The Tenth Legion (Book 6, Progeny of Evolution) (21 page)

“Do you mean
like from Texas?”

“No, from out
west. Way out west. California.”

“Did you catch
his name?”

“I heard Elsa
call him Jeremy or Jeremiah, something like that.”

Lorna took a
breath and made a silent prayer before asking the next question.
“Was his name Jeremiah Winston, by any chance?”

“Yes. Yes,
that’s the name.”

Lorna rolled
her eyes. At the last convention, the membership had elected
Jeremiah Winston the North American leader of X-10.

“Did you learn
anything regarding Mr. Winston’s plan?”

“They didn’t
talk about any details around me, but I know it’s big. I caught
bits and pieces.” He hesitated. “No one’s hearing this but you and
me, right?”

“Right.”

Okay, they’re
on to something they think can take care of the woofers once and
for all.”

“What about
the big meeting they’re planning for next week?”

Ben seemed
surprised. “How’d you know about that?”

Lorna smiled.
“I have many sources, Mr. Travers.”

The black man
made a low whistle. “Elsa thought sure the secret was safe. The
meeting’s where they make the final arrangements.”

“Is that
everything? Think hard. Any detail, however small could help.”

Ben rolled his
eyes in frustration. “I wish I knew, ‘cause the information would
probably be my ticket out of here.” He stopped and a light went off
in his head. “Oh yeah, one more thing. They keep talking about
whatever they’re doing having something to do with gap.”

“Gap, the
drug?”

“Yeah, but I
got no clue how it fits together.”

With the
meeting over, Lorna returned to her desk. A message from Ed waited
on the phone. “I need to see you. We need to talk about some
things. Call as soon as you can.” The speech of the encrypted
line’s computer-generated voice seemed to wheeze. The time stamp on
the call indicated it had come over two hours earlier. Quickly, she
picked up the receiver and speed-dialed his private number.

“Edward
White’s office,” a young female voice answered.

Lorna frowned,
picturing a bimbo du jour in a thong bikini—or less—screening his
calls at poolside in some tropical paradise.

“Edward White,
please.” Her voice quaked. She hoped her anxiety hadn’t come
through the phone.

“Ma’am, this
is the answering service. Mr. White is incommunicado for the next
four hours. May I take a message?”

“Yes.” She
cheered to the reality that the alluring voice was no more than a
paid employee. “Tell him to call Lorna Winters. He has the
number.”

“I will be
sure to, ma’am. You have a nice day.”

“I will. I
will,” she gushed. “Thank you very much.”

Putting the
receiver down, she sighed, relieved at being no worse off than
before. The speeding bullet of coming face to face with a new
girlfriend might have been dodged, but there remained the very real
prospect the next meeting with Ed could be the last.

After a cup of
coffee, Lorna refocused on the case, calling up everything the
search engines had on gap. A General Electronics scientist named
Armendariz, working in the Mexico City laboratories, had invented
the drug over thirty years ago.

Reading on,
however, she learned inventing gap was a footnote to the good
professor’s career. The life work of Lorenzo Armendariz centered on
the Plague of 2026. His research into the nature of the virus
resulted in isolation of the quality that made the agent so lethal
to males. This led to the creation of new viruses—racially, even
ethnically, selective. Gen-El called them “bombs”. Armendariz
designed the Muslim Bomb for the Americans. The weapons killed
eighty percent of everyone twenty-five percent or more Arabic,
ending the wars in the Middle East within weeks. When Washington,
D.C., burned to the ground during The Dissolution, his research
went up in smoke.

Or did it?

Suppose the papers were discovered by X-10 in a lost
archive
…

But even if
they had the formula, they wouldn’t have laboratories or resources
to rebuild the virus. It’d take a company like CI.

Or General
Electronics.

Most of the
business world knew Gen-El’s displeasure with Ed’s intrusion into
fields they had dominated for decades, like the cargo plane. Their
sour grapes bordered on petty, becoming the subject of ridicule in
late-night talk shows. Fifty years earlier, the CI corporate model
became the example taught in the schools of business
administration. The consensus held Gen-El represented the obsolete
past. Their vigorous, innovative rival was about to leave them in
the dust. Would they give X-10 the virus to prevent that, remaining
at arm’s length while the disease went to work? Of the three
thousand members of the community on Earth, a hundred of them ran
the corporation. Kill them, and the company would die, along with
the main bulwark against X-10.

A light went
on in Lorna’s brain and she sat bolt-upright at her desk.

That’s it!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“
D
ammit, I don’t
care if he’s in meditation with the spirit of his long lost cousin
George!” Lorna shouted into the phone. “This is a matter of life
and death. Get him on the line.”

“Ma’am, I have
no way to do that,” replied the temperate voice. “He’s in meetings
and has blocked all calls.”

“Fine!” she
shouted, slamming down the phone. Thomas and Karla also didn’t
answer, probably attending the same meeting. Lorna picked up the
phone, selected the encrypted option, saying, “Ethan White.” Voice
recognition software dialed his number.

Presently, a
deep voice said, “This is Ethan White.”

“Ethan, this
is Lorna. I need your help. It’s about X-10.”

“Do you know
Father’s been trying to get in touch with you?”

“Yeah, he’s
tied up in a meeting. Listen to me very carefully. I don’t have
time to explain, but I have reason to believe X-10 has a virus
designed to affect us. They have plans to use it soon.”

“Have you told
Father?”

“
I tried,
but as
I said, he’s incommunicado.”

“What can I do
to help?”

“Get
everything you can on a scientist named Lorenzo Armendariz. Pay
particular attention to what he did while employed at General
Electronics. Also, anything on a local woman named Elsa Travers,
along with the X-10 organization here. There’s a big meeting
planned soon. Jeremiah Winston will be attending.”

Information
that would have raised the adrenaline level of anyone else didn’t
budge Ethan’s pervasive calm. “Quite a lot you have there. I’ll get
right on it.”

“And one more
thing. Be careful who you bring into this. We may have a traitor
close by.”

“I understand.
Where will you be?”

“I need to get
inside the building where they’re going to meet. Tell your dad’s
men to back off. This is police work, meaning no one here can be
involved.”

Ethan paused.
“Will you be working with S.W.A.T.?”

“Absolutely.”
She winced at telling the lie.

“All right.
Father wouldn’t abide you going there alone.”

Like he really
cares.

“I’ll be
fine.”

The car Lorna
checked out from the motor pool idled with a labored panting sound,
a sticky valve no doubt. After completing a slow drive by of the
building, she pulled into a restaurant parking lot to consider her
options.

God, I wish
Mike still had my back.

* * * *

The building
stood alone on a field of fresh green. The evening sun, radiating
from behind, created an orange corona around a featureless gray
brick. The approaching night reminded her she’d missed her usual
sleeping time. Yawning deeply, she returned her attention to the
building.

Every entry
door, including the one for vehicles, was double padlocked.
Security cameras surrounded the place, far more than normal
warehouse storage required. After a bit of observation, she
discovered a blind spot on one side. The cameras’ arcs did not
intersect. The window in the blind spot sat an unreachable ten feet
off the ground.

In her mind,
she ran through a list of city ordinances that would get her
inside—vermin, fire hazard, excess trash, even sanitation
violations—but the place was squeaky clean. No leverage there.

If I can’t
find an excuse to get in, maybe I can make one for someone else and
follow them.

From a nearby
Wal-Mart, she bought the things she needed, including a small tin
of roofing tar made from petroleum distillate and a can of mineral
spirits. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have the water-based
kind?” the clerk offered, referring to the roof tar. “It’s much
easier to clean up.”

Observing the
half-empty shelves throughout the store, she turned back to the
clerk, who worked from behind a panel of bulletproof glass. “No,”
she answered. “This is just what I need.”

Stepping out
to the curb, she inventoried the purchases to make sure she had
everything. The inspection had to be quick because behind her, in
an otherwise abandoned and boarded-up strip mall, the double
storefront comprising the Wal-Mart prepared to close for the night.
Upon entering the car a distant cracking sound, either a gunshot or
a backfiring exhaust, raised her adrenalin level. She touched the
handle of her firearm for reassurance. At the back of her mind
lingered a small regret the two burly security men Ed had assigned
to her weren’t around.

As night
approached, a wind blew up, carrying a damp, chilly edge. In the
car, she assembled a smudge pot from a glass quart jar costing five
dollars. At one time, such containers were used once and then
thrown away. Such extravagance seemed unbelievable, although in
some ways, fortunate. The jar, probably a hundred years old, had
come from a landfill.

She scooped
out the tar with a butter knife, kneading in the crushed soda
crackers and the mineral spirits. When some of the mixture dripped
on the leg of her pants suit, she cursed under her breath. To avoid
letting the distinctive odor into the open to attract unwanted
attention, she kept the car windows shut until the last minute.
Eyes watering from the distillate laden car interior, she packed
the mixture into the container, tamping the last bit flush with the
open top, and tore a washcloth into strips. She finished by
screwing them into the threads of the jar with the cap.

Darkness
arrived by the time she finished. Orange security lights
illuminated the perimeter of the building, but no guards appeared.
Moving across the open ground should be all right provided she took
her time. Taking the jar in addition to what remained of the
mineral spirits, she put them in a small back pack.

“Here goes,”
she muttered under her breath. “Cithara, protect me.”

For a good
fifteen minutes, she crept across the orange-lit ground, feeling
exposed like a raw nerve. At any second, she expected a carload of
armed X-10s to come roaring up, but nothing happened. She relaxed
only after slipping into the cover of the building’s shadow. The
window hung above her, a different texture of black on the wall. In
human form, Lorna could throw with the speed and accuracy of a good
minor league pitcher. Squatting down, she soaked the rag strip
attached to the jar in the last of the mineral spirits. After
wiping her fingers clean with the rest of the cloth, she picked up
a piece of brick and hurled it at the window. The shattering glass
seemed loud in the silent evening. Crouching down tensely, she
waited for a reaction either from inside or out.

Nothing moved.
After a minute, she stood up, lit the wick, and hefted the Molotov
cocktail through the broken window. The jar shattered on the floor
inside. Instantly, a flickering orange glow filled the interior,
soon followed by thick, dark smoke pouring from the opening.
Waiting another minute until by her estimation the fire caught on,
she dialed 911.

“This is
Lieutenant Lorna Winters of the OPD. I have a six-thirteen in
progress…” She gave the address. “Yes, I can wait until they
arrive.”

In less than
five minutes, sounds of the fire truck’s distant approach
materialized from the undifferentiated buzz of the night. A mile
away, the vehicle turned onto the street. The blue and red blinking
lights grew into a charging red, yellow, chrome, and black machine
with a diesel rumble, and a horn to put your teeth on edge. A
police patrol car followed along, standard for nighttime fire
emergencies in this part of town.

The truck
wheeled up to the vehicle entrance. Four people in heavy, yellow,
firefighter jackets and dark boots leaped out. “I spotted the
flames reflected in a window on the side,” Lorna explained to the
one in charge.

While they
spoke, the others unreeled hoses. One took a set of bolt cutters to
the padlock on the personnel door cut into the larger vehicle
entrance.

“Scott Packs,
ladies,” ordered the leader. The self-contained breathing apparatus
masks slipped over the firefighters’ faces. One handled the nozzle,
while the rest dragged hoses inside. Lorna stayed at the entrance,
peering in. A few blasts of high-pressure water took care of the
fire. One of the firefighters turned on the lights.

From the
entrance, Lorna saw a stage at the other end of the warehouse. The
firefighters opened the side windows to dissipate the smoke. Flags
from the five major regions of the old United States, accompanied
by the orange, white, and green of West Mexico, draped the stage. A
large wooden cross painted an immaculate glossy white dominated the
center.

“Get a look at
that,” one of the patrolmen said from behind.