The Death Row Complex (31 page)

“And how many people
won’t
be at the convention,” Lexi asked with a mischievous grin.

“We have three teams of seven targeting the Salk Institute, Scripps Research, and UCSD. We’ve got contacts to let us in, and we’re taking the animals out in vans. It’s just mice and rats, so they’ll be easy to handle. We’ve narrowed it down to the best three labs for the operation, based on the fact that all of the major players from those labs will be at the convention.”

“Cool,” Alexis said, and popped the gum in her mouth. “Well, sorry, but I can’t stay tonight. Just stopping by on my way home.” She turned to the boy on the loveseat rubbing her leg. “Coming over? I’m sure my mom will be gone half the night as usual.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I just have a few things to catch up on at home. I’ll meet you there in a bit.”

Alexis stood to leave, and the boy slapped her backside as she walked away. She turned and hit him playfully on the arm, but as she left the room, she was smiling.

With the girl gone, the older man turned his attention to the boy on the loveseat.

“Are you sure everything’s OK with her?” he asked.

“Oh yeah, she’s cool. We’ll be down at the convention, remember?”

“Just as long as you’re sure that’s where she’ll be. I don’t want anyone getting in the way. I know you say she’s cool, but it
is
the girl’s mother we’re talking about here. Girls are surprisingly protective of their mothers even when they pretend to hate them.”

“I know,” the boy said, “but it’s under control. Katrina Stone will be speaking at the convention, and I’ll keep Alexis out of the way. If she wants to leave the convention, I’ll take her back to her house. That’s good for at least an hour, hour and a half.” He was smiling.

“Yeah right, try ten seconds,” said a girl across the room, and laughed.

“Shut up,” the boy said. “Anyway, Lexi isn’t a problem. You guys just get into the BSL-3 facility like we planned. Do you have the floor plan?”

The older man nodded, and the boy continued. “Good. Focus on the monkeys. According to my contact there, the infected monkeys are kept quarantined away from the uninfected ones. It’s too late to save the infected ones, but my contact says that there are currently six monkeys that have not yet been infected. Make sure you know which ones they are. If you get the wrong monkeys, the world has a serious problem.”

9:02 P.M.
PST

Sean McMullan and Roger Gilman had deplaned in San Diego and were walking across the Skywalk to the airport parking lot when Gilman remembered to switch his cell phone back on. A message chimed immediately when he did.

Without slowing his pace across the Skywalk, Gilman listened to the message and then closed the phone. He grabbed McMullan’s arm casually and began trotting toward the parking lot. “We have a situation,” he said.

McMullan easily kept up at a slow jog. “I’m parked right over here.”

“Good.” Gilman was already running out of breath. “You drive.”

Once in the passenger seat of Sean McMullan’s sedan, Gilman dialed the San Diego Branch of the FBI while McMullan navigated his way out of the parking lot of San Diego International Airport.

The agent who picked up the phone immediately yelled, “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you guys all day!”

“We’ve been dealing with an emergency,” Gilman said defensively. “On the east coast time, by the way. We just got back. What?”

Gilman listened while his contact relayed his observation from the surveillance video of Katrina Stone’s lab.
She was hiding something in a tank all this time
, Gilman thought.
What was it?
“How big was the thing she pulled out?” he asked.

“Not much bigger than a book or something,” the agent said.

McMullan was driving while glancing at his partner every few moments in an effort to deduce information from the one-sided conversation he was hearing. “Roger, where am I going?” he finally asked.

“San Diego FBI headquarters,” Gilman answered.

“Wait,” said the agent on the phone. “I haven’t told you the rest. While she was getting the stuff out of the tank, McMullan showed up and she immediately hid it in a drawer. She looked guilty as hell. If I were you, I’d pick up Stone first. You can look at the video later.”

Gilman hung up the phone and grabbed the steering wheel, jerking McMullan’s car into a rapidly approaching turn lane. Another car entering the same lane almost hit the swerving sedan from the side.

“
What the fuck?
” McMullan said, shoving his partner away and regaining control.

“Turn!” Gilman said, and McMullan did.

“Change of plan,” Gilman said. “Get to Stone’s house. Right now.”

It was unnecessary for the two agents to kick in the front door to Katrina Stone’s house. The door was unlocked. Guns drawn, McMullan and Gilman burst through the door but then stalled.

Sitting at the kitchen table was a young man. Lying across the table was Alexis Stone. Both of them were stark naked, and the boy was holding a can of whipped cream over a small mound of strawberries and raspberries, arranged delicately on the girl’s stomach. When the door opened and the two agents came in, both teenagers looked up.

After her initial start, Alexis scrambled off the table and hastily tried to hide her naked body behind her boyfriend.

McMullan and Gilman exchanged a confused glance and then bolted past the two teenagers and up the stairs. “Get some clothes on,” Gilman mumbled as he passed.

Given the scene in the kitchen, neither agent was surprised to find Stone’s bedroom empty. She should have been in bed, finally sleeping after the eventful last twenty-four hours. Instead, her bedroom was disheveled, clothing thrown haphazardly across the bed, along with a small array of toiletries. A small collection of luggage had been thrown out of the closet and was still strewn across the floor.

“Shit!” McMullan said.

Gilman stepped out to sweep the rest of the house, avoiding the front area where two embarrassed, horny, and sticky teenagers were dressing.

McMullan stepped into the bedroom and rifled through the mess on the bed, and then through the adjacent bathroom, looking for evidence of where she might have gone.
Katrina, this can’t really be you.
He withdrew his cell phone and speed-dialed San Diego FBI headquarters.

“Now what?” the agent asked.

“She’s leaving the country,” he said. “Alert TSA.”

“
Sean!
” Gilman’s voice rang through from the next room.

McMullan stabbed at his phone to end the call, cutting off the other agent’s voice. Following the direction of his partner’s shouting, he raced into another bedroom, where Gilman was looking at a computer monitor. McMullan stepped up behind him and stared for a moment.

On the screen was an electronic calendar. The month displayed was July of the previous year. It was obviously Katrina Stone’s schedule. The calendar was filled with dates and times of seminars, lectures, and experimental timelines—next to each, the name of one of Katrina’s students or her postdoc. Lab meetings. Departmental meetings. And days with Alexis, versus days that Alexis was to be at Tom’s house.

McMullan studied the calendar for a moment, seeing nothing of interest. Confused, he looked at Gilman, and Gilman pointed to a specific date.

“Recognize this section?” Gilman asked.

“No.”

The area to which Gilman was pointing read:

     Seminar: World Health Organization: 1:15

     Hosting Dan Russel: Pick up at 4:30

     Pick up Alexis: 6:00

“I give up,” McMullan said. “What?”

“You didn’t obsess with that piece of paper like I did,” Gilman said, and picked up a pen off the desk.

On a yellow Post-It note in front of him, replicating the handwriting on the ESDA trace the best he could, Gilman scrawled:

WHO1315

DR1630

AL1800

“The first greeting card from the White House. The ESDA trace. It was a section of Katrina Stone’s schedule.” Gilman looked up from the computer monitor and into his partner’s dumbfounded gaze. “You still think your girl didn’t do it?”

F
EBRUARY 5, 2016
7:36 A.M.
PST

Oscar Morales was pleasantly surprised when he saw the woman who was there to see him. He had not been expecting anyone, not today, and was annoyed at having to leave his cell in the first place. At least this chick was a looker.
Damn, she’s hot
, he thought as she approached.

The woman was in jeans and a T-shirt and was holding a file. She didn’t look very happy.

“Who the fuck are you?” Oscar asked.

“Who the fuck are
you
?” the woman snapped in return.

“Don’t jerk me off, bitch… you came here to see me.”

“What do you want with me?”

“Lady, I don’t even know you, so fuck off,” Oscar said and stood up from the visiting table to leave. As he turned and began walking away, she asked, “Recognize this person?”

Just like that, the nightmare returned to the forefront of Oscar’s mind. His heart was in his throat as he turned around.

Suddenly, Oscar felt like he was in a movie—the kind of movie where a cop comes to someone’s door and shows that person a photograph, and then says that the person in the photograph is dead. Oscar stepped toward the woman and looked at the page in her hand.

The person in the image was unidentifiable, lying in a hospital bed with his or her face completely covered in a fluffy white envelope of gauze. “How the fuck am I supposed to recognize that person?” Oscar asked. His heart was still in his throat.

“How about now?” the woman asked casually, and showed another picture. In this one, beneath the gauze, the camera had caught the upper half of the hospital bed. A bare chest was exposed, and the large tattoo across it was still intact.

MORALES

“
You fucking bitch!
” Oscar screamed and lunged at the woman. She ducked quickly away and Oscar crashed across another of the visiting room’s tables.

The guard on duty rushed forward, reaching for his nightstick.

“
What did you do to him
?” Oscar demanded, whirling around to face the guard instead of the woman. He managed to land a forceful blow upon the guard’s jaw, but the nightstick still collided with his knee and sent him to the floor.

“Your brother did this to himself,” the woman shouted through the commotion.
“What did he want with
me?”