“Your super was kind enough to let me in. Come with me, Dr. Odgers. My name is Jake Isaacs with the Defense Intelligence Department—”
“What’s that? I’ve never heard of such a thing,” she interrupted as she stared at him with a mixture of awe and terror. “How do I know you’re not making this up?”
Jake pulled his identification and showed it to her. “You haven’t heard of us because we operate under the radar. The general public has no reason to know about us.”
She found the wherewithal to frown. “That doesn’t sound right. Government is supposed to operate with transparency. Are you sure what you’re doing is legal?”
He exhaled as if irritated. “I’ve been tasked to bring you to Washington for your own protection, not embark on a debate as to the ethics of my employer. Your safety depends upon your cooperation, so I suggest you stop arguing and start moving.”
“My s-safety?”
“Girl, you’d better listen,” Henry advised, looking all of his sixty-eight years, his weathered hands twisting the ring of master keys in agitation. “You in some serious trouble or something.”
“She’s not in trouble,” the man corrected Henry sharply. “But she is in danger. Come, I will explain in the car to the airport.”
Fly? Oh, no... “I don’t fly,” she said in a small voice. “I have a ph-phobia.”
“That is unfortunate. Nevertheless, you are coming with me.”
“I have rights,” she said, absurdly lamenting the fact that her macaroni was cooling into rubbery goo. The trick to eating those microwaved meals was to eat them while they were piping hot or else they returned to their previously unpalatable state. “I want to make a phone call,” she said, her lip trembling. Wasn’t that standard protocol when one was taken into custody?
“Negative,” he said, hauling her to her feet as she gasped in surprise. He had a firm grip on her arm as he dragged her to the door while she clutched her macaroni meal and managed to snag her purse only because it was within reaching distance of the front door. She looked to Henry, beseeching his help but old Henry could do nothing, and she had no choice but to stumble after the mean man until he stuffed her into an awaiting black town car with no offer to allow her to pack or grab a toothbrush.
“Is this some kind of joke or prank?” she asked, shrinking against the leather upholstery of the sleek vehicle as they navigated the dark San Francisco streets like a predator in the night. “Someone put you up to this, right?”
He spared her a short glance, his angular jawline illuminated in the moonlight slanting in from the window. “I assure you, this is no joke. There’s a price on your head for creating the world’s most dangerous weapon in recent history. You are being taken into custody for your own protection until such time as the government can decide how best to proceed.”
“There has to be some mistake,” Kat protested in shock. “I don’t make weapons, I swear to you. I’m knee-deep in research for the cure for Alzheimer’s. I promise nothing I’ve done is to hurt anyone.”
“Are you not Dr. Katherine Olivia Odgers, social security number 321-65-3498, employee of Tessara Pharmaceuticals, badge identification K-O-O-1183, birth date—”
“Yes,” she cut in, openly horrified that a total stranger had access to her most sensitive data. “But I didn’t create a weapon! My most recent experiment ended in failure. Surely, you have the wrong person.”
“Did you create drug MCX-209?”
Kat drew back, blinking. “Yes.”
“Then you’re the right woman. Your drug—whether you deem it a failure or not—is now considered a drug more dangerous than every bioweapon out there.”
“That’s impossible,” Kat whispered, shaking her head. “MCX-209 was never created for any purpose aside from healing the brain. Everything was going really well until Auguste forgot how to be a monkey.”
“Be that as it may, the potential ramifications of such a drug in the wrong hands are too catastrophic to leave unchecked.”
Good gravy. This was how people got brutally murdered in the movies. They took long rides in black cars and their loved ones never saw them again. She glanced down in despair at her shabby sweatpants and ratty UCSF sweatshirt and lost whatever shred of composure she had left as pure terror took over her mind. “Are you going to kill me?” she cried, her nerveless fingers dropping the cold meal onto the floor. She sucked in a breath as macaroni bounced off her toes and landed on the vehicle carpeting. “Oh! Gross,” she whimpered before burying her face in her hands to sob. “I’m going to die with processed cheese on my feet! This is so not fair!”
“Stop crying,” he instructed her, curling his lip at her rising hysterics; but she didn’t care.
“All I ever wanted was to help people, to help my uncle fight that insidious disease and now I’m going to die because I inadvertently created a weapon of mass destruction!” she wailed, staring morosely at the mess at her feet as she hiccupped. “And I didn’t even get to eat my macaroni!”
Of all the ways she thought she might go out...this wasn’t even in her top five.
Copyright © 2014 by Kimberly Sheetz
ISBN-13: 9781460325872
ARMED AND FAMOUS
Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Morey
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