Today's Reading
PROLOGUE
EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO, OUTSIDE OF MADRID, SPAIN
The innocuous-looking car approaches the research campus at five minutes before eleven at night. The driver's name is Dez. He's wearing civilian clothes today, which is unusual for him. Seated next to him is a fellow Englishman whose name is most decidedly not Jamison, even though his newly forged passport identifies him thusly.
The research campus is dark. There should be no one here except security and janitorial crew. And one fairly prickly biologist. Dez is idling the car just outside the gate, studying the sprawling, three-acre campus.
Jamison is smoking, his window cracked open, blowing the smoke out. He eyes his driver. Dez is wearing an olive sweater and khakis and lace-up boots. He isn't tall but he's beefy, with wide shoulders, a fifty-inch chest, powerfully cut forearms.
"Damn good of you to do this. And on short notice," Jamison says.
Dez grins in the dark. "I'm a soldier, me. Go where I'm ordered."
"How did you draw the short straw for babysitting duty?"
"I've a skill set. My commander thought I might be useful."
Jamison nods. "Let's do this."
Dez puts the Land Rover into gear. They roll up to the armored fence and gate and a guard steps out of his shack. Dez lowers his window. "I've a Mister Jamison here t'see Professor Eduardo Castillo," Dez says in fluent Spanish.
The guard consults a clipboard. He shines a penlight into the car, focusing on Jamison, then on Dez. The guard is not armed.
"Very good. Building seventeen."
Dez puts it in first as the heavy gate rolls open.
"See what you mean about skill sets," Jamison says. "Glad you speak the lingo."
"No worries, mate."
They roll into the quiet campus. "Is Dez short for anything?"
"Desmond Aloysius Limerick." Jamison smiles. "Vengeful parents?"
"It's quite a nice name." Dez sounds a little hurt. "Distinguished, if you was to ask me."
"Yes. Very."
They find building number seventeen, and Dez parks. Dez clips a holster to the belt of his khakis. The holster holds a PAMAS G1, nine millimeter, with a fifteen-round mag and a bullet preloaded in the pipe. Jamison eyes it, and Dez notices.
"You spy types learn t'carry your own weapons, you wouldn't need a soldier like me watchin' your back, squire."
Jamison throws away the stub of his cigarette. "Who said anything about spies?"
"Right, right."
Another guard is waiting for them, wearing the same sand-colored uniform as the man at the gate. Dez speaks to him briefly in Spanish. This guard looks nervous. He uses a magnetic ID card on a lanyard to open building number seventeen. He escorts them in, then into an elevator. The same magnetic ID gets the elevator car moving to the top floor.
The corridor is sterile, bland, the walls and ceiling white, the floor polished. Both newcomers wince at the glare.
"Lights are set on 'migraine,'" Dez observes.
The guard takes them to room 804 and uses his ID card on a monitor set into the wall. The door clacks open.
Room 804 is a biology lab. Spectacularly well outfitted, from the looks of it. No expense spared.
They are met by a smallish man in an old tweed jacket and an enormous mustache. He wears round, wire-rim spectacles. He's perhaps in his midseventies. With him is a young woman wearing a plain skirt, orthopedic shoes, a simple blouse, and a white lab coat. Dez thinks she's quite lovely despite her unattractive eyeglasses, ill- fitted outfit, and no makeup that he can spot.
...
