always done in the past. But he could not escape the pain of it.
“She’s still missing, sir,” the guard said. The man’s image hovered in the upper corner of the screen. “There are only a few active cameras in that disused section of the facility.”
“Then check the cameras in the neighboring zones. Blue and orange.”
“Yes, sir.”
As he waited, Robert brought up a schematic of the estate. The main mansion, the Lodge, lay ten miles away, surrounded by its high walls. Only a tiny fraction of the family knew the facility existed. Even Jimmy didn’t know, though he’d gone fishing a few times at a river within a half-mile of its outskirts.
The sprawling research facility covered twenty acres, occupying an old mine on a remote piece of Gant property, set amid the high cliffs and waterfalls of the Eastern Continental Divide. The divide-which ran through the Blue Ridge Mountains and across the Gant estate-split the watershed of the region: on one side, rivers all flowed toward the Gulf of Mexico; on the other, toward the Atlantic.
A century ago, a member of the Bloodline discovered the old, flooded mine. Slowly, over time, it had been engineered and converted into a secret facility, carved out underground and burrowed even farther over the years, spreading under the old-growth forest and meadows.
He stared at the map of the facility. It looked like a madman’s Rorschach inkblot, much of it shaded out in gray, indicating unoccupied sections of the lab. Robert remembered better times. During the heyday of the Cold War years, the place had once hosted hundreds of researchers from both sides of the iron Curtain, all working for the Guild, for the Bloodline. The halls thrummed with excitement, the verve of men and women working at the edge of scientific exploration-and often moving beyond.
Robert stared at the grayed-out areas now, eating through the facility like a cancer. Since then, like many American companies, the research projects that had once flourished within these walls had been shifted abroad, outsourced to Third World countries where no questions were asked, labor was cheaper, and government interference or oversight was nonexistent.
So, this older facility was hollowed out, becoming a deserted cathedral to science, most of it shuttered and shut down. Only Robert’s pet project remained, though isolated and adrift. His robotics research was no longer considered by the Bloodline a viable path to extending life, deemed to be too
Still, the Bloodline relegated his work to weapons research, which was not inappropriate. In Afghanistan alone, there were more than two thousand robots fighting alongside American troops-and that force was rapidly expanding in number and intelligence.
So, Robert continued his weapons research here. The facility was perfectly suited for that: isolated, under a no-fly restriction, and, best of all, surrounded by varied terrain. Rivers, forests, meadows, and cliffs-the perfect landscape to field-test the various iterations of his neuro-pods.
Now, with the loss of that major facility in Dubai, life was again returning to these empty halls. New priests were returning to the cathedral, ready to bring the chorus and the chant of the scientific method back to these hallowed halls.
Robert should have been happier, but all he felt was dead inside. The loss of his brother coming so soon on the heels of Amanda’s death. And now the threat to his grandnephew. It finally broke something inside him-or maybe he had always been broken, and it took Jimmy’s blood on his hands for him to finally recognize it.
The Bloodline had not been kind to his family.
He planned on ending that today.
The guard came back online. “Sir, Orange and Blue are negative on the target.”
“Then spread the search on foot, scour every room, closet, and cabinet.”
“Yes, sir.”
Robert knew that could be a challenge. With the Fourth of July holiday, only a skeleton staff remained on-site- not that the regular staff was all that much more fleshed out.
But he needed his grandnephew returned to him.
He’d lost too much today-and placed a thin hope that he could save the child and the straggling remnants of his immediate family. But with the outside world closing down upon his private world, he had no chance until he first secured the child.
He knew what he needed.
Leverage.
He tapped a key and brought up a view of a cell in the red zone. A woman with a shaved head sat on a bed, her face in her hands. He was glad she was turned away.
Robert pressed an intercom button.
“Yes,” Dr. Fielding answered from his laboratory in that same zone.
“Emmet, you said you wanted to test the newest pods, a more vigorous challenge of their abilities.”
Excitement frosted his voice. “Of course, sir.”
“Then let’s get started.”
Robert finished with the man and made the necessary calls. Once done, he tapped another switch, accessing a camera that required a code known only to him.
None must know about this prisoner.
The view of another room bloomed onto the screen, only this one was lavishly appointed with a four-poster bed, deep-cushioned chairs, a stone fireplace, and walls decorated with tapestries. The roof was wood-beamed, framed into Gothic arches, and supported a centuries-old crystal chandelier.
But the room was still a cell.
The window, streaming with sunlight, was heavily barred. The stout wood door, banded in iron, was locked electronically.
The prisoner must have heard the stir of the camera as Robert turned it toward the window. She stood limned against the sunlight, a dark shadow, a slender twist against the brightness.
Noting the camera’s motion, she came forward, looking up.
She still wore the same leathers as when she arrived, though it looked like she’d used the neighboring bathroom to shower.
She glared up at the camera.
Those green eyes, pinched slightly at the corner, marked her mixed Eurasian blood. Just the sight of those eyes made his heart clutch.
He touched the screen with his finger, rubbing an edge of his thumb along the side of her face, knowing he could never get closer. She had escaped the Guild years ago, turned enemy to the Bloodline, but now she was returned to the fold.
“Where you belong,” he whispered throatily. “I should never have let you escape.”
Another face blinked into existence in the corner of the screen, irritating him with the interruption.
“Mr. Gant,” the man said, “I wanted to inform you that the helicopter is inbound with the package from DC.”
“Acknowledged. I’ll be back at the Lodge momentarily.”
An underground tunnel ran from the lab complex to a secure entrance at the mansion. He could take the tram and be back there in minutes.
He lingered a moment more, staring at his handsome prisoner.
As if sensing his eyes, she lifted an arm and raised an offending finger toward the camera.
He smiled as he clicked off the camera. He turned around and headed for the tunnel back to the Lodge, ready to face the man who had killed his brother.
2:03 P.M.
As the helicopter swept in a wide curve, Gray gaped at the view of the Gant family mansion below.
He had seen pictures of the massive structure in books, never in person, few people had. It competed with
