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“About the list,” Luke said. “Where is it?”
“The original was an old photocopy that someone posted online at a site I follow on the dark net,” Phoebe said. “I grabbed a screenshot of it and put it on three memory cards for the three buyers. I have no idea what happened to any of those copies.”
“We didn’t find them in the house you were renting, so the kidnapper probably took them,” Talia said. “All of your tech was gone, too.”
“Don’t worry,” Phoebe said. “I hid a copy of the list on the dark net.”
In spite of the rolling disaster that seemed to be her new normal, Talia got a ping of enthusiasm.
“You know how to navigate the dark net?” she said.
Phoebe shrugged. “I’m what you might call an online broker. I put deals together for people who prefer to remain anonymous. Which makes my current situation more than a little embarrassing. Usually I’m a ghost as far as my clients are concerned. Still can’t believe I screwed up the one deal I tried to close for myself.”
Luke looked at her. “The problem was that you moved out of the dark net to search for buyers on the surface web. You were more exposed there.”
Phoebe grimaced. “I knew it was risky, but I figured that’s where the legitimate buyers likeThe Lost Night Filesoperated.”
“How many people on that list did you contact?” Talia asked.
“Five,” Phoebe said. “Three of them blew me off. You two got back to me. So did Nina Seldon.”
“You rented a house and set up the three buys,” Talia said. “Why did you bother with the plant?”
Phoebe smiled somewhat ruefully. “I picked up the plant on a whim when I shopped for groceries. I’ve always liked to have flowers or a plant around. But after this place I may rethink that. What happened down here? Who built this lab?”
Luke bent down to whack a creeper. “Everything about this room— the metal furniture, the analog equipment, the old lab apparatus—looks like government issue from the mid-twentieth century.” He cut off a writhing vine that was reaching for his ankle. “Your tax dollars at work.”
Talia got to her feet. “That’s an interesting thought.” She went to the long workbench and picked up the leather-bound notebook she had noticed earlier. She opened it and studied the faded red stamp on the cover page. “Top Secret. Restricted Access. Do Not Duplicate.” She looked up. “Ever heard of the Bluestone Project?”
“Bluestone?” Luke’s eyes heated with interest. “Seriously?”
“That’s what it says.” Talia flipped through the handwritten pages. “It looks like lab notes relating to horticultural experiments.” She glanced up. “What do you know about the Bluestone Project?”
“Not much. Remember that program I started to tell you about when we came down here?” Luke said. “The one that would have had the resources to create a facility like this?”
“You said it was a legend among those who study the history of the paranormal.”
“The Bluestone Project is it,” Luke said. “Officially it never existed, but there have been rumors about it for years, and I’ve pickedup a few solid leads. It was run by a little-known government entity, the Agency for the Investigation of Atypical Phenomena.”
“Never heard of it,” Talia said.
“What was the goal of the Bluestone Project?” Phoebe asked. “Weapons development?”
“I’m sure that was part of the mission,” Luke said. “But assuming some of the stories about it are even half true, Bluestone was established to explore the potential for harnessing paranormal energy in a wide variety of fields. Looks like botanical research was one of the areas of investigation.” He severed a vine that was trying to capture his wrist. “I’m going to take a wild guess here and speculate that something went wrong in this lab.”
Talia turned the pages of the notebook until the faded handwriting abruptly ceased. “I think you’re right. It looks like things were shut down in the middle of something called the Cold Fire program.”
She took the logbook back to the cot and sat down to read.
•••
An hour latershe looked up. “I admit I don’t understand most of the scientific terms and references, but I can tell you what this lab was attempting to do.”
“Increase the productivity of food crops?” Phoebe suggested.
“No,” Talia said. “The plants and mushrooms out there in the garden were all considered potential sources of ingredients for drugs that could be used to activate the latent psychic abilities in the human brain.”
“Figures,” Luke said. He looked at Talia with haunted eyes. “I’ll take another flying leap and guess that they weren’t looking to enhance paranormal talents for the good of humanity, right?”
