“Are you willing to pay for yours?” she asked.

  Lunik stepped backward, shocked into silence. In his career, he had dealt with Kremlin bosses, the KGB, and professional torturers. All of them paled beside this copper-haired girl.

  She was barely sixteen. But she was truly terrifying.

  CHAPTER 35

  Chicago

  “FIVE MORE! RIGHT now! Don’t quit!” I was doing hundred-pound leg presses with Meed shouting into my ear. Her heavy metal playlist blasted from the ceiling speakers. Top volume. It was hard-core, so loud that it felt like it was actually penetrating my organs. Screams. Aggression. Raw fury. That’s what it took to get me through my two-a-day workouts, which had gotten more and more intense. I gritted my teeth and kept working the weight machine. I felt like a machine myself. My muscles were burning, almost exhausted. But Meed would not let up. She punched my shoulder—hard.

  “That last rep was half-assed!” she shouted. “Give me an extra!”

  I was into the fifth superset of my morning session. With my last rep, I was finished with legs, moving on to arms and back. I was panting, sweating, aching. I used to think a set of tennis was a solid workout. I had no idea. “Toy exercise,” Meed called it. “Wimpy and soft.” My soft life was definitely over. I’d almost forgotten what that life was like.

  Now my world was a blur of preacher curls, lying triceps extensions, cable pulls, dead lifts, and hang power snatches. I jumped rope like a maniac and swung fifty-pound kettlebells. I balanced on a tilt board while holding sandbags in each hand. I was burning 400 calories an hour and replacing them with mass-gain supplements. I weighed myself religiously every morning, like a fighter in training. I was now up to 195. A twenty-pound gain in six months. All muscle. A whole new me.

  “Let’s go, Doctor!” Meed yelled. “Let out your inner savage!” I knew she liked that joke. But it wasn’t a joke, not really. She was bringing out a side of me I’d never seen. Never wanted to see. She was turning me into her own personal monster. And I still didn’t know why. No point in asking. Always the wrong question.

  As I rested for a moment on the seat of the universal, I saw Meed glance up at the screen over the workout space. The TV was set to CNN, as usual. With Meed, it was all news, all the time. I looked up to see what was catching her eye.

  At the start of a new report, a photo of a blue-eyed baby had popped up on a panel to the left of the anchor’s head. Meed cut the music. The sudden silence left my ears ringing.

  “Turn up the TV,” she said.

  I found the remote and clicked off the Mute button just as the anchor got into the meat of the story. His eyebrows were furrowed. His tone was concerned.

  … Evan Grey, eight months old, the only son of MacArthur Fellow Devon Grey and his wife, research physicist Anna Grey, has disappeared from his parents’ remote campsite near Bend, Oregon. According to park rangers, the infant was napping in a portable playpen at the edge of a clearing in broad daylight yesterday, with his parents nearby. The couple noticed him missing at approximately 2 p.m. and immediately contacted the local ranger station. Other campers and local residents of the remote mountain community have joined the search, while the parents are begging the public for any information about their missing child.

  The screen cut to a shot of the two young parents. They looked drained and scared. The mom spoke up, looking into the camera. Her voice was shaking. Her eyes were red.

  If you know anything about where our baby is… if you have our baby… we just, we just want him back. We need him back. We’ll do anything. Please! Please contact us.

  Her voice trailed off at the end, and her husband wrapped his arms around her. When the report cut back to the anchor desk, there was an 800 number in bright red across the bottom of the screen. The anchor wrapped up the story:

  Anybody with information on the whereabouts of young Evan Grey, please call this anonymous toll-free tip line. For now, authorities are looking into all possibilities, including the chance that the baby may have been the victim of a rogue bear.

  And then it was over. The next story was about a flood in Missouri. Meed grabbed the remote and muted the TV.

  “Bear, my ass,” she said.

  “It’s possible, right?” I replied.

  Meed pounded her fist on the weight rack. “Do you have any idea how many kids are taken in the world every year?”

  “Thousands?” I guessed. I thought that might be too high.

  “Eight million,” said Meed. Her jaw was tense. It seemed like she was trying to keep herself under control. “In most countries, nothing happens without payoffs to the right people. No money, no investigation. After a year or so, the leads dry up, the case goes cold, the family moves on. The kid is just gone. Some of them pop up on sex-trafficking sites. Some of them get traded or sold. Many just vanish into thin air.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But Oregon isn’t some backwater country. Seems like they’re on it, full force. They’ll find him.”

  As usual, I could tell that Meed knew more than she was telling.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. “That’s a very valuable child.”

  CHAPTER 36

  IT WAS 3 a.m. But Meed wasn’t even aware of the time. She sat alone in front of a crowded desk, scanning the screens in front of her. From her secure room behind the kitchen, she had a complete view of the entire loft. Cameras captured every angle with overlapping fields of coverage. No blind spots. With one click, she could shift to views of the elevator interior, the entrance hallway below, or the exit to the street.

  One full screen was dedicated to the professor’s cell, with a shot from a wide-angle lens mounted in the ceiling. Dr. Savage was asleep now under a thin blanket, exhausted from the day’s workouts. He’d been down since 10 p.m. The professor’s schedule called for a solid eight hours of rest. Not Meed’s. Even after a hard day, her mind buzzed with activity. She’d always been a poor sleeper.

  Meed leaned forward in her Aeron chair, focused now on a large computer screen in the center of the console. This was the heart of the system, with multiple windows displaying a constant flow of reports from every region of the globe. Custom software scanned for designated keywords and images, and elegant hacks opened the most secure government files. Meed hadn’t cracked everything—not yet—but her reach was wide and deep. And the whole picture was becoming clearer.

  Her fingers danced over the computer keyboard, bringing up image after image on the screen in front of her—scrapes from news sites, police investigations, Amber Alerts, and the darkest corners of the dark web. The reports and data scrolled by in dozens of languages. Meed tapped from one window to the next with a flick of her right middle finger, translating in her head as she went, report after report, headline after headline.

  INFANT MISSING FROM NEW DELHI SCIENCE COMPOUND

  YEAR-OLD SON OF FRENCH TECH MOGUL DISAPPEARS DURING CRUISE

  NORTH KOREAN CELLIST HOLDS OUT HOPE FOR LOST BABY

  The reports and stories were spread over years and continents, too isolated and random to be connected. Some incidents, especially those from China and the Arabian Peninsula, had never been made public. The files started with blurry microfiche images, decades old, and accelerated through the turn of the millennium, with a spike over the past ten years. Babies with superior genes. Taken without a trace before fourteen months. All resulting in dead-end investigations.

  The flickers on the screen reflected on Meed’s face. She froze on a recent picture—the blue-eyed baby stolen from the Oregon campsite just thirty-six hours earlier. No blood. No body. No leads. No trail. Same pattern. Law enforcement had no clue how a baby could simply evaporate without leaving a shred of evidence. It seemed impossible. But it wasn’t. It happened all the time.

  After an hour in front of the screens, Meed pushed away from the console and flopped down onto the neat single bed against the opposite wall. Her gaze settled on the surveillance screen showing Dr. Savage in his cot. In fact, his cell was just a few feet away. If it weren’t for five layers of cement, soundproofing foam, and tempered steel, she could have reached out and touched him.

  Meed stared at the professor as he shifted and turned under his blanket. His physical progress had been impressive. His genes were even stronger than she’d hoped. But mentally, he still needed toughening. He wasn’t nearly ready for what needed to be done.

  Meed still didn’t feel like sleeping, but she was determined to try. She wrapped herself around her pillow and forced herself to close her eyes.

  CHAPTER 37

  Eastern Russia

  13 Years Ago

  THE STUDENTS STOOD in a circle, arms at their sides, eyeing each other nervously. The entire faculty sat on an elevated platform on the far side of the classroom, talking among themselves in a low murmur. Headmaster Kamenev sat at the center in a high-backed chair, saying nothing. Meed had heard that he always took a special interest in this particular final. His presence added a whole new layer of tension.

  Like everybody else, Meed needed to pass this test to move on to the next level of training. And this was one course nobody wanted to repeat. It was mental agony. The preparation had consumed days and nights for weeks. The drills had been exhausting, and Meed’s brain felt close to a meltdown. But in ten minutes, one way or the other, it would be over. Kamenev shifted in his chair. The conversation from the faculty trailed off. Then the headmaster waved his hand toward the circle of students.

  “Begin,” he called out. “And watch your words!” A few chuckles from the teachers, but not from the students. For them, this was dead serious.

  Meed had drawn first position. She stepped to the center of the circle, chin up, projecting confidence, as if daring her classmates to do their worst. As her eyes moved around the circle, a tall Hispanic girl took a step forward to face her.

  “Nepovjerenje je majka sigurnosti!” the girl said.

  The language was Croatian. Not Meed’s strongest. She knew that she had to replicate the phrase exactly. No hesitation. No flaws. No hints that she had not spoken the language from birth. That was the only way to pass.

  “Nepovjerenje je majka sigurnosti,” Meed repeated. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the language teachers nodding. Her pronunciation was impeccable.

  She knew it. And so did they.

  “Translation,” the Hispanic girl said. Part two of the challenge. This was harder. Several Croat nouns sounded very close to Serbian. Meed cleared her throat and spoke out clearly, praying that she was making the right choice.

  “Distrust is the mother of safety,” she said.

  Meed got it right. She knew it the moment the Hispanic girl lowered her eyes. As she stepped back into the circle, a boy with fair skin and blond hair stepped forward.

  “Ferī bewīha wisīti’īnikuwanī labī yiẖonalī,” he called out.

  The boy’s Scandinavian looks were a distraction, but Meed wasn’t fooled. The language was Amharic, from the horn of Africa.

  “Ferī bewīha wisīti’īnikuwanī labī yiẖonalī,” Meed parroted back.

  “Translation,” the blond boy said.

  “A coward will sweat even in water,” said Meed.

  With that answer, her confidence grew. One after another, her classmates stepped up to challenge her, faster and faster. Time after time, she took in the phrase, then adjusted her jaw, her tongue, her lips, her throat, to deliver it perfectly, like a native speaker. After Croatian and Amharic, there was Urdu. Then German. The final challenge was from Irina.

  “Ek veit einn at aldrei deyr domur um dauoan hvern.”

  It was Norwegian. Obscure and lyrical. To the rest of the room, the pronunciation sounded impossible. But Meed was fond of ancient poems. The Aeneid. Beowulf. And even the Old Norse Hávamál, where Irina had found the quote. Meed repeated the phrase syllable for syllable, careful to distinguish her Norwegian inflection from Swedish.

  “Translation,” said Irina.

  Meed looked at her with a triumphant expression.

  “I know one thing that never dies—the dead man’s reputation.”

  Irina stepped back. That made five. All that was required. Meed was sure she had passed. She turned to take her place again in the circle. Then Kamenev stood up. Meed froze in place. The headmaster looked directly at her.

  “One more, if you don’t mind,” he said.

  Meed turned to face him. She straightened her back and took a deep breath. She nodded once.

  Kamenev puffed out his chest, clearly relishing the moment. He rubbed his chin, considering his options. Meed clenched and unclenched her fists as the seconds ticked by. Kamenev cleared his throat, then spoke out, his diction crisp and precise.

  “Tantum est fortis superesse!”

  The phrase was Latin. That much was obvious. But Latin was a dead language, rarely spoken outside the walls of Roman churches. The pronunciation could be studied only by listening to recordings of Papal letters. Not many students went to that length. But not many students were as thorough as Meed.

  “Tantum est fortis superesse!” she repeated forcefully. Kamenev turned to his language faculty. Heads nodded. Meed’s pronunciation would impress a Vatican cardinal.

  “Translation!” Kamenev called out.

  Meed knew the phrase was a message to the class—and to her especially. She stared straight at the headmaster and delivered the answer in a calm, clear voice.

  “Only the strong survive.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Chicago

  “PROTECT YOUR DAMNED queen!”

  Meed was right. I was getting careless. Maybe because we had been playing for five hours. Until I became a kidnapping victim, I had thought three-dimensional chess existed only in old Star Trek episodes, but it turned out it was a real thing. And Meed was a master.

  Night after night, she brought out the chess set. It looked expensive—three teak playing boards mounted one above the other on a wrought-iron stand, with hand-carved playing pieces. Keeping track of three levels simultaneously took some getting used to.

  “Focus,” Meed told me. “You can do it.”

  And it turned out I could. Even though I’d never played chess before. I still didn’t know if Meed was sneaking brain-altering chemicals into my protein shakes and injections, but I was starting to notice that my logic skills were sharper—sometimes almost magical. I could now solve a Rubik’s Cube in four seconds. I could memorize playing cards so easily that I’d be banned from a casino. But all that added brain power couldn’t help me figure out what was really going on, or what I was being trained for. In a lot of ways, I was still totally in the dark.

  Chess was Meed’s obsession. She loved the planning, the strategy, the practice of thinking two or three moves ahead. She was a fierce player and a demanding teacher. She made me more aggressive. Made me concentrate harder. She said it was good for my fluid reasoning and processing speed. Also, it was the only time when she actually answered anything I asked. As long as the topic was chess.

  “Best player?” I asked.

  “Carlsen.”

  “Better to give up a bishop or a knight?”

  “Knight.”

  “Who taught you the game?”

  “I learned at school.”

  “Where was that?”

  Meed didn’t even look up. Nice try.

  “Your move, Doctor.”

  I’d started that game with the French Defense. It was a beginner’s ploy, and Meed saw right through it. She’d anticipated every move and had embarrassed me up and down the boards.

  But now that I’d managed to shield my queen on the top level, I could actually see an opening. In two more moves, I could make it happen. But only if Meed blinked. I shifted my knight and held my breath. Meed stared at the board for a full minute, then countered with her bishop. My heart started racing. I slid my rook forward two squares and looked up. “Check,” I said.

  I could hardly believe the word was coming out of my mouth. Meed tilted her head and looked across all three boards, as if she couldn’t believe it either. Then she tipped her king onto its side and reached across the table to shake my hand.

  “Nicely done, Doctor,” she said. I could see that she was annoyed—but also impressed. Part of her liked that I beat her. I could tell. So I decided to push my luck.

  As our hands met, I slid two fingers under the cuff of her right sleeve. When she pulled back, I slid out the throwing knife she had hidden there. Before she could react, I held the knife up and whipped it at the man-shaped target across the room. It stuck hard in the left upper chest. Kill shot. My first.

  I could tell that Meed liked that even better.

  CHAPTER 39

  THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up with a strange voice in my head. Female. Chirpy. A bit nasal.

  As I came out of my sleep fog, I realized that I had headphones over my ears. I didn’t remember putting them on. What I was hearing was a series of repeated phrases about Chinese etiquette. When I blinked my eyes open, Meed was standing over me. She lifted the earphones away from my ears and asked me a question. In Mandarin. Without thinking, I gave her the answer. Also in Mandarin. My voice was doing things I didn’t know it could do, making sounds I didn’t know it could make.

  I’d never studied Mandarin in my life, partly because everybody said it was the hardest language on earth to learn. But now, somehow, I could not only understand it, but speak it. How was that possible? I’d always been a quick learner, but now my brain was doing things that seemed way beyond reality. Freakish. I was absorbing information as I never had before, sometimes without even knowing it.

  I pulled the headphones off. They were connected to an old-school disc player lying on my blanket. It looked like something Radio Shack might have sold thirty years ago.