by John Dalmas
Not only was Pasco discredited and in jail, but the shooting of Arthur Ashkenazi was solved. Which should close the contracts with the Anti-Fraud Divison and Santa Barbara County, and the company could collect its fee. My problem was, I felt uncomfortable with it, and said so to Carlos.
"Tell me about it," he said.
"Well, Montoya said Ashkenazi might have been dead when he was shot. And if that's true, then Ashkenazi died of natural causes. And Pasco's hit man was guilty of illegal entry, illegal discharge of a firearm, mutilation of a corpse, and attempted murder, but not murder."
Carlos frowned. "So I'll phone Sacramento and let them know what Montoya told you. Is that all?"
"No. I'm hung up on what the 'natural cause' was, of Ashkenazi's death. I was told what it was, but I'm under an injunction not to tell anyone. It's really bad. Dangerous. But keep the Santa Barbara contract open till noon. To authorize some calls, and maybe some data access."
Carlos gave me a long look. Then he nodded and left without asking anything more. I got on the line with Sacramento again, this time to the Chief of Vector Biology and Control. No, she said, there hadn't been another reported case of viral meningitis except for Ashkenazi's. Not anywhere in the world, so far as she knew, for ten years. And "remarkably," as she put it, they hadn't succeeded in establishing a colony of Ashkenazi's virus on human tissue cultures. Considering its swift development in Ashkenazi, and its apparent identity with the EVM virus, that was hard to accept. Especially after they repeated their attempts, this time being extraordinarily careful to do everything just right.
"How do you explain something like that?"
Her image shrugged on the screen. "I don't. I'm calling it a noninfectious virus, and describing its infection of Mr. Ashkenazi as an unexplained anomaly. But we're taking no chances with it."
I thanked her and hung up, then told Carlos about it. Talking around it, never saying the words viral meningitis. "I think," I told him, "that I just may find the explanation. Can you come up with a contract that'll pay for it?"
He leaned back in his tilt-seat swivel chair. "Martti," he said, "I've got a lot of confidence in you. I did before, and I've got a lot more since you nailed Pasco. That was brilliant. And I'd really like to accommodate you. And if I did, Joe would probably go along with it. But with no more to go on than you just gave me, there's no way."
He sat back up. "However, if you want to do it on your own time, I'll give you unpaid adminstrative leave. Keep track of your time and expenses, and if you come up with something that will justify pitching a contract to—who? Vector Biology?"
I nodded.
"If you can do that, we'll pitch it to them. And if we get a contract, we'll charge them retroactively for your time and expenses. There's plenty of legal precedent, and right now your stock is high."
15
I called Vector Biology, and asked the director if they planned to keep the virus. She said absolutely. They had it on file in a freezer. Something as weird as it was, they'd definitely not discard. I told her I was involved with the Ashkenazi case, and had a data trail that might lead to an explanation. Admittedly I exaggerated, but it would set her up in case we hit her later with a contract request.
Then I called Santa Barbara and asked Montoya for his approval to mention the case of viral meningitis. Recording the call, of course. I said it was vital to following up a lead on the case. He told me the injunction was still legally binding, but considering the time elapsed, Vector Biology's inability to culture it . . . If it was really necessary, and if nothing bad came of it, he wouldn't pursue the matter.
I didn't tell him I'd have done it anyway. We were both on record on the matter, our asses half covered.
Next I phoned the Westwood Station of the LAPD and got the name of a restaurant—Peri's Cafe—favored by their people for private one-on-one meetings. According to Lieutenant McNab, the food wasn't great, but the booths gave maximum privacy.
Finally, I called the genetics lab at UCLA and asked to talk to the director. The receptionist asked what I wanted to talk to him about, and when I said it was confidential, she told me Dr. Chatterjee didn't accept calls on that basis. But when I told her it was a legal matter, she put me through. Suspecting she might listen in, I told Chatterjee I was an investigator for the state, and we needed his expertise.
I'd appealed to his sense of professional pride, so he gave me a one o'clock lunch appointment, suggesting a faculty dining room. Still suspecting a snoopy receptionist, I told him I'd meet him there, and how he could recognize me. I was pretty sure I'd recognize him, with a high-caste Hindu name like his.
I parked in a restricted faculty parking lot and met him as agreed. Showed him my ID and told him that actually I needed to talk somewhere more private. He went for it, intrigued by the sense of secrecy, I suppose. At Peri's, after we'd gotten menus and a pot of tea, I said in a low voice: "Doctor, what I'm going to tell you is strictly confidential. I'm working on a case that's highly sensitive and secret." Then I told him about the viral meningitis, and Vector Biology's inability to culture it.
"First, though— Years ago I read that the viruses that caused the Great Flu and EVM, maybe even the AIDS virus, might have been engineered. In your opinion, is that technically feasible?"
He answered as quietly as I'd asked. "Many things are feasible today. Thirty years ago, when AIDS first appeared, genetic engineering was quite primitive. But today, yes. Something like those could definitely be engineered. If one had the requisite facilities. It's not something one could do on a carpentry bench in one's garage.
"On the other hand, there's no need to blame genetic engineering for devastating plagues. Deadly pandemics have occurred throughout history without humans engineering them."
I said nothing to that for a minute, just looked at him, setting him up. "Dr. Chatterjee, I'm not interested in a virus that could infect millions. Can a virus be engineered that could infect only one person? One genotype?"
It took him a minute to answer. "You are familiar with killer bees?" he said.
"Not directly. I've read about them. Saw a TV special on them once."
"Then you are aware that what people today call killer bees are not the same insects imported into South America half a century ago. The killer bees we have here are the result of hybridization and introgression. They are an introgressed form of our domestic, mild-mannered Apis mellifera—but as dangerous as the original African bees.
"However, earlier this year a geneticist at Stanford, Kareem Bennett, succeeded in tailor-making a disease that should eliminate the killer bee genes from the Americas. He started with an old endemic viral disease of the domestic bee, one that's been around for as long as anyone knows. And created a genetic component in the virus that makes it far more virulent than the normal virus." He paused, shaking a finger for emphasis. "But only for bees with the genes connected with killer bee aggressiveness. In a few years it will probably have killed all the bees south of Nebraska. Then the normal, gentle Apis mellifera from farther north can be reintroduced."
I was starting to feel excited, instead of merely hopeful. "How difficult is it to do something like that?"
"Now that it's been done once, it should not be so difficult. Assuming you have a properly equipped laboratory and the necessary skills. First Bennett engineered a viral genome that was totally nonvirulent. That was the most time-consuming step. Then he tailored a selected low-grade virulence for genomes that included what we can call the 'killer' genes. With that accomplished, he altered that virus for an extreme virulence which worked slowly enough that infected bees will be able to spread the virus before succumbing to it. It will be released extensively into colonies next spring."
"And other geneticists can adapt his procedures to their problems?" I asked.
"That is correct. Bennett's completed work has just been published in scientific journals. And, of course, a fully detailed description is available through the virological, medical, and entomological networ
ks. As a referee for the AIBS journal, I received a draft of Bennett's manuscript, and with his permission circulated copies in our laboratory. I considered his work that interesting."
"Umm. And a virus could be tailor-made for a single specific human being and no other?"
"A specific human genotype, almost certainly. One person, and any twins and other clones that might exist of him or her. But to make it specific, it would probably be simplest, certainly safest, to key the virus to that person's total genome. Which would seem to require working with diploid material from that particular person or his clone."
"What sort of diploid material?"
"Hair would suffice."
It was looking more and more as if this was the right track. "If," I said, "a meningitis virus was designed to kill Arthur Ashkenazi and only Arthur Ashkenazi, I suppose they'd have started with the EVM virus. Correct?"
For just a moment, Chatterjee's eyes widened. Up till then we'd been talking bees and hypothetical humans. Now we were down to cases. "Probably not," he answered. "There is something available that would make the work much quicker and easier. Assuming the designer had diploid material from Mr. Ashkenazi.
"The EVM epidemic simply ran itself out, you know. Epidemics do that. And may renew themselves later with genetic variants. The great flus of history, for example, and the Black Death. Meanwhile, researchers all over the world had worked desperately to develop a vaccine, and finally succeeded. If EVM should now recur in some genetic variant or other, there exists a noninfectious, nonvirulent form with which people may safely be inoculated. Unless they happen to have an allergic reaction. A form which will give them immunity without even a mild fever. It can even be taken orally.
"Thus if someone wished to tailor a virulent form, one would best start with the vaccine. A major part of the work has already been accomplished."
Something else occurred to me. "How long would it take to do it?"
"It is difficult to say. Three months perhaps. Or possibly as little as two weeks, considering that one would be designing it for a complete genome. Also, one would not need to go through the steps of designing a low-level virulence and then modifying it for a greater. So let us say ten to thirty days."
"And how long would it take after inoculation to make the victim sick?"
"It's difficult to state in advance with any certainty. It might be quite quick."
"Hours?"
"Quite possibly."
"Who'd have access to the vaccine?"
"Many persons. Many principal hospitals must have it on hand. I'd be exceedingly surprised if we didn't have a supply here at the medical center. They'll have an abundance of it at the Office of Vector Biology and Control in Sacramento."
"Who'd have access to the supply here in the med center?"
He looked thoughtfully at the question. "Assuming they have it, probably many persons. Numerous materials must be stored in their freezers, and presumably quite a number of persons go in and out. How many know where, in the freezer, to find it is another matter."
"Right. Dr. Chatterjee, thank you very much. You've given me serious food for thought. And remember, sir, it's important—vital—that you don't mention our talk to anyone. Not your friends, your wife, or anyone on your staff."
For a moment I'd thought of telling him who, specifically, I was interested in—Veronica Ashley. That she was Ashkenazi's sister-in-law. It would make the importance of silence more real, and reduce the chance of a leak. But it wouldn't be fair to her. I felt reasonably sure she was guilty, but I'd been wrong before.
16
After driving Chatterjee back to his office, I called the UCLA med center, got connected to Medical Supplies, and talked to the guy in charge. That night at nine he let me into the freezer room where the EVM vaccine was kept, and I took print masters off the drawer and flasks that held the vaccine. The next day our lab sorted out the prints, but none matched Veronica Ashley's in the national print archives. She could, of course, have worn gloves, but I wouldn't have expected her to.
So all I had was an ingenious theory and some circumstantial evidence. Nothing a prosecutor could make work in court. I went to Carlos' office and ran it all by him, hoping he'd see something I'd missed. He didn't. He asked if I wanted to continue on administrative leave, or if he should line me up with a new assignment. I said I'd keep plugging, then went to my own office wondering if I was just being stubborn.
I called Tuuli and told her answering machine I wanted to take her out for Mexican food that evening. I'd call her again before five. Then I went to Gold's and worked out for the first time since Monday, extra hard to make up for the calories I intended to take on that evening. After that I went home for a nap.
About the only satisfaction I had that day was listening to KFWB on my car radio. Arthur Ashkenazi's will had left the bulk of his estate to the Hypernumbers Institute, a psychically oriented group. For research into the multidimensional nature of reality. Veronica Ashley would be fit to kill.
17
It was getting dark when Tuuli and I got to her building from Casa de Herreras. I felt stuffed. There was a parking place made to order, and I grabbed it. Then, instead of getting out of the car, we sat for a few minutes in a weird, silent mood.
"I don't think you'd better come up tonight," she said at last.
I got out, went around and opened the off-side door for her. She looked worried. "I mean it," she said.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm not sure, but . . . Something doesn't feel right."
I reached to help her out. "I'll just walk you to your door and leave," I told her. We walked up the sidewalk between her building and the thick, eight-foot hedge bordering the property. There was night jasmine around somewhere, smelling a bit like Michigan in lilac time. Night jasmine's one of the things I like best about L.A. Tuuli's apartment was on the second floor, front corner. Like a lot of places in L.A., the stairs were outside, leading to an outside second-floor walkway. I opened the screen, intending to hold it for her while she unlocked her door.
I heard a chuff, and a bullet clunged like a hammer against an ornamental wrought-iron upright from the walkway railing to the overhang. A fragment bit my cheek. I threw Tuuli to the deck, then vaulted over the railing, hearing another chuff as I did so. The sound of a silenced pistol. I landed on the hedge, half scrambling, half falling off it onto the sidewalk. A third shot chuffed, and I heard the slug spending its energy clipping hedge stems as I ran crouching for the street and my car. I got there panting more from excitement than exertion, fumbled the key into the lock, and snatched my car gun out of the door pocket.
The shots had come from the building next door, and I couldn't make up my mind whether to go there, or back up to Tuuli's. While I crouched there trying to decide, her front window opened. "Martti!" she called softly. "Stay there! I'm all right. I'll call 911."
I didn't take her advice. Instead I went back to the stairs, and crouched listening in the cover of the hedge in case whoever it was came over. Although I was pretty sure he wouldn't. It was me he was after, and having lost his surprise, he'd taken off. Maybe to set another ambush at my place.
Things were still as midnight. We hadn't made enough noise to draw attention. I had no idea who the gunman might be. In my business you offend people who might take a notion to exercise their grudge that way. Something I'd learned the hard way. And while most of them end up domiciled with the state for extended periods, there are always some running around loose.
Two or three minutes later the police pulled up, and after I'd identified myself, we went next door together. There was a sign out front:
APTS FOR RENT
1 & 2 BEDROOMS
SEE MGR
9 AM–7 PM
We went up the stairs two at a time, and along the second-floor walkway on the side facing Tuuli's. The drapes were open wide in one apartment, the window was open, there was a hole in the screen, and it was dark inside. One of the officers went and got the manage
r.
All we found inside were three empty cartridge cases: .40 caliber. I was damn lucky he hadn't hit me. By that time another patrol car had arrived, this one with a senior sergeant. After talking with him, I got in my car, and the first officers followed me home. Staying close on the chance the gunman might try for me again.
My apartment's in a security building on Lanewood, with a basement garage. They waited in the patrol car while I stopped on the ramp to insert my key card. Lanewood has a row of big shaggy Mexican pines on each side of the street, and it was darker than hell, but it seemed to me someone was crouched in the tall shrubs ten feet from the ramp. While the door opened, I spoke into my shortwave mike. "Car 1094," I said, "I think our man's in the shrubs just to the left of the ramp."
Then I rolled in, got out of my car, and with pistol in one hand reopened the garage door from the inside. The officers had already moved in on the suspect. He had his hands in the air.
A little peering around with a flashlight found his gun where he'd dropped it. Then they took both of us to the Hollywood Station on Wilcox, where they questioned us. I answered everything they asked. The gunman told them only his name. Said he'd gone into the shrubbery to take a leak. They booked him for creating a public nuisance, and carrying a gun illegally. He had a record.
His name was Harley Suk O'Connell. Part Afro, part oriental—Korean, judging by his middle name. He was reputedly a freelance hit man who did occasional jobs for the black mafia. So far as I knew, I told them, I'd made no particular enemies there.
When they were done with me, I talked in the hall with the sergeant on the case. Someone must have paid O'Connell to try for me, I said. If they checked out his pad, they might find some cash in large-denomination bills. Which might have useful prints. He agreed it could be worthwhile.