Chapter 6

Hotel San Rafael, Puerto Santa Cruz, Argentina

A ray of sunlight broke through the gap between the window curtains and shone almost point-blank on Robert's closed eye, waking him up. He rolled over and looked at the clock. 6:42 am.

Robert laid in the bed and tried to get back to sleep. He listened to Holly's breathing for a little while. From across the room, he could tell by its rhythm that she was in the deepest of sleeps. She had been exhausted the night before; had almost fallen on to the bed.

He tried to breathe in sync with Holly's respirations, hoping that would lull him back to sleep. It didn't. Next, he tried desperately to clear his mind of all the thoughts that were buzzing around. That didn't work very well either. He kept coming back to Holly accidentally calling him "Robot", though he supposed he had earned that.

Robert got up, tried to unkink his back, and sat down with his laptop. Robin was also on his mind. He still felt that she would almost have been better off continuing to believe he was dead. He desperately wanted to set things right with her, but didn't know where to begin. The small silver lining to the chaos in the Markham Islands was that he had an excuse to contact her.

Robert retyped his email to Robin six times before settling on his words. He felt she wouldn't respond to anything too emotional at this point. On the other hand, the way things were going, she was probably just as likely to react to him not being emotional enough.

Hi sweetheart,

I need your help with something very important. I was just in the Markham Islands and the virus is completely out of control there. They are in desperate need of antidote. I know there is still antidote at GH and if I remember correctly, you guys had managed to make some more? One of my colleagues from the MRA will be in touch with you to arrange the transfer. I hope you'll be able to help them with this.

Hope you're keeping well.

Love,

Dad

Robert sent a few more emails, making final arrangements to get Holly some identification papers so they could leave the country, as well as some less important ones, making sure his apartment was looked after and a few other mundane details. He stood up and glanced around the room. Holly was still sleeping. He walked over to the door, checked the deadbolt, and turned in to the bathroom for a shower.

Some time later, Holly stirred and stretched out her arms, eyes still closed. She did an almost imperceptible double take when she opened her eyes and saw an older Robert across the room sitting in front of his laptop, checking the news.

"Morning."

"Morning," Holly replied.

"Sleep well?"

"I did, thank you. Much better than my previous accommodations," she added wryly.

The overwhelming politeness was stifling. No one ever teaches you how to make small talk in this sort of situation. Robert eventually broke the silence: "I'm still waiting on papers for you, Holly. Once we get those, then we can figure out where to go next."

"Well, while you're waiting for them, I need to go get some clothes."

Robert frowned. "I don't think that's the best idea."

"Why? Afraid that I'm going to take off?"

"You cannot tell me that the thought has not crossed your mind," retorted Robert.

"It has. But I will give you my word that I will go, get something to wear that actually fits me, and come straight back here. Robert, I'll be far less conspicuous this way," Holly motioned to her grossly mismatched, ill-fitting outfit of the night before.

Robert hesitated. "I don't know…"

"You'll have to trust me on this one," interrupted Holly.

"What I was about to say," began Robert carefully, "was that it may not be safe for you out there."

"Come with me then."

"Although there's nothing more enjoyable than watching you shop," Robert said sarcastically, "I can't – I have to wait here for your papers. Can't have your illegal passport delivered to the front desk clerk now, can we? You go. But be careful."

Several hours later, Robert was pacing in the hotel room. Holly had still not returned and he cursed himself for trusting her. "I should have known better. Dammit, Holly, it's my neck on the line." Robert moved to the window and looked out on the street. He really wasn't expecting to see anything; it was just a reflex. He walked over to the table and stared at his cell phone for a long moment. Robert knew that he needed to alert the local authorities right away, if there were to be any chance of catching Holly before she fled. But out of some innate sense of loyalty, he couldn't bring himself to pick up the phone.

Just as Robert was steeling himself to make the phone call, the door to the hotel room flew open and Holly ran into the room, shopping bag in hand, wearing a new outfit. She took a minute after her dramatic entry to catch her breath.

"Where the hell were you?"

"You assumed I wasn't coming back, I suppose. Someone was following me."

"Are you sure?"

"Robert, we were together long enough that I picked up a few things. Definitely I was being followed. So I had to take my new admirer on a bit of a wild goose chase to make it back here without being noticed. And I'm pretty sure that I did it."

Robert let out the breath of air that he was holding. "Right then, time to move on."

"Did you get my passport?" Holly inquired. "Where are we off to?"

"In order to figure that out, I think you need to tell me the truth about what's been going on."

As much as Holly had known this conversation was coming, her heart rate still accelerated in response to Robert's statement. Since leaving the islands, she had been trying to figure out how much of the story she could tell Robert to have it make sense. The rest of it, she didn't feel ready to tell him. In some ways, she felt he didn't even deserve to know how much she cared, both for him as well for Robin. She scrambled to pull together the threads to make it cohesive.

Holly took a deep breath and started in: "I first heard about Crylium when Dougald, my husband, brought home information on the company. He was a financial analyst and that's how we met, he was doing some investing for me. Anyway, it seemed as though Crylium was poised to make a big breakthrough and that's why Dougald wanted to go for it."

"I guess their prospectus didn't include the information that they happened to be manufacturing lethal viruses?" Robert supplied bitingly.

"Do I have to remind you again that I didn't know anything about that? Truth be told, Robert, something about Crylium seemed really off to me, right from the start."

"Sorry. Maybe it just 'takes one to know one'. So, Holly, tell me how it is that you and your husband went from being worth 2 million dollars one day, to making an investment of 10 million the next?" Robert wasn't sure why he kept attacking Holly.

"How did you know about that?" Holly asked, rather defensively.

"It's amazing what a good credit check will tell you."

Holly sighed. "That was Dougald's idea. He was so excited about Crylium that he threw caution to the wind and got a loan for the bulk of the money. I never would have gone for that, and he worked it some way that I didn't actually sign for it. I almost killed him when I found out."

"Where was the loan from?"

"A bank, I assume. Why?" Holly asked quizzically.

"Well, when I was looking into things, I couldn't find any records of any major loans to either of you during that time period. But I did find a hefty payment to Dougald from a company called Viranon."

"I've never heard of them. Robert, why am I even telling you the story when you clearly know more than I do at this point?"

"It's an investigative technique, my dear. Something may jog your memory," he smiled sweetly at her.

"Do you know anything about Viranon?"

"No, there was even less to be found about them than Crylium." Robert admitted. "So to recap, you and hubby made a big investment, with mostly borrowed money, then something happened, the virus was set loose, the company was in chaos, and you decided to recoup some of the money you were out? That about right?" Robert finished, a little more nastily than he originally intended.

"Actually, it's not. I lied about that when I saw you, it seemed a simpler story. Plus I didn't have a choice about telling you the truth." Holly recounted her encounter with the man in the Crylium laboratories. "They knew all about me, Robert. And then later they told me, with some threats not to mention the death of my husband, thrown in for good measure, that it was my job to get a good price for the antidote. And that if I did, they would consider our debt repaid."

Even after so long, Robert could usually tell when Holly was lying. She was an extremely convincing liar, when she put her mind to it, and she could fool just about anyone (including himself, on occasion). But she had a few subtle giveaways when she lied, the corners of her eyes would twitch slightly, for instance. He was pretty sure that she was telling mostly truths at this point, but wondered about the gaps in her story.

"Ok, let's back up a little. You said Dougald brought home the information on Crylium. Do you know where he found out about it?" Even with Holly filling him in, Robert still felt like there was far more going on.

Holly thought for a moment. "Err, no, hang on a minute. I remember him saying that the stock came highly recommended from a friend." Holly thought back to Dougald telling her about his plan. "I was concerned at the time that it might be insider trading or something along those lines."

"Wait a minute. So you were given information about a company to invest in, and then when you started to look into it, the company already knew all about you?" Realization dawned on Holly as Robert spoke the words out loud. "This was definitely a set-up."