The Proteus Cure (45 page)

“I know what you’ve done. You’ve lied, you’ve killed, you’ve even tried to have me killed. And now you’ve sunk to kidnapping and threatening a child! Where is he?”

He flinched.

“Have you gone mad?” he said. “Where did this insanity come from—that madman Rosko?”

“No. I put it together myself—Mister Swann. And I know you’re trying to lure Paul here by threatening his son.” She shook her head. “How could you have sunk so low?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re—”

“Where is he? Stop this madness and take me to him. Don’t add a child’s death to your list of crimes. Take me to him, let me take him home, and then turn yourself in.”

He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“If not for me, do it for Abra. Or is she as guilty as you?”

His eyes flashed. “Don’t you dare insult my sister! She knows nothing but the good parts. I’ve shielded her from the rest.”

Thank God. She was safe. And not the monster that Bill was.

At least he’d stopped the denials.

“You need help, Bill. Please. Before it’s too late.”

Bill grabbed something off his desktop and pointed it at her.

A gun.

Sheila’s already dry mouth turned to sand. She’d never dreamed she’d live to see a gun pointed at her, and by Bill Gilchrist of all people.

“It’s already too late.”

She took an involuntary step back. “You wouldn’t.”

“You haven’t left me much choice.” He waggled the barrel toward the door. “Let’s go for a little walk, shall we?”

Sheila could sense what was coming. Coog was probably already dead and she was next. But she put on a brave face.

“No. You won’t shoot me here.”

“Why not? The building’s empty.”

“Well, then …” Her voice choked off. “Go ahead. Do it here. Now. You’re going to do it anyway. You can’t let me live, so get it over with.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Sheila.”

She didn’t believe that for a nanosecond, but he seemed anxious to get her out of his office. Why? Was Paul nearby?

When she didn’t move he added, “But if you don’t turn around and walk, I
will
shoot you. In the knees. And then I’ll have to carry you out. I don’t feel up to that, so let’s not play games.
Walk
!”

Sheila twisted her lips into a snarl. “You’re despicable.”

And so she turned—

And ran.

•

Paul reached the building and hopped out of the dinghy.

Cold
… God, the water was cold. He sloshed toward the Admin’s front door, reached for the handle, then stopped. Water puddled against its lower edge. If he opened the door, it would cascade in along with him.

He backed up and looked around the side of the building. The area above the small rise hadn’t flooded yet. He ran around to the other entrance and opened the door as quietly as possible. He eased inside and padded to the edge of the vestibule where he peeked into the hallway—

—and saw Gilchrist disappearing into the door to the stairwell.

Gotcha.

•

Bill dashed into the tunnel and looked around. Sheila’s flight had taken him so by surprise that he’d lost precious time. He caught sight of her splashing around the corner. He took two quick steps after her but stopped when he heard the elevator whine.

Oh, hell. Who could that be?

Who else would come to the Admin tunnels today of all days?

Rosko? Had he arrived early?

He raised the pistol and flattened himself against the wall. As soon as Rosko stepped out …

Come on. Let’s get this over with.

But when the doors opened, no one stepped out. Pistol at the ready, he stepped away from the wall for a look inside.

“No tricks, Rosko. I’m ready for you.”

But the car was empty.

“What the—?”

He sensed movement behind him, the door from the stairwell swinging open. Before he could turn and bring his pistol to bear, a mass of human fury hit him like a Mack truck

Rosko!

Bill was slammed against the wall. He heard a bone crack as a blaze of pain shot through his shoulder—his clavicle.

Rosko was on him, a raging bull, pummeling him with fierce crushing blows. He tried to raise the pistol but Rosko knocked his arm down.

“Shen! Help me!
Shen!
”

Please let him hear me.

And then Rosko grabbed the gun. He began twisting it from Bill’s hand.

No! That was the only hope he had against this maniac. Fear sent shock waves through his body, giving him a surge of strength that allowed him to wrest the pistol partially free. He snaked his finger onto the trigger. All he needed was to angle the muzzle a few more inches.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shen step into the tunnel, take one look, then break into a run. Thank God.

“Shen! Stop him!”

Bill smiled. He had Rosko now. Shen was almost upon them. He’d distract him enough so that Bill could—

Rosko banged against his finger, depressing the trigger. The gun went off, the report deafening.

Shen stopped, clutching his chest, a look of pain and shock on his wide-eyed face as he crumpled to the floor and lay still.

Oh God. I shot him!

Rosko’s grip slackened for a second—he had to be as surprised as Bill—and Bill saw his opportunity. He angled the barrel and—

A fist slammed against his nose, flattening it with a loud
crunch.
Dazed, he loosened his grip on the pistol and felt it wrenched from his hand.

Metal smashed against his head. He gasped with the excruciating pain. Rosko was screaming like an animal but the words didn’t penetrate. Something about
Where’s my son? Where’s my boy?

Bill would tell him—tell him anything to make him stop—but the madman wouldn’t wait for an answer.

Another blow to his head. This time the pain didn’t register quite so much.

Another blow and he barely felt it as consciousness slipped away. Bill seemed outside himself.

He’s killing me, he thought with a strange detachment. Make him stop. Someone please make him stop.

•

Sheila heard angry voices echoing behind her, then a shot. She’d been fleeing toward the hospital to get help from the few security men who had made it in, but the sound stopped her in her tracks.

Paul?

She turned and ran back, expecting to find him lying in a heap.

On the way she made out his voice, a strangled angry cry.

“Where’s my son?” His rage and anguish echoed down the hall. “Where’s my boy?”

When she finally arrived she saw Paul on top of Bill, bashing his head with a pistol.

Oh my God, he’ll kill him!

“Stop it! Paul, stop!”

She dove for him and grabbed his arm. She saw a maniacal look on his when he spotted her, but only for a second, then recognition drove it from his eyes. He relaxed enough for her to take the bloody gun from his hand and drop it on the floor.

She softened her voice. “Stop it, okay? He’s had enough.”

Paul stared up at her, the rage draining from his face. He looked grateful to be stopped. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her shoulder.

“Sheila, you’re all right?”

She stroked his hair, thankful she’d come back. Bill wasn’t moving but was breathing. He wasn’t dead. She started as she saw another body crumpled on the floor beyond them. Shen Li?

She tugged on Paul’s arm. “Come on. Get off him. He’s not going anywhere.”

“Where’s my son?” he asked Bill again.

But Bill wasn’t going to be saying anything for a while.

Paul held his arm firmly around her, protecting her. Sheila was relieved that he wasn’t one of the figures on the floor.

Just then the familiar figure of a wizened woman with withered legs rolled down the tunnel in a wheelchair.

“What’s going on here, Sheila? What’s happened to my brother?” She moved over to Bill, leaning over to touch his blood-soaked head. “Dear God, what have to done to my Billy?”

“I’m sorry, Abra,” Sheila said, partly out of reflex, partly out of grief for what Bill had allowed himself to become.

“Who’s this?” Paul said.

“Doctor Abra Gilchrist. She’s the other half of Tethys. Bill’s sister.” She pointed to Paul. “Abra, this is Paul Rosko.”

Abra’s hand shot to her mouth. “The man accused of killing Doctor Kaplan. What have you done to Billy?” Abra looked back and forth between Paul and Sheila. “And why?”

“I think you know why.” It broke Sheila’s heart to have to say those words.

The little women bowed her head and sobbed. “I fear I do.”

“Then in God’s name why didn’t you stop him?”

“I didn’t know! I only put it together this morning!” She glared at Paul. Her China-blue eyes were rimmed with red. “But you had no right to beat him half to death!”

Before either responded Abra picked up her cell phone and started to dial.

“Don’t you move. I’m calling the police.”

“Good,” Paul said. “Then they can take you away for murder and kidnapping too.”

Her finger poised above the number pad.

“Me? Kidnapping? What are you talking about?” She looked genuinely shocked. “I said,
what
are you talking about?”

Sheila rubbed Paul’s arm to calm him. Looking at Abra now, so confused … Sheila had no doubt that Bill had kept her in the dark about his deadly activities.

But that didn’t get her off the hook for the genetic crimes of Proteus.

•

Abra stared at these two people and tried to grasp the situation. Her brother Billy, the person she loved more than life, lay on the floor, his head a bloody lump.

She recognized the other body as Shen Li, their head of security. A stream of blood leaked out of his chest.

She noticed a pistol a few inches from her brother’s twitching hands. Who had shot Shen—Billy or this puffing bull of a man, red-faced and crazed?

If she could have, she would have leapt upon him and beaten him the way he’d beaten Billy. But she knew too well her limitations.

Rosko gestured to Billy on the floor. “Your brother kidnapped my son. Used him to lure me here so he could kill me like the others.”

She’d suspected the worst of Billy and now this confirmed it.

She looked up at him. “What do you want?”

“I want my son, what do you think? Your precious Billy kidnapped him from Sheila’s house. Threatened to kill him. Where is he?”

“I have no idea.”

He started for her but Sheila grabbed him.

“Stop. I doubt she knows anything. Look at her. She’s been out of the loop in all of this.”

“Thank you, Sheila.”

She had hoped to salvage some of her relationship with Sheila, but with all that had happened … things could never be the same.

“How
could
she be?” Rosko yelled. “She heads up Tethys. She knows
something
.” He stepped toward her, shrugging off Sheila’s hold. “My boy! Where is he? If he’s been hurt—”

Abra’s hand’s clenched her chair. What was he going to do to her? He sounded like a broken record. Did he think repeating the question would help?

“I don’t know! If I did I’d tell you!”

Shen moaned before Paul reached her.

Abra turned to him, now lying on his side down the hall, his blood puddle spreading. She had forgotten all about poor Shen. He reached up and pointed to an open doorway.

“Boy in there.”

Just then Abra heard a boom like a cannon shot, followed by a gurgling roar. She looked back down the tunnel and saw a foaming wall of water rushing toward them.

It could only mean that one of the tunnels had collapsed. God save her, the river was rushing in.

Abra tried to reverse her wheelchair but the icy water surged over her, covering her, shorting it out.

The shock of cold was almost as numbing as the realization that she was going to die. Terrified, grief stricken about Billy, she closed her eyes.

Better perhaps to die, she thought. Maybe better now to let go and not face the truth of what Billy had become.

Then she felt a hand grab her wrist.

•

Sheila fought the rushing water and pulled Abra from her chair—her body was so light, like a child’s. In the old woman’s eyes she saw fear and heartbreak. Sheila felt it too. Seeing everything she’d worked for and believed in washed away.

Couldn’t let her die here. She managed to pull her up onto the steps. As soon as Sheila was sure she wouldn’t tumble back in, she ran back to the torrent. No sign of Bill or Shen Li. Gone, washed away. Where was Paul?

“Paul!” she shouted. “
Paul
!”

“In here!”

She looked up and down the tunnel. In where? Then she heard him again, off to her right.

“In here!” His voice sounded strained. “I need help!”

She spotted the door that Shen had indicated. He had to be there. She jumped into the frigid surge and stroked toward the monitoring room. A renewed sense of disgust toward Bill and Shen filled her when she recalled the last time she was in this room.

As she entered she saw Paul struggling with a chair. What was he doing?

Then she saw Coog—gagged and bound to it. Paul was fighting to keep Coog’s head above water.

Sheila stood frozen, shocked, trying to ignore the aching numbness in her legs as she searched for a way to help.

Paul grunted. “The chair’s too heavy to move and I can’t hold him up and untie the knots at the same time! Can you get to them?”

She could try. Her brain rebelled but she took a breath and forced herself to duck underwater. Pain from the cold blasted through her head like a hammer blow. Couldn’t give into it … Coog’s only hope …

Sheila could barely see. Had to go by touch. She found a rope and followed it to a knot. Her frozen fingers felt thick and clumsy. Like bratwursts. She forced them to work at the knots. So hard. Damn fingers weren’t cooperating.

She started getting dizzy, felt the world closing in around her. Needed air, needed warmth, but she couldn’t stop now. Almost there … she felt a loop come free. She pulled on it, felt the knot fall apart, and then she was pushing her head out of the water to gasp some air.