Enhancement (Black Market DNA Book 1)

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  Hesitating a moment, he turned back to her. “I don’t see anyone or anything, yet.” He pushed the door the rest of the way open and froze. Again, his pulse quickened and his eyes opened wide as he took in the scene before them. He stepped into the room, taking care to avoid the fallen lamp in his path. Little glass shards sparkled on the hardwood floor like glinting snowflakes. Drawers in the kitchen were haphazardly open, most with spilled contents spread across the tiled kitchen floor.

  The coat closet gaped wide open, with coats and shoes tossed about in front of it as if a bomb had exploded from within. Tracy went into the apartment, picking up her coats and placing them in a pile to clear a walkway. The sofa in the living room area lay on its back, the cushions torn and fabric across the bottom of the couch slashed. Tracy kicked at the loose stuffing. “What in the hell?”

  “Where are the samples?”

  Tracy’s head snapped up. “Holy shit, I can’t believe I forgot. We left them on the counter, right?”

  Chris glanced at the granite countertop. A couple of broken glasses, scattered silverware, and boxes of dry noodles, ripped and spilling penne and vermicelli pasta, lay where they had left the silver freezer box with the rest of the samples. “They took it. All we’ve got left are the two vials we sent with Jordan.” He shook his head. “I’m not even sure if the one I took will be ruined or not. I should’ve just left it with you.”

  “No, we needed to be safe,” Tracy said. She stepped over a chair that had been tossed aside. The kitchen table, too, had been flipped upside down. “What the hell is this?” Her face flushed red. “They must have seen the samples right away. They got what they wanted. Why’d they need to fuck the whole place up?”

  Chris, jaw set and eyes darting wildly, peered into the bedroom. He threw open the closet doors and checked the bathroom, looking behind the door and peeling back the shower curtain. He found no sign that anyone remained in the small apartment.

  Satisfied, he stepped back out into the kitchen area. He cursed at himself, wondering how he could have been so careless, what he had done to lead them back to Tracy, to where she lived. How fortunate that she and Jordan had convinced him to stay at Jordan’s place the night before. Had they stayed here, had Tracy been alone...Chris could not bear to imagine being responsible for her abduction or death. He surveyed the scene again and used a dish towel to collect the broken glass on the countertop into a pile. “It wasn’t just about the samples. It’s more than that.”

  Righting one of the kitchen chairs, Tracy sat down in it. “They know that I’m in this with you. That damned businessman wants me to stay out.”

  “Exactly. They’re sending a message.”

  Tracy’s narrowed eyes and tight grimace gave way to a mischievous grin. “They took Randy’s notebook, too.”

  “And that makes you happy?”

  She stood up. “That means you aren’t going to be able to go to the police now, are you? We’ve got almost nothing except for a couple crumpled papers and the vials that Jordan has.”

  Chris kicked at the glass shards on the ground. “Dammit.” Then his eyes wandered out the window. “We do have a notebook, though. I should’ve mentioned this before.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Vincent, or Jeremy Kar as you know him. He kept a journal when we were cellmates. Maybe there’s something in there that can help us.”

  Tracy stepped toward him, slapping him on the shoulder. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything about that before? I can’t believe that. I mean, it’s probably a long shot, but we don’t have anything to lose by looking. Do we need to drop by your place to pick it up?”

  Rubbing his shoulder, Chris smiled. “Nope. It’s back at Jordan’s.”

  “God, I hope there is something in there to connect all this together. If we get a hold of that businessman’s little neck...” Tracy trailed off, wringing her hands together, her eyes aflame in a fierce, distant gaze.

  “If we get a hold of him, we’ll turn him in to the police and make him face the consequences—legally—of what he’s done.” His thoughts turned to Veronica. He hoped the businessman had done nothing else in the hours since he’d seen her. “We’ll make sure he pays.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The sun set over the Chesapeake, and Jordan’s apartment glowed in a fury of orange and red hues. Waves of amber light floated in through the windows around his home, giving the penthouse a peaceful ambiance.

  Chris basked in the glow of the warm colors and stretched his arms above his head, yawning. “Should we bother going in to work tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, I think we should,” Tracy said. “You’re probably right that these people will be watching out for us, but we can’t risk acting too suspicious, either.” She held up her index finger. “Plus, we’d be risking our jobs just not showing up like that.”

  “I worry we’d be risking our lives by going.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think that this guy is willing to blow his cover by attacking us in the middle of a work day in a busy downtown business district—don’t you agree?”

  “I just don’t want them to follow us back to Jordan’s.” He traced his tongue around the inside of his lips. “Then, again, they didn’t worry about trashing your place quietly.”

  The merry-go-round of anxiety circled in his mind as his worries flitted from his concern for Tracy, Jordan, and Veronica to his curiosity about the businessman’s motives, Randy’s involvement in this complex scenario, and why it all had started with a series of deaths in a prison miles from here.

  Jordan sat down on the couch. He passed out glasses of merlot. Inhaling from his, he swirled the wine and sipped it. “I’d rather you two stay safe in this building, where we’ve got, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, much more robust security than either of your places.” He raised his glass to the wide windows that let in the last rays of the sun. “Plus, we’ve got Greg.”

  Greg nodded and smiled from an armchair that matched the L-shaped couch where Chris, Tracy, and Jordan sat. He was absorbed in a novel projecting from his comm card.

  “How’s it looking so far?” Jordan asked.

  Tracy frowned and shot a look at Chris.

  “Your third draft is certainly better than the first. I’m still a bit confused by Mandy’s motives after killing her husband, but I’m hoping that’ll be a bit clearer when we get to the point where Adam turns the whole company around.”

  “I hope so too,” Jordan said.

  Chris smiled but anxiously tapped on the bottom of his wine glass. “Are you going to tell us what you found now? We have something we’d like to look at sooner rather than later.” When Tracy and Chris had arrived back at Jordan’s apartment, prepared to delve into Vincent’s notebook for possible clues, Jordan had persuaded them to have a seat to discuss his day’s findings at the lab first.

  “Ah, I love a good bit of suspense.” His lips parted as his teeth shone in a wide grin. “It’s been a long while since I did any benchwork myself. I’ve been far more comfortable on the business side of things, if you will. But I relished the opportunity to get back to my roots. I’ll admit I considered getting back into the development side of things with my equine genetic enhancement projects.” He took another slow, antagonizing sip of wine. “But Greg reminded me I’ve placed far too many irons in the fire. If I’m to be serious about running a company, I can’t stretch myself too thin.”

  Tracy let out an audible sigh. “That’s true. That’s all true, Jordan. I don’t mean to be rude, but what the hell did you find out today?”

  Jordan chortled. “You’re right. I’m being inconsiderate.”

  “People’s lives are in danger, Jordan. Please, I appreciate everything you’ve done for us but like Tracy asked, what did you find?”

  Another long sip. The remainder of Jordan’s wine vanished as he pulled the glass from his lips. “Well, my friend, I’m afraid I haven’t been able to answer the questions you asked me to find out.”<
br />
  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Tracy’s eyes narrowed and she leaned forward over the edge of her seat. Her wine glass sat neglected on the aged and preserved tree trunk that served as a coffee table.

  “Quite simply, it means that there was nothing to be found.”

  Chris’s jaw dropped. “In both samples? Were they ruined?”

  “No, no.” Jordan shook his hand, waving away Chris’s concerns. “We found delivery vectors in your samples. Fully intact, as you had designed them.”

  “I don’t follow,” Tracy said. “Talk straight, please.”

  “The delivery vectors were made of your printed DNA material. Small nanocapsules, similar to the designs we made when we were in the business together. A work of beauty. Elegant and ingenious, I always thought.

  “Anyway, those were easy enough to characterize with a healthy dose of transmission electron microscopy and a couple of follow-up DNA content analyses. They seemed to comprise elements of those early capsules you designed, along with those of the colon cancer project you described to me; though, as far as we could tell, the delivery vectors didn’t contain anything.”

  “No,” Chris said. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would Randy have bothered keeping samples of empty vectors?”

  “There was one difference,” Jordan said. “Instead of targeting epithelial colon cells, they targeted molecules for neuron cells. That much I did find.”

  “What do you think they’re supposed to do?” Chris asked.

  “Maybe my own predications are colored by our previous experiences, but it seems Randy—or whoever he worked for—wanted to deliver genetic enhancements to the nervous system.”

  “Well, yes, I understand that.” Chris frowned.

  “Remember how your strength enhancements focused on skeletal myocytes? They produced nice increases in muscle cell size and strength, but that’s not the sole way to produce strength gains, though everyone in the enhancement business focuses on those methods.”

  Tracy nodded, putting down the glass after her first sip of wine. “No, you’re right. Most initial strength gains during training are a result of more or less getting your nervous system to do a better job of recruiting muscle fibers and cells.”

  “Precisely,” Jordan said. “Now, if I must guess, I think that this businessman of yours wants to combine your work with DNA-based vectors with your old experience in loading those vectors with genetic strength enhancements. Could you imagine the gains someone might achieve by targeting both the nervous system and skeletal muscles simultaneously?”

  Chris nodded. “I still don’t understand why I’m involved in this at all, though. You’ve got to remember that we faced pretty fierce competition.”

  “I couldn’t forget.” Jordan settled back into the couch and crossed one leg over the other. “But I always knew you were talented. Someone else must have picked up on that, too.”

  “Come on. I’m no super genius. There are plenty of others in genetic enhancements, both legal and illegal, that have better products. I just made the delivery vectors better.” Chris tossed up his hands in defeat. “Now it looks like our friend Randy found no issue replicating my delivery vectors. This businessman guy doesn’t even need me.”

  “He’s right, Jordan,” Tracy said. “There’s got to be something else here. Are you sure you didn’t find anything else in those samples? You checked both vials, right?”

  “I’m positive. One thing’s for certain, though. These people know what they’re doing on a scientific level. And if everything you’ve told me is true, I think you might be in over your head chasing these ghosts around.”

  “Ghosts?” Chris shook his head. “This isn’t a Bigfoot chase. This is real. People’s lives are at stake here. Your life might be at stake.”

  “I’ll admit that I was frightened when Tracy first explained everything to me. This isn’t the first time anyone’s threatened my life, directly or not. You should know that as well as anyone. Could it be that your friend Randy tried to analyze these samples himself? Maybe he became involved in this business. Maybe he wanted to track down this businessman friend of yours.”

  Tracy’s forehead wrinkled as she appeared to contemplate Jordan’s statements. “That still doesn’t make sense with the prison attacks or clear up anything about the list we found in Randy’s notebook.”

  “I’m only thinking aloud.” Jordan examined his empty wine glass, rolling the stem between his fingers. “In truth, I’m more in the dark about any of this than you are. Either way, I think you ought to let things cool for a week or two. Then I suggest you forget about all of this. Sometimes it’s better to act as though nothing has happened if you want to move on. The more you know, the more reasons these people will find for eliminating you. You’re both becoming a growing risk to their business or whatever it is they’re doing. Death is an inevitable cost of running an organization like theirs.” He let out a slow breath. “Or like ours was.”

  Chris massaged his temples. He felt the budding of a headache. “I never killed anyone. Hell, you know I wouldn’t be in favor of that.”

  Standing up, Jordan walked to the edge of the room and peered out the window. Night swallowed Baltimore. Lights from apartment windows, streetlights, and the headlights and taillights of cars passing along the streets shone like stars, reflecting on the windows. Above the city, clouds obscured the real stars. “You may not have killed anyone. But when people encroached on our business, do you think we won out purely by the quality of our product? I tried to keep you out of it, but that side of the business is inescapable.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Jordan swiveled back around to face Tracy and Chris. He closed his eyes and lowered his head. “I deeply regret it. When we sold enhancements, I employed a couple of men to do the dirty work much like your businessman does now. A necessary evil to ensure payments were made and competition remained scarce. Something that’s not necessary in horse racing.” He looked up at them and offered a weak smile.

  The throbbing pain in Chris’s head intensified. His stomach flipped and he gagged, stifling an intense urge to vomit.

  “You need to find a way out of this,” Jordan said. “Trying to follow the lion back to his den is not the way to do that.”

  Chris rested his elbows on the tree-trunk coffee table and put his head in his hands as he willed his stomach to settle. The onset of the headache was just another painful coincidence. Too many coincidences, too many questions. He massaged his temples.

  “I’m sorry. I know that’s a lot to take in.”

  Tracy stood up. “You know something else, don’t you?” Her raised voice resonated in Chris’s ears and felt like knives sticking into his brain. “There’s something you’re hiding. About the samples.”

  Jordan shook his head. “No.”

  “You know this businessman,” she said. “That’s it. That’s why you took me in when I showed up at your doorstep. When I mentioned Chris made a deal with this guy, you knew who I was talking about. Who is he? Where is he?”

  “I am telling you what’s best for you,” Jordan said. “This man that you describe is dangerous. His organization is dangerous.” He pointed at Chris. “Getting arrested, spending time in jail, protective custody, and then prison probably saved your life. I didn’t know why people were being killed, but too many people in the alternative genetic enhancement business died. Falling into the Chesapeake, muggings gone bad, hiking accidents in Patapsco Valley, for God’s sake. The police never cared to follow up on those cases, of course. All I know is that when people on the streets started dying, I got myself out of the business. Later on, I heard descriptions of this guy, pale and scrawny but always wearing a suit and shades, running the big new genie business in town. I don’t think anyone knows what he calls himself or his group, but it didn’t matter. I’m glad I got out when I did. Now, dealing with horses, no one bothers me. I don’t know what they’re up to anymore, either, and that suits me just fine.”
<
br />   Jordan took a deep breath and continued. “I’m still alive today because of that decision. I’ve done you a favor, I’ve analyzed your samples, but I have to at least advise you not to go down this rabbit hole. If you want to stay alive, you need to get the hell out of Baltimore and give this up or be prepared to face the consequences.”

  “I can’t. My parole,” Chris said. His words came out like a pathetic whimper. “I’ll be arrested as soon as they think I’m fleeing their supervision.”

  “Then I suggest you do what this mystery man says, stop pestering him, and end your business with him as soon as possible. It’s in your best interest.” Jordan’s eyes glanced from Chris to Tracy. “Yours, too.”

  “If the police aren’t involved, do you think you should just give up on this?” Tracy asked Chris. “If this businessman is so dangerous, why should we trust that doing him any kind of favor will mean that we’re safe?”

  “I don’t know.” Chris tried to reason through his pounding head. “What right do I have to try to stop a guy from running an illegal gene enhancement operation?”

  Her eyes narrowed, Tracy spoke in a cold voice. “You said it yourself. People’s lives are at risk.”

  “So are ours.”

  “This isn’t just about us anymore. Do you think it’s going to be that easy to just tell the man you’ll do as he says, that we’ll just go back to living like we did before we stole those samples? Before they chased you down? Before they wrecked my apartment? Even if you say it’s over, it won’t be over. Not by a long shot.” With those words still echoing in Chris’s skull, Tracy stomped out of the sitting area and down the hall toward the guest bedroom.

  His hands on his face, Chris peered through his fingers at Jordan. “What the hell am I supposed to do? You think I can just go back to life as normal?”

  Jordan shrugged. “I wish you could. I want you to.” He leaned forward and put a hand on Chris’s knee. “I don’t want to see you hurt. I know I didn’t keep in contact with you once you got arrested, and that’s on me. I thought it best to put distance between us, lest we both go down.”