Darren Lemke - Gemini Man

When Yuri had said baths, Henry had imagined Turkish baths with steam rooms, popular among spies and mobsters because you couldn’t wear a wire or hide a weapon when you were dressed only in a towel. He had been fully prepared to strip down and sit in a steam room for the sake of getting some answers.

Instead, he was meeting Yuri at what was essentially a gigantic municipal swimming pool.

Although in hindsight, Henry supposed he should have known—the mention of thermal springs should have given him a clue that there was more to the place than steam and whirlpool baths. He could see the pools weren’t very deep; the average adult didn’t have to tread water to not drown. There weren’t any children, either—apparently thermal springs weren’t advisable for little kids—so there wasn’t a lot of laughing and splashing.

No, Henry realized, he was wrong—there wasn’t any. The people here were practically sedate. He spotted a couple of older guys who had set up a chess board on a marble surface near a set of stone stairs; Henry watched them in astonishment. He’d seen people playing chess in parks—retirees making a game last all day, or young show-offs playing speed chess with ten people simultaneously and beating all of them for ten bucks per checkmate. But who the hell would go to a swimming pool to play chess?

Well, these guys, obviously—and now that he was looking, he saw they weren’t the only ones. But even seeing it with his own eyes, he was having trouble getting his mind around the idea that anyone woke up in the morning and decided to go to a swimming pool for a game of chess.

Of course, when he’d woken up this morning, he hadn’t thought clones were possible, let alone that someone would clone him. He couldn’t get his mind around that, either, and he wasn’t sure he ever would. God only knew what he’d find out when he woke up tomorrow.

If he woke up tomorrow—the younger version of himself was trying very hard to keep that from happening.

Where the hell was Yuri, he wondered, listening to happy Hungarian conversation over the musical sound of rippling, bubbling water. “Everything okay with you?” he asked Baron, who was now keeping watch by the stairs to his left.

“All good, no worries,” Baron replied.

“Copy that.” Henry glanced at his watch, feeling on edge, and not just because Yuri had made him come to a giant swimming pool and was now about to be late. As of today, he would probably feel on edge for the rest of his life. The world had become a very unfamiliar place in the brief period of time since Monroe and Jack had died and Verris had sent a hit squad to kill him and the exemplary agent standing next to him, an agent who had never gotten a single demerit. Congratulations, here’s your reward: a bullet in the head.

“Henry,” Baron said.

Henry turned to see a man standing in the doorway behind him. He was dressed in the standard outfit for anyone not actually in the water—a bathrobe and flip-flops—but unlike the other baths patrons, he didn’t look at all innocuous. He was shorter than Henry but built like a brick wall.

“Mr. Brogan!” The man smiled brightly and beckoned for Henry to join him.

Henry shook hands with him and then turned to Danny and Baron. It was obvious that Yuri’s warm greeting didn’t extend to them. They both nodded to indicate they didn’t mind waiting for him on the balcony. In a situation like this, only one on one was acceptable; two plus one was asking for trouble and three to one would result in casualties all round.

In any case, Henry was sure that Yuri wasn’t going to try anything tricky in a place like this, not in a bathrobe and flip-flops. But he did insist that Henry trade his street clothes for the same outfit—Yuri had even brought bathing trunks for him, which he said Henry was welcome to keep. He had to insist, he added when Henry hesitated, looking dubious. They needed to blend in. People didn’t come to the baths to hang around fully dressed. Henry’s friends should do the same, Yuri said with an appreciative look at Danny, but it wasn’t as important. They could remain on the balcony and the locals would assume they were American tourists with body image issues.

Henry put on the bathing trunks and bathrobe, leaving his clothes in a changing room, and was greatly relieved when Yuri led him to a nearby bench and invited him to sit. He had been prepared to bite the bullet and go into one of the pools if Yuri had insisted, but apparently the bathrobes were camouflage enough.

Henry could see why Jack Willis had liked the guy. Aside from the fact that his slightly florid complexion indicated a fondness for vodka, Yuri exuded an air of cheerful corruption and casual treachery, qualities that were absolutely necessary for survival under a corrupt, treacherous regime. He was a spy’s spy—he probably had dirt on Putin and Putin probably knew it. Putin probably also knew that as long as he left Yuri untouched and happy, the dirt would stay under the rug.

“Before we begin,” Yuri said with that same delighted smile, “I must confess—I have admired your work for many years!”

Henry blinked at him, surprised. “So you know who I am?”

Yuri laughed. “‘Long-time listener, first-time caller,’ as they say in your country. I would congratulate you on your retirement but your last job has some loose ends, yes?”

“Well…” Henry tried not to squirm. “My government lied to me and tried to kill me, if that’s what you mean.”

Yuri laughed again. “In Russia, we call this ‘Tuesday.’ But you Americans—it hurts your feelings. So…?” He raised his eyebrows.

“So why was Dormov going back to Russia?” Henry asked.

“Yes, down to business! Very American—you are a very busy man!” Yuri’s delighted smile faded and his expression became thoughtful as he looked up and down the hallway. It was empty except for the two of them. “We were both friends with Jack Willis,” he went on after a moment. “He was a good man, and like you, I mourn his death. The reason you are here and I have not killed you—yet—” there was a brief hint of a smile on Yuri’s face, “—is, we share a common enemy.”

“Clay Verris?” Henry guessed.

Yuri nodded, his face solemn. “He lured Dormov to the West. Funded his lab. And now you’ve met the fruits of their labor. Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1996. And in ’97…”

“ I was the sheep,” Henry said. It still seemed unbelievable but now he was starting to feel less astonished and more like he’d had something stolen from him, something both enormously significant and priceless that he would never get back.

“Perhaps you should take it as a compliment. Verris took your DNA and raised the boy as his own son, trained him to be the perfect assassin.”

“So why did Dormov leave?” Henry asked, even though he was pretty sure he knew the answer, at least in part.

“We tried for years to lure him back home,” Yuri said. “Nothing worked. Then last year, Dormov and Verris had a falling-out. Dormov became frightened; he reached out to me. We had indications that Dormov had made a breakthrough with modified human DNA that could lead to mass production. But Dormov wanted soldiers who were both stronger and smarter. Verris wanted—” Yuri paused, looking troubled. “Something else,” he said finally.

“Something else,” Henry echoed. He had no idea what that meant but he was sure it was nothing good.

Yuri looked into his face and now the cheerfully corrupt, pragmatically treacherous spy was gone, replaced by a man who had encountered something he could not bring himself to justify or accept. If it was true that everyone had a price, it was also true that everyone had a line they wouldn’t cross for any price.