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Valentine knew all this. "I'm supposed to locate some, right?"
"No, the locating's been done. We want you to get a message through to them. Maybe even try to bring a few back".
"They're not just across the Missouri somewhere, I take it".
"Seattle".
Valentine managed to blink.
"You got one out of the Zoo in Chicago", Styachowski said.
"His body, you mean. I came upon Rho by accident, and he died during the escape".
Lambert had clean nails. Valentine got a chance to examine them when she placed her hand, palm down, near his. "This isn't a case of going into a Kurian Zone and breaking one out. You'll simply travel to the resistance in the Cascades, meet one, and let it know our need".
"Simply? It must be fifteen hundred miles. One way".
"You've been traveling the Kurian Zone for years".
"You don't know that".
Three sets of eyeballs exchanged glances. "We just assumed..."
There was that word again.
Valentine let out a breath. "It's not worth arguing. I'm not interesting in slogging over who knows how many mountain ranges, sorry. Send a radiogram".
"You haven't heard what we're offering", Lambert said.
"Some kind of pardon".
"Not for you. You know that baby Reaper you brought out of Kentucky..."
"He has a name".
"How can you tell it's a he?" Duvalier asked. Reapers had no vulnerable reproductive organs sharing space with their simple elimination system.
"Calling him 'it' won't..."
"You've been good enough to let the researchers at the Miskatonic take a look at him a couple of times", Lambert interrupted.
"Until he broke two fingers and the wrist of the nurse subjecting him to ultrasonics", Duvalier said.
"They were hurting him", Valentine said, heating at the memory.
Lambert smiled. "The Kurians are very interested in your little Reaper. Their agents have offered substantial bribes for information up and down the Free Territory as to his whereabouts. They think we've got him in a lab someplace".
"Of course", Valentine said.
"Even I don't know where you've got him stashed, 'zactly", Duvalier said. "You always meet the Miskatonic people in the Groglands around St. Louis".
Lambert ignored her. "They think we've got him hidden in the deepest, darkest hole in the Ozarks and they're trying to find it. Sooner or later they'll learn the truth".
Valentine remained silent, waiting for it.
"Or", Lambert said, "I can make sure that every record, every test, every note, and every photograph disappears. We've mocked up a pretty convincing skeleton out of bits and pieces of other Reapers. He'll be listed as dead, killed during testing, the bones archived, some tissue samples dropped into formaldehyde, and everything but abstracts of the research will be destroyed".
How did they know the chink in his armor? Duvalier, probably. At times it seemed she knew him better than he knew himself. She was a sound judge, not just of risk, but of character, vulnerabilities - it made her a better assassin. Save for the bloodlust that sometimes came over her when a Quisling touched her - if she'd had an education beyond the sham of her early years in the Great Plains Gulag, she could have ...
