Bounty Page 6

  Richards sat next to Jill. "Don't 'sir' me. We're too close for that."

  She smiled, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

  "I was wondering when I'd find you down here." He glanced over his shoulder. "Look... technically, I could cite you for three different departmental violations and have you written up." He watched Jill stiffen and recoil in horror, resisting the urge to smile. "But I won't. I know you, Jill... telling you not to look into your father's case wouldn't do a damn bit of good. Hell, it might just make you look that much harder."

  Jill gave a sheepish smile, realizing just how right he was. In a lot of ways, Daniel Richards was like a second father to her. He and Paul had been so close when they served together that Daniel and Evelyn attended almost every Andersen family function -- and vice versa. Richards' support was a large reason Jill got through the ordeal of her father's arrest as well as she did; in a lot of ways, he was more family to her than her actual family.

  "You wanna help free Paul." He smiled when Jill nodded. "I get that. And I won't stop you. But two rules.” He held up two fingers, as if to emphasize his point. “One: these files stay here. I find out you took one slip of paper out of this room, and I'm shipping your ass down to Traffic. Two: you find anything, anything at all, you come directly to me." Richards grabbed a handful of papers lying at his feet, straightening them out and handing them to Jill. "We clear?"

  She grabbed the papers and stood to place them in the box. "Crystal."

  Richards stood and helped Jill replace the files before grabbing the box and returning it to the empty space on the rusted shelf. He turned to his hotshot rookie detective, shaking his head with a smirk. "You got a lotta Paul in you, Jill. But you're also a lot of things he never was." When Jill shot him a confused glare, Richards laughed. "He never stayed four hours after shift. He always made sure to make it home."

  Jill shrugged. "He had a family."

  "So do you."

  "Yeah." Jill smirked. "And my family also happens to be my boss. I'm not missing anything in my apartment, trust me."

  "Jill..." Richards led her to the elevator, pressing the button. He sighed, struggling to find the right words. The ding of the elevator granted him a momentary reprieve, but once they filed into the box and it started moving again, he realized he needed to finish his thought. "I just hope he's not the only reason."

  Jill leaned against the wall. "Remember when I was nine, and I wore his police hat and badge for Halloween?"

  Richards chuckled and nodded; that was Jill, Daddy's little girl in every sense of the phrase. Her love and support for the man never wavered, even in the face of all of the evidence that wound up putting him away. Her father sat on Death Row, his lawyer sifting through another pointless appeal, and she was still trying to save him. If Jill put that same single-minded focus toward helping homicide victims and their families, she'd make a damn fine cop.

  "Brian was always a Momma's boy." She shrugged as the elevator doors opened again, following Richards to his office. "When I was a kid, I could never go to sleep until Dad got home and told me about what bad guy he arrested that day." She shut the door behind them. "It's not just about following in his footsteps, Dan. It's... I wanna make a difference. Remember the case you worked, ten years ago? The single mother who had been beaten to death on a soccer field? I saw the look on her son’s face when the guy got sent away for life. That relief? That sense of closure? That's what I want to give others."

  Richards sat at his desk and listened. The clock read 12:03 a.m. Evelyn was going to kill him in the morning.

  "I mean, yeah... I wanna free Dad. I wanna prove to this city that one of its heroes wasn't a monster after all. But..." She paused, sighing and wiping at her eyes. When she spoke again, her voice began to crack. "... if I can't have that, I wanna do everything I can to make sure others can."

  Richards beamed with pride. "Then you'll make a great cop. But you'll do it tomorrow. Go home. Get some sleep."

  Chapter 14

  Present Day...

  Ramon tossed his pen onto his desk in frustration, leaning back in his chair and combing his fingers through his jet-black hair. He stared at the ceiling for several moments before bolting out of his seat and crossing over to his partner's desk. He sat in the guest chair beside Jill's desk with a sigh, shaking his head.

  "I don't get it, Jill. It's like this guy never existed."

  Downing what was left of her coffee -- and blanching when she discovered it wasn’t even room temperature anymore -- Jill tossed the cup in the trash and leaned forward. Some part of her wondered if maybe she should tell Ramon everything she knew about Dr. Roberts. After all, she'd already divulged one big secret, and he took to it pretty well. And if Jill was being honest with herself, she was surprised he hadn't asked what Dr. Roberts' head shot was doing in her armoire the other night. She spent the rest of that night expecting Ramon to ask, but he never did. Her partner was apparently too enamored with her origin story.

  She sat back in her chair, deciding the precinct wasn't the place to unburden her secrets. Ramon watched her carefully, and Jill suddenly felt self-conscious. She wondered if maybe she'd done a sloppy job of applying her skin graft earlier that morning; she'd overslept her alarm and risked being late -- which most of the time wasn't an issue. But suits from downtown were going to be dropping in, and everyone had to be on top of their game.

  "You said you knew him?"

  It was all Jill could do to suppress the gasp of surprise, and at first, she didn't meet her partner's gaze. But her shoulders relaxed and she shook her head.

  "Not real well." She lied. "Met him a time or two while I was in the service. They said he was some big-time scientist who was trying to get funding for a project he was testing."

  Ramon frowned. "Any idea what it was?"

  "Nope." Jill shrugged. "That was very much need-to-know, and -- I guess I didn't need to know."

  As she spoke, Jill grabbed a folded-up slip of paper and jotted something down before sliding the paper across her desk for her partner. Ramon grabbed the paper and read the words, arching a brow. It read: Lunch. Phillips. Talk more there. When he shot a questioning glance Jill's way, she gave him a serious look and just nodded.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Ramon grabbed a spare pen from the BPD coffee mug on Jill's desk, scribbling the words Who ARE you?! Jill snatched the paper from him, grabbing her pen again before writing your partner.

  With a knowing smile, Jill stood and grabbed her coat. "You hungry?"

  Ramon stood as well, walking back to his desk to grab his coat before joining Jill. She locked her arm in his, which he found momentarily perplexing. As close as they were, she'd never before shown this sort of affection. Maybe it was nerves. He got the impression from their little game of pass-the-note that there was something else weighing on her, something more than just her secret identity. Ramon couldn't say for sure, but it seemed like there was something about their murder victim that she wasn't telling him.

  Chapter 15

  Phillips was almost always busy -- the by-product of being in the middle of downtown and considered one of the area's best seafood restaurants -- but Jill and Ramon had gotten there before the lunch rush. It helped that much of the area surrounding the restaurant was still cut off with crime scene tape; though the restaurant was open, active crime scenes had a way of scaring people off, tourists and locals alike. Jill grabbed a booth in the back corner so they would be less likely to be bothered or overheard by anyone other than their waiter.

  Jill was tempted to order a beer, but the badge latched to her hip betrayed the fact that she was still on the clock. So they both asked for water, then spent the next few minutes looking over the menu -- only they weren't really looking at the menu. They were just stalling.

  Finally, Ramon broke the silence. "Alright... who is he?"

  "Dr. Trent Roberts," Jill began with a sigh, checking over her shoulder. "He spearheaded a secret experiment known as Project Fusion. He wor
ked on developing cybernetic technology in order to perfect the human body, help people reach their full potential. For the longest time, his work was strictly theoretical. But once the war in Iraq really got going, he started pushing the idea of doing these experiments on soldiers."

  Ramon frowned. "You mean, like... Inspector Gadget meets Captain America?"

  Jill laughed and silently thanked the waiter for good timing as the young man brought them their drinks. She swirled the straw in hers, pausing to take a sip -- mostly a stall tactic. Ramon had been good with her up to this point, but she wondered at what point the secrets would get to be too much for him and he'd push away -- or worse, when he'd go straight to Richards and completely blow her cover.

  "He couldn't have been doing all of this himself."

  "Almost all of the science was his." Jill leaned in, her voice lowering. "The funding? Not so much. Someone was signing his checks, I just never found out who."

  "So..." Ramon nodded once, his eyes narrowing. It was his thinking face. "He'd meet with countries that were fighting in the war, offering the chance to give their soldiers a massive software upgrade... for what, exactly? A huge payday? Fame?"

  "All of the above." Jill shrugged. "When I was between deployments, he came to Fort Eustis. Gave us all the big sales pitch, said the Pentagon had given the green light for any soldier interested to volunteer for the procedure. He was very convincing."

  Ramon arched a brow. "How convincing?"

  The waiter showed up again, and the conversation was put on pause while the duo ordered their meals. Jill went with the standard crab cake lunch, while Ramon ordered a cheeseburger. Jill gave him a mocking glare when the waiter left again, shaking her head. "A burger." She smirked. "We're in a seafood restaurant, and you ordered a burger."

  He ignored her teasing, anxious to get back to the topic at hand. "Jill. How convincing?"

  She sighed again. There really was no way of delaying this any further. "I, uh... I volunteered." She tried to smile, hoping it was genuine. "You're looking at Project Fusion's first success story."

  Ramon nearly did a spit-take, grabbing a napkin to wipe the stray water off of chin and clear the small puddle at their booth. He shot his partner a disbelieving glare; it was one thing to think of Jill as a superhero, it was something else entirely to look at her as a science experiment. "So," he finally regained his composure, "that eye thing...?"

  She nodded. "And the titanium fused onto my bones. And the strength. And the agility. And the stamina."

  Ramon smirked. "No wonder you kicked my ass on the physical test. Cheater."

  Their food arrived, and Ramon was grateful for the interlude. He needed to digest all of the information his partner had thrown his way. He was glad she trusted him enough to confide in him like this, but the truth of it all was overwhelming. His partner was a superhero, the result of a clandestine government-sponsored science experiment. The weirdest part was the fact that she had volunteered. That was the one question that bugged Ramon more than anything else as he worked on his burger.

  He waited until Jill had eaten the first crab cake before clearing his throat. "So why'd you do it? I mean, I get what happened with your dad, but... how does becoming a cyborg help set him free?"

  Jill shrugged again. "It was more than that." She checked over her shoulder again, confident no one else was paying attention and relieved that their waiter wasn't anywhere to be found. "Look, I love this city. Hell, in a lot of ways, I am this city. But let's be real... shit sucks around here sometimes. And sometimes, a badge and a gun ain't enough."

  She wasn't wrong. Ramon finished off his burger with a nod before cramming two fries into his mouth. He washed it down with a swig of water, wiping his mouth before leaning over the booth again. "You think Dr. Roberts' death is related to Project Fusion?"

  "I know it is."

  Shrugging off her coat, Jill examined their surroundings again before grabbing her left sleeve and rolling it all the way up to her shoulder. She heard Ramon gasp when his eyes fell upon the pink scar that ran from her bicep all the way down to her wrist -- a marking that hinted at a precise cut similar to the one they had found on Dr. Roberts' left arm two nights prior.

  A wave of understanding hit Ramon in an instant, and he sat back in his seat. That realization morphed into dread when Jill lowered the collar of her shirt, revealing another scar that started at her clavicle. He nodded and took another sip of water, mulling over this recent revelation.

  "Someone killed him the way you were experimented on."

  "Except I wasn't slashed across the throat." The waiter came by again, offering to-go boxes. Ramon declined, but Jill nodded for one. She watched as the waiter disappeared again before regarding her partner once more. "Project Fusion disbanded four years ago."

  Ramon frowned. "Why?"

  "Dr. Roberts told governments around the world that the project was a success, that an American soldier underwent the procedure and that everything went off as he had promised. Most governments were still skeptical, unwilling to subject their military to that sort of operation. But Russia jumped at the opportunity, partly because they were pissed the Americans had beat them to it."

  Ramon smirked. "So much for the Cold War being over."

  "Six Russian soldiers volunteered." Jill's voice dipped to just above a whisper. "They all died. Word got out, Dr. Roberts was discredited, and Project Fusion just... dissolved."

  The waiter returned with the bill. Ramon reached for it before Jill snatched it away, slapped her credit card onto it, and handed everything back to the waiter.

  Ramon shook his head. "So... my guess is either revenge or tying up loose ends."

  "And if it's the latter," Jill shook her head, "I’m next."

  Chapter 16

  One of life's greatest perks for David Gregor was having a conference room all to himself. All that space, all that privacy. He knew it wasn't practical. He knew he could just as easily take this call in his office, but Gregor was particular about things. He enjoyed having his call on speaker, being able to wander around the table, take in the view of the city out the window.

  The view wasn't doing it for him this time, mostly because the call was souring his mood. He glowered at the black console in the center of the mahogany table, hands stuffed in his pockets. "I don't give a damn about your loose ends!" He paced to his right, scratching at his white goatee. "You brought your mess to my city, and now my people have to deal with it!"

  The voice on the other end was digitized, emotionless. "You knew what was coming, David. It's not my fault Trent wound up in your back yard."

  Gregor shook his head, stopping in front of the window, watching everyone wandering the sidewalks, traffic backed up through several stoplights. Downtown was simultaneously peaceful and frantic, especially in the fall when both the Orioles and the Ravens were playing. Every other shirt on the sidewalk was either orange or purple.

  "And you couldn't wait." Gregor's nostrils flared. "You had to get rid of your scientist, and you had to do it right away. I didn’t pay you for this."

  "I couldn't risk Dr. Roberts making contact with Patient Zero."

  Gregor turned on a dime, frowning at the device on the table. He crossed back to the head of the table, planting himself in the roomy black swivel chair. His elbows rested on the finished wood, a crease etched into his forehead to match the concern in his gray eyes. "The hell are you talking about?"

  "Patient Zero." Was it possible for a digitally-altered voice to sound annoyed? "You didn't know Patient Zero is in your city?"

  "Patient Zero is dead." Gregor pounded his right fist against the table to accentuate his point. "I have the report on file. Patient Zero underwent the procedure, regained consciousness hours earlier than expected, went into shock, then succumbed to cardiac arrest."

  The other end went silent. Gregor sank back into his chair with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose and shaking his head. He hadn't lost money on many things in his life, but Projec
t Fusion had been a financial black hole. He had lost count of the billions he lost wasting time on Trent Roberts’ glorified science project. Fortunately for Gregor, all of his other ventures were so successful -- and his tax attorneys were so good with his money -- that he barely felt the loss. Still, there were few things Gregor hated more than pages and pages of red ink. People meddling in his city was one of those things.

  "That's the official story, Mr. Gregor."

  "The official story?!" Gregor was incredulous, bolting from his seat with such aplomb that the seat squeaked as it spun in a perfect 360. He paced and shed his crimson blazer, tossing it onto the table before loosening his matching tie. "I poured billions into this project! I think I deserve more than just the 'official' story!" He leaned over the conference table, his face inches from the console. His nostrils flared. "What happened?”

  The line went silent again, but Gregor knew the connection was solid -- the static hum told him they were still on the line. His fingers drummed against the table, the dull, rapid thum-thum-thum breaking the silence. "I'm waiting."

  "Patient Zero didn't die." Gregor rolled his eyes at the statement of the obvious. "Patient Zero escaped."

  Gregor frowned and started pacing again, shaking his head and stuffing his hands back into his pockets. He felt a bead of sweat roll down his left temple. Eyes darted across the room before he camped out in front of the window again. Patient Zero was alive, alright, and in his city. He squinted, watching a couple cross the street. He watched two men having an argument on a street corner. He saw a red pick-up truck swerve to avoid an accident.

  "Project Fusion wasn't a failure." He turned back to the conference table. "It was a success. So successful, in fact, that there were countries eager to latch on once word got out about Patient Zero.”