TRANSPARENCY
BioTech Secrets Untold
By
D.K. Matthews
Second Edition
Copyright@ 2015 by D.K. Matthews
ISBN 978-0-9893313-0-2
All rights reserved.
Internet: www.dkmatthews.com
E-mail: [email protected]
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
The characters and incidents depicted in this story are products of the author’s imagination. The use of names of actual persons, living or dead, and actual places, organizations and events is incidental to the purposes of the plot.
“Table of Contents”
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Chapter Twenty Six
Chapter Twenty Seven
Chapter Twenty Eight
Chapter Twenty Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty One
Chapter Thirty Two
Chapter Thirty Three
Chapter Thirty Four
Chapter Thirty Five
Chapter Thirty Six
Chapter Thirty Seven
Chapter Thirty Eight
Chapter Thirty Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty One
Chapter Forty Two
Chapter Forty Three
Chapter Forty Four
Chapter Forty Five
Chapter Forty Six
Chapter Forty Seven
Chapter Forty Eight
Chapter Forty Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty One
Chapter Fifty Two
Epilogue
Prologue
Santa Reina Welcomes Genevive Labs
SANTA REINA, CALIFORNIA. Santa Reina Tribune—after months of negotiations, court battles, and a construction project that rivaled the building of Disneyland, Genevive Labs opened its doors today to the citizens of Santa Reina.
The company’s bus fleet shuttled over two thousand citizens to the campus built on fifty acres of pristine forest northeast of town. Tours were held into the rustic but hi-tech facilities. Afterwards, free hot dogs and hamburgers were served on the campus mall.
The master of ceremonies, Genevive Labs’ Brad Palmier, conducted the event. The executive supervised a raffle at the end of the day that included an array of prizes. CEO Robert Gartner awarded first prize, a new Ford Mustang, to local resident Fred Wilkerson. Mr. Gartner gave a speech afterwards commending the citizens of Santa Reina for allowing Genevive Labs to be their neighbor.
The biotech giant would officially open for business next Monday, after the Fourth of July holidays. The addition of a world class firm such as Genevive Labs to the small community of Santa Reina is bound to bring changes. The management team has vowed to work with the mayor, the city council, the Santa Reina Police Department and other arms of local government to maintain the town’s values.
Only time will tell what lasting effects Genevive Labs would have on Santa Reina. All parties involved say they hoped for a long and mutually rewarding relationship.
Part One
Under the Radar
Chapter One
Three years later…
Standing alone in the grassy clearance, Detective John Halliday felt like he had been brushed into the huge Sierra Nevada oil painting that hung above the bar at the Santa Reina Inn. The sky, so blue, made the surrounding greenery jealous. Unlike the mural, the High Sierras he saw in the distance stood like sentries guarding over a well kept secret.
He reached for his phone, but the ring wasn’t coming from his iPhone. Halliday, dumfounded, gazed up into the sky and listened. He groped for an explanation of why bells chimed fifteen miles from civilization.
“Lamar Fetus, are you out there?” he yelled at the empty meadow.
A pine cone smacked the ground.
“Come on out Lamar. I’m alone, as promised.”
He raised his binoculars. A hawk descended into the meadow that sloped up to a stand of young redwood trees along a ridge. In the distance, verdant rolling hills progressed into foothills. Far beyond them stood the sierras.
“Shit.” Halliday grew angry at himself for getting duped by a vagrant.
Halliday lowered the binocs. He turned to leave. A movement behind a clump of shrubs off to his left caught his eye.
“Is that you Lamar?”
An old man walked into the clearing. The distrust in his face looked all too familiar. He gazed beyond Halliday, to the unmarked police vehicle. “You sure you are alone detective? Don’t lie to me.”
If nothing else, he had learned to be patient during his three year assignment in the Central California town of Santa Reina. “I have no reason to lie to you, Lamar. We work in teams. My partner will arrive in a few minutes. Tell me why you called me out here.”
Festus approached as if the forest held his enemy.
Up close, Halliday saw a rawboned man with hollow cheeks. Tired eyes begged for understanding. The vagrant pointed at the smoky emissions from the biotech facility on the other side of the ridge. The gray gunk dissolved into the sky like a ship’s sewage dumped into a Pacific Ocean archipelago.
“Genevive Lab’s security,” Festus said. He searched Halliday’s eyes before he moaned, “Those Nazi’s abducted Shack.”
“Who is Shack?”
The old man blinked, like a five-year-old trying not to cry. Halliday deliberated at the sorrow in the old man’s eyes.
“Shack was my companion for twelve years, my best friend.”
Halliday had no patience for another “significant other” story. He believed that marriage existed solely for men and women. He couldn’t ignore Festus’s eyes or the despair in the old man’s voice. “Tell me more, Lamar.”
Festus sniffled. He wiped spittle from the edge of his mouth before he said, “Shack’s body is up there on the ridge.” He pointed. “Under that big Sequoia tree.”
Halliday grew skeptical. Festus hadn’t mentioned a body during their phone conversation. Nevertheless, a possible homicide had to be taken seriously, especially if it involved Genevive Labs. “Did you witness the murder?”
Festus eyed the ground as if searching for blood stains. “No, I saw them stop the van up on the hill. They tossed Shack’s body out.”
“When was this?”
“About an hour ago. Detective, Genevive did terrible things to Shack. I’m ashamed to talk about it. You’re going to have to see for yourself.”
Halliday gazed up to the rise where the Sequoia stood. If Genevive was involved the implications were dicey. His boss, Chief Brayden, treated the biotech company like they were Santa Reina’s only salvation.
The drifter hunkered. He peered up from a body twis
ted like a corkscrew. Halliday had once been surprised by a Hispanic youth who had uncoiled from a similar posture that brandished a knife. He couldn’t bring himself to think of this seventy-some year old frail vagrant as a threat. Either the man was lying or one of the better actors he had come across.
“We shouldn’t stay here long. They’ll be back.”
“Who are they, Lamar?”
“Genevive security.”
Halliday inhaled the musky scent. The scrub brush and the pines failed to mask Festus’s body odor. Up in the sky, he saw no winged scavengers. There had been no tire tracks on the dirt road leading in. A battalion of pine trees along the perimeter of the meadow stood mute, like petrified soldiers.
“You hesitate too much, detective,” Festus said, his tired eyes searching the area for phantoms.
“You wouldn’t be making up the part about the body, would you Lamar?”
The old man’s face flushed a darker shade of crimson. “Hell no, detective. I’m no liar. You’ve got to… ”
Festus’s speech sputtered like an engine that had blown a piston. Then he caught a big breath and said, “I swear I’m telling you the truth, detective. Come on, I’ll show you.”
“Hold on, Lamar. What’s that in your hand?”
Festus held up a new Blackberry phone. “I took it from a Genevive security truck. The bastards won’t miss it.”
Surprised that the old man had breached Genevive Labs’ security, Halliday held out his hand. “It’s evidence.”
Halliday removed a plastic bag from his inside coat pocket. He slipped the phone into it. “I’ll get you another phone, but it’ll have to be a Go-Phone from Target.”
Festus showed no reaction to losing the expensive high tech phone or to Halliday’s offer.
Where the hell was Gladstone? After working alone for the past three years Halliday had been baffled when out of the blue the chief had saddled him with his nephew, an ex-beat cop.
“What are we waiting for, detective? You’re not in cahoots with Genevive security, are you?”
“Dammit, Lamar, I’m not in cahoots with anyone. Get that out of your head.”
Halliday kicked at the brush. His intuition told him that something up on the hill had happened, despite the old man’s paranoia. That didn’t mean he had to explain why he had to wait for Gladstone like he promised the chief. “My partner will be here in a minute.”
After some moments, Halliday responded to Festus’s fidgeting around by saying, “Procedure, Lamar. We wait.”
“I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning.”
Halliday reached into his pocket for a Clif Bar he had been saving for lunch. The old man accepted it with a hand that shook like a rattler’s tail.
Festus ripped open the power bar.
“How did you end up out here, Lamar?”
Festus lowered the Clif bar at Halliday’s question. Fear replaced sorrow in his eyes. “I hid in the bed of one of Genevive’s trucks.”
“Genevive security?”
“Yeah, they have a fleet of white pickup trucks. But the big bosses—the ones from Washington, DC—they wear black suits and sunglasses. You know, like in the movie Men in Black. They drive black suburbans.
“Official government vehicles?”
“You tell me, detective. SIERRA CONTRACTORS was stenciled in white on the doors.”
Halliday heard the sound of Gladstone’s vehicle.
Department of Defense? “Are you sure, Lamar? Did you notice the letters DOD on the doors?”
“I saw SIERRA CONTRACTORS in capital letters. There could have been DOD, too. I don’t know. Shack didn’t deserve what they did to him.”
Tears leaked out of the old man’s eyes.
“What did they do to Shack?”
The oncoming vehicle had Festus performing a dance. He said, “Detective, I’ve got to go pee.”
Halliday nodded at the brush a few yards away. “Don’t wander off.”
Instead of slowing down, Gladstone, driving a black RAM Charger, his personal vehicle, roared down the last fifty yards. He slammed on the brakes, stirring up a red cloud at the end of the dirt road.
Halliday brushed cinnamon dust from his face while Gladstone got out of the truck. The young detective held up his DROID. “The GPS app saved my ass.”
“You’re twenty minutes late.”
Gladstone had a habit of smoothing back his yellow locks. Leo Bergman, a fellow detective, said it resulted from his high school days. The kid who starred at quarterback for the Santa Reina Cougars, lost the Central State High School championship game. In the final seconds Gladstone had stepped over the line of scrimmage before tossing the apparent winning touchdown. That didn’t surprise Halliday. The kid never paid attention.
Gladstone read the defense. He said, “Where’s the perp?”
“He’s a witness, not a perpetrator. Name’s Lamar Festus. The vagrant’s over there taking a leak.”
“Where?”
Halliday jerked around.
“Shit.”
Lamar Festus had bolted.
Chapter Two
Halliday aimed the binoculars at the tree line beyond the clearing. He’d never get used to the forest’s anonymity. The chimes he had heard earlier were replaced by the flutter of a Hummingbird’s wings.
Lamar Festus hadn’t bolted, he’d plain vanished.
Gladstone huddled at the front of his truck. The kid needed a coach standing on the sidelines calling in the plays.
Halliday shouted for the young detective to search for Festus on the rise beyond the shrubs.
When he hesitated, Halliday barked, “Come on, Gladstone get the lead out.”
The three years since Halliday had left the Bureau of Diplomatic Security had soared by on the wings of a hawk. He had exchanged a world of diplomats for a hick town of strong-armed farm boys, illegal aliens, and unsophisticated citizens. Instead of guarding the Madam Secretary of State, now he took orders from a foul breathed police chief.
He scanned the area in front with the binoculars. The forest, so quiet and cunning, liked to play tricks on the senses. The soft wind tried not to disturb the trees. A chatty blue jay, which Leo said was actually a western scrub, interrupted his concentration. He knew better than to pay too much attention to it all.
He concentrated on the area up on the ridge where Festus alleged to have seen the van. Green foliage blocked his line of sight to the area underneath the Sequoia tree. He panned to the other side of the tree.
“My god.”
Halliday dropped the binocs and rubbed his eyes.
The image had jolted him.
He had glimpsed a green mass the size of a horse up on the ridge. The translucent object had flashed in the sun before it disappeared behind the huge Sequoia.
“Damn.”
Last month at the firing range, the results, for him, had been less than satisfactory. He blamed it on a headache. He needed to get his eyes checked.
Halliday sprinted up the rise toward the Sequoia, nearly tripping in a rabbit hole.
At the top he gasped for air. During his three year stay at Santa Reina he had worked out at Gold’s Gym, a short walk from his apartment. His visits to McDonald’s were a lot more often.
He scanned the woodsy area with the binoculars. Although the forest’s irregular shapes and shadows stirred his imagination Halliday saw no evidence of the green mass he had seen from the meadow. Perhaps he had been reading too many sci-fi books.
The Sequoia dwarfed the surrounding trees. Undisturbed pine needles crackled under his feet. He stooped low to the ground, searching for an indentation. He found no sign that a human body had lain there.
Why would Lamar Festus lie about the body?
The forest chided him with a long sigh, a breeze that swept across the ridge. In the serene moment she held him under her spell. Halliday’s thoughts escaped into the past.
# # #
Special Agent John Halliday had celebrated his seventh year an
niversary at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, or DS, with a seven minute beer. He had been ordering two glasses of König Pilsner beer at the busy biergarten on the Kurfürstendamm since his arrival three days ago. Berlin law stipulated seven minutes to pour a draft of beer, or two.
Halliday enjoyed the Berliner’s newfound exuberance for life. He watched their animated faces as they ached to get their point across. This late summer day welcomed short sleeves. Halliday wore his standard charcoal gray suit. The long tables overflowed with happy patrons at the street side bar on the avenue known as the Ku‘damm. At nearly six p.m. he sipped the delicious brew, surprised that none of the other agents had shown up yet.
Moments later, Special Agent in Charge Carl Blankenship, the AIC, emerged like a Sherman tank from the dense pedestrian crowd that plodded along the wide sidewalk. The broad-shouldered bureaucrat led a new female agent whose name Halliday couldn’t remember. Before he could speak Blankenship said, “Special Agent John Halliday, meet your new partner, Special Agent Judy Solvano.”
Halliday, surprised and put off by Blankenship’s unannounced decision to pair him up with the rookie agent, stood up. He shook Agent Solvano’s hand, but glared at the man.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said to Solvano, unable to produce a smile to seal a cordial greeting.
Blankenship’s earnest moon face avoided the awkwardness of the situation. With a smile that brightened cheeks that sagged, he caught their eyes. “You two have a seat.”
The AIC remained standing. He captured Solvano’s attentive eyes. “Halliday is one of our best. He takes care of his fellow agents.” Blankenship added, “I see he has already ordered a welcoming beer for you.”
The female agent, matching Halliday’s uneasiness, brushed auburn hair from her face. Prominent brows veiled sunken hazel eyes.
Halliday followed her stare to his shirt front. Mustard stains decorated his green tie from a lunchtime bratwurst sandwich. Her perfect scarlet blouse hadn’t a wrinkle. She wore a navy blue pants suit that, on her lithe figure, looked tailor made.
Transparency: Bio-Tech Cavern Secrets Untold Page 1