Brogan must have been livid when he found out who Junior was. He had said no to Verris and Verris had gotten him anyway. Not only that, he’d raised Junior to work there, actually bred him for it. If anyone was too good for something it was Junior. He was too good for the DIA or any other crappy government agency.
“I mean, this wasn’t some mistake.” Junior planted both fists on his desk and leaned forward. “It’s not like you got somebody pregnant and then had to man up and raise me. No, you made a decision. You had a scientist make a person out of another person.”
“No, that’s not what—”
“That’s exactly what happened.” He straightened up and looked down at himself, putting his hands on his chest and midsection with the fingers splayed, as if he were trying to feel how substantial he really was. “And why, of all the shooters in the world, did you have to send me after him?”
“Because he’s your darkness,” Verris replied. “You had to walk through it on your own.”
Junior gave him a hard look. “Maybe you’re my darkness.”
Christ, Verris thought as a knot started to form in his stomach.
“That lie you always told me, about my ‘parents’ leaving me at a fire station. I believed it. Do you know how that made me feel?”
“That was a necessary lie,” Verris said.
“None of this was necessary! You chose to do all of this to me!” Junior paused, looking lost and sad. “Can’t you see how not okay I am?”
Verris had had enough. “Bullshit.”
Junior gaped at him. The kid hadn’t seen that coming.
“Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Junior,” Verris went on while the kid was still off-balance. “I’ve been in battle! I’ve seen soldiers go over the edge because more was asked of them than they had to give. And I promised myself that I would never let that happen to my kid, that I would never let anything in life squeeze the strength and spirit out of my son and toss him aside. And nothing will! That’s not you, that will never be you—I made sure of it. Because you have what Henry Brogan never had—a loving, dedicated, present father who tells you every goddam day that you’re loved, you matter! Jesus, kid, the whole point was to give you all of Henry’s advantages without any of his disadvantages—all of his gifts without his pain! And that’s what I did!”
The knot in Verris’s stomach loosened as Junior’s expression went from abject and accusing to thoughtful. He had always been able to talk the kid down and smooth him out, and thank God he still could. He got up and went around the desk.
“Come here,” he said. Junior went to him and he took his son in his arms. He was the good, loving, present father, always ready to give advice, wisdom, and comfort.
“I love you, son,” he told Junior, hugging him tighter. “Don’t let yourself down.”
At the edge of a remote airfield a few miles away from the Gemini compound, Henry and Danny waited while Baron bid a fond farewell to the Gulfstream. Saying goodbye was one of Baron’s rituals. He had told Henry once that he always tried to part on good terms with any plane he had flown. Because if we should meet again, Baron had said, and it happens to be a life-or-death situation, I want to make sure I’ll be welcome in the cockpit.
Henry had smiled and nodded politely. Pilots were a superstitious bunch. They all had their own personal rituals. Even Chuck Yeager had had a good-luck routine where he asked one of his ground staff for a stick of gum. Anything that made Baron happy and confident was fine with Henry. (And just to be on the safe side, he hadn’t mentioned breaking the mirror in the abandoned apartment building.)
“Like so many of my encounters, it was short but sweet.” Baron blew a kiss at the nose of the Gulfstream. “Thanks, darlin’. No matter what happens after this, we’ll always have Budapest.”
Danny laughed a little but Henry felt a sudden odd chill, brief but intense enough to raise goosebumps on his arms. Goose walked over my grave, his mother would say when it happened to her. It rattled him. Maybe he was getting superstitious in his old age. Or he was entering his second childhood and tomorrow he’d be stepping over cracks in the sidewalk.
“So, what’s next?” Baron said as he joined him and Danny.
“Well, we can’t stay in the open,” Henry said, “and we need some ground transportation.”
“I’m pretty sure there’s a truck around here somewhere,” Baron said. “I never saw an airfield without one.”
“When we were coming in to land, I saw an open-air barn over there, just past the tree line.” Henry pointed at the other side of the runway. “We can hole up there for a bit while we figure out our next move.”
He should have been beyond tired, Henry thought as the three of them crossed the airfield together, but somehow he wasn’t. It was as if he was running on a reserve of energy that he’d never known he had until now. Or maybe it was adrenaline afterburn. Whatever was keeping him upright, he was glad to have it. Otherwise he would have been dead on his feet.
And then just as they reached the barn, he was.
As a Marine, Henry had learned how to override his circadian rhythms and function whenever he had to, day or night. By personal preference, however, he was a night owl. Like most kids he had loved staying up late, but Henry had a special affinity for the nighttime. Nighttime was always the right time—cool stuff happened at night that never happened during the day, and a lot of daytime things vanished after the sun went down, e.g. there was no school, no chores, and best of all, no bees trying to kill him.
Unfortunately, there were other ways to get stung.
As soon as Henry felt the dart hit his neck he yanked it out, but it was already too late. He knew what it was and who had done it to him. His own fault—he’d opened his big mouth back in Budapest and told the kid how to kill him.
Well, he was going to regret that for the rest of his life, which would last for maybe two more minutes before his throat swelled shut. Unless his blood pressure fell too rapidly—then he’d skip suffocation altogether and go straight to cardiac arrest.
He was barely aware of hitting the ground. Baron and Danny were talking frantically, Baron saying something about an EpiPen and Danny telling him this wasn’t his original burn bag. Their hands ran over him in a quick search in case he had an EpiPen on him but the feel of them was far away, muted and muffled, and their voices seemed to slide away from him.
Henry’s head rolled to one side. His younger self was marching forward out of the shadows, pistol raised. On his left, he saw Danny kneel to pick something up: the dart.
“Don’t move!” Junior Hitman said loudly.
Danny held the dart up. “What was in this?” she demanded just as loudly.
“Bee venom,” said the clone.
Even in his semi-conscious state, Henry couldn’t help thinking how smart it was. A dart was like a stealth bee—he couldn’t snap one of those clean out of the air with a cap. Not even with a Phillies cap.
“You can’t! He’s allergic!” Danny took a step forward and the clone fired—two quick shots, one at her feet, one at Baron’s. Near misses, warning them to stay put.
Henry’s vision started to brown out as it became more difficult for him to breathe. Apparently he was going to suffocate after all. Not as showy as being killed with a motorcycle but more effective. Once it started, there was no fighting it off, shooting it, or outrunning it. Unless someone interrupted it with an EpiPen, it would continue to its inevitable conclusion. The end. Game over.