Shadow of Eden (55 page)

“We can use something good around here.”

“Well, she had lunch at a restaurant with high-backed booths here in downtown Beijing and overheard two men talking at the next table. They were in the military, colonels my attaché thinks, and clearly should not have been discussing the subject she overheard. Maybe they were drunk. Apparently one was bragging about his role in the shut down of the Hong Kong press before the massacre. His friend called him Ye. We did some research and we think he is a Colonel Tanggu Ye of the PLA. Tanggu kept referring to ‘The General’ so a little more checking and we found he is attached to General Yao Wenfu.”

“General Yao! Can you be sure?”

“Well, it gets a little more interesting. He kept referring to someone as the little turtle’s egg, a Chinese insult by the way, which puzzled my trade attaché until the name Chow came out. She thinks it was Premier Chow.”

“If the General is indeed Yao, that would make sense.”

“We thought so, too,” Justice chuckled. “Here’s the best part. He also said that the turtle’s egg didn’t have the balls to stand up to the General. Since they were still talking about the Hong Kong affair, I think that Chow was powerless to stop the invasion. I know I am reading a bit into this, but it hangs together with what I know of the two players.”

“I’ll be damned,” Resnick said. “So our guesses were reasonably correct about Yao in ascendancy and Chow as a figurehead.”

“I agree, but just today I had a little chat with a highly placed source who said Yao’s really twisting a lot of arms to pull off this invasion so quickly without giving diplomacy more time to work.”

Resnick shrugged. “I’m not sure how, but I’ll keep it tucked away. The bit about Yao behind the massacre is very useful, however. How do we know it wasn’t a set up?”

“We thought of that and I think it is unlikely. The restaurant was not one she frequents and the officers were there when she arrived.”

“Pierre, can you send me your full report?”

“It’s on its way,” Justice said. “Otherwise, nothing’s changed.”

“Thanks, Pierre.” She hung up wondering what use Pierre’s information might have. Justice’s e-mail arrived on her computer and she carefully read it.

“Ursula,” she buzzed her assistant, “can you bring in a fresh cup of coffee?”

When Ursula walked in, her boss was staring out the window deep in thought. She hardly noticed Ursula replacing the old cup of coffee. Turning back to her desk she picked up the mug and sipped it as she made up her mind. She then dialed Larry Calhoun in the State situation room. “Larry, I need the number of Ernie Whiteside.”

“Huh? Sure. Wait a sec.” He paused and then read it to her. “You going to tell me what this is for?”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

Hanging up, she dialed the number Calhoun had given her.

Chapter 121

“V
alenti, I got the President’s doctor—it’s Dr. Thomas Green.” Steve sat at a terminal in the Cyberstop Cafe reading about the President’s latest physical in the online archives of the Washington Post. “So how do we get his number?”

“Look it up in the phone book,” Valenti mumbled, intent on his own monitor.

“It’s unlisted. Doctors do that, you know.”

“Maybe not, you never know. Say,” Valenti looked up with a sly grin, “you want to drop in on Dr. Blumenthal?”

“Huh?”

“If anybody knows the scoop, he will.”

“Think he’ll tell us?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay . . .” Steve said uncertainly. “How?”

“He lives in Baltimore, near his old Alma Mater, remember? It’s only an hour’s cab ride away. I even got directions from Map Quest.”

Steve caught Valenti’s meaning. “Tonight?”

“Why not?” Valenti’s expression turned evil. “We’ll get there at about one-twenty in the morning. I think a man with a heavy conscience would be awake at that hour.”

“Sure, let’s do it, but I want Dr. Green’s number first.”

Valenti typed at the keyboard a moment. Then he smiled. “Yep, my old patented PI tricks came through again.”

That pricked Steve’s ears. “You got Dr. Green’s number? How?”

“Top secret. I start giving away my techniques and I’m out of a job.” He jotted the number down.

Steve looked over at Valenti’s terminal and then at a smug Valenti.

“I Googled it.” Valenti grinned. “Come on, let’s ride.”

Later, sitting opposite Valenti in the back of a D.C. Radio Flyer Taxi and bound for Baltimore, Steve asked, “How the hell did Mallis know? Where did we go wrong?”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Valenti shifted uncomfortably on the bench seat. “There is no way they could have traced the call to us. It must have been on Castell’s end.”

“How would he have known to tell Trident? I didn’t mention Eden or the reason for my visit. For all he knew, I was calling to ask him to raise Medicare rates.”

“I don’t know.” Valenti stared out the window as they passed the Maryland City exit. Except for the occasional road sign and passing car on the Washington-Baltimore Parkway, there was nothing to look at. “Unless Trident had tagged him for observation. I wonder if they had him under surveillance or bugged.”

“Why him? They can’t bug everybody.”

“I don’t know. What does the Secretary of Health and Human Services do?”

That triggered Steve’s previous recollection about seeing Castell’s name, but he still couldn’t place where. “He’s in charge of all Medicare, housing and stuff. Maybe they were scared he would hear about Eden and act on his own.”

“Maybe.” Valenti didn’t look convinced. “There’s got to be a relationship or connection we don’t know about.”

“Can’t we go to the police and tell them Mallis is after me?”

“We don’t have anything like proof.”

“Surveillance tapes from the museum?”

“Good point. You may have noticed they were wearing sheer masks over their faces. It was enough to blur their features and keep them from being positively recognized.”

“The SUV they were driving?”

“Stolen and they wore gloves—no prints.”

“What about the dead man?”

They probably hauled him off through the same tunnel we left through. It’s common knowledge at the bureau.”

“DNA from the blood?”

“They have to have someone to match it to.”

Steve considered awhile. “Well, at any rate, we now know who’s after me.”

Valenti’s laugh was hollow. “Great, I use my client as bait to flush his assassin. Think of my reputation after this gets out.”

“It bugs you, doesn’t it?”

“Hell yes. You almost got killed back there.”

“The point is,” Steve said, “you didn’t drop me like a hot one.”

“So you’ll respect me in the morning?”

Steve considered. “We’ll see. The night’s not over.”

Chapter 122

S
teve climbed out of the taxi and looked up at a large, upscale house constructed of vintage brick in a pseudo-Tudor style. It was set well back from the street on a manicured lawn lined with rose bushes. No lights shone in the windows, Steve saw. So much for a bad conscience.

Valenti strode up the sidewalk to the front door and rang the bell. “Let’s see what happens.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. They waited. Impatiently, Valenti rang the doorbell again.

Steve backed up and looked at the dark windows. “I hope he’s not on vacation somewhere.” Then a light came on inside followed by the sound of footsteps. The porch light flicked on and the peephole went dark as someone looked through it.

“What do you want?” a man’s voice yelled at them through the door.

Valenti briefly held up his unfolded wallet and yelled, “former FBI, open up.” He mumbled the ‘former’ part. It worked. Steve heard the deadbolt snap. “Oldest trick in the book,” Valenti said under his breath.

The opened door framed a bathrobe-clad man with a grandfatherly face, peering at them anxiously through horn-rimmed glasses.

“I’m Anthony Valenti and this is Dr. Steve James, my associate.” Valenti walked in as if he had been invited. “Dr. Blumenthal, I presume?”

“Why are you here in the middle of the night?”

“Just wanted to ask you some questions. But first, Dr. James wants to tell you a little story. May we sit down?” It was a practiced delivery.

Steve and Valenti sat on a cloth-covered couch in a spacious, but cluttered den. Large format books lay everywhere, mixed with newspapers and scientific journals. Blumenthal stood beside a large overstuffed chair as if this would be a brief visit.

Steve began. “Dr. Blumenthal, I have evidence that Eden causes prion conversion in human nerve cells.”

Blumenthal’s face remained impassive. “Is that right?” he said evenly.

“I have also personally examined two patients who are dying of a prion disease and know of a third who died with identical symptoms. They were all taking Eden.”

“That correlation doesn’t constitute proof.” Blumenthal pointed out, crossing his arms.

“In addition,” Steve continued, “I have evidence of possibly a hundred more cases scattered across the globe with characteristic clinical findings of this disease.” Steve leaned forward. “With virtually all the patients taking Eden. That classifies it as an epidemic.”

“Jesus.” Blumenthal wilted, sagging into the large chair. “Jesus,” he whispered again. It seemed Blumenthal did have a conscience. “I was afraid of this,” he finally said. “I prayed it would never happen.”

“Tell us what you know.”

“I don’t know where to begin. A hundred . . . my God.” Blumenthal closed his eyes for a long time. “It started,” he began, “when Vicktor Morloch invested a large sum of venture capital into my startup company before it became Trident . . .”

A soft buzzer disturbed a Mallis and Associates technician from his magazine. Rolling his chair over to the monitor, he saw a priority message flashing on his screen. “Morloch” was the key word. He clicked his mouse and Blumenthal’s voice came through his headphones.

“. . . we needed the cash. Morloch insisted on control and I stupidly let him. I was desperate, you know. We were ready to liquidate, but he could rescue the company and keep all its patents intact. It was too good to pass up, but once he took over, my word, everything changed. He fired most of our in-house research staff and hired a couple of his own. They farmed out all our studies to outside vendors. What did he know about drug research? But we were finally making progress and I thought things were going okay. I signed reports and the stock price did okay. Then the mouse brains came back with prions. I never actually saw that report, only the ones that Morloch actually showed me but I knew just the same. All those reports he had represented it to me as valid, I believed them and I signed off. But a—”

The technician picked up a phone and tapped a number.

“Mallis.”

“Priority, Mr. Mallis. From mister, uh, Doctor Blumenthal’s house. I’m patching you in.” The technician clicked another button and hung up, the transfer complete.