From out of a tank of water
twenty-five feet deep came a drenched deep brown arm. It sought a handhold and,
finding none, pushed its palm flat against the surface as a brace. Once braced,
the hand of the other arm grasped the rim of the tank's hatch and hauled the
rest of the body out. Shondra Lockwood collapsed on the top of the water tank
and gasped an exhalation of weary triumph. She was cold, she was soaking wet
and she was naked as the day she was born. However, she was also alive and she
was no longer tied up.
And as quickly as those thoughts came, they were dismissed from her mind.
Shondra crawled over to the ladder on leaden limbs and climbed down. Still
naked and dripping wet, the black woman stalked past two very stunned hotel
maintenance workers and up the stairwell to her fifth floor room. She was
unconcerned about the stares of those she passed. She only had one thought:
Susan Hitchcock still had the disk.
"Hello," Cindy Hitchcock
said brightly, greeting the two people at the door.
"Police," the man said brusquely. He was a youngish, vaguely handsome
Asian man dressed in a dark blue suit and wearing dark glasses. His black hair
was slicked back. "Is your sister home?"
"No, she's out shopping," Cindy volunteered to the man and his
partner, a shorter Asian woman with striking features obscured by dark glasses.
She had long black hair and wore a blue jacket and tight blue skirt. "She
had to replace some things she lost in a fire. Are you here about the
fire?"
"May we come in?" asked the woman. She seemed rather pushy.
"Sure," shrugged Cindy.
Once Cindy closed the door, a hand clamped over her mouth. Startled, Cindy
gasped into the hand, belonging to the man she had just let in. He clamped down
tighter while his other arm pulled across her waist, pinning her arms to her
sides and pinning her to his lean, hard body. Cindy began to look around for
some explanation for this until her vision locked on the barrel of a gun pointed
at her face. The woman held it.
"You will stay silent and do everything I tell you," instructed Xia,
"or your sister will find you dead when she comes home. Am I clear?"
Cindy nodded carefully. Huan removed his arms from around her, but Cindy
remained frozen in place, not wishing to invoke the gun. Xia held the gun
directly at her.
"Lie face down on the floor."
Cindy did as she was told, her shoulder length blond hair falling into her
eyes, as she lay prone. She didn't brush it away, remaining perfectly still.
Xia handed her partner the gun and straddled Cindy. She seized the woman's arms
roughly and dragged them behind her, eliciting a whimper from Cindy. Cord cut
into the flesh of her wrists and wound around and then between them. Xia made
sure to pull the cords tight before knotting them, then pulled the knots tight.
More cord was brought around her elbows, drawing them tight and pulling Cindy's
shoulders back painfully. Tears began to stream down the woman's face.
"Please don't kill me," whimpered Cindy. "Please. I'll do
anything you want, just please don't kill me."
Xia's response was to jam a wadded up cloth into Cindy's mouth until it was
packed tight, then tape over her lips with several strips of white adhesive
tape. Cindy shuddered beneath the spy as her sobs, now muffled, increased.
Xia climbed off of her and roughly
pulled Cindy up by her arms. A cheap rain poncho was produced from the same
valise that held the rope and tape. It was draped over Cindy and the hood
pulled over her head. Xia drew the gun again and shoved it in Cindy's face.
"We will go now to a waiting car," she told Cindy. "If we pass
someone in the hall, you will not make eye contact or try to communicate in any
way. If you do, they will be killed and so will you."
Huan checked the hall before the three ventured out. The two Chinese agents
flanked Cindy. They passed no one in the hall. In fact, they passed no one all
the way down to the parking lot, where Cindy was shoved into the back seat of a
very ordinary Nissan. With Huan at the wheel and Xia in back, the gun trained
on Cindy, the car sped off into the city.
"You did very well," Xia said to Cindy, the gun trained on the
frightened woman the entire time. "Remember, you continue to live only so
long as you obey."
"Mmmphh nnnnghh," whimpered Cindy through the gag.
"You are a commodity for trade," Xia told her. "You are goods to
be bartered."
"Mmmmff," Cindy mewled, tears trickling down.
"Simply put, your sister has something we want," Xia said, caressing
Cindy's chin with the barrel of the pistol. "Now we have something your
sister wants. So whether you live or die is also up to her." Xia smiled
coldly. "I hope you and she are on good terms."
When Susan didn't find Cindy home,
she assumed her sister had gone to work. Cindy worked the late shift as a
customer service rep. She'd tried to be back by one so she could say good-bye,
but hadn't made it.
With no reason to be concerned,
Susan took her new purchases into the bedroom. She was finally able to change
her bra and panties, then slipped into a new pair of black denims that fit just
right. She then hemmed and hawed between a short sleeve salmon blouse and a
beige long sleeve knit top that hugged her torso like a pair of gloves. She
finally decided on the knit top and was pulling her loose ponytail through the
neck when she entered the living room and found she wasn't alone.
"You!" Susan gasped upon seeing Shondra Lockwood sitting on the sofa.
"How did you get in here? How did you even find me?"
"Find you?" Shondra said calmly. "This is the first place anyone
would look." Shondra was wearing a black knit body suit of some thick
protective material, with a black leather belt and boots, and looked like she
was ready to go to war. "And that lock's not very complex."
"What do you want?" Susan demanded.
"You still have the disk," Shondra replied, as cold as a slap in the
face.
"That crazy French woman has it!" scowled Susan.
"Uh uh, Marie thought she had it. Imagine everyone's surprise when they
found the disk was blank. Now I'll give you credit, you put one over on a pro
like Marie LeClair, but only because she underestimated you. Nobody's going to
be underestimating you any more and there are some new players in this little
tennis match, a couple of agents from China, one of whom you do not want to
mess with. Xia Min will cut you up and eat you for breakfast."
"If you're trying to intimidate me," Susan said thinly, "all
you're doing is making me angry. I told you I don't have the disk."
"Of course you'd admit it if you did," Shondra replied.
"Look, you saw it yourself! This LeClair woman took the disk that the John
Doe gave me. That's all I know about it! It's gone and I'm glad to be rid of
it! Now take your two bit spy games and get out of my life!"
Shondra sat unmoved on the sofa, sizing up Susan. Neither backed down.
"Do I have to call the police?" asked Susan.
"If I was the threat you really imagine me to b
e," Shondra responded,
"do you think I'd let you?" Shondra sighed in frustration and relaxed
some. "Look, I'm sorry if I'm coming on too strong. I'm just trying to
protect you and this country. I don't even know what's on the damn thing that's
so important to everybody. My bosses just said get it or make sure no one else
gets it. That's my job and I just want to do my job. You know, protect the
innocent, preserve democracy and all of that."
"Well," Susan began, "I'm sorry if I seem a little paranoid. I'm
just not used to people trying to murder me."
"I know," Shondra grinned. "You got all of this thrown in your
lap by accident and you want out and I don't blame you. You want to be normal
again. Believe me, I want that for you. But as long as you've got the disk or
as long as these people think you've got the disk, you're not safe. I'd like to
protect you-I want to protect you-but I can't do it if you keep me at arm's
length."
Susan looked up at Shondra, searching her face. She seemed to have the same
earnestness as the night of the fire. She always seemed to show up trying to
protect her. There were still gaps, such as who she really worked for, but
maybe this was really all she could tell her. Susan agonized over what to do.
Then she noticed something.
"Your hair is wet," Susan observed.
"Yeah," grinned Shondra, feeling it with her hand. "Had a run in
with one of those Chinese agents I was talking about. He thought I needed a
bath." Her mocking attitude seemed to deflate some."They really seem
to be hot for this disk. I wish I knew why."
"I know why," Susan said softly.
"You do?"
"I looked at the disk after I first got it. I didn't understand all of it.
I understood enough, though."
"What's it all about?"
"You've heard of cloning?" asked Susan.
"Just what I've read in Newsweek about that sheep," replied Shondra.
"Well, the problem with cloning humans, aside from the moral and ethical
questions, has always been two-fold. One, when you clone a human, you don't get
a carbon copy of that human, you get a carbon copy of that human as an infant.
Genetically, physically they're the same, but there's been no way to accelerate
the growth process in order to produce an adult perfect copy."
"They have to grow up, just like the first time," Shondra said.
"Exactly," said Susan. "The other problem is you can't clone
memories. You can try to clone Abraham Lincoln and you might get a genetic
match that would look like Lincoln, but he wouldn't think like Lincoln. He
couldn't. He doesn't have any of the memories or education or parental and
environmental influences that made him Lincoln. This time he might turn out to
be a bus driver."
"Huh," Shondra said. "I never knew that."
"And that's what has always made human cloning impractical. Well,
according to this work by this Dr. Erik Dressendorfer, he's theoretically
solved those problems. He can accelerate human growth and development
artificially to a certain point-don't ask me how, that was the part that was
over my head-and implant cloned memories into the clone's brain. That's what
was on the disk."
"So," Shondra said, standing up and pacing slowly around the room,
"if somebody cloned Lincoln, using this process he'd really be
Lincoln."
"Right," Susan replied. "But if someone decided to clone, say,
Hitler, using this process he'd really be Hitler."
"Uh huh."
"Or if some government or private concern were to genetically engineer the
perfect soldier, this process could crank them out like an assembly line in
Detroit. Think of it, an army of perfect, genetically identical killing
machines pouring over the boundary of some unsuspecting country, or parachuting
into Washington."
"This is definitely something that shouldn't fall into the wrong
hands," Shondra said, behind Susan.
"I know," Susan replied. "I just can't decide if anybody's hands
are the right hands. Do you understand my problem?"
"Perfectly," Shondra said as she clapped a cloth over Susan's mouth
and nose.
After the initial surprise wore off, Susan's medical knowledge let her
recognize the cloying, overpowering scent of chloroform. She grabbed Shondra's
wrist with both hands, trying to tear it away from her face, but the black
woman held on with a grip of iron. The chloroform slowly replaced the oxygen in
her system and Susan's senses began to swim. While one hand still pulled, the
other shot up, trying to reach her attacker's face and jab or gouge it in order
to make her break her grip. Shondra avoided the slashes and kept the cloth
pressed over Susan's face.
As the seconds ticked past, Susan's efforts became weaker and more
uncoordinated. She struggled valiantly to maintain consciousness, but it was a
losing effort against the effects of the chemical. She made a final effort to
pull free, then went limp. Shondra released her grip on Susan's lower face and
the woman slumped forward and rolled awkwardly to the floor, unconscious. With
an unhurried pace, Shondra crossed around from the back of the chair, a small pistol
in her hand.
"Damn and she was just beginning to trust me, too," Shondra thought.
"We were going along fine and then--bam! -this has to crop up. I'm sorry,
Susan."
She pointed the gun at the back of Susan's head, but something kept her from
firing.
"No," Shondra thought. "She doesn't deserve having her brains
splattered while she's unconscious. Least I can do is let her wake up first.
Maybe let her say a few last words or something."
Searching the apartment, Shondra found some cord under the sink. She walked
back into the living room, knelt down next to Susan, and began tying her arms
forearms opposite. It was the type of tie favored by the Japanese and Shondra
had always been enamored with it. Several passes were made across her chest and
over her upper arms and pulled tight, then tied off. A single cord to the other
binding then connected the bound wrists. It served to wedge the wrists into the
spine, the arms against the chest binding and reduce the ability to escape.
Susan's ankles were tied together side to side. Her legs were bent double and
another rope was passed over her thighs and under her shins, binding her legs
double. It was a simple tie, but effective in that it kept the legs from
extending and pushing off, reducing the victim's ability to squirm around.
The first thought Susan had when she neared consciousness was that her limbs
ached. She quickly discovered the reason. She was tightly bound and laying on
her side in Cindy's living room. She remembered Shondra.
Shondra.
Shondra had betrayed her.
She had finally given in and trusted someone and was betrayed at the first
chance. She remembered Shondra chloroforming her. Where…?
Shondra was standing over her. A gun pointed directly at her, held by Shondra
with a steady practiced hand. Susan felt her heart seize up in her chest.
"I'm sorry, Susan," Shondra said evenly. "I just wanted the
disk. But when I found out that you knew what was on the disk, well," and
her voice shuddered for a moment, "the agency feels it's too dangerous for
anyone to know about what's on this disk, particularly a civilian."
The hammer pulled back on the gun as she put pressure on the trigger. Susan's
throat went dry and constricted.
"I've been ordered to terminate whoever finds out."