Expectation (Ghost Targets, #2)

by Pogue, Aaron

  Theresa interrupted her. "My husband lived his life in secret, Agent Pratt, but I have not. I'm not afraid of anything they've got."

  "They...." Katie's shoulders fell, her breath escaped her. Then she looked Theresa square in the eyes. "They believe Eric and Ellie Cohn were involved in an affair."

  Theresa flinched as though Katie had struck her, but she gave no other response. Katie raised her hands, helpless. "They think you may have discovered it and lashed out in jealousy. They think it means motive. I'm sorry, Mrs. Barnes, I wanted to keep this—"

  "Stop," she said, and there was a gentleness in her voice that surprised Katie. She raised a hand. "Just stop. I...I already know. You can stop explaining."

  Katie fell quiet, unsure what to say next. Theresa broke the silence.

  "I do know about it, but I've known for a long time. I...could probably find some evidence of that somewhere. If that would help. But, God help me, if this information gets out..."

  "I understand, Mrs. Barnes," Katie said. She saw her opportunity there and knew what she was supposed to do. "You have worked so hard to protect your husband's reputation." She could use that. Reed would expect her to. "But if they have to bring a warrant against you, if they have to present that information as evidence to the court, it won't be a secret for long." She said it matter-of-factly, unwilling to press the threat. If Reed wanted to play dirty, he could come here and do it himself.

  Theresa's mind was on something else, though. Katie looked up to see if she had considered the implications of her words, and just caught the other woman's eyes grow wide. "Ellie!" she said.

  Katie frowned. "What?"

  "It's...if there is something amiss, Agent Pratt..." She trailed off, unable to complete her sentences. She fell down on the couch, her eyes unfocused. "I still can't believe..." She faded away again, then looked up at Katie suddenly. "Agent Pratt, if someone is responsible, it could well be Ellie Cohn."

  "Under the circumstances," Katie said, "we're going to need a lot more than just your suspicions. Do you have anything specific in mind?"

  "He...he was with her the day before his accident." Katie's eyes grew wide, and Theresa looked away. "He has his weaknesses, Agent Pratt, and I was not willing to give him up over a little indiscretion." She sighed. "I wasn't willing to let him go away, either. So I...kept an eye on him."

  "You hired a service?"

  She nodded. "Snoopy. It's a local company, designed by a guy I knew in college. It's...discreet. I didn't have to listen in on...everything." She shuddered at the thought of it. "But it flagged certain conversations. It's designed to track significant changes in the relationship, and I just kept waiting for it to message me and say he was ready to run away with her."

  Katie sighed. "Please tell me it didn't."

  Theresa shook her head and reached up to wipe away a tear. "No." The word escaped her like a squeak. She took a breath. "No, and I couldn't even be satisfied with that, because I knew he did most of his carrying on at the clinic, out of sight of Snoopy and everyone else." She rose, and came back to stand close to Katie. "But sometimes they met in a hotel room, some dirty dive. And they were there the day before his accident. I got a message then."

  She choked up, and Katie couldn't control herself. "What was it?"

  "He broke it off. He told her it was over." She took a deep breath, and let it go. "I knew. I got the message almost immediately, and I'd heard the recording from his own mouth before Eric even got home that night. And when I got the call the next day, about him being hurt, I just thought how unfair it was. I never even considered—"

  "She might have been angry."

  Theresa nodded. "I knew. I knew, even then, but I couldn't put the two together." A tear escaped her eye, and then a stream. "God, how could I have been so stupid? I should have done something. I should have said something."

  "There's no reason you should have suspected—"

  "Pshaw!" Her voice was rough now, her grief raw. "She's a violent woman, Agent Pratt. Just look at her record. I certainly did. When...when it first happened, I was obsessed about it. When I first found out, I mean. And I dug up everything I could about her."

  "When was that?"

  "Three years ago." Katie gaped, and Theresa nodded through her tears. "We had a fight, and he said it was over, and we went on with our lives. Then a few months later it just sort of happened again. He still had to work with her, and neither of us was willing to risk news getting out by pressing for that to change."

  "And you just learned to live with it." Katie had seen that more than once.

  "How many people get married at all anymore, Agent Pratt?" Theresa cried. "I thought we could make it work. Even afterward I thought we could make it work."

  "But he kept going back to it," Katie said.

  "It wasn't his fault." She reached for the tissues again and blew her nose noisily, but she couldn't stop the flow of tears. "They did it to him. He was famous. He was one of the most special people in the world, and they locked him up in that place, and they just kept erasing everything he did, trying to pretend he didn't exist. He was their prisoner, and anything he could do to feel free...."

  "Mrs. Barnes, you realize everything you're saying—"

  "It's not fair!" Theresa wailed. "We gave up so much for them, for her, and then she did this? And I just kept quiet. I knew. I knew what she was capable of. I knew what had happened, and I didn't say a word."

  Katie stared at her, fascinated, and the word escaped her, "Why?"

  "Because that's what we did. Both of us. We kept their secrets for them." She wiped away her tears, sniffled once, and then fell silent, though her chest still heaved. She met Katie's eyes, and hers were blazing bloodshot. "I've done it for so long, it never occurred to me to do anything else."

  "Mrs. Barnes," Katie said, her voice soft, "what are you saying?"

  "I'm saying it's a sham." Theresa's breath escaped her as she said it, and then she looked around sharply as though she expected soldiers to come bursting in through the windows. She lifted her chin, though, and met Katie's eyes. "All of it. It's a lie. He gave up everything to help them maintain it, and then they let her throw his life away." She stepped away, up into the dining room where her handheld was resting on the corner of the dining table, and came back with a look of serenity on her tear-streaked face.

  "I'll give you medical access. I'll give you anything you want. I'm not protecting them anymore."

  7. The Secret

  Katie hesitated for just a moment. Then she stepped close and pulled out her handheld. She checked on the protocol, which she already had bookmarked. "Here's what I need you to do," Katie said. "Just say, 'Hippocrates, grant the FBI full investigative access to my husband's records and condition.'" Theresa shook her head, exasperated, but she repeated the exact phrase. Katie nodded. "Good, good. Now, I also need a copy of that recording—"

  Theresa placed a hand on Katie's arm, and caught her eyes. "Agent Pratt, you need to slow down and think about what you just heard." She cocked her head to the side. "In fact," she said with half a smile, "I'll give you a minute to do just that. I could use a cup of tea."

  She slipped past Katie and headed to the kitchen. Katie watched her go, confused, then followed her a moment later. Clouds filled the sky outside, leaving the bright room a murky gray. Katie felt lost. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean," Theresa called over her shoulder as she dug for a teapot in a bottom cabinet, "that I just let you in on one of the biggest secrets this world has ever known, and all you're interested in is your case."

  Katie frowned. "You said they used him—"

  "I said it's a sham." Theresa tsked. "I guess you thought I meant the working conditions. No, no. I mean all of it. All of it. Gevia is a lie."

  Katie just stared. Eventually, she said, "Gevia?" She thought back to her trip to the doctor earlier that year. It had been a big to-do, three shots over the course of nearly two hours, and then an entire afternoon waiting around at the hospit
al for observation. It was supposed to be good for ten years, though. Her jaw fell open, her eyes wide. "The life extension is a lie?"

  Theresa pointed a finger at her. "Not...not exactly." She nodded toward the breakfast nook again. "Why don't you have a seat, dear. I think you're going to need a little something to drink, too."

  She came to the table a few minutes later with two delicate china teacups on saucers. She sank down opposite Katie, and Katie was surprised to see new tears welling in her eyes. There was no trace of them in her voice. "There's sugar in the little wooden box by your hand there, in case you need it."

  "Mrs. Barnes," Katie said, "are you...are you okay?"

  "I'm fine," she said with a little sniffle as raindrops began to patter against the window. Theresa put a reassuring hand on top of Katie's as she met her eyes. "Dear, I've been holding this in for years. I've never told a soul. It's terrifying, in a way, but like I said, I'm done helping them."

  "But what are you telling me?"

  "Gevia doesn't do anything." Katie opened her mouth to ask for more explanation, but Theresa held up a hand to stop her. "Gevia doesn't do it. Our other medicine does."

  Katie furrowed her brow, trying to find meaning in those words, but she finally shook her head. "I don't—"

  "Look, it's like this. The worst effects of aging are what? Mental deterioration, physical decline, and eventually a general susceptibility. There's...lots of things that go into making those happen, but the worst effects are pretty apparent, and they've received a lot of attention over the years." She sat back. "You remember Alzheimer's. You're not too young for that. Alzheimer's used to be the bogeyman waiting in the dark for old people. Total mental decay."

  Theresa shook her head. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not making light of it. I lost my mother to it, and that was barely a year before they started human trials for Recollex and Zinafin. But when they got those working, they didn't just cure Alzheimer's. They improved brain function." Katie nodded. She knew where this was going.

  "I get my shots," she said.

  Theresa nodded. "Everybody does," she said. "And you get your strength booster. That started out as a preventive against geriatric frailty, which used to constantly cause the elderly to suffer broken bones from minor trips and falls. But everyone takes it now. It improves coordination, muscle response, and encourages bone regeneration. Makes you stronger." She laughed. "Like Popeye's spinach, my dad used to say. Eric got him into the early trials for that, and it probably saved his life. Now you and I take it to save on gym memberships. But it works. It keeps us strong."

  "Yeah," Katie said. "But it's no Gevia."

  Theresa's lips tightened. "That was the start of it," she said. "Then they started digging deeper. It was the third cancer vaccine that really cured aging. That was the real Gevia, and Eric is the one who made it happen." She smiled more earnestly this time, though the tears were back. "You saw the picture."

  "I did," Katie said.

  "This you may be too young for, but Eric remembered. The first cancer vaccine came out nearly thirty years ago. It was...clumsy. It helped, but we're talking statistical probabilities there, not a real cure. Not a pill that makes a person better. But before that first vaccine even entered human trials—and you can bet it did, and it made somebody a real load of money—before it even entered trials, everyone was calling it the 'first cancer vaccine.' Everyone knew there had to be something better."

  Katie nodded. "I do remember this. I studied it. And the cure came out in the twenties, but it..." She trailed off, trying to remember her history, and her eyes grew wide when she did.

  "It made people older," Theresa finished for her. She took a sip of her tea. "Well, it made them age too quickly." She shook a finger at Katie. "The news made it seem like some nightmare scenario, I remember, but Eric says they knew it would do that. Back when they made the first vaccine, they knew the second one would do that. It has to do with telomeres and gene shortening, and you lose a little bit of your genetic blueprint every time your cells divide. That's one of the things that makes people older."

  Katie nodded. She had an uncle who had taken the time to explain it to her in detail, a very long time ago. "Something about the immune system," she said. "The system that makes people age is the same one that fights off cancer."

  "Exactly," Theresa said. "And everyone who worked on the second vaccine knew that. It was all rooted in perfectly clear genetic science. It was a risk those early testers took knowingly, willingly." She smiled proudly. "But Eric thought it was a tragedy. He never lost anybody to it, thank the Lord. It was just something in his heart that told him he had to find something better. Everyone was happy with a ninety-nine point however many nines success rate, even if it meant advanced aging, but Eric said there had to be something better." Another sip, another proud smile. "He found a way to preserve total telomere strands while adapting the mutagen-targeting attributes of the second vaccine, and developed a third one that cured cancer without the side effect."

  Katie nodded. "Aging."

  "Not..." Theresa sighed. "I'm not a scientist, okay. I'm not. But it's not all aging. All metabolism introduces decay, but the big bad wolves of aging were mental and physical decay, and then the loss of genetic information that was crucial to maintaining a functioning copy of you. Between the mind boosters, the body boosters, and the third cancer vaccine, we had all of those conquered over a decade ago. And by all accounts that should have bought humanity enough time to figure out what they needed to cure the rest of the nasty little ailments inflicted by time."

  "Then what's Gevia?"

  "Gevia is the dream of a madman." Theresa said. She caught the look of incomprehension in Katie's eyes, and shrugged. "It didn't work," she said. "Eric didn't fully realize the implications of his cancer vaccine until later, but someone else did. Papers came out, they were discussed at length in several prestigious journals, and that's when Eric really became famous. He'd been a name on a patent application, buried beneath all his corporate, collegiate, and government sponsors, but when the debate started about his vaccine's telomerase inhibition and its likely effects on healthy adults, he joined right in and fought with the best of them." She smiled at the memory. "He was wrong, it turns out, but he was on the side of science. He always was."

  Katie frowned. "I don't understand."

  "There were people saying that his vaccine should cure aging, theoretically, but a lot of other people saying that was absurd. At the time, the vaccine was used on such a small percentage of the population and we didn't have Hippocrates yet to track things, so everything was still being done in studies. The populations were too low for any real statistically-significant analysis, but as the argument grew, people started paying closer and closer attention to the folks who were on the vaccine, and by all appearances they were aging normally. Gradual mental and physical decay starting at thirty and accelerating after fifty, offset predictably by their use of Zinafin or strength boosters."

  Katie said, "So it didn't work?"

  "It took time to find that out, obviously. But, no. It didn't work. I mean, it didn't make people act any younger, and that was exactly what Eric had anticipated in his arguments. At the time, the standard answer was that the cumulative harmful effects of metabolism are too numerous to ever fully reverse. DNA-shortening was considered just one of the myriad culprits bringing about the constant fall of man."

  Katie smiled. "You talk like a poet."

  "I get that from Eric," she said, then shrugged. "Well, not really. I was a Lit. major in college, but that was forever ago. I became the happy housewife, and Eric became the novelist. We never imagined that turn of events."

  "I saw his books," Katie said and blushed at the look of surprise on Theresa's face. "I stumbled across them while inspecting the lab. Meg told me a little bit about them."

  "Oh, Meg," Theresa said. "She's a darling." She smiled.

  Katie took a sip of her tea, then shook her head. "So the cancer vaccine just did what it was s
upposed to?"

  "No," Theresa said. A thoughtful frown creased her forehead. "I mean, yes. That's how it seemed. The debate went on and on, but as time passed and the data began pouring in, it sure seemed like all it was doing was fighting cancer. But then Eric got a call from this mystery man, a...I don't know, philosopher, really. He said he was a theorist, and he spoke like a poet, let me tell you. But he was a techie, too, and he told us he could resolve the telomerase question once and for all. He had his own theories, he said, but he'd keep them to himself until his little research project found an answer."

  Katie leaned forward, elbows on the table. "And Eric went along with all this? Why?"

  "Sheer personality," Theresa said. "The guy wasn't much of a salesman, but he was a true believer. And he was smart, too." She shook her head. "Not...nothing like Eric. Eric is a scientist, through and through. This man was different. He kept talking about prayer and the power of human expectation. He tried to give Eric lectures about the placebo effect, as though a fully-trained doctor and medical researcher wouldn't already know about it." She shook her head. "But that was his theory, and he came backed up with some impressive evidence."

  "What's that?" Katie said.

  "Hippocrates." Theresa nodded at the sudden comprehension on Katie's face. "It was new then, and he's the one who introduced us to it. He set up a survey in Hippocrates to track every single person who had ever taken Eric's cancer vaccine, and it told us everything. Every time one of them stumbled while walking, every time any of them stammered over a word they should have known. Every pulled muscle, every forgotten name at a party. It provided the hard numbers everyone was looking for, with real-time results, and it showed exactly what everyone was expecting."