Pitfall

by Cameron Bane

  I’d reached the halfway point when I heard another soft hiss and click, and I turned. The first set of doors, doors I’d thought were securely closed behind me, now were doubly so. My farsight feeling picked that time to kick in, reminding me this was a supremely dangerous place. As if I didn’t know it already.

  When I strolled up to the second set of doors and drew them open, this time my ears popped faintly. Airlock. Maybe this really was the mother ship. Going on through, I found myself in a lobby. But what a lobby.

  The room was huge, approximately fifty feet by fifty and well-lit, all done up in chrome and black leather. Gracing its center hulked a large, circular, metallic work station. It was a honey of a set up too, full of buttons, bright lights, closed-circuit TV monitors, and enough phone lines to reach Mars. I wished I could get a closer look, as I needed to know what kind of security the place had.

  Behind the desk sat another guard. But he was different than those two high-school boys at the gate, and even seated I could tell the young man was big and rough-cut. A worm of scar tissue crossed the bridge of a lumpy nose that looked to have been broken and badly set more than once. But the smile beneath his small brown eyes was sunny as I walked up. My, what a happy bunch worked here. Maybe I should relocate.

  “Yes sir, Mr. Fields?” he asked.

  “My fame precedes me.”

  “I’ve alerted Mr. Cross, sir. He’ll be right out.” The guard pointed to a bank of uncomfortable-looking leather and chrome visitor’s chairs to my left. “Have a seat.”

  “No thanks. I’ll stand, if you don’t mind. Those things have back strain written all over them.”

  “Yes, sir.” While the guard went back to viewing the screens, I gave the room a closer look. Besides the huge desk and those chairs, the area boasted plenty of live plants, ferns mainly. First the ones at Prestige, and now here, I mused. Maybe it was time I joined the crowd and bought a few of those for my own office.

  My reverie was broken by a weird, wheezing voice behind me. “Mr. Fields?”

  I turned, and came face to face with what appeared to be a living Buchenwald victim. I’m not kidding. The man was about my age and well over six feet tall beneath his natty blue blazer. But that’s where any similarities ended.

  He was as skinny as a broom handle, all gristle and nerve ganglia, and saddled with tight, reddish skin and thick lips. But what shook me the most about him was his head. It was high-domed and narrow, graced with a hard bony ridge running across the top of his sunken, cadaverous face. Worse, there wasn’t a hint of hair on that head, not even eyebrows.

  He appeared to be a burn victim, like I’d seen in the war. His gaze was humorous, though, and his icy blue eyes intelligent. In an instant I knew he was taking my measure.

  “That’s right,” I acknowledged, and we shook.

  Like his frame, his hands were hard, and layered with the characteristic knots and calluses indicative of a serious martial arts student. But there was more. They were so wrapped in old scar tissue the man had no fingernails, only smooth skin where they should have been.

  “I’m Charles Cross, head of security. Nice to meet you.”

  Right. I motioned around. “This is some place you have here, Mr. Cross. I’ll admit I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Who’s in charge?”

  Cross’s teeth were dazzling, as white and even as the crosses at Arlington. “That would be my father, Eli. He asked me to escort you back. This way.” He motioned down a long hallway. It appeared we were in for a hike, but then I saw what he was really pointing at: a row of gray motorized golf carts lined up like soldiers.

  Choosing one from the middle, Cross climbed on and indicated that I should join him. I did, taking the seat next to his. Flipping a switch, he stepped on the pedal, and we were off.

  The cart’s wheels were noiseless as we traversed more of that same endless black carpet. Maybe they’d gotten a deal on it somewhere, I mused, so much off in exchange for doing the whole complex, and the salesman had retired on the commission he’d made. The hall seemed deserted as we passed relatively few office doors, all of them closed.

  For some reason that made me vaguely uneasy.

  After a few moments of silence my guide spoke up, glancing at me as he drove. “My father’s really looking forward to meeting you.”

  “Meeting me as a representative of the EPA?” I inquired. “Or as the guy who put two of his employees in the hospital?”

  Cross chuckled, glancing at me again before staring straight ahead. “Both, actually. Many men have tried, and failed, to do what you did with those two. I would imagine you’d make a formidable adversary.”

  “Maybe.” My reply was glib. “And maybe I just got lucky last night.”

  The other man smiled slightly, as if he was enjoying a private joke. “Oh, I don’t know. We each make our own luck, don’t you think?” Before I could answer he announced, “Here we are.”

  We’d stopped at the last door at the end of the corridor. Getting off, I gave it a casual look. The portal carried the grain and color of fine oak, but I would have bet Smedley’s last peanut it was cleverly disguised metal, like everything else around here.

  “I’ll be leaving you now,” Cross wheezed. Leaving? His tone was brisk as he climbed out of the cart and pointed at a recessed button set into the door’s frame. “Just press that and wait. You’ll be buzzed in. When you’re finished, feel free to use the cart to take you back up front. Enjoy your stay.”

  And without as much as a have-a-nice-day, he began walking back down the same way we’d come, whistling a tuneless ditty. In ten steps he came to a branching corridor. Taking it, he turned and was gone; like the Cheshire cat’s smile, all that remained was his whistling as it faded.

  Once again I looked around. No cameras, yet I knew I was under surveillance. And I bet I knew how. Using my knuckle, I mashed the button Cross had indicated. Nothing. The door remained closed. Uh-huh. I realized how this worked now.

  With the pad of my thumb I pressed the button once more. There was a pause and the door slid back, as silent as a thought. Yep, biometrics.

  From inside I heard, “Mr. Fields? Come in, please.”

  Time to do what I came here for. Walking in like I meant it, I nearly stumbled to a sudden stop. Because I found myself right in the middle of the lair of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Minus the cat.

  Not really, of course, but the headquarters of James Bond’s old nemesis would have had a hard time competing with this room. Metal again, and plenty of it, this time not disguised in the slightest. There was more chrome around, more black leather, more ebony carpeting, more steel walls. It was as if Hal the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey had taken up interior decorating.

  I knew what would soften this place up, I thought then, make it warmer and more attractive to the eye. Circus posters. Big ones, with chimps.

  “Hello.” My attention was drawn from the stark décor to the man standing behind his desk, hand extended. “I’m Eli Cross.”

  So this was our villain. At first read Cross struck me as the singular type of man you underestimate at your peril. Physically, in addition to their matching bald heads, the father bore some resemblance to the son. But at second glance, that wasn’t quite right. Eli’s baldness appeared natural, giving him a healthy glow, and as I said before, it seemed Charles’s hairlessness was the result of some kind of an accident.

  Cross senior seemed to carry an almost electrical vitality, even though he wasn’t near my height. And it wasn’t his expensive dove gray pinstripe suit or his erect posture, either. I had the feeling that what we had here was that rarest of individuals, a man completely at ease with his supposed superiority over others. A snap analysis, but I’m a keen judge of character.

  Walking the ten or so steps over I gripped the man’s hand. “John Fields, EPA.”

  Eli Cross’s nod was curt as he motioned to a visitor’s chair opposite his desk with a manicured hand. “Please, have a seat, won’t you?”

&n
bsp; I did, grateful the thing was normal, just regular office furniture. My host took his own seat behind his desk. In a bigger leather chair, of course.

  Tenting his fingers, he studied me with a cool and seemingly condescending gaze. “So you’re the new field inspector for the EPA.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So what happened to the other man? Riley, was it?” Eli’s tone was light as he quietly snapped his fingers, as if searching his memory. “No, Ridley.”

  I’d already prepared myself for this. “I don’t know. I never met him. Never even knew his name. I just transferred in from our eastern Montana region.”

  “Montana. Big sky country. I hear the trout there are magnificent.”

  “I suppose. I don’t fish much.” Which was a lie, but I was trying hard to project the image of the humorless, workadaddy bureaucrat.

  “Neither do I. Tyranny of the urgent, and all that.”

  I shifted my weight in the chair. “Mr. Cross, I’d love to talk fishing with you, but unfortunately my schedule is tight. And I’m still waiting for my email from Washington to get straightened out and sent to me. So I’ll just ask you point blank.” I spread my hands. “What kind of work do you do here?”

  Eli lifted his head and laughed at the ceiling. It sounded artificial, hah-hah-hah, as if he didn’t get much practice at it. Then like a faucet shutting off he was done, and he looked back down at me. “We get asked that a lot. Believe it or not, GeneSys Technologies is a genetics lab. Albeit a big one.”

  Bullshit. From what Marsh had uncovered on the drive, there was more to it than that.

  “The name is simply a play on words,” he said. “GeneSys is shorthand for genetic systems. I came up with that myself.”

  “Catchy. But again, what exactly is the facility’s purpose?”

  “I’ll show you. Look here.” Turning to his left in his chair, Eli directed my attention to two, eleven by thirteen framed photos on the wall behind him. Of course, I’d noticed them when I entered, but didn’t place any importance to them. I was about to.

  He pointed to the one on the left. “This is a shot of a normal tomato plant, the way they’ve looked for thousands of years. Four to six ounce fruit. No surprises.”

  The photo featured a man’s thumb next to a bright red tomato hanging from the vine, as if for scale. He was right, it was nothing special. My family had grown them that big, and bigger, back in Gibbs.

  “And this …” He indicated the other one. “Is that same species after we’ve tinkered with it.”

  That same thumb now posed next to a monster. The tomato was grossly huge, nearly the size of a pumpkin, the vine supporting it equally outsized. But its color seemed off. Instead of a healthy red, the fruit appeared distended and pale, with dull, waxy skin.

  I leaned forward to get a better look. “That’s real?”

  “As real as you, Mr. Fields. Or me.”

  I didn’t reply, my mind trying to absorb what I was seeing.

  The CEO grew stentorian, as if giving a speech. “It’s as real as famine. Or want. Or deprivation. The things that have plagued humanity for centuries.”

  My gaze returned to Cross as I stayed mute. Sometimes saying less says more.

  “It may sound grandiose,” Eli pressed, “but we here at GeneSys intend to do our part, however small, to help end that cycle of famine. To aid our fellow man.”

  I leaned back, concealing my expression of disbelief. Not at what he was saying; for all I knew maybe such a goal was attainable.

  What got me was his overacting. He must have spent hours perfecting his words for the tourist trade. Here was obviously a man who loved to hear himself talk. But as I said, from the information I’d copied to the flash drive at Brighter Day, there was more to this place than growing county fair prizewinning farm products. People didn’t vanish because of produce.

  “That’s a lofty goal you’ve set, sir.” I strove to give the appearance of being impressed. “I wish you the best. But I do have another question.”

  “Yes?”

  I nodded my head toward the picture of the Franken-mater. “How does it taste?”

  “Taste.” Eli frowned, tenting his fingers again and looking pensive, as if I’d hit a nerve. Good. “We’re working on that night and day. And having some success.”

  “Some?”

  His expression grew pained. This time I didn’t think it was an act.

  “Mr. Fields, we can make vegetables and fruits grow to nearly any size we wish, the only limitation being the girth of the vines themselves delivering the necessary nutrients. The fact is, there’s no real trick to making them big. A simple DNA splice accomplishes it.”

  Sure, why not. The kid down the street from me does one every week in his basement with his Gilbert chemistry set.

  “The problem we’re having is that when the plants reach a certain mass, they tend to turn … inedible.”

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Yes, I can see how that might not go over well with the public.” I almost added, remind me to never eat a B.L.T. at your house, but didn’t.

  Eli narrowed his eyes at my jape. Obviously he failed to see the humor in the idea of growing a tomato as big as your head that was impossible to eat.

  “It’s really not a joking matter.” His aspect was frosty. “If we can solve that problem, we’ll have gone a long way toward remedying a persistent world malady.”

  “My apologies,” I offered, hoping he’d buy it. Because I wasn’t sorry at all. “Are you working on anything else?”

  “Yes. We’ve had quite good success with a mold-resistant strain of feed corn, and within the year we should be producing Bibb lettuce that can remain viable at thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit for up to ten weeks.”

  That sounded fine, but I’d bet what Eli Cross was describing could be accomplished in a facility a third this size.

  I hid my thoughts. “That’s terrific, Mr. Cross. Really.” Standing, I said, “I suppose I might as well get started. Where would you recommend I begin?”

  He stood as well. “Anywhere you like. Feel free to use the cart Charles left for you. Another option would be if you’d prefer to stretch your legs and walk it. Our facility is yours, Mr. Fields. To a point.”

  That stopped me. “Sir?”

  “Every so often you’ll find a door marked with a red diamond. Those areas are off limits.”

  I presented him my best no-nonsense governmental frown. “I’m sorry, sir, but no areas are off limits to the EPA.”

  “These are.” His tone brooked no comeback, and then he softened it. “Please, you must understand our dilemma.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Some of what we’re working on here has cost us literally tens of millions of dollars in research monies, with no net results as yet. Those results may be many years away.”

  I crossed my arms. “I’m still not seeing the problem.”

  “Very well. It’s this.” Eli’s visage grew adamantine. “I cannot, and I will not, compromise our secrecy, and chance industrial espionage.”

  “That’s not the case here, I assure you.”

  “I should hope not. Genetic engineering has been called the wave of the future. It is, but the process is also highly susceptible to theft.” He became conciliatory. “Of course, should you secure approval from Washington to examine these areas, I would acquiesce; admittedly, under protest. Failing that approval, I must insist on the rules as they stand.”

  I gave the other man a curt and businesslike nod. “Very well. We’ll do it your way for now. Later if I find I need access to those areas, we’ll talk.”

  I didn’t think it would be a problem for Marsh to vouch for me if I asked. With the skills he’s developed over the years working for various alphabet-soup federal agencies, he can intercept phone calls and emails with ease, and could make any correspondence seem to be coming from the highest levels.

  “Fair enough.” My host swept out a hand of laconic dismissal. “Enjoy you
r tour.”

  “Thanks.” We shook again, and a moment later I found myself back in the hall.

  As I pondered what to do next, with a whisper Eli Cross’s door slid shut behind me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I don’t play golf. The idea of whacking a little white ball with an expensive stick and then chasing after it seems the height of idiocy. But if in a weak moment I ever do take up the sport, I won’t use a cart. Because why is it I can run through my Mustang’s magnificent gearbox without a hiccup, but I could not figure out how to get that freaking little machine I’d arrived on at Eli Cross’s door into drive?

  Most likely I’d be there still if a sympathetic guard hadn’t rolled silently up on a cart of his own. The man was gray-haired, older, plump, and with a jovial countenance, looking more like the fellow who sells lawn sprinklers and crabgrass killer down at the True Value than someone drawing a GeneSys paycheck. His badge listed him as one Frank Vint.

  “Yes sir, Mr. Fields. Having a problem with your cart? We don’t like to upset you EPA folks if we can help it.”

  The news of my visit here must have already made the rounds. “You might say that. I’ve done everything but sing to it. What am I doing wrong?”

  “It’s not you.” He shut his cart off and dismounted. Walking over to me he observed, “Yeah, looks like somebody stuck you with good old number five.”

  “Number five?” I repeated, climbing off of mine.

  The guard, Frank, lightly kicked its front wheel. “This piece of junk. We assign them numbers. And sorry to say, this particular one is a lemon. Giving it to you was Boneless’s idea of a joke. He says he’s the only one who knows the secret of how to make it work.”

  “Boneless?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “Who or what is Boneless?”

  That provoked a chuckle. “Boneless is Boneless Chuck.” I must have looked really lost because Frank went on, “Chuck. You know. The nickname for Charles.”