Chapter 6
Latovania - Eastern Europe.
He was completely mesmerized by the scene playing out in the room beyond the two-way mirror, as the doctor and two nurses worked to revive the unconscious man…who just so happened to be his mortal enemy. A slow smile touched his aristocratically handsome features as he reflected on the long, often tortuous months of waiting, observing, biding his time until the prime moment to pounce and reclaim what was rightfully his.
And in the end it had all been so ridiculously easy.
Wesley Carter cleared his throat in his second or third attempt to gain the attention of Arnaud De Fehrn, who eventually turned his way but still looked somewhat distracted. He'd been so absorbed in his study of Darien Fawkes, that he'd actually forgotten there was anyone else in the small observation room with him. Producing his interpretation of an affable grin, he looped his arm around the thin man's shoulders in an act of uncharacteristic camaraderie; he was in a particularly good mood today and felt like sharing it a little.
"You've done a splendid job, Wesley. I would have paid good money to see the faces of those Agency buffoons when they realized their golden boy had gone."
"It was really my pleasure Dr. De…" he stopped and swallowed nervously as Arnaud quirked an eyebrow in admonishment "..Dr. De Wolfe." Carter finished quickly, fearing that his near slip up might elicit a backlash, but the other man really was in high spirits and decided to overlook the fact that he'd nearly used his real name and not his latest pseudonym. "I've been such a great fan of your work for a long time, so to finally get the chance to work…"
"Yes, yes." Arnaud interrupted waving him aside dismissively. "Quite understandable." Wesley looked a little hurt by the man's casual attitude, until he realized that Arnaud's attention was once again focused elsewhere, and he was now leaning towards the glass partition trying to make out the muffled words of his henchman on the other side. Behind him, two of the medical team were now exiting the room, leaving just one nurse to attend to Fawkes, with Ella Craven hovering territorially in the background.
"Why don't you try turning on the intercom so I can hear what you're saying, you bumbling idiot," Arnaud hissed. "A Chimpanzee could have figured it out by now."
Almost on cue the man flashed an embarrassed smile at his own gaping reflection in the mirror, as he suddenly remembered the button to activate the intercom.
On the other side, Arnaud exhaled impatiently.
"He's awake, sir,." came the voice loud and clear this time.
At last!. "I'll be right in," he advised curtly. Turning to Carter, all calculated charm again now. "Wesley, would you care to join me?"
The nurse gave her new patient a reassuring smile, then with a light touch of her hand helped him to raise his head from the pillows, pressing the straw to his lips so that he could take a sip of the ice cold water. He gulped at it thirstily and then coughed as the cool liquid caught in his throat. "Not too much," she scolded kindly in her heavily accented English, and was rewarded by a weak nod as he took another more careful sip.
The medical team had learned not to ask questions about any of the Belnickov Institute's 'special patients', or of the covert research carried out within the facility. In a country still struggling to survive and develop in the wake of its bloody civil war and subsequent liberation from its old communist regime, their salaries were twice the current national average and regular and generous bonus payments all but guaranteed the loyalty - and more important - the silence of the staff.
Even so, Liliana Weicz couldn't help but be intrigued by this particular patient. What had piqued her interest mostly was that a severe brain trauma resulting in mental instability and violent behavior had been cited as the reason for his being there, and possibly went some way to explain why the guard and the raven-haired woman had insisted on fastening the heavy leather restraints even before he'd started to regain consciousness. But this young man didn't look at all dangerous - just confused and very scared. He was handsome too, with those dark brown eyes staring soulfully up at her.
She nodded at her two colleagues as they left, their work finished for the moment, vaguely aware that the guard was over by the two-way mirror speaking to someone in the observation room. As she turned to place the plastic cup on the nightstand beside the bed, the patient tugged at the strap around his wrist and there was just enough slack for his fingers to grab the sleeve of her uniform.
"Where am I?" he whispered urgently, with a voice still raw and slurred from the drugs in his system.
Even before she got the chance to respond to his question or react to his touch, she was being jostled aside by the woman who positioned herself between the startled nurse and the bed.
"Get out," she hissed.
"But…but I need to finish…"
The icy blue eyes flashed a fierce warning. "Oh, believe me blondie, you're finished. Now get the hell away from him and get out."
With a quick sympathetic glance back towards her patient Lili turned on her heels and headed for the door, shaking her head in exasperation at the other woman as she left.
In the corridor just outside she passed the very charismatic Dr. De Wolfe, who acknowledged her with a disarming smile as she edged past. The man accompanying him, tall and very thin, she didn't recognize.
Arnaud paused for a moment to stare after the pretty nurse in open appreciation. At any other time the pert little blonde might have been a welcome diversion, but for the moment he couldn't allow anything to distract him from his goal, and that goal was currently strapped to a hospital bed just a few feet away.
The look of unmitigated shock on Fawkes' face when he stepped into the room was utterly priceless. Though to give him credit he did a good job of masking it quickly with a trademark glib remark.
"Well this just keeps on getting better and better,." he managed to rasp out weakly, shaking his head in sheer, almost amused disbelief. "All I need now is for Jarod Stark to walk in though that door, and I've got me a full set of psychos."
Arnaud grinned back amiably as he strolled across the room and perched his tall, wiry frame on the edge of the bed.
"It's good to know that you're mentally on form Fawkes, though it's such a shame that the same can't be said about your physical well being, hmm?"
Darien tested the restraints in the vain hope that one of them would snap, and then he could get his hands around the Swiss Miss mother's scrawny neck.
"Let me loose Arnie, and I'll demonstrate firsthand just how sick I am?" he growled, even though he knew he could never follow through on the threat in his current condition. Still it felt damned good just to say it out loud.
"It's true to say that I may have underestimated you in the past, but believe me I have absolutely no intention of doing so again," he countered smoothly. "And while I'd certainly gain a degree of personal satisfaction in beating you to a senseless pulp, physical violence doesn't fit in with my immediate plans for you or our little bio-synthetic friend."
Wesley Carter decided this was the moment to contribute. "If you've had a chance to study the updated medical files I sent to you, then you're aware of the extent of the Gland's integration within his cerebral cortex?" He kept his attention focused on Arnaud, doing his best to ignore Darien's deadly scowl.
"Of course, " Arnaud confirmed. "Though it becoming so utterly 'attached' to him is something we never anticipated. However, Fawkes, you'll be relieved to learn that I don't need to harvest your Gland any more," he paused deliberately, giving one of those superior smug smirks of his always guaranteed to piss Darien off. "I've successfully cloned more of my own."
"Then what the hell am I doing here?"
Arnaud rose slowly and deliberately, and wandered to the opposite side of the bed. "Yes, well we still have a few …uh…minor side effects that need to be eradicated before we can achieve a successful implantation into a human receptacle, but we're so very close." He continued unabashed, choosing to ignore the amused snort from Darien's direction. "In the meantime , however, our host in this fine …third world…country is getting impatient and is threatening to revoke his protection unless he sees some immediate results. Plus I am in urgent need of additional funds to continue my research."
He held out his hand with a flourish for Ella, who accepted it willingly and allowed herself to be led back into Darien's direct line of sight. "The customers this delectable creature had lined up for you a few months back are still out there, you know, all eager to get their grubby little hands on an invisibility gland. But, unfortunately, none of them are willing to pay up in advance without conclusive proof that we can deliver. So during the interim period I require a fully functioning demonstration model."
Darien couldn't suppress a giggle.
"This is a joke right, just you and your wacky ole Swiss-Cheese sense of humor?" Shaking his head in wonderment now. "'Cause there's no freakin' way I'm gonna perform on demand for you or anyone else…but particularly for you…or her," he added with a defiant glance at Ella Craven, who winked back at him. "You can't make…"
Arnaud cut across Darien's protest, an irritated twitch touching the corners of his mouth as he spoke. "Oh, I'm perfectly aware that I wouldn't get an iota of cooperation from the petulant, aggravating wise-ass that we've all come to know and…hate…with such a passion. Which is why you're going to be…reinvented.." He let that statement hang in the air for a minute, relishing Darien's look of bewildered confusion. Good. Catch the little prick off guard and then go in for the strike. With this in mind he suddenly changed track, his fingers trailing up and down the IV line currently delivering a clear liquid into Darien's system. "And how are you today? Feeling a great deal healthier than you have for some considerable time, Oui?"
Darien just glowered back, with no intention of responding. Even if it was true, that he did feel kind of well…better. Although from Arnaud's supercilious tone he hadn't expected a response anyway.
"My little retro virus was an act of pure genius, even if I do say so myself. We even fooled your lovely Keeper, didn't we Wesley?" Carter smiled thinly and nodded, though he still couldn't quite bring himself to look in Darien's direction. Now in full self-adulation mode Arnaud carried on, barely noticing his colleague's unease.
"You know Fawkes, I'm not too proud to admit that I was monumentally pissed off when my last attempt to infect you with that Influenza virus failed so miserably. That's when I first realized that the Quicksilver Gland had begun to integrate - it was the only logical explanation as to why it too was so badly affected . So this time the solution was blatantly obvious. Reverse my original strategy and create something nasty …but not lethal…to directly target the Gland and it in turn would debilitate you."
By this time, Ella Craven had taken Arnaud's place on the edge of the bed, and Darien visibly recoiled as her hand began to slowly and rhythmically stroke its way up his pajama-clad leg.
"It's also thanks to Arnaud's genius that I'm here now and not languishing in the poky. Betcha didn't realize we knew each other, huh baby?" She squeezed the top of his thigh playfully. "Actually, we're second cousins."
Darien snarled. "I shoulda guessed that you two crawled out of the same rotten gene pool."
Choosing to ignore the barbed insult, Arnaud smoothly picked up from Ella. "We first met at a Great Aunt's funeral in Geneva when I was fresh out of Med School and Gabriella was just a rookie Agent. Our relationship has flourished on a personal and professional level ever since."
"It's been mutually beneficial for both of us," she added with something bordering on hero worship in her voice.
"I just bet it has," came Darien's muttered retort. "Cold-blooded murder and terrorism obviously runs in the family." He jerked his body in another attempt to stop Ella's fingers from wandering, but all this achieved was a throaty chuckle from his tormentor.
"Now, now, ma cherie, there's plenty of time for all of that," Arnaud advised indulgently "In another 24hrs hours when the antibodies have done their work and the virus is completely flushed out of his system, our Invisible Man will be going through one of the Institute's innovative behavioral programs. After that the new improved version will be all yours to play with…body and soul."
"That'll be a cold day in hell," Darien spat back with more bravado than he actually felt, because suddenly his attention was drawn to an item Ella now dangled playfully a few inches from his face. It looked like a small digital watch, but he knew exactly what it was and what it meant for him, and he was forced to swallow back the bile that rose in his throat.
And it was at that precise moment, with Ella Craven on one side of his bed taunting him with the threat of the dreaded DoD Control Device and Arnaud De Fehrn looming over him on the other - like two voracious predators about to pounce on their prey - that he was finally overcome by a surge of genuine, all-consuming panic.
The petite figure adjusted the woolen scarf around her head, doing her best to protect her exposed flesh from the driving icy sleet that fell from the heavens that night. She picked up her pace as she moved quickly along the winding, cobbled streets of the medieval village, passing stone and mortar buildings with thatched roofs that had been here for hundreds of years
Although fairly certain she hadn't been followed, she still paused to take a quick look back just in case, before turning a corner into a narrow alleyway and then heading for a heavy wooden door at the far end.
Several pairs of inquisitive eyes turned to study the visitor as she entered the small tavern, but all relaxed as soon as she removed the scarf to reveal the familiar cascade of shoulder-length blonde hair.
Lili flashed a warm smile of greeting at the elderly bartender as she moved behind the counter and to a door that led through to the kitchen, where two men sat huddled around the large open fireplace. One of them, a dark-haired, stocky young man in his late twenties, immediately jumped to his feet as she entered and pulled her into a tight embrace.
"Put her down, Rudy," came the amused voice of Mikhail Tzarnov after a few moments had elapsed. "Poor Lili must be frozen, let her come warm herself by the fire."
"I can think of a few inventive ways to warm her up," countered Rudy, much to his elder brother's amusement.
Lili tutted in mock disdain as she finally extricated herself from Rudy's arms and took her place at the fireside, holding out her hands to warm them. Beside her, Mikhail filled a glass with a double shot of vodka, then watched in open admiration as she took it down in one swallow, emitting a long sigh of pleasure as the burning liquid hit the back of her throat.
"That's better," she said, wiping a hand across her tingling lips. "Now I feel almost human again."
Tzarnov took a more tentative sip of his own drink while he waited for the young woman to begin her report. Before Liliana, there had been several unsuccessful attempts to put an agent in place at the Belnickov Institute, so for her to even risk breaking cover like this meant it had to be something that she felt was vitally important.
"They have a new patient, an American,." she advised, speaking directly to Mikhail.
"What can you tell us about him?"
Lili shook her head. "Not much I'm afraid. But my instincts tell me that there's something different about this one, that he's important to them."
"In what way?" asked Mikhail. In the long months since the Institute had come to the attention of their group, they had observed and reported on many 'volunteers' - mostly ex-military - who had entered the facility and never to be seen or heard of again - though to his knowledge this was the first foreigner.
"I don't know," she admitted with a shrug. "But it's obvious he's not there willingly. We were told he has some form of brain damage and can be extremely violent, so since he arrived just over a week ago he has been restrained at all times."
"Surely that makes complete sense, doesn't it?. Otherwise he could harm himself…and others." Rudy decided that he needed to be the voice of reason here. Apart from his brother, Lili was the one person he cared for beyond any other and he never ceased to marvel at her unrelenting compassion and dedication, but it wouldn't be the first time she had allowed emotion to cloud her judgment. The real question was, could this one man really justify their attention at all or would it just detract from her current mission; which was to find out exactly what sort of research they were doing at this private Institute.
From the flash of irritation and disappointment in her eyes, it was blatantly evident that Lili wasn't happy with him at that moment.
"Does that also explain the armed guards?" she snapped crossly for his benefit, before turning calmly back to Mikhail. "He is under the personal medical supervision of Dr. De Wolfe and guarded around the clock. Security is overseen… almost obsessively… by a black-haired woman with cold eyes." Lili shivered involuntarily, but quickly composed herself to continue her report. "About 4 days ago he was suddenly transferred to another part of the facility for what we were told was 'intensive therapy', and I haven't seen him since. Only staff with the appropriate security clearance have access to him now, and I've not been there long enough to be trusted."
Without waiting for a response she reached deep into the pocket of her heavy coat and a moment later withdrew a small digital camera, waiving aside the lecture on compromising her personal safety that she knew was about to come from Rudy.
" It was worth the risk," she stated determinedly before he even had a chance to berate her for taking foolish chances. "I have photographs of all the key medical team including Dr. De Wolfe and the woman I've mentioned. There's also someone else, a visitor, who I know will be of interest. I took this one yesterday." Lili carefully scrolled through the gallery of snapshots until she found the one she wanted - it showed Dr. De Wolfe in profile on the steps outside the main entrance to the Institute, talking to a man. The individual in question was in his late 50s with thick dark hair, graying at the temples pushed back from a sharply handsome face. She then held out the camera for Mikhail so that he could see the image now displayed on the small screen.
Though Mikhail was visibly stunned he didn't react immediately, instead he sat ramrod straight lost in a myriad of thoughts and emotions, his fingers trailing over his goatee beard distractedly as he wondered what connection someone like Theodore Tomaszko could have to the Belnickov Institute. Nothing good would come of it that was for certain because Tomaszko was a truly dangerous individual.
His personal fortune had been amassed in the wake of the unrest and turmoil in the decade since their civil war, where he and many unscrupulous individuals like him had ultimately prospered from the pain and suffering of the general populace. Drugs, prostitution, arms dealing were his forte, but if the rumors were true he now coveted real power and would do anything he could to get it, which is why he had recently stepped forward as one of the three main candidates in the forthcoming Latovanian Presidential election.
Rousing himself from his temporary stupor, Mikhail finally addressed his younger brother. "Rudy, it might just be worth putting in a call to our CIA friends to see if the American's have mislaid an agent recently."
Rudy nodded obediently. Mikhail always expected his orders to be carried out without question.
"Lili. You should keep a close watch on Dr. De Wolfe and his team. See if you can dig up anything of interest on your American. But don't take any unnecessary risks, do you understand?" She also nodded and Mikhail reached out to touch her lovely face affectionately. "Good work, by the way."
Little did anyone realize then the importance of Lili's American, or the fact that he was about to become a key element in their ongoing battle for peace and stability in their small country.
It would be more than two weeks before Lili would set eyes on Darien again, and when she did the change in him was alarmingly evident.
She had just finished a long night shift and was returning wearily to the staff quarters housed on one of the lower levels, when she was forced to step aside to make way for the group moving quickly down the narrow vaulted passageway. At the front was the raven-haired woman, with the tall young man trailing obediently behind her. An armed guard and a white uniformed orderly brought up the rear.
As they swept past, Lili thought she'd caught his eye and smiled, but even though he stared back at her briefly his gaze was vacant and devoid of all emotion.
TBC
