Life Struggles (Life Stories Book 1) (15 page)

“So, there's no medical use for the blood?” That seemed reasonable.

“Absolutely none. It is dangerous.” The guy was ready to walk away.

“What happens if I get blood with Kell antigens?” The guy looked exasperated.

“If you have a transplant from a Kell-Celano individual it will probably be rejected. If you get blood from a Kell-Celano donor you will at minimum become sick. With enough of the antigens you die. So, there is no use whatsoever.” He was completely exasperated with me and stalked off.

Gosh, with enough of that you would die. You would at least get sick. How would that help anybody?

Having just crawled through the criminal muck of New Orleans I knew the answer.

It would not help anybody who got it. But there was probably a benefit to someone who was not intending to help the person. I related this to the head guy.

He asked one of the doctors what the fuck good would it do to have a bunch of teenagers with Kell blood type. He got the worst of all possible answers. “I have no idea.” He told the guy to get an idea.

Calls to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, got nowhere. The next day a call to Fort Detrick, Maryland produced a result. Fort Detrick is where the U.S. Army's biological warfare defense research is conducted. It was all speculation at this point because nobody had ever heard of weaponizing an antigen. But the potential was frightening.

It seems that antigen size is measured in angstroms, or one ten-billionth of a meter. Weaponized antigens, still speculation because nobody knew if it was possible, would defeat every gas mask ever invented. They would be absorbed through the pores in the skin, through the mouth and nose and any other opening in the body. Once inside a human, they would begin to wreak havoc. The body's immune system would of course attack them.

What was the concentration of Kell antigens necessary to defeat the body's immune system and become lethal? Nobody had a good answer. One pint of blood containing Kell antigens would make a healthy person sick. Two pints would make the person very sick. Three pints would probably be lethal in most cases. How many antigens were there in three pints? They're working on it.

The next question was how to deliver the antigens. Kell antigens outside the human body could survive at freezing temperatures, but nobody was likely to put them in popsicles or ice cubes if a large number of casualties was the goal. A mist spread over a large area could do the trick, but how to keep the antigens alive long enough to work? And, somebody spraying a mist over a large area would probably be noticed.

A biochemist was put in charge of figuring it all out. She recruited an immunologist and a biowarfare defense specialist and God knows who else to work with her. After two days she reported that there was so much yelling going on in the room nobody could think. Every time someone had an idea six other people shot it down, usually with a lot of noise.

The head guy called me, one of the doctors and the famous crime novelist in. “Come up with a story in which somebody has figured out how to weaponize blood antigens and get them spread over a wide area, causing mass casualties.” That was to the novelist. “If you're one hundred percent certain what he's describing is scientifically impossible, speak up.” That was to the doctor. “Ask smart questions.” That was to me.

“We don't know that weaponizing antigens is possible. The problems to be overcome are huge.” That was the doctor.

“Can you describe the problems?” The head guy looked at the doctor.

“Well, first there's…” He was cut off.

“That was a yes or no question. I take it the answer is yes. And, if it's yes, then somebody may have overcome them. So, from this point forward we assume that somebody has figured out how to do it.” The head guy wanted to get moving.

The novelist concocted a story about collecting a large quantity of antigens and freezing them. Then, the antigens were mixed with warm water, around body temperature, and the water was sprayed over a large area. A plane could be used.

My turn to ask a question of the doctor. “If a plane is used, wouldn't the mist be pretty diluted by the time it reached the ground?” The answer was yes, of course.

“Could trucks be used to spray from ground level?” That was my next question. The head guy picked up the phone and called Fort Detrick. The answer was yes.

My turn again. “Who is behind this?”

“Russia, Iran, jihadists, North Korea, maybe others.” That was the head guy. We are not any closer.

I went back to one of the analysts.

“Is it possible to isolate just the antigens from the blood so that they're concentrated?”

She didn't know, but she knew where to find out.

Thirty minutes later she was back with her supervisor. “Sure, it can be done. I won't bore you with the technical details, partly because I don't understand them myself. But, yes, the antigens can be isolated.”

Her supervisor had some questions, such as why I was asking. And I don't think she was pissed that I had taken some of her analyst's time.

“Well, if you could inject just the antigens, and that was a tiny amount but it killed the person, how hard would it be to determine that the death was a homicide?” The supervisor ran like hell. Without even a good-bye. I had taken a shower this morning, honest.

Was this another link? You betcha. I talked to the head guy again. Shit, a murder weapon. Or something else.

In less than twenty-four hours I was in the head guy's office with a bunch of experts, one of whom was famous crime novelist. Just like the TV show, ‘Fortress.’ Life imitates art. The crime novelist actually led the discussion.

“OK. We know that in most cases murder by Kell antigen would be difficult to uncover, in part because it would first have to be suspected. Also, the experts tell me that if one could add concentrated antigens in even small amounts to enough units in a city's blood supply the whole supply would have to be destroyed. That's a major catastrophe. How you would do it is another question, but give me a few days and I'll have a plot to explain it.” The head guy thanked him.

“Other than those, what other uses do you see?” This was directed at little old me.

“We talked about weaponizing them. It would work as a murder weapon that was basically undetectable. Otherwise, how the fuck should I know?” I had no intention of saying that out loud. It got a laugh, but the head guy wasn't laughing. He nodded to the rest of the real experts and said good-bye to me. I knew when I was dismissed. The novelist followed me out.

“Heard you got a book deal. Congrats.” He seemed sincere, and I thanked him.

“When this is done I'm going to do a book with a similar theme. You interested in working on it?” Was I interested? Well, was I?

“I'd be flattered, but honestly, I don't know. I love journalism and have gotten pretty good at it in my short career. The book, I figure, is a one-time thing. Anyway, the book is going to be non-fiction. What do I know about writing fiction?” I hoped I hadn't scared him away.

I hadn't. “Don't you meet routinely with sources when you're investigating an issue?” Well, sure I did.

“Do you always tell them what you're working on?” Hardly.

“So, how do you get them to talk about what you want to know without telling them what it is you're doing?” I had to think for a few moments.

“You know, I usually have a story made up in advance. For low-level sources any story will do. For the higher-level ones, they're always on their toes. So, I have to be certain of internal consistency and believability in the story. That usually takes me some time.” I figured he already knew all this stuff.

“Welcome to fiction writing.” He got my phone number, shook my hand and walked away.

There were a bunch of meetings I was not allowed to attend. The explanation was that I wouldn't understand. That was probably true, but not the whole story. On the other hand, if I wouldn't understand how would I ask questions? Especially once I had been theoretically chloroformed immediately following the first astoundingly stupid question?

So, I waited. I saw one of the analysts bent over his computer taking notes. He wasn't one of the smarter ones, so I knew they couldn't have given him anything too difficult to find. I asked.

“Monolithic columns suppliers. There are lots, but there are specialties.” Boy that was helpful.

“So a real tall column supplier has specialties? That seems odd.” I let the comment sit unexplained.

“No, it's just a name. Actually, some of them are pretty short. They're used in (something I couldn't understand)-phoresus to separate crap from fluids, like blood.” The analyst went back to his computer, so I got on mine.

Monolithic columns indeed are just a name. But they are very important to separating antigens from blood. Most antigens, at least the ones that get separated, contain some kind of metal. So, a monolithic column with affinity for that metal is used.Kell antigens contained zinc. That one was a no-brainer internet search. So, it's a zinc-affinity monolithic column.

I tried looking up how to separate antigens from blood and wound up with articles on angina, blood supply, separation anxiety and a whole shitload of other stuff. So, I called Cheryl.

“Honey, I don't have a fucking clue.” She always said what was on her mind. I just wish she'd had something different in that cute head of hers.

“But, isn't this something like dialysis? Like, for kidney patients?” My ignorance was on display. Again.

“No. In dialysis a majority of the body's blood supply is purified. Lots of crap comes out, not just antigens. I really don't know much of anything more about it.” But, now I had a starting point.

How long would it take to run a body's entire blood supply through something like dialysis? That turned out to be very short – less than half an hour.

How many times would one have to run the entire blood supply through something like a dialysis machine to extract most of the antigens? I'm just going to guess ten times. If it's more, well it's more.

So, within five hours, most of the Kell antigens in a person's blood supply can be extracted.

How long does it take to regenerate the removed antigens? Fuck if I know. I'm going to guess two days.

So, five hours every two days. And that can be done over and over.

How do you store the antigens? I don't know and I don't care for now. I have to assume that anybody collecting the antigens has a way to store them for future use.

How much comes out in a day? Most of the body's supply, I'm guessing. I don't know how much that is, and if I did, I'd have to know a whole lot of other stuff for it to make sense. But, there are about ten pints of blood in a human body, and three pints of blood containing the antigens could kill me. So, every two days you get enough to kill three people.

Let's see, a hundred kidnapped boys producing enough every two days to kill three people would be uhm one hundred times three deaths times three hundred sixty five days in a year divided by two days is more than fifty thousand dead people. Fuck me.

A zinc-affinity monolithic column would separate Kell antigens from blood. Shit, they're probably sold in every convenience store in the country with my luck. Or not.

It seems there were a limited number of suppliers.

Let's see, what do we know about the bad guys?

They were willing to kidnap a whole bunch of young men. That means that they're highly risk-tolerant, stupid, or very good planners. Let's try very good planners.

They had a way to keep these guys still for a very long time without damaging the merchandise. That means that they have a whole lot of money. Nothing else makes sense. So, everything else can rely on lots of money.

They have a way to separate the antigens from the blood. They must have a bunch of technical medical lab stuff and know how to use it.

They started with more than a hundred forty victims. Let's say half of them died or were killed trying to escape. So, they've got seventy antigen factories. That is seventy bodies that have to be kept still but alive. So they're cared for. Whatever this is, it isn't a small facility. Not sure how that helps.

Eventually, it turned out that I had come up with the right number of ‘factories,’ just for the wrong reason.

They aren't doing this in plain sight. How do I know that? Duh. Running the equipment, storing the antigens, caring for the ‘factories,’ means a lot of people either living there or coming and going. If they're living there, it's huge. If they're coming and going it can be smaller.

So, where do you put a secret facility where questions won't be asked, people can either come and go or live on site, where it's safe to have a bunch of expensive equipment, and have access to water and electricity and supplies and stuff?

It's not going to be in downtown anywhere. The middle of the desert might work, but water and electricity and supplies, well, probably not a desert. I went through mountains, forests, swamps, bayous and half a dozen other locales. This was fruitless.If we assume this place is hidden, where's the best place to hide something? That had me stumped for several minutes before I had the answer. You hide it in plain sight.

Chapter Seventeen

I typed up my notes and edited them twice before I figured I could stop worrying about subject-verb agreement and nice even borders.

I took the notes to the Ops Officer's secretary.

These people are good planners and have lots of money.

They are keeping about seventy guys quiet without damaging the merchandise.

They have lots of expensive medical lab stuff and know how to use it.

They have access to utilities and supplies.
THIS IS A MAJOR POINT

They have at least seventy zinc-affinity monolithic columns, from a limited number of suppliers.

The facility is big and cost a lot of money. Workers may be housed on site.

It is probably hidden in plain sight.

I handed her the notes and left. I went to my hotel room and called Cheryl. She suggested text sex. I asked her what she meant and she sent me the first text: