Bloodletting

by Michael McBride

"He was hit by a car," Carver said.

  "They never did find it either. Just drove off. Left him lying twenty feet from the road, broken and bleeding. Left him to die. Alone."

  Kajika smeared away the tears. They would have embarrassed his father.

  "There's a wooden cross on the side of the highway," Kajika said. "You probably didn't even notice it, or if you did, you just assumed it was just another drunk Injun who wandered out into the road. But that was my father. I always imagined he would engage Death in a fistfight from his own deathbed long after I was already gone."

  Carver and Wolfe couldn't look him in the eyes. He couldn't blame them. Guilt and sorrow must have been radiating from him in concussive waves.

  It was the scarred man who stepped forward and spoke, his voice the shucking of a shotgun in the silence.

  "We're wasting valuable time. Tell us everything about HydroGen, and the company that bought it."

  VIII

  Rocky Mountain Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory

  Centennial, Colorado

  After brewing a fresh pot of coffee and inhaling the first mug right then and there, Marshall poured another and returned to his workstation. The facial reconstruction had been flagged in the missing persons database. That was new. He must have missed the notification of the match while he had been focused on comparing the chromosomes.

  The woman's name was Candace Thompson, but there was precious little else of any significance. There was no personal information: no date of birth, height, weight, blood type, fingerprints. Nothing. Only that she was reported missing by her landlord, who undoubtedly hoped to collect on a mounting debt, on June 13th, 2001. No known relatives, no record of ever filing for a marriage license. Paid her rent in cash, always on time, which was apparently why the landlord had been so quick to enter the premises and call the police. Candace had left all of her furniture and clothing, and simply vanished into thin air. As the police had found no leads, the report had been filed away and logged into the database, surely under the assumption that the woman had up and left, abandoning a life to which she felt no attachment. It happened all the time. The only detail that caught Marshall's eye was the name of her employer, GeNext Biosystems. Someone in human resources had stated they had no knowledge of her whereabouts either, that she had been at work one day and then never showed up the following.

  What were the odds of her working in genetics? Alarm bells were clanging in his head.

  He opened his cell phone and dialed.

  "You really have to work on your timing," Carver answered.

  "I have a positive ID on your Cleopatra."

  "The facial reconstruction?"

  "Candace Thompson."

  "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

  "I was hoping it would. I don't have squat to go on. All I have beyond a name is her last known address in Sacramento, her most recent employer's profile, and the date the missing persons report was filed. No next of kin. No social security number. Paid for everything in cash and no record even of a bank account."

  "No paper trail at all?"

  "Without the name and the face, she might as well be a figment of my imagination. Only the landlady missed her, though probably only up until the point that the material assets she left behind were sold to settle the debt. But here's the kicker. You ready for this? She worked for a company named GeNext Biosystems."

  "I wish I believed in coincidence."

  "Yeah, me too. Who's working the mummies?"

  "Manning. You know her?"

  "Ball-buster extraordinaire, but she's good. I'm going to see if I can horn in on her investigation, pump her for anything useful. She give you anything yet?"

  "Confirmation of the presence of the virus. It's a modified fish retrovirus."

  "Interesting. Did she check for aberrant DNA yet?"

  "In the process. No results yet."

  "You cool if I compare notes with her?"

  "Why wouldn't I be?"

  "Lot of strange things going on. Think you can trust her?"

  "Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot of choice in the matter."

  Carver hung up, leaving Marshall staring at the image of the woman on the screen. He felt a great measure of pride that the reconstruction had been so close to the real thing, but at the same time, it seemed as though finding the information had achieved nothing more than creating another ghost. Had there been more details that someone had pared after the fact? It struck him as odd that the police would even take a missing persons report from a landlord. People skipped out on their rent every day. There had to be more to it. This girl had been important enough to someone to instigate a search under presumably false pretenses, and maybe that someone had even found her.

  He was going to need something in his stomach to absorb all the acid from the coffee. And some more Mountain Dew.

  He opened his phonebook program and dialed the number for the Phoenix field office.

  "I need to get in touch with Special Agent Manning," he said to the woman who answered. "Tell her it's about her sick fish. She'll know what you're talking about."

  IX

  Verde River Reservation

  Arizona

  Carver disconnected the call. Hawthorne stared through him with a look that could have dropped a charging bull at fifty yards, but he no longer cared. He was going to solve this case with or without the help of the other agents, and right now it appeared as though he was better off without.

  Kajika had only begun his story regarding the sale of HydroGen when Carver's phone had rung and had waited patiently for him to finish before resuming.

  "Where was I?" Kajika asked. After a brief pause, he continued. "So the mega-conglomerate pharmaceutical company Dreck-Windham had been sniffing around for years. They made a couple half-hearted offers along the way, but nothing worth seriously considering. I was still enjoying my job for the most part and making a killing, all the while helping to protect the environment. Besides, a pharmaceutical company seemed like a strange match, at least until my father's accident. And at that point I didn't really care. I was in a hurry to get out and their offer was not only generous, but perfectly timed."

  "Why would a drug company want a fish farm?" Wolfe asked.

  "HydroGen was more than just a fish farm. We were on the cutting edge of biotechnology. Granted, we were only engineering fish, but it was the wave of the future. Imagine strains of cattle resistant to mad cow disease or capable of producing twice as much milk, chickens that can lay exponentially more eggs or carry more meat on their breasts. We're talking about putting money back into the pockets of the American farmer, allowing him to maintain half the stock without giving up a dime or potentially doubling his margin with the same number of animals. It's the exact same thing they're already doing with genetically-enhanced seeds that have proven resistant to diseases that kill whole fields of crops at a time. The profit potential is limitless. And Dreck-Windham isn't just a pharmaceutical corporation. They dabble in everything from the manufacture of plastics to high-end real estate. While on the surface we may appear strange bedfellows, in actuality, this was a solid marriage of innovation and distribution."

  "When did they make their offer?" Carver asked.

  "Within days of my father's death," Kajika whispered.

  "How aggressive was it?"

  "Ten times their previous best."

  "An offer you couldn't refuse."

  Kajika nodded silently.

  "What do you know about a company named GeNext Biosystems?" Carver asked. The other agents abruptly turned to face him. At last he had some information they didn't.

  "GeNext? Not a whole lot. They're into research and development of pharmaceuticals. I'm pretty sure they launched a Viagra knockoff and an insomnia medication, maybe even something for seasonal allergies, but I don't pay much attention to that kind of thing. Only what I see on commercials, you know? I find that whole arena to be inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, designer drugs
manufactured to turn a quick dollar off of people's insecurities." Kajika paused. "They're a subsidiary of Dreck-Windham, aren't they?"

  "That's what I was hoping you could tell me."

  "They have their hands in so many projects I wouldn't know for sure," Kajika said. "It wouldn't take more than a few seconds to find out though."

  Carver leaned over Kajika's shoulder as he typed in a search for GeNext and conjured the web site. At the bottom of the home page was exactly what he had expected to find. GeNext was a subsidiary of Dreck-Windham. The corporate name was a clickable link, which Kajika followed to a site that appeared to be little more than an investment tool. There were links to download a prospectus, the last three years of shareholder returns, and a financial forecast for the next three. There were links to meet the corporate big wigs, read all about their business plan and corporate philosophy, and even a virtual tour of their international headquarters in Portland, Oregon, a massive structure composed of strange angles and smoked glass. There was a video box in the middle of the screen, rolling one commercial after another, all of which Carver recognized from spots between beer and truck commercials during football on Sundays. Beneath was a link to contact the company recruiter. The only section even hinting at something more than a topical overview was a link to the recent news.

  The other three agents crowded behind them to see the monitor.

  "Click there," Carver said, tapping the screen. In a heartbeat they were on a new page detailing the newest product rollouts. There was a prescription allergy medication that guaranteed not only relief from pollen, but from dust and pet dander as well. Notable side effects included insomnia and diarrhea. They had also recently released a pill that promised erections on-demand, and a flu vaccine delivered by a nasal inhaler versus a needle. It touted a forty percent increase in the number of influenza viruses against which it provided immunity and the guarantee that a single dose would last two years, versus the traditional injection, which needed to be renewed two to four times as often.

  That was all. Nothing about fish retroviruses or genetics. No mention of animal genes or experimentation on abducted children. He didn't know what he had hoped to find, but surely there would have been something. It felt as though the tumblers had fallen into place and he was about to unlock something truly important, but he was left again with only his suspicions.

  "What's the significance of GeNext?" Hawthorne asked.

  Carver sighed.

  "Marshall back at the RMRCFL made a positive ID on the first body they discovered down here. Her name was Candace Thompson. There's not much information about her outside of her employer." He turned again to Kajika. "Have you ever heard of her?"

  "Nope. Sorry. It's a rapidly expanding field and I pretty much swam in my end of the pool exclusively. That's not to say we may not have shared business associates, but we never ran into each other."

  "Is there a list of corporate subsidiaries anywhere on this site? Something we can print out?"

  Kajika found the list in the prospectus and printed it for Carver, who quickly perused the names.

  "What exactly are you looking for?" Kajika asked.

  "Any company that sounds like it might work with human chromosomes in any fashion or could benefit from it. We know there's a retrovirus out there, and that four girls were directly exposed at a children's after-hours clinic in Colorado. So were the corpses we're still pulling out of the sand. Their blood, and potentially their organs, were harvested and sent somewhere. We need to figure out where they ended up."

  "Specifically," Hawthorne said, "we have a fish retrovirus modified to infect humans and insert animal genes. We have a genetic engineer who worked with fish and has demonstrated the ability to pass genes from one species to another. We have an agricultural firm sold to a pharmaceutical conglomerate with enough subsidiaries to research every question mankind has ever pondered, and an indian--"

  "Native American."

  "--who seems to be right in the middle of everything."

  Carver looked at Ellie, who sat quietly on the couch, listening with a strange expression on her face he couldn't quite read. Her eyes met his and she finally spoke.

  "Where do I fit in? I don't know anyone who works in genetics. I don't even understand half of what you guys are saying. I'm an evolutionary anthropologist. I dig up bodies buried hundreds of years ago and study them. That's all. I just want to go back to Peru and resume my normal life."

  Carver walked out from behind the computer and sat beside her. He wished he knew something comforting to say, but it had been so long since he'd offered more than hollow consolations that nothing sympathetic came to mind. Only another question.

  "Have you ever heard of Candace Thompson?"

  Ellie shook her head.

  Carver's brow creased when the idea struck him.

  "Are there any samples of your blood or DNA on file anywhere?"

  "Maybe at the university. I don't know. Why?"

  "She did look an awful lot like you," Wolfe said.

  Carver thought of his first reaction, that Ellie and the girl in the facial reconstruction photo could have passed as twins. He remembered the picture of Charles Grady and how much he had looked like Special Agent Locke. What had Locke said? Certainly was a good-looking guy, wasn't he?

  They were running around the desert chasing their own tails. The time had come to be proactive.

  "Pack your bags," he said to Kajika. "You're going to take us on an insider's tour of HydroGen."

  "What? I can't just leave--"

  Carver cut him off to address Hawthorne. "And you. I want a plane fueled and waiting at Sky Harbor by oh eight hundred. In the meantime, you're going to tell me everything you know."

  Chapter Five

  Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.

  --Carl Gustav Jung

  I

  Rocky Mountain Regional Computer Forensics Laboratory

  Centennial, Colorado

  Marshall had still been waiting for a return call from Special Agent Manning when Carver had called to make yet another request of him. Under normal circumstances, he would have busted Carver's chops a little before relenting, but right now he was happy to have something to occupy his mind. The most recent favor had seemed unreasonable at first, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that if he were able to find what they were hoping to, they might finally be able to shed some light on the case. Technically, what he was now attempting was illegal, but he figured since they had the subject's permission it would only be an issue if he got caught. And he was way too good for that. Besides, it would have taken time they didn't have to procure the necessary signed consent forms or a subpoena. He would be in and out before anyone even suspected the database had been hacked.

  It was also kind of nice to have the opportunity to flex his cyber-muscles.

  The Montana State University database was protected by the standard firewalls and fail-safes, which proved easily enough bypassed. He imagined if he were going after the grades he would have come up against some stiff security, but breaking into the employee health records was about as difficult as finding porn on the internet.

  He glanced at the timer on his watch. Ten minutes, twenty-eight seconds. He was losing his touch.

  After copying the files, he slipped back out of the university mainframe without leaving a trace.

  Thank God for paranoia and perverts. Once upon a time, collecting blood and DNA samples from the staff would have been considered a violation of individual rights, but due to the preponderance of fraternizing professors and teaching methods that occasionally bordered on criminal, such testing was now commonplace. At least at schools where such scandal was a blemish rather than a recruiting tool.

  Dr. Elliot Archer's genetic profile stared at him from the screen of the laptop. It wasn't as thorough as he had hoped, but then again, he supposed it didn't have to be. Her scanned fingerprint was of the whorl variety, her blood type O positive. He whi
stled at her picture in the top right corner. She really did look almost identical to the image he had created of the mummified woman.

  Her DNA wasn't broken down to the chromosome level, but there was still enough to work with. He brought up her genome and downloaded it into the same program with which he had been working all day. Now all he needed was for Manning to get off her ass and return his call.

  He grabbed his empty coffee mug and started down the hallway, making it only halfway to the freshly brewed pot before his phone rang.

  "Marshall," he answered, heading back to the lab.

  "What do you know about sick fish?" a curt female voice asked.

  "Enough to warrant a faster return call, Special Agent Manning."

  "Consider yourself fortunate I called at all. I'm literally buried in work here. So don't waste my time."

  "Fair enough. I need everything you have on Candace Thompson."

  "Who?"

  "Cuerpo numero uno."

  "You ID'd her?" Manning paused. "You're the facial reconstruction guy. I'm impressed. I didn't think you had a shot at beating me to it."

  "While I'd like nothing more than to hear you sing my praises, all I have is a name. The girl's a specter. Outside the word of a landlady and an employer who've physically shared space with her long enough to notice her absence, I have no proof she ever existed."

  "I can vouch for her. I pulled her remains out of the ground myself. Probably still wearing her fragrance, in fact," Manning said. "So what do you have that warrants stealing my work?"

  "Show me yours and I'll show you mine."

  "You first."

  Marshall explained everything he had discovered regarding the connection between the Schwartz case and the one she was working, lingering at the point of detailing the insertion of the animal genes. It took longer than he thought it would to convince her of the validity of his results. Had their roles been reversed, he speculated he might have been an even tougher sell. He emailed her the comparisons between the chromosomes and walked her through each one, making sure she was clear on every point before leading her across the scientific line between fact and theory.