They were taking organs, including skin, which is an organ just like the heart and the liver.

He found himself watching Linda and wondering why she alone had been spared.

Four bicyclists stopped as they passed by and watched them go. After they were sure the van was gone, they got on their bikes and rode some distance out of town, where they were met by the old Buick. The whole group pulled off into the brush and carefully concealed the vehicles.

They went quickly back into the forest, going deep, and then into a cave, and deep into the cave, and then into an enormous hollow darkness that echoed with laughter and great, roaring cries, full of passion, triumph, and exploding joy.

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

YOU ALWAYS HURT THE ONE YOU LOVE

Gina cradled a mug of coffee in her hands. She had extended the burn, and never mind Dr. Turner and his whining. This was war now.

She watched the jet return, swooping low over the inferno. An instant later, a carpet of white clouds appeared in and around the flames. This would be more high explosive knocking down the fire and, she now hoped, pulverizing any hybrids still twitching.

God, what an unimaginable disaster. He’d had a major military failure out there. Not like him, not at all.

She was to blame. She should have done something about that farm family sooner. She should have understood that he and his men would go back if she didn’t.

She gazed at the picture of her mother and father that stood on her desk. Was he mocking her again, this time from the grave? He had mocked her decision to follow him into the Company. He’d been an old Cold Warrior, caustic and cynical and bitter after a lifetime of betrayal and failure. We beat the Soviets economically but they won the intelligence war, and her father had felt that failure deeply.

A daughter learns men from her father, how to seduce them, how to accept them, how to trust them. Her father was cold and here she was, slavishly attracted to a cold man. She trusted him, though.

Her door buzzed. Immediately, she flipped a switch that blanked all the monitors. A glance at the entry screen showed the face of the man she had been expecting and dreading.

She watched him wait. Even when he wasn’t angry, you could see the rage in Dr. Turner, a bitter glow behind his eyes. Now, they glared into the camera as he hit the buzzer again. The man was somewhere in his seventies. He should be slowing down, his edges softening. He was full of driving energy and that seething, subsurface rage that made him so hard to bear. You could see him slapping the hell out of his wife, except he had no wife. His work was his wife.