The Genesis Key (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

Arlington, Virginia.

B
ill McCreary entered the Logistics Analysis office at DARPA and said good morning to his assistant. “Anything going on?”

Steve Goodwin held up a single sheet of paper. “Yeah, this.”

McCreary took the classified memo and read it quickly:

TOP SECRET SCI—SERRATE

Re: EVENT SUMMARY, MARCH 22–23

2353 EST—911 call received by Montgomery County central dispatch. Suspected burglary reported at 201E Gateway Drive, Rockville, MD [QLS]

0002 EST—911 call received by Montgomery County central dispatch. Gunshot victim reported at 201E Gateway Drive, Rockville, MD [QLS]

0005 EST—Dispatcher broadcast to Montgomery County Police and Fire & Rescue.

0016 EST—Montgomery County Police and Fire & Rescue on scene at 201E Gateway Drive, Rockville, MD.

0033 EST—Dr. Jeremy Fisher [QLS] admitted to Montgomery County Hospital, multiple gunshot wounds. Current status unknown.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Suspect reportedly fled on foot into adjacent woods, remains at large. Dr. Kathleen Sainsbury [QLS] questioned at scene and released.

McCreary frowned and folded the paper in half. “You should've called me immediately.”

“Sorry, boss. I just got this information twenty minutes ago.”

“Then you should've called me
twenty minutes
ago!” He brushed past Goodwin and made his way toward his office. He was already thinking about how to break this news to Secretary Stonewell.

“Uh, boss. There's something else.”

McCreary sighed and turned. “What is it?”

“I've been listening to the audio of the police radio runs . . .”

“Yeah?”

“And . . . well, I could've sworn I heard one of the cops say something about ‘mummy DNA.' ”

“Dear God,” McCreary muttered.

“Just thought you should know.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Rockville, Maryland.

“I
just got off the phone with the hospital,” Kathleen said as she entered the QLS conference room. Julie and Carlos were already seated at the conference table. It was a little after 10:00
A.M.
on Tuesday morning, and they were assembled for their first formal meeting since the shooting Sunday night. “Jeremy's in critical but stable condition.”

“What does that mean?” asked Julie.

“They've stopped the bleeding, but he has some very severe nerve damage. They're not sure what effect that may have on his—” Kathleen drew a deep breath. “On his ability to walk.”

Julie gasped.

“He also has a significant amount of swelling in his brain, which is a very dangerous situation. They've put him in a medically induced coma to try to reduce the swelling.”

Carlos shook his head.

Kathleen continued. “His family is with him now. So all we can do is wait.”

“And pray,” Julie added.

“Sure. That, too.”

The last forty-eight hours had been a chaotic whirlwind at QLS. Julie had arrived at work Monday morning to find the front door smashed, yellow police tape across the entrance, and a hideous bloodstain on the sidewalk. Carlos had tried to call her in advance to warn her not to come in, but her cell phone had been turned off. As expected, she took it hard. “I should've been here!” she kept repeating over and over. It took Carlos and Kathleen the better part of the day just to calm her down.

The Montgomery County police didn't finish their crime-scene investigation until late Monday afternoon, after which Carlos immediately boarded up the broken doors and arranged for replacements to be delivered.

Kathleen had spent nearly all day shuttling back and forth to the hospital, talking to Jeremy's family, dealing with the police, and fielding calls from worried investors. One particularly nasty investor—a broker from the Aurora Venture Capital Fund in New York City—even mentioned the word “lawsuit,” just to make matters worse.

Now it was Tuesday, and, whether they liked it or not, QLS had to get back to business.

“Julie, are you sure you're okay to work today?” Kathleen asked with genuine concern. “You can take a few days off if you want. Maybe go back to be with your parents.”

“I'm fine,” Julie said. “I want to finish what Jeremy started. I owe him that.”

Kathleen nodded and smiled compassionately. “All right. Okay.” She glanced at Carlos. “Carlos is going to be with you here at all times. Right, Carlos?”

“Absolutely
.
In fact, from now on, I don't want anyone here alone. We'll use the buddy system just like we did in the Marines.”

“Julie,” said Kathleen. “Any luck recovering an uncontaminated DNA sample from that spill on the floor? I realize it's a long shot.”

“I wiped up what I could from the drain grate with Chem-wipes, washed them with chloroform into a 500 milliliter beaker, and looked for DNA.” She shrugged. “It was a mess.”

“I figured,” Kathleen said glumly. “But it was worth a try.”

For a fleeting moment, Kathleen's thoughts flashed back to what Jeremy had said in the ambulance. He could barely speak and was in unbelievable pain, yet, for some reason, he'd made a point of telling her that he hadn't cleaned up. It was such a strange thing for him to say, given the circumstances. She dismissed the thought.
She needed to focus!
The annual shareholders' meeting was less than a week away, and the events of the past two days were likely to shake many of the investors. If they didn't have some positive news to report by next week, QLS was almost certainly doomed.

“I'll keep trying,” Julie said. “I'll add some PCR solution and put it in the thermocycler. Who knows, maybe we'll get something.”

Something clicked in Kathleen's mind. “Wait a second,” she exclaimed, straightening in her chair. “The thermocycler!” She was referring to the piece of equipment used to cycle PCR samples through the rapid temperature fluctuations needed to achieve PCR amplification of a DNA sample.

“What about it?” said Julie, obviously confused.

Kathleen stood and began pacing quickly beside the table. “Jeremy said something strange to me in the ambulance. He said he hadn't
cleaned up
.”

“Well, of course not,” Julie said, scrunching her eyebrows together. “I mean, he got shot!”

“Right
.
It didn't make any sense to me either. It was such a trivial thing for him to say given the situation. Unless—” She froze in mid-sentence.

Julie's eyes widened too, recognition passing over her face. “He didn't clean the
thermocycler!
”

“Uh, you guys want to fill me in here?” said Carlos, looking back and forth between the two women.

“Julie!” said Kathleen. “Refill the comb wells with PCR solution and run it through thirty cycles. No, wait . . . make it sixty. I've got to go downtown this morning, but don't wait for me. Get started right away.”

Julie was already getting up from her chair. “I'm on it.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Rockville, Maryland.

“Y
ou'll need to leave that cell phone at the security window over there,” said the guard at the X-ray machine.

Kathleen nodded and collected her personal items from the X-ray belt at the front entrance to the Montgomery County Municipal Center. Her mission this morning was to look at suspect photographs, as requested by the police detective investigating Jeremy's shooting.

“Stupid rule,” she muttered, making her way to the security window adjacent the elevators. Behind a thick pane of bulletproof glass, a skinny young man in a security uniform was reading a hardcover book, his head resting heavily on his hand. Kathleen surrendered her cell phone to him and received, in exchange, a yellow plastic tag with the number
33
on it.

“Dr. Sainsbury?”

Kathleen turned to see a tall, clean-cut man by the elevators. She recognized him as one of the Montgomery County police detectives she'd talked to the night of the shooting. He had thin blond hair and a long, pale face. He shook her hand and re-introduced himself as Detective Philip Andersen of the Montgomery County Police Department.

Kathleen and Detective Andersen took the elevator to the second floor, where they exited and proceeded to Room 202. It was a small, unadorned room containing four chairs lined up on one side of a rectangular table. A computer and a nineteen-inch flat-screen monitor sat atop the table, facing the chairs.

One chair was already occupied.

“Good morning, Dr. Sainsbury,” said Special Agent Wills politely, standing up to face Kathleen as she entered the room. He was impeccably dressed, as always.

“I thought you were with the FBI,” Kathleen said.

“I am. As I said the other night, we're working this case together with the Montgomery County police.” He gestured toward Detective Andersen. “On account of it being related to the incident on U Street last week.”

“Related? How?”

“Through
you
,” said Wills matter-of-factly.

Kathleen was sorry she'd asked.

Detective Andersen directed Kathleen to one of the chairs at the center of the table, and he and Wills sat down on either side of her. “Dr. Sainsbury,” Detective Andersen began, “I'm going to be showing you pictures of possible suspects we have on file. We've narrowed these down based on your description of the shooter and the type of weapon that was used. Stop me if any of them look like the man you saw the other night, okay?”

Kathleen nodded that she would.

Using the mouse and keyboard, Andersen navigated through a series of windows on the computer screen, entering passwords and bits of information until, finally, a digital photograph appeared on the screen of a scowling man with angry eyes and wild hair.

“Look familiar?”

Kathleen shook her head. “No.”

“How about this one?”

“No.”

This process dragged on for more than an hour, with face after face of rough-looking men flashing onto the screen, none of whom Kathleen recognized in the least.
When will this end?
she wondered. She had a mountain of work to do—

“Wait!” she exclaimed suddenly.

“This guy?” Andersen inquired.

“No, not him . . . back up . . .
there!
That's the guy I saw.”

“Are you sure?” asked Special Agent Wills.

Kathleen studied the picture carefully. It showed a man with a bony, angular face, dark, deep-set eyes, and a menacing frown. “I'm positive. He stared right at me for more than a second. That's definitely the guy I saw.”

Andersen picked up the phone and dialed four digits. “Cooper, bring me the file on Ida 140943.”

A minute later, a young police corporal knocked and entered the small room carrying a thin manila folder. Andersen flipped through the file while Wills stood behind him, looking over his shoulder.

“It's from Interpol,” Andersen said quietly to Wills.

“Mm-hmmm.”

Kathleen watched anxiously.

“Are you
sure
he's the guy you saw?” Andersen asked after a while.

“Yes, I'm sure. Why, who is it?”

“His name's Semion Zafer.”

Wills piped in. “Looks like you've gotten yourself mixed up with a pretty nasty character.”

“I've never heard of him in my life,” Kathleen protested. “How could I be
mixed up
with him?”

“I don't know,” said Wills, crossing his arms. “Who do you know in the Israeli Mafia?”

“The Israeli
what?
”

Wills leaned closer to Kathleen. “Care to tell us more about the DNA sample that was in that broken flask?”

Kathleen flinched.

“Where'd you get it?”

Kathleen's heart was racing. If she told the truth, they'd know she lied earlier to Agent Wills. And that would make her look guilty. She felt her throat tightening.

“Dr. Sainsbury?” Wills prodded.

Kathleen panicked. “I don't know.”

“You don't know what?”

“I don't know where it came from. I mean, Jeremy Fisher was working on it after hours . . . some sort of project he was interested in. I . . . I'm not sure where he got it.” Kathleen's heart was beating furiously. She'd just lied
again
to the FBI. And this time, it was
a big, fat, whopping lie.
She was going to regret this. She was absolutely sure she was going to regret this for the rest of her life
.
It was only a question of when.

An uncomfortable silence descended upon the room. Finally, Detective Andersen stood up and announced, “All right then, I guess we're done.”

K
athleen presented tag 33 to the young man at the security window and asked for her cell phone back.

“Wow,” said the security guard as he handed the phone to her, “your phone feels hot
.
”

“Yeah, it gets that way sometimes.” Kathleen thought nothing of it.

The young security guard looked intrigued, though. He adjusted his wire-frame glasses and straightened in his chair. “Let me ask you something. Does the battery drain down a lot, even when you're not using it?”

“Yeah, I guess so. But it's an old phone. I think the battery's going bad.”

“Maybe,” said the guard. He held up the hardcover book he was reading, which was titled
Technology, Crime, and Law Enforcement
. “I'm studying criminal justice at Montgomery College at night. I just got through reading all about cell-phone bugs and different ways your phone can be hijacked and turned into a listening device. You'd be amazed how easy it is to do. One telltale sign is a phone that stays hot even after you turn it off.”

Kathleen eyed her phone suspiciously.
Could it really be bugged?

“You should take out your battery when you're not using that phone,” said the guard. “Or, better yet, get a new phone and don't let it out of your control.”

“Thanks,” Kathleen said.

As she exited the building, Kathleen touched the phone to her cheek. It
did
feel hot.
But could it actually be bugged?
Who would do that?
She turned the phone on and noted that the battery was, indeed, nearly depleted, even though she'd charged it just last night. Navigating the call list, she was surprised to see four incoming calls in the past hour, one from Julie and three from Carlos.

She pushed redial for Carlos's number.

Carlos answered on the first ring. “Dr. Sainsbury,” he exclaimed, obviously recognizing her incoming number. “I've been trying to reach you all morn—”

“Carlos! Don't say anything else.”

“Why?”

“I'll explain later.”

“All right. But you should get down here right away.”

“I'll be there in twenty minutes.”

S
pecial agent Wills sat hunched over the interview table in Room 202 of the Montgomery County Municipal Center, his chin resting on a clenched fist. He was reviewing the Interpol rap sheet on Semion Zafer for the umpteenth time.

Detective Andersen entered the room. “You still here, Tony?”

“Yeah, still trying to figure out what to make of this guy.” Wills thumped the thin file on Semion Zafer. The first page contained a photocopy of a booking photo from the Tel Aviv police department, which showed a frowning Zafer—a few years younger than he was now, but with the same dark eyes and skeletal facial features. “What do you think?”

Andersen leaned over and skimmed the file. “Small-time operator. Street punk.”

“Yeah, that's what I thought, too. He got busted in Tel Aviv when he was nineteen for roughing up a jeweler. They pegged him as being part of the Israeli Mafia, but it sounds like a shakedown racket to me, kid stuff.”

“Mm-hmmm.”

“Certainly not
international
caliber . . .”

Andersen shrugged.

“I mean, what's an Israeli street thug like Semion Zafer doing breaking into a high-tech biology lab in the United States and shooting a scientist in the back?”

“Looking for drugs? Could be an addict.”

Wills was unconvinced. “Seems like an odd place to look for drugs.”

“Loan sharking? Could be that QLS was funding its operations with easy money, and Zafer came looking for his first installment.”

Wills shook his head doubtfully. “Doesn't sound right to me. QLS had millions of dollars in venture capital.”

“Well,
I'm
out of ideas,” said Andersen, shrugging his shoulders.

Wills was still rubbing his chin, deep in thought. “Did you hear what Dr. Sainsbury said the other night about
mummy
DNA?”

“Yeah, that was weird.”

“Then today, she tried to back away from it. Said it was something her colleague Jeremy Fisher was working on.” Wills leaned back in his chair, his fingers laced tightly behind his head. “There's something I'm missing here . . .” His voice trailed off as he turned his attention back to Zafer's Interpol file.

“Well,” said Andersen, starting back to his office, “I'm sure you FBI boys will figure it out.”