The Chemist

There was also no story yet about the crash of a single-prop plane in West Virginia – no fatalities or injured found, still trying to locate the owner – but she doubted the news would merit more than just a note in a local online paper. When it did surface, there would be nothing in the report that would catch anyone’s attention in DC.

She exhausted her search for information that might endanger them. It seemed that, for now, they were in the clear on that front, at least. What was Carston thinking right at this moment? What was he planning? She wasn’t due to deliver Daniel until Monday before school, and it was still only Saturday – well, almost Sunday. The department knew she wasn’t going to crack Daniel – he had nothing to spill. They had to know she would eventually learn of the identical twin’s existence. They must have been pretty sure of Kevin’s status in the land of the living. They had expected him to be drawn out into the open early in the game, and they’d been right about that. The only thing they hadn’t foreseen was that the torturer and the assassin might have a conversation.

It would never have shaken out this way without Daniel’s interference. He’d been a ploy for them, just a pawn moved into peril to lure the more critical players into the center of the board. They never would have guessed that he’d be a catalyst for change.

She planned to hold true to her side of the bargain – she would take the role of victor (though that was really the losing role) and let Daniel and Kevin be dead. Dead again, in Kevin’s case. But oh, how she wished that she could be the one to die. Wouldn’t it be easy for the department to believe that someone like Kevin Beach – who’d toppled a cartel – had succeeded where they had failed? Wouldn’t it make sense for them to stop looking then? What would it be like to disappear, but this time with no one searching for her?

She sighed. Fantasies only made it harder; there was no point indulging in them. The men were both pretty well under, she was sure, so she dug into her bag and pulled out the pressurized canister she’d selected earlier. She had only the two gas masks, so nothing deadly tonight, just the airborne sleeping agent she’d had hooked up to her computer yesterday. It was enough. It would let her control the outcome if someone discovered them.

After she’d strung the leads – only a double line; she wouldn’t have to arm or disarm from outside the room tonight – she settled back into her chair. She glanced at the twins. Both were deep, peaceful sleepers. She wondered if that was a healthy habit for a spy. Maybe Kevin actually trusted her – enough to sound the alarm at the very least, and maybe even to deal with a problem without killing them all. She and the brothers were strange bedfellows indeed.

How odd it was, watching over them. It felt wrong, and she’d expected that. But it also felt good, satisfying some need she’d never known was there, and that she hadn’t expected.

She spent some time thinking about her analysis of the situation, searching for flaws in her theory, but the more she looked at it, the more it made sense. Even the woeful lack of evolution in her would-be-assassins – by the third try, someone should have been aware of her system and changed the approach – made sense in this light. There had never been any operation, just expendable individuals sent after her with little or no briefing. She thought through every conjecture two or three times and felt more confident than ever that she finally understood the ones hunting her.

And then she was bored.

What she wanted to do was log on to the website of Columbia University’s pathology program and read the latest doctoral dissertations, but it wasn’t safe to do that while the department was actively trying to locate her, which she was certain they were. The department couldn’t trace every connection anyone made to her old interests, but this one might be too obvious. With a sigh, she put in earbuds, opened up YouTube, and started watching a tutorial about fieldstripping a rifle. It probably wasn’t anything she’d ever need to know, but it couldn’t hurt.

Kevin woke up at five thirty on the dot. He just sat up, as alert as if someone had flipped a switch to turn him on. He patted the dog once and headed toward the door. It took him only a second to notice the gas mask she was wearing and jerk to a stop. The dog, right on his heels, paused too and pointed its nose in her direction, looking for whatever had upset its master.

“Give me a sec,” Alex said.

She got awkwardly to her feet, still aching and sore – whether more or less than at the beginning of the night, she couldn’t tell – and walked stiffly to the door to undo her security precautions.

“I didn’t say you could do that,” Kevin said.

She didn’t look at him. “I didn’t ask for your permission.”

He grunted.

It took her only a few seconds to clear his path. She removed her mask and used it to gesture to the door.

“Knock yourself out.”

“Knock you out,” she thought she heard him mutter as he passed her, but it was too low for her to be sure. The dog followed him, tail swishing so fast it blurred. She imagined the guy at the front desk probably wasn’t paying any attention at this hour, but she still thought Kevin was pressing their luck a little. A screaming match with the management wasn’t going to help them stay incognito.

She rummaged through the food Kevin had bought last night. The remaining sandwiches weren’t as appetizing as they had been eight hours ago, but there was a box of cherry Pop-Tarts she’d missed before. She was working her way through the second pastry in the sleeve when Kevin and the dog came back.