Out Of Control. Shannon McKenna
the fingerprints. The loops, whorls and arches were so well reproduced, even the minute pattern of sweat glands on each ridge were duplicated.
Not perfectly, but well within the parameters of the sensor.
He pressed the hand against the Krell Systems Biolock Identipad Sensor. His own database was loaded with the same template as the Calix Research Laboratories, thanks to Caruso’s evil genius.
Negative. The machine beeped in protest. No match found.
It worked just as the Krell sales staff had promised that it would. Proof against fraud because of a complex, multi-system battery of “live and well” detection, a combination of ECG, pulse oximetry, temperature, electric resistance, and detection under the epidermis.
The Biolock Identipad wanted all five fingers, and moist, multilayered skin. It would settle for nothing else. Kudos to Krell. It was one of the most costly biometric systems on the market. Caruso himself had designed it. Marcus felt a twinge of regret that he’d been so quick to have the man killed. Craig had been useful. He’d been the one to recommend making a gummy hand with each mold, to test which image was the clearest. Marcus always followed his instructions to the letter.
But Craig had begun to play power games. Playing hide and seek with the mold of Priscilla’s hand. Talking about “full partnership.”
Marcus sprayed the inside of the negative mold with a light lubricant, and painted a thin coat of Caruso’s wizard’s brew of liquid gelatin inside it. He let it set, pressed his hand into the impression, let it bind, and slowly lifted it out. He repeated the process, taking exquisite care to match the print patterns, so as to fool the ultrasonic and electric field sensor features that tested for the print pattern in the underlying dermis. Fortunately, his and Driscoll’s hands were of similar size. The half-glove of gelatin was almost invisible.
He flexed his fingers, and pressed his hand to the Identipad.
Two seconds, and the monitor flashed. Match Found. Keith Driscoll, PhD, Laboratory Director, Calix Research Division. A photo of the chubby scientist appeared on the monitor screen, smiling broadly.
Marcus smiled back. Driscoll had the highest security clearance, surpassed only by Priscilla Worthington herself. This was well worth the trouble he’d gone to. He’d finally lured the older man up to his quarters, after months of flirting. Driscoll was a married father of three, but his preference for young men was well documented in certain circles. Marcus’s innate practicality forbade him from hiring someone else for the job. Why risk having some muscle-headed male prostitute botch this when he, Marcus, was sexually attractive enough to handle the job?
As it happened, he didn’t even have to go through with it. Not that it would have been a problem if he had. Driscoll’s middle-aged pudge did not repel him. Marcus’s sexuality was atypical. Power excited him. He was indifferent to the secondary details: youth, beauty, male, female.
Driscoll had drunk a martini spiked with Rophynol, and conveniently passed out. Marcus had taken multiple molds of the man’s hand at his leisure, bundled him into his car, and left him naked and senseless on his own front lawn.
Word was Driscoll’s wife had since taken the youngest two children back to Boston with her, and that the oldest one, studying at UCSF, would no longer speak to him. Driscoll had not looked Marcus in the eye since that night. He looked pale. Thinner. What had once been cheerful, rosy pudge was now sad, grayish sag.
Marcus studied Driscoll’s smiling face on the screen, enjoying the warm glow of pleasure that exercising power gave him.
A loud rap sounded upon the door. Marcus barely had time to toss the plastic cover over his project before the door burst open.
Priscilla marched in. She was thicker about the waist and ankles than she’d been ten years ago when she’d met Marcus’s father, Titus Worthington, owner and CEO of Calix Pharmaceuticals. Priscilla had been a researcher in one of Calix’s experimental labs. She’d dazzled the old man with her beauty, brains and forceful personality, but her face had hardened over the years. With her dark hair dragged into a bun and her white lab coat, she looked like a Gestapo prison warden.
She was shadowed by her hulking bodyguard, Maurice. She’d hired Maurice shortly after Titus’s death, and moved into her own residence as well. Priscilla was nobody’s fool.
Her eyes brushed over his various projects with unconcealed scorn. “Playing in the sandbox, are we, Marcus?”
Marcus’s hands clenched into fists, his nails digging into the delicate Driscoll glove. “Just fiddling with some new designs.”
She sniffed. “You’ve fiddled for years. You’re relatively intelligent, after all. With three PhD’s, don’t you think it’s time to stop fiddling and do something useful?”
Like plan your disgrace and ruin, perhaps? “I’m working on patenting some of them,” he said vaguely. Let her think he was a vacuous idiot. He no longer cared. Her days were numbered anyway.
“Where on earth is the domestic staff, Marcus?” she demanded. “This place is becoming a sty. The terms of Titus’s will gave you and Faris the right to reside at Worthington House for life, but remember that the place does not actually belong to you. And it never will.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Marcus said. He had, in fact, dismissed the staff months ago in preparation for the Blessed Event, which required utter privacy, to say nothing of the obtrusive presence of several armed professionals. He’d never dreamed it would drag out so long. He was tired of the dust and cobwebs himself. Another inconvenience to lay at Margaret Callahan’s door. Bitch.
“If the place falls to ruin, I will take legal action. And now, if you can drag your attention away from your toys, I have a real job for you.”
Marcus’s stomach tightened, but his smile simply widened. He’d always been good at masks. “Of course.”
“Dr. Driscoll will be leaving his post as lab director. He’s going back to Boston, for health reasons. His place will be taken by Dr. Seymour Haight, who is flying in from Baltimore tomorrow. His plane stops in Seattle for one night. The next day he’ll fly to San Francisco.”
Marcus nodded. Priscilla enjoyed humiliating him by giving him assignments more suited for a low-ranking social secretary. It was all she thought he was fit for. That, and holding Faris’s leash, of course.
“I want you to organize his welcome,” Priscilla went on. “Arrange for lab security to have his enrollment data entered into the system. Highest security clearance. And have Driscoll’s deleted immediately.”
“Of course.” He was glad he had avoided having sex with Driscoll after all. The event would have lost all its power, all its meaning.
“Arrange for housing, and a limo to pick him up at the airport.”
“I’ll need his flight info and contact numbers,” Marcus said.
Priscilla waved her hand vaguely. “Ask my staff. Melissa or Frederico should have the contact data. Tell them to arrange a dinner date for him with me that evening, too. The rooftop restaurant at the Halsey Crowne, that should be nice. Oh, yes, another thing. Where on earth is Faris? I haven’t seen him lurking about in weeks.”
“He’s mountain climbing in the north Cascades,” he said. “He loves climbing. It’s good for him. Keeps him emotionally balanced.”
“Climbing? Unsupervised?” Priscilla’s brows snapped together. “Titus and I only permitted Faris’s release from Creighton Hills on the strict condition that you would monitor him constantly!”
“Faris is under control,” Marcus soothed. “He’s taking his meds regularly. I talk to him several times a day on my cell phone.”
“I don’t care! Get him back here immediately! I cannot risk any embarrassing incidents, particularly not after Driscoll’s little scandal! The one useful function that you serve around here is to keep an eye on Faris. If you can’t even handle that much