Fringe 03 - Sins of the Father

by Christa Faust

  * * *

  Up in the empty suite on the thirtieth floor—the one that had been kicked open—Richard McCoy unbuttoned his stained Hawaiian shirt. Silence had descended on the otherwise empty floor of the hotel.

  Nearby, Jones sat in a modern chair that was more stylish than comfortable. The “police officers” had gone back into the fray, leaving the two Englishmen alone in the room.

  McCoy peeled off the shirt, revealing the squibs stuck to the skin beneath. He used a damp towel to wipe away the sticky fake blood and adhesive. A thin trickle of silver flowed from a slight nick just above his left clavicle.

  “Good thing they didn’t hit you dead on,” Jones said, arching a brow at the superficial wound.

  “I don’t mind,” McCoy replied, pressing the towel firmly against the small cut.

  “I’m not worried about your welfare,” Jones said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m worried about the welfare of our little puppet show. If you had really started bleeding all over the place, Mr. Bishop might have noticed that something was rotten in Denmark.”

  McCoy nodded, dropping the towel and picking up a clean shirt from the bedside table. He slipped an arm into one sleeve.

  “There were a lot of moving parts in this little drama,” he said. “Do you think he suspects anything?”

  “No, overall I think it went well,” Jones replied. “Even with that annoying intrusion at the last minute.”

  McCoy smiled.

  “The game is on,” Jones added.

  * * *

  Peter set the phone down on the bedside table, beside the half-empty beer he no longer wanted. The phone immediately started buzzing, demanding his attention and scooching itself across the surface of the table. But Peter ignored it until it stopped, squinting at the mysterious vial inside the suitcase. That crimson warning sticker made his skin crawl, even though he had no idea what could possibly be in there. Blood plasma? A virus?

  Some kind of deadly bioweapon?

  Instinctively he edged away.

  Whatever it was, great pains had been taken to prevent the vial from being broken. Which told him that whatever was in there, somebody didn’t want it to get out. Or maybe they didn’t want the outside world to get in.

  The phone began to buzz again, and his mind turned to a more immediate concern.

  Big Eddie. There was no way the mobster was going to understand what had happened. He wouldn’t even listen long enough for Peter to explain. No, he had to find a way to turn this around. Somehow…

  He stared at the vial again.

  How can I turn whatever this is into money, he thought, and as quickly as possible?

  Peter considered himself to be a broad-minded entrepreneur, relatively unburdened by quaint, old-fashioned concepts like morality. It had been a gradual process, this erosion of the distinction between right and wrong. He’d progressed from harmless, penny-ante swindles—like faking an MIT degree—to identity theft and fraud, then to gray-market tech and smuggling.

  Therein lay the answer to his current dilemma. He was sure of it. He was willing to sell pretty much anything to anyone—no questions asked—and was perfectly happy to rip off anyone dumb enough to let him get away with it. What was that old saying? A fool and his money are soon parted.

  At least he hoped so.

  He even was willing to sell someone a gun, knowing full well that if they were buying it from him, they weren’t planning on using it for target practice. But if this vial really did contain some kind of bioweapon, chances were anyone who would want to acquire it wouldn’t be using it to rob a bank, or teach a cheating husband a lesson.

  No, if Peter went down that road, his carefully maintained, gray-shaded hat would go full-on bad-guy black.

  It wasn’t that he was a bad person. He just applied a sliding moral scale to each caper. Of course, the scale tended to tip in his favor, whatever the situation. Yet he tried to avoid ripping off people who couldn’t afford to be ripped off. Fortunately for him, just about everyone in his world of shady dealings was just as selfish and “morally flexible” as he was.

  But a virus wouldn’t distinguish between innocent and guilty. It wouldn’t even distinguish between the other guy and Peter. If it was deadly, and it was unleashed, it might kill him just as quickly and efficiently as Big Eddie.

  There had to be another way.

  Ignoring his self-preservation instincts, he made himself lean down close to the sinister vial, even though every inch of his exposed skin was screaming for him to stay as far away as possible. He didn’t even realize he was holding his breath until his head started to spin from the lack of oxygen.

  There was a printed label on the inner vial. The letters were tiny and difficult to read, so Peter practically had to press his nose against the outer Plexiglas cylinder in order to make them out.

  VN11-H2.

  Then below that, a name: DR. JULIA LACHAUX.

  Peter reached into his go-bag, pulled out the laptop, and swiftly helped himself to the hotel’s overpriced Wi-Fi, searching for “Doctor Julia Lachaux.”

  Bingo.

  Lachaux was a scientist employed by the privately funded Center for Seizure Disorder Research. She was surprisingly photogenic for a scientist—a tall, leggy redhead with a curvy build and a warm smile.

  And she was currently involved in a firestorm of controversy.

  Doctor Lachaux was engaged in the development of a bioengineered retrovirus that supposedly held the key to a cure for epilepsy, a disorder from which she herself also suffered. There were several heartwarming stories about her tireless work to help kids with the debilitating condition they shared.

  The controversy swirled around the rumor that the virus had been stolen. Reading that, Peter glanced at the vial.

  “I think I can confirm it as true,” he muttered. Then he returned to reading. The posts were all infuriatingly vague about what the virus actually did, but one claimed that it “had the potential to overwrite DNA.”

  He also found a post—about a week old—in which Lachaux denied the reports that her virus had been stolen, and assured the interviewer that even if it had been, there would be absolutely no danger to the public.

  “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” The more he read of her vehement denials, the less believable they sounded. And with good reason.

  He dug deeper, and found the official site for the Center for Seizure Disorder Research. Their facility was impressive—upscale and well appointed, with top-of-the-line equipment. A far cry from what his father had used at times over the years. It seemed to be funded primarily by some movie star with an epileptic kid. Most importantly—to Peter anyway—it looked as if they would have enough disposable funds to pay handsomely for the return of Doctor Lachaux’s precious virus.

  Maybe there was a way for him to profit from this mishap, after all.

  Now that he knew what to do with his accidental cargo, Peter had to figure out the how. In essence, how was he going to smuggle a potentially deadly virus out of Bangkok and into the United States? Granted, it was less than three ounces, and would fit in a plastic baggie, but on general principle the Department of Homeland Security tended to frown upon that sort of thing.

  He knew he wasn’t a terrorist. They might not be so certain.

  Of course, he might not have to bring it to Doctor Lachaux’s doorstep. He just had to get it somewhere close enough that it wouldn’t be out of the question for her to come meet him.

  Still, he wanted to try to avoid getting the international agencies involved, if at all possible. So “close enough” still meant the States. He’d have to figure out how to slip in unnoticed, and in a situation like that, there was only one person he could think of who might be able to help him with this.

  Peter dialed another number he knew by heart. She picked up on the first ring.

  “Tess,” he said, then quickly added, “Don’t hang up…”

  But she did.

  Crap.

  Th
is was going to require some persistence and creativity, along with a healthy dose of charm. Luckily, convincing a hostile ex to do something dangerous was the kind of thing he did best.

  PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA

  The Phnom Penh airport was pretty much like any major Asian airport. Really, like any airport anywhere.

  Peter loved airports. Transitional places, full of strangers. Comfortable and anonymous. He could be anyone in an airport. And in that moment, anonymity was exactly what he needed.

  He’d conveniently “forgiven” Jaruk, who’d claimed not to have known anything about the cops at the hotel. Whether it was true or not, Peter had leveraged his friend’s chagrin, and enlisted his help.

  He’d needed to slip out of Bangkok and across the border into Cambodia as discreetly as possible, just in case Big Eddie had been able to trace the call and narrow down Peter’s location. So far, so good. He was feeling slick, on top of things. Like he might just be able to pull this off.

  Using a fake credit card, he’d bought a ticket to New Zealand, but he wouldn’t be on that flight. The ticket had just been used to get him through security. Instead, he was waiting by the gate for the arrival of Trans Global flight 177 from Heathrow.

  He was waiting for Tess.

  Her flight had been delayed by twenty minutes, and when it did arrive, they let off all the passengers first. Tired families with fussy children. Irascible businessmen. Dreadlocked backpackers. Peter watched the last of them wander through the gate with the now familiar squinty, bloodshot eyes and jet-lagged shuffle they all shared.

  Must’ve been a rough flight, he mused. Finally, once all the passengers had deplaned, the flight crew followed, each with their own matching roller bag. Tess was last.

  She was blond and petite with dark eyes and expressive hands. Her hair was slicked back and tied into a simple knot, and she wore the same dated and unflattering uniform as her fellow flight attendants—a scratchy navy-blue polyester suit and garish orange scarf printed with the Trans Global logo.

  But to Peter, she looked beautiful.

  She didn’t see him. Instead, she turned toward her left, a warm, sultry smile blooming on her lips as she walked across the waiting area to meet a dark-haired Caucasian man in a flashy suit.

  His back was turned toward Peter, so at first he didn’t recognize the man. But when he turned to greet and embrace Tess, Peter saw his face.

  Sonofabitch… Michael Kelly. His old partner in crime. Apparently Kelly had taken over more than the business after Peter had ducked out.

  He watched as Kelly whispered in her ear, reaching down to grip a tight handful of her ass. Then he slipped something about the size of a playing card into her pocket and walked away.

  She just stood there for a moment, watching him go with a closed, unreadable expression on her face. Then she put her hand into her pocket, feeling whatever he’d put in there, but didn’t remove it.

  As she turned to walk away, Peter double-timed his steps to catch up with her.

  “Tess,” he said.

  She jumped without stopping, then turned to him, and her face went hard, eyes cold and narrow. She looked away and kept walking without answering.

  “Please, Tess,” he said. “Just five minutes of your time.”

  She stopped and looked at her watch.

  “You have three,” she said. “What do you want, Peter?”

  “You…” Peter paused, tried a smile. “You look fantastic.”

  “I look exactly the same as I did when you tossed me away like an empty beer can. I’ve moved on. You should do the same.” She looked at her watch again. “Now you have two and a half minutes.”

  “So, it’s you and Michael now, huh?” Peter said before he could stop himself.

  “That’s none of your damn business,” she said, turning again and walking away.

  “That guy’s a real piece of work,” he replied, following her.

  “He was there,” she said. “Where were you?”

  “Come on, Tess,” he said. “I’ve seen how he treats women. You can do so much better than a loser like that.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Look,” she said without turning. “You don’t get to walk out of my life, with no explanation, and then suddenly turn up out of nowhere and start lecturing me.”

  To be fair, she wasn’t wrong.

  And he’d allowed himself to lose sight of his immediate goal—to get her to help him. Not to give her grief about her romantic choices.

  So much for charm…

  But it wasn’t that simple. Part of the reason he’d run away from their relationship in the first place was that he was having a hard time dealing with the way he felt about her. She did things to his head. And seeing her again brought all those complicated, contradictory feelings back to the surface.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” he said, backtracking as best he could. “You’re right, I just… Is there somewhere we can talk?”

  She looked back at him, eyes softening just a little. Something in his voice must have touched a nerve.

  “I’m on the 6:45 to DC tomorrow morning, but I’ll be at the Lucky Star for the next—” she checked her watch—“eleven hours. You remember the Lucky Star, don’t you?”

  He did.

  “Thanks, Tess,” he said.

  She didn’t reply, just walked away, pulling her little roller suitcase along behind her.

  The bar in the lobby of the Lucky Star Hotel was a strange, schizophrenic knock-off of what a reclusive Asian entrepreneur had been convinced Americans would want.

  In reality, it looked like something aliens might have come up with, based on a single blurry photo of an eighties-era franchise where the waitresses wore short shorts, and the menu was printed on a football.

  Tess was sitting at the end of the bar, alone, drinking her usual Manhattan with two cherries. She had changed out of her frumpy flight attendant uniform and into a sheer, barely-there wisp of a white dress that floated around her lithe body like mist. All the other Americans and Europeans in the bar looked sweaty and rumpled, but Tess seemed perfectly at ease, despite the tropical swelter.

  She had the knack. Supremely adaptable—a chameleon, able to pass as native wherever she went.

  Seeing her dressed like that, he found himself hoping for… what?

  “Hey,” he said, easing himself onto the stool beside her.

  “You want something,” she said. “Other than my charming company, I mean.” She held up a finger to the bartender, who brought Peter a Tiger beer. “So why don’t you just get it over with. I don’t have all night.” There was a subtext to that, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

  “It’s good to see you, too,” he said, clinking his bottle against her glass and taking a much-needed slug.

  He told her a heavily edited version of the bad deal and the encounter with the strange Englishman, trying to paint himself as an innocent bystander who’d wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He played up the helping sick kids angle, and how he just wanted to do the right thing by returning the virus to its rightful owner in the States. Though he didn’t call it a virus.

  He called it a “cure.”

  She listened quietly until he was done, then burst out laughing.

  “What?” he asked, trying to look hurt.

  “Sick kids?” she asked. “You really expect me to believe that? Come on, Peter. Come clean. What’s the real angle? It’s Big Eddie, isn’t it?”

  “Well…” He looked away.

  “I thought so.” She shook the ice in her glass and then, polishing off the last sip of her drink, continued. “Remind me how this is my problem?”

  “Look,” he said softly, taking her hand. She jerked slightly, but didn’t pull it away. “I know you’ve got no reason to help me, after the way things went between us.”

  “The way things went.” She rolled her eyes. “You say that like it rained, or your soufflé fell. Things didn’t just go that way, Peter. You went
that way.”

  “You’re right, I know,” he said. “I admit it, I was a jerk. Probably still am, but I’d like to stay alive, and maybe to try and make it up to you, if I can. If you’ll help me.”

  He could see in her dark eyes that she was wrestling with herself over this, and the fact that she was even considering it felt like a major victory. He didn’t want to push too hard, so he backed off and let her come around in her own time.

  “What do you need me to do?”

  He took the vial out of his pocket. He’d wrapped it in several layers of waxed paper and packing tape to hide the glaring red biohazard sticker. Nevertheless, the package was small—about four inches long. It could have been anything.

  “I need you to get this to DC, that’s all,” he said. “It’s the cure—and if the wrong people get their hands on it, it’ll never make it back to the laboratory. They’ll keep it to themselves, find a way to profit from it.” He winced inwardly at that. “But it’s fragile, so be careful.” He pushed it toward her gently. “I’ll meet you there. At Finley’s, okay?”

  “You really are a jerk,” she said, taking the vial and slipping it into her purse. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Tess,” he said, pressing her other hand to his lips. “I owe you big time.”

  “Yeah,” she said, smiling a little bit in spite of herself. “You do.”

  Suddenly she pulled away and stood, turning toward the entrance. Michael Kelly appeared in the doorway, frowning toward them with suspicious eyes. She moved quickly to him without another word to Peter, taking his arm and leading him out onto the street, all the while speaking softly near his ear. Peter had no right to feel jealous, and yet in that moment, he could have happily punched Kelly in the face.

  But he squelched the thought. That kind of testosterone-fueled drama would blow the fragile truce he’d forged with Tess, and just then it was more important to get the virus back to the States, so he could score the payoff he needed to keep his neck out of Big Eddie’s noose.

  So he sat quietly and finished his beer. When it was done, he left a few crumpled bills on the bar and was about to head out into the bustling street when his latest disposable cell phone rang. There was only one person who had that number.