Shadow of Eden (56 page)

Mallis sat at his office desk and listened to the message, the handset pressed to his ear by his shoulder. He was stripped to his underwear with Silvadine burn cream smeared on the bright red and blistered areas on his face, torso, and arms. As he listened, his eyes narrowed. “It’s James and Fanelli,” he said to Doug, who had been cleaning up the medical supplies. “Blumenthal’s squealing like a pig. Let’s move.”

“. . . I was not in Morloch’s inner circle, see, and I only learned about the prions from a slip-up by Dr. Tobias, one of his hires. By then, I didn’t know much of what was happening in the company I founded—everything went through Morloch, everything, you know? When I found out, I confronted him with it. Look, in other companies, this sort of result would have triggered many more studies in tissue culture and in other animal species to understand the nature of the problem. It probably would have killed the drug. I mean, he had a potentially lethal problem here.”

Steve and Valenti listened intently to Blumenthal as he paced in front of the brick mantelpiece fireplace.

“You know what he said? ‘Fuck off, Blumenthal,’ I couldn’t believe it. I was Chief Scientist and founder and he just—” Blumenthal shook his head.

“Why didn’t you tell someone?” Steve asked.

Blumenthal sighed. “This is where the nightmare really began. Morloch warned me that I could go to jail since I had signed the forged federal reports. This sounds so asinine now in retrospect. I was so stupid and scared.”

“Is that what really kept you from going to the police?” Valenti asked.

Blumenthal stared at Valenti, then looked away. He stood up and walked over to the fireplace where some hot embers still smoked slightly. Blumenthal picked up his poker and pushed it into the ashes stirring them to renewed brightness. Ever so quietly, he answered. “In my heart, I thought it would work. I wanted my baby to succeed. I had invented it and I wanted it to make a difference. It was going to change the world, you know? Maybe even a Nobel. Maybe the pre-clin results wouldn’t affect humans—like Scrapie only affects sheep, right?”

He turned and looked almost pleadingly at Steve and Valenti. “It was all built-up lies and rationalizations, but I had a lifelong dream that was teetering on disaster. It’s hard to let go of something like that.” He slumped into a chair. “Eventually, I would have told someone. It started getting to me, the possibility people would get prions and die. I guess Morloch knew that and had this scary guy show up.”

He stared up at the ceiling. “I still remember that day like it was yesterday. He told me what would happen if I said anything. Real quiet like, you know, confident and rock certain that I would die if I told anyone. I didn’t dare talk after that. No way. But, a hundred . . .”

Steve was struck by the agony of this brilliant scientist whose past was unraveling in front of him. “What is the real reason for the new formulation we are doing trials on now?”

“I’m not in on it; not really. But the official word is that it’s an improved version that works the same way as Eden. It’s supposed to work faster and is better absorbed.” He shrugged. “The company line.”

“Is it to avoid prion conversion?” Steve prodded.

“Probably, but I don’t officially know. I ran a couple of tests on my own on it, in secret of course, and it didn’t kill the cultures, but I couldn’t tell for sure without an electron microscope or special reagents, which I didn’t have and didn’t dare request, so it was inconclusive.”

“Do you have any proof that Morloch did all this?” Valenti circled for the score.

Blumenthal took his time answering as he stood up and jabbed again at the embers making the fading coals spark and snap. “I wish I’d never taken any of Morloch’s goddamn money.”

Chapter 123

M
allis and Doug, dressed in black body suits, trotted silently up to Blumenthal’s house. Doug picked the lock and they slipped in, latex gloves on and pistols drawn. They found Blumenthal sitting at the kitchen table, his back to them, sipping from a coffee mug, apparently lost in thought. He hadn’t heard them come in. Doug moved on to search the rest of the house.

After checking around the kitchen, Mallis grinned. “Samuel, old boy, how are you?”

Blumenthal whirled around, his face quickly drained of color. “Jesus! What are you doing here?”

“You’ve been a bad boy, Samuel. Where are they?”

Blumenthal stood up to face him. “Who?” His voice shook.

Mallis kicked Blumenthal in the groin. Blumenthal grunted and fell to the floor, doubled up with pain.

“Where are they?”

“They’re gone,” he gasped. “You’re too late.”

“Goddamn it. What did you tell them?”

Hatred narrowed Blumenthal’s eyes. “Everything, you bastard, the whole story. They’re going to hang you. I gave them all the evidence. All the stuff I’d accumulated on Vicktor’s and your bullshit over the years. They’re going straight to the FBI with it.”

Mallis paled and then kicked Blumenthal in the ribs. “Fucking bullshit. I’ve been over this place a dozen times. There’s nothing here.”

“No sign of them,” Doug trotted back to report.

Mallis held out his hand. “Dr. James’s gun, please.”

Doug handed Mallis a plastic Ziploc bag containing the pistol. As Mallis pulled the gun out, Blumenthal’s bravado evaporated. He crawled backwards until he backed into a wall and could go no further.

Chapter 124

“B
lumenthal has a story and his speculations, but no evidence.” Valenti sighed. He and Steve sat in the back of the taxi heading back to Washington, DC. “Nothing we can pin on Morloch. I hate to leave empty handed.”

“Me, too. At least we got some validation.”

“Yeah, that.” Valenti yawned. “Right now, I need some nourishment. We haven’t eaten since lunch.”

They fell silent, fatigue creeping in. Steve leaned his head back on the blue vinyl seat and closed his eyes. Something Blumenthal said about filing the reports with the FDA nagged him. Suddenly his eyes flew open.
Castell.
He was head of the FDA when Eden was approved. Castell’s name had been on the signature page of the Summary Basis of Approval and he had completely forgotten it. He could have influenced Eden’s passage somehow.

The car radio broke Steve’s thoughts. “We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin.” The driver turned it up. “. . . Earlier this evening, the White House announced that China’s ultimatum for their attack on the U.S. Pacific carrier fleet expires at seven o’clock this morning. The administration reports the USS Eisenhower and USS Stennis carrier battle groups, stationed in the Taiwan Straits, are ready for any assault from China.”

Steve and Valenti stared at each other.

“Shit,” Valenti said as they both checked their watches. It was three forty-six.

“ . . . our ABC news consultant, retired Rear Admiral John Buckingham, says there is no maneuvering room for the U.S. fleet or their fighters and with an all-out point-blank assault from Mainland China, there are likely to be heavy casualties. Admiral Buckingham says the destruction could be the largest Navy loss since Pearl Harbor.”

“Meanwhile, at the White House, the President still stands firm in defiance of China’s ultimatum. The President maintains that the freedom loving people of Taiwan should not be subject to China’s oppressive rule. There is no word of last minute negotiations with the Chinese to avert the conflict.

“U.S. government sources tell us that China appears to be readying its forces. Chinese Ambassador Gung has told ABC news that they desire to settle this conflict through diplomacy and peaceful means and he places blame squarely on President Dixon for provoking this conflict by his refusal to negotiate.”

“Dammit,” Valenti said. “We’ve got to get to Dr. Green.”

Steve’s throat tightened as he contemplated the deadline. “How could they have done this so fast? Doesn’t it take months to prepare for this kind of assault?”

“Normally, but remember, when you’re the underdog, you do the unexpected. China may be about to pull off a huge tactical victory and we learn the goddamn lesson.”

“Wait,” Steve said. “Listen.”

“ . . . Bizarre break-in and gunfight in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History between the FBI and two armed men. One FBI agent was killed during the gun battle . . .”

Anne, wearing one of her mother’s nightgowns, stared out the second-story bedroom window into the back yard. A cold front was blowing in fresh snow, creating swirling patterns in the glow of the rear porch light. It wouldn’t last past noon at their altitude, she knew, but the mountains would get a fresh layer. She looked forward to seeing it in the morning. She sighed as her thoughts returned to Steve.

Anne got up nightly at this time in a routine she both hated and appreciated for the solitude. Her parents did their best, but they couldn’t bring Steve home.

How was he doing? His last message said he was well and making progress but that was all. It was unsatisfactory, like getting a birthday card with only a signature inside.

The clock radio was tuned to the news, her habit now. Music isolated her and she needed to feel connected. Tonight, however, she almost turned it off with the monotonously repetitive reports about the pending attack on the U.S. carriers. Still, she listened with half an ear.

Then something else caught her attention, something new. “. . . with notable destruction of precious artifacts during the confrontation, including the large Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton for which the Smithsonian Museum is famous. Amazingly the two suspects are still at large. They have been identified as Dr. Steven James of Phoenix and—”

She whirled around and gasped. “Steve!”