by Robin Cook
"You want company? " Jack asked.
The two men sank into their chairs. Jack felt shell-shocked. Laurie's getting married was worse than her going away. Instead of moving to the West Coast, it was more like her going to Venus. The episode startled him into realizing how much he'd been avoiding thoughts about the future. Guilt about his family still made it difficult for him to justify future happiness. That's why he found making a commitment so difficult.
Lou cradled his head in his hands. He was the picture of dejection.
"I've worried about Laurie getting married, " he said. "Especially to you."
"To me? " Jack questioned with surprise. "I actually worried she'd get married to you. I know you two dated before I came on the scene."
"You shouldn't have worried, " Lou said. "It wasn't to be.
It never would have worked. During the brief time we went out on a regular basis, I screwed it up.
Every time there was the slightest blip, I thought she was breaking up with me, and I acted like an ass.
It drove both of us batty, and we ended up having a long talk about it.
Tonight when she mentioned about confidence' being an important personality characteristic for her, she was referring to me."
"The part about the ability to make a commitment was directed at me, " Jack said.
"Was that the problem between you two? " Lou asked. "I never could figure out what happened. You guys seemed natural for each other. You know, similar backgrounds, fancy schools, and all the rest of that bullshit."
"It was part of it, " Jack said. "But I'm so screwed up I don't even know all the reasons."
"It's a tragedy! " Lou complained.
"For you and for me. At least if she tied the knot with you, I could stay friends with both of you. When she marries this twerp, I'm out the door. I mean, I fantasized about Laurie and me staying friends even when they married. But tonight when I saw that rock on her finger, I instantly knew staying the kind of friends I envisioned was out of the question."
"I guess I was unrealistically hoping the present would never change, " Jack said.
Lou nodded and thought for a moment before asking, "What did you think of this guy? "
"A snake in the grass, " Jack said without hesitation.
"But I don't know how objective I can be. I'm obviously jealous. It bugged me how they kept touching each other."
"It rubbed me the wrong way as well, " Lou said with another nod.
"Like puppy love. It was disgusting. But I question my objectivity, too. Yet it all seems too quick to me, like the guy's after her money even though she doesn't have any. Of course that can be the cynical detective talking." Jack shook his head dejectedly. "We can sit here and say nasty things about him, but the fact is, he's a lot more spontaneous than we are, and he's got a lot more bucks. I mean, going to Paris for the weekend!
There's no way I could do that. Worrying about how much it was costing would drive me bananas, and I'd be miserable to be with."
"It makes me mad to think that there are people that can do that sort of thing, " Lou said. "What with my alimony payments and raising two kids, I'm lucky to have two nickels to scrape together."
"Envious might be a better word than mad, " Jack said.
Lou scraped back his chair and stood up. "I got to get home to bed before I get too depressed. I've been up for two straight days."
"I'm with you, " Jack said.
The two men wormed their way out of the restaurant feeling all the more depressed in light of the festive atmosphere.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 18
10:15 P. M. After Curt and Steve left, Yuri had gone down to his beloved lab. The first thing he did was repair the damage Connie had caused when she'd pried off the padlocks. To be on the safe side he bolted the hasps to the door rather than replace the screws. With that setup, an intruder would most likely need something more powerful than a crowbar to pull them loose.
While he worked, he thought about Curt and Steve's disturbing visit.
He was taken aback by their anger, particularly their anger about his stopping by the firehouse. The explanation that he was a security risk because he was a foreigner with a Russian accent didn't ring true.
New York was much too cosmopolitan a city. Every other person had an accent.
Yuri thought there had to be another reason why they didn't want him seen there. Although he couldn't think of what it might have been, it made him feel uncomfortable. For the first time Yuri began to question where he stood with Curt and Steve. He knew they were strong on prejudice, so the thought passed through his mind they might be prejudiced against him, and if that was the case they certainly weren't the friends he zmagmea.
The other source of their angerthat Connie was black was equally mysterious. It wasn't so much the prejudice itself that surprised yuri. He was well aware of Curt and Steve's racial bigotry. What got him was the amount of anger involved. It was so out of proportion, and the pseudo-religious explanation Steve had given seemed contrived. Neither Curt nor Steve had ever said anything to suggest they were at all religious.
And finally, there was the issue of the pest control truck and aerosolizer. Yuri couldn't understand why they'd not obtained it yet.
That was an important part of the agreement. Without it, Yuri would not be able to carry out his part of the operation. He needed a sprayer, and he needed it to be mobile. A point source was not anywhere near as effective.
In order to fix the inner door, Yuri suited up in the hazmat suit and opened the valve on the compressed air cylinder. The regulator wasn't the demand variety used for scuba diving. Instead it kept a constant flow of air into the suit as a means of keeping any particles from the environment from gaining entry.
It was much harder to work in the suit and it was very hot, but Yuri didn't mind. He knew the risk he'd be taking if he didn't wear it.
But it did slow him down.
After the door was fixed, Yuri turned his attention to the fermenter with the Clostridium botulinum. He tested the bacterial concentration and was again disappointed. He could not figure out why the culture continued to grow so slowly. As far as he knew he'd followed the culture conditions carefully that had been used so successfully in the Soviet Union when he'd worked with the organism a decade previously.
The conditions had been determined to produce maximum culture growth and maximum toxin production.
The only thing Yuri could imagine was that air was getting into the fermenter. Clostridium botulinum was a bacteria that grew without oxygen. Consequently, Yuri had used carbon dioxide gas instead of air over the culture. Perhaps there was something wrong with the cylinder of carbon dioxide Curt's troops had obtained for him. Unfortunately, Yuri didn't have any way to analyze it, and requesting a new cylinder would take too long.
Yuri stood up from where he'd been bending down to check the internal fermenter temperature. It was a few degrees cooler than optimum, so he adjusted his jury-rigged waterbath thermostat. Having the temperature off certainly didn't help, but it was not an adequate explanation for the slow growth.
He thought about Curt's suggestion to switch production in the Clostridium fermenter to anthrax so that both units would be producing the anthrax spores. There was a lot to be said for that idea. It was the only way he'd be able to produce enough material for both laydowns within the time frame they'd discussed. The trouble was that breaking down the fermenter was a big job and at the moment he had another worry, Connie.
Yuri went over to his hood and turned on the fan. Putting his already gloved hands into another pair of heavy rubber gloves secured to the edges of two holes in the hood's glass front, Yuri carefully picked up the beaker containing his most recently produced botulinum toxin. He poured some of it into a small glass vial.
Yuri had been using the acid precipitation technique in concentrating and purifying his toxin. After resuspending the toxin in an aqueous buffer, he'd reprecipitated it with ammonium sulfate to form a crystalline amalgam of pure toxin combi
ned with a stabilizing protein.
This form he'd dried into a powder.
Yuri wasn't as concerned about his safety when he worked with the botulinum toxin as he was with the anthrax powder. Although he'd been vaccinated against both agents back in the Soviet Union, he was more confident of his immunity to the toxin than he was to anthrax spores.
After sealing the small vial, Yuri washed its exterior before bringing it out from inside the hood. Then he went through the first phase of disinfecting and decontaminating himself with an overhead shower and a plastic container of bleach.
Leaving the lab, Yuri went through a second decon phase with more bleach and another shower. Only then did he slip out of his hazmat suit, turn off the compressed-air tank, and hang them up on their respective pegs. Then he carefully carried the vial up to the'lvirhen and hid it behind the overcounter dish cabinet.
Steeling himself against the inevitable abuse, Yuri went to Connie's door and opened it. As usual, his wife was propped up on the bed watching the television even though the mattress and box spring were now sitting on the floor.
"What do you want? " Connie grumbled. She was holding an ice pack to her swollen left eye.
"I'm going to get some pizza, " Yuri said. "I thought maybe you might be hungry." Connie lifted the ice pack away from her face and regarded her husband curiously. "What's the matter with you? " she questioned sarcastically.
"You've never cared if I was hungry before."
"I was feeling guilty about hitting you, " Yuri said, trying to sound sincere. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry, my ass, " Connie shot back. "If you're saying this to get your TV back, it's not going to work."
"I don't want my TV back, " Yuri said. "And I'm sorry I broke yours.
I was out of my mind."
"So what else is new? "
"You don't understand, " Yuri said, trying to sound contrite as well as sincere. "That lab downstairs is important to me."
"As if I couldn't guess with the amount of time you spend down there."
"It's my ticket out of this mess, " Yuri said. "I mean our ticket."
Connie turned the sound down on the television and pushed herself up on one elbow. "What are you saying to me? "
"I'm trying to get back into microbiology, " Yuri explained. "I need to practice and to prove I know what I'm doing. Then maybe I can get a decent job. I don't want to drive a cab the rest of my life."
"What kind of job are you talking about? "
"Anything in microbiology, " Yuri said. "Those men who were here i tonight have been helping me, but they're worried. It's against the law to have a lab like that in a private house, and if I get into trouble, they'll get into trouble."
"I thought you had to go back to school if you wanted to work with bacteria."
"Not if I can do something that proves I'm qualified, " Yuri said.
"And if I do, and I get a good job, then we can start a new life. You know, go out like we used to do."
"Yeah sure, when hell freezes over."
"It'll happen, " Yuri-promised. "But for now, you want some pizza? "
"Okay, why not, " Connie said. "Pepperoni and anchovy. And have them bring over a pint of butter pecan ice cream."
"Right, " Yuri said.
He forced a smile and then closed the door. One thing was certain, nothing seemed to spoil that woman's appetite. But he wasn't complaining about the addition of the ice cream. As far as he was concerned, he thought it would be a better medium for the botulinum toxin, especially since he'd be sure she'd eat the whole tub.
Yuri used the wall phone in the kitchen to call the local pizza place.
He ordered for Connie, then, for himself, he ordered a regular pizza with mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil. Just before he hung up he added a small tossed salad and a coffee to the order. He realized it might be a long night.
Yuri paced the apartment. As time passed he became progressively nervous. Although he'd acted sure of himself when he'd been talking with Curt, he didn't know for certain what was going to happen after Connie ingested the toxin. One of the problems was that Yuri had no way of intelligently guessing how much to use. He would just have to sprinkle some into the ice cream and hope for the best. All he knew was that he had to err on the side of using too much. If Connie just got sick, and botulism was suspected, he'd be caught red-handed with the lab in his basement.
The sound of knocking on the door made Yuri jump. Half expecting trouble, he glanced out through the venetian blinds and was relieved to see the pizza delivery boy. Yuri opened the door, paid the kid, and took the packages. The two pizzas had been in an insulated carrier and werestill hot to the touch Yuri pushed away the fast-food wrappings Connie had left earlier on the table, and put down the pizza boxes and the bag with the salad, coffee, and ice cream. He was most interested in the ice cream. He took it out of the bag and put it on the counter.
The container was slightly soft.
Unlike the pizzas, it hadn't been put in an insulated bag.
Quietly stepping out of the kitchen, Yuri moved over to Connie's door.
He pressed his ear against it. He could hear the television clearly.
He assumed Connie was still Lying on the bed.
Returning to the kitchen, he struggled to open the ice cream container without ripping it. Once he had it open, he debated how to add the toxin. He was afraid to add it in one bolus, thinking Connie might taste it and then spit it out. After considering his options, he took out a bowl and emptied most of the ice cream into it. Then he took out the vial from the dish cabinet. Holding his breath, he sprinkled some of the material onto the ice cream.
"Oh what the hell, " he whispered. He poured the rest into the ice cream. In total, it was no more than a pinch. But if the toxin was as lethal as he expected, it was a huge dose. Probably enough to knock off everybody in Brighton Beach.
Yuri rinsed out the vial in the sink and let the water run. With a fork, he mixed the ice cream as well as he could. Then with a spoon he ladled it back into the pint container. That turned out to be more difficult than he expected, since it seemed that he had more ice cream than he'd started with. It took a bit of force to get it all in. When he was finished he resealed the container as best as he could.
Yuri washed out the bowl. Even so, he vowed never to use it again. In fact after the evening was over he intended to throw it and the fork away.
After washing his hands carefully, Yuri got out a spoon. Then he picked up both the ice cream container and the pepperoni pizza box and headed for Connie's room.
"It took long enough, " Connie commented when Yuri opened her door.
"Where do you want it? " Yuri asked.
"Over here on the floor, " Connie said without taking her eyes off the TV.
Yuri bent down and put the food on the rug. He placed the spoon on top of the ice cream container and straightened up. That was when Connie glanced over to see what he'd done.
"Hey, I don't want the ice cream, " she said.
"What do you mean? " Yuri said with consternation.
"I mean I want you to put it in the goddamn refrigerator, " Connie said.
"I'll eat it after my pizza. I don't want it to melt."
"Fine, " Yuri said with some relief. He picked up the ice cream and the spoon and backed to the door.
"Give a yell when you want it, okay? " Connie's head flopped to the side, and she regarded Yuri beneath knotted brows.
"What's wrong with you, boy? You've never been this nice."
"I told you, " Yuri said. "I feel guilty."
"I wish you'd feel guilty more often, " Connie said.
Yuri went back out to the kitchen. Mumbling a few choice epithe's about Connie, he put the ice cream in the freezer. His pulse was hammering in his temples. He needed a vodka. As he'd suspected, it was going to be a long night.
"Okay, everybody shut the hell up! " Curt yelled out over the unruly group. He'd called a meeting of the People's Aryan Army, and they'd gathered in
the back pool room of the White Pride bar. The owner of the bar was Jeff Connolly, an old acquaintance of Curt's. Jeff wasn't an official member of the group, although he was entirely sympathetic to the PAA's positions, namely anti-government, anti-black, antiSemitic, antihispanic, anti-immigration, anti-feminist, anti-NAFTA, anti-abortion, and anti-gay. He was more than happy to clear out the pool room whenever the PAA needed to assemble.
On Curt's insistence the organization of his group was entirely clandestine. There were no membership cards or even membership memorabilia He urged people never to use the name, although he and Steve did when they communicated to other militias via the Internet.
Otherwise, all communication was by word of mouth, person to person.
To call the meeting that night, there'd been no phone calls and no written messages. People had to seek each other out. What made it easy was that most members came to the White Pride at some time during each and every night.
Curt had recruited eight skinheads using methods he'd learned from Tim Melcher. He'd isolate a teenager at one of the many local skinhead bars and strike up a conversation. The conversation was more like an interview. Whenever Curt thought the kid was fertile ground for his views, he then started in on ideology. It was easy, because the skinheads were eager for some organization and to have a focus for their violent dispositions. Besides, from personal experience Curt knew their struggles and resentments and could therefore fan their fledgling bigotries and hatreds.
But keeping such a group under a semblance of control was not easy.
For one thing, many of those involved were stupid, like Yuri, and lacked a proper sense for security.
Offering Brad Cassidy an opportunity to join the group when he'd approached a couple of the troops directly was a case in point. They'd bought his original story.
But Curt hadn't. First of all, Curt was suspicious of anyone who wasn't from the immediate area.
Second, no one was considered for membership without being interviewed by Curt first. When Curt got to talk with him, Brad contradicted himself several times. Then, with a little prodding with a knife and the judicious use of a length of piano wire, the true story came out. He was a government spy.