Fringe 03 - Sins of the Father

by Christa Faust

  “I’ve been working on that,” she said, “but it hasn’t been my highest priority. I’ve got some inactivated samples of the virus to work with, back at the lab, and I’ve had some computer models running. The virus has a regulatory protein and there’s some indication that introducing a new amino acid might fold that protein into…” She stopped, and studied his face. “I’m sorry, am I getting too technical? I do that sometimes.”

  “No, that’s fine. I’m following. Mostly. Proteins are developed from chains of amino acids into 3D forms, right? And the form it takes changes its function?”

  “Right,” she said. “Different acids lead to different structures. Folded one way, the protein does its job. Folded another, it can have disastrous effects on an organism, like causing cystic fibrosis, or creating amyloid plaques in the brain leading to Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.”

  “Mad cow disease.”

  “Right. Some viruses have proteins that make up a protective coating.”

  “That’s the capsid, right?” Peter said, dredging up long-forgotten biology lessons. He was a little surprised that he could remember it. He hadn’t had to think about any of this stuff for years.

  “Yes,” she replied, “But this one also has a protein it uses to regulate function. The last models I ran suggested that introducing a new amino acid into the mix would cause a mis-fold of the protein, essentially rendering the virus inert and unable to function properly. Introduced into an infected host, the virus with the mis-fold should transfer the new protein to the rest, and halt the process.”

  Peter thought about that for a second.

  “Infect the infection.”

  “Basically, yes.”

  “How far did you get?”

  “I left a model running on the computers in the lab before I came to meet you.” She looked at her watch. “It takes a long time for the calculations to run as it goes through different fold permutations, but if it’s not finished now, it should be soon.”

  Peter checked his email.

  “Nothing from Stokes yet. Not surprising. It could be hours before he gets back to us.” If he gets back to us at all. “Why don’t we check on the progress of the model? You said it’s in your lab?”

  “Yes,” Julia said, her face creasing into a frown. “But what if the Englishman’s there?”

  “I don’t think he will be. They had a chance to grab you earlier, and they didn’t take it. You don’t have any live virus at the lab, right? Just dead samples? I think they probably have what they wanted. Still, I can go in on my own and check it out. You can stay here.”

  “No,” she said. “You won’t know what you’re looking for. We’ll go together.” She took Peter’s hands in her own. They were cold, shaking.

  “We’ll be okay,” he said. “I promise.”

  “That’s it?” Peter said, parking the car.

  The Center for Seizure Disorder Research looked a lot more impressive on its website. Forced perspective in the marketing photos had taken a small, generic office building in an industrial park in Hartford, with its stucco walls and dark glass front door and windows, and made it look as though it were part of something larger. Instead of the sprawling complex the photos implied, it was a single-story building that couldn’t hold more than a few offices and a moderately sized lab.

  His sense of anticlimax must have come across in his tone. He caught Julia frowning at him.

  “It may not look like much, “she said, “but there’s more science going on in that building than in most universities in the country.”

  “Not saying there isn’t,” he said. “Better than a lot of places I’ve seen.” Better than Walter’s lab, that was for sure. All he had was a dingy set of rooms at Harvard. At least this place wasn’t stuck in a basement.

  “You’ve seen a lot of labs?”

  “Enough,” he said, getting out of the car and heading toward the building. “Come on. Let’s see what we can—”

  Peter paused near the front door, putting a hand out to stop Julia from going further. She had her keys in her hand and froze when she saw it.

  The glass door had been shattered.

  Only a handful of cars were scattered through the lot, and theirs was the only one parked near the building. Peter didn’t think anyone was still here, but he couldn’t rule it out.

  He wished he had a gun. He’d searched through Westerson’s house, looking for something that might come in handy, but all he could find was a small can of pepper spray. It wasn’t much, but it was something. He pulled it out of his pocket and edged slowly toward the door.

  “This the alarm panel?” Peter asked, pointing to a small metal box. The front of it was torn off and the wires had been stripped, alligator-clipped together to short it out. Julia nodded, eyes wide with fear. She held her keys in a tight fist, Peter noted, making an impromptu weapon.

  He edged the door open with his foot. Shattered glass lay strewn across the floor of the small lobby.

  “Where’s the lab?” he said. “Is anyone normally here at this time?”

  “Not on a Saturday, no,” she said, stepping over the shards. “Lab’s in the back. God, if they’ve destroyed my research…”

  She pushed past Peter and headed toward a set of double metal doors at the end of a small hallway. The keypad next to these doors was just as damaged as the one in the front.

  The room they entered was split by two thick, Plexiglas partitions, which created an airlock between the two that that held a few hazmat suits, and a decontamination shower. Their side of the room held computers and desks, the other side held centrifuges, refrigerators, microscopes, and other lab equipment. The whole place had been tossed. Computers lay on the floor, chairs overturned. In the clean room all of the refrigerators were open and broken glass containers were strewn across the floor.

  He tried not to think what might have been in them.

  Vials of slide stains, used for enhancing the visibility of bacteria and cells under a microscope, lay broken on the floor, leaving dark patches of red and blue that someone had walked through, resulting in a track from one room to the other.

  Peter bent down and studied a footprint. It was dry.

  “This is hours old,” he said, sliding the pepper spray back into his pocket. “Whoever did this is gone now.”

  “Damn,” Julia said. “This is worse than when they stole the virus the first time.”

  “Is anything missing?”

  “I can’t tell.” She bent down to one of the laptops on the floor. Though the screen was cracked, it was still on, and it sprang to life when she tapped a key. “At least we have some good news.”

  “Oh?”

  “They didn’t destroy the computers. The folding program has been running since I started it.” She tapped a few keys, pulled up a chart on the screen. “This is promising. There are a few candidates here for the folding sequence we need.”

  “That is good news,” he agreed. “What now?”

  “Without a live sample of the virus, all I can do is run more computer models,” Julia said. She tapped some more keys. “But this is a good start. There’s one in particular that looks like it might do the trick. I’ll get started.”

  “Will it work?” he said.

  “I can’t say for certain,” she said. “Normally we’d need a live sample, infected subjects, and thorough testing. Barring those, we won’t know until we try it.”

  “Hopefully we won’t have to use it at all,” Peter said. “Anything I can do?”

  She smiled at him.

  “Sit there and look pretty?”

  “I don’t know if I can do pretty. How about ruggedly handsome?”

  “That works,” she said. “Oh, and if they haven’t destroyed the coffee maker, maybe make us a pot? This could take a while.”

  * * *

  Peter sipped the coffee and checked his email for the third time in an hour. He hated waiting, and he was getting restless.

  Though the lab had been trashe
d, several of the room’s computers were still intact. After finding a laptop that worked, then getting it up and running, he was able to get online while Julia tweaked her program and ran her models. There wasn’t much he could contribute on that front. He understood the concepts, had enough of a grounding in biology that he could follow along, but the data was so dense it would take him three times as long to interpret information that Julia already knew by heart.

  So he contented himself with drinking his coffee and waiting for Stokes’s email to appear.

  “You’re doing it again,” Julia said.

  “What?”

  “Drumming on the table.” She looked up from a spreadsheet of data and rubbed her eyes. “I know this is boring, but I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “How about I go and get us sandwiches, or something. Stretch my legs a bit.”

  The computer chimed, drawing his attention back to his screen. In his email was a message from Bernard Stokes.

  “Is that your friend?” Julia asked eagerly.

  “Friend might be stretching the definition a bit, but yes.”

  If the message really was from Stokes, then he would have encrypted it with one-half of an encryption key for which only Peter had the match, just as Peter had done when he sent the original message. Peter ran the decryption software, and a minute later he had a long poem of gibberish on the screen.

  “Do you have a pen?” he asked. He found a business card on the floor from an up-ended wastebasket, while Julia searched for a pen, finding one under a drawer that had been yanked out of one of the desks.

  Stokes’s security measures were a pain in the ass, but Peter understood the need to be careful. Peter had to worry about local cops and people like Big Eddie. But Stokes operated at a level where one wrong move could mean a visit from the feds, or a highly paid assassin. Such was the life when you dealt with the very rich.

  He counted every fifth letter in the message until he had an address on Capitol Avenue in Hartford. There weren’t as many payphones as there used to be, so it was probably a public place like a gas station or a diner.

  He checked the address online and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Julia said.

  “An old joke,” he said, and stood up. “I’m going to check this out.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No, I got this.” Peter grabbed his jacket. “Besides, we need to get that antiviral figured out as soon as possible.”

  “Okay. Where exactly is it you’re going?”

  “To find religion.”

  BOSTON, MA 2005

  A cold, rainswept, December day. Peter was acting as a go-between for a socialite whose daughter was fighting a particularly nasty form of leukemia. Stokes had the product, an experimental cancer drug that had been mysteriously “liberated” from a lab in New York, while the socialite had the money.

  Peter didn’t know the particulars, didn’t even know the socialite’s name. He’d gotten the job through a friend, Nathan Wallace, who owed him a favor, and Peter wanted to stay as much in the dark as possible. What he did know was that the girl was in bad shape, and the woman would do anything in her power to save her child. So for a cut off the top, Peter was going to play drug mule.

  “You’re Peter Bishop,” Stokes said by way of greeting. “Wallace vouches for you.” They stood in the nave of the St. Joseph Catholic Church. He was a short, wiry man in his fifties, with skin that was tight on his face and gray hair that stuck up, giving him the appearance of a bristle-brush.

  “You’re Bernard Stokes,” Peter replied. “He vouches for you, too.” He looked around. “Where’s the product?”

  “Where’s the money?”

  Peter hefted a metal briefcase in his hand.

  “Presumably here.”

  “Presumably?”

  “I’m just the errand boy. I haven’t looked, haven’t counted it. I don’t even have the combination. Could be a stack of dead fish, as far as I know.”

  “Well, let’s hope not.” Stokes reached out. “Give it here.”

  Peter handed the briefcase over. Stokes put it on top of one of the church pews and spun the combination lock. It snapped open, and Stokes looked at the stacks of hundred-dollar bills inside, all neatly wrapped in their mustard-colored currency straps. He closed the case and nodded at a nearby statue.

  “You’ll find what you’re looking for behind the Blessed Virgin.”

  “Much obliged,” Peter said. He walked over, and found a similar briefcase behind the statue. He didn’t bother looking inside. He wouldn’t know what he was looking at, but from its heft and the way it shifted in his hand, he guessed it was full of plastic IV bags.

  He was about to leave when a gunshot echoed through the church. The bullet hit the far side of the wall, sending shards of stone flying. He and Stokes dropped to the floor.

  “Something I should know about?” Peter muttered, trying to keep his voice from echoing all through the church. He looked under the pews, and saw the feet of three men wearing dress slacks and long, black coats. They were entering the church, and bickering. Seemed the one who had fired had gotten ahead of himself, and the other two were chewing him out over it.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Stokes said.

  “Like I said, I’m just the errand boy.”

  “Dammit,” Stokes said. “Probably the girl’s father. Horrible man. Been involved in an ugly custody battle with his wife. Now that the poor thing’s got cancer, it seems he wants to use her medication as leverage against his wife. One of those, ‘if he can’t have her, no one will’ sorts of things. Man’s a psychopath.”

  “That’s messed up. How do you know all that?”

  “I do thorough research regarding every business transaction,” Stokes said. Then he looked around. “How the hell do we get out of here? I’ve never been in a church before.”

  So much for thorough research, Peter thought.

  “Not getting shot would be a good start.”

  Stokes just looked at him as if he was an idiot. Peter scanned the room from his lowered vantage point, and saw a doorway on the side of the nave two rows up from their position. He pulled a pen from his pocket.

  “I don’t think they know exactly where we are,” he said. “So when I throw this, crawl as quickly and quietly as you can to that door.” He gestured to indicate where he should go.

  Peter tossed the pen under the pews. It skittered across the floor, the sound echoing loudly in the empty church. He watched the men rush to the other side of the room, and then quickly followed Stokes to the door.

  It didn’t take long for their pursuers to figure out they’d been had. Stokes and Peter had just made it to the parking lot when more shots rang out, barely missing Stokes and blowing out a tire instead.

  “This way!” Peter yelled, grabbing a clearly panicked Stokes and shoving him toward his own car.

  “Hooligans!” someone yelled. Peter looked behind him to see an old priest running out of the church brandishing an umbrella. The three men, surprised by the screaming priest, panicked and ran, giving Peter and Stokes just enough time to get into the car.

  Moments later, they were peeling out of the parking lot. Stokes shook from the adrenaline, and crossed himself—awkwardly and incorrectly.

  “Wrong order.”

  “What?”

  “It’s left, then right,” Peter said. “Not the other way around. Did you just find religion?”

  “There are no atheists in foxholes,” Stokes replied. “Bullshit,” Peter said, but he laughed. “Where am I dropping you off?”

  “Anywhere with alcohol,” Stokes said.

  NEAR HARTFORD, CT 2008

  The Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Capitol Avenue in Hartford was an imposing, red-brick structure with two wide towers flanking an entrance with large, arched stained-glass windows running along the sides. Peter stood on the steps and wondered if Stokes realized just how closely this
place resembled St. Joseph’s in Boston, where the two of them had met.

  The man has a healthy sense of irony, he mused.

  Peter walked into the church and looked for the payphone. It didn’t take him long to find it next to the restrooms near the side entrance. Stokes wasn’t one to sit by a phone, waiting for a call. Whatever number he had given Peter was undoubtedly a burner. The man probably had dozens of them.

  He punched in a code Stokes had sent him and waited for the dial tone to shift before punching the phone number in. He let it ring three times and hung up.

  A few seconds later the payphone rang.

  “Did you just find religion?” Stokes said the moment Peter picked up.

  “There are no atheists in foxholes,” Peter said.

  “Bullshit,” Stokes said. “What can I do for you, Peter? Your message said something about an epilepsy drug.”

  “What do you know about the Center for Seizure Disorder Research?”

  “Julia Lachaux,” Stokes said immediately. “Thought that might be her work you were describing. Some fascinating experiments using viruses, of all things, though there appears to be some controversy over the direction her treatment is taking. Rumors abound that it could overwrite a person’s DNA, though how exactly isn’t entirely clear.

  “She’s published very little about it, and most of the news out of her lab is vague at best. One particularly juicy tidbit is that the virus was stolen from her lab a short while ago.”

  “It was,” Peter said.

  “Oh, that could be bad,” Stokes said. “Especially if some of the other rumors are true. Particularly the one that says it’s based on smallpox.”

  “That one’s true, too,” Peter said. Stokes said nothing for a long time. “You there?”

  “I’m digesting all this,” Stokes said. “All right, boy, out with it. I think you need to tell me everything.”