Bloodletting

by Michael McBride

  "That's wild speculation," she said. "It's irresponsible. Little girls with the potential for night vision and venom production? Do you just sit around all day reading comic books?"

  "You don't have to believe me. The evidence is there. Draw your own conclusions. All I really need is for you to forward the results of the PCR test and whatever genomic fingerprint you were able to create. I'll do my job and you can go back to doing yours. By the way, how are you washing all the foul dead stuff off your hands out there in the desert?"

  "I wear gloves, you idiot."

  "Yeah. A thousandth of an inch of latex. I'll bet that makes all the difference in the world. Would you just email me the data already? I have to go refill my coffee from the steaming pot I just brewed. I can smell it from all the way down the hall. Is that hazelnut?"

  "Low blow. Suddenly I can't seem to maintain my internet connection."

  "Touché. Now send me the file while you tell me what you know about the virus."

  Manning explained how she isolated the retrovirus and how she determined it to be a modified epsilon variety. After Marshall overcame his incredulity at the prospect of his virulent suspect being unmasked as an obscure fish disease, he was fascinated by the modification of the protein structure to imitate that of a lentivirus. Manning's research was impressive, but the work invested into the virus was brilliant. The way she described it, the retrovirus had been redesigned so that it was innocuous to the snakehead, but massively infectious to humans. The pathogenic RNA had been replaced by segments she had yet to thoroughly analyze. He asserted they were the coding proteins for animal genes. She was reasonably comfortable working under his contention, but only until able to prove him wrong. He knew she reveled in the prospect. The same as he'd be thrilled to gloat when she couldn't.

  "So we're on the same page now?" Marshall asked when her file was completely downloaded.

  "You know what I know. You're going to call me back the moment you learn anything new, right? Anything at all."

  Marshall promised he would, though he figured he'd make her sweat it for a while. Just to be difficult.

  "What a woman," he said after making sure the call was indeed terminated.

  His first task now that he had Candace's chromosomes was to feed them into the database and initiate a search for potential matches. Carver could wait a few extra minutes. This was far more entertaining. Her DNA was substantially degraded due to the process of curing and the subsequent years under the ground, but it still only took a moment to retrieve a match.

  "Elaphas maximus?" he said aloud. "A freaking Asian elephant? What the hell?"

  The Elaphas maximus genes were a direct match on the X chromosome at the p11.2-22.1 loci. Unlike the other girls he had studied, Candace was affected on the X sex chromosome, implying that the mutation was a product of inheritance versus reverse transcription. Yet the retrovirus was still present. He refined the search to exclude the X and Y chromosomes, and found another, though less prominent, match on the third chromosome. The p14 locus. He recognized it immediately. The site coded for the nyctalopia disorder. Candace's genes had been replaced by those of a timber wolf.

  "Son of a bitch."

  There was his undeniable link between the cases. A grown woman nearly a decade underground and a pre-teen still on a steel slab, both bearing matching wolf genes on the third chromosome. But what about the X mutation?

  Another search explained that aberrations at the Xp11 to Xp22 loci could produce Turner's syndrome, which manifested as various deficiencies in non-verbal memory, sense of direction, and manual dexterity. An elephant was said to have an amazing memory and staggering sense of direction. Could those genes have been used to enhance those traits in a human?

  Marshall gnawed on his thumbnail while he thought, making an obnoxious clicking sound. There were inconsistencies between the woman and the girls that troubled him. The combination of genes in Schwartz's victims had been precise, while Candace's felt more random. Perhaps she was a product of early experiments with the retrovirus before they were able to fine-tune it? That in itself could be a novel development. Then there was the X mutation, which was a product of breeding and not the retrovirus. He was going to have to come back to it with a clear mind and a body full of caffeine.

  For now, he'd just set up the program to compare the DNA between Elliot Archer and Candace Thompson, go refill his mug, and--

  He barely had time to stand up from his chair before the computer displayed the results. All he could do was stare.

  Marshall cleared the fields and ran the comparison again.

  The results were the same.

  He opened his phone and speed-dialed Carver, waiting only long enough to hear the sound of a voice from the other end before blurting, "You are not going to believe this!"

  II

  Flagstaff, Arizona

  They were on their way back to the motel. Wolfe drove, following the black sedan conveying Locke and Hawthorne. Kajika sat shotgun, Carver and Ellie in the rear. There were no other cars on the road, the darkened desert an Apocalyptic wasteland, cacti standing like pitchforks from the hellish landscape. Ellie leaned against Carver, eyes closed. He was thankful she was able to sleep. With the world falling apart around her, she was going to need whatever strength she could muster. He wished he could stash her somewhere safe, but there were too many potential leaks and too few people he could trust, present company included. The only way he could ensure she was protected was to keep her right by his side, and even then he was going to have to stay alert. Until he could understand how she was involved, he couldn't afford to let her out of his sight. Somehow, she held the key to unlock the mystery, whether she knew it or not.

  His phone rang and he answered it in a whisper on the first ring so as not to rob her of the little sleep she would get before they boarded the plane.

  "Hi, Paxton," Jack said. For the first time in all the years Carver had known him, Jack sounded worn down.

  "Hey, Jack. Anything new?"

  "I've been beating the bushes, but haven't flushed anything else. I'm going to have to call it a night. I'm sorry, my boy. Turns out this old man can't run with the wolves like he used to. I'll start back up in the morning after a few hours of shuteye. You going to be carrying your cell?"

  "I'll have it with me the whole time."

  "Did you come across anything new?"

  "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

  "The body may be in need of a little repair, but the brain's still as sharp as it ever was."

  "That's what scares me, Jack."

  Jack laughed. "I'm still a good couple of years from standing out on the lawn in my robe and slippers and shaking my fist at all the young whippersnappers."

  "If I know you, your mind will be intact long after you're gone. They'll keep it frozen and on display like Walt Disney's."

  There was a moment of silence Carver couldn't interpret. He no longer heard the sounds of the road on the other end. Nothing but a hollow emptiness carried across a thousand miles of static. He feared for a moment Jack had nodded off sitting up, the first great leap into senility.

  "Jack?"

  "Sorry, Paxton. I must be more tired than I originally thought," Jack said. "What's next for you?"

  "We're chasing down a lead in the morning. May be nothing, but we'll see. I'll be on a cross-country flight, so if you call and I don't answer, just leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as it comes through."

  "Where you headed?"

  "Washington."

  "D.C.?" Jack asked, his voice sharper.

  "State. Flying into Sea-Tac. You game for another favor?"

  "Name it."

  "Keep your ear to the ground and let me know if you hear anything interesting about any biotech firms, specifically HydroGen or any subsidiaries of Dreck-Windham."

  "Can do. You on a money trail?"

  "I wish it were that easy," Carver said. "You get some rest, Jack. Okay?"

  "I'm half aslee
p already. You just be careful, Paxton. I may not have learned a lot, but I have met with a fair amount of resistance."

  Paxton said goodbye and turned to watch the world fly past in the darkness. He was lucky to have Jack in his life. Jack may not have been there day in and day out, but he had been there enough to serve as a grounding influence when life became chaos, which was the road they now traveled.

  "Who was that?" Wolfe asked, glancing up in the rear view mirror, still wearing the sunglasses.

  Carver smiled in response, but in his mind he envisioned a little girl who could see in the dark, a little girl with the eyes of a wolf.

  "An old friend," Carver said.

  Wolfe returned the smile, though Carver could only tell by the way the man's glasses rose up on his cheeks.

  "Next time you talk to Jack, send him my best and let him know we're thinking about him."

  "He'd appreciate that, I'm sure."

  Jack had said he didn't know Wolfe, but he supposed every agent surely knew the former Deputy Director.

  His phone rang, and again he answered it, but not quickly enough. Ellie raised her head and blinked drowsily at him, then turned to look out the side window. Before he could even answer, Marshall was already on a roll.

  "You are not going to believe this!"

  "After the day I've had, there's not a whole lot I wouldn't believe. Try me."

  "Okay, okay. First, I talked to Manning. Hell of a woman I might add. Anyway, we compared notes, and yada-yada-yada, she sent me her test results on Candace Thompson."

  Carver felt as though his heart stopped in anticipation. "And?"

  "I'm getting there. Just hear me out. So I run her DNA through the database, the whole database if you know what I'm saying, and it comes back with a match. You ready for this? Elaphas maximus. The freaking Asian elephant, Carver! An elephant of all things."

  "It didn't show."

  "Ain't that the truth. So I dig into the details regarding the corresponding locus on the X chromosome. That's where a defect can cause a disease called Turner's syndrome, which really messes with things like memory, sense of direction, and dexterity. Now I'm just starting to ponder what that might mean when I start running the program to compare good ol' Candy's DNA against your friend Elliot's--not a sexy name, by the way--which I pilfered from the university's mainframe. And like I said, my friend, you are not going to believe this."

  "What?" Carver nearly shouted. He heard Marshall slurp from a mug and wanted to reach through the phone and shake him. Marshall had definitely already consumed an inhuman amount of caffeine. He was talking at a speed to make an auctioneer envious. "Just spit it out."

  "All humans share ninety-nine point nine percent of their DNA. That means each of us differ by only point zero one percent, or roughly three million base protein pairs. Candace and Elliot share ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine--you get the drift. That's insane, man. Identical twins share one hundred percent of their DNA, and we're talking about a difference between the two of roughly one three-thousandth of a percent. That's maybe ten thousand base pairs apart."

  "You're telling me they have the same DNA?"

  "I'm telling you they're freaking twins, Carver. Born from the same mother and father. Delivered on the same day at the same time. If mom ate a pickle, they both tasted it simultaneously."

  "Are you completely certain? I thought you said that those types shared one hundred percent." Carver was careful to modulate the inflection in his voice and his choice of words. He watched Ellie's profile against the window, limned by the various colors of the passing lights as they entered the Flagstaff city limits. Soon they would be at the motel. Ellie couldn't possibly have known she'd been born a twin or she would have said something when he had shown her the facial reconstruction of the corpse over which she'd been hovering only moments prior. He wondered how she would take the news, how he could possibly explain to her that she had been brushing vile dirt from the mummified remains of her identical twin, who had been interred in a ritualistic manner guaranteed to summon her from the southern hemisphere by a call from an old college professor with whom she hadn't been in contact in close to a decade. He wondered if he could even rationalize it himself.

  "Are you even listening to me?" Marshall said. "I swear, it's like talking to my mom or something."

  "Just thinking. I asked if you were positive beyond any doubt."

  "You tuned me out that long ago?"

  "You're chattering like you're on crack, Marshall. Give me a break."

  "I'm mainlining the black stuff, man. Pure Columbian. So do you have your ears open now? Here's what I need. I need a sample of your gravedigger friend's blood. Pronto."

  "You said you already have--"

  "No, no, no. I need the real deal, but I don't have time to wait on shipping. You're going to have to get the sample drawn at a real lab, and the sooner the better."

  "Marshall, what--?"

  "Don't you see?" Marshall said. Carver imagined Marshall throwing up his arms in exaggerated exasperation. "Her identical biological twin has elephant genes on her X sex chromosome. Get it?"

  "I guess not. Why don't you explain it to me, professor?"

  "Carver. The X chromosome is inherent, passed directly from the parents to the child in utero. Elliot's twin sister, who shares nearly one hundred percent of her DNA, has animal genes."

  "So you think--?"

  "I'd wager a vital organ on it."

  Carver peered at Ellie from the corner of his eye.

  "You'll have what you need first thing in the morning," Carver said, and ended the call.

  He reached across the seat and offered his hand to Ellie, who took it and gave him a weak smile in return. He was going to have to tell her everything if he was going to get her to consent to a blood draw on the way to the airport, but first he was going to have to corner Hawthorne.

  And now was the perfect opportunity.

  III

  Flagstaff, Arizona

  Kajika had passed out sitting up in the chair, perhaps encouraged by one too many beers. Ellie was asleep on the bed in the adjoining motel room, still fully clothed. She hadn't even taken the time to pull the pillow out from under the scratchy comforter or slip out of her shoes. Right now, Carver envied her and wished he could just curl up beside her, but this was the moment of truth. The men were all in the other room, gathered around the small table with the laptop, each milking a miniature cup of coffee from the vending machine down by the office. Over the course of the last couple of hours, he had begun to make sense of a few details, but the big picture was like a Monet: the closer he came to the truth, the more out of focus everything became. These agents hadn't been surprised by the news of the animal genes because they had known all along. In fact, he was quite confident that both Wolfe and Locke understood on a personal level. He couldn't get a read on Hawthorne though. The older man played everything so close to the vest, betraying nothing in appearance or expression, but he was still in charge, and the time was nigh to call him out.

  Carver rose from the edge of the bed and walked across the room to the doors separating the rooms and pulled them just far enough closed to dampen the sound and yet still allow him to see through. When he turned again, the other three agents looked expectantly at him as though anticipating what was coming.

  "No more bullshit," Carver said, resuming his seat on the bed. He looked at each of the men in turn. "I have a pretty good idea what's going on here, so it's time to give it to me straight. No more lies. No more avoidance. I want the truth, and I want it now."

  "He thinks he knows," Locke said, his lips curling upward into an almost mocking smile.

  "Do tell, Special Agent Carver," Hawthorne said, sharing none of his partner's amusement. As always, his face was expressionless. "What do you think you know?"

  Wolfe stifled a chuckle when Carver fired him a glance embodying his mounting frustration.

  "I wasn't really able to put it all together until I learned about C
andace Thompson. Turns out she has the genes of an elephant in her X chromosome. I didn't understand the significance at first, but then it hit me. Marshall said the only way a sex chromosome could be altered was through the DNA of her parents. Granted, she was infected with the retrovirus, but that wasn't what caused this particular mutation. To find the source, we have to go back an entire generation. Maybe even further. In addition, we have at least two serial killers you guys have personally, I'll say brought to justice for lack of a better term, who I suspect were similarly afflicted. Just as Ellie and the body in the desert are identical twins, I suspect that you, Locke, and Charles Grady were as well. What I don't have a handle on, is how Ellie was unaware of her twin's existence and how Locke and Grady ended up living distinctly separate lives with different last names."

  Hawthorne rose from his chair and removed his cell phone from his jacket, the exact same model through which Carver had spoken with the modulated voice of his enigmatic superior in the field behind the ramshackle farmhouse. He pressed a series of numbers, then brought the phone to his ear, but said nothing. Carver could hear a muffled electronic voice through the earpiece. Hawthorne nodded once, then again.

  "Yes, sir," he said after a moment, then disconnected and shoved the phone back into his jacket. He stared at Carver for what seemed an eternity, his eyes piercing.

  "So we're doing this now?" Wolfe said, taking off his glasses for only the third time since Carver had known him. He shielded those startlingly blue eyes from even the weak light cast by the bedside lamp.

  "He's not completely ready," Hawthorne said, "but we've run out of time."

  "I still don't think he's up for this yet," Locke said. His face was dark with what could have been a week's growth of beard. "I'm not convinced he ever will be."