by Diane Capri
The decor four floors down was the same as the ground floor. But here the doors had nameplates. Warning signs along with emergency plans were posted at regular intervals.
They entered a control room. Large glass windows overlooked sealed laboratories on the floor below.
Several desks were lined up facing a wall of TV monitors. The screens showed columns of numbers and graphs, and views of the labs from various angles.
There was only one person in the room, Rafa Lopez. Seated at one of the desks, he typed furiously on a computer keyboard. He finished typing and turned to Jess.
“Miss Kimball.” He simply stared for a good thirty seconds. “I can’t say that I am surprised. I should have guessed you’d be so tenacious and troublesome after I read your background.”
“Actually, Rafa, I am surprised.” Jess ignored her pounding heart and spoke as calmly as she could manage. “I didn’t know this was a Grupo Lopez facility.”
“Strictly speaking, it isn’t. There is no way I would have convinced the board to invest so much money down here.” He smiled and folded his hands together. “But me? I have no such obstacles.”
“Nice for you, to have enough money.” Her only hope here was to hold off whatever they planned to do with her until the navy arrived. The only weapon she had at the moment was her brain. “If I’d known you owned this place, I’d have called and requested a tour.”
“Yes, that would have been simpler for everyone.” He waved to encompass the whole of his surroundings. “And do you know why I established this facility?”
She frowned. “Mosquitoes?”
He snapped his fingers and stood up. “Excellent! Exactly. At least you were listening the last time we met.”
“I always listen. That’s my job.”
Vanna sneered. “You listen only to what you want to hear and disregard the rest.”
“Now, now,” Lopez said, with a dismissive wave in Vanna’s direction. “Miss Kimball has shown remarkable determination to get this far. The least we can do is respect her efforts.”
Vanna closed her mouth but continued the hard stare.
“You’re looking into malaria?” she said, simply to keep him talking.
Rafa nodded. “That’s right.”
“A million people die a year from that disease,” she said.
“Which is why I have invested so much of my own money here. This operation is state of the art. Even your CDC doesn’t have some of the technology I have here.” Rafa could not conceal his pride. Or perhaps he simply didn’t bother.
Jess edged from the guard toward the windows and peered at the labs below. “It’s a big operation.”
Rafa stood beside her, proudly explaining his systems as if she’d been invited on a public relations tour. “Each lab is independent. The equipment is cutting-edge technology. Each is designed for a particular specialty. Samples can be transferred from one lab to another through secure portals. Sample testing is done robotically. The data is collected, and copies are stored at three off-site locations. Automated systems can perform hundreds of experiments simultaneously, each varying a single parameter. Then we use the latest detection and correlation software to make links between cause and effect. Our progress is ten times faster than everyone else.”
Jess whistled almost involuntarily because it was true. “Most impressive.”
“This is the future of biochemistry.” Raffa nodded, this time wearing a genuine smile of pleasure.
She leaned closer to the window, peering into the empty labs below. “But there are no researchers?”
“Not at this time.” Rafa shook his head. “These labs have been working hard for quite a while. But at the moment we are in a different test phase.”
“Test?” she said, confident she knew the answer.
He nodded. “So we are waiting.”
“Waiting?”
“For more data. Science is a data-driven business, Miss Kimball. Surely you know that, yes?” He cocked his head.
“Yes, of course. It’s very, very impressive.” Jess wanted to push him further, but she decided to wait until she had a better understanding of what was happening. “You’re tackling the big problem. The big experiment you mentioned that night at dinner.”
He smiled. “Precisely.”
She sensed this was the time for a different approach. “You’ll be famous forever. No one will forget your name or your contribution to humanity. Like Aristotle.”
He bowed his head and offered a humble smile. “I will be pleased to have been of service to the world, Miss Kimball.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he held up his hand. “I have remembered that you are a reporter, aren’t you?”
She frowned. “Yes. That’s right.”
“Reporters are always looking for the next big story, are they not?” he said.
She offered a cautious nod.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
He gestured to the control room and the labs below. “You are here. The epicenter of the biggest story of our century. Very soon I shall know if we can save a million lives every year.”
She whistled again. “That is a headline story, indeed.”
“The biggest.” He looked at her with some sort of calculation going on in his mind. She could almost hear the wheels turning. “I could give you access. To document my life’s work. The risks and the effort and the triumphs.” He smiled. “To document my success for the world.”
She widened her eyes. “I’d be honored. But why not one of the science journals for a breakthrough of this magnitude?”
“The dry and dusty pages of academia? Hide my discovery amid their bickering and backbiting until one of them has a chance to steal it?” He shook his head. “I think not. Why not make it known to the world instead?”
“In a popular magazine.” She cocked her head and pretended to consider the possibilities. “An international magazine like Taboo with a sophisticated readership. Taboo readers would appreciate your accomplishments. Certainly.”
“Precisely! The world should know what I have achieved here.” Rafa smiled and raised both arms to encompass the room and his work.
His motives were as clear as they were self-serving. His ego was even larger than his very impressive facility.
“Yes, that makes total sense. Thank you for the opportunity.” Jess nodded as if the deal had been struck. Which, in a sense, if she survived, it had been. “My editor will first want to know he hasn’t wasted his money sending me here to report on the Kelso Products bombing. Does Debora Elden work in this facility?”
Lopez’s smiled faded. He folded his hands together again. “In the past.”
“Where is she now?”
“She understood the goal. She knew what we were doing here, and what was at stake.” Rafa drew a deep breath. He jutted his chin forward. “She was an employee at one time. One small part—”
“I’d like to see her. I need to clear Alex Cole of the charges against him, and I believe she has information that will help me do so.”
He closed his mouth. His expression hardened. “You’re becoming very tedious again, Miss Kimball.”
“I’m interested in what you’re doing, and I do think it will make you immortal. I’d definitely like to help you. But I made a promise to a friend and to my bosses, and I must honor that. Surely you, of all people, understand.” Jess flattered him shamelessly. If it got Alex Cole out from under these false charges, the flattery would be well worth her effort. “A man’s life is at stake, and I believe the police may have the wrong person in custody.”
“I’m certain they do have the wrong man, Miss Kimball.” Lopez glared and his blue eyes flashed against tanned skin that made him look more menacing than she’d seen him before. “Because the man responsible was killed in Johannesburg.”
Jess shifted her weight. Franco Olivetti, the fake Marco Benito, had planted the bomb. She was close to the truth now. She could feel it. “How do you know that?”
H
e turned to face her directly. His nostrils flared like an angry bull. “Because I sent him there to do it. Kelso had to be stopped.”
Jess suppressed a shiver as the truth finally found its way to her heart in a flash of clarity.
She was standing four floors underground in a secure facility with an armed guard prepared to shoot on command. Lopez did not intend to release her. He was willing to maim and kill to achieve his immortality. He’d done it before. He’d do it again. He’d spend less than a nanosecond mourning her when she died.
She took a breath, thinking furiously. Was there any way out of here? “So you had someone plant a bomb at Kelso Products to distract them.”
“Distract them? No, my dear.” He smirked and shook his head. “Kelso was ahead of us in the research when they stopped the work. They could not be allowed to restart. Grupo Lopez was close. Very close. Biological research is as much luck as skill. Simply put, Kelso could not get lucky before Grupo Lopez succeeded.”
“You worried they would get there before you. Solve the big problem. Mosquitoes and malaria.”
He gestured to the building. “I have invested heavily. I found the best scientists in the world. I’ve risked everything. I won’t be denied what should rightfully be mine.”
“Fame? Like Newton and Darwin?”
He breathed hard. “There’s nothing wrong with reaching for a prize.”
“But how you get there matters.”
He laughed, contemptuously. “What if I perform an experiment, and one person dies and one person lives? What does that tell you?”
“What you were doing was dangerous.”
“But what if I perform the same experiment on a thousand other people, and they all live? What then?” He paused for a moment. “History is littered with examples of people who didn’t do enough. People who fell short of greatness because they were too timid to reach further.”
Jess stared at him. For the first time, she fully accepted that he was evil to his very soul.
He leaned toward Jess. “That is why you need the courage to do big experiments. That is why how you reach your goal does not matter.”
“Of course, it matters.” Jess widened her eyes. “It matters to the person who dies. It matters to his family and the people who love him. It matters to all of us. You can’t just experiment on humans without regard to the consequences.”
He glared, his mouth half open. The air conditioner buzzed in the background.
She had gone too far. She’d pushed him over the edge, and he didn’t want to see what was below.
He took a deep breath, turned his back to her, and stared down at the labs below. “Take her away.”
The guard grabbed Jess’s arm and twisted it behind her back. She leaned forward to ease the pain.
“Get rid of her?” Sánchez said.
“Yes. But first, tell Tebogo to get the aircraft on the way. Now.” He scowled. “Get the product sprayed immediately.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Sánchez directed the guard to keep Jess’s arm twisted behind her back as they crossed the compound from the research building to another. The sight of Jess in pain seemed to please her, based on that gleeful smile.
The guard kicked open the door to the second building.
The noise hit Jess immediately. Animals were going wild, grunting and screeching. The smell came next. It was rancid and as primal as the noise.
The guard pushed her past cages of monkeys of all kinds. Most of them shrunk back into the corner of their tiny prison cells, but some of them hopped around, their arms reaching out between the bars.
The walkway between the cells was barely wide enough to keep away from the clutching hands.
Larger cells came next. Here, the dividing walls were solid, but the fronts were iron bars like in an old-time Wild West movie.
From her doubled over position, Jess saw Debora Elden in one of the larger cells. She was curled up in a far corner with her arms crossed, staring through the bars. Her eyes followed Jess as she passed.
Hadlow was in the next cell. He was leaning over, holding onto the bars, his head hung down. He swayed from side to side, groaning.
Sánchez unlocked the cell opposite Hadlow. She stepped behind the guard holding Jess.
Jess braced herself as the guard put one more pound of pressure into twisting her arm. He pulled her backward, and put his boot on her ass to shove her headlong into the cell.
Instead of toppling to the ground, Jess was yanked backward. The pain in her arm ratcheted up a notch. She yelped as she was thrown sideways. Which was when she saw Hadlow.
He had one hand wrapped around the guard’s throat and the man pinned against the bars.
In his other hand, Hadlow held the guard’s gun pointed directly at Sánchez’s face. “Don’t even think about it.”
Hadlow pounded the guard’s head twice against the bars. The guard dropped to the ground unconscious.
Lightning fast, Sánchez drew a knife and moved between Jess and Hadlow.
“You’re surrounded. Pull that trigger, and a dozen mercenaries will be here in seconds. You’ll seal your own death warrant.” She smiled as she adjusted her grip on the knife. “Let’s see how good you are without the gun. Better than your Johannesburg friend, I assume.”
“Jess, throw me the keys,” Hadlow said, eyes narrowed, the gun never wavering.
Jess unclipped a ring of keys from the guard’s belt. She hefted them in her hand, judging the weight before tossing them to Hadlow.
Her judgment was good. The keys landed in his hand.
He snapped his fingers closed, but the ring twisted in his hand and looped into the air.
Sánchez stepped forward.
Hadlow grabbed at the flying metal.
His second attempt was good.
“Back up.” He inched the gun forward toward Sánchez’s face. “A dozen mercenaries may kill me, but you’ll still be dead either way.”
She stepped back, breathing hard.
Hadlow worked his way through three keys before his cell door opened. The hinges creaked as he stepped forward.
All in one fast, smooth motion, Sánchez lunged, rammed her shoulder into the bars of the cell door, grabbed the gun, and yanked Hadlow’s arm upward against the edge of the door and over the lock’s bolt.
He grunted once and wrenched his arm free.
The gun spun down the walkway behind Sánchez.
He rammed the door back at Sánchez and stepped into the corridor.
He held his arms forward, fists clenched. He rolled his shoulders.
Sánchez speared forward, knife first. She swept the blade in a tightly controlled arc, her movements like lightning.
Hadlow was heavier and slower. He jerked his arm sideways, catching hers.
He deflected the knife’s path over his head.
Sánchez stepped to one side as she whipped the knife back.
Hadlow kicked her knee.
She rotated fast, folding her arm.
She smashed her elbow into the side of his head.
He punched at her gut.
She arched backward, but not far enough.
She grunted as he made contact, and lashed out with the knife.
The blade scored across his forearm.
Jess grabbed a flashlight from the guard’s belt. It was a light aluminum cylinder, but the batteries gave it weight.
Hadlow’s fists were up. Blood dripped from his forearm.
Sánchez was laser focused on him.
She darted left, swinging the knife.
Jess lunged forward, swinging the flashlight down toward Sánchez’s head.
The flashlight missed her head, smacking hard on the woman’s shoulder.
Sánchez turned and growled like one of the feral animals in the cages.
Jess kept the flashlight moving, using its momentum to bring it around in a circle.
Her second blow struck the back of Sánchez’s head with a sickening crunch.
Sánchez crumpled to her knees.
Jess swung again and connected a second time.
Sánchez dropped the knife to the floor.
A moment later Hadlow had the gun pointed at her, but she toppled backward.
“Is she dead?” Jess asked, breathing hard.
Hadlow growled, “We should be so lucky.”
Hadlow grabbed her feet and dragged her into his cell, banging her head against the door on the way.
He handed Jess the gun. Coldly, he said, “Shoot her if she moves.”
He dragged the guard into the same cell as Sánchez and took back the gun.
He glared at Sánchez and spat.
Jess said nothing. Given his feelings for his friend in Johannesburg, if Sánchez survived, she’d be lucky.
Elden eyed them suspiciously.
“We’re here to get you out,” Jess said.
“Who sent you?” Elden stepped back. “I don’t know who you are. And I’ve had enough surprises for today.”
“I’ve come all the way from Chatham to Spain and now here to find you.” Jess stepped up to the bars to Elden’s cell. “We know about you and Alex Cole, Local World Action, mosquito control, and the sepsis outbreak.”
“What do you mean?” Elden frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“We’re wasting time.” Hadlow opened Elden’s cell. “You can come with us, or you can stay here.”
She swallowed and stepped forward. “But there are armed guards everywhere. Mercenaries. And Rafa Lopez is here. He’s insane.”
“Good of you to mention it,” Hadlow said. “Are you coming or not?”
Something seemed to click with her and Elden’s demeanor changed instantly. She stepped out of her cell. She looked at Sánchez and the guard. “Wait here.”
She ran down the corridor and returned with a pair of syringes. She snapped off the protective covers from the needles and gave Sánchez and the guard a shot each. “They’ll be out for hours.”
“You said Lopez is insane. Why?” Hadlow said.
Elden took a deep breath. “At first, I thought he was really trying to do some good. He was investing heavily. We had great facilities. I reported back that our guys were on the wrong track.”