The Descartes Evolution Read online

  Luke had sent one of his men to procure the list of chemicals the doctor had given them. As he passed the bag to Smith, it occurred to him he was putting himself in the hands of a man who was far from trustworthy. But what choice did he have?

  “What do you need to do?”

  “The poison causes the DNA to mutate. Usually, I’d take a sample of your DNA, add a stain, and it would highlight those mutations. But I don’t have the equipment here to see that.”

  Luke clenched his fists and fought the urge to hit the man. “So what can you do?”

  “The mutated DNA causes changes in the blood, specifically to the hemoglobin. If I add a chemical, they become clearly visible. Those I can check for.” Smith opened the bag and laid the equipment out on the table in front of him. He glanced up. “I’ll also need a microscope to examine the sample for changes. A simple basic model is enough.”

  Luke pulled out his cell and called Talbot. “I need you to get something for me.” He handed the phone to Smith. “Tell him exactly what you need.” He listened as the doctor reeled out the details and then took the phone back.

  Smith attached a needle to a small syringe. “Your arm.”

  Luke rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm. Smith inserted the needle into the vein below his elbow, and the syringe filled with blood. “That’s plenty,” he murmured, stepping back.

  Leaning against the counter, Luke watched as he injected a portion of the blood into a glass dish, added a few drops of various chemicals, and placed the lid on top.

  “How long?” he asked.

  “Three hours.”

  Luke considered his next move. While he needed rest, he also needed to get things moving. He planned to threaten to expose them, a solution he’d never considered before. Always in the past, he’d told himself it was because he knew they had people and resources to quash any story, but in fact, it was because he had wanted to take them down himself. He had wanted to stand before the person or people responsible for Leah’s death and pull the trigger.

  Now Jenna’s life was at stake. If she was still alive. He pressed a finger to his forehead to clear the doubts—he had to believe. He would offer himself and his silence in exchange for her life. If he was infected, he was a dead man anyway. Maybe they would kill him quickly.

  It was the only plan he could come up with, so he had to make it happen. He turned back to the doctor. “I want you to get a message to the Conclave.”

  “I told you, we don’t contact them, they contact us.”

  “You also said you had a protocol in place to get a message to them in an emergency.”

  Smith looked as though he would like to deny it, but finally he nodded slowly. “There is a way, but if I go anywhere near the Conclave, I’m a dead man.”

  Luke allowed a small smile to curl his lips, while keeping his eyes cold. “You’re a dead man if you don’t.” Then he relented. “You don’t need to go near them. Just send them something.”

  “What?”

  “Information, and after that you can disappear.”

  “You’ll let me go?”

  “If this succeeds I’ll let you go.”

  He’d already passed the doctor’s information and photograph to his CIA contact, along with a copy of the film he had made of the Ivory Coast tests the doctor had carried out. No way was the sadistic bastard walking away from this one.

  The doctor licked his thick lips. “Okay. I’ll need access to a computer.”

  “You’ve got it. But we’ll be monitoring your every move.”

  The alarm woke Luke. He’d had less than two hours sleep, but he felt refreshed, ready to go. It would be over soon.

  He showered, dressed, and rode the elevator down to the basement. Smith glanced up as he let himself into the room.

  “Well?” Luke felt his muscles tense as he waited for an answer.

  “You’re positive.”

  Luke had an instant flashback to the test cases on the film, how they had died. The air left his lungs in a sigh. The results were hardly a surprise. Now he needed to decide what difference it made. Smith had said there was no cure, but obviously Jenna’s father had had access to a drug that suppressed the poison. Maybe it could also act as an antidote, which was a tenuous hope, especially in view of the lab report on Jenna’s medication. If he had a sample, he could send it for further analysis, but he had nothing, and he was out of time.

  He glanced back at the doctor, and a bitter smile flashed across Smith’s face. He waved toward the table behind him. Two glass dishes sat beside a microscope. “If it makes you feel any better,” Smith said. “So am I.”

  “Not really, though I suppose there is a kind of justice in there, somewhere.”

  He took a deep breath; all he asked was enough time to ensure Jenna’s safety. So far, he had no symptoms. “I feel fine,” he said. “When can I expect that to change?”

  “I don’t know. If you’d been infected with the real stuff, you’d be dead by now—we both would. This is a much slower progression; presumably the poison is less concentrated. It could be hours, it could be days. You’ll know when it starts. The first symptoms are shooting pains in the limbs and cramps in the abdomen.”

  As soon as he heard the words, Luke’s stomach tensed. He forced himself to push aside his fear; he had to get through this.

  “I can give you something—” A light flashed on the screen behind him, and Smith turned away and pressed a button. A moment later, he turned back. “The Conclave will see you.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Lauren looked up from the desk as Jenna opened the door. A tall, good-looking young man in a dark business suit stood at her shoulder. He glanced at Jenna, his eyes widening as he took in her face.

  She stepped into the room, and the door clicked shut behind her. Striding forward, she came to a halt in front of the desk.

  “What do you want from me?”

  Lauren smiled and turned to the young man. “What do you think, Mark? Is she a chip off the old block?”

  His gaze hadn’t left her face, but now it slid over her, lingering on her breasts and running down the length of her legs. A shudder of revulsion trickled down Jenna’s spine, but she held it straight and kept her face expressionless.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t see it,” he replied in a clipped public school accent. “She’s beautiful.”

  “And deadly, so keep your hands off. Now leave us. We have things to talk about.”

  Jenna waited until the young man had left the room then stepped closer. “Do you have the medicine my father was giving me?”

  “We have something better. I’ve had my best people working on it. This will suppress the toxin production while allowing you to keep the enhanced powers. You’d like that wouldn’t you? I saw the tape of you killing Lynch. It was truly magnificent.”

  Jenna wasn’t sure she wanted to keep the powers, wasn’t sure she wanted to be different. But that could wait until later. “And do you have a cure, for anyone who’s been infected by me?”

  “I wonder who you could be thinking about. Mr. Hockley perhaps? Just how close did you two get?”

  “Mind your own business.”

  Lauren laughed. “Yes, we have a cure, but you must have guessed that.”

  “Why keep it secret from the doctor who interrogated me?”

  “We had a different facility working on the cure. It doesn’t do to have your employees know too much. Though we did send Dr. Smith a dose of the antidote—he was a valuable employee. Unfortunately for Smith, your Mr. Hockley stole him away before he received it.”

  “You’ll give me the cure and the medicine?”

  “Yes.”

  What was the catch? “And you’ll let me go?”

  Lauren relaxed back in her chair as she considered Jenna. “Earlier, you asked what I wanted of you.
Have you guessed what that is yet?”

  Jenna shook her head but said nothing.

  Lauren gestured to the chair opposite her. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “Am I going to need to?”

  Lauren smiled again. “Perhaps.”

  The word did nothing to ease her mind. Jenna took the seat opposite and tried to calm her nerves. Was Lauren—she really couldn’t think of her as “mother”—about to ask for something she wasn’t willing to give?

  “What do you know of the Conclave?” Lauren asked.

  The question came as a surprise, and Jenna blinked and gathered her thoughts. “Nothing much. Only what Luke told me. Before that, I’d never heard of it.”

  “Well, perhaps we should start with a little background. There are three types of people involved in the Conclave. At the bottom are the employees like your father; they know nearly nothing of who and what they work for. Then there are the members who are recruited by other members. They know of the existence of the Conclave, they do what they’re told, and they gain certain benefits from membership.”

  “Benefits like…?”

  Lauren shrugged. “It could be anything, business advantages, political success. It really depends on what they want and how useful they can be. And finally, there are the founders. The people at the top. Neither the employees nor the members know of the existence of the founders, though I’m sure a lot of them suspect.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  Lauren raised an eyebrow. “Obviously, you must realize I am one of the founders. I was brought up to believe in the Conclave, to accept it as my right. To do what was needed for the greater good of the organization.”

  “How can you justify what was done to those villagers? How can you justify what you were going to do in London? Millions would have died. What could you have possibly gained?”

  Lauren ignored the question and continued as though the outburst hadn’t happened.

  “The Conclave have existed for hundreds of years, and in that time we have been happy to stay in the background, exist in secrecy. Our goals have always been wealth and power, but a number of us believe the time has come to take up a more prominent position.”

  “Why?”

  “The world is falling apart. Acts of terrorism grow more frequent. It can be only a matter of time before something is done that could destroy the Earth and the human race forever. One nuclear weapon in the hands of some religious fanatic, and it could be all over for mankind.”

  “You plan to fight terrorism with more terrorism?”

  “We like to think of it as a demonstration of what we are capable of. Something so definitive we can gain the cooperation of governments and bring them under our control. The Descartes poison will do that. It will cause instant devastation and vanish without a trace.”

  “What is the poison? Where did it come from? The doctor said it was a by-product of the real experiments.”

  “In a way he’s right—if you think of yourself as the original experiment. After the Descartes project was terminated, we carried on with the work but took it in different directions. We combined the alien DNA with human DNA again, but this time kept it at the cellular level. Eventually we created an organism that manufactures the toxin. It was refined, concentrated, until the product you saw tested in Ivory Coast was produced.”

  “Is it all destroyed?”

  “Of course not. The major stocks, yes, but we can produce more…eventually. The plan has been delayed, not abandoned, and we will become a benign dictatorship. Controlling the world from behind the scenes. Stamping out disaffection before it can turn into something worse. The world will be a better place.”

  “Yeah, right. And where do I fit into all this?”

  “Members are recruited, but founders are born. Only those born to a founder may become a founder.”

  Jenna had a sudden inkling where this was going and at first, the idea was so alien it refused to take hold.

  “I don’t have any children,” Lauren continued. “Well, at least I always believed I didn’t have any children.” She looked at Jenna and smiled.

  “Did you try?” Jenna asked, suddenly curious.

  “Of course, but I had ovarian cancer not long after your eggs were removed, and I was never able to conceive. So you see, my line in the Conclave will die out. Unless you agree to join us.”

  Jenna had guessed this was coming, but still the words shocked her to the core. “I don’t believe this.” She rose to her feet and paced the room, paused at the window to stare out. Dawn was coming—the start of a new day. She turned back to where Lauren sat in her leather chair, watching her, her expression blank.

  “What happens if I say no? Will you kill me?”

  “Probably not. At least not straightaway, because there’s a lot we can learn from studying you.” She paused then gave a small shrug. “But you won’t be allowed to leave here, and Luke Hockley will die. You saw the film. It’s not a pleasant way to go.”

  “Bitch,” Jenna muttered.

  What were her choices?

  She could agree, join this organization that went against everything she’d ever believed in. She thought again to the film, all those people dying. Could the end ever justify those sorts of means? She didn’t think so.

  Then again, she would have access to so much information. Information about where she came from, what she was.

  “Just consider,” Lauren murmured. “You could be a source of good. Think what you could do with all that money and power. The people you could help.”

  There was something Jenna wasn’t getting here. “Why bring me in now? What do you get out of it?”

  “An ally.”

  Shock hit her hard. That this woman could stand before her and suggest such a thing was beyond belief, and her anger rose as she took in the similarities in the other woman. Her mother. “What makes you think I would be your ally? You’re not going to tell me blood is thicker than water, are you? That, coming from the woman who tried to have me put down at the age of four, would take some convincing.”

  “I was given a direct order, and I was brought up to follow such orders. I’m never going to have your squeamishness about taking life—it’s not the way I was raised. We see a bigger picture.”

  “Really? How clever of you. Cut the crap. What is it you really want? What will you gain by bringing me into the Conclave?”

  “I told you, an ally. There’s a side to the Descartes project I want to explore, but there is some opposition to it among the founders.”

  “What is it?”

  Lauren smiled, and Jenna could see the barely suppressed excitement in her eyes, which glittered with blue fire. Her hands flexed against the smooth wood of the desk, and she pushed herself onto her feet as though she could sit still no longer. She came around to stand in front of Jenna and leaned in close so Jenna could smell the expensive perfume. She wanted to back away but didn’t want the other woman to know she was uncomfortable, because she had a feeling that to Lauren, appearances were important.

  You could feel fear, but never show it.

  She forced herself to stare directly into Lauren’s eyes without flinching. They were of an identical height, which only made Jenna’s anger rise higher.

  “What is it people have desired throughout time?” Lauren asked, and her voice was tense with excitement. “What is the one thing all the money and power in the world have been unable to buy?”

  Jenna shook her head at the question.

  “Immortality.”

  For a moment, she was speechless. “Immortality? You really think that’s a possibility? You’re mad.”

  “Maybe not immortality, but extended life span. There were changes in the cellular organisms we created from the mixed DNA. The cells mutated, but they never aged, and they never died. I bet if we looked at your c
ells we’d see the same thing.”

  Jenna turned the information over in her mind. “Are you saying I could be immortal?” She forced a rusty laugh from her throat.

  “I told you, maybe not immortal, but far longer-lived than a human.”

  “I am human,” she snapped. “So why are the Conclave against this? It sounds just up their alley.”

  “Some of them are for it, but we’re split. Many want the whole Descartes project shut down, and tonight’s fiasco is only going to give them more ammunition. Also, so far the research on prolonged lifespan has been inconclusive, and some of the Conclave believe it to be nothing more than a ‘flight of fancy’ on my part and a waste of resources. They’re old men with no vision.”

  Jenna blinked in disbelief. Immortality? This was crazy, but again, here was maybe the one person who could help her understand who and what she was. All her life she had felt isolated, different. At least now she knew why. She was different.

  “How do you know I won’t agree, say I’ll join you, and then double-cross you?” she asked.

  Lauren studied her, head tilted to one side. “It’s strange, but I do trust you. Besides, there will be safeguards in place. You’d be carefully monitored.”

  “And Luke? Will you leave him alone? Will you let him go?”

  “That rather depends on Luke, doesn’t it? He’s become something of a thorn in our side, and I’m sure the rest of the Conclave want him dead. But I gather the two of you have become close.”

  Jenna had a mental flashback to lying in Luke’s arms, to the feel of him on her, in her. It sent a shiver of sensation through her body, tightening the muscles of her belly.

  Lauren laughed softly from beside her, and Jenna came back to herself with a start.

  “Yes,” Lauren murmured. “I see you’ve become very close. Close enough that he would give up his quest for revenge for you?”

  “Never. He holds the Conclave responsible for the death of his family. He won’t let that go.”

  “Hmm, and yet he broke into our facility to rescue you, and he sounded most put out when he heard I had you in my evil clutches. Did that make you feel all warm and fuzzy?”