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Infertile Grounds

Page 16

by DB Carpenter

"Is she up?"

  "Yes, but she had an early appointment. She told me to tell you that she'd be back around ten, and then you two can get ready to leave."

  "Excellent. It's awfully early for a meeting, isn't it?"

  "Sometimes it's easier to get people's attention first thing in the morning."

  "Do you want to join me?" Sarah asked. She wanted to know exactly how much he knew about her and Gen96.

  "I would love to, but I have to prepare Camilla's bags for your trip later today," he replied as he stirred two heaping teaspoons of brown sugar into his coffee. "She says she'll be gone for a couple of weeks. Does that sound right to you?"

  She nodded. A phone started ringing from the kitchen. "Excuse me, Ms. Burns, that might be Camilla. I should go and get that." Albert excused himself and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. A few moments later he was back.

  "That was Camilla. She told me to tell you that she'll be back here later than expected, but it will be before six tonight and you will both be leaving this evening."

  "Will you be joining us on the trip, Albert?" Sarah enquired.

  "Not in the plane. I'll be driving up later on tonight."

  He started to leave and Sarah said, "Albert?"

  He paused and without looking at her replied, "Yes?"

  "Do you know who I am?"

  He turned. His brown eyes bore into her from the middle of his bald, round head. Since she had met him yesterday, his expressions always seemed forced, as if he were putting on a mask for each situation.

  His gaze flickered under her well-practiced icy analytic glare as he replied, "Yes, Ms. Burns. I know you are a very good friend of Camilla's from back at college." The muscles on the side of his smooth scalp twitched.

  Sarah smiled and turned back to her breakfast thoughtfully. This was not good. He knew everything.

  11:28 am Lake Horace, New Hampshire

  Maurice ran his hands over his thinning, grey, cap-tussled hair and let out a sigh as he shook his head gently. "Let me tell you about Sarah. As you know, I was a mentor to her. She was like my daughter until her senior year. Then she became somewhat distracted – started to socialize with a different group of people and lost her focus."

  "Do you know how many infants die every year globally from malnutrition and mostly preventable diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and pneumococcal diseases like meningitis, pneumonia and sepsis, Pell?"

  Pell shook his head.

  "Eight million," Maurice continued. "Sarah became obsessed with that fact. These are preventable deaths. We've got the medication and vaccines but access to healthcare is the real issue. Over 1 billion people have no access to healthcare. None whatsoever!"

  Maurice paused for a long moment. "That's a billion, with a capital B. It's staggering and in developing countries, even half of those children who receive medical treatment will die anyway, if you can believe that. We're living on two different planets."

  "Her thesis was focused on the potential for manipulating viruses and bacteria at the genetic level, potentially eradicating them all together or at least fundamentally altering their abilities and she developed a marvelous computer simulation on the impact of removing cholera, malaria, dysentery and other scourges of the developing world from the face of the earth. The results were not what she or I expected. They were shocking and I think it was that moment, after we validated her logic and assumptions, that I lost her."

  "What kind of results?" Pell asked.

  Maurice stared through the far wall for a moment before saying, "Short-term benefits but mid-term disaster. There'd be no way to feed the tens of millions of people normally culled by disease – the end-result was rampant starvation, squalor, social chaos – a downward spiral that always ended in disaster."

  "Jesus," Pell muttered as a shudder rolled down his back. "You said that was when you lost her? What happened?"

  "She developed a friendship at college around that same time. I was encouraging Sarah to finish her thesis and publish. It was groundbreaking research and was important that she brought this into the public arena. But she started to become more distant and was very reluctant to finish or publish her thesis. She spent a lot of time with her new friend and less time on her work."

  "Who was this friend? Male or female? Do you remember a name?" Pell asked.

  "Of course I remember her name. It was Camilla Haywood."

  "Camilla Haywood, the actress?"

  "Yes, that's her," Maurice replied. "She and Sarah became very close. It was an odd friendship since Camilla was not a natural academic. In fact, she wasn't an academic at all. She got into Harvard through connections, though I never could work out why she would want to be there. After all, she went on to become a famous actress, hardly a typical Harvard career path."

  "It was frustrating for me because I wanted Sarah to focus on our work. We, or really she, was formulating radical ideas and approaches to DNA – how to slice it and dice it, to use it as raw building blocks for creating new forms of life. If she has successfully taken it from theory to practice, it's Nobel Prize material but, if she's developed something that is not being ratified and jointly developed with the right scientific bodies, peer reviews and oversight, it could be our worst nightmare."

  "Jesus Christ," Pell muttered. Camilla Haywood was Hollywood royalty.

  Maurice said, "I loved Sarah like one of my own, but if she's doing what you say, you must find her. I've always feared what is possible with biotechnology. Did you ever think about it?"

  "Of course, I just thought it would come from outside the country – from the middle-east or someplace like that. And, frankly, I never considered that it wouldn't outright kill people either. This seems almost more sinister."

  "I might have educated a monster." Maurice covered his wrinkled face with his hands. "Sarah's trying to avenge nature. The way she sees it, man is the problem. Back then, I thought it was typical college-campus-induced, save the world ideology. You know how blind, how naïve, college kids can be. Their interpretation of reality usually changes radically once they get into the real world. But apparently she never outgrew it. I probably gave her what she needed to accomplish her nefarious task. At the very minimum, I pointed her in the right direction."

  "I wouldn't worry about that Mr. Andleman. She would have done it with or without you. All I know is that I've got to find her. Can you remember anything else, anything at all?"

  Maurice slowly shook his head. "Nothing that I can think of."

  Pell sensed that the old man was holding something back but he didn't have the time to sit and chat all day – maybe he was just upset that one of his wunderkinds was on a quest to change the world. He stood and handed Maurice his business card. "If you remember anything else, give me a call. That's my mobile number. Use it day or night."

  "Good luck, Pell," Maurice said.

  "One more thing, Mr. Andleman. I think someone is following me. I lost them down in Boston this morning, and I don't think that they tailed me up here, but if anyone you don't know shows up here, be real cautious."

  Maurice grimaced.

  Pell backed out of the driveway. The retired educator peered at him through the back window of the camp. He hadn't meant to scare the old guy, but he needed time to follow up on what Maurice had told him. And if all it took was making an old man a little more cautious of strangers, so be it. Carl's agents would come here. This was the obvious place to start.

  He set out on the drive back to Boston. All he wanted to do, besides have a drink, was make a few calls. Camilla Haywood was probably going to be a dead end but she was the next logical step. How many of his friends from U Mass had he seen in the last five, or even ten, years? People change – most people at least. The odds of Camilla and Sarah still being chummy were slim to none.

  He looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a police cruiser on his tail with his blues on. He glanced down at the speedometer. Busted. The cruiser tailed him onto the shoulder of the road.

  Pell
sat patiently, waiting for the cop to come up and scribble out a ticket. He debated whether or not to show his FBI credentials and say that he was on a case, when he heard the trooper's voice coming over the external speaker mounted on the roof of his cruiser.

  "Put your hands in the air," the voice said. What the hell? He had just been speeding.

  The voice repeated the command, and Pell obliged. He watched in the mirror as the cop got out of his cruiser, his pistol drawn. This wasn't right.

  "Keep your hands where I can see them," the cop said as he dropped the microphone and stepped toward the car.

  The cop kept his pistol on Pell as he opened the car door with his left hand. Then he backed off. "Get out of the car – real slow."

  "What seems to be the problem, officer?" Pell asked. He knew damn well what the problem was. Carl Moscovitz surely had something to do with it.

  He climbed out of the car. His arms were still over his head as the cop told him to turn around.

  "Is this how you treat speeders?"

  "Shut up," the officer said. "There was an all-points-bulletin issued for your arrest twenty minutes ago. I don't know what you did, but I'm glad that you're here. It makes the day more interesting. Put your hands on the car."

  He started to drop his hands. This was it. His career at the FBI, the only real job he ever had, was about to end. Thrown out and unemployed, probably in jail – just where he wanted to be at 42 years old. His face flushed with anger. But if he were to be completely honest, he had known this would happen. As soon as he went to Harvard this morning he had set his professional demise in motion.

  The cop patted him down and found his pistol in its shoulder holster. "What have we got here," he said as he pulled it out.

  "I'm an FBI agent," Pell said. "There must be some mistake. My ID is in my coat pocket."

  The trooper pulled out Pell's ID and examined it. "You must have done something real wrong," he said. "They want you bad."

  Pell shook his head. "It's got to be a mistake. I was up here working a case."

  "I'm sure it's a mistake, Agent Pelletier; these sort of things always are, but I'll let you all work it out on your own. All I know is that I'm bringing you in."

  He grabbed Pell's right hand, twisted it behind his back, and snapped on a handcuff. As he started to pull Pell's left hand behind his back, Pell spun around and put some of his extensive training to work. His left hand slapped the trooper's gun so that it pointed harmlessly away, and then he drove his clenched fist into the cop's throat, catching him squarely on the Adam's apple.

  The blow instantly immobilized the stunned officer. Pell grabbed his arm and spun around so that the trooper was behind him, and in one fluid motion flipped him violently over his back onto the pavement – a classic defensive move designed to get the opponent onto the ground, one he had practiced countless times. The grunting thud of the trooper hitting the ground was followed by the muffled sound of a gunshot.

  The trooper's face twisted in shock and pain. His eyes widened and his mouth opened, emitting a high-pitched screech. He had landed with his pistol behind his back and it had fired.

  "Jesus Christ!" Pell exclaimed as he bent down next to the cop. "You're going to be all right, buddy. I'll call for help."

  He ran to the trooper's car, picked up the radio and pressed the talk button. "A cops been shot," he said into the transmitter and released the button. He had no time to decide what to say. Being involved in the shooting of a police officer, accidental or not, was not a good thing.

  "Who's this?" A voice squawked out of the radio.

  "A cops been shot," he repeated.

  Silence. And then, "Identify yourself. This is a police frequency."

  "What does it matter who I am?" Pell screamed into the mic. "I'm telling you that there's a cop lying in the middle of Route 43 with a bullet in his back. I'm using his radio to talk to you."

  Again silence. They would be dispatching all available units to this location, and they were also probably checking to see if anyone was patrolling out here.

  Sure enough, the next thing out of the speaker was, "Possible officer down. Route 43. All units respond." The broadcast message went out on a frequency that all vehicles could hear.

  "Damn," Pell muttered. Every local and state cop within twenty miles was about to converge on this piece of highway.

  He glanced out the front window as the trooper fired. The bullet slammed through the windshield, catching him squarely in the right chest. The ensuing pain tore up and down his body. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced.

  He screamed, half in pain and half at himself for not disarming the cop. His thumb involuntarily broadcast his howl to the police dispatcher and removed any thoughts of a hoax from that man's mind.

  The radio dropped from his hand as the trooper fired another shot. This one narrowly missed his head as it punched another hole through the windshield. He saw the shotgun in its cradle in the passenger seat and started to reach for it. He couldn't do it – couldn't take another lawman's life again – no way.

  The dispatcher's voice came over the radio trying to get Pell to respond, as he opened the passenger door, and slid out onto the ground. Looking from under the cruiser, he could see that the cop still sat up, shakily, but up. On an adrenaline high, Pell made a run for his car. His chest was on fire. What had he done! If he didn't get out of here now, he would be spending the rest of his life in a little jail cell.

  A flurry of poorly aimed, convulsive shots chased him as he staggered to the car and climbed in, started it up, and sped away. In his rearview mirror he could see the cop trying to get another clip into his gun as he fell down onto the road on his back.

  Prayer wasn't something he did often but he mouthed a simple one several times, "Please don't let him die."

  He easily doubled the posted speed limit as he sped along. He had to get off this road. Looking down at his blood-covered chest for the first time, he also knew that he had to stop the bleeding. His head reeled from the pain and his chest felt as though a pile of bricks were stacked on it. Was it just from the wound or had the bullet hit a lung. If it were the latter, Pell knew that without immediate medical attention, he wouldn't have a lot of time.

  12:57 pm Quincy, Massachusetts

  Chris slipped quietly into his house. The shades were drawn. The silence was absolute.

  "Hello?" He said softly.

  No answer. He looped through the four rooms before climbing the stairs to the master bedroom. The door was ajar, and he had a horrific flashback to what had been going on last night. The room was a mess. But most importantly, Karen wasn't there. He should have been happy with this, but as he stared at the clothes strewn on the floor and bed, he wasn't. She had made one hell of a mess while she packed. He dropped down onto the edge of the bed and started to cry. He couldn't imagine the pain going away – not anytime soon at least.

  The wedding picture that he had smashed over her lover's head lay on the floor in its shattered, bloody frame. He picked it up and looked at the happy couple standing in front of a fireplace at their reception. They were so young; their innocence and excitement for the future flowed from within them.

  He snapped the frame in half and tossed it across the room.

  If he could have turned back time, he would have done it. Just turn it back enough so that he wouldn't have gotten home while his wife was messing around – play the happy fool.

  He went downstairs, grabbed a bottle of Irish whiskey and a glass from the dry sink, and went into the living room.

  The next few hours he flip-flopped from rage to grief only allowing himself a few drinks. He didn't need to slip into some alcohol-induced fit and end up doing something he regretted.

  His alcohol-mellowed mind shifted to Pell and from there to Sarah Burns. If she really existed, she was fascinating. It sounded like something out of a Hollywood script. He had hardly slept in over three days now and even though his mind was racing, he dozed.

  Whe
n he awoke, the room was dark. He must have slept through the entire afternoon. As he pulled himself out of the chair, he heard a muffled cough.

  He sat frozen in terror. Someone was in his house. He stared into the darkness, trying to see through it, but it was pointless – dark shadows were everywhere. Slowly he rose and crept toward the front hallway. Inching by the fireplace, he picked up the poker, took a deep breath and prepared to search his house. Was it the same people from the Wild Bear?

  His heart tried to punch a hole through his rib cage as he walked toward the front door. He strained to hear something again, but all he got was an ominously pervasive silence. Then he saw it. A motionless, dark form on the floor just inside the door. What should he do?

  Silently he tiptoed to the light switch. Holding the poker at the ready, he flicked on the light.

  5:45 pm PDT Malibu California

  Sarah was surprised when Camilla returned with Mike Kemper. On the patio, even at this late hour of the day, the southern California sun soothed her body. She was wearing shorts and a loose cotton shirt and was enjoying the rare opportunity to relax on a sun lounger and forget the stress of the last few months for a few moments.

  She blushed as Camilla said, "Sorry to disturb you, Sarah. Are you enjoying the sun?"

  "It's a big change from Maine," Sarah replied as she glanced at Mike curiously. Why was he here?

  "I met with Mike this morning and told him about what's been happening back in Maine."

  Sarah's chest tightened and blood pressure soared. "I thought we didn't need to share this?"

  "I know, but I thought that he could help."

  "I want to help," Mike said. The sunlight hitting his beard brought out red highlights that contrasted handsomely with his dark brown eyes and bright white, Hollywood teeth. "I wanted to get involved – be more hands on."

  "That's nice, but, like I told you yesterday, Camilla, Seth has everything under control."

  "I don't doubt that he does, but you've got to admit that you've lost three men. Three out of six – that's a chunk. You're going to need some help, and between Mike and myself, we can fill in the gaps."

 

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