Crime Zero (12 page)

He needed to ensure the test was done discreetly. And he couldn't involve anybody in the bureau. He only had one option, someone who was trustworthy and nearby. The thought of involving her made him squirm inside.

He reached for his wallet. After a small search he soon found what he was looking for. Checking the address on the card, he climbed into his car. He had no choice. He had to ask for her help. But that didn't make him feel any better.

He just knew that Kathy Kerr would regard his sudden dependence on her genetic wizardry as some kind of moral victory.

Al Taji Camp, Baghdad, Iraq. The Same Day, 4:17 P.M.

In the Baghdad barracks of the Northern Corps of the Elite Republican Guard, Dr. Uday Aziz was worried. The more he looked at the corpse sprawled on the barrack room bunk, the more he couldn't escape the conclusion that this wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

Aziz stroked his thick mustache and studied Colonel Ali Saadi standing opposite him. The colonel was a squat, powerful man with a massive stomach and thick eyebrows untroubled by interruption. He was glaring angrily at the corpse. For a moment Aziz thought he was going to kick the dead soldier.

"This is the fourth in two days," Aziz said softly, looking at Private Jaafar Hammadi's medical file, trying to find some reason why a perfectly fit twenty-four-year-old should have had a brain hemorrhage. "That's if you ignore the suicides and the Khatib shooting."

"I don't understand it," the colonel said. "He hadn't complained of being ill to any of his immediate superiors."

"Was he under any particular strain?"

"He'd been training hard for his transfer south, but no harder than the other men."

Aziz scratched his head and studied the corpse again. Apart from the acne and the recent hair loss there was hardly anything remarkable. After the first unusual death two days ago, Dr. Aziz had ordered standard postmortems on the corpses. Most either had died of brain hemorrhages or had been suicides. All had been physically in excellent condition with no history of mental problems. However, their blood tests had all revealed similar abnormalities. These abnormalities pointed to one possible explanation--particularly given the hair loss and acne--but he would need to make more tests. "We need to find out what's happening," he mused as if talking to himself.

"You're damn right we do," said the colonel. "You need to make it top priority. We've managed to keep it quiet for now, but morale is suffering, and people are talking. If this gets any worse and the rais hears of it so close to a possible offensive, he will demand an explanation."

"I understand." Aziz returned to stroking his mustache. The suicides and the shooting couldn't be blamed on him, but the others could. Why did this have to happen now? In the past his job as senior military doctor had been comfortable. The army, particularly the Republican Guard, was well fed and resourced. And apart from the obvious risks of war the health of the men wasn't an issue. But over the last few months Aziz had been working all hours in a bureaucratic role, preparing for the rais's planned offensive on Kuwait, organizing field hospital contingencies and the vaccination of hundreds of thousands of troops. And now, already with more problems than he could handle, he was being confronted by this... annoyance.

"Are you sure these men haven't been taking any unauthorized medication?"

"Well, I haven't authorized any if that's what you mean," said the colonel with an angry frown. "What sort of medication are you talking about anyway?"

Aziz studied him closely, trying to decide if he was telling the truth. It wouldn't be the first time officers had tested drugs on troops to improve their combat capabilities, especially so close to an offensive. Aziz shrugged, still looking at the colonel. "I'm talking about anabolic steroids. You know? The drugs some athletes take to improve their performance."

The colonel shook his head in disbelief. "You think these men have been taking steroids? And that's why they're dead?"

"I don't know yet," Aziz said, closing the corpse's staring, bloodshot eyes. "But I'm going to find out."

Chapter 10.

Stanford University, Stanford, California. Thursday, October 30, 12:53 P.M.

Kathy Kerr checked and double-checked her proposal. She didn't want any last-minute obstacles.

All morning she had been preparing for her meeting with Madeline Naylor and Alice Prince. Pacing around the small private office in her lab at Stanford University, she reread the recommendations she had made for taking Project Conscience forward. However she looked at them, she was sure each one stacked up. The funding budgets were realistic; the timings were ambitious but achievable. Then she turned to the one thousand prison inmates she'd selected from the FBI DNA database of convicted violent criminals. As she registered each name, she tried to memorize their files, double guessing any objections Madeline Naylor might have for using them.

She also made a mental note to ask about Pamela Weiss's TV debate last night and whether Dr. Prince or Director Naylor knew anything about Weiss's apparent plans to use biology and genetics to treat crime.

Sitting at her desk, Kathy watched the two lab technicians clearing the incubators and loading soiled petri dishes and beakers into the autoclave. No one else was present. Frank and Karen's replacements would arrive next week; that was just as well because until the forthcoming procedure had been agreed to, there wasn't that much to do.

When a minute later the main doors to the lab suddenly swung open, Kathy was startled. In that split second she thought that the director of the FBI and Dr. Alice Prince had arrived early and she thanked God she was ready.

But she wasn't ready because the visitor wasn't Madeline Naylor or Alice Prince.

When the tall blond man tentatively walked into the main lab, she saw one of the lab technicians talk with him and then point to her office. Kathy could only stand and stare through the blind as the man strode through the laboratory and knocked on her door.

"Come in," she said, suddenly wishing she'd worn her contacts in to work today rather than her old eyeglasses.

The door opened, and Luke Decker walked in. He seemed nervous, his eyes wary above a tight smile. "Hi, Kathy. I hope you don't mind my popping in unannounced?"

She smiled. "No, not at all."

"Impressive setup," he said, indicating the laboratory.

"Thanks," she said, putting her proposals for the forthcoming meeting down on the table. "So what brings you to this neck of the woods?"

Luke's face became more serious as he turned and closed the door. "Well, to be honest, I need a favor, a discreet favor. Do you have a minute?"

Kathy's curiosity was piqued. "Sure, I've got Director Naylor arriving in about half an hour, but I'm OK until then."

At the mention of the FBI director Luke frowned. "Sounds important."

"It is. We've just got FDA approval for a big project we're working on, and she's coming around to discuss next steps."

"That's great," he said. "Congratulations." But he was still frowning.

"What's the matter?" Kathy asked.

"Let's just say that I don't want what I'm going to discuss to become bureau business just yet."

Kathy nodded. Genuinely intrigued, she was studying Decker now. "Don't worry, my lips are sealed. So, what do you need?"

Decker paused. He seemed to be weighing how much to tell her. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a small plastic bag. Then out of a side pocket he pulled out another one. "Well," he said, lifting the first bag, "I need to compare the DNA of the hair in this bag with what's in this one."

"How do you mean, compare?"

He opened the first bag, revealing three gray hairs and two flakes of dried blood. "I want to know if there's a relationship between them both."

She narrowed her eyes. "Relationship, as in family relationship? Brother-sister, father-daughter, that kind of thing?"

"Exactly."

Kathy took the bag and peered at the hairs and flakes of dark blood, then placed it carefully on her desk. Then she took the other bag and looked at the two blond hairs there. "You're not going to tell me what this is about, are you?"

"Not unless you make me. No."

She could see from Decker's face that he disliked asking for her help, that he was somehow endorsing her belief that understanding genes was at the root of understanding everything. For a fleeting moment she felt an irresistible urge to draw attention to his sudden dependence on the very technology he had openly derided in the past. She needed him to realize the significance of what he was requesting and recognize that the work she had dedicated her life to had meaning. "OK, I'll give it a go."

"How long will it take?" he asked, checking his watch. Now that he had told her, he seemed anxious to leave.

"How long? Well, in the old days we had to use the dot blot technique, or RFLP analysis, to isolate the sections of DNA that highlight the genetic relationship between individuals. You'd be lucky to get the results in two weeks."

His face fell.

She pointed at the black swanlike Genescope in the main laboratory and picked up the first bag. "But with that thing out there we can read all ninety thousand or so of the genes in the samples in here and compare them with those in the other bag in a fraction of that time. Leave it with me, and give me a call in a couple of hours. I should have a definite result by then."

Decker nodded, and in his face she could see both relief and dread. "Thanks, Kathy, I appreciate it."

"Are you sure, Luke? You don't look like you want to know the answer at all."

He shrugged and flashed a deceptively casual smile. "Let's just say I need to know."

At one-thirty precisely Director Naylor and Alice Prince arrived.

Moments earlier Kathy Kerr had given the lab technicians both batches of Decker's mystery samples to scan through the Genescope gene sequencer and analyze for any relationship. She couldn't help wondering why he had asked her to conduct the scans and why he was so eager to avoid the FBI. But for now she focused on her visitors.

Smart in a charcoal pantsuit, her white hair immaculate, the usually stern director was smiling. Dr. Prince wore a shapeless navy jacket and skirt and seemed strangely nervous.

Within the opening minutes, in the privacy of Kathy's office, Alice Prince told her that the FBI and ViroVector were increasing Kathy's funding by a further five million dollars a year. This money would be deposited as a lump sum in a special project account to use at her sole discretion. "Naturally," Naylor said with a grin, "you would be expected to fund your personal salary--as much as you deem appropri-ate--out of this additional grant."

Kathy was dumbstruck. Her current grant was already more than enough to continue her work within the tight budgets she set herself especially since ViroVector subsidized much of her lab equipment costs at Stanford anyway. But with additional funding she could recruit more people. Speed up the whole program.

"I don't know what to say. It's very generous. In fact it's much more than I need."

"Nonsense," said Naylor. "The first rule about seeking grants is that you can never have too much funding." She smiled again, the skin creasing beneath her dark eyes, lips stretching over strong teeth. Kathy had rarely seen her smile before, and it seemed unnatural, more unnerving than her usual stern expression.

"Anyway," said Naylor, rising from her seat at the small circular conference table and moving close to where Kathy sat, bending over her, "you deserve the additional funding, and we want you to realize how much we appreciate all you have achieved."

Flattered but slightly embarrassed, Kathy reached for her notes in the middle of the table. "Well, thank you, I'm very grateful. But what I most want to gain is your agreement on the next steps for the project." She waited for Naylor to retake her seat and then handed her and Alice a folder each.

Kathy opened her proposal. "As well as outline the next steps, rationale, budget breakdowns, objectives, and timings, this proposal contains a list of all the subjects I'd like to test Conscience Version Nine on--subject to their approval. And of course yours."

Neither Alice nor Naylor said anything for a moment; Naylor didn't even look at the papers Kathy had given her.

Then Alice Prince cocked her head to one side and appeared to study a spot just above Kathy's head. "What would you say if I told you we could reduce the next eight to ten years of your research?"

Kathy didn't understand. She looked from Alice to Nay-lor. "What do you mean? Accelerate the tests on criminals?"