PhD Protector Page 2

  “The government needs fixing and he’s the man to do it,” Mark said drily.

  She nodded. “He tried to recruit me as one of his loyal followers, but I balked.”

  “I’m guessing that didn’t make you very popular,” Mark said.

  “I told my mom he was a terrorist, plain and simple. We had a big fight about it. She just couldn’t see it.” The memory of her mother’s rejection still stung. “The day after I graduated high school I left the compound and swore to my mom I wouldn’t see her again until she came to her senses and got out of there, too.”

  Her stomach still knotted when she remembered that day. She had walked out, sure the next time she saw Helen Daniels Braeswood she would be either dead or on the news, arrested for her involvement with some plot of Duane’s.

  “That must have been tough,” Mark said.

  “Yeah, well, we didn’t speak for four years. Then she called, out of the blue one day, to tell me Duane and the others had left her and moved to Colorado. She sounded worn-out. She asked if she could come stay with me awhile. I was thrilled. I moved her into the house I was renting in Idaho Falls and after a few weeks she was a new woman. She was the mom I had known and loved before. She still refused to admit that Duane was evil. She called him ‘misguided but sincere.’ She said she had loved him very much but that she was determined to get over him.”

  Erin fell silent again, remembering all the hope she had had in those months.

  “What happened?” Mark prompted after a moment.

  “She stayed with me about eighteen months. I thought everything was great. Then one day I came home and found her bags all packed. She said she had had a call from Duane. He had been injured in an accident and he needed her. They were still legally married, so she was going back to him. I went a little crazy. I screamed and yelled and threatened to call the police. She was perfectly calm through the whole thing. She told me one day I would be in love and I would understand. Then she got in a taxi and left.”

  “How did that lead to you ending up here?” Mark asked.

  “I’m getting to that.” She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “About six weeks ago, I got a call, from a man who identified himself as Duane’s personal assistant. He said he thought I would want to know that my mom was very ill. In fact, she was dying of cancer. She was in hospice and didn’t have long and had been asking to see me. He gave me the address he said was for the hospice and suggested I might like to visit her before it was too late.” She covered her eyes with her hand, fighting back tears—of grief and rage and shame.

  “Did you see her?” Mark asked, his voice gentle.

  “She wasn’t even sick! It was a trick, to get me to a place where Duane’s men could grab me. He showed up, too. He was in a wheelchair, with an oxygen tank. He’d clearly been messed up somehow, but that didn’t seem to lessen the power he had over everyone around him. He told me I needed to be punished for upsetting my mother so much, and that he had a job I could do to make up for all the trouble I had caused.”

  “And his men brought you here.”

  “First they took me to a fishing camp somewhere in the area, and we stayed there for a few days. I guess they were waiting for some signal from Duane or the stars to align or something. Then they took me to a house in Denver. I stayed there for weeks, in a locked room with the windows blacked out.” She glanced around the cabin. “At least this isn’t as bad as that.”

  “Do you know why I’m here?” Mark asked. “What it is that you’re supposed to assist me with?”

  “Duane always referred to you as his scientist,” she said. “A genius he had working for him, I assume on one of his crackpot schemes. What is it this time? A truth serum? Some potion that allows him to see in the dark? A new weapon?”

  Mark shifted on his stool and cleared his throat. “You don’t know what kind of scientist I am, do you?”

  “Duane just told me you were a scientist, and you obviously have some kind of laboratory here.”

  “I’m a nuclear physicist. Duane Braeswood is holding me prisoner so I can build him a bomb. A nuclear bomb.”

  Chapter Two

  Erin’s lovely face reflected all the emotions that had battered at Mark the first time he heard the terrorist leader’s plans for him—shock, outrage and finally puzzlement. She glanced around the cabin, with its sparse furnishings and makeshift lab. “How—?”

  He didn’t let her finish the sentence, but sprang up, grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the refrigerator. “Let me fix you some lunch,” he said. “There’s cold cuts and stuff in the refrigerator.”

  She struggled to free herself from his grip, but he held her firmly, pulled open the refrigerator door and leaned in, tugging her alongside him. “We have to be careful what we say,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I think the place is bugged.”

  Her expression tightened and he braced himself for her to dismiss him as a nut. After so many months alone, maybe he was losing it, letting the paranoia take over. But her gaze remained level and she nodded. “That would be just like Duane,” she said. “He doesn’t trust anyone or take anything for granted.”

  Mark released her hand and pretended to look through the packages of ham, turkey and cheese on the shelf. “I spend all my time pretending to do the impossible,” he mumbled. “Your stepfather wants a nuclear bomb that can be carried around in an oversize suitcase or a backpack, but there’s no way that can be done. Certainly not by one man in a facility like this.”

  “But you’ve convinced him you can do it.” She sounded both horrified and fascinated by the prospect. “Why?”

  “As long as I keep working for him, my daughter lives.” He grabbed a package of ham and another of cheese and moved away from the refrigerator, back to the table. “There’s bread in the cupboard over the sink,” he said.

  She hesitated, then grabbed the bread and followed him. “You have a daughter?” She kept her voice low, just above a whisper.

  “Mandy is five. She was four the last time I saw her.”

  “Where is she?” Erin’s voice rose. “Duane isn’t holding her prisoner, too?”

  “No, she’s safe. She lives with her aunt.” At least, he prayed that was still true. Mandy had been with his wife’s sister the day Mark left on the hiking trip from which he had never returned. He and Christy had both designated Claire as their chosen guardian for Mandy in their wills, so he had assumed his daughter had stayed with Claire after his disappearance.

  “What happened to her mother?” Erin asked.

  “She died two months before Duane brought me here.” He glanced up from spreading mayonnaise on a slice of bread. “Officially, it was ruled a one-car accident, but someone tampered with her car, I know. Duane wanted to send me a message about the consequences of not cooperating with him.”

  Sympathy darkened Erin’s eyes. “I heard rumors about that kind of thing when I lived with him,” she said. “I wanted to believe they weren’t true. That no one would be that cruel and manipulative.”

  “Oh, this is true.” When Christy had died, grief and rage at the man responsible consumed him. All these months later, he felt only numb.

  “But how did you meet Duane in the first place?” she asked. “You don’t strike me as the prepper type.”

  “No, I’m not. I had never even heard of Duane Braeswood when he stopped by my office at the University of Colorado one morning about eighteen months ago. He presented himself as a businessman who was interested in providing a grant for research. I was naive enough to be flattered.” How many times over the past year had he wished he had had the sense to see through the madman’s ruse and refuse to ever speak to him?

  “And once he had snared you, he wouldn’t let go.” She nodded. “He’s done it before. He identifies something he wants and then uses whatever means possible to get
it.”

  “At first, he tried to sell me on the scientific advantages of working for him—a private laboratory with top equipment, an endless supply of resources, eventual fame and fortune, and a key role in his new world order.” He grimaced. “When that didn’t sway me, he turned to threats. I didn’t believe him. I thought he was a crackpot but harmless. I found out too late that he was anything but.”

  “I’m sorry about your wife,” Erin said, all the hardness gone from her voice.

  “Thank you.” He swallowed, regaining his composure. “When he threatened my daughter next, I knew I didn’t have any choice but to cooperate.”

  “So now you’re trying to do the impossible.”

  “I’m the best—or one of the best—nuclear physicists in the country.” He raised his voice for the benefit of anyone who might be listening in. “The organization supplies me with anything I need, from high-grade uranium ore to the most sophisticated equipment. It’s only a matter of time.” He met her eyes, letting her know he was lying through his teeth.

  “And I’m supposed to help you.” She stared down at her completed sandwich. “I don’t know the first thing about nuclear physics.”

  “You’re a math teacher. That should come in handy. You can help me with my calculations.”

  She looked around the cabin again. “You don’t have a computer?”

  He shook his head.

  “And I don’t see any books. Don’t you need reference materials? Formulas?”

  He tapped the side of his head. “It’s all in here.” He almost laughed at the skepticism that was so plain on her face. “No, really. I have a photographic memory. I’ve memorized all the textbooks and formulas and manuals. Once I read something, I remember it. Some of my colleagues thought I was a freak, but it made me the perfect candidate for Duane’s little project.” Finding out how thoroughly the Patriots’ leader had vetted him had made Mark feel even more vulnerable and helpless, as if there was nowhere to hide from Duane’s reach.

  “I thought photographic memories were something people made up for movies and books,” she said.

  “No, it’s a real phenomenon. Something to do with how the person’s brain is wired. There may even be a genetic component in this case. My mother had perfect pitch. My twin brother never forgets a face.”

  “You have a twin?”

  “Yes. Luke is an FBI agent. He’s part of a special task force composed of people like him—super-recognizers who never forget a face.”

  “An FB—” She shook her head. “Then Duane is an idiot—and I don’t care who hears me say that.”

  “Duane believes he’s untouchable,” Mark said. And maybe he was. The man had managed to get away with murder—literally—for a while now. “I know Luke is looking for me,” he continued. “But Duane is hunting him, too. He’s made it known he’ll pay a big bonus to anyone who kills a Fed.”

  “He bragged about it to me, too.”

  He studied her, wishing he could decipher people as easily as he could chemical formulas. Was she telling the truth about how she had ended up here, or was this merely one more way for Braeswood and his bunch to mess with Mark’s mind? “Why did he send you here, really?” he asked, leaning toward her. “I don’t need an assistant for this project. Are you here to spy on me? Will you report back to him everything I’ve said?” He ought to be afraid of those consequences, but after all this time trapped here with no way out he would welcome a bullet to end it all.

  “You really think I would work for people like them? That I could believe in their sick plots or condone anything they do?” She shoved the sandwich away and glared at him, cheeks flushed, eyes blazing.

  “Accusing me isn’t the same as denial,” he pointed out.

  “No! I don’t want anything to do with those monsters. And I don’t want anything to do with you.” She stalked away and sat on the end of the unmade bed, her back to him.

  Even from across the room, he imagined the heat of her anger washing over him. He welcomed the warmth, the intensity of the emotion, the life in her. For so long now—before they had even brought him here, since Christy’s death—he had felt cold and hollow inside, more robot than man. Only his daughter had been able to stir him, her tiny breath able to coax sparks from the few coals of life left inside him.

  Then she was gone and the fire had died altogether. He had gone through the motions of living, but had felt nothing.

  Now Erin was here, all fiery anger and glowing life, making him remember things—hatred and hunger and sex. Somehow being near a woman, after so many months with only the company of other men, reminded him of his own humanity. He wasn’t dead after all, but he didn’t know if that knowledge was good or bad. Living meant feeling—risking and caring and hurting. All things he had told himself he couldn’t afford to do again.

  * * *

  ERIN ENVIED MARK’S COMPOSURE. She couldn’t sit still, agitation driving her to pace. She had lived with fear for so long it was part of her makeup now, like the color of her hair or the shape of her face. Even years after she had left the family compound she continued to look over her shoulder, expecting her stepfather to make good on all the threats he had hurled at her when she’d walked away from him. Duane had a need to control situations and people. If you thwarted him, you could expect to be punished.

  He had bided his time, but he had finally exacted his revenge, though she still wasn’t sure of his final plans for her. She kept expecting his thugs to come back for her—to tie her up again and tell her there had been a change of plans, that this remote cabin wasn’t her real destination. This place was too bizarre, even for Duane. Did he really believe he could build a nuclear bomb in a place like this? With a scientist who didn’t even bother to look at a book?

  She risked a glance at Mark, who had returned to work at the lab table. He wore goggles and a mask and was working with his hands in heavy gloves, manipulating something inside a large glass box. Maybe the protective gear was because the material in that box was radioactive. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders to ward off a sudden chill.

  She couldn’t figure Mark out. The story he had told her—about his wife and little girl—was horrifying. She was pretty sure Duane had killed other people, so why not Mark’s wife? But how could Mark be so calm about his situation? She had spent every waking moment for the last six weeks trying to figure out how to escape from her captors. She had almost succeeded twice—she still winced, remembering the beatings she’d received when she had been caught. But Duane hadn’t let them kill her or rape her or otherwise harm her. She had thought he drew the line there out of consideration for her mother, but now she wondered if it was because he had other plans for her. Plans that included the enigmatic Mark Renfro.

  Her stomach growled. The sandwich she had made earlier still sat on the kitchen counter, so she retrieved it and took it to the table to eat. Mark glanced up from his work. “They usually bring dinner by now,” he said. “Since they haven’t, we may have to make do with cold cuts.”

  She shrugged. She didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to get any closer to him, but curiosity—and maybe loneliness—weakened her resolve. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m using a solvent to extract pure uranium from powdered ore,” he said. “The process takes a couple of days, but there’s a lot of high-grade ore in this area. I think that’s why Duane was interested in the property in the first place. Some things I’ve overheard make me think he hasn’t owned the place long—that he acquired it specifically for this purpose. The remote location suits his purposes well, too.”

  “I still don’t understand how you convinced Duane you could make a bomb out here,” she said. “He’s insane, but he isn’t stupid.”

  He removed his hands from the box, pulled down the mask and pushed up the goggles and faced her. “I didn’t convince him
of anything. He decided it could be done and chose me to do it.”

  “But what made him think it was even possible?” she asked. “Don’t you need, I don’t know, a particle accelerator or something like that?”

  He chuckled. “Actually, in the 1960s, three physics students working in a small laboratory were able to design a functional bomb. The United States government paid them to make the attempt. They wanted to see if it was possible for a few people with a limited amount of knowledge and not a lot of sophisticated equipment—a situation that might crop up in an underdeveloped country, for example—to make a nuclear weapon. Turned out they could. The government called it the Nth Country Experiment. You can read about it online if you’re interested. And in 1994 a teenage Eagle Scout built a nuclear reactor in his backyard, using materials he found around the house.”

  “So you really could build a bomb?” The idea made her skin crawl.

  “I’m sure I could, given enough time and the right materials.” He scrawled something on a piece of paper and passed it over to her. In case anyone is listening—building a bomb isn’t the problem. Building one small enough for one person to carry around inconspicuously is.

  She nodded and crumpled the paper, holding it tight in her clenched fist. “I still don’t see how I can help you.”

  “Perhaps you’re merely here to boost my morale.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t get any ideas.”

  He frowned. “I only meant that having someone to talk to is a nice change.”

  Right. Maybe she had grown too accustomed to the company of Duane’s goons who, despite their boss’s orders not to lay a hand on her, spent plenty of time leering and making lewd remarks. “How have you kept from going crazy, alone here for so many months?” she asked.

  “I try not to think about it too much,” he said. “And I focus on the work.” He turned back to the lab equipment.