The Blood Betrayal

by Don Donaldson

  Moving on, Carl saw the PIN Hollenbeck used to withdraw money from his ATM. Again, it was a different number than either of the first two. Next on the list was the password Cumulus for his Amazon account and Granulosa for accessing his account at Expedia Travel. In keeping with his profession, both words were parts of ovarian follicles containing developing eggs.

  Suddenly, Carl’s interest in the PDA was brutally shoved aside. I’m dying. Beth’s words from the night before elbowed their way into his consciousness. He glanced at her, sitting in the chair by the window, watching him at the desk.

  My God, but she was beautiful. And she looked so healthy. It seemed inconceivable that in such a short time she would be . . .

  Beth’s brows knitted together, furrowing her forehead. “What’s wrong?”

  Not wanting to remind her of what was ahead, Carl slipped her question. “Nothing.” He turned back to the PDA and tried to concentrate.

  The next password in the list was Pellucida5. Minus the number Hollenbeck had added for additional security, this was a word associated with the covering around the egg that sperm had to penetrate to effect fertilization. Accompanying the password was a series of numbers: 168.192.0.1. Recognizing this as an Internet Protocol (IP) address and curious as to what the site was, Carl reached for the PDA case and got out the instruction booklet.

  “What are you doing?” Beth asked.

  “There’s an Internet site in his password list. I’m looking to see if this PDA has a wireless access function.”

  “It’s possible to connect to the Internet without a wire?”

  “If the motel has a wireless routing system installed, which according to a sign I saw at the check-in desk, they do.” Carl thumbed through the instructions. “Here it is. Wireless access.”

  In less than a minute, Carl had entered the IP number and, with Beth looking over his shoulder, was waiting for the site to load. Finally, a message came up saying THIS IS A RESTRICTED ACCESS SERVER. Below that was a box asking for a user ID, and below that, one requiring the password.

  Of course Carl knew the password. ID could be a problem, especially if it required Hollenbeck’s social security number, which Carl didn’t know.

  He entered Pellucida5 in the lower box, then paused at the upper one. He typed in ArnoldHollenbeck and hit the LOG-IN button.

  The entries he’d made disappeared while the site digested his access information. The screen blinked once and a blue message appeared above the sign-in boxes: INVALID USER ID.

  He tried again with AHollenbeck.

  INVALID USER ID.

  He put a period after the A and hit LOG-IN.

  INVALID USER ID.

  “Maybe it’s Hollenbeck comma A,” Beth suggested.

  Carl tried her idea.

  INVALID USER ID. IF NEXT ATTEMPT IS UNSUCCESSFUL, SITE WILL LOCK.

  “I was afraid of that,” Carl said. “And I’m really curious about this site now. Why is there nothing to identify it on this opening page? Why are they being so clandestine? Okay, last chance . . . here goes . . .”

  He typed HollenbeckA in the ID box and hit LOG-IN.

  The screen blinked and changed. This time there were two folders displayed. “We’re in,” Carl exclaimed.

  One of the folders was labeled Email, the other, Ongoing Evaluations.

  Carl clicked on the evaluations folder.

  Inside were three files, one labeled U. of Cologne, another, U. of Hamburg, the last, U. of Leipzig. Carl clicked on the Cologne file.

  After reading the first few sentences of the document that appeared, he realized what he was looking at. “Nuts.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  He looked up. “Remember when Hollenbeck’s tech said they’d found a way to separate male from female sperm and that the technique needed further testing?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is just a report of some experiments being done in Cologne, Germany, performing those tests. Here’s a place where Hollenbeck can enter any comments he might have.”

  “Is that what the other files are, too?”

  Carl opened the Hamburg file and read a few lines. “Same thing. Very disappointing.”

  He navigated out of the evaluation section back to the previous screen, where he clicked on the email folder. This opened a program with most of the typical functions displayed in boxes across a header. Hollenbeck had no unread messages waiting, so apparently anyone who might have sent him one through this system was aware he was dead. It seemed a bit odd that, if they knew about his accident, his account would still be in the system. Other than that, Carl’s interest in this avenue of investigation was rapidly dwindling to where he was already thinking of the flight home and what he could do to save Beth’s life when they arrived.

  Before leaving the site, Carl idly clicked on Old Mail, bringing up a list of about ten subject headings. He scanned them lethargically, then, near the bottom, saw one that made him forget everything else: Your Visit to Artisan.

  He opened the message and tore through it:

  As much as we understand your wish to visit Artisan to see how everything is working, we don’t think that’s a good idea. You are therefore instructed to stay away.

  “He did have a connection to Artisan,” Beth said, breathlessly, her face beside Carl’s so she could see the PDA’s small screen.

  The message was signed D.S. That was also the sender’s identity in the header.

  “Maybe that’s why he was killed,” Carl said. “He ignored their warning to stay away.”

  “But who are they?” Beth asked.

  “There’s no way to tell from the way this access portal or the email system is configured. But there may be a way to find out.”

  “How?”

  “Through Daniel O’Toole.”

  ROSARIO GUARDIOLA looked at his watch: two p.m., time for his afternoon martini and a good cigar, but here he was out on the road checking on that German gorilla they’d sent yesterday. He’d become concerned because the car the German was trailing had been returned to the airport an hour ago by the two who’d rented it. That alone was a bad sign. And when he’d checked his own GPS receiver, he’d seen that the German’s car was sitting on a little county road near Loiza.

  To have his schedule interrupted like this was an imposition to be sure, but without his yearly retainer from The Brotherhood, he’d be wearing a peroxide-bleached Cuena Panama instead of a Montecristi. So he couldn’t complain too much.

  He checked the GPS receiver on the seat next to him. He should be coming up on the German’s car any second now. He rounded a curve and there it was.

  He cursed aloud. Maldicion. The car was up on cement blocks, one window smashed, all four wheels missing. How could this have happened? Even though there was no way he should be blamed for this, he was afraid he might be.

  He pulled onto the shoulder where it flanked the orphanage driveway, got out, and walked back to Mahler’s car, knowing even before he got there that the GPS receiver he’d given the German would be missing. And it was.

  So where was Mahler?

  He walked back to his car and looked around. Seeing no more likely place to search, he got in his car, drove to the orphanage’s front door, and got out.

  Careful not to scuff his new Jeffrey West chain stitch chukkas, he gingerly walked across the gravel and up the walk, into the abandoned building, where he cupped his hand to his mouth. “Anyone here?”

  No answer.

  He did a quick walk-through of the building, being vigilant not to brush up against anything, then went outside and stood for a moment on the front sidewalk. He wanted to leave this foul place, but it was clear this operation had gone way off the tracks. And if he could do anything to save it, he had to try. Right now, that meant finding the German.
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br />   Wincing every time his foot shifted on a piece of loose gravel, and imagining what this was doing to the leather soles of his shoes, Guardiola made his way back to the side of the building where he’d seen a path as he’d driven in. He paused at the mouth of the path, then went into the doubly humid corridor cutting through the tall grasses.

  Thankful that at least there wasn’t any gravel here to damage his shoes, he moved along the path, feeling himself sweating into his clothing. His persistence in this irksome task was a measure of how much he feared his employer.

  Having found nothing by the time he reached the enclosure around the old shed, he was about to give up. But then, noticing that the low grasses in the abandoned garden had recently been walked on, he decided to go a little farther.

  A moment later, all worries about what this was doing to his clothing were blasted back to San Juan. Sprawled on the path, was the German’s body. At least it was dressed in the same clothes he’d seen the German wearing at the airport, but where the head should have been, there was a writhing brown mass. He took another step forward, and the mass erupted into dozens of fleeing lizards that had been feeding on the German’s face.

  Chapter 43

  DANIEL O’TOOLE ran his hand through his thick hair and looked at Carl with a conflicted expression.

  Carl and Beth hadn’t told him everything, just enough to show him the importance of being able to hack into the website they’d found on Hollenbeck’s PDA, concentrating on the possibility it could contain information that would save Beth’s life.

  If Daniel was at a loss for an answer, his wife, sitting beside him wasn’t. “Well if he won’t say it, I will. Of course he can’t do something like that. It’s illegal. And I’m surprised you would ask him.”

  Daniel shot his wife an angry look. “Please, I can speak for myself.”

  They hadn’t wanted to do this in front of Doris O’Toole, but that’s just the way it had worked out.

  “Carl, I’m a computer security consultant,” Daniel said. “I can’t be involved in an attack on any company’s computer system. If it ever became public, my business would be ruined.”

  A smug look of see I told you crossed Doris’s face.

  “I do want to help. But you have to promise to never tell anyone where you got the information I’m about to give you.”

  Doris jerked forward on the sofa. “Daniel, what are you doing?”

  “Only what I have to.” He got up and walked over to a Chippendale-style secretary, where he got a pen from a green marble cylinder and scribbled something on a little yellow scratch pad. He tore the sheet off, came back, and handed it to Carl.

  On it he had written, The Worm, followed by an address.

  “What’s this?” Carl asked.

  “He’s the best hacker I ever knew. Give him the note when you see him. He’ll recognize my handwriting. Then ask him to destroy it.”

  “How much will his help cost?” Beth asked.

  “He’ll do it free as a favor for me.”

  Carl looked at Daniel with raised eyebrows. “What sort of history do you have with this guy?”

  “You don’t want to know. When you get there, don’t assume I gave you the wrong address.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll see.”

  IN THE CAR, on their way to find The Worm, Carl looked at Beth. “How do you feel?”

  “Do you mean in general or—”

  “Or.”

  “It won’t begin for a while. Until then, I won’t even know anything is wrong. So there’s no reason to be checking on me like that. I’ll tell you when I begin to feel ill.”

  “That’s not going to happen. We’re going to find an answer before then.” It was a brave promise, that at the moment, Carl had no way of keeping. This made him impotent and angry.

  It was well past dark now, and as their headlights cut a swath through the night, Carl’s thoughts turned to Ernst Mahler.

  Has his body been discovered yet? When it was, would the police be able to tie Carl to the scene? Even if they could, it had been self-defense, Beth would testify to that . . . Unless by the time he needed her corroboration, she’d be—

  He shook his head, scattering the doubts trying to possess him. Everything, including Beth would be fine. It just had to be.

  “THAT’S THIRTEEN fifty-five,” Carl said, pointing on their left to a turn-of-the-century Queen Anne with a white columned porch. “So we just passed it.”

  “I didn’t see anything next door but an overgrown vacant lot.”

  “Let’s look again.”

  Beth turned the car around in the Queen Anne’s driveway and slowly drove back down the street to the vacant lot.

  “There,” Carl said. “An address sign, in the ground under that bush.”

  “But there’s nothing here.”

  “Remember what Daniel said about not assuming he gave us the wrong address?”

  “That’s right.” She pulled to the curb and shut off the engine.

  Before leaving San Juan, Carl had considered tossing the gun he’d taken from Mahler into the ocean so he wouldn’t have to declare it at the American Airlines check-in, an act he feared might somehow lead to his arrest for Mahler’s death. But in the end, being more afraid of another thug stalking them, he’d bought a new lock box and checked the gun through to Little Rock in his luggage. Happily, this time, the gun had still been there when they’d arrived home.

  Now, as he got out of the car at the apparently vacant lot, he checked to make sure the gun was still in his jacket pocket, where with all the extra clothing the weather called for, it was a lot more accessible than in a waistband holster. Reassured he still had it, he got his crutch out of the backseat and joined Beth to look for a further clue that this was where they would find The Worm.

  A moment later, they discovered a sidewalk hidden by overhanging bushes. With Carl following, Beth carefully pushed through the branches so they wouldn’t fly back and hit Carl in the face. Moving slowly, they followed the dark walk as it penetrated deeper into obstructing foliage that soon completely obliterated the light from the city street lamp out front. In such a place they might have become disoriented, but about six feet into the void ahead, at waist level, they saw a tiny spot of light. The light turned out to be a doorbell. They still couldn’t see a house.

  “This is very strange,” Beth whispered as Carl pressed the doorbell.

  “So is someone whose name is The Worm,” Carl whispered back.

  “I trust you use the term strange to simply mean unfamiliar and not in any derogatory way,” a voice suddenly said.

  “Yes,” Carl said, covering his surprise at being overheard. “Unfamiliar. That’s what we meant.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Daniel O’Toole sent us. I have your address here in his handwriting.”

  There was the sound of a door opening, and a disembodied white face with no eyebrows floated before them. A white hand appeared. “Give me the note.”

  Carl handed over the scrap of paper.

  The apparition in the doorway studied the note as though he could read in the dark. Then he looked up and seemed to move back. “Please come in.”

  Going through the doorway, Carl and Beth found themselves in a space lit only by two parallel rows of tiny lights on the floor, like you might see in a movie theatre.

  “Please excuse the dim illumination, I’m very sensitive to light,” the apparition said, closing the door. He turned to face them. “You already know who I am. Who are you?”

  “I’m Dr. Carl Martin and this is Beth Corbin.”

  The Worm extended a white hand to each of them.

  Not sure what they were supposed to do with the offered appendage, each reached out and squeezed it briefly, sur
prised that his skin was warm, not corpse cold as they’d expected.

  “This way,” The Worm said, turning and floating along the lit runway.

  Farther into the room, the lights descended to another level and so did The Worm, gliding to the second circle of limbo like a specter. Carl hesitated and felt the floor with his right foot, looking for the first step.

  “It’s a ramp,” Beth whispered.

  With Beth hovering close in case he needed help, Carl got himself to the bottom without falling.

  They were now in a spacious area furnished with a huge curved table containing three computer workstations. The lighting here was a bit better than where they’d entered, but was all subdued and indirect. It seemed likely they were now at least partially underground.

  From the way The Worm moved, Carl thought he might be in a wheelchair, but in this better light, Carl saw that was not the case. It was now apparent that The Worm was dressed in black trousers and a black turtleneck pullover. Based on the guy’s pale coloring and the sensitivity to light he’d mentioned, Carl concluded he was probably an albino.

  The Worm went to the workstation on the left, swiveled one of the plush chairs around, and carefully sat down. “There are two more chairs,” he said. “Can you see them?”

  Carl and Beth migrated to the other two big chairs, where Beth whispered for Carl to take the closest.

  When Carl and Beth were seated, The Worm said to Carl, “How do you know Daniel?”

  “We were fraternity brothers in college.”

  “Oh yes . . . that great democratic institution . . . the fraternity.”

  From that comment Carl judged that The Worm had at some point been snubbed by one. “In a way it’s a childish organization I suppose.”

  “Don’t apologize for who you are,” The Worm said sternly. “It’s all any of us really has. Accept it.” He looked at Beth. “Were you in a sorority?”

  “I never went to college.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “As long as a person can read, everything they teach in college is available to anyone who wants it.”