by Hinze, Vicki
“Um,” Liz said, hesitating. “I’m almost scared to ask, but I need to know. Can I take it that your calm means Olivia is still with us?”
“She is still with us, and her fever has broken.” Emma shined the flashlight down the tunnel. It was clear. “Mason says, it appears as if she’s going to recover.”
“That’s great news. I know you were worried. Everyone was worried.”
“Olivia wasn’t,” Emma said. “She told her little brother she wouldn’t die today.”
“How could she know that?”
“She says, she asked for a Christmas miracle. And she said that Dr. Cramer told her she’d gotten one.” Emma paused, rubbed at her temple. “Actually, he is why I’m calling. He’s dropped off the radar.”
“Interesting.”
“Very,” Emma said. “Olivia said, right after her fever broke, he told her she was going to be fine and he left the quarantine room. That’s the last anyone’s seen of him.”
“And Dr. Hunk hasn’t told you anything about him?”
“Beyond confirming the man’s name being Addison Cramer, not really.”
Liz’s voice spiked higher. “Did you say Addison Cramer?”
“I did, yes.”
“Are you sure? Before, you just told me Dr. Cramer. You’re sure it was Addison?”
“Addison Cramer. Yes, I’m sure. That’s how he identified himself.” Emma didn’t like the edge in Liz’s tone. It set off alarms in her that were never a good sign.
“But that’s impossible, Emma.”
“Why?”
“Because Addison Cramer not only worked on developing BP7PP, he ran the entire program.”
“Okay.” Emma wasn’t yet connecting why that made it impossible for him to show up here. Actually, it made it more likely.
“He agreed to develop BP7PP because of the Russian’s Small Pox event. But he insisted he’d develop BP7PP only if he was allowed to develop the antidote to it simultaneously. The honchos agreed.”
Emma still wasn’t tracking. “So, what is the conflict?” She lifted a hand. “Is there one?”
“Oh, yeah. There is. And it’s a big one.”
Was Liz going to share it or just taunt Emma? “Well?”
“When the weaponized version of the pathogen was done,” Liz said, “the antidote still wasn’t working. Dr. Cramer needed more time and money.”
The conflict smacked into Emma. She swallowed a gasp. “They shut down the program on him.”
“Yes!”
Emma’s mind whirled. “He said he went to a private facility and continued to work on the antidote there.”
“But see, that’s impossible, Emma,” Liz insisted.
Impossible. Not unlikely, but impossible. “Why?”
“Because Addison Cramer committed suicide the same day that they shut down the project.”
Shock coursed through Emma. “What? You’re telling me Dr. Cramer is dead?”
“Dead and buried.”
“Well, he looked pretty healthy for a corpse, and Mason recognized him.” She recalled the exact exchange. “He said he was a man here to help and not to make him regret it. He’d been hanging out in the airport for three days.”
“The project ended June 12, 2010. Addison Cramer died June 12, 2010.”
“So, if he’s dead, then who was here?” Emma asked.
“And what did he give Olivia?” Liz answered with a question of her own.
“I don’t know, but whatever it was, it worked.” Emma had believed him. She had trusted Mason. “Cramer couldn’t have died. It had to have been him. Who else would have that kind of insight and information on the pathogen?”
“I’m not sure, but I’d say your Dr. Hunk has some significant questions to answer.”
“I’d say so. He’s waiting for me now. I’ll report back when I get this sorted out.”
“Emma, I am sorry.”
She’d trusted him. “So am I. But there could be an explanation.” He had promised to explain. “Let’s wait and see how it turns out.” If she repeated that often enough, maybe she’d heed the advice herself. It was good advice, even if at the moment, inside she was steaming-hot angry with Mason.
“One more thing before you go.”
“Yeah?”
“How is the temperature holding in the HC lab?”
“Okay, so far. The ice-pack is helping. For how long? Who knows?”
“Headquarters says repairs are imminent. They’re working on the auxiliary backup now. Visibility is still too bad to truck in generators.”
“Do they think they can get the auxiliary up and running?”
“They do,” Liz told her. “It shouldn’t be long, they said.”
At least that was good news. “Okay, I’ll get back with you as soon as I have some answers.”
“Emma, I know you feel betrayed and you’re angry. I don’t blame you for that. But don’t you dare shoot him.”
“I won’t.” Emma rolled her gaze.
“But you want to.”
“I won’t, Liz.”
Emma disconnected, then took a couple deep breaths before opening the outer door. Deep breaths, and she did her best to bury the sense of betrayal that had acid pouring into her stomach. Mason better have answers for her, and he’d best not jack her around, giving them to her.
Liz knew Emma wouldn’t shoot him but that she’d want to. She’d been in this position before herself, back when she worked in the field. Betrayal was never easy to take, and it could mess with your mind—if you let it.
Emma refused. She was in total control and intended to stay in total control. She most definitely would not shoot Mason.
But she well might make him wish she had…
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tuesday, December 18th
1300 (1:00 PM)
Emma walked into the kitchen. Battery-lit lamps were on the breakfast bar, the counter near the sink, and on the table. Mason was pulling sliced turkey, ham and cheese out of the fridge. Mayo and mustard, pickles and chips were already on the bar. So were plates and utensils.
“There you are,” he said, his tone light. “The spaghetti got commandeered by Olivia and the troops, so I’m afraid we’re stuck with sandwiches.”
“Works for me.” Emma slid onto a bar-stool. “Honestly, I’m not fond of cold spaghetti.”
“I heated it for them.” He placed the cold-cuts on the bar. “Lab perk. Propane.”
“Ah.” She reached for the bread and began assembling a sandwich. “Is the temperature in the lab holding?”
“It’s steady so far, but if we don’t get power back within a couple hours, we could face some trouble.” He paused to look at her. “Water, tea, or juice?”
“Tea, please.”
He retrieved two bottles from the fridge and passed one to her.
“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said. “The power, I mean.” That had to be the understatement of the year. “Liz says backup should be restored fairly soon.” Anger that he hadn’t told her about Cramer simmered in Emma. She steeled herself against it, reminding herself Mason had promised to tell her. She tossed him a lead-in to the subject. “Any word from Dr. Cramer?”
“No.” Mason paused to look at her. “But honestly, he’s probably gone. I doubt we’ll see him again.”
Well, that was a start. “In the storm? Why do you say that?”
“Olivia survived.” Slathering mayonnaise onto his bread, Mason stopped, his knife in mid-air. “I don’t know how Cramer would get out, but I’m guessing he had planned an exit strategy before he got here. He was only here to help in case someone got exposed—and thank God he was here.”
Or Olivia would be dead. Mason was right about that. Emma loaded her bread with turkey and cheese, then slapped a second slice of bread on top of the first. “Yeah, I’m glad he was here. And that Olivia got her Christmas miracle.”
“Me, too.” Mason started assembling his sandwich. “He couldn’t stay here. I mean, th
ink about it. Anyone finds out, and they’re all over him. He had to go.”
She couldn’t argue the logic in that. “I agree.” Either side would snag him, especially now that he had an antidote. “You know,” Emma said, swallowing a bite of sandwich and then reaching for the chips. “He looks pretty good for a corpse.” She glanced over, challenging Mason. “Or would you say he’s a ghost?”
“Excuse me?” Mason sat down across from her at the bar, his triple-decker sandwich on a plate in front of him.
“I mean, the man’s been dead for a lot of years, so he has to be one or the other, right?” Emma snapped down on a crunchy chip.
Mason’s mouth flattened into a slash. “Liz.”
“Well?” Emma pushed, ignoring his supposition, though it was accurate. She took a bite of her sandwich and slowly chewed, waiting for Mason’s answer.
He picked up on her upset. “You don’t need to worry about him, Emma, or get defensive or hostile with me about him. Honestly. I said I’d tell you, and I intended to at first chance. The man who was here is the real Addison Cramer.”
She chewed then swallowed. “You recognized him, didn’t you?”
“Would I let him into the lab otherwise? Would I let him inject Olivia with an experimental drug?” Mason grunted. “Give me a little credit for having some sense.”
In fairness, Mason wouldn’t do either. Even angry, Emma couldn’t delude herself for a second thinking he would put Olivia—any of them, really—or the lab at that kind of risk. “Explain this to me, Mason, because right now, I’m not at all comfortable with you withholding the truth from me.”
“I never intended to withhold the truth from you.”
“That’s not an explanation,” she said, her voice flat. “You did withhold—”
“Look, you’re right. I delayed telling you, but I did recognize him. He was Dr. Addison Cramer.”
“The dead, Dr. Addison Cramer?”
“Yes. Obviously not dead, but the same man.” Mason nodded, adding weight to his claim. He paused to sip from his bottle of tea. “Think about it, Emma. Do you have any idea what would have happened to Cramer if he hadn’t died that day?”
“Faked his death, you mean?”
“Yes.” Frustrated, Mason dragged a hand across his nape. “Cramer had created the worst pathogen known to man—and they’d cut the antidote project.” Mason lifted a hand. “He never would have agreed to develop it if they hadn’t permitted the simultaneous development of the antidote. They reneged on him. If Cramer hadn’t died, he would have been targeted by any number of rogue nations and special interest groups like CAR.”
Mason made a valid point. “For an antidote he didn’t have?”
“For the pathogen he did have in his head.” Mason forced himself to drop his voice and visibly calmed down. “If he had been kidnapped by a rogue nation or a black-market group, Cramer would have been forced to replicate the virus and work on the antidote. Do you realize the jeopardy that would have put our entire nation in? The leverage the rogue nation or group with it would have against the rest of us? The entire world would have been in lethal jeopardy and held hostage.”
“I can see that, yes.” She could see it. Only too well. The possibility was chilling. And the odds of it happening were astronomical.
Her admission soothed the sharp edge from Mason’s voice. “This field is really a pretty small community. Word gets around. When Dr. Cramer died, there were rumors.”
“What kind of rumors?” She lifted her bottle and drank down some tea.
“That he’d preserved his studies,” Mason said. “A lot of people searched, but no one ever found them,” Mason added. “Today, he told me why.”
She swallowed a bite of chip. The salt burned on her tongue. “Are you going to share that with me?”
Mason stared at her long and hard, then finally nodded. “Dr. Cramer had heard chatter that the honchos were going to cut his antidote project. He was furious and fearful. He knew what no antidote meant to him personally and to everyone else on the planet. So, he acted.”
“Acted.” She bit down on a crunchy pickle. “How did he act?”
“He had a makeup artist friend—they’d known each other for years—who worked on movies in LA. This guy was part of a team that developed a lot of special effects and that kind of thing.”
“Does this friend have a name?”
“I’m sure he does, but Dr. Cramer didn’t share it, and I didn’t ask.”
Probably the safest route Mason could have taken.
“Anyway,” Mason went on. “This friend helped Dr. Cramer fake his suicide and disappear.”
People didn’t search for dead men. Only for the records he left behind. “Okay. So, the doctor disappeared and then he continued to work on the antidote. He said, privately.”
“On his own, yes. In his own lab.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Figured. No doubt Cramer hadn’t said, and Mason hadn’t asked about that, either.
He washed down a long swallow. “You know Cramer has been spotted in the airport since three days before the storm.”
“I do,” Emma said. “He must have a meteorologist friend, too. The storm wasn’t headed here three days before the storm hit. It turned.”
“But the lab is here.” Mason lifted an eyebrow. “It’s hard to keep locations secret in a small community.” He took a bite of sandwich and slowly chewed. “Cramer kept an ear to the ground, and he suspected the lab was here.” Mason held her gaze without faltering. “I have no idea who his inside source is or was, so don’t bother asking. What is important is that Cramer suspected the HC lab was here and, if it was, his being here and available to help was his concern.”
“I see.” Cramer had taken a whale of a risk outing himself in this, especially knowing the expectation was invaders would be afoot.
“Not yet, but you’re beginning to see,” Mason said. “John Taylor spotted Cramer and came to me. I recognized him immediately and vouched for him.”
“But you hadn’t seen him close up until he showed up in the lab with me?”
“No, I hadn’t. But I had spoken with him briefly on a secure phone. Before I vouched for him, I wanted to hear his voice. John Taylor handled that. I recorded Cramer and did a cross-match test via headquarters from here in the lab. Then, I vouched for him.”
Obviously, the voice prints matched. “When you talked with him, what did you ask him?” Curiosity got the better of her.
“Why he was here.”
“What did he say?”
“An interested party informed him of the chatter in the intelligence community and the likelihood of an attack on my lab.”
“So, he did know the lab was here.”
“He suspected it. The chatter proved it, my presence here affirmed it, and then Cramer’s contact more or less confirmed it. Anyway, Cramer prepositioned himself here with the antidote in case it was needed.”
Emma chewed that information over. Whale of a risk for him. “Are you sure it wasn’t his makeup artist friend or someone else posing as Cramer?”
“I also tested his phone voice against his old lectures. Matched. I suspect his makeup artist friend had ties to the intelligence community. He died two years ago but—I’m guessing—before he died, he recruited a point-of-contact for Cramer.”
Reasoned. His friend had to know Cramer needed a contact and without one, the country would be vulnerable. “Did his friend die of natural causes?” Emma hoped but doubted it.
“No. He interrupted someone tossing his home, searching for Dr. Cramer’s records. The intruders tried to get the information out of him, but he didn’t have it to give them. He died.” Mason looked right at her. “The man here was Dr. Cramer, Em. I recognized his voice, and he was too knowledgeable to be an imposter. It was him.”
“The makeup artist was… what? CIA or FBI? Assigned to one of the other alphabet agencies?”
“I have no idea.”
Mason admitted bluntly.
“But you’re confident Dr. Cramer is gone and won’t be back,” Emma said. “It’s your opinion that he’s gone back underground.”
“I expect he’ll disappear and stay gone forever. It’s his best chance to stay alive.” Mason hiked a shoulder. “Since he left the antidote with us, his responsibility has been met. He created a danger and the means to neutralize it. His work is finally done. There’s no reason for anyone to look for him now.”
“Not unless the rogue nations or black-market groups discover he’s alive.” They had even more incentive to abduct and force him to replicate both the pathogen and the antidote now that he had a successful antidote.
“Right.” Mason agreed and polished off his sandwich.
“Cramer knows that, of course.”
“Now you have it. That’s exactly why I expect we’ll never see or hear from him again.” Mason shrugged. “His only safe option is to become someone else, somewhere else. He’s done all he can do, developing the antidote. His debt to society is repaid.”
That was true. He hadn’t violated the conditions of his agreement. He’d devoted his life since his death to continuing the work. And he’d succeeded. That was all he could do. It was definitely time for him to vanish and stay hidden. It would be hard for him. Leaving his work, which had to be the last tie he had to his old life. Imagine. Living a lifetime and one day everything familiar is gone. Her stomach hollowed and she looked at Mason. “You knew all of this before I went above and brought him back down here with me. And you let him just walk away and go.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Mason frowned.
She didn’t answer.
Mason pushed. “Well, wouldn’t you, Em?”
She thought about it. Good or bad, it wasn’t a hard decision. “Yeah, I guess in this specific set of circumstances, I would have.”
“You said it yourself. Too many would still want him dead or under their control. Let’s be real here. Both sides want him dead. He’s too big a risk to everyone alive.” Mason speared another pickle then bit off a chunk. His mouth did a little pucker from the tart brine. “That was my thought.”
“It’s logical,” she said. It chewed on her that the good guys tagged Dr. Cramer a liability as much as the bad guys tagged him as an asset. But for the nation, a planet of people, she couldn’t lie and say she didn’t understand their reasoning. She definitely would have let him go. To keep working after being crossed, he had to be devoted to preserving humanity. Even if located and abducted, forced to work, he’d never recreate the pathogen. He probably would recreate the antidote, praying it would render the pathogen harmless. Worthless.
