Severe Risk

by Garton, Ray

  FRANKENSTORM 1

  Severe Risk

  RAY GARTON

  PINNACLE E-BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  “It’s starting to rain. You two need a ride someplace?”

  Will looked with suspicion at the young Latino smiling from the open window of the van’s passenger door. A grinning cartoon man held up a wrench on the side of the van beneath the words MINUTEMAN PLUMBING. There was a phone number below that, and then, 24 HR. SERVICE! The van had pulled up to the curb next to them just seconds ago.

  He didn’t like being suspicious of people when they tried to do good things, but Will knew it was stupid not to be, at least a little. As much he wanted to think that people were basically good and decent, he knew there’d been a rash of disappearances lately among Eureka’s homeless population and from what he’d heard, the police weren’t all that interested in doing anything about it.

  “We’re heading across town,” the man in the van said. He was young and had a pleasant, smiling face.

  Will looked down at Margaret. She was in pain, though she’d never say a word about it. He looked at the man in the van again. He didn’t set off any of Will’s alarms.

  “We’re going to Halvorsen Park,” Will said.

  “Oh, yeah, just up the road. Slide that door open and hop in.”

  Will stepped over to the van and opened the door for Margaret.

  Fifteen minutes earlier, Will left the Old Town Shelter with Margaret and they headed along the sidewalk with stomachs full of beans, cornbread, and hot coffee. He had a backpack and Margaret carried a large, bulging, cloth bag that made her list to the left.

  “Cornbread was awful dry,” Margaret said. Her voice was hoarse.

  “You think so?”

  She nodded. “But it was awful good.”

  They’d managed to sneak out before the sermon. He didn’t know Margaret well, but he remembered that her attitude toward that stuff matched his.

  The cloudy, late-October day was ending and growing shadows darkened 2nd Street in Eureka’s Old Town. The Carson Mansion loomed over the shops even though it stood a couple of blocks away. It was an enormous Victorian mansion that towered over everything like some fairy-tale house from a faraway land, as if it had dropped out of the sky and plopped itself in the grubby surroundings of Eureka, California. But Will knew it had been built by a pioneering lumber baron for his wife, a gift of beautiful excess, a work of art, but most important, a safe and warm home for a family, the kind of home many people no doubt dreamed of when they thought of coming to America. Even when it was still a home, it also served as a monument for what could be achieved in America with enough determination and hard work. But now it was owned by a private club for rich men who held meetings and social events there. The club preserved the mansion and kept it looking as beautiful as it had the day it was finished. A monument, no longer a home. The public was not allowed on the premises.

  Will didn’t know where they were going, but he didn’t ask because he didn’t even know if they’d be sticking together. All he knew was that they were walking together now, as they had a couple of months ago. He hadn’t seen Margaret since then because he’d been hanging around McKinleyville and Arcata, traveling on foot, sometimes hitchhiking, catching a bus if he had a little money. New laws were making it harder to stay in one place for very long. He had to keep moving.

  He was thirty-one-years old and had been on the street for one year and five months. It felt like a lot longer. He’d been homeless before, but never for such a long stretch. Each time he looked in the mirror of some public restroom or homeless shelter, he found his reflection more unfamiliar. Older and hairier, thinner and more weathered. His once sensitive but pensive eyes—“The eyes of a worried little boy,” Kim used to say—had filled with a cloying desperation that he found difficult to look at for long. He knew the day was coming when he would not recognize the face that looked back at him, when all traces of himself finally would be gone.

  He’d met Kim at AA. He’d been attending for months when she showed up looking lost and frightened. She remained silent through two meetings, and at the end of the second, he introduced himself and offered to buy her coffee. After thirty minutes in a Burger King, he had her laughing. They spent that night together and were married a month later. Will worried that they’d been too impulsive, a common problem among addicts. But the next four years proved it hadn’t been a mistake. Both of them had come from troubled, abusive backgrounds and long ago had severed family ties to go it alone in the world. They saw in each other the anchor their lives had been missing.

  They barely scraped by, of course. He was a high school dropout, and neither of them had any marketable skills. But they managed. He got hired to work the loading dock at a trucking company, a position in which he’d flourished. Kim did a lot of waitressing before lucking into a steady job at a rental car company. For the length of their time together, they remained sober. They focused their energies on each other, drew strength from each other. Then Will lost his job, and Kim got sick.

  She didn’t seem sick at first, she simply started to lose weight. They thought it was a good thing, because she was a little overweight, something that had started when she stopped drinking. But the weight loss progressed rapidly and it soon became apparent that it was not a good thing. Abdominal pain followed. She went to a doctor, he ordered some tests, and she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It all happened quickly, and the next thing Will knew, the anchor he’d found in Kim was gone and he was alone again.

  He tried to find work, but with no success. In their four years together, he and Kim had lived from paycheck to paycheck and had been able to save very little. Will soon had to leave the apartment he’d shared with Kim because he couldn’t pay the rent. He stayed with a friend for a while as he looked for work, but he found none.

  Now he was homeless, penniless, and futureless, walking through the dusky shadows with a fellow homeless woman almost twice his age.

  “What have you been up to, Margaret?” he said as they walked. She’d aged in the months since he’d seen her. She looked wearier and was limping slightly.

  She shrugged her bony shoulders. “Tryin’ to stay outta j ail. Tryin’ to keep from starvin’. The usual. Where you been? Ain’t seen you in a few months.”

  As they walked, Will told her about his wanderings.

  Before Will had left Eureka, he and Margaret had spent a good deal of time together. They felt comfortable with each other. Instead of the camaraderie one might expect to exist between homeless people, there was a great deal of distrust. Being alone on the street instilled a feeling of vulnerability that never went away. But Will and Margaret had connected quickly. He knew nothing about her because she’d offered no information, and Will hadn’t talked about his own background much, either. The companionship was enough.

  “It’s gonna rain tonight,” Margaret said. “I can feel it in my bad hip.”

  “Too late to get beds for the night. Where do you want to go?”

  She shrugged again. “I know a spot in Halvorsen Park.” She held out her hand, palm up, as it began to sprinkle. “Gonna get wet no matter what, looks like.” She reached into her bag and removed a compact umbrella which she extended and opened. “Ain’t you got an umbrella?”

  “Used to. I sold it
to an old guy in Arcata who needed it more than I did.”

  “What’d you get?”

  “Couple of candy bars and a pretty nice flashlight.”

  Will was taller by more than a foot, so she lifted the umbrella high enough to cover both of them.

  “Storm’s a-comin’,” she said.

  “You think?”

  “Oh, yeah. A bad one.”

  “What are the cops up to around here these days?” Will said. “I thought they cracked down on Halvorsen Park.”

  “They did for a while. It’s calmed down now. I know a spot.”

  “Is your hip up to the walk?”

  She waved a bony hand and said, “My hip can live with it.”

  But Will could see that her limp had worsened since they’d left the shelter.

  As they walked down 2nd to I Street, it quickly grew darker and the sprinkle turned into a modest downpour.

  Traffic had been thin, with only an occasional car passing by in either direction, so Will noticed the sound of a vehicle slowing down as it approached them from behind.

  That was when the white van with the cartoon man on the side pulled up next to them.

  As Margaret got in, Will took off his backpack, then he got in and hugged it to his lap. He closed the door and the van pulled away from the curb.

  There was a cardboard box at the other end of the seat, so they were a bit cramped. Will looked over his shoulder at a black drape that separated the backseat from the rear of the van.

  The man at the wheel was older than the passenger. Heavyset, balding, brown hair speckled with grey. He looked at Will in the rearview and his eyes smiled.

  “I hope you got a dry place to stay,” the passenger said, “’cause it’s really starting to come down.”

  “I know a spot,” Margaret muttered.

  When the driver made a U-turn on I Street instead of turning onto Waterfront Drive to go to the park, Will knew something was wrong.

  He started to lean forward and say something when Margaret began to struggle and kick beside him. Before he could turn to see what was wrong, a hand holding a white cloth filled his field of vision. The cloth was pressed to his face and his nose filled with a harsh chemical odor.

  Everything melted away into blackness.

  1

  “They’re calling it Frankenstorm,” the boisterous male voice on the radio said, “because it’s just damned spooky. A hurricane like this on the West Coast? Get outta here. But it’s happenin’, folks, it’s happenin’ in the morning. Climate change is really kickin’ our butts! It’s created a freak set of meteorological circumstances, and the result is Hurricane Quentin, which will be dancin’ our way tomorrow morning, Saturday, to the tune of two hundred mile-per-hour winds, which means you’d better tie your butt down or kiss it good-bye. I’m not joking, kids, you’ve got to be prepared for this. Have plenty of candles ready because we’re gonna lose power. Have water and nonperishable foods on hand, and for crying out loud, stay indoors. I’m ready! I’ve got my baby-duck swim ring on and the Classic Rock 97 studio is loaded with Red Bull and Doritos, so bring it on, baby! Here’s The Doors singing about what we’re all gonna be in the next twenty-four hours, ‘Riders on the Storm.’”

  Dr. Fara McManus had stopped chewing her fingernails in college, but now she couldn’t find a nail to chew on because she’d gnawed them all away. Wind raged outside and driving rain rattled against the single window in her office in what used to be the Springmeier Neuropsychiatric Hospital. Today, the office felt smaller than usual.

  Fara sat at her desk, but with her chair turned around so she could look out the window. She sat with her right ankle resting on her left knee, right foot bobbing nervously. Her insides were knotted with dread. It wasn’t a new feeling. She’d been feeling that dread long before Hurricane Quentin was announced. She’d started feeling it by the end of her first week working for Corcoran. The storm only made it worse. The grey world outside her window was blurred by the windblown rain that dribbled down the glass.

  Why isn’t this window boarded up yet? she wondered.

  It would be if someone responsible were in charge.

  A knock at her door made her jump. She swiveled the chair around as Dr. Jeremy Corcoran pushed the door open and leaned into her office.

  He was a tall, lanky man in his late sixties, balding on top with a wild explosion of long, frizzy, silver hair all the way around his head, a matching goatee, and thick horn-rimmed glasses. His nose was narrow and prominent and his mouth looked too small for his face. In the white lab coat he always wore, Fara thought he looked like a mad scientist from an old movie.

  He is a mad scientist.

  Corcoran was the reason she had taken the job. He was also the reason she desperately wanted out of it.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting anything, Fara,” he said with that little chuckle that seemed to punctuate everything he said.

  Fara said nothing, just waited for him to go on.

  “I’m having a little gathering in my quarters this evening.” Chuckle. “Nothing special, just some drinks, some music. I thought we’d have a little party to greet the storm.” Chuckle. “Like I said before, I think it’s a good idea if everyone stays here for the duration. So I thought a little party would help everyone relax.” Chuckle.

  “A party?” she said. “Is that a good idea?”

  “Well . . . I don’t think it’s a bad idea.”

  She stood. “Dr. Corcoran, I don’t know if liquor is wise when we’re about to get hit by a—”

  “Please,” he said, still smiling as he closed his eyes in frustration for a moment. “Jeremy. I wish you’d call me Jeremy. I’ve told you, after all this time, I don’t see why you insist on being so formal when—”

  “And as I have told you, Dr. Corcoran, I think we could use a little more formality around here. This is not just a storm we’re talking about, it’s a hurricane, and I’m not sure we’re prepared for it. Getting drunk doesn’t strike me as a very good idea right now when we’re about to—”

  He cleared his throat loudly to interrupt her and said, “Look.” His fists clenched at his sides for a moment, but quickly relaxed.

  Corcoran hated confrontation. And she was pretty sure he was eager to get back to enjoying his high. Pills, she suspected, but nothing would surprise her. She could tell because his pupils were dilated and his eyes were wide instead of his lids being at half-mast as usual, and he seemed hyperalert.

  “I know you have some problems with the way I’ve been running this project,” he said, “but let’s keep one thing in mind. I’m still in charge. I know you’ve reported me more than once and yet, in spite of that, I’m still in charge. That should tell you something, Fara. Vendon Labs put me here to do a job and, apparently, they like the way I’m doing it. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You’re here because of your government connections, Dr. Corcoran. This is a government project and they want you on it because of your past work in—”

  “You are free to leave, Fara. I would hate to see you go because I think you’ve been an asset, you do very good work, and I appreciate your contributions to the project. But no one is holding a gun to your head.” Chuckle. “Personally, I hope you’ll stay. But if you do, then I suggest you . . . relax a little. Please come to the party this evening. Socialize. You’ve been here all this time and nobody knows you. Everyone suspects there’s an interesting person behind that stiff, professional demeanor, but nobody’s seen her yet. Quit being such a”—chuckle—“a stick in the mud. All work and no play, as they say.”

  Before she could say anything more, Corcoran turned and started out, then stopped in the doorway and looked over his shoulder at her.

  “Remember, testing soon. See you downstairs in a while.”

  That feeling of dread inside Fara threatened to become nausea as she lowered herself back into the chair.

  Wind rumbled and rain spattered against the window as shrubbery just outside was violently wh
ipped about. It was as dark as dusk at a few minutes after two in the afternoon.

  She reached down into her purse by her feet and removed a cigarette, lit it, and blew smoke loudly. Another bad habit she’d resumed since coming to Springmeier.

  Fara had been recommended for the job by Dr. Delia Urbanski, one of her former professors at Stanford. It did not sound appealing at first—in fact, she had to stifle a mocking laugh when Professor Urbanski described the project to her—but it came along at a time when she was looking for any escape.

  After finally ending a long, bad relationship in Tucson, where she’d had a tedious job at a small pharmaceutical company, Fara moved back home to northern California and got a job in San Francisco as a hospital microbiologist specializing in infectious diseases. She knew that, in that position, she would be spending more time with patients than in the lab and she thought it might be good for her to do something outside her comfort zone. She enjoyed the work itself and, for a while, thought she’d made the right choice.

  It crept up on her. She was able to dismiss it at first, tell herself it was simply part of the landscape, an unavoidable consequence of providing health care to the masses. Looking back on it, she realized she’d pushed the subject out of her mind often the first eight or nine months, not wanting to acknowledge it to herself so she wouldn’t have to deal with it. But it crept up on her.

  The patients were powerless numbered assignments given to nurses and staff. They were poked, prodded, and drugged by people who saw them as nothing more than work. Day after day, Fara heard the nurses talk about their patients as if they were lab rats or something growing in a petri dish. Week after week, she saw people who existed as nothing more than numbers with diseases.

  Fara recognized that this was a ridiculous way of looking at a hospital—how else were nurses supposed to deal with so many patients? Most hospitals were understaffed and most nurses were overloaded with work, but even when that wasn’t the case, this was how hospitals worked. She understood that. To think otherwise was unrealistic and maudlin, but there it was, in her head, persisting. Underneath it was the fear that she would come to do the same thing.