Gardener: The Roots Of Ancient Evil (22 page)

              Tommy had been pacing ever since they’d talked to Shea forty-five minutes ago. He hadn’t said where he was or how long it would take him to get there. Marco was sitting in a corner, his knees drawn to his chest.

              “Are you really, I mean really sure you want to do this?” Tommy asked without looking at her.

              “It’s the only way, otherwise we’re all dead. You heard him. He’ll get us eventually,” she said.

              “I just, I don’t know if I’ll be able to look at you the same again,” he said.

              “Yes, you will,” she responded softly and returned to her workspace. She’d sent the guards out of the building, over Prieto’s harsh objections. But she’d insisted. They’d gone, as had the guards who were stationed outside. When Shea showed up, she’d simply buzz him into the lab. Finally she looked at Tommy.

              “Tommy. Calm down. If you can’t, you need to leave, OK?” she said. He stopped, and nodded. “You need to be a hundred percent on board with this, OK?” she repeated. He thought for a moment. Accepted it.

              “OK, you win,” he said. He went outside the main lab and sat in a group of office cubicles, yet to be filled with support staff. They were a half floor above the lab, which had a large observation window in the upper half of one wall. Tommy’s phone buzzed, and he looked at the number. Viviana saw him answer it, but couldn’t hear him speak, as he was on the other side of the window. He looked down at her and nodded, then retreated to the offices. Viviana picked up the phone and called Shea, and told him the access code. They’d yet to install fingerprint or retinal scanning devices. Viviana took a deep breath, waiting to see him. He approached, and turned to talk to Tommy and Prieto, who were waiting. They exchanged a few words, and finally shook hands. Viviana took the opportunity with his back turned to the window to once more clench both her fists and will herself to remain calm. She met him at the door to the laboratory. He came alone.

              “Tell me what you’ve discovered, Doctor,” he said.

              “Well, first of all, I’m fairly certain that virgins aren’t required. There is no scientifically discernable way to tell the blood of a virgin from the blood of a non-virgin,” she said, being sure to keep her distance from him. “But it is necessary to saturate the soil with blood within an hour of the donor’s death. While the blood does live for up to twelve hours, sufficiently longer if it’s kept refrigerated and with an anticoagulant, the first hour is crucial,” she explained. “Here, I’ve applied two slides with freshly drawn blood, my own once we heard you were in the parking lot, and from Ms. Phillips, whose blood collection we unfortunately interfered with,” she said, motioning to two side-by-side microscopes.

              “What am I looking at?” he asked and peered into one.

              “That one is my blood; those small discs you see are red blood cells. See how smooth the edges are?”

              “Yes, yes I do,” Shea said.

              “And take a look here,” Viviana said, motioning for him to look in the other microscope.

              “Wow, that is a significant difference,” he said. “They look like they’ve been crushed, some of them are broken,” he said.

              “We call that ruptures, that happens quickly once they leave the body,” she said. She waited for him to look up from the microscope. “Did they drug the donors in Central America?” she asked.

              “Yes, they said it was to keep them passive, that they must be relaxed during the ceremony,” he said.

              “That makes sense. When a mammal is in a state of high stress, the platelets tend to become activated, which makes the blood clot a lot more quickly. That would definitely interfere with the process,” she explained.

              “So how exactly does this process work, and why do you think you don’t need the other two strains?” Shea asked.

              “Well, when a seed sprouts, there is a lot of cell reproduction happening very quickly. In order to create new proteins, it soaks up raw nutrients from the soil. But if the soil is rich with DNA, which comes from the white blood cells, then that DNA somehow interferes with the cell reproduction process. But I suspect if you mixed in three different human blood samples with one of the flower strains, it would have the same effect as having one human blood sample mixed in with three different flower strains. But I’ll need a sample of your white blood cells to verify that,” she explained calmly. “Once I extract the DNA from your white blood cells, it will take about an hour to find out, but I’m fairly certain I’m correct,” she said.

Shea smiled. “All this time,” Shea started, grinning, “we thought all three strains were needed at once, since that’s how the Aztecs taught us.”

              “Well, just like needing a virgin wasn’t necessary, using three plants wasn’t necessary either,” she said. She stood and walked across the lab, and returned with a small blood collection vial.

              “I just used one of these on myself,” she said, motioning to one that was partially filled over to the side.

              “Won’t even leave a mark,” she said, showing him her arm.

              “I’m eager to find out, Doctor,” Shea said and rolled up his sleeve. She wiped it with an alcohol swab and then carefully inserted the metal needle. She pulled in enough blood to fill half the vial, and then slowly injected it back into his vein, and then filled the entire vial.

              “What’s the double pump for?” he asked.

              “Just to mix the blood with the anticoagulant on the sides,” she said. She excused herself, went to another lab bench, and filled two test tubes, putting them in opposite sides of the centrifuge. She walked back and sat next to Shea.

              “That will take seven minutes to spin down, and then I’ll be able to pipette off the white blood cells,” she said. He nodded.

              “I need to ask you something,” she said after a moment’s silence. He nodded again.

              “How did my sister die?” she said, showing him her first sign of emotion.

              “It was painless, I assure you. We were both gazing out at a very nice sunset, and I simply strangled her from behind. She passed out without a struggle,” he said.

Viviana nodded. “Have you killed others?” she asked.

              “You will learn, Dr. Berg, after your Nobel prizes, and after watching everybody you know pass away again and again, your viewpoints will change. Life becomes less, sacred, I guess,” he explained. “I didn’t really mean to kill her, and to be honest, I didn’t know it was your sister. Had I known, I wouldn’t have done so. Sometimes the urge just overtakes me,” he said.

              “I see. So it was a mistake that you murdered my sister,” she said, now allowing her anger to come through.

              “I promise, you will understand, with time. That is one thing that we both will have plenty of,” Shea said, reaching out and placing his hand on her shoulder.

              “Incorrect, Mr. Shea. I may have plenty of time. You do not,” she said, standing and backing away from him. “Furthermore, you will not die painlessly, as you claim my sister did. Once the poison reaches your spinal cord, you will lose control of your senses. In about five minutes you’ll lose your sight, your hearing, and control of your bowel functions. But your brain will continue to function for maybe ten or twenty minutes. Then your lungs will seize, and you will die of suffocation. Unable to breathe. The pain will be extraordinary. It will seem like an eternity,” she said, her eyes streaming. She stood, left the lab, and ran upstairs. The guards, who’d been instructed to retreat far enough away not to be noticed, came streaming in upon seeing Tommy’s text.

              “What did you tell him?” Tommy asked after they’d embraced.

              “I don’t know, I don’t remember, I just kept him talking for ten minutes like we planned,” she said. They turned and looked at him. He stood and attempted to walk, and then collapsed on the floor.

              “Is he dead?” Tommy asked.

              “Yes. It was a fact-acting poison. I pre-filled the blood collection vial with it,” she said.

              “You OK?” he asked.

She shook her head and buried it into his chest. “I just killed somebody,” she said.

              “I would have done it, I told you.”

              “It wouldn’t have worked. He had to feel safe. We didn’t know if he was coming with armed guards or anything, this was the only way, Tommy. We all agreed,” she said.

They looked over at Prieto, who was talking to Jamie on his cell phone. He ended the call and looked at them.

              “Ready for round two?” he asked. They nodded.

              Prieto walked into the Pueblo City Police Department.

              “You have a Maxwell Emerson in custody? I have his bail ticket,” Prieto said and handed it to the officer on watch. He studied it carefully, took a long look at Prieto, and then made a phone call.

              “They’ll bring him out in a bit, hang tight,” he said.

Several minutes later Max was being walked out by two officers, both looking at him warily. Prieto looked at Tommy and nodded. Tommy approached Max.

              “Shea’s dead. All your bank accounts are empty. You’ve only been released on bond, but from what we understand, you’re wanted for a lot of crimes, not the least of which is putting two cops in the hospital on your way here. If you come with us peacefully, you might not die today. You have a lot of information that Mr. Prieto would like. Do you know who he is?” Tommy asked.

Max nodded. Two of Prieto’s guards walked Max to a van, where they sat him in the middle seat. They drove him back to GenSpan, where they walked him back downstairs to the lab, where Shea’s body had been carefully put into a clear plastic bag.

              “Doesn’t look like you’re going to get much of a reference from him,” Tommy said.

Two guards stood behind him. Prieto watched from the window. Marco had gone with Viviana back to her apartment.

              “First thing you’re going to do is help Mr. Prieto assume ownership of the land, OK?” Tommy said. Max nodded.

              “Next is you’re going to detail every person that you know of that was killed by either you or Shea, understand?”

              “Lot of bodies buried in a lot of places,” Max admitted.

              “Mr. Prieto will pay for your attorney. A very good attorney. You are going to explain you did it all for Shea, but then you decided to kill him, he became too much of a monster. The only thing we can promise you is you won’t get the death penalty, but Prieto tells me he knows some pretty good lawyers who can cut some pretty good deals, if you help the cops find the bodies,” Tommy said.

              “If I don’t?” Max asked plainly.

              “Then we’ll kill you now. Bury you with Shea. Up to you,” Tommy said calmly.

              “All right,” Max finally said.

              Tommy and Prieto walked into Jamie’s office. Jamie immediately stood with a look of anticipation.

Prieto nodded. “I’ll have the bonus wired into your account within a couple business days, that be good enough for you?” he asked.

              “Hell yeah!” Jamie said.

              “And if you and your crew are up for it, I have another job for you,” Prieto said.

              “Yeah?”
              “Yes. It involves doing quite a bit of research into some European families. I’d like to identify some individuals, and hopefully collect some DNA samples. Then send them back to GenSpan for analysis. Once we’ve identified these, uh, individuals, we’ll decide what to do next. Interested in putting a project like that together for me?” Prieto asked.

              “Dad, we need to have a talk. A serious talk,” Tommy said. He’d sat next to his father on the sofa, but caught him before he’d started drinking.

              “About what?” his father asked, barely turning toward him. Tommy reached over and gently took the remote from him. Turned off the TV.

              “Please, Dad, this is serious,” Tommy said.

His father looked over at him. Took a deep breath. “Go ahead.”

              “I met somebody. She’s really special. I’d like you to meet her. Get to know her. And I’d like her to meet you. Get to know you. Can you do that? Without drinking? Just tonight?” he asked.

              “Tonight? She’s coming over tonight?” he asked.

              “Yeah, we’re going to cook dinner. The three of us. That be OK?” Tommy’s dad looked at the clock and back at his son. He nodded. “And if you’re up for it, I’d like to go check out this new garden they’re building. It’s pretty nice. They’re going to name it after Viv’s—that’s her name, Viviana—they’re going to name it after her sister,” Tommy explained.

              “She die or something?” he asked.

              “Yeah, Dad. She died,” Tommy said.

              “What time she coming over?” he asked.

              “Couple hours. Or sooner if it’s OK,” Tommy said.

              “Tell her an hour. I need to get cleaned up,” he said.