Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(64)

Dr. Anthony Frell, the chairman of the Henderson House Foundation, was on the right, rising from his chair and extending his hand in greeting. It was a gesture Stephenson ignored, turning his hawkish gaze on the man seated in the center.

He was Hispanic, his dark hair worn shoulder length, his mouth outlined with a Fu Manchu style mustache and beard. The man's expression was one of thinly masked aggression, a look that was matched by the large man standing to the left. Jorge Esteban Espe?osa, the leader of the largest Colombian drug cartel, never went anywhere without his personal bodyguard.

Dr. Stephenson did not bother to sit down. "This meeting does not please me."

Espe?osa leaned back in his chair, bringing his booted feet up to rest on the table. "And I don't give a shit."

The drug lord extracted a cigar from his jacket pocket, snipping the end with a small cigar cutter. Striking a match on the side of his embroidered cowboy boot, Espe?osa drew in several puffs, blowing the smoke out in Dr. Stephenson's direction.

"It seems to me that you need a little lesson in who you are dealing with." Espe?osa smiled. "Don't get me wrong. The doses of the nanite formula you provided for me are most acceptable. But somehow, you seem to have gotten the notion that you can command me. Nobody commands Jorge Espe?osa. Comprende?”

Espe?osa exhaled another large puff of smoke, bringing his feet off the table and leaning forward. "And I don't like the inflated price you’re charging for the formula. It cuts into my profits."

At a nod from the cartel boss, the bodyguard moved around the table, taking up a position just behind and to the left of Dr. Stephenson.

"It's bad for business. I'm sure you understand that." Espe?osa rolled the end of the cigar over his tongue, savoring the rich taste of the Cuban leaf. "So, from now on, I’m going to set the price. All I have to do is let word of our arrangement leak out and your government would kill you for me. Don't forget whose cajones are in the vice."

Dr. Stephenson's face showed no sign of emotion.

Suddenly, the bodyguard screamed, a sound that brought Espe?osa to his feet and sent Dr. Frell scrambling back into the far corner.

The bodyguard staggered forward, falling to his knees as his fingers clawed at his face, his fingernails ripping out large chunks of flesh. As the man looked up at his boss, his brown eyes exploded like grapes squeezed in a press, squirting out of their sockets in twin jets that splattered the front of the drug lord's shirt.

"Madre de Dios!" Espe?osa gasped as he staggered away from the dying man.

The bodyguard screamed again, a sound that degenerated into a gargle as his bones dissolved beneath his skin. Within seconds, the only thing that remained of what had once been a human being was a stinking, wet mess on the beautiful hardwood floor.

Both Dr. Frell and Jorge Esteban Espe?osa remained frozen in place, unable to speak, their backs pressed firmly against the bookcase.

Dr. Stephenson stepped forward, his eyes locking with Espe?osa’s.

"I don't think I will be accepting your terms."

As he turned and began to walk from the room, Dr. Stephenson stopped to look back.

"By the way, if anything unfortunate happens to me or should I become displeased, then you have just seen a glimpse of your future. But your death will take considerably longer."

Moving out into the grand foyer, Dr. Stephenson paused momentarily, his eyes studying the spiral staircase, as if for the first time.

It really was a thing of beauty.





67


There were worse places than North Dakota. At least Darnell Freeman imagined that there must be. As much as he hated the FBI office to which he had been assigned after the Los Alamos debacle, the idea that somebody out there must have an even worse assignment gave him some sense of solace. Someday he'd have to check the directory to see just what those worse places were. The only reason he hadn't done it already was the lurking fear that he wouldn't find any.

Freeman drove his car up his driveway and parked under the carport. He stepped out into the wave of summer heat. Shit. Who would have imagined that it could get so hot this far north? Even the sun sinking behind the western horizon, bathing the sky in red, had not yet yielded any relief. No doubt six months from now he would look back longingly on this heat wave, but right now it sucked.

Freeman found the house key, wiggling it around in the old door lock until the dead bolt finally turned. Another thing he was going to have to fix. By the time he had closed the door and made his way into the living room, Freeman had already removed his sweat-dampened shirt, tossing it over the back of the La-Z-Boy as he flipped on the television. Walking into the kitchen, he opened the old Maytag refrigerator, filled a glass with unsweetened iced tea, then turned back toward the living room and his beloved recliner.

The knife slid into his stomach as he turned. The shock of pain curled him into a fetal ball as the glass fell from his fingers to shatter on the kitchen floor.

A powerful hand arrested his fall, gripping Freeman by the throat and slamming him back against the wall. Too weak with shock to struggle, pinned by the knife twisting in his gut and by the hand at his throat, Freeman's vision narrowed. Into that straw's eye view a vaguely familiar face swam toward him. As the last of his consciousness faded, Darnell Freeman suddenly recognized it. The face of Satan, welcoming him into hell.

Releasing his grip, the dark figure let the rapidly dying FBI man slip to the floor, then bent over him to draw something in magic marker on Freeman's forehead. Straightening up once again, the killer paused for just a moment. Then, as quickly as he had appeared, the shadowy figure was gone.