the uniform and his instructions. "Keep your head down and your visor low. Follow me at fifty paces, then go out the door. Don't stop for anyone. When you're on the street, turn left and walk until Frank finds you." Heddis grunts an acknowledgement.
Your plan goes off seamlessly. You precede Heddis to the security checkpoint at the exit, where you send the duty sergeant away with bullshit orders while you remain behind to cover things long enough for Heddis to get out without having to sign out; you ignore him as he passes. Ten minutes later your phone buzzes: It's Frank, telling you that he and his new companion are on their way back to Oxford to hide out.
You return to your main job of shutting up Fane's Project Diana location.
* * * * *
You're able to snatch twenty minutes of sleep before the phone wakes you up: the team from Enfield (where Fane has a non-descript office from which it manages various "black" operations) has arrived. You supervise a changing of the guards, shuttling new engineers in while directing the nervous Diana employees into the vans that will take them to Enfield. As you're working, a silver Bentley pulls up: Montague.
The Fane director is a slight man in his early sixties, with a pockmarked face and a greying shock of reddish hair. He gestures you into the car, but there's another man there too. The latter has a shaved head, a scowl, and a plump body that looks undeniably powerful; his hands, which he flexes absentmindedly, look like they could bend iron.
"This is Mr. Ferris," Montague says as the other stares darkly at you. "We've no secrets from him. You certainly don't, though he has secrets from you. Do you understand?" You nod. "Your hunch on the woman seems to have paid off. Only an hour ago we intercepted messages to her supervisors. She is deeply confused, not least because her partner, Mr. Koudelka, is confused. He claims not to remember the past forty-eight hours."
"We didn't give him a flensing," you say.
"I know. So it's very suggestive. Redeem yourself, Dey. Recapture him for us."   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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