by Layton Green
The shoes of the second came into view. Grey shot forward, then stopped himself. The feet were tiny. The feet of a child.
The child cried out and dropped a ragged bundle of clothing. The one in front turned. It was an old woman, her overcoat in tatters. The crone grabbed the child with knotted hands and yanked him away from Grey. The child’s patchwork clothing fluttered in the darkness. The woman shuffled backward and jabbed a finger at Grey, then enclosed the child in her arms.
Grey backed away with outward facing palms, apologizing with words he knew they didn’t understand. He picked up their bag and handed it to the gypsy woman. The child buried his head in the old woman’s clothing.
She shuffled into the darkness, dragging the child behind her. Grey murmured another apology, more for himself than for them, and returned to the pension. He checked on Veronica and then fell into bed.
• • •
Grey woke at eight, and again took a coffee downstairs. He kept shifting back and forth in his seat and crossing his legs. Breaking into someone’s house or laboratory when he had no proof a crime had been committed wasn’t on the table for him.
Maybe Veronica could charm another scientist, but for that to happen he’d need to break client confidentiality. Despite whatever romantic tension was brewing between them, he was still worried he’d see the story on the front page of tomorrow’s New York Times.
He debated calling Viktor, and decided against it. Viktor had entrusted the case to him, and right now there was nothing to discuss. Progress was being made, and it was on Grey to figure out how to wrap it up.
He waited until it was morning in New York, then called Al-Miri to relay what he had seen. No one answered, with no option to leave a message. He shrugged and went for a long run.
He returned to find the owner of the pension smiling and waving him over. The owner had run into an old friend at the mexana, he told Grey. A friend named Stefan Dimitrov.
The owner handed Grey a note. Grey thanked him and unfolded the paper.
It was an invitation to dinner, two nights hence, and directions to Stefan’s chateau. The other American, Grey’s lovely female companion, was invited as well.
– 24 –
Veronica sat at a table by herself in a pizza joint on Nezavissimost, the street bisecting the newer half of Veliko, to the west. The west side contained the commerce, a couple of pubs, a tiny casino, and a barn-sized movie theater showing Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The most important establishment on the west side, at least to Veronica: the one pizza restaurant in town with a menu in English.
The street in front of the pizza joint was lined with gypsy showmen, a few shy rural craftsmen, and a phalanx of local entrepreneurs in gaudy shops selling the wares of the craftsmen and the gypsies at twice the price. Just outside her window was a man in a bright orange Adidas shirt and worn overalls, leaning on a rake in one hand and talking on a cell phone in the other. He was standing behind a folding table littered with rusted Cold War relics, all bearing the familiar red star.
A BMW flew past the table, and then a horse pulling a long flat cart trotted by. The man on the horsecart stopped to pick up a bundle of trash on the side of the street with a pitchfork, and deposited it into the cart.
Veronica opened the menu. The first item was called “Pizza Number One.” The ingredients were listed as savory, tomato juice, yellow cheese, and forced meat. Veronica looked from the menu to the man on the horse, emitted a slightly hysterical giggle and turned to the wine list.
She ordered one of the less mysterious sounding pizzas and a nice glass of Melnik, and popped open her international cell phone. She dialed New York.
Monique answered on the third ring. “Where are you, darling?”
“Eating a savory pizza in the middle of the afternoon and staring at a garbage man straight out of the middle ages.”
“Let me just send this one email… there. Sorry, you’re where again? With a garbage man?”
Veronica took a long deep draught of wine.
“Vere? Are you there? How’s my story?”
Veronica lowered her voice, even though she was the only customer. “I’m onto something big. I’m talking rogue scientists, secret labs, intruders in the night, clandestine ops, all that jazz. Big, Monique. Earth-shattering.”
“What is it?”
“That’s the problem. I couldn’t give you a paragraph on the actual subject matter. I just know it concerns Somax and it’s big. I’m close, though. I know the main player and I think I know where the lab is.”
“The secret lab?”
“That’s right.”
“So it’s not a secret?”
Veronica held the phone away from her face and frowned at it. “I followed the guy I told you about, the ex-military detective. He’s good. He’s the type of guy who doesn’t hang around small stuff. He scoped out a location for a few hours, near where the lab’s rumored to be. It has to be it.”
“What about a synopsis? Something I can give to finance? I’d love to subsidize your travels and save the world, darling, but I have an organization to run.”
Veronica hesitated. “You said ten days, right? I’ll have a synopsis in three. Maybe not the whole story, but something. Promise.”
“There’s a protest next week at CDC headquarters, and a WHO fundraiser in London. We’ll need coverage.”
“Those two things are like a middle school biology symposium compared to what I’ve got over here.”
“Are they? I thought you said you didn’t have a paragraph.”
“Trust me. This is the one, Monique. I’ll make us both famous.”
“I don’t need fame, dear. I just need good wine. How is the wine there? I’ve heard it can be quite excellent.”
“Stick with the Melnik reds. Think Napa Valley Cab meets Malbec. I’ll have your synopsis in three days.”
“The CDC protest starts in three days,” she said mildly. Monique never pushed, she just offered a subtle and unflagging opinion of her view of things. “Atlanta has nice restaurants. Maybe I’ll go too. That could be nice. You and me at the Buckhead Intercontinental, a nice little expense account?”
“Three days. Then I’ll let you decide for yourself.”
“Sure darling.”
Veronica murmured her goodbyes as the waitress set her pizza down in front of her. Veronica had absolutely no idea what was on it.
• • •
Jax knew most criminals desire an audience. It was human nature. From the pickpocket to the carjacker to the serial killer, the compulsion to share in some manner, whether commiseration or bragging or confession, was a scientific fact.
A few truly dangerous ones didn’t have that need. The stone cold sociopaths born without a soul, without even the childhood traumas that tripped up most serial killers. They do their work, move on to the next random job, and are never heard from again. They’re a nightmare for police and a question for God.
Jax considered himself in neither category. He wanted an audience less than he wanted a venereal disease. He had no neuroses, no self-confidence issues, no inner urges to hurt anyone, no strange voices in his head.
Sure, if he was halfway across the globe having a beer with a friend, Jax might change some names and tell a few stories, for the sake of a good time. And if need be, he could shut down like an abandoned reactor.
Simply put: Jax loved his lifestyle, and he’d do anything to keep it. This business he was mixed up in was out of control. It was time to disappear. Time to find a nice shack in the Outback, hole up for a year and remain as anonymous as a mosquito in New Orleans.
Jax grinned as he drove down I-68. Running and hiding were two of Jax’s specialties, along with scouring the globe for the best places to have a Cuba Libre. He didn’t know anyone that was better at, well, any of those things.
Another man had been posted on the street outside his hotel in New York. When Jax burst through the door during his escape, the man had tried to stop him. A
nice groin shot and an uppercut with the butt of the gun had dropped him. The man had some training, but he was no Nomti. Four more burst through the door, and Jax started running.
No one short of an Olympic sprinter with GPS was going to catch Jax on the streets of a large city. He’d ducked, weaved, hidden, ran, taxied, and subwayed his way across New York. The chase hadn’t lasted long; he hadn’t seen anyone suspicious since thirty minutes before he hit Grand Central. If you couldn’t lose someone in New York, you didn’t need to be running.
Jax took a taxi to a small rental agency in Brooklyn. He used a fake driver’s license to rent a tan Chevy sedan for a week. He left the boroughs and drove straight to West Virginia.
Why West Virginia? Why not. He’d opened the atlas and thought it looked good. Not too far, but far enough. Random. White. Homogenous. Scary.
He’d spend a few days there, then an easy drive to Chicago and a direct flight, probably to London. Lose the fake license, do a little disguise job at the airport, use a passport with a different fake name. Mission complete. Off the grid for a while, no more business in Egypt for a very long time, if ever.
Life was all about choices, he thought. The ones you make, the ones you don’t make, and the ones others make for you, which can sometimes trump the first two. Jax didn’t do revenge, not if it jeopardized his way of life. The people chasing him could waste their lives working for whatever twisted club they belonged to, and he’d continue down his charmed path.
Jax popped a Heineken, the only import he’d found in the grocery store. He was sitting in a lawn chair provided by a sleepy motel just off the interstate, near some pit stop of a town in West Virginia called Spencerville. It was one of those twenty room, peeling, L-shaped motels that litter the American roadside. He chose the room at the far end, next to the woods. Parked his car in the rear.
He packed his Camels on his palm and grinned. Chicago by noon tomorrow, London the next morning. Crickets in the adjoining forest echoed his cheer, and he enjoyed the evening.
Car lights swung into view and stopped at reception. It was late, after midnight, but not uncommonly late. Just to be safe Jax sidled inside the room.
He then watched in disbelief as four dark-skinned men in overcoats stepped out of a black sedan, fanned out and started walking towards his room.
Jax grabbed his bag and shoved open the window on the wall fronting the woods. He sprinted for his car, jumped inside, and sped away. In the rear-view mirror he saw the four men converge on his room. He punched the steering wheel repeatedly as he drove away, thinking to himself, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
– 25 –
Through the indolence of twilight, Grey and Veronica left Veliko along the road to the castle hill. Streaks of lavender illuminated the giant cotton balls littering the sky, the breeze from the surrounding hills distributing the fresh forest air.
After the bridge they turned onto the path at the bottom of the hill, then headed down the long walkway to Stefan’s chateau, hedged on both sides by sculpted cypress. Veronica swayed down the cobblestone drive in high-heeled boots, a knee-length gray skirt and a fitted lambskin jacket.
Grey watched her navigate the uneven ground with amusement. “I told you the chateau was a bit of a hike.”
“These are my hiking shoes.” She slipped her arm through one of Grey’s as they walked, and plucked at his black sweater. “You look nice, even with cargo pants and stubble. Would you consider letting me be your wardrobe consultant when we get back?”
Grey chuckled.
“I’m serious.” She swatted at a bug. “Do you think he knows who I am?”
“He knows something’s up. But he’s a civilized man. He knew someone else was staying with me, and it’d be rude not to extend an invite.”
“Do you think we’re in any danger?”
“You wouldn’t be here if I did.”
“What about the goons he had follow us?”
“We know he has an agenda, but it doesn’t involve physical harm to us tonight. Besides the fact I didn’t sense that sort of danger from him, our hotel knows we’re here. It’s too out in the open. Tonight’s about information gathering.”
She smirked. “And that good conversation you told me about. Maybe we can discuss some nice new experiments on Romanian orphans.”
Grey lowered his voice. “Veronica.”
She quieted. They could see the house, and Stefan stood on the doorstep in a pair of jeans, an untucked white dress shirt and a sport coat. He waved and took a sip from a cocktail glass.
“See?” Veronica said. “Something like that could be good for you. Casual but nice. Lord of the relaxed manor.”
“A sport coat is casual?”
She patted him. “We have some work to do.”
Grey scanned the grounds and the chateau. “That we do,” he murmured.
• • •
Grey admired the handsome square face of Stefan’s manor. It was a two-story union of wood framing and mauve plaster-covered stone, with oversized windows that brought a nice open feel to the house.
Stefan waited in the doorway, one of those stocky, well-proportioned men who are at ease waving at guests. He pumped Grey’s hand and kissed Veronica on both cheeks. She matched his social vigor with her own charisma, smiling and glowing, casting a spell of feminine charm. Grey stood to the side as Veronica and Stefan flattered each other.
Stefan ushered them inside, and they followed him to the enclosed cobblestone patio Grey had seen a few nights before. Open windows backed the patio, shutters thrown wide, plants brightening the window sills. The wall of the house facing the patio was a faded but colorful mural of castles and monasteries.
Stars filled the sky, and Grey’s eyes slipped towards the blackness in the distance. What secrets, he wondered, was Stefan keeping in those ruins?
Stefan gestured again, this time towards a small table stocked with wine and hors d’oeuvres. They sat in cushioned wooden chairs, Stefan across from Grey and Veronica. Stefan made it easy to relax, to forget the night was anything other than a social interlude. Still, Grey felt a subtle tension.
Veronica smoothed her dress, then crossed her legs with the languor women use when they know all eyes are on them. “Grey tells me you work for a company in Sofia.”
“My friends say I am married to my work.” He smiled. “Perhaps that’s why it’s the only thing I’m married to now.”
“And who is this new wife of yours?” Veronica said. “How does she keep you around?”
Stefan smiled to himself, as if lost in his own world. “She is a biomedical company. I work with the science of aging.”
“There’s a science to it? If that’s the case then I need your website. There’re a few things I’d like to order.”
“We do not ship to the young and the beautiful.”
Veronica blushed.
“We’re very serious about the potential of our research. Aging is a disease and, like all diseases, we believe it can be cured.”
“A disease?” Grey said. “Isn’t it more a fact of life?”
Stefan spread his hands. “So say our detractors. But what if I told you the average citizen of ancient Rome lived to the age of twenty-five? That our earliest ancestors lived even shorter lives? What then is the argument? That we must die at 30? 50? 80? 100?”
“But we still die,” Grey muttered, thinking he’d just had the same conversation with Veronica.
“I agree that a few years of life extension, decades even, is a cruel joke, a drop in the ocean of eternity.” He put his hands on his knees and leaned in. “That is why our goal is to cure the disease altogether.”
“But is that possible?” Veronica said. She really does wide-eyed wonder marvelously, Grey thought.
“There are many obstacles, some of them quite formidable. But strides have been made, and many more are on the horizon. I won’t spoil this lovely evening with the scientific details.”
“It’s not boring at all,” Veroni
ca said. “I’ve bought every anti-aging miracle on the market. What are some of these great strides? Can you give me a specific one?”
Stefan laughed. “Really, a scientific discussion is not appropriate conversation—”
“Oh, I insist!”
Stefan raised his glass in salute, and Grey wondered who was playing who. “You’re too kind to indulge a host,” Stefan said. He pursed his lips and studied his glass. “You’re aware, no, that without cell division within the human body, there is no growth, no life?”
“I think I remember that from freshman biology,” Veronica said.
“In the 1950s, a series of experiments began in your country, at the Wistar Institute. At this time it was still thought a virus was responsible for cancer. A scientist at the Wistar, Leonard Hayflick, decided to grow human cells and expose them to cancerous tissue to see if the malignant tissue would convert the normal tissue. Mr. Hayflick decided that his experiments needed human fetal tissue, as virtually all adult human cells contain numerous viruses. He had to have fetal organs from Stockholm—where abortion was legal—sent through airmail to the Wistar. He chopped the organs—”
Veronica winced, causing Stefan to pause. “Sorry,” she said weakly. Grey rolled his eyes to himself. Veronica missed her calling on Broadway.
“My apologies. He grew the normal cells in a controlled culture, and after a time he noticed that certain cell populations stopped dividing. You must understand that before these experiments, scientists across the globe—everyone—had assumed that human cells were immortal. That they would divide indefinitely, like cancerous cells. The immortality of human cells was thought to be an impregnable scientific fact. Cells had of course died before, but the deaths were attributed to poor lab conditions, inadequate or toxic growth media, and various other reasons.”
Grey watched the two of them as he digested the science. Stefan was absorbed in his story, and Veronica was egging him on with attentive smiles.
“In 1961, Mr. Hayflick published a controversial paper demonstrating that human somatic cells replicated, or divided, no more than fifty times before undergoing cellular senescence, which leads ultimately to death of the cell.”
