Pestilence (Jack Randall #2) (18 page)

Sydney parked outside his modest house in the pine barrens of New Jersey. It was an old farmhouse with a wide porch and peeling white paint. An equally ancient barn sat in the backyard, leaning precariously to one side. The fields around it were bare, but showed signs of being tended. The house did not, surrounded by trees that needed trimming and grass that was far too high. Weeds grew up through the gravel driveway and brushed against the underside of the car as she pulled up to the front porch. She took in the grime coated windows and closed curtains. A light shone behind one so she got out and walked up the creaking steps. She knocked on the door as hard as she dared—it looked ready to fall off by itself.

“Who the hell is it?” a man’s voice called out from inside.

“Dr. Miles? It’s Sydney Lewis, from Vanderbilt.”

She heard some muttered cursing as he made his way to the door. It seemed to take him awhile. The curtain pulled back from the glass and she was treated to her former professor’s face glaring at her over his glasses.

“Who?” he asked. “What the hell do you want?”

“It’s Sydney Lewis, sir. You taught me advanced micro in school?” she prompted.

His glare remained before his memory kicked in. He withdrew his head and she heard several locks turning. The door was swept open and she was treated to the smiling face of her former professor.

“Sydney Lewis! Why it’s been . . .”

“Eight years, sir, how are you?”

“Oh, I’m doing just fine. Come in, come in.”

Sydney carefully stepped through the door and took in the room. The locks were all reengaged behind her and he joined her, following her gaze.

“I’m not much for housekeeping. Just ignore all this stuff and come to the kitchen. I just made a batch of sweet tea. Gotta make it myself. Damn Yankees drink it plain, but we know better don’t we?”

“Yes we do.”

Sydney understood why it took so long for him to get to the door as she followed him through a path of stacked books, journal articles, and old furniture. A cat watched her every move from a hiding place between the stacks. A fireplace went unused against one wall and served as a depository for more clutter. It was a relief to finally enter the kitchen. The professor moved to the refrigerator and removed a large glass pitcher. Setting it on the spotless table, he fetched two glasses from a nearby cupboard, inspecting them carefully before adding ice and setting them down.

Sydney watched him work, for that is what he was doing. The kitchen was the exact opposite of the room she had walked through and it didn’t surprise her as she already knew the man. A kitchen was just another laboratory to the professor, and this one was as clean and in order as any she had ever worked in. She watched him move about in his usual uncoordinated way, but there was never a wasted moment. He knew where everything was and everything was in its place until needed. The man had worked out his priorities several years ago.

Sydney sampled the tea and it was exactly as she remembered it.

“So what brings you to New Jersey? Are you with the New York office now?”

“You know where I work?”

“Well of course I do. I get television, even way out here, in color and everything.”

“I’m sorry. I just figured you lost track. I know how busy you keep yourself.”

“That doesn’t stop Stacie from calling. Nothing really stops Stacie from calling. Called me one night about a couple of months ago and told me all about how you were working for the FBI and flying around in a big jet. I was happy to hear you’d finally found your niche.”

“It is rewarding. I like my job. How are you doing?”

He paused for a large sip of tea before jumping to his feet. “I’m doing okay now. Found a job where they just leave me alone and let me tinker.” He pulled out a box of cookies from a shelf organized by size, shook some out onto a spotless glass plate and set it on the table. “Pays well, too. Finally realized money wasn’t my thing and hired a guy to take care of mine for me. Not like I need a lot, but he tells me I’m getting rich. He gives me an allowance, believe it or not, like I’m some kinda kid.”

“Are you bored?” she asked.

Professor Miles munched a cookie as he thought about her question. “Am I bored? Yes and no. I basically have my own lab, Bio level 4 even. I can do whatever I want. They give me stuff they want me to work on, but it only eats up maybe half my time. I do some experimenting and I publish a little. A lot of it gets classified and that still pisses me off, but I don’t tilt at windmills anymore. If I do bitch they pay me off with a raise or a vacation. I’m content, I guess you could say.”

“What if I said I had something mysterious for you?”

He let his chair fall forward as he reached for another cookie. Sydney recognized the pattern. He was using the cookie to buy him some time to think. She waited patiently.

“Is this secret FBI stuff?”

“Maybe. We’re not really sure yet.”

“We?”

“My boss and myself,” she answered.

“Who’s your boss?”

“Jack Randall.”

“Tall dark-headed fellow, I saw him on the TV with you. Stacie said he was a straight shooter. Just what is it you need?”

Sydney pulled the vials from her pocket and set them on the table. He looked at them and then at her before he brushed the crumbs off his hands and picked one up. He looked it over carefully and held it up to the light.

“I don’t recognize the numbers. No name on the label. What is it?”

“We don’t know. Some type of vaccine, we believe. We found it in an East African warehouse. We were attempting to transport it when somebody ambushed the trucks. They were fought off, but the ambushers destroyed the remaining supply rather than let us keep it.”

“It’s not any vaccine I know of, and I know them all. Somebody killed for this?”

“Yes, and we don’t know why. Black market drugs are big in Africa, but they really took a big chance destroying the truck.”

The professor rolled the vial around in his hand for a moment while he thought some more.

“You say they were inoculating people with this?”

“The yellow top vials seemed to move in and out, but the red tops just seem to sit once they arrive.”

“Like it’s waiting for something,” he stated.

“Maybe, but what?”

“Good question. They both have the same number on them, just different lids.” He was just speaking out loud as teachers were prone to do when they’re thinking.

“They were always stored far apart, never in the same area.”

“Strange. I could run it through the lab and see what it is for you. That what you need?”

“If it’s no trouble. We’re willing to pay you.”

He took his eyes off the vials long enough to frown at her. “Who, you or the FBI?”

“Jack has money. He said he’d pay whatever you need. We’d like to just keep this quiet for now, just the three of us.”

“Tell your friend he can keep his money. I’ve got the time and it’ll be nice to have something different to play with. I can run it through a little gizmo I helped invent not too long ago. It’s a new biosensor. You just park a little drop in and it breaks it down to the DNA and compares it to a database, takes just a few minutes. Somebody took my idea and they’re working on a handheld model for the military and TSA and whoever else they think needs it. I’m told I’ll be rich for that, too, but I’ll believe it when I see it. You got a phone number where I can reach you?”

Sydney reached in her purse and pulled out a card. She wrote her private number on the back. “Use this one, not the one on the front.”

“Okay, you hungry?”

She smiled at his rapid change in thought. “Sure.”

“Good, let’s go down to the Hide-a-Way and eat. They got a cheeseburger big as your head.” He jumped up and grabbed his coat, placing the vials in the pocket.

They took the shorter route out the back door, bypassing the obstacle course of the front room.

•      •      •

Professor Miles was up early the next morning after a sleepless night. He’d lain in bed listening to the cats chase one another around the house, the loose boards of the barn banging in the wind, and the sound of the air conditioning turning on and off. His thoughts kept returning to the vials his former pupil had dropped off.

What a life she must have, he thought. She had been one of his best pupils, but what he had liked best about her was that she had no sense of entitlement. She was the exact opposite of the rich kids who were the sons and daughters of legacy graduates. A former paramedic, no less, maybe it was her age and street experience that gave her the attitude they had all noticed. While the other medical students had aimed at plastic surgery or lucrative careers as specialists, Sydney had wanted nothing more than to return to public service with the FBI. Stacie, her friend and mentor, had been cut from the same cloth and he had followed the careers of both of them over the years. He had been overjoyed to see her on his front porch and he’d had to bite his tongue to not bring up the subject of the vials over their cheeseburgers. The mystery of the vials was just what he needed right now.

The drumming of a woodpecker on his aluminum downspouts told him the sun was creeping up, and he pulled himself out of bed and turned off the alarm well before it was set to ring. The cats stood quickly to avoid the flying blanket then just as quickly settled back down on the bed to sleep the morning away. They knew that food would await them in their bowls when they chose to awake, and it was best to stay out from underfoot during their owner’s high speed morning ritual.

Jim quickly showered and shaved before walking around the bedroom with an electric toothbrush running in one hand as he pulled whatever was on top from a multitude of drawers with the other. Whether the items matched or even went together never crossed his mind. His trademark Detroit Red Wings baseball cap went on over his unruly hair and he made it back to the sink in time to spit. He had mastered the art of brushing his teeth and getting dressed at the same time years ago.

A quick stop in the kitchen for an energy bar and a bottle of Gatorade and he was out the door, only to immediately return and fill the cats’ bowls to overflowing. He looked at the mess on his clean floor, but quickly decided he could clean it up later if the cats didn’t finish it all. He had a new puzzle to work on, and he loved puzzles.

The twenty-minute drive to his office and lab took him only fifteen minutes today in the light early morning traffic. The average driver would have taken thirty, but Jim always sped wherever he went as he considered time spent traveling to and from as time wasted. He looked forward to the invention of the molecular transporter so he could just beam himself wherever he wanted to go, but he doubted it would exist in his lifetime. His eight-year-old Mercedes held up just fine to the brutal treatment he dished out daily.

Arriving at his lab he stormed through the office area, snapping on the lights. His assistant, lab techs, and secretary weren’t due for another hour yet. He paused at her desk to leave a short message before advancing to his own office. First he took off his coat and hung it on the hook next to his framed “The Terminator” marquee poster before he retrieved the vials from its pocket. He set them down on the blotter and forced a deep breath. He moved his nose down until it was an inch from the vials.

“Who’s first?” he asked them.

Recalling what Sydney had said about the yellows being the ones that were moved in and out of the warehouse, he chose it first. Picking up the red top vial he placed it in his personal safe. One he’d had reprogrammed by a “visiting consultant” some time ago. He just didn’t trust his employers to keep their noses out of it. Palming the yellow vial, he proceeded out the door and into the lab. He had made the decision to work on the vial in his Level 4 lab last night. He had two reasons. One, he had an unknown substance and he felt safer playing with it under those conditions, and two, he would have total privacy.

The lab here was only a few years old and modeled after the Russian biological warfare labs discovered after the Cold War ended. The labs had the same levels of containment, 1 through 4, but whereas the CDC had different labs for different levels, this design was proven more efficient and safe and had been adopted by the rest of the world. It was basically a series of rings, the outermost being Level 1 and progressing to the core which was Level 4. Any virus being worked on in the core would have to get past three levels of containment in the event of an accident.

Jim paused at the first gate to slide his ID card through the reader. The door opened with a hiss and he felt the slight tug of air pulling him into the lab. All of the lab areas were under negative pressure, the air being constantly sucked toward the core to prevent the escape of airborne viruses. The air from the core was processed through sealed ductwork lit by powerful ultraviolet lights that served to destroy the genetic material of most viruses. It was then pulled through a chemical shower and an electrostatic dust collector before being processed by a series of High Efficiency Particle Arrestor—HEPA—filters. The entire system had multiple fail-safe measures and backup power sources that were maintained and guarded twenty-four hours a day.

He waved to the surprised guard reading a paperback in front of a group of video monitors.

“Good morning, Charlie.”

“Morning, sir, you’re starting early today?”

“Yeah, got an idea. Don’t worry, I’ll try not to moon ya.”

Charlie grinned, it was their standard joke. Security cameras were everywhere, even in the locker room. Charlie had a view of the doctor’s bare ass every day.

Jim didn’t pause or break stride as he moved on through the Level 1 lab and entered the locker room. It was a small room with a few lockers, a bench, and a large sink. A full-length mirror hung on the wall. Jim opened his locker and removed all of his clothing, including his underwear, his watch and his Red Wings hat, which he carefully placed on the top shelf facing out. Standing completely naked, he walked to the last locker and removed a sterile set of surgical scrubs and a surgical cap. He first donned the cap and, using the mirror, made sure every strand was tucked underneath. He then put on the pants and shirt before tying the drawstring to just the right tightness, which he tested with a deep knee bend to ensure it wouldn’t ride up his ass when he sat down. Once he had donned the space suit there was no way to fix such a problem, and he didn’t wish to be stuck with a distracting wedgie all day.