Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(85)

Hobart hesitated. King exerted effort not to call Hobart’s Level Ten command sequences and make him stop using oxygen he did not deserve to breathe, since he had no brain cells to nourish.

“She was at the Justice Center, at Southwest Third Avenue,” Hobart said. “Her tag is moving now. I imagine she’s being transported to the county medical examiner.”

Another body in the ME’s office, keeping Reggie, Cal, Tomartin company. No way to clean up. No damage control. Again.

“Show me the satellite shot over Zoe again,” he said.

Waving conifers filled the screen. King stared at them in silence, as if he could find some pattern, some plan in the wintry forest.

Then he saw it. A torso, barely visible in camo fabric, emerging from under an overhanging cliff. Crawling out onto tumbled rocks.

Zoe struggled to her feet, stumbled toward the creek, and waded into the water. King winced as she lost her balance, splashing full length. She struggled upright, swaying. Lifting her face to the sky, her big, dark eyes imploring. She held the com. She lifted it to her ear.

“Patch her through to me,” he commanded.

The sound quality changed. He heard the static buzz, and beyond, birds, water, wind rushing in the device’s microphone.

“Zoe?” he asked, and then yelled. “Zoe! Do you hear me?”

“I’m ready.” Zoe’s voice was barely audible, a froglike croak.

“Ready for what?” he snapped, irritated.

She blinked up at the sky. “I failed you,” she said. “I’m ready.” She closed her eyes, waiting for her Level Ten death command.

The martyred look on Zoe’s ravaged face made King’s teeth grind. As if she could have it so easy. Watching Zoe die was a luxury he could not afford. For now. “No, Zoe,” he said sharply. “Get out of the water.”

She gaped at him, stupidly. It infuriated him. The one tool he had on the ground was blue-lipped, standing in icy water like a shit-brained lump. “Move, Zoe,” he commanded. “You must fix this.”

She stepped forward, fell to her knees. Icy water sloshed over her chest, her shoulder. She half crawled, half swam to the bank. Hold the com to your ear, bitch. Do it. She crawled onto the rocks, lifted the phone. Her ragged panting became audible.

“Zoe, listen to me.” He used the deep voice he’d assumed in DeepWeave audio, which Zoe had absorbed for hours every day as a child. “Take out the Melimitrex and inject it into your thigh.”

He was repeating instructions that had been drilled into her already, but he needed any excuse to keep her bound to the sound of his voice. Her hands shook violently, but she managed to pry the syringe out of the foam case. She flicked a drop from the needle. Tap, tap. She’d worked as a nurse, after all. She stabbed it into her thigh, through the waterlogged cloth, and flung her head back, baring her teeth.

He watched her vital signs. Melimitrex VIII was always a gamble, albeit a better one than it had been in the previous seven generations of the drug. It was the result of decades of trial and error. Calibrated to the individual’s height, weight, and body chemistry, each dose stimulated the glands with a brutal kick. Other components included a powerful painkiller and a mood enhancer similar to cocaine. He only administered that drug in the most dire of circumstances. Its success rate hovered around 60 percent. The fate of the unlucky 40 percent, well, suffice to say that it was painful to watch, and blessedly short.

Not that he had any choice. Zoe would be unconscious in minutes without an intervention. He saw the moment that the drug started to work. Her breathing deepened, her heart rate steadied.

She flung her head toward the sky again, nostrils flaring. Trust Zoe to make a fuss and carry on as if she were on stage.

He made his voice solicitous. “Do you feel better, my dear?”

“Oh, yes,” she told him. “I feel wonderful now.”

“Excellent. Listen, Zoe. I will recite a verse to you now. It will give you strength to do it. Are you ready?”

“Yes.” Her voice quivered with emotion. “Oh, yes. Please.”

He slowly recited Zoe’s Level Ten endurance verses. King was very proud of his Level Ten endurance commands. They unlocked hidden reserves of energy and mental acuity, releasing endorphins that had the same effect as a passionate emotion. The strength one read about in Reader’s Digest articles, say, an eighty-year-old crone lifting a car off her stricken grandchild. But what was the difference between chemically simulated passion and real passion? Nothing. It was all chemistry.

“Listen carefully,” he told her. “Go to the vehicle, and—”

“I have no weapons,” Zoe blurted. “They disarmed me. Ranieri—”

“Is gone,” he cut in. “Ranieri is no longer your concern. They rolled the vehicle off the road. Take what you can carry, hide the rest. Hide Hal’s, Jeremy’s, and Manfred’s bodies as best you can. I don’t want them found before our cleanup crew arrives. Mark the spot with a tag. We’ll calculate the best route for you to the rendezvous point. No one will be able to meet you for a few hours yet.” On account of your bad planning, you cretin.

She hemmed and hawed. “But what . . . but I—”

“You must be strong, Zoe,” he told her. “When the extraction team comes to get you, they will put you on a plane and bring you to me.”