Lethal Dose

by Jeff Buick

  “Yes, but no thanks to your driving. You’re a maniac.”

  “Better than getting shot,” he said.

  “Those guys were serious,” she said, starting to shake. She slid in beside him and he slipped his arm around her, pulling her close. It felt good. “Jesus, they actually shot at us.”

  He nodded. “And the car,” Gordon said. “Crown Vic with tinted windows and a bored-out engine.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked.

  He pulled away a touch so he could look in her eyes. “It’s a government car, Jennifer. Whoever those guys were, they work for one of our government agencies.”

  62

  “This is not a difficult request,” Bruce Andrews said. “I simply want you to kill Gordon Buchanan and Jennifer Pearce.”

  “I know what you want,” the voice snapped back. “Buchanan spotted us and we couldn’t catch him.”

  “I don’t know where or when you’ll get another chance,” Andrews said. “But if you do, don’t miss. These two people are turning out to be quite the liability.”

  “They will not escape again,” the man assured him.

  “I hope not,” Andrews said, hanging up the phone. He was at home in his study, his private retreat from the world he had created. The phone line was private, the number known only by a precious few whom he considered either privileged or necessary. It seldom rang, and when it did, the ensuing conversations were always interesting, to say the least. But this one was not what he wanted to hear. Gordon Buchanan was proving to be a formidable opponent. He was wealthy and knew how to use his money to his advantage. He chartered planes, keeping his movements from city to city off the radar. He paid cash rather than using credit cards and knew when to keep his head down.

  And Jennifer Pearce-now, there was a major mistake. He couldn’t count the times he had wished that he had never hired her. The Alzheimer’s group was far enough removed from Albert Rousseau and Triaxcion that she should never have been a factor in any of this. Yet Gordon Buchanan had got his talons into Kenga Bakcsi and that had drawn Jennifer Pearce into the fray. And she was proving to be as tenacious as Buchanan. Together, they posed the most cohesive threat to his plan-a plan that to date had unfolded almost perfectly.

  Zancor was finally through the New Drug Application and was now FDA approved. The economic difference to the company was in the range of two billion dollars. And a few hundred million of that would come quickly as he geared up the production facilities and provided a few million doses of Zancor to Tony Warner at NSA. Things were perfect, with one exception.

  Buchanan and Pearce.

  One obstacle with one solution.

  Keith Thompson reloaded the last series of tests and watched the results play across the screen. There was no doubt in his mind. He picked up the phone and dialed a number at the Department of Homeland Security. He fully expected J.D. Rothery’s voice mail and was surprised when the man answered the phone.

  “You’re working late tonight, Keith,” Rothery said. “It’s after eight o’clock.”

  “Oh, just a typical Tuesday,” the linguistics expert said. “Great news conference this morning, by the way. I think everyone is going to sleep a little better tonight.”

  “Thanks, Keith,” Rothery said. “What can I do for you? I’m sure you have a reason for calling.”

  “Yes, I do. The DVD that you received from the terrorist. I ran some additional tests on it and I’ve come up with something. A few years ago, I developed a program that samples idiosyncrasies in speech patterns. It looks for certain inflections common to specific dialogues and languages. In this case, our guy is Arabic, so I input every known dialect into the program and ran it through the supercomputers over at NSA. It took a while to come up with the final results, but they are conclusive.”

  “What did you learn?” Rothery asked.

  “The guy on the tape is not Arabic. Never has been, never will be. The accent is entirely fake. This guy is an Englishspeaking person, probably from the eastern United States. It’s difficult to establish exactly where he’s from because of the fake Arab accent, but if I had to guess, I’d say somewhere near Boston. And one other thing that is without question is that Ismail Zehaden is not the man on the tape.”

  “You’re sure,” Rothery said quietly.

  “I’m positive.”

  “Who have you told?” Rothery asked.

  “No one, Mr. Rothery. You’re the first one to know.”

  “Keep it that way for now, Keith. We’ve got enough on our plate without this going public. I’ll deal with it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Keith Thompson hung up and looked back at the computer screen. The series of jagged lines cutting across the monitor were as definitive as a fingerprint. They just needed a voice sample from the same person and they could match the two. Then they would have their man.

  He shut off his computer, locked the office and left for the night. He felt good about his work on the DVD, but something wasn’t quite right. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was bothering him. And when he reached his car and turned the key in the ignition, the strangest thing happened. He saw a split-second image of his car exploding into a giant fireball.

  He sat in the parking lot, his body shaking as his car idled, and one thought kept running through his mind: Do I know too much?

  63

  White Oak Technology Park was very different at night. In the muted moonlight, the silver buildings appeared dark gray, and aside from the streetlamps lighting the long winding road leading to the structure housing the Veritas labs, the grounds were dark. An occasional light glimmered out through the thick glass, but most of the labs were deserted, the staff at home for the evening. Gordon and Jennifer’s cabdriver pulled up to the front entrance of the Veritas building. He slipped the transmission into park and swiveled about to face them.

  “Okay, let’s make sure I’ve got this straight. You want me to park near the south end of the building. There’s an exit about fifty or sixty feet from the corner. There are no markings over the door, just a small staircase with black railings. I’m supposed to shut off my car, stay in the shadows, and wait. When I see you come out, I’m to come racing up and get out of here as fast as I can.”

  “Yeah, that’s about it,” Gordon said.

  “And this is all legal?” the driver said. “Right.”

  “Do you have today’s newspaper?” Jennifer asked. “The Times-Dispatch.”

  “Of course. We cabbies would be bored without newspapers,” he said, dredging up the daily from under his seat. He handed it to her.

  Jennifer pulled out the second section and then slipped off her wig. He stared at the paper, then at her. “Somebody in the company tried to kill me,” she said. “And we need to get in one of the Veritas labs. Tonight.”

  “Oh, this just gets better all the time. Now you’re a missing research scientist on the run from an evil person intent on killing her.” He turned to Gordon. “And who are you?”

  “Just a friend.”

  He was silent for a minute, scratched his head, and said, “Ah, what the hell. It beats waiting on Cary Street for a couple of drunks looking for an after-hours club. Anyway, I think I believe you. It’s too crazy a story for someone to make up.”

  “Thanks,” Jennifer said, slipping her Veritas ID from her pocket and holding it up. He gave it a quick look. “Holy shit, you’re not kidding. You are her.”

  “Remember,” Gordon said as they exited the cab. “The south end of the building. And be ready. We shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes, tops.”

  They walked up the wide sidewalk and opened the outer door. She looked at Gordon as she held her card above the reader. “This is it. Once I swipe this card, we’re going to be visible.”

  “Let’s do it,” he said, giving her a grim smile and checking the time on his watch. “You figure twenty minutes?”

  “I think that’s about what it will take for Andrews to g
et someone out here from the city. Could be a little more or less.” She ran the card through the reader and the light next to the inner door switched from red to green. They entered the building. The security guard stared at her as she approached the desk.

  “Dr. Pearce,” he said. “I thought-”

  She smiled and gave him a small wave. “Total misunderstanding,” she said. “My car slid off the road in the rain. I managed to jump out, but it took me quite a while to walk back to the nearest house.” It was a lame story, but he bought it.

  “Could you sign in, please?”

  “I’ll need a guest pass as well,” she said, scratching her signature on the night sheet.

  The guard dug out a visitor’s badge and pushed another sheet of paper across the desk. “Name and address of your visitor, please.” She filled in the blanks, and he gave it a perfunctory check, then said, “Thanks, Dr. Pearce. Glad you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine, thank you.”They walked to the doors that accessed Veritas’s half of the building and she swiped her card again. The light blinked green and they entered the short section of hallway before the steel security doors. “This is the big one,” she said as they approached the door. “All these doors are at different levels of security. If they’ve downgraded me at all, I won’t be able to open it.” She held her breath and pulled the card through the slot. The light went green and Gordon pulled the door open.

  “So far, so good,” he said, checking his watch. “Just over four minutes.”

  “Let’s move,” she said, walking quickly down the long hall. Blue doors flashed by on both sides as they hustled down the never-ending hall. They reached the first fork and turned right. Jennifer stopped at the second door on the left. “This is the lab where I saw Dr. Wai arguing with the moving man.” She held her card above the reader. “Keep your fingers crossed,” she said. She swiped the card down in a decisive motion and the light immediately went green.

  “Wow,” Gordon said. “Being with you makes it easy to get into places.”

  “I’m one of the team leaders,” she said. “There are only eleven of us in the company, and we all have top-level clearance. I’ve yet to find a door I can’t open.”

  They moved into the lab and switched on the lights. “I’m surprised Andrews didn’t terminate your security clearance when you went missing.”

  She was moving quickly to one of the many tables loaded with equipment. “No, I didn’t think he would cancel my card.

  That would almost be an admission that he knew I was dead. Which, of course, he thought I was.” She reached the first lab table and said, “You keep an eye on the time and I’m going to see if I can figure out what they were doing in here.”

  “Okay,” Gordon said, looking at his watch. “Seven minutes and ten seconds.”

  “Good. This is going just fine,” she said, concentrating on the equipment.

  His pager went off thirty-two seconds after Jennifer Pearce first swiped her card. He glanced at the message, then left the restaurant, his cell phone already dialing out. Johnny Altwater answered on the second ring. “The White Oak facility. She’s in the building.”

  “We’re on the east edge of the city,” Altwater responded. “We can be there in fifteen minutes, give or take.”

  “I’ll be ten minutes behind you,” he said. “For Christ’s sake, don’t miss her this time. Do what you have to. I don’t care if we have to carry a dead body out of the lab, just don’t let her get away.”

  “Okay, I hear you.”

  His car was almost a block from the restaurant, and he walked as quickly as he could without attracting attention. Bruce Andrews was worried. Exactly how much Jennifer Pearce knew was an unknown, but to Andrews, she was a very real threat. And Gordon Buchanan, the country hick from Montana, was proving to be no slouch. Together they were opening doors that Andrews preferred remained closed. And when someone threatened Bruce Andrews, they were threatening the goose that laid the golden egg. And that golden egg was so close now. Everything had gone exactly as Andrews had predicted. Everything except the unexpected appearance of Jennifer Pearce. But she had made one too many mistakes, and this time they had her trapped.

  He reached the car and sped away from the curb, headed for White Oak Technology Park.

  64

  The equipment contained in a lab tells a story. To the trained eye, it reveals what the lab is being used for and can also tell what the lab was used for in the past. Since the removal of the HEPA filters, the function of the space may have changed, but its current use didn’t interest her. Its previous function was what Jennifer was interested in. She ignored most of the equipment on the tables, concentrating on the clean room near the back.

  The clean room was set aside from the rest of the lab, delineated by floor-to-ceiling sheets of glass joined together with strips of inflexible rubber. Empty exhaust vents were the only evidence that HEPA filtration systems had once been in use. Jennifer looked at the Olympus microscopes, noting that most were the IX2 series, motorized inverted models. Serious machines. A couple of explosion-proof freezers sat against the back wall, still plugged in. She opened one and glanced in. Almost empty, save for a few small boxes, and very cold. She closed the lid and moved on. An entire set of shelves was dedicated to chemical and reagent storage, and she made mental notes of which chemicals were present. There were a couple of Burrell shakers and a Jenway spectrophotometer amid a scattering of calipers and micrometers. A high-pressure PVS rheometer used for viscosity measurements sat in a back corner. She spent some time going over it carefully and collected a small sample from one of the relief valves. She quickly prepared a slide and switched on one of the microscopes. She adjusted the slide, chose her magnification, and focused on the sample. Satisfied with the results, she shut down the microscope and slipped the slide in with the remainder of the sample from the rheometer.

  Two computers sat on one of the desks, and she quickly powered them up and took a look at the contents. One computer defaulted to English, the other to Chinese. She ran her fingers around the second computer’s casing, then dropped to her knees and looked under the desk. There was a small package taped to the underside of the desk, and she tucked it into her inside pocket. She took one last glance and returned to the regular lab outside the clean room.

  Gordon was looking at his watch when she emerged from the glass enclosure. He pointed at his wrist. “Eighteen minutes,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “It’s okay, I’ve got what I need,” she replied. In her left hand was a small vial inside a clear protective plastic case. She held it up. “You’re not going to believe what’s in here.”

  He started for the door and she fell in behind him, slipping the vial into her pocket. “I have no idea.” Gordon reached the door and looked out into the hallway. It was clear. “What’s in the vial?”

  “The virus.”

  Gordon stopped in his tracks. “What?” he said. “What do you mean, the virus?”

  “The hemorrhagic virus that was terrorizing the country. We just found the real lab where the virus was developed.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Gordon said, starting down the hallway at a fast pace. “Are we infected?”

  “No, the virus I found is dead, but I can still see the molecular structure.” She fell in beside him, her legs moving fast to keep up with his long strides. “Andrews created the virus in this lab. Or at least he had Dr. Wai create it. And my guess is that he never planned on releasing it. He just killed a few people and threatened to dump it on the population to create a crisis.” They reached the fork in the hall and took a left. “Once the government was convinced they had a terrorist ready to kill millions of people, he suddenly holds up an antiviral drug that’s been languishing in nowhere land waiting for FDA approval and says, ‘Hey look what I’ve got. The cure.’And everyone buys it. Andrews is the hero, and he gets his drug through the FDA.”

  “That’s it?” Gordon asked. “That’s what this has been all a
bout? Getting a new drug through the regulators?”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “Why? Why kill all those people? Why create something this dangerous? Where’s the upside?”

  “Money, Gordon. A lot of money. If I had to guess, I’d say in excess of two billion dollars a year in sales, maybe three. A new antiviral drug, even with side effects that would keep the FDA from approving it, is a gold mine. But they’re hard to get approved, because they all have some rather disturbing side effects. And with a viral drug, you don’t take it all the time, so the effects take years to show up. But the damage is being done. And since the FDA had this new drug stalled, it must be pretty bad.”

  “Holy shit,” Gordon said. They had reached the steel security doors, and he reached for the button on the wall to open them. Then he froze. Looking directly at him through the small glass window was the driver of the Crown Vic. Gordon had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the man when the car went flying by the Jeep, but he was sure it was the same person. “Jennifer, let’s go,” he yelled, grabbing her arm and pulling her back the way they had just come. A clicking sound behind them indicated that someone had tripped the automatic locking system and the doors were opening. Just as they reached the fork in the hallway, they heard a strange muffled sound and a bullet chewed into the wall inches from Jennifer’s head. She screamed as they rounded the corner, moving at a full run.

  “They’re shooting at us,” she managed to gasp as they ran.

  “The hall’s too long,” Gordon said. “They’ll be at the fork before we reach the end. Quick, open one of these doors.”

  They stopped abruptly in front of one of the blue doors and she swiped her card through the reader. The light blinked red. “Shit,” she said, turning her card over and swiping it again, this time with the magnetic stripe on the right side. The light turned green and she opened the door. A second bullet hit the metal doorjamb and sparks flew. They piled through the door and pushed it shut behind them. They heard running footsteps coming toward them and it sounded like there was more than one pursuer. Jennifer flipped on the light, they took a quick look around, and she snapped the light off.