Bliss (18 page)

All she had to do was release her grip and fall, and it would all be over in an instant.

She felt for the next rung, gripped it, and hauled her body up. Her shoulders were on fire. Vetter was pulling down fiercely. She knew he would eventually win.

And then, a ghostly vision appeared in Lindsey’s mind.
Jason.
Saw him standing at the altar waiting for her.

And she knew she had to go on no matter what.

So she did.

Determined, Lindsey swung her legs off the rungs, and out of Vetter’s grasp. She hung in the air and kicked wildly, and felt the crunch of Vetter’s nose as her foot made contact.

In an instant she heard the thump of his body go down the ladder, and he grabbed desperately at the rungs as he fell. Lindsey looked down and saw he had caught himself about twelve feet from the floor. He looked up, livid. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth.

“That’s it, bitch. I’m gonna blow this fucking place up. With you in it. You hear me!”

Lindsey turned away from him and glanced up.

Detective Dan Warren was leaning over the top rung extending his hand, three feet above her.

Warren grabbed Lindsey’s arm and
yanked her up and off the metal ladder. It happened with such suddenness that Lindsey was totally unprepared. She closed her eyes and let out a muffled screech. When Lindsey looked up, Katherine Blair was standing over her next to Dan Warren

“Damn, Lindsey,” Katherine said.

Lindsey swallowed. She saw Dan Warren peering down the ladder, no doubt trying to see if he could spot Vetter.

Lindsey was confused, wondering if it was all a hallucination.

“Can you stand, Lindsey?” Katherine asked, reaching a hand toward her. “Let’s see how the rest of you looks.”

Lindsey allowed herself to be helped up. She stood on wobbly legs, soaked from the fire hose Vetter had unleashed on her.

“Well everything else seems to be in working order,” Katherine said. “But you don’t smell great.”

“He’s going to blow the place up,” Lindsey said, finally finding her voice.

Warren came over to the two of them. “We’ve got to get back to his office before he does. Whatever he has planned, I’m sure he’ll have to go there to pull it off.”

“What about the water supply?” Lindsey asked.

“If he follows through with his threat, it won’t matter.” Warren said. ”Besides, I have a feeling those poor folks at Indian Springs are beyond help.”

Stephen Vetter emerged from the elevator, livid.

He was going to kill that fucking Lindsey Walsh.

He’d kill them all!

A growl to his right stopped Vetter dead in his tracks. He knew what the sound was. Suddenly they stepped into the hallway and Vetter shuddered. “Get the hell away from me you freaks!”

Vetter recognized the first one, though the drug had changed him drastically. It was Tom Hagen, whose wife had self-destructed earlier in Lindsay Walsh’s living room. Two others followed Hagen. They drooled yellow saliva and drug their legs.

“Get away I said,” Vetter yelled.

Vetter tried to bolt around them, but Hagen leaped onto his back and sunk his teeth deep into Vetter’s shoulder. A searing pain shot through his body and he let out a yelp then jerked free from Hagen.

He staggered for a second and looked at his shoulder. The fabric of his shirt was gone and the skin hung from his wound like a paper streamer. An elevator door opened and Vetter bolted for the stairwell as Hagen wheeled toward the sound.

Stepping off the elevator, Lindsey
saw Stephen Vetter fly up the stairs. Ahead in the dim light of the hall she saw
something
else. Behind her, Dan Warren and Katherine Blair froze.

“What the hell is that?” Warren asked.

“A better question is,
who
is that?” Lindsey said.

Now as he stepped closer, she could see him clearly.

Tom Hagen had been a mild mannered, soft-spoken guy she frequently talked with in the cafeteria. The last time she’d seen him, he was looking forward to his new baby. Now Lindsey understood why Tom had ignored his wife’s symptoms.
He himself was also changing.
The form in front of her reminded Lindsey of the sinister personality of
Jekyll and Hyde.
His face was contorted in an evil grin, his eyes, red slits. And in his mouth he held a large chunk of flesh gripped firmly in his teeth. Blood covered his face. He snarled at Lindsey.

Halfway down the hallway, Warren pulled his .38 and squeezed off a shot. Hagen stumbled, then let out one last guttural cry and went face down on the carpet. The other two looked at Warren and seemed to understand. They glanced at Hagen and staggered away down the hall. Warren raised his gun to fire.

“Don’t,” Lindsey said. “They’ll be dead soon enough on their own. Let’s just get Vetter.”

A minute later, Warren stepped off the elevator first, Lindsey followed, then Katherine. They entered the fifth floor, where Vetter’s expansive office took up a third of the space. They first thing Lindsey noticed was the night had fallen silent. The sounds of the building no longer echoed through the hallways.

Then she heard it.

Directly above them the whirl of helicopter blades and the droning of a jet engine caught Lindsey’s attention.

“He’s going to use the helicopter,” Katherine said.

“How can I get up there without him seeing me?” Warren asked.

“There’s a set of steps at the end of the hall. They go directly up to the helipad. It’s the only way.”

“Don’t bother,” Stephen Vetter said, coming out of his office.

He had a bomb strapped to his waist.

“Well if it isn’t The Incredibles,”
Vetter said. “You know. I’m very disappointed in how things have gone. Especially with you, Katherine. You know I care about you. I would never want anything to happen to you. But you’re fighting me, Kate. And you won’t stop. And I just can’t have that.”

Katherine took a step toward Vetter. The mystification she had felt for him lifted now. The stark reality that came into focus left her angry and disgusted. She looked at the stranger before her and could barely hear his voice.

“I was going to market the world’s most amazing new drug,” Vetter was saying. “The unrelenting assault on our company by the press was becoming dangerous. The pharmaceutical industry was ready for a triumph. Someone had to do it. Now, you’ve put me in a difficult position.”

*   *   *

Something had to be done,
Vetter thought.

Stephen Vetter had known about the side effects from the beginning. Since the day Meyer rushed into his office sweating profusely, disheveled, and announced his intention of shutting down the clinical trials of Bliss. Meyer’s murder, though deeply regrettable, was destined the minute he threatened to go to the FDA. Imec, just a year before was a struggling biotech firm strapped for cash. Vetter, then a junior executive, saw Bliss as the only way to save his company from the auction block and position himself as a leader. If the company was to survive--it would need an infusion of grandeur–something to convince investors that Imec had their blockbuster drug every pharmaceutical company dreams about.

Using Frederick Meyer’s initial computer models, Vetter, had single-handedly convinced pharmaceutical giant ZERN to buy Imec and appoint him CEO and run it as a separate company. In return, he had promised untold billions once the drug hit the market. What he hadn’t told them was that along with the plan to build the Imec complex, he also intended to deposit a token two million dollars in an offshore account in the Cayman Islands. Then, when Bliss came to market and the stock price soared on the medical analyst’s recommendation, he would dump his stock and simply disappear. Long before anyone got sick from the drug, he would be tucked away on a Tahitian island sipping Mai Tais and dancing with topless Polynesian girls.

But there was a catch. He needed time–or more precisely–a timeline. It would take him several weeks to disappear.
How long from the marketing of the drug until the side effects showed up?

Unfortunately, Earnest Meyer’s models had not continued long enough to give Vetter that answer. He had no choice but to take drastic measures. He did the tests himself. And Indian Springs provided him with the perfect clinical trial.

Sometimes the depths that he would go to for success surprised even him.

Now it seemed the dream was over.

Lindsey glared at her boss. “That drug was going to kill thousands, you bastard,” she said.

Vetter frowned. “You’re a real smart ass for someone who’s about to become part of this building.”

Lindsey’s eyes bore down on him. “So go ahead and do it, kill us, just like you did all the rest. I’m too tired to put up with any more of your bullshit.”

“All in good time. But first we’re going to take a little chopper ride. In case you haven’t noticed, this is a detonator in my hand. Now lose the gun, Detective.”

Warren hesitated, then tossed the gun down on the carpet.

“Now all three of you, up the stairs there, and make it quick.”

Having herded Lindsey and the others outside to the roof’s heliport, Vetter turned to the crimson-colored Bell-206 helicopter waiting nearby. Framed by a brilliant white stripe on the chopper’s door, a pilot sat in the cockpit with a headset on. Vetter pointed toward the chopper as he looked down at Lindsey and Katherine.

“Let’s go, you two.”

It’s over,
Lindsey thought.

She and Katherine sat side by side on the tarmac of the heliport staring up at a human explosive. All Vetter need do was to push the triggering device and they, and everything else nearby would be blown to bits.

Lindsey doubted Vetter would do it. He was like all megalomaniacs, a coward at heart. But she was certain of one thing–he was going to kill them.

Vetter had shackled Dan Warren to an air-conditioning unit nearby and he sat helplessly as Lindsey and Katherine now walked toward the chopper. The lights on top of the building were as bright as daylight with their powerful glow, and Lindsey could see every detail of the drama unfold before her.

Upon seeing the black box strapped to Vetter’s waist, the pilot did a wide-eyed double take. He turned in the cockpit and called out, “What is
that?”

Vetter’s eyes narrowed. “What does it look like? I’m not paying you to ask questions, let’s get this thing in the air.”

“You never said anything about a bomb. No way that thing is going in here!” The words echoed for a moment inside the chopper.

Vetter laughed. “You really think I’d strap a bomb to myself. It’s a bluff. Now let’s go.”

The pilot persisted. “If it’s a bluff, leave it here.”

Vetter reached down and pulled a gun from his pants. “There, this is no bluff, now open that door and load these two in there or I’m about to put a hole in your head.”

At gunpoint, the pilot climbed out and help load Lindsey and Katherine on board.

*   *   *

The instant the door closed, the pilot made his move. He had no intention of getting on that chopper with a madman. He had seen the deranged look in Vetter’s eyes.
It was no bluff.
He inhaled and dove to his left, away from the skids of the chopper and toward the safety of the building. Bullets exploded behind him as he scrambled for cover behind the gigantic cooling-units on the roof.

Only a yard away, Dan Warren sat locked to one of the units. “Get me off of here, I’m a police officer,” Warren called.

The pilot looked around and knew he would have to act fast. As Vetter dashed toward him, he reached up and grabbed the grill of the cooling-unit with both hands, yanking down. Instantly, the grill gave way and Warren jerked free.

Vetter stopped abruptly and retreated toward the helicopter. But the pilot ignored Vetter now, as he looked toward the idling chopper, his mouth hung open in disbelief.

The Bell-260, with its huge rotors, had started to
lift!

Inside the cockpit, Lindsey Walsh
had clambered into the pilot’s seat and now heaved back on the stick.
Come on baby!

With a deafening roar, the blades accelerated overhead, straining to lift the heavy chopper off the helipad.

In the back seat, Katherine had gone clown-white with fear and was hyperventilating.
Up goddamn it!
Lindsey thought.
I’ve got nothing to lose.
The chopper was heading right for one of the cooling units.

With its nose tipped forward, Lindsey could see Vetter run to the front of the helicopter and was waving his hands frantically. She could see him mouthing the word
stop.

The chopper lurched off the deck, it sailed more forward than up, accelerating toward Vetter like a giant buzz saw. The blades just missed the top of Vetter’s head and the top of the cooling unit, but it was moving too fast to clear the second unit. As the Bell-260's 500-rpm steel blades collided with the 6000 BTU cooling unit, the roof erupted with the shriek of metal on metal. The chopper bounded twice down the short tarmac, then slid, crashing into the building’s corner. Then a loud crack sent the chopper halfway over the brink, hanging in midair, ready to plummet into the ground.

Inside the cockpit, Lindsey Walsh sat paralyzed, her body pressed back into the pilot’s seat. Somehow the blades had missed the main body of the huge cooling unit, but she knew there was major damage to the building’s structure. All she could think of at that point was escaping from the helicopter as fast as she could. She looked to the back seat and Katherine was unconscious, bleeding from the mouth. In front of her, Vetter stood staring at her, bloody and delirious, one arm hanging limply at his side, obviously broken. The bomb was still strapped to his waist.
Oh my God! If that thing go...

Where’s Dan?
She didn’t see him. Her panic lasted only a second as a new fear descended on her. Beside her, the building’s crumbling exterior let out an ominous grinding sound as the structure collapsed. Then there was a loud snap, and Lindsey felt the roof give way.