Host

by Robin Cook

  Michael: I would be interested to come with you. I didn’t think I would be allowed.

  Vladimir: Who is to know? There is rarely anyone in the institute’s NOC, or network operations center, and I know there is no one there now. The institute’s servers are also monitored in the main hospital NOC. I’ve been working in the Shapiro NOC for a month and haven’t seen anyone. The door that I came out leads directly to it.

  Michael: I’m with you. Let’s do it!

  Following a half step behind, Michael followed Vladimir back to the blank door. Just to the right of the frame, at chest height, was a small, hinged metal housing. Vladimir lifted the front. Beneath was a touch screen. Vladimir pressed his right thumb against it, and almost instantaneously a click sounded as the door unlocked. Vladimir pushed it open and motioned for Michael to follow. Michael was not impressed. He thought that the ultra-futuristic Shapiro Institute would have had something a bit more up to date than decade-old thumbprint security.

  Beyond the door was a hallway. The walls were all white, and the hallway was illuminated by bright LED light behind translucent ceiling panels. As he walked, Michael’s eyes roamed the ceiling for signs of video devices. He saw what he thought had to be one in the middle of the ceiling, about twenty feet from the door. If it was one, Vladimir was unconcerned, although as someone knowledgeable about the institute’s IT system, he had to know about security. Michael shrugged. If Vladimir wasn’t worried, he wouldn’t be, either. Maybe over the years there had been no intrusions and they had become lax.

  Pushing through the first door they came to, Michael found himself in a relatively small room housing four multiscreened computer terminals, each with a small work desk and an ergonomic chair. Like the hallway, the walls were all white and the illumination came from translucent ceiling panels. Opposite the door was a large window that looked into the server room, with its stacks of processors and storage devices. The room was air-conditioned to the point of feeling as cold as a walk-in refrigerator.

  Without hesitation Vladimir sat down at one of the workstations, and Michael came up directly behind him. If Michael’s proximity looking over Vladimir’s shoulder bothered the Russian, he didn’t let on. Quickly the Russian typed in his user name, which Michael could see was his e-mail address. Then, as he was about to type in his password, Michael stepped to the side so he could see the keyboard. The password started with a 7, and Michael tried to concentrate on the series of digits. With his speed-reading forte, this was an exercise he was relatively good at. By the time Vladimir got to the sixth digit, Michael realized it was the dude’s mobile number. After eleven digits Vladimir switched to lowercase letters, the first one being M. Soon Michael recognized he didn’t have to remember that, either. The Russian was merely spelling out his last name. So much for tight security.

  “Okay, we good,” Vladimir said as he navigated the task bar. When prompted, he typed in Ashanti Davis, which he had written out on a piece of scrap paper before logging in. A second later Ashanti’s home page came up: Cluster 4-B 32. Beneath that was: DROZITUMAB +4 ACTIVE. “She still here,” the Russian said.

  “Right on!” Michael said, looking at the screen, wondering what Cluster 4-B 32 meant as well as the meaning of drozitumab +4 active. Taking the initiative, Michael reached out for the mouse and moved the cursor to HEALTH STATUS on the menu bar and clicked. He then clicked on VITAL SIGNS in the drop-down. A second later he and Vladimir were looking at an active graph of the woman’s vital signs, which were being followed in real time. Blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, oxygen saturation were all within normal range.

  “Seems she is still in the game,” Michael said. Without giving up the mouse, he went back to the drop-down menu under HEALTH STATUS and clicked on COMPLICATIONS. A moment later he and Vladimir were looking at a list of problems—some active, some solved. What jumped out at him among expected conditions like BACTERIAL PNEUMONIA/CURED, CYSTITIS/CURED, was the ominous diagnosis of multiple myeloma. Michael knew that it was a serious type of blood cancer seen more often in African Americans than among Caucasians, but more in males than females and very rarely in young people.

  Michael pulled out his cell phone and made a motion as if to use it to take a screen shot. He treated Vladimir to a questioning expression with the explanation: “So I can tell my mamma how she is doing.”

  Vladimir seemed to understand the gesture. Responding with a shrug he said: “Okay.”

  Michael took the shot and checked to see if it came out adequately enough to read. It seemed to be fine. He would have liked to look at more of the record, but didn’t want to push his luck. He had already accomplished far more than he could have dreamed of a half hour previously, and he surely did not want to alienate his new Russian buddy.

  “We go?” Vladimir questioned.

  Michael responded with a double thumbs-up. He couldn’t believe his luck. Lynn was going to be shocked.

  12.

  Monday, April 6, 11:48 P.M.

  As far as Darko Lebedev was concerned, the weather had totally cooperated. Although it had been a bright, clear spring day, early evening had witnessed a sudden change. The wind had shifted, blowing in moist, tropical air from the south that quickly turned into a dense fog. Now, as Darko looked out the windshield of the nondescript Ford van, he could see swirls of vapor enveloping the trees and scrubs around the target house, 1440 Bay View Drive. The moon was conveniently blotted out. The circumstances couldn’t have been more perfect for what was about to happen.

  Darko and his partner, Leonid Shubin, had driven about twenty miles north from Charleston earlier that evening to a town called Summerville, where they stole the van they were now using. It was dark blue with no markings whatsoever, which was the reason they had selected it. From Summerville they had driven to Mount Pleasant and had made a few drive-bys of the house they had targeted, to check it out. It was the last residence on a dead-end street, with only one way in and one way out, the single minor complication for what they were planning: a home invasion.

  After their last drive-by a half hour earlier, they had pulled over to the side of the road in front of the closest neighboring house and killed the engine. They were waiting for signs that the family was in the process of turning in for the night. They didn’t have long to wait.

  “The lights just went out in what must be the master bedroom,” Leonid said in Russian. Both men had become adept at English, as they had been living in the Charleston area for a bit more than five years, but when they were alone, they preferred Russian. They had known each other for almost fifteen years, having met as members of the Russian Spetsgruppa “B” Vega, in which they had served almost ten years in Chechnya, where they had done dozens of home invasions. They considered the process their specialty. In the north Caucasus, suspected terrorists were simply eliminated along with their families without any attempt at due process. It was the Russian way of dealing with what they labeled terrorism.

  “Go!” Darko barked in Russian. Both men leaped from the van. They had been ready to move for almost an hour. They were dressed in black jumpsuits and black cross-trainer shoes. They carried everything they needed, including stun grenades and Russian-made AF-1 automatic pistols with noise suppressors. As they exited the vehicle, both pulled their black balaclavas down over their faces and activated their night-vision goggles. They were thrilled to be doing what they had been highly trained to do. In their minds they had been underutilized since their arrival in America.

  Darko, the larger of the two, was in the lead as the men ran up the driveway, past the Mercedes sedan parked outside the garage, and up the walkway toward the front door. Both were in superb physical shape, working out and biking or running every day. As planned, Darko went to the right of the door and Leonid to the left. With practiced efficiency Leonid placed a small C4 explosive charge in the angle between the door and the jamb just to the side of the doorknob.

  After
a nod from Darko, Leonid detonated the charge. The report seemed loud in the silence but was not much worse than the bursting of a birthday balloon. In the next instant, both men were inside the house. It was key to incapacitate the adults as soon as possible and then deal with an alarm if there was one. In Chechnya, alarms were few and far between, but they did go off every now and then. Even if an automatic phone call was made to security people, they weren’t particularly bothered. They would be long gone before anybody came to the house to check. If there was no alarm system or if it was off, then they could take their time and enjoy themselves.

  Having observed the house during their drive-bys, they had a reasonable idea of its layout. From their observation of the persistent light in one of the windows on the second floor, especially during the last half hour, they assumed that that was where the master bedroom was located. Accordingly they went directly up the stairs in a headlong rush with pistols at the ready. There had been no sound of an alarm as they breached the front door. A few seconds later they burst into the bedroom.

  The king-size bed was directly across from the door to the hall. Kate and Robert Hurley were sitting up in bed, totally startled, with eyes thrown wide open and mouths agape.

  Darko found a light switch and turned on a small crystal chandelier.

  When Kate Hurley caught sight of the Russians, she gasped. Darko pushed up his night-vision goggles.

  “What is this?” Robert Hurley shouted. “What the hell is going on?”

  Darko didn’t answer but rather nodded to Leonid. Everything was going according to plan. An instant later, Leonid was back out the door. It was his job to take care of the kids. The assassins had been told there were two boys.

  “How dare you!” Robert snapped, trying to sound authoritative. Kate gripped his arm to get him to shut up, but it didn’t work. “What the hell is a SWAT team doing in our house?” he demanded.

  Darko still didn’t answer. Instead he looked at the alarm system’s keypad on the wall to the right of the door. It was in the off position. They could take their time.

  Robert threw back the bedcovers and started to get out of bed.

  Darko leveled his automatic at him and told him in a heavy accent, “Stay put!”

  “Where are you from?” Robert demanded angrily, but he followed orders. He’d never had a gun pointed at him. It was unnerving, to say the very least. “Are you police or what?”

  The next instant there were two loud thudding noises that sounded like someone hitting a couch with a baseball bat. Darko knew what the sounds meant, but the parents didn’t. A moment later Leonid reappeared and merely nodded to Darko, meaning the job was done.

  “Where is your computer?” Darko asked.

  Robert glanced at his wife with a questioning expression as if to say “Can you believe these guys?”

  “And do you have a laptop? What about a tablet? And your mobile phone: we want them all.”

  “Is that what this is about?” Robert demanded. He was incensed. “You people came in here to steal our computers? Fine! Take them!”

  “Where are they?” Darko asked, keeping his voice calm. Things were going well and he didn’t want to upset Robert unnecessarily. They needed his cooperation.

  “Downstairs in the study,” Robert said.

  “Show me!” Darko said. He motioned toward the door with his pistol.

  “I’ll be right back,” Robert said to Kate as he climbed out of bed, put on a bathrobe, and guided his feet into slippers. He gave Darko and Leonid a dirty look as he passed them, heading out into the hall.

  “Have fun!” Darko said to Leonid in Russian as he turned and followed Robert. Before they had come into the house they had flipped a coin to decide who did what. The loser had to do the kids, but as compensation he also got to do the wife. The point was that they had to make it all look like a horrid home invasion and not an assassination. Akin to a number of infamous episodes, the last one being in Connecticut, violence was key, including rape and murder with robbery as an afterthought. It was important to convince the media.

  “I intend to have fun,” Leonid said also in Russian. “It’s not going to be hard. She’s not bad-looking.”

  Darko followed Robert down the stairs and into the study, where Robert switched on the light. He gestured to his PC on the desk.

  “What about the laptop, the tablet, and the smartphone?” Darko said.

  Without comment, Robert left the study and went into the kitchen. Darko followed, pistol in his hand but at his side. He didn’t expect Robert to try anything, but he seemed less intimidated than the people Darko and Leonid had dealt with back in Chechnya. Of course in Chechnya people knew what was going to happen, and Robert didn’t.

  With all the electronic gear in his hand, Robert was forced to return to the study, where Darko made him sit down at his PC on the desk.

  “I want you to access your files at your office,” Darko said. He again used the pistol to gesture.

  “You’re joking,” Robert said. His expression was of complete disbelief.

  “No joke,” Darko said. “Do it!”

  Robert eyed the gun in Darko’s grip. Hesitated for a moment then did as he had been told.

  Darko watched the screen over Robert’s shoulder. “Now,” Darko said, his voice still calm, “I want you to find and delete all files and documents you have relating to Middleton Healthcare and the Mason-Dixon Medical Center, both in your office and on this machine.”

  “Okay,” Robert said. He was flabbergasted and began wondering who could be behind this bizarre situation. There was a bit more than a week’s worth of work involved on the class-action case, but he was confident he could put it all back together rather easily because he remembered all the sources. With that in mind, he did as he was told without hesitation. When he was finished he looked up at Darko. “All done,” he said flippantly, as if he didn’t care.

  “Not all done,” Darko said. He pointed with the barrel of his gun toward the other electronic devices. “All documents and all files off all devices.”

  “You and your bosses are too much,” Robert said with a shake of his head. “Who exactly has put you up to this? Let me guess: Josh Feinberg, the CEO of the medical center? This is fucking crazy. Yet it’s okay. I don’t mind.” Robert first turned his attention to his laptop. When that was done, he picked up his smartphone. “There!” he said when he was completely finished. He tossed the phone onto the desk. “Nothing’s on the tablet. I hardly use it except to play games. That means all Middleton Healthcare and Mason-Dixon Medical Center documents and files have been deleted. I hope you are happy.”

  As someone reasonably competent with computers and other electronic devices, Darko was quite sure Robert was telling the truth, so he was “happy,” although satisfied would have been a better description. He reached over in front of Robert and moved the laptop and smartphone to the side. Just as Darko did so, a scream came from upstairs, followed by a dull thud similar to the one Robert and Kate had heard before, when Leonid went to take care of the kids.

  Robert’s eyes shot up as if he thought he could see through the ceiling. “What the hell?” he demanded as he started to get to his feet.

  Darko didn’t answer but rather raised his pistol and pointed it at Robert’s face. The sound it made was more of a hiss than a bang. Robert’s head snapped back, and his body went limp in the chair, arms dangling to the side. A red dot the size of a marble appeared in the middle of his forehead, just between his eyes.

  Quickly Darko went through the desk to find objects worth taking besides the laptop and the smartphone. It was important to make the event seem like a burglary. Leonid appeared a moment later, zipping up his jumpsuit.

  “How was it?” Darko asked, reverting to Russian as he picked up the electronic gear to carry it out to the van.

  “I like young Chechen girls better,” Leonid
said. “More fight. Maybe you want to run up and take a turn. She’s still warm.”

  “Fuck you,” Darko said. He flashed his partner a middle finger. “Did you remember to look for any jewelry?”

  “Yes, and I found some. Not a lot, but I got what I could, including the lawyer’s wallet and his Rolex.”

  “That should be enough. Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  13.

  Tuesday, April 7, 5:45 A.M.

  At first Michael tried to incorporate the thumping sound into a very enjoyable dream, but it didn’t work. Reluctantly he acknowledged that someone was intermittently knocking on his door. “Shit,” he said under his breath.

  Assuming his tormentor was not going to go away, Michael swung his legs out from under the covers and glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even six, and the dermatology lecture wasn’t going to start until nine. “Shit,” he repeated, hoisting himself to his feet. He couldn’t imagine who could be disturbing him or why. Despite being clad only in skivvies, he threw the door wide open. To his surprise he was face-to-face with Lynn, who was sporting an exasperated expression that it had taken him so long to open the door. She was the last person Michael had expected to see.

  The evening before, Michael had checked Lynn’s room on several occasions to see if she had returned. Her room was only three doors down the hall from his. When she hadn’t appeared by eleven P.M., he had thought about calling or texting to make sure she was okay. He was also eager to tell her about his serendipitous meeting up with Vladimir and getting into the Shapiro Institute. But by then he assumed she was going to spend the night at Carl’s and worried that she might already have been asleep or at the least needed some private time. After all, she had Michael’s mobile number if she had wanted contact.

  “We need to talk!” Lynn said. She pushed past the surprised Michael and threw herself into Michael’s desk chair, turning on his desktop gaming computer. She was sporting a fresh white medical student’s coat.