Mirrors (14 page)

While walking to
our car, I mulled whether to tell Bird and Flagstaff about the encounter with Giva Bhanjee. I opted against it because I suspected they would advise me not to meet her alone, a precondition she insisted on.

“Damn, it’s hot,” Flagstaff grumbled.

“You’re from Arizona,” I reminded him.

“No humidity there.”

It seemed the sun hadn’t budged since we arrived. It hovered over the smog, heating it to a cocktail that burned the eyes. I dabbed my brow. “Why did you bring up
Starboard
in there?”

“Because they’re headquartered in Currituck, North Carolina.”

“So?”

We reached the car. “Get in,” Flagstaff said. With Bird at the wheel, he rummaged through his briefcase and handed me a sheet of paper. “Take a look …”

July 10 – Charleston, SC

July 12 – Georgetown, SC

July 15 – Carolina Beach, NC

July 18– Wrightsville Beach, NC

July 20 – Morehead City, NC

July 22 – Currituck, NC

July 24 – Norfolk, VA

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Postmarks on missives received by the XK59 victims; Currituck was one of them.”

“ ‘Postmarks’ as in locations where stamps were canceled by the U.S. Postal Service on outgoing mail?”

“Correct.”

I reviewed the list carefully. “The last missive was sent just over a week ago,” I observed.

“Right, and all came from points along the Intracoastal Waterway in a south-north progression.”

“Are you suggesting
Starboard
played a role in the poisonings?”

“
Starboard
paid
BioVironics
ten million dollars to fix a seaweed problem in the waterway. If
BioVironics
hasn’t shown sufficient results, perhaps a disgruntled party affiliated with
Starboard
tampered with a
BioVironics
product in retribution. To that end, we need to identify where
Starboard
raised its money.”

“How?”

“You’ll see shortly.”

Bird drove quickly, weaving through cars to bring us to the Hyatt Hotel in Bethesda. In the lobby, a wiry middle-aged man with a luxurious rim around an otherwise bald head approached us with a bounce to his gait.

“Marcus Calendar, please meet Dr. Jason Krispix,” Flagstaff said.

Calendar’s handshake was protracted and firm.

“
Distamus ab aliis
” he said as we shook hands.

“
Proprius orbis
,” I replied.

We sat at a bar in the lobby away from other patrons.

“Calendar works for the Federal Reserve Bank,” Flagstaff explained. “At our request, he’s identifying
Starboard
donors.”

“Heard of the Automated Clearing House, or ACH?” Calendar asked me.

“No.”

“Then imagine a sprawling, windowless room with rows of humming mainframe computers. That’s the ACH. In the old days, when checks served as the backbone of commerce, it took a massive effort to process them. Enter the ACH, a payment system designed to eliminate checks with electronic funds transfers—clean, efficient, and rapid. It became the largest payments system in the country, processing billions of items each year valued in trillions.”

He sipped a gin and tonic.

“The ACH is Grand Central for America’s financial exchanges, a site where a record exists for every transaction that takes place between depository institutions—banks, credit unions, and the like.” He pulled a notebook from his briefcase and opened it to a drawing.

Bird and Flagstaff slid their stools closer.

“We begin here,” Calendar said, fingering a box labeled
BioVironics
. An arrow pointed to it from another designated
Starboard
. “
BioVironics
received ten million from
Starboard
eight months ago.
Starboard
is a consortium of lobbyists, interest groups, and organizations dedicated to expanding the Intracoastal Waterway to spur economic growth.”

“Don’t we have enough development on our coasts already?” I objected.

“
Starboard
would say, no.”

Calendar pointed to a series of boxes with names like
Blue Wake
,
Paradise Canal
,
Water Meister
, and
Heaven’s Gate
, each designated by location with an arrow pointing to
Starboard
. “All of these groups contribute financially to
Starboard
, but we have a problem here.”

“What is it?” Bird asked.

“The ten million
Starboard
sent to
BioVironics
was an uncharacteristically large sum.” He paused as if to reflect the quandary. “
Starboard
’s a small entity despite the fact that it receives funds from a number of groups. I checked their finances over the past few years using data from the ACH and discovered they made no payments over fifty thousand dollars before that ten million zinger went to
BioVironics
.” He fingered the boxes on the page. “So now I’m tracing with utmost care every payment that went to
Starboard
to track where the ten million came from.”

I eyed the locations of the consortium members that comprised
Starboard
, reading some aloud: “Charleston, Georgetown, Wrightsville Beach …”

“Curious, isn’t it,” Flagstaff interjected, “that they should be towns along the Intracoastal Waterway where missives were postmarked?”

It was a
short stroll from the Hyatt to my home, and when I reached it, I found Eve’s father sitting on a rocking chair on the porch. He had arrived from Australia that afternoon to help us transition to parenthood. Having raised four daughters, he knew the routine.

“How are you Spud?” I asked, calling him by a moniker derived from his name, Steven P. Udley.

He enveloped me with arms hardened from years of raising horses. “How’s my favorite American son-in-law?”

“Fine,” I replied, the stray Yankee to marry into his family.

“Eve’s grown large.”

“Yes … any day now.”

We went inside and had dinner. While doing the dishes, I told Eve about my encounter with Giva Bhanjee at
BioVironics
and her request to meet at midnight.

“You’re going with the security team,” she cautioned.

“I can’t.”

Exasperated, she asked: “Why not?”

“Bhanjee insisted I come alone. I’d scare her off if the security detail joined me.”

She shook her head. “After what happened to Danny and to Muñoz, you’re willing to take that risk?”

“I feel I
have
to.”

“What does she want?”

“I don’t know, but she looked desperate.”

She turned away. “I’m not happy about this.”

Several hours later, before leaving the house, I kissed Eve’s forehead as she slept. From the living room window, I saw a black SUV parked along the street several doors down. I tiptoed to the dining room and opened a window overlooking an alley that ran along the rear of our home. Jumping out, I crept through the darkness toward an old pickup we parked several blocks away. It was a decrepit vehicle I had owned for years for sentimental reasons as both my brother and I learned to drive in it.

At the end of the alley, I peeked both ways to look for a second contingent to the security detail. Seeing none, I made my way to the pickup and began driving through tree-lined streets to a deserted MacArthur Boulevard that headed out of town. At one point, I had to wait for an approaching car to clear a one-lane bridge, but from then on, the road belonged to me. For companionship, I listened to music as an oppressive breeze blew through the window.

The houses grew further apart as I drove. Here and there, the boughs of unrestrained maples blocked the light from lonely street lamps. Then, at an abrupt clearing, a firehouse appeared holding two shiny engines with their front doors open. A short distance later, I passed the Naval Surface Warfare Center with its long, tunnel-like structure running parallel to the road. My GPS indicated the
Still Waters Inn
was approaching quickly.

After rounding a bend, I saw the cozy restaurant nestled amongst trees—sylvan, quiet, subdued. The rush of dinner had long passed, leaving only a handful of patrons seated at tables on an outdoor patio. Behind them, a doorway led to the inn itself, an appealing manor tucked under stately trees, its windows casting soft light upon the ground outside.

I parked the pickup below the inn and remained seated, scanning the tables along the patio. My watch read 11:58. Leaving the vehicle, I began walking toward the tables, gravel shifting under my feet, when I heard a voice from a nearby car call, “Dr. Krispix.”

I turned to find a slender woman with skin only a shade lighter than the night. She stood beside a lime green Volkswagon Beetle. She was dressed in a dark blouse and pants that blended with the forest behind her. Moonlight formed a corona on her black hair.

She approached me. “Are you alone?”

“Yes,” I replied, noting the American accent she spoke with now, a change from the British pronunciation she spoke with at
BioVironics
. Gone, too, were the sari and nose bead, replaced by denim and boots.

Giva Bhanjee relaxed her shoulders and embraced me, a greeting I found to be uncomfortably cordial. As she dropped her arms to my side, I heard her bangles jingle. She wore a garish gold necklace and a set of headphones pushed back from her ears.

“Where would you like to talk?” I asked.

“Not here,” she replied. “The place will close soon.” She pointed across the street. “There, along the towpath, we’ll be alone.”

We crossed the street and traversed a bridge over the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal which ran some 184 miles from Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown district to Cumberland, Maryland. The gravel path we set foot on stretched along the canal in both directions. A month earlier, Eve and I had trekked the portion in Georgetown, a section with locks, stone walls, and signs with historical snippets. In days past, horse-drawn barges ferried goods along the canal to avoid the perilous Potomac River nearby, but those days were gone, leaving the trail and canal for pedestrians, bicyclists, and kayakers.

We walked away from the inn, moonlight guiding our way. Giva flicked a cautious look behind her. “Good, it’s quiet.”

“Dead,” I observed.

“Please, not that word!” she cried. “My fiancé is dying!”

“Dying from what?”

“XK59 poisoning!” she exclaimed. “Someone injected it into him!”

“
Injected
it? XK59?” I grasped her arm. “Who injected him?”

“Please,” she cried. “You’re hurting me!”

I released her. “Tell me who injected him with XK59!”

“I don’t know,” she stammered. “He wouldn’t tell me because he said if I knew, they’d kill me, too. He insisted you speak to him before he dies. His name is Minal Chandrapur, and he left his job at
BioVironics
to die at home.”

“Where does he live?”

“India.”

“
India
?” I shouted. “Are you saying he left the United States to go to India to die?”

“Yes.”

“But he’d be in no shape to travel! And, besides, even if he did travel, he’d die well before he reached India! Did he call 9-1-1?”

She looked about anxiously. “No, he didn’t, and please don’t shout. I don’t want anyone to hear us.”

“Fine,” I growled in a lower voice, “all I’m saying is that XK59 would kill him in as little as an hour.”

“You’re the expert. All I know is Minal worked with XK59 at
BioVironics
before they injected him with it.”

“Impossible! Drs. Mannino and Oxford told us no one at
BioVironics
handled the protein!”

“They don’t know about Minal’s project.”

“What was he doing with XK59?”

“I’m not sure, but he told me he acquired the protein a year ago. He’s a geneticist.”

“A year ago? Not a chance! I just published my paper six months ago and I didn’t divulge the sequence of amino acids that constitute the protein.”

“He knew about XK59 before your paper came out, and even before you gave a talk about the protein at a conference in Singapore. But his supervisor sent him to Singapore nonetheless to hear the presentation.”

“Are you referring to Dr. Mannino, the chief of virology?” I asked.

“No, another man who reports to Mannino.”

“What’s his name?”

She said nothing, pulling an envelope from her purse. “Here, take this. It explains how you can get in touch with Minal.”

I ripped the envelope open and lifted my cell phone to illuminate the contents but felt Bhanjee grasp my arm.

“Not now! We need to go before anyone sees us here!”

At 5 a.m.,
the phone in my pajama pocket buzzed like an angry bug trying to escape. Before going to bed, I’d set it to vibrate mode for incoming calls but, mercifully, none arrived until now, leaving me with three hours of sleep after returning from the
Still Waters Inn
.

I stumbled to the bathroom. “What is it?” I asked the caller.

“Can you get here fast?” Alistair Brubeck asked. “I’ve got something to show you.”

“Do you normally keep these hours?”

“The day’s well under way,” he chirped.

I showered and began to dress, noticing then I hadn’t placed my wallet in its usual spot on the dresser. Retrieving the khakis I wore the previous night to meet Bhanjee, I found the wallet in a front pocket, an unaccustomed site. For a moment, I frowned, wondering why I had diverted from a lifelong routine. Stress, I concluded.

I finished dressing and grabbed a bite to eat before taking Metro downtown. I found Brubeck leaning over a counter in the lab, his eyes riveted to a photo. Beside him, Randy Flagstaff stood with a cup of steaming coffee.

“I’ll take mine with cream,” I told him.

Flagstaff pointed to a pot. “Get it yourself.”

“No, look at this first,” Brubeck insisted. He beckoned me to his side. “You’re a lab guy. What do you make of it?”

I glanced at the photo …

“It’s a gel electrophoresis,” I said sleepily.

“Yes, but what does it show?”

I rubbed my eyes and examined it more closely. Through the blur of fatigue, the findings emerged. “It appears that a genetically identical strain of
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
was present in the leftover shrimp,
Electric Jolt
, and a victim’s blood.”

“Whoa!” Flagstaff protested. “Speak English.”

Brubeck seized the moment: “We’re looking at a laboratory tool called a ‘pulsed-field gel electrophoresis,’ or ‘PFGE.’ Think of it as a fingerprinting system for bacterial DNA; it’s not as good as the gold standard, whole genome sequencing, or WGS, as a system for fingerprinting, but it’s helpful to undertake while we wait for WGS results.”

He paused to look at Flagstaff who, in turn, nodded slowly as if digesting every word Brubeck had spoken.

“Okay,” Brubeck continued, “so in this case, we have a PFGE fingerprint of DNA from
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
recovered from leftover shrimp,
Electric Jolt
, and the blood of a victim. To create it, we first broke apart
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
cells from each source to isolate the DNA. We then added an enzyme called a ‘restriction endonuclease’ that works like a pair of scissors to snip DNA into fragments of varying sizes. Next, we applied a pulsating electric charge to the DNA fragments in a gel setting that made the fragments migrate different distances according to their size, with the smallest fragments moving the farthest down the gel. After turning off the electricity, we took a picture of where the fragments ended in the gel. Each band you see represents a fragment of DNA. What’s key here is that we’re seeing identical DNA band patterns for
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
recovered from the leftover shrimp, in Lane 1; from the
Electric Jolt
, in lane 2; and from the blood of a victim who ate undercooked shrimp, in lane 3. What this suggests is the same strain of
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
was present in the shrimp, drink, and blood, meaning the bacterium most likely came from the same place. For the sake of comparison, I ran a lane comprised of a strain of
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
not linked to the outbreak; as you can see, its fingerprint is totally different from the outbreak strain.” He pointed to a column along the far left. “These are simply molecular weight markers.” He stood back from the counter.

“Let me get this straight,” Flagstaff said. “What you’re saying is that, in nature, a number of different strains of
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
exist, each with its own DNA fingerprint, yet what we’re seeing here in lanes 1 through 3 are identical fingerprints, suggesting the same strain of bacterium was in the shrimp, juice, and victim.”

“Precisely, and we’ve run gels on
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
recovered from blood specimens from all of the other victims, and they’re identical to what we’re seeing here.”

Flagstaff pondered the notion. “You’re suggesting someone planted the bacteria in the shrimp and
Electric Jolt
?”

“Yes.”

Flagstaff shook his head. “But, why would they have added
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
to the shrimp and juice if they had already been spiked with XK59?”

Neither Brubeck nor I had an answer.

“Our next step,” Brubeck said, “will be to check databases of PFGEs to see if the strain of
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
we’re seeing in the shrimp, juice, and victims has been seen before and, if so, where.”

“Which databases?” Flagstaff asked.

“One at CDC and another at a large research hospital in Bangladesh where they diagnose
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
infection routinely.”

“In the meantime,” I said, “we wait for whole genome sequencing results on
Vibrio parahaemolyticus
.”

I started for the coffee pot, noticing the duffle bag I’d toted from Ecuador. “Do you have any results for the specimens I brought back?”

“Not yet,” Brubeck replied, “but I’ll call you as soon as I get them.”

From the lab,
I went to the Amygdala with Flagstaff where Glenn Bird joined us in Flagstaff’s office. He wore bags under his eyes and slumped his shoulders.

“I just got news,” he said. “Dudley Zot, the owner of the shrimp farm in Ecuador, was found dead last night.”

“
What
?” I gasped.

“His wife found him in bed with weird marks over his body.”

“What sort of marks?”

“Bites of some type.”

“From an animal?”

“I’ve told you what I know. The forensics team we sent to Ecuador will do an autopsy.”

With that, Bird plodded off.

“Forgive him,” Flagstaff said. “He’s dealing with a problem within the Task Force.”

“What sort?”

“Do you recall Congressman Nick Kosta?”

I thought for a moment. “The gray-haired man with the quivering moustache?”

“Yes,” he replied, leading me into his office. He closed the door. “Marcus Calendar called last night to inform us that
BioVironics
wired a million dollars to an account Kosta opened in the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda. The transfer took place two days ago.”

“That’s a bit untimely, isn’t it, given the spotlight on the firm?”

“To say the least, but McCloskey has instructed us not to confront Kosta on the issue until the WAFTA vote has taken place. He and Kosta are on opposite sides of the bill and he doesn’t want to inflame matters before the vote.”

“What’s McCloskey’s stance on WAFTA?”

“He’s against it. He thinks tariffs play a vital role in protecting domestic industries.”

“Like his Louisiana shrimpers?” I suggested.

Flagstaff nodded. “Among others.”

“And Kosta’s for it?”

“Very much so. He views WAFTA as the equivalent of a foot on the economic accelerator.”

“And the other Task Force members?”

“Evenly split, but not along party lines; that’s what’s different about WAFTA: it has driven a wedge within each party.”

He opened a drawer and pulled out a slip of paper with an address on it, sliding it across the desk. “Your agenda for today: plug this into GPS and go find it.”

I glanced at the address. “Annapolis?”

“Congressman Kosta’s summer home on the water.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “Although we have to wait for the WAFTA vote before we approach Kosta about the transfer of funds, nothing says we can’t drop by his summer home to see what’s there.”

“Why me?”

“Because the rest of us are tied up.”

“What could possibly be there?”

“For starters, a cabin cruiser; Kosta moors it there in summer. Go check it out.”

“I’m not a detective.”

“Become one.”

I started for the door. “By the way, there’s something I need to tell you.” I described the encounter with Giva Bhanjee at the
Still Waters Inn
.

“Good God, you went there
alone
?”

I nodded.

He shook his head. “What did she say?”

“Her boyfriend, a guy named Minal Chandrapur, worked with XK59 at
BioVironics
before someone injected him with the protein. She said he went home to India to die.”

Flagstaff turned crimson. “
Injected
him? Charles Oxford told us no one at
BioVironics
worked with XK59!”

“Chandrapur worked with it secretly.”

“
Who
injected him?”

“Bhanjee didn’t know.”

“Then call this Chandrapur man now before he dies!” He pushed the phone across his desk.

“I don’t have his number, only directions to his home in a town called Vellore in south India.”

“Bhanjee met you for a midnight stroll to give you directions to his house without providing a phone number?” He trembled with anger. “We’re bringing her in!”

“Not yet!” I pleaded. “She risked her life to see me. Let me address her one more time.”

He frowned. “Did you see the screen out there this morning? Two new poisonings!”

“And Bhanjee may have information that can help us figure out who’s behind them.”

“
One
more chance with her, then she comes in.”

As I made
my way to the UNIT garage to collect a car, my phone rang.

“Hello,” a melodious voice said, pronouncing it as “Yellow.” I recognized the voice instantly.

“Dr. Squills, what’s up?”

“I found what you’re looking for,” the English professor said.

“The source of the missives?” My pulse hummed in my ears.

“I believe so.” A paper crumpled. “What do you think about the choice of words?”

I opened my satchel and retrieved the missives. “Unsettling,” I replied.

“Give me an example.”

“…
your father’s cruelty
,”

“Yes, there’s a theme throughout the missives of dominance, as in
power
and
strength
and
surrendering
.”

“So, where does this take us?”

“To writings from an earlier era,” he replied. “Any Greek poets come to mind?”

“Homer …”

“Another one—one who went to lengths to express himself with abstractions in personified terms. The missives bear his signature.”

“Greek poets aren’t my forte.”

“Do you know the name ‘Hesiod’?”

“No.”

“Then we failed to educate you properly. He was a Greek poet who wrote a piece called
Theogony
, and every missive but one came from this work.”

“
Theogony
?”

“Yes, a detailed genealogy of the Greek gods written sometime around the eighth century B.C. Violent and gory, but a masterpiece.”

“Which missive was the exception?”

“
… not that rich chimaera
. Those were William Faulkner’s words. The only reason I recognized them was because I did my dissertation on Faulkner. I know his works well.”