The Facts Of Death

by Raymond Benson

  Bond emerged from the office and listened at the metal door. It was too thick for him to hear anything. He had to find a keycard and break into the clinic later after hours.

  He made his way out of the “Personnel Only” area and back to the examination room where Dr. Zielinski had left him. Ashley Anderson and Charles Hutchinson would have to come back this way, unless there was another exit from the lab. He kept the door slightly ajar and waited.

  Sure enough, in ten minutes Dr. Anderson and Hutchinson came down the hall. Through the ajar door, Bond saw that Hutchinson was carrying a metal briefcase.

  Dr. Anderson was saying, “… and under no circumstances should you open the vials. I’ll see you later. Have a good flight.”

  Bond heard Hutchinson go out into the waiting room; then he made his move. He quickly removed his jacket, shoulder holster, and gun, and hid them in a drawer. Next he grabbed an empty specimen container and held the door to his room wide open. He stood in the doorway and waited for Ashley Anderson to come back down the hall.

  When she saw him, she smiled and said, “Well, hello there. How are you? Jesus, what happened to your face?”

  Bond said, “I had an accident last night. It’s nothing, really.”

  “I hope so. Sorry I wasn’t available earlier—I had to tend to something. Did you fill out all your forms?”

  “Yes, and now I’m ready to deliver a specimen.” Bond held up the empty container.

  “I see that. Well, don’t let me stop you,” she said with a grin.

  Ashley Anderson was one of those women James Bond was very familiar with. He instinctively knew that certain members of the opposite sex immediately found him desirable. Bond was quite aware of the sexual impact he had on them, and he had always been able to use that gift to his advantage.

  “As a matter of fact, I was, uhm, having a little difficulty getting in the mood. I mean, it’s all so … clinical here, isn’t it?” he said, flirting with her.

  Her eyebrow went up.

  “I thought perhaps you could join me and tell me a little more about your company … or something.” He gestured with his hand for her to enter.

  Ashley Anderson was certainly tempted. She looked up and down the hall, then came into the room with Bond. She closed the door and locked it.

  “All right, Mr. Bond, what is it you need help with?”

  Bond moved closer to her, backing the woman up against the door.

  “I lied to you and to that doctor who interviewed me,” he said softly, looking into her blue eyes and examining her mouth. He gently ran his fingers through her blond hair.

  “Oh yeah?” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” Bond said, mimicking her accent. “I’m not interested in being a semen donor. At least not this way.” He held up the empty container and smoothly tossed it across the room into the sink.

  “I could get into a lot of trouble doing this. What’s your game, Mr. Bond?” she asked, breathlessly.

  “You’re my game,” he said as he moved in for the kiss. Their mouths met, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. They kissed passionately, and he felt her tongue explore the inside of his mouth. She started breathing very heavily and running her hands over his strong shoulders and back.

  “Well, I’m sorry,” she said in between kisses, “you committed yourself … to the program … I’m obligated to make sure that you’re a … desirable donor.”

  Bond removed her lab coat and slowly unzipped her dress at the back. Underneath she wore a black lace bra and panties, and a black garter belt. He picked her up and carried her to the couch as she wrapped her legs around his waist. Ashley became enthusiastic very quickly, even breaking off one of the buttons on his shirt in her attempt to remove it. Her feline qualities extended to the lovemaking, for she spent most of the time clawing Bond’s back with her fingernails and moaning with delight.

  Afterwards, as they lay naked on the vinyl couch, their clothes scattered around the room, Dr. Ashley Anderson was satisfied that James Bond was indeed a desirable donor.

  “How did you get into this business?” he asked her.

  “I was always interested in reproductive issues. I thought I would be a gynecologist, but then I became more interested in infertility. That led to a job with a European pharmaceutical company called BioLinks Limited. When they bought out ReproCare a year ago, BioLinks put me in charge. So it’s all mine now.”

  “Where is BioLinks based?”

  “Athens. The president is a brilliant physicist by the name of Melina Papas.”

  “And you sell the sperm all over the country?”

  “All over the world, actually,” she said, sitting up. “We’re one of the leading distributors, especially in Europe and the Middle East.”

  “How do you keep it alive?”

  “In liquid nitrogen. We have some freezing machines in our lab. They’re computerized, and they use liquid nitrogen vapor to do the work. It takes about two hours to freeze the sperm. We lower its temperature to minus eighty degrees centigrade, then store it in tanks at minus a hundred and ninety-six degrees centigrade. The samples are stored in vials in separate boxes, and then kept in our special fifty-five-gallon drum tanks. When we transport them, we have special metal briefcases that keep them frozen for several days.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Sure,” she said, laughing. “I find you fascinating too, Mr. Bond. How did you get that horrible bruise on your side? What happened to you last night?”

  “I fell off one of those spectacular hills you’ve got here in central Texas,” he said.

  “I’ll bet you did,” she said, standing up. Bond admired her long legs and muscular physique. For a doctor who spent her time indoors, she was remarkably well built. She had firm, tight buttocks and a thin waist. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  Bond stood up and helped her gather her things. He picked up her white lab coat and discreetly reached into the pocket and palmed the keycard. When her back was to him, he dropped the card on his own pile of clothes and used his foot to move his shirt over it. He then helped the doctor get dressed. He was still naked when she turned and kissed him again.

  “I hope that you’ll consider making some more specimen donations,” she said.

  “I might,” he said. “How about dinner tonight first?”

  “All right.”

  “Want to meet at that restaurant?”

  “Chuy’s? Sure, why not. I can eat Tex-Mex twice in a row. What time?”

  “When do you leave here?”

  “I think I can get out at five today. The clinic normally closes at five-thirty. I could meet you there at six.”

  “Six o’clock then. Oh, one other thing. The primary reason I came here today was for Charles Hutchinson. Did you manage to find out where he was and when he’ll return?”

  Ashley Anderson nonchalantly said, “Yeah, he’s been in Italy. He’s not scheduled to be back until next week, but we got a message to him. He’s going to London today, I believe. I hope that doesn’t mean you’ll be leaving Austin?”

  “We’ll have that date first,” Bond said.

  She kissed him again and left the room. Now the only trick was to find a way to get back in the building after everyone left at five-thirty.

  He got dressed quickly, retrieved his gun, and stuck the keycard in his pocket. He left the room and went out into the reception area. The nurse there smiled at him knowingly, quietly acknowledging the little secret she shared with all the men who visited the clinic.

  Bond went outside. It was nearly four-thirty. He walked a block to get out of sight of the clinic, then called Leiter on the mobile.

  “Felix, you need to get on to Charles Hutchinson right away. He’s probably at the airport as we speak. He’s headed for Heathrow with a metal briefcase. Probably somewhere in Europe after a layover. I have reason to believe there’s something quite deadly in the briefcase, and it’s not just someone’s sperm.”

  “I’ll get right on it
. So I take it your visit to the clinic was profitable?”

  “It was one of the more pleasant doctor’s appointments I’ve ever had. I’m going to try and sneak back in when they close. There are some things I think I need to see. I need you to do one more thing. Can you or Manuela phone ReproCare at exactly five twenty-five? Here’s what I want you to do.” Bond took a minute explaining his scheme.

  “Okay,” Leiter said. “You have my number. We’ll alert the authorities at the airport now.”

  After they hung up, Bond went into a small coffee shop to wait.

  TEN

  OFFENSIVE ACTION

  FIVE O’CLOCK CAME, AND ASHLEY ANDERSON LEFT REPRO CARE, CROSSED Thirty-eighth Street to a parking lot, got into her pink Porsche, and drove away. Bond waited awhile longer, until five twenty-five. He had watched many of the employees already leave the building.

  He sprinted across the street to the clinic and went inside. The nurse behind the partition was packing her purse and putting on a light jacket.

  “Hello,” he said. “I think I left something in the room I was in earlier today. May I look?”

  The phone rang and the nurse answered it. She listened to Leiter’s voice and frowned. Bond mimed his question once again and the nurse nodded and waved him through. He went inside and quietly made his way to the examination rooms. Instead of going into the room he had been in earlier, he stepped into a different one, left the door open, and stood behind it.

  Leiter’s distraction had provided the right amount of confusion to the end of a busy day. The Texan had asked about a nonexistent account and the nurse had to look it up on the computer. By the time she had confirmed to the caller that no such account existed, it was five thirty-one. She hung up the phone, gathered her things, and looked in the hallway. She wandered down to the examination rooms and saw that they were all open and empty. The nurse shrugged, assuming that Bond had got what he had left behind and slipped out the front door while she was looking in the files. She turned and left the building, locking the front door behind her.

  Bond waited a couple more minutes before emerging from his hiding place. The building was completely quiet. He was fairly sure that no one was around. He stuck his head through the “Personnel Only” door to verify he was alone, then went into the hallway and down to the unmarked metal door. He slipped Ashley Anderson’s keycard in the slot and heard a click. He opened the door and went inside.

  It was a large laboratory with several workstations. Sixteen Taylor Wharton 17K-Series Cryostorage tanks sat along two walls. They resembled top-loading washing machines. Complete with solid-state automatic controls, each refrigerator was equipped with an adjustable low-level alarm with visual and audible signals, as well as a delayed remote alarm signal. If Bond tried to open any of the tanks, someone’s pager would go off.

  What was most curious were the shielded workstations. Two glass enclosed booths contained mechanical arms and hands, which a technician would normally operate to handle volatile or dangerous chemicals. Why would there be a need for such protection in a sperm bank?

  To Bond’s amazement, another door led into a small greenhouse. The ceiling allowed the sun to shine directly into the place. Several plants were growing in trays on two tables. He took a close look at the plants and he was sure that they had nothing to do with infertility or the storage of sperm. The three plants he recognized were the castor bean plant, a jequirity bean vine, and hemlock. All three of them could produce toxic substances.

  Bond went back into the lab and found a PC displaying a colorful screen saver. He moved the mouse, and the desktop appeared on the monitor. It was an in-house system, but the menu was quite clear. Bond selected a folder marked “Shipping” and opened it. There were hundreds of files; Bond opened the most recent one. A list appeared that detailed sperm shipments since the beginning of the month.

  Bond scanned the log for other shipments with those initials. Other couriers’ initials had made deliveries in other parts of the world. The Bastrop, Texas, address was odd. It didn’t sound like a medical clinic. Bond memorized the Bastrop address and shut down the program.

  He restored the computer to the way he found it, then studied the controls on one of the refrigerated storage tanks. He wondered if the handy alarm-nullifier that Major Boothroyd gave him would be effective on the tanks. It was worth a try. He opened the heel of his right shoe and extracted the device. He aimed it at one of the tanks, and the red indicator light switched from “Alarm Set” to “Alarm Off.” Bond made a mental note to offer to take Major Boothroyd to lunch when he was back in London.

  He opened the tank and was hit by a blast of cold air. Bond looked around the lab quickly and found some heavy insulated gloves. After his hands were protected, he took a look at the racks inside the tanks. There were several boxes filled with vials on the racks. Bond made a rough guess that there were anywhere from five to seven thousand vials of substance in one tank. He picked up a couple of vials and examined them. They were labeled with the donor number, date of specimen, and other pertinent information. It looked like sperm.

  Bond tried three more tanks before he found one that didn’t contain sperm. He knew he had hit the jackpot when he opened the tank and saw that the boxes on the racks were labeled “Danger! Use caution when handling!”

  He took out one box and examined the vials inside. Some were marked “cyanogen chloride” and others were labeled “hydrocyanic acid.” Powerful stuff. Another box contained vials marked as “soman” and “abrin,” both deadly materials. A third box contained “ricin,” “rabun,” and “sarin.” Finally, a fourth box was filled with vials of “botulin.” Not only were they dealing with toxic chemicals, but the bastards were playing with biological warfare materials.

  “Don’t drop that,” an all-too-familiar voice behind him said.

  “Dr. Anderson,” Bond said without turning to her. “Since when do couples experiencing infertility need botulin to have a baby?”

  “Put the box down very carefully and turn around. Slowly.”

  He did. Ashley Anderson was holding a briefcase in one hand and a Colt .38, pointed at Bond, in the other. “I’ll use this. Don’t think I won’t,” she said. Her flirtatious, snappy personality was gone. She stared at him with cold eyes and a sneer. “Take those gloves off and drop them.”

  “My dear Ashley,” Bond said as he removed the gloves. “If you shoot me at this range, the bullet will go right through me and into this tank. I’d hate to think what would happen to you if the materials in those vials were exposed to the air. I might be dead, but you’d never make it out of here without being contaminated.”

  She knew he was right. “Lie down on the floor. Do it!”

  “What, you want another semen specimen so soon?” he quipped.

  “Shut up and get down. I mean it!”

  “It’s a stalemate, Ashley. You won’t shoot me.”

  She fired a round at the floor near his feet. The gunshot was deafening inside the laboratory.

  “The next one will be your foot,” she said. “Get on the goddamned floor!”

  Bond complied. He did his best to conceal the fact that he had managed to grasp her stolen keycard in his right hand.

  “So, am I correct in assuming that ReproCare is the front for the Suppliers?” he asked.

  Ashley Anderson set the briefcase on a worktable and opened it with one hand, the gun in the other still trained at Bond. “Since you’re going to die in a few minutes, I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you. Yes, this is the laboratory for the Suppliers. It has been for a year, when I made a very lucrative deal with them.”

  She removed from the briefcase four cylindrical objects the size of coffee mugs, which appeared to be blocks of plastic explosive. She began to distribute them slowly on tables around the room, keeping the gun aimed at Bond. “But now my job with the Suppliers is finished. My orders come from a higher authority. Your people—I assume you’re a cop of some kind—your people won’t have to worry abou
t the Suppliers anymore.”

  “Where’s Charles Hutchinson going? What’s he got with him?” Bond asked.

  “You ask a lot of questions for a dead man, Mr. Bond, if that’s your real name. Hutchinson’s a little worm. He’s the courier for the Suppliers. He delivers chemical and biological weapons that the Suppliers create to the various clients around the world. They’re hidden inside vials of sperm. It’s the perfect method for smuggling. There are not a lot of customs officers who want to start digging around in frozen sperm.”

  “Ingenious,” Bond said. “Who’s the higher authority you’re working for?”

  “That’s knowledge you won’t even take to your grave,” she said. She punched some buttons on a device inside the briefcase. All four explosives beeped. “There. This building will be on another plane of existence in five minutes.” She stood about six feet away from where he was lying. “So, this is goodbye, Mr. Bond. Too bad. You really were an excellent donor candidate.”

  “Aren’t you worried that the explosion will release the deadly toxins?”

  “The fire will consume them. They won’t be dangerous. Not the ones we keep here, anyway.” She grinned. “You know, the last few shipments Charles made had something totally original in them. I don’t mind telling you that it was state-of-the-art shit. But it’s all gone. Now shut up.”

  She assumed a firing stance and pointed the gun with both hands at Bond’s head.

  Using the skills he had trained for and practiced all of his professional life, Bond rolled to his left and onto his back. Dr. Anderson fired a shot and barely missed him. Bond threw the keycard at her with a jerk of the wrist. It was a technique he had developed and taught in his own class at SIS, “How to Turn Everyday Items into Deadly Weapons.”

  The corner of the card struck Ashley Anderson hard in the face, piercing the skin about three centimeters. The pain and surprise threw her backward. The card was stuck directly into the bridge of her nose, between the eyes. Bond leaped to his feet, ran to her, knocked the revolver out of her hand, and slugged her on the chin. She fell to the floor, unconscious. Bond pulled the card out of her forehead. She would live, but she might have a nice little scar to remember him by.