Endorphin Conspiracy, The (14 page)

Chapter 23

As the elevator swiftly ascended to the twelfth floor of the PETronics Research Building, Geoff’s mind raced. He tried to sort out the pieces of the complex puzzle. He wanted to review the PET scans in person with Suzanne, but this was far more important. He left her a message postponing their dinner plans. Her response indicated she wasn’t thrilled.

Geoff had deciphered Proteus’ cryptic messages and distilled valuable information from them. The clues were from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tale of Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of the Four, a story of murder, cryptic letters from an unknown sender, and a missing treasure, hidden in a laboratory.

It’s a seven percent solution
. Cocaine was a seven percent solution in those days. Same, but different. Cocaine was structurally similar to morphine; both stimulated endorphin production. It made perfect sense to Geoff to search Balassi’s lab for the answers.

Proteus seemed to be an ally. Or was Geoff simply being set up, led down a path to slaughter? His instinct told him he was not.

Balassi was a man Geoff had known for five years and worked closely with for the past year. A man who knew the trauma of Geoff’s personal life in detail and who nonetheless came to his aid and offered him a place in his lab. A man Geoff respected tremendously. A man he thought he knew as well as anyone did. Geoff could not believe if the Josef Balassi he knew suspected, or knew, anything about foul play with his research, he would tolerate it for a moment without calling for a massive investigation.

Geoff had made an accusation—indirect, but an accusation nonetheless—that the girl was injected intentionally. Balassi reacted as if it were a debate on grand rounds. Balassi’s reaction to the other patients’ bizarre deaths was strangely detached. That’s what didn’t sit right with Geoff. Balassi’s facial expression. The laughter. This was not the old Josef Balassi. This was a man with something to hide, a genius playing games.

Geoff was beginning to feel he was being set up. The tailor-made lab research position, the chief residency. Why the red carpet treatment for a doctor suspected of drug abuse, even if he was innocent? All the more reason Geoff had to do what he was about to do. All the more reason to proceed with extreme caution.

Geoff knew if he was caught he’d be bounced from the program in a second, but knew the best place to find the answers and information he needed was in Balassi’s lab. Balassi practically lived in his laboratory. It was where his research projects were developed and carried out, compounds stored, papers written, phone calls logged, even personal notes and appointments cleared though the lab’s calendar. It was Balassi’s inner sanctum.

The elevator decelerated and came to a halt with a slight bounce as it arrived at the twelfth floor. Geoff looked up at the cobalt blue, illuminated numbers overhead to be sure he was at the right floor, then remembered there was no need to check as the automated voice reminded him: “Floor twelve, PETronics Research Center. Please have your I.D. ready.”

Geoff clenched his fists together and took a deep breath as the elevator doors parted and the refrigerated air from the corridor wafted into the elevator. He stepped cautiously, hands in his lab coat pockets, and looked around to see if anyone else was there. He didn’t want to be seen, but if he was confronted he had prepared a story about a patient chart he left in the lab. That might buy him a safe ticket out, but he would not have accomplished his mission. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. The odds of anyone walking the halls of the research lab at eleven o’clock on a Monday night were small, except for the guard. A year working in the lab, however, had made Geoff well aware of the fact the guards at the Research Building, like security guards elsewhere, took frequent coffee breaks and would rather be watching late night TV or surfing the web than stare at video monitors. Their routine was to make their rounds at midnight. Geoff checked his wrist, set the timer on his watch. He had fifty-eight minutes to get in, find what he needed, and get out.

He walked briskly down the long, starkly lit corridor, squinting his eyes to shut out the glare of the florescent lights. He felt like a bank robber in broad daylight. He wished he could shut the damn lights off, but doing so might attract more attention. Even more worrisome was the incessant squeaking of his Nikes on the polished vinyl floor echoing down the empty corridor. He slowed his pace, attempted to tread lightly, rolling heel to toe to minimize sound.

Geoff continued around the corner, then froze. He caught a movement in his peripheral vision. Instinctively, he flattened his body against the wall, his attention fixating in the direction of the movement. It was the security camera, a small, silver box mounted in the corner, rotating back and forth to scan the area.   Geoff scurried into a shadowy doorway, his heart pounding, and held his breath as the camera aimed in his direction, then slowly rotated down the other hallway.

He slid out of the shadows and down the hall, parked himself behind a large grey trash can and slumped to the floor to catch his breath and get his bearings. He checked his watch. Fifty-three minutes remained. Only one short stretch of hallway to go, but he had already wasted five valuable minutes. He would have to move the next time the camera aimed the other way.

Geoff peeked around the edge of the trash can, his gaze following the camera. It had just made its pass in his direction and was starting back the other way.

Geoff moved quickly down the corridor to the lab. He breathed a sigh of relief seeing those familiar, black stenciled figures on the door, PR-217. Beneath it was a warning in bright red lettering: “Authorized personnel only.”

Geoff reached into his pants pocket and removed a key marked “do not duplicate” and smiled at his cleverness for having kept it from his research days. Carefully, he put the key into the knob and slowly slid it in. He felt the tumblers click as they rolled over each ridge. He turned the key, but it didn’t move.   Geoff removed the key and inserted it again, going through the same motions. Nothing. He jiggled the key and the knob back and forth, the sounds echoing throughout the empty hallway. Still nothing.

The locks had been changed. When and why, he didn’t know. A lost key, a routine precaution, or was it something more?

Geoff bit his lower lip as he pondered his next move, a move he would have to make quickly. There was only one other way to get in, and that was through the keyless entry using his ID card. Using the ID would be like leaving a calling card, but it was now or never.

He reached down to the breast pocket of his lab coat, removed the ID card and held it for a moment, studying the seven-year-old picture with a nostalgic smile. Life was so much simpler then.

Cautiously, Geoff raised the card to the slot on the door, paused to reconsider. Balassi would know Geoff had been there when he checked the entry log in the morning. But by then Geoff would know all he needed to know, and Balassi would either thank him for uncovering the problem in his lab or be implicated himself beyond doubt.

Having rationalized the situation as best he could, Geoff closed his eyes,
exhaled and jammed the card home, awaiting the reassuring click indicating the door had been unlocked.

The shrill alarm that came instead caught Geoff totally by surprise and just about sent him through the roof. The siren reverberated up and down the hallway, and a strobe light flashed over the door of the lab, a beacon for security guards sure to arrive any minute.

Geoff’s heart pounded so fiercely he thought his chest would explode. Chief Resident of the New York Trauma Center captured breaking into a research lab by the Keystone Cops.

No way he was going to let that happen.

Geoff looked around for a place to hide, tried a few doors. They were all locked except the men’s room. The guards were sure to search there right away. All that remained was the elevator, but he’d be nailed there in a minute.

Large droplets of sweat poured off his glistening forehead and landed on the floor. His shirt was like a sticky, wet sheet against his chest.
Keep your cool, man
. This was a piece of cake compared to Navy Seals training exercises.

The green exit sign at the end of the corridor caught his eye
just as he heard a faint whooshing noise that sounded like a wind tunnel. Only it was getting louder, closer.

“Shit!” he said loudly and bolted down the hallway. His feet squeaked loudly as he raced toward the stairwell. He heard new sounds down the hall behind him. The sounds of voices, muffled behind closed doors. They were still in the elevator. His legs carried him closer. The voices were now louder, closing in.

The wind whistled as it rushed under the elevator doors, and the bell rang faintly, indicating the elevator’s arrival on the twelfth floor. Geoff heard the elevator doors part and several pairs of feet scramble onto the linoleum floor. He was just a few feet from the stairwell. There was no time to turn around and look back. If they saw him, it was too late. If not, he was home free.

His sweaty palm reached out and grabbed the handle to the door just as it burst open from the other side. It all happened so quickly that neither Geoff nor the tall black man dressed in blue had time to avoid the collision that knocked them both on their behinds.

Geoff was dazed, but conscious enough to wince as the cold metal handcuffs were snapped around his wrists.

“Hold it right there, asshole. You’re under arrest.”

Chapter 24

Geoff looked up at the imposing blue blur of the man above
him, wondering whether or not this was all simply a hypnogogic hallucination, a terror too bizarre to be happening to him. He sat slumped on the floor of the stairwell landing, handcuffed like a common criminal, awaiting a swift kick in the ribs from the pissed-off security guard.

He was confused, hearing a familiar voice instead.

“Geoffrey Davis, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Randall?” asked Geoff, incredulous but elated.

“You’re gonna’ give my guards here a heart attack setting off all kinds of alarms and making them think there’s a thief in here. Worse yet, you gonna’ get hurt yourself,” said PETronics Security Chief Randall Johnson with a grin.

“That sound sure will startle a man. Looks like it scared the bejeebers out of you!”

He reached down, offered Geoff a hand and pulled him up off the floor, then turned to the other guards. “Hey, undo these cuffs, will you, Jonesey, and turn off that fuckin’ alarm. It’s giving me a whopper of a headache.”

Geoff brushed off his bottom and straightened his lab coat, trying to act as composed as a man who had been knocked on his butt possibly could. He was grateful that of all the security guards at the Research Center, Randall Johnson was the one he literally ran into. Jones removed the cuffs, and Geoff massaged his sore wrists.

“Well, I, uh—”

“Forgot to pick up the new key, did you doc?” Randall interrupted. “Yeah, we had to change the lock yesterday. Somebody got hold of a copy of the master, and we had to change all the locks in the whole goddamned building. You can’t believe what a fucking pain in the ass that was, man!” Johnson shook his head back and forth in disgust.

Geoff felt the noose around his neck loosening, sighed, wiped the sweat off his brow. “I bet it was.”

“Bet your ass, my friend.” Johnson waved off the other guards and sent them back to the office. “Come on, doc, let’s go open that door for you.” He put his arm around Geoff’s shoulder as they walked back towards the lab.

“I really appreciate it, Randall. You know, I’ve been meaning to call you for that lunch I promised, but I—”

“I didn’t expect a call until at least Christmas. So, whatcha’ doing coming to the lab at so late an hour, anyway? You should be home right about now. All work and no play’s not too healthy. Take it from me.” Johnson smiled.

“Yeah, you’re right, but there’s a chart in there I need for rounds in the morning. Pederson will kick my ass if I don’t have it.”

Johnson reached down to his belt
and removed a jingling ring of keys.
He honed right in on the proper one, and the door opened with a neat click. “Wouldn’t want to see that man on anybody’s butt. No,sir.”

“Especially mine. You know how he is with the chief resident.”

“I hear you,” said Randall with a curious smile as he flipped the light switch and scanned the lab from the doorway. “Listen, after you find that chart or whatever it is, make sure you lock up, or it’ll be my ass on the line with Doc Balassi, and he can be one bad Hungarian!”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Geoff. He extended his hand.

“I know that,
doc,” he replied.
Johnson leaned closer to Geoff and spoke in a loud whisper. “Whatever it is you’re up to, be more careful, next time, will you? There’s people out there just waiting for you to screw up like you almost did tonight. Ol’ Randall Johnson can’t always be there to save your ass.” He turned and left.

Geoff entered the lab and locked the door securely behind him. He slumped against the inside of the door and exhaled a huge sigh of relief. He had escaped a trip to the city jail only by luck and the good graces of Randall Johnson. The episode had almost cured Geoff’s agnosticism. Nonetheless, his cover was blown, and even though he felt he could trust Randall, one of the guards was sure to talk.

Balassi, worse yet Pederson, would find out soon. Then he’d be in deep shit. He knew he had been granted only a temporary reprieve and the only way to save his ass was to get hold of the information he had set out for tonight. Then they
had
to believe him. Facts couldn’t be denied. He’d be the hero, not the troublemaker.

Geoff removed his hands from his lab coat and held them in front of his face. They were shaking. He tried to slow his breathing, keep from hyperventilating.

Geoff’s sweat-soaked shirt stuck to his chest like a damp rag, made him acutely uncomfortable, so he removed his lab coat, set it down on the bench. He unbuttoned his shirt to cool off. Slowly, he looked around the familiar lab. There were many pieces of information he needed. He had to prioritize them in case he was interrupted and security returned to close up.

Geoff walked down the aisle between two cluttered lab benches, directly toward Balassi’s office. He wasn’t going to waste any more time. He was going to go right to the source, the main computer. Geoff tried the door, but it was locked. He rattled the knob in frustration, remembered Balassi’s routine. Balassi always locked his personal office when he left for the night.

Geoff tried to gather his thoughts. He didn’t believe Balassi’s story about the bad isotope. He wanted to check the isotope maintenance log. Any other information he stumbled across was gravy. First things first.

He walked over to Walter’s desk, situated in an alcove outside Balassi’s office, checked the file drawer, expecting it to be locked. Amazingly, it wasn’t. Geoff searched underneath the stack of files and papers for the log. Nothing.

Next, he looked through the neatly organized pile of papers and notebooks in the middle drawer. A notebook caught his eye, the type of binder Geoff knew was used to log in the isotopes synthesized in the cyclotron.

Geoff grabbed the familiar green binder and checked the inclusive dates on the cover. This was the one. Anxiously, he flipped through the pages to the date in question, 3 July, 2010. He found the entry he was looking for. At the top of the page, clearly underlined in Walter’s distinct Germanic script was the entry: “C-11 Carfentanil.” The next column indicated the amount synthesized—100 nanolitres, enough for five or six scans—and the following column, the time, 0730. The time was right, just before Jessica’s final scan was done. So far it all fit.

Then Geoff’s eyes jumped to the comment inscribed in the final column: O.K. He ran his finger down the page, looking for any indications of a failed isotope, just to be sure. Nothing. He flipped the page back and forth and checked again, in case there was an entry out of sequence. It all checked out. The isotope was not defective as Balassi had tried to tell him. Walter was compulsive. He’d never screwed up an isotope before. Jessica’s bizarre scan was real.

He put the log book back in the stack of papers where he found it and closed the middle drawer, trying to make it appear as if it were never removed.

Geoff looked up from Walter’s desk and found himself staring at his old work station, the place he’d spent so much of his time the last year. Long days, longer nights. Experiments sometimes ran late into the night. On those nights, he would often nap on the old, green couch in Balassi’s office after having dinner alone with his favorite rhesus monkey, Jezebel. When the experiment was completed, he was often the only one left in the lab and would lock up, sometimes as late as two or three in the morning.

Geoff had been the only one Balassi trusted to stay in the lab unsupervised, the only one he trusted to lock up besides himself, the only one given a spare key to the inner sanctum. He had free reign in the lab and in Balassi’s office, his personal computer files included.

When had things changed?

Geoff tried to think back. He could not pinpoint an event in particular, but it seemed as though Balassi became more guarded when the group from NIH started coming around asking questions and auditing lab results. He became secretive, wouldn’t share things with Geoff the way he had before. They stopped going out for happy hour beers at the The Palomino. “Can’t make it tonight, Geoff. Too busy,” was often the excuse. “Have to work on that grant pretty late.” Things weren’t the same in subtle ways, ways Geoff couldn’t put a handle on at the time.

Then Walter was moved into the lab from the PET scan room to supervise endorphin isotope research, and things got even worse. Geoff had been totally shut out from that point onward. Balassi become ever more distant, and it was not unusual for sparks to fly between Geoff and Walter.

Now, as a total outsider—worse yet almost a criminal—Geoff could hardly believe he had once been such an integral part of the lab team. He couldn’t help but wonder whether or not it was all a lie from the beginning. Why, he had no idea. It just didn’t make sense.

The spare key
.

Geoff ran over to his old work station and reached underneath the stainless steel sink, his hand probing frantically for the magnetic key box he had hidden. Could it still be there? He ran his hand all around the bottom of the basin, expecting to feel the sharp metal edges of the small black box, but there was nothing.

Balassi was too careful to leave an extra key around, especially one that someone he obviously no longer trusted knew about. Geoff bent down to look into the cabinet and around the underside of the sink, just to be sure. Gone. The acrid fumes of phenol made his eyes water, his nostrils flare. He leaned back to stand up and hit the back of his head soundly on the edge of the cabinet.

“Shit.” Geoff rubbed his head, but he was not too dazed to notice what was directly beneath him on the bottom of the cabinet wedged between two large brown chemical bottles.

“Bingo!” He reached down and picked up the familiar key box, shaking it with anticipation like that of a young boy on Christmas morning. Smiling, he pried the rusted edges of the box open. Inside was the now-tarnished brass key.

Geoff ran over to Balassi’s outer office door and, just as he had done countless times before, slid the key into the lock. Geoff turned the key and felt the familiar click. He paused for a moment, opened the door just a crack, and peered into the black abyss of the outer office.

Leave now, and no harm done. But his cover was already blown. There was nothing left to lose.

Geoff cautiously entered the room. He switched on the light, looked around the outer office. The familiar moth-eaten green couch sat in the corner, its musty smell permeating the room. The computer table was overflowing with data printouts. On the other side of the room was the refrigerator, the one Balassi used to store his most recently synthesized compounds.   Geoff bypassed the computer printouts and decided to open the refrigerator. A sample or two for Suzanne to analyze in the path lab would be perfect. Geoff removed the tray marked endorphins from the second shelf and examined the vials, each labeled with a six-digit number and a Greek letter. He removed one marked “Beta- 279823” and a second similar-appearing vial marked “Sigma-346891.” Geoff paused and stared at the label.
Sigma.

Geoff placed both vials in the small compartment of his fanny pack, returned the tray to the refrigerator and moved to the computer table. He picked up the most recent stack of printouts and flipped through the pages. What might appear to the untrained eye
to be pages upon pages of mathematical equations, Geoff identified as permutations of amino acid sequences
for new isotope configurations. He knew these were probably significant—new compounds—but realized he didn’t have the time to sift through it all. He had to get want he needed and get out of there.

Geoff sat down at the computer terminal. He removed the black flash drive from his pocket and plugged into a USB port on the front of the computer. He booted the computer and waited for the prompt. He hoped Stefan knew what he was talking about.

Geoff entered Balassi’s Traumanet ID, PETJFB. The computer cursor blinked, requested the password. Geoff waited for what seemed like an eternal ten seconds. The response came.

Access denied. Please confirm correct ID and password.

Geoff checked the connection, made sure the flash drive indicator light was on. It was. He looked at the screen one more time. He had misspelled Balassi’s ID. He keyed in PETJEB. He waited.

Welcome to the Traumanet System, Dr. Balassi.

Stefan’s decoding program worked!

Using Balassi’s ID and password, Geoff pulled up all of the PET scan files, including Romero’s. All patterns were the same—the blazing red horseshoe—all the patients’ brains super-saturated with endorphins. He didn’t have time to check the medical records in any great detail, but verified both Romero and the rabbi had been patients on the neurosurgery service at the NYTC. Whoever was trying to cover their tracks hadn’t done a very thorough job.

An icon flickered in the upper right corner of the screen. Balassi had just received an e-mail. Geoff debated whether or not to check the message. He could be thrown in jail for such an invasion of privacy, at the very least thrown out of the program.   Geoff clicked on the icon. A strange screen appeared, not like any e-mail he had seen. The words at the top of the screen were bright red, flashed a warning.

“TOP SECRET/EYES ONLY”

52-08-02-02-12-06-03-20-18-27-05-12-05-03-12-27-04-26-22-04-04-22-28-27-12-16-28-17-18-12-03-118-17-12-04-22-20-26-14-12-01-03-28-23-18-16-05-12-22-27-19-22-25-05-03-14-05-18-17-12-15-10-12-14-20-18-27-05-12-19-03-28-26-12-22-20-04-12-28-19-19-22-16-18-12-26-28-27-22-05-28-03-22-27-20-12-04-22-05-06-14-05-22-28-27-12-16-25-28-04-18-25-10-12-27-18-06-05-03-14-25-22-13-14-05-22-28-27-12-28-03-17-18-03-18-03-18-17

There were no other words on the page. The message was entirely encrypted, some sort of numeric cipher.

Geoff knew something about encryption. All mission directives were received encoded. There was a chance he might be able to break this code, but it would take time to analyze. He printed the message, and put it in his pack. He’d examine it later.

Geoff checked his watch. 11:51 p.m. Time to get moving. Randall Johnson would be back, wondering why it took him so long to pick up a chart.

Geoff removed the flash drive and was signing off the system when he was startled by a strange sound coming from Balassi’s inner office. Geoff approached the door and listened, his sense of hearing hyper acute. Another sound. At first he thought it was the sound of his own blood pulsing through his inner ear. He remained still, listened further. It was more like a creaking sound, back and forth, like a rocking chair on a squeaky, old floor.