Indigo Man Read online

  “No. What you do… is… guard… important… politicians…” It hit him like a bag of rocks. “And there’s only one around here that important. Stiles.”

  She nodded again. Her face was expressionless, her eyes flat. “I knew if you had a minute, you could figure it out.”

  He started to hyperventilate. “Oh, God.” He put his head in his hands.

  “You really are as smart as your file says. Most people under the level of stress you’ve experienced tonight would have taken a couple of days to settle down enough to work it through.”

  “The sample in the lab is from Stiles. I’ve analyzed his genetic code and found the locus for psychopathy in Stiles.”

  Sara closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes.”

  “But this is bullshit. It doesn’t mean he’s psychopathic. It only means he carries the gene for it. Hell, it could be the gene for hypercholesterolemia, sickle cell trait, or Tay Sach’s disease. It just means he has to be careful who he mates with and counsel his children. There’s nothing there worth this insanity. That’s what Stiles and all the other fear mongers don’t get. This is just information people need for intelligent choices.”

  “You’re more correct than you realize, Zach.” She sounded tired again. “Here’s how it works in politics. The politician in question must appear perfect, your average super hero in a power suit. If something happens, and make no mistake, it must be something happening outside the politician, he can appear to grieve. That’s a positive, but any more than a short time, and he’s seen as weak. This… this makes Stiles appear flawed, and the American people will not tolerate a flawed candidate.”

  “That’s just—”

  “American politics.” She finished his sentence for him.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head. “No. Why? Why would Stiles do something like this? With his stance on DNA testing… Oh my God,” he whispered. “He didn’t know, did he?”

  “No. I don’t think Stiles wasn’t even aware he was being tested. He didn’t send it. Don Brown, his campaign manager gave me the sample.”

  “Brown sent the sample because of Stiles’s stand on testing.”

  Sara nodded. “He wanted to find out before the opposition could get a sample and do testing on their own. In politics, you never ask a question you don’t already have the answer to, and the first one who has any given information is almost always the winner. In this case, though, given the Congressman’s stance on genetic testing, if your data gets out, he’ll never be elected.”

  “So people have been chasing me around, trying to kill me because I tested a DNA sample from Stiles, and he wasn’t even in the loop?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Sums it up pretty well.”

  He sat for a long moment trying to wrap his mind around the insanity of his situation. “Does Stiles know about this part, the cover-up, Laz, me?”

  “I honestly don’t know, Zach.” Her shoulders slumped.

  It occurred to him she looked whipped, and the handkerchief she still held to her forehead was becoming saturated with blood.

  He touched her shoulder. “You need to rest and we need to get that cut looked at.”

  She shook his suggestion off. “Later. When there’s time.”

  ***

  A few blocks from GenTest, he disengaged the autopilot and navigated the car manually. The tension returned to Sara’s posture as she scanned the streets leading to the lab.

  “Please park down the street from GenTest. Is there a fence or other barrier between the properties?”

  “No,” he said, recalling the hours he’d spent staring out the window at the green space in the months since Kathy had left.

  “Is there a rear entrance?”

  He nodded. “Yes, it’s card-coded, but it shouldn’t present a problem.” He shifted in his seat, and slipped his ID card from his back pocket. The guard won’t even think twice if I show up at night.”

  “Can you get in without alerting the guard?”

  He shrugged. “It’ll show up on the log, but we share the security company with the businesses on either side. Whether he notices depends on which building he’s checking at the time.”

  “Is there any way to figure out exactly where he is?”

  Zach checked his watch and nodded his head. “Yeah, he’ll be in our building for another ten minutes. His rounds are a half-hour per building. He goes from one building to the other, hangs around inside for twenty-five minutes, and checks the circuits. If they’re are all green, he goes to the next building, and so on.”

  “How do you know the guard’s schedule so well?”

  “I guess I spend too much time there,” he said, his cheeks going warm. He stared out the windshield at the lighted buildings they passed.

  After a few minutes, Sara broke the silence. “You’re dedicated.”

  “I’m boring. I spend too much time in the lab.” He shrugged it off. “But it seems it’s about to come in handy for something, after all.”

  He guided the Mitsu into the parking lot three buildings away and across the street from the laboratory and parked. She sat up and placed a hand on his leg, but said nothing. He told himself it was to steady herself until the vertigo passed.

  He checked his watch, again. “The guard should exit our building any minute.”

  They sat quietly in the Mitsu until the guard stepped outside. He locked the door, and started away from them in the direction of the business on the other side from their position.

  Sara slid her hand from his leg and opened her door. “Time to go.”

  The two of them walked next door, to the health food store next to the lab. They cut across the front parking area, and crossed through the thick foliage of the green space between the lots amid a rustle of leaves. Sara caught her blouse on a bush and they had to stop for long seconds to free it. They stepped from the thicket and crossed to the rear of the lab building. At the door, the card-reader was as he expected. A small light beside the ergonomic reader blinked red, indicating the system was armed.

  He stood in front of the door, swiped his ID card in the slot, and pressed his right thumb to the print reader. The light continued to blink red. Zach stepped back in surprise. “What the…?” he tried again, with the same result. “I don’t understand. This should open.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of.” She moved away from the door and around the corner. He followed her. After a few steps, she whispered over her shoulder, “Where is your computer?”

  He stepped around her, walked a few paces to his window and stopped. He checked the green space behind them over his shoulder. “Right here. This is my window. Why?”

  She stepped to the window, cupped her hands, and peered in through the glass. “Damn it.”

  He placed the edges of his hands against the window and leaned onto them, straining to see what upset her. Inside the lab, everything was exactly as he’d left it earlier in the evening, except, what was…. He inhaled a sharp breath. His computer workstation was gone.

  “Come on.” She started away from the lab.

  “Wait.” He turned after her, but remained where he was.

  Sara spun around and grabbed his arm, dragging him away from the window and toward the cover of the thicket. “Is there a backup mainframe?”

  “We have a backup server in the front of the building where Delia sits.”

  “Is she the receptionist?”

  “Yeah. At the front of the building.”

  “It’ll be gone as well. When they confiscated the server, it probably reset the entry codes. It’s a failsafe security routine in most systems. The guard has to re-enter you manually. We better get out of here.”

  “But you don’t—”

  “Is there an off-site storage server?”

  “Well, sure, but—”

  “We can access it with another computer.” They were almost to the tangled overgrowth separating the lab’s property from the health food store next door.

  He ste
pped in front of Sara, put his palms on her shoulders. “You don’t understand.”

  “Shit!” She sprang, tackling him.

  Her arms were around him. Bushes and palmettos scraped and scratched through his shirt as they fell. He tumbled backwards onto the rough ground and landed on an exposed root with a sharp crack. Lights sparkled across his vision. Red-hot pain shot through his chest. He squirmed under her weight. Sara’s rough whisper was in his ear. “Don’t move. Someone’s entering the parking lot.”

  “I can’t breathe.”

  “Shh.”

  She clamped his mouth closed with a hand. He inhaled through his nose against the pain in his chest. His fingers clawed into the dirt. Sara’s perfume caught his attention. He concentrated on the scent to take his mind off the sensation of suffocating.

  Forty feet away, a car wheeled into GenTest’s parking lot. The lights went dead. A man in a dark suit stepped out of the car and headed to the front door. As soon as the man entered the building, she moved off Zach and he rolled to his side, panting, trying to catch his breath.

  “Come on,” she whispered.

  “I can’t,” he managed, through the gasps.

  “Yes, you can.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him through his groan and onto his feet. He dropped breathless to one knee with his first step.

  “God, that hurts,” he whispered as she dragged him to his feet, and stumbling, through the green space toward the health food store parking lot. His vision swam as they reached the other side of the bushes.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” she said, letting go of his hand as they stepped out of the tangle of overgrowth.

  He stopped and bent at the waist. “Easy for you to say,” he replied, through gritted teeth. “I landed on a root or something back there, and you landed on me. What do you weigh, three, four hundred pounds?” he gasped.

  She tugged him along the far side of the thick brush, toward the street, checking the parking lot in front of the lab. “You’re a funny guy, Zach.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny.”

  “Good, ’cause it isn’t working.”

  Zach stopped to catch his breath, but Sara grabbed his hand again and dragged him across the health food store’s parking lot with Zach limping to keep up, his free arm tight against his side. His surroundings danced around him.

  “That’s Newman. We have to go. Right now.”

  “Why?” Zach coughed out as they crossed the parking lot of the pool supply store on the far side of the health food store.

  “Because he’s here to wait for you. They expect you might try to come back, but only if you don’t know they’ve taken your computer. That must be it. They don’t know that you know there’s no reason to come back to the lab.” She smiled. “Good, we’re finally a whole step ahead.”

  He caught up with her and spun her around. “Wait a second,” he panted. “There’s more.”

  She hesitated. “I don’t understand.”

  Zach bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “Then please stop talking for a minute. And stop running.” He made a couple of unsuccessful tries at deep breaths. Finally, he caught his breath. “That hurts. Now, what I’ve been trying to tell you, Ms. Arena Ball tackle, is that I have an additional backup in the lab. One that no one’s aware of.”

  Understanding dawned on Sara’s face, with a grin right on its heels. Zach still panted, but he was working closer to controlled breathing. She took his head in her hands and kissed him on the lips. Abruptly, she backed away and covered her mouth with her fingers. “Oh. I’m so sorry. I don’t… Oh shit, I’m so embarrassed.”

  He held up a hand. “As much as I try to encourage enthusiasm, perhaps this isn’t exactly the time or place.” When she started to speak, he held up his hand again. “Let’s just table that discussion for a later date, as well, okay?”

  She nodded her agreement, fingers still over her mouth.

  “Okay,” he said, finally getting ahead of the shortness of breath. “There’s a bad guy in or around the lab. We need to get into the lab. Therefore, either I’ve been watching too many vids, or we need a diversion.”

  She nodded. “It can’t be anything directed against the lab itself. That will only alert Newman and get us nowhere.”

  “All right, we can’t blow up the building.” He thought back to earlier. “How about we blow up his car?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Still a frontal assault. It would tell him we know he’s there, and he would ignore it.”

  He cocked his head. “What kind of man ignores his car blowing up in front of him?”

  “Someone trained by the Secret Service. We’re taught to identify and ignore distractions, to concentrate on the primary mission to the exclusion of almost anything.”

  “That ‘take a bullet for the boss’ mystique.”

  Her face hardened. “It’s not mystique. It’s real.”

  He swallowed. “Yes, I know.” He raised his hands, palms out. “I saw a little of it earlier tonight, and let me tell you, I’m impressed. But how do we get around it?”

  She relaxed. “It has to be something non-threatening, something that demands immediate action or lives unrelated to the mission could be lost. Something that can’t be ignored.” She started to pace, her arms crossed in front of her, one fingernail tapping on one of her front teeth.

  “We can’t blow up his car. Can we blow up something else?”

  She stopped pacing, her face brightening. “That’s it.” She grabbed his head again but stopped short at his grin. “You’re a genius.”

  “What? What do we do?”

  “We need a couple of things.” She turned on her heels and strode off toward the car. Her steps were still a little shaky.

  When he reached the Mitsu, he found her crouched next to it, leaning on the door. “About time,” she whispered, and stood, but kept a hand braced on the car.

  He walked around to the passenger’s door, pressed a button on his key fob, and opened her door for her.

  Sara slid into the seat and reached for the door. “Let’s go.”

  He caught the door, keeping it from closing. She stared up at him.

  “What?”

  “I believe,” he said, quietly. “The correct response is, ‘thank you’ when a gentleman opens a door for you.” He dropped the door, cutting off any response. He strolled around to the driver’s door, popped it up and climbed in to his seat. He turned to her and asked in a quiet tone, “Where to?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not having a very good evening.”

  “Really?” He asked, his tone still calm. “Would it sound patronizing if I said I understood how that feels?”

  She bit her lower lip. “Thank you. For opening my door, I mean.”

  “You’re welcome.” It was his turn to soften his voice. “Now, where to?”

  “Please tell the car to take us to the nearest auto parts store.”

  “Okay.” Zach spoke to the car. “Auto-drive. New destination.”

  “Awaiting new destination.”

  “Nearest open retail auto parts store.”

  “Calculating route. Route calculated.”

  The Mitsu backed out of the space and rolled onto the street that ran past the front of the lab, headed in the opposite direction.

  “Can I ask why, or is it a state secret?”

  “No secret,” she said. “I just need to pick up a couple of things.”

  “At an auto parts store?”

  “What smells so good?” she asked.

  “Have you eaten?” He decided to let the subject change. He’d been noticing the pleasant scents wafting up from between Sara’s feet most of the evening. As attractive as her vanilla-flavored perfume was, he doubted her feet smelled like a toasted turkey sub from Carol’s. Best to be generous, he mused, licking his lips at the prospect of dinner.

  She shook her head. “Not since breakfast.”

  “Well, then,” he pointed to the b
ag on the floor. “Would you please pass me that?”

  She picked up the parcel he’d indicated. “This?”

  “Yep.” When she handed him the bag, he unfolded the top and lifted out the sandwich. “Viola. I’m just glad you’re showing interest in food. It’s a good sign.”

  She smiled as she shook her head. “I couldn’t possibly eat your food, Dr. Marshall.”

  “Zach,” he reminded her. “If it’s my food, I should get to decide what to do with it, and I’ve decided to share. Besides,” he unwrapped the sandwich and handed her half. “If you get hypoglycemic, you’ll make bad decisions, and we can’t have that. Not with anyone who can navigate one of those ancient barges like you did and carries a gun.”

  She accepted the half sandwich with a little shake of her head. “Thank you, Zach, but I’m supposed to be taking care of you, not the other way around.” She wrapped the sandwich in the paper and held it on her lap.

  “Here.” He took a water bottle out of the bag. “Well, how about if we do it this way, I’ll take care of you so you can take care of me.” He twisted the top off the bottle and handed it to her.

  She gave him a sheepish grin. “I think I like that,” she said, as she took a long drink of the water. “But I want to wait till we get finished at the auto parts store to eat. I usually leave a fair amount of whatever I’m eating on my blouse or pants.”

  He chuckled as he wrapped his half of the sandwich back up. “Okay, it’s a deal.”

  ***

  They sat parked at the parts store. The glow from the overhead sign shone into the interior of the car, bathing them in yellow light. Zach touched a hand to her arm before she could open her door. “Whoa.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t go in a public place. You’ve been bleeding.” He tugged the now-red handkerchief she’d been using to maintain pressure on her forehead. “No, you’re still bleeding, and you’re wearing a black suit with white powder and dirt on it. The only way you could be more conspicuous is if you had a knife sticking out of your head or something.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I’ll go, just tell me what you want,” he offered.

  “A slide hammer, a roll of duct tape, a long piece of cloth, a container of flammable liquid like an old petrochemical degreaser, a lighter, and a regular screwdriver,” she said. “The cheapest they have.”