“Probably not. But I thought you were in the building I destroyed, and I was wrong about that. You can never be too careful. I promised to give up Desh and Rosenblatt for Kira Miller. Not a stand in.”
“A fair point,” allowed Kira. “Okay. A Type III restriction enzyme cuts DNA about twenty to thirty base pairs from its recognition site, which consists of two, inversely oriented, non palindromic sequences. They have more than one subunit, require AdoMet for DNA methylation, and need ATP as a cofactor. They methylate only one strand of DNA, at the N-6 position of adenosyl residues.” She paused. “Are we done?”
“Not quite yet,” said the woman. She went on to ask four additional questions, each of them more difficult, and several which could only be answered by someone with a practical knowledge of genetic engineering, rather than just book knowledge.
When Kira had answered the last question, Jake’s expert told him that in her professional opinion the woman on the phone was a top flight molecular biologist, and left the call.
“Satisfied?” asked the stunning woman in the gorge below.
Jake signaled to a sniper nearby, and seconds later Kira Miller crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
“Completely,” replied Jake to no one in particular.
***
Jim Connelly broke the lock on the door labeled 47J in the Pinewood Knolls apartment complex east of Denver and carefully stepped inside, although he knew this wasn’t an ambush. He had complete confidence in the assessment his altered self had made of Jake’s veracity, and would have bet his life the man would not go back on his word. In fact, he realized, he was betting his life.
As he entered the unit, Connelly found David Desh and Seth Rosenblatt bound together in the center of the living room in multiple ways, with layers of gray duct tape firmly affixed to their mouths. Connelly found the keys to multiple pairs of handcuffs and leg irons in a potted plant in the corner, as he had been told he would. He quickly removed these devices from both men and used his freshly sharpened combat knife on Desh’s bonds first, sawing through the tough plastic handcuffs and other fasteners that continued to immobilize him.
While he was doing this he pulled the tape from his friend’s mouth in one quick motion.
“How could you let her do this?” demanded Desh the instant his mouth was free. “She’s more important than all of us combined!”
Connelly continued cutting through his bonds. “When Kira Miller is intent on doing something,” he responded calmly, in marked contrast to his friend’s rage. “No power on earth is going to stop her.” He gestured toward Rosenblatt. “But let’s talk about this later.”
Seconds late Desh was free, and within another minute they had both managed to free the tall physicist. Desh was still fuming, but he remained silent.
“David, you’re with me,” said Connelly. “Dr. Rosenblatt, I’m going to ask you to stay here for just a few minutes.”
Rosenblatt looked confused but nodded his acquiescence.
Shortly after Desh and Connelly left there was a knock at the door. The physicist eyed it warily and then opened it.
His wife was standing at the entrance, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.
Below her, a tiny figure looked up at him.
“Daddy!” squealed little Jessica excitedly, her voice tiny and endearing.
Seth Rosenblatt fell to his knees, and his daughter ran forward and launched herself into his arms.
He drew her close, hugging her as though he might never let go, drawing sustenance from this tiny, precious, perfect little girl—one he had been sure he had lost forever.
Quiet tears poured down his face. Jake had not lied about her, after all.
“I love you, Honey,” he said. “I love you so much.” He continued to cling to her as desperately as if she were a life preserver in a roiling sea.
“Daddy, are you okay?” asked Jessica, pulling away and looking at his face uncertainly. She had never seen her father shed a single tear, yet multiple streams continued to roll down his cheeks.
He nodded. “I’m more than okay, Sweetie.”
Jessica’s mother knelt down beside her. “Sometimes grown-ups cry when they’re happy,” she explained.
The little girl looked up at her daddy, who was smiling through his tears, but she still wasn’t entirely convinced. “Are you happy, Daddy?”
Seth Rosenblatt pulled his daughter close once again and squeezed, his tears continuing to fall. “Oh yes,” he said euphorically. “Happier than you can even imagine.”
22
Kira’s eyes finally fluttered open as the last of the tranquilizer was reversed by the agent Colonel Jacobson had administered several minutes previously. She was dressed in a gray, zippered jumpsuit, and every means of ingress into her body—ears, nostrils, throat, anus, and vagina—throbbed slightly, or in some other way advertised that they had been thoroughly probed. Her hands were bound together with tough plastic cuffs and had been placed in her lap.
She shook herself fully awake and took in her surroundings. She was in a large office, although it was non-descript and hadn’t been personalized in any way. She was sitting before a large desk, facing the man who had appeared on her computer screen to arrange the swap, this Colonel Jacobson. Behind him, an eight-by-ten picture frame was lying face down on a credenza.
The colonel studied her calmly, in no apparent hurry to get the proceedings started.
She gestured to her surroundings with her head. “What, no interrogation room? No leg irons? No spotlight shining in my face and a team of experts behind a two-way mirror?”
“I like to start on the civilized side when I can. And in these days of video cameras, two-way mirrors are only useful in bad spy movies.”
“Good point,” she admitted. “I must still be a little groggy from your knockout drug.” She raised her eyebrows. “Although I can’t say I’m sorry I was unconscious for my proctology and gynecology exams.”
“Sorry about that,” said Jake, with enough sincerity that Kira believed he really was. “If it makes you feel any better, we had a woman conduct the examination below the waist.”
“How gallant of you,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Find anything interesting?”
Jake shook his head. “Not for lack of trying. On the other hand, after my experience with Seth Rosenblatt, we’ve taken your clothing—including your panties and bra—to a lab where everything will all be taken apart atom by atom. And we’ll assume we’re being listened to when we do. We made a mistake with Rosenblatt’s clothing. When our scans indicated no activity, we didn’t examine it further. Now we have, and we’ve found some advanced electronics in the waistband of his jockeys, very nearly microscopic. Desh’s too. I’m looking forward to finding out what’s inside your panties.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” said Kira with a wry smile.
Jake couldn’t help but return the smile, but this quickly faded. “We’ve already begun reverse engineering the technology. We should know how you’ve managed it soon.”
“Good luck with that,” said Kira, unconcerned. “But before we go any further,” she added, “can I assume you held up your end of the deal? That David and Seth are free and unmolested?”
“I held up my end of the deal, yes. Which means I have no idea if they’re free. All I know is that I texted their location to the e-mail address you gave me.”