Resistant (24 page)

Here I am on the road again.…

“I’ve told you a lot about me,” Lou said, setting his menu aside, “but I hardly know anything about you.”

Vicki appraised him thoughtfully.

“I usually don’t talk much about myself,” she explained.

“Up to you, but I could sure use the distraction.”

Before she could respond, the waitress, young and perky and in her early twenties, came over.

“Something to drink?” she asked.

Vicki looked across at Lou for permission, and he shrugged and nodded that it was okay.

He also subconsciously ran his tongue across his lips.

“Jim Beam and water,” she said. “A little bit of extra ice.”

“A bourbon girl. A lady after my old heart.”

“I’m not a fan of fruity cocktails, and beer makes me feel like a tub.”

“I’ll have the same,” Lou heard his detached voice say. “Neat.”

Vicki’s eyes narrowed. Even though he’d been engaged by her, thoughts of Cap and the grotesque infection ravaging his leg hung in his mind like a Cape Cod fog. Partial amputation … reamputation … sepsis … weakness … death. For years he had fought to stay in the moment—to vigorously avoid projecting outcomes into the future. Now, he was solidly planted in possibilities. No matter what Vicki or anybody else said, he felt responsible for what happened to his sponsor. It was his fault. And dammit, this was the moment—he wanted a drink.

“You sure?” Vicki asked.

The waitress stood by patiently.

“Yeah,” Lou said finally. “I’m sure.”

The girl smiled, nodded, and promised to be right back.

“I’m not your babysitter, Lou,” she said. “You’re a big boy and you can make your own decisions.”

“Okay, then. I’m deciding I want to know more about you.”

Her expression darkened.

“It’s not the happiest of stories,” she said.

“In that case, clearly you’ve come a long way.”

“Well, let’s see. I became damaged goods very early in life. I was an only child and my parents were both very abusive to me.”

Lou cringed. “Physically?”

“And mentally, but mostly physically. They were religious fundamentalists, who believed in the importance of discipline. I’m not talking a spanking now and again. I have the scars to prove it was a whole lot more than that. After my father put out his cigarette on my backside when I had just turned fourteen, I decided it was time to leave home for good.”

Lou was sickened by the thought. He could not imagine ever laying a hand on Emily, let alone burning her.

“Where’d you go? Did you move in with a relative?”

Vicki shook her head. “No, I didn’t trust anybody. Not even the police. I worried they wouldn’t believe me and I’d be sent back to live with my parents, so I just ran. For a long time I lived on the streets.”

Vicki’s story was interrupted when the waitress returned, set their drinks down in front of them, and asked if they wanted to order food. When there was no response from either of them, she pledged to be back and scooted off. Lou had been too occupied with Vicki’s story, and now his drink, to respond. His drunk dream last night was like a Ouija board message, telling him that ten years was quite long enough and that he had earned what he was about to get. He imagined the taste—the wondrous velvety burn of a good bourbon.

Jim Beam.

Lou hefted his glass, swirling the amber liquid onto the sides with a movement that came back as easily as starting over on a bicycle. He knew that Vicki was riveted on him. It didn’t matter.

Get it over,
the voice in his head insisted.
You’ve earned this. Just get it over. Afterward you can just stop.

He brought the drink closer to his lips. The aroma drifted up his nostrils like smoke from a French cigarette. His mouth was desert dry.

Then, with the rim of the glass just an inch from his lips, he hesitated. He could feel the pull—a gravitational force beyond his control.

Just get it over.… Ten years is enough.… This one drink, then start over.… You’ve earned it, man.… Dammit, you’ve paid your dues.…

He tilted the glass until the distance between the bourbon and his lips could be measured in millimeters. The white noise of the tavern gave way to a deep silence. This was it. He just had to get it over with. Then, in the moment before he drank, a vivid image of Emily filled his mind. She had been a child the last time he had lied to her—too young to understand his dishonesty or to be ashamed of him. She was not too young now.

The spell shattered like dropped crystal. Lou pulled the heavy glass away from his mouth and set it down.

“Not today,” he said, wondering if Vicki could tell he was shaking. “I’ll get to a meeting later tonight.”

“Good idea. We should go ahead and order something to eat. Then maybe you can go right from here.”

“The list is online. I’ll check it after you finish your story. I’m okay now, I really am.”

They ordered burgers, Lou went online as promised, and Vicki exchanged their untouched drinks for Diet Cokes.

“I’ll give you the short, waiting-for-cheeseburgers version,” she said. “So I was living on the streets of Cincinnati, occasionally sleeping at homeless shelters, but sometimes I just found a bush in the park and slept under it. Cincinnati has beautiful parks.”

“How long did you do that for?”

“About a year. Then I was semi-adopted by a couple I’d met at one of the revivals. They didn’t have children of their own, so they took me in. Really nice people. They got me enrolled at an alternative high school and I took my GED exam. Next thing I knew, I was getting a scholarship to Ohio State, and after that my masters in micro. Then I got a part-time job at the CDC and finished my doctorate at Emory, and here I am.”

“From a GED to a Ph.D. Slightly impressive.”

“Not your average, everyday fairy tale, I’ll give you that.”

“And your parents?”

“My real parents, you mean? I haven’t spoken to them since I ran away from home. Sadly, the couple that took me in died years ago, heart attack for one and cancer for the other.”

Lou was grimly silent. Cap had no children of his own, but had taken any number of street kids in over the years. Nearly every one of them was the better for the connection.

“Every day needs to be lived to the fullest,” he said.

“Every day,” Vicki echoed.

They talked through dinner about their lives and work. Then Vicki announced that she and a girlfriend were headed to an art lecture, and slid out from the booth.

“Meeting for you?” she asked.

“All set. I’ve got the address and there’s a GPS in my rental.”

Lou would do the meeting, then visit Cap, then meet Humphrey in Subbasement Two for what would probably be their first actual experiments. Easy night, thanks to Emily.

“You’re a good man, Lou Welcome,” Vicki said. “A very good man. If there’s anything I can do for you, just give me a call.” She drew a business card from her wallet, wrote a number on the back, and handed it to him. “That’s my cell. No one gets this except you and the president. At least he will as soon as he asks for it. Call whenever.” This time they did hug. “I’m glad you liked the Diet Coke,” she whispered.

She kissed him lightly on the ear. Then she was gone.

He sat down again, breathing in what remained of her. A few seconds later, two men slid in where she had been—directly across from him in the booth. Both wore suits. One of them was a light-skinned African American, young, and athletic looking. The other had a hard face, strong jaw, and close-cropped hair.

“I’m not leaving just yet,” Lou said, an alarm starting up in his head.

“Actually, we were counting on that,” the tough-looking man said. He flipped his billfold open. There was an ID on one side and a badge on the other.

“Special Agent Tim Vaill with the FBI. My partner, Special Agent Charles McCall. Are you Dr. Louis Welcome of Washington, D.C.?”

Lou gripped the edge of the table and did a prolonged examination of the ID, buying time to will the bass drum throbbing in his chest to slow down.

“Yeah, that’s me. Why?” he managed.

Vaill looked pleased. “Well then, doctor,” he said, “if that’s who you are, we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

CHAPTER 30

           Our country is under attack by forces far more powerful than those in Central Europe or the Far East.

        
—LANCASTER R. HILL, LECTURE TO THE PENNINGTON SCHOOL, JUNE 6, 1939

Only one way in … and one way out.

Kazimi was giddy with the significance of Bacon’s huge bodyguard casually emerging from the lab and lumbering past them and across the Great Room. Until that moment, Doug Bacon, the master of Red Cliff, had led him to believe there was only a single passage into that wing of the castle. Leaving the lab as the bodyguard did had to have been a mistake.

Now he stood in the lab, just inside the closed door through which Costello had come. He was wary that the giant, or Drake, the other huge guard, would open the door at any moment, and even the smallest sound from the other side caused his pulse to skip. Another concern was the security camera mounted close to the ceiling in one corner of the lab. An identical electronic sentry kept watch from a similar spot in the annex. Perhaps the guards would realize the significance of what he was about to try, and would be on their way to stop him as soon as he got started. Kazimi gritted his teeth, then cursed his inability to stay cool. This was a time for action, not apprehension.

Almost certainly, there was a hidden passage—a secret way out of the wing, and most likely down to the boathouse at the base of the cliff. It was time to find it and to escape.

Where to start?

As a scientist, Kazimi prided himself in his ability to work out problems. The X-factor here, of course, was not only figuring out the solution to the puzzle, but doing it without getting caught. Step one, always, observation. From large to small, broad to compact. Stay casual, look busy, and examine every bit of the lab and the annex—the stark animal containment room the guards had taken to calling the “mouse house.”

Mindful he was probably being watched, Kazimi moved around the perimeter of the spacious lab, doing menial tasks as he scanned the gray mortar and fieldstone walls, as well as the concrete floor, looking for cracks, ill-fitting rocks, or any part of the construction that appeared to have been patched. It took most of an hour to make several passes, all the while continuing to prepare culture agar and growth medium.

Nothing.

His enthusiasm dampened. Sooner or later, someone would be in to check on him. Sooner or later someone would realize the repetition of his actions and speak to Bacon if, in fact, Bacon wasn’t the one currently watching the monitor screens.

Don’t give up
became Kazimi’s mantra. If he got caught, he would deal with it. But he had to keep trying.

Don’t give up.…

On his initial tour of the wing that included the Great Room and laboratory, he wondered about the prior use of the lab space and annex. The two rooms, hastily renovated, had almost certainly served as storage areas. There were no windows in either of them, and the mouse house, perhaps fifty feet long by twenty-five wide, included a huge built-in freezer/refrigeration unit, which had certainly been around for a while. The lab, identical in length and larger in width by at least a third, had shelves fixed to the stone wall, nearly all the way around.

It was easy for him to imagine the rooms filled with pallets of canned food, cleaning supplies, paper goods, and other items needed to operate the fortress. But it made little sense to him that things were carried or wheeled along the winding access tunnel and through the Great Room only to be stored and then brought back into the main building by the same route. But it was certainly possible. If there was a trap door, it would have been kept clear of any major obstruction, and would have to be fairly large. That ruled out the heavy benches in the lab, the incubators, the delicate electron microscope, and the refrigeration unit in the mouse house. On his next pass, Kazimi focused on the floor, squinting to spot any section of stone that was different from the rest.

Again, nothing. No sign of a secret passage. The space was a prison … a tomb … a mausoleum.

Only one way in … and one way out.

A sudden scraping caused Kazimi to freeze—footsteps echoing from the Great Room. A janitor? One of the guards? He strained to pick up the tapping of Bacon’s cane on stone. Drake or Costello. It was most likely one of them. He wondered what their directive was should they catch him trying to flee. A quick snap of his neck, perhaps. It didn’t matter. Ahmed Kazimi was not afraid to die.

But he did fear Janus.

The germ’s startling transformation was unlike anything he had ever encountered, and was fraught with terrifying possibilities. He studied his hands and saw at least a half-dozen small cuts, a torn hangnail, and a slight scrape by the knuckle on the index finger of his left hand. They were barely slivers to his eyes, but represented a gaping portal through which Janus could march into his bloodstream and kill him horribly. Doubtless, hospitals were trying to contain the spread. It would be, he felt certain, a futile effort. In time, not much time at that, a handshake would become the equivalent of a gunshot. Although there might be no visible entry wound, the victim’s organs would dissolve from the inside out.

The government had to be warned. Without a treatment, a pandemic was on the way that would make SARS and bird flu look like a summer cold. The time of an individual hospital using its isolation procedures to deal with Janus was passing quickly. The world was far too interconnected now. Every minute Kazimi stayed locked up inside Red Cliff was a minute too long.

Don’t give up.

Kazimi turned his attention to making a more detailed inspection of the mouse house. If he believed in what he saw when Costello crossed the Great Room, and he believed there was nothing to be found in the lab, then the passage had to be in the annex. He passed through the doorway into the secondary structure. The plastic cages were lined up on shelves across one of the end walls and extended along half of one adjacent long wall. About half of the cages were occupied, and as they always did, the mice reacted to his arrival with a prescient step-up in activity. The large, stainless-steel refrigeration units were at the other end of the room.