by Jason Briggs
I located a small foam-molded hard case for the vials and put them in. I snapped the case shut and slid it into the pocket of my lab coat, peeled off the gloves, and did the same.
“Three minutes thirty,” Brad said.
I moved to the main door and used the edge of the lab coat to open the door, then wiped the outside handle after I’d stepped back into the hall.
It was time to go.
I retraced the way I had come in, making my way down the hall and turning down another corridor. I nearly ran into a middle aged man in a security uniform.
“I’m sorry,” I said and went to move around him.
He frowned at me and held up a hand. “Just a minute, please. It’s a little late to be working in this wing, isn’t it?”
“It is,” I agreed. “I forgot something back at the lab and just came back to get it.”
“Can I see your badge?”
“Of course.” I handed it over and he rubbed his chin as he studied it. The nameplate on his chest read, “S. Myers.”
“Doug Peterson?”
“Yes, sir. That’s me.”
“I don’t remember approving you. Any new badges for access into R&D’s A wing require approval from me.”
I stared blankly at him. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you want me to say? I have a badge. I’m here on invitation from Dr. Parker.”
“Wayne Parker?”
“That’s the one.” I smiled cordially. “Do you treat all of MercoKline’s visiting scientists like they’re here to steal company secrets?”
His face flushed red. “Don’t act like it doesn’t happen. Because it does. That’s why I have a job. Now, come with me. I’m going to run you through the system myself. Where did you say you were visiting from?”
“I didn’t.”
“Okay, smartass. What organization do you represent?”
“Peterson Consultants. We’re a private research company.”
When I heard Spam’s voice again, it was filled with urgency. “Ryan. You have under three minutes. You don’t have time for this. You have to be out of that building and down the block in the next two minutes and fifty-three seconds.” I could heat start to rise off my forehead. He was right. I didn’t have time for this.
“Follow me,” Myers said. He turned on his heels and started back down the hall. I fell in step and followed him down another hall before stopping and wheezing through my throat. My shoulders slumped, and Myers turned back to me.
I held up a finger and nodded in halting manner as I constricted my neck, making my face turn color. “As—asthma,” I choked out. I wheezed in a short breath and made to steady myself.
Myers took a couple of steps toward me. He looked genuinely concerned. “Are you okay? Do you have an aspirator or anything?”
“Y—Yes.” On cue, I reached into my right pocket and retrieved the inhaler. I set a palm on the wall and leaned over, still trying to suck in a breath.
Myers took another step and laid a hand on my back. “Doctor. Do you need me to get some help?”
I started breathing normally again. “No,” I said. “But I appreciate your concern.” I aimed the inhaler at his face and pressed down on the canister. I held my breath and stepped back as the tiny droplets plumed into his face and he sucked them in.
“What’s going on?” he snapped. He started wiping at his face from where some of the spray had gotten him.
“You’re going to sleep for a few minutes.” The last word was hardly out of my mouth when his eyes shut and his chin started for his chest at the same time his knees buckled. I slid over to him and slowly laid him on the floor.
The inhaler had a sleeping agent in it. A proprietary concoction created by a very proud Krugman. I was told that its effects would last for up to fifteen minutes. The person would wake up and have no memory of the previous half hour before the sleeper was administered. So far, the sleeping part worked. Now I just hoped that the memory loss would too.
“Parker,” I said, “I’m in a little bit of a hurry here. Where do I put Myers?”
“What did you do to him—ouch!”
I heard Brad mutter something to him.
“Okay,” Parker said. “Where are you exactly?”
“I came out of the storage lab, turned left, and then took my second right. That’s all I know.”
“Okay, then you’re not far from the A wing common room. This time of night there won’t be anyone there. You can lay him on a couch.”
“Tell me where to go.” I checked both ends of the hall. No one was around, but that could change at any second. I really didn’t want to have to use the spray again. One person waking up with a senior moment was one thing. But two people? That’s when people started asking questions.
“At one end of the hall should be a dark gray door. See it?”
“I do.”
“Head toward it. Before you reach it, on your right, you’ll see a door marked, Kline Commons.”
I stepped behind Myers, leaned down, and hooked my forearms behind his armpits. I heaved him up and the heels of his shoes squeaked along the floor as I walked backward down the hall. When I reached the door, I laid him back down and opened the door.
An open kitchenette lay at the far end, with a table and chairs sitting near a near-empty bookcase. There was a living room of sorts, with three brightly colored couches and a seventy or eighty inch TV mounted on the wall. It was on, tuned loudly to reruns of The Big Bang Theory.
There was no one there. I picked Myers up again and dragged him over to one of the couches where I laid him back down. I picked up his feet and set his legs out straight on the couch, then placed a decorative pillow under his head. For good measure I grabbed the TV remote off a side table and slipped it in between his fingers, then tucked his hand close to his side.
Satisfied, I checked the hall and, seeing it still empty, stepped out and pulled the door closed behind me. I turned left before reaching the lab and hadn’t made it ten more paces before I heard a door open behind me and I heard someone call out.
“Ryan?”
I kept walking, not bothering to turn around.
Footfalls echoed across the walls as the individual behind me started coming faster. “Ryan!”
Who in the hell would know me here?
I whipped around and put on a false smile, prepared to reach for the inhaler again. I turned to face a middle-aged black man. He stopped when he saw me and his eyes narrowed. Then he smiled, as though embarrassed. I didn’t recognize him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought you were someone else. Ryan in marketing. I was wondering what he was doing down here this time of night. Now I know. I’m sorry.”
“No problem.” I smiled politely and continued my course down the hall.
“Ryan,” Spam said, “you have fifty-five seconds. I don’t think you’re going to make it.”
I shouldered open the next door and turned right, moving from the linoleum to carpet. “Thanks, Spam. I don’t need your commentary right now.”
The hallway brought me back out to the lobby, and I moved quickly to the exit while trying not to attract attention from the security guard watching the monitors. A quick glance showed me that he was busy doing something on his phone. He never bothered to look up. I didn’t see the guard who had spoken to me when I’d come in.
I stepped outside into the cool night air and started running once I got out of range of the glowing light at the front of the building.
“Fifteen seconds.”
My keys were already in my hand and I unlocked the car as I reached it. I flung open the door, jumped inside, and had it started within a second. I backed up, threw the gear into drive, and shot out of the parking lot. I didn’t bother with the stop sign at the main entrance and accelerated away from the building at sixty-miles-an-hour. I tapped the brakes at the next intersection and hung a quick right onto the main thoroughfare. The rear of the car fishtailed as I overturned and I righted it just as the medical center on the cor
ner cut off my view.
“And...you’re good,” Spam said. “Exterior cameras are clear.”
I looked over to the passenger seat where the satchel lay. As I slowed for a stop light, I reached into the lab coat and brought out the hard case. I flipped open the latch and looked in. The glass vials sparkled in the glow of the street lights. This was why William McCleary had been killed. This was why Douglas Peterson had been murdered as he walked beside me, why Charlotte had nearly been murdered that same night. It was how an entire Delta troop had been assaulted by two of their own officers.
The light switched to green, and I shut the case and placed it on the seat beside me.
I could feel my anger start to ebb.
Justice was now at my fingertips.
Chapter Thirty-One
He loved Florida.
And in seven months he was going to move down here.
He wasn’t exactly sure where yet. The Lower Keys, maybe. Perhaps Naples or even here, in Sarasota. Wherever he chose, he would be free to do as he pleased, with no timetables or calendars to consult. He might just throw his watch in the trash and go without. No more meetings, kissing the White House cabinet’s ass, no overbearing wife—he would truly be a free man. And in a couple of years, when the company’s stock soared through the roof, he would buy his very own island somewhere. Perhaps a multi-million dollar motoryacht like he was on right now.
General Benjamin Sheldon sat on the main deck of Brooks’s yacht with a glass of scotch in hand. The water craft was moored in Sarasota Bay, giving Sheldon a clear view of Longboat Key in the distance. He took a sip of his drink just as Dodson appeared on deck, followed by the boat’s owner.
“He hasn’t shown yet?” Brooks asked.
“No,” Sheldon replied. “Has anyone tried calling him again?”
“I did,” Dodson said. “About five minutes ago. He’s not answering.”
The beautiful weather, the scotch, and the boat aside, Sheldon could feel himself start to get a little angry.
He and Dodson were on the threshold of a much-needed vacation. As planned, they had stopped by here to talk with Dr. Parker on their way down to Big Torch Key. He and Dodson had rented a two-room bungalow on a tiny island. For the next two days, they were going to fish, spend time with the right kind of ladies, and sleep in too late.
But Parker not showing was just a bad start to the fun.
Brooks, who was usually the most relaxed and level-headed person in the trio, seemed to be carrying around some anxiety of his own.
Dodson cleared his throat. “You don’t think he would bail on us, do you?”
Brooks managed a crooked smile in response. “Not a chance. I’ve made it quite clear to him what would happen should he ever try to defect. Besides, once we get the drug to go public in a few years he’ll be worth tens of millions. I know Parker well enough to know that he wouldn’t give up that kind of money. It’s why he came to me in the first place.”
“Then where is he?” Sheldon growled. “Him not showing like this makes me think he’s taking all this a little too lightly.”
“He’s not,” Brooks assured him. “It could be that he’s just worn out. I’ve been pushing him pretty hard to finish up.”
“When is the last time you saw him?” Sheldon asked.
“A couple of days ago. Right after I got back from D.C. We met in his lab for about half an hour. He was reviewing the new formula with me again.” Brooks smiled. “Gentlemen, he’s got it. We are going to own the world in a few years’ time.”
Still, Sheldon didn’t like it. Something just didn’t feel right about the whole thing.
Looking over the water reminded him that right now, there was nothing he could do about Parker. And he wasn’t going to let it ruin his fishing trip. He set his glass down and stood up. “Come on,” he said to Dodson. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I turned my truck off the asphalt and onto a dirt road that snaked through the woods. Brad and I bounced through a dozen ruts and passed up a handful of naturally formed ponds on our way back to the cabin. Finally, it appeared out in front of us, tucked up against the tree like a quiet mecca in the midst of a loud and busy world.
“I know we kinda rushed into all this,” Brad said, “but how are going to explain kidnapping Parker? He said he won’t say anything, but you know how that goes. He’ll get some sleazy lawyer who convinces him to pin as much blame as he can on others.”
“Plausible deniability.”
“That’s it?”
“You have anything better?”
“No,” he said, “I guess not.”
“Parker doesn’t know where he is. There’s no way to trace you to it. And no one saw us grab him. He’s never seen our faces and no one will see us drop him back off near his house.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
I parked the truck on the side of a small shed so, in the event that Parker had managed to be looking out a window, he wouldn't see my license plate. We donned our ski masks, walked across the wild grass and onto the front porch. Brad pulled a key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door. We stepped inside.
Brad groaned. “Oh, crap. Well, there’s your plausible deniability right there.”
“I thought you said you left him tied up.”
“I did. But not like that.”
Directly in front of us, Wayne Parker was swinging from a low rafter, a bed sheet tied around his neck. His face was blue.
I felt no emotion, no pity for the man. He had been a coward in not standing up to Brooks when he proposed a change in the formula. And he had been a coward by choosing not to face a jury for his crimes.
“I think you need to learn how to tie people up better,” I said.
“What are we going to do with him?”
I looked up at him. “I don’t know.”
“Well, I do,” Brad said.
“Does it have anything to do with a swamp filled with alligators?”
“Indeed it does.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The cut through the swamp was somewhat familiar territory now. I rode the skiff up the waterways and cut around a grouping of mangroves before circling around and navigating a stand of cypress. Looking back, I saw an eastern indigo slither across my wake.
I reached the hardwood hammock ten minutes later. I tied off the boat and stepped out, then returned to the same limb I’d sat on a couple days prior. I had a small leather bag slung across my chest. I reached in and took out a can of bug spray. Unless Treadwell had a case of this stuff somewhere, I didn’t know how he was making it. I had barely stopped the boat before a cloud of the pesky bloodsuckers were already buzzing around my head. The bats weren’t out like they had been the other night when I arrived, and the mosquitoes were bold in their attempts to get at me.
I sprayed my neck and arms and waited for twenty minutes before the scrub rustled to my left and Marcus Treadwell appeared. He was wearing the same jeans and T-shirt as the last time I had seen him. He nodded a greeting and stopped ten feet from me. “Didn’t expect to see you again.”
“I thought you should know that I’ve learned who was behind the attack on your troop. Because that’s what it was, an attack.”
His features seemed to soften a little, though he still maintained a defensive posture. “What do you mean?”
I spread my hands and nodded toward the leather bag. “My phone is in there. I had a conversation the night before last with the scientist who invented the drug that killed your Sergeant Major and your commander. I’d like to take it out and let you listen to it. That okay?”
He nodded his assent.
I withdrew my phone and pulled up the audio file. “You’ll hear three voices,” I said. “Mine, my partner’s, and a Dr. Wayne Parker. I’ve since verified everything you’ll hear him say.”
The former Delta operator took a couple of steps forward and listened intently as the conversation with Parker progressed. I watched his face as he m
oved from curious, to sad, to furious. By the time the recording ended, I could see tears on his cheeks and hatred in his eyes. He finally allowed his legs to buckle and he sat on the ground. It was several minutes before he spoke.
“Did I just hear that a general at the Pentagon and an officer at JSOC did this to my brothers?”
“Yes, Marcus.”
“Have they been arrested yet?”
“Not yet. See, the thing is, Dr. Parker… he killed himself earlier today. The guilt of what he had done finally caught up to him. Which is more than I can say for others. He won’t be able to testify in court. He had some recordings on his computer, but he didn’t have permission to record them and the audio is hazy. So I believe everything he said, and everything I heard. But I don’t think it will stand up to a good defense lawyer in court.”
“Yeah,” Treadwell said thoughtfully. “They’re on the golden seat of power. No one can hold them accountable.”
“Probably not,” I said. “But I didn’t come back out to this godforsaken wasteland just to give you an update, Marcus. I came back because you were a warrior. A warrior who was betrayed by men who should have been dedicated to keeping you safe. But instead they used you and your fellow operators as guinea pigs.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I want you to come back with me. I think it’s time that justice had its day in the sun.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Look at that beauty!” The tarpon flopped around on the end of the hook, gleaming on the surface as though it wore a coat of tinfoil. The fish had bony jaws that made it hard to maintain a hook up, and the twenty-minute fight had required a great deal of focus. General Sheldon reeled in more line and successfully brought the tired fish to the side of the boat. “About eighty pounds, don’t you think?”
“At least,” Ted Dodson said. He leaned over the gunwale and reached out for the fish. Grabbing it, he worked out the hook and, with a final look, released it back into the open water. “Nice one,” he said. “That was one hell of a fight.”
