Page 63 of I Dream of Danger
But more than anything else there had been a barely-contained excitement about the man, which was totally unlike him. Flynn had known Lee for a long time. He’d commissioned research from Lee’s company back when he’d still been in the military. He believed in Lee so much he dipped into his own company’s pockets to keep this line of research going when he retired. It had been banned by the government, but what the government didn’t know wouldn’t hurt it.
‘Human experimentation’ was a big no-no in government labs, but that was bullshit in Flynn’s opinion. Portable weaponry had gotten about as lethal as it was ever going to get, and there were limits to the use of the big bombs. The last frontier was human enhancement, which was going to make all the difference in the coming resource wars.
Lee had always been cool and rational. The ultimate scientist, though Flynn had always suspected Lee had another agenda. Not money, which puzzled him. Because money was the best motivator there was. Lee liked money well enough, but mainly he saw it as a tool to help him continue his research. He himself lived simply. So money wasn’t it. Whatever it was, as long as it didn’t impede the ultimate goal, Flynn didn’t give a shit.
But now, whatever it was that was driving Lee was messing with him. With the man Flynn had just given fifteen million dollars to.
If what Lee was working on panned out, the history of soldiering would be changed forever, and Flynn would almost overnight become one of the richest men in the world. If it didn’t pan out because Lee went off the reservation, then Flynn was out a shitload of money, and the promises he was making to potential clients would turn out to be so much hot air. And a couple of those clients were not men you could lie to and walk away from alive.
Whatever happened, he needed to stick around for a few more days to make sure Lee wasn’t going to make fifteen million dollars go up in smoke.
He tapped his ear. He needed to check in with headquarters.
“Yessir.” Oh yeah. Melissa, his new secretary. Efficient and pretty and eminently bangable. She could roll out of bed after two hours of fucking him and coolly plan his next day’s schedule while he was still gasping on the bed.
“Yeah, Melissa. I know I said I was coming back today, but I need to stay. Block out the next two days and cancel my flight back to Virginia. Tell the pilot he can stay at the Marriott until I need him.”
A pause, and then Melissa’s throaty voice. “Done.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m arriving. And, Melissa?”
She recognized that tone and her voice dropped even lower. “Yessir?”
“Don’t be wearing panties when I arrive.”
Flynn disconnected with her throaty chuckle ringing in his ears.
Mount Blue
Elle found herself in a warm embrace, short but heart-felt. The woman embracing her was slender, so the slight protuberance of her belly could be easily felt. She was pregnant, and there was no doubt whatsoever who the father was. He stood right behind the woman with a hand on her shoulder.
They made a strange couple. Beauty and the Beast. The woman was very pretty, with shoulder-length dark hair and gray-blue eyes, and the husband…well, the husband was huge and ugly and frightening. Those were the only words that really fit. He was the tallest man in the room—though both Nick and Jon were tall men—and would be in just about any room. His face was hard, with a nose that had been broken several times, what looked like a knife scar on one side, and a burn scar that had melted the skin on the other. His eyes were cold and hard. This was a guy you wanted to avoid if you knew what was good for you. That didn’t stop the woman from gently stroking the huge hand on her shoulder and giving him a quick loving glance over her shoulder.
He smiled down at her and the entire arrangement of his facial features changed. He didn’t turn warm and cuddly, but there was no doubt what he felt for the woman. Elle herself would have been frightened to be in the same room as the guy, but love was love. What could she say? She’d been in love forever with a man who’d abandoned her twice, so she was not one to judge.
This woman knew her, which was eerie bordering on creepy. “How do you know my name?” Elle asked, as the woman took her hand.
“Chicago, May 2032, the annual meeting of the American Neuroscience Academy. Room B. Your paper on Immune Markers in Trance States blew us all away.” The woman shook her hand gently then let it go. While Elle’s hand had been in hers, there had been a weird flash of warmth, something gently blooming then fading. It might have been coincidence, but she felt a little stronger, too.
Chicago, May 2032. “You were there?”
“I was.” The woman smiled softly. “Though I read the entire paper later because I had to leave halfway through and go to Room C. To deliver my own paper on The role of Kir4.1 in Oligodendrocyte Myelin Formation.”
Elle gasped. “Dr. Young! Dr Catherine Young!” This time Elle was the one to grab a hand. She pumped it up and down. How amazing to find her here! Catherine Young was a legend who was doing cutting edge research into dementia. Unlock dementia and you unlocked a number of secrets of the brain. “What a privilege! I’ve followed your work these past years with a great deal of interest. Particularly your work on the gamma secretase activating protein in translating ribosome affinity purification. I know you’re applying it to a study of dementia, but really, it could be extrapolated to association cortices in the parahippocampal gyrus.”
Dr. Young leaned forward. “Oh, I know! I was studying the dementing process, but your findings are important in gaining a clearer understanding of immunoreactivity. When we used immunofluorescence assays?—”
“Did you use the Coons and Kaplan technique?”
“We did. It’s old but it is reliable and stable. I know some are using the new Hunter and Florheim technique, but?—”
“Whoa!” A deep voice interrupted. Elle turned her head to see Nick with his big hands up in a time-out gesture. “Some pity for the non-geeks here. And especially pity for two certain non-geeks who are starving because they just saved a certain geek’s ass.”
Elle felt anger shoot through her whole system. “That would be me, I suppose?”
Nick nodded. “That would definitely be you, Dr. Connelly. No wonder I couldn’t find you. You’d changed your name.” His jaw muscles visibly moved. “I imagine that there’s a mister Connelly somewhere. Or, knowing you, another Dr. Connelly.”
Elle’s own jaw tightened. Nick sounded angry. As if she’d done something without asking permission. How dare he! She narrowed her eyes. “No mister, no doctor. Connelly was my mother’s name. I took it after—after.”
