Big Medicine (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 5)

by Joseph Flynn

  “You have to know by now,” John told her, “that one or more of the people in your DC lab was in on the theft of your computer. Once we eliminated the make-believe child thieves, that left only your staff. I wouldn’t be surprised if the thief or thieves are already getting anxious that suspicion hasn’t fallen upon them after three weeks, especially now that I’m looking into things. So what I’m wondering is this: Has anyone in your lab recently given notice, either that he or she will be leaving for a new job or has requested a few weeks of vacation time?”

  Lowering her eyes, Dr. Lisle nodded. “Two people. Just yesterday. Both say they’ve been recruited by a lab in Texas that’s owned by a Swiss pharmaceutical company.”

  “Are these people simply colleagues or are they a couple?” John asked. “My guess is the latter.”

  “They are a couple, a straight pair. Recently married. How did you know?”

  John said, “To do something like this, two people would need to have a lot of trust in each other. If they’re both moving from one workplace to another, you can bet that was part of their negotiations. Two people lacking any bonds of personal affection would probably think it was smarter to go their separate ways.”

  Of course, John thought ironically, he and Rebecca loved each other and still managed to work on opposite sides of the country.

  John moved on to his next question: “Of this pair, which one is the alpha? In conversation, who talks first and most? Who tends to finish the sentences the other one starts? If you’ve socialized with them, who decides when to call it a night?”

  “She’s the top dog, and while I’m not an expert on their type of relationship, I think he likes it that way.”

  “May I have their names, please?”

  “You’re going to question them when we get back to Washington?”

  John shook his head. “I’m going to let the FBI have that pleasure.”

  Dr. Lisle speared a strawberry with her fork and chewed on it longer than needed.

  Then she asked John, “May I see your eyes, please?”

  He took off his sunglasses. The lighting in the room was borderline bright for John, causing him to blink a bit at first. The nictation provided the moisture his eyes needed to hold his gaze steady.

  “See anything you like?” he asked. “The warmth of a gentle soul?”

  “What I don’t see is any cruelty. That’s what I was curious about.” She gave John the names he wanted. “I know you have another question to ask, so go ahead and get to it. You can put your glasses back on first, if you want.”

  John did. He asked, “Who’s the boss in your relationship with the woman you love?”

  “In the lab, I am.”

  “And everywhere else?”

  “She is.”

  “At the lab, is your significant other a superior to the couple looking to leave?”

  Dr. Lisle nodded.

  “So they were the couriers, but your special friend, I’m fairly certain, she’s the one who switched computers on you because she had the greatest, least suspicious access to it.”

  Yvette Lisle hung her head.

  Alan White River placed a compassionate hand on her back.

  John, however, wasn’t done. “You were reluctant to say anything about losing your computer because you knew your lover was the most likely suspect. You tried to persuade yourself that couldn’t be what happened, but denial lasts only so long. So you turned to Grandfather … hoping, what, he could work some magic for you?”

  Tears fell from her eyes as she nodded.

  “But then he brought me in and you were stuck.”

  She sobbed and White River put his arm around her.

  John continued in a soft voice, “But either your lover or one of the other two put in a call to someone, and that was when a former Omaha cop turned private investigator named Wilbur Rosewell showed up in Washington and took a run at Grandfather and me.”

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor mumbled through her tears.

  John sighed and said, “You made a mistake of the heart. The others broke the law. But now that we’re here in Omaha, I’ll find Mr. Rosewell and we’ll make things as right as we can.”

  The doctor looked up. “There’s another reason I came to Omaha.” Yvette Lisle wiped the tears from her eyes and firmed her jaw. “I know how to stop these miserable bastards dead in their tracks.”

  John smiled and said, “Good. Tell me all about it.”

  Brice Benard’s Office — Omaha, Nebraska

  Rich as hell or not, Brice Benard had gotten damn nervous since Wilbur Rosewell had abandoned him yesterday, the cur. Not that Benard had anything against mixed blood mutts. But, goddamnit, he could feel things starting to come apart around him. He was sitting on the cusp of an opportunity to make the kind of money the Pentagon spent in a year: billions, billions and more billions.

  He just needed someone who could scare the hell out of the Omaha tribe’s chief of tribal administration, Thomas Emmett, and get rid of that other damn Indian, the tall one working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He could be real trouble. Worse than just losing a wet-dream of a business opportunity. That sonofabitch could put him in a federal prison for a long, long time.

  That kind of thing hadn’t happened to someone with his money since … ever.

  Jesus, he thought, what if his getting locked up started a trend, putting rich bastards away for all the evil, sneaky shit they pulled? The feds might put all the greed-merchants in one vile, steaming sinkhole. Everybody there would blame him for all their suffering. He might wind up getting shanked by a former investment banker from Wall Street.

  That idea didn’t stretch credulity much farther than the nightmare he’d woken up from that morning. A war party of Indians, the two tall ones from Washington, Dr. Lisle, and Thomas Emmett from right there in Omaha were chasing him through a forest, brandishing war axes and knives, howling for blood and intending to scalp him.

  Benard remembered reading a newspaper story about who invented scalping, white men or red men. Each side blamed the other. What was clear, though, both sides had been enthusiastic participants. The European arrivals, however, were definitely the ones who had married capitalism to barbarism: They’d paid bounties for scalps.

  As Benard fled through his hell-scape nightmare forest, a new pursuer appeared from behind every tree he passed. All of them howled for his blood and the bounty money they’d get for his scalp. A battalion of hands reached out and seized him from his neck to his ankles.

  He screamed and … that was what woke him up.

  The sound of his own terror.

  His third wife had left him the year before. He had no one in bed beside him to apologize to for his REM panic. He also had no one to comfort him, and tell him it was nothing more than a bad dream. That wouldn’t have helped anyway. The horror might have been imaginary, but the basis for it was as real as a tax audit.

  He’d committed a federal offense by setting the theft of Dr. Lisle’s computer in motion.

  It had been all Benard could do to get showered, dressed and out the door to go to his office. He’d thought of asking his chauffeur if he might like to take on a new task. He just couldn’t squeeze the topic — How would you like to become a killer? — past his sense of better judgment.

  Benard managed to get himself all the way into his office without exhibiting any erratic behavior. He closed the door and used the intercom to tell his secretary not to let anyone bother him. The only calls he’d take would be on his private line.

  The one that rang only inside his office.

  Wilbur Rosewell’s parting words from yesterday echoed in Benard’s mind.

  “Just make sure you pay your phone bill.”

  The implication being he might get a call.

  One that might solve all his problems.

  So he stared at his phone for hours, thinking at first and muttering later: Ring … ring … ring, goddamnit. He’d long since lost count of his pleadings by the time i
t finally did. He picked up the phone and didn’t even dare to say hello.

  “Hey, Mr. Benard, you there?”

  It was Rosewell.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Good. You still need some help with your problem?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then,” Rosewell said. “You remember what you said about paying in gold? I’ve got someone who’s interested.”

  Interstate 29 — En route to Omaha Reservation

  John’s original thought, after having breakfast, was to go to the Omaha cops and ask for help dealing with Wilbur Rosewell, but then Yvette Lisle reminded him she had an idea for finding her purloined laptop, and she volunteered to do the driving that would be required.

  John rented a Chevy Impala with enough leg-room, front and back, for himself and Great-grandfather, and they were on the road as soon as the morning rush hour ended.

  Dr. Lisle told her story as she did a steady 70 miles per hour in the right-hand lane.

  “The Omaha Nation is sitting on a natural resource of great value. They just don’t know it yet.”

  Alan White River chuckled softly and said, “That is a very old Indian story.”

  John said to Dr. Lisle, “You intend to tell tribal officials as soon as we arrive?”

  She nodded. “Yes. After my computer was taken, I thought to do so, but I hesitated. Now, I’m afraid I might have waited too long. But I’ve been reading the Omaha World-Herald online to watch for any announcement of a big business deal involving the tribe. So far, I haven’t seen any such news.”

  John gave her a dubious look, but she kept her eyes on the road. He said, “Many business deals get announced only when the terms are finalized.”

  “Yes, I know,” Dr. Lisle said softly. “I kept hoping my computer would be returned. I was foolish. But I’m praying no news is good news.”

  “There might already be an agreement in principle,” John said, “while the paperwork is being massaged by the respective legal teams.”

  She finally spared John a glance. “Would any kind of a deal stand up in court if one party had an illegally obtained advantage?”

  “Good question,” John said. “Not being a lawyer, I can’t answer with any certainty. Doesn’t seem, though, like the interests of justice would rest with the bad guys.”

  White River laughed louder than before. “Our people don’t have a great record in American courts, historically speaking … and as of this morning.”

  “I’m going to tell the President that I’ll serve as her Secretary of the Interior,” John said.

  Yvette Lisle looked at him again. “What?”

  “She asked me to help out. I’ve been trying to put her off without being off-putting.”

  Her eyes back on the road, Dr. Lisle asked, “You don’t want the job?”

  “I don’t aspire to lead a bureaucracy, but I think as a Cabinet member, I could help balance the scales of justice in any court proceeding involving the Omaha.”

  For the first time that he could recall, John saw Yvette Lisle smile.

  “Maybe you could help,” she said.

  “So what’s the treasure on the Omaha Nation’s land,” John asked. “Gold?”

  “Even better: microbes.”

  “That was going to be my next guess,” he told her.

  Once again, the old man in the back seat laughed.

  John said, “It’s been a long time since I was in a high school biology class, but aren’t there any number of microbes in any handful of dirt you might pick up anywhere?”

  “There are, indeed,” Dr. Lisle said, “and 99.9% of them have never been examined. The problem was isolating one strain of bacteria from the next. Then two years ago a biotech firm in Massachusetts solved that problem. My lab was the first to license their process. By capturing single cells, you can cultivate microorganisms that never existed before.”

  “Mightn’t that produce a Frankenstein monster?” John asked.

  Yvette Lisle gave a small nod. “Potentially, yes. In terms of biological warfare, if you were specifically looking to create a killer pathogen, it wouldn’t be beyond imagining. But the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 banned bacteriological weapons. One hundred and seventy-eight nations are signatories. The only hold-outs are in Africa, three non-signatory nations. They’re not scientifically advanced places, but if terrorists were to set up shop in any of them and got financing and people with the right educations …”

  A small shudder passed through Yvette Lisle.

  “We’ll table that nightmare for the moment,” John said. “Meanwhile, back on the rez.”

  Dr. Lisle nodded. “On a much smaller scale, one strain of bacteria can be as competitive and hostile to other strains of bacteria as one group of people can be aggressive to another group.”

  White River said, “That does not surprise me.”

  “Such is the nature of nature?” John asked Great-grandfather.

  The old man nodded. He let his chin fall to his chest and closed his eyes.

  Dr. Lisle continued John’s education. “Anyway, antibiotics are devised to kill other microbes. For example, the microorganisms from mold that make penicillin kill the bacteria that cause pneumonia, ear and throat infections and —”

  “And then they stop working when the bad bugs adapt to the medicine,” John said.

  “Exactly. That’s why we’ll always need new antibiotics.”

  “And you found the microbes to create a new cure on the Omaha Reservation?” John asked.

  Dr. Lisle nodded. “Yes, I think so. I found them in my grandmother’s backyard, but logic tells me other nearby patches of earth should hold the same strains of bacteria.”

  Alan White River raised his head.

  John continued his questioning, asking Dr. Lisle, “The same might hold true for any other number of other places around the world, right?”

  “Maybe, given a similar topography, climatic conditions and related kinds of soil, water and maybe even air pollution. But how would you know exactly where to look? The time you’d need for exploration might be longer than what you’d require to develop the antibiotic.”

  Yvette Lisle took the highway exit to the reservation.

  Alan White River asked, “Your grandmother, is she as pretty as you?”

  Albuquerque International Sunport — Albuquerque, New Mexico

  Marlene Flower Moon was in a vile mood. She’d been unable to find a single seducible business executive or celebrity she might prevail upon for a free ride in a private jet to Omaha. It wasn’t that either her beauty or her wiles had slipped, she simply hadn’t been able to find a warm-blooded male of any age who had his own Gulfstream, Dassault or Cessna luxury aircraft.

  What was the country coming to, she wondered angrily.

  That left her with only the distasteful option of chartering a flight paid out of her own purse. Coyote did not fly commercial, not even in first class. Her aggravation only heightened when she found out there was not even an executive jet available for hire. The only reason she didn’t go on a rampage was that the leasing agent at the general aviation terminal took note of her building exasperation.

  He said, “I can get you an aircraft from Colorado Springs within the hour.”

  “What kind?”

  “Beechcraft jet, room for 12 passengers. Two thousand mile range.”

  “Cabin steward?”

  “Sure, if you’d like. Full bar. Snacks on board. Take longer if you want to order a chef-prepared meal.”

  “I’ll go with the bar and snacks. How much?”

  The agent told her.

  For a moment, she thought to haggle but decided not to. If the guy dug in about the price, she might snap off his head, literally. That wouldn’t do in a public place. Coyote preferred to be wily, not obvious. She handed over her Amex Centurion Card.

  The agent said, “I’ll just run your card and be right back. May I bring you a drink when I return?”

  “A Bloody M
ary, heavy on the blood.”

  The agent grinned, thought to return the quip. Then he looked at Marlene’s eyes. All he said was, “Yes, ma’am. Right away, exactly as you like it.”

  Marlene took a lounge chair that looked out on airport arrivals and departures.

  In a moment of bitter self-recrimination, she thought Tall Wolf would have gotten an executive jet for free somehow. That galled her: the idea that he might have become more cunning than she was. His intercession on her behalf with his parents still left her unsettled. It clearly would have better served his interests to let them attack her with every means at their command.

  Marlene knew that Serafina Wolf y Padilla by herself couldn’t have tormented Marlene’s dreams indefinitely. What she could do, though, would be to have the curse of nightmares handed down from one generation of brujas to the next to continue her work. And who knew what sort of dark hell Hayden Wolf might inflict upon her? That and how many generations of accomplices might continue his attacks indefinitely.

  The combined damage those two forces might do to her was horrible to contemplate.

  And Tall Wolf had spared her all that.

  It seemed impossible to her that anyone would do that. Tall Wolf knew who and what she really was. He’d seen that immediately the first time he’d met her as a young man. He’d had no doubt that she’d meant to bend him to her will, before she consumed him, figuratively and literally.

  So why, why, why had he interceded on her behalf?

  There had to be some ulterior motive.

  The only smart thing to do would be to play along with whatever his game was, come to understand it, then get him looking the other way and …

  Try as she might, she couldn’t deny the idea that in some perverse way she and Tall Wolf had become friends. She’d never had a friend before. The notion made her uneasy. Friends had to be taken into account when you made decisions, and she’d never thought of anyone but herself.

  The leasing agent returned with a smile and her drink order.

  He returned her Centurion card and handed her the drink.

  “Your aircraft will be here in 45 minutes, Ms. Flower Moon. Your drink has been made just the way you like it. I tapped a vein in a junior staffer to top it off.”