Fatal Care (38 page)

Nancy shrugged. “You got me.”

The lights suddenly came on, lighting up the entire laboratory.

“It’s the magic factor,” Eric Brennerman told them. “It’s going to revolutionize medicine.”

He was standing in the doorway of Alex Mirren’s office. Two armed guards were standing just behind him.

Joanna was stunned speechless. The experimental data book dropped from her hands.

“I’ll tell you all about it,” Brennerman went on. “It’ll save you the time of going through all of Alex’s data books. His handwriting was atrocious, wasn’t it?”

Joanna cleared her throat and tried to gather herself. “I know we’re trespassing, but it—”

“We’ll get to that in a minute,” Brennerman cut her off. “Let’s get back to the fetal transforming factor. I think it’s the last clue you need to put everything together.”

Joanna tried to read Brennerman’s face. He seemed so calm and collected, but his eyes were ice cold. And the guards behind him had their hands on their weapons. Joanna forced herself to concentrate and think of a way out.

“Have you ever wondered how early fetal stem cells can differentiate into dozens of different organs? How can one cell type be transformed into a dozen others? How does this miracle actually happen?” Brennerman asked the questions in a dispassionate scientific tone. “Well, the answer is amazingly straightforward. It seems that early stem cells produce a transforming factor that converts the stem cell into a distinctive cell type, like a heart or brain cell. And the fetal heart cells you were just reading about continue to produce this transforming factor until the fetus is six months old. So, each dividing heart cell has its own transforming factor.”

Brennerman rubbed his chin pensively. “I guess that’s nature’s way of making sure that each new cell remains a heart cell and doesn’t become something else. So, anyway, we then take the isolated transforming factor and mix it with human stem cells. This, of course, instructs the stem cell to become a brand-new heart cell. We then take the newly instructed stem cell and remove its DNA which contains the gene that induces the formation of new heart cells.”

Joanna nodded slowly, now understanding. “And the stem cell DNA is then attached to a modified virus and injected into patients.”

“Exactly,” Brennerman said, nodding back. “You’re very bright, Joanna. I knew it was just a matter of time before you figured it all out.”

“And it was easy for you to make certain that the genes hooked onto the virus were delivered to the diseased organs of patients,” Joanna continued, struck by the scientific brilliance of the experiment. “When someone with a diseased heart underwent coronary arterial cleansing, you simply mixed the genes in with the lipolytic enzyme. The mixture went directly to the heart and the modified virus carried the genes into the cardiac cells. And old heart cells were suddenly instructed to become new heart cells.”

“We did the same to selected patients who underwent the arterial cleansing procedure on their diseased brains and kidneys,” Brennerman said proudly. “It brought about a miracle.”

“It also brought about cancer,” Joanna snapped.

“I know,” Brennerman sighed, showing a hint of regret. “All great science has a price.”

“Which you don’t mind someone else paying.”

Brennerman’s face hardened. “You make it sound like these were all young people with long lives in front of them. They weren’t. They were all sick and would have died in a year or two.”

“Just the lipolytic enzyme would have kept them going,” Joanna argued.

“Bullshit!” Brennerman bellowed. “Those arteries started to reclog within a matter of months. And do you know why? Because the basic disease process is still in place and because patients go back to their old habits of smoking and eating the wrong foods and not exercising. And before you know it, those arteries are filled with cholesterol plaques again.”

He paused and took a deep breath to calm himself. “And as far as the cancer matter is concerned, I believe there are ways around that. Obviously some factor in the genetic material induced the cells to undergo malignant transformation. It wasn’t the virus. It had to be the genes themselves.” Brennerman shrugged indifferently. “We’ll sort it out as we go along.”

Joanna’s brow went up. “Do you think they’re going to let you continue this project?”

“Who’s going to stop me?”

“Memorial will,” Joanna said. “As more and more patients come down with cancer, they—”

“There won’t be any more cancers,” Brennerman interrupted. “You see, we gave the stem cell genes to only three patients in the group. And those were the ones who developed cancer. That’s why you found the viral particles in their tumors.”

“Jesus,” Joanna hissed, disgusted with Brennerman and what he’d done.

“If you have any more questions, now is the time to ask them,” Brennerman went on. “You won’t get another chance.”

Joanna suddenly realized her mistake. She had been talking with Brennerman as if he were just a scientist. But he was really a killer who had cold-bloodedly ordered the executions of Rabb and Tuch and Mirren. It had to be him. Everybody else associated with Bio-Med was dead except for Brennerman and Lucy Rabb, and Lucy wasn’t smart enough to pull everything off. Joanna tried to keep her voice even, but it still quavered. “Wh-what are you going to do with us?”

“First, I want to find out how much you know,” Brennerman told her.

“Not very much,” Joanna said weakly.

“Oh, I think you know a lot,” Brennerman pressed on. “You’re a smart girl, and you’ve already put some of the pieces together, haven’t you? You knew the diagrams hidden in Mirren’s desk were really maps showing where the fetuses were buried. And you probably figured out that Mirren had hired the Russian to bury the babies so he could blackmail Bio-Med. You see, Alex wasn’t satisfied with stock options. He wanted a percentage of the corporation.”

Joanna swallowed hard. She and Jake had it wrong. It wasn’t Mirren who had the Russian killed. It was Brennerman.

Brennerman studied Joanna’s expression and then nodded. “So you did figure it out. Now I need to know what else you figured out. I need to know exactly what you and your colleagues have uncovered.”

“We don’t know any—”

“Don’t waste my time!” Brennerman cut her off. “I need exact information on how far along your investigation has gotten. I need specifics. That way I’ll know whether to shut down the project for a while until things cool off, or shut it down permanently and remove any evidence that it ever existed.”

He turned abruptly to Nancy Tanaka. “And you’re going to tell me everything you learned from Alex Mirren while you two were under the sheets together. And you’re also going to tell me where he hid the other copies of his experimental data books.”

Nancy was frozen with fear. She clenched her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. “And if I tell you, what then?”

“We’ll see.”

Brennerman turned to the guards. “I want to question each woman separately. Nancy in the small surgical suite and Blalock in the room next to it.”

Joanna and Nancy were marched out of the office and toward the rear of the laboratory. The guards were so close Joanna could smell their cheap aftershave lotion. She glanced around the huge laboratory, searching for windows or doors or any other way of possible escape. There weren’t any. She slowed and looked at the ceiling to see if there was a ladder of steps leading up to the roof. The guard behind her gave her a hard shove and said, “Move it!”

They came to the door that led into the hot zone laboratory. Brennerman punched the numbers into the panel on the wall. Joanna watched in her peripheral vision. The numbers were 60-50-42. The door clicked open automatically.

Joanna hesitated, not wanting to go into the hot zone lab unprotected.

“This setup is just a sham,” Brennerman said, grinning. “We used it to keep everybody out except for Mirren and me and the technician who was unwittingly working on the fetal project.”

Exactly as Mack Brown had predicted, Joanna thought, now wishing she had paid more attention to his comments. It was the big clue that something important was being hidden in the hot zone laboratory.

Brennerman stepped on a floor pedal in the lab and a side door slid open. They entered a small room that was flooded with blue ultraviolet light. There was a door on the right, another on the left.

“Put Blalock in there,” Brennerman said, pointing to the left.

Joanna was pushed into a dark room. The door closed and everything went black. She paused and tried to get her bearings. Behind her she felt the door. There was no knob or lock or hinges. And there was no pedal on the floor. Probably another automatic door, she guessed. But she couldn’t find the wall panel.

Cautiously she moved along the wall, feeling the way with her hand. Joanna came to a window of some sort. It seemed to be made of Plexiglas. But there was no sill or lock. A built-in Plexiglas window, she decided, wondering what was on the other side. She moved on and reached another wall, but this one was bare. No shelves, no windows, no switches. Her hand touched a corner and next to it was another door. It too had no knob or locks, but there was a wall panel close by. Joanna fingered the buttons in the darkness.

The room suddenly lighted up.

Joanna quickly moved away from the wall panel and looked over at the source of the light. It was coming through the Plexiglas window from the adjoining room. An overhead speaker came on.

“You’d better answer every question carefully,” Brennerman was saying, “if you want to stay alive.”

Joanna went over to the window and peered in.

Nancy Tanaka was strapped onto a surgical table, her hands and ankles and body firmly secured. Her face showed absolute terror.

“What did Mirren tell you about his work?” Brennerman asked.

“He never talked to me about his fetus business,” Nancy squealed. “I swear it.”

“Never?”

“Never,” she repeated weakly, starting to cry.

Brennerman shook his head as if he knew she was lying. “But you made the modified adenovirus for him. You knew it was going to be used as a vector to transport genetic information. Didn’t you?”

Nancy nodded rapidly. “But he told me it was only going to be used in animal experiments.”

“But you knew better than that,” Brennerman prompted her. “You were making up big batches of this modified virus. A smart technician like you had to realize that something else was going on.”

“I was suspicious,” Nancy admitted. “But I never really knew for sure.”

“Sure you did,” Brennerman pressed on. “And you told Joanna Blalock about it. Didn’t you?”

“I didn’t! I swear it!”

“Oh, I think you did,” Brennerman said easily. “And once Blalock heard about it, she put that together with the viral particles in the tumors. And suddenly she knew she was on the right trail. She figured out that somehow the patients were being injected with your goddamn virus.”

“No! No!” Nancy pleaded desperately. “I never told her. I swear to God!”

“Well, we’re not getting very far here,” Brennerman said, losing patience. “So we’ll do it another way. Let’s see if you do better when you have to face imminent death.”

“What are you talking about?” Nancy asked breathlessly.

Brennerman signaled to a guard, who brought over two small plastic cages. The guard held the cages up so Nancy could see the rattlesnakes inside.

Nancy’s eyes almost bulged out of her head.

“You’ll receive bites from two rattlesnakes,” Brennerman said, his tone clinical. “The total amount of venom injected into you will be approximately two hundred milligrams. That’s over twice the lethal dose.”

Nancy strained with all her might against the straps holding her on the surgical table. The table began to bounce off the floor. The other guard came over to steady it.

“Within the first hour,” Brennerman went on, “the places where you were bitten will become red and edematous and painful. Then you’ll develop thirst and fever and parts of your body will start to go numb. That’s the bad sign. Once the numbness occurs, you’ve reached the point of no return.”

Joanna stared through the window motionless, transfixed by the horror show she was about to see.

“If you decide to tell the truth,” Brennerman continued, “I’ll give you the antivenin and you’ll live. If you keep on lying, I’ll let you die.”

He signaled to the guard again and stepped back.

The guard placed a plastic cage next to Nancy Tanaka’s bare upper arm. He pulled a latch up and a small door opened. He pressed the cage against Nancy’s skin. The snake struck and Nancy screamed at the top of her lungs.

The other guard hurried over and clamped a towel over Nancy’s mouth, dampening her screams.

Joanna pounded on the Plexiglas window with her fists, trying to stop the guards. She yelled at them as loud as she could, but her voice stayed in the soundproof room.

The guard placed the second cage up against Nancy’s other arm and opened its small door. A second rattlesnake lunged forward and dug its fangs into Nancy’s deltoid muscle. She screamed again and again, but her screams were muffled by the thick towel over her mouth. She started shaking, her entire body convulsing.

Joanna couldn’t watch anymore. She turned away and covered her face.

“We’ll be back in a half-hour,” Brennerman was saying, his voice coming in clearly over the speaker. “I suggest you tell us the truth then.”

The sound system clicked off.

Joanna looked back into the room. The guards and Brennerman were gone. Nancy was crying uncontrollably, tears streaking down her face. She seemed to be screaming, “Help me! Help me!” But Joanna couldn’t hear her screams in the soundproof room.

Oh, God! She’s going to die!

Joanna took off her boot and swung it with all of her might against the Plexiglas window. She struck it again and again, but the rubber heel didn’t even scratch the Plexiglas. Then she pounded on the window with her fists and pushed against it with her shoulder, but it didn’t budge. Nancy seemed to be convulsing again. A frothy liquid was coming out of her mouth.

Joanna backed away from the gruesome scene, scared out of her wits and not knowing what to do next. Her back hit the wall behind her hard and she slid down to the floor, still seeing a terrified Nancy Tanaka in her mind’s eye.