The Proteus Cure (21 page)

“They attach a viral vector.”

His eyes took on a faraway look as he rubbed his chin. “I see, I see. Clever.” He refocused on Sheila. “Do they treat children as well as adults?”

Sheila shook her head. “No children. Which is a shame. I don’t understand why—”

“No,” Kaplan said. “You wouldn’t.”

Sheila glanced at him. “And you would?”

He shook his head. His melancholy mood had vanished. Instead he looked … furious.

“What about the selection process? What are their criteria?”

“God only knows. They photograph all the applicants but I’m sure their looks have no bearing on their acceptance. I think it’s to monitor the demographics.”

Paul spoke for the first time since they’d sat down. “Can we get back to KB-twenty-six?”

Kaplan gave him a steely stare. “I can’t see that there’s anything left to say.”

“How about kids changing?”

Sheila sensed Kaplan stiffen as his hard look faded to wary.

“What are you talking about?”

Paul tossed the photos on the table.

“I’m talking about a kid’s hair color changing, about brown eyes turning blue!”

Kaplan shot to his feet. “This discussion is over.”

“No!” Paul jabbed a finger at him. “Not till I get some answers.”

Kaplan pulled out his cell phone.

“If the two of you aren’t out of here in one minute, I’m dialing the police.”

Sheila tugged at Paul’s sleeve.

“Let’s not get the police involved. If he won’t tell us, we’ll find out another way. We’ll dig it up”—she leveled a hard stare at Kaplan—“and then we’ll be back.”

Paul leaned across the table. “What are you hiding, you son of a bitch?
What
?”

He snatched the photos from the table and strode for the door.

Sheila hadn’t taken her eyes off Kaplan. “To be continued, doctor.”

And then she followed Paul outside.

Gerald watched them get into the SUV and drive away. When they were out of sight he stepped to the liquor cabinet, poured himself a Scotch. Took a gulp and felt the burn. He was getting to enjoy the sensation. Enjoying it too much, perhaps.

But booze was no solution.

What a fool he’d been to think this would go away.

He walked into the kitchen pantry and slid a flat box off the top shelf. He opened it and stared at the loaded .40 caliber Glock.

He didn’t know if he could stand exposure. He might have to take another way out.

He looked at his watch. Time for another unpleasant chore. Dr. Gilchrist said Dr. Silberman was about to cause a lot of trouble for Tethys. Mailing Tethys secrets to other hospitals. Shen did not believe this because he had known Dr. Silberman for so long, and trusted him. So after talking to Dr. Gilchrist he checked the Tethys mail bin. There were the packages. Inside them, letters from Dr. Silberman. The letters did not say anything Shen understood, but each contained slides. That was where the secrets were, Shen knew.

Dr. Gilchrist said it was best if the
Jiù-zhù-zh
e
did not know about this. To know such a good and trusted doctor was a spy would upset her. Shen agreed. She was a fragile woman.

Shen remembered what they did to spies back in China. If he punished Dr. Silberman in that manner, it would not look like an accident. Too bad. Spies did not deserve easy deaths. He patted his pocket to make sure the mushrooms were still there. The crinkle of the package confirmed. It would be a slow death, but untraceable. Not torture but almost bad enough for his crime.

They were almost back to Bradfield before Paul seemed himself again.

“Sorry, Sheila. I wish I were better company but …” He shook his head.

Sheila understood. Frustration gnawed at her too.

“At least we didn’t come away completely empty handed. We know he’s hiding something.”

“Yeah, but what?”

“We can check with the bankruptcy trustee. The court always appoints one.”

“I can’t see Kaplan telling us who he is.”

“We don’t need him. It’s public record. Get me to a computer and I’ll find him in no time.”

“We can go to my place and—” He caught himself and gave her a shy smile. “Hey, don’t worry. Coog is there.”

She returned his smile. “What, me worry?”

Paul had almost laughed out loud at Coog’s expression when he saw his father and his doctor walk into the house together.

Paul wondered what he’d been thinking, asking her back here. The place was a mess. Usually he kept it fairly neat. Some clutter was okay, but too much got on his nerves. With all that had been going on he’d been too distracted to notice.

He began buzzing around, picking up newspapers, magazines, sneakers …

Sheila laughed. “You don’t have to do that. You should see my place.”

He’d like to do just that—and soon—but didn’t say so. Not with his son standing there.

Coog adapted quickly—he adored Sheila—and within minutes they were chatting away.

“Something to drink?” Paul said. “I’ve got cold Bass and a warm bottle of Chardonnay somewhere in the basement.”

“I’ll take a Bass.”

“Me too,” said Coog with a grin.

Paul laughed. “As if!” He pointed to the fridge. “But you can do the honors while I unload my pockets.” Then a glance at Sheila. “Be right back.”

He hurried into the bedroom and emptied the photos into a drawer. He didn’t want Coog to see them and start wondering what they’d been up to. With those stowed away, he headed back to the kitchen and found Sheila sipping a bottle of dark amber ale.

“Oh, drink from the bottle, Paul. It’s better that way.”

“A woman who understands beer.” He popped open his own bottle.

“Where’s your computer?”

“In the spare bedroom,” Paul said.

“What kind of hook up?”

He spread his arms. “Hey, I’m the cable guy.”

She laughed. “Please don’t say that. I saw the movie and, well, all I can say is, please don’t say that.”

In the spare bedroom, she seated herself before the already running computer.

“Hey, what’s this?” She pointed to an icon marked by a book. It said “novel.”

Paul sucked in his breath. Well, what harm would it do to tell her?

“I’m writing a book.”

“Really?”

She seemed impressed. Imagine that—impressing her.

He laughed. “So the shortcut says.”

“Have you written other books? Are you published?”

“I’ve started several but only get about halfway and they end up in the Recycle Bin; but this one might have a fighting chance.”

“Huh. Who knew?” She smiled at him. “What’s it about?”

That he couldn’t tell her.

“I’d rather not say just yet. I’m not sure where it’s going.”

Lie. He knew exactly where it was going.

“Fair enough. Can I read it when it’s done?”

Hell, if he didn’t get poor Grisbe off page 220, it would never be done.

“Sure.”

She had the cursor hovering over the icon, and he could tell her finger was itching to press it.

He leaned over and put his hand over hers, moving the cursor onto the Explorer icon.

“The best place to go, I think, is Google.”

He double clicked.

“Just tell me the title to hold me over. Please?”

He left his hand on hers another second, then gave it a squeeze. The title wouldn’t give too much away.

“The Four Walls of Jim Grisbe.”

Coog had followed them. “What’re you looking for?”

Paul was glad to get her off the novel but hesitated with Coogan. He could
not
let the boy know that what they were researching was all about him.

“We’re looking up a defunct company,” Sheila said. “It went out of business years ago—chapter seven and all that—and we want a little more information.”

“Oh,” Coog said, deadpan. “That sounds reeeeeally interesting. I hope you don’t mind if I watch some TV.”

“Sure you don’t want to stay?” Paul said.

“I’d love to, Dad, but there’s a show I want to see.”

“Which one?”

“The Discovery Channel has a special on arranging your sock drawer.”

He gave Coog a friendly slap on the back as he headed for the hall.

Sheila looked up at Paul. “Amazing how truth works.”

Not as amazing as you, Paul thought.

“Okay.” She turned back to the screen and began hitting the keyboard. “Real quick, before we get to Kaplan Biologicals, I want to check out another company.”

She typed in VecGen.

“Does that have something to do with this?”

“No,” she said. “Just something I’m checking for one of my patients. It’s the company that developed VG-seven-twenty-three. I might contact them.”

Her fingers flew across the keys, then stopped.

“Hmmm.”

“What?”

“It says here that VecGen started up six years ago—a year after Kaplan Biologicals went under.”

“And?”

She took a deep breath. “Maybe just coincidence. But the VG-seven-twenty-three clinical trial began five years ago. That means VecGen developed it within a year of startup. Awfully quick.”

“Maybe they had it in development before incorporating.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

She took her pen and scrawled something on a sticky pad. Paul tried but couldn’t decipher it.

She looked up and smiled. “It’s VecGen’s address and phone number.”

He picked up the sheet and squinted at it.

“If you say so.”

She poised her fingers on the keys. “Now, let’s see about Kaplan Biologicals.”

Google wasn’t a lot of help.

“Okay, let’s try some other places.”

“Another search engine?”

“No. There are websites out there that give you a surprising amount of information on individuals and companies.”

“What about privacy laws?”

“You’d be amazed what you can dig up with very little effort. You just have to know where to look.”

“And how is it you know where to look? Is there something you’re not telling me? Are you some sort of hacker?”

Sheila laughed. “No, nothing like that. I knew someone who was an investigator at his job and was privy to an amazing array of information. He showed me websites and techniques to get around almost all attempts at privacy. It’s scary knowing how unsafe our information is, but in this case, it’s a good thing.”

She began keying in URLs and zipping through screen after screen at warp 7. Wasn’t she afraid of missing something important? Paul wondered how she could she absorb anything at that pace.

Then again, to be the kind of doctor she was, she probably had to be able to sift through huge amounts of data at breakneck speed.

Paul felt he should be watching the monitor, but the images flashing across the screen made him a little dizzy. So he let his gaze drift to the nape of her neck. She had her wonderful strawberry blond hair clipped up in the back and he found the downy skin and stray strands there mesmerizing. He wanted to press his lips against that neck and—

“Here we go,” Sheila said. “Got it. The court-appointed trustee for the Kaplan Biologicals bankruptcy was one Alfred T. George, Esquire. Office in Manchester—Mass.” She smiled up at him. “Guess where we’re going tomorrow morning.”

Paul couldn’t help it. He kissed those upturned lips and found them soft, moist and … yielding. She was returning the kiss!

He pulled away.

“Sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I—”

Sheila rose and faced him.

“I kind of liked that.”

They kissed again, and Sheila pressed against him, and he could have stayed like that all night. But then he remembered—

“Coog.”

She took half a step back.

“Yes, Coog. But there’ll be other times, won’t there?”

Paul felt as if someone had opened a bottle of champagne in his chest.

“If I have anything to say about it there most certainly will.”

Lots of other times.

Hal Silberman had never been this sick in his life. Brenda had failed to show up for their date so he’d eaten alone—two helpings of chicken Marsala. And he’d been violently ill ever since. Salmonella from the chicken? Maybe a rogue in that container of pre-sliced mushrooms he'd bought. He remembered a couple of mouthfuls tasting kind of funky.

Explosive diarrhea with vomiting. At first they took turns debilitating him, but then they became simultaneous. He’d sat at the toilet defecating while throwing up in his chrome trashcan. After a few hours, his rectum started bleeding. By two o’clock in the morning he was vomiting blood and too weak to make it to a phone to call for help. He lay curled up on the floor of the bathroom.

By late morning he was shivering, too weak to sit on the toilet. Too weak to lift his head out of his bloody vomit. He fell asleep thinking of Tanesha Green. As soon as he was better, he had to sit down with Sheila and compare notes. There was a connection between KB26 and VG723. The more he thought of it, the more certain he was.

“Candy?”

Shen stirred. He loved Fai, but longed to sleep just once until the alarm went off. It seemed Fai never slept. He often woke up before six in the morning and turned on the TV without waking anyone. Unless they locked him in his room there was nothing they could do, except make sure the house was safe. No sharp corners, locks on the cabinets and doors, covers on the outlets.

“Candy?” Shen heard the crinkle of paper and looked over to the boy standing beside his bed.

He gasped and jumped from the bed, then snatched the package from Fai’s hand and inspected it carefully. Still tightly wrapped in tape. Shen looked back at Jing who was still asleep. He shut the door and scooped up his son, then ran him into the living room.

Fai began to cry. “Pa, give candy.”

Shen unlatched the snack drawer and handed him a chocolate bar. Anything to keep him quiet.

He sat his son on the couch and hugged him hard. “Pa loves you.” He hugged him again but the boy just squirmed, trying to see the TV.

Fai had dug into Shen’s pocket and found the rest of the poison mushrooms. The ones used to poison Dr. Silberman. He’d thought it was candy. Shen’s eyes welled with tears just thinking of it.
Fai almost ate the mushrooms.
Shen clenched the package so hard in his hand that his nails dug into his flesh and made his palms bleed.