He nearly broke down hugging Savannah good-bye, and she wasn’t happy to hear he was leaving again. Alex watched from the doorway as Brin bustled the girl into the SUV, and didn’t turn away until the two of them were down the road and out of sight.
He packed lightly. There was no way to know what he was getting into—not exactly. It was better to choose his gear after he knew. His magic was camouflage, but it was a subtle art. He couldn’t carry too much, or too little. It wasn’t enough to take on the appearance of a new persona. It was absolutely inadequate to simulate change. He had to disappear. He had to melt into another reality where Alex Tempest didn’t exist at all—or if he did, he was disconnected. He had very little time.
Too many things could go wrong. If the doctor mentioned his condition to anyone connected to Room 59, the mission would be aborted. If there was any incident indicating he was less than one hundred percent, he’d never leave the country.
Funding would dry up, and very likely his access to Room 59 would cease to exist, as well. There was nothing he could do to expose them, not that he would. They might contact him, but somehow he didn’t believe that they would. They were a tight, close-knit group, for all their independent operations, but there was one truth binding them all. The mission came first. The greater good overshadowed personal glory, needs and safety.
In less than an hour, he was out the door. Before he left, he went to the small garden he and Brin had planted behind the house. Very carefully, he clipped a single rose and a small violet. He carried them inside and sat at the table in the kitchen to write.
He started several notes to Brin. He wanted to tell her everything. Their love had always been based on trust, and not sharing—particularly at this moment—felt like a betrayal. In the end, he carefully shredded his first four attempts and wrote simply, “I love you,” on a card. He drew a heart and carefully slit the paper, sliding the stem of the rose through it like an arrow.
Then, with equal care, he drew a cartoon bear on a second sheet of paper. He laid the violet across it and wrote carefully, “I can’t bear to be without you. See you soon. Love, Daddy.”
He couldn’t remember ever tearing up so many times in the space of a single day. It seemed as though even the ability to control his emotions was being taken from him. He brushed it away, grabbed his things and slipped out the door, locking it behind him. He looked back only once, staring at the small, comfortable home wistfully.
Then he turned and walked into another life as if he’d never existed.
Brin spent the first hour in her office, filing corre-spondence, answering e-mail and fuming over lost time. Meetings were a big part of her life as director of the lab, but they infuriated her. Every moment she spent schmoozing board members, entertaining investors and planning for the future of the company was time away from her research.
A lot of very talented men and women were involved in the same sort of research she conducted, searching for clues to the nature of degenerative diseases, testing and retesting possible cures. She knew most of the best and brightest by name, the rest by reputation. In a few she recognized kindred souls, minds and hearts dedicated to healing and life. In too many others, though, she found only greed, pride and the bickering nature of academia.
This time it felt different. She’d had an odd sense of impending accomplishment since the call from her CEO, Hershel Rand. He very seldom involved himself in the nuts and bolts of the company. He was a high-energy, high- efficiency administrator. He knew the worlds of money and corporate warfare as well as Brin knew her cultures and petri dishes, and the two rarely crossed paths.
Other than annual budget talks and occasional pep talks, he let her run things the way she saw fit.
Now he said he had something she had to see, something he didn’t trust anyone else to handle. He knew how she worked, and more importantly, she thought he knew why she worked. He said researchers in China had presented some brilliant work—something that could shift the entire para-digm of genetic research. These weren’t the sorts of things he would say in idle conversation.
Nothing was insignificant in his world; no moment was wasted. As Brin’s fingers slipped and she nearly spilled a file folder’s contents onto the floor in her haste to clear her desk, she smiled. She hadn’t been so excited about a meeting since her initial job interview years in the past.
She only wished Alex would be there to share it with. He didn’t fully understand her work, but he supported it —and her—and she knew he’d listen. When he was away, she felt isolated and kept things bottled up. He really was a vital part of her life, and she felt—too often—that she was operating under a painful handicap.
Brin swept the rest of the mess off her desk and into a large box. She could file it later, when there was idle time. Her hand whipped up in a nervous gesture that displayed the watch Alex had given her for her first Mother’s Day—the year she got pregnant with Savannah. Five minutes. She’d better go upstairs to Hershel’s office.
She made the elevator just as the doors began to close, slipped inside and sighed with relief. The ninth-floor button was already lit and she smiled.
She didn’t usually get this worked up, but Hershel had been excited and her mood had fed off his ever since.
Elaine, Rand’s executive assistant, was at her appointed place, the phone tucked under her ear and her glasses halfway down her nose. She waved Brin past, into the CEO’s office. The door was open.
The office was empty, another odd fact. Hershel never left his door open, especially not when he was out of the office. Brin slipped inside and eased into a leather chair. She bit her lip and wondered if she’d have long to wait. Nothing about this day, or this meeting, was normal—why expect the normally punctual Rand to be the exception? She had just fixed her gaze on the skyline beyond the great window when her boss popped up from behind the desk, scaring her half to death.
“God! You just about gave me a heart attack!”
She laughed then, but there was little humor in it.
“Sorry. I had some new equipment installed this morning and the cords keep tangling around my chair wheels.” He offered up a feeble smile, stood and crossed the room in quick strides. “Let’s get down to it, shall we?” He stuck his head out the door. “Elaine, turn on my voice mail and go get yourself a latte. Don’t come back until I call you.”
He shut the door to his office firmly.
Brin frowned. She had never known Elaine to leave her desk without someone to fill in, and she had never known Rand to let her. She studied his face as he slid back into his chair, rolled forward and regarded the plasma monitor set into the top of his desk. Whatever he saw there made him smile and he relaxed a bit.
“Everything okay?” Her voice sounded weak, even to her.
“Fine. Just making sure we’re really alone, if you know what I mean. Now, as I said, we have some research material coming in from China.
You’ll be impressed—I guarantee it.”
“All right. But why not have it sent electroni-cally? We’ve got the best network security in the business.”
“You don’t understand. This is huge. World-changing huge. I couldn’t risk having it sent elec-tronically, no matter how impressive security is. It will be arriving late this afternoon, and after I review it, you’ll get a chance to have a go at it.”
“What type of research is it?”
“Sorry, Brin, not just yet. All I want you to do right now is clear your schedule. This project is going to be your number-one priority for a while anyway. And I have to insist that you not discuss this. Not with anyone on your team, not with Alex.
No one. Do you understand?”
She paused for a moment, the crease in her forehead deepening. This was so out of character for Rand that it scared her. “I understand. And I don’t discuss my work, except in the vaguest of terms, with anyone. I doubt they’d understand anyway. But my team—”
“Is out of the loop on this one. Totally out. It’s you and me. I need your help on this one, but it has to be our secret,” Rand said.
“Understood. I don’t have a problem with that, but any serious research is going to require assistance.”
“I knew you’d understand. Once things get past the initial stages, we’ll find ways to compartmen-talize the research. Now, I have another meeting.
I’ll let you know when it arrives.” He gestured in the direction of the door, dismissing her. His face, which had shown traces of humor when he popped up from behind the desk, now lacked any humor at all. In fact, it seemed almost pressed in on itself, creased and tight with stress.
