by C. G. Cooper
Breakout
C. G. Cooper
Ronan Powers
“BREAKOUT”
Book 1 of the Alex Knight novels
Copyright © 2017 JBD Entertainment, LLC.
All Rights Reserved
Author: C. G. Cooper
Co-Author: Ronan Powers
Get a FREE copy of Adrift, the first book in the Daniel Briggs spinoff, just for subscribing at http://CG-Cooper.com
This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, locations and events are all products of the author’s imagination. Any similarities to actual events or real persons are completely coincidental.
Any unauthorized reproduction of this work is strictly prohibited.
To my readers, for sticking by me through genre hops and every twist in my stories. I could not do this without you. You are the best.
- C. G. Cooper
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Also by C. G. Cooper
About the Author
1
He found the letter waiting on the breakfast bar. He left it there unread as he loaded the coffee machine. Then he turned and stared at it. She’d had the nerve to fold it, as if hiding it from the world would somehow increase the gravity of its message. He picked it up and sniffed: patchouli. Disgusting.
He’d fallen into a deep and comfortable sleep the night before, after a marathon session in the lab. He must have been dead to the world. She was there when he had fallen asleep, had vanished when he’d awoken, refreshed and eager to get back to his lab. Sometime during the night, she’d made her escape. Lucky her.
The letter was filled with apologies in scalpel-thin script, filled with wishes for his happiness and a sprinkling of regret that she could never compete with his work—added, he surmised, as an afterthought. Kristin had closed the thing with a tinge of bitterness: it was his fault; he had never truly let her into his life. He crumpled it up and dropped it into the trash.
She was right, thought Alex Knight. God bless her, she was right. How could he have let her into his life? She was merely a mistress. His work, on the other hand--that was True Love.
As he stood in the shower, the memory of the lost girl rinsed away like day-old sweat. Breakfast was a hastily-grabbed bagel, washed down with strong coffee.
He paused before closing the front door behind him. He smelled juniper on the May air. A smile crept onto his face. The mistress was gone, and it felt great.
The laboratory was quiet when he arrived, save for the hum and buzz of the refrigerators and various other pieces of equipment. It would soon be a hive of activity as his team started to turn up for work. He threw off his jacket and pulled on his white lab coat. Knight couldn’t help but feel like Bruce Wayne every time he donned his office attire. To the Bat Cave!
The printer tray was filled with the sheets of data that had been printed out overnight. He scooped them up and scanned the numbers. The samples prepared yesterday were developing well. Today’s tests would show if he had generated the stem cells required for Stage 6. It was all leading up to Stage 6.
Stage 6 was human trials.
Stage 7 was the Nobel Prize.
Knight had basically cloned himself and derived the stem cells from the undeveloped embryo of his own identical twin, grown in vitro, here in the lab. Utilizing the theory put forward in his doctoral thesis, he’d managed to manipulate the DNA within so that the cells were virtually incorruptible. He’d achieved stasis.
He could save thousands from just about every disease science had ever identified.
All he needed was time... and maybe a little bit of secrecy: embryonic stem cell research was currently illegal in the United States. Maybe his research would change that glaring government miscalculation.
The National Institutes of Health, or NIH, had provided a sizable budget for his work, which they presumed to be research in basic gene therapy. (A trumped-up report sent once every three months helped to continue the ruse and keep the funds flowing.)
After collecting his specimens, he watched his beautiful cells flicker and jiggle on the monitor, relayed there from his scanning electron microscope. Every second a new chemical process moved the cluster of cells further along the path of life, every second the product of a huge investment of intellect, of time, and of money.
A face popped in the door. “Call for you,” said Samantha, an intern working the dual jobs of receptionist and assistant to whoever needed an assistant. (“Hold this beaker steady, will you? And would you mind putting all my calls through to voicemail for the next hour?”)
Knight stared at the monitor. “Anyone worth talking to?”
“Dude from NIH headquarters.”
Knight grimaced. “Jesus. Really? Now? I have to leave my work to speak double-talk to a bureaucrat?”
“Should I tell him you’re in the midst of marveling at your own genius?”
He gave her the side eye and a flirty smile. “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
Knight’s office was large and sparsely decorated. His various degrees and awards remained packed in their boxes. The Freudianly massive oak desk was bare, save for a small intercom and monitor. The keyboard was a holographic projection on the soft red leather desktop.
He dropped into the large office chair and tapped a few holographic keys on the desk.
“This is Alex Knight.”
“Dr. Knight,” said a voice made of pencils, “this is Dean Sellers from the NIH. How are you today?”
“Good.”
“Good, good to hear it. I’m just calling to see if I can get a follow up on your last report.”
“Uh, I don’t understand,” he lied, “was there something missing from it?”
Fake chuckle. “Oh, no, of course not. No. But you know how it is. The higher-ups want to see some intermediate work. An update. Version 1.2, if you will.”
“Yeah.”
Silence.
“Well,” said Dean Sellers (the name of a game show host, Knight thought), “so, we’re just wondering if you can’t go ahead and shoot us that update. Sound good?”
“Sounds great. But I can save us both a little time right now. The latest samples have responded well to the procedure, and it looks as if I’m ready for Stage 6.”
“Stage 6,” said Sellers, drawing out the words as if searching his mental database for their meaning.
“The move to human trials,” Knight clarified.
“Oh, that’s right, of course. Human trials. Duh. Well, OK, that sounds fine, I think I can make that work for now. Can you just go ahead, though, and put that in writing for us? You know these higher-ups. They always wanna bug the little guy.”
; “You’re telling me,” said Knight. “Hey, why don’t you fight back?”
Fake laugh. “Oh, don’t tempt me, sir.”
“You’re laughing,” said Knight, putting his elbows on his desk. “But I’m serious.”
“Huh?”
“You know, get them in hand to hand. They’re politicians, a buncha milquetoasts. One punch to the throat and they go down.” He made a punching gesture despite being on the phone. “Do it to the biggest one, then the rest will know who’s boss, you know what I mean?”
“W-, y-yeah, sure. Well, OK, Dr. Knight, it’s been great chatting with you today.” Sellers’ voice had gone up an octave. “Let us know if you need anything, all right?”
“You got it, Deano.”
“Y-yeah, well, OK, you have a great day now.”
“Yeah, you too.”
Knight smirked as he ended the call. It was nice to play the twisted genius scientist every so often. Low-level guys in the NIH fell for it so easily. But aside from being fun, it had another advantage: it tended to keep the higher-ups off his back.
His real research was not just illegal; for many it was immoral and unethical--pure blasphemy, a denial of God’s will. If he were ever exposed, the name Alex Knight would be cursed and banished to the lowest, darkest pits of hell.
The intercom chirped its mechanical melody.
“Yeah,” said Samantha, the intern, “I don’t want to alarm you? But there’s, like, a bunch of guys outside? Like, police officers?”
“OK.”
“Yeah, and it kinda looks like they have, um, like, a warrant or something? They want to get into the lab.”
Knight tapped on his keyboard and brought the door’s camera footage up on his monitor. A gentleman in a suit was holding a document up to the camera. A police officer behind him stepped forward with a handheld battering ram.
Knight jumped out of his chair and ran into the lab. The technicians watched as he scrambled to his workspace.
His fingers shook as he inserted a high-volume memory stick into the main computer and began copying terabytes of data. Months of back-breaking work had to be saved.
“Police, open up!” came the call from outside.
“Don’t open it!” Knight shouted at the frightened techs. “They have no right!” He watched the transfer process, his heart thumping violently. “Come on,” he muttered.
The data transfer had reached sixty percent complete when the battering ram hit the laboratory door for the first time. Seventy percent on the second. Eighty percent on the third. The door crashed open on ninety percent. There were the sounds of footsteps rushing along the corridor as the data transfer completed the last few percent. On one hundred percent, he pulled the memory stick and slipped it into his pocket.
The police burst into the lab with batons drawn. Four men in suits walked in behind them. One held up a document.
“Alex Knight?”
Knight stepped forward. “That’s me.”
“Special Agent Childs.” Badge. Bad hair that day. “Would you mind coming with us?”
“I kind of do.”
“I’m gonna have to ask you to come with us,” said Childs. He turned and addressed the room. “Everyone remain calm. I want you all to step back from your desks. Do not make any sudden moves.”
A uniformed officer fell in step beside Knight and, with a gentle hand at his back, escorted him as they followed the FBI special agent out of the lab, out of the building, and into a waiting car.
2
Ever since he was a teenager, David Stone had dreamed of one day walking into the Oval Office, having been summoned upon special request from the president himself. His position at the head of the National Institutes of Health regularly brought him into contact with politicians and government officials, but he had never met the big man. Now, sitting in the reception area just outside the Oval Office, the twenty-five-year veteran of government was jittering like a schoolgirl meeting the pop star whose picture was in her locker. Stone had been hesitant to sit even when invited and had done so awkwardly—finding he didn’t exactly know what he should do with his legs.
It had been almost twenty minutes before the interoffice phone rang, and the president’s personal secretary picked up and said, “Yes, sir... yes, sir,” then hung up and rose from her desk.
Smiling graciously, she uttered the eight words he’d longed to hear all his life: “Mr. Stone, the president will see you now.”
President Teller was pacing the carpet when the secretary opened the door.
“Mr. President, David Stone here to see you.”
“Professor Stone,” said the six-and-a-half-foot tall man, beaming the election-winning smile, “how do you do? I’m Ben Teller.”
Ben. Not Benjamin.
Stone took the president’s hand and shook it. It was warm, dry, and rigid.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” the president continued. “The country doesn’t run itself, you know.”
“No, sir,” Stone said tensely.
“Professor David Stone, I’d like you to meet Arthur Hopkins, my Chief of Staff.”
A man in military garb rose and offered his hand. “David?”
David shook Hopkins’ hand, a bit dazedly.
“And Mike Umberland, Secretary of the Interior. David Stone.”
“How do you do?”
Another handshake.
It was almost too much for Stone. He might as well have been meeting the Beatles. Once the introductions were done, he shifted nervously, hands clasped before him.
“Won’t you sit down?”
As he sank down onto the proffered couch, he noticed now that the president was much taller than he appeared on television. Also, the couch was firm. There was an antiseptic smell mixed with polished wood. It was like sitting in a historic replica.
“Well, first of all,” said Teller, “I want to thank you very much for coming today. It certainly means a lot to us.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. It is my pleasure to be here.” It was a line he’d practiced for forty years.
The President of the United States took a seat opposite him.
“It is? Well, you may not think that once you find out why you’re here.” President Teller smiled crookedly. Stone felt a pang in his chest. The president looked over at Umberland, who sat on Stone’s right.
“As you are no doubt aware, we have a certain constituency that has raised a concern over a particular issue. We’d like for you to spearhead a program aimed at rectifying the situation,” Umberland said.
Despite the vagueness, he didn’t like where this was going. That much red-tape talk crammed into two sentences meant bad news and months of drudgery behind it.
Umberland opened a binder that was sitting atop the coffee table.
“These are the stats regarding a recent study conducted by the Concerned Americans for Vaccine Awareness, CAVA. They’re a nonprofit group who are, as their name says, concerned about a supposed government cover-up regarding America’s vaccination program.” Umberland spoke with officious authority, gesturing as he spoke, relating dry facts with the counterfeit warmth of political communication. “Their study cites a survey of parents across the nation who are reporting certain adverse effects that—they claim—vaccinations have had on their children.”
“Of course,” said the president, “we know that’s horse hockey.”
The three men laughed, because they had to.
Umberland continued. “Now, there are certain influential celebrities—I’m sure you know who they are—who have recently made statements in support of the anti-vaccine movement. And because of that, Professor Stone, and because of the study by the CAVA, the administration thinks it’s finally time we addressed this issue.”
Umberland was matter-of-fact, his tone utterly belying the horrible truth underneath: that for the next six months, David Stone was going to be up to his neck in unnecessary bullshit.
“For the record,” President Teller interj
ected, “every one of my children was vaccinated. There is clearly no basis for these well-meaning but ill-informed parents to have any concerns about the safety of this vital healthcare program.” He paused. “I change my mind. Make that off the record.”
Another unnatural laugh from the men.
“Professor Stone,” Teller continued, “I want the NIH to open a study into our vaccination efforts and possible adverse effects these vaccines are having on children. We’ll call it the VVP: Vaccine Verification Program. Everyone around here loves an acronym. Whatd’ya, say, Stone? Feel like helping us, and your country, out with this?”
“Absolutely, Mr. President, it would be an honor.”
“But...?”
Stone was caught off guard.
The smile was back. “Come on, Stone, I know there’s a ‘but.’ Out with it, man.”
“Well, Mr. President,” Stone said as diplomatically as he could. “With all due respect, the NIH has conducted several studies, and the results are always the same: vaccines are safe. There are no concerns. Ask anyone in the NIH and they’ll tell you the same. It’s a non-issue.”
The president leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I know, Professor. But the American people have spoken.”
With those last few words, the president decreed that it was going to be so, no matter what objections he, Stone, could raise.
Umberland lifted the binder from the table. “We have a couple of things we’d like you to sign. Standard forms. Non-disclosure and such.”