Invasive Procedures (6 page)

Monica looked past Stone and saw the receptionist lying on the floor, not moving.

“What did you do to her?”

“A mild narcotic,” said Galen. “She’s sleeping. She’s not hurt. In fact, when she wakes up, she won’t even remember having fallen asleep. Or having talked to me. Or having seen you. Her memories of the last few hours will simply be absent from her mind. So rather than be alarmed, she’ll feel right as rain. And instead of notifying the authorities, she’ll go about her business same as always. Because in her mind, you never came into work today. And if we’re all adults about this, no one will get hurt. No one but me, that is.”

Monica saw the used syringe in Stone’s hand and backed away from him until she reached the wall. “Stay away from me,” she said.

Galen held his hands up, palms out, in a calming gesture. “You’re not in danger, Doctor,” he said. “I only ask for your cooperation. We will not harm you. I only need your talent for a very important procedure. One that will, if effective, revolutionize medicine. I’m giving you the opportunity of a lifetime here, Doctor. Trust me. With my help, you can cement your name in the history books.”

Monica looked at them both. She was still terrified, but they weren’t
crowding her. They were giving her space. They were letting her think. “If I say no?” she said.

Galen frowned. “I’m not a violent man, Doctor Owens. But the work I’m doing is invaluable. So I won’t allow a few obstinate people, including yourself, to get in the way of my success.”

Monica wanted to cry. Her chest felt constricted. She wanted to speak, but fear held her tongue.

“If I can’t persuade you,” said Galen, “then perhaps someone else can.” He flipped open a cell phone and dialed. “Put him on,” he said presently. Then he handed the cell phone to Monica.

She put it to her ear. “Hello?” she said reluctantly.

“Mommy?” the voice said.

Monica’s heart skipped a beat. It was Wyatt. And he sounded very afraid.

A jeep picked up Frank in the morning and drove him to the airfield. The driver was a young, gangly enlisted man with a Southern accent and heels that clicked together when he saluted. A real by-the-booker. “Morning, sir. Help you with your bags, sir.” He must have said
sir
ten times before the bags were loaded into the bed of the jeep and then another two hundred times, or so it seemed, during the brief drive.

“So where are you from?” Frank had asked.

“Yes, sir, I’m from Tennessee.” He had his hands on the steering wheel in a ten-two position, arms stiff, eyes never leaving the road.

“Where were you stationed before Fort Detrick?”

“Yes, sir, I was at Fort Benning, sir.”

And on and on with the
yes sirs
and the
no sirs
. Frank found it all slightly amusing and appreciated the momentary distraction from his concerns about his new assignment. Truth be told, he had slept little the night before. The more he considered a temporary stint with the BHA, the more uneasy he felt, even though he had no legitimate reason to feel that way.

The BHA, or Biohazard Agency, was a relatively new federal organization. Frank knew little about it, except that it had its origins in the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a group of agents from various federal agencies
like the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control. Members of the EIS had prepared and trained for biological attacks and potential epidemics. But their involvement with the EIS had not been their full-time job. They still worked as doctors or field agents or virologists or whatever else they did to pay the bills. So the EIS was like an elite club of tactical white-collar do-gooders.

Two years ago, someone of rank and importance had decided that the duties of the EIS deserved more attention than that given by a few part-time volunteers. So the EIS was dissolved and the BHA was born. Agents of the BHA worked only for the BHA.

The jeep passed through all the necessary checkpoints until it reached the airfield and drove out onto the tarmac. Agents Riggs and Carter were waiting outside a small, sleek private jet beside two men in red jumpsuits.

Frank thanked the driver, which got him three more
sirs
, and got out of the jeep to greet Agents Riggs and Carter. The two men in jumpsuits busied themselves loading Frank’s bags into the jet’s cargo hold.

“Morning,” Riggs said, extending a hand to Frank’s and shaking it. “Good day for flying.” He shielded his eyes from the morning sun and looked heavenward.

Frank was too riveted to the jet to follow Riggs’s gaze. “We’re flying in that?” he said, surpised. “That looks like a luxury aircraft, not some taped-up military bucket with wings.”

Riggs laughed. “Gulfstream jet. I think you’ll find it accommodating.”

The men in jumpsuits lifted a large metal trunk out of the jeep.

“Careful with that one,” Frank said.

“Are the samples of countervirus in it?” Riggs asked.

Frank nodded.

“Set that down a second,” said Riggs.

The men complied, and Riggs unlatched the lid and opened it. Several dozen vials of countervirus were positioned in neat rows within thick black foam. Riggs removed one of the vials and held it up to the light. The sun’s rays reflected off its edges. Riggs shook the vial gently, and the red serum inside sloshed. “So this is magic stuff, eh?”

“That’s it,” said Frank, “though how magical it is has yet to be determined.”

“Why’s it red?”

“It’s a countervirus, meant to stop the spread of the virus, so I colored it to make it easy to identify.”

Riggs nodded. “Red means stop.”

“Right.”

Riggs returned the vial to its hole in the foam and repeated Frank’s instructions to the men in the jumpsuits. “Careful with this one.”

They latched the lid closed, then loaded the trunk into the cargo hold.

“Let’s hope it works,” Riggs said.

Sensing the right moment to press for information, Frank said, “I hope that my coming with you makes me privy to certain intelligence. You’re visibly concerned about the efficacy of the countervirus, and I’d like to know why.”

Riggs nodded gravely, then gestured to the aircraft. “Let’s have a seat.

Agent Carter led them up the few stairs and into the jet’s interior. Frank had ridden first class on commercial airliners before—usually because of a fluke upgrade—but those experiences had done little to prepare him for what he faced now. The interior of the Gulfstream was like a posh waiting room, with a dozen or so wide leather recliners, lush carpet, and cherry wood trim. Several flat-screen computer monitors, on which the BHA insignia lazily bounced, hung from the ceiling or were suspended from the wall, designed to accommodate those sitting in the recliners. Frank was half tempted to remove his shoes.

He stepped inside and took a seat while Agent Riggs sealed the door and Carter spoke briefly with the pilot.

As the plane began taxiing to the runway, Riggs sat opposite Frank, facing him. Carter took a seat somewhere in the back, alone.

“You boys fly in style,” said Frank, craning his neck around to get another look. “I dare say Uncle Sam loves the BHA more than he does the Army.”

Riggs grinned and handed Frank a large envelope.

“What’s this?” Frank said.

“All our secrets.”

Frank pulled out a stack of documents, all rubber-stamped
CLASSIFIED
, as well as several eight-by-ten color photographs. The photo on top was so gruesome that Frank nearly dropped what he was holding.

It was a crime-scene photo. A close-up.

In it, a police officer lay dead on the asphalt, a pool of blood behind his head—or rather, what was left of his head. It looked as if his face had turned to putty and slid downward off his skull, the flesh still attached to him, but only casually so. Dark black splotches covered what was left of the skin.

Frank had seen this before, albeit not on a human. The first round of monkeys, which had received a hearty dose of the virus, experienced a similar reaction: rapid cell degeneration, massive internal hemorrhaging, skin lesions, followed by death. It had been a frightening, gut-wrenching ordeal to witness. And this, a photograph, a mere visual record of a person having undergone the same ordeal, was just as nauseating.

White chalk outlined the corpse, and a folded index card beside the man gave the place and date: Long Beach, California, six months ago.

“We first discovered VI6 about six months ago,” said Riggs, “in an abandoned warehouse in Long Beach. A few shopkeepers near the warehouse heard some commotion inside it, thought it was being vandalized and called local police. Two cops showed up. One went inside, and two minutes later he came out screaming, his face in his hands. Moments later he was dead.”

“How was he infected?” Frank asked, looking up from the photograph.

Riggs pointed to the other photos in the stack.

Frank flipped through them quickly. They had been taken inside a dark building, presumably the warehouse, and showed what looked like a laboratory, complete with beakers and burners and centrifuges and various diagnostic machines. Beside a computer terminal sat a white refrigerator-sized box.

“What’s that?” Frank asked, pointing to it.

“A gene sequencer.”

Frank’s expression must have shown his surprise.

“Yes, not exactly what’d you expect to find in an abandoned warehouse in Long Beach.” Riggs pointed to a photo of a row of test tubes. “We believe the police officer opened one of these test tubes and somehow spilled the contents on himself.”

“The tube contained the virus?”

“We found thirty-one test tubes in all,” said Riggs, “all carrying a
different strain of the virus. Meaning they were intended for thirty-one different patients.”

“Patients?”

“You said so yourself, Doctor. Retroviral vectors like this are either a weapon, or they’re medicinal.”

“This virus is medicinal?” Frank said.

“Yes. Or at least, that’s what we
believe
it was designed for.”

Frank gestured at one of the photos of the warehouse. “You’re telling me this was some kind of secret gene-therapy clinic?”

“Back-alley cures, underground healings, call it what you will.”

Gene therapy was a rather recent advance in medicine, Frank knew. The idea was simple. Genetic diseases were the result of either a defective or a missing gene in the DNA. Sickle-cell anemia, hemochromotosis, Parkinson’s disease, and others were all the result of missing or defective genes. Gene therapy was simply a way of giving the right genes to the person who needed them. The trick was to figure out how to insert a cloned, healthy gene into the DNA where it belonged. Doctors could never operate on such a cellular level. But a virus could. That’s what viruses did, after all; they penetrated cell walls and deposited genes, typically viral genes that made people sick. But if those viral genes could be removed and replaced with
good
genes, then the virus suddenly became a good kind of virus. A healing virus.

Frank rubbed his eyes. “You’re telling me that someone figured out how to put cloned genes inside a retrovirus in the hopes of healing a genetic disease?”

“Hard to believe?”

Frank shrugged. “Well, considering that geneticists have been trying to accomplish this for decades with only marginal success, I find it rather amazing, if not amusing, that someone would be so bold as to believe that they could accomplish what science had not, using a few test tubes and a gene sequencer bought on eBay.”

Riggs grinned. “When you put it that way, I suppose it does seem a little amusing.”

Frank looked down at the photo of the police officer again and thought that it wasn’t so amusing, after all.

By now, the plane had reached its cruising altitude.

Frank said, “So the gene therapy virus they created was a bust? I mean, what this guy found in the warehouse, this virus in the test tube, it was a failed attempt at a gene-therapy virus.”

“Not necessarily,” said Riggs. “Remember, a gene-therapy virus is only good for the person it was engineered for. It has genes he or she needs. You and I don’t need those genes. Our bodies reject them.”

Frank now understood. The police officer had found a virus intended for someone else; his body did not need whatever genes it contained. But since the virus spread so quickly and so aggressively, his body didn’t have time to combat the foreign gene, and his cells degenerated as quickly as if someone had thrown acid on his face.

“And you have no idea who was responsible for this?” Frank said. “Who the warehouse belongs to?”

“We didn’t until forty-eight hours ago,” Riggs said, swiveling in his chair so that he faced one of the computer monitors. He touched the screen and called up a program. A video began. It was news footage. A seven-story building in Los Angeles was burning. Firefighters were working to put out the flames, but much of the top floors had already been destroyed by fire.

Frank recognized the scene. “Gas leak, right?” he said. “I saw something about this building on CNN a few days ago.”

“Gas had nothing to do with it,” said Riggs. “That was what we fed the press. The truth is, the top floor of the building was another lab, just like the one we found in Long Beach six months ago.”

“A gene-therapy lab?”

“Right. Only, whoever built it had apparently learned a lesson from the warehouse in Long Beach. This one was wired with explosives.”

“Explosives? They blew up their own lab?”

“No. The building was an old abandoned apartment complex. It hadn’t been used in years. The city had condemned it, and it was scheduled for demolition. Someone from the demolition crew was walking through the building, checking for squatters before they started tearing it down, and we think he might have triggered the explosives.”

Three people had died in the blast, if Frank remembered correctly.

“And this fire told you who the lab belonged to?”

“Not entirely,” said Carter, “but we got a decent lead. The blast blew
some debris from the building. Including this.” He touched the screen, and an image replaced the video. It was of a large burned piece of dark fabric.