by Dave Edlund
“Ahh! What’s that for?” he asked, the pitch of his voice higher than normal, suggesting a sliver of fear taking root in his mind.
“What was it you said to Kenny? Oh, yeah. Something about when the gray bastard gets the taste of blood, nothing will stop him.”
“Look bitch, I’ve done everything you wanted. What the hell is your problem? Let me go!”
“You’re my problem Reggie, but I’m about to take care of that.” She walked around, standing near his head, and squatted down in front of his face. “Oh, and for the record, my name is not bitch—it’s karma.”
She stood and walked out of the cage, headed for the kennels.
“Hey! Don’t leave me here!”
“Goodbye, Reggie.”
“Where are you going?”
“To get a friend of yours.”
“No! Please! Don’t leave me!”
Back in the cold night air, Danya dragged the gagged and trussed guard farther away from the barn and out of the way of the kennel gates. The large gray male that had been the final victor of the evening was wary of her approach, emitting a guttural growl, a warning to stay away. She unlatched the gate and then opened it, taking care to stay behind the steel mesh as it swung open. The opened gate blocked the path between the two rows of kennels, so the only way the gray canine could go was back into the barn, a path it had probably taken many times and seemed to recognize.
With its blocky head in line with its muscular shoulders, the tormented creature entered the barn. There it stopped and raised its head, nostrils flaring. It detected an enticing mix of aromas—greasy pork and blood.
At a faster pace, it closed the distance to the fighting cage. It paused, wary of this place that had always brought pain and fear. Sniffing the air, the gray male locked on to the source of the odors.
Reggie saw the dog coming, and in the distance, at the door to the kennels, he saw Danya. She was clutching the bulging duffel bag and he could have sworn she mouthed the words karma’s a bitch.
Reggie struggled frantically against his bonds. “No! No! Please! Don’t leave me!”
She closed the door just as the first screams came from Reggie.
Chapter 5
La Pine, Oregon
March 3
With the aid of her handheld GPS unit, Danya covered the roughly two-mile distance to her truck in about twenty minutes. Stealth was not a significant issue anymore, and she maintained a steady speed, weaving between the trees and dense patches of immature evergreens, preferring the moonlit openings whenever possible.
The forest service road she had parked alongside was little more than a rutted dirt path that at one time had served as a road for log trucks to haul their valuable cargo out of the forest. The road had not been maintained in decades, but fortunately it was still passable with a rig that had high ground clearance and four-wheel drive.
The rough condition of the road was a plus, as it meant she was very unlikely to encounter any traffic—not like the maintained gravel lane that directed visitors to Reggie’s barn every few weeks. She placed her tomahawk and weapons on the passenger seat and then climbed into the Ford pickup. After starting the engine, she dialed 9-1-1.
“What is the nature of your emergency?” the voice said.
“There’s some men running a dogfighting ring. Tell the sheriff he’ll find them at a barn on private land just north of La Pine.” Danya read the coordinates for the barn from her GPS. There was a pause, and she imagined the operator was making a notation on paper. She didn’t repeat the coordinates since she knew the call was recorded and available for reference.
“Are you there now?” the operator asked.
“Where I am doesn’t matter. The men are armed and dangerous. They tried to kill me.”
“Are you okay ma’am? What’s your name?”
“I’m a concerned citizen—you don’t need to know my name. Oh, and you’d better send animal control and a veterinary doctor if you can get one out of bed. Those dogs that are still alive are badly hurt.”
“Is anyone injured? Do we need an EMT?”
Danya paused before answering. She turned the wheel and slowly nudged her truck forward on the rutted dirt road.
“Yeah, the lucky ones. You might need a couple EMTs.”
“Ma’am. Where are—”
Danya disconnected the call and threw the cheap burner phone out the window. She’d pay cash for another phone tomorrow. With both hands firmly gripping the steering wheel, she accelerated the Ford, slowing just enough when a rut or hole was encountered to maintain control. Soon, she came to the junction of Highway 97 and turned left, heading north for Bend.
s
It was still dark when she arrived at the RV park between Bend and Redmond. She turned off the headlights and navigated by the dim amber glow of the parking lights. She parked next to a modest travel trailer, turned the engine off, and quietly closed the door, not wanting to attract any attention.
Inside the trailer, Danya placed a pot of water on the gas stove. She was still running on adrenalin and a cup of herbal tea would help her to relax.
She glanced at her watch. “Might as well do something useful,” she murmured to herself as she powered up her laptop. Only a few emails had been received since the last time she’d checked her mailbox several days ago, and all were junk—except for one. It had been received less than two hours ago. The sender’s address simply read ‘[email protected]’, and he called himself Carlos, although she doubted that was his real name.
Danya had found Carlos through the dark web, and both parties had insisted on anonymity. In fact, Danya knew almost nothing about Carlos. She didn’t even know his gender, but she assumed he was male based on his phrasing of messages and his chosen name.
“New job you might be interested in,” he wrote. “A contract on an American. Reply for details.”
She started typing, hoping that Carlos was still at his computer. “Like I’ve told you before, I don’t do that type of work anymore.”
The water began to boil and Danya filled a cup and added a tea bag. As she sat down, a reply came in from Carlos. “I know. But like I said, you might be interested in this one.”
She pinched her eyebrows. “Why?”
“The mark—I believe you may know him. His name is Peter Savage.”
She stared at the monitor for a full minute, her mind filled with swirling thoughts. “How do you know that?”
“The police report about that incident in the Cascade Mountains. The media called it the Battle at Broken Top.”
“You hacked the Bend police report?”
“Of course. Mr. Savage seems to be the main character, although I think you’re named in it, too. Nadya Wheeler is one of your aliases, right?”
“Not anymore.”
“My instinct tells me that you know a lot about what happened out there, maybe even why the police were so convinced he was a murderer, but then cleared his name almost immediately after he surrendered. Curious that you went missing. Seems the authorities would still like to talk to you.”
“The feeling is not mutual.” Danya continued typing. “And before you get any stupid ideas about turning me in, forget it. You’ve got nothing on me other than an IP address which can’t be linked to a physical address.”
“Relax. I don’t snitch—bad for business. Just letting you know, that’s all.”
“Why are you telling me this? I don’t do murder for hire.”
“Like I said, just thought you might want to know. Besides, that information you shared with me about the Sinaloa cartel proved to be quite valuable to the right people. Consider this a return favor, payback. Anyway, this guy—Peter Savage—the contract is large. It’s already drawing attention.”
“From whom?” Danya asked.
“Can’t say. All I can see is that several persons have replied. From their questions, some are pros, others may be amateurs trying to look like professionals. But even an amateur can get lucky.”
Danya’s mind was racing. She’d had zero contact with Peter following the gunfight on the slopes of Broken Top about a year and a half ago. She’d left Mossad right after that and had been on the run ever since. “Who put out the contract?”
“Someone with a hell of a lot of money. And they don’t want him alive, proof of death is all that is required for payment. You’re a smart lady, so you tell me who would be motivated to pay five million for this guy’s head?”
Chapter 6
Eugene, Oregon
March 4
Roger Corbett wasn’t the typical corporate tour guide. He didn’t work in the marketing department, nor research and development. As the head of security, he managed a small army of well-trained guards. He had been in Simon Ming’s employ since the founding of Utopian-Bio. The pay was good, generous in fact, and he was smart enough to understand that that meant the science being done under Ming’s direction wasn’t exactly the type of work that would receive widespread approval.
Presently, he was standing outside one of Utopian-Bio’s clean rooms, looking in through a wall of safety glass. Each room was constructed to biosafety level 4 standards. The specialized lab was maintained at negative pressure so that any airborne pathogens would be forced through the sterilizing, high-efficiency filtration systems. Scientists clad in level A hazmat suits, complete with a full-facepiece and self-contained breathing apparatus, were busy tending to experiments in specially-designed hoods. Several benches ran perpendicular to the windows lining the hallway. The tops of the benches held a range of laboratory equipment, only some of which were recognized by Corbett—centrifuges, digital balances, automatic pipetting machines, incubators, and a bank of DNA sequencing machines lined up along the far wall.
Despite the safety protocols and equipment, Corbett preferred to be outside looking in through the windows which afforded visibility of everything going on in the room. With the approval of Simon Ming, he was taking Darnell Price on a confidential tour of the research labs. They were accompanied by a senior scientist and trusted member of Ming’s team.
“You believe you’ve manufactured the correct agent?” Darnell asked the scientist who was describing the work currently being undertaken. The scientist pointed to a figure inside the clean room who was holding a large culture flask with both hands for Darnell to examine. It contained an amber-colored fluid.
“We do,” the scientist explained. “Genetically engineered to be stable in water for a month, the virus is close to perfection in design. We drew on the genetic code—nothing more than a large collection of base pairs—from hepatitis C and mumps. This allowed our scientists to modify both the protein shell and membrane envelope surrounding the virus. Once ingested or inhaled, infection is guaranteed.”
“Sounds complicated. How confident are you in the effectiveness of this engineered virus?”
“We’ve tested the ability of the virus to infect human tissue cultures in limited trials in the lab,” the scientist explained. “In fact, that’s how we reproduce the virus—using human tissue medium.” He continued to explain that the virus was grown in a fluid suspension, and once mature, the pathogen was extracted and dried onto a water-soluble substrate.
Inside the clean room, the flask was returned to an incubation chamber, one of a dozen placed around the room. The scientist, with Corbett in tow, moved along the windows and directed Darnell’s attention to another section of the clean room where a machine was slowly removing liquid from a spinning suspension. “This is the drying operation,” he explained. “We have ten more batches after this one, and then we are done with production here.”
“Will the manufacturing process be carried out elsewhere?” Darnell asked.
“This is a pilot facility. Once any new process is validated, we always export volume manufacturing to other sites. That’s easily accomplished with the dry agent. We have a small supply in the refrigerator,” he motioned, Darnell’s gaze following.
In a corner of the clean room near the window was a large double-door refrigerator. The doors were glazed, and inside Darnell saw dozens of square, wide-mouth jars. The lids appeared to be sealed in place with a tamper resistant ring. “The dried agent is stored here until it is needed for testing or to seed off-site manufacturing operations. Refrigerated and dried, the virus agent can be stored for years and still remain viable. All of the containers you see here will be delivered to more than a dozen manufacturers around the country to begin their own cultures.”
“Why not simply produce the virus here?” Darnell asked.
“Given time, we could. And that would be easier,” the scientist replied. “But it might attract attention. Utopian-Bio is an R and D company, and if we started producing quantities of the virus, other employees might take notice. Only a handful of us are involved in this project—we compartmentalize the information and share only on a need-to-know basis.”
“That makes sense.”
“Do you have any other questions?” the scientist asked.
Darnell shook his head. “No, thank you. This is very impressive, and I commend you and your team. Brilliant work.”
The scientist thanked Darnell and excused himself.
“Very impressive,” Darnell repeated to Roger Corbett.
“Dr. Ming has impressed upon me how important it is that you have confidence in our operation.”
“Then I trust you are making arrangements for the volume manufacturing? I mean, other than preparing the virus as a dried powder, there are many details that will require attention in order to set up proper facilities. If our experiment goes well, we should begin production soon, I think.”
Corbett nodded. “Dr. Ming approved your suggestion to use an unregistered lab for the production.”
Darnell smiled at Corbett’s choice of wording. He knew from his career in the medical equipment business that illicit drug laboratories were typically provisioned with high-tech laboratory equipment stolen from chemistry labs and medical centers.
“Just to be clear,” Darnell said, “I have a lot of exposure here. This needs to be a clean operation. Nothing can be traced back to me. If anything goes wrong, I’m not taking the fall for anyone.”
Corbett narrowed his eyes. “Just to be clear, is that a threat?”
“No. It’s a fact.”
s
Darnell Price ran his fingers along the stainless-steel pipe, imagining the flow of water the pipe would carry during the bottling process.
“Working late again, Mr. Price?”
He turned, startled by the voice. It was the shift manager.
“Oh, yeah, I suppose so. This new filtration system cost a small fortune,” he said, indicating the array of cylindrical filter housings, pressure gauges, valves, and piping. Cascade Aqua normally only ran two shifts a day. But the bottling line had been down to complete the upgrades, so Darnell had temporarily implemented a third shift to catch up on production.
“The technicians just completed the installation an hour ago,” the manager explained. “We’ll be bringing it online real soon, following the shift change. The manufacturer says these filters will remove any single-cell bugs that might be in the water.”
Darnell nodded. “That’s the idea. The EPA and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality are pushing out new regulations. After cryptosporidium and giardia were detected in the Bull Run watershed outside of Portland, I think it spooked the regulators. Everyone thought Bull Run had some of the cleanest water in the country.”
“I thought the new regulations won’t take effect until next year?” the manager asked.
“True, but just imagine the customer backlash if someone gets sick from my bottled water. The brand—the value of the product name Cascade Aqua Natural—is what sustains this business. Anyone can bottle water.”
“Pretty smart, Mr. Price. Staying ahead of the curve.”
He nodded again. “And, the marketing department is ready to roll out a series of ads touting our new, state-of-the-
art filtration process to assure the health of our customers. It’ll send our competitors scrambling to catch up. I expect to erode at least five percent of their customer base.”
“Brilliant, Mr. Price. Well, I have to oversee to the shift change. Have a good evening, sir.”
Darnell watched as the manager walked away and rounded the corner. Then he donned latex gloves and popped open the clamp holding a flanged steel cap on the last filter housing in the array. Reaching into his pocket, he removed a sealed plastic bag holding less than an ounce of off-white granules. Using a ballpoint pen, he punched a hole through both sides of the bag, careful not to spill the contents. He removed the steel cap and dropped the bag into the filter housing, then replaced the cap and secured the clamp. The entire process took less than thirty seconds.
s
Ben Jarvis knocked on the door and then entered. “You wanted to see me, Mr. Price?”
Darnell looked up from the stack of checks he was signing. Even though he was already extremely successful and wealthy, he still maintained daily involvement in the management and operations of the company.
“Good morning, Ben. I understand the new filtration line worked well last night?”
“Yes. According to Operations, the graveyard shift had no issues at all with it. As you directed, they ran the line at a little more than half the normal production rate and everything was fine. No problems with the new filters. Pressure drop was within specifications. We should be fine to ramp up production.”
“Better to start slow and make sure there are no issues.”
“I completely agree, Mr. Price. Anyway, it’s all wrapped and on pallets, ready to ship.”
