Lost and Found (Masters & Mercenaries: The Forgotten #2)(15)

He eased into the limo, the nausea more than a mere possibility now. Bile rose hard and fast, and he only barely managed to swallow it down. “My father always has a mistress. My mother doesn’t care. No one does. Don’t you think if I could unseat the man, I would? But no one prioritizes morals anymore as long as the foundation brings in money and continues to be respected. The cancer team won a Nobel Prize last year. Do you honestly believe the fact that my father cheats will overshadow his recruiting abilities?”

The door closed behind him. He didn’t see a weapon on the man, but the very fact that he knew about his plot to regain his position was far more frightening than any weapon that could be used against him.

The mystery man offered him a beer. “It’s a little hoppy, but I like the way it finishes.”

“I don’t drink.” Ever. He wouldn’t allow himself to be out of control. He’d watched his own brother drink his life away.

The man simply put the second beer down and took a swallow of the first. “Your loss, man. They only offer this sucker once a year. I find the seasonal nature enhances the experience. Anyway, I’m sure your father’s other mistresses were lovely women, and anyone could understand how a powerful man needs his indulgences, but they usually become less willing to overlook an affair when a powerful man has one with a Chinese operative who’s known for specializing in corporate espionage.”

He felt his body still in utter shock even as the limo pulled away. “What?”

The man across from him looked thoughtful. “Is it corporate espionage? I think so. I mean I know it’s a research group and it’s supposed to be nonprofit, but the very word nonprofit is an oxymoron. I like that word. I always have. I genuinely look forward to using it in sentences. As I was saying, you’re all funded by corporations. They give you money so they can have early access to the data and research. It’s like that everywhere now, even here in Canada. I won’t even get into the States. We’re kind of the Corporate States of America when you think about it, and that’s a problem for me.”

“I’m sorry, you’re American?” The words weren’t quite penetrating his brain. His father’s latest mistress was a spy?

Could he prove that?

“Oh, I’m one hundred percent red, white, and blue,” he said. “I work for a division of our government interested in some of Dr. Walsh’s former colleagues. You remember a woman named Hope McDonald?”

The name sent a chill down his spine. He’d met her at a few conferences, but one night he’d talked to her at the bar. She’d flirted with him and he’d been under no illusions that the woman was interested in anything but the Huisman Foundation and his access to it. After a few whiskeys, she’d told him the strangest tale. All nonsense, of course.

No one could steal a person’s memories. No one could erase minds and make slaves of soldiers.

Could they?

“I know her. Knew her. She died a couple of years ago.” Under somewhat mysterious circumstances. He hadn’t looked too deeply into it, had merely been relieved he wouldn’t have to deal with her again.

“Did you know Dr. Walsh worked with her when she was fresh out of med school? She’d written a paper while she was at Johns Hopkins about possibilities for breaking down the plaques in the brain that strangle healthy nerve cells.”

“I’m well aware of how the disease works,” he shot back. “I am also researching new drugs and therapies for dealing with Alzheimer’s.”

“But she’s further along than you are, isn’t she? So much further.” The man’s voice had taken on an oddly sympathetic tone, soothing almost. “You can’t help it. Everyone listens to her. Her ideas aren’t really new.”

“They’re derivative.” He’d always said it. She was standing on the backs of the truly brilliant. Just because she’d solved a few problems shouldn’t make her the darling of the neuro world, but she’d been exactly that for years. She was the shiny new thing they all followed.

“Who would take over her research if she, say, was found to have stolen a million dollars from the foundation? From what I understand, the foundation itself owns the research done here. If she went to jail, Huisman would retain the intellectual property, I assume.”

That was precisely how it would work. “I would take it over.”

He would take it over, and no one had to know they hadn’t been his ideas in the first place. Everyone knew they worked together. He could easily slip into her role, and by the time he was ready to publish, no one would remember she’d ever existed.

“Yes, you would, my friend, and from what I understand, she’s close,” he said as the limo stopped at a red light. “But she knows something is going on and you’re about to get found out. Did you know she asked accounting for the bank statements on the account you took the million out of? I assume it was you. If it wasn’t, please accept my apologies and I’ll drop you off.”

“What do you want from me?”

The man finished off his beer and sat back. “Like I said, we have a mutual interest in Dr. Walsh and her research. She believes she’s found a way to reverse the effects of the proteins that cause Alzheimer’s. Dr. McDonald used many of Walsh’s techniques in her own research, though in a very different way. I believe between Dr. Walsh’s current research and getting my hands on McDonald’s old research, I can find that cure and then I’ll be in a position to help my country in a way no one can imagine.”