It took less than twelve hours for everyone affected by Splice to die.
By Saturday night, men and women in PPPS suits were working to clear the bodies while the survivors of the gala attack were funneled, one by one, into the decontamination tents set up outside on Exhibition Road.The quarantine zone was still in effect in and around the Victoria and Albert Museum; cleanup inside was going to take months, at a minimum.Cataloging the damage done was going to be a slow, time-consuming process, and the museum would be closed for the foreseeable future.
Alpha Team, along with the Royal Legion and other UMG metahumans, were some of the first to be escorted out of the museum.They stripped out of their clothes and were scrubbed down by biohazard specialists in hazmat suits before given clean clothes and a ride to UMG headquarters across the Thames for a very long debrief that had stretched through the night and into the morning.It was nearing 1100, and there wasn’t enough synthcaf in the world that would make Jamie less tired.
Out of Alpha Team, Jamie and Kyle were the last ones remaining for the classified debrief.Jamie had accounted for every one of his teammates during the aftermath, though the only one who hadn’t been physically present was Kyle.Jamie had heard his voice intermittently over the comms, aware that Kyle had encountered Stanislav at South Kensington Station and survived the encounter.Oksana, apparently, had not.
Looking at a holopic of the Russian woman’s body laid out on a table in the cold morgue of the UMG’s headquarters, Jamie wasn’t at all surprised to discover she wasn’t who she’d introduced herself to be.
“Alyona Mikhailova,” Chapman said, flicking through the layers of holoscreens arrayed around him.“Her fingerprints and retinas come up as two different aliases in the biometrics readouts, but DNA doesn’t lie, and those results are finally in.You said Stanislav Pavluhkin thanked you for killing her, is that correct, Brannigan?”
“Yes, sir,” Kyle said from his spot beside Jamie at the conference table.“He also said he didn’t see the night of the gala ending like it did.”
“And you’re certain Alyona is who you saw in Los Angeles last week?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’d ask what Russia’s GRU would want with Stanislav Pavluhkin, but considering what he’s bankrolling with his father’s money, I think it would be a moot question,” Liam said.
Jamie nodded silent agreement.The GRU was the English translation for the Cyrillic acronym standing for the Russian military’s Main Intelligence Directorate.The fact that Stanislav seemed to have played two factions of the Reborn IRA against each other solely to get Alyona killed said he didn’t want the GRU to know what he was up to.That she was most likely a Russian undercover agent assigned to monitor one of their own citizens wasn’t a difficult theory to believe.
“Her DNA scan concluded she wasn’t a metahuman,” Nazari said through an uplink on the screen embedded in the wall, gaze askance as he read something off-screen.“Do we have the results back yet on Stanislav Pavluhkin?”
Chapman tapped a command into the computer, and a report popped up at everyone’s personal terminal.“Positive across all baseline markers.He carries more gene markers for a psionic power than any other.”
Jamie studied the report with a grimace.Across the table, Liam looked just as unhappy about that detail.
“Do we have an idea of his power, sir?”Liam asked.
Chapman leaned back in his chair, a troubled look in his eyes.“Considering what happened at the gala Friday night, taking into account the brief conversation Brannigan had with him, we’re leaning towards precognition.Theoretical at the moment, but his actions fit with that power.”
Jamie couldn’t stop himself from tensing at that announcement.“When was the last time a precog showed up?”
“In Italy, about fifty years ago.The way records describe the power, she could focus it on targeted people and receive multiple flashes of a possible future.The flashes weren’t concrete because the future was always changing, and her reach was about twenty-four hours in advance.But she could pinpoint with great accuracy the most logical path to a future thatwouldhappen and build off the flashes to achieve her goal,” Nazari said.
Liam sighed tiredly.“Does this mean we’re finished before we even get started?Does he know if we’re metahumans or not?If he can see us coming, how do we fight that?”
“Stanislav seemed annoyed when he talked about Jamie sending me after him.Something about us being unpredictable and how it wasn’t appreciated,” Kyle said slowly.“I guess, with our covers, he thought I should’ve stayed with Jamie, but I didn’t.”
“Being unpredictable gets tiring.”
“It may be the only weapon we have,” Chapman said.
“You took over for Delta Team at the last minute last week,” Jamie said, looking at Kyle.“If Stanislav saw the threat, he may have only seen Delta Team and not you.It may be how he knew where to plant the bomb.Their sniper said she’d have picked the same location as you did to take the shot.”
“Still a fifty-fifty chance he’s playing us,” Kyle replied.
“If Stanislav is a precog, I don’t know why he’s not leveraging his power with the Kremlin, then.It would be enough to entrench his family’s power for years.You’d think a man like him would want that,” Liam said.
“Maybe because he hasn’t is why the GRU is looking into him.Whether or not they know he’s a metahuman is still unknown, but they’re monitoring him.I wouldn’t be surprised if Stanislav has been keeping one step ahead of them for years,” Jamie said.
“And we bloody wellhelpedhim.”Liam rubbed a hand over his face.“He manipulated us.”
“It seems that way to a certain extent.Which means we have our work cut out for us because we can’t lose this opening with the Pavluhkins and thePresnenskaya Bratva.They seem to be in control of the criminal alliance right now and are the ones dictating the next steps.If the cover we put in place holds and they contact us again, we may very well get a lead,” Nazari agreed.
“Ifthey contact us.From where I’m sitting, that’s a very big if, sir,” Jamie said.
“You’re the perfect bait, Callahan.I believe he will think long and hard about giving you up.”
