Crime Zero (aka the Crime Code) (1999)

by Cordy, Michael

  Taking a deep breath, she walked past the first bank of refrigerators to the corner where the waist-high black safe sat. On the front was a flap about the size of a paperback book covering the electronic keypad. It was as she remembered it and looked reassuringly like the Lenica 101 she had practiced on, but she couldn't be sure.

  On the workstation beside Alice Prince's safe was a computer VDU. Kathy powered it up and opened the link with the terminal on the ground floor above, where Decker waited with a new box of blank discs ready to copy whatever data she found.

  The keyboard was twice the normal size with large flat keys covered in a sterile plastic sleeve. With her unwieldy gloved fingers she jabbed out a message:

  I'm in and have found the safe. Are you set up with discs and the printer?

  There was a heart-stopping pause.

  Everything looking good up here. Good luck.

  She looked down at the slim chrome slab the size of a checkbook resting on her left palm: the pulse box--and the key to the whole operation. Exploiting nuclear magnetic resonance and liquid molecules, the quantum code breaker used qubits, which, unlike classical binary bits, could exist simultaneously in multiple states, allowing it to decipher each element of a code in parallel time rather than sequentially. It was fast and efficient, but was it enough? Studying its liquid crystal display and the two silk-thin wires trailing out one end like wispy antennae, she recalled the procedure. Using the magnetic pad on the back of the quantum pulse box, she anchored it above the safe's electronic keypad. Once she was satisfied it was secure, and with Frankie's words in mind--"If you drop this thing, it's history"--she carefully taped the spring-hinged plastic keypad cover back on itself, revealing the keys. Then she took the two trailing wires in her fingers and searched for the two tiny holes in the top edge of the keypad. "After a bit of practice it should be easy," she'd been told.

  But it hadn't been easy in practice, and it wasn't easy now. At first she couldn't even find the holes, and when she did, she almost gave up in frustration. The protective gloves she wore were even thicker than the ones she'd been using before. They had been designed to give as much movement as possible, but inserting the two silk-thin wires into minute holes obviously hadn't been on the usage spec.

  "Relax and take your time," she told herself. But time was the one thing she couldn't afford. Maintaining composure, she straightened out the inch-long wires with one hand, aligning them with the two holes. If they met any resistance at all, they began to bend and she had to ease them in at a painstaking pace. It was vital that they connect with the inner electronics. Frankie's guys had taught her how to "jiggle" them, as they put it, gently vibrating the wires until they found a way into the opening. But jiggling required sensitive fingers, and her gloves didn't allow her that luxury.

  She could feel perspiration on her brow as she concentrated on her task. She wanted to rip off her helmet and wipe the sweat away but had to blink through the droplets. She lost count of the number of times both wires were in the holes before one became snagged and she had to start all over again. Finally, twenty-six minutes later, her arms aching with the effort, she heard a beep, and the pulse box burst into life. The liquid crystal display began racing through numbers as it simultaneously searched for every character constituting the code.

  Kathy immediately turned to the computer terminal and plucked the wand from its bracket. She ran it over a bar code on one of the vials in the main refrigerator to check if it was functioning. Instantly the screen displayed a contents menu offering the genetic composition of the vial's contents, its history of clinical trials, and topline rationale and objectives. Satisfied, she replaced it and waited for the pulse box to do its work.

  It only took five and a half minutes for the chrome code breaker to work its magic and show six characters illuminated on the LCD: 666%PS5. Carefully she extended a gloved finger and punched out the characters on the safe's electronic keypad. Silently the door opened.

  I'm in,

  she typed on the computer, checking the time. She had a little more than half an hour to copy what she needed. It should be enough. She removed a tray of cigar-size colored vials, rested them on the work surface by the terminal, and began to read their labels. The two red vials were marked "Conscience," so she ignored those, but two words on the three green vial labels made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

  "Crime Zero."

  In what way was each of the three vials different? To extract all the evidence, she would have to capture the data on each one. Suddenly the remaining twenty-seven minutes didn't seem long at all.

  She typed,

  Think project is called Crime Zero. You need to stand by with two more discs. At least three vials, all might be vital. Do we have enough time for three?

  Decker responded immediately.

  Hope so.

  Kathy picked up the vial marked "Crime Zero Vector (Phase 1)" and ran the wand over the bar code.

  Not bothering to scan what was on the screen, she immediately clicked on the copy icon, selecting the disc drive on the computer upstairs.

  The file was large. The clock symbol at the bottom of the screen was moving painfully slowly, indicating it would take seven minutes to download. Assuming the other two were as big, she would be lucky to get them all out before TITANIA closed down the Womb. She looked at the two other terminals in the Womb, but there was only one computer next to Decker, and she could only copy each disc sequentially.

  While she waited, she removed the quantum pulse box, extracted the wires from the safe, and searched for a place to conceal it. She couldn't take it out of the Womb now that it had become contaminated, but its presence would alert someone, particularly Alice Prince, that she had been in here. Eventually she dropped it into a sample tray, closed the lid, and then placed the tray at the back of the lowest shelf of the largest refrigerator.

  By the time she had finished and returned to the computer screen the Crime Zero Phase 1 vector file had been copied. Eighteen minutes remained.

  Ready for disc 2?

  she typed to Luke.

  Ready.

  Barely pausing, she picked up the vial labeled "Crime Zero Vector (Phase 2)" and waved the wand over it. As soon as the screen registered that the file had been opened, she copied it upstairs to Luke. Again she checked the clock at the bottom of the screen. This file transfer would take eight minutes. There would be virtually no time for the third phase.

  Fearing that time was slipping away, she decided to scan the last Crime Zero vial on a second terminal to check its contents. She switched on the terminal by the Genescope.

  At that moment a soft feminine voice interrupted her. "The time is now twenty-one-fifteen. The BioSafety Level Five and Level Four facilities will be closing in exactly fifteen minutes. If you have not yet done so, you should clear the workstations and prepare to leave. The ViroVector Campus will be sealed at exactly twenty-two hours."

  Kathy glanced at the screen where Crime Zero Phase 2 was being copied: more than three minutes to go. With one eye on the digital clock above the door of the Womb she turned to the data on the second terminal.

  Scrolling to Crime Zero Phase 3 technical specifications, she speed-read the summary. Words and phrases jumped out at her: "engineered influenza vector... chimera . . . respiratory transmission . . . Y chromosome trigger . . . Project Conscience control genes... hormonal imbalance... telomeres-determined time release." Each word or phrase was innocuous on its own, but the cumulative implications were terrifying.

  Her heart beating like the wings of a trapped bird, Kathy quickly scrolled to the summary objectives. What she read there was so outlandish it made her gasp. Yet what shocked her most was that at an entirely amoral, scientific level it made perverse sense. With horrible clarity Kathy realized that Crime Zero represented her life's work taken to its ultimate extreme. In part she had to take some perverse responsibility for what Alice Prince and Madeline Naylor were doing.

  A deeper chill clutc
hed at her heart.

  Or for what they may have already done.

  "You now have ten minutes exactly before the Level Five and Four facilities will be closed down," informed the soft feminine voice.

  Kathy took a deep breath and rushed over to the first monitor.

  Ready for third disc?

  she typed.

  No time. Get out of there.

  Decker typed back.

  Make time. Explain later.

  Kathy typed.

  It's your call. Third disc ready. Hurry!

  Decker's response was instantaneous.

  She rushed back to the second terminal, selected Decker's disc drive, then pressed "Copy." She wouldn't have more than a few seconds after the copying was complete if she wanted to switch off the terminals before leaving. No one must know that she'd been here.

  Keeping her eye on the main clock, Kathy quickly put the vials back in their tray, careful to replace them as they had been, before returning them to the safe.

  "The Biohazard Level Four and Five laboratories will be closing in exactly five minutes."

  GET OUT!

  she read on the screen from Luke. But she still had to hide any trace of her intrusion.

  Four minutes.

  If Naylor or Prince knew, they might activate Phase 3 prematurely. If they hadn't done so already. She slammed the safe shut.

  Three minutes.

  She raced back to the large refrigerator and checked that the pulse box was concealed as discreetly as possible.

  Two minutes.

  She closed down the first terminal and checked that everything was as she had found it.

  One minute.

  Come on, she shouted at the screen of the second terminal, willing it to finish.

  Then, suddenly, it was done. She turned off the terminal and walked as fast as her suit allowed her to the door, pressed the open button, and exited the Womb.

  The airtight doors hissed shut behind her with forty-three seconds to spare.

  "The Womb is now closed," said the disembodied feminine voice. "The ViroVector main gates will be sealed in half an hour. This site will close at twenty-two hundred hours. If you have not yet done so, please prepare to leave."

  "OK. OK. I heard you," Decker said aloud, assuming Kathy had got out of the Womb in time. No alarm had sounded. Yet.

  He stood in the sterile white vestibule next to the single computer and printer. To his left was the door leading to the transit station into which Kathy had disappeared to descend to the biohazard labs and the Womb. To his right was the main exit leading to the corridor and the foyer beyond.

  After extracting the third disc out of the computer, Decker labeled it and placed it with the others in the tote bag beside him. He then switched off the terminal and sat on the desk. He could do nothing but wait. Every few seconds he looked toward the main exit, expecting someone to come walking in.

  He checked his watch. Kathy still had to pass through the decontamination showers and change out of her suit before they could leave this technological nightmare. And they had to leave soon.

  As he waited, he wondered why Kathy had insisted on risking getting locked into the Womb in order to copy the third vial of Crime Zero. Surely two were enough.

  "Let's go," said Kathy, suddenly bursting through the doors of the transit room.

  Picking up the tote bag, Decker rose from his chair and made for the door. "We've got about twelve minutes. Let's get the hell out of here."

  In the corridor they ran past the Smart Suite and the Cold Room to the foyer. Outside the dome the campus was as quiet as before.

  At the main gates Decker put his hands on the scanner and began to feel better only when the gates opened for them. Seconds later Frankie Danza's van appeared and pulled up by the gates, its broad tires screeching on the tarmac.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, he walked up to the driver's tinted window, Kathy in step beside him. He opened the door and froze.

  It wasn't Frankie Danza in the seat. Not that Decker really noticed, because the gun barrel staring him in the face held his attention.

  "Drop the bag! Now!" said the man in the driver's seat, pressing the barrel against Decker's forehead.

  Chapter 32.

  "The Peace Plague" was how the media dubbed the epidemic raging through the ranks of the Iraqi Army. Some

  U.S. and British tabloid newspapers even claimed that it was a good thing, a divine curse sent to blight the warmongers.

  The morning following Thursday's Iraqi retreat the World Health Organization, with the full backing of the UN Security Council, had endorsed and enforced the quarantine of Iraq. Every country bordering that nation, terrified the mystery plague might spread to it, applied the quarantine rigidly. Already deaths were being put at over thirty thousand with more Iraqis--military and civilian alike--being stricken by the hour. So far few, if any, women or children had been affected.

  The World Health Organization, Medecins sans Frontiers, and the Red Cross immediately dispatched specially equipped teams to try to understand the nature of the mystery epidemic and offer advice on containment strategies. Even the U.S. Army had released a team from the Epidemic Intelligence Service based at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Within a matter of hours Iraq had been transformed in the eyes of the world from dangerous bully to needy cripple.

  By Friday early findings were suggesting that the disease affected the patient's hormone levels and brain chemistry. It was speculatively hoped that the plague was not airborne, that it could at least be contained if ruthless measures were applied and adhered to.

  Isolated reports began to surface that even the hitherto ruthless Iraqi president had expressed remorse to the Kurdish leaders for past atrocities and sent apologies to Kuwait for his aggressive stance. At first these acts, they were indeed true, were seen as a cynical means to ingratiate himself with his enemies at a time when Iraq was collapsing. But increasingly they were seen as proof that he had also succumbed to the Peace Plague.

  Against a backdrop of rising hysteria the press besieged the White House, demanding a statement from the new President. Some reporters from the more sensationalist press asked if this plague had been intentional, a brilliant preemptive strike by the new administration. Inspired by the success of Project Conscience, a biological solution to crime, was the Peace Plague the next step: a biological solution to war?

  These claims were strenuously denied by President Weiss, who stressed that she took the Iraq plague seriously and Baghdad was being offered America's full support. She claimed that whatever their differences, humanity must always unite against its common enemy, disease.

  Surprisingly few of the national journalists asked if the Peace Plague could spread to North America? If so, how soon could it get here?

  That was one question Pamela Weiss was unable to answer.

  Saturday, November 8. Morning

  Kathy Kerr was made to wear the blindfold for hours. The plane had been flying for at least four, perhaps more. The dull roar of the engines and the nylon wrist binders increased her sense of isolation. The cabin smelled of cheap cologne and of commercial airliner rest rooms. But this wasn't a commercial airliner. That much she knew.

  There were at least two other men in the cabin with them, but she didn't know where they were sitting. She took some comfort from knowing Decker was three seats to her left. They had hardly talked since they had been bundled into the van and then onto the plane. She had only just enough time to whisper the basics of Crime Zero, what she knew about Phase 3 anyway. They hadn't talked since. There was nothing to say.

  A wave of hopelessness washed over her. The project was so huge, so outlandish that alerting the authorities suddenly seemed irrelevant. Decker had been right. She should have gone home when she'd had the chance. Just because she had helped start this nightmare didn't mean she could ever stop it. This was global, inevitable, and final.

  As Decker tried to make himself comfortable in the seat, he failed
to understand why they were still alive. If what Kathy had told him about Crime Zero was true, they should be dead already. Naylor would have to assume that they too knew about the project and make the necessary arrangements to kill them.

  Decker shook his head. It didn't make sense. Alice Prince was damaged and therefore probably not naturally vindictive. Her involvement in Crime Zero was almost certainly fueled by idealistic fantasies, which denied the realities of the human costs. The dominant partner in this was Naylor. Instinctively he knew she always had been.

  So why were they alive?

  When he heard the undercarriage drop and felt the plane coming in to land, he guessed he would soon find out.

  As the plane eased to a stop, Decker was bundled outside into the cold and transferred with Kathy to another van. While it sped off, their blindfolds were removed, and Decker studied the two men sitting with them in the windowless rear cabin. His tote bag containing the discs was at the feet of the shorter one with sandy hair. Typical agents, dark suits and impenetrable manner. But he didn't recognize either of them.