Leaving the building, he crossed to the café and ordered a coffee to go. While he waited, he moved to the edge of the café, propped against one of the pillars that supported the overhead canopy and flipped his watch face back. Tapping the code in, he hung up, tapped in again, waited for a count of ten, and then repeated the code the third time.
Captured--Evacuate.
There was no response to that code--none designated as far as he knew--and he had no clue whether they’d gotten it or not, or if he’d even remembered the code correctly. Hell, he didn’t even know if they would pay it any attention coming from him.
He’d done what he could to warn them though.
* * * *
The clone was waiting for him when Nigel opened the rear service door. Nigel had had all day to come to terms with his situation, however. He’d walked into a trap. He wasn’t certain of exactly how they planned to spring it, but he had a fair notion that what they wanted was for him to lead the clone back to home base. Obviously, they’d tried everything else they could think of to discover its location and they’d decided to use the breach in their security to get what they wanted, or finally figured out a way to use it to their advantage.
That meant he was going to be alive at least long enough to lead the clone to the base.
He still hadn’t decided whether or not the clone’s appearance meant that Dax and Lena were dead, but he couldn’t see that he had a lot of options at this point. He was going to do his best to see the thing through and hope that he lived long enough to avenge them if the bastards had gotten to them.
Neither man spoke as they moved quickly through the service area of the building and finally reached the main entrance level. They took the tube from there, passing twenty levels of labs and halting at last on the lowest floor of the administration offices.
The informant had been an accountant.
Mentally, Nigel shook his head at the thought. Who would ever have thought it would be an accountant--more of a bookkeeper actually because the man hadn’t even been upper rung--that would save the world?
The door to the general office was locked. Nigel glanced at the clone.
“You don’t have the key code?”
“I’ve forgotten it,” Nigel lied. “I’m a med tech. I’m not used to this cloak and dagger shit.”
The pseudo Dax’s lips thinned irritably, but he stepped forward and, without hesitation, keyed the code in.
Nigel swallowed a little convulsively.
The clone had definitely been in touch with them if he had the code. The question was, had he been ordered to help? Or hinder?
He didn’t bother to look up at the vid trained on the door. He knew it wasn’t disabled, as it was supposed to have been.
The minute they were inside, the clone led the way through the rabbit warren of cubicles, heading unerringly toward the cubicle that had once belonged to Gerald Smith and now belonged to his clone.
Nigel began to go through the desk immediately, searching every article he came across for a crack or crevice the man might have used to hide the film. He was only half way down the first wall when the clone straightened abruptly. “I think I’ve found it.”
Nigel whirled in surprise, extending his hand for the film. “Let me see it.”
The clone hesitated for a fraction of a second and then handed it over.
It was a memo, Nigel saw, frowning.
A memo?
I’ll need a replacement part for Mr. S. Mullins.
Nigel read the memo three times before it dawned on him that S. Mullins must be the name of someone they wanted replaced. Still more confused than enlightened, he glanced at the date, and then the origin of the memo. Coldness washed over him abruptly as the date and name clicked together.
The date was the day after Stephen Mullins was inaugurated as Prez.
And the origin of the memo was the head of a government agency.
He handed the memo back to the clone. “You might be right,” he said. “But it doesn’t make any sense to me. This looks like something that just got misdirected. Maybe we should keep looking?”
The clone looked like he wanted to argue. After a moment, though, he merely shrugged, tucked the film into his pocket and made a pretense of searching. “We need to make this quick, though. Security’s liable to notice the vids are down any time.”
