Payback. Harper Allen

interests at heart. And Lab 33’s best interests include knowing the inner workings of their human lab rat,” she answered flatly. “Spare me the hearts and flowers, Doctor, and cut to the chase. How much time do I have?”

      “Worst-case scenario, twenty-one days. The degeneration of your genes is following a mathematically predictable time line that can be precisely charted.” The well-tailored shoulders of his suit jacket lifted in a shrug. “We don’t know exactly when the symptoms will start, but they should begin exhibiting soon. Unfortunately, we don’t know what they’ll be, either.” He hesitated. “About the only thing besides the time line that we know for certain from our experiments is that your death will be painful. In effect, your body will turn on itself.”

      She’d taken on every conceivable enemy during her dangerous career. She’d gone up against those enemies, confident that she would be their final and ultimately un-beatable opponent. Was it irony or simple justice that her own final battle would be desperately waged and lost against herself?

      Simple justice, O’Shaughnessy, Dawn thought bleakly. Justice was the only word that fit when the genes that had helped her become Lab 33’s killing machine were the very ones that would bring about her—

      Her thoughts came to a halt as a terrible realization filled her. Her mind went blank with fear before it grasped a possible glimmer of hope.

      “You said worst-case scenario is that I have twenty-one days,” she said through stiff lips. “What’s the best case?”

      Aldrich Peters steepled his fingers on the desk. “Your survival, of course. And there’s a good chance we can achieve that, now you’re on board with Lab 33 again.”

      It took the space of a heartbeat for her to comprehend what lay behind his smile. When she did, it took all her self-control not to jerk Peters’s silk tie into a noose and end everything there and then.

      “You know how to reverse the process and you deliberately let me think it was hopeless?” Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “Enough with the games, Doctor. Let’s get started with my treatment.”

      Because the sooner I receive it, the sooner I can get word to the Cassandras that Faith and Lynn are probably facing the same genetic breakdown, she thought. Maybe I deserve to pay for my past that way, but they don’t. And even if it means I have to push my own personal agenda back a little, I’m going to make sure they won’t.

      She wasn’t giving up the payback that was coming to her, but Kayla had been right—despite the fact that she barely knew them, despite the very different lives they’d led, her sisters were her first priority.

      “Get one thing straight.” Peters’s voice was a whip-lash. “If I choose to make you sweat a little to bring you back into line after your irresponsible disappearance, you’ll take it and like it. Yes, we can create a reversal serum, and yes, as a slap on the wrist I didn’t immediately reveal its existence to you. But I agree, the tit for tat stops here…because you’re leaving Lab 33 tonight on an assignment for me.”

      She shook her head decisively. “No deal. I get the serum before I take on the job.”

      “Getting the serum is the job.” A wintry smile crossed his features as he dropped his bombshell. “Our scientists are missing the final piece of the puzzle that will allow them to formulate the reversal serum. In fact, there’s only one man in the world who’s possibly cracked the puzzle.”

      “Possibly?” she repeated blankly. “Dammit, you’re not sure?”

      “That’s part of your assignment—to ascertain he’s made the breakthrough we believe he has.”

      “Why not simply ask him?” she retorted. “Don’t scientists practically fall all over themselves to publicize their findings?”

      “Most do.” Peters’s lips thinned. “Sir William London’s the exception, a paranoid megalomaniac who won’t reveal anything until he’s ready. He’s also the greatest genius the world has ever known in the field of genetics.”

      “So I’m to break into the research facility where London works, steal his notes and bring them back for our people to use. Getting past a few security guards should be easy enough,” Dawn said in defeat.

      A simple B & E she could live with, she told herself edgily. At worst she’d have to temporarily disable a guard or two, but she’d make sure no one got seriously hurt.

      And if it hadn’t been a simple break and enter? If you’d been ordered to kill for the serum, would you have stepped over the line once more to save yourself and your sisters? The uncomfortable question came to her before she could thrust it away. She didn’t know, Dawn admitted. She’d made a vow never to carry out Aldrich Peters’s murderous orders again, but if the serum was all that stood between her sisters and a terrible death….

      Pain spiked with sudden intensity behind her eyes. She fought against it as Peters pulled a sheaf of papers toward him with a frown.

      “I should have made myself clear. Sir William is funded by the Defense Department in a joint venture with the British, and his laboratory’s inside a compound in the middle of the Arizona desert. It’s guarded by a crack team of military personnel headed by a certain Captain Des Asher—who’s not only London’s nephew, but a highly trained British Special Air Services officer. You’ll pose as a research assistant and get close to London that way.”

      He held the papers out to her. “Study Asher’s military bio. He’s going to be your biggest obstacle, so assassinate him first.”

      Chapter 2

      Status: nineteen days and counting

       Time: 2300 hours

      She was going up against Des Asher naked. She couldn’t deny that there was a tiny ripple of excitement deep inside her at the thought.

      With deliberate clumsiness, Dawn shifted the gears of the junker hatchback she was driving and was rewarded by the labored whine of an engine being pushed beyond its limits. She shifted again, this time correctly.

      Of course, naked just meant without weapons. The most lethal piece of hardware anyone would find on her if she were searched was a nail file…and although she could remember an instance when, armed with little more, she’d taken out a couple of sadistic goons without even messing up the polish she’d been applying when they’d burst in on her, she didn’t think a nail file would raise any red flags as far as Des Asher’s people were concerned.

      Especially not when it was being carried by Dawn Swanson.

      “Swanson’s never done the horizontal mambo, way I see it. I mean, repressed? Chick’s a total man-hater, plus she’s a dweeb,” Carter Johnson had said with a grin two nights ago when she’d left Peters’s office and reported to Lab 33’s Identities Department. He’d extracted a glossy eight-by-ten photo from a file and passed it to her. “Check out your new hair, babe. Not that the big boss man told me any more than he had to, but with the rock-solid credentials I’ve created for you, I’m guessing this isn’t a simple in-and-out assignment where a wig would be enough. After we’re through here, you’ll be scooting that fine butt of yours over to Helga for the works—a bad cut, an even worse perm and a mud-brown dye job.” His grin widened. “I almost forgot the bottle-lens glasses we got for you to wear. Behind them your eyes look way magnified, but Carlos in Research and Development made them so they won’t affect your vision at all. Man, I love this job!”

      Carter was one of Lab 33’s youngest employees, probably close to her own age. Much to the irritation of the older staff, he cultivated an indie-rebel air, wearing his hair in a spiky, bed-head style and using a skateboard to cruise up and down Lab 33’s endless corridors. But Dawn wasn’t taken in by his “Dude, where’s my wheels?” manner. He worked here. That meant two things: one, he had to be the best at what he did, which was creating false identities and the documentation to back them up; and two, he’d willingly sold his soul to Aldrich Peters—either for money or because of some crime he’d