by Robin Cook
Yuri was irritated that Connie was home. On Monday nights she was supposed to work until at least nine. Her unexpected presence only added to the stress of a day that had already taken him on a roller coaster of emotions. With a trembling hand he poured himself a glass of ice-cold vodka from the freezer.
Leaning back against the countertop he took a sip of the glacial fluid and eyed the greasy remains of the fast food. In the background he heard the canned laughter of a television sitcom. He took more of the vodka in an attempt to stem his rising resentment. As he swallowed, his eyes wandered to the basement door. He was surprised to see that it was partially ajar.
“What the hell?” Yuri questioned. He usually swore in Russian, but through his friendship with Curt and Steve he’d become equally capable in English. Confused and progressively dismayed, he put down his drink and stepped over to the door. He was certain that he’d closed it that morning before heading out in his cab. It was Yuri’s routine to work in his basement lab for at least an hour in the morning and another hour in the evening to make sure his miniature bioweapons production facility was working smoothly. On Wednesday, his usual day off, he spent the whole day in the basement. That was when he activated his makeshift pulverizer, since most of the neighbors were at work. Like the pulverizer in Sverdlovsk, it made a racket even though it was a fraction of the size.
The door creaked as Yuri opened it wide. Snapping on the light, he started down the stairs. He stopped dead when he had a view of the stout combination steel and plywood door he’d made for the lab. Someone had taken a crowbar to the padlock, snapping off the hasp.
Yuri stumbled down the rest of the stairs in haste. Outrage clouded his vision. His breath came in angry and worried snorts between clenched teeth. The lab and the revenge it promised was the current focus of his life. He was terrified it had been violated.
Beyond the plywood door was the entry chamber with a showerhead and plastic bottles of bleach. Hanging on a wooden peg was a SCBA hazardous materials suit Curt had managed to get out of the firehouse. The face mask was supplied by a steel cylinder filled with compressed air. When Yuri was in the lab he wore the suit with the cylinder on his back like a scuba diver.
The entry chamber had two other doors, both constructed similarly to that at the entrance. Both also had been secured by padlocks for safekeeping and both padlocks had been similarly broken off. Yuri yanked open the door to his left. It was his storage compartment and was surrounded on two sides with the concrete foundation walls of the house. The third wall contained floor-to-ceiling shelving, which was filled with microbiological supplies such as petri dishes, spare HEPA filters, agar, and jars of nutrients. The room’s interior was undisturbed, despite the broken lock.
Steeling himself against what he might find, Yuri moved over to the door to the lab itself. He switched on the interior lights before cracking the door. He could tell the main circulating fans were functioning normally by the breeze flowing into the room. It rustled his hair and caressed his face. To be on the safe side, Yuri held his breath while he scanned the lab’s interior.
The gleaming fermenters were arrayed directly in front of him along the back wall of the lab. His makeshift hood was to the right. It functioned as his incubator, with a heat lamp and a thermostat, and also as his repository for the biowea-ponized anthrax and botulinum toxin he’d already produced.
Yuri’s lab bench was to the immediate left. On the bench stood the glassware he used for crystallizing the botulinum toxin. Beyond the lab bench was the pulverizer and the dryer for the anthrax spores.
Yuri’s pounding heart began to slow. The lab seemed normal with nothing out of place. It appeared exactly as it had when he left it that morning, including the way the glassware was positioned on the bench. With a sense of relief, Yuri pulled the door closed. It whistled from the inrushing air just before sealing on its weather stripping.
He looked down at the broken hasp. Although his anxiety had abated, his anger hadn’t. Then his eye caught something on the floor. Next to his foot was a carelessly discarded French fried potato along with a small smear of ketchup. Connie!
A muffled titter of laughter filtered down from above. Yuri was consumed by fury. With a string of expletives, he rushed from the room and took the stairs two at a time. When he got to the partially open bedroom door he pounded it open with the flat of his palm.
Connie glanced up from her TV show. She was supine on her bed.
“Why did you go downstairs?” Yuri snarled.
“I wanted to know what was going on in my basement,” Connie said. “I have a right, considering all the time you spend down there.”
“Did you touch anything?” Yuri demanded.
“No, I didn’t touch nothing! But I can tell you, that ain’t no still, not with all that stuff that looks like it came from a hospital.”
“I’ll teach you to disobey me!” Yuri snarled as he hurled himself at his wife.
Connie screamed and rolled to the side. The combination of Yuri’s impact and Connie’s weight was too much for the slats under the box spring, and the bed collapsed to the floor.
___
SIX
Monday, October 18
6:15 P.M.
Curt was driving his Dodge Ram pickup with Steve riding shotgun. They’d turned off Ocean Parkway onto Oceanview Avenue and were searching for Oceanview Lane.
“My God!” Steve commented as he surveyed the neighborhood. “I’ve lived in Brooklyn my whole life and I’ve never seen this cluster of little houses. It looks like someplace in the Carolinas.”
“Seems they would have been knocked down by now and some high-rises put up,” Curt said. “Keep your eye out for Oceanview Lane. It’s one of these little alleyways.”
“There it is,” Steve said. He pointed through the windshield at a small hand-painted sign tacked to a telephone pole.
Curt turned into the lane and slowed appreciably. It was narrow and cluttered with trash cans and dead leaves.
The two firemen were still in their uniforms. They’d driven to Brighton Beach as soon as they got off work at five P.M. The trip had taken just over an hour. Night was falling rapidly with the overcast sky, and the lane was dark except where it was illuminated with Curt’s headlights. There were no street-lamps.
“Do you see any house numbers?” Curt asked.
Steve laughed. “This place is a slum. I don’t see any signs.”
“There’s thirteen,” Curt said. He pointed to a trash can with the address painted on the rim. “Fifteen should be the next one.”
Curt pulled up to a closed garage door and killed the engine, and the two men climbed out of the truck. For a moment they studied the house. Crammed in among the others, it was mildly dilapidated and sorely in need of paint.
“It doesn’t look too stable,” Steve said. “One little nudge and the whole thing might tip over.”
“Can you imagine how fast this would go up in flames,” Curt said.
Steve turned to glance at his friend. “Is that some kind of suggestion?”
Curt shrugged. “Just something to keep in mind. Come on, let’s pay our Russky friend a visit.”
They opened a gate in the chain-link fence that ran along the front of the house. The walkway beyond was cracked concrete just visible through a blanket of dead leaves. The tiny patch of lawn was overgrown with weeds.
Curt searched for a doorbell, but there wasn’t one. He opened the torn screen door and was about to knock when a large crash sounded from within. The two firefighters looked at each other.
“What the hell was that?” Steve asked.
“Beats me,” Curt answered. He was again about to knock when there was another crash. This time it was followed by the sound of broken glass. They also heard Yuri curse loudly in Russian.
“Sounds like our Commie friend is wrecking his house,” Steve said.
“It better not have anything to do with the lab,” Curt said. He rapped loudly on the door. He wanted to make su
re Yuri heard him.
After waiting several minutes and hearing nothing from inside the house, Curt knocked again. This time there were footfalls, and the door was snatched open.
“Company,” Curt said. He tried to look past Yuri to see if he could tell what had broken.
Yuri’s expression went from anger to surprise and obvious delight as he recognized his friends. Although his face remained flushed, he smiled broadly. “Hey, guys!” His voice was hoarse.
“We were in the neighborhood,” Curt said. “We thought we’d just drop by to say hello.”
“I’m glad you did,” Yuri said.
“We heard you’d been by the firehouse,” Steve said.
Yuri nodded enthusiastically. “I was looking for you guys...”
“So we heard,” Curt said stiffly.
“You’re not supposed to come to the firehouse,” Steve said.
“Why not?” Yuri asked.
“If we have to tell you, then we’ve got a problem,” Steve said.
“Security is a big concern in an operation like we’re planning,” Curt said. “The fewer people who associate us publicly, the better off we all are, especially with you being a foreigner and all. We don’t have too many friends with Russian accents. You show up looking for us, the other firefighters are going to start to wonder.”
“I’m sorry,” Yuri said. “I didn’t think there was a problem at the firehouse, especially when you mentioned that many of your comrades think the same way you guys do.”
“We’ve our share of patriots,” Curt admitted. “But none quite as patriotic as we are. Maybe we should have spelled it out more clearly. Anyway, now you know you don’t come to the firehouse.”
“Okay,” Yuri said. “I don’t come anymore.”
“Aren’t you going to invite us in?” Curt asked.
Yuri glanced over his shoulder in the direction of Connie’s bedroom. The door was ajar. “Yeah, okay, sure.” He stepped out of the way and gestured for Curt and Steve to enter. After closing the door he guided his visitors toward the living area, where there was a low, threadbare couch and two straight-back chairs. He gathered up a collection of newspapers from the sofa cushion and deposited them on the floor.
Curt sat on the couch, with his knees jutting up into the air. Steve balanced his muscled bulk on one of the chairs.
“Can I offer you guys some iced vodka?” Yuri asked.
“I’ll have a beer,” Curt said.
“Same,” Steve said.
“Sorry,” Yuri said. “I only have vodka.”
Steve rolled his eyes.
“Vodka it is,” Curt said.
While Yuri went to the refrigerator for the drinks Steve leaned over and whispered: “Now you see why I’m concerned. The guy’s a dimwit. It never dawned on him not to come to the firehouse. It didn’t even enter his mind.”
“Take it easy,” Curt said. “He doesn’t have a military background. We should’ve known to be more explicit with a nonprofessional. We’ve got to cut him a little slack. Besides, let’s not forget, he’s doing us one hell of a favor getting us a bio-weapon.”
“If he comes through,” Steve said.
A sound of a toilet flushing in the background drifted into the living room from Connie’s open bedroom door. Curt’s brow furrowed. “Did I just hear a goddamned toilet?”
“It’s a toilet all right,” Steve said. “But I’m not sure where it’s coming from. These houses are so damn close, maybe it’s coming from next door.”
Yuri returned to the living room clutching a triangle of three tumblers each half-filled with ice-cold vodka. “I got good news for you guys,” he said as he deposited the glasses on the coffee table then handed them out.
“We just heard a toilet,” Curt said. He took the drink. “It sounded like it might have come from this house.”
“Probably,” Yuri said with a disgusted shrug. “My wife, Connie, is in the other room.”
Curt and Steve exchanged an anxious glance.
“The reason I stopped by the firehouse...” Yuri began.
“Wait a second!” Curt interrupted. “You never said you were married.”
“Why should I have?” Yuri said. He looked from Steve to
Curt. He could tell they were as uneasy about his marital status as they were about his visiting the firehouse.
“You told us you were alone,” Curt said irritably. “You said you didn’t have any friends.”
“That’s true,” Yuri said. “I am alone, without friends.”
“Yet you have a wife in the other room,” Curt said. He looked at Steve, who rolled his eyes in disbelief.
“There’s an expression in English,” Yuri said, “about ships passing in the night. We have the same expression in Russian. That’s me and Connie: two ships in the night. We never talk. Hell, we rarely even see each other.”
Curt rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed his temples. He couldn’t believe he was learning all this now, not after all their planning. It gave him a headache.
“Do you think your wife can hear what we’re saying out here?” Steve questioned.
“I doubt it,” Yuri said. “Besides, she couldn’t care less what we’re saying. She just eats and watches television.”
“I don’t hear a television,” Steve said.
“Yeah, because I just broke it,” Yuri said. “It was driving me crazy. All that fake laughter suggesting life here in America is so funny and wonderful.”
“Maybe you should at least close the door,” Curt said through clenched teeth.
“All right, sure,” Yuri said. He went to the door.
“Now maybe you understand what I’ve been talking about,” Steve whispered. “I’m telling you, this guy is a kook!”
“Shut up,” Curt responded.
Yuri returned to his chair and took a slug from his vodka.
“Does your wife know what you did for a living in the Soviet Union?” Curt demanded in a lowered voice. He was afraid to hear the answer and winced when Yuri responded in the affirmative.
“What about your lab?” Steve questioned. “Does she know about the lab you’ve supposedly built in the basement?”
“What do you mean, supposedly?” Yuri asked. He was offended by the implication.
“We’ve never seen it,” Steve said. “We’ve never seen anything, after all the effort we’ve expended getting all the stuff you say you’ve needed.”
“You could have seen it any time you wanted,” Yuri said indignantly.
“All right, settle down,” Curt said. “Let’s not argue. But maybe we should take a look at the lab, just for reassurance. We all have a lot riding on this operation.”
“Fine by me,” Yuri said. He stood up, put his drink down, and led the way over to the basement door.
The group trooped down in single file. Yuri pulled the outer door open by its sprung hasp.
“What happened to the lock?” Curt asked.
“My wife pried it off this afternoon,” Yuri admitted. “I’d warned her not to come down here, and she didn’t, until today. She came down here a couple of hours ago and used a crowbar to break in. But she didn’t touch anything. I’m sure of that.”
“Why today?” Curt asked while trying to maintain his composure. He didn’t like the sound of any of this, and it kept getting worse.
“She said she just got curious,” Yuri said. “Which doesn’t make sense, since I told her I’d kill her if she came down here and messed with anything.”
“We might have to do just that,” Curt said.
“You mean actually kill her?” Yuri asked.
For a moment no one spoke. Curt finally nodded. “It’s possible. As I said, this is an important operation for all of us. Maybe the most important thing all of us are going to do in our lifetime. To give you an idea of how strongly I feel, over the weekend it came to my attention that the People’s Aryan Army had an infiltrator. His name was Brad Cassidy. Today Brad Cassidy is no longer with us, and his
body is missing some of his favorite parts.”
“Your wife is a monumental security risk,” Steve explained. “Does she know what you’re doing down here?”
“She thought it was a distillery until today,” Yuri said.
“Which means she no longer thinks it’s a still,” Curt said.
“That’s right,” Yuri admitted.
“That’s too bad,” Curt said. “Since she knows you were involved in the Soviet bioweapons industry, it wouldn’t be hard for her to figure it out.”
“Let’s see the lab,” Steve said.
Yuri stepped into the entry room followed closely by Curt and then Steve.
“Do you use that class A hazmat suit we got for you?” Curt asked. He nodded at the protective gear hanging on its peg.
“Absolutely,” Yuri said. “Every second I’m in the lab I’m in the suit. I don’t take any chances. When I open this inner door, don’t go in! I’d also advise you to hold your breath just to be on the safe side. You’ll feel the breeze of the air flow into the room.”
Both Curt and Steve nodded. Now that they were so close, both wondered if it was really necessary to look inside. The mere idea of the possible presence of an invisible, fatal biological agent gave them gooseflesh, and with what they had seen already, they were more than willing to believe that Yuri was holding up his side of the bargain. But before either could say as much, Yuri cracked the inner door and stepped to the side. Warily, the two firefighters leaned forward and caught a glimpse of the fermenters and other equipment.
“Looks good,” Curt said. He stepped back and motioned for Yuri to close the door.
“Would you like to see some of the finished product?” Yuri asked.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Curt said quickly.
“I’ve seen enough,” Steve added.