To Touch Poison Read online

  Spy dust? Possibly. The antidote for my formula? Very promising.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Washington, DC

  May, 1980

  THE MEETING WAS AT THE PENTAGON.

  Kaimi Maliu arrived three days early, and spent the time watching, waiting, preparing. She was a CIA scientist, not military, so why had she been summoned for a briefing at the Pentagon? The two organizations didn’t cooperate willingly, and not at all if they could avoid it.

  The trepidation riding her shoulders grew heavy as the day and hour of the meeting neared. She hadn’t spotted anything unusual during her surveillance of the esteemed building. Oh, there were people coming and going, but no one she recognized, and the activity appeared to be business as usual. That was both good news and bad news. The good being she wasn’t that important, and the bad? If she wasn’t that important, she was expendable.

  On The Day, she’d dressed to kill. No weapons, of course. They’d never let her through security, but her black power suit, and the three-inch heels clicking against the tile floor with a steady tattoo of reassurance were lethal enough, or so she thought, until the man guiding her into the elevator pushed a sub-basement number. A short burst of adrenaline had her running through several kill scenarios should they be necessary.

  She’d spent the last couple of months taking specialized classes in arms, disguises, martial arts, surveillance, and whatever else she could fit into her schedule. Nothing as intense as the training she’d had at The Farm, but she didn’t want to lose her edge. Ever since M6342CN had passed through her lab three months earlier, there had been a niggling between her shoulder blades that she might need the knowledge. Damn, but she hated that feeling.

  The nondescript corporal who’d met her at security, and who’d taken over as her guide, nodded. Reassurance? Or were his hands at parade rest because he was hiding something? And there it was. The other thing M6432CN had changed. She’d become a suspicious woman, and she didn’t like it. The corporal was a harmless older guy just doing his job.

  When the elevator doors opened, she sucked in a shallow breath, the stale air leaving a moldy taste in her mouth. She’d become paranoid since discovering the derivation of her lethal formula, the one that killed every time and that could be made in large batches. She’d kept it under wraps, but still suspected everyone of—

  “Right through here, Officer Maliu.” The soldier, so old he creaked, ushered her into a room with two chairs separated by a bare metal table that had been worn shiny with age and hard use. He motioned toward the visitor chair, then slipped out, closing the door behind him.

  Kaimi sat. And waited.

  No windows, and the only escape route was through the door she’d entered. She scanned the ceiling. Solid plaster, and there weren’t any video cameras. There were no filing cabinets, no place to store or hide anything. Not an upscale office. Not really an office at all, more like an interrogation cell. Kaimi’s insides plunged in a sick free fall.

  Had the corporal locked her in here? There had been no telltale sound of a lock engaging when he’d left, but the need to check, to turn the knob, tingled along her arms and settled in her hands.

  Muscles tense, she shifted her weight to stand, and then the door opened.

  The man who entered was broad, and middle-aged, between forty-five and fifty, Kaimi guessed. Military bearing, but other than his cold brown eyes and a slightly skewed cleft in his chin, his appearance was utterly forgettable. More so after he closed the door behind him. Apparently privacy was a trigger for him to drop the stiff bearing.

  He sat and flattened his hands on the desktop, fingers splayed. His gaze cut into her, precise and without emotion. “As of this moment, you no longer exist, Kaimi Maliu. Your files have been expunged from all CIA records, as well as all public and private databases. Due to the nature of your discovery, we have no alternative.”

  Kaimi estimated the probable success of three kill actions, but she wasn’t a trained assassin, not like covert special operations officers were. Her chances of success without incurring incapacitating injury were slight. She itched to smash his nose with the heel of her hand, or better, ram the heel of her shoe into his jugular.

  “Exactly who am I?” Anger edged her voice. She swallowed it. This wasn’t the time for any emotion.

  He preened. “I took it upon myself to select your new handle.”

  She didn’t ask.

  “Xolas.” His chuckle lacked humor. “The god who puts souls into bodies and then takes them back after death. Fitting, don’t you think? Lethal toxin. Antidote. On your official record, I cut the s off and gave you a last name. Xola Muerte. San La Muerte is a South American god of death, and since your new country of origin is Brazil, it blends. Xola is crisp. Easy. Makes a good handle. All of your official records, from birth through midnight yesterday, have been replaced. Your new family immigrated to the States when you were an infant, so your records are American.”

  There were a million questions fighting for dominance in Kaimi’s head, the mishmash making her edgy, but only one query escaped. “Why?”

  “You work for me, and all of my assets have fake, traceable histories with enough truth not be questioned, and enough lies to protect everyone who comes in contact with you. Life expectancy here runs one to five years. Your mission is to perfect the formula you discovered for use as a potential biological weapon—”

  Adrenaline surged, Kaimi leapt from her chair, and leaned into his space. “No.”

  His glare stripped her defenses to a soul level. He jabbed a finger at her. “Sit.”

  She spun, reached the door in two strides, and twisted the knob. No go. Flight had been the smartest choice, but she wasn’t opposed to fighting for her life. She faced him, noted the pulse beating in his neck, and had her shoe in her hand, perfectly aimed, before he had a chance to blink.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE MAN SMILED AGAIN, AND THE air in the interrogation room grew heavy with threat.

  Kaimi shivered.

  “You have three seconds to stand down.” He held up a dart, fingers poised around the barrel.

  Her mind skidded into slow motion. Worst case: lethal toxin. Best case: tranquilizer. The odds for piercing his jugular with her heel before he tossed the projectile were miniscule. Why the hell hadn’t they trained her as an assassin?

  She slipped her shoe on and moved behind her chair.

  They shared a moment of silent negotiation. She watched his eyes, kept her face immobile. Her intent was to make it clear she’d given all the ground she was going to. It was one thing to back away from an impending physical threat—a smart decision. But to sit like a trained puppy? No. She’d rather be tranqued, thank you very much.

  He nodded. “When you perfect the formula’s viability as a biological weapon, you can begin working on an antidote. For obvious reasons, it would be impractical to unleash a poison without the means to protect ourselves from accidental contamination.”

  Tension crawled between Kaimi’s shoulder blades as her internal scientist fought for control. No one knew about her recent progress with the formula. At least this bought her some time. “It will be more efficient, and the outcome more certain, if I work on both processes as a unit.” Her words hung in the air. She’d unconsciously accepted his challenge. It was the word “antidote” that had tipped the scales. Her single focus since she’d discovered the ancient formula was a cure for the poison. Well, there was that other discovery, but so far she’d managed to keep it a well-hidden secret.

  It was her fatal weakness as a scientist, the need to do no harm. She knew it. And the CIA knew it, so how had she ended up here? And… “Who the hell are you?”

  He heaved a sigh. “I’m the man who decides whether you live or die. You can call me…Fred.”

  Kaimi wasn’t naïve enough to believe she had any control over her life after she’d made the choice to sign on with the CIA, so she probed for a gut response from her newest handler. She was very, very ski
lled at reading reactions. It probably came from her intense study of forensic anthropology. Dead or alive, people were her thing. “Fred? Seriously?”

  The faintest glimmer of a smile touched his eyes. “You deploy in one hour. The corporal waiting outside has your duffle and new identification.”

  She had Jayme, and parents, people to touch base with. Her instructions had been to bring nothing to the meeting, and being well trained in following orders and protocol, she’d complied. But now… “I’ll need to make arrangements. Check in with my family and let J—”

  Fred leaned forward, cutting her off. “No contact. It’s been done for you. You. Don’t. Exist, Ms. Maliu.”

  Reality slithered through Kaimi. Anger churned, but she squashed it. Temporarily. There wasn’t anything she could do until she escaped from Fred’s pseudo interrogation cell. “Right,” she snapped, and then strode to the door. Had the bastards told her family she’d been killed in action? They knew she was CIA, but no one would believe there’d been a fatal accident. She was an analyst, a scientist, not Spec Ops, not even a regular covert officer.

  The knob turned easily this time.

  The corporal handed her a duffle and a small leather pouch. She flicked the thin calfskin open with her thumb. The name was Xola Muerte, and the background information bore no resemblance to reality. An entirely new history had been laid out on a sheet of paper so thin she could practically see through it. Different addresses, different schools but with similar degrees, a different social security number, and a driver’s license from Ohio. She’d never been to Ohio.

  She closed the pouch and stuffed it in an outside pocket of the duffle. “Where to, Corporal?”

  He held her gaze for a moment, then pressed the up button for the elevator. “I’m to escort you to a point of egress, ma’am.” Even his voice creaked.

  It was obvious he knew nothing. Kaimi hefted the weight of the duffle. Clothes for sure, a weapon, she hoped. If not, she’d see to it herself.

  And Jayme! Their love was strong and they wanted to make their relationship permanent. Jayme would never accept her sudden “disappearance.” Kaimi bit down on a bark of laughter. Major mistake on Fred’s part. No one knew about her private life with Jayme, so he wouldn’t have received the memo about her unfortunate demise. She and Jayme had opted to keep their plans completely under wraps, not wanting to share until they’d decided if they wanted to continue working for the CIA.

  Her parents wouldn’t buy any “sudden demise” scenario, either. They were followers of Huna, a Hawaiian metaphysical practice, and both were psychically gifted. The gene had bypassed her, gifting her instead with an extraordinary affinity for plants and chemical reactions. She’d just take her work off-line, so to speak, share it with them, and together they’d discover the correct blend of plant substances to create large amounts of the antidote. Her parents knew more about healing than anyone she’d ever studied with.

  The only problem would be staying under Fred’s radar. He seemed the determined sort, so she’d have to finesse it. Hopefully, Jayme would have some ideas on how to slide under…no, of course he wouldn’t. CIA attorneys didn’t know squat about Special Ops. Did they? She and Jayme had had better things to do than discuss the minutiae of their work. They’d have to rectify that as soon as she was able to talk with him.

  The corporal motioned her off the elevator and toward a recessed door, his other hand hovering over a keypad. “After I enter the code, you have five seconds to exit.”

  Or what? He’d shoot her, knives would drop from above, or maybe an arm would pop out of the molding and inject her with a lethal substance. That would be fitting. “Thanks, Corporal.”

  She stepped through the door, it whisked shut behind her, and the locks clicked into place. The man who stepped out of the large, anonymous vehicle awaiting her was trained. She’d learned to recognize the highly skilled operatives who wandered the halls at Langley, not that they were big on friendly communication, but they could slide into and out of “normalcy” in a nanosecond. It was noticeable to her human-astute mind. And maybe that was what she’d inherited from her parents instead of the psychic gene. It was as though she had a skewed chromosome, maybe a mutation.

  The agent grasped her arm, fast-walked her to the vehicle, and lifted her, a little too vigorously, into the back seat. He followed, sliding in next to her. Inside were a driver and one other agent who rode shotgun, all three were armed to the teeth, and all three dressed in jeans, polo shirts and jackets. Normal, except for their demeanor.

  A sliver of unease scraped at Kaimi’s nape. They weren’t going to kill her, or they’d have done it without going to the trouble of a Pentagon meeting. But they weren’t taking her back to Langley, either. And there wasn’t a current address in the information included in her pouch.

  Where the hell were they taking her?

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE VEHICLE LEFT PENTAGON PROPERTY AND merged into traffic. Was there any point in asking her bodyguards…yes, she like liked the term bodyguards much better than kidnappers…where they were headed? Kaimi did a mental shrug. Questioning them would be fruitless. Oh, they’d answer her, but they’d lie with conviction and without tells.

  Damn, but she needed to talk to Jayme. He was privy to all sorts of information databases regular CIA officers weren’t. And if she went missing, he’d search for her. She didn’t doubt that. And when he did, all kinds of shit could come down on him. Cold panic shivered in her veins. She couldn’t tell Jayme anything about this, not when it might endanger his life.

  The man next to her shifted position, turning his head slightly toward her. Curiosity flashed in his eyes. “We’re escorting you to Andrews Field, ma’am.”

  His tone was cautious, bordering on conspicuously polite…like he was afraid of her. How…odd. And then his words sunk into her overloaded brain. Not going to Langley. Not going to her apartment. But they were taking her somewhere, obviously unknown. Where no one knew how to find her. Like a prison?

  A burst of fear shut down her breathing for a heartbeat. She fought it, straightened her spine, and explored the possibilities. Holding her in captivity would be stupid if they expected her to perfect the formula and find an antidote. What they didn’t know, what no one knew, was that she’d discovered a slight variation of the formula that held curative properties. She hadn’t tested it thoroughly enough to share the news with anyone, but there was little doubt that, with some minor tweaking, it had the potential to become a miracle drug.

  A sigh welled from deep in her chest. No point getting her hopes up. Curative drugs were rare, and this one would require switching several key components, and she had to factor in the healing abilities that were inherent in her genes. In addition to being psychic, both Makani Maliu, the sweetest of all possible mothers, and Aukele, the most enigmatic of all possible fathers, were born healers. Damn, but she needed a lab, preferably close to the source of the plants she’d need in order to produce the formula. As much as she longed to ensure no one would be able to create the fatal toxin in future generations, it was far more important to make the healing formula available to everyone, unless it required her specific genetic make-up to actually work. But she wouldn’t know until she tried it.

  The government would only be interested in the toxin and a possible antidote. Maybe. Miracles held the potential to generate astronomical sums. Not something the government would turn down, nor would pharmaceutical companies, or industrious entrepreneurs. Or criminals.

  But if there was a viable antidote that could be produced in mass quantities, that formula would be different from her potential miracle drug. That was for sure. She’d tried using the healing formula to undo damage from the toxin, and it had failed every single test.

  The South American jungle was the only place where the specific combination of plants she needed grew. Natively, anyway. She might be able to create hospitable conditions in a lab, but… And there it was. A simple answer to the question she hadn’t as
ked. They were going to transport her to the heart of the South American jungle without allowing her to have any contact with her family. Or Jayme. Emotion rolled in her gut, so strong she couldn’t separate the anger from the sadness.

  “No. Oh, no this isn’t going happen.” Her fingers closed over the seatbelt fastening, freeing it. She kicked the duffle out of the way, and lurched toward the door. Stop and go traffic. As soon as the vehicle slowed…

  A hand fisted around her upper arm. “My orders, ma’am, are to ensure your safe delivery to Andrews Field. And that door is locked. Controls are up front.”

  She was a prisoner. Without bars. Kaimi managed to choke down her need to flee. The timing was off, and failure the probable outcome. She didn’t act on poor odds. Not normally. Settling into the leather seat, she refastened her seat belt and yanked the duffle onto her lap to explore the contents. Maybe it was an inopportune time to fight her way out of the situation, but it was an excellent time to prepare.

  She took mental inventory of what Fred had provided: Three sets of jungle camouflage clothing, four sets of serviceable underwear, one pair of boots, appropriate toiletries, and an ASEK survival knife. Hot damn. A weapon.

  A sideways glance at the corporal confirmed he was aware of the blade, and in close quarters he’d have the advantage of physical strength. She did better in a fight with more room to maneuver. Know your weaknesses, Kaimi. Take advantage of your strengths.

  She puffed out a sigh and zipped the duffle closed. The survival knife would do for now, but she’d be adding a Busse Boss Jack when she had a chance. Correction. Made a chance. Kaimi had been jungle-trained when she lived with a local tribe while working on her dissertation. There was no way these Army boys would be able to track her. Probably.

  Problem was, probabilities could get a gal killed.

  She closed her eyes and focused on her memories of the Amazon jungle. Past experience suggested they’d fly her into Manaus, and then transfer her to a boat for travel up the Rio Negro. There were more than forty thousand indigenous plants that grew in the jungle, but the ones she’d need to continue her research were located in a special reserve area populated by the local tribes who’d taught her about the ground roots and bark they used for euthanasia. And about the plants that might be an antidote. But they were very reluctant to share that information. Interesting how comfortable they were with dying compared to the vast majority of the world’s population.