The Lucifer Genome: A Conspiracy Thriller

by Glen Craney

  Red with embarrassment, Marly slowly turned and examined the large room for the first time in full lighting. It was rimmed by counters with basins and islands sprouting rubber tubes under shelves of scientific equipment.

  They were in the middle of a modern chemical laboratory.

  The property manager didn’t dare move, waiting for the female lunatic to give him permission to get dressed.

  Marly carefully lowered the gun to the floor. “I’m so sorry!”

  After brushing the destroyed chunks of awning and drywall from his head and shirt, Cas gathered the property manager’s clothes and handed the pile to him. “Dr. McKinney here is what we call an idiot savant. She can figure out complex chemical compounds, but she finds it extremely challenging to perform simple tasks that normal people like you and me take for granted. Such as counting minutes on a watch or taking instructions about when to get out of a car.”

  The property manager needed no convincing that Marly suffered from some severe mental instability. “Why haven’t you looked into an institutional setting for her? She obviously needs round-the-clock supervision.”

  Marly didn’t know whether to apologize again or pick up the gun and fire another round at Cas’s feet. “I can explain—”

  The property manager quickly put on his shoes and tied them. “Take as long as you want to look around.” He gave the office keys to Cas. “As I told you, we can offer month-to-month leases, if that is your preference.” He glanced warily at Marly as he backed away for the door. “I’ll be in my office. The door will be locked. And I will have my fingers on the telephone to call Nine-One-One, should that be necessary.”

  Cas delayed him. “Oh, one other question. Who was the last tenant here?”

  The property manager inched his head reluctantly around the doorjamb, as if afraid that he might be shot again. “A startup biotech company named Light-something-or-other. It must have gone bankrupt. The principals left two days ago without even asking for their deposit back. I guess this has been happening to a lot of these firms lately.”

  “There’s some damned expensive equipment in here,” Cas said. “Why would they abandon it so quickly? Some of this could be sold to defray the debt.”

  The property manager raised his palms, indicating that he didn’t even want to know. “Sign for three months, and you can keep the fixtures.”

  “Just out of curiosity,” Cas said. “Who did you deal with at the company?”

  The property manager shrugged. “I never met any of their people. Their law firm handled the negotiations on the lease. Our policy is to preserve our clients’ confidentiality. We have few if any contacts with them, unless they come to us with a problem about the facility.”

  “Thanks,” Cas said. “I’ll drop the keys off when we’re done here. And sorry again for my deranged assistant here.”

  The property manager stole a worried glance at Marly before hurrying off.

  Cas shut the door behind him. After an extended silence, he remarked dryly, “I’m sorta new to this whole office-leasing biz, but I gotta think that firing off a round in a prospective property, even in Texas, might be counterproductive to a healthy landlord-tenant relationship.”

  “Hey! I panicked, okay?” Marly sulked, crossing her arms. “I was worried about you. So sue me!”

  Cas walked around the lab trying to figure out what had caused Silla’s hi-tech radar in Brussels to hone in on this particular site. “Looks like we might have made a trip to Big D for nothing.”

  “It was a long shot anyway. What now?”

  Cas smelled the test tubes. “What does magnetic iron have to do with biotechnology?”

  “Nothing that I know of.”

  He twirled a tube around in his fingers while thinking. “If you can manage it without sparking a border war, why don’t you go out to the car and bring in that meteorite sniffer.”

  Marly returned moments later with the metal detector.

  Cas flipped the switch on the machine and walked around the room again, watching the dials for any signs of magnetized iron. After several circuits, he registered nothing. He shook his head and threw the detector over his shoulder to leave. “Back to square one. Pull the car into that parking lot in the back. I don’t want the guy you nearly killed to see us leave. He’s probably calling in our license plate to the cops right now.”

  Marly went out the front door, unlocked the car, and started it up. She drove around the block and headed down the alley that led to the rear of the row of office suites.

  Cas was waiting for her. “Pop the trunk.” He threw the metal detector atop the spare tire and closed the lid. “You drive. I’m toast.”

  “Where to now?”

  “Airport,” he mumbled as he got in. “I gotta sleep on this.”

  Marly hadn’t even put the car in gear before Cas was out cold in the passenger seat, snoring loudly enough to vibrate the plastic grille on the radio speaker. She drove down the alley to look for the exit back to the street. She heard a buzzing sound hummed under the chassis. Finding Cas oblivious, as usual, she elbowed him.

  Startled from his snooze, Cas shoved her arm away. “What?”

  “The transmission on this piece of junk sounds like it’s going bad.”

  Cas cocked his ear toward the noise. “Put it in Park and gun it.”

  She pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The engine roared, but the buzzing remained.

  “Turn it off,” Cas ordered.

  She cut the engine, but the buzzing persisted. Pulling the keys from the ignition, Cas opened his door and climbed out. He got on his knees and tracked the sound, crawling toward the rear of the car. He opened the trunk. The metal detector was still vibrating—with its dial pulled all the way to the Positive limit. Doubly baffled, he looked around. The only thing near them was a dumpster. He pulled out the detector and held it over the container.

  The needle went haywire.

  He motioned for Marly to climb inside the bin and check it out.

  “Me? In there?” Marly refused to move. “No way.”

  “I found the damn place,” Cas said. “Now it’s your turn to contribute.”

  Marly pulled a quarter from her pocket. “We’ll flip for it.” She threw the coin into the air and caught it, covering it with her palm. “Your call.”

  “Tails.”

  She uncovered the quarter and grinned. “I thought you spooks were supposed to have a finely honed intuition.”

  Cas cursed as he climbed into the smelly Dumpster and thwacked away at swarms of flies while picking through boxes and sacks of wet, stinking trash.

  Marly walked around the bin, aiming the detector at each side. The vibrations grew stronger on the northeast quadrant. “Concentrate here, on this corner.”

  Cas dived in like a hungry rat. Suddenly, his cursing stopped.

  “You didn’t suffocate, did you?” she asked, sounding concerned.

  Seconds later, Cas popped his head out of the top of the bin. He reached out and displayed one of the Black Stone fragments. Turning the shard to reveal that its interior was white, he threw it to her and dived back into the bin.

  Marly’s eyes widened. “How many pieces are there supposed to be?”

  Cas moled around in the garbage. “Seven!”

  Marly stared at the fragment in her palm. Dollar signs began spinning through her head. Sure, millions around the world worshipped this little gem, but at one-fifty gees an ounce, it might be worth a small fortune.

  Suddenly, an idea hit her.

  Nobody—including Cas—would be the wiser if she took a small commission on the side. And would anybody really lose their faith if one of the seven fragments was returned to Mecca a fraction smaller?

  Of course not.

  While he was still yapping about each new find, she retreated to the car’s open trunk and lifted out the tire iron. She put a corner of the fragment on the frame and gave it a swift crack. Five hundred bucks worth of sweet high-density space rock—no large
r than half the length of her index finger—sheared off.

  “Hey!” Cas shouted from the bin. “A little help over here?”

  Shielded by the raised trunk, Marly slid the broken-off shard into her pocket. “Coming, dear!”

  She helped him out of the bin. He placed the other six fragments of various sizes and shapes on the pavement. Their interior sides were concave, indicating that they had once been part of a larger round stone. They stood staring in disbelief at their amazing good fortune.

  Cas rushed to the car. He reached into his carry bag and pulled out a photocopy that he had packed showing what the Stone’s fragments imbedded into the silver Kaaba frame had looked like before the icon was stolen. The shapes of the fragments he now held matched, although one seemed a little smaller. He shrugged off the minor discrepancy and kissed the photo. “Sweet Jee-sus!”

  Marly didn’t share in his elation. Something didn’t quite add up for her. “Why would the jihadists go to all of the trouble to steal the Stone, bring the fragments halfway across the world under great danger, and then simply toss them into the garbage?”

  “Who cares? You can write a dissertation on it when you get home. We’ve got what the Saudi government is paying us for. Those ragheads don’t need to know how or where we found them. We’ll just tell those barbaric pukes that we recovered their precious Stone after a high-speed chase through the Mexican desert. They’ll like that, sounds all Wild West and John Wayne-like.” He grinned and settled into the driver’s seat. “You got a bag on you?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course. I always travel with a roll of sandwich bags, just in case I need to put one over somebody’s head and strangle him.”

  “Geez, you’d think your attitude would improve a little with our hitting the Dumpster Jackpot.” He flipped open the passenger dashboard door and found the driver’s manual—neatly ensconced in a small plastic cover. He pulled out the booklet, tossed it into the back seat, and dropped the seven fragments into the pouch, snapping the pop button to close it. He slipped the pouch with its precious contents into his inside jacket pocket.

  Marly didn’t share in his elation. Something didn’t quite add up for her. “Why would the jihadists go to all of the trouble to steal the Stone, bring the fragments halfway across the world under great danger, and then simply toss them into the garbage?”

  “Who cares?” Cas said. “You can write a dissertation on it when you get home. We’ve got what the Saudi government is paying us for. Those ragheads don’t need to know how or where we found them. We’ll just tell those barbaric pukes that we recovered their precious Stone after a high-speed chase through the Mexican desert. They’ll like that, sounds all Wild West and shit.” He grinned and settled into the driver’s seat. “You got a bag on you?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course. I always travel with a roll of sandwich bags, just in case I need to put one over somebody’s head and strangle him.”

  “Geez, you’d think your attitude would improve a little with our hitting the dumpster jackpot.” He flipped open the glove compartment and found the driver’s manual—neatly ensconced in a small plastic cover. He pulled out the booklet, tossed it out the window, and dropped the seven fragments into the pouch, snapping it shut. He slipped the pouch with its precious contents into his inside jacket pocket.

  She shook her head. “They’ll ream your credit card good for stealing that.”

  “That’s why God made expense accounts. Ol’ Jubal will pick up the tab.” He leaned over and threw open the passenger door. “What are you waiting for?”

  Marly still wouldn’t get into the car. “What have you got planned next?”

  “I’m hopping the first plane out to Saudi Arabia. Once I deliver these goodies and pick up the cash and my son, it’s Lazy Lay Bon Temperature Roulette. Come with me. I know a sweet, romantic little restaurant in Riyad. We’ll check it out before we head back.”

  Marly was beyond being surprised anymore. A few seconds later, her brow furrowed. “You know what? Maybe we’ve asking the wrong question.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Cas said, groaning. “We just arrived at the end of the rainbow, sweetheart, so quit over-thinking it! Most of these Al Qaeda foot soldiers are boneheads.”

  “Yeah, it took some real boneheads to bring down those Twin Towers.”

  Irritated, Cas waved off her worries. “Remember that mental midget who tried to ignite his tennis shoe on the plane. He couldn’t even get the lighter to work. Or the numbnuts who tried to blow up his underwear? I mean, everyone knows that C-Four doesn’t work that way, but that’s another story. Besides, I wouldn’t put it past those mopes to have misplaced the Stone fragments in the office, only to wake up the next morning and find that the janitor had thrown them out.”

  She hesitated, still not convinced.

  He gripped the steering wheel impatiently. “In any case, my bet is that these jihadi losers are probably on a plane back to Yemen or some other hooka hole right about now, worried they’ll have their heads sliced off for screwing this up.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right.” He patted the seat next to him. “We’ll deliver the package and speculate later over fabulously expensive cocktails and dinner. Wear something incredibly sexy.” He winked, trying to coax her inside.

  Marly looked down the alley at the door to the abandoned office they had just left. “Maybe what we really need to find out is why Arab radicals would pose as a biotech company just to steal and then discard the Stone.”

  “Oh, would you just stop it, please? You know as well as I do that biotech startups are common as bed bugs. Probably makes it easy to explain why they pack up and leave suddenly.”

  Marly studied the city’s skyline in the distance. “That may be true in San Francisco or Boston. But biotech is not that common in Dallas. Why go to all the trouble to build an expensive laboratory if no one was going to be allowed inside of it anyway? And for a rock?” She shook her head and pinched her temples, as if her head might explode with too many questions. “Tell me just one part of any of this that makes any sense? Or does asking you that certify me as a complete moron?”

  Cas couldn’t believe she wanted to continue pursuing something that had no monetary payoff. “You need a mystery to solve?” He handed her a piece of paper. “Here’s something to gnaw on while we drive to the airport. Before you showed up in that lab with your gun blazing, I rummaged through the cabinets.”

  “What is this?”

  “Apparently one of our Saudis holing out in there had a speech impediment.”

  She stared at him, confounded. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “I found this inside the office. Looked like it had been torn from some important document. There were a couple of words on it.”

  She tilted her head. “Which were?”

  “See for yourself. It says, ‘Stutter band.’”

  She blinked hard. “What?”

  Cas ran his index finger across his front teeth. “Stutter band. Probably a mouthpiece, or something that stutterers wear to help them talk without the kinks. Maybe you can find a picture in the Post Office of all the wanted terrorists with braces and drop this little piece of evidence to Homeland Security for some extra reward dough. You can work on the case in your spare time between classes. Now, let’s skedaddle.”

  She became silent, turning inward. She fixed her eyes on the paper and bit her lower lip. The line had black-and-white dashes with small rectangles.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Before she could answer, they both turned toward the squeal of a black BMW that had turned the corner and was racing down the narrow lane toward them. She had no room to avoid the car—and couldn’t climb the surrounding walls. It’s going to turn me into a pancake! She screamed at Cas, who was slapping around in the front seat, trying to find the guns. Empty-handed, he jumped back from the car and grabbed her.

  The Beemer was picking up speed and gunning str
aight at them.

  She ran with him down the alley, trying the knobs on every door, but every office was locked. She shouted at him, “Give them those stones!”

  Cas pressed his hand to his chest, making sure the pouch holding the fragments were still in his jacket pocket. “Like hell I will!”

  “They won’t do us any good if we’re dead!”

  Cas hurled himself at one of the office doors. He bounced off like a Slinky.

  Gunshots rang out from the passenger side of the Beemer. The car was now only yards from barreling into them. Staggering and nearly falling, Marly noticed an electrician’s ladder leaning against a wall. She jumped on the rungs and started climbing.

  Cas followed her and grabbed the edge of the roof, seconds before the Beemer knocked the ladder from under him. He dangled from the ledge. She turned and helped him up before the Beemer skidded into their rental car and pushed it to the end of the alley, crushing it like a giant accordion. The Beemer raced in reverse back down the alley.

  Marly looked down from the roof and saw two more black sedans parked on the curb across the street. Four men in sunglasses and dark suits jumped out of the steam-puffing car in the alley and looked up at her. She grabbed Cas by the collar. “Just give them the damn stones!”

  “Hell no!”

  Marly slapped him. Before he could recover, she snatched the pouch from his jacket pocket and ripped it open. Dropping the fragments out into her hand, she selected the largest and gripped it between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Give those back!” Cas demanded.

  The Beemer thugs jumped from the top of the car to the edge of the roof and worked their way up the ladder. Two more scrambled to the roof and aimed their pistols.

  Marly was about to throw a shoulder into Cas to prevent him from snatching the fragments from her. She glanced up and saw that they were surrounded. She and Cas looked at each other, helpless.

  One of the thugs motioned for her to hand over the stones.

  “Back off!” Marly shouted.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Cas drop his jaw in astonishment. But she just kept retreating, clutching the stone fragments as she neared a large pipe that led to the air conditioner below.