Regenesis (Book 1): Impact (54 page)

“Yes,
but only a fraction of those sixteen-thousand two-hundred people ever met
Danielle McMinn.”

“And
I can’t find any of them.”

Twelve
handed the slip of paper back to her and walked over to her window, “Then I
guess number sixteen dies as well.”

“You
aren’t going to do anything to stop it?” she mumbled.

Twelve
told her there wasn’t anything they could do until they picked the trail up
again. “You all lost it after Sage died. In fact, you shouldn’t have lost it at
all, but now you and I and your friends are all playing catch up while Cladis
rakes up a greater body count.” He opened the window and let a cold wind in
before he added, “You and I are going to stop this monster, believe me.” He
climbed out the window and told her to keep their meetings a secret until
further notice before he shut the window and flew off.

Mia
sighed, pinned her note back on the wall, and tried to figure out who the
sixteenth victim would be.

---*---

9:39
PM

Bothell,
Washington

Nick
planned on talking to Mizuno about training less so he could spend more time
with Amy, though Nick hadn’t spoken to Mizuno since the end of his class that
past Friday. He tried calling him but never managed to speak to him. Nick
suspected Mizuno already knew what he wanted to say and this was his way of
saying no without needing to say a word.

Nick
worked with Bruce from morning until late in the afternoon and spent the rest
of his Sunday with Amy. They went out for dinner, talked, and he drove her home
around nine-thirty, as her mother wanted her home early.

Nick
pulled into an open parking space in front of the hotel he stayed in, parked
his motorcycle, and headed into the building. He walked past the clerk at the
entrance without so much as a word and took the elevator up to his room. Nick
hardly managed to step into the room before Mizuno greeted him.

Mizuno
and Strom waited for him; Strom continued to read
The Sun Also Rises
while he reclined on Nick’s bed and Mizuno sat in a chair in the corner of the
room. Mizuno only looked up at him when Nick entered and asked how his day was.

Nick
didn’t answer. He looked from Mizuno over to Strom and asked why they were
there.

Strom
didn’t say a word. He simply turned a page and continued to read as if nothing
changed. Mizuno was hesitant to answer though, even Nick could tell,
considering how Mizuno asked a simple question that hardly pertained to his
project.

“Something’s
come up Nick,” he started. “I looked into the murder of Crystal Valentine and
after scanning each witness to the assassination as well as crosschecking my
notes with Strom, I’ve realized that this entire situation with your brother’s
murder is far more complex than I originally anticipated.”

“What
do you mean?”

He
was apprehensive, but stated that the individual who murdered Crystal Valentine
wasn’t the same as the charlatan who murdered Nick’s brother and Drake’s
father.

“Then
who was it?”

“A
man named Jeremy Dalton,” Strom muttered, “A man also known as the MP3
Assassin.”

Nick
felt an icy tendril run down his spine. “Th-That was…That was really him?”

Mizuno
nodded and said it was. “You’re missing something bigger though Nick. Jeremy
Dalton was employed at Winchester Enterprises and worked alongside Drake
Winchester.”

Strom
chimed in and assured Nick that Dalton hadn’t been seen at his office since
Drake’s father’s assassination. “I’m working on tracking him but Dalton and I
have a propensity to avoid one another at all costs, not that he’s aware I’m
personally tailing him, but my guess is that he is aware of something
nonetheless.”

“In
any case,” Mizuno continued, “I’m certain that your brother’s murderer is in
league with Jeremy Dalton.”

A
delivery man from a nearby teriyaki restaurant knocked on Nick’s door. Mizuno
got up, paid for it, and set the three plastic containers wrapped in a plastic
bag on the bed near Strom. None of them touched the food though.

Mizuno
reclaimed his seat, folded his arms across his chest, and told Nick, “I went
over the events at Crystal’s once more and found more irregularities. Firstly,
I originally assumed, like you, that the charlatan who killed your brother used
the credit card he stole from your brother at the restaurant before he killed
Crystal, though I couldn’t understand why he would make such an obvious
mistake. However it turns out that the killer was actually Dalton, which I
could only confirm after seeing the security feed from the night Tony
Winchester was killed. It appears that our shape shifter is unable to alter the
serpent tattoo he has on his arm. Now, you might not recall this, but Dalton’s
sleeves were rolled up the day he killed Crystal and there was no tattoo. I
could only assume the rule about the tattoo was true until I managed to lift a
single matching fingerprint from the stolen card, which I managed to borrow
from the local authorities who have the card held as evidence.” Mizuno
continued, “The fingerprint matched Dalton’s. But this only begged additional
questions, the first of which is why would Jeremy Dalton work with a partner?
Why would they intentionally use a piece of stolen property and leave it at
their next murder scene? And why would Dalton be so sloppy as to leave a fully
identifiable fingerprint on the card as well?”

“You
think they left it intentionally?” Strom asked.

Mizuno
nodded. “But I don’t know why. This should have been cut and dry in terms of a
murder. Normally, in Dalton’s case, he would have executed her in a private
manner and there wouldn’t be any trail and possibly not even a way to link the
crime to him. This is especially true since Crystal Valentine was not a high profile
target, which begs the question, why would Jeremy Dalton murder someone as
unknown as Crystal Valentine?”

“I
think you need to ask who would have the means to contact Dalton and the motive
to kill Crystal,” Strom said.

“And
that’s what’s confounding me. Who would want Crystal Marie Valentine dead?”
Mizuno asked rhetorically. “I’ve delved into who could profit from her death in
terms of successor to her store, which was no one. She didn’t have life
insurance or a family member who could have benefited from her death…None of
this adds up.”

“But
they also killed my brother and Drake’s dad,” Nick reminded them.

“As
well as a man named Mark Ross who also worked alongside your brother and Tony
Winchester,” Mizuno added. “All of whom worked on the same project called
Regenesis.”

“So
this is all tied into that?”

“It
would seem so, but Crystal’s murder doesn’t add up.”

“Could
it have been a side job Dalton picked up?” Strom suggested.

“I
doubt it, only because of the card they used in the slaying,” Mizuno explained.

“Then
maybe it’s nothing more than a diversion?”

“Which
would mean whoever hired them for the assassinations knows someone’s trying to
figure this out…” Mizuno paused and stared off while he gave the matter his
full attention.

He
didn’t say a word for a whole minute before Strom set his book aside and opened
the plastic bag to get to his meal. Strom gave Nick a chicken katsu meal while
he took a chicken teriyaki and gyoza meal and left the prawn yakisoba aside for
Mizuno. Nick ate with a plastic fork while Strom utilized chopsticks without
any difficulty.

He
took a few bites before he suggested to Mizuno, “What if they left the card
behind as a message?”

“To
whom?”

“Maybe
to you?”

He
shook his head. “I don’t know why they would do that and I highly doubt they
know about my existence in the first place. Plus I wasn’t investigating
Victor’s death, or Crystal’s for that matter, until after Nick joined my group.
There shouldn’t have been any reason to leave a clue.”

Mizuno
remained silent again and in deep thought while Strom and Nick continued with
their meals. Strom ate nearly half of his dinner before he took a napkin, wiped
his lips, and told them he was going out to get something to drink. He briefly
asked Nick if he wanted anything, but Nick declined.

Mizuno
looked up at Nick once Strom left and told him he didn’t know what it meant.
“This should be cut and dry, yet this bit about your brother’s credit card
doesn’t make sense. I can’t think of any reason for anyone to do something like
this. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Do
you have any thoughts on who would want to kill all of those people?” Nick
asked

Mizuno
shook his head and admitted he was in the dark. “The Regenesis project was and
is still extremely unknown, so much so that even I don’t know much about it. I
could understand someone killing for it if the drug was in a finalized state
and ready for commercial sale, as a profit from this would be astronomical, yet
it never reached early testing stages.”

He
stopped talking again and tried to concentrate in silence. It wasn’t until
Strom returned that Mizuno apologized to Nick and told them that he needed to
leave and sort through some things. He took his meal with him and jotted down a
few notes in his notepad before he left.

Strom
retook his place on the bed, though he had a bottle of German beer that Nick
wasn’t familiar with. He also continued where he left off in his book, even
though Nick interrupted him and asked to know more about Jeremy Dalton.

“There
isn’t too much to say,” he muttered. “He’s pretty much the same as me, only
more ruthless, arrogant, and reckless than I was before I met Mizuno.”

“What
do you mean by that?”

“Do
you remember what I told you about the military program in Germany?”

He
asked if he meant the German Hostile Operative program.

“Yes.
Well the German military started up round two of the program after I left,
although, they decided to leave out the elimination round. Jeremy Dalton was
one of the individuals in the program.”

“I
take it he was the best?”

Strom
shook his head and said he was one of the worst. “It was simply because he was
sloppy. He made a lot of mistakes, but he always managed to make it through
whatever obstacle lay in his path, or so I’ve heard. He managed to learn about
the past group, about me, and thought the elimination round sounded like fun.
He killed all of the twenty-one other soldiers in the program as well as the
initial leaders of the German Hostile Operative program.”

Nick
trembled slightly, though he tried to hide it. “Why did he do that?”

Strom
shrugged, “Probably to ensure that there wouldn’t be a third wave that could
possibly be sent out to kill him, though I heard whispers that someone hired
Dalton to kill everyone off and that was the real reason behind his actions,
but it’s impossible to say.”

“Why
would he betray his own–”

“He
didn’t betray anyone Nick,” Strom immediately told him. “He never gave a shit
about Germany, or anywhere for that matter, so he couldn’t betray them since he
never cared for Germany in the first place. Hell, I’m not even sure if he was
German to begin with. Dalton is an English name…but then again, that might not
even be his real name.”

Nick
looked at him and asked if he felt that he ever betrayed his nation, but Strom
only shook his head briefly and said it didn’t matter.

He
continued, “Dalton created his alias a year or so later and immediately took
jobs throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In fact, his body count is
at least triple or more of what mine is.” Strom flipped a page in his novel,
took a swig of his beer, and said, “Dalton’s one of the major reasons there
aren’t certain African tribes anymore. He was often hired to slaughter entire
villages simply because someone didn’t like them.”

“And
he would just do it?” Nick asked. “He didn’t think about what he was doing at
all?”

Strom
forced a small chuckle and told Nick that Dalton only thought about himself and
his paycheck. “He kills children, women, unarmed men…anyone. He doesn’t care if
you’re sleeping, armed, disabled, blind, pregnant…you’re just another couple of
bucks to him.”

“That’s
horrible.”

Strom
agreed.

“Why
hasn’t anyone ever tried to stop him?”

“People
have,” he muttered, “I have too. You just can’t find him or get close enough to
kill him.”

Nick
didn’t say anything then. He looked away and asked whether Strom thought he
even stood a chance of finding his brother’s killer. Strom said he wasn’t sure,
but he told Nick it wasn’t something he should pursue.

“But
he–”

“Killed
him, I know.” Strom tossed a slip of paper into his book, set it down, and
looked Nick square in the eye and told him to let it go. “You’re going to chase
after him all of your life if you’re not careful. And I know that he killed you
brother, but you can’t simply strive to find him, you can’t. Revenge isn’t
worth wasting your life.”