She smiled at the confidence this simple, tangible evidence of her success brought. She was ready.
“Gracie, like, quit daydreaming,” said a woman in the doorway. “And, oh my god, you look fabulous.”
Gracie laughed as she turned to look at her best friend, Dr. Anna Graham, a tall California blonde. “I still can’t believe it’s finally happening.” She pointed toward the plans they’d sat and discussed with each other so often. “It seems like yesterday we were studying in the Stanford library, worrying about our biochem exams.”
Anna came forward and embraced her friend. “You got this. And tonight, we’re gonna do margaritas and dance like idiots.” She waggled her hips then winked.
Gracie laughed, “this is for your mom. I’m not going to let happen to her what happened to mine.”
“You’re not going to miss with Mayor Linstrom today. We’re gonna nail Phase I trials, and get it right.”
“I’m pretty good, huh?” Gracie said, with confidence.
“Um, the girl who graduated summa cum laude from Stanford and went on to cure cancer? Hellooo?”
“Yeah, we’re not there just yet. We’ve still got the mayor to win over.”
Anna straightened her friend’s collar and began dusting the shoulders. “We’re gonna win him over. I mean, come on. We’re promising him a biotech company on the South side of his miserable city.”
Gracie’s brow furrowed, “Yeah but, we don’t have human trials. No one cares about mice. They want to see humans. It’s not a done deal yet.”
“Just stop it,” said Anna.
Gracie took a deep, cleansing breath and shook her head. “Yeah, okay. You’re right. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’d pay for your own darn margaritas. Come on, you need to get your stuff together. Let’s go make this happen. Shall we assemble our big, expensive staff?”
Gracie giggled, then called out, “Steve? Alice?” The ‘entire’ staff was more like a family at this point, calling each other at all hours as breakthroughs were made and becoming slow but sure confidants as they spent more hours together than apart.
Steve Cotwell, a slight man with straight brown hair and wire-framed granny glasses, was the first to arrive. “You called, milady?” he said with a courtly bow and an obviously fake London accent, though he tried. Steve was a frequent attendee of Renaissance festivals and it showed. Despite the mild social awkwardness, he was invaluable.
“Are all the sequences and analytics ready?”
“Yes indeed.” Steve looked at Gracie with googly eyes, as he always did. She was amused by his eccentricities and he knew it. He was a genius who had dropped out of the University of Chicago the day after answering her ad for a genetics expert in the paper. No big deal. He already had two doctorates.
“You’ve got coffee on your coat,” said Gracie as she pointed to the stain on his boxy white lab coat.
Steve looked at his chest in chagrin. “Aw man,” he said, breaking British character, “I don’t have another one here. Still, better than mustard, right?” He was a frequent eater at the food truck that parked a couple blocks away.
“Go look behind the door in your office,” said Gracie. “I had one dry-cleaned for you.”
Steve put his hands together in prayer position and bowed again to Gracie, saying, “Gratitude, milady.”
Alice Casselshouldt had entered the room in the midst of this, the shortest one of the crew by far, sporting the perma-ponytail she kept her long brown hair in. Gracie had never seen her hair down, ever. She was almost a polar opposite from Steve. She didn’t waste time with flagrant activities, eschewing them in favor of puzzles and personal growth. She often made it known that if she was going to spend time away from her life’s purpose, it was best spent doing things like the crossword to refine her mind and contribute to being sharper and better. Somehow, despite the vast chasm of difference, Steve and Alice had become besties.
“And you, my MIT renegade and computer guru. Everything ready?”
“Yep. All the programs are set to run simultaneously in five-minute increments. You’ll be able to take the mayor to all four testing areas on the lab floor. Each is set to present the results of our cancer cell markers and virus release in the sequence we discussed.” Serious hazel eyes looked at Gracie through very trendy black-rimmed glasses.
Anna pointed. “Mice loaded with cancer.” She pointed to another section of the lab floor with mice moving vibrantly about in their cages. “Cancer free mice. Case closed. Human trials, here we come.”
“Amazing work.”
Alice shrugged her shoulders and gave an awkward smirk of a smile. “No biggie.”
“Unstoppable!” Anna added, pumping a fist in the air.
Just then, the phone rang in Gracie’s office. She trotted over to it. Unknown Number. She picked it up hesitantly. The line was dead. “Huh,” she grunted.
As she rejoined Anna and Alice, they heard Steve call out.
“M-miladies,” he said in a trembling voice.
6
Gracie hurried out of her office with the other two women in tow. What they saw made them stop short.
“Who the hell are you?” Gracie demanded of the man with the backpack draped over his shoulder—the man who was holding a silver handgun to Steve’s head.
There were four men she had never seen before, three of them pointing their guns at her, Alice, and Anna.
The man with the backpack was older than the others but not old, with salt and pepper hair and an untrimmed beard. He said something in another language to the three other men with him. Given the way they looked, she supposed it was Arabic or Farsi. What she did know is that they had the stereotypical look of Middle Eastern terrorists—so perfect it almost looked cultivated.
It’s funny, the details you notice when fight or flight kicks in… was the only thought Gracie could muster initially.
Using their guns to communicate, they had all three women put their backs to the wall.
The older man, who seemed to be the leader, holding the silver gun to Steve’s head spoke again, slightly shifting the backpack he was wearing. One of his men, who was young and the only one who was clean shaven, as well as the only one using a rifle instead of a pistol, continued to hold the three women at gunpoint with a modified RF-15 knockoff of an AR-15. The last one holstered his weapon and went to the leader, removing his backpack. This man had dark red hair with a beard and lighter eyes. He opened the backpack and began to bring out what appeared to be bricks of off-white clay. Within seconds there were 20 bricks on the desk, whereupon the fourth man, who was very short, had remained closer to the doorway, holstered his gun and went over to the desk. He also had a backpack, which he set down next to the desk. He and the redhead began deftly inserting slim metal cylinders into the clay.
The leader barked additional instructions, waving his left hand toward the offices, while keeping the silver gun pointed directly at Steve’s head.
The redhead working on the bricks stopped and went into Gracie’s office. There was a series of quick, sharp snaps, and then the hard drive of her computer flew out of her office and crashed into the hallway. The man repeated this in the remaining three offices. He then went into the sturdy metal cabinet next to the lab equipment and began opening drawers until he came upon one with the supply of drugs marked for human Phase I trials. He tipped the drawer onto the floor. About 20 bottles bounced and clattered about. The man reached down and opened one, dumping the red and blue pills in his hand.
The short man at the desk finished his work with the bricks and began placing them throughout the reception and office area.
Speaking very quietly out of the corner of her mouth, Anna whispered, “Oh my God.” Her voice was a trembling mess. “I know what that is.”
The young, clean-shaven man with the black gun snapped to her.
“That’s enough C4 to blow up the Pentagon,” said Anna, her
voice high-pitched and panicked.
The man screamed, waving the RF-15 at her, clearly demanding silence.
The shock hit Gracie hard as she realized that her company would be utterly gone as soon as the C4 was detonated. The short man working the explosives flipped a switch on the small devices planted in the bricks immediately after he’d carefully placed each one. Not that she knew how this type of stuff worked, but it only made sense that most of the explosives, except three that were placed at the front lobby door, were planted in a way that would completely wipe out every physical trace of her life’s work. Several weeks ago, after Steve had found their anti-malware program and firewalls had been disabled two consecutive days from a remote location in Beijing, he convinced her to not back up any of her formulas on the Cloud or any external servers of any sort. Everything they worked from, and saved to, was on the premises.
The leader barked out additional orders.
The red-headed thug who had dumped the bottles went to the second backpack. Here he extracted plastic zip ties, a syringe, and a vial of clear liquid, placing each gingerly upon the desk. Gracie looked from Anna to Alice to Steve. It was about to hit the fan. Steve had an insane phobia of needles. She could see the horror in his eyes and the perspiration dripping from his forehead. The gun at his head was nothing to him compared to the thought of what they might do with the needle.
Her mind raced. The four men probably had combat training. Under her desk was a panic button, part of the alarm system. If she could somehow get to her office. But how?
In the midst of this, Steve’s eyes darted between his coworkers, landing on Alice. “Goodbye.” He mouthed the word to her.
The short terrorist who had placed the explosives—they had to be terrorists—grabbed the zip ties and walked toward Steve, while the leader slid his weapon into an underarm holster. He grabbed Steve’s arms and was about to shove them into position when Steve charged the man with all his might, yelling, “Run!” as the short man and the leader went tumbling to the floor.
Several things happened very quickly after that. Anna made a mad dash for the lobby. Alice followed, but was grabbed and violently thrown to the ground by the clean-shaven terrorist. The redhead sprung quickly over from the desk, pulling his gun and savagely pistol-whipping Steve in the back of his head. Steve went sprawling as the blow landed with a sickening crunch, knocking him away from the leader. The short man, still on the ground, pulled out his pistol and tracked Anna with it.
The shot was deafening. Blood spattered across Gracie’s cheek.
Anna’s body fell to the floor.
Like a tailback trying to break a run to the outside, Gracie sprinted for her door, hoping to reach the panic button under her desk. She shot past the young man who had tackled Alice, but he leaped to his feet and chased her into the office. Gracie dove over the top of her desk and, as her hand cleared the top edge of the desk, she curved it underneath and hit the panic button for as long as she possibly could.
The clean-shaven terrorist yanked her up from the floor and bear-hugged her from behind with his wiry but very solid arms. Though she managed to get in a few solid kicks on his shins, they weren’t solid and her breath was hard to inhale through the crushing pressure on her ribs. He dragged her out of the room, back into the hall.
Alice was still on the floor leaning against the wall, now zip-tied, weeping and shaking. She hadn’t moved from where she’d gone down. Anna lay in the center of an expanding puddle of blood. Steve was on his knees with the redhead and the leader pointing their handguns at his head, blood on his hair and lab coat. The short man was walking toward Alice with his strange tan pistol pointed at her. The leader holstered his gun and said something quick and stern.
The redhead, who was holding his gun a foot from Steve’s face, pulled the trigger. The bullet burst into Steve’s head, cratering his forehead, but his eyes never blinked, and he never lost his defiant look. Then the spark of light in his eyes was extinguished and he fell face-first to the floor. The leader then pointed at Alice, still on her knees up against the office wall where she’d been thrown. He said the same stern words he’d said a moment before, and the redhead moved away from Steve, toward Alice, his arm fully extended at Alice, and pulled the trigger. The bullet popped into her skull with such force her head snapped back and cracked into the wall behind her.
Gracie screamed as she flailed like a crazed animal to break free from the clean-shaven man’s grip, using everything in her power. If she were going to go down, she’d do it with a fight.
The man tightened his grip, locking her body into position. Then came the duct tape.
Why aren’t they killing me too? She wondered.
7
The tape sealed her mouth shut. The windowless cargo van reeked of her four captors, who apparently had only a passing acquaintance with soap and water and none with deodorant. The fast food wrappers and assortment of miscellaneous garbage on the floor didn’t help the smell either. From the looks of the torn-up seats, the van had to be at least 10 years old.
She tried to move her arms but her body was securely tied to one of the two rear captain’s chairs. She did, however, have a clear forward view of the front of her factory building, two blocks down the street. Thinking of the brutal slaughter of her friends, her chosen family, Gracie couldn’t help but wonder again why they hadn’t killed her. Was she to be ransomed, or did they have some special fate in store for her?
That thought quickly turned to shock as Mayor Linstrom’s black Lincoln Town Car pulled up and parked on the street in front of her building’s simple glass entrance. Behind him was a Chicago PD car and three news trucks. The other shoe had finally dropped as she realized what was happening.
She tried to yell, straining to break free, but she couldn’t even make enough of a fuss to draw the attention of her captors.
The leader, who was in the driver seat, said something to the short man, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, who then handed the leader a small black device similar to a garage-door opener. Pressing a button, the leader seemed grimly satisfied when a small red light on the trigger mechanism turned green. Then he held his thumb over the trigger button as he watched the mayor step out of the rear passenger side of the Town Car. The mayor’s assistant and the press crews followed him as he walked toward the entrance of the massive old building.
Leading the pack, making expansive gestures and talking over his shoulder as he went, the mayor placed his hand on the door handle. Then his assistant waved for his attention and he paused, let go of the handle, and started to walk away from the building.
Growling, the leader moved his thumb to the top of the trigger button. He leaned toward the windshield. Gracie tried to scream.
The mayor stopped 10 feet from the front door, and his assistant signaled for the news crews. They got into position as the Mayor appeared to make some sort of speech in front of her building. Thank God for politicians.
The short man slammed his hand on the dashboard and said something in an annoyed tone. The leader quickly replied, then all four men began speaking very fast to each other. She didn’t know the language, but it was clear they were fighting over whether to hit the trigger right now, probably not knowing if the mayor would actually enter the building. Maybe their intel was bad, and any second now he would be done with his interview and would leave without ever entering at all.
Suddenly, the sirens on the top of the squad car lit up as both police officers exited the vehicle. The speed with which they did so suggested that they now knew something was seriously wrong.
As both police officers waved their arms and sprinted towards the mayor, some of the news crew scattered and some stayed put, ducking with their cameras pointed. Then one officer reached the mayor and grabbed him. His partner had his gun drawn and pointed upward as he scanned in all directions, ready to protect the mayor and his partner from whatever might occur. Just then, the redhead in the captain’s chair
next to Gracie pointed toward the windshield and yelled.
The leader, who’d been facing the rear of the vehicle at the time, arguing, swung around and saw the officers hustling the mayor away from the building. Spitting something that sounded like a curse, he pressed the button on his device.
An explosive pulse of energy from Gracie’s lab shook the earth below the van and windows along the building’s wall shattered outward. A bloom of fire rose from the site, then blanketed everything, igniting the vehicles, while the shock wave flipped them side-over-side like tumbleweed. In the blink of an eye, everything was engulfed in flames, and the combination of smoke and dust created a dense, dark cloud, cutting visibility to zero.
The van rocked as bits of debris starred and cracked the windshield.
8
Her best guess was that they’d been driving for at least eight hours. They hadn’t been stopped as they fled the scene of the explosion, and by now had already traveled west out of Illinois, through the southwest corner of Wisconsin and southeast corner of Minnesota, where the interstate literally cut through hills and forest land. For the last several hours, they had been making their way through the long stretches of fallow harvested farmland and the timid greens and yellows of the soybeans and winter wheat, the intermittent stands of deciduous trees with their color-drenched fall foliage and imposing evergreens that blanketed the southern third of Minnesota along I-90. The last few road signs they’d passed had indicated that they would soon be crossing the state line into South Dakota.
The men had barely spoken a word to one another since the explosion not even acknowledging she was in the van. That would have to change soon if they didn’t want her to soil herself. For hours, she had exhausted herself wondering how this had happened—in fact, what exactly had happened? Her mind worked the puzzle.
The Cure Page 3