“We don’t use names, okay?” Her tone, both frantic and exasperated, made him think she might be telling the truth. A name — any name — would have helped him establish her nationality, and perhaps reveal the true origins of the Changeling conspiracy, but he had more important questions. “Fine. Eve it is. But you’ve still got two strikes. Do not—” He jammed the MP5S against her again for emphasis. “—lie to me again.”
She nodded.
“That’s more like it,” he said. “First question. Why this charade? What’s changed?”
“Just like I told you. We sent your replacement. Your woman didn’t buy it. She ran. We lost track of her. We need to know what she’s going to do next.”
“How does this phony rescue help you with that?”
“You know her better than anyone.”
Professor laughed despite himself. Evidently his performance had been very convincing, but even he couldn’t predict what Jade might do in such a situation. “You thought she might pull off a stunt like this. Organize a rescue mission.”
A slight nod. “It was a possibility we couldn’t ignore.”
“And my double? Did she really capture him?”
Eve shook her head. “She gave him the slip.”
“Then how would she know where to look for me?”
Eve shrugged. “She’s resourceful. We can’t take any chances.”
The noise of the jet engines seemed to reach a climax, and then settled into a low rumble. “You really are bugging out, aren’t you?”
“Like I said. We can’t take any chances.”
“You’re going to ditch the plane.”
Eve said nothing.
“That was always the plan. Ditch the plane somewhere in the middle of the ocean, where nobody’s looking. Then in a few months, or a few years, some debris will wash up on a beach somewhere and everyone will say ‘mystery solved.’” He shook her. “And the passengers? Are they aboard?”
No answer.
He pulled her head close, shouted in her ear. “You’re going to murder them all?”
The distant aircraft engines abruptly grew louder again. The noise built to a fever pitch and then the tone changed, dopplering away to nothing. The aircraft had just taken off.
“Looks like you missed your flight,” Eve remarked.
Professor gave her a tooth-rattling shake and pushed the machine pistol into her neck so hard that her knees buckled. “Call them back.”
“Can’t. Couldn’t even if I wanted to. Radios are disabled.”
“Find a way,” he shouted. “Call them back or I swear to God, I will execute you.”
For a moment, Eve was silent. Then she said, “You think he’ll really do it?”
“Who are you—?”
The dead commando abruptly sat up. “I actually think he might.”
Professor’s reaction was immediate, outpacing the part of his brain that struggled to process this unexpected twist. He pulled the trigger.
The pistol clicked and shuddered just as it had before. There was even a whiff of burnt gunpowder in the air, but he knew that Eve was uninjured. The weapon was loaded with blanks. The suppressor, which was already designed to absorb most of the gas and energy from a gunpowder explosion, had been further modified to ensure that even a close-range discharge would produce no harmful effects.
Another deception.
Even as he processed this, he felt the woman twisting out of his grip. He swiped the machine pistol at the place where her head had been, but she ducked away, and then lashed out with her fist, striking him in the solar plexus. Professor dropped to his knees, his breath gone, his grasp on consciousness slipping.
“No!”
The denial was like a war cry. He threw himself at her, flailing, and somehow succeeded in knocking her off her feet. The ferocity of his attack took not only Eve by surprise but the ersatz commando as well. The man brought his machine pistol up, either an act of desperation or yet another attempt to bluff Professor into submission, but Professor paid it no heed. He hurled himself across the room, swinging his captured MP5 like an axe, driving it straight down at the man’s head. There was a sickening crunch as the gun’s solid metal frame made contact. The gun was torn from Professor’s hands by the severity of the impact, but he made no effort to retrieve it. Instead, he pushed away from the unmoving man and rushed the still disoriented Eve a second time.
She was on hands and knees, crawling away from him, but there was nowhere for her to go. He caught up to her and grabbed hold of her collar again, heaving her to her feet. She fought, but he was ready this time. He lashed out with one foot, jamming it into the side of her knee. Cartilage and tendons popped and her leg buckled, leaving her without the leverage to resist. She howled in agony, and this time it was no act. He slammed her to the floor and planted one knee in her back, silencing her cries.
“Enough!” he shouted.
In the silence that followed, he could hear blood rushing though his veins, pounding in his head. The bottle of primal fury he had uncorked for this burst of energy was spent, a shot of nitrous oxide that had redlined his engine and left him dangerously overheated. If Eve’s confederates were lurking outside, he would be helpless to resist. No one came in though, and as the seconds ticked away and the head rush gradually subsided, he realized that no one would.
He took a deep breath, then another. When he was able to speak in a steady voice, he leaned close to Eve. “I suppose you would rather die than tell me anything, right?”
A low groan was the only reply.
“That’s what I thought. Happy to oblige you.”
“You won’t,” she rasped. “I know you. You’re not a killer.”
Professor did not miss the note of desperation in her tone. “You don’t know anything about me.” He put his hands around her neck.
“Wait—”
The rest of her plea was choked off, but after a couple seconds, he relented. “Something else you wanted to say?”
She managed a hoarse laugh. “See. I knew it. As long as there’s a chance that I can help you save the people on that plane, you won’t do it.”
There was a measure of truth in what she said, but he did not miss the subtext. “They’re already dead though, aren’t they?”
“You can threaten all you want, but it’s too late to save them. If you kill me, it’s cold-blooded—”
He tightened his grip again, held it until she started thrashing. Her arms curled back, fingers clawing at the floor.
“I can live with that,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s not like your face will haunt me. I don’t even know what you really look like.”
Her struggles continued, growing more frantic with each passing second and then she abruptly went limp. Professor waited a moment longer then let go and flipped her onto her side, into the recovery position. He massaged her neck for a moment to stimulate the flow of blood in the arteries and then felt for a pulse. Her heart was still beating out a rabbit-fast rhythm. He shook her until she drew a single gasping breath, then rolled her over, face down again. Before she could even begin to recover her wits, he drew her tactical vest down halfway, pulling her elbows together behind her back, and then cinched the straps to form a makeshift restraint system.
While it had never been his intention to actually kill her, his rationale had nothing to do with pity, weakness or even an antiquated notion of chivalry. He did not doubt that it was already too late for the passengers of Flight 815. Even if they were still alive aboard the plane — something he seriously doubted — he was out of options for calling the aircraft back. The only thing he could hope to accomplish now was to expose the Changelings, find out just how deep their conspiracy went, and maybe prevent a similar catastrophe. To do that, he needed a live prisoner, not a corpse.