The task of reviewing the data that was generated by her work was crucial. It wasn’t glamorous, but she’d always been a perfectionist, and had reason to fear someone missing something important. Years ago, at the beginning of her study, a now ex-employee failed to document the results properly. That mistake cost her valuable time and research dollars. Ever since, Dr. Baker devoted three hours a week to personally making sure all current results were scrutinized.
After hours of scanning the columns of results, her eyes locked onto one area. She went to another stack and searched halfway through, then pulled another report out and excitedly ran her finger down the column until it stopped.
"Karen? Karen, can you come here a moment?" she called loudly enough to be heard all the way down the hall.
A moment later her lab assistant, Karen Marshal, appeared at the doorway. Of average height with a kind face, at forty-three Karen was a bit heavier than Colleen, even though she spent most of her day on her feet and got enough 'exercise' to fall into bed every evening exhausted. She was an experienced RN but opted for medical research over the ICU for better hours and a social life, which at the moment was in disarray. She had worked with Dr. Baker almost three years now, ever since the grant funding came through to begin the study.
"Yes Doctor? I didn’t hear you come in…." Colleen looked up from her desk at Karen and began to speak, but Karen didn’t hear… Colleen’s eyes again mesmerized her. They took some getting used to, Karen thought, and even though she had worked there for years, they still caught her off guard at times. Dr. Colleen Baker’s eyes were intensely, distractingly, unquestionably, violet.
They were unlike any eye color Karen had ever seen. Like the old mood rings of the 1970’s, they had an amazing range of shade. From almost black, through violet, to almost pale gray, they seemed to change according to her disposition. Today they were a deep rich violet that looked almost iridescent.
Karen couldn’t help but wonder if they had played a part in her professional success. Head of a university research team at thirty-five? How could they not?
"Oh, and I have Sam Morrison in #4, would you check on him and see if he’s awake? But bring me the files on Lawndale first, okay? Uh, 2012 through '14… thanks Karen."
"Will do."
By the time Karen retrieved the files, Colleen had pulled seven reports from the stacks in her office and was comparing each row and column. Karen stood behind her as Dr. Baker excitedly began to show her what she had found.
"Karen, I’m pretty sure we have some amazing results on the last subject trial! Look at these numbers, see? Marked reduction in levels of HIV in fourteen subjects in the test group! Fourteen, Karen! Look at the calcium levels! The serum appears to be working!"
"What?" asked Karen, "that’s remarkable; are you sure they aren’t an anomaly?"
"No, they consistently improve through each successive treatment…" Colleen’s voice trailed off as she delved deeper into the data.
"Are those the Lawndale files there? Good, let’s see…." Colleen’s voice trailed off again as she read the file. "Wow, this is amazing!" Colleen turned to the results of the same trial participants back in 2012, pulled out her calculator, and entered some numbers. "Oh my God, Karen! We’ve got a reduction in 10 patients of 45% in less than a year, and four patients were 90%!"
Colleen jumped up and hugged Karen, lifting her off the floor. "Oh my God, Karen, do you know what this means? We’re on the right track! Years of work to get to this point, but we’re closing in! We just need to modify a few aspects of the trial…." Dr. Baker again became distracted as she began writing notes on the margins of the rows of numbers. "MHIV seems to be working!"
She looked up as Karen turned to leave. "Karen, not a word to anyone, understand? This could be big, but we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves… nobody knows but us, okay?"
"Absolutely, my lips are sealed!" Karen said as she headed back to check on Sam.
Colleen leaned back in her chair and allowed herself a brief bask in the warmth of accomplishment. She thought back to medical school, to the event that resulted in her choice to go into research instead of a medical practice. One of her professors had instructed the students to go to at least five funerals, to get a better understanding of what was at stake as a doctor, and to also learn to distance themselves from any emotional attachment to the patient.
But after the third funeral; the death of a young woman in the prime of her life, all Colleen saw was a loving family now left adrift; numbed and broken by enduring the ordeal of too many prescribed chemo and radiation series to count. Toward the end of the young woman's' life, as the husband watched the expense soar and his wife's condition fall, he wasn't sure whom the doctors were trying to help, his trusting wife, or their own practices. In that one stark case, Colleen felt she had learned more about modern medicine’s growing conflict with the Hippocratic oath than the professor had intended to teach.
At least she had learned more about herself than the professors could teach. For the first time she saw an aspect of medicine that had eluded her. Something was perverse about making immense sums of money from someone else’s abject and debilitating pain and grief, but the hardest of all for her to reconcile was the faith the patient put in their doctor. A faith, ill placed at times, that would eventually die along with the patient.
To focus on the money and not the good that could come from her practiced and accomplished skill was in itself a form of denial, but if she were honest with herself, Colleen had to recognize it was the money that had attracted her to medicine. If not for the prospect of earning a comfortable income, a career as a social worker should be just as rewarding. Or perhaps a medical missionary career could include her love of medicine and free her of the guilt she felt. Finally, she decided to compromise and choose research, where she could devote her talents to cutting edge discoveries and still enjoy the comforts of civilization.
She now realized the sense of achievement and accomplishment she was feeling was every bit as addictive as financial reward, and the fact that she was helping those in the grip of poverty made it even sweeter.
The promise of success suggested by this recent vaccine result was what she had dreamed of. Making a difference, seeing a path that had eluded others, striking out on her own armed with only an educated hunch ̶ and being proved right. She had come a long way from the dismal prospects of her childhood, and yet, the streets of her youth were still so very close at hand. Those streets had become both the source of her patients, and of her motivation to achieve. She felt driven to conquer the disease that was so pervasive in the culture she knew growing up, the culture that distrusted outsiders and anyone in authority, and the culture that took her brother Marcus.
Colleen didn’t know why every time she thought about her future she invariably turned to thoughts of her brother, but the passing of all the years since his death had done little to dim her pain. It didn’t matter whether they were happy thoughts or sad; her mind always found its way back to the single greatest tragedy in her life.
Marcus was cut down in a turf war between the City Boyz and the 5Bangers. Untimely death was a common by-product of hate and suspicion, and he had found himself on the wrong side of the street when the shooting started. Marcus gave his life trying to find better shelter for one of the many little kids that looked up to him.
On its face, his death was not Colleen’s fault, but in the way only a protective big sister can understand, she felt responsible, and her guilt was as tight as the ring she wore on her little finger. Marcus’ last gift to his big sister never left her hand.
She was a resident at St. Anthony’s when she got the call from his girl friend. He was only sixteen, much too young to pay such a heavy price, and yet he became the latest emblem of what humanity is capable of when pushed by poverty and envy, jealousy, and greed. Their parents came to the funeral. The first time they had been in the same room in years. Ten minutes into the service they began bickering again, openi
ng old wounds and causing Colleen to relive the endless nights of fighting that filled her first fourteen years on earth.
The eyes of a child see things so simplistically, and yet so very clearly. When Colleen was twelve, she took a school field trip to a farm outside Chicago. Everything was so green and peaceful and perfect, and Colleen wondered why her family didn’t just pick up and move out of the city and onto that farm. Her father called the idea stupid and threw a shoe at her. "Ain’t no jobs on a farm, fool!" he taunted. Her mother’s reaction wasn’t any more encouraging. She felt Colleen's forehead and asked if she had a fever.
Nobody would listen. Within a few years, both her parents would leave again, forcing Colleen to abandon what was left of her childhood to care for her toddler brother. Marcus grew up quickly, wise beyond his years in the ways of the streets. And even though they struggled, Colleen saw to it he understood the value in being mindful of the needs of others. Marcus responded by taking many younger children under his wing, protecting them from harm and giving them something they never even knew they needed, a hero.
After all those many years of investing her hopes for a better future in him, the streets would take her precious Marcus, leaving Colleen on her own and aimless. She often wondered, had she been more persuasive, more… something, if she could have saved her family.
Colleen would be the first to admit it wasn’t much of an opening for guilt to gain a hold on her, but she allowed it…perhaps out of reverence to Marcus, perhaps to balance out her good fortune professionally. In the twelve years since graduating, she had earned the respect of the faculty at the University, and now she would be even more respected around the country, perhaps even the world.
Assuming her serum worked.
Chapter 5 Life Gets Complicated
Mark inspected the badge clipped to his lab coat pocket. "Damn, it’s a fake, a good one but it’s …" He went back over his encounter with Walter, trying to think when his badge could have been switched, but it was like trying to figure out a magic trick you had seen only once. He had been so busy selling the project he never noticed the switch.
Mark listened in on Ramy’s chatter over the intercom: "We’re locking down the building now, but this guy’s done his homework. We need to add the recovery squad to the response."
Ramy had no equal when it came to foiling industrial espionage, and yet here he was with a runner in the building. His demeanor could change as quickly as the weather, and Mark had often thought he would rather ride out twelve-foot seas in a dingy than cross Ramy Basra when he was threatened.
One component of the building’s security was a strong magnetic field, which would erase any digital storage drive that passed through, at every entrance. The system created a formidable barrier to anyone hoping to smuggle out proprietary data. Signs warned visitors with pacemakers or prosthetics with circuitry to request a pat down while their belongings passed through the field.
All outside Wi-Fi signals were jammed, and the only Wi-Fi available in the building was modified to prevent transfer of any file larger than small texts. Much had been thought of, but industrial spies, like hackers, were always innovating in an attempt to steal competitor’s secrets.
"If he’s on the sixth floor, then that means he wasn’t buying the research you showed him… and it means he knows. Damn! How did this happen, Mark?" Ramy said as if Mark could unravel the mystery.
Mark replayed the visit in his head. 'Walter', or whatever his name was, played his part perfectly… the drooling dolt, just sharp enough to avoid suspicion, and just gullible enough to convince Mark of his authenticity. "Damn! This guy fooled the fooler!"
"Okay, we have movement again of the elevator" said Ramy’s tinny voice over the intercom … "shutting elevator down… now! Camera has been disabled. Try the shaft cameras… any movement there? Hold on, I think I see… zoom in there… Damn! Get a detail on the roof, Stat! It looks like our friend has gotten out onto the roof! Looks like the elevator was a decoy…."
Within 10 minutes of his call, the recovery squad was assembled and waiting outside Ramy’s office. Ramy ushered them in and closed the door. The four men in front of him had been trained in the latest espionage and tracking procedures; each looked boot camp hardened, trim and solid, even down to the buzz cuts.
Their leader, Harvey Ford, briefed Ramy on what they had. "From the subject’s visitor log data, we have a cell phone number that does not match the one he used in the building while waiting for his tour this morning. We ran a trace on the phone but it has been deactivated. Last known signal originated in this building, probably the elevator.
"Facial recognition of the subject is being run through the databanks. We should know something in an hour. Fingerprints are being processed from the glass of water he used in the lab, but they appear to have been altered somehow, maybe latex tips. We are also running the DNA off the glass rim against a databank of known operatives.
"A computer check on the sixth floor was inconclusive. Since no magnetic field surrounded the subjects suspected egress, the perp would be successful in removing any stolen data from the premises."
"Mark," Ramy said grimly into the intercom on his desk.
"Yes?" Came Mark’s electronic reply.
"Can you get to my office post haste?"
‘Sure, let me wrap this up and I’ll be down."
Ramy stood, and looked the team leader eye to eye. "That’s good work, Harvey. I want every camera within three miles of here reviewed. I want this guy Harvey, and I want him yesterday! Now move out. I want reports every half hour."
Ramy waited until he was alone, then began typing commands into his secure laptop. His heart sank when he read the results of his inquiry: Project Termes, copied 10:37 a.m.
Ramy turned toward the wall and flipped a switch near his desk. A monitor bank was revealed that let him survey the entire building. He swung the joystick around until the monitor label Hallway Camera, Sixth Floor flashed on the full screen. It was dark. No feed.
Ramy rewound back an hour and a n image showing the corridor devoid of movement filled the screen. As he fast-forwarded, a hand appeared holding a can of foam and obliterated the view. He checked other cameras on the floor and each one had experienced the same thing. Everything was normal, then the can appeared and the view vanished.
"How the hell did he get a can of spray foam past security?" Ramy wondered.
Next, he reviewed video of Walter’s check-in process and remembered that he himself had waved off the usual metal detector scrutiny in favor of getting him up to be 'sold' on the project by Mark.
"Blast!" Ramy thought. If Walter had arrived on schedule the next day, he would have had to go through the detectors and none of this could have happened. Pushing his appointment up a day seemed innocent enough, but it caused a breakdown in security in order to accommodate a potentially large investor.
"Dammit!" Ramy shouted as he slammed his fist into the desk.
He got Security on the phone. "This is Basra, effective immediately, no one, not even…no, especially me, can circumvent security in any way! Do you understand?"
"Yes sir, understood. Um, sir? It may not be anything, but we found a cell phone hidden behind one of the cooling towers on the roof. It seems to have been there a while. It was wet, and the last rain we had was about a week ago. It may be Mr. Convive had an accomplice on the inside."
‘Shut the building down, Charlie! Do you hear me?" Ramy roared into the phone. "Shut it right now! Don’t let anyone leave. I want a roster of who was in the building this morning, who is out, and why! …ASAP! Can you do that?"
"Yes sir, it may take some time…"
"In an hour Charlie, you got that? One hour!"
Ramy slammed the phone down hard and hit the intercom and shouted "MARK! Where the hell are you?"
Mark rounded the corner and entered Ramy’s office, "Geez, Ramy, I’m right here… What’s wrong now?"
"We’ve been had. Mark, this guy’s a ghost. He may have eve
n had an accomplice on the inside! All the cameras were disabled… Look at this code report… he’s got it! You hear me? He’s got Termes! Jesus Mark!"
"Calm down," Mark said. "Going off on me won’t help the situation. Let’s get up to six and see for ourselves, okay?"
"You go, I’ve got to call Concordia Partners and tear them a new one …"
"Ramy, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Think about it. This Walter guy was obviously not with Concordia. How do I know? Because he is too slippery to leave an obvious trail like that.
"I’ll bet you a million dollars that Concordia doesn’t know squat about this Walter guy," Mark said. "…in fact, I’ll bet someone shows up tomorrow ready for the tour! Let’s not screw ourselves twice over this… remember, we need their cash for the project. Hold off and see if somebody shows up tomorrow. We’ll still have the chance to accuse them if nobody shows, right? Just hold off on calling them for now."
The Premise Page 4