Nobody paid attention to the cleaning crew at LyonBio. New faces came and went each week depending on which area an employee was working in.
Everybody saw Billy Finn and Marvin Jones, but nobody noticed them.
Thierry Gaudin, the handsome and proud 45-year-old president and chief executive officer of LyonBio exited his office and stepped up to the podium. He clearly had not slept since news of his oldest son’s abduction had been given to him the previous afternoon at 4:30pm.
“As you now know, my son Bernard has been abducted. Many of you have seen the video that was posted on the Internet last night. So, it should come as no surprise as I announce that all animal research involving rhesus monkeys has been terminated as of this morning. Two large freight trucks will be arriving at our facilities shortly, and the non-human primates will be removed.”
There were gasps in the audience but general approval as well. The employees knew this was a necessary step in order to gain Bernard’s release.
Thierry looked into the cameras directly.
“I have done what you’ve asked…now please do what you have promised. Let my son come home. I would ask all of you to return to your important work and allow the authorities from Interpol, Europol and the Lyon police do their work as well. I will be meeting with each department and the lead scientists throughout the day. We must all continue to work and trust that my son will be released soon and unharmed. Five minutes from now, I would like to meet with all of you who work in the pilot house. Then I will visit the rest of you throughout the morning. Thank you.”
Thierry stepped down and slipped back into his office without taking any questions from the media. Through the main entry doors, employees could see two large GEFCO trucks passing the front of the building on the way to the loading docks in the rear.
Billy Finn and Marvin Jones pushed their carts toward the pilot house as Camp followed Raines back to her office where Raines quickly closed the door.
Camp pulled out the two small monitors that Jones had given him at the Lyon Hilton Hotel before they drove in separate cars over to LyonBio.
The video feed from a button camera mounted on Jones’ cap was clear and perfect on one TV monitor, and the video feed from the center of Billy Finn’s eyeglasses was on the other.
Thierry gathered a small group of 25 employees and cleaning crew in the cramped control room outside the pilot house. Finn and Jones stood on opposite sides and scanned the audience with their bodies, and cameras, as Thierry spoke.
“What I said out front, just a few minutes ago, was not exactly true, and I must apologize to you now. The investigators asked that I say those words hoping to buy more time for my son. I will do anything it takes to bring my boy home, but I will not stop making safe and effective vaccines that keep your children alive and well. If there was a better way than using animals to test for safety and efficacy, I would do it today. But there isn’t. This project is too important to stop now. This morning we will have to run one more test on four monkeys, and then we can move this project to manufacturing. I am sorry, but these monkeys will die. I am relying on each of you to be professional. No one must know that we conducted this final test.”
Camp and Raines examined the faces of all those gathered. Most seemed to understand Thierry’s mission and mandate, but a few looked irritated.
“You know what we’re doing, Camp,” Raines said as she looked at her monitor, “we’re profiling.”
“Got any better ideas?”
“There…that guy…he looks pissed. Is he pissed at Thierry over the monkeys, or did he break up with his girlfriend last night?” Raines asked.
Finn and Jones worked over the crowd too. Nothing stood out.
“Thank you for your thoughts and concerns. Let’s get back to work,” Thierry said as he left the pilot house.
The employees went to their workstations as the lead veterinarian asked the animal technicians to bring in four more monkeys. Several employees went to the observation windows, as cages were rolled in and the doors were sealed.
The veterinarian had met with Raines before the mandatory meeting in the lobby. The only thing Raines told him was to change out the lethal project chemical with the aerosolized anesthesia gas. It would look the same, but the monkeys would go down much faster than before when it took a few days before death.
Finn and Jones were positioned on both ends of the observation glass as 16 people gathered to watch the final test that would certainly kill four more monkeys. Raines and Camp watched as well from the monitors in the office behind closed doors.
The gas vapors started to fill the room as the monkeys looked up and started to smell the fumes with abundant curiosity. One sat down, then another, then all four. Within minutes all four were lying down in their cages, apparently dead.
The employees started to peel away as the deed was done. The research had been administered, and the information had been recorded in the tissue samples that would soon be seen under a microscope. A small group of four remained, eyes fixated on the monkeys lying on the bottom of their cages. After one more peeled away, they saw it.
There in the reflection of the observation window glass was an iPhone in the grasp of a young male who was wearing a lab coat. He quickly left the observation area as two others slowly moved away.
Jones carried a broom and walked after the man as Billy Finn went down an opposite hallway. Camp walked quickly out of Raines’ office and toward the lobby as Raines stood watching in her doorway.
The young man walked into the main building and over to shipping and receiving, an odd place for a veterinary technician in a lab coat to be. Jones followed the man into the shipping and receiving room and started to gather trash, as Finn swept the floor in the hallway outside the door.
A young woman was filling a vaccine box with bubble wrap and was about to seal the box when the young man in the lab coat walked up to her. He spoke a few words silently then handed her his iPhone. She looked shocked and stunned. The young man left his iPhone with her and exited shipping and receiving as fast as he had arrived. He walked past Jones, who grabbed another trash can to appear busy, and then out into the hallway past Finn and back down to the pilot house.
Jones moved over by the woman who picked up her cell phone and tried to make a discreet call.
“Claude…this is Odette…I have more video…he lied…okay, on my lunch break…give me 30 minutes.”
Jones took the trash out into the dumpster that Finn had pushed over and poured it into his can.
“Her name is Odette…she’s got the phone…leaving in 30,” Jones said as he left Finn and went to the main office.
Thierry’s executive secretary was ready and waiting as Jones rushed in with Camp. Thierry stood nearby.
“The girl’s name is Odette,” Jones said.
“In shipping?” the secretary asked.
“What’s her parking badge number, and what does she drive?”
The secretary found Odette’s last name and her employee file.
“She’s in the Blue lot, farthest away from the building. It’s open parking, no assigned spots.”
“The car.”
“Looking…looking…here it is. Citroen…blue…2004 model.”
Camp and Jones bolted out the front door into Jones’ BMW parked in the visitor’s section. Finn stayed in the shipping and receiving area and waited for Odette to make her move. Raines identified the male in the lab coat and asked the Interpol officer to detain him.
Odette checked her watch, finished taping one more box, and then walked over to her supervisor.
“Margrit, je vais prendre un dejeuner rapide. Est-ce que ca va?”
“Oui.”
Odette walked out the side door and down the sidewalk toward the Blue lot.
“She’s out and heading to the parking lot,” Finn said quietly in his cell phone.
“Got her,” Camp said as he and Jones waited in the back of the Blue lot with the BMW running.
&nb
sp; Raines walked back into the main hallway and saw Finn take off his janitor smock and throw it in the trash dumpster. They both ran out the front door and over to Raines’ rental car.
Odette pulled out and drove through several streets and into Lyon center as the BMW trailed her from a safe distance. Camp was on the phone with Finn who navigated as Raines drove several miles behind.
Odette stopped her Citroen and parked in a space at the Parc de la Tete d’Or. Golden Head Park was the largest urban park in Lyon and a favorite for locals who loved to stroll around the large lake in the center.
Jones watched from the car as Camp walked in a diagonal direction away from Odette.
Odette pulled out her cell phone and paced back and forth in front of a park bench next to the lake. She closed her phone and sat down.
Jones looked through his binoculars as a young man wearing red glasses, dressed in a black leather jacket walked up and sat down next to Odette. The man consoled her, even put an arm around her, then she reached into her bag and handed him another phone. The man held the iPhone and watched the latest video. Even from 50 yards away, Camp could see the outrage in his body language.
The man with the red glasses and black leather jacket got up abruptly and stormed off as Odette sat on the bench and wiped her eyes with a tissue.
Camp followed him on foot as he left the Golden Head Park and crossed the street to the Lyon Metro, part of the Transports en Commun Lyonnais. The Red Line A train arrived and the man got on. Camp got onto the same car of the train using the Metro tickets he had purchased his first night in Lyon.
Passing the first stop, then the Foch stop, the man exited the Metro at Hotel de Ville and waited for the Orange Line. He was on the northbound side of the platform.
“Jones…we’re waiting for the northbound on the Orange Line.” Camp closed his phone as Jones pulled out his Metro map. The tires of the BMW lit the pavement as he pressed the speed dial for Finn.
“Start with Cuire, on the Orange, standby from there,” Jones said as Raines pulled a u-turn in the middle of the street.
The northbound Orange came, and the man got on. Camp walked on to the next car with a clear view through the glass windows at the man wearing red eyeglasses. The guy was already talking on his phone. Camp hoped that they wouldn’t start something stupid with Bernard before he got there.
Three stops up, the man got off the C train at the Henon Metro stop and headed up the stairs to the street.
Camp followed the man as he passed by the De La Croix Rousse Hotel then slid back down a narrow walkway and up the steps to Number 92, Quai Joseph Gillet.
“Ninety-two Quai Joseph Gillet. He just went in.”
Jones punched the address into his GPS.
“Seven minutes…wait for me.”
Jones called Finn with the information as Camp loitered across the street. His mind raced. What could they possibly do to Bernard in seven minutes, Camp asked himself. The first three minutes felt like an hour. Camp couldn’t wait any longer.
He walked around behind the three-story building. There were three separate sets of stairs leading up to the back door of each apartment. Based on where the red glasses entered, Camp was fairly certain that he needed to be on the second-floor apartment.
Another young man was sitting on the steps at the top of the outside stairs leading to the second-floor apartment and smoking a cigarette. He heard something inside.
“Claude, est-ce vous?”
The man got up, threw his burning cigarette down and went back inside. Camp listened, but never heard the door lock.
Jones pulled up and parked on the street a block down from Number 92 on Quai Joseph Gillen. Finn called Jones and said they were less than two minutes away.
Jones walked up to the front of the building. Camp was nowhere to be seen. Jones knew better than to call Camp on the phone.
“Damn Yank,” Jones cursed as he walked up the steps leading to the front door of Number 92.
Camp slid the backdoor open and walked into the kitchen. Dishes were piled high in the sink. The table was covered with cereal boxes and an electric guitar was propped up in one of the chairs.
Camp heard the voices of two men talking in the other room.
He also heard a whimper.
Peering carefully around the edge of the door, he caught a quick glimpse into the main living room. The table had been pushed against the back wall. A black flag with the red letters spelling out SPEAK was pinned to the wall. An Allentown two cage metabolic non-human primate cage, 32-inches wide, 29-inches deep and 32-inches high, was set on the middle of the dining room table.
The cage was empty.
Camp realized that he didn’t have a weapon. No weapons on the military transport from Kabul to Tel Aviv with General Ferguson. No weapons on the commercial flight to Lyon when he was exiled to France.
Camp stepped back and looked in the sink. He carefully reached in so as not to disturb the dirty dishes and slowly removed a steak knife and slid it into his back pocket.
The whimpering grew louder.
Looking back into the living room, Camp watched as one of the ski-masked men led Bernard, naked with hands bound behind his back and tape covering his mouth, to the table.
The red glasses man, “Claude” as his cigarette-smoking buddy called him, pressed the record button on the digital camera sitting on the tripod in front of the table and slipped on his ski mask. Claude moved forward and yanked the Allentown cage off the table and threw it onto the floor. Bernard struggled frantically, but the two men placed him onto the table and beneath the flag. A long climbing rope was wound around the table and over Bernard three times, binding his chest and his thighs to the surface.
“You think this is some kind of a joke. We warned you. We told you what the new rules were. Yet, today, today in the video that I’m playing right now, you went ahead and killed four more of our monkey brothers. So…we have no choice…Bernard, your son, will soon be able to tell you how animal research feels.”
Claude nodded, and the second man pulled the tape from Bernard’s mouth. The boy screamed as a scalpel was raised above his chest.
Jones exploded through the front door with a kick that sent pieces of shattered wood flying into the living room. Camp lunged forward out of the kitchen and was airborne toward the scalpel-wielding terrorist as Jones tackled the man closest to Bernard. Finn ran up and into the apartment as Camp pushed the scalpel out of Claude’s hand. Both assailants were easily subdued by a former SEAL, a retired FBI agent and the global head of security for a pharmaceutical company in Switzerland who happened to be former MI6.
“Guys,” Raines said with a weak voice as she stood in the doorway to the living room.
The third man had been asleep in his bedroom until Jones opened the door so rudely with the heel of his boot. By the time the other assailant got his 9mm Glock out of his nightstand, Raines was the only one left he could get to.
The Glock was pressed to the left side of her head, and his other arm was wrapped around the neck of Leslie Raines.
“Se tenir debout,” the captor said, motioning for Camp and Jones to stand up and Finn to back away.
Camp let Claude go and stood up slowly. Finn stepped back as Bernard started to cry. Jones slowly rolled off his assailant. He kept his eyes focused on the man holding a gun to the head of Raines. Jones nodded to the man and whispered.
“La police…derriere vous.”
The man smiled then an inquisitive look dashed across his unshaved face. Jones pointed and raised an eyebrow again. The silence in the room was deafening.
The man started to turn his head to look for the police behind him.
Jones reached into his jacket and fired his pistol in one sweeping motion hitting the would-be abductor dead center above the eyes. Blood-splatter sprayed over Raines’ face as his grip loosened and his crumpled body hit the floor.
Finn tied the assailants up as Raines went to the bedroom to find clothes for Bernard. Camp
untied the boy.
“Americans?” Bernard said as he fought back the tears.
“You’re okay now, Bernard.” Camp said as Claude and his buddy sat on the floor with ski masks still on and the camera still recording.
“Call your friends from Interpol. The evidence is on the camera,” Jones said as he walked toward the front door.
“You’re leaving?” Finn asked.
“All that’s left is the paperwork. I hate paperwork,” Jones said as he bounced down the steps and down one block where his BMW waited for the drive back to Geneva.
* * *
32
* * *
ISAF Headquarters
Kabul, Afghanistan
General Ferguson was plowing through AARs, After-Action Reports, as the two coffee-pouring majors on his staff read through the morning’s intelligence briefing.
“Sir, the IAEA got stonewalled this morning in their request to visit Parchin,” Major Spann said as Ferguson kept reading reports.
“What else is new?” Ferguson grumbled without looking up. “What’s Parchin?”
“Sir, military industrial complex about 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran, part of a test-range for liquid-propellant missile engines.”
“That’s nice, but doesn’t sound nuclear to me. Major, the IAEA operates cameras and conducts regular, and surprise visits, to declared nuclear sites including the Fordo and Natanz enrichment centers, reactors in Bushehr and Tehran and a uranium metallurgical laboratory in Isfahan. Parshin isn’t one of the sites we’re interested in.”
The two majors were uncomfortable. Spann tried one more time.
“Sir, intelligence suspects they are working on parallel paths, a civilian energy program which they let us monitor, and a parallel military program which is off limits.”
“I understand all that, major. I don’t require an education.”
“Sir, satellite imagery analysis indicates that high-explosive tests were conducted in a specially built chamber at Parchin, a chamber designed to contain components for a nuclear weapon.”
Jericho 3 Page 26
