The Judas Virus

by Don Donaldson

  While Michael and Chris got back in their car, Gene walked to the mouth of the alley and checked the street. He motioned for them to proceed.

  Michael backed up quickly and made a tight turn in the street. He dropped the car into Drive and off they went. Chris turned to wave good-bye, but Gene had already disappeared into the alley.

  As the bleak warehouse district sped by, Chris wondered what her life would have been like if she’d had Gene for a father. He certainly would never have left her and her mother. Nothing about their two lives seemed fair. She’d been denied love, and Gene had lost the family he loved. Why did life have to be so perverse?

  “Did you bring any clothing on this trip you can’t bear to lose?” Michael said.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “Danner obviously believed he’d found our car. If I were him, I wouldn’t just post someone to intercept us when we came back to it, I’d try to get inside and go through the glove compartment to see if I could find the name of the owner.”

  Chris opened the glove compartment. “The rental agreement is in here,” she said.

  “The car was still locked, but that doesn’t prove they weren’t in it. And even if they didn’t break in, they could run a check on the plates.”

  “Then contact the rental agency and get your name,” Chris said.

  “If they had my name, they could find out where we’re staying.”

  “By calling all the motels in Newark? Come on, now you’re losing me. That would be so much work.”

  “Considering what we saw at the dock, he’s got a lot at stake. Do you want to take the chance he wouldn’t do that?”

  “No.”

  “Let’s get out of here tonight—right to the airport and out on whatever flight is available to Atlanta.”

  “Looking like this?”

  “We’ll find a Walmart and get some dry clothes. We can change at a Burger King or something.”

  “I guess we have no choice.”

  “How much you figure that laptop is worth?”

  “Fifteen hundred.”

  “I don’t know about New Jersey, but in some states, that would make its theft a felony. I hope there’s something useful on it.”

  “Let’s find out.” Chris eagerly flipped the laptop open and turned it on. The screen quickly powered up, and she scanned the folders.

  “Uh-oh.” She clicked on a folder, then on a file inside.

  “What have we got?” Michael asked.

  “Dates and amounts of meth delivered every week for the last six months, and the names of the recipients.”

  “Very incriminating stuff. Anything else?”

  She closed that file and looked further. About halfway down the screen, in the middle of a row of folders that didn’t seem of any interest, she saw one that definitely caught her attention.

  “Here’s a folder titled ‘Ash contract.’”

  She opened the folder. Inside were two files. The title of the first repeated the folder title, but the second made her eyes widen even further.

  “Michael . . . there are two files in here. One with Ash’s name on it, and the other with the name Dewitt.”

  “Carter Dewitt, the Monteagle VP for financial affairs?”

  “His first name isn’t there, but it has to be him.”

  Chris opened the file with Ash’s name on it and began to read.

  Michael waited impatiently for less than a minute, then said, “Well?”

  “I need a little more time.”

  As Chris read, her mind went on a tear, arranging everything that had happened in the last few weeks into a logical construct that was as sickening as it was horrible.

  Chapter 38

  “THEY’RE MURDERERS,” CHRIS said. “The Fairborns, Mary Beth Cummings, the Barrosos, Dan Gaynor, Lucy Cowles—they killed all of them.”

  “What the devil are you reading?” Michael asked.

  “It’s a contract between Ash and Iliad, giving Ash one third ownership of the patent for a therapeutic virus they’re calling T-1, but which I’m sure is our virus. It’s all so obvious. When our virus was purely therapeutic, I’m sure there was a bidding war going on for it, but when it turned lethal, its value must have plummeted. So Iliad got the rights from Monteagle very cheaply.”

  “But it isn’t really lethal,” Michael said, taking up the story. “Ash somehow infected the nurses and the others with the Kazak hantavirus.”

  “That has to be what happened. Ash was the one with Lansden in Kazakhstan. He brought hanta samples back with him, and for some reason, just kept them in his freezer. The epi one Sam Fairborn found said that shortly after an infected person or animal died, the medical team could no longer find any virus in the body, that the virus must have been very sensitive to degradation by all the enzymes the victim’s cells release after death.”

  “Making it untraceable,” Michael said. “The perfect murder weapon.”

  “They could have infected those who died by contaminating the needles used at Monteagle for drawing blood samples from all the victims.”

  “But why did they kill Gaynor and Cowles?”

  “Those were either mistakes—infected needles ending up in the wrong place—or they did it intentionally to draw more attention to the lethal nature of the virus. The bigger the stink, the less competition Iliad would have buying the rights from Monteagle.”

  “That’s where Dewitt came in. He must have helped steer the sale to Iliad.”

  “Let me check just to be sure . . .” Chris opened the Dewitt file and scanned the first few lines of that contract. “There it is—Carter Allen Dewitt.”

  “How was the virus in the contract described?” Michael asked.

  “It was identified by its RNA sequence.”

  “But we don’t know the sequence of our virus, because Ash said he hadn’t determined it, which must have been a lie. Without knowing that our virus and the one in the contracts are the same, the rest is just conjecture. And from what I’ve seen of Detective Lenihan, the cops are going to want proof they’re identical.”

  “How can we get proof? All the blood samples that had our virus in them were turned over to Iliad. Wait a minute . . . There is one place where we might be able to get a sample. My father.”

  “How can we do that? There’s no transplant virus in his blood anymore. Like all the others who got infected, he was virus positive for only a few days.”

  “I read a report a few years ago that HIV gets sequestered in lymph nodes. And both HIV and our virus are retroviruses. So maybe we can find our virus by biopsying one of my father’s nodes. We could take it over to a virologist at the CDC for sequencing. I know it’s a long shot to think we’ll find it, especially since our virus doesn’t behave like a typical retrovirus, but I can’t think of any other way to get a sample.”

  “Let’s do it . . . if Wayne will agree.”

  By the time they’d found a Walmart, changed into their new clothes, and reached the airport, it was so late the first flight they could get to Atlanta was at five thirty the next morning. Apart from the dismal prospect of spending the night at the airport, both were concerned that the goon Michael had put to sleep in the alley might cruise the place with some friends looking for Michael. And since the airport was already practically deserted, he’d be easy to spot.

  At Chris’s suggestion, they’d kept the rental car until they’d checked on available flights, so they at least still had transportation. Deciding that it was being overly cautious to worry about Danner’s men cruising every motel parking lot in Newark looking for the car, they bought a few toiletries at an all-night drugstore, then found a cheap place to stay, where they registered under false names and paid for their rooms in moist cash.

  The next morning, with Chris’s ey
es a little bloodshot and Michael’s hand aching from punching the goon on the dock, they returned the rental car, caught their flight, and were back in Atlanta a little before 8 a.m., carrying their salt-encrusted clothing and Danner’s laptop in a couple of plastic Walmart bags.

  “Let’s call Wayne,” Chris said as they passed a bank of pay phones in the terminal.

  “Do you know his number?”

  “I remember it.”

  Wayne answered, sounding a little groggy.

  “This is Chris. Michael and I want to talk to you about something. Is it okay if we come over now? . . . Good. We’ll be there in about half an hour.”

  WAYNE CAME TO the door of his apartment looking alert, well groomed, and in good health. This caused Chris to conclude that his lethargy on the phone earlier had been because she’d awakened him, not the effects of a hangover.

  “You two are certainly out early this morning,” Wayne said, letting them in. Seeing the bandage across the bridge of Chris’s nose and the one on her hand, he said, “Boy, you did get banged up the other night.”

  “It wasn’t something I’d want to do again.”

  “The news said the guy is dead. I was glad to hear it. I’m just sorry you had to go through that.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I got some news myself yesterday, and I thought about calling you, but I wanted to tell you in person. I almost can’t believe it. I’ve had a novel making the rounds in New York for so long I’d given up hope on it. But my agent called yesterday. She’s sold it . . . not to one of the major houses, but another real publisher. They’ve offered me a two-book deal. The advance isn’t six figures or anything, but I’m going to be back in print.”

  “Congratulations,” Chris said.

  Michael extended his hand. “Wayne, that’s great. I’m happy for you.”

  As Wayne and Michael shook hands, Chris was surprised to realize that she felt proud of her father. To keep writing after what he’d been through—all the rejections—it was a fine accomplishment. A part of her wanted to hug him and tell him she was proud and share his triumph. Instead, she heard herself say, “I met an interesting person while I was gone, a homeless man who once had a wife and daughter. But they were killed in a plane crash. He was so devastated by the loss that he’s wandered the streets ever since, unable to forget them, too grief stricken to care about anything else. What do you think of that?”

  The joy went out of Wayne’s eyes as her dagger found its mark. “I think what happened to him was a terrible thing. But it was his family that died. He didn’t. He should never forget them, but he’s carried the pain with him far too long. And as a result it’s damaged him. I’m sure his wife and daughter wouldn’t have wanted that kind of life for him. He needs to let the wound heal.”

  Seeing that Chris had gone off the tracks, Michael interceded. “Wayne, we’re here to ask a favor. We’d like to take a biopsy of one of your lymph nodes to see if it contains any copies of the transplant virus. It’s a quick procedure. We’ll have you in and out in no time.”

  Even Chris was aware that her attack on Wayne was counterproductive to securing his cooperation for a biopsy, so she willingly let the focus of the conversation shift in that direction. From the moment she’d suggested that they try to get a virus sample from Wayne, both she and Michael had doubts he’d agree. Now that he was smarting from having Gene thrown in his face, they both waited for his answer even more apprehensively than they might have if she hadn’t done that.

  Speaking to Michael, Wayne said, “You’ve given me back my life. How can I refuse you a favor?”

  Michael called the hospital, checked on the availability of an OR, and set up the procedure for one o’clock that afternoon. Then he and Chris left.

  “I shouldn’t have mentioned Gene to him,” Chris said on the way to Michael’s car. “I didn’t plan to do it. It simply slipped out. My anger toward what he did is like a kitchen fire. I think I’ve got under control, then it suddenly springs back to life.”

  “With the rocky relationship you two have had, it’s going to take a while for you both to find common ground. What do you want to do about the incriminating meth file on Danner’s laptop?”

  “For now, nothing. Until we get the results of the biopsy, I don’t want to alert Ash or Dewitt in any way.”

  “That seems wise to me, too. What are we going to do with the computer?”

  “I’ll lock it up in my home file cabinet. As soon as I get cleaned up, I’ll call the CDC and line up someone to analyze that node.”

  “How long will the analysis take?”

  “I’ll ask.”

  When they reached the parking lot of Chris’s apartment, she put her hand on Michael’s arm. “Thanks for going to Newark with me. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  WHEN MICHAEL AND Chris left, Wayne slumped into his chair in front of the TV. His book deal had been tarnished by his daughter’s refusal to forgive him for what he’d done as a foolish young man who’d had storms raging inside him he didn’t understand or know how to control. If there was some way he could confront that man now, he’d beat him senseless.

  Wasn’t love supposed to conquer all? Apparently that didn’t extend to strong-willed women wronged by their old man.

  He sat there for a long time, until he began to wonder if he even knew the meaning of love. Maybe Chris was right. He shouldn’t be forgiven. Maybe there was something fundamental missing in him, and his wish for forgiveness was just another selfish act to make him feel better.

  The realization that he was quite possibly a man without a soul blew across him like a cold wind.

  Chapter 39

  THE PAGE IN front of Detective Lenihan was filled with row after row of the letters A, U, G, and C in different combinations. Under each row of black letters there was a row of red letters.

  “The black lettering is the nucleotide sequence of the virus in the contract on Paul Danner’s computer,” Chris explained. “The red lettering is the sequence the CDC obtained from virus found in one of my father’s lymph nodes.”

  Chris paused while Lenihan bent to examine the two sequences. When he’d had enough time to get the picture, she said, “They’re identical.”

  “Obviously, Ash lied when he told us he hadn’t sequenced the transplant virus,” Michael said. “He did sequence it, but didn’t want anyone to know that much about it until Iliad had secured the rights.”

  “But in order for the contract between him and Iliad to mean anything, the virus had to be specifically identified,” Chris said.

  “This story you’ve outlined for me goes far beyond the authority of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office,” Lenihan said.

  “We’re aware of that,” Chris replied. “But we were sure you’d know what to do next.”

  “I’ll have to bring the Atlanta and Newark police in on it.”

  “Good,” Chris said. “The sooner the better.”

  “I’ll need to take that laptop as evidence.”

  “It’s all yours.”

  “I have to tell you, this alone isn’t going to be enough to hang these guys. But I’m pretty sure it’ll give us probable cause to get a search warrant.”

  “Looking for what?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say. Was there anything else you wanted to tell me?”

  Chris shrugged. “We thought what we already said would be more than enough.”

  “I’ll get to work on it, and we’ll see what happens.”

  “I’M NOT ENCOURAGED,” Chris said to Michael in the hall after leaving Lenihan’s office.

  “I admit, I kind of expected them to run right over to Monteagle and arrest both Ash and Dewitt.”

  “A search warrant . . . What
do they expect that to produce? Ash isn’t so stupid as to keep any incriminating evidence around. I’ll bet he’s even destroyed his remaining stocks of Kazak hanta. After all we went through to get that computer, I can’t believe it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It got Lenihan moving.”

  “Ash has to pay for what he did. He just has to.”

  AS ERIC ASH pulled into the Monteagle parking garage, he was still troubled over the events of the past few days. First, that idiot, Garland, botched the hit on the Collins woman. Then there was the conversation he’d had with Paul Danner yesterday. His laptop stolen, with Danner just a few feet away. And with the virus contracts on it.

  Damn the man’s carelessness.

  But the real worrisome part of that story was the description of the thief: curly blond hair, heavyset. That sounded a hell of a lot like Michael Boyer. There was a woman present as well. And no one seemed to know where Boyer or Collins had been yesterday. All that made him feel as though a storm were building that he was powerless to stop.

  He’d considered marshaling what resources he could and clearing out, but then what? A life where he’d have to live as a fugitive under a phony name, waiting tables for a living? He couldn’t do that. It was this life or a better one, nothing less. So he’d have to be optimistic and hope that wasn’t Boyer and Collins in Newark. Even if it was, and they thought they had it figured out, they’d need the transplant virus sequence to prove anything. And they didn’t have it. So he’d stay strong, behave normally, and hold on.

  Ash pulled into his parking space, got out of the car, and locked it. Suddenly, men in ill-fitting suits were coming toward him from all directions. Behind him, he heard a familiar voice.

  “Dr. Ash, I have a search warrant for your car, your office, and your home.”

  Ash turned to face Detective Lenihan. Though the blood was pounding in Ash’s ears, he struggled to appear calm as the men closed in.

  Lenihan gave Ash a document. “We’d like to begin with your car. May I have the keys?”

  Wordlessly, Ash detached his car key from his other keys and gave it to Lenihan.