Bernadette sat staring into her Grandma’s eyes. “Grandma, I’m in the business of protecting people, and I deal with people who are not very nice. My partner in the detective team is a short, really white guy. Maybe you had some bad food the night of your dream . . .”
“Bernadette, my visions are always clear. You need to stay away from this man.” Grandma Moses rose slowly from the chair and walked to her room. Sprocket followed her with only a sideways glance at Bernadette.
Bernadette sat back in her chair, regarding her Grandmas words, and almost like a poker player went through the odds of her Grandmother being right. Even as a young girl she was careful to follow her instructions, but the dreams weren’t always right, not always accurate. She decided she would never take a tall dark partner on the detective team and stay out of bright sunlight when being shot at. With those final thoughts bouncing around her head, she went to bed.
14
When Bernadette came out of her bedroom at 6:30 a.m., Grandma Moses was sitting in the chair in front of the television with Sprocket nestled at her feet.
“Coffee?” Bernadette asked as she went into the kitchen. She knew the conversation from last night about dreams of her death would not come up. Grandma Moses mentioned things only once . . . and to the wise . . . that was enough said.
Grandma Moses shut off the television and followed her into the kitchen. “No, I had tea, been up for awhile.” She sat down at the kitchen table facing Bernadette, “I’m leaving today, going south.”
Bernadette turned and looked at her grandmother. She always wondered how old she was. She seemed timeless, just like she dropped onto the earth with those creases on her face, and small lips that rarely smiled. She smiled with her eyes; they twinkled when she was happy.
“How far south?” Bernadette asked.
“Montana.”
“We have relatives in Montana?”
Grandma Moses looked out the window; the sun was just starting to rise. A small tree in the backyard filled with birds. “We don’t have relatives in Montana. I’m going to the Sundance Ceremony.”
Bernadette filled her coffee cup and added her usual mix of cream and sugar. She sat down at the kitchen table, and placed her hand on her Grandma’s wrinkled brown hand. “Grandma, are you going to watch or participate . . . you know one of the ones’ dancing and praying?” Bernadette’s voice was edged with concern. The participants did not eat or drink for four days.
Grandma Moses put her other hand on top of Bernadette’s. “I will be dancing and praying. Don’t worry about me, I haven’t seen my death yet in my dreams . . . I’ll be okay.” She got up from the table and Bernadette followed her as she headed for the door. Sprocket followed at her heels.
“Grandma, do you intend to take the dog?” Bernadette asked. She was just a little anxious about her Grandma’s answer.
Grandma Moses turned back to Bernadette and looked down at Sprocket; she spoke to him in Dene. The dog lowered his head, and with another sideways glance at Bernadette, he took his place by the chair in the living room.
“Thanks Grandma. He’s a good running partner.”
“I spoke with your dog.” Grandma Moses leveled her gaze at Bernadette. “He told me you need to have more sex . . . run much less.”
Bernadette watched her Grandma go out the door and turned to Sprocket. “So, you ratted on me to Grandma.” The dog looked up at her; one eyebrow raised, and then put its head down on the floor in obvious shame.
Grandma Moses backed her old pickup truck out of the driveway. A cloud of black smoke billowed out of the exhaust pipe, the gears clashed, and she was gone. Bernadette watched as the trucks tail lights disappeared. She shook her head; the old woman did not have a cell phone, much less a phone in her home. The Internet, Facebook, and Twitter were foreign to her, and yet she move around from place to place with ease.
Bernadette filled a thermos travel mug with coffee and headed for work. She arrived at a little past seven to a wonderful sarcastic reception from the other detectives and RCMP officers asking her how the vacation in Victoria was. Some wanted to know if she had time for any of the tourist sites. One wanted to know if she’d brought back any salmon. She smiled, waved at them, and headed for her desk.
After a meeting with her chief of detectives, and then meeting with the other detectives, she was caught up with recent cases, warrants, and reacquainted with the pile of paperwork on her desk. Sometime around 5 p.m. she took time to look at the number of text messages she had. There were seven from Anton. He had some questions about her meeting with Doctor Lim at the University of Calgary.
Bernadette pushed her paperwork aside, took a sip of her freshly brewed coffee and dialed Anton’s number, putting her feet up on her desk.
“Bernadette—finally! Look, I didn’t want to bother you at your detachment by phoning you,” Anton said when he answered.
Bernadette chuckled, “And seven text messages—this is not bothering to you?” She took a swig of her coffee, “Anton, I’d like to see what happens when you’re really trying to get hold of someone.”
Anton paused. “Yeah, okay, seven texts are a little excessive, but this report from this Doctor Lim at the University has a lot of people on edge.”
Bernadette flicked a piece of lint off her t-shirt. “How about Patterson, the wonder boy who kicked me off the case—just how edgy is he?”
“There is a saying in Italian for Patterson’s situation, intrapplato nella merda profunda, which means trapped in deep shit. The FBI are pissed that we let something this big get invented, and get into America.”
“Wait, don’t they have an FBI Agent with the guy who bought it from our Canadians?” Bernadette took her feet off her desk, and grabbed a piece of paper to start doodling people and contacts. Her mind worked best in visuals, even if it was visual doodles.
“Yeah, I know, but the FBI thought the pipeline killer thing was a farce until they saw the report from Doctor Lim . . .”
“And now they’re sacred shitless—oops, I mean witless,” Bernadette said.
“You could say that, but the Russians, man, they’re the ones who are throwing the most heat.”
“What’s up with them?”
“Well, for starters, they think Zara Mashhadov should have never gotten into our Country, fake identity or not, and they very upset that she landed in Europe with a whole batch of Bio Bugs that they know are going to be unleashed on them.” Anton paused for a moment, and lowered his voice, “I heard the Russians threaten that Patterson better never set foot on Russian soil as they would love to show him their displeasure.”
“Wow,” Bernadette said as she doodled. She had scribbled a stick picture of Patterson with a club over his head and big NYET sign. It looked good to her. “So, other than to fill me in, how can I help you?”
Anton paused; his breathing was audible over the phone. “You could help us find Professor McAllen, who all the higher ups think might be able to find the antidote to these Bio Bugs.”
Bernadette sat up straight in her chair, “So now McAllen is of interest to you. What changed?”
“Someone in authority in the US and Canadian governments realized that these bugs could cause massive infrastructure damage to pipelines, and get this.” Anton lowered his voice again. It was obvious to Bernadette there were others nearby. “Someone in a senior government position has floated a theory that these bugs could go viral and attack other metal works—like buildings, railways, ships, who knows? I just got off the phone with Patterson and he was almost foaming at the mouth.”
“And they think McAllen could help in this? But do you think he will? Remember he’s a wanted man in the USA and Canada. We’ve put a price on his head, and he doesn’t like oil companies. Did anyone think of that? You know those guys in high places who think when we find McAllen that he’ll jump to our rescue?”
“They’ve put complete immunity for McAllen on the table. He produces an antidote, and just like that they’ll absolve him
and all his friends of all past crimes as well. A complete pardon.”
“Wow,” Bernadette said. “That’s a pretty desperate measure. Are you sure that Martin Popowich doesn’t have any idea how to turn the Bio Bugs off? I mean after all, didn’t he work on the project with Goodman?”
Anton hesitated for a moment . . . a door slammed behind him as he walked into a secluded office. “Okay, here’s the thing. Assad grilled Popowich about the Bio Bug formula, and whether he could he turn it off or stop them. Popowich is like a second year Chem student—he has no idea. He swears Goodman was the brains.”
Bernadette said, “Yeah, but Goodman’s brains were last seen splattered by a 10-inch frying pan all over his ex girlfriend’s kitchen, and according to the computer techs the formula has been taken from Goodman’s computer—probably by Zara.”
“Popowich thinks Goodman was in contact with McAllen. He said that Goodman bragged that only he knew where McAllen was.”
Bernadette leaned back in her chair, rested the pad of paper on her lap. “Okay, so the hunt is on, and you’re admitting—sorry . . . asking your best female detective RCMP tracker in all of Canada back onto the case?”
Anton paused. “Good god Bernadette, you’re making it sound like I’ve got to do penance and three Hail Mary’s to get you back.”
Bernadette laughed. “God, I love it when you beg Anton. Okay, I’m yours. I’ll go tell my chief I’m working with the slick, tall dark Italian from CSIS.” Bernadette said the words tall and dark, and the memory of her grandma’s words sent a chill down her spine.
“Hey, Bernadette that’s great, I’m glad you’re on board in your usual humble style. When can you be in Edmonton to start work?”
Bernadette did not answer. She wished her grandmother had never said anything to her about her dreams. But these were just dreams—she needed to get this crazy stuff out of her head.
“Bernadette, you still there?”
“Yeah, Anton, I’m here. Just writing some things down.” Bernadette sat up, ran her fingers through her hair and took a deep breath. “Look, I’ve got to clear a few things with my chief. I’ll get back to you by tomorrow as to when I can come up, okay?”
“No problems, take all the time you need, just get here yesterday . . . you know the drill.”
Bernadette hung up the phone, scratched out the words “Tall, Dark” that she had written on her pad. She had no idea why she would write that. She breathed deeply, took a big swig of her coffee, and pulled the mountain of paperwork towards her. She needed to get her mind off her grandmother and her dreams.
McAllen sat in the courtyard of his villa in Merida, Mexico, with his laptop perched on the dining table. It was late evening. The courtyard was cool; a small waterfall provided a soothing background noise, and a noisy parrot punctuated the evening stillness with screeches.
McAllen did not like the parrot. His friends, Sebastian, Percy and Theo, had bought it for him before they left for Ecuador. It was, “Something to remember them by,” they said before they piled into a minivan and headed south. He would rather they had given him a turtle or a fish. The parrot screeched again, just to remind him how much he disliked it. McAllen thought the feeling between him and the parrot was mutual.
For the past few days, McAllen had been trying to unlock the formula that Goodman had used to make the Bio Bugs so aggressive. First he had to find out where Goodman got the original Bio Bugs. The one thing that McAllen had loved about Goodman was that he showed his work. He wasn’t one to produce a formula without showing how he got there.
McAllen took a pull of the Corona beer by his side, and munched on some fresh taco chips his housekeeper had made. A small drop of pico de gallo made a splat beside his keyboard; he frowned and wiped it away with his hand, and sucked on his fingers.
The key he was looking for was deep into several pages of text that Goodman had made. There were also a few scans of articles about the Titanic that McAllen came to. He shook his head and took another pull of his beer while examining the article. It was right there before his eyes. In December of 2010, two researchers from Dalhousie University discovered new metal-eating bacteria from the Titanic that were super aggressive.
The bacteria were dubbed BHI and were claimed to be consuming the Titanic at a rate much faster than expected. They even claimed it was indeed a “bad bacteria.”
The other scanned sheet of information was an article with headlines claiming Metal-Eating Bacteria Corrode Pipes in Oil Industry. Researchers unraveled how certain types of bacteria were able to use iron in the metabolic process.
McAllen sat back and let his thought processes work over the two pieces of information. Goodman had obviously acquired a sample of the BHI bacteria and enhanced its metabolism. There was already a picture of the pipeline on the web in Red Deer that had been affected by the Bio Bugs. He could see this was not any normal leak. The pipeline had been turned into a Swiss cheese of perforated holes.
The formula was there, the Bio Bug was there, and as the last light ebbed out of the Yucatan sky, McAllen saw exactly what Goodman had done. The link he had used to turn on the Bio Bugs.
A small note claimed that VMAT2 + BHI = NANITES. This was a footnote on page 10, and then there was something else. McAllen had skimmed over it the first time. There was a video link embedded in the document.
McAllen clicked the video link, and Goodman appeared. He was sitting in front of his laptop, in what looked like the University laboratory.
Goodman leaned into the webcam and began, “Professor Mac, I’m sorry . . . if you received this document, then probably something has gone very wrong.” He pulled back from the laptop briefly. “My goal was to present this to you in person. I was proud of my little Bio Bugs . . . the nanites.”
McAllen put the video on pause, and picked up a pen and paper. He was hoping Goodman might give him some clues on how to develop a countermeasure to the formula. He clicked the foreword button.
“As you may have seen,” Goodman said in the video, “the nanites are highly aggressive. I’m kind of proud of that. You see, I had to use some molecular biology and with some help from the Biology wing and the developments in MAGE, I was able to isolate the VMAT2 and splice it with the BHI Bio Bugs from the Titanic.” Goodman paused and smiled. “I know, pretty awesome, isn’t it?”
Goodman put his head down for a minute, and then brought his eyes up to focus on the screen, “The only problem is Professor, I don’t know how to turn it off or stop these things. My original test in the lab showed these things keep multiplying and speeding up. The first time we put them in a Pipeline in Red Deer, they would have destroyed everything for miles, if the pipeline had not been disconnected.” Goodman paused, “And something else you should know is these Bio Bugs become even more aggressive in salt water. You’ve seen from my notes where I got the bugs from,” Goodman shrugged on screen, “Okay, I’m kind of proud of finding these bugs from the Titanic,” Goodman frowned, “But when we put them in salt water they developed into a wave that worked together to source out metal. I can’t explain it, but hopefully no one will let these go in the ocean before a way to stop them is found.
The screen went blank for a second, and then came on again. “So Professor, I’m sending this formula to you, and perhaps you can find a countermeasure for my invention . . . sorry to be such a screw-up.” Goodman reached forward to the webcam on top of the laptop, and the screen went black.
McAllen made his notes. The MAGE that Goodman had mentioned was a term for Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering. With this novel technique, a research team could rapidly refine the design of bacteria by editing multiple genes in parallel instead of targeting one gene at a time.
He reasoned that someone at the university must have helped Goodman to isolate the gene he needed in the BHI bacteria, and helped him splice that with the VMAT2 gene, the God gene as it was called.
The God gene had been discovered some years earlier, and was claimed to have the code for prod
uction of neurotransmitters that regulate mood in humans. “But what would the gene do in bacteria?” McAllen wondered.
Here were bacteria, brought up from the depths of the ocean that had been feasting on the Titanic for decades, and thought to be aggressive. How would it react with a spliced-on dose of attitude? The forming of waves in salt water to seek out metal was the strangest thing McAllen had ever heard of. This could only mean the bugs had developed into some kind of sentient being. They somehow worked together, similar to what fish did when schooling for synchronized hunting or protection. He wondered if the bugs had learned this from years of being on the Titanic.
McAllen faced a problem. He had an idea how to turn off the aggressive bug that Goodman had created. But he hated oil companies. He blamed them for the leukemia that killed his children. Living beside a large refinery for years as he did research for oil companies—he should have known better. But the money was good back then; until he watched his children die a slow death. This Bio Bug displayed before him would destroy pipelines, and probably even refineries. This little bug could level the playing field. But it could also create a massive attack on all metal infrastructures in the world.
How large was his hatred? He wondered. How far did it reach? He sat back, finished his beer, and wondered what he would do.
15
Sarah Collins closed the door softly to the room on the third floor of the Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Missoula Montana, and made her way to the elevator. Hensley was still asleep at seven in the morning. The extra sleeping pill Sarah had crushed up into his milk the night before would give her the time she needed to meet with the FBI agents detailed to shadow her.
The morning breakfast crowd in the lobby was mostly oil workers piling their plates at the buffet. Sarah made eye contact with a man and woman and followed them to a quiet area in the lounge.
The woman was Carla Winston, black, mid-forties, dressed in jeans and t-shirt. The man was Luis Valdes, late twenties, a slender, good-looking Latino with just a bit of swagger that let people know how handsome he thought he was. Sarah never really liked Luis; she always felt he was judging her for having to sleep with Hensley. And he was.
Pipeline Killers: Bernadette Callahan. A female detective mystery with international suspense. (Book 2) Page 10
