Avery shifted to the edge of her seat now, her jaw set tight. “I would do this, but I don’t know how he expects it to happen. How in the world am I supposed to manipulate the Supreme Court? I have no standing to push for new oral arguments, and I don’t have enough real evidence to create a good press witch hunt that doesn’t rebound on me.” Her voice was heavy with emotion. “Everything I touch disappears, and I can’t make this kind of accusation without proof!”
She sprang to her feet and snatched open the door, only to find an agent standing guard. “I need some air right now.”
“You’re to remain in the apartment.”
“I’m going out for a walk,” she declared, shoving past him.
The agent caught her arm, and, smartly, shifted as her fist came around in an automatic swing for his nose. He captured her hand and forced it to her side. “Ms. Keene, no one is allowed outside the apartment until morning. Agent Lee’s orders.”
Avery struggled in his grip, as Jared, Noah, and Ling rushed to the doorway. “Let her go!” Ling insisted.
Jared stepped out of the apartment and circled behind Avery, settling his hands on her shoulders. He glared at the agent, asking, “How about the stairwell? If she stays inside the building, can she go into the stairwell?”
“I don’t—” He noticed the sheen of frustrated tears in the wide green eyes and relented. He’d swept the stairs on his way up for his shift. With the door open, it should be safe. “Okay, ten minutes. Then I need you all back inside the apartment for the night.”
Avery wrestled with the urge to run, to hide on the humid streets of the city. To shuck off Justice Wynn’s expectations—to flee. But the feel of Jared’s hands on her shoulders stiffened her spine and her resolve. She gave a short nod and moved to the shadowed stairwell.
Jared followed her. They stood silent in the cloistered dark for nearly five minutes. Then, as though her legs could no longer hold, Avery sank down onto a step. Jared followed her down, sitting a step above her. He leaned down, lightly gripped her shoulders, and turned her toward him. Her eyes glimmered with moisture in the dim overhead light. “You’ve had a rough week.”
A morbid laugh sputtered out. “Yes.” She covered his hand, releasing a long, low breath. “But your father is dying. You haven’t had a much better time of it.”
“I barely know my father, Avery. And the more I learn, I can’t say I’m growing fonder.” When she started to protest, he simply shook his head. “It’s the truth. But if he had to pick a champion, he chose the right one.”
“I haven’t figured anything out.”
“You knew that VGC meant something. You got the corporate names to Ling, and I’m certain you’ve got a plan for tomorrow.”
A sob caught in her throat, but Avery swallowed it down. Yet, when she went to speak, her voice broke. “Thank you, Jared. I don’t know—”
“That’s bullshit. Whatever you are about to say is bullshit.” With his thumb, he swiped at an errant tear. “You know just about everything, Avery. Algebraic tables for chess. How to decode an old man’s Don Quixote fantasies. How to make sure his estranged son has a reason to stick around.”
“Maybe tilting at windmills is a family trait,” she whispered.
“Perhaps. But you’re the real deal. You’re smart, and you care. That’s more than he has the right to ask.” He lifted a hand to her chin, stroking the stubborn curve and the plane of her cheek. “Ready to go inside?”
Avery smiled slightly. “I’d like to sit here for a few more minutes.”
Jared nodded, shifting down a step to drape his arm around her. She resisted for an instant, then allowed her head to fall onto his shoulder. They sat that way until a knock sounded at the metal door.
“Time’s up,” Jared said as he stood. He helped her stand and reached for the door. The agent stood at attention on the other side.
“I’m sorry about before. It’s been a long day.” She gave a half-hearted attempt at a grin. “I won’t be any more trouble tonight.”
The agent nodded and took a step away. “No problem, Ms. Keene.”
Jared opened the apartment door, where Ling hovered near the breakfast bar. Her troubled gaze locked with his. Jared gave a short shake of his head over Avery’s head. Beneath his hold on Avery, he’d felt the tremble of nerves.
In silence, he cursed his father and himself. Then he quietly shut the door.
FORTY
Saturday, June 24
The lights were low, despite the morning sun. Bars shared that trait with casinos. The constant illusion of night aided the passage of sour whiskey and the acid burn of rum. Rita Keene swayed on a stool, fingers gripping the glass of vodka with an expert hold. She might fall, but her drink wouldn’t.
Above her head, a news anchor droned through the stories of the day. Her free hand dropped onto the sticky wood, bracing for the inevitable. The unflattering image of her bent over a table popped up with numbing regularity. The asshole who’d taken the picture had caught her in a weak moment, her arms flexed for solace.
Bet the judgmental reporters had never lost a husband, she thought in the twisted dimness of righteous indignation. A pain she’d clung to for decades, nursing its bite. Honing the bitterest edges for the cuts she required to justify her choices.
Now she was being publicly humiliated because her daughter had to go and piss off the wrong people. Treated like trash, all because of Avery.
She’d always surfaced when her baby needed her, hadn’t she? She’d kept the girl fed, got her into and out of school. Laid on her back to earn bread for the ungrateful brat’s mouth, hadn’t she? Memories conveniently expiated of detours from the grocery store to a shadowed corner for a tiny bundle of forgetfulness.
Now, because of that bitch, she had to watch herself on a fucking screen, being laughed at by the high and the mighty and the scum of the earth. Like they understood what she’d gone through. What she’d lost.
She tossed off the glass’s remnants. The vodka lacked the punch of coke, or the speedy amnesia of heroin, but it was all she could afford. Her sniveling, stingy bitch of a daughter hadn’t been home when she’d stopped by. Only cops who refused to let her pass when no one answered the phone.
“Hey!”
The bartender, a tight-assed prick who recognized her from the picture, pretended not to hear. Rita pounded her glass, to no avail. Figures, she thought hazily. She was thirsty and too aware of the world and running low on the cash necessary for oblivion.
So, when a tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed man joined her at the bar, she hopefully angled her meager cleavage in his direction. Rita smiled, a wobbly curve of a mouth cracked from dehydration and meth. “Hey, handsome. Wanna buy a lady a drink?”
Hazel eyes met hers, and he tapped the bar. When the bartender stopped pretending not to notice, he held up two fingers and pointed at Rita’s glass.
The bartender sized up the cut of the new guy’s suit and fished out the bottle. He refilled Rita’s glass and served up one to the man. The man placed a note on the bar and waved him off.
Saying nothing, the bartender scooped up the cash. The fifty in his hand easily covered Rita’s tab and the tip he’d decided on for himself. Surprised, he checked Rita out, squinting. Up close, he could see how she might have been beautiful once, but the skinny whore look did nothing for him. Takes all kinds, he decided, as he returned to ignoring his customers.
Unaware of the bartender’s summation, Rita trailed red-tipped fingers along the man’s jacket, fumbled for his tie in a gesture that felt sexy. “You like to party, honey?”
“Sure.”
Rita smelled no cologne, just a clean scent most of the bar’s patrons lacked. She tipped the vodka down her throat in a cleansing rush. “Let’s get out of here, then.”
Phillips swung his arm around her, guiding her staggering path to the door. “Your pl
ace or mine?”
In a voice that carried to the unswept corners, Rita giggled and answered, “Yours, honey. Take me anywhere you want.”
Clear of a kidnapping charge, Phillips nodded gallantly. “Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
—
Across town, huddled in the conference room at Noah’s firm, Avery plowed through the research they’d collected, including the grants from Justice Wynn’s FOIA request. The more she read, the more her stomach knotted into tighter bundles.
What exactly are they hiding?
Noah sat down the hall in his office, prepping for Monday’s court hearing. Ling pored over documents about smallpox that a friend at the hospital had couriered over. Bent over his computer, Jared had been working to backtrace the surveillance in her apartment, despite knowing the FBI was on the case. Or, as Avery had learned from their brief acquaintance, because of it.
By her elbow, her cell phone rang. The now-familiar no caller id showed on her screen, and she quickly answered.
“Yes?”
“Hello, Avery. This is your friend.”
The voice was synthesized, just as it had been on both previous calls.
“I told you to leave me alone,” she replied.
“Remember your mythology, Avery? When Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds, she became indebted to Hades. You’ve spent some of my money. I thought it was time to call.”
“What do you want?”
“You’ve eaten the seeds. Now I require payment.”
“Who are you working with? Why are you disguising your voice?”
“Don’t ask irrelevant questions. Just listen.” Nigel thumbed through the memo from Betty, then continued to speak into the burner cell. “You know, governments are good at cleaning up messes. If I were you, I’d find out all I could about a company called Hygeia. I’d follow the money.”
“Follow the money? That’s all you’ve got for me?” Avery goaded. “I know about Hygeia and GenWorks and Advar. About the research. The money trick was nice, but if that’s all you can do, stop calling me.”
“You’re a cynic, Avery. Good idea to be suspicious, especially of anyone claiming to wear white hats.”
“So you’re not a white hat?”
“God, no. I’m not the self-sacrificing type. But there’s one bureaucrat you can talk to. Try Dr. Elizabeth Papaleo at the Science and Technology Directorate in the Department of Homeland Security. She can verify what I’m telling you.”
“Papaleo?” The sneer became a frown. “How do you know her?”
“Follow the money,” he repeated. “It’s always excellent advice, Avery.”
“I’ve been in touch with Betty, but she’s vanished,” she told him. “What does she know?”
“Betty’s missing?”
“The FBI is looking for her. Tell me what she has.”
“You should check out your new email account tomorrow at ten.”
“I have a new email account?”
“You will. How about [email protected]? The password will be—” He stopped. “Let’s make the password Nixon, just to stay with our theme of unreliable public servants. Don’t disappoint me.”
Avery hung up the phone and sent a quick text to Noah. When he joined them in the conference room, she explained the call. “Whoever this is, he knows about Betty, but he wouldn’t say much.”
Looking up from his screen, Jared asked, “Have you heard anything more from Agent Lee about her?”
“Not yet. Let me try him now.” Avery dialed the agent’s number, and he answered on the second ring.
“Everything okay, Ms. Keene?”
“Yes, sir,” Avery replied. “I wanted to see if you’d found out anything more about Dr. Papaleo.”
In his office, Agent Lee’s brow furrowed. “I sent a couple of agents to do a wellness check, but no response. She hasn’t been in touch with her coworkers, and there are plane tickets in their names for a trip to Mexico. Passengers recall a couple boarding the plane, but no one can recall what they looked like. Their passports scanned, but surveillance at Dulles and in Puerto Vallarta have no images of either person that matches facial rec.”
“How is that possible?”
“It’s pretty sophisticated. A lot of trouble to go through for a midlevel bureaucrat.” Agent Lee waited a beat, wanting to be sure he was understood. “But if she had some knowledge from Homeland Security that would make her a target for foul play, now’s the time to tell me, Avery. I can help.”
“If there’s something to tell, Agent Lee, I promise, you’ll be the first to know.”
FORTY-ONE
Sunday, June 25
Avery drummed her fingers on the conference table that had become her new office.
“I have to call the hospital,” she announced, getting to her feet. “Agent Leighton, I’d like to use the office down the hall.”
At the woman’s assent, Avery strode down the hall to the office she’d used as a decoy before. This time, she settled behind the desk and booted up the computer. She used the office phone to dial Dr. Toca. “Doctor, it’s Avery Keene.”
“Yes, Ms. Keene.” The chill carried clearly across the phone. “How can I help you?”
“I wanted an update on Justice Wynn’s condition. And you should have received the toxicology report by now.”
“His condition is unchanged.”
“And the toxicology report?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss that.”
“Is there a problem, Dr. Toca?”
“Mr. Mumford has advised that we limit contact with you until this situation has sorted itself out,” he admitted.
“This situation is irrelevant until a court rules that I am no longer his guardian. If Mr. Mumford would like to discuss that with me, he is free to call.”
“I will let him know. Is that all?”
“No, sir. I want an answer. Did the hospital determine the drug combination he ingested?”
Dr. Toca did not respond, and Avery demanded, “I am Supreme Court Justice Wynn’s legal guardian—you and the hospital will be breaking the law by failing to disclose his test results to me immediately. I can also come and request the information in person, Doctor. I’m sure Mr. Mumford would love to host the media circus following me into the hospital.”
With a sigh that sounded like relief, he said, “The labs confirmed what I theorized to you when we last spoke. The compound they found in his blood is not registered by any pharmaceutical company licensed to distribute in the United States. As best we can determine, the drug induces a coma that mimics the effects of an aneurysm, but the body’s organs are unharmed. None of our toxicologists have seen anything like it.”
“So you don’t know if the coma is reversible?”
“No. We know nothing about the drug.”
Avery thought of her upcoming meeting with Ani. He would know. It was even more crucial now to figure out the location of their meeting. “Dr. Toca, I need you to call FBI Special Agent Robert Lee. Tell him what you’ve told me. Do it now.”
“Excuse me?”
“Please. Call him and tell him that you’ve spoken to me. He’ll know what to do.” Hanging up, she went to the ariesworld.com site and logged in as NancyDrew. Two messages sat in the otherwise empty in-box.
Be careful, Nancy. The natives are getting desperate and you’re their last barrier. Protect yourself. Here’s the nuclear warhead. It’s up to you to fire first. Duck and Cover! I’ll check on your progress.
The second message had several attachments. She clicked on the one titled “Memo” and hit print, then began to read. The memo had been authored by Betty Papaleo, her missing contact. According to her analysis of several reports, the scientist turned budget guru had discovered a connection between the grants from her shop and research happening ha
lfway around the world. In a code that Avery was learning to break, Dr. Papaleo wrote of CRGs that paid for exactly what Ling had surmised—targeting “lineage” for “dissemination of customized genetic information.”
She shifted from the memo to the pages of financial records Mr. Money had uploaded. As they printed, she skimmed the lines that had been highlighted for her. Grants totaling hundreds of millions sent to a small tech company in India. To Hygeia, Ltd.
He had added in financial records from the company. Lasering in, she noted records of funds funneled into chromosomal research from a string of investors, in a variety of tranches.
Not unusual, Avery conceded silently. She wasn’t an accountant, but she’d reviewed more than her share of lawsuits that hinged on income statements and financial ledgers. According to the banking records attached, each wire had an American origination. For a young company, funding would likely come from a variety of sources—and Americans had a penchant for foreign investment.
She laid the bank records down, moving to a sheet emblazoned with the Federal Reserve’s emblem. The report indicated that the transfers came from a federal account. The next page, as official-looking, traced the origins to the Department of Homeland Security. The Science and Technology Directorate.
Proof, she realized, that the U.S. government had made hundreds of millions in payments to Hygeia, Ltd. She shuffled back to the memo. The payments from the directorate had never been duly authorized, and they’d ceased abruptly. Soon thereafter, so did financial statements for Hygeia.
Chromosomal research conducted in secret and disavowed by TigrisLost.
The weaponization of genetic research to target lineage.
Hundreds of millions in funding from the U.S. Treasury to Hygeia—without authorization.
Major Will Vance, biochemist assigned to CBIRF.
Afghanistan. India. The world’s largest Muslim populations within easy reach.
A missing scientist. A missing budget analyst. A dead nurse. An attempted murder.
A Supreme Court justice desperate to save his only son.
While Justice Sleeps Page 30
