From Filth & Mud (35 page)

Alexi and Dima walked through the maze of the FSB headquarters led by Katerina who remained shackled to the case. She told them to wait as she approached the two massive guards that stood outside of Col. Golovkin’s office. She turned to Alexi and Dima after a terse discussion and motioned for them to approach. The first guard opened the door to the office inside and entered with Katerina, Alexi, and Dima in tow. The second guard followed the group closely behind, his Strizh pistol at the ready.

Alexi and Dima sat for a few minutes until Golovkin strode in. The Colonel was pleased. He had just won a large victory over his FSB counterparts.

“So where the hell is it?” Golovkin was in no mood for pleasantries. He wanted to see the prize for himself.

Katerina unshackled the case from her wrist and swiped her thumbs over the fingerprint scanners above both latches of the case. The case whirred softly and then offered the audible click of the springing locks. Katerina opened the case and turned it toward Golovkin, revealing the contents within. Three super-cooled titanium vials were held tightly within the impact-resistant molding of the case.

“There it is: Lilith.”

Katerina rose slightly out of her chair to hand it to Golovkin, but one of the guards pushed her back into the seat and wrested the case from her. Golovkin smiled and extended his hands, but the guard walked past him, dropped the case into Dima’s lap and stepped away.

There on his lap, on top of the case, lay a Strizh pistol with a suppressor attached to the end of the barrel. Dima turned his head to the others, reached for the pistol, then began to smile. In one quick motion the pistol was leveled at Golovkin’s head. Then it fired. The resulting pop was shocking, though it was not loud. Dima stood, walked behind the desk to Golovkin’s chair, and pushed the body out of it. He placed the still smoking pistol on the wooden desk with a satisfying clunk and took his seat.

Alexi was still in shock, but he was the only one. Without being instructed, the guards carried the body out through the side door. It would be professionally disposed. Katerina stared at Alexi with her Makarov firmly in hand.

Dima smiled at his partner and said, “Golovkin was not true PRYAMO material. He’d reached the highest office he was going to, and PRYAMO was getting tired of his eccentricities.” Dima searched Alexi for any sign of hesitation while Katerina awaited her command.

“Tak!” Alexi replied. “What’s my next mission?”

- - - - - - -

Manny looked at the excised brain that sat on the laboratory table in front of him. Sadness overcame him. He picked up the tray on which it sat and walked around the laboratory. He looked at the well-formed gray matter, which was miraculously pristine. It did not betray any hint of its violent end. He placed it down on the dissecting tray. He was curious. Would he find the small, gray dot? He slid the tray carefully into the side slot of the Level 4 surgical cabinet. He placed his hands into the gloved compartment and pressed his biohazard suit’s visor against the objective lenses of the microscope as he began the delicate dissection.

Manny excised the tissue around the cerebrum of his friend’s brain and there, a few layers in, he saw it. He removed the tissue around the dot and transported it to a glass slide. He placed a slide cover on the sample and prepared it for the scanning electron microscope. He moved it beneath the focusing aperture of the powerful microscope and rose from his seat to a large, wall-mounted display. The screen was soon filled with an ultra-magnified image of the dot. Millions of dormant Lilicytes packed together in a colony. He observed the mass in silence. It was life and it was death and it was both at the same time.

He stared at the colony and noticed that the Lilicytes were bonded in their second generation construct. He smiled and tapped the display. Lilith had cured his friend of an unknown cancer. A tear crept out of Manny’s eye and hung upon an eyelash. He was grateful that he could help Jacob if only for an instant, though in truth it was Isaac who had. He had never met him, but obviously he had been brilliant, though daring was probably more apropos. To think that the solution had been there all along, perhaps it was obvious to Isaac because he had never been vaccinated against measles and did not have the antibodies to stop Lilith’s reproduction. Although he had only done it as a last-ditch effort to create a massive amount of Lilicytes in a short period of time, the reward that came from that risk was immeasurable. The Lilicytes that he injected into himself had not been exposed to measles antibodies, which muted their antigenic-drift response.

The Lilicytes that had been injected into every other test subject had been exposed to measles antibodies, and as a defense mechanism, the Lilicytes began to adapt their protein coats to battle against the host’s immune system. This adaptation created the second generation Lilicytes that had a higher than desired affinity to each other and this had caused the deaths. The same mechanism had worked its sabotage in the mice experiments. It had taken some time for Manny to unravel the mystery, but the pieces came together when he revisited the genesis of the experiments. The mice, like most lab mice, were transgenic, and they had been modified to express human measles virus receptors CD46 and CD150 in order to promote Lilith’s infective capabilities. The mice were supposed to be kept in sterile environments, but somewhere in the delivery chain from the supplier to BioSyn’s own lab, they had come in contact with the live virus. The mice that had made it to the trials were the survivors that had developed an immune response, and thus the resulting strokes. But because Isaac’s Lilicytes had not been exposed to an immune response, their second generation, or the
Isaac Strain
, as he called them, behaved much more like the Phase 1 Lilicytes in the petri dish tests.

And then it came to him. Manny’s realization crested over him like a river. He could use them. This would be Jacob’s gift to his son, his final selfless act. Manny removed the Lilicyte colony and prepared it for reintroduction into a new host.

- - - - - - -

Aiden boarded his jet once again bound for D.C. Irina was working on archiving all of BioSyn’s and XPS’ systems. He would be meeting with Senator Thompson, and this time he was ensuring that he’d have the upper hand on the intelligence folks. He tapped the small, titanium carrying case and smirked—
his ace in the hole.
He was pretty sure that none of them knew of its existence or the fact that their own lackey had been keeping it from them. He could not wait to see the looks on their faces when he, their
tech monkey
as some of them disparagingly referred to him, revealed it to them. He would also reveal the fact that with near certainty, the Russians and the Chinese also possessed it as well. That was a reaction that he also couldn’t wait to see.

              His plan was straightforward. He would use Lilith to negotiate a lucrative contract for the development of special biological projects. He’d been looking to expand Collier Analytics into other product lines, and with his recent acquisition of the intellectual property through surreptitious means, he was rather well positioned to take advantage of whatever market opportunities presented themselves—
besides he had the lead scientist in the field sitting next to him on his plane.

              Aiden turned to Manny, “You never get used to flying like this. It’s like having your own wings.”

- - - - - - -

Sarah approached the casket escorted by Luke and Nathan. John held her tightly as she collapsed under the emptiness, which now crushed her heart. She wailed inconsolably as Luke and Nathan gripped her waist tightly. Their tears soaked through her skirt, Jacob’s favorite, a light-blue mini that she’d worn on their first date. She also wore the matching light-blue and white halter top. She wore her sorrow over everything else. Her parents couldn’t find the energy to stand; Jacob’s would have been there, had they known their son, and he them. All those in observance sat with their heads hanging low as if the gravity of the Earth had concentrated on that melancholy ground.

John escorted the trio to the casket and stood guard over them as they knelt before it. Their pain consumed all in attendance. Their wounds were of the unhealing kind. Their cries were never to be quieted; their prayers never to be answered. After several minutes, Sarah summoned the strength to pick herself up off of the ground, and she carried her boys with her. She stroked the top of the lacquered coffin, longing for his face. She spoke to him and bargained for his return.

“I need you. The boys need you,” she pleaded as she clutched her boys tightly around her and drowned them in tearful kisses.

Nathan’s scalp was still hairless and the incision from Dr. Monte-Alban’s procedure was heavily bandaged. The doctors had cautioned against letting Nathan out of the hospital, but he would not relent. He had to see his father, for
he
above all wept the loudest. He had lived because of his father’s death, and he would honor the sacrifice until he returned to be laid down next to him.