Bitter Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 2) (2 page)

They drove in silence the rest of the way, both too preoccupied with whatever awaited them to enjoy the winter beauty of snow-covered Montrose Park. Jack got off on Waterside Drive, then took a left onto Massachusetts Avenue. He drove around to the north entrance of the Naval Observatory compound, where he and Naomi presented their identification to the guards. After checking the computer in the guard post, the anti-vehicle gates were lowered, and they headed in.

The vice president’s residence at Number One Observatory Circle was originally built to house the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory, and was located in the northeast quadrant of the circular compound. Jack parked where the guard had indicated.
 

Naomi had read that the house boasted more than nine thousand square feet of living space, but Jack wasn’t sure how they had shoehorned that much into the compact-looking structure that had been built in the Queen Anne style, with a prominent turret and large veranda gracing the front.
 

As they got out of the car, they were met by four Secret Service agents, who again checked their identification cards and drivers licenses before escorting them up a set of stairs and into the house through the rear entrance.
 

Jack had to restrain himself from shaking his head as they were led through the kitchen. Leaning close to Naomi, he whispered, “Are we such an embarrassment that we can’t just come through the front door like everyone else?”

“Looks like it.” She spoke the words through gritted teeth, and Jack could see the color rising in her cheeks. She was furious.

The Secret Service agents led them from the kitchen past the staircase that rose from the reception hall, then ushered them into the sitting room.

There, waiting for them, was Vice President Andrew Lynch.
 

Two other men were also in the room. Carl Richards, whose expression was carefully neutral, and another man that Jack didn’t recognize.
 

“Mr. Dawson. Dr. Perrault.” The vice president stood and extended his hand to shake theirs, even as they stood there, gaping at his use of their real names. “You know acting Director Carl Richards, of course. And this is his replacement, Kyle Harmon. He’ll be taking over the FBI shortly, as the Senate has already confirmed his nomination, although that isn’t public knowledge yet.”
 

After Jack and Naomi shook hands, trying to recover from the double shock of having their identities exposed and discovering that Richards had been ousted as the FBI’s Director, Lynch said, “Please, sit down.”

Jack and Naomi sat on the white sofa that backed onto the north-facing windows, while Lynch, Harmon, and Richards sat in matching armchairs facing them.

“Sir…” Jack began, but closed his mouth as the vice president held up his hand.

“Let me do the talking for now.” Lynch made it quite clear he was in control of this meeting. “You’ll have a chance to ask questions when I’m through.”

“Yes, sir.” Jack sat back in the sofa, forcing down his temper as he crossed his legs, trying to look relaxed. He flicked a glance at Richards, who was examining his shoes with rapt attention.

“Unlike the president, I’m not one to mince words,” the vice president continued, “so I’ll come right to the point. The Soil Erosion Analysis Laboratory, the cover for the agency that former President Curtis created to investigate the so-called harvesters, is disbanded as of today. All the government assets will be turned to the Department of Homeland Security. All the personnel who had been assigned to the agency will be given two weeks severance.” He looked Jack, then Naomi, in the eye. “That includes the two of you.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Naomi interrupted Lynch’s monologue. “There’s still a terrible threat hanging over the country, and probably the world. We’re the only thing that stands against it!”

Lynch shook his head. “Dr. Perrault, with all due respect, please tell me one thing, just one, of significance that you and Mr. Dawson have unearthed since your agency was formed?”

“If our work is going to be judged simply on a metric of reports produced, or…”

“
Just one
, Dr. Perrault.” Lynch held up a hand with his index finger raised. “Just one thing that could either substantiate the threat or prove that you could do something against it with the millions of tax dollars the government has given you, other than rewriting or refining data that you already had.”

“We’ve made huge strides in understanding the harvester genetic code, and we’ve also learned a great deal about how they manipulated people like President Curtis and FBI Director Ridley.”

At the mention of Ridley’s name, Richards looked up from the floor, a haunted expression on his face.

“We’ve also mapped their social network,” Jack added. “That allowed us to identify the industrial areas they were targeting, and…”

Lynch cut him off. “What about the bag?”
 

Jack and Naomi exchanged glances. Richards looked up again at that one.
 

The Bag, as it had come to be known, was their boogeyman. The harvesters had used humanity’s technological base to create strains of genetically engineered crops, starting with corn, that served as a means of artificial procreation. Any earthly creature, including human beings, that consumed the seeds or the fruits of the resulting plants would literally be transformed into one of the monsters. They had seen the results during the terrifying last hours in the old Cold War missile base in California that had served as the secret headquarters of the Earth Defense Society. The harvesters, through their proxy corporation New Horizons, had created thousands of tons of the lethal corn seed, and with great fanfare had shipped them from a central processing facility. It would have been a global disaster, except that Renee Vintner had pulled off a brilliant infiltration of the routing information for the tractor trailers hauling the seed, directing them to secure disposal facilities instead of distribution centers.
 

Everything had gone well, except for one thing: a solitary bag of seed, perhaps a hundred pounds, was missing. That could be anywhere from one hundred and twenty-thousand to more than three hundred thousand individual seeds. Each could produce a corn stalk, and every kernel on every ear of corn was a biological weapon. The bag had been on the manifests, but had not been on the truck. And there was no record of what had happened to it.

Over time, most had simply assumed it had been a mistake. But Naomi, in particular, knew how thorough the harvesters were. She was convinced the bag wasn’t a clerical error. She, Jack, Richards, and the others who knew the truth remained terrified that the bag existed.

But they hadn’t found it.

“The Bag, doctor,” Lynch said. “You’ve made no progress at all in finding it, have you?”

“No, sir.” Naomi shook her head, but kept her eyes fixed on Lynch.
 

“It’s not for lack of trying, Mr. Vice President,” Jack told him. “But the records were destroyed when we blew up the processing facility, and it’s been like trying to find a particular grain of sand on a beach that’s miles long.”

“The FBI has come up empty-handed, as well, despite focusing tremendous resources on the problem.” The new FBI Director shot a less-than-kind glance at his predecessor.

“The bottom line,” Lynch said, “ is that it’s impossible for the president to justify the funding for an agency that’s not producing anything. Going over the same samples and regurgitating the same information in different ways isn’t going to cut it. As I understand it, finding The Bag was the number one priority, but that’s gotten absolutely nowhere. And no one is really even sure if it existed in the first place. As I’m sure you’re aware, one of the president’s big planks, along with undoing the ecological disaster in central California, is cutting government waste. And we’re starting with your agency.”

After a brief pause while Jack and Naomi digested that news, Lynch continued. “As for your false identities, DHS and FBI will issue a low profile joint press release explaining that both of you had been working undercover and had infiltrated the Earth Defense Society. We’ll say that putting you on the most wanted list was to assist your efforts at infiltration. That can then be tied into Special Agent Richards’ heroic deeds at Sutter Buttes, as the Curtis administration previously reported to the media.” He gave them a sympathetic look. “The president and I understand what Curtis was trying to do by giving you false identities. But the fact is that President Miller is determined to distance his administration from everything Curtis did with the EDS affair. In the inquiries that Congress is planning, your identities and roles in what happened are bound to come to light, and President Miller isn’t about to get caught holding the bag, if you’ll pardon the expression. Better we return you to the mainstream now, with a positive spin, than have you discovered later during an inquiry.”

Jack could understand the president’s reasoning up to a point. But he also had no doubt that he and Naomi would likely be the focus of unwanted police attention for the rest of their lives. And some people would never believe that he hadn’t been involved in the crimes of which he had been accused, which included killing FBI agents.

He glanced at Naomi, but she was staring fixedly at Lynch. The skin of her neck and cheeks were a bright red. Richards looked like he’d been whipped. Jack closed his eyes for a moment, trying to control the sickly sensation of free fall that had threatened to overcome him.

Opening his eyes, Jack caught the vice president’s gaze. “Is anyone going to continue to pursue the possibility that The Bag exists, or is everything just going to be dropped and swept under the rug?”

“That’s no longer your concern, Mr. Dawson.”

CHAPTER TWO

Howard Morgan stood at the window that ran along one side of the conference room, looking over the Los Angeles skyline. It was late afternoon, and for a change the sky was clear of haze after last night’s heavy rain. His eyes, dark as his skin, took in the light of the setting sun reflected from the glass and steel structures much like the one in which he stood.
 

The conference room was on the top floor of the head corporate office of Morgan Pharmaceuticals. Morgan had built the company from the ground up over the course of fifteen years, taking it from a very small pharmaceutical test lab to an industry powerhouse netting three billion dollars in annual profit. The company had capitalized on its lab experience, of course, but had also branched out into vaccine development and other areas. But he didn’t want to just produce more of the existing vaccines or even develop better ones. He wanted to create something revolutionary, something that would rival Jonas Salk’s success with his polio vaccine, or Edward Jenner’s victory over smallpox.

Or something even greater.
 

While profit and the prestige of his company were certainly part of Morgan’s motivation, he had far more personal reasons for wanting a monumental breakthrough. His oldest son had died of AIDS, and his wife had died two years later, a victim of breast cancer. His two younger children, Alissa and Charles, were both in college.

The research arm of the company had two entire divisions focused on breast cancer and AIDS, with three more divisions working against various other communicable diseases.
 

Despite several major advances made by his company in disease research, the singular victory he sought, a breakthrough that would leave his mark upon mankind, continued to elude him.
 

And that was the reason for this meeting.

He turned away from the expansive view outside to face the twelve members of the board. His apostles, as he sometimes referred to them, sat around the gleaming mahogany table, their attention fixed on him.
 

Dr. Adrian Kelso, the company’s scientific advisor, sat at the table opposite where Morgan was standing, and had a decidedly unhappy look on his face.
 

“Adrian,” Morgan said, “do you mean to tell me that after nearly a year and an investment of thirty million dollars in research, we essentially have nothing.”

Kelso’s bushy eyebrows shot up at that. “No, sir, that’s not at all true! We’ve learned a great deal from the Beta-Three samples, and in time we’ll learn much more. It’s a treasure trove!” He held out his hands, as if in supplication, to Morgan. “But the simple fact is that the technology represented by Beta-Three is so advanced that we have no hope of replicating it any time soon. We might have our arms around the system that’s used to deliver the payload in the next two to three years. Just that will be a revolution for distributing vaccines and administering inoculations. But the Beta-Three payload itself?” He threw up his hands in another of his many gestures. “It’ll be at least that long before we can even map the gene sequence, let alone fully understand or reproduce it. Whatever it is, it’s far more complex than the human genome.”

Morgan folded his arms and paced around the room, the slow, measured click of his heels on the floor the only sound in the uncomfortable silence.

Beta-Three, as it was known, was the company’s crown jewel. But, as only a very few beyond this room knew, it wasn’t a product of his company. While Morgan considered himself an honorable man, he was also honest enough to recognize the opportunist within him. In the high stakes world in which he lived and breathed, honor and opportunity often collided. He sided with honor as much as he could, but was unafraid to set aside his scruples when necessary.
 

The samples to which Kelso referred were the result of such an opportunity that had arisen from a disgruntled employee within the now-defunct New Horizons Corporation, whose assets Morgan Pharmaceuticals had purchased. The deal had been consummated through an intermediary, and the seller had been paid handsomely for a sample of the latest line of genetically engineered corn, then known as
Revolutions
. Much to Morgan’s surprise, the source had provided not just a few sample seeds, as had been expected, but two thousand four hundred and thirty-eight of the tiny, precious objects. A full pound of them, in a sterile nitrogen-filled container that the employee had somehow smuggled out of the New Horizons plant that had subsequently been destroyed by the Earth Defense Society terrorists.