Читать книгу Release - Jo Leigh - Страница 7

THE FREE CLINIC WAS in a run-down part of Boyle Heights, a sad suburb of Los Angeles where the median income was right at the poverty level, and the people who showed up on the doorstep were a damn sad bunch. They were mostly meth addicts, but there were still the unwanted pregnancies, the search for birth control pills, the folks with the flu and the cough and the red itch “down there.” No one came to the clinic if they had somewhere else, anyone else.

All Seth could think about when he walked in the doors was that he’d seen it before. Maybe not this color and maybe there were different posters on the walls, but the poor people all over the world always ended up in rooms like these. With overworked doctors and nurses with sore feet.

If he had to get a job in the outside world, then he supposed this was the safest place to do it. What were the odds that someone here would recognize him? He looked nothing like the man they’d flashed on television or the Wanted picture in the post office. His hair was the longest it had ever been, and the posters didn’t mention the missing hand, but that wasn’t even it. Since Kosovo, he’d changed. He had lines in his face, around his eyes. He looked tired all the time, and his skin was sallow and pasty. He felt like an old man despite his daily workout.

Now that he was dressed in hospital scrubs, with an old Dodgers baseball cap on his head, no one would pick him out as a soldier or a traitor. He looked at himself in the clinic’s bathroom mirror and pulled his cap down a little farther.

He finally understood what Kate had meant when she’d said she’d been invisible as the room-service lackey at the downtown L.A. hotel.

She’d been a forensic accountant for the UN in Kosovo and she’d been the one who’d gotten the Delta Force team involved. She and Nate had been an item, and when Kate had discovered that something fishy was going on, she’d talked it over with him. She hadn’t known it at the time, but she’d found the first proof that a faction of the CIA, calling themselves Omicron, had created a mighty nasty chemical agent and they were planning to sell it to the highest bidders, who would then use it to kill whomever they chose—mostly civilians. To add to Omicron’s crimes, they’d recruited a Delta Force team, his team—one of the best in the world—to do the dirty work of wiping the evidence off the earth. Their original mission was to go to a secret laboratory in Serbia, collect all the files, kill the scientists working there and destroy the lab. What they hadn’t mentioned was that the scientists in that particular lab weren’t working on the nerve gas—they were developing the antidote.

Some of the team had escaped—Nate, Boone, Cade and himself. They’d convinced Kate and Harper to come along because they clearly knew too much. The one scientist to make it out alive had been Tamara. She’d come back to the States, and Nate had found her a safe place to do her research. She’d had to distill all the notes from her colleagues to try and recover their progress and then she had to make sure the antidote not only worked but could be dispersed to save whole villages.

Last Seth had heard, Nate was trying to get some money together for more of her tests. He did security work, real high-tech stuff, state-of-the-art, for which he charged a pretty penny. No one complained, as his customers were as shady as they come. A lot of bookies, some conspiracy nuts, an arms dealer or two. But ever since his picture had shown up on Wanted posters across the country, Nate couldn’t afford to be picky.

The work had been easier when there’d been two of them. When Seth had been there to cover Nate’s back.

Pounding on the bathroom door made him reach for a weapon he wasn’t carrying. He closed his eyes and tried to chill, but it wasn’t easy.

“You gonna stay in there all day?” It was Harper, of course. “Other people need to use that john.”

He gave himself another look in the mirror, then his gaze moved down to the plastic masquerading as his hand. He had to focus to open and close the thing. None of it felt natural or intuitive. But he couldn’t hide forever.

He opened the door in time to catch Harper walk into the cubbyhole she called her office. After he grabbed his regular clothes, he followed her, the scent of cleaning fluid and rubbing alcohol as bright and intrusive as the overhead fluorescent lights.

Her head was bent over an open file as she sat on the edge of a very messy desk. One foot was up on the seat of a plastic chair, and in addition to the stethoscope around her neck, she had a pencil stuck behind her right ear. The pencil looked as if it’d been used as a teething ring.

He wondered again what it was that made him want her. She took every opportunity to bust his balls, and now this. He’d done his fair share of KP, but dammit, a janitor?

She looked up at him for a moment, giving him a quick smile, which surprised him, then she went back to flipping pages with her long, slim fingers. But the smile lingered in his mind’s eye. She didn’t do it often, at least not when she was with him. But when she did, it made an impact. Maybe it was that one crooked tooth. Everything else about her seemed so perfect, her startling blue eyes, her pale skin and, dammit, even that stupid hair of hers that was not quite blond, too short and always a mess. It all came together to make him want to—

“Seth?”

She was looking at him again. Shit. “Yeah.”

“I talked to Noah. He’s going to be here in about twenty minutes, so why don’t you just lay low until he comes. When he’s done, you won’t have to worry about being recognized.”

“Why not?”

“He’s not your ordinary prosthetist. He used to be with the CIA, disguising agents in the field.”

Seth felt all his muscles tighten. “You do realize that Omicron is CIA.”

“I do. But you don’t have to worry about Noah. There’s a reason he’s not with them anymore.”

“So you want me to wear a disguise to work here?”

She nodded. “It’s going to be subtle, so don’t sweat it.”

“Don’t sweat it,” he said, not understanding her cavalier attitude. “It’s not a costume party, Harper. It’s my life on the line.”

She looked at him with her best doctor-in-charge expression. “I get that. It’s my life, too. So stop worrying about it. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

He believed she was, but he also believed that she had no idea who she was up against. Omicron would kill every person in her precious clinic if that’s what it took.

“Besides,” she said, “no one expects you to have only one hand.”

He swore under his breath, knowing she was trying to bait him.

She closed her file and stood. As she passed him she touched his shoulder, making him flinch. He didn’t think she saw.

“You can do something good here, Seth. You can be useful and get friendly with your new body. Don’t screw it up.”

He started to tell her exactly what she could screw, but what good would it do? Harper was Harper. “Fine. I’m assuming someone will tell me what my actual job is at some point?”

“Get through your session with Noah, then find me. I’ll point you in the right direction.”

He nodded, but she was already out the door, heading down the hall, her sneakers squeaking every third step on the stained linoleum.

He thought about waiting for Noah right there, but Harper might come back. So he headed out, looking for another safe place to hide. He hated being without a weapon. Without his left hand. The vulnerability never left these days, and he wondered if it ever would.

The blue hallway led past four different exam rooms, three of which were occupied, the doors closed. The fourth was empty and Seth walked in. There was one poster about STDs and another about HIV, both with stern warnings about always using a condom. Seth’s hand went automatically to his back pocket where he kept his handy Trojans, two at the ready no matter what. The moment of optimism fizzled as he moved his left arm, the weight of the prosthetic reminding him again that his days as a chick magnet were over. Not that he’d actually been one, but the uniform, when he’d worn one, had helped. Being with Nate helped even more. There were always women around Nate who needed comfort after being passed over.

He looked at the plastic again—five fingers, fingernails, little hairs on the knuckles, veins. No matter how masterfully the plastic was molded, it was still fake. Like a mannequin’s hand, like a G.I. Joe. He fought the urge to smash the damn thing into the wall.

“What can I help you with today?”

Seth spun at the feminine voice to find a doctor standing in the doorway. She was reading an open file and chewing on the end of a pencil. She looked young, as if she’d just gotten out of medical school and her long, curly brown hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. When she looked up at him, he looked down, giving her a good view of his baseball cap but not his face.

“I’m not a patient,” he said, darting a quick glance. She was pretty. Especially her eyes.

Her gaze went right to his fake arm. “No?”

He flushed hotly. “I’m new here. I’m an aide.”

“That’s great,” she said. She put the file back in a pocket on the inside of the door. “I’m Karen. Dr. Eckhardt. I was the new kid, until you.”

“Nice to meet you.”

She moved over to the exam table and leaned against it, trim in her blue scrubs, looking him over from bottom to top.

He needed to get the hell out of here, but he couldn’t just run. Instead he turned his side to her as he feigned interest in the supplies on the shelf. Tongue depressors, cotton balls…Yeah, this was a clever ploy. He should have just stayed in Harper’s office. What the hell was wrong with him?

“I didn’t know we’d found someone new. What brings you to the clinic?”

“I’m just here to lend a hand.”

“No pun intended?”

He wasn’t at all sure how to take that. Another quick glance found her smiling. He didn’t think she was making fun of him, so he smiled as he stepped toward the door. “Right.”

“Well, I think it’s great. We can use all the help we can get.”

Two women in scrubs were heading down the hall, so he stopped. “What about you?”

“Me? I switch-hit—I get paid for working at Kaiser Permanente, at the Sunset Hospital, but I spend a lot of time volunteering here.”

“Why here?”

“Someone needs to do it.”

“That’s it, huh?”

“Well, to be honest, my attending physician looks kindly on those who give back to the community.”

“I see.”

“So what am I supposed to call you?”

“Seth’ll do.”

“Okay, Seth’ll Do. Glad to have you on board.”

The hall was clear, so he headed out, glancing back just as he reached the hallway. Her gaze had moved down to his ass. It surprised him. Maybe he wasn’t a total turnoff. Then again, she did like charity work.

One of the exam room doors opened, so he slipped around the corner. An older Hispanic man and a middle-aged black woman sat behind a Plexiglas barrier in a large room overrun with files. Four phones, all of which were either ringing or blinking, were within arm’s reach, as were two old computers.

Outside that office was the waiting room. There were over a dozen people, three of whom were little kids, sitting in the ugly plastic chairs. He frowned seeing how many of the adults looked strung out and dangerous. Harper had warned him about the patient load here, but for some reason he hadn’t expected kids. Mostly that’s why the poor went to the doctor.

He leaned against the wall to watch. Surveillance. At least he could still do a visual. Of course, if something went wrong—say, someone should happen to recognize him—he couldn’t do a thing about it except perhaps throw his fake hand at them. It might freak them out long enough for him to run like hell.

His gaze went down again, to the weight at the end of his arm. He’d never get used to it. He’d had to carry heavy crap for years, sixty-pound packs through unrelenting heat and treacherous terrain. Nothing had ever felt this unwieldy.

And, of course, there was that incredibly annoying phantom pain. He’d heard about that, read about it even, but it was one of those things that had to be experienced. Kind of like being shot at. If it hadn’t happened to you, you didn’t know shit.

If the fake hand were more useful, he might have accepted the whole thing more readily. But all it did was squeeze and open. That’s it. And even though it was electric, he still had to move his shoulder to get it to do that.

When he saw Noah, he was gonna ask him for a hook. It had to be better than this. He might be able to do something with a hook. Hurt someone. Protect himself. And, besides, it would look a hell of a lot cooler than the mannequin hand.

A kid started crying in the waiting room, but the mother didn’t seem to notice. Seth didn’t know what she was on, but it was probably heroin, not meth, given her lethargy. Besides, she didn’t look like a meth addict. She still had reasonably nice skin and hair, although she could have used a bath.

The kid, who must have been about two, had dropped something underneath the table and he couldn’t reach it. The more he tried, the louder he screamed. Finally a little girl, older than the screamer but not by much, came to the rescue. Not one of the adults had even batted an eye.

It was a tough world all over. For kids, for addicts, for soldiers. And so what? None of it meant anything. Not a damn thing. He turned around. The coast was clear, so he headed back to his appointment, feeling as drained and tired as if he’d actually done something.

HARPER WALKED INTO her office as quietly as she could. She wanted to watch as Noah applied the facial prosthetics, but she didn’t want to make Seth more self-conscious than he already was.

Noah stood, while Seth sat in her chair with the desk lamp pointed at his face. A large toolbox was open, and inside she saw pieces of flesh-colored silicone and latex, paintbrushes and small bottles. Of more interest was Seth. He sat perfectly still, back tall, head straight, like the soldier he was. Noah was smoothing his chin with a paintbrush. When he stepped away, Harper could see the difference in Seth’s face. It was, indeed, subtle. But would she be able to swear it was the man on the poster? Maybe. But then, Noah wasn’t finished.

She continued to watch as the painstaking process went on. And on. Every time she thought he had to be finished with the chin, he did something else with it. Shading, painting, until she would swear it was all Seth. Finally Noah gave an approving nod.

“Take a break,” he said, his voice quiet and deep. “The nose will take longer.”

Seth’s head bowed for a long moment. Before looking up, he said, “You gonna stand there the rest of the day?”

“I might,” she said. “It is my office.”

Noah turned. “How are you, Dr. Douglas?”

“Harper,” she said, holding out her hand as she walked into the room. “I’m fine. Man, you do great work.”

He smiled as softly as he spoke. But that was all that was soft about him. She’d learned about his past in bits and pieces, mostly from other doctors. How agents in the field would refuse dangerous assignments unless Noah was the man in charge of their disguise. How he’d been offered everything and the moon to work in Kuwait. And, finally, how he’d given it all up to work with people who’d been broken either by disease, accident or at birth. He built faces that had been destroyed by fire. He brought humanity back to those who needed it the most.

“I do my best,” he said. “But right now I need to go wash out my brushes.”

When he left, Seth stood up and walked over to the small mirror on her left wall. He examined his face, skimming the fake part of his chin. “Shit.”

“I told you. You’ll be just different enough.”

“We could have used him in Delta Force.”

“I think he’s had enough of fighting and wars.”

“He told me he works only on medical cases now.”

“Yep. That’s how I met him. He came here to help a little girl who’d been burned in an apartment fire.”

Seth cursed, then turned to face her. She found herself looking at his eyes. This had been a good idea, this whole work thing. He looked more alive than he had in ages.

“I have to get going,” she said. “I just wanted to check up on you. Make sure everything was okay.”

He nodded. “I’ve asked him to take the hand back. I’ve decided to go with a hook.”

She waggled her eyebrows. “Ooh, neat. Gonna get a peg leg, too?”

“Very amusing.”

“No, I think a hook’s a good idea. You’ll get a lot of use out of that.”

“Still won’t be able to hold my dick with it, though.”

She smiled. “You say that now, but just wait. Where there’s a will…”

“Go to work, Harper.”

She nodded. “Introduce yourself to me when you’re done. I’m not sure I’ll recognize you.”

“I’ll be the guy with one hand.”

She went to the door. “Hey, I know—you can clap for me, and then we’ll finally know the answer.”

His curse followed her down the hall. Yep, this had been a damn good idea.

NATE PRATCHETT STOOD at the door of the abandoned apartment building, huddled in his jacket as he waited for Kate. It was her first time at that place, and he wanted to make sure she became familiar with the area. She was checking the back of the building, making sure they were alone. He’d already given the front a once-over. The only people he’d ever seen here were the homeless seeking shelter, but this place wasn’t a top pick even for them. Most of the walls were destroyed or rotted to the point of crumbling. Inside, it was drafty and the stench of mold overpowered.

He heard a crack, a stick broken by a footfall, and he pulled out his weapon even though he knew it had to be Kate.

It was. He was glad to see she had her weapon pointed at him. Better safe than sorry.

He nodded at her and they entered the building together. The stink hit hard, but it didn’t stop them from walking through the wreckage in the middle of the worst of East Los Angeles, until they hit what was once someone’s bedroom. Nate put down the bag he’d brought from home, opened the closet door. He glanced at Kate, who’d naturally expected to see a closet, not a dresser. He pushed the furniture back with ease, since it was just an empty shell. It hit the wall of the closet only to reveal a large hole in the floor. Propped against the rim was a ladder which would lead them down to a very large room below.

The place used to be the home of a particularly violent Colombian gang whose members had been deported or killed two years ago. He’d found out about this place from an old friend who dealt in weapons, one who’d already sold off everything of value by the time he hooked up with Nate. But Nate’s concern wasn’t weapons, it was the concealed nature of the place itself. And the size. There was water, heat, even a shower below, and no one the wiser above.

He sent Kate down first. He saw her shudder as she began the descent and he didn’t blame her. But then he thought about what was down there and he knew these precautions were necessary. He only hoped they were enough.

It was his turn to get the bag and climb down, pulling the cord on the back of the door to close it behind them. Then it was the kind of dark that stole a man’s senses. The only reality the ladder in his grip, the rungs underfoot.

Kate’s gasp told him she’d found the bottom. He hurried, and when he’d reached her side she whispered, “Tell me again why we can’t use the flashlight?”

“It’ll be light soon enough. Close your eyes or the light will blind you.”

“Blind me?”

“Temporarily.” He heeded his own advice, but the light when he swung the door open hurt even through his closed lids. He waited until the pain was gone, then he opened his eyes. His gaze turned immediately to Kate.

Her eyes grew wide, but not from the lighting. She gawked at the size of the room, at the equipment lining the walls. It was a laboratory, as well stocked as any major drug-company lab. But there was only one drug being studied here—an antidote to the most horrible death he could imagine.

“Well, it’s about time you got here.”

Nate spun at the voice behind him. “Tam,” he whispered as the sight of her knocked the wind straight out of his lungs. Dammit, it got worse every visit. She just kept getting more beautiful.