The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich

by Lars Emmerich

  His asshole old man had died around the same time, leaving him an unexpectedly large sum, which was likely the only reason Kittredge wasn’t sleeping in a gutter somewhere.

  But the gutter would probably have been a terrific place to hide. Homeless people don’t tend to leave much of a digital footprint. And homeless people have no trendy Cologne flat to break into, and probably have no boyfriends to bludgeon to death.

  A word popped into Kittredge’s inebriated mind. Copenhagen. Had he ever been to Copenhagen. What the hell was that about? What did a city in Denmark have to do with the Cologne murder of a man named Sergio Delafuentes?

  Or a man whose false name was Sergio Delafuentes. Kittredge sighed. As he walked deliberately to the restroom, taking care not to stumble, he determined that he had little better to do than figure it all out.

  He also had the inchoate notion that figuring out what had happened to Sergio might also serve to prolong his own life.

  Because Peter Kittredge had those kinds of acquaintances. And maybe they had caught up to him.

  5

  Evelyn Paulson awakened with a start. She had been dreaming. Sarah was running headlong through a field. Evelyn somehow knew a cliff awaited, but she couldn’t run fast enough to catch Sarah, to prevent her from falling. She had been calling out to her, running as fast as she could, but Sarah couldn’t hear her, dashing toward the sudden drop.

  Evelyn’s heart pounded. She moved to wipe the sleep from her eyes, but the biohazard suit blocked her hands. She had fallen asleep in the chair in Sarah’s hospital room at NIH. She didn’t know which was worse: the nightmare she’d awakened from, or the nightmare she’d awakened to.

  Jane, a familiar nurse whom Evelyn and Sarah had both grown to like over the past few days, stood by Sarah’s bedside, filling a tube with more of Sarah’s blood. “More blood?” Evelyn asked.

  “I’m afraid so. We keep hoping we’ll find something to slow this thing down.”

  “But they just took more blood, maybe three hours ago,” Evelyn said. “Why so many samples?”

  Jane turned to face Evelyn. “When?”

  “Not very long ago. Like maybe three a.m.”

  Jane checked Sarah’s chart. “There’s nothing annotated. Do you remember who took the sample?”

  Evelyn shook her head. The plastic hood scratched at her neck as she did so. “I didn’t recognize him, and he didn’t tell me his name. He had a little cooler, like a lunch cooler. He wrapped up the sample and put it in there.”

  Jane’s eyes widened. “A cooler? Are you positive?”

  Evelyn nodded.

  “Absolutely certain?”

  Evelyn nodded again.

  “Oh, my,” Jane said, worry on her face. She pondered for a brief moment, then rushed from the room.

  Dr. Fred Farnsworth answered the phone with his customary greeting: “Centers for Disease Control. Your bugs are our business.” It wasn’t in good taste, he’d been told, but he didn’t care. It made him chuckle inside. And he was a government employee. What were they going to do, fire him? Please.

  “I don’t think this is business you’re going to want,” said a familiar voice on the other end.

  “Jesus, Jack! How are you?” Jack Stephenson headed the New York hospital run by the National Institutes of Health. He and Farnsworth had met in medical school and had become fast friends. They’d stayed in touch through the years, and celebrated weddings, divorces, children’s weddings, and children’s divorces together.

  “One day at a time, Fred. And this hasn’t been a good one.” Stephenson explained the problem.

  Farnsworth whistled when Stephenson had finished. “Someone walked out with a gram-negative drug-resistant bacteria sample?”

  “We’re not certain, but that’s what it looks like. The guy was security savvy,” Stephenson said. “He knew where all the cameras were, and he never gave us enough of a face shot for the feds to get a biometric ID. No fingerprints either. He wore gloves in and out of the hospital, and he obviously used biohazard gloves to collect the sample.”

  Farnsworth was incredulous. “This guy collected the sample? He didn’t just steal it from the lab?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “The pharma guys are pretty ballsy as a general rule,” Farnsworth said, “but I’ve never heard of anything quite this brazen.”

  “What pharma guys?” Stephenson asked. “Nobody’s working on antibiotics. There’s no upside. I don’t know of a single major player that’s doing any antibiotics research of any consequence right now.”

  Farnsworth nodded to himself. Stephenson was right. It cost a billion bucks to produce a new drug. Nobody wanted to spend that kind of coin to produce a six-day course of antibiotics. Not when they could spend the same billion to produce a new mood enhancer, or dick stiffener, or blood pressure medicine, or anything at all that would require patients to take at least one pill every day for eternity. That’s how you made money in the pharmaceutical industry these days. You sure as hell didn’t make any money by serving the real medical need. It made Farnsworth too angry to see straight.

  “So you’ve talked to the cops?” Farnsworth asked.

  “FBI,” Stephenson said. “But I figured I owed you a call as well. This thing has a ninety percent mortality rate. And that’s among hospitalized patients. I can’t imagine what would happen if this bug got loose in a preschool somewhere.”

  “Christ, Jack. Ninety percent? Are you sure? Ebola only kills seven out of ten.”

  “I’m sure, Fred. It’s a gram-negative bug, of course. Twenty-eight cases so far, and twenty-five deaths. It kills in less than two weeks. It has the most endotoxic liposaccharide layer I’ve ever seen.”

  Gram negative bacteria were so named because of they way they responded to something called a “gram stain test,” an assay that positively identified other forms of bacteria by changing the color of their outer membrane. Gram negative bacteria had a liposaccharide outer membrane, comprised of fat and sugar molecules, which wasn’t stained by the gram dye. The lipid, or fat portion of the membrane, acted as a deadly toxin inside the human body. Each time the bacteria multiplied, the army of deadly bacteria doubled, their outer membranes collectively wreaking havoc on the host’s internal organs.

  It was always a fight to the death with such drug resistant bacteria. Evidently, this particular bug won nine battles out of ten.

  Farnsworth had known for a long time that something like this was a possibility. He’d lobbied for research funding. Unsuccessfully. Hospital-bred virulent bugs simply didn’t have the fundraising panache that breast cancer or children’s leukemia had. Those were terrible diseases, sure, but drug resistant bacteriological deaths were rising exponentially, and it wouldn’t be long before a pandemic became a distinct possibility. But finding a way to kill these superbugs was a social problem as much as a medical and scientific one. There was no incentive, anywhere, for anyone to do anything about it. Which meant that humanity was woefully unprepared.

  “Hell, Jack, I don’t have anything but isolation to use against shit like this.”

  “I know,” Stephenson said. “But I think you should be prepared to use it.”

  “Airborne transmission?” Farnsworth asked.

  “Only in aerosolized water or blood. Otherwise, it’s transmitted by contact and bodily fluids.”

  “Aerosolized water?” Farnsworth asked. “You think this could be a bioterror threat?”

  “I don’t know what to think, Fred. I know it sure as hell could be. And even if the guy just stole the bug for research purposes, it’s still a huge problem. If he doesn’t follow proper procedures, and that thing gets out into the general population…”

  He didn’t have to finish the thought. It could kill millions. Maybe tens of millions.

  And the panic would be even worse. If people knew they could catch a disease with a ninety percent mortality rate just by being around someone who sneezed or coughed in their direction, Farnsworth shuddered to think
what might become of society. He couldn’t think of a single social system, from food delivery to electrical power, that didn’t rely on people working together at some level. And if the bug got into the water supply somewhere? It would be a disaster of biblical proportions.

  “Okay, Jack,” Farnsworth said. “Thanks for the head’s up. We’re always ready to roll, but I’ll have my response teams recheck their supplies and the logistical plan. This thing sounds like a real ball buster.”

  “Sure as hell is. I’ll let you know if I learn anything more about the missing sample.”

  Farnsworth rubbed his chin as he gazed out his office window at the Atlanta skyline three miles to the southwest. Going to be a long week, no matter how this breaks, he thought.

  6

  Viktor Kohlhaas’ hands shook with anguished rage, and he paced back and forth in his spacious office in the secretive Pharma Synergique headquarters south of Paris. He turned to Franklin Barnes, the head of security at Synergique, and pointed his finger. “You will find out who put that on my desk,” he said. “And you will bring them to me.”

  Barnes had seen the boss upset before, but never like this. There was that time with the dog. It was pretty bad, and it had been a turning point. Synergique had made a lot more room on its ledger for security concerns after Mrs. Kohlhaas’ beloved poodle was found impaled on a stake in their front courtyard. There was no note, and nobody called to make any demands before or after the episode, but Viktor Kohlhaas knew who it had to be. Kohlhaas was badly shaken by it all, Barnes recalled, but the CEO had set his jaw and carried on, doing what needed to be done.

  But this… This was in a different league altogether. Someone had made it through all three exterior layers of Synergique security, including the three armed putzes in the anteroom, which was itself only accessible after getting through a retinal scanner. Then they had waltzed into Kohlhaas’ office, plopped the thermonuclear envelope on Kohlhaas’ desk, and waltzed right out again.

  “It has to be an insider,” Kohlhaas said still pacing.

  Barnes nodded. “It sure as hell seems more plausible than a break-in. If there’s a way inside this building that doesn’t require a badge, a PIN, and a retinal scan, I don’t know what it is.”

  Kohlhaas eyeballed the fat American security man. Barnes had beady eyes, big, pudgy hands, and a giant, bulbous head. He was going bald. Not gracefully, evidenced by the elaborate hair arrangement that somehow pasted strands atop Barnes’ head that had sprouted just above his ears. It was like human intestines. Forty feet long, or something like that, if you straightened it all out.

  Barnes had designed the security system, so of course the man was interested in defending its efficacy. “You will contract for a top-to-bottom review of our physical security plan,” Kohlhaas said with far more civility than he felt. “Utmost confidentiality. Select your favorite five contractors, and I will choose from among them. On Tuesday.”

  Barnes started to protest, but caught the look in Kohlhaas’ eye and thought better of it. “I can fly some guys in,” he finally said.

  “In the meantime,” Kohlhaas continued, “Notify the guards that nobody is to leave this facility today until you and I have personally interviewed them.”

  Barnes nodded. “We’ll issue a signed release letter after we’ve cleared them.”

  “Anything I’m missing?”

  Barnes chewed on the inside of his cheek and squinted his eyes a little. “You’ve ruled out contacting the police?”

  Kohlhaas exhaled, and his look became distant. “I haven’t ruled it out. But I’m not inclined to involve them.”

  “Something like this, though,” Barnes said, ignoring the stern look on Kohlhaas’ face. “You can’t just sweep this under the rug. They’re probably already involved. They’re probably putting a squad of dicks together to come over and talk to us. I really think it’s best to be proactive on this one.”

  Kohlhaas nodded. Barnes made a strong point. But there were equally compelling considerations that pointed in the opposite direction. Such as the illegal bugs in his incubators, and the billion-dollar breakthrough those illegal bugs had facilitated. If they were shut down now, during such a critical time, the impact could be devastating.

  And Kohlhaas wasn’t certain, with the amount of money involved, that the opposition hadn’t gotten to the police. Everyone had hopes, aspirations, and bills to pay. It meant that everyone had a price. Especially the notoriously purchasable Parisian detective squad. Kohlhaas knew this because he had them on retainer, but he wasn’t certain that his was the largest retainer they’d accepted. The opposition may have out-bribed him.

  He shook his head. “For now, we wait. Set up the alternate location, and tell me when it’s ready. We’ll call the police then.”

  Barnes exhaled heavily. “Are you sure? I mean, that’s a lot of work, Viktor. Getting the second lab up and running a month early… Something’s bound to go wrong.”

  Kohlhaas’ jaw clenched. “Set it up, please, along with the security review and the personal interviews with every last sonuvabitch who has access to this building.”

  It was Barnes’ turn to grit his teeth. “Will do.” He rose and took his leave.

  Kohlhaas returned to his desk. In the solitude of his office, he looked once again at the contents of the manila envelope.

  For the first time in anyone’s recent memory, Viktor Kohlhaas cried.

  When he had finished, he picked up the phone and dialed a number he had known for three decades.

  7

  Gunther Fleischer, a butcher of animals by both name and trade, and a butcher of men by both depraved proclivity and lucrative profession, hung up the phone. His old friend was balls deep in barracuda waters, as he was fond of saying in his younger, brasher years.

  Business had been slow. Fleischer had been selling a ton of meat recently, but that wasn’t the business he was thinking of. He hadn’t had a contract in a long time, going on a third of a year already. Maybe people thought of him as past his prime, or maybe he hadn’t done enough to insinuate himself into the younger generation of his ilk, the kind of people who were now paying for the kind of work he did.

  It was the kind of work for which a butcher shop was perfect cover. Blood was expected in a butcher shop, which made things easier. And butchers were constantly cleaning guts and bones off of the floor, so there was nothing unusual about a stream of crimson-laced water snaking its way from the loading dock out in back of the shop.

  Forty years. That’s how long he’d been in business, and that’s how long he’d been in the business. It was plenty long enough, and the gods knew he’d accumulated enough wealth to retire. But what would replace that visceral rush? What would give him the surge of adrenaline, or satisfy that life-or-death instinct that always took over in the moment of truth? What could ever replace the horrible, sickening, wonderful sounds of victory and ultimate dominion over another sentient being? So he kept going, maybe a little slower than before, but still with arms like oak limbs and a grip that could snap bones in two.

  His friend’s predicament was extremely unfortunate, and despite the fact that Fleischer had made lots of money over the years by killing people, he didn’t have a tendency toward schadenfreude. But he smiled just the same. He couldn’t help but feel the joy of being useful, being needed.

  The game was essentially the same now as it had been when Fleischer was just starting out. The people you were interested in finding were usually connected in some way to people you already knew, or whom you knew of. It was simply a matter of finding the right connections, following the leads, making your own luck. It was hunting. More protracted, maybe, but no less visceral, and certainly no less instinctual.

  But there were significant differences brought on by the modern world. People were now connected electronically. Before, his quarry’s relationships and affiliations were often exceptionally secretive, and discovering the relevant relationships was very difficult as a result.

 
Now, people displayed their friendships and affiliations on open networks. They talked about what interested them, and those conversations remained permanently affixed to the bulletin board of the universe, permanently available for someone like him to peruse. People treated friends like trophies. I have two thousand followers. How many do you have? Everything was open, and nearly everything was accessible and legible.

  But that was the problem nowadays. Damned near everything was committed to posterity. People created thousands upon thousands of connections with other people and organizations. They left breadcrumbs everywhere. Even while they slept, their phones dutifully reported their locations, updated their statuses. It was harder than hell to figure out what was meaningful. There was so much noise.

  So the problem was essentially the same as it had been for forty years. Finding someone who didn’t want to be found, or finding a public citizen’s private secret, or finding the physical address that corresponded to a high profile digital persona, was a very difficult task.

  But Gunther Fleischer was good at it. He loved the hunt.

  Almost as much as he loved the kill.

  8

  Saturday morning arrived early and with a vengeance. Peter Kittredge was awakened by the sickly tremors in his body, the uncontrollable shake that permeated his limbs and seemed to originate and reverberate inside his head. Not this again. He’d had too much to drink, for too many consecutive days. His nervous system had adapted to the continuous buzz, and the neurotransmitter receptors in his brain were gained up way too high to tolerate sobriety for any length of time.

  He rose from his bed, moaning, unable to lie still any longer. The clock told him it was 3:45 a.m. He’d been asleep for all of four hours. It was clear that he wasn’t going to be able to sleep another wink until he found something to cure what ailed him.