The Good Thief

She shook her head. Of course, her father would describe her as a risk-taker. Wasn’t that the image she always projected to him? Part of what he admired about her?

“Okay. Skydiving sounds fine. Let’s do it.”

Marko explained what she ought to wear and that he’d pick her up at 10:00. For the rest of the trip, they talked about his joining the French Foreign Legion, the action he’d seen in Afghanistan, the Ivory Coast and Kosovo.

“Why did you join?”

“Oh…” His jaws flexed, as if gritting his teeth. “My family background is a little on the shady side. I…wanted to break away.” He smiled with a hint of mischief. “And I wanted to see the world.”

And he wants to keep things vague, she thought as the plane began its descent, so she asked no more questions, and he didn’t offer any more information about himself. He’d left his car, a very sexy black Maserati GranSport Spyder with a red-and-black interior, at the airport in a high security lot. Whatever he did for K-bar must pay very well, or else he’d lied about separating himself from his family background. You didn’t make that kind of money in the FFL.

Lindsey used a motorbike or taxis for transport in Florence and had taken a taxi to the airport. Who could resist a ride with a handsome man in a fantastic car?

They drove in quiet, comfortable silence. She also liked a man who didn’t feel that he—or she—had to talk all the time.

It was still dusk when they stood at the door to her apartment. Her six-room spread on the top floor of a six-story building on the south side of the River Arno nestled below the hilltop where the Piazza Michelangelo offered thousands of tourists one-eighty-degree views. From her dining room window, she could see the Ponte Vecchio. She was tempted to show Marko her view.

He hesitated, body language betraying his desire to be invited in. He looked past her at her painting hanging in the entry. “That’s quite a work of art.”

Nice try. She smiled. “Thanks.”

“You didn’t…did you paint it?”

She nodded and they shared a long moment. But she wasn’t ready to take things to the next step. Not yet. “A long day,” she said, smiling. “I look forward to tomorrow.”

He pulled her to him and kissed her, a long, delicious, hungry kiss that sent waves of heat through her body. He didn’t move his hands over her, just held her gently.

“See you tomorrow, then.” He turned and walked away with Lindsey still savoring his kiss.

Right. They’d be jumping out of a plane together. Was she beyond insane?

Still thinking of Marko, she pulled some leftovers from her refrigerator and turned on the TV while finishing the last of the pasta salad. An Italian sitcom. She made a point of watching these to hone her ability to understand Italian humor. A glass of wine and more thoughts of Marko. She switched to CNN, and as she rinsed her plate in the kitchen, the television’s commentary riveted her.

“…students from an exclusive high school near Phoenix, Arizona, Athena Academy, were abducted and have been missing for more than twenty-four hours.”

Athena girls? She raced back toward the TV. The screen showed photos of two smiling teenagers. “It is now believed that the girls were taken to Colombia. The abductor hasn’t demanded any ransom, Academy principal Christine Evans reported.” And that was the end of the report.

Christine being quoted on CNN! Dear God.

Christine Evans had been the Athena Academy’s principal since the school opened. She’d accepted the position after retiring as a captain from the army, having been blinded in one eye by a training accident. She not only had the job of hiring staff and running the school; Christine was in charge of assessing the students for potential work in government security agencies after their graduation. The Academy had been partially funded from the “discretionary” (unlisted and unexplained portions) of the budget of the DoD from the beginning. One pivotal Academy founder had actually been the head of the CIA. He realized the potential value to the United States of a military-type prep academy for women. Many Athena graduates worked for various government agencies. Lindsey, herself, was now a courier for Oracle because Christine Evans had singled Lindsey out as a potential recruit.

The news report had said Colombia. That didn’t sound like a simple kidnapping, Lindsey decided as she walked into the home office where she spent so many of her waking hours. Her computer suite offered three oversize, linked monitors. She could drag her mouse from the left, continue through the center screen and end all the way over on the right screen. One of her art projects could be going on one screen, the Internet or television on another and documents on the last.

She immediately logged onto AA.gov. This Web site linked Athena grads to each other, ran a terrific, newsy blog and offered a host of services like links to articles on up-to-date equipment and weapons, or even where to get the best health insurance.

The featured item on the home page offered a new video of Christine. She looked tired, making her eyelid droop a little over her blind eye. In her early sixties, she was still an attractive and healthy-looking woman, barely changed over the last ten years. Lindsey clicked on the feed and watched her former principal express her sorrow and then reveal more details of the kidnapping.

“You all know how hard the Academy works to keep a low profile. Shannon Connor’s dogged pursuit of us on the ABS network is quite regrettable.”

The Web site wasn’t secure. Lindsey wouldn’t learn much more there. She checked her e-mail and sure enough, she had one from Christine. The time in Phoenix, at the Academy, would be just after 10:00 a.m. “Call—private,” was all the e-mail said, the code instructions for using her secure cell phone and the secure satellite connection. Lindsey placed the call and Christine’s secretary answered.

“We’re putting out an alert to a special list of Athena grads, Lindsey. Hold this line and I’ll transmit Christine’s message. It’s all the information we have so far.”

“Holding,” Lindsey said. Then she listened as an obviously prerecorded message created for this secure line came on.

“I fear,” the Athena leader said, “that there is a drastic breach of security in this kidnapping. Those of you who have followed the tragic and bizarre story of Athena graduate Lorraine ‘Rainy’ Miller Carrington and her ‘egg babies’ will understand why.”

Lindsey had indeed followed the story of the ova that had been stolen years ago during a clandestine operation from a very young Athena student, Lorraine “Rainy” Carrington. She’d been only twelve. Much later, events revealed that a perverse scientist had genetically manipulated the stolen “eggs” in a way intended to enhance the resulting children with special talents. He’d then implanted the modified eggs in unsuspecting surrogate mothers. The insider term for these girls was “egg babies.” The full extent and results of these experiments were still largely unknown, although the girls that were known to have resulted from them were indeed gifted with some extraordinary abilities. The genetic modification process apparently only worked on eggs with two X chromosomes.

“The abductor,” the recorded message continued, “attempted to take three of our girls—Kayla Ryan’s daughter, Jazz, and two others, Teal Arnett and Lena Poole. Jazz is fourteen. Lena is fifteen, and Teal is seventeen. They’d gone together to the movies when someone abducted them.” For a moment Christine’s voice rose. Then, “Thank God, Jazz escaped. This is perhaps the only fortunate thing to happen so far.”

Lindsey clicked through the Athena Academy Web site, searching out the girls’ pictures as the recording continued.

“I’m especially concerned about the lack of a ransom demand, deeply troubled. I’ll provide updates on this secure connection as soon as possible. We’re asking you to keep your antennae tuned for any clue as to the perpetrators and the whereabouts of the captives.

“As this kidnapping demonstrates, our days of keeping an extremely low profile may be waning. You wonderful young women are becoming a force to be reckoned with around the world. One final thought. The good guys and the bad guys are taking note of the increasing numbers of Athena alumni in positions of power and influence. Allison Gracelyn of the National Security Agency is here with us. Katie Rush, who is with the FBI and an expert on missing persons, has made extraordinary progress and is now in Colombia. Together with our ‘Athena Force,’ we’re going to get our girls back.”

The recording ended. Lindsey hung up. She studied the faces of the three girls in their class pictures and bookmarked the sites.

What a mess. Lindsey knew that Rainy’s eggs had been harvested in secret. They lied to her, told her that she’d had an appendectomy. She never found out, before she was killed, that she had three daughters. The scientist at Lab 33—what was his name? Aldrich something. But the “egg babies” controversy was over and done with. A year ago they shut the lab down. What in heaven’s name was going on?

Lindsey wanted to do follow-up research immediately, but a wave of fatigue leached away her concentration. And tomorrow she would jump into the sky. Of course, she wanted to look good on her way down—before she splattered.

Marko had already seen her hair sleeked back, which made her look almost brunette. She’d do the French braid but let wisps fall at the hairline. She was tired. Nevertheless, she exfoliated her face. Then her whole body. God, her nails were a mess. She did a quick sport manicure. And touched up her pedicure.

It was 11:30. She sighed. Time to crash.

Ooooh. Bad choice of words.

In her sleep that night, she dreamed of falling.

Chapter 4

Gesù Cristo e mamma-goddamn-mia, Marko thought as he drove to his place.

Lindsey…

He absolutely shouldn’t mess with the boss’s daughter. He loved women and plunged wholeheartedly into passionate relationships that burned out in disappointingly short times. If that happened with Lindsey, K-bar would never again give him the primo clients, let alone hire him to head up the new private extraction team. Hell, he’d probably fire him, and blacklist him from the personal security business. Actually, K-bar was capable of much worse.

The tires of the Maserati screeched as Marko took a corner too fast. He paid little attention. His mind was on other things.

Okay, say the passion didn’t burn out, he said to himself. K-bar would do almost anything to protect Lindsey from winding up with the wrong man. He probably had her lined up to meet rich sons of diplomats, or some of his wealthy clients.

Marko was pretty sure he wasn’t the right long-term guy for Lindsey. Yeah, they had the adrenaline rush thing going. But she was so well educated, classy. The final shock had been her painting. She was an artist, too. That painting…he kept picturing the way she’d captured the moon through branches….

At least he’d impressed her with the skydiving idea. How many sons of diplomats could offer that?

He pulled into the garage he rented and walked three blocks to his tiny second-floor apartment overlooking an alley. He’d put all his money into the car. Such pleasure it gave him to send his mama a picture of himself beside it and tell her he’d earned it. She alone in his family would be proud of him. The rest of the lot were exactly the kind of people Lindsey dealt with in buybacks—the thieves, not the clients.

Marko came from immigrant trash, though his great-great-grandfather had been part of the Russian aristocracy before WWI. Lindsey’s draw was more than skin-deep. She was everything he admired, maybe even what he wanted to be. Marko had been a poor soldier just out of the FFL when K-bar hired him six years ago. For the last three years, he’d been earning real money. He could speak the untutored Russian of his family, Italian, of course, French and English. He knew he could advance in a business like K-bar’s. He just had to get rid of his rough edges.

He called his friend Claudio who said there was a jump tomorrow and Marko and his girl were welcome. Marko hung up and stared down at the shabby tan carpet and then out into the night sky above the neighboring building. By what mysterious process had he looked at Lindsey and seen his own ambition and potential?

Lindsey looked a bit pale and didn’t say much on the forty-minute drive down al autostrada except to ask how many jumps he’d made.

“The next will be my 578th,” Marko said before reviewing safety issues and explaining about the drop zone. “You’re going to love it.”

They reached the little airport at Arezzo for an adventure in paracadutismo, parachuting, at 10:45 a.m. He and Claudio personally packed the chute for the tandem jump he and Lindsey would make.

Marko said, “A certified parachute rigger put in an altitude-sensitive device that opens automatically if for any reason we’re both unable to pull the cords.”

Lindsey looked even paler.

“But we will both be acutely conscious and loving it,” Marko said.

Lindsey laughed nervously. She pulled a bright yellow nylon suit over her tight but stretchy black ski clothes. Marko stepped into his orange suit. Several divers were boarding the small plane, whooping and laughing in their wild bicolor jumpsuits of turquoise and white, red and purple.

“They’ll jump ahead of us,” Marko said. He attached the tandem harness straps to Lindsey around the tops of each thigh and over each shoulder and under her arms. The tight shoulder straps emphasized her breasts, which he’d already surveyed more than once.

After a few more instructions, their plane was in the air, climbing and making a wide loop to the south, passing by the northern shore of Lake Trasimeno, a blue mirror of the sky. He pointed to Isola Maggiore, Major Island. “Not a very imaginative name.”

“In Italian, everything sounds romantic. It doesn’t have to sound imaginative,” Lindsey said.

At an altitude of six thousand meters, Marko attached Lindsey’s clips to his own straps in four places, powerfully connecting the two of them. He stood beside her as the others were lining up beside the transport door. One of the jumpers accidentally bumped Lindsey backward, thrusting her body against Marko. He was surprised to feel her shaking. Could the female daredevil be frightened?

He spoke softly into her ear, “Would you like to just watch this first time?”

She looked at him over her shoulder. “Of course not! I’m making this jump.” She shoved her goggles down over her eyes.

He did likewise. The door opened and the formation divers leaped from the plane, yelling and whooping. The plane began dropping and quickly reached five thousand meters.

“Okay, your turn,” Claudio yelled.

“Jump,” Marko said.

They made a paired spring into the sky. Arms like wings, they leaped into icy wind. In belly-to-earth position, they would drop for sixty seconds. Strands of her hair slipped out and lashed at his face a little. Her legs spread apart, and he hovered over her as if about to mount her in their free fall over the patchwork terrain below. They kept touching in places, her backside bumping at his groin. It was both erotic and exhilarating.

To the south, puffy arcs of color opened. The formation flyers. Marko yanked their cord also. With a jerk, their canopy wing chute opened. He held Lindsey around the waist to guide her upright. They floated gloriously as the earth approached, bumped down only a few feet off the assigned target.

Lindsey came alive, screaming with delight and laughing. After he’d gathered the chute, she grabbed him and planted an amazing kiss on his lips. No tongue, but full of passion.

When she pulled back they both grinned, a distinct sense of shared awareness in the moment of pleasure.

Back in Florence in the late afternoon, she didn’t invite him in. She took his hand and tugged him in. They flew at each other the second the door closed. He moved his hands over her slim waistline, her hips, her firm breasts. He was about to take her sweater off when the phone rang. She kept kissing him, but after the fourth ring, she pulled away.

“I guess I’d better get that,” she said.

He laid his head back on the sofa in frustration as she answered and then watched as she grew more and more focused. “I’ll call you right back.”

“Marko, something has come up. I have to take this call and then get to work.”

He looked at her, groggy with lust. “This is American humor, right?”

She shook her head, leaned over and kissed him, a thorough hello kiss, not a goodbye buss. “I can’t thank you enough for today.”

“That seems to be true,” he said with mock sadness. “When can I see you again?”

“Soon. I hope.”

His Maserati was inadequate comfort on the cold ride home. What could be more important to her than making love to him at that moment? Mamma goddamn mia.

Chapter 5

Lindsey closed the door and sagged against it. I was scarily close to hopping into bed with Marko Savin. I must be out of my mind!

She’d been on the verge of doing something she would have surely regretted. It was way too soon for that much intimacy. Maybe it was the intoxication of the day that had her close to losing herself with him. She’d sipped the old adrenaline cocktail and loved it. “Adrenaline fright” was definitely an acquired taste. She’d almost wet her pants with relief after they landed and had forced herself to jump again to banish any remaining doubts about her nerve. What a thrill! That’s what happened when you conquered your weaknesses. Just like K-bar said.

Thank heavens Allison Gracelyn had interrupted before Marko had slipped her sweater over her head. Stopping at that point was sensible. Sane.

With Marko’s taste, like an especially sweet orange, still lingering, the feeling of his touch still fresh in her memory, Lindsey dialed the secure number Allison had given her some time ago. The gifted computer programmer worked as a code-breaker at the National Security Agency in Ft. Meade, Maryland, and lived in Chevy Chase. There was only a six-hour difference between Florence and Maryland.

They exchanged quick hellos. “Are you still with Christine in Phoenix?” Lindsey asked. Lindsey pictured Allison and her straight, shoulder-length hair, the soft yet keenly intelligent eyes.

“Yes. I’d appreciate your attention on this, Lindsey. Have you followed the kidnapping?”

“Yes. I called the Academy and listened to the recording by Christine. What’s the latest?”

Lindsey grabbed a diet soda and headed into her office.

“FBI Agent Katie Rush traced Teal Arnett and Lena Poole to a gang of Colombian lowlifes.”

Lindsey typed in her AA.gov password and then brought up the photos of the girls, their names listed below their photos.

“The short version,” Allison said, “is that Katie went to Colombia and helped to free Lena, but Teal stayed with her kidnappers on purpose.”

“A seventeen-year-old girl didn’t escape when she had the chance?” Lindsey studied Teal’s image. She looked like a normal teenager. Blond-streaked chestnut hair pulled back in a ponytail, clear hazel eyes, vivacious. And yet, those cheekbones… There was some American Indian blood in this girl somewhere. “She looks like the kind of person people call an ‘old soul.’ Is she…?”

“Teal is definitely special. I’ll get to that in a minute. Lena says Teal thinks there is something much bigger going on. Something…well, strange and terrifying was how she put it. The good news is that we know that Teal is on a plane from Colombia to London. I’ve contacted the British SAS and called in some favors. They’ll have a team waiting when the plane lands, rescue Teal, and arrest the kidnappers. I’ve also twisted the arm of an NSA friend and we’ve got a secure satellite that will be able to pick up the plane’s arrival at Heathrow.”

“It looks like things will be okay, then. If you have the kidnappers, you can get to the bottom of this.” Lindsey sat back, swigged her soda, and wondered where she fit in.

“Yes, and no. Teal has proven psychic abilities.”

Wow. She picked up a pencil. “Okay.”

“And, Teal, like Lena, is an amazingly fast runner. Amazingly fast.”

Now tapping the pencil, Lindsey suddenly felt the conversation wasn’t going in a direction she’d anticipated.

“Jazz was the third girl. Like all Athena girls, Jazz is very bright and has her own special gifts, but nothing beyond the ordinary. We think the attempt to take her was accidental. The kidnappers wanted Teal and Lena. The girls were lured to a pickup location. And Teal and Lena share something else. In addition to having these standout abilities, there is this profoundly disturbing fact: Their mothers underwent fertility treatments—at the very same clinic, the Women’s Fertility Center in Zuni, New Mexico.”

“It’s unusual. Seems a rather large coincidence. But why so disturbing?”

“Lindsey, the clinic may have connections to Lab 33. We’re starting to think that they may be Lab 33 babies.”

“Oh, good God.” Lindsey leaned forward in the chair and tossed the pencil onto the desk. “More egg babies?”

“Exactly. An Athena grad, Kim Valenti, is working with Lynn White to decipher the files that were rescued when we took down Lab 33 a year and a half ago.” Rage and disgust boiled in Allison’s voice. “There’s still much that we don’t know about Aldrich Peters’ genetic research. The encryption is difficult to break. Very frustrating for Kim and Lynn. Also, a lot of the data was destroyed. But, yes, it appears that Peters didn’t just harvest Rainy’s eggs. He took and then secretly manipulated the eggs of other women, as well.”

“That’s sick. Disgusting.” Lindsey felt a chill on the back of her neck. “Isn’t Lynn one of Rainy’s ‘daughters’?”

“Yes. It’s a mess. If you knew Rainy’s daughters, or Teal and Lena, you’d say it’s a wonderful thing that they were born. But the method, if it’s true that they are genetically modified egg babies created by Peters, is absolutely abhorrent.” Allison’s anger shifted to sadness. “If Rainy were alive, she’d be utterly confounded.”

Lindsey recalled something that might explain Allison’s deep passions. “Weren’t you especially close to Rainy?”

“She was my best friend. She was the senior mentor to the Cassandras and every one of them will tell you that she made them the tight-knit, formidable group they became. A most extraordinary woman.” She paused, sighed. “Rainy’s murder—I still can’t talk about it.”

Last year, when the new science building was dedicated to Rainy, Lindsey had attended the ceremony. “At the dedication, I actually met Lynn. She seemed normal…but she’s—” It seemed somehow rude to call Lynn genetically modified. “Enhanced in what way?”

“All three of Rainy’s daughters, Lynn, Faith and Dawn, are a continual amazement. It’s mind-blowing. Lynn is blindingly fast. Faith is psychic. But Dawn’s abilities to heal herself are astonishing.”

“How do I fit in?”

“We’re beginning to worry that somehow, someone from the outside has learned of Teal and Lena’s talents, and that’s why they were taken. Katie is working with a psychic who is occasionally in contact with Teal. That’s how they located the plane.”

Lindsey still couldn’t see a way to help.

“Katie thinks the kidnappers are middlemen,” Allison continued, “and that they very likely don’t know the real value of the girls or who is really behind the kidnapping.”

“Ah!”

“Yes. That’s why I’ve called you.”

“You want me to scour my European underground contacts and see what’s up?”

“They are going to London. That suggests that a British, or possibly other European party, is behind the whole thing. See what you can find out. Particularly anything with a whiff of genetics involved. I’ve set up a site here at the NSA that holds everything we have about Lab 33. I’ll be updating it regularly about the kidnapping, as well. I’ll have some photos of and files on the few individuals we know who worked with Peters and escaped the lab bust. We’ve also been able to decipher scraps of information on the genetic manipulation process. We know what was done, but not how. If you have any questions, call me. Katie and I watched from a satellite when the private jet carrying Teal took off from Bogotá. As I said already, we know the flight plan they filed said London’s Heathrow as the final destination. Do you want to watch the arrival when the SAS guys pick her up in London? The plane is due to land around six this evening London time, seven your time.”