Tears of God (The Blackwell Files Book 7)

by Steven F Freeman

  “Yeah, just a few minutes after we left. I guess he was happy with what he found. He sent me an e-mail a few minutes after that thanking us for the visit.” He turned to face the group at large. “Anyone found something of interest yet?”

  Murmurs of no drifted back to him. Alton turned back to his laptop and brought up the next internal memo.

  “I haven’t either,” said Alton. “Not that it’s a surprise, but the searches for Safi’s real and assumed names and ‘Tears of God’ came up empty. ‘Project’ didn’t help because everything’s a project in this company. So our focus now will be on R&D correspondence. Whatever Safi’s working on, the R&D guys are the ones most likely to discuss it.”

  By mid-afternoon, the team had made no progress ferreting out any information on Safi or his work, despite their review of nearly a thousand documents.

  “Let’s take a break,” said Alton. “We can’t risk missing key data because we’re tired.”

  “Wait, Alton,” said Mallory. “Look at this.” She brought up a black-and-white scan of an invoice.

  Alton studied the document. “How does a bill for cleaning supplies help us?”

  “The destination is Hermannsburg. I looked it up. It’s a hundred and thirty kilometers west of here—a little under two hours driving.”

  Alton nodded. “They wouldn’t need supplies delivered so far away unless they had a facility there. I don’t recall seeing anything on DTI’s website about their having a second location, do you?”

  “Nope,” said Mallory. She brought up the DTI webpage and scanned it for a couple of minutes. “There’s no mention of a second facility anywhere.”

  The rest of the team gathered around. Alton’s fingers flew over his laptop keyboard as he searched for information. “Hermannsburg is tiny—more like a historical settlement than an actual city. I can’t imagine DTI setting up shop there.”

  Mallory twisted her hair around an index finger, a habit she was wont to do in times of pondering. “In the U.S., a lot of rural addresses use the name of the nearest town, even if they’re actually miles away from there. Maybe that’s the case here.”

  Alton nodded. “It makes sense. So now the question is exactly what’s going on in the facility in or near Hermannsburg.”

  “How do we find out?” asked Mastana.

  “We keep looking through the records, but we narrow our search to any correspondence mentioning Hermannsburg or the surrounding area.”

  The team members returned to their laptops with a renewed sense of purpose. For the next thirty minutes, only the insect-like sound of tapping on computer keyboards filled the room.

  David sat back in his seat. “Hmm.”

  “Found something?” asked Alton. The rest of the team turned curious heads.

  “Maybe. I’m reviewing an HR requisition to hire four security personnel. The location is listed as ‘the Goldmine.’ When I worked Military Intelligence back in Afghanistan, that kind of cryptic description was almost a dead giveaway that people were trying to keep their location a secret.”

  “I see what you’re saying,” said Alton, “but every company has its own jargon. What if ‘the Goldmine’ is a common term in DTI?”

  “Could be, but it’s worth checking out, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely, especially if you recommend it. You have a better background in that sort of thing than I do.” Alton sat back to think. “David and Mallory, why don’t you all look for references to ‘the Goldmine.’ I will, too. The rest of you all continue with your assigned searches.”

  “Sounds good,” said David as Mallory nodded.

  Alton decided to redirect his efforts. He began by collecting the name of DTI’s employees into a file. A few minutes of research revealed that a company named Telstra operated the network of cellphone towers in the Alice Springs area. He texted Vega for the company’s server passwords. Once received, Alton ran a search on cellphone activity, restricting his search to calls placed by DTI workers.

  He searched for clusters in the geographies from which calls had been placed or received and plotted them on a map. Not surprisingly, a thick blob of calls nearly obscured the DTI site in Alice Springs. But a second, smaller cluster appeared about twenty kilometers north of Hermannsburg. Alton used Australian public records to check the property’s owners.

  Alton turned in his chair. “Come look at this.”

  The others gathered around.

  “What is it?” asked Mallory.

  Alton explained the nature of his search. He pointed to the smaller blob of DTI calls on his laptop’s screen. “Guess who owns this plot of land north of Hermannsburg?

  “DTI?” asked David.

  “Technically, it’s Gillian Enterprises. But they’re just a holding company. They own DTI.”

  “They’re trying to keep their ownership of the property a secret,” said Mallory, “like Disney did when it was buying the land to create Disney World.”

  “Yep,” said Alton. “And here’s another interesting tidbit: they bought the property from Garradin Partners, a mining outfit.”

  “The Goldmine!” exclaimed Mastana.

  Alton smiled. “Yes. DTI purchased the land from them thirteen years ago.”

  Mallory knitted her eyebrows together. “Not long after Safi left Afghanistan.”

  “Right again.” He paused to cast a glance at each member of the team. “What do you want to bet that if we find the Goldmine, we find Safi?”

  CHAPTER 45

  In the Blackwell’s hotel suite, the NSA team huddled in front of Alton’s laptop, waiting for the encrypted call to connect.

  The ringtone ceased. A disheveled man in an equally disheveled office flickered into view. “Agent Vega here.”

  Alton moved a few inches to the left to keep a shaft of afternoon sunlight out of his eyes. “We broke into DTI’s network—”

  “You broke in,” chimed in David, “not all of us. Nothing wrong with taking credit for your work.”

  Alton squirmed in embarrassment. “We’ve spent the day reviewing the company’s records, hoping to track down Safi.”

  “And did you?” asked Vega.

  “Maybe. We didn’t find him directly, but we did find a second research facility called ‘the Goldmine.’ This place is kept very hush hush in DTI’s communications, and just like the case of Pasha Tech, they store almost nothing about the site’s activities on company servers. Based on that level of secrecy, we suspect Safi may have set up shop there.”

  “But you don’t know that for a fact?”

  “No, but we can’t find evidence of Safi working on any of the projects currently underway at the facility here in Alice Springs. If you’re DTI, and you have a world-class scientist, wouldn’t you put him on the project that’s important enough to warrant its own secret location two hours away?”

  Vega nodded. “Seems like a reasonable supposition. What’s your next step?”

  “I have the GPS coordinates of the site. Can you redirect our recon satellite to take some imagery using those coordinates?”

  “Sure. Send them across.”

  Alton leaned over the keyboard and clicked “send” on the message he had already prepared. “How long will it take to get the satellites in position?”

  “They’re ready now. After your adventures in Afghanistan, I had a feeling you might make a request like this.”

  A crisp photo appeared on the screen, replacing that of Vega. The satellite’s image clicked down through successively stronger levels of magnification, starting with the view of a vast expanse of desert and stopping with the image of a complex of brick buildings enclosed by a thick wall bordering the property’s perimeter.

  “When we get off this call, I’ll zoom in on the individual building and send you the stills,” said Vega. “You might need that level of detail later.”

  David shook his head in exasperation. “For once, could we have a target that isn’t surrounded by the Great Wall of China?”

  “
It is pretty tight security, isn’t it?” said Alton, rubbing his chin. “Especially considering it’s in the middle of a desert. Makes you wonder what’s going on in there. Agent Vega, can you find out any more about that facility?”

  “Let me put one of my real-estate guys on it. They can usually give me a pretty good run-down of a location’s history. I’ll call you back when I know something.”

  A couple of hours later, Vega called as promised. “We moved the satellite to a more oblique angle. Check out these images.” He brought up a photo of a ten-foot, steel wall capped by looped concertina wire. Two armed guards occupied a fortified checkpoint at the compound’s front entrance.

  David whistled. “I’ve seen super-max prisons with less security than that.”

  “That’s not all,” said Vega. “The compound has six entrances, each of them guarded during the day. It looks like they change up their security profile in the evening. This happened a few minutes ago.” He alternated between two images. The first had a bit more daylight and showed an open side entrance with an armed guard stationed in front. The second, darker image depicted the same spot but with a containment wall slid across the entrance’s formerly open space.

  “That’s crazy,” said David.

  Alton shrugged. “It’s been done before. We shut the blast doors of our ICBM launch sites at night when one of the crew members has a sleep period. It’s just good security to lock down the place when there aren’t many people around to guard it. But that brings us back to our original question: what exactly is DTI trying to secure?”

  CHAPTER 46

  “How do you propose answering that question?” asked Vega, whose visage had reappeared on the screen. He eyed Alton with curiosity, perhaps wondering how his newly appointed leader would respond.

  Alton pondered the challenge for a moment. “When Mallory and I had our tour of DTI’s grounds yesterday, we met an R&D Vice President, Pete Phillips. You have to figure this guy would know something about what’s happening in the Goldmine.”

  “True,” said Vega, “but that doesn’t mean he’ll tell you.”

  “No, but at least he knows us and our cover story. He’d be willing to speak with us. Unless someone else has a better idea, that’s our best shot.”

  “Agreed,” said Vega as the rest of the on-site team murmured their approval. “Reach out to Phillips, then let me know what you’ve found.”

  Alton used a teaspoon to swirl his coffee in a lazy circle while surveying the bar’s dimly lit surroundings. Slanting rays of sunlight from the street outside couldn’t reach his back-wall table. Gilbert leaned forward in his chair and attempted to scrape red dust from his fingernails. The persistent clatter of ancient air conditioners competed for attention with eighties tunes blaring from battered speakers mounted over a peeling, laminate bar.

  Phillips was late. Prior to this meeting, Alton had wanted to ensure the man wasn’t on Safi’s payroll. On Mallory’s advice, Alton had cracked the scientist’s financial records, which Mallory had pored over for several hours. She had found no evidence of extravagant spending or offshore accounts, nothing to indicate income disproportionate to his job—the best way, she had said, to tell if a person was on the take.

  Something obscured the light pouring in through the bar’s glass door. A man stepped through the entrance. His lanky gait and shock of barley-colored hair identified him as the tardy scientist.

  Phillips sauntered over to the back wall and sat at the table. He nodded to Gilbert as Alton made the introductions. The DTI scientist ordered a beer and watched the waitress leave. “You said you’ve got some questions for your documentary?”

  Alton licked his lips. “There’s actually a little more to our request than that. I couldn’t tell you over the phone. There’s too great a risk your office could be bugged.”

  He examined Alton with a skeptical eye. “Why would my office be bugged? Wait, unless you mean those bastards at Corbin Enterprises—”

  “No, it’s not about your competitors,” cut in Alton. “Does the name Farid Safi mean anything to you?”

  “No—should it?” He didn’t hesitate to answer.

  Alton ignored the question. “What about ‘the Goldmine’? Ever heard of that?”

  Phillips laughed, a deep chuckle. “Yeah, of course I’ve heard of it.”

  Alton shot a glance to Gilbert. “What can you tell us about it?”

  “We’ve sunk millions of dollars into the Goldmine. It serves two purposes. First, it’s a containment facility for our most dangerous substances.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The waitress returned with Phillips’ beer. He waited for her to depart before answering. “Didn’t you wonder why we set up shop in the middle of Australia? It’s making lemonade out of lemons, mate. There’s an abundance of venomous animals to supply the raw materials, but we need somewhere to keep them, right?”

  “That makes sense,” said Alton as Gilbert nodded.

  “It’s better to keep them physically isolated with a minimal number of trained researchers rather than run the risk of keeping them two doors down from the accounting department here at our Alice Springs facility,” said Phillips. “So the Goldmine’s first purpose is to serve as a remote containment facility for all the dangerous animals we use to extract venom or some other form of toxin.”

  “And its second purpose?” asked Alton.

  “It’s also the HQ and research hub for our Razor project.”

  “Which is…?”

  Phillips’ eyes lit up, and he cracked a smile. “Our most exciting project. It involves the development of a painkiller like nothing the world’s seen before. We call it Cerastetol. More powerful than morphine-based drugs without the major side effects or risk of addiction.”

  “Sounds almost too good to be true,” said Alton.

  “Doesn’t it? Look…the toxins in venom target the same molecules—peptides and proteins—that need to be controlled to treat diseases. All we’re doing with Razor is identifying the venom-derived molecules that target the nervous and immune systems, then modifying those molecules to help patients instead of harm them.”

  Gilbert whistled. “Talk about lucrative.” This expert assessment was precisely why Alton had asked the toxicologist to join this meeting.

  “Absolutely,” said Phillips with a nod. “But it’s not just about the money. There are thousands of patients around the world whose chronic pain simply can’t be managed with today’s medicines. Cerastetol will change that. Many people will feel relief for the first time in years, maybe decades. If only Mum…” He trailed off, his eyes focusing on some far-off point.

  Alton cleared his throat. “You were saying that Cerastetol will be a breakthrough.”

  Phillips’ face lit up again. “Yeah, it’s really exciting stuff. You see, venoms can be used to develop more than painkillers. They’re also the leading edge of research aimed to cure autoimmune diseases—Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, MS, and the like. And did you know researchers in Brazil recently discovered a species of wasp whose venom targets and destroys cancer cells? We’ve just scratched the surface. Most of Australia’s venomous creatures have never been tested for their medicinal properties.”

  Alton struggled to connect this Razor project with Farid Safi’s earlier work in Afghanistan. He needed to keep Phillips talking while the man’s guard was down. “How does Cerastetol work, exactly?”

  “It was developed from the venom of one of Australia’s native snakes, the common death adder. We discovered three peptides in its neurotoxin that can block neuronal acid-sensing ion channels—ASICs, for short.

  “And those are…?” asked Alton.

  “ASICs are used to pass information up and down the spinal column. It’s how the brain and body communicate. Normally, the ASIC interference of the death adder’s venom causes paralysis and death, but we’re toning down the peptides so they merely block pain signals from traveling up the spinal column to the brain.”

  Alton n
odded. “No nerve signals to the brain, no pain.”

  “Exactly. You can see why we’re so excited.”

  Gilbert looked deep in thought. “Alton, both of these reasons for having the Goldmine seem pretty legit. Are you sure Safi’s there?”

  “Wait,” said Phillips, turning to Alton. “I thought you said your name is Ben Beerman.”

  Alton studied Phillips’ face. His gut told him to trust the man. “Look, I’m going to be square with you. I’m not a documentary filmmaker. My name is Alton Blackwell. I was hired by the US government to investigate a toxicologist—and criminal—who worked in an Al-Qaeda chemical factory in Afghanistan up until fifteen years ago. After nine-eleven, he fled the country and came here, to DTI.”

  “That was the guy you asked me about a few minutes ago?”

  “Farid Safi, yes.”

  Phillips studied Alton and Gilbert. “Why should I believe you?”

  “Just call NSA headquarters in Washington, D.C.,” said Alton. “I’ll give you the extension of Ernesto Vega, my manager. In the meantime…remember the woman you saw me with yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was my wife, Mallory. Safi had her father, an Army investigator, killed when he came too close to learning about Safi’s shady activities.”

  “I’m sorry her father died,” said Phillips, “but how do you know Safi was behind it?”

  “One of her father’s colleagues, Max Creighton, reached out to me and Mallory about ten days ago. He said Mallory’s father hadn’t died naturally, as everyone had believed at the time. When she and I went to meet Creighton the next day, we found him dying—of poisoning. The last words from his lips were ‘Farid Safi’ and ‘Pasha Tech,’ the Afghanistan company he worked for.”

  Phillips drummed his fingers on the table, absorbing this new turn of events.

  “Have you ever heard of a project called ‘Tears of God’?” asked Alton.

  “No. And I’d know if there was one. Why?”

  “That’s the name of the project Safi was heading up in Afghanistan.”