Fatal Care (37 page)

“Yeah,” Scottie replied. “That’s what David said. He told me the beaches were real good down there.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“And David said for you to wait a year or so and then maybe give him a call.”

“In New York or here?”

“He didn’t say.” Scottie threw his cigarette to the ground and stamped it out. “All right. One more thing and we’re out of here.” He rapped on the door of the cement truck. “Hey, Louie!”

Louie climbed out of the cab carrying a set of license plates and a screwdriver. “Can I just do the back?”

“Do both,” Scottie ordered. “We don’t want some highway cop deciding he hasn’t filled his quota of tickets for the month yet.”

Sara turned to watch Louie change the license plates.

“Oh, there’s one more thing,” Scottie said, tapping her on the shoulder.

Sara turned back. “What?”

Scottie reached into his pocket for a slip of paper and handed it to her. “David said to give this to you. It’s the phone number of some doctor in Costa Rica. In case you get sick down there, I guess.”

Sara grinned slightly. It was probably the number of a very good plastic surgeon.

“I’m done here,” Louie called over, tightening the last screw on the Nevada license plate.

“Let’s go,” Scottie said, motioning to Sara. “I’ll follow you.”

“Are you okay back there?” Nancy Tanaka asked.

“I’m fine,” Joanna called, but she felt really claustrophobic in the blackness of the car’s trunk.

“We’ll be at Bio-Med in a few minutes.”

Joanna tried to stretch her legs out, but couldn’t. The Honda’s trunk was small, and it was made smaller by the thick blanket covering her. And the smell of gasoline fumes made it even more unpleasant. She wiggled her ankles in an attempt to get the blood moving, wondering what she’d do if the guard at the gate decided to search the car’s trunk.

The car hit a big bump in the road. Joanna bounced up and down a few times before settling. Then the car slowed and made a sharp turn to the left. In her mind’s eye, Joanna retraced the trips she’d taken to Bio-Med. She guessed they were turning off the main highway and onto the narrow road that led to the plant’s isolated location.

The car’s radio came on loudly. It was tuned to a country-and-western station and some cowboy was singing a song with the words “Bubba shot the jukebox last night.” Joanna groaned at the song, but she knew it had a purpose. According to Nancy, the night guard at Bio-Med’s main gate loved country music and listened to it constantly while in his kiosk. Whenever Nancy pulled up to the gate, she and the guard always chatted about country music and its latest hits. He usually waved her through with only a cursory look into her car.

Joanna felt the Honda slow again and gradually turn to the right. Then it stopped altogether. Joanna curled up in the blanket, her heart thumping away in her chest. The volume on the car radio dropped, and she heard Nancy Tanaka talking.

“Good evening, Will,” Nancy said.

“Hi, young lady,” the guard replied genially. “I see you’re listening to some mighty fine music.”

“I’ve got my radio dial glued there.”

“Did you hear that Garth Brooks is giving a concert down in Anaheim this summer?”

“I hadn’t heard that.”

“Well, you’d better get your ticket real quick before they sell out.”

“I will.”

There was silence.

Joanna thought she heard footsteps approaching on the driver’s side. She held her breath.

“You carrying any contraband?” the guard asked.

“Just a case of Bud Light.”

The guard laughed. “Get out of here.”

Nancy drove on slowly, gradually turned to the left, and then to the left again. The car stopped. The radio went off. A moment later the trunk opened.

“Are you all right?” Nancy asked.

“I’m cramped as hell back here,” Joanna complained.

“You’re going to have to stay that way for a little longer.” Nancy rubbed her arms against the chilly night air. “Jesus! It’s getting colder out here.”

Joanna pulled the blanket down to her chin. “Won’t the guard be suspicious that you came back at night?”

Nancy shook her head. “I do it a lot. And besides, I told him when I left this afternoon that I’d have to come back later to take something out of the incubator. I really bitched about having to return at night. I think he bought it.”

The wind blew in from the desert and seemed to lower the temperature even further. It gusted again, and Nancy turned her back against it.

Joanna shivered. “Let’s get this over with.”

“You stay put,” Nancy said, reaching up for the lid of the trunk. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Joanna was in blackness again, but it had grown colder, much colder. She huddled up under the blanket and checked her luminous watch in the darkness. It was 8:40. Outside, the wind was howling and Joanna could hear the desert sand peppering the side of the car.

She’d have to wait ten more minutes. That’s how long it would take Nancy to get things set up. The technician would punch in the code and enter the main laboratory. Then she’d walk to the rear and open the side door to the back lab using the code she’d copied from the sleeve of Alex Mirren’s white coat. Then she’d come back for Joanna. That way they’d avoid the surveillance camera that constantly scanned the corridor leading into the main laboratory. Once inside, Joanna would study the experimental data books. That’s where all the information was. Those data books would tell her exactly what Bio-Med was doing with enzyme preparations and viruses and dead fetuses.

She heard footsteps approaching. They were coming closer and closer. Quickly Joanna checked her watch. It was 8:44. Only four minutes had passed since Nancy left. That wasn’t enough time for the technician to get inside and do all the things she had to do. Now the footsteps were right outside the trunk.

Joanna curled up and froze, barely breathing under the blanket. She prayed that Nancy had locked the trunk.

The trunk lid opened, the blanket jerked away.

It was Nancy Tanaka.

“Come on,” she said quickly. “We got lucky.”

Joanna climbed out and stretched her aching legs. She glanced at her purse in the rear of the trunk and decided to leave it. “What happened?”

“The surveillance camera is broken.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Nancy answered. “It’s not moving on its tracks, and the lens is pointed at the ceiling.”

Joanna thought for a moment and then asked, “Can the guard see us go in the front door?”

“Not if we do it when his back is turned.”

Joanna reached up for the trunk lid and quietly closed it. “Let’s go.”

They moved quickly across the paved parking lot. The light was poor, the wind blowing and kicking up sand. Both women were wearing boots as protection in case they came too close to snakes. They were still watching the ground carefully, however.

They stopped in the darkness at the corner of the building and waited. The guard in the kiosk was facing their way, but not looking at them.

“What the hell is he doing?” Joanna asked.

Nancy focused in on the kiosk. “I think he’s changing the cassette in his tape player.”

They waited for the guard to turn away. Then they hurried toward the front entrance, stepping around a pile of dog manure.

“What about the guard dogs?” Joanna asked.

“They’re not let out until midnight.”

They dashed up the steps and entered the reception area, closing the door behind them. Walking on their tiptoes, they went down a narrow corridor, their eyes on the surveillance camera above. It was tilted awkwardly up and not moving. They reached the far door, where Nancy punched the code into the wall panel. The door clicked open automatically.

They entered the main laboratory.

Everything was dark except for the small lights in the glass cubicles along the wall. The giant plants and bushes gave off eerie shadows. Joanna grabbed Nancy’s arm and froze in her tracks. She pointed to a moving shadow. It took them a moment to realize the shadow was being cast by a huge salmon swimming in the lighted fish tank.

“Christ, it’s spooky in here!” Joanna whispered.

“Get used to it,” Nancy said, “because we’re not turning on the lights.”

“Why not?”

“The lights are controlled by some type of computer,” Nancy told her. “If you try to override it, an alarm goes off.”

“How are we going to see?”

Nancy reached for a flashlight in her coat pocket and switched it on. They walked cautiously past the glass cubicle housing the coffee beans that contained no caffeine, then past the tomatoes that wouldn’t freeze even at low temperatures. The giant salmon swam up to the side of their tank and seemed to be staring at the intruders.

“Should we start in the back lab?” Joanna asked.

“No,” Nancy said. “We’ll begin in Alex Mirren’s old office. That’s where the data books are most likely to be.”

“I still want to look in the back lab.”

“We’ll do that on our way out.”

They continued on, passing workbenches and large centrifuges and incubators. At the end incubator, Nancy stopped and took out two flasks that contained a milky fluid. She gently agitated the flasks before transferring that to another incubator.

“The cells grow better if you put them at thirty-seven degrees centigrade for a while.”

“So you really did have to come back tonight to take something out of the incubator?”

Nancy nodded. “It’s convenient the way things sometimes work out, huh?”

They walked on, passing more workbenches until they came to a glass-enclosed office. The door was closed. Nancy tried it. It was locked.

“What now?” Joanna asked.

Nancy reached into her pocket for a key and opened the door.

Joanna smiled thinly. “Should I ask you how you got that key?”

“Alex and I used to—” Nancy stopped herself in midsentence and waved the question away. “It’s past history.”

They went into Mirren’s darkened office. A cluttered desk took up the center of the room. Bookshelves were located on the right, file cabinets on the left. The wall behind the desk was covered with framed pictures, but there wasn’t enough light for Joanna to make out what they were.

Nancy shone her light on a large file cabinet and walked over. She placed the flashlight atop the cabinet, quietly opened a drawer, and began rummaging through it.

Joanna glanced around the office of the dead scientist. In many ways it resembled hers. Books. Papers. Files. Framed pictures of people and events gone by. Mirren’s white laboratory coat was hanging on a wall hook. She stepped over to look at it. The inside of its collar was filthy and probably hadn’t been washed in weeks. One side pocket was empty, the other filled with pages that had been torn out of a scientific journal.

She held the pages in front of the flashlight and studied the article briefly. It described a new method for growing stem cells. As she returned the pages to Mirren’s side pocket, she saw the numbers written on the sleeve of his coat. 60-50-42. 60-50-52. Joanna repeated the numbers to herself, thinking they shouldn’t have been that difficult to remember, particularly if one had to use them every day. She wondered why someone as brilliant as Mirren had so much trouble memorizing numbers.

“There’s nothing here,” Nancy reported, closing the file cabinet. “Let’s try his desk.”

Joanna opened the large center drawer of the desk and searched through it. There were pencils and paper clips and memo pads. But no data books. “Nothing here, either.”

“Try the side drawer,” Nancy suggested.

Joanna felt around for the side drawer of the desk but couldn’t find it. “Can you shine the light over here?”

Nancy focused the beam on the desk. “How’s that?”

“Better,” Joanna said, but she still couldn’t find the side drawer. There was only a center drawer with solid wood adjacent to it. “Are you sure there is a side drawer?”

“I’m certain,” Nancy said. “I remember him opening it.”

Joanna knelt down and reached beneath the desk. She felt something small and metallic, but couldn’t see it. “Shine the light down here, would you?”

Nancy directed the beam of light over Joanna’s shoulder. “Did you find something?”

“Maybe.” Joanna peered under the desk and saw a red button. She pushed it in. Nothing happened. Then a second time. Still nothing. She pushed it a third time as hard as she possibly could. The hidden side drawer clicked open. Joanna got to her feet. “This guy had a lot of secrets, didn’t he?”

“Too many.” Nancy emptied the side drawer. It contained two experimental data books and two sheets of paper. The sheets were labeled SMV and CC. On each was a large square that contained scattered red dots. Nancy looked at the sheets, trying to decipher them. “I wonder what these represent.”

“Cemetery maps,” Joanna said.

“What!”

“I’ll tell you about them later.” Joanna took the sheets and folded them. “Now, let’s see what’s in those data books.”

Nancy quickly flipped through the pages of the first book. “This deals with the lipolytic enzyme preparation and purification,” she said, more to herself than to Joanna. “There’s nothing about viruses or fetuses.”

Joanna picked up the second data book and opened it. The first section was titled FETAL TRANSFORMING FACTOR. She pointed out the title to Nancy. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

“Not even a clue.”

“Hold the light a little higher so I can see the small print.” It took Joanna a moment to make out Mirren’s handwriting. Then she read aloud softly: “To prepare the factor, the fetal heart was first dissected out and washed thoroughly with sterile saline. The pericardium and large blood vessels were removed, and the remaining myocardial tissue was subjected to ultra sonication to disrupt all cell membranes.”

Nancy looked at Joanna quizzically. “If you break open the cell walls, you kill the cells. What in the world do they want with dead heart tissue?”

“We’ll see,” Joanna said, and read on. “The cardiac emulsion was centrifuged at twenty thousand rpm for twenty minutes and the supernatant carefully removed. The supernatant was then subjected to Sephadex G-100 chromatography and finally passed through an immunoabsorbent column to yield purified fetal transforming factor.” Joanna turned to Nancy and asked, “What kind of transforming factor would be present in dead heart tissue?”