by Nancy Smith
“I’m not a private investigator.”
“But you’re a very fine investigative journalist.” Wagner paused to consider for a few seconds. “As you will note, there is a confidentiality clause, but if you find something newsworthy and we both agree to publish it, then okay.”
“What if I want to release it and you don’t?”
“My mother died five years ago of cancer,” Pierce said. He took a long, thoughtful draw on his beer. “She was the world to me. My brother died two years ago in the tsunami in Florida. I loved them both. They were my family. I guess it’s true that the good die young.” He paused to collect himself. “My father is cantankerous, which is slang for old and mean. He is not a good man. I want you to investigate him, especially his role in my brother’s death. As long as what you find doesn’t hurt my mother, my brother or me, you can publish anything you want.” Pierce pulled the paper back to him and made a few notes and then initialed them.
Rory read the simple contract a couple of times. It was straightforward. He could see no trap. He nodded his head and signed. He held two fingers high over his head. The beers came. “Tell me about it,” he said.
Rory staked out the private parking entrance and followed Bertrum Wagner for a couple of days as he came and went. Wagner Senior went to the office, had lunch in a fancy restaurant, had dinner in a fancier restaurant and then went home. He was boring. He didn’t meet anyone interesting. He didn’t do anything interesting.
Rory sat outside the Wagner Company office building and punched in Pierce’s number.
He led with, “Any possibility your father knows he’s being watched?”
“I doubt it,” Pierce replied, “but he is crafty and careful.”
“I need access.”
“To what?”
“Everything. House, office, car, computers, phones.”
“I hired you because I don’t even have access to all that.”
“Get me what you can.” Rory hung up.
17
Jesus walked the twenty miles back to Creel. The walk was quiet, peaceful. It gave him a lot of time to think.
The horror movie scene that greeted him didn’t shock him. The vaccinated tried desperately to save their friends and family. Most of the infected had been taken to the church. Outside, they lay on the ground looking like a forbearer of the fate that was soon to come in the graveyard beyond. Inside, the sick slept on the pews and on mats on the floor that barely left room to walk.
Jesus thought about his abuelo, his grandfather. Never before had he so strongly felt his Mexican heritage. These were his people. He wondered if they understood that he had killed them.
He put up his hands.
“I’ve come to help,” he said. “I’ve brought supplies.”
The doctor from the clinic, Marco Raya, gave him the evil eye. Even if no one else understood, he did, but he was too busy to make issue.
“I brought saline and antibiotics,” Jesus said. “I just want to help.”
“Where is your friend?” Dr. Raya asked. “Is she dead?”
Jesus nodded. “She had the green dose.”
“I will tell the media. I will go to the United States and tell the press there,” Dr. Raya said.
“I didn’t know, truly I didn’t.” He approached the closest patient to help.
Late that night when all were sleeping, Jesus found Dr. Raya who looked dead on his feet. “Do you have a microscope?” he asked. “Mostly, I do research into viruses. I’d like to understand better.”
Dr. Raya nodded and pointed to a microscope that may have been too old to use in a public high school, but it would do. He made a slide of Amanda’s blood and slipped it under the scope. He saw the remains of the virus, but no sign of his vaccine. He wanted to take a microscopic picture, but couldn’t with this equipment. Still, it was all the proof he needed.
Jesus stayed until the last death. He stayed until after the last funeral service was held. He stayed a week beyond that just to be certain that the flu was contained in Creel.
18
Rory began his first night on the Wagner Company janitorial team. His security level gave him access to the building entrance as well as all the outer offices, including those on the executive level.
Rory arrived with the regular night crew. He wore coveralls and a ball cap, under which he had put a temporary brown tint on his otherwise extraordinary red hair. He let his hair go wild, and he hadn’t shaved in two days, adding to his overall scruffy appearance. His own mother might not recognize him.
Rory worked nearly the whole night. He and Pierce decided on this from the start. It would allow the security team to relax with him. Plus, he would be able to see the layout of the building and ascertain what areas his badge allowed him to enter and what areas he could not.
Near the end of his shift, Pierce stomped into the atrium of the building and yelled, “You.” He pointed at Rory. “I’ve got a mess for you to clean up. Bring a bucket.”
Rory glanced at his new crew foreman, who nodded his consent for Rory to take off with the big boss. Rory shuffled down the hall dragging a big bucket on wheels. He went to the elevator, following a few steps behind Pierce. They took the elevator to the sixth floor in silence. Pierce unlocked his office door with a thumb scan and the two went inside.
Rory scanned the corners of the room looking for a hidden camera.
“You’re good in here,” Pierce said. “No cameras. No bugs. Security checks every morning and I watch them.”
Rory dropped his act, stood straight, and sat down behind Pierce’s desk. He plugged a flash drive into Pierce’s computer and began to load.
Rory pulled the phone from his pocket.
“Hey, Sneak. We good?”
“Yeah Newsman. Working.”
“What are you doing?” Pierce asked.
“Cloning your computer.”
“And who’s that?” Pierce asked, growing displeasure on his face.
“Friend of mine. We call him Sneaky.”
“We?”
“All his friends. It’s a nickname. Like he’s the eighth dwarf. The one you’ve never seen.”
“Newsman. That’s not much of a disguise,” Pierce said.
“Pretty much anybody who knows Newsman knows Rory Burke. Not many people who know Rory Burke also know about Newsman. So how’d you find out?”
“I know sneaky people too.”
Rory took a look around Pierce’s office. It was big, of course, with a spectacular view of Austin. The furniture was dark wood, but still sleek and modern. Three walls were an eggshell-colored white, but one wall was lined with linen wallpaper that could be seen behind the bookshelves that covered the wall. The shelves were surprisingly empty, like the office’s occupant had not yet fully moved in, but Rory knew that Pierce had been in the office more than eighteen months. On the shelves there were a few books, a tray with files, and a couple of knick-knacks, but the centerpiece was a bust of a young man on a pedestal.
“That’s my brother,” Pierce said. “Percy.”
Rory nodded. He moved to the wooden door. “This the door that connects to his office?”
Pierce nodded.
“Can you get inside?” Rory asked.
“Yes. I tried it.” Pierce put his thumb on the scanner. The door unlatched. “Safe’s over here.”
Rory produced some lock picks and went to work on the door. It didn’t take him long to get inside. “Huh,” he said. Rory looked at the safe inside. Rory pulled out his phone. “Any thoughts on this Sneak?” Rory turned on the video on his phone.
“That thing’s an antique,” Sneaky said. “No one would put their high-tech secrets in that low-tech safe. I could probably crack that over the phone if you have a stethoscope.”
“So what’s that mean?” Pierce said.
“Can you give me a sweep?” Sneaky asked.
“Sure.” Rory toured the room with the camera on his phone.
“Well,” Sneaky concluded. �
��Ya got one of a couple things there. Either there’s nothing in that office—.
Rory headed back toward Pierce’s office.
“Or, whatever he’s hiding, he keeps with him.”
“Okay.”
“Hey, go back for a minute. Stop there,” Sneaky said. “Or the safe is a decoy to pull focus away from something else. Walk a little closer to the bookshelves.”
“What have you got, Sneak?”
“I got a definite buzz. You think you could slip that thing out of there?”
Rory touched the bust of Percy. “This?” Rory picked it up. It was heavy, much more substantial than he expected.
“Yeah. I think that’s your safe.”
Rory looked at Pierce. “How often does your dad come into your office? Will he notice if we take this?”
“Sometimes he’s in a lot. Sometimes, like when we’re fighting, he doesn’t come into my office at all.”
“Can you pick a fight with him?”
“That’s already taken care of. He’s mad at me.”
“May I ask why?”
“I missed a meeting he thought I should attend.”
“That sounds like something he may get over fairly quickly.”
Pierce harrumphed. “You don’t know my father. The meeting will be rescheduled. I will be made to go, and he will be mad at me until he’s gotten his way. Just the same....” Pierce slid a chair under the door handle. “Even if the lock releases, he won’t be able to push open the door.”
“Won’t that alert him that something is up?”
“Nah. I’ve done it before.”
Rory stared at Pierce for a moment, and then he dropped the bust of Percy into his bucket of cleaning supplies and covered it with an old rag. “Any suggestion on how to get this out of here?”
“Private elevator for the private garage for the executive team.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
Pierce said, “Dad was hiding his secrets in my office, in his memorial to Percy.”
“Looks that way.”
“Sometimes I really hate that man,” Pierce said.
19
Isa was worried about her father. He wasn’t recovering as quickly as she would like.
“Let me take you to a doctor,” she insisted.
“No,” was all he replied.
Dad had set up his laptop on the dining-room table. He was going through all the files on the hard drives and the data in the handwritten notebooks from the secret closet at home. First, he organized the information into projects. And then he attempted to make sense of it, or at least sense enough, to be able to release the information on the Internet. There were several university and science research sites that he particularly liked.
Neither she nor her father was the scientist her mother had been, but they had both listened as she talked about her hopes for each project. While Isa felt she was on speaking terms with her mother’s research, it was clear that Kolli not only understood the basis of the science, he understood the underlying theory of all of her work. While his PhD was in telecommunications engineering, his real advanced degree was in Mom. He had been studying her for more than twenty-five years.
Yesterday, Isa had caught her father off his guard. He was sitting fully clothed in the bathtub off his bedroom attempting to mask his sobbing. He was making those awful, retching noises that indicated he couldn’t control his breath. He needed some space so he could express his grief in private.
Isa had gone out to walk on the seawall, something she did almost every day. She meandered through walkers, joggers, kids on rollerblades and bicycles, and happy people out for fun and exercise on the wide sidewalk that ran along the Gulf coast.
She avoided the happiness, instead staring out at the vast emptiness of the water. Gray, it rolled in and out in unwavering patterns. It looked like the endless emptiness she felt. The grief of both she and her father was impacting every word that they said and every decision that they made. It was pervasive. It was unrelenting. And she realized that part of that grief for her was Rory.
Isa had stopped in a pier-side bar and wrote a long letter to Rory with pen on paper. She told him how sorry she was. She told him she trusted him. She wanted to tell him that she thought she might love him, but she couldn’t make the pen flow across the paper with the words. She thought about telling him how much she cared for him, but that seemed to scream at what was not said. So, she ended by telling him how much she missed him.
Isa kept the letter in her purse. She felt it burning her in there. She’d thought that maybe she would drive the four hours to Austin and put it in his mailbox in a couple of days, but she didn’t want to leave her father when his health seemed so fragile.
Isa wanted to ask if her dad thought Mom would like Rory, but she couldn’t make herself bring it up. Mom had a good instinct about people. She was right about Wilder. Would she see flaws in Rory?
Back at the house, Isa put her arms around her father’s neck and he patted her hand for a brief moment before he went back to clicking keys. Before, they had not often touched—sometimes a brief hug at the door. But now they hugged or patted each other all the time. It gave them each comfort.
This project to release all of the scientific research gave them each purpose. It gave them life. Isa didn’t want to think about what would happen when it was complete.
“Mom was really smart,” Isa said, “to figure all this out when others could not.”
“Yes. When we moved into the basement, it was clear we needed a leader for the scientific team. There was no contest. Everyone knew that Maria would be the one to lead.”
“She was better than the rest?”
“No. She was kinder than the rest. They were all smart.”
Isa’s eyes teared up.
“Seventy-four of my co-workers, seventy-four of my friends gave their lives for this research,” Dad said. “I’m going to make sure that it lives.”
Isa bent and whispered into his ear, “I love you.”
20
Jesus went back to his lab in Cambridge. He sat his spreading forty-five-year-old butt into his ergonomic chair and did the work, albeit quite slowly, that he was told to do.
He stared out the window. The first frost had passed and the leaves of the trees had begun to change color. From a distance, the reds and yellows were quite pretty, but up close he could see the death in the turning of the leaves.
Jesus didn’t believe that the vaccine he had taken to Mexico had been approved. He didn’t believe that it had had any human trials at all before he was sent to Creel to infect the population. He had been made into a mass murderer and that plagued him.
But he had purpose. He had brought back a good number of organic samples from the people he had intended to save. He would test the blood, sweat and urine of the infected to see what was what.
Jesus turned back to his computer. He searched a site that was primarily used to share scientific information. There was lots of helpful stuff on it.
He found a piece about a new aerosol method for disbursing a vaccine via a hand-held canister. That might be useful, he thought, and so he bookmarked it. He would come back and study the article further.
Next, he read a white paper about a drug that would cause a virus to mutate uncontrollably. In theory, the virus would expand too fast and wouldn’t be able to sustain itself, and then it would die out.
Jesus wondered if he could use an adapted version of that drug to force his flu virus to actively mutate. The drug would attack the virus. To survive, the virus would develop strategies to prevent infection. The original flu had distinct segments in its genome, but those segments might rearrange themselves into a different combination. The virus would evolve and change to become something new. It might mutate into something for which the vaccine that Jesus developed would no longer work.
Wow. Someone had just posted a massive amount of research related to work on a universal vaccine. Jesus smiled as he made his plans.
/> 21
Three men huddled in a tricked-out man cave/garage. The room looked like something from a HGTV remodel show. The garage doors were frosted glass, letting in the light. Two walls were covered in closed storage systems. One wall contained a long desk with two computers. The remaining wall had a fifty-inch TV within a comfortable sitting area. A long butcher-block workbench was centered like a kitchen island and lit by attractive but bright industrial lights. Rory and Sneaky stood on one side of the island and Pierce on the other. Rory and Pierce chatted while they watched Sneaky work on the statue.
“You never told me,” Pierce said. “What does Sneaky do for a living?”
“Computer security.”
“You think he might be interested in a job at the Wagner Company?”
“Ask me,” Sneaky said. “After.”
“You never told me,” Rory said.
“Told you what?” Pierce answered.
“Why the seventy-five left the Wagner Company and went out on their own.”
“Oh, okay,” Pierce nodded. “That Kolli Vedkka had some funny ideas about business and industry. He’d invented a phone with huge potential for marketing, but without asking, he put all the designs out on the Internet.” Pierce’s voice was on the rise, so he paused and took a breath.”
“Why?”
“He strongly believed that scientific discovery was meant to be shared. My company begged to differ. We forced him to pull down the designs.”
“And that’s why he left?”
Pierce shook his head. “His wife and her team were working on a new project. Profits could have been in the billions and billions, so I wanted him to sign an enforceable and comprehensive nondisclosure agreement.”
“The universal virus.”
“Yes. How’d you know that?”
“So, he wanted to share the vaccine for the good of all, but you wanted to suck the potential revenues.” Rory thought back to the conversations he had had with Isa. “He believed that if the vaccine wasn’t available to everyone, it wouldn’t be effective.”