The Cascade Mountain Range is a magnificent swath of hills, valleys and snow-capped mountains running north to south through the center of the state of Washington. Making up almost a third of the state, the Range has been formed and reformed over the ages by tectonic collisions and volcanic spewing; the violence of which invariably destroys all signs of life in the immediate vicinity.
The plates and volcanoes are mostly quiet now. But even so, great stretches of the Cascade Range remain thinly populated; or, in the case of the twenty-five National Forests, Parks and Wilderness areas located within the central Washington Range — which specifically includes the Wenatchee National Forest — hardly populated at all.
It is as if the residents of the surrounding communities possess a subliminal sense of yet another cycle of violence and upheaval to come.
Accordingly, the Cascade Mountain Range was a perfect location for a dangerously innovative research center whose director — a loner by nature — was intent on cutting every legal and scientific corner possible to insure that he was the first to accomplish his world-altering goal.
But now, deep into the Cascades, completely isolated, with a winter snowstorm raging outside, the power and phone lines down, the access road closed, and the wind-chill factor rising, Dr. Sergei Arturovich Draganov wished that he had chosen to locate the clinic a little closer to an airport, or at least a main road. The thankfully infrequent trips by Sno-Cat to pick up special FedEx and UPS packages and other supplies were grueling at best, and with the visibility now only a few feet beyond the front edge of the utility vehicle’s tracks, increasingly dangerous. With luck, he wouldn’t have to make another run until the Spring thaw.
Still covered with snow, and looking as haggard and exhausted as he felt, Draganov stopped in the enclosed entryway to stomp the icy slush off his boots and hang up his heavy coat. As he entered his clinic’s genetics lab, he looked around and — to his dismay — saw only the old Russian woman who functioned as the laboratory’s sole administrative aide, secretary and receptionist sitting at a cheap computer desk in the adjoining room.
“Where is Aleksei?”
“Asleep, I think.”
“In the middle of his work shift?”
The old woman shrugged indifferently.
“What has he been doing, drinking with Borya again?”
The old woman glared at Draganov defiantly. “He is unhappy and you push him too hard. What do you expect?”
“We have much to do, and so little time. Why is he unhappy now?”
The old woman made an exasperated gesture with her hand. “He is worried about Sasha. He says she gets worse every day.”
“Sasha is lonely and misses her siblings. That was expected.”
“She wouldn’t be lonely if you hadn’t sold all of her playmates to that — that evil man!” the old woman said accusingly.
“You manage our accounts. You know there was no other way. We would have lost everything if I hadn’t — ”
“Hadn’t what? Made a pact with the devil?”
“Marcus is not the devil! He is our new benefactor! We need him!”
“He is a dangerous man, Sergei Arturovich. Mark my words. He is just like your brother, god rest his soul.” The old woman crossed herself quickly. “A very dangerous man!”
“We don’t know for sure that Gregor is — ” Draganov started to argue, then shook his head as he turned and walked through the door of a small containment vestibule labeled ACCESS TO CAGE ROOM. After waiting for the door behind him to shut and the air pressure in the vestibule to build up — one of the mechanisms he used to keep tiny airborne fragments of DNA from contaminating his experiments — he entered the darkened room, turned on a low light, and then knelt down in from of a large deep cage.
A threatening came from the far back of the cage that would remain in almost complete darkness until Draganov’s eyes adjusted to the dim light.
“It’s okay, little one. No need to be upset. I am here with you now.”
Another growl, but this time less threatening.
“There, that’s better. Don’t be angry with me, Sasha. You don’t think I made the devil’s pact, do you?”
A third growl, this one sounding plaintive.
“I know you are lonely, but soon you will have new brothers and sisters and everything will be fine again.”
No response this time.
Using the cage as a brace, Draganov pushed himself to a standing position with a tired grunt, walked over to the door, turned off the low light, and then stepped back into the isolating vestibule.
As he did so, the cat’s eyes snapped open in the blackness of the cage, the pupils of her two narrowed eyes glowing a bright emerald green.
CHAPTER 4
Surat Thani, Thailand
Yaktian-po Sanganaman — better known to his few friends and many enemies as Yak — entered his expensive Surat Thani home through the garage entrance, paused at the doorway of his kitchen to yell at his complaining chef, and then hurried down the central hall toward his lavishly furnished den, absorbed in the question as to why Marcus Emerson had insisted on this early-morning meeting.
And worse, why he had sounded angry.
Halfway there, he stopped, pulled the cell phone out of his jacket, tried once again to contact Captain Choonhavan, and cursed when he got the same ‘I am not available’ message.
“How dare you not be available, you corrupt fool?” Yak snarled, feeling his stomach starting to churn as he hurried again toward his den.
First things first.
It occurred to Yak to hope that Boon-Nam had been true to his word, and would now, at this very moment, be patrolling the grounds of Yak’s walled and fenced-off estate, instead of walking away with his up-front fee. Boon-Nam was a highly-regarded assassin, and an expensive one at that. It had cost Yak a furiously-negotiated two million Bhat — ten of the near-flawless 1-carat diamonds from the leather pouch in his pocket that he was now in a hurry to return to his den safe — to engage his services.
But the cost really wasn’t a serious issue to Yak; he hadn’t hesitated for a moment to contact Boon-Nam’s go-between after receiving Wallis’ unsettling call. Such was the nature of Marcus Emerson’s reputation among the Thai underworld.
Yak knew there were several reasons why Emerson might be upset; not the least of which was his and Kai’s long-term plans to take over the Australian’s incredibly lucrative Thai safari business. But that couldn’t happen until he knew a great deal more about Emerson’s related operations in the United States, and worked out an appropriate — albeit temporary — distribution agreement with Kai and his Malaysian pirates.
And that couldn’t happen until Yak gained the confidence of at least one of Emerson’s wealthy and free- spending clients; a project which he’d only just begun to work on with Choonhavan’s less-than-competent help. So unless the bastard Kai had -
Yak gasped in surprise, coming to a sudden halt when he saw the frightening figure of Marcus Emerson sitting at his ornately carved desk; and behind him, in a second chair, the wide-eyed and purple-faced figure of Police Captain Choonhavan, securely bound to the chair and tightly gagged.
“Khun Marcus,” Yak said, recovering quickly, “what are you doing here so early?” He glanced down at his wristwatch. “I thought you said — ?”
“I said I wanted to meet with you, alone, to discuss our future business arrangements,” Wallis said. “’Alone’ meant you, your chef, and your normal retinue of body-guards. ‘Alone’ did not mean Boon-Nam lurking around in your garden with a silenced pistol in his hand.”
