The Last Mountain Gorilla (3 page)

This answer seemed to slow the buzz that was going around the hall. A couple of reporters were busy tapping their miniature computer screen, while others were scribbling notes.

From behind him, Jenson’s assistant approached the podium apprehensive, her head down, a piece of paper in her hand. She handed the sheet to Jenson and his face went cold as he read the page. His assistant gave him a look of consolation and stood next to him until he shooed her away.

“What is it, Dr. Jenson?” a reporter asked.

Jenson opened his mouth to speak, then faltered. He stared down at the sheet of paper as if it were a gravestone. It seemed he needed to be alone, but the reporters were relentless, barking questions at him until finally he looked up into the glare of the lights with moist eyes.

“Apparently,” Jenson said, “the FDA found our research lacking in quantity of trials. They’ve denied approval for the OTC project.”

Claire gasped. She held her hand to her mouth and watched as her husband’s eyes turned dull with shock.

“Dr. Jenson, do you have a comment?” the reporter said.

“It hardly seems possible,” he murmured.

“How many years have you been working on this project?” a reporter shouted.

“Too long,” Jenson said. His eyes roamed the crowd. “It’s cost me a great deal of my personal life. Maybe too much.”

“Does this mean you won’t be able to move toward human testing?” a reporter asked.

Jenson licked his lips and searched desperately for the one understanding face in the room. Claire tried to maneuver herself into the open, but Jenson couldn’t find her.

“Has this ever been tested on a human being?” the reporter rephrased the question.

“N-n-o,” Jenson stammered. “That’s what the FDA approval was for.”

Claire tried elbowing her way to the front, but the crowd was experienced at the art of pinching their competition back. Jenson appeared shell-shocked.

“What will you do now?” another reporter asked.

Jenson was deteriorating right in front of her eyes. Claire raised her hand to get his attention, but it was lost in a sea of raised hands.

“Was there anyone in particular awaiting this ruling?” a reporter raised her voice.

Jenson’s shoulder’s slumped and Claire could see him thinking of only one thing. Billy. His eyes glossed over as he gave one last attempt to find his wife.

When it appeared he’d lost all hope, he leaned into the microphone, and with a small voice, he said, “That’s enough for today.”

Jenson looked down, stepped away from the podium, then turned to leave the stage.

Claire screamed, “Brian!” But it was too late, he was already behind the curtains and gone before he could ever know she was there all along.

Claire ran back to the exit and hurried through the halls leading back to the lab. She didn’t know what she would see, but she needed to be there for him. For the first time in years, she knew that he needed her. She navigated her way between students and faculty members who appeared completely oblivious to the disaster that had taken place in the auditorium. When she rounded the final turn she saw three lab techs milling around the entrance to the lab. They seemed confused and spoke with shoulder shrugs and open palms.

“What is it?” Claire said as she approached.

Jennifer, the lab tech with the most tenure said, “Dr. Jenson kicked us out.”

The sound of a solid object crashing into lab equipment came spilling through the thick oak door. Claire tried the doorknob and found it locked. She turned to Jennifer. “Get Phil Johnson over here with the security keys.”

When Jennifer hesitated, she added, “Brian’s in trouble. He didn’t get FDA approval for the OTC project and if we don’t get in there right away he’s going to give Billy the trial formula.”

Jennifer’s eyes widened and she turned and ran down the hallway.

Claire futilely fought with the locked door. “Brian!” she yelled. “Please open up!”

The cacophony of clanging metal continued unabated.

“Brian.” Claire jimmied the lock and pressed her ear to the door. “Brian.”

Suddenly, it became quiet.

“Honey,” Claire said. “Please let me in.”

Silence.

Claire sniffed something in the air.

“I smell smoke,” one of the lab techs said.

She was right. There was a definite aroma coming from the lab. Something was burning.

“What’s he doing in there?” the lab tech asked.

“I’m not sure,” Claire said. Her stomach twisted, while her fingers trembled around the doorknob.

Phil Johnson and Jennifer came rushing down the hall. Johnson had his large set of keys extended out from his right hand.

“Back away, Claire,” he said.

Johnson fumbled the key into the lock. A click sounded as he turned open the deadbolt, then he pushed the door open.

The sight was enough to make Claire suck in a breath. Jenson’s main lab bench stood undamaged, but every piece of equipment on top of the bench was demolished. The most striking item was his computer. The hard drive had been pulled out of the tower and then crushed to bits. Little splinters of metal were sprayed all over the desktop.

Phil Johnson blew a low whistle. “Holy mother of—”

“Look at this,” Jennifer said. She was already at the stainless steel sink. Flames bubbled out of the sink and Claire could see a pile of compact discs and flash drives burned beyond recognition. It was undoubtedly the backup data from Jenson’s computer.

“Why would he do that?” Jennifer asked. “That’s years of hard work up in flames.”

Claire shook her head. An overwhelming sense of regret made her flush with fear. Why did she have to choose today to press him? He’d been wound so tight for so long. How selfish could she be?

That’s when she spotted the empty syringe wrapper on the lab bench. Next to the wrapper was a small empty vial. The label on the vial read, “Virus K-42.” Her mouth went dry.

Jennifer picked up the vial and inspected it closely. “No,” she whispered. “Not that.”

“What?” Claire said.

Jennifer placed the vial down and looked up at Claire with pity.

“What is it?” Clair repeated.

“Claire,” Phil Johnson called to her. “Over here.”

Jennifer said nothing. She simply stared at the sink and shook her head.

Claire discovered an envelope with her name on it sitting on Brian’s lab bench. It was definitely Brian’s handwriting.

“Claire!” Johnson called again.

Claire picked up the envelope and followed his voice to the west side of the room. It was dark outside and the long expansive window exposed the city lights sparkling in the valley below them. She approached the couch and saw Brian sitting next to his brother. Brian had one arm around Billy while he stroked his face with the back of his free hand.

Claire scrutinized Billy’s appearance, but couldn’t detect any change. She wondered how long it would take for the gene therapy to take hold. That’s when Brian turned his head back to face the dazzling display of the downtown lights. Brian’s expression was light and blissful. His smile was the exact duplicate of his brother’s. He had the same droopy eyes.

Brian raised his arm and pointed to the endless twinkling of lights. “Beautiful,” he said.

“Yeah, beautiful,” mimicked Billy with the same long drawl.

Claire looked down and saw Brian’s sleeve rolled up and an empty syringe on the floor next to his feet. She could feel her eyes fill with moisture. Her lips quivered. Now she understood why he destroyed all of his data. Without him pushing for a cure, no one would ever find the formula that could reverse his condition.

In a state of shock, the envelope slipped from Claire’s hand. Phil Johnson picked it up, saw her name on it and handed it to her. Claire looked at it and realized what it was. With trembling fingers Claire opened the envelope and read the handwritten note from her husband:

Claire, you won’t go away now, will you? Because now I need you more, don’t I?

Brian looked up at her and smiled with pure delight. There was no anxiety on his face, just the unadulterated enchantment of watching the city lights glow below them.

Claire looked out the window and tried desperately to appreciate the same view while teardrops plopped onto the letter in her hands.

The End

The Escape Artist

 
“You buying this story?” Willie Combs asked the six felons sitting in the yard listening to old Mark Johnson hold court.

Ray Ballentine drew a cigarette from his pocket, held it eye level and smiled. “Let the man say his peace. He’s not hurting anyone.”

“He’s hurting my ears is what he’s hurting.” Willie’s face puckered like he’d just bitten into a lemon.

“I want to hear more,” Ray said.

Johnson smiled at the encouragement. His impeccable gray hair and his brilliant green eyes gave him credibility uncommon on the inside. “Did I tell you what I did the day before the market crashed in ’87?”

“Aw, no.” Willie shook his head. “Not this one again.”

Johnson spoke over the objection. “Well, there I was sitting on three thousand shares of IBM at seventy-five bucks, wondering to myself, when’s the correction going to happen?”

Willie Combs said, “You sold twenty-five hundred shares ‘cause you are one smart piece of white trash.”

“Let him tell it,” Ray insisted.

“That’s right, I sold it. Only it wasn’t twenty-five hundred shares, it was twenty-eight.” He grinned at Willie as if to say, “Almost got it right, bro.”

“I love the next part,” Ray said.

“I hope it’s the part where they corral his ass for murdering a cop in the middle of a bank,” Willie said.

“Hey,” Ray said, “the guy had it coming. Tried screwing with old man Johnson and got a hole in his head.”

“The market was ready to burst and I had a bad feeling in my gut that day,” Johnson continued.

“I wonder how your gut was feeling the day you blew away those three prison guards in Leavenworth?” Willie asked.

Just then Johnson’s attention was drawn to the outside fence. A black Mercedes cruised over the gravel road, spitting up loose fragments of rock as it made its way to the warden’s office. “Damn,” he said. “They found me.”

“Who found you?” Ray asked.

“The company,” Johnson said.

“What, the FBI, the CIA?”

“Worse.” Johnson lowered his head and rubbed his hand across the dirt between his legs. “Much worse.”

Willie rolled his eyes. “What’s worse than the FBI? Russians? Terrorists? Who?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Johnson lamented.

“Shit,” Willie said, “you’re supposed to be the escape artist. You busted out of five different state pens. Far as I know that’s a record. You think someone’s after you—bust out.”

“Yeah,” Ray said, “word is you hypnotized two guards in Attica to open your cell.”

“That’s right,” another agreed. “Didn’t you have a brush fire started outside of Ironwood to get them to evacuate all the prisoners? That was a stroke of genius.”

“You’re giving me too much credit.”

Ray let out a lungful of smoke. “Fact is, some of the guys feel you’re their best chance of getting out of here before they’re too old for it to matter. You’ve got to be cocky, I mean turning yourself in like you did. I never did understand that tactic.”

Johnson shook his head. “No, no, you don’t get it. These guys are here to take me away. I don’t want to leave.” He waved his arm at the twenty acres of concrete and steel, wrapped in three types of wire—barbed, razor and electric. “Look at this place. So peaceful, so relaxing. No telephone calls or TV screens with CNN flashing the Dow Jones Averages every five seconds. Nobody telling you how to fudge the numbers to get the stock price to move up half a point.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I can’t leave. These past two weeks have been the best days of my life.”

The other cons looked around and took inventory of their surroundings, as if maybe they were missing something obvious. A guard was pushing a wheelbarrow along the perimeter of the yard, picking up dead birds electrocuted by the live fence.

“Yeah,” Willie said. “It’s a regular damn Fantasy Island this place. Who’d want to leave here?”

Ray dropped his butt on the ground, stepped on it and slowly twisted his foot. “What I’m hearing is that you’re leaving. That must be your accomplice. Don’t give us this story about wanting to stay, so you don’t have to take any of us with you. I’m staring at thirty years, I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and hear you escaped alone.”

Johnson shook his head. “You don’t get it. This is no hoax. These people are dangerous. They find me here and I’m going right back into the system that killed two of my best friends. Fine, decent people who couldn’t hold up under all the pressure.”

“Get a grip, Johnson,” Ray said. “Willie here paid big time to peek at your file. You’re a convicted murderer. You killed twelve people in cold blood, including a pregnant bank teller. You’ve got to be what—sixty years old? You’re not going to live forever. Take some of us with you. You have no idea what we’d be willing to risk.”

“Look, it’s not what you think,” Johnson said.

“Don’t use that pasty old white man image on us,” Willie added. “It may work on the outside, but you ain’t conning no cons in here. You a bank robber and a killer. All this crap about you working for a corporation is bull. You may look like a harmless white-crimer, but we know better.”

The Mercedes came to a stop and a slender woman in a dark blue business suit got out. She had long legs and even the professional business attire couldn’t disguise her wiggle as she entered the building.

“Ooh-wee, that your wife, old man?” Willie asked.

Johnson didn’t bother looking up. “Nah.”

“She your girlfriend?” Ray asked.

Johnson shook his head.

“But you know who she is, don’t you?” Ray said.

Johnson nodded.

Willie said, “She’s the monster that’s going to get you out of here. Boy, if I gotta get tortured by someone, that’s the gal for the job.”

“You ain’t lying, Willie boy,” Ray said. “The way I figure it, she’s carrying a piece with her.”