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Elan climbed the stairs to the second floor. Each step reminded him of how dire his situation had become. The sweat from his armpits streamed down the sides of his torso and spotted his shirt. He stopped for a moment and ran the back of his hand across his damp forehead. Stop stalling.
At the top of the stairs, he straightened his shirt and dried his palms on his jeans. His parched throat refused his swallows as he forced himself forward. He couldn’t understand his sudden hesitation. He finally had a chance to get out from under the grasp of his wife’s evil brother. He should have been running toward the office.
When he reached the metal door, a sign read: All visitors must be buzzed in. Please be prepared to state your name and your business and have your identification ready. Elan’s eyes shifted to the small CCTV camera above the door. He had noticed another in the stairwell. Surely the agents inside had eyes on him. He pressed the button then returned his hand to his jacket pocket, where it rested on the butt of his gun.
Chapter 43
Adrianna continued to check her phone, hoping her husband had texted her and she had merely missed the chime. But there were no notifications—only a blank screen. She feared for his safety and had made him promise to send her updates every half hour. Thirty-five minutes had passed since his last text, and worst-case scenarios started to populate her head. She told herself to relax, that she was worrying for nothing. Elan was okay. Maybe he was already talking to an agent. Perhaps he had to turn off his phone. There were many positive reasons as to why he could be late with his text.
To calm herself, she sat on the edge of the hard bed and inhaled deeply, holding her breath for a moment before slowly releasing the air. With her eyes closed, she listened to the hum of the air conditioner against the wall. She repeated her breathing exercise once more. Her chest no longer thumped, and the tightness in her face had loosened slightly. “Everything is fine,” she told herself. Only, she was convinced it wasn’t.
Her eyelids shot open, and she grabbed her phone. Her efforts to calm herself were futile. Only a text from her husband would do. She sent him a message asking him to reply with their code word: cariño. That meant things were fine but he could not talk. She waited. Five seconds, then ten seconds, and soon a whole thirty seconds had passed. It felt like days.
It would only drive her nuts if she continued to stare at her phone, she decided. She stood and paced the small area next to the bed, wondering how on earth she could pass the time without tearing her hair out. A bath? Finally, she had an idea that didn’t seem so crazy. A calming bath would help her to relax. Surely she would find a message waiting for her when she finished.
Once the water had been adjusted to a tepid state, she stripped off her clothing and stepped into the tub and under the shower. For a few seconds, her thick hair created a barrier that kept her scalp dry, but soon the water made its way through her locks and flooded her scalp. It continued down her slender frame and filled the tub. Her core body temperature adjusted and delivered a shiver—the good kind. A smile appeared on her face, if only for a second.
Adrianna turned away from the showerhead and tilted her head back allowing the water to drain down the length of her hair. She reached up and slicked her thick mane into a ponytail. With her eyes still closed, she twisted her hair tightly, wringing the water from it as she brought it around to the front. She switched the shower off, allowing the faucet to finish filling the tub as she lay back and relaxed.
She barely heard the rattle of her phone against the tiled sink, masking the chime. She smiled, knowing her phone had received a text message. She knew her husband would not let her down. The water around her rose slowly, creeping up her sides, not quite enveloping her yet. Her body shivered again, this time from an unexpected, cool breeze. She opened her eyes and saw a strange man peeking around the shower curtain.
Chapter 44
Before heading back to my hotel, I made a stop by the office to collect a few personal items I had left on my temporary desk. Part of me hoped Cabrera would be there. I had Reilly on the phone when my peripheral vision spotted movement at the top of the stairwell. I looked up and saw a man standing there.
“Well, I don’t think it’s our job to hunt down the Ortegas,” Reilly said. “We’ll let our counterparts with the DEA handle this. I want you on the first flight out tomorrow morning.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice. I’ll do my best,” I said as I stopped in my tracks. “I gotta go,” I told Reilly before hanging up. Before I could say another word, the man started to pull his hands out of his jacket.
Remembering my relaxed attitude with the last visitor who showed up at the office, I wasn’t about to take any chances. I dropped my phone and years of practicing a quick draw went into effect. My weapon was out and trained on the man before he could remove either hand from his pockets.
“Don’t move or I will shoot you.”
“Please, don’t shoot me,” he whimpered. A layer of sweat blanketed his face, and his light blue shirt was dark at the armpits and around his neck.
“Slowly remove your hands from your pocket and raise them above your head.”
This can’t be. It took a moment, but I recognized him. One of the missing scientists had shown up on our doorstep. If I remembered correctly, the shaking man in front of me was Elan Ortega, the married one.
I couldn’t help but wonder why he would voluntarily come to us. Clearly, he had no idea the FBI had been looking for him because, if he did, he probably wouldn’t have shown up.
“State your name and business.” I waited for a response but none came. He kept swallowing nervously. I tried again. “Sir, who are you, and what is your business here?”
“I am Elan Ortega,” he barely managed. “I need to talk to an agent. I have important information.”
“Lower your hands and take five steps back,” I said before retrieving my phone and moving to the top of the stairs.
“I have information regarding the dead DEA agent.”
I didn’t expect him to say that. He had my full attention. “Are you carrying any weapons?” I already knew the answer from his constant fidgeting and the stretching of his neck as he looked around.
“Please don’t shoot,” he pleaded again. “I have a gun, but it’s for my protection.”
Yours? “I don’t care what it is for. Turn around and place your palms against the wall above your head.”
“Please. I’ll give it to you. I only want to talk.”
“Turn to the wall,” I repeated. I moved behind him and patted him down. His clothes were damp, and I could hear his heart pounding through his back as I frisked him. I found a revolver tucked into the pocket of his jacket. I then cuffed him and ushered him into the office.
Once inside and seated in a chair, Elan calmed a bit.
“I’m Agent Abby Kane, and I work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States. I’ve been looking for you.”
“Me? Why?”
“I think you know why.”
“Look, I had nothing to do with the death of that agent. I’m here to help.”
“Then start helping.”
Elan told me about his and his brother’s work with genetic engineering. “Our research could change the world,” he said fervently. “Imagine if we could strengthen a cripple and rid him of his disability or cure a person who had retardation. Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
I’m sure my expression made it clear that I thought he was living in a fantasyland.
“I know you think I’m crazy, but we can do this.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“We’ve already done it.”
“So why isn’t this big news?”
“Because of the man I work for, Faro Zapata.”
I hadn’t heard of him, nor had Cabrera mentioned his name. “Who is he, and what is his role?”
Elan fed me the details on the business arrangement he and his brother had with Faro Zapata. “We were happy, at fi
rst, to have the funding, but it came with a cost,” he said. “But the work was going well. We demonstrated the drug, MZ-1, to him just days ago.”
“So you’re telling me you’ve successfully created the new crack?”
“Not exactly.”
“What, then?”
“At the time, we were so involved with our own work that the two mixed.”
“How so?”
Elan wiped his palms on his trousers and took a deep breath. “Well, somewhere along the way, our work and the work we were doing for Mr. Zapata melded.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Early on, we discovered that the side effects of the drug we were working on for Mr. Zapata had positive effects on our test subjects that interested us, so we pursued ways of increasing those effects.”
“The crack drug also made your chimps smarter.”
“Yes! It appeared so, but we needed more testing.”
Elan’s eyes widened and his body language became more animated as he talked about how they secretly created various versions of MZ-1. They recorded definitive improvements in the health of sick chimps, which included an increase in their strength and intelligence. “The only problem was that the new drug hybrid would kill them after a few hours.”
“What does all of this have to do with Agent Riggs’s death? Did he find out about the work you were doing?”
“Worse. Señor Zapata did. My brother was never one to bite his tongue. He went one step further and showed him a chimp under the influence. I only found out after the fact.”
“What happened then?”
“He was excited and wanted us to further develop our version of the drug.”
“He didn’t think you’d be wasting his time and money?”
Elan looked away from me as he chewed on his bottom lip.
“Elan? Wasn’t that the agreement? You were supposed to create a drug that had a longer-lasting high and was extremely addictive, but instead you were busy making chimps smarter.”
Elan swallowed before answering. “He did think it was a waste at first. But then he saw the special side effects of the drug. Initially, I was pleased that he was on board, but then I started to suspect that his intentions were not the same as mine and Julio’s.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you honestly think a man like Señor Zapata would want to spend time and money developing a drug for the betterment of mankind?”
Now the puzzle becomes more complete. They wanted to make a drug that could help people. Zapata saw a drug that could make him powerful. That was the rub.
“I can understand your hesitation.”
Elan looked up at me. “Regardless of what Mr. Zapata’s interests were, the effects of the drug were still unpredictable. The first test subjects died within minutes of being injected, but Malcolm #48 didn’t.”
Elan must have sensed my confusion.
“Malcolm is what we called the test subjects. The number dictates the number of subjects tested so far. He was the forty-eighth test subject.”
“What happened?”
“Well, we made more adjustments to the drug that involved new combinations of ingredients.”
“Is that why you and your brother set up that lab in the jungle?”
“You know of that?”
I nodded.
“That’s where we discovered our drug and also where we tested Malcolm #48. The chimps were surviving longer, so my brother wanted to move to a human test subject.
“He wanted to experiment.”
“Yes.” Elan looked down, ashamed.
“So you kidnapped one of the local villagers to serve as a guinea pig.”
Elan nodded, reluctant to meet my eyes. “He survived the first few minutes, which was exciting, but he was an animal—uncontrollable. He was incredibly strong and fast. We couldn’t contain him.”
“And he ended up killing the boy from the village.”
“Sadly, yes.”
“Did he also kill Agent Riggs?”
“No, the drug killed Malcolm #48 within minutes of his killing the boy.”
“Wait. How many Malcolms were there?”
“If you’re asking how many were human, well, the one in the jungle was the first. The one that killed your agent, as far as I know, was the second. My brother had shared our experience in the jungle with Señor Zapata. Without my knowing, Julio tested another human for him.”
“And you’re saying this second human Malcolm killed Agent Riggs?”
“I think so though my brother never admitted it.”
“Was Agent Riggs aware of you research, or was he simply investigating Faro Zapata and got unlucky?”
Elan let out a soft breath. “I’m unclear as to how your agent entered the picture, but I don’t think it’s because of our experiments. He might have discovered something about Zapata’s drug trade.”
“What about the young couple in the field? Did a different Malcolm kill them?”
“I hadn’t realized there were others killed. Like I said, Julio did things behind my back.”
Everything Elan Ortega had said up to then seemed inconceivable, yet I completely believed him. Seeing the trauma on Riggs’s body in the shape of more than 200 fist blows and then hearing about a drug that increases a human’s strength tenfold—it made it plausible. It also explained the zombie angle. Still, one thing didn’t fit the puzzle.
“Elan, you said the human Malcolms were uncontrollable and didn’t live for more than an hour or so, right?”
He nodded.
“Well, Agent Riggs’s body was found in a ditch and the evidence suggested that he was killed there. If what you’re saying is true about their lifespan being extremely short, Riggs would have to have pretty much been kidnapped, thrown into a room with a Malcolm, killed, and then moved to a dumping site.”
“Not necessarily.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve made progress since the jungle.”
Chapter 45
Hearing that I had Elan Ortega in custody was the last thing Cabrera expected when he called to check on me.
“How? When?” he stammered on the other end.
“I’ll explain when you get here. Hurry.”
Twenty minutes later, Cabrera walked into the office. His mouth dropped when he spotted Elan. He turned to me, shock on his face. “This is Elan Ortega.”
“I told you so.”
I filled him in on how we met in the stairwell. From there, Elan picked up the storytelling duties and repeated everything he had told me earlier. Cabrera listened intently, stopping him once or twice to ask a question.
“Have you heard of Faro Zapata?” I asked Cabrera when he was up to speed.
“I’ve heard of him. Everyone who knows anything about the local drug trade knows who he is. We just can’t pin him down. They say he had a lot of plastic surgery done when he left FARC. It’s the main reason he’s eluded capture. But you,” he said pointing at Elan, “you know what he looks like, don’t you?”
“I do, but I didn’t know he changed his appearance.”
Cabrera shook his head and wrung his hands. “Okay, to be sure I’m understanding all of this, let me reiterate. You created a drug that makes men stronger and smarter.”
Elan nodded. “In simple terms, yes.”
“So this drug is like steroids?”
Elan frowned as he pulled his head back. “It’s much more than that. You know how some people gain incredible strength while high on PCP?”
Cabrera nodded.
“Imagine strength ten times that, but they are fully aware of what they are doing.”
“I thought you said they acted like animals,” I interrupted.
“They did, but like I said earlier, we have made progress. They now have control over their actions. Our latest Malcolm, as far as I know, is still alive. He’s very bright.”
“Has he killed anyone?” I asked.
“Yes. My brother. Snapped his ne
ck with one hand. He also ripped the head off a chimp.”
This was news. Up until now, I had assumed Julio was also on the run. I never asked because I had gotten caught up in Elan’s admittance of the new drug. “When? How?”
“I blame Señor Zapata.”
“Did he tell Malcolm to kill your brother?”
“Malcolm liked me, but he didn’t like my brother. He thought Julio was a pompous ass who took advantage of me. When Señor Zapata ordered Julio into the holding cell to untie him from the table, Malcolm killed him.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “It sounds like these Malcolms are functioning human beings, not mechanical robots to be controlled. They think for their own then?”
“Yes.”
“So what’s to stop them from running wild?” Cabrera asked.
“The drug. When it wears off, so do their abilities. Some of the effects remain, but most of it disappears. That’s the withdrawal of the drug. Access to the drug is what keeps them in line, for now.”
“Not much of a backup plan, is it?” I said, raising my eyebrows.
“I have a theory, unproven of course, that with each dose, the effects become more permanent. Eventually, they won’t need the drug. That’s the real danger, and in the hands of Señor Zapata, none of it can be good.”
“He’s right,” Cabrera said. “This is Faro Zapata we’re talking about. He killed thousands of people while associated with FARC. He certainly doesn’t have charity work in mind. For all we know, he plans to create an army of Malcolms.”
“How much of this drug is lying around?”
“When I left Mitú, there was still a decent supply, but who knows what my brother did. There might be a secret stash.”
“Where is Zapata now?”
“I can’t be sure. I overheard him say something on a phone call that might be a clue, but before I say anything…” He looked back and forth between Cabrera and me before focusing back on me. “I want something in return. I want safe passage for my wife and me to the US, and I want asylum. I’ve given you a lot of information.”
Cabrera looked at me with his palms up.
Tenderloin (Abby Kane FBI Thriller) Page 14