by Thomas Hopp
“The missing redhead,” I said. “The news said she was abducted by a dark-haired, Arabic-looking man.”
McKean paused for a moment, as if weighing an overload of data. Then he reactivated the speakerphone and punched Kay Erwin’s number. Within several minutes, he had explained his cousin’s news first to Erwin, and then to the FBI man, Joe Fuad.
Fuad cleared his throat, sounding uncomfortable even over the speakerphone. “Listen,” he began, “I’ll get someone to look into this if you insist.”
“But?” McKean prompted.
“But I wouldn’t make too much of it. The telephone lines always get buzzing when there’s a missing person story. Reports of redheads will be popping up all over the landscape for a few days. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent will be false leads. And just because the neighbor is of Arab extraction, there’s no need to stir up any anti-Arab sentiment is there? Your cousin isn’t…a skinhead, maybe?”
“My cousin fought along with Saudi Arabian soldiers in the first Gulf War,” McKean retorted. “He’s got no beef against Arab Americans.”
“Just thought I’d ask,” Fuad replied. “You never know, with people who live back up in the hills, especially after 9/11.”
McKean, Janet and I looked at each other dumbfounded, until Fuad spoke again. “Don’t worry. I’ll definitely let the agency know about this. And I’ll give the Sheriff’s Office in Winthrop a call. We’ll go on the assumption that every lead is worth following, no matter how far-fetched.”
“That seems prudent,” said McKean. He drummed his fingers on the desktop as if he suddenly wanted to be off the phone. “Let us know what you find out.”
“Sure thing,” said Fuad. “And you be sure to keep me up-to-date on your research, okay? Now, is there anything else?”
“No.”
“Then, goodbye.” There was a click on the other end and a dial tone. McKean switched off the speakerphone, his dark brows brooding.
“Sounds like I just offended the man,” he said.
“But who else were you supposed to call?” Janet asked.
“I don’t know. The FBI regional office, I suppose. But Fuad is the man they entrusted to this case, isn’t he? He’s the logical choice.”
I shrugged. “At least we know the matter will be looked into.”
Chapter 5
What a difference one day can make. I had simultaneously come across my biggest story ever, and sworn not to write about it. I got home that evening around six, dragging with me some take-out teriyaki chicken and a really bad attitude about the future. I picked at the chicken, sipped cabernet and watched the TV news analysts babble about smallpox, terrorists and a bunch of things they knew nothing about. None of them gabbed about “DIE, DIE, DIE” because they didn’t know it yet.
I drank two more glasses of cab. Then I climbed into my loft bed and passed out.
In the morning, I called McKean’s office from home, wanting information even if I couldn’t publish it. ImCo’s receptionist told me Dr. McKean had gone to Seattle Public Health Hospital. He would be out most of the day.
I’m not one who is easily left behind. I drove my Mustang to the hospital and bluffed my way into the loading area with the story that I was supposed to meet Dr. McKean and cover his reactions to developments in the case of the customs inspector. The security guard doubted me, but relented when a call to the ward confirmed that McKean was there and willing to see me. Ushered up to the isolation floor, I found McKean with Kay Erwin, who was dressed in turquoise scrubs, standing outside the glass wall of the isolation ward and staring inside. Neither was speaking.
They turned in response to my hello. McKean looked somber. Erwin seemed downright depressed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing unexpected.” McKean pointed inside the ward, off to the left, where two men in yellow isolation suits were grappling with a large object on a stainless steel gurney inside the Autopsy Room. My eyes widened when I realized what they were struggling with - the customs man’s corpse. They were tucking it inside a heavy black-plastic body bag.
“He died at 1 am last night,” said Erwin. “I oversaw the autopsy.”
“Very efficient,” said McKean. “The way you have arranged this place.”
“We can’t risk contaminating the morgue downstairs with an infectious subject like this one,” she replied. “They’re bagging him for removal to a specially outfitted crematorium.”
I watched the men with a shudder of disgust. “Poor fellow,” I said. “Were any of his family able to come to see him before - ?”
Erwin’s expression went from bad to worse. “They’re all sick with smallpox.”
“Every one of them?”
“His wife and two teenage kids,” Erwin murmured. “The whole family has been admitted to the Sumas isolation facility. Their prospects aren’t good.”
The naked cadaver, just yesterday Mr. Harold Fenton, was a pale yellowish, waxy looking husk of what had once been a human being. Its skin was covered from scalp to foot with hundreds of thumbtack-sized white spots, each surrounded by a small ring of reddish inflammation, long-since cooled in death to a purplish hue. The eyes were sunken, half-open horrors. His jaw was slack, his mouth an open hole. His hands, once vital, now terrified me with their too-apparent lifelessness. The signs of the autopsy were more horrific yet. Erwin and company had invaded the body in seemingly too many places. The abdomen was filleted like a fish and the chest cavity had been cracked open, rib-by-rib. Worse, the top of the head had been lifted off. A flap of skin with Mr. Fenton’s scalp dangled to one side of an exposed, pink-boned cranium. The head flopped over and I saw to my horror that the brain had been completely removed.
“Intriguing incisions,” said McKean. I glanced at him sidelong as he studied the slashed body with no hint of the agitation that ran through me like an electric current.
“You’re used to this sort of thing?” I asked him.
“What sort of thing?” He looked at me in vague surprise. “Oh, the cadaver - the autopsy. No. In fact, I can’t recall having seen a dead person until today. None of this surprises me, though. Nothing I wouldn’t expect.”
“You’ve got a stronger stomach than I do.”
“Less awe of death, perhaps.”
When the two men got the corpse inside the bag I breathed easier. One of them zipped it up, and up, covering the viscera and then the gaping chest. Finally, with a last tug on the zipper, the poor, brainless head of Mr. Harold Fenton vanished from the sight of the world for good. One of the men put a red biohazard sticker on the chest area. My stomach swirled with nausea as the men moved the gurney through the airlock into the Sterility Control room and began washing the outside of the bag under the shower of sterilizing solution.
Peyton McKean chatted with Kay Erwin regarding the whereabouts of the man’s brain and viscera and the nature of her findings among those organs, until I wanted to pass out. But I recalled the TV news that morning had given me another concern to bring to this place of death, so I interrupted.
“Peyton, have you heard any more about the redhead your cousin was worried about?”
“No,” said McKean. “I assume the situation is in good hands with the FBI fellow, Fuad.”
“Well, I heard some more on TV this morning.”
“I rarely watch television. What did you see?”
“There’s another unsolved abduction case. An older one, in Vancouver, British Columbia. The authorities say it’s the same M.O. She was abducted from a nightclub.”
McKean narrowed one eye. “When did she disappear?”
“Two weeks ago, I think it was.”
Though he had been blase about the cadaver, this news seemed to have more effect. His expression clouded and he shook his head slowly, as if reluctant to believe his own logic.
“A double coincidence,” he said. “Statistically improbable.”
“What?” I asked.
“The abductions,” said McKean. “Betwe
en the Vancouver and the Seattle cases, there is a separation time of one week. That’s about the length of time it takes for a smallpox rash to break out on a deliberately infected individual. If I planned to pass an infection from one victim to the next, that’s exactly the length of time I would pick.” He tugged at his chin. “It may just be a simple coincidence, but - “
“No need to concern yourself,” a voice interrupted. It was Joseph Fuad, freshly arrived from the elevator. “I was aware of the Vancouver case before the news people got hold of it. Vancouver’s my territory, remember? So far we haven’t been able to make a connection between the cases. And just to let you know, I contacted the Sheriff’s Office in Winthrop. They sent someone around to investigate your cousin’s claims, Dr. McKean. The redhead in question is the ranch owner’s wife. Your cousin witnessed - how should I put it? - a domestic situation. She claims there was no harm done. She wasn’t under any coercion. She and her husband are getting along just fine now.”
McKean and I exchanged glances. I said to McKean, “To hear your cousin describe it, there was more than a household squabble going on.”
“But he was looking on from a distance,” said Fuad. “Best to leave the investigation to trained professionals rather than nosy neighbors, don’t you think?”
“Of course,” said McKean.
Fuad looked at McKean cagily for a second. “I had a nice long chat with the Sheriff,” he said. “A fellow named John Barker. He’s a true professional. Believe me, if there was any problem whatsoever, he would have been the first to spot it.”
“I suppose so.” McKean frowned as if the shadow of a doubt lingered.
“Problem solved, then,” said Fuad.
McKean and I looked at each other for a moment, and then nodded our reluctant agreement. Fuad made motions as if wiping dirt from his palms. “We’ll just chalk it up as a false lead. A coincidence.”
“So it seems,” said McKean.
“On the other hand,” Fuad went on, “your discovery of man-made changes in the virus - now that’s gotten quite a reaction at the agency. We’re running down of every bit of information we can find regarding Mr. Fenton and whoever infected him. We’re checking every Customs record entered in the last three weeks: automobile license plates, driver identities, visas, passports. Anything that even remotely looks like a lead is being followed up. We’re interviewing one heck of a lot of people that went through Mr. Fenton’s checkpoint. The CIA’s Antiterrorism Center is sending some experts, the NSA is involved, and the Army and CDC are gearing up to lock down Sumas completely and vaccinate everyone there. Too late to help that one, though.” Fuad nodded at the men bringing the gurney out of the airlock, passing us on their way to the elevator with the body bag, which glistened from head to toe with disinfectant solution. Mr. Harold Fenton was on the first leg of his journey to become smoke and ash. I shuddered.
Kay Erwin said, “Let’s hope there won’t be any more like him.”
“Amen,” said Fuad.
Erwin and Fuad followed the gurney to the elevator, pausing to carry on a quiet conversation after the elevator doors closed and the men and their gruesome cargo disappeared. McKean and I stood silently in the middle of the hallway, mulling private thoughts about death and smallpox.
A cell phone on McKean’s hip made a faint tone and he took it and held it to his ear. In response to his hello, a voice on the other end began talking just below the threshold of my hearing.
“Yes,” said McKean. “I did tell the FBI. The fellow’s here, right now.” As the caller went on, McKean’s expression darkened and he cast a sudden glance at Fuad, who was still chatting at the elevator with Kay Erwin. He turned deliberately to face away from Fuad and moved along the corridor to get out of earshot, simultaneously waving me to follow. He stopped near the corner of the window wall and motioned me near to listen. I leaned into the phone, glancing at Fuad and Erwin who still chatted, unaware of our actions. The voice on the phone was Cousin Mike. He was speaking in spooked, breathless tones.
” - your office told me to call this number.”
“Sorry I’ve been hard to reach,” said McKean. “But what you’re saying can’t be true. Fuad assured us the redhead is the Sheik’s wife.”
“That’s a lie,” said Mike. “She’s a brunette. I seen her when they first bought the property. Mary and I took some cookies over as a welcome to the neighborhood before they put up the gate and the guard shack. He introduced her as the missus and she took the cookies from us. She’s a fat old brunette who wears a scarf or my name ain’t Mike.”
“Women’s hair color,” McKean suggested, “sometimes changes.”
“Listen!” Mike continued urgently. “I went snooping around and found some kinda lab in that building they took the girl into.”
McKean frowned. “How could you tell it was a lab?”
“Lots of machines, gadgets and stuff. Lab stuff.”
“And the girl,” prompted McKean. “Did you find her?”
“Nope,” said Mike. “I heard somebody comin’ so I took off. But you should see this lab. I’m thinking it’s a virus lab, or something like that.”
McKean paused a long moment, frowning. “Perhaps I should have a look at it,” he said at last. “It would be pretty obvious to me whether it was set up for virus propagation, drugs, or whatever. I’d better get off the line, now. Someone’s coming.” Erwin had gone to her office, but Fuad was headed straight for us.
“Wait!” said Cousin Mike. “I gotta know something first. Did that FBI dude ever get anybody to look into these guys?”
“He said Sheriff Barker did,” McKean whispered. “But now,” he spoke away from Fuad, who had quickened his pace toward us, “I’m not so sure.”
“I’m tellin’ you,” said Mike. “The Sheriff’s in on this. Somebody else’s got to check these guys out. Sure as hell they got something to do with this smallpox story.”
“I’m beginning to suspect you’re right,” said McKean.
As Fuad neared us, I stepped away from the phone, acting as casual as someone caught in the act can be. McKean hastily concluded his conversation. “I’ll try to think of something and get back to you. I’ve got to go. Goodbye.”
He clicked off the phone and reslung it on his hip just as Fuad reached us.
“Interesting phone call?” Fuad asked, his eyes darting from McKean’s to mine and back again.
“Interesting? Oh, yes,” said McKean. “Janet called from the lab. It seems the autoclave - the glassware sterilizer - has broken down.”
“You had to come over this way to talk about it?”
“Bad phone reception,” McKean countered. “I couldn’t hear her over your conversation. Without the autoclave, we’ll run into some delays in our analysis of the virus. I told her I’d be right over to fix it.”
Fuad cocked his head. “Don’t you have repair people to do stuff like that?”
“Answer: yes,” McKean vamped beautifully. “But when time is critical, it’s advisable to do it yourself.” He turned to head for the elevator and I followed.
Fuad tagged along. “Maybe I’ll come with you.”
“Suit yourself,” said McKean. “But all I can promise you is the tedium of a long sojourn inside the workings of a stainless steel contraption.”
Fuad stopped in his tracks. “You’re right,” he said - maybe a bit too thoughtfully. He watched us walk to the elevator as if suspecting he had been put off a trail he would rather stay on. “Let me know if anything significant comes up, will you?”
“You can rely on me,” said McKean as we got aboard the elevator.
On the way down McKean turned to me. “I smell a rat.”
“Fuad’s dirty,” I agreed.
McKean let his eyes unfocus in deep thought.
“But,” I spoke quietly, suddenly wondering if the elevator walls were bugged, “if he’s involved with the virus, what can we do? Who can we rely on?”
“Ourselves,” McKean replied.
/> “The police,” I suggested.
“If they turn around and contact the FBI, then Fuad will get wind that we suspect him.”
“Is that a problem?”
“If you don’t like getting shot in a dark alley, I’d say it could be a problem. He already wonders what we’re up to, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes,” I acknowledged. “He was pretty keen to hear that phone call.”
We got off the elevator and paused on the loading dock.
“I don’t know what to make of Mike,” said McKean. “He can be pretty squirrelly.”
“So, what are you thinking of doing?”
“Mike suggested we just sneak into the Sheik’s barn and have a look around, and he’s right. It will be obvious to me if it’s a virology lab. If not, then I’ll know Mike’s out of line. But if there is a virology lab in that building - “
“Or a kidnapped redhead,” I added.
“Yes,” said McKean. “Then somebody ought to do something about it, don’t you agree?”
I was surprised by his impetuous decision. “It might be dangerous.”
“Let’s call it an adventure,” he said with a tight-lipped smile crinkling the corners of his mouth.
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t have figured you for an adventurer.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Just doesn’t fit the profile of a scientist.”
“You figure I’m too much the geek to just do it?”
“No. I only meant that you’re already involved in some pretty exciting and critical research.”
“True,” he acknowledged. “But my actions in the lab for the next few days are pretty much a foregone conclusion. I will create a subunit vaccine. It will be effective or it won’t. Time will tell. Other than that, the lab work from this point is mostly a succession of test tubes, incubators and flasks. It can be delegated, and Janet is infinitely reliable. But Mike’s problem is something very different, isn’t it? It’s the chance to travel to a distant place and steal into a bastion of potential danger. Getting the goods on the bad guys, if that’s who they are.”