Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(69)

“I don’t want to hear excuses,” Osterman fumed. “I don’t understand why they aren’t just dead, damnit.”

“I don’t get it.” Gordon’s voice was a rasp of frustration. “I waited on a rock right over that goddamn road. I was going to take them out when they came down, but they never did. That road dead-ends on Garnier Crest. I checked. The only way out of that place was down. They must have taken his truck off-road, or maybe they—”

“I was paying you to think about all that before the job,” Osterman fumed. “You should have put a bullet through her eye.”

“That wouldn’t have been in character,” Gordon said grumpily. “That’s what a professional does. Not a sexually obsessed maniac.”

“Yes, and you identify so intimately with the role, hmm? You have no end of excuses for wallowing in your trough. You medicated yourself before you picked her up, too, didn’t you? I can tell from your stink.”

“I wanted to be sharp,” Gordon muttered. “I took some ZX-44.”

“It’s supposed to give you an edge in a high-stress situation,” Osterman lectured. “You may as well have popped barbiturates.”

“I didn’t think McCloud was going to turn up out of nowhere—”

“You didn’t think at all.” Osterman swabbed and bandaged as quickly as possible, trying not to inhale. “You stopped thinking a while ago. You are degenerating. As of now, our contract is null and void.”

“Shut the f*ck up, Chris.” Gordon swiveled his head around. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot, the lids puffy. His face was beaded with cold sweat. “There are lots of reasons to reconsider that decision. Most of them I don’t have to say out loud. Like how popular you’d be in prison with that pretty face of yours, for instance.”

“You can’t expose me without incriminating yourself.” Osterman’s body was gripped with tension. His worst nightmare was coming true. Held hostage by a crazed, malodorous thug.

It made him so angry. That he, a gifted scientist who had given so much to humanity, who had given up all hope of a personal life, who had poured all his strength into selfless work to improve the quality of peoples’ lives, should be forced to deal with such filth. Such squalor.

He braced himself. “You’ve gone beyond any reasonable—”

“But the most important reason is one you don’t know yet.” Gordon’s voice took on an oily, insinuating tone.

Osterman set his teeth. “And what might that be?”

“I once heard you say that you made more progress in your research in those four days that you had Kevin strapped to your examining table than the rest of your entire career. Before or since.”

“I fail to see how that is relevant to—”

“The most promising lines of research. The most innovative product designs and ideas.” Gordon’s grin froze, as it pulled at the blood-spotted gauze taped to his cheek. “And you never had so much fun in your life than you did dicking around with that freak’s overdeveloped brain. You were on fire. You played him like a fine instrument.”

“Make your point, and be done with it,” Osterman snarled.

“One,” Gordon held up a thick finger. “Back off on the lectures about self-indulgence. Two,” he waggled another finger, “consider this before you have me waste Sean McCloud. He’s Kevin’s identical twin.”

Osterman’s breath froze in his lungs. “Identical…”

“Yes.” One side of Gordon’s lip curved up, in a grotesque smirk. “Are you still sure you want me to turn that brain into a bucket of pink slop before you have a chance to play with it? Think about it, Chris. An exact, identical genetic copy of your favorite toy.”

Osterman stared at him, his palms sweating. “Why didn’t you tell me he was Kevin’s twin?”

Gordon shrugged. “I didn’t know ’til now. They didn’t play up the resemblance. Sean was behind Kevin in school, because Kevin kept skipping forward and Sean kept getting expelled. I found out they were twins when I questioned the girl. When I checked my obit collection—”

“Keeping a string of scalps on your Palm Pilot is a disgusting, twisted, barbaric practice,” Osterman cut in. “Dangerous, too.”

“Sure enough,” Gordon pushed stubbornly on, “the obit said ‘survived by brothers Davy McCloud, aged 27, Connor McCloud, aged 25, and Sean McCloud, aged 21.’ Same age as Kevin. Take a look at the photographs from their file. If you study them, you can see it.”

Osterman stared at the wall, clenching down on an excitement so intense, it was like sexual lust. “I want him alive,” he said hoarsely.

He could feel Gordon’s triumphant smile behind his back.

“All right,” the other man purred. “You can strap down McCloud and play your dirty games, and I’ll have my fun with the girl. Everybody gets their rocks off. Deal?”

Osterman gave him a short nod. He swallowed the excess saliva that was pumping into his mouth. He was trembling with eagerness.

“I’ll need to hire some backup,” Gordon said.

“Of course. It’s clear you can’t handle him alone.”

Gordon’s eyes sharpened. “I thought you wanted me to play it safe,” he said slowly. “To cover your ass. To cover Helix’s soft, pimply white corporate ass, too. If you want me to go mano a mano with that crazy f*cker, I’ll do it. But you’d be rolling the dice right along with me. The guy’s extremely dangerous. And he’ll be on his guard.”