by Jason Briggs
“That’s—that’s not what they told me,” Parker cried out.
“And yet, that’s exactly what happened,” I said. “Marcus Treadwell was scared out of his mind and left the only life he had ever wanted. And then, to top it off, his life was threatened in order to keep him quiet about any wrongdoing.
Parker was shaking his head now, a distant look on his face. His expression had turned into one of horror, and I could see true and honest guilt pouring out of him.
“So,” I continued, “why don’t you kindly share with us how in the hell you and Brooks got that drug into our boys to begin with?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Parker looked like an abused animal, utterly defeated and scared.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Save it,” I said. “Everyone is sorry after they get caught. The way I see it, the way a jury is going to see it, you’re just as complicit as everyone else.”
“I swear, when I came to Brooks with the formula, I didn’t know he would do something like that. I honestly thought we would be helping people with it. I just wanted to make sure that, since I was the one who discovered it, that I would profit from it. I didn’t know he was going to flip the idea and go testing it on soldiers.”
“And yet, when he proposed the idea, you went along with it. You didn’t blow the whistle.”
“No. I didn’t.” The admission came out in nearly a whisper.
“So I’ll ask you again. Who got that drug into the men in that Delta element? Those soldiers aren’t exactly accessible.”
Parker didn’t answer right away. It was like he was pondering that final step over the cliff. As if what he had said up to this point hadn’t been enough to betray the cause. He closed his eyes. “There are others—two men, as far as I know—on the inside. Two Army officers. A Major General and a Major.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I swear.”
“No way,” Brad snapped. “A two-star general isn’t going to betray the service. Not like that.”
“Maybe not your average two-star,” Parker said. “But you do if your ex-brother-in-law is the senior vice president of MercoKline.”
I stared at him. “You’re kidding?”
“No. General Sheldon was married to Brooks’s older sister for almost thirty years. They got divorced a couple years ago. Brooks brought his idea to Sheldon, and Sheldon found Major Dodson to administer it.”
“Who does Dodson report to?” Brad asked.
“He’s a doctor at JSOC.”
My anger flared again. JSOC is the Joint Special Operations Command. It’s headquartered at Fort Bragg and oversees all Special Missions Units, including DEVGRU—formally Seal Team 6—Delta, and the 75th Ranger Regimental.
“You want me to believe that a medical officer at JSOC administered what he knew to be a drug intended to harm our men?”
“How else would they have gotten it? Brooks offered him a lot of money, too.”
“Hold on a minute,” Brad said. “Let’s say for a minute that you’re telling the truth. And I’m not convinced that you are. But...if some Major did do that, then how did he get away with the chaos that resulted? There would have been an investigation.”
“There was a preliminary investigation. Losing six guys like that hit JSOC hard. But the investigation came back inconclusive and the file was shut. Dodson leaked something about tainted vaccine boosters and that was that.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “They would have done autopsies. How did they not find anything in their systems?”
“Because the drug, it leaves no ash—no traces. Twelve hours after administering it, it looks like saline in your blood. And by then it’s done all the damage.”
“So that’s it?” I said. “You all just shut up shop and tucked the project away until Douglas Peterson started asking questions again?”
Parker huffed and shook his head. “No. We didn’t tuck the project away. We went back and reworked the science. We’ve got it this time. It’s perfect and Dodson is taking this new batch to try on a few Green Berets after they ship out next week.”
That last sentence sent a chill down my neck. “Again? You all are doing this again?” I didn’t wait for an answer. I uncrossed my arms and sent my fist plowing into the side of Parker’s face. His chair flew off to the side, toppling onto the hard pine floor where Parker landed with a grunt.
Brad and I left him where he was for five minutes, neither of us speaking, both of us wanting to tear the scientist limb from limb. It was Brad who finally picked him back up and set his chair aright.
I looked at Parker. His upper lip was caked with blood and his cheek was already swollen to the size of a softball. “I'm inclined to use that knife on you,” I said. “Tell me what else I need to know.”
Parker worked his jaw and grimaced. When he spoke again, his words had a lisp. “I’ve spent the last nine months reworking the initial formula. On the first try, I had failed to account for a genetic split from a synuclein variation—a protein in the brain. But the drug is perfect now. It will work the way Brooks wants it to. Also,” Parker added, “I’ve got proof against Brooks about all this on email. I also have two short conversations on an audio file between me, Sheldon, and Dodson. It’s on my laptop at home.”
“So MercoKline has funded the research, but you and Brooks have kept it siloed from the other R&D departments?” Brad asked.
“Yes. I work alone in my own lab under his direct supervision.”
“Where is the initial formula?” I asked. “Do you still have some?”
“Yes. It’s at the lab. I’ve had to use it as a baseline for current research. It’s in a secure refrigerator that can only be accessed by me or Brooks.”
“When you go in to work,” I said, “what does that process look like? How do you get into the lab?”
“What?”
“Did I stutter?”
“No. But why would you want to know that?”
“Because, Dr. Parker, you are going to help me break into MercoKline.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
MercoKline’s headquarters was located in a seven-story building in the center of a sprawling fifty-acre campus. The building was brand new, with construction completed on it just last year. Each floor was offset from the one below it; it looked like two enormous staircases wrapped in glass. It was chic and modern, with an open atrium set between the two odd-looking towers. A forward-looking design that was everything you would expect from one of the largest companies in the United States.
I had spent the last twenty-four hours working on a plan to get me into the building without raising any suspicion. Kathleen’s warning about keeping a low profile still rang in my ears. But my plan wasn’t going to work unless I could get into that building.
I was driving north on Route 41 in a pearl white Cadillac CTS: Dr. Parker’s car. I was alone. I had an earwig in, with Brad, Parker, and Spam on the other end; the former two at the cabin and Spam at his home office.
I had called Spam earlier in the day, updating him on the situation, that the FID was officially off the case, and could he help me off the record. He didn’t hesitate to say yes and said he had everything he needed to assist me at home. Which was akin to saying that, since we couldn’t use NASA to get to the moon, Spam had a command center, shuttle, and launch pad in his backyard. He had every gizmo and gadget you could imagine, an entire guest room stuffed with server racks and portable A/Cs to keep them cool. I had wondered more than once how he managed to pay for it all on a modest government salary. But I never bothered to ask him outright.
My earwig crackled and then his voice came through clearly. “Take your next left,” he said. I could feel the tension building in my shoulders. This had to work. If it didn’t, I ran the risk of showing our cards to the other side and not having a job when I returned to work. After reviewing the plans with Spam and meticulously planning the most achieved scenario, he said he put t
he odds of success somewhere in the low thirty percent range. I promptly told him that I wasn’t interested in the odds. Brad just made it clear that he didn’t want to go to jail.
“Your next turn,” Spam said, “will put you and the car on their exterior cameras. Standby.”
It was nearly midnight, when the building would be mostly deserted. Spam had spent the last several hours hacking into MercoKline’s security cameras. He would be able to feed a loop into the system so that the security footage didn’t show me coming or going from the building. The catch was, he couldn’t do it for more than eight minutes. Their system ran a check for such interferences on that interval. Spam, as good as he was, couldn’t override it. I had eight minutes from the time he started the loop to drive onto the campus, get inside and through security, do what I needed, and then not only exit the building, but drive away so that the car was off their exterior camera facing the main street. I was driving Parker’s car in the event that I couldn’t get away from the building fast enough and the camera picked up the vehicle.
Thirty percent chance.
“Okay,” he said. “Good luck, Tuna.” I rolled my eyes at the name he’d given me for tonight’s mission. “You’ll take your next turn. Just before you come around the doctor’s office on the corner, you’ll be in view of their cameras. On my mark.” I turned on my blinker and set my fingers on the edge of my watch. “Ready… Mark.” I pressed the timer on my watch and started into the turn, accelerating down Merco Avenue, the main road that led up to the drug company’s headquarters.
“Hold,” Spam said, and then a few seconds later, “We’re good. The feed’s loop is in place. You have eight minutes. The security guard can see you on their monitors driving in, but it’s not recording and it won’t live on their servers.”
I drove up to the massive building and navigated the Cadillac into a parking lot near the front. I turned the car off and got out, using a hurried stride to make my way across the sidewalk and to the front door. To blend right in, I was wearing dark slacks, a blue dress shirt, and a white lab coat.
I had spent some time with Parker, looking at floor plans of the building that Spam had provided. Parker walked me through each step of the entry process: where the security stations were, at what point to scan his badge, and exactly where I was going.
I entered at the front door and was immediately greeted by a security guard and a metal detector. Another guard was sitting behind a bank of monitors.
“Evening,” he said.
“Good evening.” I took out the contents of my pockets, in this case, the keys, a laminated badge with my photo on it, an aspirator, and my phone. I placed them in a plastic bowl and stepped through the metal detector with no problems. The guard set the bowl on the belt of an x-ray machine and pushed a button for it to start moving. The other guard watched a monitor as it passed through. Once it was on the other side, he gave me permission to retrieve my things.
The guard looked at my aspirator and shook his head. “I’ve got asthma something bad too. It got real bad there for a while where I thought I was going to have to quit my job here. But those little aspirators have saved my tail more than once.”
“Me too,” I said politely.
“You know, what’s really bad is when I’m in a hurry. I can feel my chest start to wrap itself in its own grip. If I don’t have my medicine, then I’m bound to go into one of those fits where I can’t get a breath for a few minutes.”
“Tuna,” Spam said. “You don’t have time to make new friends. Get moving.”
“Tell me about it,” I said and then started walking away. He looked like he was about to start saying something else but then didn't. “Have a good evening,” I said over my shoulder.
“You’ve already burned ninety seconds,” Spam said.
“I don’t need a by-the-second countdown, Spam.”
Brad’s was the next voice I heard. “You have six minutes and twenty-two seconds.”
I took a hallway to a set of double doors and scanned Parker’s badge. I heard the latch click and pushed open the door, then took my next right. There was a heavy door at the end with a sign that warned of unauthorized access. I removed a piece of waxed paper the size of a credit card from the pocket of my lab coat. I worked my finger beneath a film of transparent plastic and peeled it off. I reached out to place it on the thumb scanner when I heard Parker’s voice.
“Make sure you scan the badge before you try the scanner.”
I pulled my hand back just as the plastic was sliding onto the scanner. My heart was beating a little faster now. I silently chastised myself for getting the order reversed. I lifted the badge and scanned it, then an orange diode on the thumb scanner turned on. I set Parker’s thumb print on the glass and waited.
Nothing.
I shifted it around, careful not to smear the print.
Nothing.
“Spam?”
“Try flipping it over.” He didn’t sound very confident.
I did as he said and tried again. The diode moved from orange to green and gave two beeps. “Now,” Parker said, “there’s a keypad above the scanner. You’ll need to enter my code. It’s eight digits. You ready?” Neither he nor Brad could see me. Spam could, but Parker and Brad were only running audio out at the cabin.
Parker’s guilt had seemed to steadily increase since our conversation last night. He kept saying he was sorry, that he should have done something. Finally, he offered to help by his own volition instead of us having to compel him by threat of further pain. I didn’t really care that he wanted to help now. It was too late to make this right. Nine months too late.
“Ready,” I said, and I punched in the code as he started to relay it to me.
“Zero-eight-two-two-seven-nine-zero-five.”
The door latch gave and I pushed it open. I was in.
Chapter Thirty
The room was massive.
The ceiling was over twenty feet high and all around me were stainless steel tables filled with beakers, microscopes, computers, centrifuges, and plenty of other equipment that was completely foreign to me. A massive irony was the American flag standing in a corner. It made my stomach curl.
The first thing I did was look around to make sure I was alone. Parker said that he was the only one who had access to this lab, but for obvious reasons he was pretty low on my trust meter. There were no cameras in this lab, and Spam would be blind to me while I was in here.
Seeing no one, I quickly located a box of latex gloves, snatched two, and slid them on. Then I made my way to a corner where a commercial, stainless steel refrigerator stood eight feet high. A keypad was on the front door, as well as another thumb scanner. “Okay,” I said to Spam, “I’m at the refrigerator.”
“Okay. I need the model number. Check the back.”
Parker had informed us that, unlike with the lab itself, whenever this refrigerator was opened, Brooks received a private text message and email to notify him. Before I could open it, Spam had to jam the signal, but he couldn’t do that without knowing the model number; the signal notification option was built into the fridge at the time of manufacturing.
I slid to the side and slipped my fingers into the half-inch space between the concrete wall and the back of the fridge. I pulled back. It didn’t move. I braced myself and tried again, tugging back as hard as I could. Nothing. “Spam, I think it’s bolted in. I can’t get it to move.”
“Okay. There might be one on the inside of the door.” A brief silence as I rolled my eyes. “But I guess that doesn’t help us much. Um...check the sides. Maybe nearer to the floor.”
I got down on the floor and scanned the sides, looking for anything that might identify the model. Seeing nothing I moved around to the front and saw a thin, yellow strip of paper on the top edge of the air flow grate. “Got it.”
“Go,” Spam said.
I read it off to him and waited for an eternity. It didn’t help that Brad thought the silence was a good time for anoth
er time check.
“Five minutes.”
“Okay...you’re good, Tuna. Go.”
“Parker?” The scientist recited his code, which was different from the one used to access the lab. When I was finished punching it in, I scanned the thumb print and tugged on the door. It opened and bright LEDs illuminated the shelves within, which were filled with plastic cases and racks of tubes.
“Signal’s jammed,” Spam said. “Get your goodies and get out of there.”
Peterson had told me to look for a red tube rack on the back of the second shelf. I slid a styrofoam box to the side and peered behind it.
“Parker, it’s not here.”
“What? Um...try the bottom shelf? It’s a red one.”
I squatted down and looked around a hard plastic case. A red vial rack was standing behind it. I slid it out and plucked out a vial, turned it on its side, and read off the label. “X8-Mamba-YST.”
“That’s it.” Parker said. “That’s the one. There should be nine of them.”
There were nine of them, but I still couldn’t help but be a little skeptical. “Parker, if you’re lying to me—”
“I’m not. I swear.”
“Where’s the new batch?”
“On the inside door. In a small green case.”
“Four minutes.”
I located the green case and unlatched it, then removed a vial before returning the case to its place on the door. Next, I grabbed two vials of the first batch from the red tube rack and pushed it back.
I stepped back and shut the door.
“I’ve deactivated the entire signal,” Spam said. “And reprogrammed the refrigerator's master chip. They won’t be able to open it again.” I heard a hint of satisfaction in his voice. “Not without me, anyway.”
