by J D Lasica
Lee led the group outside toward the Research Lab Zone and the gutter connect greenhouse in the rear of the Lab’s main building. Through the opaque polyethylene sheeting, he could see workers watering inside each of the four side-by-side bays, or compartments.
He opened the doorway of the third bay. A wave of humidity rolled over them as they entered the tented structure. The bay was climate-controlled to an unflinching eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, with a large swamp cooler throwing moisture into the air. He loved it in here, the primeval feeling of being in a tropical forest. And the smells! It smelled just like tea, a steamy, drowsy, morning aroma given off by the coca leaves.
Lee watched Harkness raise her eyebrows at the long rows of poppy plants with their red crepe-paper blooms and the green coca plants covering scores of wooden tables, all tagged with yellow labels. Running down the dead center of the bay, a row of emerald-green hemp plants shot up as high as ten feet, bunched together in black plastic pots to form a leafy aisle.
“The government has funded several of our research grants over the years.” Lee strolled over to the nearby lab table and inspected several Petri dishes side by side in front of a label that read, SYNTHESIZED. He checked the Petri dish with today’s date scribbled in wax on top, and then double-checked it before picking it up and examining it. A small mound of pure white powder rested inside.
Lee opened the lid, brought it over, and offered it to Waterhouse, Harkness, and Harrison. “Any takers?”
This was as close to high theater as Lee ever came. While he’d made no secret of his lifelong mood disorder, he thought the nickname Waterhouse coined for him—Dr. Gloom—was both offensive and undeserved.
All three men drew back at Lee’s offer. “No thanks, but be my guest,” Waterhouse said.
Lee located a tablespoon on the table, filled it with a generous heap of the pure white powder, brought it to his nostrils, and snorted deeply. He brought his handkerchief to his nose to wipe off the excess powder. They waited as Lee checked his watch.
“Normally, with that dosage, I would be writhing on the floor in convulsions by now.” Lee waited ten seconds and lowered his wrist. “And by now, I would be dead.”
Lee explained what his team had accomplished. They had genetically engineered new breeds of the plant Erythroxylum coca , source of cocaine, and the opium poppy Papaver somniferum , source of heroin. The new plants were identical to the standard varieties except for two key differences: The new strains were altered to eliminate all psychoactive properties—thus rendering the plants drug-free—and they contained a gene drive, meaning all future generations would also be harmless.
“From the nightclubs of L.A. to the crack houses of Crown Heights, the party’s over,” Waterhouse added for good measure.
“The drug war is not my focus,” Harkness broke in. That silenced things.
“Our demo is merely to show proof of concept,” Waterhouse said. “It’s to show a track record of success with our research grants. Let’s continue this conversation in Lee’s office. Harrison, thank you for the earlier demo.”
Lance Harrison looked pained at being left out of the deliberations, but Lee knew Waterhouse had strict rules about that. Everything was assigned to its own little box. Data Sciences had little idea about the latest research initiatives in the Genomics Lab, the Lab knew next to nothing about what was being spent on Marketing or Sales or the China operation. Only Sterling J. Waterhouse had his Dr. T.J. Eckleburg eyes on all aspects of the company.
Lee, Waterhouse, and Harkness entered the Lab and whisked down the main corridor, past large rooms brimming with microbiologists at tables filled with microscopes, computer screens, and lab equipment. At last they reached the modest office of Henry Huan Lee .
The two men sat and Harkness opened her attache case again. “Regarding the DNA visualization we saw earlier,” she said. “What are you asking for?”
Lee was curious to hear the answer, too. For one thing, the “suspect visualization prototype” they had devised was not the sort of technology an FBI agent could carry in his pocket, and he had no idea what kind of mobile labs the FBI used. Personally, he thought the tech would be of more use to local law enforcement and CSI at a crime scene, but it seemed Waterhouse had something else in mind. The “Chief” even had a marketing term for it already: DNA Crime-Solving in a Box.
“We believe this technology will be of enormous value to FBI agents in the field when time is of the essence,” Waterhouse began.
Harkness nodded. “There may be interest. However, I’m not authorized to negotiate on behalf of the Justice Department.”
“Understood. But you can convey a message. We’re looking for just one thing. Reciprocity.”
Harkness straightened in her chair, a paragon of perfect posture. Lee reimagined her as a Picasso painting, all right angles.
“We’re open to a simple trade,” Waterhouse continued. “The rights to the technology in exchange for full access to CODIS.”
Lee, unlike most viewers who watch TV crime dramas, knew that CODIS referred to the Combined DNA Index System, a national database maintained by the FBI that collects the DNA of anyone convicted of a crime—and a fair number of innocent suspects, too. Last time he checked, there were more than twenty-five million profiles and genetic records in CODIS and its sister National DNA Index System. Lee all but swooned at the potential discoveries such a database could unlock. CODIS was the motherlode of all DNA databases. Ten times larger than Birthrights Unlimited’s own massive DNA database!
“That’s a big ask,” Harkness said.
Waterhouse removed a one-page proposal from his jacket pocket and handed it to the Colonel. “We’re interested in the DNA records—strictly for research. Of course, we’ll sign an ironclad confidentiality agreement.”
Harkness took the one-pager from Waterhouse and deposited it into her attache case without examining it. “Very well. Now, my final item of business.” She removed a second frozen specimen box, this one smaller than the last, and placed it on Lee’s desk.
“What is it?” Lee asked.
Harkness handed them both a three-page document. “This should answer your question. And a reminder. You’re both under NDA.”
Lee browsed the document with the DARPA logo at the top. It was stamped TOP SECRET and titled, “Request For Proposal – Next-Generation Immune System Targeting.” He skipped over the boilerplate introduction and started reading the bullet points. Three phrases jumped out at him: “biological agent,” “genetically engineered pathogen,” and “microtargeted to a single individual.”
Clearly, it was a proposal Harkness was shopping around to the nation’s top research labs to see which ones would be willing to develop a designer disease.
Lee had read about this kind of cutting-edge biological warfare: targeting a specific ethnic group, sometimes a specific individual. He wondered whom the Department of Defense wanted to target. A terrorist leader? A foreign head of state? He had no interest in putting the scientific brainpower of Birthrights Unlimited behind a bio-weapons program.
He worried what this could unleash. What was the saying making the rounds? “The First World War was chemical. The Second World War was nuclear. The Third World War will be biological.”
Waterhouse finished reading the document and turned to Harkness. “We can do this.”
Lee felt a flash of indignation. This was a science matter, not a business matter! Waterhouse was always out there dancing on the knife’s edge, promising outcomes without any idea of repercussions or resources. The Lab was already behind deadline on a raft of deliverables with far-too-aggressive timetables.
“We will need to examine this in greater detail,” Lee broke in. He rose to his feet, signaling an end to this meeting. “You can leave your specimen with us, Colonel.”
Harkness looked a little surprised but managed to force a smile. “Thank you for your time, gentlemen.” She exited and met her driver outside the entrance to Lee’s office.
“What was that about, Lee?” Waterhouse demanded. “We could use Harkness and Justice to give us some cover with the grave teams.”
Lee remained neutral on the subject of the grave teams. He found the method distasteful at best, but the scientific opportunities were fascinating. He decided to remind Waterhouse of their arrangement.
“I don’t know anything about grave teams. When a specimen enters my Lab, I have no interest in how it got there.” He had made this clear on countless occasions. If Waterhouse was about to go off on a crime spree, he wanted nothing to do with it.
Waterhouse’s jaw tightened. “How are we doing with the new Intelligent Birth wing?”
Lee hesitated. He knew Waterhouse hated bad news. “I’ll have the early clinical trial results in two days.”
“Good. We may need to green-light the backup plan. A last-ditch human workaround if your machines aren’t up to the task.”
“I’m doing what I can,” Lee said with more patience than warranted. “You know what I always say, life sciences move at the speed of life.”
Waterhouse frowned. “One final matter to discuss. Dmitri Petrov.”
God help us , Lee thought, not Petrov! He wanted nothing to do with the man .
“Petrov’s deadline is tomorrow, I’m out of ideas—and we’re out of time.” Waterhouse’s eyes settled on the stack of papers Harkness had left behind. His expression changed from one of exasperation to one of blue-sky imagineering—a look that always worried Lee.
Waterhouse picked up the DARPA document and began reading. “Lee, tell me what you know about designer bio-weapons.”
14
New York, August 17
K aden took it easy on Nico during their lunchtime run on the Central Park loop. She met him at Columbus Circle just as a thundershower was beginning to pour down, and they began at the USS Maine monument for their run through the rain. She liked to run counterclockwise around the park, because you hit a nice downhill slope right away.
They jogged for a half hour side by side, just taking in the people, the back of the Met, the reservoir, and East Meadow before starting around North Woods. She’d heard people refer to her as a “punk” lots of times over the years, with her short, unruly hair, lip piercing, bigender shoulder tattoo, anti-fashion statement dress code, and refusal to wear makeup to hide the dark circles under her eyes. But today the stares she was attracting from passersby was because of the rain soaking through her sports bra and skimpy outfit.
“Hey, Double Threat.” Nico glanced over when they were halfway up Harlem Hill. “You ever have any role models growing up? ”
“Sure. Nobody in my home life, but when I was a teen I was fixated on David Bowie and RuPaul. And Amelia Earhart!”
Yeah, all three were uplifting, norm-flouting, gender-bending nonconformists, but more than that. They were pioneers, risk takers, fearless rule breakers. She felt a special kinship with Earhart, the aviator who didn’t fit into her time. The fact that Amelia dressed like a boy was just a bonus. Kaden imagined that she and Earhart shared the same wanderlust, the same stirring to go off and look for something greater than themselves.
“How about you?” she said.
“Nobody in my personal life, either. Orlando Cruz the boxer. Jason Collins in the NBA. Not too many out and proud gay black athletes.”
They traded stories about their misspent youth while taking in the midtown cityscape all the way down to the Ramble. Nico had his own broken childhood and his own reasons for signing up at Lost Camp—an abusive, alcoholic, gay-bashing father, a mother strung out on opioids, a need to get his shit together and move on with his life.
They had that in common. Damage . Trust issues. Maybe that’s why they gravitated toward each other. Maybe that’s what drew her to New York.
To her, New York was a promise, an awakening, a chance to shut out her fears and reinvent herself. She loved its rhythm, its ambient hum, its grit, its manic energy, its oily tastes and steamy smells—and always, the madness of the city streets.
New York. An entire city of survivors.
Except for Nico. He looked like he might not survive this run.
“Come on, only six miles!” she teased.
“Not gonna happen today. I’m beat.”
They passed the west side of the reservoir and lake and decided to call it a workout at Strawberry Fields, the memorial to John Lennon. They found a nice deserted bench beneath a stand of elms. This was one of her favorite escapes.
She tugged on her earrings with the colorful pride rainbow to make sure she hadn’t lost them in the rain during the run.
“Still keep in touch with our Lost Camp crew?” she asked.
She remembered Sunshine and Phantom, part of their tight-knit foursome. And the guy they called Seal because all he could talk about was the Navy SEALs. Kaden had put off her childhood desire to serve in the military, at least for now. She had gone to Lost Camp for her own reasons. To weaponize her body.
“Yeah, we text, mostly,” Nico said.
She sat there on the park bench and raised her face to welcome the refreshing downpour, letting it pelt her cheeks as her mind returned to the only place she felt she truly belonged.
Looking back, she realized that the most deep-seated connections she’d ever made were in that spec ops boot camp. Lost Camp, as she would discover, was less a special operations school and more an abandoned set of decrepit military barracks that an enterprising former CIA spook had turned into an off-the-grid training encampment. Not that she was expecting West Point, or even Camp Lejeune.
The instructor made it clear to the poolees that he wouldn’t tolerate any crap about Kaden—and that Kaden would receive no special treatment. That’s exactly what she wanted. She got the same treatment as the men on the forty-mile “ruck marches” where you had to carry a fifty-pound rucksack over steep hills and rough terrain. She held her own during aerobic power training, endurance training, static holds, toughness training, escape training, kettlebell exercises, rope climbing, obstacle courses, combat conditioning, swimming, running, counter surveillance, and long-range precision marksmanship.
On the first day, once she had her head shaved, you couldn’t really tell if she was a girl or boy, and she was surprised that during the entire grueling camp she didn’t have to put up with lewd jokes or ass-grabbing or any other crap. These men were different. They treated one another with a cool professionalism and a mutual respect. After all, they’d all signed up for hell.
As the rain splattered her face, she realized Nico was talking. “Phantom and Sunshine are leaving for a new assignment even as we speak.”
“I have a feeling we’re done with our spec ops missions. Unless we run our own.”
She filled him in about her strange encounter with her adoptive parents, the letter from her real mom, the confrontation with Contact, and all the questions that were floating in her head.
Nico took it all in and finally said, “Yeah, sounds like we have our own assignment.”
She nodded. She began telling him the rest of what she had turned up since yesterday. The wire transfers to her crypto account—the payments for their freelance operations came from an anonymous bank account in Zurich. The phone number she’d spotted on Contact’s smartphone was no longer in service, and before that it was a private number. But she managed to hack into the wireless carrier’s records and identified the caller.
“His name is Randolph Blackburn,” she told Nico.
She waited to see if his name meant anything to Nico. It didn’t.
“I Googled this guy,” she said. “He’s a hedge fund manager turned big data profiteer. He lives in a lavish estate in Bel Air, and he’s worth something like two billion dollars. Beyond that, I have no clue who this guy is or what he’s up to.”
Blackburn could be the one who financed my freelance jobs, though I don't have any proof yet. What was he up to? And how far back did it go? Did Blackburn hire my adoptive parents all those years ago? Why in
God’s name?
They watched as a family of Asian tourists formed a circle around the IMAGINE mosaic on the ground before one of the kids broke loose and began splashing in the puddles.
Nico chewed over everything she’d told him. He rose to his feet and wiped the rain from his brow. “Why don’t we pay Mr. Blackburn a visit?”
15
Tiraspol, Moldova, August 17
A nton Bors settled into his cramped workspace in the sprawling converted garment factory, just a mile hike from his parents’ faceless apartment overlooking the Dniester River. The cavernous room, already dank with sweat, hummed with the hypnotic clatter of keyboards as rows of bored men and a few hard-edged women entered data. As if abiding by a dress code, the women all dressed in ratty jeans and threadbare T-shirts and they wore earbuds to tune out the inept stabs at witty conversation by the data scrapers sitting next to them.
Anton estimated there were maybe 500 “data operators” working in the Pit, as everyone called it, but at fifteen years old he was surely the youngest. He’d gotten his position through a manager friend who looked the other way when it came to his age. His friend had just been fired for not meeting his production quota, but for now Anton’s job seemed to be safe.
He just wished his grind of a job was half as entertaining as his nighttime pursuits: hacking into American women’s Internet- connected sex toys and giving them an extreme, unexpected jolt of pleasure. You’re welcome, miss!
He heaved a sigh as he got down to his daily routine. He saw that his work queue contained 650 new tasks for today. Still, wasn’t he better off than his friends, hosing shit off the streets or stocking store shelves with crap nobody could afford to buy? No one had any money in Moldova. For young people, there was nothing to work toward. So you had a binary choice: become a blackhat or a loser. The choice was easy, but he had bigger dreams. Some day he would move to Silicon Valley and launch a startup worth ten billion Moldovan Leu minimum .