With a dreadful sinking in her gut, she accelerated and pulled out into the passing lane.
CHAPTER 40
Treat Griswold had no idea why he suddenly turned off at the Dumfries exit except that he had been feeling edgy since an unknown, exotic-looking woman with light copper skin had struck up a conversation with Constanza and Beatriz in the manicure parlor. They had strict instructions to avoid prolonged conversations with anyone and to report any unusual contacts to him. This they had done.
He swung onto the exit ramp too rapidly and felt the Jeep's center of gravity lurch to the right. But even though the years had been somewhat unkind when it came to the muffin top overlapping his belt, his coolness in crisis and his reflexes were as sharp as ever. There was no rollover, and from all he could tell through the rearview mirror, there was no one following him, either.
He was a little paranoid, he told himself. That's all. Just a little paranoid . . . not that he didn't have every reason to be.
Whoever had tailed him last year—a hell of a thorough private eye, he guessed, or maybe someone from one of the other agencies—had mapped out his secret Richmond life in agonizing detail, complete with photos and video. The night the phone rang for him at the Beechtree Road house, the man on the other end had his ducks in an absolutely perfect row.
There was to be no debate, no arguing, no denying, no protesting, the voice said. Griswold was to go along with what was being demanded of him or he would be finished—exposed, suspended from his job in the Secret Service, and, in all likelihood, prosecuted. On the other hand, if he did as he was told, there would be more than enough cash to ensure that in a few years, when Beatriz had grown old and tiresome, he would have the resources to recruit and develop her replacement.
Griswold maneuvered the Jeep through back roads he knew well and rejoined I-95 at Garrisonville.
A little paranoid, that was all.
The lab had promised him a report on the prints retrieved from the Marooned on a Desert Isle nail-polish bottle as soon as today. Suzanne . . . child care . . . Fredericksburg. . . . That was the information he had to work with. He had already begun a discreet inquiry into the woman, but as yet, none of his sources had come through with anyone who fit the description. They would, though, he assured himself. If she was for real, they would.
In all likelihood, though, he was making mountains out of molehills. Nothing more than that.
Griswold settled back and relaxed with vivid images of what his evening with Beatriz held in store. She was a quick learner, and easy as hell to program with the use of selected drugs, CIA brainwashing techniques, and, of course, Constanza. Another six months and the girl would be providing him with the most sensual, devoted, custom-made companionship imaginable. In fact, in many ways, she already was.
A final glance in the mirrors suggested nothing out of the ordinary. Griswold slipped in a Grateful Dead CD and dialed up "Truckin'," his all-time favorite cut. By the time the song was done, he was nearing the garage. He licked his lips at the prospect of getting behind the wheel of the Porsche again. The Jeep was serviceable and predictable, but the Porsche was . . . well, Beatriz.
He turned onto Lunt Street and immediately spotted a man with a pry bar, trying to open the lock on the empty right-hand side of his garage. The man, not impressively built, looked like a derelict, with sneakers, shabby pants, a worn tan windbreaker, and a nondescript blue baseball cap.
Over the years, the government had treated Griswold to a variety of courses and refresher courses in defensive and offensive driving, most given in conjunction with firearms training at a reconditioned racetrack in rural Virginia, informally referred to as Crash and Bang.
He had practiced the maneuver he reflexively chose a dozen times, and accelerated into it without hesitation. Engine roaring, he barreled directly toward the man, who stood as if transfixed, staring wide-eyed at the fast-approaching grille. At the last possible moment, Griswold slammed on the brake and spun the steering wheel hard to the right. If he handled the maneuver correctly, the rear end of the Jeep would spin around and the thief would be virtually pinned to the garage door. If he missed, even a little, the man's lower body and the heavy wooden door would become one.
The spin was perfect. Tires screeching and smoking, the Cherokee spun just over 180 degrees, tapping gently to a stop against the garage and cutting off the derelict from any escape except to his left. That route vanished before the man could react as Griswold, pistol in hand, leapt from the Jeep, raced around to where the grimy intruder still stood, grabbed him by the front of the jacket, and slammed him against the garage door. The pry bar clattered to the pavement.
The look in the man's eyes was unmistakable panic. He smelled densely and unpleasantly of alcohol and hard times.
"P-please don't hurt me."
"What in the fuck are you doing?"
"Everything all right?" a woman's voice called from somewhere down the street. "Do you want me to call the police? I saw everything."
"No!" Griswold snapped over his shoulder. "I can handle this. . . . Well?"
"I . . . I was just lookin' for somethin' I could sell," the man managed, his speech thick and clumsy. "These are hard times, you know."
Griswold jammed the barrel of his pistol up under the intruder's ribs.
"You lying to me? You lie to me and I swear I'll blow you away. Why'd you pick this place?"
"I . . . I couldn't get into the one over there. I was just workin' the street. Honest, mister. I was just workin' the street."
At that instant, Griswold's cell phone began ringing. With his gun still pressed firmly against the man's gut, Griswold released the wind-breaker, checked the caller ID, and set the phone against his ear.
"Griswold here."
"Griz, it's Harper at the lab. I think we've found a match for those prints on the nail-polish bottle."
"Can you hold on for a minute?"
"Sure, but hurry up. I think you're going to want to hear this."
"Just hang on."
Griswold turned his attention back to the thief, who now was beginning to cry.
"P-please. I'm living on the fucking street. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. It won't happen a—"
"If I see you around here again, you're dead. Got that? Dead!"
Griswold stepped back, opening a way out for the man. Tentatively, the derelict moved forward a few steps. Then, in an awkward, stumbling gait, he headed down the street, waiting until he was around the corner before cracking a smile.
"Okay," Griswold said, again pressing the phone to his ear. "What gives?"
"What gives," the crime lab specialist said, "is that the prints match a Fed."
"A what?"
"A Fed. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, she's Secret Service. Just like you."
CHAPTER 41
Astonished and bewildered by what he had discovered, Gabe stood beside the recessed doorway to Lab B-10 willing his pulse to slow and his sense of what was smart to take over.
Get back to the house. . . . Get back and regroup!
He was alone in the brightly lit corridor of an underground laboratory that had at least one tunneling scanning microscope—the pricey, highly technical, sine qua non centerpiece of nanotechnology research. The facility, carved into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, not far from the Shenandoah Valley, was reached from one direction through a little-used hidden entrance in the guest wing of Lily Sexton's opulent country home. There had to be one or more other entrances as well, but how far they were from this one was anybody's guess.
Go back!
Two things were all too clear at this point. The brilliant, elegant, beguiling Ms. Sexton had far more than a passing interest in nanotechnology—one of the sciences she was slated to try to place under government control should she become the country's first Secretary of Science and Technology. In addition, she quite probably had more than the passing acquaintance she claimed to have had with Dr. Jim Ferendelli.
Gabe was equi
distant between the door back to Lily Sexton's house and the next doorway on the corridor, which he could see was B-9. His best approach would be to head back and, as soon as possible, check some real estate ledgers and maps involving the area. But the part of him that had always caused trouble was urging him on—at least to the next room.
This is dumb and risky, he warned himself, as he inched along the wall toward B-9.
Risky and dumb.
He felt the adrenaline rush that had long ago stopped being a significant part of his life but had led him to any number of dangerous decisions along the way. The last thing he needed, just seven hours before he was scheduled to meet Ferendelli, was to get caught down here.
He moved ahead several more feet.
The recessed B-9 doorway was identical in every respect to B-10—brushed steel and high-tech, with thick glass filling the top half. He peered into the brightly lit room, which was another deserted lab, featuring another research apparatus he recognized from his studies of nanotechnology—a scanning electron microscope. The SEM was capable of creating remarkably well-defined images of invisibly tiny nanotubes and fullerenes by bombarding them with a stream of electrons.
The brass plaque beneath the glass read simply: ELECTRON MICROSCOPY. No nameplate. Gabe speculated that Dr. K. Rawdon of the tunneling microscope lab was probably the head of this unit as well.
Distracted, Gabe was a step slower than he might have been in reacting to the voices and footsteps echoing down the hallway from someplace ahead and to the right. He held his breath and flattened himself within the recessed doorway of B-9 just as two men in security guard uniforms emerged from a corridor, chatting and laughing. They each wore sidearms.
"Did you understand a word they were saying in there?" one asked.
"No, but that's why they're eggheads and earning the big bucks and we aren't."
"I did love the stuff Dr. Rosenberg was showing, though. Real, living brains without bodies. Could you believe that? I heard he was keeping them in his lab on A Wing, but that's the first time I actually saw them."
"Yeah, I wonder what they're thinking. Maybe something like 'Gosh, it's dark in here.' "
"Yeah, and 'Hey, I can't hear a damn thing, either. Where in the hell is everybody?' "
Both men laughed roundly. If either of them had turned to his left, he would have been looking directly at Gabe, who was just thirty feet away and unable to conceal himself fully in the recessed doorway. Instead, they turned to their right, away from him, and exited Corridor B through a pair of swinging steel doors.
Gabe's desperate need for answers again began doing battle with his common sense.
The silence that followed the guards' departure was not complete. Gabe could still hear the low, machinelike hum and also some voices.
Real living brains without bodies.
Fascinating.
There was no way he could retreat now without trying to get even a little more information. His common sense had been routed. Just a little more information. . . . Just a little more.
Hanging on pegs near the scanning electron microscope were two knee-length lab coats. Gabe tested the knob to the room and the heavy door swung open. Seconds later, he emerged wearing one of the white coats. With his boots back at the beginning of the tunnel, his dark socks protruded from beneath his jeans, looking rather foolish but at the same time making it easier to move silently up the corridor. Still, it seemed as if anyone within earshot would be able to hear his heart slamming against the inside of his chest.
Room B-8, fiefdom of a Dr. P. Wilansky, was another empty lab filled with sophisticated equipment. There was a branching corridor ahead and to the right—the hallway from which the guards had come. The low machine hum was more pronounced, as was a man's voice, loud enough now to make out some words.
"Note . . . brain . . . stained . . . immunofluorescence . . ."
Gabe inched around the corner and peered down the corridor. At the end were two more doors, identical to the others. The right one was closed and the left one open. Pressed against the wall, every muscle tensed, he moved ahead. If someone came through the doors behind him now, there would be no retreat and, in all likelihood, no meeting with Ferendelli. Still, he had to see.
". . . This slide is a photo taken two months after the subjects were dosed with ten micrograms of fullerenes coated with antibodies specifically coded to hypothalamus neuroprotein. Administration in this subject was oral, but the results for intravenous and aerosolized fullerene administration were virtually the same. As you can see, there has been virtually no change in the location and concentration of immunofluorescence, even after thirty days. When these little fellows attach, they stay pretty well attached, although there is a very gradual leeching out."
Gabe thought the line about the "little fellows" and the way Rosenberg delivered it might have engendered at least a chuckle or two, but the assemblage remained stonily silent.
Five more feet.
Gabe was just a few steps from the closed door now. Through the glass he could see seven white-coated scientists—five men and two women—their backs to him, standing shoulder to shoulder at the far end of a carpeted room that was about a twenty-five-foot square—probably a conference room with the chairs removed.
Turn around and leave! Leave while you have the chance!
A slide was being projected on a screen before the small gathering. From what Gabe could see, the image was a cross section of brain, with the jade green glow of an immunofluorescent marker dye scattered over an area that apparently was the hypothalamus. At his very sharpest in neuroanatomy, which would have been a few minutes after finishing the course in med school, he could have easily identified the structures in the brain slice. Now, though, those days were long past and he would have to take Dr. Rosenberg's word.
A grainy slide with fluorescent marker was hardly the real living brains without bodies that the security guards had talked about. Gabe inched closer. At that moment, as if on cue, one of the scientists at the center of the line stepped back, turned to her left, and coughed deeply several times.
Through the opening she had created, Gabe saw three large glass cylinders, four feet high and a foot in diameter. They were filled to near the top with a translucent golden liquid—serum or some other form of nutrient, he guessed—which was being aerated by a bubbler built into the base, the source of the mechanical hum. A large number of monitoring wires snaked over the lips of each cylinder, connecting outside them with elaborate monitoring equipment, at least one of which was an EEG—an electroencephalogram—that was showing continuous brain-wave activity.
The other ends of the wires were implanted in brains—one in each cylinder, suspended by some sort of transparent Lucite frame. Each brain included not only the cerebrum and cerebellum but also the brain stem and eight inches of spinal cord.
Gosh, it's dark in here indeed!
Functioning, metabolizing brains! Living, thinking brains!
They could have been human, but Gabe's knee-jerk assessment was that if they were, they weren't the brains of fully grown humans. Before he could further assess their nature or any other aspect of the macabre setup, the woman stopped coughing and stepped back into her slot in the chorus line of white-coated scientists.
Now, go!
This time he began a slow, measured retreat back to the B corridor and out of the laboratory. There would be time to sort out what he had just seen and heard, but for now his focus had to be on getting out of the lab and back to D.C.
His attention still fixed on the conference room doorway, Gabe moved backward, checking over his shoulder with every step, anticipating the return of the security guards. Instead, the danger came from the room itself. With little more than a brief, perfunctory round of applause, the scientists turned and, without much conversation, filed out through the already open door and directly toward where he was standing, not more than twenty-five feet away.
Gabe had, at best, a few seconds to react. His insti
nct was simply to turn and run, but even if he made it back down the tunnel to Lily Sexton's, there was a good chance the armed security guards would catch up to him before he had gone too far. If he did manage to get away, there were bound to be repercussions when Lily learned what he had done.
Still, fleeing seemed like his only option, and he was set to do that when he flashed on his first cellmate at MCI Hagerstown, Danny James, a canny jewel thief, who had entered a mansion during a lavish party wearing a tuxedo, marched up to the master bedroom, located the family safe behind a mirror, cracked it, pocketed what jewels the hostess wasn't wearing, and then stayed for a round of hors d'oeuvres before strolling out to his car. He would have made an absolutely clean escape had he not taken the jewels from his pocket and set them on the passenger seat to admire only moments before being accidentally rear-ended by a police cruiser.
"Everyone with even half a life is always wrapped up in his own business," James said one evening after final lockdown. "The trick is to be bold and to look like you know what you're doing, so they can continue to think about their two favorite topics—themselves and their work."
The next day, dressed as a garbageman and, Gabe assumed, acting like a garbageman, James managed to ride a waste disposal truck out of the prison and into the sunset. When Gabe was released at the end of his year, to the best of his knowledge Danny James had still not been caught.
The trick is to be bold and look like you know what you're doing.
Almost instinctively, ignoring his stocking feet, Gabe stopped preparing to run. Instead, he strode forward toward the first of the group, a gangling, stooped-shouldered professor with thick glasses and an unruly thatch of pure white hair that looked like the product of an electric shock.
"You all done in there with Dr. Rosenberg?" Gabe asked cheerfully.
The man, perhaps sixty, glanced at him momentarily, mumbled something about the session taking far too long, and walked past him, followed lemminglike by the others. It was not at all clear if he or any of the rest noticed that the man threatening to intrude on their thoughts and their concerns about the run-over session was wearing no shoes and had no identification badge hanging from his neck.
The First Patient Page 22