by Sarah Lovett
"Ciguatoxin is from fish," Dr. Casey interjected.
"—malaise, nausea, numbness and tingling, abdominal cramps, diarrhea, itching, ataxia, blurred vision . . ."
The list was endless.
The flat, matter-of-fact recitation continued: "If the toxin was an aminoperhydroquinazoline compound . . . similar to that of saxitoxin . . . used in nerve gas experiments . . . produced by tetrodotoxin, and the origin is pufferfish . . . numbness occurs first in the face and extremeties, then the feeling of floating and lightness, then vomiting and diarrhea, and finally, cyanosis, hypotension, convulsions, and possibly cardiac arrest."
He hardly slowed to breathe. "These are symptoms that occur when the toxin is in its base form, but we're open to the possibility that Dr. Strange was exposed to a compound, a toxin that is a newly developed, intentional mutant, if you will."
Silence. Finally, Dr. Casey asked, "If that's the case, what are the ramifications? What can we expect for her prognosis?"
"That's a good question," the consultant said through the speaker. "We'll be tracking the doctor's progress with great interest."
She was about to jump out of her skin.
They told her these "feelings of restless irritability" were a neurological symptom, the aftermath of the poison.
She was threatening to take hostages; she'd warned them she'd sue if they didn't let her out.
"Anger"; another symptom.
She was depressed by another day passing since she'd returned to the world of the living. Add them up, she'd lost nine days of her life.
"Mood swings," they said. Symptom.
She cursed them silently—unable to remember their names half the time—she didn't need them to tell her that memory holes were yet another (perhaps the worst) symptom.
"Get me out of here."
Nobody listened.
But Sweetheart finally appeared at her door.
"I was wondering when you'd show up." Sylvia kept her eyes on him, saw the tension in the way he held himself. "Were you waiting for the funeral?" He didn't respond, and after the silence stretched, she shrugged. "Well, you missed it. I was buried last week."
He sat in a chair at the foot of the bed. His face was smooth as the surface of a lake; his eyes were black stones. "I thought I'd lost you, Sylvia."
She shifted her gaze to the hard shadows on the wall. "You were right."
"It's my fault. I never should have left you vulnerable." He said it calmly, without drama, but the words hung in the air between them. "I take full responsibility for what's happened."
She struggled for language, unable to respond, knowing she'd wanted to hear him say those words, but now feeling uneasy, detached.
He searched for words he was free to speak. "If it makes any difference, this case goes deeper than Palmer." He stopped, then started. "There are issues . . ."
"I don't care about your issues," she said softly.
"That's understandable. I spoke with your doctors, with Dr. Casey." He paused. "I'm sorry for all you've been through."
"You're sorry." Her anger was evaporating. "I don't know what I am. I keep trying to find words."
"Maybe they'll come with time."
She studied his face. "My world has changed. No going back."
He reached for her hand, but she pulled away. Numb. A part of her gone dead.
"I owe you," he said.
"You owe me what you've always owed me: the truth."
He looked at her now, his face naked in a way she'd never seen before, his expression one of deep remorse. "You're right. I owe you the truth at the very least."
Sweetheart returned less than an hour later accompanied by Darrel Hoopai. The special agent clutched a bouquet of wilted daisies.
"This isn't a social call," Sylvia said slowly.
"Not a social call," Sweetheart confirmed. Hoopai pulled the door shut and stationed himself directly in front of it.
Sylvia closed her eyes, took a breath. Preparation. For whatever news they were here to deliver.
"We've got a situation," Sweetheart said. "Sensitive information disappeared from B-30."
"Palmer stole something?"
"Not Palmer." Sweetheart shook his head. "But her hard drive disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"Do you remember during the Cerro Grande fire? A drive with classified information disappeared for three weeks, then turned up again."
"Behind the Xerox machine," Sylvia said. "I thought all computer drives, all disks with classified information, are locked up, kept in a vault."
"That's exactly right, Dr. Strange."
Sylvia looked up to see Drew Dexter, LANL's deputy director of security, standing in the doorway.
"May I come in?" He stepped into the room and closed the door. "In this particular case, we're not sure how long the hard drive was missing. Serial numbers are checked periodically. And theoretically, all members of a team working with classified information are supposed to make sure drives and disks are safely locked up. In practice, that doesn't always happen. Our best guess is that someone planned to remove the drive from the lab, and they couldn't get it past security, so they copied some or all of the contents." Dexter frowned. He looked like a man doing his best to contain strong emotions. "Perhaps at that point they panicked and hid the drive instead of trying to cover their tracks. It was found behind a copy machine. Déjà vu all over again. There was information on that drive that would be dangerous in the wrong hands."
"What's this got to do with me?"
"We need your help."
"No." The anger was chemical. A reaction in her blood just the same as if someone had jabbed a needle into her vein. Adrenaline. Stress cortisols. A simple increase in blood pressure. "Go talk to Palmer."
"We have. We are."
Sylvia saw the cue in Sweetheart's eyes. "You've got to be kidding," she whispered.
S.A. Hoopai said it out loud: "Palmer's on our side."
CHAPTER
26
"Paimer's the one who clued us in," Hoopai said softly.
The chronology, according to the feds:
"Palmer was in custody. By Monday morning lawyers were banging at the doors—reporters were going to be next. It was moot anyway, since tox reports came back clean. The packet contained nux vomica, just like Palmer said. Leaving investigators with their pants down. No grounds to hold her."
But leaving Palmer with the perfect oppertunity to hold a press conference à la bioweapons expert Steven Hatfill back in 2002, when the FBI was looking for the perpetrator of the "anthrax letters." She and her lawyers could claim the FBI was waging a smear campaign—through innuendo, harassment, and speculation—because they were desperate to come up with evidence.
Instead, she'd chosen to cooperate.
Sweetheart took over. "From the moment she was in custody, the FBI closed off her office, her lab, and took inventory. That's when we found the that the drive had been missing from B-30. Assume it was copied. It contains a vital manufacturing process—partially encrypted, but one that could be deciphered over time by a diligent party."
"You said Christine Palmer clued you in." Sylvia frowned. "I'm confused. If she was in custody, how did she know about the hard drive?"
It was Dexter who finally responded. "Dr. Palmer warned us about a possible security breach. A theft. A toxin sample may be missing as well."
"My God," Sylvia whispered. "If a toxin's missing—"
Sweetheart cut her off. "We don't know that—not absolutely."
"It's virtually impossible to maintain an accurate inventory of biological substances." Drew Dexter's soft Louisiana accent filled the room. "That was the main issue back in two thousand one and two. Anthrax. The Ames strain. You can't keep track of every milliliter. A new inventory procedure has been implemented on the Hill. Hopefully it will provide us with answers." He looked away. "But for the moment, LANL's treating this as an internal investigation."
Sweetheart kept his eyes on Sylvia. "L
ANL has to function on the credo of Don't let the bad guys know if something's on the open market."
"They can't withhold that kind of information." Sylvia stared at Dexter.
"We can and we will," he said sharply. "Until we know exactly what is or is not missing."
"People's lives are at stake."
"We don't know that," Dexter said.
"Sylvia." Sweetheart moved closer to the bed. "I understand what you're feeling. Think. We can't afford to cause a panic."
Finally she nodded. "Christine Palmer must have taken it—somehow she got it out—reported it missing—"
"We don't think so," Dexter said. "It's possible that before his death Doug Thomas smuggled out a sample."
"Doug Thomas?" Sylvia searched her mind and the fact fell into place: Dr. Thomas, Palmer's colleague at LANL, the man she'd murdered. "Wouldn't lab security have stopped him?"
"Unfortunately, not necessarily," Dexter said. "We can't check every fountain pen, every pill bottle."
"It would be risky," Hoopai said. "But Dr. Thomas needed money, he was willing to take risks."
Sylvia closed her eyes; her thoughts were jumbled, kept slipping out of place. A visual flash: Christine Palmer and a red-haired man. Opening her eyes, she said, "There was another doctor."
Sweetheart's voice, slow and measured, explaining to a child: "Harris Cray. We have security surveillance of Dr. Cray leaving the lab Friday—midmorning—while you were meeting with Christine Palmer at Tesuque Village Market. He carried a briefcase."
"What does he say about the hard drive?"
Hoopai stepped in this time. "Cray's disappeared."
"Jesus," Sylvia said. "I'm afraid to ask about Lang."
"Lang's another story. We found the motel in Española where he stayed. He checked out last Saturday morning. Nobody's seen him since"
"It all has a pleasing symmetry," Sylvia said bitterly. "You're minus a hazardous material, top-secret information, an MI-6 investigator, and a scientist with top-secret clearance. They've got a one-week lead at the very least. There's no way that information hasn't already changed hands to the North Koreans, the Iraqis, the mafia—a dozen other nations or private entities in the market for bioweapons."
"It's possible."
"Possible?"
"But we have intelligence that says Lang's still in the country—that a sale hasn't occurred. Not yet."
"What's this have to do with Christine Palmer?"
"She claims to have relevant information."
"And you believe her?" Sylvia asked harshly. "She's a serial murderer."
No one spoke until Sylvia asked: "When did Palmer come forward?"
"While she was in custody. She says she was given the information earlier, but she didn't believe it came from a credible source."
"Who is her source?" Sylvia was barely able to control her anger.
"She's not volunteering that information."
"Why the hell can't you order her to hand it over? If she refuses, charge her with obstruction of justice."
"As it stands, she could already cause trouble for the feds," Sweetheart said.
Hoopai shook his head. "You're forgetting: legally she's not guilty of anything."
Dexter said, "She's offering to cooperate."
It was Sweetheart who filled in the blank. "She wants something in return."
Sylvia stared at the three men. "She wants me."
"God damn it, no one can force you to do this, Sylvia." It was twenty minutes later and Matt was glaring at Sweetheart.
The two men had placed themselves on opposite sides of the hospital bed, but even that was too close for comfort. Matt was pumped and adrenalized, Sweetheart guarded, ready to defend himself if it came to that.
Sylvia closed the travel bag. "Matt, it's okay," she said, trying to reach him through his protective rage. I need you and I'm okay. Both at the same time. Do you hear me, babe?
He broke eye contact with Sweetheart, took another step toward Sylvia, and reached for her hand. She breathed a sigh of relief. There would be no fistfight, no brawl in the isolation ward of the hospital. His fingers twined through her own, and she gripped his just as hard as she could.
She heard Sweetheart saying, "The doctors are releasing you in the next hour—with conditions. We have to monitor you, make sure nothing new turns up—"
She cut Sweetheart off: "I need time alone with Matt."
He nodded but telegraphed impatience as he left the room. His footsteps echoed down the hall, then the door hissed shut.
Matt sat on the bed, visibly struggling to recover his composure. Sylvia caught the transitory emotions on his face—fear, rage, desolation. She felt a rush of anxiety. She was losing him.
Bad moment.
Perhaps Matt sensed her struggle, because when she opened her eyes again, he'd regained control. He smiled—not a perfect imitation but a decent one—and said, "You're right, it's okay. We're okay."
She nodded, grateful that he put her needs before his own, right here, right now. She wasn't sure how much strength she possessed. "Let's talk about it rationally," she said in a voice that didn't sound rational to her own ears.
Matt nodded. But he sat mute, looking so obviously distressed she almost smiled. Finally he said, "You first."
"Let's break it down into basics," she said carefully. "What exactly are they asking me to do?"
"They want you to work with this woman—this psycho—after she tried to kill you. They want you to interact with Palmer, they want you to kiss her ass if need be, until they get what they're after."
Matt made a visible effort to defuse himself. He let out the air he'd trapped in his lungs. "I don't want you in the same city as Palmer, much less the same room. She's sick. She's cold-blooded. She'll try again until she gets it right." He shook his head, and his voice was low and hard. "For what she did to you, I'll kill her myself."
Sylvia nodded, even found enough air to speak. "Nobody can force me to work with her—with Palmer. I need to know what's inside me. The doctors don't know. But Christine Palmer does. She chose it. She administered it. And then she waited to watch me die." She shook her head, blinking back tears. "What if this poison never leaves my body? What if it's part of my DNA? Some toxins do that. They lie dormant until—until they're passed on to your children—"
She couldn't finish. The worst question had to be asked. "Can you forgive me?" she finally whispered. "I lied to you. And now we may never have the chance . . ."
"Hush." Matt brushed his fingers against her cheek. "There's nothing to forgive. I love you."
When they were ready, Sylvia asked to see Sweetheart. Alone.
He entered the room a minute later. She said, "Before I go any further, I need answers."
"When you came to my house, you said you were filling in missing pieces. You told me about the umbrella project that included LANL, Porton Down, the Dutch labs. You told me it was funded by the private sector and by various governments. There were military applications."
Sweetheart nodded slowly.
"What does the military want to gain from the research?"
He looked at her; his eyebrows arching slightly. "It's a dangerous game to play—in order to develop defenses against a weapon, you must first possess that weapon."
"Go on."
"When you have a comprehensive, interwoven umbrella project such as this one, you are incorporating a half-dozen projects at various research facilities. These projects will be supported by central administrative and clinical oversight; and the culture, bioassay, and production of toxin will guarantee available product for the research. Now that product—in this case, specific neurotoxins—will find its way from lab to lab."
"And the researchers will move from lab to lab as well."
"Yes."
"And spies—anyone interested in selling the toxins or the manufacturing processes—will move without suspicion." She stared at him, realizing her suspicions had been justified. "You didn't go after a serial po
isoner, you were chasing a spy. How long?"
"Over four years ago I became aware that a mole was buried deeper than Aldrich Ames. When Robert Hanssen surfaced, we thought we'd caught our man. We weren't that lucky. The spy was still out there."
"Christine Palmer?"
"I had reasons to believe Palmer might be the mole; there was a pattern when it came to the information that was passed. It centered around Palmer's projects."
"A black market in bioweapons."
Sweetheart nodded. "The buyers are remarkably consistent: independent terrorist groups and the same hungry governments—Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, China, India . . ."
"A small, incestuous world," Sylvia whispered. "Let me get this straight—my brain isn't working too well. A serial poisoner working on top-secret projects, with highly sensitive and lethal neurotoxins, is also spying for enemy governments—"
"No."
"Somebody else was stealing the toxins." She nodded once, slowly. "Samantha Grayson and Doug Thomas." Another lightbulb went off. "Christine Palmer murdered them both. She murdered spies."
"The meeting is set for three this afternoon, which gives us two hours. Tit for tat. Palmer will trade information for information—" Sweetheart bit off his words as a nurse entered the room.
Sylvia waited while the nurse pumped the final gusts of air into the blood pressure cuff. The last time she'd have to go through this, at least for awhile. It was all part of the process of getting discharged.
The good news: her vital signs had stabilized, for the most part. The bad news: the symptoms were chronic, ephermeral, durable. No telling how long they'd continue to manifest—weeks, months, years? Yes, no, maybe.
She sighed. The nurse released the cuff and said, "You're almost out, honey. Be patient."
As soon as the woman left the room, Sylvia confronted Sweetheart. "Let's get the parameters straight. First, my foster daughter gets protection. She's out of the picture completely; she'll stay with her father. If Palmer makes even a passing reference to Serena, the bet is off, I won't play."
"Understood." Sweetheart nodded.
"Second, the investigation into how she administered the poison is ongoing—ditto what toxin she used. I want answers. That's the only reason I'm doing this."
