Shadow of Eden (25 page)

Half an hour later, his last e-mail message sent, Marty ambled out of the door of the massive NIH lab building and into the nearly empty parking lot. A light snow fell, melting as it hit the pavement, but collected on the few remaining cars. Coming to an older Nissan Maxima, he fumbled with his keys for a moment and opened his door. After a few tries, the car started and he drove off, the wipers scraping off the wet snow.

On his way out of the vast parking lot, he passed a one-ton pickup truck with vapor trickling out of its tailpipe. Silently and smoothly, the truck pulled out behind Marty’s car.

Traffic was light with the snowfall and the late hour. Marty looked forward to making good time on the beltway. His wife was on a business trip to Indianapolis, otherwise he couldn’t work so late without making excuses.

The number of responses from his e-mail had overwhelmed him and cataloging each case would be a monumental effort, but he could divert some funding from some of his other projects while he wrote a grant to cover the costs. If Eden caused prion conversion, he had no time to waste.

As he rumbled up a curving overpass, Marty noticed a shiny green pickup pull even with his Maxima. Looking over at the large truck, he stared at a shadowy face staring back at him.

With a sudden chill, Marty slowed to allow the truck to edge ahead. Without warning, the heavy truck swerved into his lane. The truck smashed into Marty’s front fender, slamming the lighter car into the guardrail of the overpass in a deafening screech of metal and concrete.

Marty wrenched the now useless steering wheel and cried aloud as his car pitched over the rail and fell down onto the freeway below, landing on its roof, crushing Marty’s skull.

The first driver on the freeway saw the car plunge from the overpass and swerved in time to miss it. The second driver observed only the sudden, erratic move of the car in front of her and too late saw the inverted vehicle materialize in her headlights. Skidding on the wet road, she slammed into the overturned car deploying her airbag. She survived the impact, but a third car smashed into hers, rupturing her gas tank and spewing burning fuel across the road.

The pile up was one of the deadliest in Maryland’s history. The flames engulfed seventeen cars and could not be effectively extinguished by emergency crews. They watched helplessly as the intense gasoline and oil fire burnt itself out, eventually pulling eighteen bodies from the smoking wreckage.

Chapter 53

“S
teve!” Amos Sheridan nearly shouted. “Come, come, look what we’ve got.” Amos led Steve to a refrigerator-sized hot box and with latex gloves on, pulled out ten covered clear rectangular plastic blocks. Looking closer, Steve saw that each held a number of shallow indentations arranged in a grid of six by ten.

“Here’s the layout,” Amos explained, lining up the blocks on the table. “We put four different concentrations of Eden into fifty different nerve cell lines and the suspension solution minus the Eden into the same fifty as a control.” He pointed at the blocks. “The highest concentration went into these fifty wells, the next highest concentration in these and so on.”

“I take it you got some prion conversion.” Steve looked at the covered plates knowing he could not see anything without a microscope.

“I’ll say.” Pointing at a column on one of the blocks, “This one here shows devastating conversion. It’s really active, Steve. If this happens in humans, well, to put it bluntly, they’re screwed.”

“Did they all convert?”

Sheridan’s bushy eyebrows went up. “That’s the interesting part. Now, look,” he pointed with his pen. “In this cell line, all concentrations were effective. The highest concentration first converted within hours and within the day, the prions propagated in all the cells. It took another day for the nerve cells to die. Later, all the lower titrations converted in turn. But, Steve, it’s like you turned on a switch. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“And the others?”

“Well, that’s got me scratching my head.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked.

“Well, seeing the first results so soon, I expected them all to go within a day or so and sure enough, two days later, another cell line, at the highest concentration, began converting and now some of the intermediate plates are beginning to show signs of change.”

“And the rest are still normal.”

“Forty-eight lines so far, yeah. Apparently some are more susceptible than others. The controls, of course, are all normal.”

“What do you mean lines?”

“A single person’s brain. We get the cells from rapid autopsy specimens and grow them.”

“You mean a line comes from a single person’s brain.” Steve questioned.

“Right. Unique genetic makeup and all.”

“So, if I understand this correctly, one person’s cells changed quickly, another line is converting more slowly, and the others haven’t changed at all?”

“Correct.”

“So far,” Steve added.

“Right. So far or maybe never.”

“But it proves the point,” Steve said, “Eden is responsible for the prions showing up. We now have the smoking gun for this brain infection.”

“It sure does. I need to do lots more studies, Stevie, my man,” Amos Sheridan waved his arms like an excited kid getting a bicycle on his birthday. “This is just the beginning—”

“Amos,” Steve interrupted the animated scientist, “there are millions of people taking Eden. They may all get it, or only a few. Just like the tissue cultures. What factors determine who is going to get this and how long do they have to take it before it starts?”

“Can’t tell, too many factors. Not yet anyhow, maybe never. I need more tests.” Sheridan shook his head. “The differences could be explained by the tissue, their age, nutrients, or like CJD, it could be their genetics. It could be a thousand things.”

“Something’s missing, Amos,” Steve said slowly, trying to reason it out. “If we found this so easily, I’m sure Trident did the same testing. They had to know.”

Amos pulled on his beard thoughtfully. “I would think so, too.”

“So, what happened? Where’s Trident’s data?”

“Have you called them?”

“Yeah, but I got nowhere.”

“Maybe they only tested it in other cell types or in lab animals.”

“Unlikely,” Steve said. “Amos, can you test it in rats? I mean can you spray this stuff into their noses?”

“I’m way ahead of you. I’ve pulled three techs off other projects and I’m writing a paper and five more grants. We’re going to turn this whole thing upside down.”

On the way back to his office, Steve punched up Marty’s number. He was eager to share his new information. “Dr. Walker’s office,” a female voice answered.

That’s unusual, thought Steve, usually it went right to voice mail if Marty was not in his office. “Is Dr. Walker in?”

“I’m afraid not. Can I take a message?”

“Where is he?”

“I’m just the switchboard operator, I can’t tell you.”

“Why are you answering his line?”

“There was a fire in his office and his line no longer works.”

“A fire? What happened? Is he okay?”

“I am not permitted to say.”

“Is he okay?” Steve nearly shouted into the phone.

“I am not permitted to say.”

“Then who is?”

“You can call the neurology office.”

Biting his tongue, Steve managed to stay civil. “Can you please connect me?”

“One moment,” she said.

The line rang. Another female voice answered the phone. This time, Steve changed tactics.

“I am Dr. Walker’s step-brother. Can you tell me where he is?”

The voice on the other end sighed. “I’m afraid Dr. Walker is deceased. A terrible freeway accident. I’m very sorry.”

“What? How?”

“He ran off an overpass and crashed.”

Chapter 54

J
oe, a lean, black-haired athletic man in his forties sat in the driver’s seat of a white van down the street from Steve James’s house and watched it through military grade binoculars. He and Doug, sitting next to him, had watched Steve’s Spanish contemporary house for over an hour after Dr. James, followed by his wife and kid, had driven off. Like so many homes in Scottsdale, it had a red tile roof and pale yellow stucco walls framing tall windows looking up at Camelback Mountain. It was set back on an acre lot with huge bougainvilleas and mesquite trees obscuring much of the front of the house—ideal for their needs.

“Show time.”

“Let’s go,” Doug grinned, putting on latex gloves. He had a tanned face to match his sandy brown hair and eyebrows, giving him the appearance of a bronze statue. He had the good looks and lopsided smile of an actor, an asset he had put to use during his undercover years in the Drug Enforcement Agency.

They got out of the van, casually strapping on tool belts and donning white hard hats. Joe walked over to the green curbside telephone junction box and opened it with a Philips head screwdriver. Pulling out a Westronics series seven transceiver, he kissed it for good luck and attached it to Steve’s phone line. Two more wires spliced a second phone line into the transceiver, allowing it to call another number and download the recorded phone calls from Steve’s house.

Doug walked across the street to Steve’s front door and rang the doorbell. Kerry barked at him through the door’s sidelight window. Doug swiftly picked the lock and, through the cracked door, tossed in a piece of beef laced with three Ambien sleeping pills. Kerry gobbled up the Mickey Finn and in moments could no longer stand. Joe joined Doug and they entered, stepping over the groggy dog.

In Steve’s master suite, Joe found a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver at the back of the sock drawer. He placed the gun into a Ziploc bag and stored it in the thigh pocket of his overalls. Moments later, he found the box of bullets in the back of the t-shirt drawer. He stowed them in another pocket.

He then extended a collapsible pole and used it to twist off a smoke detector on the ceiling. Inside, he placed a miniaturized Lucent MK-201 repeater with a sensitive cardoid microphone—a highly restricted listening device—after the requisite good luck kiss. He next replaced the smoke detector’s nine-volt battery with a fresh one to prevent an untimely weak-battery alarm. Eight more devices and batteries later, he had completed his bugging. A quick look in the garage yielded a pair of used leather work gloves.

Doug, meanwhile, was at Steve’s desk, pulling up his e-mail on the computer and scanning through it, making note of various phrases. He found one to Anne concluding, “Love always and forever.”
Gotcha!
He pulled out a USB memory drive and within minutes, he had copied selected data files, including Dr. James’s E-mail address book, the ‘My Documents’ folder, and the iPhone data file. He found Quicken and copied its data to the USB drive as well. He then flipped through iPhoto, copying several with good facial shots of Dr. James. He retrieved the USB drive and stowed it in his right thigh pocket.

Pulling out the built-in file drawers, he found the folders with paid bills, bank, investments, and credit card statements. He took a copy of each. Receipts in the trash yielded card expiration dates.

Joe went out the back door and around to the side of the house and in a utility closet, found the natural gas furnace and hot water heater. He turned off the gas valve to the water heater and unscrewed its connection. He fitted a three-way valve between the gas supply and the heater. Onto the third nipple of the valve, he twisted a one-inch diameter plastic tube and threaded it through the sheet metal into the supply air duct of the heat pump. It was ready for use at a moment’s notice. By twisting the valve handle, he could redirect the flow of gas from the gas heater into the plastic pipe. From there, the heater fan would distribute large quantities of gas throughout the ductwork into the house. He then memorized every rock and bush back to the front of the house.

Inside, Doug had finished lubricating the doors and had inventoried Steve’s shoes. They both walked through the house listening for squeaks in the carpeted floor. Finding none, Joe called a local weather service number from Steve’s house. Doug, on a cell phone called a different number, but heard the same weather information from Dr. James’s phone. Doug nodded to Joe and they both walked out without either one saying a word. In twenty-five minutes, Steve’s house had been fully bugged and prepped—just as his office had been last night.