Sunday after church Collin and Lily went to lunch with the pastor and his wife. They went out with them once or twice a year. The pastor tried to have lunch after church with the member families so he could keep in touch. Afterward Lily was tired and wanted to take a nap. Collin told her, “I’m going to take a trip to visit a laboratory in Rockville.”
“Do they know you’re coming?”
“No. I don’t expect anyone to be there.”
“Oh. I see. Is it dangerous?”
“I don’t think so. Other than getting arrested for trespassing.”
“Well, just don’t get caught.”
“Have a nice nap Sweetie. I’ll be back later.”
Collin was wearing jeans and a plain t-shirt. He didn’t want to wear his black clothes because they would indicate to anyone who might see him that he didn’t belong at HGL. This way with his replacement badge he could bluff anyone he might run into so they thought he worked there and was just in on Sunday because his experiment required it. He hoped nobody would be there because he had no idea what kind of experiment an employee at HGL would be working on. He had his portable scanner for finding the GPS transmitter and some other goodies with him in a small backpack.
He drove over to the lab. He drove around the building looking to see if any other cars were there. He was not happy to see a pickup truck parked in the back. He drove out of the parking lot to the building across the street. Nobody was parked there so he parked his car and walked over to the back of the HGL building. He put on a National’s baseball cap and pushed his replacement badge into the slot at the door. There was a click and Collin pushed the door open. He kept his cap positioned so that the camera at the entrance did not capture his face. He walked in like he had done so everyday for a year.
As he walked down the hall the lights blinked on. Collin was startled but he didn’t hear anything or anyone. After he had walked down the hall a little ways there was a restroom. He went inside. It was empty. Now he peeked out the door to see what kind of security was in the hall. There were motion sensors but no cameras. Collin figured the motion sensors might be a problem but it could be just to save on the light bill. He would just have to risk it. He pulled his scanner out and turned it on. The device registered one GPS transmitter. It was about eighty feet to the left of the restroom and at a lower elevation. Collin figured it was down one floor. He could see that the corridor in front of the restroom came to a dead end and branched both left and right only about twenty feet to the left of the restroom.
He left the restroom and started down the hall toward the branch. He listened intently while watching the scanner to make sure he was alone and on track. When Collin got to the branch in the hall, he stopped and walked a few feet both ways to see if the scanner could help him decide which way to go. There were elevators there but he was wary of using them. Instead he turned right and continued past them. The next branch was his opportunity to turn left and get pointed more toward the GPS transmitter. He came upon some stairs. To make sure he didn’t get locked into the stairwell he blocked the door with his backpack and walked down one flight. He had no problem opening the door to the lower level so he ran back up and grabbed his pack.
Collin opened the door on the lower level. This hallway was dark except for the faint glow from the emergency lights and the exit signs. Collin entered the hallway and took a head lamp out of the backpack. He turned it on and put it on his head. He studied the scanner to see which direction to go for the GPS transmitter. He headed down the dark hall. It looked like a basement. There were some pieces of equipment just pushed over to the side of the hall with plastic covers on them. Then some double doors that were labeled TRASH ROOM. He continued to some doors labeled LOADING DOCK. The scanner indicated that the GPS transmitter was behind those doors.
There was a slot on the wall next to the door. Collin tried his badge. The doors swung open into a large room. On the far end of the room was a roll down door which was closed and secured. Collin stood in the middle of the room and looked at the scanner. It was indicating that the GPS transmitter was very close. He moved toward it. There was a closed door in the wall. Collin tried the knob. It was locked. There was no slot for a badge so Collin knelt down and got out his lock pick.
It only took a moment and he had the door unlocked. Inside he saw some shelves to the left. The shelves were filled with boxes of green top tubes and urine cups and Styrofoam boxes and all the supplies similar to those Terrie had pulled out of her duffle bag at his house. He looked around the rest of the closet. In the back was a short counter. To the right was a pile of duffle bags. His GPS transmitter was in one of the bags. He placed the scanner on the counter facing the pile. Then he grabbed the bags one at a time and threw them out into the large room. He kept an eye on the scanner. When it showed movement of the GPS transmitter he went and opened the bag he had thrown last. After he retrieved the transmitter he threw the bags back into the store room so they looked like they did when he arrived. He stowed his scanner and left the loading dock.
He knew the administrative offices were on the third floor where Doctor Holt’s office and the laboratory were located. Collin went back into the staircase and walked up to the third floor. He scanned the hallway before he walked out of the stairwell. The hall lights were coming on again as he passed the motion detectors so he stowed his head lamp. Collin remembered that Doctor Holt didn’t have any file cabinets in his office so he broke into the office near Doctor Holt’s that was for the Director of Operations.
The lights in the office also came on when Collin entered but he was able to turn them off by pushing the button on the motion detector that had been put in the place of where a light switch would normally be. Collin put his head lamp back on. He broke into the file cabinet and started to go through the files. In alphabetical order Gene Search Project was easy to find. Collin didn’t want to get caught but he wanted to take his time with this file. So he took it to the copier he saw in the administrative assistant area. He had to turn the copier on and wait for it to warm up. He turned off the motion detector for the lights and leafed through the file while he waited.
Then he heard a voice and squeezed down beside the copier. He reached up and turned it off. Then held his breath and listened.
“I don’t know if someone is here or not. Maybe Doctor Holt dropped by. All I know is the lights in the hall are on.”
“Yes, I checked the office to see if it was locked. It is just like always, Doctor Holt’s office is locked but nobody else’s is.”
“No. None of the lights are on in the offices. What do you want me to do?”
It was the same man’s voice every time someone spoke. Collin figured out the guy was talking into his cell phone.
“Right. I’ll write it up and check the cameras at the entrances.”
The man left. Collin turned the copier back on. He was frantically willing it to hurry up when it made a whirling noise and indicated it was ready. Collin grabbed the papers out of the file and shoved them into the copier and hit start. He didn’t know if there was a front and back but he set it to copy two sided to two sided anyway. He shoved his copies into his backpack and put the originals into the file folder. He ran over and put the file back into the file cabinet. Now he had to get out of there. He wasn’t sure where the security office might be but he looked at the phone list on the administrative assistant’s desk. Security was listed as room 220 and extension 2700. He hoped that meant the security guard was in that office on the second floor.
Collin went back to the staircase and down to the first floor. He ran down to the restroom near the exit. He went inside and took off his head lamp. He put on his baseball cap. He tossed the replacement badge into the ladies room across the hall after he wiped it clean of fingerprints. It fell down behind the commode in the first stall. Then Collin walked slowly to the exit and angling his cap to block his face he walked out of the exit as if nothing was amiss. He walked over to the other building and then looked back to see if ther
e was any action at HGL. All was calm. Nobody was to be seen. He got into his car, stowed his cap and slowly exited the parking lot as far away from HGL as possible. He was glad to be on his way home and eager to read the contents of the Gene Search file.
Collin entered the house and peeked into the bedroom to see if Lily was awake. She was sleeping. He paused to listen to her gentle breathing. Then he closed the door and got comfortable on the couch with the copy of the Gene Search file.
It wasn’t long before Collin’s head was swimming. The documents were full of technical terms and incomprehensible statements. The documents were all stamped PROPOSED PROJECT across the top. It indicated that Gene Search had submitted this project to HGL. Collin couldn’t find any place in the document that indicated that HGL had accepted the project or any relationship with Gene Search except that he had found the file in HGL’s Director of Operations office.
The technical part of the project had one section with the title, “Obstetrical Module”. This section was not as detailed in the genetic sense but did refer to genetically altered embryo and carrier females. The rest of that section talked about selection of the carrier females and protocols for impregnation and monitoring of the pregnancy. Collin hoped that Lily could explain this part of the documents. Reading it made Collin’s skin crawl. He was certain that genetically altering a human embryo was illegal as well as immoral. He couldn’t help picturing the young ladies he had seen at the mall as participants in this part of the Gene Search project. Would it be worth a million dollars to have your body used this way? How much had the girls had been told? Was George Holt involved?
Chapter Thirteen
Gene Search: A Collin Carter Mystery Page 12
