Blood List (29 page)

GMan:  Ok.

SayItAintSo:  Log off now. Don't just close the browser, log yourself out then shut down.

GMan:  Ok.

Gene logged out, then looked up at Carl and Doug. All three of them were grinning like maniacs. It was nice to hear from a friend.

A long moment went by before anyone said anything. Finally, Carl spoke. "What now, boss?"

"We wait, Carl. We wait for our knight in shining armor to come rescue us."

"Giddyup, Sam," Doug said. They all agreed.

Twenty minutes later they received an encrypted e-mail from Sam. Gene typed the phrase,
Why do I always get the cute ones?
into the computer. In moments they learned everything they never wanted to know about the man trying to kill them.

*   *   *

February 7th, 12:21 AM EST; The Java Jungle; Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Sam beamed as she logged out of the chatroom.
I love Internet kiosks. Can you get more anonymous?
Now that she couldn't go to work, the café near her hideout in Fredericksburg, Virginia had become her new favorite place. It had four computers with broadband access that coffee shop customers could use free of charge. In Sam's case, "free of charge" meant at the cost of a dozen biscotti and three double-shot lattes. Best of all, it was open 24-7. The staff had already gotten used to the husky girl who never moved.

  It was the middle of the night and the coffee shop was deserted, so she placed a call through the Internet to an old friend, using Federal encryption protocols. The phone rang twice before it picked up.

She was glad to hear a familiar voice. "Govind Agrawal."

She kept her voice low, conscious of the barista at the other end of the shop.

"Hey Govey, it's Sam."

"Hi, Sam! That puzzle you gave me is quite the 'doozy,' as you put it. We are getting nowhere very quickly, but I think somewhere rather slowly." Despite the hour his voice was alert and cheerful.

"Well, quicker is better than slower. Lives depend on it."

"I got that impression before, Sam." He paused. "What is it I can do for you today?"

Sam took a deep breath. He wasn't going to like this.

"I need to ask a favor. A huge favor." She didn't have to try to sound desperate.

"If it is in my power, it is yours, my friend."

She smiled. "Wait until you hear what it is. I need to preface this by saying that someone tried to kill me a couple of days ago. Some bad shit is going down, and it involves Emile Frank. He's responsible for the nuclear threat in San Francisco, too."
Sort of.

For a moment she heard nothing at all on the other line.

"You are sure of this?"

"As sure as I can be, yeah."

"I have met Doctor Frank on several occasions. He seems to be quite a pleasant man, all in all. I find it difficult to believe that a man in our own government is consorting with terrorists."

"The manhunt is phony," Sam said. "They're not Aryans, and there's no bomb. Trubb is a guy who was working with us, and Palenti is my boss. They're not even named Trubb and Palenti. They found out that Emile Frank is into some serious shit, and next thing we know they're inside a DHS lockdown and the whole goddamn country is out for their blood. Frank also worked for Bailey Pharmaceuticals, the same company that developed the 'cure' you're working on. It's not a coincidence."

Another long pause. "Why do you not turn in Frank yourself? If he has killed a bunch of people with a fake nuclear emergency lockdown, the government will put him away for a million years."

"Remember I said someone tried to kill me? They were in my apartment, waiting for me when I got home. I was shot in the arm. Don't worry, it's not too bad. They've hacked the phone system and are intercepting calls going in to my boss. If I go to work, I'm dead. If I don't, I'm just an anonymous crackpot on the phone who nobody's going to believe."

Govind sighed. "All right. And what do you need me to do?"

Now it was Sam's turn to pause. If he said "no," she didn't have a plan B.

"I need you to help me smuggle three men in my team out of the lockdown area."

Govind didn't say anything for a long time.

"Will you tell me all about the adenovirus?"

Curiosity killed the cat, Govey.
"Yes."

"Everything you know? Where it was developed? On whom it was tested? Everything?"

"Absolutely everything."

"Let me make some telephone calls. Call me back in two hours."

Relief flooded through her.
Thank God.
Worry replaced relief. "I will, but you have to be careful, Govind. These guys knew what I was doing on my FBI computer within minutes of my search."

Govind's reply was flippant. "This is the CDC. Careful is what we do." It didn't reassure her at all.

"Watch yourself, Govey. You've got a family to protect."

"Two hours, Sam." He hung up the phone.

Sam's chair groaned in protest as she leaned back in it. She found herself with two hours to kill and nothing to do. She hated having nothing to do. She looked around the vacant coffee shop.
When in Rome.
She ordered another latte and two more biscotti.

February 7th, 3:47 AM PST; St. John's Lutheran Hospital; San Francisco, California.

Gene waited for the police car to pass before he signaled to Doug and Carl.
Go!
His teammates hustled across the street, heads ducked as if evading sniper fire. Gene trailed, hot on their heels. They crept into an alley that opened into a loading dock in the back of the hospital. Two trucks half-shielded a rusty metal door. One read
St. John's Mortuary
in stark white letters, the other
St. John's Hospital
. A quick inspection revealed no one inside.

They traded point positions in a classic leapfrog maneuver, covering one another as they approached the building. Gene moved up to the door while Carl and Doug took defensive positions behind the trucks.

He knocked twice and waited. He knocked again. Ten seconds later, the door opened a crack. A young, scruffy man in wrinkled hospital scrubs favored Gene with a wary look. He said nothing.

Gene spoke. "Don't you ever sleep?"

The man shook his head. "Only on Tuesdays."

Gene stuck out his hand. "Gene Palomini, nice to meet you."

"Ted Sanders. Same. Your crew with you?"

Gene turned around. He didn't see Doug or Carl. He smiled and waved to the alleyway. The men emerged from the shadows, weapons stowed in the duffel bags, and approached the door.

"Get inside," Ted said. "We've got everything set up." He handed them white air filters and put one on himself.

Doug swallowed and put his on. He didn't step inside. "Is there some kind of contamination?"

Ted shook his head. "Nope, but they're doing some asbestos removal one floor down, and this will make you harder to recognize if someone sees you." He walked inside. Doug hesitated, then followed.

They hurried after him, scanning for potential hostiles. Blue industrial tile covered the floors and went halfway up the walls, where it was replaced with white tiles of the same size. Fluorescent lights hung from the exposed metal girders that made up the ceiling, illuminating everything with the same sterile, lifeless glow. Wooden doors, stained with age, punctuated the hallway at regular intervals.

Sanders led the trio through several twists and turns. The subbasement looked the same everywhere, as far as Gene could tell. They followed Sanders through aluminum double doors labeled
MORGUE
.

Carl crinkled his nose. The morgue smelled of formaldehyde, bleach, and an underlying lemony scent that just served to make the other two that much worse. Gene and Doug had both been through enough morgues not to react.

Four people stood inside, their white lab coats labeled
CDC
in large blue letters on the front breast and again on the back across the shoulder blades. Three Caucasians and one Indian-looking woman, none of them younger than fifty, turned to look at the FBI agents. The woman shook her head.

"The duffel bags won't do. You must get rid of them." Her accent was Bangladeshi. Her voice was almost sultry but all command. "We will take your gear while you get ready for transport." She stepped aside, leaving a clear view of the tables behind her.

Three black body bags were lined up on three tables, each open and empty. A fourth lay sealed and bulging beside them. Stickers showing the international symbol for
Biohazard
covered them on every side. The team looked at one another, then at the bags, then at the Bangladeshi woman. Doug started to sweat.

The doctor clapped her hands. "We don't have time to waste, gentlemen. You may keep your underpants but your clothing must go."

They undressed. The lab-coated men came forward and helped them. They took each item of clothing, folded it, and placed it inside clear plastic bags, also labeled
Biohazard
. Doug trembled with every movement.

Carl grinned at him, misunderstanding. "Wait till you get your socks off. Floor's cold, man."

Doug's face turned ashen. Gene gave him a concerned look. Doug closed his eyes and shook his head. Almost to himself he said, "I'll be all right, Gene."

Gene patted him on the shoulder and finished taking off his clothes. "Excuse me, ma'am, but why are we doing this?"

One of the gentlemen stepped forward and explained. "You can't just leave town, sir. Homeland Security has everything locked up tighter than—" The Bangladeshi gave him a withering stare. "Well, awfully tight. Doctor Agrawal at CDC Atlanta has an order that he's to be shipped four bodies with a rare Southeast Asian infection, so the disease can be studied. Guess what, gentlemen? You're three of those bodies."

With a sidelong glance at the fourth body bag, Carl raised one eyebrow. "Three of them?"

"Yes," he replied. "The fourth is well sealed and will be transported with you. There had to be some truth to this farce."

Doug looked at Gene, his eyes bloodshot. Sweat dripped from his forehead in spite of the cold, and his face got grayer by the second. Carl dropped his pants and kicked them off to the side. As the black man hopped up onto the table and slid his legs into the bag, Doug stumbled to his knees and retched.

"You sick, Doug?" Carl asked. The doctors ignored the question and rushed to Doug's side. He waved them off.

"I'm okay, I'm okay." He spat and stepped away from the sticky pool on the floor. He looked at Carl and Gene with shame. "Diseases make me nervous."

Carl smiled sympathetically. The Bangladeshi woman stepped forward and took a vial and syringe from her pocket. She grabbed Doug's wrist and pulled. "Stick out your hand." He did so.

She removed two cc's of medicine from the bottle, squirted a little of the liquid out of the syringe, and injected the medicine into his arm.

"What is it?" Doug asked.

"It will calm you. Get undressed and into the bag. We have no time left."

Ninety seconds later they lay in body bags with small, scuba-style oxygen tanks fed into their mouths. The Bangladeshi woman leaned over them and spoke.

"You must not betray your presence with the slightest noise until the plane has left the runway. To do so would jeopardize all of our lives, if Govind is to be believed." She hung a toe tag on each of them. "I don't know what he owed this friend of yours, but I'm certain at this point that they are even and that the three of you owe him much, much more. Be silent until we get you. You have forty minutes of air if you regulate your breathing. So do it." She zipped the bags closed and plunged the world into darkness.

Muffled voices continued another few minutes, then it fell silent.

Doug worked to control his breathing. In the darkness the red
Biohazard
logo clawed its way into his psyche with directed precision and headed straight for the panic, fight-or-flight center of his primitive subconscious. He'd never considered himself claustrophobic, but the fact that this was a
body
bag
made the enclosure that much worse. The leathery, heavy plastic stank like the morgue. It blocked out even the tiniest traces of light.

He kept his eyes closed against the darkness and concentrated on the facts.
Nothing in here is infected. The CDC people are experts. The other body is well sealed. Totally safe.
The biohazard symbol flashed across his vision again, but the intensity of the panic dulled, as if filtered through cotton gauze.
We're going to be in the air soon. In body bags. With an infected corpse.

He heard Gene's voice in his head.
You can do this, Doug. It's like being in a sleeping bag, that's all.

A sleeping bag for dead people.

A sleeping bag. Just relax, everything's going to be fine. Just relax.
He knew the voice wasn't real, but he took comfort in it nonetheless.

He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out.
Better.
His heart rate came down, his breathing slowed to an almost normal pace.

See, Doug? No problem. You'll be fine. Just fine.

He tried to shriek when hands grabbed him through the rough plastic of the body bag. He tried to panic. His body didn't move as strong arms lifted him and placed him on a gurney. His heart raced; his adrenaline level shot up. He tried to struggle, but couldn't move.

The world turned fuzzy. The gurney felt soft, like a giant pillow. It rocked like a cradle. It was warm, too. Comfy. Doug Goldman fell into a drugged sleep.

Gene heard voices as they wheeled him down the hallway, the closer one female, the farther one male. They didn't sound familiar.

"So where are these four going?" asked the female voice.

"Helicopter. Rooftop. I guess they're shipping them out somewhere."