Winter's Scars: The Forsaken (Winter's Saga 5) (42 page)

“Well how are you going to get home if I take the bike?”

“If they interview my butt for that long, they sure as heck can give me a lift home,” Evan reassured.

Sloan frowned but pocketed the keys anyway.

They walked side-by-side toward the four-story sand-colored building nestled in downtown Cairo.  US agents would be waiting right inside the doors.

Chapter 80 US Special Agents Boyle and Garza versus Evan Winter

“Let’s start again.”  The agent who had introduced himself as Special Agent Marcus Boyle sat with his arms crossed and stared, unflinching at the fourteen-year-old sitting across the cheap particleboard desk.   A second agent had just walked into the room, pulled up a chair and flipped open her computer.

Evan rubbed his tired eyes. He’d been sitting in the same metal, foldout chair for the past two hours.  He’d told Sloan to play it safe; he was playing a different ball game entirely.  He had an agenda.

“I’ve already repeated the events twice,” Evan said, dropping his hands and staring back at the agent.

“Then you will have no problem repeating the tale you’ve already told,” the new agent quipped.  “I’m agent Rosario Garza.”  She slid a business card across the table—a courtesy Marcus Boyle neglected to demonstrate. 

Agent Boyle ran his finger across the track pad of his laptop and squinted at the screen through the stream of smoke trailing into his eyes from the cigarette held tightly between his pursed lips.

“You say you aren’t human?”

“No, I’m not, though I was born human.”  Evan sighed.  “Where is Sloan?”

“She’s still working down the hall with my associates, but if I were you, I’d worry more about what’s happening right here in this room.”

“Why should I worry?  I’ve done nothing wrong.”

The agent took a deep drag on his smoke and crushed it into the half-full ashtray beside him.

“The beginning, Mr. Winter.” Agent Garza checked the video recording device to be sure it was still running.

Resigning himself to their methods, he began again.  “Alik, Meg and I were babies at the Institute of Neurobiological Studies owned and operated by Dr. Kenneth Williams in Upland, California.  Williams hired top scientists under the guise that he was searching for a cure for autism.  We were forced to be a part of a secret project that tested the serum engineered and named “Infinite Serum” on children without the disorder.  What he found was he’d developed a way to alter the DNA of a human—to enhance them.  Make them more, or ‘meta’.” 

Evan stopped to take a deep breath and rub his hands on his jeans.  However intelligent he was and however sure of his story, sitting there and telling their previously secret story to these strangers was nerve-racking at best.

“The problem was many of his human test subjects did not survive the first week.  Alik, Meg and I were the first three who did.  Dr. Margo Pullman was assigned to the Infinite project and had just been given a tour of her new duties when she saw us.  That night, she snuck back into the Institute and stole us away.”

“Dr. Pullman kidnapped you and your siblings?” Agent Boyle’s fingers were typing notes into his laptop.

“No.  She rescued us.”  Evan’s temper flared and his scarred hand itched at the suggestion that his mom did anything but make selfless choices.

“Go on with your story, Mr. Winter.”  Agent Garza nodded encouragingly.

Evan narrowed his eyes at her.  He didn’t like the good-cop, bad-cop game he was sure they were playing.  They had no idea how brilliant he was and their feeble attempt at manipulation was incredibly patronizing.

“Dr. Margo Pullman contacted an old professor of hers.  He helped her establish a new identity not only for herself, but for us, too.  She named us and raised us as her own on a remote Texas ranch for twelve years.”

“Let’s skip to the part where your abilities become enhanced.  Can you sprout wings?  Grow gills?  Turn into a hulking green figure?”  Boyle sat back in his chair.  It objected by groaning beneath his two-hundred eighty pound mix of muscle and fat.

Evan rubbed his temples.

“Dr. St. Paul, Dr. Andrews and I studied our blood back in Hawaii where Dr. St. Paul had a private lab built onto his house.  We found a sort of countdown was happening.  At first we thought it was a countdown to our death, but we learned it was really a countdown to a sort of metamorphosis.”

“Like a butterfly?” Agent Garza was leaning in and listening intently.

“Sort of, yes.  Minus the chrysalis and wings.”

“What an idiot.  They’re called cocoons, genius.” Boyle’s meaty face smirked at Evan.

Evan just stared, jaw slightly agape.  “Is he serious?”  Evan asked the other agent in a conspirator’s whisper.

“Sadly, yes.” She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.  She hated being on assignment with Special Agent Marcus the Meathead, as he was known throughout the agency.  He was fine for duties that involved physical aggression, but should not have been given the task of interrogating a child genius.

That’s why her superiors sent her in.  She knew Meathead would be no help, and this Q&A would be all on her.  Everyone underestimated this Evan kid.  She wasn’t going to fall into the same assumptions.

Agent Garza cleared her throat and pressed forward.  “You said you helped the doctors study your blood to make this determination?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been to medical school?”

“No.”

“How did you gain the medical knowledge to research your own biology?”

“I read books.”

“Whose books?”

“My mother’s, of course.”

“You mean the woman who rescued you from the Institute?  Dr. Pullman?”

“She goes by Dr. Margo Winter.”  Evan was nodding, relieved to finally talk with someone who could at least hold an intelligent conversation.  He glanced over at Special Agent Boyle and dreamed for a moment of kicking his ass for being so annoying over the past two hours.  He forced himself to breathe. 

“Okay, Dr. Winter.  She gave you access to a medical library?”

“Yes, back at our ranch in Texas.”

“And you taught yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Is that your evolution?”

“No.”

“Well?” Boyle pretended to be hanging on his every word.

“I cannot show you my evolved gift here.”

“Of course, you can’t,” Boyle smirked.

“Why not, Evan?” Garza asked.

“Because it’s highly destructive.  I’d need an outdoor shooting range with fire extinguishers.” 

“Oh, hot damn, I’ve got to see this!” Boyle rubbed his hands together in sarcastic excitement.

“This really isn’t getting us to where we need to be, Agent Garza
,” Evan shook his head slightly.

“Isn’t it?”

“I’m going to get coffee,” Agent Boyle interrupted, standing and hulking out of the smallish room.

Evan felt much better now that the idiot who smoked like a chemical plant was gone.

Rosario Garza waited until her partner had closed the door behind him before speaking.  “Where do we need to be, Evan?”

“We need your help protecting my family.”

“Why come to us now?  It sounds as though you’ve been battling this Dr. Williams character on your own for years.  Have you ever contacted the authorities before?”

“No, ma’am.”  Evan’s head hung, shoulders slightly slumped.

“Why not?  If your story is true, it would seem like the first thing any one of you should have done.”

“We were afraid of involving the authorities.”

“Why?”

“Because of what’s happening right now.  We were sure you wouldn’t believe us, or worse…that you would and we’d be turned into lab rats again as the world studied the metahuman freaks.”

Rosario chewed on this for just a moment before asking the pivotal question.

“What changed?”

“Now we are more desperate than afraid.”

Special Agent Garza, whose specialty was psychology, problem solving and code breaking, let the child hear the echo of his own desperation reverberate off the corners of the stark interrogation room before continuing.

Chapter 81 More Than Meets the Eye

“Tell me about your sister.”  She watched the boy’s face carefully as the tension there heightened drastically. 

“Meg is about three years older than me.  Her seventeenth birthday was three days ago.”  He looked even sadder, if that was possible.

“Do you have a picture of her?”

Evan looked up at the agent with wide, red-rimmed eyes.  “Yeah, I do.”  He pulled from his front jacket pocket a four by six regular photo and put it on the table to slide toward the agent.  The agent looked carefully at the dark-haired girl sitting between Evan and another young man.  They looked as if they were laughing at something just out of the reach of the frame.  She was a beautiful girl with a wide, contagious smile.

“That’s a great picture of you three.  Is the other boy your brother?”

“Yes, that’s Alik.”

“Where is Alik now?”

Evan’s face looked tight and irritated.  “He didn’t leave an itinerary with me but he’s in the area, somewhere.”

“Does he know you and Dr. Mor have come to the authorities ‘to represent the family,’ as you previously stated?”

“Of course, he does. This was a big decision that affects all of us.  We made it together—as a family.”

“Where
is
the rest of your family, Evan?” Agent Garza knew the answer, but she wanted to show the boy she could be someone interested in the people in whom he was interested.

“Everyone’s safe except Meg.”

“But where are they?” Garza pushed.

“I’ve already told you this,” Evan glared.

“You said they’re in the vicinity.  Be more specific.”

“I have made my terms clear.  You release Dr. Mor and
me at exactly 2pm local time and we’ll be happy to see that we’ve established trust.  Two more members of the family will return tomorrow at 10am—but I’ve already said all this,” Evan narrowed his eyes.  “Why don’t we just play back the video?”

Agent Garza raised one eyebrow determinedly, giving Evan another chance to answer the question.

Evan sighed.  “Alik, Farrow, Creed, Drs. Winter and Andrews, Danny, Cole and Maze are in a safe house.  Sloan and I are here.  Our family friend Greg Burns was to meet us at the US Embassy.  Where is he?”

“Let’s get back to Meg.  What happened in Kentucky?”
Garza asked.  She had been watching through a one-way window before she even walked into this room and had heard the second telling of the story from beginning to end.  She had to admit, his detailed recollection had her wondering if he were actually telling the truth…though some of it was so far-fetched, she cringed at the thought of writing the report on this one.

“Well, Williams wasn’t working alone.  All this time we thought he was the only one hunting us, but we found out the hard way, there was another.”

Garza looked up from her keyboard to look directly at Evan, waiting for him to say a name.

“Well?  With whom was he working?” she asked anxiously, her fingers poised over the keyboard ready to type it in.

“You’re not going to believe me.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a well-known politician.”

“Of course, he is.”

Evan rubbed the bridge between his eyes. 

“Well, spill it.  If he’s well-known, finding him won’t be too difficult.”

“It’s Senator Donovan Arkdone.”

Rosario Garza’s eyes narrowed, but she kept the rest of her reaction to herself.  She’d heard of Arkdone before
, and he wasn’t always connected with the most reputable people.  She also knew of him from his time as a professor of psychological warfare.  He gave many lectures on how to interrogate effectively.  One of those lectures was attended by aspiring junior agent, Rosario Garza.

“Keep talking, Evan,” she said through gritted teeth.  Her fingers flew across her keyboard taking notes and writing questions she was planning to ask of the boy.

“The day he came to attack my family in our home, he left the remaining members to find a video recording.  At the time, we didn’t know it was designed to only play once, so no—in case you were going to ask—we don’t still have the recording.”

“What was on the recording?”

Evan shook his head slowly, “Some really sick stuff.  He confessed to being partners with Williams.  He gave a gruesome demonstration of the nanoweapon he had his engineers design just to use on us.  Once injected, the device sought out the heart.  Half were triggers, the other half explosives.  They were set up in pairs.”  Evan was staring down at the floor to the left of the peeling desk in front of him, his right hand thoughtfully rubbing his chest at the site where he still had a small, white scar.

“He was forcing my family apart because we didn’t know who was a deadly match with whom.  We were trapped in that asylum he has in his home state.  Each of us was put in a dank cell and left to watch the video ourselves, terrified out of our minds for our family members, for those we knew would come for us and wondering the whole time how much more punishment this asshole had in store for us.”