by L. T. Ryan
“These should do the trick.” Haeli held up two large paper clips that matched those binding the packets of paperwork together. “They’re not ideal, but unless either of you have a set of lock picking tools, we’re going to have to go with it.”
Haeli appeared confident, and after what Blake had seen, he wasn’t about to question her ability to make it work. Blake figured Griff felt the same way as he also said nothing.
Haeli straightened each clip and then re-bent them, using the corner of the counter as a fulcrum. She narrated as she did so, as if she were giving a master class on the art of breaking and entering. “If I double this one up and bend it into an L, I should be able to use it as a tension wrench. Then I just have to put a couple of kinks in this one so I can use it as a rake.”
Blake was well familiar with the tools and methods associated with picking locks. Doing so with a couple of paper clips, not so much.
“All right, MacGyver,” Blake said. “If you pull this off, drinks are on me.”
“Nice.” Griff included himself. “Two nights in a row.”
“Not for you,” Blake said, his tone dramatic. “You’re cut off.”
Haeli slid the short end of the L-shaped paper clip into the lower portion of the key slot with her left hand. She inserted the other clip above it and moved it in and out. With each movement of her right hand, her left delicately pressed down on the long section of the makeshift tension tool. The rhythmic movements would have been imperceptible if it weren’t for the slight flex in the two spindly pieces of chrome coated metal.
The L-shaped paper clip traveled. Haeli pushed it until it completed its arc. She slapped down on the door handle and pulled the door open.
“I hope we’re talking top shelf.” Haeli gloated as she went through the door.
Griff and Blake stepped in behind her. Blake checked that the push bar on the inside actuated the latch before allowing the door to close.
“I know where it is,” Griff said. “You two stay here, I may need you to buy me some time if anyone comes poking around.”
Blake nodded.
Griff skittered off between the booths until he was no longer visible through the signs and screens and tall, colorful backdrops.
“Do you think it’s too late?” Haeli asked.
“For your father?” Blake shook his head “I don’t. No one ever won a battle by thinking they already lost it.”
Haeli shook her head slightly. Her gaze darted around his face and then came to rest after meeting his. Blake felt as though she could see through him. “Who are you, really? And don’t tell me you work for the State Department.”
“Let’s just say in a past life I’ve had some experiences not unlike your own.” Blake measured his words for a few beats. “I know how hard it is to come to terms with the real cost. And how hard it is to put it behind you.”
Haeli looked at the ground. “I thought when I walked away, I’d never look back. That I would walk out to the world and be a regular person. I was kidding myself. It’s too late for me. And if something happens to my father…”
Blake waited for her to continue. The thousand-yard stare—past his shoes, past the floor, past the center of the earth—meant her monologue had continued inside her own head.
“Look, I know what you think you want,” Blake said, “and I hope you find it. But don’t for one second think it won’t be a constant struggle. I’ve seen what you can do, who you are. It’s in your blood. And no matter the wake of destruction you have left in your path, no matter what regrets you have, it’ll pull at you until you take your last breath. It’s a choice you must reaffirm every single day.”
Haeli looked up at him, giving him another once-over. “Are we talking about me, or you?”
Both of their heads snapped around at the metallic sound of the handles on the right-most set of double doors jiggling. Then the second from the right. Then the third.
“If that door opens,” Blake said, “act like we’re having an argument.”
The fourth set jiggled and then the door creaked open.
Haeli disregarded the plan. She reached up and wrapped her hands around Blake’s head; her thumbs framed his ears and her fingers stretched around the side and back of his neck. She pulled him toward her and pressed her lips against his.
Blake committed to the ruse. There wasn’t enough time to debate.
It was forceful at first, but Blake could feel Haeli’s fingers softening, releasing him from his obligation. The warmth of her lips, the sweet taste of her tongue drew him in. His hand found its way to her lower back without him realizing it, and now it was him who drew her closer.
It was a staged kiss. A concocted distraction. So why did it feel like passion? Like comfort? Blake could have remained in the moment for as long as it existed, because that’s what it was. A moment. And when it was over, it would never happen again.
“Hey, I’m talking to you,” the man yelled. It was the first time the voice registered in his ears.
Haeli slowly dropped from her toes to flat feet, pulling at Blake’s bottom lip with her teeth. She smiled and gazed into his eyes, ignoring the security guard that stood only two feet away.
“I’m sorry,” Blake said. “Are we not supposed to be in here?”
“No, you’re not supposed to be in here. This area is closed. Off limits.”
The man was unarmed, Blake thought, but he wasn’t sure. The guard was older, salted strands intermingled with his otherwise peppered head of hair. He wore a jacket with the Venetian logo over the breast pocket and carried a handheld radio. He hadn’t asked about Griff, so Blake figured he hadn’t seen them on the cameras.
“Oh my God, Roger. You said no one would see us in here.” Haeli’s voice came off shrill and laced with a midwestern accent.
“Baby, give me a break, huh.” Blake turned to the security guard. “I met this lovely lady in your casino and, you know, we were just looking for a quiet place to talk.”
“I’m going to give you ten seconds to get out of here. Go get yourself a room like everybody else.”
“Sure thing.” Blake did his best to be non-confrontational.
The security guard opened the door and held it. “Let’s go, people. Move it.”
Blake and Haeli exited past the guard to the hallway. Another man, about the same age and dressed in the same uniform, approached.
The original security guard said, “Paul, will you escort these love birds back to the casino entrance? And did you lock these?”
“Bobby locked up over here,” the other man answered.
The original man keyed his radio, “Bobby, meet me in the office.”
Blake pulled out a stool and Haeli sat facing the bar. Blake spun his stool around. The high leather back rubbed against the bar rail. It was the closest place they noticed where they could sit without gambling. It also had a decent view of the passageway to the conference center. Blake wondered if Griff knew they had been shooed away.
“A deal’s a deal,” Blake said. “What are you having?”
“Johnny Blue. ‘Cause they don’t have Pappy.”
Blake was going to say something funny about how she was the perfect woman or about what a coincidence it was that they had the same taste. But then he realized it was too much of a coincidence. Griff must have put her up to it.
“Now we wait.” Blake kept his gaze on where he hoped Griff would emerge.
The bartender made it over to them and took Haeli’s order.
“Johnny Blue, neat please.” She put her hand on Blake’s forearm.
“Same.” Blake did not avert his attention.
Haeli let her hand linger for a few more seconds than needed. His skin burned under her fingers.
“There he is.” Blake slid off the stool.
Griff emerged, stopped, and surveyed the room. Blake walked toward him, but Griff signaled that he saw him, and Blake returned to his stool as Griff made his way over.
“I got it,” Griff sa
id.
“Thank you.” Haeli jumped off her stool and hugged Griff. Blake wondered if he had misinterpreted Haeli’s intentions when she hugged him in Griff’s room. Had it been a friendly gesture? But then there was the kiss. There was no misinterpreting the kiss.
Unless he had misinterpreted it.
“You’re the man,” Blake said. “I take back everything I said earlier. What are you having?”
“I’m all set,” Griff said. “I need to run upstairs and take care of wiping that surveillance video before anybody gets curious. I’ll meet you up there in a few and we’ll look at what’s in this file.” Griff handed the thumb drive to Haeli. “You hang onto it ‘til then.”
Haeli took it and secreted it in her bra.
Griff turned and took a few steps, then turned back. “Quick thinking in there. Must’ve been awful.”
“You saw that, huh?” Blake grimaced. He knew Griff would get a lot of mileage out of it. Griff’s wink solidified it.
The bartender placed the two glasses down in front of Blake and Haeli.
“Bye Griff,” Haeli sung.
Griff smiled and vanished into the crowd.
Haeli picked up her glass and placed her hand over her chest. “Whatever is on this drive, I’m glad you’ll be there to see it with me.”
Blake didn’t know what to say in response. He picked up the glass and stated the truth. “Me, too.”
15
Dr. Becher depressed the button on the end of the Eppendorf pipette, releasing the prescribed amount of liquid into the tube. He ejected the plastic tip with a satisfying click. Becher swirled the mixture and held it to the light. The chemicals would denature the DNA, separating it into individual strands for sequencing.
“Tell me some good news,” Becher said.
He didn’t expect the Deoxyribonucleic acid to respond. Not just yet. But it would eventually speak to him. It would reveal whether the experiment had been a success.
Transforming the DNA into digital data to be analyzed had been a tedious process. Not because it was difficult—it was a mostly automated process that had become pedestrian in the decades since they invented it—but because it took time. Lots of time. And his patience was growing thin.
He had used a thermocycler to automate the Polymerase Chain Reaction process needed to amplify the DNA. By applying heat, the Taq Polymerase enzyme synthesized two new strands of DNA using the original two as templates. Two exact copies. Over the entire cycle, the process was repeated thirty or forty times, doubling the DNA each time, until it made billions of copies.
Becher himself had been working on a similar amplification solution in the early 1980s. He had been close to pioneering a patented technique of his own when Dr. Kary Mullis released his paper, eventually snatching the Nobel Prize in 1993.
But the amplification was a means to an end. Generating enough DNA for the high-tech sequencing machine to detect each nucleotide as a corresponding chemical caused the machine to fluoresce. The result would be a sequence comprising four letters, A, C, T, G. The order in which these letters appeared would give him his answer.
Typically, lab technicians conducted this kind of menial work. But Becher insisted on doing it himself. It was the only way he could be sure that the results were pure.
“Knock, knock,” Sebastian Roberts said as he poked his head through the doorway.
Becher recognized the voice without having to turn around.
“Come in, Seby.” Becher kept his focus on his work. “To what do I owe this visit?”
“Wanted to come and check out the new place. See if you needed anything. I went to your quarters. I don’t know why, I should’ve assumed you’d be working in the lab.”
As bosses go, Roberts was ideal. He wouldn’t dream of telling Becher how to conduct his work, and he had never denied Becher’s requests for funding. But if Roberts was there, Becher knew there was an ulterior motive.
“You flew all the way out here to see if I needed anything?” Becher said.
“No, not just that. Levi asked me to speak with you in person.”
Becher placed the last tube in the tray and turned to face Roberts, who now had Becher’s attention.
“What is this about, Seby? Levi could have called me himself.”
“It’s about Haeli.” The forced smile fell from Roberts’ face as if it had been taped on over the sullen expression.
“Have you heard from her? Is she all right?”
“It’s not good Ben. She’s alive, but she’s gone rogue.”
“Rogue? What is that supposed to mean?” If the lab work had worn down his patience, Sebastian Roberts was using every remaining granule.
“All I know is what Levi told me. He received information from his men that Haeli has gone rogue. I mean, she’s lost it. Killing innocent people. Committing crimes. What did he say?” He made several clicking sounds with his tongue. “Something about her going off the reservation.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Becher could hardly believe what he was hearing. Was Roberts serious? Was this a sick joke? “Seby, you know Haeli. Does that sound like her?”
“No, it doesn’t. But I’m assured that it comes from a trusted source. You know what she is capable of, Ben. And she ran away. Doesn’t it make sense that she could have just snapped?”
“No. That makes no sense at all. I need to find her. Talk to her. You’ll see that your information is sorely mistaken.”
Roberts slapped his hand onto the counter that separated the two men. “You don’t get it. Levi has deemed Haeli a danger to the public. You know what that means. They will neutralize her. Levi’s already ordered it.”
“No. No. No.” Becher’s voice stepped up a few decibels with each repetition of the word. His face reddened. “Where is he? I want to talk to him.”
“He’s still in Israel, but he’s flying to Nevada in the morning. He’ll be here early. Ben, I don’t think you’ll change his mind. He sent me here to get your help. He’s expecting your cooperation on this. What am I supposed to tell him?”
“You tell him to wait.” Becher barked. “Not to do anything until I speak with him. I need him to understand. All of you to understand. I need her, Seby. She’s my only hope.”
“I’ll tell him. But I don’t think it’ll go over very well.”
“Do it.” Becher said, unable to mask his irritation in the least bit. “Now leave. I need to get back to work.”
Becher turned his back to Roberts. After a few moments, he heard Roberts sigh. In defeat, Becher hoped. He waited for the sound of shuffling feet to fade before checking over his shoulder to confirm Roberts had left. He walked to the desk in the corner of the lab and picked up his cell phone.
“Danger to the public. Ridiculous!”
He opened his text messages and scrolled to the thread labelled Haeli. He typed, Haeli, watch your back, they —
Becher paused a moment before holding his finger down on the backspace key. The cursor jumped backward, swallowing each word until there were none.
16
Blake inserted the key card Griff had given him. A green LED illuminated, accompanied by the click of the disengaging latch. He and Haeli entered and moved down the hallway to the living room.
“Griff?” Blake called out.
The door to the bedroom was open. There was no movement within.
“Be right there,” the muffled voice responded.
The sound of a toilet flushing came from beyond the bedroom. A few moments later, Griff appeared in the bedroom doorway, drying his hands with a washcloth.
“So, we ready to do this or what?” Griff flashed a toothy grin.
“I’m ready.” Haeli sat on the edge of the couch cushion.
“How did it go with the surveillance?” Blake asked.
“Piece of cake,” Griff said. “Ya know, we could do some damage if you ever wanted to go all Ocean’s Eleven on this place.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Blake said. “But for the recor
d, you’d make a pretty good Basher Tarr.”
“Basher?” Griff grimaced. “I’m Danny.”
“Please. He’s the big picture guy. There can be only one Danny. That’s clearly me.”
“Guys, focus.” Haeli raised her hand in the air with the blue thumb drive pinched between her thumb and forefinger.
Griff picked up his laptop from the kitchen island and sat next to Haeli. Blake chose a spot behind the couch for a better view of the screen. Haeli passed the drive to Griff, who inserted it into one of the USB ports.
The file finder window popped up, revealing the contents of the drive. The original zip file named “1.zip” was still present and now accompanied by a folder of the same name. Griff double clicked to display the contents of the folder.
The window presented four icons representing the extracted files. Three PDF documents and one with an unknown type and a raw file extension, each named with a random series of numbers.
Griff clicked on the first file. It automatically opened the PDF viewer software and displayed the document.
“Blueprints.” Griff stated the obvious.
“Of what?” Haeli asked.
Griff scrolled through the file and did not respond.
“Looks like some kind of industrial facility,” Blake said. “Wait. Stop there.”
Griff took his hand off the track pad.
Blake leaned over Griff’s shoulder and pointed at the screen. “These, right here. Laboratories. I think we’re looking at Techyon’s facility. Does this look familiar, Haeli?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t recognize the layout at all. If this is Techyon’s facility, it would have to be the new one. It’s definitely not Tel Aviv.”
“Open the next one,” Blake said.
Griff did so. This time the document comprised one page. A satellite image of lower Nevada. The metropolitan sprawl of Las Vegas was visible. About a hundred and twenty miles northwest of Las Vegas—judging by the scale printed on the lower left corner of the Google Maps image—was a red circle. A line that would result from dragging a finger around the touch screen of a phone or tablet.