The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volume One (11 page)

With any luck,
he thought desperately,
the lady scientist will blame her own psychotic kitty for messing up her clothes.
At least that’s what he wanted to assume; the alternative meant going back into that hellhole again.

His meaty hand hovered over the doorknob as he briefly debated reentering the American’s room. The electronic
bing
of an elevator stopping farther down the hall, followed by the sound of approaching footsteps, made his decision for him.

“Stupid cat!” he grumbled beneath his breath, striding away from Room 11-G and its loathsome feline guardian. Chrysalis definitely owed him for this job, big time. His leg and his face competed to see which could hurt more. “Hell—ouch—damn!”

* * *

[62]
“Excuse me,” Takagi said, looking at his watch. “I have to make a quick phone call. It’ll only take a minute, I promise.”

Roberta watched the Japanese biochemist exit the lounge. Curiously, he ignored an available pay phone right by the door, apparently preferring to make his call elsewhere. Roberta sighed; sadly, that was the most suspicious thing Takagi had done all evening.

She toyed impatiently with a plastic straw, tying it into a bow. So far her rendezvous with the good-looking young scientist had been a total bust, at least as far as her undercover mission was concerned. Despite her gentle prompting, Takagi had confined their conversation to small talk—and a one-way exchange of information. Under the guise of casual chitchat, he’d grilled her about the particulars of her personal life: friends, family, marital status, etc. Roberta had done her best to sound promisingly unattached, but couldn’t help wondering if this was just a pickup after all.

No
, she assured herself. Her instincts and intuition, what she called her “vibe detector,” told her that she was on the right track. Takagi was mixed up in something big, she knew it. Why else would he have her tailed all day? And what about that extremely hush-hush project he’d alluded to on the Spanish Steps?
Let’s not give up just yet,
she resolved.
Rome wasn’t infiltrated in a day
. ...

Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” was playing loudly over the bar’s sound system when Takagi returned a few minutes later. “Sorry about that,” he shouted over the music. Rather than climbing back onto his stool, he glanced around the smoke-filled bar, which had begun to empty out as both conventioneers and natives drifted away in search of a typically late Roman dinner. “Are you hungry?” he asked her. “Why don’t we go someplace else?”

Roberta thought she detected something new and more assertive in Takagi’s manner, as though he’d reached an important decision during his brief absence.
Have I passed some sort of test?
she speculated. If so, she had no idea how she’d done so, but she wasn’t about to look a gift biochemist in the mouth. “Sounds great,” she said, playing it by ear. “I saw a nice little restaurant earlier, down by the Fountain of Trevi.”

[63]
Takagi shook his head. “I know someplace better. Less touristy. More private.”

This is sounding more and more promising,
she thought.
Maybe we’re finally getting somewhere.

Then again, it could always be a trap.

Wherever Takagi was leading her, it was definitely off the beaten track. Leaving the larger and more frequented avenues behind, they wandered through a bewildering maze of back alleys and side streets until Roberta was thoroughly lost. Occasionally, she caught a glimpse of the Colosseum in the distance, its imposing, floodlighted facade providing at least one unmistakable landmark to navigate by, but Roberta doubted that she could retrace her path back to the hotel even if her life depended on it—which could be exactly what Takagi intended.

“Er, are you sure we’re in the right neighborhood?” she asked doubtfully, seeing no reason to conceal her apprehension. No doubt “Veronica Neary,” if she actually existed, would find their current surroundings just as nervous-making. Italian graffiti, ranging from the political to the obscene, festooned the narrow walls and shuttered back windows of the latest dismal little alley Litter spilled over from dented trash barrels onto the rough, uneven pavement. Greasy puddles reflected the glow of a solitary streetlamp that seemed far too distant, not to mention wildly inadequate to the task of lighting the alley as much as Roberta would have liked. Horns blared several blocks away, but the alley itself was eerily silent and deserted. As inconspicuously as possible, she fished her servo out of her handbag, clutching the silver pen tightly between her fingers.

“Don’t worry,” Takagi said confidently. Roberta found it unfair, and more than a little annoying, that he wasn’t also afraid for his life. “We’re almost there.”

“There” turned out to be a hole-in-the-wall trattoria located in the basement beneath a shut-down auto repair shop. A sign hanging in the doorway said
CHIUSO
,
Italian for “closed,” but Roberta spotted a glimmer of light coming through a glass pane in the basement door. Ignoring the handprinted sign, Takagi hiked down a short flight of cement
[64]
steps and knocked on the door. “It’s me,” he called out, his voice seeming to echo in the lonely side street. “Takagi.”

The door opened a crack, and a flashlight (or was it a candle?) shined on Takagi’s face. A moment later, Roberta heard a chain rattling and the door swung inward, revealing little more than the shadowy entrance to the restaurant. “Here we are,” Takagi said cheerfully, looking back at Roberta, who hurried down the steps to join him.

Once inside, after ducking her head to get through the low doorway, she thought the nameless restaurant looked surprisingly cozy—in a run-down, uninhabited, closed-by-the-health-department sort of way. Checkered tablecloths covered about a half-dozen empty tables, maybe a third of which had lighted candles sitting atop them, glowing like small islands of illumination cast adrift in a pitch-black sea. As far as she could tell, there was only one other customer present, a lone figure sitting in the far corner of the basement, his face hiding outside the feeble radiance of his candle, perhaps deliberately.

Who?
Roberta wondered.
And why doesn’t he want to be seen?

“Okay, this is just too weird,” she exclaimed, figuring some sort of freaked-out reaction was called for. She gazed about the vacant trattoria with open perplexity, her wide eyes failing to penetrate the nocturnal murk concealing much of the restaurant. “Don’t tell me we’ve got this whole place to ourselves?”

“Sort of,” Takagi admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “Come over here, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Who? Deep Throat?” she asked. So far, no one had asked them for their password yet, but that was about the only thing missing from this whole cloak-and-dagger scenario. “The Watergate snitch, I mean. Not the porn movie.”

A raspy chuckle emerged from the gloom-shrouded figure in the corner. “I am afraid, young lady, that neither description applies to me,” said an elderly-sounding voice with a distinct Eastern European accent. Takagi guided Roberta to the rear table and they sat down opposite the other man. Her eyes strained to penetrate the event horizon of the enveloping shadows, but his features were still difficult to discern.

“This is Dr. Fyodor Leonov, my colleague and mentor,” Takagi
[65]
explained, gesturing toward the stranger. Roberta didn’t recognize the name from her recent research, but that wasn’t too surprising; she could hardly be expected to have memorized the name of every scientist working in the field of genetic engineering. “Dr. Leonov, this is Veronica Neary, of the University of Washington.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Doctor,” Leonov greeted Roberta, bowing his head slightly in her direction. The candlelight provided a glimpse of thinning, snow-white hair. “Walter speaks highly of you.”

A waiter, unsmiling and cadaverous in appearance, approached them from beside the front entrance and silently handed out a trio of shabby, laminated menus before retreating into the kitchen area. “Please feel free to order whatever appeals to you,” Leonov stated. “The dinner is atop me.”

“On me,” Takagi corrected him.

“Yes, of course.
On me.
My apologies.” The older scientist had a courtly, avuncular manner that Roberta found charming. He spoke slowly and deliberately, but without excess formality. “My English, I fear it is not so good.” He glanced over at the swinging metal door that led to the kitchen. “We may speak freely, though. The staff here speaks English not at all.”

“Why so hush-hush?” Roberta asked.

“Our work is not without controversy,” Leonov said solemnly, “as I am sure you must know.” As her eyes gradually adjusted to the dim lighting, Roberta saw that Leonov was wearing a dark suit and tie, as well as a pair of spectacles. She got the vague impression that he was in his sixties or seventies. “Walter tells me, however, that you are quite an advocate for exploring the full potential of new breakthroughs in genetic manipulation.”

“Oh yes!” she gushed, much as she had earlier with Takagi. “The possibilities are just astounding. Cracking the genetic code opens up all kinds of new opportunities in medicine and human development. I firmly believe that we’re on the verge of a social and scientific transformation that will make the Industrial Revolution seem like a minor hiccup.”

“Me neither,” Leonov agreed, not quite getting the expression right.
[66]
“It is good to meet a young person with such enthusiasm for the future.” A rueful tone entered his voice. “Those of us who have lived through the ... upsets ... of this century can only hope that the generations that follow us will know a safer, saner world.”

Oddly enough, Roberta thought that Leonov sounded a bit like Gary Seven, who frequently opined that modern-day humans had not yet lived up to their full potential. “Oh, I’m sure they will,” she insisted. “You can’t stop progress.”

She didn’t even need to fake her optimism. Having actually met a couple of very likable individuals from at least one possible future, she had a lot more confidence these days that the human race might actually—what was that phrase again?—oh yeah, live long and prosper.

Assuming Seven and I don’t screw things up, of course.

Their zombified waiter reappeared to take their orders, although his drawn, emaciated countenance hardly filled her with confidence regarding the restaurant’s cuisine. She struggled with the menu (her automatic translator no help when it came to printed material), but eventually ordered the spaghetti with clam sauce. She declined any wine, however, wanting to keep her wits about her. Were Takagi and his so-called mentor buying any of this?

Apparently so, since Leonov leaned forward to smile at Roberta, bringing his face within the scope of the candlelight for the first time. “American courage and optimism at its finest,” he said approvingly. “A most admirable trait, especially for a scientist.”

Roberta’s eyes nearly bugged out once she got a glimpse of the man’s face.
Oh my goodness!
she thought, her poker face slamming into place.
Keep your cool,
her brain screamed.
Don’t give yourself away.

She had good reason to be excited, though. The man sitting across the table, whom Takagi claimed was somebody named Leonov, was actually Dr. Viktor Lozinak, a celebrated Ukrainian geneticist who had vanished from sight over a year ago. As far as Seven and the Beta 5 had been able to determine, Lozinak’s whereabouts had been unknown to both the American and Soviet authorities since he disappeared from his modest dacha in Kiev last fall.

Roberta had no doubts. There was no mistaking the thoughtful
[67]
brown eyes behind the man’s bifocals. Wisps of snow-white hair lay flat atop the elderly man’s cranium, just as they did in the grainy photograph tucked away in a folder in Roberta’s hotel room. Now that she was looking for it, she even noticed a slender wooden cane, of the sort Lozinak reportedly used, leaning against the older scientist’s chair.
You can’t fool me, Doctor,
Roberta thought triumphantly
I’ve got your number.

It occurred to her that Lozinak certainly didn’t look as though he had been kidnapped against his will; perhaps all those missing scientists had their own reasons for dropping out of sight?

“Oh, I’m sure we Americans haven’t got a monopoly on positive attitudes,” she commented lightly, aiming to return the compliment. “I bet there are plenty of gung-ho researchers back in the Ukraine.”

Lozinak blinked in surprise and Roberta realized she had made a mistake. He leaned back into his chair, putting a little more distance between him and Roberta. His eyes narrowed as he peered at the American woman through his glasses.

“How do you know I am Ukrainian?” he asked her, not in a hostile way but clearly more interested in her answer than maybe he should be. He exchanged a worried glance with Takagi, who looked somewhat baffled and caught off guard by the edgy turn the conversation had taken, as innocuous as it seemed to be.

Roberta kicked herself mentally. “Just a lucky guess,” she improvised. “I dated a Ukrainian guy in college once, when I was a freshman.”
Is he buying this?
she wondered, sweating beneath her increasingly clingy dress. “Your accent sounds a little like his.”

“Ah,” Lozinak replied. He mulled her explanation over for a heartbeat or so, then appeared to relax to a degree. He slid his chair closer to the table, coming back into the constricted circle of light. “I see.”