by Dorian Paul
"Welcome back."
He crouched instantly and reached under his suit coat.
She shrank.
"Claire." His hand abruptly stilled. "Sorry. I didn't see you."
"Were you going for a gun?"
He waited a beat before saying, "Circumstances being what they are, prudence is required."
"You might've shot me."
"I never shoot impulsively."
That's not an answer. "Never?"
"My response is habitual."
Well, I've never known of anybody with habits like you.
"Please don't be alarmed. I'm experienced with weapons. I do not use them casually."
She couldn't believe how calmly he spoke when he was just about ready to shoot her. At the same time she was aware he was mesmerizing her with his voice and eyes, as though he were a trainer talking down a nervous horse. Is that how he saw her? It didn't matter because she remained frozen in place even as he came back down the steps. Did he have any idea how he'd wrecked her sense of security inside Sherborne House. While she understood the need for security outside the house, he was inside his own home . . . armed and ready to shoot. He stepped so close to her she felt his body heat.
"Please try to appreciate that weapons are a piece of my life. I sincerely regret if I alarmed you."
She managed to reply, "No, I understand." Well not really, but I shouldn't have startled him.
"I'm sorry."
She fumbled on, "I was waiting to have dinner with you, and –"
"Dinner. With me?"
Clearly she'd surprised him for the second time tonight.
"Right. Let me put my things upstairs. I shall be down momentarily."
But he didn't move to break their contact until she dropped her hand from his arm, which she hadn't even realized she'd touched.
What a weird conversation they'd just had, she thought, and how normal for their bizarre relationship. Except for the touching . . . that wasn't normal at all.
***
He'd handled that rather well under the circumstances. It might have been much worse. She might have rejected him directly. And she was waiting to have dinner with him. This was progress, considering the last time they dined in Sherborne House together she turned her back and stormed out of the room.
While David freshened up, he checked his home messages. Four. First the club, and he jotted a note to reschedule the racquets match he postponed when he left for Morocco. Next he heard Meg, twice, saying Bernard would be out-of-town and he should visit. He erased both of her messages from the machine . . . and for the time being his mind. The final message was from his mother. Thorn Hall this weekend. He could no longer delay his visit; it was time to initiate the estate process with his father as he had promised.
He found Claire in the morning room, seated in his mother's French lady's chair reading a book. She rose when he came in. He appreciated her statuesque good looks, and noticed she was not wearing her arm brace and her arm moved freely. That could only mean she'd carried out those frightfully necessary exercises, which he remembered all too well from his time in Scotland.
"Maggie left dinner. I'll get it," she said and stood.
He let her fetch the food. His own experience with rehabilitation had shown him it was vital to demonstrate to yourself and others you were no longer disabled. He sat at the drop leaf table set with the family Crest china, something his mother used only on special occasions. Interesting, and it had to be Claire's choice. Maggie never would have put it out without permission. When Claire returned carrying the matching serving pieces, he was pleased. She'd set them up properly for a formal holiday dinner . . . excepting it was a cozy dinner for two. To complete the effect, he offered to retrieve wine from the cellar.
"Not on my account, David."
"Still on medication?"
"No, just Tylenol, but I don't drink when I'm tired. Makes me fuzzy the next day."
He noted the dark circles ringing her striking deep green eyes. His own exhaustion had been replaced by newfound energy now that he was in her company. "Long hours."
"Yes. Everybody's here and we're pushing the limits."
"Any progress?"
She pushed the rice around her plate and plowed it into Maggie's chicken fricassee. "Some."
But I see you're not well pleased. "The lab is fitted up with everything you need?"
She played with her food again and neglected to meet his eyes. "There's nothing wrong with the lab, but . . ."
"What is it? Please tell me. I may be able to help."
She hesitated fractionally. "All right, then. Sandra Cook. She's not what I expected."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I do not know her myself, but James Warner, my boss, assured me she was top drawer."
"Oh, she's very smart and a good scientist, but I thought she'd be a sounding board for my ideas."
"TB isn't her specialty, as I understand it."
"No, it isn't. But she knows vaccines, and there are lots of parallels. I thought she'd be more of a partner." She had his sympathy and he'd gladly hear her out, but she deflected the conversation his way with a dismissive wave. "Enough of me. Let's talk about your trip."
What could he say other than that he knew where she was coming from because Bobby had disappointed his own expectations of what it meant to partner? He shifted to facts. "Omar Messina was the primary intelligence we gathered."
"Afraid I can't help you there. I asked everyone on my team once your office sent the information and no one has ever heard of Omar Messina or recognized that blurry picture, except me. He's not in any of the publication databases, either."
"Perhaps he chose not to publish. He may not have wanted to share his secrets."
"So Omar Messina is Dr. Black?"
"Undoubtedly the two are the same person. But very difficult to say if Messina is his real name. We're investigating. He may have taken the name Messina because it's the name of one of the most celebrated Amazigh kings. Possibly Black assumed the name as an alias to honor his lineage."
She nodded. "Well, whoever Black turns out to be, the man's an evil genius."
The expression on her face conveyed how arduous she expected it to be for her team to crack the code of Tivaz TB. On his end he was no closer to finding Varat. But they were in this together . . . and he preferred the thought of her rather than Bobby as his partner. Alas, he wasn't free to follow that notion. His work mobile vibrated in his pocket at that precise moment and he had to excuse himself.
"We got trouble, pal."
"My house or yours, Bobby?"
"Mine. Digging through data I found something that made my skin crawl. Diplomatic pouch carried off the non-stop from Casablanca to JFK yesterday, trailing that wispy dry ice smoke."
"Yesterday's flight? Did you not instruct your customs people?"
"The courier was a low level staffer at the Moroccan U.N. mission. Customs guy couldn't ask to look inside the pouch. That's a no-no. But he put a note in our system. Got flagged in the computer search."
"Bloody hell."
"Yep, hate playing catch up. And biological crap means I gotta coordinate with DEA, FDA, you name it. I'm heading up to New York. Just keeping you in the loop, pal, as agreed."
Chapter 16
Coffee. The British had everything conceivable for a good cup of tea in the lab, including a china tea service, but for a decent cup of coffee you had to go to the High Street. And Claire didn't have time, nor enjoy being shadowed by her guard.
Roscoe popped into the break room to join her, as he did whenever she went looking for a high-octane jolt. He offered to brew them a fresh pot, but she filled her mug with the black sludge sitting there since early morning. Impervious to her foul mood, he began to detail his progress on the DNA vaccine. Soon he'd ask her for a date, a dinner for two, even a private lunch. He always did. Today would be no different even though precious moments were slipping away. Why couldn't he see the best way to please her would be to go back to the b
ench and refine his prototype?
Sandra walked in and she jumped at a chance to extricate herself from Roscoe. "Have you got a minute?"
As usual Sandra didn't notice Claire was speaking to her, but once she repeated the question, Sandra frowned in response. "You wish a word with me?" It appeared a word was about all she would get, until Sandra surprised her. "Right, then. We'll talk over tea. My office."
Papers and books hid every surface, including the guest chair and stool, so she stood with the dregs of her coffee while Sandra sat to take tea.
"I suppose you wish to discuss the vaccine your team is focused on," Sandra said without taking her eyes off her teacup. "Francie tells me you're combining DNA from Tivaz TB with a Toll receptor agonist."
So she's keeping tabs on me. Not exactly collegial when she could have asked me directly. But she swallowed a budding resentment because this conversation might provide exactly what she'd been lacking to date, the expert opinion of an experienced outside observer. "Yes, it's designed to stimulate the innate immune response."
"Tivaz TB reproduces exceedingly fast. There won't be time for the immune response to be fully activated."
"Yes, that's why we're using the Toll receptor agonist." There was no need to explain the function of Toll receptors to a cancer researcher. Sandra was well aware they initiated the body's immediate response to fight infection.
Sandra shook her head and her brow was puckered. "The literature suggests TB's waxy cell wall structure may make it resistant to the body's early defenses, even with Toll receptor activation."
Was this a criticism of Roscoe's approach or a demonstration she knew enough about TB to make a reasonable point? Unsure, she found herself echoing Roscoe's justification for the approach. "The technique is proven and we thought it better to produce something quickly than face Tivaz TB empty-handed."
"True, but short term gains often prove illusory. The ones who claim early success tend to suck oxygen out of a research group."
Was Sandra looking over their shoulders while Roscoe strutted his stuff by publishing hourly progress reports on the shared server?
"Guard against complacency arising from your so-called quick hits. Do not neglect your theoretical group. You know best where the real answer lays, Dr. Ashe. I've read your work with protein kinases."
Guilt nibbled at her. She'd yet to read Sandra's lung cancer vaccine publications.
"You're on to something, Claire. Clever, to home in on the messenger molecules TB uses to assess conditions in its host and signal when it's time to reproduce."
Don Strong never allowed them to use the word 'host' in their discussions. He said it put too much distance between the patients and researchers. Well, Sandra might not share Don's humanity, but that didn't mean she was wrong.
"What do you think, Claire? Did your Dr. Black manipulate the protein kinase signal in order to accelerate TB's replication rate?"
"He must've, because the cells are in permanent reproduction mode. He's also going by the name Omar Messina. Have you heard of him?"
"No, but whoever he is, you haven't worked out exactly what he did yet, have you?"
"No," she admitted.
"Went right at your area of expertise, did he? Would have pleased him no end to lord it over you, the sick bugger."
The memory of Dr. Black, aka Omar Messina, parading around his little fiefdom galled her.
"The solution lies somewhere in your previous research. Why else take you prisoner, unless to rub your nose in it, lass?" Sandra scowled toward heaven. "Men. They love to brag. Turn his asinine ego to your advantage by outthinking and outworking him. Devote resources to a theoretical approach built around what you, and your Dr. Black know is the key to TB – protein kinases."
"But I am."
"How much of your team?"
The way Sandra asked the question made it obvious she already knew the answer, no doubt courtesy of Francine Berger. "Twenty percent."
Sandra pursed her lips. "Not nearly enough. More than fifty percent of your effort should go there."
"But if there's an attack and we have nothing to use, what then? We're so close to having a prototype for the DNA vaccine."
"I'm not telling you to discontinue the DNA project. Buy you cannot allow it to consume the majority of your resources." Sandra pursed her lips once more. "If Dr. Smartz's DNA vaccine fails you'll be in a pickle."
"What do you suggest?"
Sandra knocked her fist against her skull. "Entertain all ideas. Especially the difficult ones that take time."
Sandra actually looked directly into her eyes, as if willing Claire to acknowledge the approach she'd been following so far had been too limited.
Claire gave Sandra a small shake of her head.
"Hard work lies ahead of you, young lady. And you must work rapidly."
Especially with a biohazard shipment unaccounted for in America. When David told her about the shipment she spent the rest of the night looking up every research paper that might provide a clue for her group to pursue if the shit hit the fan today.
"Tell you what, Claire. While you work up all of your ideas, I'll help on the 'First-In-Man' application. Then, when you're ready, you'll have a leg up to start your trials."
She wanted to hug Sandra but didn't dare be so familiar. Instead, she moved the papers and books off the guest chair and onto the floor and sat down next to her. "That would be huge. Thank you so much."
"Thank Francie. We balance each other off as sounding boards. You should use her in the same way. She admires you."
She'd worked hard to win Francine's trust, but had no idea she'd succeeded. Then again, until this conversation she wouldn't have believed Sandra would actively provide help. "Francine's theoretical skills are outstanding."
"Brilliant girl. Loyal. Expects to take over the lab when I'm gone. Do you think she's up to it?"
Claire bit her lips. "She's a first-class scientist."
"That's not what I asked. Can she lead this lab?"
"I'm not in a position to judge."
Sandra groaned and Claire knew she couldn't get off the hook that easy. "But you are in a position to judge because you know it takes more than science to run a lab. Takes political savvy, and Francie's got no political backbone. You do."
Claire felt heat rush to her face. Don always said she had what it took to run a lab, and Sandra agreed. But where did that leave Francine? She'd been Sandra's star graduate student and was her most trusted colleague. It wasn't fair that academic science required skills beyond that. "I'll do what I can to include Francine in my decision-making. It might be helpful experience for her."
"Much appreciated."
Sandra turned back to her computer as if Claire had already left the room . . . so she went back to her own office and reflected on their conversation. Sandra was right, she'd pinned all her hopes on Roscoe's DNA vaccine. But what if it didn't work? She'd hoped David would catch Omar Messina and Varat in time, but right now he and Bobby were chasing a missing shipment that might be Tivaz TB.
Sandra's advice to consider a realignment of resources was sound. She might be an odd duck, but she was proving herself an unexpected ally. As was Francine in her own way. Yes, both her female colleagues were willing to stand with her at this crucial time. A weird pack of wolves they were. Three generations of women in science, each eyeing Tivaz TB from her own perspective, and passionate about getting the science right.
Would she end up like Sandra and Francine? A woman alone, obsessed with science, chasing an obscure particle of knowledge, forsaking the joys of human existence, never taking a chance on any other part of life?
Chapter 17
The Northeast Regional DEA Director showed up in the flesh to escort Bobby. Hey, how 'bout that, Bobby was an important personage. Yeah, right. The drug boys just wanted him to know they were in charge of the operation, not the CIA.
The government van inched through North Jersey traffic toward the target. Hell, George Washington m
ade better time on his way to fight the British at nearby Morristown, and he rode a horse. Meanwhile, every passenger on this highway could be at risk while their van crawled past enormous warehouses where goods from the Port Newark Container Terminal were sorted and loaded onto double-trailers for transport across America. At last they reached a low, nondescript concrete building identified as "Mid-Atlantic Tissue Bank." Bobby felt a few beads of sweat forming on his upper lip. Shit, you couldn't find a better site to repackage a biological weapon for distribution.
"This is the place your Moroccan told us he made his delivery," the DEA Director said. "Guy sang like a bird scared of extinction. How'd you pull it off, Keane?"
"Ya gotta know the right people." Like Aziz Bouchta, who not only came up with Omar Messina's name, but also convinced the Governor to lean on some people to get the low down on the Casablanca to NY courier. Good bet the Governor wasn't too keen about getting involved, but he did. "You buy the Moroccan's story?" Bobby asked.
"Totally."
Hmm. He wasn't so certain. Sure, the courier claimed he'd been smuggling stuff into the U.S. a long time. Started his career with dental powder made of ground up human bones used to implant teeth and reconstruct jaws. "Is there really that much dough in ground up bones?" he asked the DEA guy.
"Ten years ago a gram of dental powder was worth more than a gram of the best cocaine."
"No shit."
"The Russian mob smuggled it in like crazy from Bosnia." The director shrugged. "Pretty gruesome, if you know what I mean."
Yeah, and bones were easy enough to find if you knew where to look. Bobby'd seen plenty of buried bodies in Bosnia. "How come the Russian mob was so into this stuff?"
The guy rubbed the fingers of one of his hands together. "Lots of money. It was big-time expensive to buy a skeleton from a U.S. morgue back then. But once people started donating their bodies to science, anybody could buy bones and grind 'em at a decent price."