Lethal Dose (23 page)

47

J. D. Rothery took the call on his cell phone as his driver turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue and approached the entrance to the White House. The caller was Tony Warner, and the NSA man had an update for him on the efforts of the big pharmaceutical companies in their quest to find an answer to the virus.

“Be quick, Tony,” J. D. said. “I've got about two minutes, then I'm on the hot seat in the Oval Office. For some reason, the president wants to hear the latest directly from me.”

“Okay, I'll be fast. The news is not entirely bad. Three of the companies we got packages out to have had some success identifying the nucleic acid genome inside the capsid. One of the three has already isolated the envelope.”

“What's an envelope?” J. D. said, scratching notes as the car pulled up to the main security gate. “I'm not a viral specialist, but I've got to know what this terminology means when I pass this information along to the president.”

“Some viruses are encapsulated with an envelope, which is a membrane of virus-encoded proteins, with either DNA or RNA genomes. Identifying these genomes is crucial to finding a drug that can penetrate the membrane.” “So how close is this company to finding a drug that might work against the virus?”

“No idea at this point, but the CEO is positive they're on the right track. He thinks this virus is beatable, not like Ebola.”

“That's excellent news, Tony. Which company is it?”

“GlasoKlan. I've been speaking directly with Eric Stallworth, the head of North American operations, and he thinks this is doable.”

The car passed through the security checkpoint and drove slowly along the winding drive toward the White House. “Call Stallworth and ask him to be near the phone in case the president wants to speak with him.”

“Okay. Here's Stallworth's number at the office.” Warner recited the number to the CEO's direct line, which bypassed the automated voice mail that answered incoming calls.

“You said there were three companies having success with the virus. Which are the other two?”

“Marcon and Beringer Ingels. Both are major players in the pharmaceutical business.”

“I know who they are,” Rothery snapped, immediately wishing he could have the comment back.

“Anything else?” Warner asked, his voice cool.

“No, just keep me in the loop with their progress.”

“Good luck with the president.”

“Thanks. Stay next to your phone in case I need to patch the president through. He may want to speak with you directly for an update from NSA.”

“Okay,” Tony said, his voice back to normal. The line went dead.

J. D. Rothery exited the car clutching his leather attaché case. He was ushered through security, joined by two serious-looking secret service agents, and whisked down the wide hallway toward the Oval Office. There was an urgency to their stride, and Rothery was pressed to keep up with them. He reached the outer door of the nation's most hallowed sanctuary and stood quietly as they got clearance to enter. One of the

agents touched his earpiece, then turned to him and asked, “Are you ready?”

“Ready as I'll ever be,” Rothery said. How could you ever be ready to face the president with the news that a lethal, contagious virus was being unleashed on the nation by an unknown enemy? The door opened, and he followed the agents into the room.

48

Thursday.

Two days since he had left Jennifer Pearce teetering over the edge of a cliff in the Shenandoah Mountains. Two days with no contact from Bruce Andrews. Two days of sitting on a powder keg with one burning question that had yet to be answered.

Was Veritas really terminating its brain chip program?

Evan Ziegler had no idea if what the woman had told him was true. And he had no way of finding out, save calling Bruce Andrews and asking him. And that was not going to happen. He had searched the Internet, using every keyword he could think of, to see if there had been any press releases about Veritas phasing out the program. Nothing. The only proof he had that Andrews was using him was the word of a woman facing certain death. And he knew that when a person was placed in such a predicament, integrity went out the window. Even the most honest person would lie if she thought it might save her life. He knew this from firsthand experience. Not knowing the answer to that question was killing him.

On top of that, Evan Ziegler's mind had been consumed with Jennifer Pearce's fate over the last 120 hours. She had been drugged and asleep when he left the scene, and still alive. But her car had been perched precariously on the lip of the dropoff. And the result of the car going over was not in question— she would die. A sudden gust of wind, an updraft surging along the cliff face, a small animal running across the hood of the car—all were insignificant events that could cause the vehicle to slide slowly into the valley. Jennifer Pearce could not possibly survive such a crash.

There had been no word from Richmond since Wednesday morning, and he took the silence as an indication that she had not survived. If Jennifer Pearce was alive and Bruce Andrews had found out, all hell would be breaking loose. Andrews would have called on the private line with questions. Questions that would be difficult, if not impossible, to answer. But that had not happened. And as time progressed, he had to assume there was only one possible scenario.

Jennifer Pearce was dead.

But the other factor that was weighing on his mind was the sudden appearance of Gordon, whoever the hell that was. Some guy who had talked Kenga Bakcsi into providing him with information on that Triaxcion drug. What had he been doing at Pearce's house early Sunday morning? Had he managed to find her before the car went over the cliff? And if so, why had he not heard from a pissed-off Bruce Andrews? Nothing was making sense.

And what had she said about both Albert Rousseau and Kenga Bakcsi being innocent victims? Had Bruce Andrews asked him to kill these people for other reasons? He'd been adamant that both Bakcsi and Rousseau were threats to the brain chip program. But Andrews could have been lying.

He glanced at the clock on his desk. Three-thirty. He shut down his computer and told his receptionist he was leaving early. She often closed the copier office when he was out on sales calls or enjoying a midweek round of golf. Traffic was light for a Thursday afternoon, but he figured that was probably because he was an hour ahead of the peak hours for commuters heading home. He pulled into his driveway and killed the engine. His wife's van was parked on her side of the drive, the side that allowed her to load Ben's wheelchair in through the sliding doors. He pocketed his keys and entered the house, a slight gust of cool air exiting through the open door. It was strange, he thought, for his wife to have the air conditioner turned up that high. It wasn't that warm out today. He took a few steps into the house and stopped. Something was wrong. He had felt this before, many times. He felt the presence of death.

Ziegler moved quietly through the living room and down the hall to the master bedroom, where a fully loaded Glock 17 rested under some shirts in his drawer. The door was open and he slid into the room, every sense on high alert. He moved quickly to the bank of drawers and eased open the third one from the top. He slid his hand under the shirts and felt for the gun.

It was gone.

He turned and ran from the room, down the hall to Ben's room. He had no weapon save his skill at hand-to-hand combat, but he had to see that his son was okay. Ben's door was closed, and he opened it slowly, not knowing what he would find. As the door swung back, his son's wheelchair came into view. Ben was facing away from him, and all Evan could see was the back of his son's head. He glanced about, then crept quietly across the room. He reached the wheelchair and turned it slightly so he could see his son. And then, despite all his years dealing with violent death, he vomited.

Ben's neck was cut wide open from one side to the other; the knife had cut so deep that it exposed the boy's spinal cord. His shirt and pants were caked with blood, just starting to dry. His eyes were wide open and locked in a horrified stare; suggesting that his mind had known he was going to die but his body had been unable to defend against his attacker. Evan wiped the vomit from the edges of his mouth, his face contorted in rage. He turned back to the door, his stomach heaving again at the sight of his wife, nailed to the wall behind the door, her chest and stomach sliced open, her vital organs hanging from the cavities. In the doorway stood a man. He had a silenced gun aimed at Ziegler's head.

“Too bad about your family,” the man said. “Your wife put up quite the fight, but your son just sat there. Never moved a muscle.”

Evan rushed the man, his mind a blur of red. He felt the first bullet hit his chest but kept moving. The second slug tore into his neck and snapped his head back. He tried to push with his feet, but all momentum was gone. He crashed to the carpet, twitching as he bled to death. The man with the gun appeared above him, looking down as one would inspect a stepped-on bug that was still moving.

“Why didn't you kill her, Evan?” he asked. “What was it about Jennifer Pearce that was so different? All you had to do was kill her and we wouldn't have made this trip out to visit you and your family.” He unscrewed the silencer from the gun and pocketed it. He slipped the gun into a shoulder holster and stood still, watching Evan die.

Evan's eyes slowly closed, his killer's face the last earthly image recorded in his memory. And he had a strange thought as he died. That he had seen that face on television recently.

49

They found a room at the Fairfield Inn on I-64 despite the problem with not wishing to use a credit card. It had a lot to do with Gordon offering five thousand dollars in cash as a deposit. The manager tucked it away in the safe and gave them a big smile every time they entered the lobby. What the hell, some people just didn't like credit cards.

Friday, September 16. Jennifer had missed Thursday without calling in to let them know she was okay. And now Friday. Her staff was going to be panicked at her disappearance. But what were her options? Call the office and let Bruce Andrews know she was alive so he could try and kill her again? Not a very smart idea. And with the information they'd garnered from their quick trip to the library Thursday afternoon, she and Gordon had amassed more evidence that pointed to Bruce Andrews as the guilty party.

The financial picture at Veritas was not what Andrews was painting. The company was in trouble. Millions of dollars in everyday expenses from almost every department with a research arm were being shifted over to R&D. The resulting tax credits totaled hundreds of millions of dollars. Even with the extra income the company was enjoying from the extended patents on metabolite-synthesizing drugs, the veil was slowly coming up on the fraud. Expenditures were through the roof. Despite the termination of the brain chip department, it still drew enormous amounts of the company's cash reserves, something that puzzled both Jennifer and Gordon.

And there was no way the CEO of the company did not know what was happening. It was at his directive that the departments were realigning their finances to divert the expenses to R&D. Andrews was the conductor, his team leaders the unwitting orchestra. With the exception of Jennifer Pearce, who, for her tenacity, was now in fear for her life.

“Is there anything in either Kenga's or Albert's files that could point to them having been murdered?” Jennifer asked. Gordon had spent a considerable amount of time going over the two personnel files they had printed out on the library LaserJet twenty-four hours earlier.

He sat back in the chair and rubbed his eyes. “Nothing. These files are a total dead end.”

“That's not a big surprise,” she said. “If there is any concrete proof that Andrews had them killed, it's probably tucked away in some secure file we'll never find.”

“Probably,” Gordon said. He flipped through a couple of pages on the small round table in the corner of the hotel room. “You know, the amount of money Veritas earns and spends is almost unfathomable. Income and expenses are all listed in the hundreds of millions of dollars. These figures are obscene.”

She rolled over on the bed, onto her stomach. “It's big business. Huge, in fact. Hell, AstraZeneca pumped close to five hundred million into promoting Nexium. And that was just in its first year on the market. Once the market is established, the money keeps pouring in until the patent expires. And keep in mind that despite all the money they're putting into it, Nexium is a dog.”

A puzzled expression crossed Gordon's face. “Why year after year? Don't the people taking these drugs ever get healthy?”

Jennifer laughed. “You're missing the big picture, Gordon,” she said. “The major pharmaceutical companies aren't looking for a cure. Their objective is to come up with a pill that treats the symptoms. If they actually cured the disease, that would eliminate an entire segment of the market. It's sort of like Firestone bringing a tire to market that gets a million miles before the rubber on the treads wears out. Never going to happen.”

“So you're not looking for a cure to anything, just a patch.”

She nodded. “It's a little different with Alzheimer's because it's a disease that affects an aging population. Our client base has a high natural attrition rate, so if we come up with something that blocks the tangles and plaques in the brain that cause Alzheimer's, we will still have a huge clientele needing the drug. And that's despite many of our clients passing on from old age or diseases related to the aging process. Alzheimer's is one disease where finding a cure is still a win-win for the company. That's one of the reasons I chose to specialize in it.”

“So you could look for a cure, not just a pill.”

“Exactly.” She grinned. “I guess I'm just a do-gooder at heart.”

He rose and walked over to the bed and lay beside her. She cuddled into his side and they lay quietly for a few minutes. The television was on but muted. When the newscaster switched to a story covering the outbreak of the unknown virus, she hit the mute button so she could hear the report. The talking head was on location in Washington, D.C., and the outline of the White House was prominent in the backdrop.

“Yesterday afternoon the president met with J. D. Rothery, Under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and head of the special task force assigned to combat this terrorist threat. Since May, there have been reported incidents of the virus appearing in Austin, San Diego, Miami, and Boston. Numerous radical groups have purported to be in possession of the killer virus, but to date the task force has not confirmed any of the claims to be legitimate. But to say that the president is taking this seriously is an understatement. The task force is an amalgamation of many talents. The full resources of the FBI, the CIA, and the National Security Administration are at Under Secretary Rothery's full command.

“Last week's sweeping raids of targets across the globe is now thought to be directly related to the virus crisis. Unidentified sources have indicated that the raids, which occurred simultaneously on at least sixteen targets in five countries, were an attempt to find the source of the virus. No word on whether they were successful, but it has been reported that Mr. Rothery is enlisting the help of the private sector in isolating the virus and finding a drug to eradicate it. But one thing is certain: This threat is building into a crisis that could result in a devastating toll on human life if not brought under control quickly.”

The reporter gave his byline and the broadcast returned to the studio. Jennifer touched the mute button again and the sound died instantly. “Now, that is scary,” she said.

“What is it?” Gordon asked. “What kind of virus?”

“They're being very guarded about it, but from what I've seen and what I've heard, I think it's a hemorrhagic virus of some sort.”

“What's that?” Gordon asked.

“Ebola or Marburg. Both very deadly viruses that liquefy internal body organs.”

He twisted and pulled back from her a bit so he could look into her eyes. “I know what Ebola is. It's like the plague. Holy shit. How can you be so sure?”

“They've given up a few details that most people wouldn't be able to patch together. And the glimpses of the kids' bodies as they brought them out of the quarantined house in Boston. The symptoms were exactly what would show if Ebola was present. It all adds up to a hemorrhagic virus.”

“Christ, that's serious.”

She nodded. “Very serious. If some terrorist cell has Ebola in any quantity, we're in trouble. It's simple to introduce into a population, it spreads easily, and there's no known cure.”

“There's no drug to combat it?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. The virus is protected by a capsid, which also has a protective coating called an envelope. The envelope is composed of virus-encoded proteins, which we can't seem to crack. We just can't find a drug that can penetrate the virus and kill it. It's what we call a Biosafety Level Four virus, and only a handful of labs across the country are equipped to handle it. You need state-of-the-art HEPA filters, and exhaust and ventilation systems with backup systems upon backup systems. You're talking really nasty stuff.”

“Well, let's hope they get these guys before they poison anyone else,” Gordon said.

They lay on the bed for the next hour, talking, trying to bring some normalcy to their predicament. That they had been drawn together in difficult circumstances was a given. That they both cared for each other had only been confirmed by their passionate lovemaking the previous evening. And that they knew they were in dire circumstances was evident by the course their conversation took.

“We're positive Andrews is guilty of doctoring the books, covering up deficiencies in Triaxcion, and killing at least two people,” Jennifer said. “But where can we take this without concrete proof? If we stick our heads above the horizon, we'll get them shot off. What do we do?”

“I don't know,” Gordon said. “This is all new to me. I'm just a logger. What do I know about evil corporations killing their staff?”

“Turn up the volume,” she said, cutting him off in midsentence and grabbing for the remote control. Gordon hit the button and the sound from the television reappeared. The picture was a double-ender with a split screen, a man in the studio on the left and a woman in front of a house on the right. The woman was talking into the microphone, with considerable police activity behind her. Pictures of a man, a woman, and a boy in his late teens were posted on the bottom of the screen.

“…one of Denver's most heinous murders. An entire family is dead, but probably the most disturbing aspect is that Ben Ziegler, son of Evan and Louise Ziegler, was confined to a wheelchair and unable to defend himself. Police are at a total loss as to the motive. Evan Ziegler was the owner of a local photocopier supply company, and his wife remained at home to care for their quadriplegic son. Neighbors and coworkers have all described the family as wonderful people, involved in the community and regulars at the local Lutheran church.”

The anchor broke in from the studio. “Amanda, I understand the level of violence involved in this crime is horrific.”

“Yes, Adam, it is. The police will not let anyone inside the house, but I was shown the crime-scene photos and I'm not even going to attempt to describe them. I've never seen anything like it, not even in a bad movie.”

“Thank you. That was Amanda Davis reporting from Denver. In other news—”

Jennifer motioned to Gordon to kill the sound. He did, and she got off the bed and walked over to the window. She stared down at the parking lot for a minute, then turned back to Gordon. The color had drained from her face and upper body, and she looked strangely white against her dark hair. She took a few deep breaths.

“The man on that newscast. The father. He was the one who left me dangling over the cliff in my car.”