“But that’s a miracle.”
He inclined his head. “Saint Noah, at your service.”
“Don’t joke, you’ve done something . . . wonderful.”
“I’ve done something dangerous as hell. At first I was pretty puffed up, and then I became uncharacteristically humble. It was only after I had time to get over the euphoria that I realized what a powder keg I was sitting on. Think about it.”
“All I can think about is the lives it will save.”
“Ogden can think of something else. About the billions of dollars that are spent on medicines every year that will vanish if sickness virtually disappears. And what about the insurance companies? They’re one of the financial behemoths of our society. How do you think they’ll like taking a gigantic hit on health and hospital insurance? Religion. They’re screaming now that we’re violating nature with the small steps we’ve taken. They’ll go ballistic at any major intervention. Shall I go on?”
“Not right now. I’m having trouble assimilating.”
“You’re doing fine. Take it slow.”
“And Ogden killed to prevent you from going public with RU2?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“He as much as told me he was going to do it only minutes before the explosion.”
“He must be a complete bastard.”
“Complete.”
She was silent a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. “If you already have the cocktail, why did you need me?”
“Present tense, not past. I do need you.”
“Why?”
“I need a delivery system for the serum. I think you’ve got it.”
She stiffened. “Why would you think that?”
“You wrote an article for the medical journal.”
“Pure speculation.”
“Bullshit. You’ve isolated a gene that keeps cells from rejecting. You’ve been working on a foolproof plasmic delivery for medication that the cells will accept without throwing them into shock. In your paper you called it a Trojan horse because it would sneak up on the cells and deliver before they could reject. How close are you?”
She didn’t answer.
“Dammit, tell me. Do you think I’m going to steal your patent?”
“I haven’t applied for a patent yet.” Her reaction had been purely instinctive. Noah had been very open with her, he deserved equal honesty. “But I’m very close.”
“How many weeks?”
“Four, maybe five. I have to work on it on my own time.”
“Then three if you devote your entire time to it?”
“I can’t do that. I have a living to earn.”
He leaned forward, his expression intent. “What’s your success rate on the last results?”
“Eighty-seven percent.”
He slapped his hand down on the table. “My God, that’s fantastic.”
She could feel the flush of pride warm her cheeks. “I thought so.”
“But you’ll have to bring the rate up to ninety-eight.”
“What?”
“It has to be as close to perfect as possible. RU2 has the wallop of a nuclear missile.”
“I wasn’t working to provide you with a carrier.”
He grinned. “No, but isn’t it great that you came along at just the right time?”
“Wait a minute.” He was going too fast for her. “How did you do testing if you didn’t have an anti-rejection element for the drug?”
“I thought I’d built one into the formula. It worked fine in animal testing. Smooth. No side effects at all.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, chimps aren’t people.”
“My God,” she whispered. “You’ve tested RU2 on people?”
“One person.” He tapped his chest. “Two years ago.”
She suddenly understood. “When you were ill?”
“I would have died within six months anyway. I figured I didn’t have much to lose.” He made a face. “But the cure damn near killed me. I went into shock.”
“What saved you?”
“RU2. It grabbed hold in time. I survived and it did the job.” He took a sip of coffee. “But it’s too rough a ride. It would probably kill a good percentage of those inoculated with it. RU2 will be under fire from the moment I go public. It has to be super safe.”
“But my formula and procedure may not be compatible with RU2.”
He smiled. “We’ll have to see, won’t we? It shouldn’t take long. Three weeks for you to complete your work. Another month for me to experiment with the best way to combine it with RU2.”
“A month? It could take years.”
“We don’t have years.” His smile vanished. “We may not have months. Ogden will eventually find out I’m alive, and the hunt will be on. He’s already set his dogs on you. He tried to kill you once. He’ll try again.”
“If he did try to kill me. I can see how your RU2 could put you in danger, but my connection to you is too tenuous. I’ve no proof that—”
“If you wait for proof, you’ll be dead.”
The starkness of his words shook her. “And what am I supposed to do? Call the police and tell them I’m being stalked by a murderer hired by—”
“The police can’t be trusted when there’s this much money involved,” he said flatly.
“The police can always help.”
“Look, did you hear the report that J. and S. Pharmaceuticals was in financial trouble?”
She nodded.
“It wasn’t. We were doing fine. But there was enough money spread around to assure that the accounting firm who handled our books would issue a false statement.”
“Why would anyone pay them to do that?”
“To make it look like I needed the insurance money. If I wasn’t killed in the explosion, I’d have to untangle fraud and murder charges before I could move with RU2. Ogden went to all that trouble as a backup. How much do you think he’d be willing to spend when he’s on the attack?” He shook his head. “No police. The stakes are too high. We’re on our own.”
“I lived with a policeman for eight years. I believe in the system. I know it works.”
“And your husband never mentioned bribery in the ranks?”
“Of course. There are always a few dirty cops. That doesn’t mean I should distrust all of them.” She paused. “Or that I should trust you.”
“But you do trust me.”
She shouldn’t trust him. He was a stranger who had told her the wildest story on the face of the earth. Yet she didn’t distrust him. She shook her head wearily. “I’m too confused to think right now.”
“Then let me do it for you.” He took her hand and said softly, “I know what to do, Kate. I’ve made plans to keep you and Joshua safe.”
“While you use me to make your RU2 perfect?” she asked dryly.
“Hell yes, do you expect me to deny it?”
“I don’t know what to expect anymore.” She pulled her hand away and put on her jacket. “But I’m not going to leave either my or my son’s fate in someone else’s hands.”
“Listen, Kate, the only way you’ll be safe is to help me go public with RU2. Once we do that, there’s no percentage in killing either of us. Until then Ogden will throw everything he can at us to—” He stopped, studying her. “I’m not reaching you, am I? Okay, go away and think about it. If you change your mind, I’ll be at the motel for the next few days.”
She nodded and scooted out of the booth.
Noah frowned. “I don’t like the idea of you going alone. Why don’t you let me follow you home?”
She shook her head. “I told you I wasn’t followed.”
“Wait.”
She looked back at him.
“What did the man outside your house look like?”
“Why?” she asked, surprised.
“It helps to know your enemies. Besides, I have a few friends I can contact. I might be able to find out who he was.”
“Long dark hair
worn in a ponytail, high cheekbones, gray eyes. He looked . . . maybe he was Indian. Maybe not. All that Southwest stuff is popular now.” She tried to think. “He wore some kind of beaded necklace. I don’t know how tall he was. He never got out of the car. He didn’t look very big.”
“Okay, I think I’ll remember.” He paused. “Don’t go to the police, Kate. It could be dangerous for both of us.”
“I’ll do what I think best.” She hesitated and then said haltingly, “But I don’t want you hurt. If what you’ve said is true, then you’ve done something extraordinary for all of us.”
“Then may I take it you’re not going to turn me in?”
She shook her head. “Whatever I do, I’ll try to leave you out of it.”
“You can’t do that.” He met her gaze and his tone was almost sad when he said, “You still don’t understand, do you? Whether we like it or not, from now on, we’re in this together.”
He hadn’t played her right.
Noah watched Kate walk out of the diner and get into her car. Dammit, he wanted to run after her and shake her, argue with her instead of sitting here on his ass. She didn’t come close to knowing the odds against her. He’d only managed to confuse and frighten her, when he’d hoped to sway her to his side.
Not bloody likely. Kate Denby was pure steel and used to making her own judgments.
No, not pure steel. When she had spoken of her son, she had changed, softened. That might be something he could use, a button he could push.
Use.
He wearily leaned back in the booth. So what was the problem? He had known it would come to manipulation, had even planned on it.
But she had been clean and sharp as a scalpel, cutting through the bullshit to the truth. She had sat there across from him with shaking hands and bold, clear eyes. She had been frightened but never lost control. She had attacked when she felt the most vulnerable.
A unique woman.
He only hoped to hell he could find a way of keeping her alive.
He took out his wallet, threw some bills on the table, and rose to his feet. He would go back to the motel, call Tony, and see if he’d found out anything more about the victims of the plant explosions. Three of his people were still on the critical list as of yesterday.
“Lars Franklin died,” Tony said when Noah reached him fifteen minutes later. “Clara Brookin and Joe Bates are still alive.”
“Shit.” He closed his eyes, trying to absorb the blow. Noah had known Lars Franklin since he was a boy, and he had been desperately hoping the older man would recover. He had given Lars’s daughter a job in his office a few years ago, and her name was on the missing list.
“I’m sorry, Noah. I know he meant a lot to you.”
“They all meant a lot to me,” he said dully. “All of them.”
“I’ll keep abreast of the developments. How do I get in touch with you?”
“You don’t. I’ll call you.”
“Dammit, aren’t you going to tell me where you are?”
“I’ve got to hang up now. There’s a chance your line might be bugged. I want you to switch to a digital system tomorrow. It’s near impossible to trace.”
“Why? You made sure no one knows about the lodge and everyone thinks you’re dead.”
“I told you, Ogden wants everyone connected with RU2 put down. He mentioned your name. Just stay where you are, out of sight. Okay?”
“I can’t see why—”
“I have to hang up.” Noah pressed the disconnect button and returned the receiver to the cradle.
Lars Franklin. He had thought he was over the worst of the pain and shock, but evidently he was not. It had just been lying in wait.
Go to bed. Go to sleep. Don’t think about it.
He couldn’t go to sleep. He had something else to do.
He called Seth at his condo in Miami.
A woman answered, her voice breathless. “Hello.”
“Let me talk to Seth.”
“Is it important?” she asked, annoyed.
“Noah?” Seth came on the line. “Dammit, this isn’t a convenient time.”
“I’ll let you go in a minute. Ogden’s man has surfaced. Kate Denby saw him tonight. I need to know what I can about him.”
“Name?”
“I don’t have one.” He rattled off the brief description Kate had given him.
“Sounds familiar. Let me think about it for a while. It will probably come back to me.”
“I need it now.”
“Too bad. You’ll get it when I get it.”
“By all means, don’t let me disturb you,” Noah said sarcastically. “Go back to what you were doing.”
“Who stopped?”
Noah heard a woman’s giggle before he hung up the phone.
“Ishmaru,” Seth said when Noah picked up the phone an hour later. “Jonathan Ishmaru. Crazy son of a bitch but good. Very good. I heard about him down in Mexico three years ago, so I called Kendow.”
“Who’s Kendow?”
“Information broker. Lives in L.A. Ishmaru thinks he’s some kind of Apache or Comanche warrior. Something like that.”
“He’s Indian?”
“Half Indian, half Arabic. Grew up in East L.A. Hell, that’s enough to drive anybody crazy.”
“Ogden wouldn’t have given the job to someone who wasn’t stable. He’d have protected himself with a professional who had all his ducks in a row.”
“If they’re caught, sane men make deals. Ishmaru would consider captivity a trial by fire.”
“And wouldn’t bring Ogden down?”
“There’s a story about the time he was jailed down in a little southern town after he’d assassinated the town mayor, who was the brother of the sheriff. The sheriff wanted to know who hired him real bad. Before Ishmaru managed to escape, every fingernail on both his hands was torn out. He didn’t talk.”
“Could he have planted the bombs?”
“Not willingly. He likes to work up close. Real close.”
“But he could have done it?”
“Oh yes, he’s multitalented. It depends on what he was given as an incentive.”
“Does he work with anyone else?”
“No one would work with a crazy bastard who would kill you as soon as look at you. Anything else?”
“Yes, I want you to go to the cabin tomorrow and wait for us.”
Seth hung up the phone.
Ishmaru. Noah went into the bathroom, stripped off his clothes, and turned on the shower. He would have to call Kate tomorrow and tell her what he’d learned. That’s all she needed—to know a crazy man was assigned to kill her. He should be glad; this could be the impetus for her joining his camp.
He stepped beneath the warm shower and let the pounding water ease a little of his tension.
He wasn’t glad. He was mad and sad and a little jealous of Seth, who had nothing to worry about but pleasing the woman in his bed. He didn’t want this guilt and responsibility. He didn’t want to scheme to frighten a woman he respected. He didn’t want anyone else to die.
So what if he didn’t want any of those things, he thought impatiently. There was only one direction he could go now. He would call Kate and hope he frightened the hell out of her. Time was running out. When he moved, it would have to be fast.
And Kate Denby had to be with him.
The black-and-white was still parked in front of the house when Kate pulled into the driveway. She got out, crossed to the front door, and stood under the porch light for a moment so that the officer could see that she was the same woman who had left three hours ago. He waved his hand in acknowledgment. He was a nice young man. He hadn’t wanted her to leave the house he was guarding tonight.
Three hours. It seemed more like a century.
She unlocked the door, went into the house, and closed the door softly. She mustn’t wake Phyliss. Phyliss had buried her son today and didn’t need to worry about why Kate had been wandering around the countryside in the mid
dle of the night. She locked the door and shot the bolt.
Safe.
But she didn’t feel safe. A friend and lover had died, a man had stalked her home, and Noah Smith had told her that she and Joshua would be killed if she didn’t work with him. Talk about forced labor, she thought tiredly.
Well, it was too much for her to deal with now. She would think about it after she’d had a good night’s sleep.
She turned out the lights and moved down the hall. Joshua’s door was ajar and she peeked in. She hoped he hadn’t called out while she had been away from the house. She hated the thought that she might not have been there for him.
Joshua was sprawled on his stomach, and his cover was on the floor. He didn’t stir when she went in and tucked the covers over him again. The threat that had seemed so frightening was fading away as she stood in this room. It was the quintessential Joshua room. A baseball glove hung on a bedpost, faded Star Wars drapes framed the venetian blinds at the window, a Dave Justice book bag lay in the far corner.
I don’t know what’s best, Joshua.
I think Noah Smith is trying to do something wonderful. It could help so many people, maybe even you. But it’s a dream.
Joshua was her reality.
And she had to protect that reality. Aligning herself with Noah Smith might be the worst thing she could do to keep her son safe. Perhaps it would be better for them to take a trip, disappear for a while until RU2 went public.
She turned away from the bed and left Joshua’s room.
She went to the hall closet, got down the safety gun box, opened it, and drew out the Colt. Dammit, she hated guns. When Michael had brought the gun home for her, she had agreed to learn how to use it but refused to have the weapon anywhere in the house except in the safety box. Now she slipped the gun in her leather shoulder bag and then carried the purse to her bedroom. She set the bag, flap open, on the floor beside the bed.
My God, a week ago she would never have dreamed she would sleep with a gun within reach.
She could feel tears sting her eyes as she lay down on the bed and nestled her head into the pillow.
Things are crazy, Daddy. I’m so tired of trying to be all things to everyone. I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I need you.