“We leave DC and that son of a bitch is going to do something,” Neighbors insisted. “He’ll get rid of Justice Wynn and do a recess appointment. Then we’re screwed.”
“I’m not sure I can keep them here, but I’ve got some procedural tricks that should hold Stokes off if we need to. Then we’ll come back in and eat Stokes for lunch.”
TWENTY-SIX
Wednesday, June 21
Crawling over the papers she’d fallen asleep reading, Avery stripped off her tank top and shorts on her way to the bathroom, where she ducked beneath the spray of the shower. Hot water sluiced through the fog around her brain, and she quickly dressed. The microwave clock read 6:23 a.m. She shook the remnants of the cereal box into a bowl, snagged milk from the refrigerator. As she ate, the door to the apartment opened, and Ling lurched inside.
A medical bag fell to the floor with a solid thump, followed by keys flopping to the coffee table. Ling kicked the door closed, rubbing wearily at her eyes. “Any chance the reporters camped outside our apartment building will leave anytime soon?”
“I’m sorry about all this. But go to sleep. We’ll talk when you wake up.”
“Not waking up,” Ling said and yawned. “Grab me a Coke and fill me in before I crash.”
Avery handed her the soda, then recounted the events of the past twenty-four hours.
Ling latched on to the story of the attack. “How’s your head?”
“I don’t have a concussion.”
“You sure? Because the day after you’re attacked in the judge’s house, you still intend to serve as his guardian.” Ling huffed out a breath. “I appreciate your loyalty to him, honey, but you don’t owe him your life.”
“I got a bump on the head, nothing more. And until I know what they wanted, I can’t be sure I’m any safer dropping the POA.”
“At the risk of you jumping down my throat, have you considered asking your friendly FBI agent for help? Or maybe the hulking giant from Homeland Security? Isn’t this sort of intrigue their domain?”
Avery had considered doing precisely that, but caution stopped her. “Justice Wynn didn’t turn to them for a reason. Until I know more, I can’t risk involving either one of them. Besides, when it comes to the FBI, I don’t have to. They have a tail following me around the city and a guy camped out across the street.”
“And the Homeland Security guy?”
“I don’t trust him.” In fact, she’d decided, she’d use her time this morning to dig around about Major Will Vance. Better yet, she’d put Jared on the assignment. “I’d rather not involve the authorities yet.”
“For the record,” Ling announced, “I don’t like this.”
“Save the lecture.” Steering the conversation to another topic, Avery asked, “I know you were swamped, but any progress on the names I emailed to you?”
“Yes. Let me grab a shower and a nap, then I’ll print it out for you.”
“I can just read it.”
“Not unless you studied microbiology and genetics last night. Strange stuff.”
“What did you find?”
“Sleep first, then we’ll play James Bond.” Ling swigged down the Coke and headed for her bedroom. “You going out?”
“Since I’m banned from the Court and have both a police and an FBI detail, I’m bringing reinforcements here.” Avery hesitated. “Don’t yell at me, but I’m also taking an unauthorized trip to Georgia tomorrow.”
Ling halted on her way to her bedroom. “Georgia?”
“Justice Wynn owns a cabin near Atlanta. I’m hoping I’ll find some answers about his motives down there.”
“Is Jared Wynn going with you?”
“Yes.”
“Is he as cute in person as his picture?”
Avery rolled her eyes. “Don’t start. Jared is helping me help his dad. That’s all. We figured out another piece of the puzzle last night. I would have gone today, but I’ve got another interview with Agent Lee this afternoon about Jamie Lewis and the money transfer.”
“So you’re planning to lie to the FBI again even though you have a good idea what’s going on?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
Ling opened her bedroom door and shook her head. “You have a choice, Avery. I’m just afraid you’re making the wrong one.”
Not sure her best friend was wrong, Avery returned to her bedroom to gather the pages strewn across the bedspread. She’d spent the night trying to break the archived chats between Justice Wynn and Ani into decipherable conversations.
Thus far, she’d learned that they’d met more than a year ago, when he had been searching the Internet for more information about Boursin’s syndrome. She’d also learned that they shared a common obsession with chess. Ani, apparently, was in hiding and feared for his life. In one message, he warned Justice Wynn not to reveal his knowledge of a potential cure.
The increasing hysteria in their chats spoke of a disturbing pattern of shared paranoia. She could be risking her future to help a crazy man who’d found a kindred spirit and woven a conspiracy theory so wild, the delusion had pushed him to suicide.
But the image of Jamie Lewis, dead on her living room floor, and the $500,000 in her own bank account indicated at least one shred of truth amid the insanity. She had no idea what, but she’d figure it out.
Avery gathered the papers and headed into the living room. Buried somewhere in their messages, Justice Wynn had left a clue about his plans. She gazed longingly at her briefcase, knowing that the case notes and incomplete memos inside would likely never be read by another at the Court. Then she shook her head. The best thing she could do for the Court lay hidden in the Wynn-related messages on her table.
When Ling awoke from a marathon sleep, she wandered into the living room and found Avery opening the front door. Yawning, she said, “Avery, introduce me to our guests.”
“Jared Wynn, Noah Fox, this is my roommate, Dr. Ling Yin.”
Ling gave a tepid wave as she wandered into the kitchen. “I’m ordering food. Thai okay?”
“Sounds good,” Avery answered absently. “Jared, did you make any headway on the email address?”
He set up his laptop on the table, attaching components Avery hadn’t seen before. Catching her quizzical look, he explained, “Hacking is a complicated business. I got into the judge’s personal account this morning. However, I’m not sure I understood what I was reading. For the past six months, he exchanged emails with TigrisLost or Ani. Same tenor as the Chessdynamo chat room messages you’ve been reading. But the emails included several files they exchanged.”
He brought up the screens. “Most of their communications dealt with whether it was sunny here in DC or cold where Tigris lived, but they clearly weren’t discussing the weather. Bottom line, Ani believed someone was trying to kill him.”
“I read the same in the chat room. Both of them were petrified about supposed assassins.”
Jared tapped the screen on a particular message. “Ani thought someone had killed several of his colleagues.”
“Colleagues? From which company?” Avery asked as she reached for the sheaf of papers. “I can’t find an Ani at any one of the firms in the safe. Your father said to look to the river. The Tigris is in Turkey and Iraq, but Ani is an Indian name. The companies your father identified were Indian, Chinese, and American. No Turkish or Iraqi firms.”
“I tried to backtrace the ISP and use traffic analysis, but this TigrisLost guy knew his stuff. He ran his signal through countries that don’t even have electricity yet.” It had been a while since Jared had been stumped. “As best I can determine, he used a series of routers, relays, satellite feeds, and encryption protocols to hide his location. He definitely hid the archives from the game too and set up that test for you.”
Ling returned with drinks, and Noah reached for his legal pad. “Jared
sent me notes he hacked from Nurse Lewis’s cloud. According to her, Justice Wynn was fading quickly—faster than anyone expected.”
“Did her notes explain what he and Ani might have been working on?”
“No. Mostly, she reports on his increasing paranoia and his obsession with President Stokes. Fairly virulent stuff, culminating, of course, with his diatribe at American University.”
“Any more good news?” she asked the room.
Ling disappeared for a moment and came back with a bulging folder. “I checked on the list of names you sent me, but I only focused on their patent research and articles.” Reaching forward, she flipped through the pages, hunting. Quickly, she plucked out articles she’d tabbed for Avery’s review. While Avery skimmed, Ling explained, “Mainly, I looked for any information in medical journals tying any of the companies to research into Boursin’s or similar diseases.”
Jared leaned forward, brows drawn together. “I didn’t realize Boursin’s had caught anyone’s attention.”
“By itself, the disease is not considered very important,” Ling explained in apology. “However, the genetic markers of Boursin’s syndrome have some singular properties. Like with Parkinson’s and Huntington’s, some biogeneticists believe that a cure exists in resequencing the DNA or in targeting the faulty chromosomes that trigger the syndromes.”
Noah entreated, “A translation for those of us who didn’t go to medical school?”
“Meaning,” Ling responded with a smile, “that there’s a theory in the field that if a gene therapy can target certain chromosomes, like Boursin’s with specific signatures, techniques can be developed to apply the process across other genetic markers.” She glanced at uniform expressions of confusion and expounded further: “For example, a company called Hygeia was doing some promising work.”
“Justice Wynn had several pages about Hygeia,” Avery recalled. “It got bought out by Advar a while ago.”
“I’m not surprised,” Ling responded. “They were developing cutting-edge technology in genetic research. Very controversial theories, though.” She shuffled through the pages for a thick binder clip. “What I found interesting was that Hygeia did a great deal of research on Y haplogroups.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Noah deadpanned.
Ling shot him a look before explaining, “Y haplogroups are genes characterized by specific geographical distributions. Basically, based on your DNA coding, there’s a good chance we can determine which region of the world your ancestors came from. Hygeia specialized in focusing on these genes, and their teams secured a number of patents.”
“What did they develop?” Avery asked.
“Nothing that’s made it to market, but gene patents are a new field. I cross-referenced the patent holders, and the same researcher names kept coming up. Then the patents stop.”
Avery skimmed the dates on the applications. “The patents stop shortly before Hygeia merged into Advar. Which takes us right back to Advar and GenWorks.”
“It’s not unusual for these tech firms to be acquired,” Jared offered. “Usually, the brains simply produce for their new masters.”
Nodding, Ling said, “Look at the most prolific inventor listed.”
“Dr. A. K. Ramji.” Avery flipped through the patents more slowly. “He’s listed on every one. Did he go to another company to continue his work?”
“I thought about that, but no new patents have followed up on their research. The more interesting issue is the subject of the patents. Over time, Dr. Ramji focused his work on manipulating specific Y haplogroups. Groups L and H. Then a journal article questioned his focus, and he simply stopped publishing. Fell off the map.”
“When?”
“About eighteen months ago, give or take.” She thumbed through her documents, plucking his last article from the stack. “He did this one on applications of adenovirus vectors that published last May, but that means he probably wrote it a year or so before. I didn’t have a chance to dig much deeper today.”
“A. K. Ramji. It could be the mysterious Ani.” Jared tapped commands onto the keyboard. “Now that we know where to look, let’s see what I can dig up. What are the other names of the inventors?”
Ling plucked a page from her stack. “I’ve listed all the patents secured by Hygeia or any other company with a similar focus. The Chinese firms have less patience with our patent process.”
“Did Ramji’s research specifically focus on Boursin’s?” Avery peered at the scholarly articles Ling pushed in front of her. “Justice Wynn spent a lot of time studying these companies and their research. If they weren’t working on cures for Boursin’s, I don’t understand why he’d build such extensive files.”
“Like I said, Boursin’s is one of the types of diseases that gene therapies can treat. But biogenetic research isn’t entirely benign. A number of bioethicists have worried about the weaponization of gene therapy.”
“How?”
“It ranges. Imagine if you could target certain genes with a protein that makes a person stronger. That’s basically the idea behind gene doping among athletes. Apply that to armies, and you’d have superstrong warriors who required little sleep and less equipment.”
“Could you reverse that?” Avery asked quietly. “Somehow target an army and weaken them?”
“Gene therapy currently requires close-range contact with a subject. You’re talking about hitting microscopic targets with the right combination of chemicals.” Ling’s answer was careful. “Genetic weaponization is a fringe field. Most reputable scientists would never admit to working on anything of the kind.”
“Found him!” Jared announced as he turned the computer toward Avery. “A. K. Ramji is Dr. Ani Kandahar Ramji. He stopped publishing a year and a half ago, and around the same time, posts on the evils of genetic weaponization started,” Jared said. “Guess who the author is?”
Avery gazed at the emails strewn across the table. Look to the river. “TigrisLost.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
“The same.” Jared typed more commands into the keyboard. “The earliest posts warn about the dangers of gene patents and the direction of research. As they continue, the author contends that Hygeia was involved in unauthorized research to convert biomedical science into weapons of mass destruction. Makes accusations against Hygeia and several other companies. Claims they colluded to develop a new form of biological warfare.”
“All by TigrisLost?” Avery shifted to stand behind Jared and peered over his shoulder. “Show me.”
“Give me a second.” He tapped in a series of commands, pages opening in quick sequence. Then, just as fast, the pages vanished. Jared typed faster, cursing beneath his breath. “What the hell?”
Avery leaned closer to the screen, reading over his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Damned if I know,” he muttered, as the pages disappeared into the ether. Unable to stop the process, he took screenshots of several images before they were zapped. It took less than a minute to lose every document. Jared slammed his fist on the table in frustration. “I’ve never seen that happen before.”
“How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know.” He got to his feet, unable to sit. “I used a cache recovery program to find all the posts using similar language or related ISPs.” He pointed to the empty screen. “Once the pages started appearing, looks like a virus tripped and they vanished.”
“Were you able to save anything?” Ling asked.
Jared strode back to the computer and leaned over the chair. “I managed a couple of screenshots, that’s all.”
“So we have nothing.”
“Not yet.”
Avery watched in irritated quiet as he entered commands and plugged unfamiliar technology into his computer. The silence stretched for nearly half an hour, until Jared sighed in satisfaction.
“What?” Avery asked.
“Someone went to a lot of trouble to hide references to TigrisLost. I cannot find any recent sightings of Dr. Ramji or his compatriots.” Jared tilted the chair on two legs and wove his fingers behind his head. “I just plugged in several of the names from Ling’s list. Every scientist listed as an inventor with Dr. Ramji as a co-inventor has died.”
“How did they die?” Noah crowded close to the screen.
“This was a very accident-prone scientific team. Dr. Farooq Kuthrapali died in a car accident in Mumbai six months ago. In Bijapur, Dr. Jaya Gupta perished in a house fire. Dr. Sangeetha Malhotra was shot during a robbery in Hyderabad. And Dr. Pria Sen drowned while on vacation in Indonesia.”
Avery rubbed at her arms, suddenly chilled. “Any information on Ani?”
“Other than assuming he’s the judge’s chess partner, Dr. Ani Ramji doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve found an apartment he leased in Hyderabad before the merger and some stray Internet purchases from a few years ago, but otherwise, he’s been wiped off the grid.”
“You can check international databases that quickly?” asked Noah.
“With the right skills, yes. Money leaves a footprint. Cash is hardest to trace, but it has to come from somewhere, and I can typically locate the origin point. He may be in another country, but his Indian bank information and electronic presence have virtually disappeared.”
“Then he’s gone?” Ling placed a hand on Avery’s shoulder as she spoke. “We’ve lost him?”
Jared gave a half nod. “For now. But no one can completely hide their electronic fingerprints. I’ve put a tag on certain search terms. We’ll know if anyone else starts looking around for the same information or if he pops his head up. I’ve planted data mines in case he uses a credit card or tries to act online. Or, if anyone else is looking for him, you’ll get a chance to chat.”
While Justice Sleeps Page 21
