by Fynn Perry
John could feel the resentment building inside the guard. “They will be fine,” he sneered. “As long as you keep doing what we tell you. Give me the numbers for this week,” the guard commanded.
The scientist handed him a sheet of paper from his clipboard. It had all sorts of graphs and a table showing pill production for every day of the week.
“Don’t you have any sick relatives with serious, life-threatening diseases?” the scientist blurted. “My discovery could help produce new medicine that will do a lot of good and help cure the incurable.”
John searched for even the slightest hint of empathy in his host, but failed. Instead, the guy clearly had an overwhelming feeling of contempt for the scientist which John couldn’t even attempt to soften. This man’s soul was stone cold.
The host placed his finger to his lips. The scientist shut up immediately.
Taking out his mobile phone, the guard looked up his favorites in his contacts and selected an entry. He pressed on the name ‘The Accountant.’ The device rang and the gruff voice answered, “Speak.”
The guard repeated to The Accountant the information he had just read from the scientist’s report. There was a pause before The Accountant answered, “We need to increase production by twenty percent. We have new orders from the boss.”
“How do we do that?”
“Either he makes it faster, or cuts it with something cheap when he bakes the pills. I don’t care how—just do it!” The Accountant said and hung up abruptly.
The guard repeated what The Accountant had told him and watched the scientist shaking his head before complaining jerkily, “I’m…I’m doing all I can! The…the modifications required to the genomes in the yeast strains to optimize the microbes’ metabolic reactions to yield more product takes time. It takes careful consideration and testing to optimize––”
“Testing?” The guard interrupted with a laugh. “What do you think this is? The FDA? You get your test results from the junkies. Remember what they thought of the first batch of heroin your little Frankenstein yeast pumped out? Weak as shit, they called it. I’m surprised the boss didn’t kill you and your family there and then. But he gave you another chance. And while you worked on improving the formula…”
“Modification to the genomes,” the scientist said and immediately clearly regretted the interruption.
“We,” the host continued with a heightened annoyance John could feel, “had to do something with that first batch so we mixed it with some other shit we couldn’t move, dangerous shit and, unfortunately, a lot of people reacted badly to it. As you can imagine, death is bad for business. But the boss hates waste, so now and again, we press some of the crap stuff into pills and mix them with your latest stuff to slowly get rid of it.” The host paused and John could feel a surge of evil pleasure as the man spoke his next words. “Think of each death as a reminder of what can happen when you don’t deliver.”
The scientist swallowed hard. “That…that was a low yield strain—my first attempt!” he stammered. “For the love of all that is holy!” he protested, his perfect diction failing as he continued. “Everyone else has to start with opium collected from poppy pods and then extract the morphine with chemicals to then make heroin, I.. I…brewed morphine from a yeast strain! No poppies!” He gulped a breath and continued. “Now we have much higher-yielding yeast microbes for making heroin. Without that process of learning I wouldn’t have been able to make a strain capable of producing cocaine—an extremely complex operation. Now we have excellent quality for both drugs Why must people suffer with inferior–”
“Shut it!” John’s host threatened, and the man immediately stopped his babbling. “Now it’s good, sure, but you have to step up production. Demand is rising and you really don’t want to disappoint us. Think about your family—I can make them suffer, really suffer. They will beg for a bullet to end it all.”
The host raised his hands, intending to grab the scientist by the lapels of his lab coat and slam him against the plate-glass wall. John tried to intervene, reminding the logical part of his host’s brain that the scientist was the key to drug production. It would not end well for the guard if anything happened to the scientist. It seemed to work. Instead of grabbing hold of the lapels of the man’s coat, the host restrained himself and settled for resting his heavy hands on the scientist’s bony shoulders and hissing, “Look, I don’t know how you managed to brew coke and heroin. You’re a fucking genius, I get that, and the only one who could have done it. But since you have succeeded so far, you now have to speed things up. We don’t care about formulas or the genetic coding of yeast, we care only about profits, and we will spill blood and guts to get them.” The guard dropped his hands back to his sides.
Holy fucking shit! John thought, not only relieved at having saved the scientist from a beating but also stunned at hearing that the scientist might actually have found a way to brew cocaine and heroin.
With John’s spirit inside him, the guard then turned and walked back down the stairs and toward the elevator platforms. He waited for a free one, then got on it.
Emerging from the tunnel, John and his host were back in the main warehouse area––the respectable and legitimate-looking part of the business. With the huge packing machines lowered, and the robots programmed to run a different scenario, nobody would have any reason to suspect the existence of a covert operation in the basement.
John’s escape plan hinged on finding somewhere to discreetly exit his host who would, without doubt, pass out after such a long possession. Luckily, an opportunity presented itself—one that John had overlooked when he’d thought about the implications of spirit possession. His host needed to use the bathroom.
He could hide his host in one of the stalls. It would now be just a matter of time.
Fourteen
Richard Genna’s boundless enthusiasm for his work would frequently drive him to stay late into the night in his brightly lit lab, bristling with high-powered microscopes, chromatographs, spectrometers, and other specialist equipment. Attempting to link evidentiary fibers, residues, bodily fluids, and chemical compounds with people, places, and objects demanded critical thinking, emotional detachment, and precision—skills and attributes that Genna had in abundance. The forensic scientist worked in a private lab that Lazlo’s precinct used when the city’s own labs were stretched. Use of the lab, which came at high cost, was strictly controlled by the precinct captain, but Genna had done a few off-the-record things for Lazlo in the past in return for Lazlo dealing with traffic violations and parking tickets, which Genna was prone to collecting.
Lazlo called Genna now and told him about the two spider-embossed pills he had in his possession. He asked if Genna could help him out, not only by doing a chemical composition test, but also by finding out the effect of the pills on a group of lab mice. Lazlo needed to know what the exact effects of the drug were—and although the pills looked identical there was the possibility that they might have come from different batches or producers.
“OK,” he agreed. “I’ll run the tests tomorrow night. I need to get extra laboratory mice—they’re not cheap, you know. The best supplier is in Maine.”
Lazlo wasn’t interested in the details. “I need this ASAP, Richard. Call me as soon as you have the results.” Lazlo’s tone was verging on threatening.
He left for home. It had been a long day. There was nobody or nothing waiting for him there, except—if memory served him well—a half-full bottle of whiskey.
Jennifer was lying on her bed, her mind inundated with thoughts, when John entered her room, startling her.
“If I could, I would’ve called!” he said, his grinning face seeming to glow slightly more than the rest of him.
“Thank God you’re still . . .” Her words rushed out and she wanted to say ‘alive’ but settled on “in one piece.”
John let her relief sink in before relating what he had witnessed at the fulfillment center. As he spoke, he watched the progress
ion of emotions, from surprise and shock—her mouth dropped open, her fingers touched her parted lips—to relief and excitement. Then her hand slipped to rest, fingers spread like a fan, on her chest.
A long beat passed before she responded. “I know we wanted to get something on El Gordito, John…but this is so fantastic…so huge… The thing is, how will anyone believe us?” She paused, thinking. “We have no proof to take to the cops. What will I tell them? That a ghost told me about it?” She paused again, momentarily feeling resigned. “Wait…. the kidnapped scientist . . . we can at least try to identify him. Maybe there’s a news report somewhere of a Middle Eastern scientist disappearing. Are you sure he was actually brewing the drugs?”
“Yes, both the scientist and the guard called it ‘brewing,’ but then the scientist said something about microbes in yeast strains producing cocaine and heroin. It sounded impossible because those drugs can only be made from plants, right? And I didn’t see any plant-growing facilities.”
“Right,” Jennifer muttered. “There’s an article here from UC Berkeley dated last year,” she said, skimming through the text. She gasped. “You’ll never believe it! A Professor Wilkinson writes that a growing number of medicines once obtainable only from plants can now be made using genetically modified yeast organisms in a process known as synthetic biology. Researchers want to add opiates to that list because they are part of a family of molecules that may have useful medicinal properties, including antibiotic and anticancer properties. Genetically engineered yeasts could make it easy to produce opiates such as morphine anywhere. Wilkinson thinks a low-yielding strain could be made in two or three years.”
“That’s what the scientist meant when he said his work could be used to help cure diseases,” John said, remembering.
Jennifer nodded in acknowledgement as she read out another section from the same article: “Other scientists are working on producing tropane alkaloids––a family of compounds that includes drugs such as cocaine. Cocaine-making yeasts are further off…but there’s no reason why we cannot engineer yeast to produce any substance that plants produce, once we understand the mechanics, says biochemist Jonathon Falconi of the University of Calgary in Canada.”
“That can’t be the scientist I saw. Falconi sounds Italian. The guy I saw was definitely Middle Eastern.”
“But they could know each other. They might have met at a conference or something. There might be a photo of them together.” She searched for Falconi, and yeast-manufacture and a screenful of results appeared. She clicked the images tab in her browser. The screen showed around twenty photographs at a time. She slowly scrolled downward, giving John time to scan each one.
“Can’t see him anywhere,” he said, disappointed. “Maybe look up ‘missing biochemist.’ ”
She did so. The top result was a link from a website named ‘Silicon Valley Science,’ and it bore the title: Prominent Scientist & Family Go Missing.
She clicked it and an article came up on the screen with a photograph of the scientist.
“That’s him!” John said as he looked at the photo.
They both read the article, which was over a month old.
Ekrem Yilmaz, a thirty-four-year-old, Yemeni-American bioscientist, has gone missing together with his wife and three children. Work colleagues of Mr. Yilmaz reported him missing after three days of unexplained absence at work, and neighbors confirmed that the family’s Santa Clara home is empty. Yilmaz, who has won numerous awards for his research in the genetic engineering of yeasts to grow plant compounds, was awarded a grant for an undisclosed amount last year by the US government and a Silicon Valley Bioscience Foundation. The grant was awarded after Yilmaz made a breakthrough in his field using yeast to grow a trial batch of morphine. He had just moved into a new research facility in Cupertino, apparently also paid for by the foundation, when he and his family mysteriously went missing. Police are baffled by the disappearance but have not ruled out that Yilmaz may have returned to Yemen with his family.
“As if he would give up a career like that in the US. And with all the unrest in Yemen, it would be very difficult for anyone to track him down and confirm that he had really moved back there,” Jennifer said.
“That works in El Gordito’s favor. He has gotten away with kidnapping the only person in the world able to brew heroin and cocaine without fields full of plants. Can you imagine the power he will have?”
They stared at each other for a moment as the magnitude of this discovery slowly sunk in.
“Do you have an address for the logistics place?” asked Jennifer, back to her usual, proactive self.
“The company name was Supreme Logistics Fulfillment Center, and it’s in Bellevue Logistics Park in Newstone, New Jersey,” John told her.
“That’s good enough,” Jennifer said, smiling.
After she typed the address into her browser, about twenty results came up for Bellevue Logistics Center, but under each website link was the same message: Missing: Supreme Logistics Fulfillment Center.
“That’s strange, Supreme Logistics isn’t coming up in the results,” Jennifer remarked. She clicked on the official site of Bellevue Logistics Park. The landing page announced there were twenty-four separate buildings in the park. Some major blue-chip international companies like GE, Whirlpool, and Electrolux had their own buildings.
Jennifer went straight to the plan of the site. John checked twice, but the building he had walked around wasn’t shown. The fulfillment center also didn’t appear on the building roster. Jennifer cross-referenced the name of the park against the New Jersey Herald and other newspapers until they found an article about the construction of the park. It had been built five years ago, under special planning rules, to encourage major international firms to invest in the area and boost employment. At that time, the first phase of twelve buildings was constructed, with the intention to build a second phase with a further twelve.
“Try Google Earth so we can see a satellite view of all the buildings. The fulfillment center for Logistics must be shown there,” John said with the confidence of someone about to bust open a coverup.
Jennifer gradually zoomed in from the Eastern Seaboard to the Tri-State Metropolitan Area, then onto New Jersey, and finally Newstone. As she zoomed in further the words ‘Bellevue Logistics Park’ appeared in white type. John examined the image of the park and studied it carefully, following the meandering spine road through the site.
The building John had been in was at the end of that road, he was certain, with the road leading directly to its front entrance. But on the satellite image, the tarmac terminated in a dead end. The area beyond was pixelated, making it impossible to see if anything actually existed there.
“This isn’t good,” said John. “Don’t they do this kind of thing where the government has classified sites?”
“This just gets better and better!” Jennifer sighed. “How much deeper is this rabbit hole going to take us?”
“Hold on, Jen,” John said, fearing that resignation was about to engulf her. “I heard the guard say something else about the drugs that might help us.” He told her about the scientist’s earlier, inferior batch of heroin having been mixed with other drugs, how he mentioned the deaths that the combination had caused, and how it was being disposed of by gradually adding it to what the guard had called ‘the good stuff.’
“There might be something about this impure drug and the deaths on the web. Maybe I can find something on it,” Jennifer suggested with renewed optimism.
“I only saw one type of pill being made—the same type that I saw at DNA, with the red spider logo. They must be pressing both cocaine and heroin powder into each pill to make what the guard called ‘the good stuff.’ I’m guessing the bad mixture they’re trying to get rid of is being pressed just the same way so the pills look the same.”
Jennifer typed the words ‘red spider drug’ into the search bar. She sifted through the results. Some pertained to red spiders—even an article about
NASA testing the effect of drugs on spiders. There were a lot of links on the general topic of drugs, and pop-up ads to close, many with the heading ‘Opioid Crisis’ Or ‘Opioid Addiction.’ She found and began to read some blog threads on the subject.
“Some newer posts mention a new pill on the street. It’s being called Spider’s Bite because of the red spider logo!” She showed John a photo of a pill someone had included in their post.
“That’s the pill! And that’s the name The Accountant used!”
She continued reading, “The pills are cheaper than heroin per gram, more robust and discreet to carry and take, but also more addictive. Spider’s Bite is spreading like wildfire. Recreational users love them because they can now get their two drugs of choice in pill form. Meth, coke, and heroin addicts are switching because they can get an even bigger high by grinding them down and dissolving them in water then shooting up, which bypasses the filtering effects of the liver.”
“What about any deaths?” John queried.
She looked back at the screen and started searching again. “There have already been some lethal overdoses reported in connection with the new pills, but the details are sketchy.”
They looked at another blog. Someone had posted a story about a male friend who had been clubbing at DNA, taken Spider’s Bite, and then acted in an uncharacteristically violent way. He had been seen fighting with security, and bouncers had taken him away to a back room. After questioning the man, one bouncer had said they had removed the offender from the club using only minimal force. What was more worrying was that the person in question had not been seen since.
“There is another post like this from a club-goer at DNA but quite a few more concerning another club named Mayhem, also El Gordito’s.”