Lethal Dose (29 page)

63

White Oak Technology Park was very different at night. In the muted moonlight, the silver buildings appeared dark gray, and aside from the streetlamps lighting the long winding road leading to the structure housing the Veritas labs, the grounds were dark. An occasional light glimmered out through the thick glass, but most of the labs were deserted, the staff at home for the evening. Gordon and Jennifer's cabdriver pulled up to the front entrance of the Veritas building. He slipped the transmission into park and swiveled about to face them.

“Okay, let's make sure I've got this straight. You want me to park near the south end of the building. There's an exit about fifty or sixty feet from the corner. There are no markings over the door, just a small staircase with black railings. I'm supposed to shut off my car, stay in the shadows, and wait. When I see you come out, I'm to come racing up and get out of here as fast as I can.”

“Yeah, that's about it,” Gordon said.

“And this is all legal?” the driver said. “Right.”

“Do you have today's newspaper?” Jennifer asked. “The
Times-Dispatch.”

“Of course. We cabbies would be bored without newspapers,” he said, dredging up the daily from under his seat. He handed it to her.

Jennifer pulled out the second section and then slipped off her wig. He stared at the paper, then at her. “Somebody in the company tried to kill me,” she said. “And we need to get in one of the Veritas labs. Tonight.”

“Oh, this just gets better all the time. Now you're a missing research scientist on the run from an evil person intent on killing her.” He turned to Gordon. “And who are you?”

“Just a friend.”

He was silent for a minute, scratched his head, and said, “Ah, what the hell. It beats waiting on Cary Street for a couple of drunks looking for an after-hours club. Anyway, I think I believe you. It's too crazy a story for someone to make up.”

“Thanks,” Jennifer said, slipping her Veritas ID from her pocket and holding it up. He gave it a quick look. “Holy shit, you're not kidding. You
are
her.”

“Remember,” Gordon said as they exited the cab. “The south end of the building. And be ready. We shouldn't be more than twenty minutes, tops.”

They walked up the wide sidewalk and opened the outer door. She looked at Gordon as she held her card above the reader. “This is it. Once I swipe this card, we're going to be visible.”

“Let's do it,” he said, giving her a grim smile and checking the time on his watch. “You figure twenty minutes?”

“I think that's about what it will take for Andrews to get someone out here from the city. Could be a little more or less.” She ran the card through the reader and the light next to the inner door switched from red to green. They entered the building. The security guard stared at her as she approached the desk.

“Dr. Pearce,” he said. “I thought—”

She smiled and gave him a small wave. “Total misunderstanding,” she said. “My car slid off the road in the rain. I managed to jump out, but it took me quite a while to walk back to the nearest house.” It was a lame story, but he bought it.

“Could you sign in, please?”

“I'll need a guest pass as well,” she said, scratching her signature on the night sheet.

The guard dug out a visitor's badge and pushed another sheet of paper across the desk. “Name and address of your visitor, please.” She filled in the blanks, and he gave it a perfunctory check, then said, “Thanks, Dr. Pearce. Glad you're okay.”

“I'm fine, thank you.”They walked to the doors that accessed Veritas's half of the building and she swiped her card again. The light blinked green and they entered the short section of hallway before the steel security doors. “This is the big one,” she said as they approached the door. “All these doors are at different levels of security. If they've downgraded me at all, I won't be able to open it.” She held her breath and pulled the card through the slot. The light went green and Gordon pulled the door open.

“So far, so good,” he said, checking his watch. “Just over four minutes.”

“Let's move,” she said, walking quickly down the long hall. Blue doors flashed by on both sides as they hustled down the never-ending hall. They reached the first fork and turned right. Jennifer stopped at the second door on the left. “This is the lab where I saw Dr. Wai arguing with the moving man.” She held her card above the reader. “Keep your fingers crossed,” she said. She swiped the card down in a decisive motion and the light immediately went green.

“Wow,” Gordon said. “Being with you makes it easy to get into places.”

“I'm one of the team leaders,” she said. “There are only eleven of us in the company, and we all have top-level clearance. I've yet to find a door I can't open.”

They moved into the lab and switched on the lights. “I'm surprised Andrews didn't terminate your security clearance when you went missing.”

She was moving quickly to one of the many tables loaded with equipment. “No, I didn't think he would cancel my card.

That would almost be an admission that he knew I was dead. Which, of course, he thought I was.” She reached the first lab table and said, “You keep an eye on the time and I'm going to see if I can figure out what they were doing in here.”

“Okay,” Gordon said, looking at his watch. “Seven minutes and ten seconds.”

“Good. This is going just fine,” she said, concentrating on the equipment.

His pager went off thirty-two seconds after Jennifer Pearce first swiped her card. He glanced at the message, then left the restaurant, his cell phone already dialing out. Johnny Altwater answered on the second ring. “The White Oak facility. She's in the building.”

“We're on the east edge of the city,” Altwater responded. “We can be there in fifteen minutes, give or take.”

“I'll be ten minutes behind you,” he said. “For Christ's sake, don't miss her this time. Do what you have to. I don't care if we have to carry a dead body out of the lab, just don't let her get away.”

“Okay, I hear you.”

His car was almost a block from the restaurant, and he walked as quickly as he could without attracting attention. Bruce Andrews was worried. Exactly how much Jennifer Pearce knew was an unknown, but to Andrews, she was a very real threat. And Gordon Buchanan, the country hick from Montana, was proving to be no slouch. Together they were opening doors that Andrews preferred remained closed. And when someone threatened Bruce Andrews, they were threatening the goose that laid the golden egg. And that golden egg was so close now. Everything had gone exactly as Andrews had predicted. Everything except the unexpected appearance of Jennifer Pearce. But she had made one too many mistakes, and this time they had her trapped.

He reached the car and sped away from the curb, headed for White Oak Technology Park.

64

The equipment contained in a lab tells a story. To the trained eye, it reveals what the lab is being used for and can also tell what the lab was used for in the past. Since the removal of the HEPA filters, the function of the space may have changed, but its current use didn't interest her. Its previous function was what Jennifer was interested in. She ignored most of the equipment on the tables, concentrating on the clean room near the back.

The clean room was set aside from the rest of the lab, delineated by floor-to-ceiling sheets of glass joined together with strips of inflexible rubber. Empty exhaust vents were the only evidence that HEPA filtration systems had once been in use. Jennifer looked at the Olympus microscopes, noting that most were the IX2 series, motorized inverted models. Serious machines. A couple of explosion-proof freezers sat against the back wall, still plugged in. She opened one and glanced in. Almost empty, save for a few small boxes, and very cold. She closed the lid and moved on. An entire set of shelves was dedicated to chemical and reagent storage, and she made mental notes of which chemicals were present. There were a couple of Burrell shakers and a Jenway spectrophotometer amid a scattering of calipers and micrometers. A high-pressure PVS rheometer used for viscosity measurements sat in a back corner. She spent some time going over it carefully and collected a small sample from one of the relief valves. She quickly prepared a slide and switched on one of the microscopes. She adjusted the slide, chose her magnification, and focused on the sample. Satisfied with the results, she shut down the microscope and slipped the slide in with the remainder of the sample from the rheometer.

Two computers sat on one of the desks, and she quickly powered them up and took a look at the contents. One computer defaulted to English, the other to Chinese. She ran her fingers around the second computer's casing, then dropped to her knees and looked under the desk. There was a small package taped to the underside of the desk, and she tucked it into her inside pocket. She took one last glance and returned to the regular lab outside the clean room.

Gordon was looking at his watch when she emerged from the glass enclosure. He pointed at his wrist. “Eighteen minutes,” he said. “We've got to get out of here.”

“It's okay, I've got what I need,” she replied. In her left hand was a small vial inside a clear protective plastic case. She held it up. “You're not going to believe what's in here.”

He started for the door and she fell in behind him, slipping the vial into her pocket. “I have no idea.” Gordon reached the door and looked out into the hallway. It was clear. “What's in the vial?”

“The virus.”

Gordon stopped in his tracks. “What?” he said. “What do you mean, the virus?”

“The hemorrhagic virus that was terrorizing the country. We just found the real lab where the virus was developed.”

“Jesus Christ,” Gordon said, starting down the hallway at a fast pace. “Are we infected?”

“No, the virus I found is dead, but I can still see the molecular structure.” She fell in beside him, her legs moving fast to keep up with his long strides. “Andrews created the virus in this lab. Or at least he had Dr. Wai create it. And my guess is that he never planned on releasing it. He just killed a few people and threatened to dump it on the population to create a crisis.” They reached the fork in the hall and took a left. “Once the government was convinced they had a terrorist ready to kill millions of people, he suddenly holds up an antiviral drug that's been languishing in nowhere land waiting for FDA approval and says, ‘Hey look what I've got. The cure.'And everyone buys it. Andrews is the hero, and he gets his drug through the FDA.”

“That's it?” Gordon asked. “That's what this has been all about? Getting a new drug through the regulators?”

“That's my guess.”

“Why? Why kill all those people? Why create something this dangerous? Where's the upside?”

“Money, Gordon. A lot of money. If I had to guess, I'd say in excess of two billion dollars a year in sales, maybe three. A new antiviral drug, even with side effects that would keep the FDA from approving it, is a gold mine. But they're hard to get approved, because they all have some rather disturbing side effects. And with a viral drug, you don't take it all the time, so the effects take years to show up. But the damage is being done. And since the FDA had this new drug stalled, it must be pretty bad.”

“Holy shit,” Gordon said. They had reached the steel security doors, and he reached for the button on the wall to open them. Then he froze. Looking directly at him through the small glass window was the driver of the Crown Vic. Gordon had only caught a fleeting glimpse of the man when the car went flying by the Jeep, but he was sure it was the same person. “Jennifer, let's go,” he yelled, grabbing her arm and pulling her back the way they had just come. A clicking sound behind them indicated that someone had tripped the automatic locking system and the doors were opening. Just as they reached the fork in the hallway, they heard a strange muffled sound and a bullet chewed into the wall inches from Jennifer's head. She screamed as they rounded the corner, moving at a full run.

“They're shooting at us,” she managed to gasp as they ran.

“The hall's too long,” Gordon said. “They'll be at the fork before we reach the end. Quick, open one of these doors.”

They stopped abruptly in front of one of the blue doors and she swiped her card through the reader. The light blinked red. “Shit,” she said, turning her card over and swiping it again, this time with the magnetic stripe on the right side. The light turned green and she opened the door. A second bullet hit the metal doorjamb and sparks flew. They piled through the door and pushed it shut behind them. They heard running footsteps coming toward them and it sounded like there was more than one pursuer. Jennifer flipped on the light, they took a quick look around, and she snapped the light off.

They were in a small lab, perhaps one-quarter the size of the lab Andrews had used to create the virus. Two long lab benches, anchored securely to the floor, ran perpendicular to the wall that housed the door they had just entered through. They were covered with equipment and sophisticated-looking machines. There was a secondary exit at the far end of the lab and Jennifer headed for it, groping her way in the dark and trying to remember where the lab benches were from the brief glimpse she'd had when the light was on. Gordon moved to one of the benches and ran his hand along until he found a sharp metal spike used for stirring liquids. Then he returned to the door and rammed it into the light switch. Outside, he could hear the men on the phone calling back to the security desk with the lab number.

“Move, Jennifer,” Gordon said quietly as he came up behind her. “They're talking to the security guard. They're probably asking him to open the door remotely for them.”

The door clicked and it opened, throwing a beam of light from the hallway into the lab. Gordon and Jennifer were on the far side of one of the long tables and out of the light. The man entering the lab tried the light switch, but the metal spike had destroyed it. He cursed and moved slowly into the semidarkness, searching for Gordon and Jennifer.

“You can't get away,” he said quietly. His voice carried through the empty room. “Just come out and we'll talk. We need to talk with you.”

“Bullshit,” Gordon whispered to Jennifer. “Andrews's guys. They need to kill us.”

He could barely see her shape in the darkness, but he could tell she was nodding. “The rear exit,” she whispered back. “Let's get out of here.”

They crawled along the floor, staying below the level of the lab benches. Jennifer's hand bumped into a stool, and it wobbled for a second until Gordon caught it and stopped it from toppling over. They remained motionless for a minute, then continued. Behind them they could hear the sounds of unsure feet shuffling across the tiles. Jennifer reached the exit and asked quietly, “Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

She gripped the handle firmly and pulled. An alarm instantly sounded and the emergency lighting system kicked in. Jennifer was already through the door, and Gordon dived after her. He had a fleeting glimpse of a man with a pistol aimed at him, then that strange sound and a searing pain in his right leg. His momentum carried him through the doorway, and Jennifer slammed the metal door behind him.

“Damn it,” he said, grabbing at his leg. His hands came away bloodied. He pulled his pant leg up and looked at the wound. There was a small hole in the calf muscle where the bullet had entered. He felt on the other side of his leg and found another hole. “It went through,” he said, struggling to his feet. “Just a flesh wound. Now get out of here. Head for the exit at the south end of the building and I'll be there in a minute.”

“I'm not leaving without you,” she said.

He grabbed her by the shoulders. “This isn't a movie. And it sure as hell isn't time to get heroic. Get back to the cab. I'll be there in a couple of minutes.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it. He was serious. She set off down the secondary hallway at a brisk run. She glanced back at a corner in the hall and saw Gordon kicking in a door with his good leg. Then she was alone, running for her life down the dimly lit corridor.

Gordon smashed in the wooden door marked MAINTENANCE.

Inside was standard fare for cleaning an industrial building. He pulled a mop off its hanger and swung it hard against the wall. The mop broke off, leaving just a splintered handle. He grabbed a bottle of ammonia and unscrewed the lid. A second later, the door crashed open and a man entered, a silenced pistol in his outstretched hand. Gordon stabbed at the man's hand with the sharp end of the mop handle, the splintered wood driving into his attacker's wrist. The gun flew from his hand and he howled in pain, the shattered handle shoved clear through his arm. He looked up at Gordon with disbelief in his eyes and saw a liquid coming at him. The ammonia hit his exposed eyes and he dropped to the floor, screaming and clawing at his face. Gordon gave him one well-placed kick in the head and he went silent, unconscious.

The alarm from opening the back door had ceased; that worked for Gordon, as he needed the quiet. He knew from the footsteps in the hall that there was more than one person after them. He took deep slow breaths, his ears in tune with every noise. Nothing for a few seconds, then a slight scraping sound just outside the door. The second attacker was right there, just on the other side of the wall. Gordon put his foot on the first man's arm and pulled the mop handle out. Then he moved back a couple of feet and rammed the sharp end of the handle into the wall. It punctured the drywall on both sides of the studs as if it didn't even exist, then hit something solid. Gordon heard a strange sound, something he'd never heard in his life. It was like air escaping an enclosed space, except that it was accompanied by the strangest gurgling sound. He waited a minute until the sound had diminished to almost nothing, then ventured a quick peek around the corner. The sight brought bile to his throat.

The second attacker was impaled by the broken handle, like a pig on a barbecue spit. Blood poured from his mouth and he made feeble efforts to dislodge himself. It was useless—he was dying. Gordon looked at the man, into his eyes, and felt sick. The stare was vacant, almost as though his spirit had already left his body and the physical part of his being had yet to expire. He had just severely maimed one man and killed another. He took one last look and ran down the hall, toward Jennifer and the cab.

The driver was exactly where they had asked him to wait. Jennifer was already sitting in the backseat, and she broke into a smile when he came running out the fire door. He sprinted to the cab and jumped in.

“Get us out of here without anyone else seeing us and there's an extra thousand in it for you,” he said as he collapsed into the seat.

“That would be a good thing,” the driver shot back.“I'm sure that if anyone sees me leaving and gets my plate number, I'm going to be in some serious shit. Another thousand bucks is just a little more incentive to do something that was already on my mind.” He steered the car back into the parking lot, switched off his headlights, and took the back roads until he reached the main access to the I-64. He turned his headlights back on once he was on the ramp to the freeway. He accelerated up to the posted speed limit and blended in with the night traffic.

“You okay?” Jennifer asked Gordon.

“Sort of,” he said, thinking of the look in the dying man's eyes. “I'll be all right. How about you?”

“Scared,” she said. “Scared shitless.”

“Well, at least we've got proof of what Andrews was up to.”

“And this,” she said, pulling out of her pocket the small package that she had stripped off the underside of the lab table. She opened it and showed him. It was a CD with Chinese markings on the top. “It's a trick lots of researchers use. We hide disks near our computers with confidential information on them. That way, if someone hacks into your computer or steals it, they don't get your latest research. It seems Dr. Wai thinks the same as I do. This was hidden under the desk.”

“What do you think is on it?” Gordon asked.

“I'm not sure. Probably something to do with the work he was doing for Andrews in the lab. It could be another nail in Andrews's coffin.”

“Then let's get somewhere with a computer and find out what's on it.”

“Slight problem,” she said, pointing to the writing. “You speak Mandarin or Cantonese?”

He was quiet for a minute. “No, but I'm getting hungry. How about Chinese?”

She took a good look at his leg. “After we get something to bandage that and get you some painkillers.”

“It's a flesh wound,” Gordon said, putting some pressure on it and wincing. He saw the look on her face and grimaced. “Okay, first the leg, then dinner.”