Antenna Syndrome (28 page)

I should have told them about a pair of dead
detectives in Hell’s Kitchen, but I couldn’t risk invoking a
warrant for a suspected cop-killer with my name and description. I
had enough trouble already without the whole NYPD hunting me. With
any luck, I might break the case tonight.

It was eleven thirty when we got to Laight Street.
No surprise the clinic lights were on, since it was likely a 24/7
operation of nefarious activity. I circled the block, found a
parking spot with a view of the Laight/Collister corner, and we
settled down to wait.

Werewolf whined from the rear seat.

“Needs a piss,” Major said. “I’ll take him for a
walk. Do a little recon while I’m at it.”

“Be careful.” I told him about encountering EDGAR on
the street after midnight.

Major let Werewolf out. They walked down to
Collister, Werewolf watering every pole en route, and turned the
corner out of sight. I toggled binocular mode and scanned the
clinic’s upper windows. No open curtains tonight.

Major and Werewolf returned fifteen minutes later.
We lowered the windows and smoked a couple of cigarettes, waiting
till past midnight.

“Time to lock and load,” Major said.

I took a Gemtech suppressor from my tote bag and
screwed it onto my Heckler & Koch. Major had his own suppressor
for the Beretta.

“You don’t have to come in,” I said. “You can take
the car and circle the block, give me a call if you see any
threats. We may have to scramble out of here in a hurry.”

“Sit on my ass while you see all the action? Fuck
that,” Major said. “You want someone to have your back, I’ll be
right there, five steps behind you.”

“I appreciate it.”

“And you won’t forget me on payday.” He gave me a
meaningful look.

“You know I’m good for it.”

“So let’s go squash some bugs. Try not to get stung
doing it.”

“Take an EpiPen.” I took one from my tote bag and
gave it to him.

He slipped it into his shirt pocket. “What about
you?”

“I’ve got one.”

I got my burglar’s tools from the trunk and put them
in my tote bag. I had just one set of car keys, so in case only
Major made it out, I left the car unlocked and the keys under the
driver’s seat. With Werewolf inside, no one would mess with the
car.

We walked down Collister, shotguns held against our
legs. As I’d seen the other night, the clinic had no doors or
windows at street level. We turned the corner onto Hubert. There
were two loading docks with accordion steel doors above narrow
platforms. Between them was a regular door with a steel staircase
to the ground. Above, a wall-mounted floodlight illuminated the
street. A camera monitored the loading area.

We went fifty yards down the street, and returned
flush against the wall. The camera was stationary and mounted on a
pivot. I mounted the stairs, flattened myself against the door and
used the shotgun to nudge the camera’s line of sight thirty degrees
into the street. A risky move but no other option.

We waited fifteen minutes. Maybe the camera didn’t
work in the first place. Maybe nobody was watching the security
monitors. Maybe the security firm that held the contract took
forever to dispatch a vehicle. Maybe it was just our lucky
night.

I took out my lock-picking tools. It wasn’t a simple
lock and it took me ten minutes to get it open. Major followed and
closed the door behind us. Our flashlights revealed a loading bay,
empty except for a few wooden pallets. I inspected the doorjamb. No
security sensors. Nothing here worth stealing, or was there some
other security? Fearing something lurking in the dark, I took out
my pistol.

We passed through a door at the rear of the loading
bay. From a landing, a flight of stairs went up, another down. We
descended into the basement and entered a laboratory on the scale
of a government-funded institution.

We walked down aisles of apparatus, shining our
lights over oscilloscopes, electron microscopes, dosimeters and
other equipment I couldn’t name. An observation window looked into
an operating room with oxygen unit, monitoring devices and racks of
surgical equipment.

Another room contained what looked like a giant
phone booth lying on its side. We entered the room for a closer
look. The booth contained a stainless steel tray at the lower
level, above which were positioned four robotic arms with multiple
spray heads. On a rack outside the chamber were dozens of gel
cartridges with tubes feeding into the unit. A control station with
keyboard and screen bore the logo BioClone 1.8.

The name rang a bell. I remembered what Dr. Yamazaki
at NYU had said about Globik’s potential to use 3-D printing to
build larger-than-life insects using raw material – brain, optic,
muscle, cartilage, exoskeleton cells – extracted from existing bugs
to provide the palette for a new creation.

The technology in this facility was impressive.
Given everything we’d seen thus far, I reckoned there were a few
million dollars worth of scientific equipment here. Where’d Globik
get the money for this lab? Was the bionic limbs business that
good?

We backed out of the room and continued our recon.
Refrigeration units spanned one wall. Blood plasma, toxins and
cultures in one. Thousands of frozen insects, separately sealed in
plastic canisters, in the next two units. Similar thing in the next
few units, except the insects were fewer but larger – beetles and
ants as big as mice, butterflies and moths the size of sparrows, a
pair of hornets as big as my fist.

The last refrigeration unit held huge insect parts
blown up to human scale. Hard-shelled limbs with spurs on the
joints, and claws where hands or feet should have been. Eyeballs
the size of plums, thousands of tiny facets glinting beneath my
flashlight’s beam. Dagger-like stingers attached to sacs of
venom.

Major and I exchanged glances. I saw shock, awe and
horror all mirrored in his face.

I turned away from the fridge in disgust. Globik was
grafting enhanced insect parts onto humans? Or vice versa? I was
familiar with bugs, but this was horrifying. I shuddered to think
of such creatures set loose in our world.

I panned my flashlight around the lab. Its glare
reflected off rows of beakers and tubes and shelves of bottled
chemicals. I held the beam on two huge glass cisterns labeled
C
₂
H
₅
OH. Ethyl alcohol. I could have used a
drink, but I didn’t see any mix lying around.

Major and I exchanged a few hushed words about
tactics. I’d continue with a recon of the building while he went
back to the car for the case of Molotovs. We went back upstairs
together, him leaving via the loading bay, while I found a door
onto the main floor. On my iFocals, I called up the floor plans I’d
acquired from Globik yesterday.

His office and reception area were at opposite ends
of the ground floor, a conference room and kitchenette between. I
took an EpiPen and left my tote bag under the receptionist’s desk.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor whose hall lights were
dimmed. At the rear of the building were several rooms, their doors
locked. At the other end of the hall, light came from two
partially-closed doors. I walked towards the front of the building,
where stairs led to the third floor. I heard a one-sided
conversation, someone on a phone, coming from one of the rooms.

The voice sounded like Dr. Globik but he was
speaking Russian and I didn’t understand a word. I toggled the
instant translator on my iFocals and turned up the volume to
listen. The translator wasn’t perfect, picking things up on the
fly, but I got the gist of it.

“
Yes, all under control. Savage
escaped but Buzz planted spiders in his nest. His next sleep there
will be forever. Jordan is being silenced too. No more shouting
about Russian bedbugs. I guard the brotherhood. He’ll be dead by
noon tomorrow. Not tonight. My team operates best in daylight. This
must look natural. Bizarre, but plausible. Police will rule it
freak of nature. Yes, I keep you informed. Good night.”

I heard Globik rise from his chair. I slipped past
the half-closed door and took the carpeted stairway up three steps
at a time. I’d just reached the third floor when something fell on
me from above. It was all hairy arms and legs with the sinewy
strength of a wrestler. My gun was snatched from its holster and
flung away before I could get a hand on it. As I struggled to break
the stranglehold on my neck, my leg was kicked out from beneath me
and we went head over heels down the stairs.

I lay stunned on the landing, amazed I hadn’t been
concussed by the tumble downstairs. But the thing on my back still
had its arms around my neck, choking the life out of me. Globik
appeared upside-down at the fuzzy limits of my vision, and watched
me as the lights slowly dimmed. I tried to gather my breath, to
summon all the bravado at my disposal, to tell him he’d better hand
over Marielle, to let us go before the police got involved. But as
it turned out, I was all out of breath, if not bravado.

I went out like a cheap match in the wind.

FRIDAY

Chapter 49

I awoke strapped to a gurney in a large room. Heavy
window blinds and a dim overhead light made it seem like I was
underwater. On my right I saw a painting on an easel, a table with
a jar of brushes and tubes of oils. I heard a door open, then a
humming sound. A brunette with a pretty face approached the bed in
a motorized wheelchair.

“Marielle?”

Her eyes widened. “How’d you know my name?”

I told her I’d been hired by her half-sister Natalie
to find her. How her astrologer had told me about Eddie Crabner.
How that had led to his old roommate Ron LeVeen. I told her about
the phony ransom demand and theft of her paintings. I questioned
the company she was keeping.

“Eddie’s changed,” she admitted. “He’s not the same
guy who wrote me romantic emails. He’s insanely jealous. He mailed
that spider to kill Joey. And his friend Buzz is a total
freak.”

“Where are they?”

“Eddie’s just down the hall. I haven’t seen Buzz
since the day they smuggled me out of the house.”

“What time is it?”

She looked at her watch. “Four AM.”

I hoped Major was still alive. Why’d he leave me
alone like this for four hours? “How come you’re up?”

“My room’s just down the hall and the commotion woke
me up. I waited until everyone else was asleep before coming to see
you.”

“You see my gun anywhere? Or my iFocals?”

“I saw Globik take them away from you.”

“Can you unfasten me?”

There were straps at my chest, waist and knees. The
buckles and hooks were all below the gurney where I couldn’t reach
them. She went to work on them but it was a real struggle, with her
in the chair and all.

I nodded at the canvas and paints. “What’s with this
studio?”

“They’re trying to keep me happy,” she grunted as
she worked at the buckled strap. “But really, I’m a captive.”

“Have you seen other people here?”

“Some are victims of the Brooklyn Blast, disfigured
by radiation burns. Globik’s doing work on them in exchange for
their undying loyalty.”

“What’s Eddie’s role in all this?”

“Thanks to new legs, he thinks Globik’s a genius. He
says Globik’s backed by the Russian mob. Eddie and Buzz are trained
as special operatives to handle that swarm of giant hornets
Globik’s developed.”

She finally got the first strap undone, and started
on the second.

“I heard Globik on the phone, talking about
derailing your father’s political campaign…”

“In every public speech, my father’s promised that
New York will never become Moscow on the Hudson. It was a
double-edged barb – against bureaucratic corruption and Russian
gangs – and the
bratva
would’ve seen it as a direct
threat.”

“You’re a well-informed young woman.”

“My father never had much time for me, but I was
always interested in his career. He was a lousy father but he’d
make a great mayor.”

The second strap fell away and she started on the
third.

“Maybe Eddie never loved you. Maybe Globik just used
him to take you hostage, to force your father out of the mayoralty
race.”

She shook her head. “Globik picked the wrong
candidate to threaten. I can see the headlines.
Gangland Slaying
of Daughter Intensifies Jordan’s War on Crime
. Globik should
run while he can, or my father will stamp him out with the rest of
the cockroaches.”

Unless Harris Jordan dies tomorrow, I thought.
“Where’s your father’s summer home?”

“Hunter Mountain, up in the Catskills.”

The last strap was unhitched. Still woozy, I swung
my legs off the gurney. My throat ached and there was a painful
kink in my neck. “We need to get out of here. If Buzz shows up, I’m
dead.”

“They might not kill you. You may be more valuable
as a working specimen. With a brainwash and selective grafting,
Globik could turn you into another soldier like Buzz.”

“Not if I can help it.”

I raised the blinds and opened the window. It was a
three-story drop to the street. I took two restraining straps,
joined them with reef knots and anchored them to a radiator beneath
the window. That gave us about 12 feet of lifeline and a 12-foot
drop, enough to break a leg. I needed to tie on the third
strap.

“Someone’s coming,” she hissed.

The doorknob rattled. “Marielle? Open up.”

“It’s Eddie.” She came to my side as a key entered
the lock.

The door flung open and Crabner barreled in. He was
the hairiest punk I’d ever seen. Only five-foot-six, but as
muscular as a wrestler, with oddly-bowed legs and long arms thick
with black hair. He looked at me standing between him and
Marielle.