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The single bullet hole on the driver’s side looked like it was the result of a shot fired from inside the van, most likely by the man who had been tied down. The metal had been punched outwards and there was no corresponding hole on the passenger’s side to show where the round might have entered. Another bullet hole in the bulkhead separating the cab from the back of the van, low down and to the right side of the back of the driver’s seat. When he checked the front of the seat he found the exit hole and a large bloodstain, explaining the driver’s injuries. From the spent shells in the front footwell it looked like the driver had got in on the action as well, presumably firing through the small sliding partition in the bulkhead. Probably him that had shot the man on the gurney then, but forensics would tell him that when they got here. There didn’t seem to be any evidence of shots having been fired from outside the van.

As he climbed out of the back he saw that a KHNV news truck had arrived and was setting up. The crew were busy taking statements from the onlookers but when the reporter saw him she called over. Lars waved her away. No sense getting his face on TV before he’d had a chance to think this through. After checking to see how Jed and Larry were doing he went back inside the hospital to see if there was any news on the survivor.

When he got to the operating room he was met with a commotion. One of the nurses shouted at him as she ran past that the man who had been taken to surgery had reacted to the blood transfusion they had given him. No-one else was free to explain further so Lars went in search of the hospital administrator.

He found Doug Whitley in his office, sitting behind an impressively cluttered desk. The administrator waved him to a seat opposite.

‘So Doug, what’s happening with this guy you’ve got in surgery?’

Whitley had just heard the news himself. He had been a trauma surgeon at the hospital for ten years before he had assumed his current role. He knew there were only a few reasons why a patient might react to a transfusion in that way.

‘Well, Lars, it sounds like they’ve gone and given the guy the wrong type of blood. That’s unusual, though. Transfusing someone incorrectly can be fatal, so the lab’s pretty damned careful about typing blood before a transfusion’s given. I’ve never known Sue to make a mistake like that. Hold on there while I give her a call.’

The administrator dialed the extension for the lab, pushing the speaker button to allow Lars to listen in. The phone was answered on the first ring.

‘Sue, Doug here. What’s going on with the John Doe we’ve got in surgery?’

‘He’s definitely rejecting, Doug. I’ve just completed a re-type but the results are the same – O Neg – and I’ve double-checked with the OR that that was what they gave him. I’ve already started a reverse grouping but checking his serum type will take some time. Listen, I have to go. I’ll call you back the moment I know more.’

Without waiting for a response she put the phone down.

Lars thought for a moment. There was something about this he just wasn’t getting. He forced his mind to run through what he knew, to see if the answer might lie somewhere in that information. The man had been strapped to a gurney in the back of the van. Whatever he’d been doing there, someone had expected that he would need medical treatment. Not for a gunshot wound, though. That hadn’t been part of the plan. But if they weren’t treating him for a gunshot what had they been doing with him that required all the medical equipment? And the drugs? He reached into his pocket for his notepad. Flipping to the page where he’d jotted down the names he asked the administrator whether there was anything there that might be relevant. The first few didn’t draw a response. When he got to the fourth name Whitley reached for the phone.

‘Sue, Doug here again. The sheriff found a bunch of drugs in the back of the van they pulled this guy out of. The only thing on the list I don’t recognize is something called H-Lectin. Know anything about it?’

Lars was sure he heard the lab technician swear under her breath.

‘Yep, Doug it’s a reagent, one used to test for the H antigen.  Listen, I need to call the OR back right now. If they were carrying H-Lectin because of this guy it’s likely he has a rare blood type, which could explain why he’s reacting to the transfusion the way he is. I have to warn them. Can someone get me the H-Lectin from the van?’

‘Sure Sue, I’ll call down and have one of the orderlies bring it over. Be with you in a moment.’

The last thing Lars needed was either of those knuckleheads heading back into the van, so he offered to fetch the H-Lectin himself, telling the administrator it would be quicker if he went, he knew exactly where it was. He walked back out through reception, into the small parking lot, past the KHNV reporter who was busy talking gravely into the camera. The van had already been cordoned off and he ducked under the yellow police tape. The H-Lectin was in the refrigerated cabinet in the back where he had first found it, next to the three vials of blood. He brought the container back and handed it to a nurse at reception, explaining that it was needed urgently in the lab. Fifteen minutes later he was back in Whitley’s office, listening as Sue Ellis explained what she had found.

‘I’m still waiting for the results of the serum grouping but I’ve tested the guy’s blood with the H-Lectin from the van, Doug, and he’s definitely not expressing the H antigen. I’ve only read about this phenomenon in individuals with the
hh
phenotype. People with that blood group test as group O. But their blood produces antibodies to the H substance, which means they’re not compatible with group O donors, only other
hh
phenotypes. I need to run more tests; we’ll need to get the results of the serum grouping and cross match with other O group samples to be absolutely sure. But it would certainly explain this guy’s reaction to the transfusion.’

‘Okay, so what can we do for him? Now that we know the issue can we just transfuse him with the correct blood type and get him back into surgery?’

‘Unfortunately it’s not that simple Doug. This guy needs a transfusion from someone of exactly the same blood type. The condition is extremely rare, so rare that hospitals don’t test for it and blood banks don’t bother stocking it. There’s probably only a handful of people in the whole United States who have the same blood, and no way of finding them. I’d bet most of them don’t even know it themselves. I put a call in to United Blood in Carson City on the off chance that they might have stocks but they don’t and they don’t know of anywhere that maintains them.’

‘So you’re telling me there’s nothing we can do for this guy?’

There was a pause before the lab technician came back.

‘Listen, Doug, I’ll run a full set of tests on this guy’s blood to see if anything else shows up that might help us. And I’ll keep ringing around the hospitals and blood banks in case anyone’s got stocks of this stuff. But I wouldn’t hold your breath. If Lionel’s giving you other options I’d suggest you consider them seriously.’

She rang off.

The administrator called the front desk and paged Lionel Keegan, the surgeon who had been due to operate on the wounded man. A moment later the phone rang. Whitley listened, asked a few succinct questions then hung up.

‘Well, Lars, it doesn’t look good. This young man’s in a bad way. One kidney is shot to hell and the reaction to the group O blood he was given has caused the other to pretty much shut down. Lionel doesn’t want to operate on him without stabilizing his condition as he thinks he’ll just die on the table. But without a transfusion of the correct blood he doesn’t see this guy making it through the night.’

‘Alright Doug, I hear you. But the third man from that van’s still on the loose, most probably armed. Any chance he’ll regain consciousness long enough for me to speak with him?’

‘Probably not. Even if he did he’d be too weak for you to question him. Sorry, Sheriff.’

Lars thanked the administrator and headed back to the parking lot. As he passed the hospital waiting room on his way back outside he saw that the story had already made the local news. He stopped to watch the KHNV reporter refer solemnly to the events unfolding in Hawthorne, raising the possibility that the men who had been in the van, well armed and dressed in police and military uniforms, had been intent on carrying out a terrorist attack in the county. The reporter mentioned that although it was so far only speculation Hawthorne was best known as the home of an arms depot responsible for warehousing and distributing vast quantities of munitions for the U.S. military, the most likely target for such an attack.

Just what we need
, thought Lars as he headed back to his cruiser.

The theory quickly took hold. By the time the forensic team had arrived from Carson City an hour later the networks had picked up the story and the consensus was now that the target had indeed been the depot. A senator from Alabama who sat on the Armed Forces Appropriations Committee appeared on CNN querying whether it was a good use of taxpayers’ money to maintain an obsolete base that looked like it had become a prime target for terrorist attacks, suggesting that the base might now be decommissioned. The interview prompted a panicked call from the mayor, urging Lars to do everything within his power to get to the bottom of what had happened at Mount Grant as quickly as possible. Although in peacetime the depot was never fully staffed nevertheless a significant portion of Hawthorne’s four thousand or so residents depended on the business it provided for their livelihoods. The announcement the year before that the depot was a potential candidate for the Army’s Base Realignment and Closure list had caused consternation in the little town.

Christ
, thought Lars,
sometimes we do the terrorists’ work for them, making sure everyone remains good and afraid
. Whatever this was, he wasn’t convinced it had anything to do with a terrorist attack. He was still hopeful that Duke would pick up the driver of the van and that they’d be able to get some version of what had happened from him.

But several hours later the driver of the van still hadn’t been located. The dogs had followed his scent from the car park but it had led straight to a stream that ran through the hospital grounds parallel to Highway 359. It had taken them the best part of an hour searching both banks in the failing light to find the place where the driver had left the water and to determine that he had headed towards the highway. However, there the trail had gone cold. Lars figured the driver must have either flagged down a passing car or been picked up by an accomplice. He favored the latter explanation. Whatever had caused them to start shooting at each other, he was coming to suspect that the men in the van had had some training. If the driver had gone to ground their chances of finding him quickly were small.

He checked his watch. It was late and there wasn’t much more he could do here tonight, so he decided to head home to get some sleep. He left Jed at the scene to assist the forensics team who had set up powerful arc lights and were continuing to search the van for evidence. Ten minutes later he rolled the cruiser into his driveway. As he walked into the kitchen Jake, their three-year-old Alsatian, stretched lazily on his blanket, ambling over to shove his muzzle into Lars’ hand. Ellie had left a note on the kitchen table telling him that there were sandwiches in the fridge if he was hungry but not to feed them to the dog. Jake looked on expectantly as Lars ate one of the sandwiches. In the end he broke the other one up and fed the dog the pieces. Then he sat in the dark, absent-mindedly scratching the Alsatian’s ear, trying again to fit what he knew into a coherent explanation.  But after ten minutes he realized he was getting nowhere. The man who was lying unconscious in the hospital might be his only chance of getting to the bottom of what had happened. His only hope was that, somehow, against the odds, he would recover sufficiently and be willing to talk.

6

IT
WAS
A Saturday night and the small restaurant was crowded, waiters weaving backwards and forwards between the tables, outstretched arms carrying steaming dishes or trays laden with drinks. The room was noisy, filled with the sounds of diners enjoying an evening out with friends or family on the last weekend before Christmas. Alison made her way to a small table at the back where she could see the dean already waiting.

She had come straight from the university, without bothering to change out of the jeans and t-shirt that were her normal lab attire. She would have preferred to meet on campus, but Rutherford was a busy man, and he seemed to prefer to meet in less formal surroundings. She rarely bothered with make-up and tonight was no exception. As she approached the table she absent-mindedly pulled the rubber band that she had used to tie back her long blond hair. The dean stood, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.

‘Working till now?’

She nodded.

‘Always plenty to do.’

He pulled a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from an ice bucket, holding it up to offer her a glass. Alison shook her head no but he poured anyway. She let it pass. As he replaced the bottle she noticed it was already almost empty. She checked her watch. She was almost an hour late.

He smiled, raising his glass.

‘You really don’t need to work so hard you know. I’m already impressed.’

In his late forties, with dark brown eyes and hair just beginning to grey at the temples Rutherford had something of a reputation in the faculty. A confirmed bachelor, he lived in a converted loft apartment in the prestigious Berkeley Marina, driving his vintage Porsche Speedster the mile and a half up University Avenue to the Faculty each morning. He had had a distinguished career, pioneering early developments in the field of transgenics, earning the Gruber prize for his contribution to recombinant DNA technology. At twenty-nine Alison was by far the youngest faculty member of the University of California’s Department of Genetics, and at first she had been intrigued, and more than a little flattered, by the interest he had shown in her work. She had even dared to hope that with his help an early breakthrough might be possible. She was aware that the interest he had shown in her had not gone un-noticed among her colleagues. But her work was the most important thing to her; if Rutherford was prepared to offer assistance she would take it. And if he wanted to meet her in a restaurant on a Saturday night to discuss her research then so be it. The rest of the faculty could think what they wanted.