by Tim Stevens
Behind him was the living room. And rising from a couch was a man Venn recognized, though he’d never met him before.
Slight build, thinning, graying hair, thick eyeglasses.
He’d seen the face on the phone Corcoran had given him.
‘Professor Lomax,’ he said, at the same time as Beth said, ‘Prof!’
‘Beth,’ said Lomax, wonderingly.
She ran forward, ignoring the big guy with the rifle, and they embraced. Venn thought the professor looked older than his fifties. Older than in the photo he’d seen. He guessed stress did that to you.
Every instinct screamed at Venn to take out the phone and call Corcoran. Tell him the mission was accomplished, that he’d located the professor, and now could Corcoran and his government boys kindly come and get them all the hell out of there before the assassins found them?
But something stopped him.
He said to the fat man, ‘You’re Papakostas, I presume.’
The man glowered at him. ‘How you know my name?’
Venn ignored him. ‘There are people coming after us. People who will kill us all, if they find us.’
Beth said, ‘You think they’ll find us here?’
‘They’ve found us before. They’ll find us again.’ Venn prowled about the room, his training kicking in, looking for vantage points, places where they’d be most vulnerable if they came under attack.
Turning to the others, who were still clustered together, he said, ‘But we also need to figure out what the hell is going on here.’
They sat, and he let Beth begin, because she was great at summarizing. She did an admirable job, covering everything the two of them had experienced and pieced together up to that point.
Lomax watched her intently, his glance occasionally flicking to Venn. His expression barely changed, though he did wince when Beth described some of the near-misses she’d endured. And when he heard that Margaret McNeill had been killed, he dropped his gaze and shook his head.
The big man, Papakostas, was also listening, his eyes heavier and more hooded than the professor’s. He tended to watch Venn more than Beth. As if he still didn’t quite trust Venn, wasn’t convinced he wasn’t a threat.
When Beth had finished, there was a long silence. Lomax closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and said: ‘Yes. You’ve worked it out.
‘Stavros here –’ he indicated Papakostas – ‘sent me that letter you found some three months ago. As soon as I read the papers he included, none of which I’d come across before, I knew he was on to something. The link between C-77 and cancers was too great to be coincidence.
‘I contacted Stavros and came up here to meet him. Stavros’s a scientist himself, but he’s not affiliated with any institution. He lives and works up here independently.’
Venn looked at Papakostas. The big man tapped his forehead.
‘Voices here,’ he said. ‘Hallucinations. Too crazy to hold down normal tenure job.’
Too crazy to be trusted with that rifle? wondered Venn. But he said nothing.
‘The problem Stavros and I came up against,’ continued Lomax, ‘was that although the evidence was strong for a carcinogenic effect of C-77, it wasn’t strong enough. There was still room for doubt in strict scientific terms, even though my gut told me we were right. So we started a much more sophisticated search. For the past three months, in parallel with the Zylurin trial, we’ve been amassing as much evidence as we can find of long-term follow-on effects of people around the world who’ve taken C-77. It hasn’t been easy, and the data’s far from complete. But the stats are significant. The link’s there, and can’t be denied any longer.
‘Stavros and I have been communicating mainly in person, with me visiting him up here. We’ve exchanged no emails or faxes. They’re too easily intercepted. Four days ago, I phoned Stavros from my office. I wanted to arrange a new meeting with him, so that we could write up our final results before going public.
‘My neighbor phoned me at work later that day to say there’d been some suspicious-looking men hanging round outside my house. They were in fact parked outside now, watching the house. And that’s when I realized I was being surveilled. And that I couldn’t go home.’
‘So you disappeared,’ said Beth.
‘Yes. I never went home. Just hid out for a day, then hired a car and made my way up here. We’ve been working on the final results ever since. But I haven’t told anyone else, haven’t telephoned or emailed anybody, because I have no idea what’s tapped and what isn’t.’
Venn had by this time started pacing again, and was gazing out the window. Something didn’t make sense.
He turned.
‘But why were you so cautious in the first place?’ he asked. ‘Why all the cloak-and-dagger meetings, the avoidance of emails, even before you went on the run?’
‘Because the Zylurin trial isn’t just any drug trial,’ said Lomax. It sounded like he was forcing himself to stay calm.
‘What do you mean?’ said Beth.
‘Beth, you don’t know this. Margaret McNeill didn’t know it. But this study is being funded by the Pentagon.’
Chapter 56
Venn came and sat down again.
‘It’s a military project?’
‘Partly,’ said Lomax. ‘As Beth has told you, the drug is a breakthrough agent. It truly is. The benefits in mental illness, in Parkinson’s, in Alzheimer’s... they’re remarkable, and very real. But there are other potential uses. Used judiciously, the drug can enhance other neurotransmitters. Ones involved in the modulation of aggression. Of pain perception. Of alertness.
‘Imagine a new breed of soldier. Immune to pain, hyper-alert, and with aggression enhanced tenfold. A supersoldier, if you like. It would revolutionize warfare. That’s why the military is involved.’
‘But the Pentagon can’t have a hand in this,’ Beth insisted. ‘I’ve seen the Ethical Committee approval documentation. Something like this wouldn’t be sanctioned in secret.’
‘Agreed,’ said the professor. ‘It isn’t an official Department of Defense project. It’s a black op. Run by a small group within the military. I doubt if the President himself is aware of it.’
‘And you... knew this?’ whispered Beth.
Lomax gazed at her sadly through his thick lenses. He took one of her hands in his. Venn thought Beth looked as if she wanted to pull away from his grasp, though she didn’t.
‘Yes,’ said Lomax. ‘I knew. Evidently they felt it best to let me in on it from the outset, rather than run the risk of my finding out by accident later and sabotaging everything. The top brass at Walton & Critchkoff –’ he turned to Venn – ‘that’s the company that manufactures Zylurin – called me in to a meeting with a government man. A fellow named Charles Decker, from some agency or other with links to the Pentagon. He appealed to my sense of patriotism. Said I’d be doing my country a great service by cooperating. And I swallowed it. Hook, line and sinker. I was impatient to get involved in the trial. It was only later, when thanks to Stavros here I started to learn of the links between cancer and C-77, and by extension Zylurin, that I saw what a terrible mistake I’d made in agreeing to go along with it.’
‘So somebody’s trying to find, and silence, you,’ said Venn. ‘And also to track down and kill everyone who took C-77 in the older trial. Like Beth here. To remove any evidence of the link to cancer.’
‘It appears that way, yes,’ said Lomax. ‘Somehow, the pharmaceutical company, or the government black ops agency itself, must have gotten wind of the fact that I was probing the link with cancer. A link they probably discovered themselves and were keeping covered up. I must have made some slip-up, mentioned something in an email that was being monitored or whatever. Immediately they started moving in on the former trial participants.’
The room fell silent for a moment.
Then Beth said, ‘Prof. How strong is it? The association with cancer?’
Lomax seemed to be having difficulty meeting her eye. He
said, quietly: ‘There appears to be a ninety per cent risk.’
‘Ninety -’ She stared at him, horrified, and Venn felt a pang. Lomax held up a hand.
‘There seems to be some protective factor in those who don’t get the disease. It’s probably genetic. That needs to be looked into.’
‘Why didn’t you stop the Zylurin trial earlier?’ asked Venn grimly. ‘If you were so sure this C-77 was carcinogenic?’
‘I wasn’t sure,’ muttered Lomax. ‘That’s the point. Stavros’s evidence was worrying, but it didn’t amount to anything near certainty. And the ninety per cent rate wasn’t apparent at the time. Now, of course, the trial has to be stopped immediately, and the participants monitored. It’s less likely that the cancer risk is still as high, since C-77 is a far weaker component of Zylurin than it was on its own. The company has refined their product, and they wouldn’t be so stupid as to release a drug on the market with such a high cancer risk. It would be picked up on immediately. But still. If the truth about C-77 goes public, Zylurin is finished as a product. Nobody would take it, even if it was proven to be completely safe.’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘But what can I do? I can’t be certain that any phone call I make, any email I send, isn’t going to be intercepted and diverted immediately to someone else. I can’t get word out.’
Venn had tuned the professor out. He was thinking.
Thinking about the last words Corcoran had said to him.
Call me the moment you locate Lomax. Don’t wait. I’ll see to it that you and he are brought back safely from wherever you are.
To Lomax, Venn said, ‘This guy from the government. This spook. The one who talked you into going along with a military-sponsored drug trial.’
‘Charles Decker. Yes.’
‘What did he look like? Do you remember?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do,’ said Lomax. ‘He was very distinctive in appearance. Very thin. Bald, although not particularly old. Cadaverous.’
‘With a surprisingly deep voice?’
‘Why, yes,’ said Lomax.
‘That’s him,’ said Venn. ‘The man who sent me to find you. He called himself Corcoran.’
The other three stared at him.
‘He wants me to bring you back so he can have you killed,’ said Venn.
Chapter 57
Four in the afternoon.
DeeDee Rosetti was at the end of her tether, and admittedly it wasn’t a very long one to begin with. She’d just called Zach Infante in for the latest update. Vincenzo she’d sent out into the field, to liaise with her people on the ground in Massachusetts.
There was nothing to report, said Infante fearfully. No trace of the pair, Colby and Venn, had been found since they’d left the motel. Yes, everybody was on high alert. But finding two people in the whole of New England wasn’t an easy task.
‘And they may have ditched the car,’ said Infante.
‘I know that, idiot,’ Rosetti snarled.
Dammit, she was going to lose Colby. Corcoran wouldn’t pay up. Worse than that, Rosetti’s reputation was going to take a hit. Corcoran would make sure that knowledge of her failure was leaked to the rival crime families on the Eastern seaboard. Hell, nationally, even.
She’d be weakened. Perhaps fatally.
Her cell phone rang on her desk. Rosetti snatched at it and looked at the caller ID.
Corcoran.
She shooed Infante out of the room without looking up. When she heard the door close behind him, she hit the receive key.
‘Ms Rosetti.’ His voice boomed down the line. Rosetti wasn’t scared of anyone. But if anyone came close to making her nervous, it was this man.
‘Mr Corcoran.’
‘I understand from all the activity up in New England that you’ve been having a little trouble eliminating one of your contracted targets?’
‘She’s got somebody helping her,’ Rosetti said defensively. ‘A man named Joseph Venn. Seems like a cop or a soldier or something.’
‘Yes, I know Mr Venn rather well,’ Corcoran chuckled.
‘What?’
‘That’s the reason I’m calling you,’ he said. ‘I have Venn under constant surveillance, by means of a tracking device. He’s doing a little job for me. I had no idea he was with the Colby woman until I learned about your people swarming all over Massachusetts, and about the discovery of the dead assassin you hired. Royle, was it? Yes. I saw Venn was in the area at the time, and I put two and two together.’
‘You know where he is right now?’ Rosetti couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. Then she realized it was probably too late.
That this creep, Corcoran, was likely going to tell her that the deal was off, and that he was planning to take care of Colby himself.
‘I do indeed,’ said Corcoran. ‘What’s more, I’m going to tell you where he is.’
Rosetti waited. She expected a trick of some kind.
Corcoran went on: ‘I still want you to honor your end of the deal and kill Dr Colby. But I also want you to establish first if Venn has somebody else with him.’
‘Who?’
‘A Professor Leonard Lomax.’ Corcoran described a man who didn’t sound all that memorable. He said, ‘I’ll send over a photo of him in a moment.’
‘You want me to kill this guy too?’
‘Yes,’ said Corcoran. ‘But it’s critically important that you make sure Venn has him. Understood? No moving in on Venn and the Colby woman until you’re certain Lomax is with them.’
‘Understood.’
‘Your compensation will be doubled, if you can do this,’ said Corcoran. ‘Take down Lomax as well as Colby and Venn.’
Rosetti caught her breath, glad Corcoran couldn’t see her. See how delighted she was. It didn’t serve her image well to show people she was impressed by anything.
Double the money?
‘But I warn you, Ms Rosetti,’ said Corcoran, his voice quieter suddenly. ‘Get this wrong – kill Venn before making sure he has Lomax with him – and the repercussions will be severe.’
‘I hear you.’
‘I don’t just mean that you won’t get paid. I have considerable influence, as you may already have gathered. I could shut down your organization in a week. Have you and your minions indicted on the most serious charges you can imagine.’
Bullshit, thought Rosetti. She also didn’t like being threatened. But, unusually for her, she held her tongue.
‘All right,’ Corcoran went on, resuming his usual tone. ‘Venn’s been moving around a lot, but he’s remained stationary now for over an hour. After undertaking a lengthy journey up through New England, into Maine. Satellite imagery indicates that he’s in a remote region of forest, possibly in some kind of cabin. It suggests to me that he’s found Lomax.’
Corcoran gave her the exact coordinates. Rosetti reached across to her computer keyboard and brought up a map of the north-eastern United States. She had people in Augusta, Maine, plus the ones scouring northern Massachusetts. She could get bodies on the ground quickly.
‘Consider it done,’ she said.
Chapter 58
Multitasking had always been one of Shelly Anderson’s strong points. She put the talent to good use during her ride in the Hummer up Interstate 95.
By the time she reached the New Hampshire border, she had spoken to each of her contacts within the NYPD, asking them to get her the details of the Rosetti organization’s most senior people in New England.
She was provided with three names, and assorted contact numbers.
By the time she was halfway across the state, she’d spoken to two of the three people. Posing as a federal agent, and using a different name, she’d told each of these men that the FBI was aware of what was going down in the search for Colby and the Chevy Impala, and that the man being contacted would be well advised to cooperate with the Feds and provide them with any information that came in about the whereabouts of the fugitives. Shelly further told each man that any attempt to warn the b
oss, Rosetti, would reflect very poorly on him when the FBI came to make their arrests.
One of the men told her she was talking bullshit, and put the phone down on her. The other sounded nervous, and wheedled. Would he get full immunity if he cooperated? That would be considered, Shelly said, careful not to promise too much.
Afterwards, she continued up the interstate, not even sure how far she should go. Venn and Colby might have turned off miles back.
It was a hell of a gamble. The two mobsters she’d spoken to could easily get straight on the phone to Rosetti. Then again, what was likely to happen? Rosetti was hardly likely to call off the search for the fugitives because of some crank call.
She continued northward. Just across the border into Maine, her phone rang. It was the second mob guy, the one who’d sounded scared.
He told her the boss had just sent word round of the exact location of the fugitives. Some kind of cabin in the woods, near Augusta, Maine.
‘If you’re shitting me on this...’ Shelly said.
The guy began to whine. ‘Special Agent, I promise you on my grandmother’s grave...’
She killed the call.
It was either a trap, or the biggest break she could possibly have hoped for.
Shelly punched the location into the Hummer’s satellite navigation system and drew a deep breath.
Chapter 59
‘I don’t understand,’ said Beth.
She looked at Venn, then at Professor Lomax. Her relief at seeing him alive and unhurt had been replaced by a growing sense of bewilderment and dread.
‘It makes sense,’ said Venn.
‘But if this man, this Corcoran, wanted the Prof dead... why didn’t he simply send one of those assassins after him? One of the ones that’s chasing us?’
Venn said: ‘Because you and the other trial participants were easy targets. Or were supposed to be, though you turned out otherwise. Your whereabouts were known. All these killers had to do was carry out a straightforward hit. Professor Lomax, on the other hand, had gone missing. Corcoran needed an investigator. A detective. Somebody with the skills to find the professor. Somebody like me.’