by J. B. Turner
“Three months ago, we finally created this new, more virulent, strain. We’d worked for years. In the last few months, we were both working very long hours.”
“Was it taking its toll?”
“We were both exhausted, but we both had a Pentagon deadline to meet. We were verifying procedures and analysing all the data. It was coming together perfectly, just as I had envisaged.”
“Tell me: I guess if you’re working closely with someone for so long, in such tight conditions, there must have been tensions. Did you notice anything out of character?”
“Nothing. The one thing that stuck in my mind was that he hardly showed any discernible signs of stress. He seemed to work well under pressure.”
“So, there were no behavioral traits to indicate anything adverse, or out of the ordinary from him or anyone on your team?”
“He was quiet, but he had always been quiet. I’d always tried to ensure a happy and cohesive working environment, and he was very much part of that. He wasn’t the life and soul of the party, but that was just him. He was a scientist.”
“OK, just to clarify, Scott Caan was not acting out of character. That was his natural persona, right?”
“Indeed.”
“So, what happened to make you want to contact us?”
“If I can just fill you in on the lead-up to my concerns. It was all going swimmingly. Three weeks ago or so, in late-November, we finally got preliminary results back which showed that the new anti-virals we had worked on were working with the hybrid flu we had created. It was a very satisfying moment. It means that if there is, God forbid, such an outbreak again, we would be well prepared with effective vaccines and anti-virals. And we are now starting to understand how pandemics form and cause disease.” A bead of perspiration on Luntz’s forehead. “But then, the Pentagon, in the middle of all this, asked me to conduct a spot check. An inventory.”
“Was this unusual?”
“It was usually held at the start of each year, so I’d expected to do it in January, maybe February, so that wasn’t ideal. I needed Scott to oversee this inventory, but he had called in sick. It wasn’t like him. Three days later, he was still off. Ironically, some flu, or something. I tried to call him by phone, but there was no answer. So, as you can imagine, I was wondering where he was. I assumed he was in his bed. But I left numerous messages on his phone. This went on for another couple of days, until I decided to head out to his house. I had never been there before. No one had. He was very private. But still there was no answer. I thought it was a bit odd, but wondered if he hadn’t just headed out for some fresh air. Later that day, back at the lab, I went to study the test results from the anti-viral test on my computer, and there was nothing there. Every computer file pertaining to our research was gone.”
Meyerstein nodded. “But this was backed up to secure servers, I imagine.”
“It was. But when I checked, it was all gone. Nothing on the backup. I thought I was going mad. It didn’t make any sense. I couldn’t think straight. This was years of work, straight down the pan. Anyway, I called his home phone but it was still ringing out, as was his cell phone. Then I decided to do the inventory myself. If nothing else, as a basic security procedure. We have tens of thousands of items stored in the freezer. And it showed a discrepancy.”
“What kind of discrepancy?”
“The actual stocks didn’t match the numbers we thought we had. So it all had to be counted again, for a second time. It took days. Eventually we found we were missing three vials of the hybrid 1918 Spanish Flu virus we had created, and the anti-virals and vaccine.”
Meyerstein felt her insides knot. The process took days? Why so long? “Did you speak to anyone else about these concerns?”
“I called my contact at the Pentagon, overseeing the project, and he told me to contact Dr Horowitz.”
Meyerstein shifted in her seat. “Horowitz? Why not the Pentagon?”
“They referred me to him because he was head of the WMD section of the FBI and had the highest level of security clearance, as he used to work within the Department of Defense.”
“Adam Horowitz?”
“Yes. I sent him an encrypted email saying I needed to speak to him urgently in person on a security matter at the lab. He was out of the country and arranged for me to be seen in person by his deputy at FBI HQ. And he arranged for a Special Agent to be assigned to me overnight at the St Regis, ahead of the early morning meeting.”
Meyerstein shifted in her seat. “So, you followed the correct procedure, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Meyerstein felt an anger build within her. She hadn’t been made aware of this by Adam Horowitz or his team. Was this because of its special access status? She gathered her thoughts. “Are there any circumstances in which Caan or any member of your team would be allowed to take three vials of the virus, anti-virals and vaccines, out of the lab?”
Luntz’s eyes filled with tears and he bowed his head as if in shame. “No circumstances at all.”
“Would it be stretching things too far to say the specter of bio-terrorism comes to mind?”
“I think that’s a fair supposition.”
Meyerstein’s mind was racing. “But, as it stood, all you had was circumstantial evidence that Scott Caan might have been responsible. That’s all it was.”
“It doesn’t end there. The final piece of the jigsaw fell into place after I discovered another anomaly.”
“What kind of anomaly are we talking about?”
“A lot of scientists were in and out of the freezers where we kept the new strain of the 1918 synthetic Spanish flu virus. So, it could have been any of them. But what was different about Scott was that I found out that he had returned to the lab on two separate occasions, in the middle of the night, a couple of days before he went missing. The security guard noted it down and said Scott was finishing some vital work.”
“Did you take this up with Scott?”
“I was unaware that he had even entered the lab in the middle of the night. I only found out when I checked the guard’s logs. The guard didn’t pass on that information to me at the time, assuming it wasn’t important.”
“And you’re quite convinced Scott Caan is the one?”
“I believe it’s him. He knew the rules of the lab. Out of hours was only in the most exceptional of cases. It had to be authorised by me. And there was no good reason he had to be in there. And it categorically wasn’t authorised by me to be in that lab in the middle of the night.”
“None at all?”
Luntz shook his head. “Never,” he said, dabbing his eyes.
“Frank, tell me about Caan. We need to build up a profile of him. What we have so far is very sketchy. I mean, where did he come from? Where did he live? What were his passions? Did you know him well?”
The tears were now running down Luntz’s cheeks. “I can’t believe this is happening. You know, you think you know somebody. With hindsight, I didn’t know him at all. What can I say? He was recruited direct from MIT and assigned to the project. He came on board eighteen months after I had.”
“Why was that?”
“Well, first he had to get top secret clearance, and then when that came through, we had to wait for his Sensitive Compartmented Information clearance before he could begin work in the lab.”
“Tell me about him. His work.”
“From day one, his work was exceptional. Smartest guy MIT biological science department had seen for years. And he was one of the brightest guys in the operation. He also worked longer and harder and was more dedicated than anyone. He was always there.”
“Did he socialise? What about drinks after work? Bowling?”
“He didn’t drink. He kept himself to himself.”
“What were his interests?”
Luntz went quiet for a few moments before he answered. “He was a keep fit guy. Ran every lunchtime. Ran to work. Guy was in good shape. Really good shape.”
“Tel
l me, when he hadn’t turned up for work, was that out of character?”
“Absolutely. He was meticulous, rarely off sick, but if he was, he’d let me or one of his coworkers in the lab know either by phone or email.”
Luntz dabbed his eyes and sighed long and hard. She could see he was getting agitated.
“OK, let’s just step back, if we can, for a few moments to try and get a handle on where we are. It’s important that we establish the facts.”
Luntz nodded but said nothing.
“What I’m looking to do is build up a picture of this guy, your colleague. You say he was quiet, kept himself to himself, workaholic, keep fit, I get all that. What I’m missing is what he was like as a person. Did he talk politics? Did he read a newspaper and discuss an article? Something on CNN or Fox got his attention, perhaps?”
“You mean was he political?”
Meyerstein nodded.
“You know, it’s interesting, looking back, he never expressed any views on anything.”
“No views at all? Why do you think that was?”
“Perhaps he had no views on anything going on in the world…”
Meyerstein shrugged. “Or maybe, he wanted to conceal his true views.”
Luntz frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Meyerstein cleared her throat. “Are there any days where you know he was visiting friends, and was taking time off, or stuff like that? Did he have spats with colleagues? Things that stick in the memory.”
Luntz furrowed his brow for a few moments. “Well, no… Well, now that you mention it, he didn’t once mention friends or family.”
“Did you never ask him about his family?”
“We all live such busy lives I never really took that much of an interest. I know he wasn’t married. But I don’t think I ever knew anything about his private life. I don’t like to pry.”
Meyerstein could feel her anger mounting at Luntz’s lackadaisical approach. “What about spats?”
Luntz leaned back in his seat and pursed his lips, as if deep in thought. “You know, it’s interesting. There is one thing that comes to mind. I remember a colleague getting frustrated as he was trying to reach Scott to talk about some lab results. But he wasn’t around. Apparently he’d phoned in to say his flight was late.”
“Late?”
“Yeah, he was late for work on a Monday morning; he said his flight was delayed. Some technical fault in the plane from New York.”
“How long ago was that?”
“I remember that it was November 19th when he was late, that was the Monday morning, my sixtieth birthday, not long before he went off sick and then went AWOL.”
“How long was he away for? Do you know who he visited?”
“I’m guessing he left on the Saturday, November 17th, as he was in work on the Friday. But I don’t have a clue who he met.”
Meyerstein scribbled the details on a pad in front of her. “Tell me, what security measures do you have in place at the lab to ensure that the correct people enter the lab.”
“Primarily, it’s a retinal scan, which as you’ll know is a biometric technique, widely used in government agencies.”
“Frank, I’m going to take a break for two minutes, is that OK with you?”
Luntz nodded but said nothing.
Meyerstein ripped out the page from the pad she’d scribbled on and stood up, pushing back her chair. “I’ll be right back.” She went into the side room with the two-way mirror where Stamper was watching and handed over the piece of paper. “OK, I want Caan’s retinal scan to be fed into the airport databases. Concentrate on Saturday the 17th November at Dulles and all the New York airports. Cameras at taxi ranks. Then get our face recognition guys onto this. And run this with the biometric database we have. I want to see some results. Some footage of Caan arriving in New York. Where was he going? Who was he with?”
Stamper read the date on the paper and nodded. “I’ll get on it.”
“Caan had the highest security clearance, as had Luntz. I want us to get into Caan’s life. Something is not right. Something is missing from all this.”
“But if he’s been cleared through the Single Scope Background Investigation for Top Secret clearance and then by a higher clearance through the Pentagon, surely they’ve gone through all his life with a fine toothcomb; where the subject has lived, gone to school, interviews with persons who knew him, criminal records, qualifications, previous employment, and all the rest.”
“We’re doing it again. Check to see if Caan ever failed a polygraph test. Foreign travel, assets, character references, I want us to go over this one more time.”
“That’s going to take up a lot of resources, Martha.”
Meyerstein sighed. She had learned from her father the importance of not taking established facts without scrutinising them one more time. Her team thought she was obsessive with her attention to detail. And Stamper was no different. “Put my mind at rest, Roy. We can’t afford not to be meticulous. That’s our job, after all. So, let’s do it all again.”
Stamper shrugged. “OK, whatever you say. It may take time looking into his background. These security clearances can take up to eighteen months.”
“I want it all done in eighteen hours.”
“Jesus H Christ, Martha.” He cleared his throat. “Before I forget. We’ve been looking over Caan’s house. He hasn’t lived there in weeks, according to neighbors, maybe longer. The house had been cleared out. Not a thing. Was rented out to a guy called Raymond Baker.”
Meyerstein stared through the glass at Luntz. “This is so fucked up it’s not real, Roy. There are more questions than answers.”
“How do you think he’s holding up?”
Meyerstein sighed. “It’ll probably hit him in a week. If he’s lucky.” She had seen dozens of cases, people kidnapped or who underwent a traumatic event, who later crumbled.
Stamper said, “Don’t push him too far, Martha. Easy does it. I meant to say, do you want me to speak to Horowitz about this? I can’t believe we’ve been kept out of the loop.”
“This is a Pentagon project, which he is assigned to. He wouldn’t acknowledge it, even if you brought it up.”
“Are you letting it go?”
“For now. I have more pressing concerns, as have you.”
Stamper shrugged as if it wouldn’t have been the way he’d have done it.
Meyerstein smiled. “It can wait, Roy. We can have the inquiry once this is over.” Still smiling, she went back into the room with Luntz. She took a seat and fixed her gaze on the government scientist. His eyes were black, dark rings underneath. “Frank, you’ve been very helpful,” she said. “And we appreciate that. But we have got a major problem on our hands. We need to find Scott Caan. We have checked his home in Frederick, and it turns out no one lives there. The rent was paid, but no one actually lived there since a guy rented it out by the name of Raymond Baker. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Luntz shook his head. “I don’t understand. So, where did Scott live?”
“That’s just the problem. The place he said he lived, he didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means, Frank, that Lt Col Scott Caan has been living a lie. We can’t speak to neighbors about him. We don’t have cell phone details. We can’t find out what was on his laptop. The question is, why has he been living that lie, and who has helped him live that lie? The questions just kinda mount up…” She let the comments just hang in the air.
Luntz bit his lower lip. “I’m at a loss. Truly I am. He seemed…”
Meyerstein leaned over and held his hands. “Frank, we’ve got to assume the worst. I need to know if you can recreate the anti-viral drugs and vaccines.”
Luntz ran his hand through his grey hair and blew out his cheeks. “It would have to be from the notes I kept. I think we could have something in a couple of weeks, best case scenario.”
“I’m sorry, but that won’t work. We’re gonna need s
omething within the next forty-eight hours max.”
“That’s not realistic. I must test and retest the possible drugs.”
“I appreciate that, Frank. But we need a vaccine and anti-virals at the very earliest opportunity. Something that has a good possibility of working. And I want you to work with my colleague, Dr Adam Horowitz, a bioweapons expert.”
“I’m sorry, it can’t be done within that timescale.”
“We will give you whatever resources you want. Money, scientists, that is not an issue.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s unrealistic.”
“Are you going to help us or not?”
Luntz bowed his head. “This is my fault, isn’t it?”
“Let’s forget recriminations. We need to focus. So, are you going to help us or not?”
“I’ll do whatever I can.”
TWENTY-THREE
The clock in the ICU room showed Reznick it was 1.47am. He felt helpless as he sat at his daughter’s bedside knowing she was fighting for her life. She was only eleven years old. A child. The only sounds were his daughter’s shallow breathing and the constant beeping of the ventilator, keeping her alive.
Reznick leaned forward and squeezed her clammy hand. He knew that his daughter should have responded before now. The doctors were also concerned about the fluid on her lungs. The prognosis was bleak.
She showed classic symptoms of an opiate overdose. Eleven breaths a minute and miotic pupils. The machines around Lauren were taking her blood pressure, pulse, respiration and heart rate. The intravenous fluids were pumping in dextrose to her blood. But none of it was making a bit of difference.
He looked at the tubes coming out of her mouth and nose, concealing her flawless, beautiful face. His mind flashed back to the last time he saw her, in late summer, back home in Maine, before she was due to head back to Brookfield. Her face was tanned and her blue eyes had never looked so much like her mother. The way she smiled was just the same. Even the way she laughed.
A sharp knock at the door jolted Reznick out of his reverie and a doctor entered the room. “There’s someone here to see you. Assistant Director Meyerstein from the FBI.”
