Sins of the Father (15 page)

“Hey,” the boy said. “You can’t be up here.”

“Sorry,” Peter said again. It seemed like he’d been saying that a lot lately.

He grabbed Doctor Lachaux’s hand and shoved her past the stock boy, then followed close behind, running into the back room of the supermarket.

Inside, it was a lot colder than it had been outside. Air-conditioned to keep the food fresh. Although Peter’s clothes were no longer dripping, they were still far from dry, and he immediately started to shiver. It was hard to act like a tough-guy action-hero with his teeth chattering, but he did his best.

He sprinted toward the double doors that led into the market itself. When he and Doctor Lachaux burst through, he immediately slowed to what he hoped would seem like a swift but casual walk, just like any normal shopper in a hurry.

The shoppers and employees mostly ignored them, except for the ones who noticed the doctor’s damp blouse. Peter hoped they’d focus on speculating whether or not her perky breasts were natural, instead of wondering why two strangers had just appeared from the employees-only stock room. Or if the sounds they’d heard out back were firecrackers.

He looked around, half expecting someone to question them.

Nothing.

We might as well be invisible
, he thought with a touch of indignation.

But he put it aside. Shivering and desperate to get away from the chill coming off of the refrigerated meat cases, Peter cut down through the produce section, heading for the automatic doors. They were briefly thwarted by a rail-thin woman with a shopping cart full of diet soda and hand sanitizer. She’d left her cart skewed and blocking the aisle, and was examining a head of organic lettuce as if she was a pawnbroker evaluating a questionable diamond.

“Excuse me,” Peter said, hip-checking the cart to clear the way.

To his chagrin, he apparently pushed it way harder than he intended to, because it rolled across the aisle and crashed into a pyramid of grapefruit. The pile collapsed, and fruit went rolling in every direction.

“Hey!” the woman cried, clutching the lettuce to her bony chest and spinning to face him.

So much for not attracting any attention.

“Yeah, um…” Peter began, backing away with his hands up. “Really, I’m very—”

The thin woman grabbed Peter’s wet sleeve.

“What’s the matter with you?” she hissed. “Jerk!”

To his surprise, Doctor Lachaux spoke up. Her blue eyes were bright and mischievous, and any remaining sluggishness from her brief seizure seemed to have been burned away by adrenaline.

“Did you know,” she said, leaning over Peter’s shoulder and arching a brow at the woman’s lettuce, “that you’re more likely to contract the Norovirus through salad than any other food? That’s because it doesn’t get subjected to high-temperature cooking, which would disrupt the virus’s fecal-oral transmission pathway.”

The woman went pale, let go of Peter’s sleeve, and dropped the lettuce as if it was radioactive. She pulled a bottle of hand sanitizer out of her purse and doused her shaking hands. The doctor smiled and took Peter’s arm, leading him away from the scene of their fruit-disrupting crime.

“Is that true about salad?” he asked her as they made their way through the produce section, toward the door.

“Well,” she said, “truthfully, you’re more likely to get it through consuming raw oysters, because of all the sewage being pumped into the ocean. But salad is a close second.”

“Remind me never to invite you out to dinner,” Peter replied.

“Occupational hazard,” she said with a little Mona Lisa smile. “That’s why I never get a date. I start talking about my doctoral thesis, and guys run for the door.”

“I probably shouldn’t ask,” he said.

“Herpes,” she replied. “Really it’s such an elegant, sophisticated, and genetically fascinating virus. Anyway, that was before I got into smallpox.”

The two of them exchanged a look and burst out laughing. It was a tremendous rush of relief after the tension of the chase—a chase that was still far from over. But that small moment of humor and humanity seemed to tighten down everything that felt like it had jangled loose inside.

Suddenly Peter felt focused and steady. Ready for whatever was next.

There was a female security guard standing by the door, texting on her phone. She appeared completely uninterested in the recent grapefruit fiasco, and didn’t even bother to look up as Peter and Doctor Lachaux speed-walked past her.

Out in the parking lot there was no sign of the blond thug or his black pickup truck. Yet.

They needed wheels, and quickly.

Peter cast an opportunistic gaze around the lot, weighing their options. A young man loading several cases of beer into a crummy little hatchback caught his eye.

As the fellow moved to return the cart to its proper corral at the head of the row, Peter spotted the keys dangling in the lock of the still-open hatch. He debated for a moment whether or not to take a chance.

Then the decision was made for him.

The blond thug came barreling around the side of the supermarket building. He spotted them, lifted his gun, and opened fire.

Peter grabbed the scientist and ran for the hatchback, while its owner dove for cover, cowering in fear behind the row of carts. Shoving Doctor Lachaux into the open hatch so that she fell awkwardly over the cases of beer and into the back seat, Peter slammed it shut, grabbed the dangling keys, and made a mad dash for the driver’s-side door.

It wasn’t locked, so he was able to jump in, start the car and peel out of the lot in a matter of seconds.

As soon as he got out of the lot he swung a hard left, then a right, then another left. Even if the blond thug could run back to his truck to try to follow them, he’d be too slow to see which way they had gone.

They were safe.

For the moment.

Doctor Lachaux righted herself in the back seat and leaned forward between the two front seats.

Peter forced himself not to look. Almost.

“Now what?” she asked.

“You tell me,” Peter said taking another random turn. “Who
are
those guys anyway?”

“God, I don’t even know where to start.”

“How about the beginning?”

She was quiet for a moment, and Peter didn’t say anything more. He just drove.

“Okay,” she said. “So remember, I mentioned smallpox?”

“Right,” Peter said. “Back in the grocery store. And…?”

“Well, I don’t know how much you know about smallpox,” she said, “But it’s essentially been eliminated in the wild, through the widespread use of vaccines. There are only a handful of scabs left in the world from which live virus can be extracted, and it’s been becoming increasingly difficult to acquire samples for research purposes. Nearly impossible, really. In fact, the World Health Organization has been agitating for the sterilization of all of the remaining scabs.”

“What does that have to do with the guys who are trying to kill us?”

“To put it in layman’s terms, my retrovirus uses smallpox as the chassis. Not unlike a custom car. The thing about smallpox is that it’s physically massive—comparatively speaking, of course—and built like a tank. It’s perfect for my work.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I burn through a lot of virus during the testing process, and there’s a five-year waiting list for fresh samples. My research was at a standstill without the raw material I needed. Then I met this Englishman.

“He said he had ‘accidentally’ acquired a smallpox scab in Bangladesh, as part of a mixed lot of antiques and medical specimens in the estate of a turn-of-the-century English doctor. He told me he’d be willing to donate some live virus for me to use in my epilepsy research. You know, ‘to help the kids.’”

She paused for a moment, causing Peter to glance briefly back at her. She was looking away, her face bright red.

“How could I have been so stupid?” she said, her voice thick with anger.

“Okay, so you got duped,” Peter said. “It happens to the best of us.” He frowned, remembering his own experience in Edinburgh. “But why would the Englishman want a cure for epilepsy, anyway?”

“This newest strain of my virus has the potential to cure it, but there needs to be a lot more testing before it can be made available to patients. You see, the epileptic brain has a unique chemistry that works in harmony with the retrovirus, to suppress seizure activity in the subject and the more, well…
problematic
side effects.

“In a non-epileptic subject, the retrovirus can be deadly,” she said. “It has the potential to overwrite DNA, and cause catastrophic mutation. If released into the general population…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, but she didn’t have to.

Peter understood, and he was appalled.

I thought I got away from shit like this
, he thought, but he didn’t say it.
It’s just what I need—another mad scientist in my life.

“So you’re basically saying that this Englishman gave you the raw materials to make him a… I don’t know… a
people
bomb?”

“A biological bomb, yes.” she said. “Which his thugs then stole from my lab, and which you, in turn, stole from him.”

“I didn’t steal it,” Peter said. “I just got lucky. Or maybe not so lucky, considering what’s happened since it dropped into my lap.”

“However you got it,” she said, “those men aren’t going to give up until they get it back.”

Peter frowned, eyes on the road.

“Jesus,” he said. “This virus is way too dangerous—to us and to the world. If it ever gets used as a biological weapon… I don’t care what your research is for, the risks far outweigh the benefits.” He paused, frowning. “I can’t believe I’m saying this about something that could be making me a shitload of money, but… we have to destroy it.”

“I can’t do that,” she said. “It’s my life’s work.”

“Sure it is,” Peter began. “But that doesn’t…”

“You don’t know what it’s
like
,” she said, her voice rising. “Living with the seizures. They dominate you, and control your life. I’m one of the fortunate ones—my own seizures are generally preceded by a distinct aura, so I’m able to recognize the early symptoms, safely put away whatever I’m doing, and lie down before the convulsions start. But many of my patients at the institute aren’t so lucky.

“They suffer from terrible injuries,” she continued. “Burns, broken limbs. Not to mention the shame and public humiliation.” She stopped, and her breathing was coming in small gasps.

“Look,” Peter said, somewhat mollified by her intensity. “I feel for you, honestly I do, but this is a clear case of the ‘needs of the many’ outweighing ‘the needs of the few.’ And trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I mean, we’re looking at a potential outbreak of uncontrollable, contagious mutation. That seems like way too high a price to pay just so that some kid doesn’t have to be embarrassed because he pitched a fit and wet his pants in gym class.”

Nothing.

There was nothing but silence from the back seat. He wondered what she was thinking. If she was even listening to what he said. After all, she had no reason to trust him. And why should she?

“I killed my baby sister,” she said. Her voice was low, and he had trouble hearing her.

Peter’s eyes went wide. His gaze flicked up to the rearview mirror, but Doctor Lachaux’s face was down, matted hair hiding her expression.

“I was ten,” she continued, voice still small and nearly lost beneath the sound of the car engine. “I was visiting my mom and the new baby in the hospital. It had been a rough delivery, and my mom was pretty out of it. The nurse had come to take the baby away after feeding.

“Mom had fallen asleep, and my aunt Josie was in the bathroom or something. The nurse asked me if I wanted to hold the baby for a minute. I had that funny electric taste in my mouth and everything seemed too sharp and crisp, but I didn’t say anything. I felt so proud and excited to be allowed to hold my little sister, almost like a grown-up.

“It wasn’t the nurse’s fault. She didn’t know about me.”