“Okay. I hate to leave the station,” she said. “But I’ll take a car and meet you at TheraComp. See if we can’t figure out what the hell’s going on.”
“Thanks,” he said.
The Audi pulled into the underground parking garage beneath the Maryland Biotech Incubator building. He turned off the car and waited for a while. The Chevy hadn’t yet turned in to follow. His pulse slowed again. Maybe his exhaustion contributed to his paranoia. He walked toward the exit.
A loud squeal echoed through the garage. The Chevy barreled past other parked cars and swerved sideways to halt. It blocked the aisle. One man hopped out. He made an impressive sight, bulging muscles pressing out against a tight white t-shirt as he reached behind his back.
Chris was cornered. Sweat trickled down his neck, his nerves coursing with electricity.
He sprinted back to the Audi and turned it on. Tapping on the holoscreen, he selected a random destination in Baltimore, far from the parking garage. The car jolted out of its spot but stopped. A projection scrolled across the screen claiming a barrier prevented it from exiting. The damn Chevy.
Chris’s pursuer leveled a pistol at him. He yelled something, but the closed windows of the Audi muffled his words. Another man stepped out of the car and joined his partner.
As they approached, his heart raced. He frantically scrolled through the holodisplay and disabled the car’s autodriver feature. The gas pedal released from the floor. Securing himself into the driver’s seat, he slammed his foot down. The car lurched forward.
He jerked the wheel to aim for a slight gap toward the rear of the stopped car. The men, yelling, jumped out of the way, and the Audi smashed into the Chevy. For a moment, Chris feared the crunch of metal against metal would stop his car. But the Audi broke free, and he sped toward the exit as several gunshots rang out. The hail of bullets against his car echoed throughout the passenger cabin.
He struggled to steer the car straight onto the road. It had been far too long since he’d manually driven a vehicle. His comm card went off, making him jump.
Chris glanced in the rearview camera display to see the Chevy peeling out onto the street. Its rear bumper sagged, but it shot forward.
The comm card rang again. A robotic voice from the car’s speakers spoke. “Incoming call from Jordan Thompson.”
He hesitated, ready to ignore the call and focus on his driving. But he needed to warn Jordan. “Hey, this—”
“Chris!” Jordan cut him off. “We were wrong about the vectors in you. You aren’t going to die. You’re going to live. You should be fine!”
Chris jerked the wheel to the right and dodged a lumbering truck. The Chevy followed. It appeared larger in the rearview cam as it shortened the distance between them.
“I’m supposed to live?” Chris said. His palms grew clammy. He gripped the steering wheel tighter. “The two assholes chasing me down don’t seem to agree with you.”
Chapter 20
The electric motor whined as Chris took another hard right and barely made a yellow light. The Chevy pushed through the red and screeched around the corner.
Outside tourist-laden Inner Harbor, fewer cars clogged the roadways. Chris squeezed around a bulbous garbage truck and skirted past another slow-moving, autodriving sedan.
Sweat beaded across his forehead as the Chevy maintained its position in his rearview camera. He couldn’t shake them.
Another light turned yellow, and he slammed his foot down to accelerate through the intersection. A man in a suit, talking on his comm card, plodded onto the crosswalk. Chris swerved around the negligent pedestrian. The man gave him a one-finger salute as the Chevy barreled through next. This time, the chatty suit jumped backward and fell to the ground.
Through the rearview camera, Chris sighed in relief when the man stood, appearing shaken up but unscathed. He looked up in time to see a red light glaring in front of him. He slowed, peered down the cross streets, and sped through. His pursuers took no such precaution as they raced after him. The squeal of brakes and a heavy crash followed.
Chris thought the Chevy must have crashed. Instead, he glanced at the rearview display on the dashboard. A delivery truck had slammed into a light pole. The navy-blue Chevy, the culprit behind the wreck, still tailed him.
He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep up this charade. He was neither a race car driver nor a hot-driving policeman accustomed to high-speed chases. And if he made a mistake, if his pursuers made a mistake, they might kill someone.
At the same time, Chris couldn’t risk being killed. The patients back at the hospital needed him alive if they stood any chance at recovery.
Hell, he was being selfish. He was trying to justify the need to preserve his life while risking others.
The next two lights remained green. He passed another coupe and wound past a line of parked vehicles. A speed camera flashed. Jordan would be receiving a few tickets that Chris would happily pay. And for the first time, he wondered where the hell the cops were. He found himself wishing they’d stop the two speeding cars. They’d find guns on the two men in the Chevy and take them in, take them safely away from him.
“Call Detective Dellaporta,” Chris said.
Synced with his comm card, the car’s calm voice purred back. “Calling now.”
Chris swung around the corner to loop around the block. The Chevy did not let up.
“Morgan, what’s up?”
“I’m being chased.” He clenched his jaw as he took another turn. “Got a couple of guys with guns on my tail.”
“Chased? Why? Who are they?”
“I don’t have a damn clue.” Chris grimaced as he squeezed between two sluggish cars.
“Where are you?”
Chris glanced down at the holodisplay. “I’m on Greenmount. Couple more blocks and I’ll follow Eighty-Three north.”
The Audi’s tires squealed as he swerved onto another road. He clipped the side mirror off a parked car.
“Okay, okay,” Dellaporta said. “Shit. I’m too far out. I’m calling a squad car.”
“Do it. I’m headed to Druid Hill. I need to get out of this car before we kill someone.”
“Don’t need someone’s death on your conscience.” Dellaporta said. “Christ, Morgan.”
The words stung deeper than he figured she knew. He clutched the wheel hard as he sped onto Eighty-Three. “You calling that squad car?”
“Already put in a request through the computer. You’ve got two cars ready to intercept you guys at Druid Park Lake Drive.”
The Audi shot down the expressway as Chris’s pursuers closed in. He jolted forward when they rammed the rear of his car. As he countersteered, his heart raced as the Audi’s wheels lost traction. “Shit, shit, shit!”
“Morgan, you okay?”
He held his breath as the car lurched to the side. The Chevy pushed against the rear quarter panel of the Audi. Chris lost control, and his car fishtailed before spinning. It smashed against the concrete barrier on the side of the expressway. Momentum carried him forward, then sideways, as the airbags deployed. Glass shattered, and metal crunched in around him.
As the dust settled, his vision swam. He felt bruised and battered, but he could move his limbs. The Chevy screeched to a halt almost twenty yards ahead of his position. The muscular man in the white t-shirt stepped out of the car.
Sirens wailed, growing closer. Chris leapt out of the Audi as his pursuer waved him down.
“Stop.” He aimed his pistol.
Chris jumped over the concrete barrier. He grabbed at the trees along the raised expressway to slow his fall. Crashing through the branches, he caught a limb but lost his grip. He fell onto the grass below.
Above him, red and blue lights spun from behind the crashed Audi. He could see a couple of police officers jump out of their cruiser.
“Drop your weapon!” They trained their guns on the white-t-shirted assailant.
Without dropping his pistol, the hulking man held his h
ands in the air. He backed away.
“Drop it!”
The man ducked, firing off two rounds. One slammed into an officer, sending the man sprawling across the ground. Chris couldn’t tell if it had hit the officer in the chest and been stopped by a bulletproof vest or if the officer was down for good. The crack of gunfire filled the air.
He sprinted through the trees until he broke through to a paved clearing. Light-rail trains sat on a knot of tracks. Maintenance workers crawled between the train cars like ants on a mission. He’d stumbled onto the MTA Central Operations, the home base for Baltimore’s transport system. He jogged along the track until he joined up with the road again. The adrenaline drained from his bloodstream. His muscles burned and his body ached as he put more distance between himself and the wreck.
Chris’s heart sank. He had left the painting Veronica had given him in the Audi. It was such a small thing, but the urge to retrieve it evoked a burning desire to run back to the wrecked car. Logic screamed at him that doing so would be disastrous, and he distanced himself from the vehicle and the gift.
He reached into his pocket for his comm card to call Dellaporta. His pulse quickened as he groped around and found nothing. Cursing inwardly, he realized that he must have lost the card during the Audi’s impact with the concrete barrier.
Picking up his pace, he jogged toward another main street. He couldn’t contact Dellaporta or Jordan; he had no identification or access to his bank accounts. The police, if they survived the shootout with Chris’s pursuers, would confiscate his comm card.
Although he was thankful they’d intervened, they now had indisputable proof Chris was involved in the car chase and the resulting shootout. Linking the card he’d left behind would be just another piece of mounting evidence to support his impending warrant and arrest.
Sweat soaked through his shirt, which clung to him as he hiked down the sidewalk. Dirt stains covered his clothes and skin. Happy-hour patrons filled the street, lined with its bars, microbreweries, and restaurants. People gawked at Chris’s untidy appearance as he kept his head low, pressing south.
He entered a corner store and walked to the front counter to pick out a small tracker card. This disposable comm card allowed access to normal identification and bank accounts. It deactivated when its prepaid data limit was reached. Because of the card’s disposability, it was a favored method of communication among enhancement dealers, manufacturers, and their customers. During his forays in gene mod manufacturing, Chris had often used a tracker and purchased a new one almost every week to prevent any cybersecurity agency from being able to pin down his whereabouts.
He activated his accounts on the card. As soon as it linked to his bank, the card charged him for its prepaid data transfer limit. He once again had temporary access to communication and financial applications.
Still, thoughts of the shooting raced through his mind. He wanted to call Dellaporta, but he didn’t have her direct contact number memorized. He couldn’t risk calling the station and asking for her; he didn’t want anyone to know they were colluding in keeping him free for as long as possible.
And that freedom was supposed to ensure he had time to work on a therapeutic to help the dying hospital patients. A brief glimmer of relief filled him. He recalled Jordan’s words as he had left the parking lot. He would be fine; he would live. Jordan didn’t think his cells possessed the same genetic material causing the rhabdomyosarcoma spreading in the enhancers.
He tapped Jordan’s number, one of the few contact numbers he had memorized, into his comm card.
“Hello?” Jordan answered with a hesitant tone.
“It’s Chris.”
“What the hell happened? Are you okay?”
“More or less.” He lowered his voice. “Are the cops around there yet?”
“No,” Jordan said. “Should they be?”
“I’m not sure.” He brushed a hand through his hair. “But I don’t have much time. Dellaporta said they’re itching to take me in as soon as they can get another warrant, and I just gave them exactly what they needed.”
Jordan exhaled loudly. “Damn. Chris, my man, you are a pot of bad luck. How do you propose we get you out of this mess?”
“I want you to save all the results you got from today. Bring any samples you can spare.” A woman in dress slacks and a slim jacket stared at him as she gave him a wide berth on the sidewalk. “You need to grab the DNA synthesizer as well.”
“And may I ask where I’m transporting half our lab to?”
In his mind’s eye, Chris pictured the low-lying brick structure Jordan’s former company, Equest Advantage, had once called home. Before that, Jordan had used the place as a front for his enhancement business. The basement was remodeled into a laboratory suited for enhancement manufacturing, and only a passageway connected to a walk-in cooler in the main building led to the hidden facility.
“If I’m going to have a fraction of a chance at solving this, I need to work undisturbed by the police.” He paused. “We’re going to need to go underground again.”
Chapter 21
When the call ended, Jordan rubbed a hand over his smooth scalp and turned away from the window to the streets below. He looked around at the office and lab space. He and Chris had worked diligently, putting in ten-, twelve-hour days to get their company on its feet.
And now it looked as if the rug had been pulled out from under them. They had endeavored to create a legitimate business offering a real product to improve people’s lives. Albeit, they did so indirectly by improving the health of pets through veterinary therapeutics, but the eventual goal was to translate those same products into therapies for humans.
But Jordan feared they might never escape the lingering tendrils of their involvement in black-market enhancements. Their past enveloped and choked them just when he thought they had moved beyond it.
Staring back out the window, he spotted two police cruisers rolling down Lombard. His pulse quickened as he raced back to the lab. The chance was small, but if the cops stumbled upon the samples Chris had taken from the hospital, any report they might file would bring the wrath of the FDA and FBI down on their small company. UMMC officials may have told police that the samples disappeared after the bombing and Chris was on the scene when they went missing. The theft of patient privacy-protected samples and biological materials from a research institution constituted a federal offense.
And the consequences didn’t end with Jordan’s and Chris’s arrest. Without the chance to analyze the samples to identify a potential cure, Chris’s life might be at stake.
“Pack up the biopsy samples, Hugh.” He pointed at the sequencer. “And make sure we have extra copies of the sequencing data.”
Jordan unplugged the DNA synthesizer. He heaved it onto one of their carts.
“What’s going on?” Hugh asked, standing in place.
“We need a change in scenery.”
Hugh handed him a cooler with the biopsy samples.
“And we need it now.” Jordan pushed the cart with their supplies toward the office exit. “Can you check to see if any police officers have arrived?”
Hugh lunged over to the window in the conference room. Shading his eyes with one hand, he looked down then turned back to Jordan. “Yep. Looks like they’re walking in now.” He tilted his head. “Seriously, what’s going on?”
Before answering, Jordan considered their exit strategy. He wanted to escape with the equipment without running into the cops. At best, they would delay his meeting with Chris. At worst, they would want to bring him in as well. And walking out with a collection of lab paraphernalia might be too conspicuous.
He eyed the stairs and then looked back at the supplies on the cart. He and scrawny Hugh could not hoist all the equipment down fourteen flights. Even if they were enhancers with inhuman strength, they didn’t possess enough arms to lug everything they needed to carry.
The police, likely, would come straight up the elevators from the lobby.
“Come on,” Jordan said, gesturing to Hugh. He pushed the cart down the hall. He waited until one of the elevators pinged, the little arrow projected above it pointing up. “It appears our friends are coming up from there.”
He hit the button to call another elevator.
As they watched the numbers above the silver doors descend, Hugh raised an eyebrow. “So, when do I find out what we’re doing?”
“You have a car, right?”
Hugh nodded.
“Can we fit all this equipment into it?”
The lab tech shrugged. “It’s not huge, but I think there’s enough room in the trunk.”
“Perfect.”
The doors slid open, and Jordan pushed the cart in. Hugh followed. As their elevator closed, the ping of the ascending one signaled the cops’ arrival. Jordan wiped away the sweat on his forehead as they descended.
He could feel Hugh’s eyes on him, but he ignored the tech. Once at the ground floor, they hauled their supplies through the lobby.
“Excuse me, Mr. Thompson,” the security guard said. “A couple policemen were asking for you and Mr. Morgan. I think they went up to see you.”
“Did they now?” Jordan cocked his head and put on his best perplexed expression. “They told us they wanted to meet down here.” He shrugged. “I suppose we’ll just take this out to the car and catch back up with them.”
The security guard nodded.
Once in the parking garage, they loaded up the equipment. Hugh’s car purred to life as they slid into the front seats.
“Where we going, boss?”
Jordan hesitated. He had already brought Hugh further into this quagmire than he’d intended. Hugh hadn’t signed on as a TheraComp employee to investigate a conspiracy involving genies, and he doubted the tech planned on running from the police.
When they had hired Hugh, Chris was honest about his past and convictions. Those days were behind him, but the tech had still taken an understandable risk by accepting the job offer.
The Black Market DNA Series: Books 1-3 Page 37
