Killer of Killers (34 page)

“Compound X? It sounds like something from a
secret agent movie.”

“That’s why we call E Wing the
Secret
Wing
. The only people from the main complex who ever go in
there are the Big Three.”

“The Big Three?”

Trent envisioned monstrous Soriah Specials
until the woman specified, “You know, Doctors Benson, Wong, and
Lee. The Big Three.”

“Right,” Trent said. “What about Security?
Don’t they patrol in there?”

“Only the security chief. That really big
guy.”

Trent thought to himself he had to get into E
Wing. If they used the dangerous toxin to keep animals comatose in
D Wing, just what were they doing with it over there? He had never
heard of an antidote to the poison, and as far as he knew, none
existed. Did tetrodotoxin unlock the secret of eternal life? Trent
refused to speculate further. He still believed the whole thing a
sham. He bowed, said, “Arigato,” and then continued with his
tour.

Within minutes, Trent snooped upon more
unconscious animals, including chimps fixed with transparent
craniums and see-through chest walls. While scrutinizing the
electronic cabinets between the comatose apes, he observed two
small cylindrical containers attached near the top. Skull and
crossbones identified the first container above the letters TTX.
The label on the second cylinder read
Solvent
. Plastic
tubing from both serviced I.V. solutions, which, in turn, fed an
arm on every sleeping simian.

It hurt to consider that inside each unmoving
primate could be a mind fully conscious. No wonder Soriah needed
his state senator to enact special zoning laws. This was an animal
activist’s nightmare. Could E Wing be worse? Trent returned to the
central corridor. He only covered half of D wing, but he’d seen
enough. He needed to make his way into E Wing before the day was
done.

Peeking through sectional windows, Trent
spied security guards with green shoulder patches. He slipped into
the next room and through the fire exit. Once again, he squeezed
into the air duct. The pitch-black crawlspace made routing
difficult. Only intermittent vents allowed light, and it didn’t
travel far.

Trent passed over the main hub and found
himself in C Wing. Peering through the mesh, he saw the lobby
occupied, so he moved on. His first chance to drop unseen was deep
into the wing. In his confiscated coat, he probed the corridors and
witnessed space-suited workers using high tech machinery to mix and
measure unfamiliar solutions. He observed additional staff using
elaborate robotics to pour a watery substance into various-sized
vats.

In the next section, two workers tended glass
flasks and heated cisterns. Instead of airtight spacesuits, they
wore scrubs and a retractable face shield. More interesting to
Trent was the humid smell of poppies. He decided to inspect the
room since the technicians paid him no mind, and it was then he
realized what he had discovered. It was a lab that processed
heroin. “Are you telling me this is part of the formula?” he asked
the closest worker.

The worker, barely more than a boy, lifted
his visor and replied, “Well, yeah, but only a very small
part.”

“I see,” Trent said. “Do you know if it’s
vital for the healing process or for the anti-aging element?”

“Who knows?” He was a fair-haired,
jolly-faced youth. “I couldn’t tell you the science of it, but I
figure this makes sure the users don’t miss their daily doses.” He
smiled at Trent and tacked on a wink. “It’s what gives you that
initial rush every time you inject it.”

“No kidding,” Trent said. He couldn’t believe
the formula would contain an addictive constituent and used for
that exact purpose. Was this why Manoukian and Soriah didn’t bother
with FDA approval? Federally regulated narcotics like heroin and
deadly poisons like tetrodotoxin could be very discouraging
elements in any kind of medicine. “No wonder it’s called a wonder
drug,” he remarked.

“Yeah, and that doesn’t even take into
account the secret ingredient,” the youngster volunteered.

“The secret ingredient? You mean Compound
X?”

“Yeah, we get it from E Wing through the air
pony. No one knows what it is. We just mix it in with our batch
here and call it a day.”

Just as the youth finished his statement, a
muffled
whoosh
sounded behind a small section in the wall.
“That’s it right there.” He opened the hatch and removed a red
fiberglass cylinder clamped on the end. It was about a foot long
and four inches in diameter. The technician unfastened the cap and
popped it open, revealing foam padding in which five holes were cut
in a circular pattern. From each hole, he extracted a sealed glass
test tube, each filled with a clear liquid solution. “Here we go,”
he said. “Compound X, right on cue.”

“This came from E Wing?”

“Yep.”

“And you don’t even know what’s in it?”

“We know it has TTX in it. You know what that
is?”

“Yeah, it’s a deadly poison, and it’s
probably used to nullify the addictive effects of this heroin.”
Trent was only guessing. He was aware of theoretical applications
of the toxin, one of which was to combat heroin addiction. “But the
amount of TTX in one of those test tubes must be minute. What makes
up the rest of that compound?”

“Who cares? All we know is that it makes the
drug more suitable to the human system and interacts with the rest
of the formula to make it work.” The youngster held a test tube to
the light and examined its colorless fluid. “Looks like saliva to
me. For all we know, they bring in those truckloads of Chinese
people to spit in a huge bowl. Then they stir it up and send it to
us in test tubes.” He turned around to give his smiling co-worker a
high five.

Trent narrowed his eyes. “What did you mean
when you said ‘truckloads of Chinese people’?”

“Well, that’s who works over there. They
think we don’t know, but we see them come and go at the back end of
E Wing. Only thing is, sometimes they come, but they don’t go.”

“You’re not serious.”

“For real. But, hey, it’s all good. We’re
paid to not ask questions, so you can bet that we don’t.”

Trent shook his head. “You guys have been
around this heroin too long.”

In response, the youngsters surrendered a
good laugh, and again they high-fived. “You’re too cool, man,” the
talkative one said.

“Thanks,” Trent replied as he turned to
leave.

The connotation of the boy’s suggestion was
too morbid to consider. Trent could only attribute the concept to a
far-fetched imagination. Still, it lingered in his mind due to the
high level of secrecy afforded to that part of the complex. All he
really knew at this point was that a secret ingredient came from
the secret wing. And he didn’t like secrets.

Trent returned to the central corridor and
considered further investigation, but multiple voices from the
adjacent room put the notion on hold. Another peek through a
sectional window revealed more security guards, this time with red
patches on their shoulders. Trent decided to make himself scarce.
He darted through a fire exit and traveled the vents once again. He
was determined that his next stop would be the mysterious E
Wing.

A tedious crawl circumnavigated the hub and
accessed the restricted area manned by a solitary guard. The
circulatory systems were not partitioned, and Trent managed his way
into the forbidden zone. He dropped through the first grill that
viewed no activity. It was a wide corridor lined with doors on
either side, all sealed and most operated only from within.
Sectional walls divided the corridor every twenty paces, but
contained centralized doors, and the next thing Trent knew, he was
surrounded by workers in white uniforms.

The young technician in the heroin lab was
right about one thing—everyone scurrying back and forth was
Chinese. If not for the white lab coat, Trent would have appeared
overly conspicuous. He hoped to complete his tour without
reproach.

In the next section, large circular gateways
were evenly spaced down both sides of the corridor. Having no
visible knobs or handles, they operated mechanically, Trent
realized, when in the act of opening, double layers rotated in
opposite directions accompanied by a motorized hum. To keep the
footpath clear, the lower quarter penetrated the floor, and when
the rotation completed, an aperture appeared. In closing, the
process reversed.

Small circular windows centered each grand
disc, and chance peeks only revealed nurses and technicians
stirring about. They tended computerized monitors, unfamiliar
machinery, and rows of transparent countertops. Trent couldn’t
discern anything more than that. He decided to keep moving, lest he
attract unwanted attention.

Soon, a pair of nurses emerged from a side
room, pushing carts of medical supplies. Trent walked alongside
them and asked, “Are these supplies used to process Eternity?” He
was hoping to learn more about
Compound X
.

The nurse to whom he spoke eyed him with
curiosity, but did not slow down or attempt to address his
question. He tried again. “Excuse me, are these supplies used for
Eternity?”

She remained silent and walked even faster,
so Trent stopped when she passed through the sectional doorway. The
other nurse paused, however, and faced Trent with a timid smile.
Then she bowed and said, “We so very sorry... She, um... No
speaking English.”

“I see,” Trent replied. Despite her own
plodding effort with the language, he pointed at her cart and said,
“I wanted to know if these supplies are being used for the
processing of Eternity.”

“No,” the nurse answered. “It’s for our
patients.” She scrunched her eyes and asked, “Are you... Dr.
Benson?”

“Actually, no, I’m his brother.”

She quieted and examined Trent with a puzzled
face.

Trent decided he was wasting his time. “Thank
you,” he said, but as he walked away, he considered the nurse’s
reference to
patients
. What patients? Manoukian told him
that a few inpatients were in B Wing near the executive offices. He
mentioned nothing about patients in E Wing.

A group of traversing workers interrupted
Trent’s musings. They noticed Trent and stopped their conversation
to give him a curious once-over. Trent returned their stares and
said, “Don’t worry. I’m Dr. Benson’s brother.”

They smiled and nodded politely, but remained
wordless, so Trent hurried into the side room from which the two
nurses emerged. It was a medical supply room, and he figured the
handy hospital gear would help him blend in. He fit scrubs over his
jeans and slipped into a hairnet. But to complete his disguise, he
pulled the medallion from his pocket and placed its chain around
his neck, where it suspended between the lapels of his borrowed lab
coat.

* * * *

Toka Tacau barged through the double doors of
E wing’s secluded lobby. To the new security guard, he boomed,
“Have you seen anyone?”

“No, sir,” the guard answered. “No one
through here.”

Toka studied the walkway through which an
intruder might have ventured. There was nothing that could obscure
an approach by someone who didn’t belong. Then he spotted the air
ducts attached to the ceiling. “What about up there? Could someone
have crawled through the vents and into E Wing?”

The guard looked up and studied the
square-shaped tunnels. “Maybe someone not too big.”

“That must be it,” Toka muttered to himself.
“He’s small enough to fit in there, the son of a bitch.” He turned
back to the seated security guard, pointed at the secured entrance,
and demanded, “Let me in there.”

The guard stood up and presented the retina
scanner.

Toka ripped the device from the guard’s hand
and slammed it onto the desk. “Open the damn door!” he yelled.

The appalled security guard returned to his
station and tapped the necessary buttons on his control panel. The
E Wing gateway slid open, but when Toka hastened through, he
stopped and whirled around with a scowl. “Don’t open this gate for
anyone until I get back.”

* * * *

Trent stepped from the supply room and, in
his altered attire, returned to the hall of circular portals. More
determined than ever to breach the vetoed vaults, he paced down and
back again, hoping to slip through a rotated gateway. Finally, one
activated, and he skipped past the exiting technician.

Once inside, Trent froze in his tracks.
Perpendicular to the outer wall, multiple hospital beds lined the
room about four feet apart. A closer look revealed them to be
wheeled gurneys, but these were topped in curved shields of glass.
Hinged on the side to open like coffins, each contained a
motionless human body while oxygen tanks attached to headboards
supplied purified air. Men and women, all ethnic Asians, were
either unconscious or in a comatose state, much like the chimps
Trent observed earlier. He guessed they were all Chinese nationals,
as were their caretakers buzzing about.

Adding to the indignity, they were clad only
in scant hospital gowns, and a series of wires, tubing, and
electrodes protruded from every one of them. The largest
concentrations of the invading devices were arranged around the top
and sides of their shaved heads or along the spinal columns on the
few lying face down. Between the cots, electronic cabinets with
monitors scanned brain waves and logged vital signs, as in D wing
for the comatose chimps.

Unlike D wing, however, plastic tubing on
these cabinets filled transparent containers with a clear bodily
fluid. Trent recognized it.
Compound X.
The tubing stretched
through the side of each capsule below the glass bubble and
terminated inside the head of each unmoving person. When full,
nurses replaced the containers with empty ones so the collection
process would proceed uninterrupted.