The Biofab War bw-1

by Stephen Ames Berry

  Wondering how Zahava had fared her first day at the Institute, his thoughts turned to dark, slender legs, supple thighs and sleepless, steamy nights in the big king-sized bed.

  The tractor-trailer rig jackknifed across the road snapped him back to the present. Slowing to a stop, he saw no sign of a driver. Raincoat turned against the cold Atlantic drizzle, he got out and started toward the overturned cab, silently cursing the moron who'd evidently gone for help without setting flares.

  Senses honed on a hundred night patrols saved him, sending him flying back behind the car as the bullets came, shattering the windows. Wrestling the big 9mm automatic from under his trench coat, John crawled toward the back of the car as the concealed gunman continued spraying the Buick.

  Risking a quick look, he spotted the muzzle flash just as the rifle bolt snapped at the end of a magazine. Leaping up, he braced the pistol with both hands against the wet vinyl roof and emptied the weapon into the brush. Changing magazines, he charged across the slick road and into the bushes.

  There was no one there, only spent shells and a small pool of viscous green liquid, melting away in the rain.

  Shaken and angry, John returned to the car, checking tires and engine. They were okay, but the windows were mostly gone.

  Breaking away the remaining fragments of windshield with the tire iron, he got in and drove slowly into the gathering dark, ignoring the rain that swept in, soaking him.

  Stephen Ames Berry

  The Biofab War

  Chapter 3

  John got to Oystertown just before five. Once a sleepy Nantucket Sound fishing village, it had been transformed by Leurre's endowers into a gentrified summer colony, a cobblestoned, yacht-slipped enclave for anyone with the money and a taste for what the Boston Globe had dubbed Louisburg Square by the Sea.

  Doric columned brick townhouses lay astride pristine lanes that ran like wheel spokes to Oystertown's centerpiece, a tidy gas lit square and it’s tastefully tarnished bronze fountain, cast as a vaulting dolphin.

  The Institute fronted on the marina at the end of the square. A rambling old brick and stone warehouse that had once stunk of tar and salted fish, it had been gutted and rebuilt by the Leurre Founder's Committee, a consortium of energy corporations. At one end was a small pub, at the other a cozy bistro, Chez Nichee.

  Dedicated to "Aid in the Exploration and Utilization of the Oceans for the Betterment of Mankind," according to the brass plaque set in the entrance way, the Institute served as a major research facility for much of the nation's undersea energy and mineral extraction.

  Parking the shattered Buick under the "Visitors" sign, John repaired himself as best he could, combing his hair, drying his face and shucking his sodden raincoat.

  Once in the foyer, the Institute's nineteenth century mercantile facade vanished, replaced by the gleaming modernity of chrome and glass.

  "Hello," he said to the lean, poker faced guard behind the teak expanse of the security console. "I'm here to see Dr. Langston."

  "Your name, sir." Black-uniformed, he expressionlessly took in John's dishevelment.

  "Harrison. John Harrison."

  "Just a minute, Mr. Harrison." He murmured softly into a small microphone, nodding to the voice that responded in his earpiece. "Please have a seat, sir. Dr. Langston will be right down."

  Fred Langston was an affable, suave scientist administrator. Fortyish, black, nattily attired, he quickly got John a fresh change of clothes, not questioning his story of a flat in the rain.

  Seated in Langston's elegant office, John sipped a Scotch and water, admiring the small Klee above the fireplace.

  The Director leaned back in his leather Scandinavian desk chair, quietly appraising Harrison. Behind him a big bay window overlooked the wharf, lit by antiqued gas lamps, and the dark sea beyond.

  "Sutherland called me this morning," said Langston. "Warned me you'd be coming up today. He said you were an old friend who'd been retained by Royal. I wish I could be of more help, but"-he spread his hands helplessly-"you know as much about that man's murder as I do."

  "Frankly, I'm only concerned with the murder because it may have some connection with the delays in the Royal project. Antonucchi's death makes the whole thing look like sabotage."

  Langston nodded, toying with the dolphin capped stirrer resting in his gin and tonic. "I know it does. At first we thought it was staff incompetence. No one's immune from personnel problems. So I had several people borrowed from Royal transferred back to Louisiana. Yet the problems continued. Then we lost Argonaut. Until we can get another submersible with her capabilities, we're stymied.

  "If this is sabotage, Harrison, believe me, it's working. You can imagine how Royal is taking all this."

  "Poorly, I'm told."

  "Yes." He lightly drummed the stirrer on the rosewood desk. "They're now seriously considering moving the entire operation to New Bedford, building the docking and refinery facilities there, rather than up the coast from here at Goose Cove.

  "We could survive without Royal's contract and annual grant, but once one major corporation loses faith in you, it becomes pandemic. Old school lie, you know."

  "May I look around, talk with your people?"

  "Sure. But the state police and Sutherland's crew have gone all through that." He rose. "If I can be of any help, don't hesitate."

  The rain had stopped. It made the short drive to the Beachcomber Motel cool but dry. A note in Zahava's hand awaited him at the desk.

  John,

  Registered here this A.M., but at lunch one of the staff invited me to stay with her. (Her boyfriend's been deported.)

  Directions to an address in nearby Goose Cove Village followed.

  Twenty minutes later he was knocking on the door of a cedar-shingled cottage on a quiet, pine-treed lot. A cute, barefoot blonde in her'midtwenties opened the door, wearing only shorts and a halter top despite the cold.

  "Hi. You're John, aren't you. I'm Cindy.

  "Zahava!" she called over her shoulder.

  The Israeli, more practically outfitted in denim blouse and trousers, came in from the back screen porch. Planting a wet kiss on John's lips, she led him into the small living room. The decor was pure Sears, he noted with relief, still discomforted from Leurre's overpowering modernity. He sank into a battered armchair, the day finally catching up with him.

  Cindy-Larry Levine's secretary-had met Zahava that morning and offered to share her rented house. She was still smarting from the loss of her previous roommate, Greg Fames-worth. Greg, the story came out over macaroni and cheese, was a geologist with Royal. He'd been on loan to the Institute for two months, till Fred Langston had cleaned house two weeks before. Greg had been abruptly returned to his home base in Shreveport.

  After dinner, John walked Zahava out to the shattered rental car, parked beneath the pines. He quickly briefed her, adding, "I'm going over to the rental agency in Hyannis now to complain about vandals. I'd invite you along, but there's so much glass on the seats…"

  "What about the man who tried to kill you?" she asked as he eased himself into the car.

  "What man?" John said, shutting the door with a faint tinkle. "For all I know, it could've been the phantom of the opera. When I got there-ten seconds, maybe-he was gone. God only knows where. I should have bumped noses with him or at least seen him. All I saw was some M-sixteen brass and a sort of green ooze.

  "I'd swear I hit the bastard, though." He started the engine. "And if blood were green, I'd know I did."

  "Be back soon," she called as he drove off into the foggy night. He answered with a wave.

  The rental manager didn't buy it. Belligerent, he was dialing the police when the account number on the contract caught his eye. Hanging up the phone, he shook his head. "You guys." He sighed.

  Five minutes later, John pulled out in a new red Jeep. The manager inspecting the Buick looked up from his clipboard. "Let's see this one back in better shape, okay?" he called.

  It took twice as lon
g to get back to Goose Cove Village. The fog had closed in, making it hard to see beyond the headlights.

  A new car was parked in front of the cottage; also a rental, John saw from the sticker.

  Gathered on the comfortable old braided rug before a crackling fire was Zahava, Cindy and a sandy-haired man in his early thirties. The stranger drew his lanky frame up to greet John with a crisp, dry handshake.

  "You must be John. I'm Greg Farnesworth."

  "Up for the weekend?" John asked, joining them on the rug.

  "For the week. Corporate largess," said the geologist wryly, sipping his beer. "I took some vacation time to plead my case." He squeezed Cindy's knee.

  She pouted, crinkling her freckles. "No Mom, no come." Her mother, she explained, lived alone in Boston, Cindy her only child.

  "Okay," Greg said. "I'm buying a house, down on the bayou, complete with swamp and 'gators. There'll be a separate apartment for your mother, provided she comes to the wedding."

  Cindy accepted with a hug and a kiss.

  After hearty congratulations, toasted with brandy hoisted high in little paper cups, the topic turned to the Institute and Greg's job. He'd been in charge of surveying the Goose Cove site. The cove proper, as distinct from the village, was scheduled to be enlarged and dredged, serving as a port facility once the Georges Banks began producing.

  "I'd gotten as far as sampling strata along Goose Hill-it overlooks the cove and was going to be blown up and carted away-when Langston suddenly declared me and my team bumblers and shipped us back to Shreveport inside of four hours." He sipped his brandy, staring pensively into the waning fire. Cindy put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  "Happily, there's a shortage of qualified petroleum geologists."

  "You're still with Royal?" John asked.

  "Yup. I leave on my schedule, not theirs."

  "Why do you think Langston got rid of you?" asked Zahava.

  "I think he was afraid of what I'd find up on that hill. Something that could end the entire operation, cause him to lose his grants, his imposing home, his nice office."

  "And did you?" asked John.

  The geologist gave him a hard look. "You're not working for Royal," he said flatly. "Not their type. Government?"

  "Sort of."

  Farnesworth nodded. "Yeah, I found it."

  Before going to bed, John made two calls, one to Sutherland, the other to McShane in Boston.

  Stephen Ames Berry

  The Biofab War

  Chapter 4

  Following John's directions, McShane had no trouble locating the dirt road leading from the paved, two-lane state highway to Goose Hill and the cove. He pulled into a small clearing among the bayberry and scrub pine at the foot of the hill. Parking next to a red Jeep, he made his way along the densely overgrown trail to the foot of the hill, brushing aside the morning's dew-covered cobwebs with his gnarled blackthorn Irish walker.

  As he ascended, the trail quickly turned into a rocky defile, the undergrowth becoming sparser with each step. Passing between two boulders, he heard the soft snick of a well-oiled gun bolt sliding home. Taking a chance, he called, "Zahava! Don't shoot. It's kindly old Professor McShane."

  Lowering her Uzi, she stepped from behind the right-hand boulder, all contriteness. "Bob! Are you okay? I hope I didn't frighten you."

  "I am. You did not. When I was about your age, I was on a bloody isle called Tarawa. Nothing's frightened me much since then.

  "Where is everybody?"

  "Up ahead, in a maze of boulders. Greg…"

  "The geologist John mentioned?"

  "Yes. Greg's trying to find a particular rock."

  "Appropriate for a geologist. Lead on."

  They found the trio (Cindy having been ordered off to work, lest her absence arouse suspicion) on a shoulder of the hill, walking behind Greg as he slowly followed a map through a great tumbled-down pile of boulders. After quick introductions, he returned to his task as Bob quizzed John.

  "Why in God's name did you drag me up here? I barely had time to finish at Harvard."

  A triumphant "Eureka!" made them turn toward Greg, who was dancing an impromptu jig before a large, oblong outcropping that fell from the hill's brow to their feet.

  "What's so unusual about that piece of granite?" demanded the professor, walking over to tap the rock with his stick.

  "Several things," the geologist said with a smile, fondly stroking the outcropping. "One, it shouldn't be here. Granite in this quantity shouldn't occur on transient geological structures like this sandy peninsula. But we could probably explain it away, except that it isn't granite. Actually, it's not even rock. And I don't believe any of the hill is."

  "Feels like rock," observed Bob, touching the surface.

  Bowing, Greg extended his pickax. "Then perhaps you'd care to chip off a sample for analysis?"

  Rising to the bait, Bob took the tool and swung hard at a rounded edge. There was no visible effect. Mumbling, "Obdurate matter," he handed his stick to John. Seizing the pick with both hands, he braced his legs, aimed carefully, and swung at the offending rock with all of his not inconsiderable bulk. The pick rebounded, resonating. Yelping, Bob dropped the tool, hands still stinging from the shock. His target shone unblemished in the morning light.

  "I yield," he said with more humility than either John or Zahava had ever heard. "What is it?"

  "Well," said Greg, recovering the pick, "according to spectrum analysis of a small portion-which I got after three hours' work with a laser torch-it's an alloy with the density of titanium, but ten to the fourth times titanium's tensile strength.

  "I have no idea what it is, though. Nor does the lab that ran the tests.

  "But now for the piece de resistance." He took a flashlight from his small day pack. "I stumbled onto this while playing the laser over the surface." Flicking on the beam, he flashed it onto a dark upper corner of the outcropping, a spot the sun never touched. A tiny green flash responded.

  The lower quarter of the outcropping noiselessly detached itself from the rest of the great slab, swinging aside. A neatly finished opening, the width of two men, lay before them. Dust-laden stairs dropped into the hill's Stygian interior. Two sets of bootprints, one up and one down, spoke of recent entry.

  For a long moment only the sound of wind and surf playing against the weather side of the hill was heard.

  "The implications of this find, if it's what I believe, are so vast, so sweeping…" Bob said, a quiver in his voice.

  "You ain't seen nothing yet," drawled Greg.

  "Yours?" John asked, pointing to the bootprints.

  "From the day before my banishment. Care for a tour?"

  "Someone should stand guard." John carefully avoided Zahava's glare. "Hate to get trapped down there."

  Relenting only after heavy pleading, she went-pouting- to a point commanding the trail.

  Greg led the way with his flashlight, followed by McShane. John brought up the rear.

  Harrison counted 150 steps down. Then the rock-hewn passage turned sharply right, widening into a vaulted chamber, its center dominated by a rough stone altar. The walls tiered upward into equally rude stone benches. In all, John guessed, the small chamber might have held fifty people.

  "Do you know what this is?" asked Greg, his tone implying they didn't.

  "It would appear to be an altar chamber sacred to Bel of the Celtiberians-the Celtic peoples," Bob said evenly. He played his own light, suddenly materialized from a baggy tweed pocket, over the oval altar stone.

  "I expected something like this, Greg-I've been doing some reading. This chamber could probably be dated around 100 A.C.E., if certain conflicts didn't exist."

  "Such as?" asked John, knowing of at least one: sophisticated technology guarding the entrance to a rude temple contemporary with Christ.

  "Principally this," said Bob, holding up the stone fragment John had last seen disappearing into Sutherland's briefcase. "I had to sign my life away to get this from Bill
. As we know, it's Egyptian of the Middle Kingdom. It fits perfectly, I'll bet, into that freshly carved niche over the outside entrance way. Your work?" he asked Greg.

  "Yes." The geologist nodded. "I gave it to Joe Antonucchi the night before I was shipped out. I see he managed to get it off before he was killed.

  "A killing, by the way, I only heard about from Cindy a week after it happened."

  "You're clean," said John. "The FBI placed you in Shreveport that day.

  "So, you think this is what got Antonucchi killed?"

  "Sure do," Greg said. "Once this find was announced, no port facility, no more Royal contract. Would've put a crimp in Freddy's life-style."

  "Wrong," said Bob. "If I were Langston, I'd give my right hand to have found this. I'd be honored by my colleagues- once they got over the shock. Any university in the world would have had me, on my own terms." Silhouetted by Greg's powerful light, he leaned against the altar.

  "Besides," John added. "Royal wouldn't cancel Leurre's contract. They'd just move the docking facility to New Bedford and bask in the sheen of Langston's reflected glory. Think of the PR."

  Greg nodded. "I see your point."

  "Any thoughts on the doorway?" asked McShane.

  "A million." Farnesworth grinned. "All culled from Saturday sci-fi reruns. I do have an observation, though. Even under a magnifying glass, there's no visible separation between rock and door. They seem melded together-maybe on a sub-molecular level."

  Bob cleared his throat. "I see. Well, that does steal some of my thunder."

  "We interrupted you," said John. "I'm sorry. You were saying about the fragment?"

  "I was saying that the fragment is in a language whose peoples were dust five thousand years before the Celts of Europe. There are lucid arguments for the existence of ancient trading routes to the New World from the classical-Egypt, Tarshish, Carthage. Dead Mediterranean languages have been found carved into rocks throughout North America, especially New England. But this is the first evidence that allegedly unrelated, loose trading confederations not only were established on these shores, but overlapped, interacting with each other down through time. To believe that two people so far separated in time and origin as the Celts and the Egyptians occupied the same concealed site-concealed, mind you!-fifty centuries apart through coincidence… well, I can't accept it. The little green light and its wondrous door only fuel my skepticism."