The Evolution of Evil (The Blackwell Files Book 6)

by Steven F Freeman

  “Exactly. Like I told Delaney, a lot of crimes start with a financial incentive. And if that’s the case here, I’m likely to see it in their books, either in the form of a payment or receipt from a fictitious business or inventory that suddenly goes missing—or both.”

  “I hope you find something,” said Alton. He pulled onto the research facility’s road and drove to a parking spot in front of the lab. He stopped and peered back down the drive for a full twenty seconds.

  “What is it?” asked Mallory.

  “Maybe nothing. I saw some kind of older-model tan sedan pull into the parking lot across the street from us when we stopped to get lunch. We were about halfway back when I noticed the car behind us. It seemed kind of strange that they happened to turn around the same time we did, so I’m checking to make sure they’re not coming up the drive.”

  Mallory nodded.

  Alton slipped his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll call the policeman guarding the entrance to let him know, just in case the sedan makes another appearance.”

  While Alton conversed with the policeman, the couple grabbed the bagged lunches from the back seat and walked towards the lab’s entrance.

  A chime on Alton’s phone sounded during the conversation. After ending the brief call, he studied his phone and selected an icon. “Hey, Cragmire sent me a friend request.”

  Mallory’s phone emitted an identical chime, and she glanced at its screen. “He sent me one, too.” She struck a dramatic pose. “‘You like me, you really like me.’”

  “I guess he doesn’t mind getting to know us after all.”

  “Or he just wants people to see how great he is,” said Mallory. “Listen to this posting on his wall. ‘Waiting for the rest of the team to do their jobs so I can do mine. Then the real work begins.’”

  Alton rolled his eyes. “I’m glad this is a temporary assignment. I’m not sure I could work with that guy full-time.”

  They swung open the lab’s main door, but before they could step inside, a shout of “hello” caused them to both swing around. Beading with sweat from head to toe, Summit’s allergist puffed as he made his way up the road’s incline toward them.

  “Hello again,” said Tuttle. He reached the Blackwells and exhaled a long breath.

  “Hi,” replied Alton, holding open the door for the aging doctor. “Ready to join the investigation?”

  “That’s my hope. I compiled a list of indigenous flora that could potentially serve as medicinal plants. I just e-mailed the list to a colleague in the States so he can verify my findings. Until I get his reply, I’m just marking time. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Let’s ask Delaney. Mallory and I are in the middle of one-person tasks, which we had better get back to, in fact.”

  Mallory returned to the accounting office to resume her financial research, while Alton walked with Tuttle to the rear wall of the lab.

  “I’ve been trying to think of anything that happened in the last few months that might help this investigation,” said Tuttle.

  “Yes?” said Alton.

  “I don’t know how important it is, but a few weeks ago, I answered the land line here in the lab.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. Normally Pavia would, but I guess he was gone. That particular day, no one else was picking it up, and it was driving me crazy. So I answered. A man told me he’d been dialing Summit’s cellphone and wasn’t getting through. He asked if I could I get her.”

  “And did you?”

  Tuttle raised his brows in an are-you-crazy? gesture. “Oh, no! Dr. Summit doesn’t like to be disturbed during the work day. I told the caller she wasn’t available.”

  “Did the caller give his name or a phone number?” asked Alton.

  “No—just said he’d try her cellphone again later. He did have a mild accent, maybe Spanish or French.”

  “That’s good information, Dr. Tuttle,” said Alton. “Thanks for sharing it.” He passed the allergist off to Delaney. After telling her about Tuttle’s phone-call account and the afternoon’s encounter with the tan sedan, Alton took a seat to continue his decryption efforts.

  Alton worked down the list of potential ciphers. If he didn’t hit the correct key soon, he’d have to start all over. Focusing on the task, he moved from one possible decryption key to the next in a methodical fashion.

  After thirty minutes, Alton sat up and stretched his arms in front of him, mental and physical fatigue taking their toll. He found his gaze attracted to a wild bird that had just landed on the property’s front lawn. It belonged to a species he didn’t recognize. Watching the bird hop across the grass, Alton allowed his mind to loosen its grip on the intractable problem. His concentration continued to wander as a second bird joined the first.

  In a flash, a potential decryption key popped into his mind. He hurried to enter the cipher and was rewarded with a pleasing warble and flash of green from his laptop. “Got it!”

  “What? The research notes?” asked Delaney, looking over.

  “Yep.”

  “Awesome,” said the supervisor, relief flooding her face. “Good work.”

  “Let me send this file to Cragmire,” said Alton. “While he’s reviewing it, I’ll get to work decrypting the others.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Dozens, one for each day’s work. I’ll work backwards. I just decoded the notes from Wednesday, the last day Summit made a backup before her kidnapping. Now I’ll work on the notes from Tuesday and keep working backwards to older dates. I’ll send the files to Cragmire as they’re decoded.”

  “Okay, I’ll let him know he can get started on them.”

  Delaney returned a minute later. “Cragmire and Gromov are reviewing the file together.” She paused. “A minute ago, you were excited about decrypting it, but now you don’t look so happy. What’s up?”

  “Summit changed the encryption key every day,” said Alton. “I’ll have to discover a different cipher for each and every day’s research notes. This isn’t going to be quick.”

  “If anyone can do it, I know you can,” said Delaney. “Should I have Pavia bring you a personal coffee thermos from now on?”

  “Ha! Yeah, maybe so.”

  “In all seriousness, just do your best on the older files. In the meantime, let’s see what Cragmire says about the one you’ve already decoded. Maybe we’ll get the biggest bang for the buck from that one.”

  “I hope so. But I’ll still get to work on the rest.”

  A few hours later, the sun’s descent in the afternoon sky had caused the palm trees outside to cast long shadows across the spacious lab.

  Alton was bringing up a new sequence of potential codes when he noticed Cragmire approach Delaney.

  “I think I have a pretty good idea why the work here is so important,” said the biologist.

  His statement seemed to pique Delaney’s interest. “Let me gather the rest of the team,” she said. “We’ll all want to hear this.”

  Within five minutes, the members of the NSA team, Fuentes, Gromov, and Tuttle assembled around Cragmire, who seemed to enjoy his central role.

  “What can you tell us?” prompted Delaney.

  “I had to do my own detective work just to piece this information together,” boasted Cragmire. “The encryption codes weren’t the only thing Summit kept to herself. There were also key points in her research she didn’t share with anyone, not even Dr. Gromov.”

  Alton shook his head. “I’m surprised she could make much progress using that kind of approach.”

  “I was, too, at first,” replied Cragmire, “but between my conversation with Dr. Gromov and my review of Summit’s notes, it’s clear that Summit was onto something big.”

  “Was that the reason for her over-the-top secrecy?” said Alton. “She was worried about corporate espionage?”

  “But why keep it from me?” interrupted Gromov. “I’m a member of her team, not a spy from some other company. How can I be expected to
make my best contribution without full knowledge of the research?”

  Alton shrugged. “It doesn’t sound like she was the trusting sort.”

  “Clearly, she was not,” replied Gromov.

  “What was it about her research that was so important, anyway?” asked Mallory.

  “Okay, class, gather round,” said Cragmire. “I’m going to tell you why someone might be willing to kidnap or even kill a scientist to get their hands on Summit’s discoveries.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “So you think the attack on this facility was about Summit’s research?” asked Delaney.

  “Yes, now that I’ve studied it,” replied Cragmire.

  “Why don’t you tell us what makes it so important?” said Alton.

  “I’d be happy to. Now, to explain the therapy Summit has developed, I first need to explain what causes Alzheimer’s. This is what Summit was studying at her company’s Washington labs until she moved down here a few months ago. As best as scientists can tell, Alzheimer’s a result of an accumulation of a protein called beta-amyloid in the brain. This protein damages and eventually kills the brain’s nerve cells.”

  “Okay, that makes sense,” said Alton.

  “Well, the next question is, what causes the accumulation of beta-amyloid in the first place? Scientists have thought that genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors all contribute in some way. But Summit’s research fills in a missing link in the chain of causation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Summit hypothesizes that the direct cause of the beta-amyloid accumulation is a deficiency of LPR-six.”

  “What’s that?” asked Gooch.

  “It stands for ‘Low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein six.’ It’s a protein found in your brain. Summit’s tests indicate a strong correlation between low LPR-six and the accumulation of beta-amyloids.”

  “You’re saying Alzheimer’s is caused by an LPR-six deficiency, right?” asked Alton.

  “That’s Summit’s theory. And her initial test results, the ones she conducted back in Washington, seem to bear that out.”

  “That seems like an important discovery,” said Mallory, twirling a strand of hair around a finger.

  “Critically important,” said Cragmire. “You have to identify the root cause of a disease before you can cure it.”

  “So would the next step be developing a drug to boost a person’s level of LPR-six?” asked Alton.

  “Yes, but there’s a catch,” said Cragmire. “LPR-six doesn’t just regulate beta-amyloid production. It also enables signaling in the Wnt pathway. This pathway passes signals from outside a cell to its interior. When Wnt pathway signaling is too low, it causes Alzheimer’s. However, when Wnt pathway signaling is too high, it can cause cancer.”

  “So the key is to ensure a person has the right amount of LPR-six so their Wnt pathway signaling is just right?” asked Alton.

  “Exactly,” said Cragmire with a smile, seeming to bask in the glow of his own importance. “It requires a Goldilocks solution: a level of LPR-six that is not too high and not too low. And that’s where this facility’s location here in the Galapagos Islands comes in. Summit is hoping to use compounds derived from indigenous tortoise species to walk the tightrope between too little and too much Wnt signaling. She believes these tortoise compounds will provide more stable and predictable levels of LPR-six, but she needed to be here in the Galapagos Islands to collect them and test her theories.”

  “That’s fascinating,” said Alton, “but what’s so special about the tortoises here, that they can help in ways other animals can’t?”

  “They’re a ‘negligible-senescence’ species.”

  “‘Negligible senescence’?” asked Alton, wondering when the parade of esoteric terms would cease.

  “It means they live a really long time,” said Cragmire. “Tortoise longevity requires greater stability in their biological makeup than we humans possess. Summit’s research suggests that proteins from Galapagos Tortoises will provide a level of Wnt stability our bodies can’t maintain on their own. The tortoise proteins don’t work ‘as is,’ though. Summit had to combine them with other organics to create the final cure that she believes will be safe for humans. The ironic thing is that once removed from the tortoises, the proteins are really unstable unless combined with those other compounds. That’s why she had to study the tortoise proteins here rather than have them shipped back to the States.”

  “Yes,” said Gromov, “that is one of my areas of study—testing chemical modifications that would render the proteins more stable without harming their senescence properties. Dr. Summit is getting very close to producing a stable compound.”

  “So the bottom line is that this research could represent a huge breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research, right?” asked Mallory.

  “Yes, if we knew what organics, and in what quantities, she combined with the tortoise secretions to create the potential cures being tested.”

  “Her lab notes don’t say?” asked Alton, incredulous.

  “No. They only reference hiding the test formulas in ‘the tunnel’,” said Cragmire.

  “That’s the same spot she mentioned in her e-mail,” said Alton. “It must be the hiding spot for her most sensitive information, data she didn’t want to keep directly on her computer.”

  “So Summit perceived herself, or at least her research, to be in danger even before the attack,” said Delaney. “That’s interesting.”

  “Maybe it just means she understood the value of her research,” said Cragmire. “If you had a file worth billions of dollars on your computer, you’d be paranoid, too.”

  “So this is why you stated the attack was about the research,” said Delaney. “The perps came here in search of it. And it appears they wouldn’t let anything, including Summit’s presence, get in their way.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “I should call Senator Jackson,” said Delaney. “He’ll want to know about this.”

  The Gooch frowned. “I get that Summit’s research is important, but that still doesn’t tell us why she’s missing. If all the perps wanted was her files, why kidnap her? It seems like she’d slow them down. Why not just leave her here?”

  “Maybe she got a good look at them, and they took her off and killed her,” said Cragmire as he picked dirt out of a fingernail and read something on his phone. “You know, to eliminate the witness.”

  “That could be,” said Alton, grateful the biologist hadn’t shared this possibility during the morning’s call with Richard Jackson. “Another possibility is that the perps were worried about the individual files being password protected. Given the level of security Summit has employed, I’d guess they probably are. The perps would need Summit to supply the passwords. And if that’s the case, they’d have to keep her alive and nearby.”

  “I think that’s the theory I’ll share with the senator,” said Delaney, removing her cellphone from a pocket.

  “In the meantime, I’m going to get back to decrypting the older files.”

  “Good,” said Delaney. “The rest of you can continue on your current assignments.”

  Alton focused on the task before him, blocking out all distractions.

  Mallory approached just as he eliminated a matrix of possible ciphers to the previous Tuesday’s research log. His wife carried a bottle of water and a paper plate on which rested a sandwich and bag of Doritos secured in tight plastic wrap. She laid the offering on the lab bench next to Alton’s laptop.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Your dinner.”

  “Already? What time is it?”

  “Five-thirty. Everyone else has eaten. I can tell you’re in the zone, and I didn’t want to break the spell, but you need to eat, too.”

  Alton felt a bit irritated at the interruption, but his wife’s statement was true. His growling stomach had started to become a distraction. “Thanks, Honey.”

  “It won’t take long to eat. Plus, you�
�ll do better if you keep your energy up.”

  Alton bit into the sandwich and smiled at Mallory. “You know, sometimes it’s scary how well you know me.”

  Mallory laughed. “Well, that’s part of my job description as your wife. But what makes you say that?”

  “Here I was getting annoyed at having to stop for a few minutes, and you know just how to placate me.”

  “I just point out things you sometimes forget.”

  “Yes, but you know which things I forget. It’s almost eerie.”

  “Ha! Most people need to eat, Sweetie. It’s part of pacing yourself. But I’m glad you have a high opinion of my talents.”

  Alton popped the last bite of sandwich into his mouth and followed it with a Dorito and swig of water.

  “And now that you’ve finished inhaling your dinner,” said Mallory, “I’ll let you get back to work. I know you’re itching to go.”

  “Like I said, you know me.”

  Time continued to slip by. Shortly after finishing his dinner, Alton identified the cipher for the second day’s lab notes. He passed the information along to Cragmire and set to work on the previous day’s code.

  Growing weary, he arched his back into a long stretch. Looking out the window, he started in surprise upon observing an evening sky filled with stars and the bright orb of a full moon silhouetting the facility’s palm-tree groves. “Holy crap! Nighttime already?”

  He looked around the lab and spotted Mallory and Delaney standing across the room near the entrance to the administrative-office hallway, murmuring in soft tones.

  “What time is it?” he called over to them.

  Mallory glanced at her watch. “Almost seven-thirty. How close are you to wrapping up?”

  “Not too close. I just started working on the third day’s files a few hours ago. I’m making good progress, but I don’t expect to finish anytime real soon. Are you all finished for the day?”

  “Yes,” replied Mallory, who walked over to join him. “Everyone else except the policeman patrolling the grounds has left already. Are you ready to call it a night?”