Tainted Hearts (29 page)

“I like this plane. I may hire—”

“Actually,
Rahab
’s a jet. That’s like
calling a ship a boat. It’s rather insulting.”

Tuesday laughed. “I apologize—to both of
you.”

Marc’s vidcom beeped and he activated the
device with a voice command. “Sinclair here. Go ahead, Cobra.”

“You’re not going to like what I have to
say.”

“I don’t pay you to blow smoke up my ass.
What have you found out?”

“Job recruited key members of your staff,
from chemists to department heads, his tentacles weave all through
your corporation. PURE had to have begun infiltration months,
perhaps years ago.” There was a long pause before he added, “This
kind of methodical planning is always personal.”

“How did they get past your security
screenings? You’ve got access to information—”

“Most of these people were in place before
you hired me.”

“Keep digging. I want them all.”

“Copy that.”

“Tell me more about Lazarus,” Raeanne
prompted. She’d obviously heard the brief exchange. “What makes you
think he might have been Job?”

“The scripture, mostly, and Job’s obsession
with me. Cobra’s right. It has always felt personal, not
professional. Most of the people with a grudge against
Sinclair-Dietrich carried their axes to court.”

Tuesday glanced back at him. He sounded
distracted and sad. “But the courts exonerated Sinclair-Dietrich.
Maybe that’s when it turned personal.”

“I’ve known Lazarus my entire life.” He
shook his head, his expression distant with memories.

A small crowd had gathered on the tarmac by
the time Raeanne landed at the distribution center. Tuesday
frowned. So much for the manager keeping things quiet.

“There’s been some sort of disruption.” Just
a hint of disbelief sneaked through in Raeanne’s well-modulated
tone. She spoke calmly into her audiocom. “The dispatcher has asked
me to hold position and not approach the bays.”

“Why?” Marc craned his neck, trying to see
out through the sculpted windshield. “What’s going on?”

Raeanne spoke into her headset for a moment
and then explained, “Shuttle Two-Three-Five arrived a few minutes
ago. They taxied to the gate, then threw the bound and gagged pilot
out onto the tarmac and left without clearing their departure.”

“Is Chuck all right?” Marc’s voice cracked
with anxiety.

Another pause. “Yes. The center’s medic is
tending him. He was pretty battered, but his injuries aren’t
severe.”

“Then let’s go! Does Chuck know where they
headed? How did someone get control of his shuttle?”

“Mr. Sinclair, I’m speaking with a
dispatcher, not the pilot. The shuttle headed due south and they’ve
got about fifteen minutes on us. I’ve been cleared for
takeoff.”

An image of Chuck’s ruddy-cheeked face
lodged in Marc’s mind, keeping his temper at a steady simmer. He’d
never seen Chuck without a smile and had never known him to
entertain a mean thought. Yet today he’d been beaten, terrorized,
bound and tossed like garbage onto a bustling tarmac. All in the
name of PUREity.

“What do they hope to gain by taking the
shipment now? We know they have it.” Marc fidgeted in his seat,
hating the inactivity. He needed to do something, anything!

“Thank God they’re stupid,” Raeanne said.
“Smart thugs would’ve killed your pilot, offloaded the cocktail,
then crashed the shuttle with the pilot’s body on board.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same side. Did I ever
tell you that?” Tuesday said chattily, and Raeanne smiled.

“I have a visual,” Raeanne said suddenly.
“I’m going higher.”

“Higher” meant forty-five degrees straight
up. Marc snapped his mouth shut as his stomach heaved. Damn the
woman. Was she bent on seeing the contents of his stomach?

She decreased her speed to match the
shuttle. Marc could feel the pressure against his body ease. The
jet slowed to three hundred miles per hour after traveling at three
times that speed. It felt like they floated, motionless in
space.

“Dead or alive?”

He hesitated. “Alive. As much as I’d like to
watch you shoot them out of the sky, we need to talk to whoever’s
on that shuttle.”

“Copy that.”

Raeanne dropped the
Rahab
into a
sustained nosedive, drawing an enormous C across the sky.
Plummeting through the atmosphere, the jet shot directly in front
of the shuttle. With a quick blast over the bow, Raeanne demanded
the smaller ship’s surrender.

The shuttle floundered, rocking wildly from
side to side. After a minute’s hesitation, it banked sharply to the
left and mimicked the
Rahab
’s freefalling descent.

“What do they think they’re doing?” Raeanne
easily maneuvered to follow their escape. She fired another round,
closer to their hull.

“Can you contact them?” Marc asked.

“They don’t appear to be receiving,” she
said, but she made an obvious gesture toward her earpiece and gave
a thumbs-up. “Is one shipment really worth all this trouble, Mr.
Sinclair? I’ll just shoot them down.”

“Copy that,” he echoed with a smile.

The shuttle heaved to, leveled off and
Raeanne grinned. “We’re coming up on a clearing. Looks fairly flat.
I think I can force them down in the field and not incinerate the
shuttle. Minimize debris.”

Like a kite on a string, the shuttle
adjusted its course, heading toward the open field.

Raeanne flipped off her headset. “If you’re
hoping to question these clowns, we better be ready to run the
second we touch down. This was too easy. They’re either up to
something or they’re planning on going out with a bang.” She made a
gun out of her fingers and held it to her head, illustrating
exactly what she meant.

The jet bumped and skittered as the landing
gear fought for purchase in the grassy field. Marc braced himself
for the worst of it, but had his safety restraints unfastened long
before Raeanne succeeded in stopping completely. The hatch popped
and hissed, the seal releasing pressure from inside the
cockpit.

“Get ready,” Raeanne called. The hatch slid
open. “Let’s go. Go!”

Raeanne crawled down the side of the jet
with catlike agility. Marc paused on the ground, reaching back to
help Tuesday. She wore fatigues and a black T-shirt and her wrist
now sported a molded splint. He was surprised to see a pistol
tucked into the waistband of her pants.

“Can you fire that thing left-handed?”

“As well as I can with my right,” she
answered with an embarrassed shrug.

“Stay behind me,” Raeanne ordered.

“Yes, ma’am,” Marc and Tuesday chorused.

They ran across the field toward the
shuttle, approaching the craft from the rear. Deep gouges had been
torn through the earth by the ship’s frantic landing.

A shot rang out. A flash illuminated the
cockpit of the shuttle.

Marc stumbled.

A second shot echoed the first.

Silence descended over the clearing. Time
itself missed a beat before resuming its endless march. Marc’s
steps slowed, his feet dragged. Futility tasted bitter in his
mouth.

Raeanne’s weapon remained at ready, her
posture alert, intense. “Can you open the hatch or should I blast
it?”

“I can open it.” Marc pressed his hand to
the scanner and stood to one side while the hatch hissed and
lowered, steadily unfolding toward the ground.

“Stay here,” Marc told Tuesday. “There’s no
reason for you to see this.”

“You don’t know that they… I’ve seen dead
bodies before.”

He cupped her cheek with his hand and kissed
her gently on the lips. “Let me do this. You have enough fuel for
your nightmares.”

She shook her head then pressed a kiss into
the center of his palm. “I’ll stay behind you, but I’m not staying
here.”

Knowing a lost argument when he heard one,
Mark pulled his pistol and turned to Raeanne. “Go on. I’ll cover
you.”

The interior of the shuttle was shadowed. He
peered into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Raeanne
moved cautiously toward the cockpit and the two bodies waiting
there. All he could see clearly was the backs of their heads as
they slumped awkwardly over their chairs. A gun lay on the floor in
the small space between them, having fallen from the pilot’s
lifeless hand.

Three steps ascended into the cabin. He
placed his foot on the middle step and something slammed into his
back knocking him forward. He collided with the wall opposite the
hatch as gunfire erupted behind him. He heard Tuesday yelp and a
figure crumpled to his left, half in and half out of the tiny
lavatory.

Scrambling to his feet, he approached the
moaning form, steadying his weapon with both hands. “Are you hit,
Tuesday?” he asked urgently, not taking his eyes off the shooter.
Where had Tuesday found the strength to knock him down? She’d used
her shoulder like a linebacker!

“No, but she almost got you. Oh, God, she
was so close!”

The whimper in her voice tore through him
like the energy pulses he’d been spared.

“I shot her at least once,” Tuesday
cautioned. “Don’t let her bleed to death. We have to make her
talk!”

Good point. He kicked the shooter’s gun well
out of range and went to one knee beside her. The shuttle rocked
subtly, the smell of blood cloying and foul.

“Roll her over, I’ve got you covered,”
Raeanne said calmly.

He tucked his gun into the back of his pants
and rolled the shooter over.

Marc couldn’t speak. His mind refused to
comprehend what his eyes revealed. Why was Laura Finn here? This
was Elise’s nurse—her aunt!

“Hello, Ester,” Raeanne greeted without
inflection.

“Rahab.” Laura sneered in return. Her hands
clasped her side, blood slowly seeping between her fingers.

“Why did you call her Ester? This is my
daughter’s nurse.” His shell-shocked brain still refused to absorb
the implications.

“Well, then you definitely knew Job, because
this is his sister,” Raeanne told him. “Everyone at PURE calls her
Ester.”

He shook his head. That made no sense.
“Nathan Finn died eleven years ago.”

Tuesday stepped into his peripheral vision.
“How badly is she hurt?”

He reached for Laura’s hand but she kicked
him away. “She’ll live.”

“I’ll clear the ship, make sure no one’s
hiding in the hold.” Raeanne skirted Marc and disappeared into the
maintenance bay.

“Everyone
thought
Nate died right
after you lost your parents.” Marc’s befuddled brain slowly began
assembling the pieces. “But he staged his death, so he could become
Job.” Shaking his head in disbelief, he said, “But you’ve seen me.
Why didn’t Job grab me that day in the lobby of the stronghold if
he’s really your brother?”

“I didn’t tell him about your new face,”
Laura admitted with a heavy sigh.

“Why would you protect me from Job?”

“Because I love Elise,” she snapped. “I knew
you were close to perfecting a treatment, so I wouldn’t let Job
kill you until your work was done.” She glanced at Tuesday and
bitterness reshaped her expression. “Then you worked a miracle and
arranged for the surgery, so there was no reason not to move
forward with Final PUREification.”

“My daughter’s new heart made me
expendable.” Marc shuddered. “Do you realize how sick that is?”

“You killed them all!” Laura shouted. “First
my parents, then Emma. And now my brother is dead! You killed my
entire family. Even Elise. Your whore cost me my precious
Elise.”

Panic drove the breath from his body. He
gasped, reaching blindly for his gun.

Tuesday caught his wrist as she shook her
head. “She hasn’t hurt Elise. That’s not what she meant. What use
has a healthy child for a nurse? She hasn’t hurt Elise.”

“I would
never
hurt Elise,” Laura
sneered. “I’m the only mother that child has ever known. The only
decent mother she will ever know.”

“What about the tainted cocktail?” Tuesday
moved closer, anger making her bold.

“I administer her medications and I stashed
enough of the untainted drugs to get her through the crisis
unharmed. I’m not a fool. No harm would have come to Elise.”

“Just to every other child on the planet.”
Tuesday clenched her hands into tight little fists, clearly
horrified by what could have happened, had nearly happened.

“All clear,” Raeanne reported, returning to
the cockpit.

“Deal with her.” He ground out each word. “I
need air.”

Tuesday followed him out. He swept her into
a rib-bruising hug the second she cleared the hatch. “Too much more
of this and I’m going to need one of your devices,” he whispered
into her hair.

They heard a pain-filled grunt from inside
the shuttle and Raeanne’s insincere, “Gee, I’m sorry.” A muffled
curse, followed by, “Oh, is that too tight?”

Tuesday chuckled. “She must make President
Rawsen so proud.”

“I’m pretty proud of her.” Marc gentled his
hold. “I’m proud of both of you.”

They lapsed into silence as other
possibilities unfurled within his mind. “Did it start with Emma or
was she… My God, did she marry me so she could avenge her parents?
Has the last ten years of my life been controlled by Job?”

Tuesday moved in front of him and pressed
her hand against the side of his face. “It doesn’t matter. Even if
Emma was part of the master plan, she gave you Elise. And Elise is
amazing. She loves you without question and nothing anyone has done
will ever change that fact.”

“Mr. Sinclair, can you ID these other two?”
Raeanne called. “I don’t recognize them.”

Reluctantly, they returned to the
shuttle.

Marc glanced at the pilot and shook his
head, but the copilot dragged another gasp from his throat. “That’s
Mary.”

Raeanne shook her head. “What’s her real
name?”