VIABLE (8 page)

‘So I decided the best thing to do would be to re-run the same test on the sample that had been taken the night before. I was there when that was taken, and I’d brought it back to the lab myself. There was no way it could have been mislabeled or somehow become contaminated.’

‘It was when I got these results back that I called you.’

She handed a second sheet to Whitley, explaining to Lars that instead of showing reduced levels of hematopoietic stem cells, the results from the second test showed concentrations that were literally off the charts. The administrator said nothing for a while.

‘Sue, who can we talk to to get a better read on this?’

‘Well, Doug, I attended a seminar up in Berkeley last year. So I called the Genetics Department and managed to get hold of a teaching assistant there. He said one of the faculty members would probably be interested. We’ve got to move with it though, least if we want them to look at it this side of the holidays. Term’s ended and they’re all likely to disappear over the next day or two.’

Lars volunteered to take what remained of the blood sample to Berkeley first thing the following morning, together with the results of the tests Sue had run, the patient’s medical charts and the additional samples and medication that had been found in the van. As they were leaving the lab he asked Doug what he made of what Sue Ellis had told them.

‘Well, to be honest with you Sheriff, stem cells aren’t my specialty, but I know enough to realize that we shouldn’t be seeing levels like that. If it had been any of the other technicians I would have told them to re-do the tests and stop wasting everyone’s time. But Sue runs that lab, has for the last twelve years, and hematology is her area. She’ll have been beating herself up over that transfusion. Not her fault of course. But if I know her she’ll have checked and re-checked those results before she picked up that phone to call me this morning.’

‘And there’s something very strange about the way this guy seems to have just overpowered a security guard and walked right out of here only hours after we’d pretty much written him off for dead. I spoke with Lionel. The monitors showed his heart rate and blood pressure stabilizing in the hours before his escape, but he was unable to offer any explanation for the apparent improvement in the man’s condition. Hell, Sheriff, right now I don’t know what to make of it.’

Twenty minutes later Lars walked back into his office with a fresh cup of coffee in one hand and one of those Danish pastries from Starbucks that Ellie didn’t allow him to eat in the other. On his way back into town he’d called Connie and asked her to gather up the remaining items he needed from the evidence locker at the station.

Connie wasn’t at her desk but that wasn’t unusual. The woman got through three packs of unfiltered Camels a day; she was probably in the parking lot on a smoke break. In any event he saw that the items he had requested from the back of the van were already bagged and on his desk. She’d left a note telling him that she hadn’t been able to find the blood samples he’d mentioned, but that everything else was there.

He reached for the report the forensics team had prepared, flipping to the back page for the schedule of items recovered from the van. There was no mention of the three vials of blood there either. Picking up the phone he dialed the lab in Carson City and waited while the agent checked with the other members of the team. After a few minutes he came back on the line. No-one remembered seeing blood samples in the refrigerated container.

Now that was odd. Sue Ellis had confirmed that what remained of the sample she had taken should be enough for the guys over at Berkeley to analyze, but it troubled him that items of evidence might have been removed from his crime scene. While he was finishing his coffee Connie walked into his office.

‘I got all the stuff you asked for, Sheriff, except them blood samples. Couldn’t find ’em anywhere. Weren’t no mention of them in the forensics report either.’

Lars nodded, holding up the report to show he had checked.

‘Connie, will you talk to Jed and Larry when they get back? See if they know of anyone who might have got into the van before forensics showed up.’

She nodded.

‘Sure Sheriff. Oh, and I checked with the base commander over at the Depot. All of his guys are accounted for. The air force base at Nellis are still checking but they don’t think they’re missing anyone either. However the Navy guys at Fallon have an instructor been missing since yesterday. Highway patrol up in Churchill found his bike in a ravine out by 50, just past Salt Wells. Pretty busted up. No sign of a body yet. We don’t have a picture of the guy who did a runner from Mount Grant but I’ve asked Fallon to run a check on their guy’s blood type to see if it’s a match and to send us a photo if they got one. They’ve promised to get back to me within the hour.’

Lars sat up in his chair. Could this be the break he’d been waiting for? Why hadn’t he thought to check the other bases in Nevada? He’d been too focused on the implications for Hawthorne if the depot were shut down to think about anywhere else. Dammit, Fallon was less than seventy miles away - of course this guy could have been from there. Well, thankfully Connie had done some thinking of her own.

‘Connie you are a wonder. Let me know soon as you hear back from Fallon.’

‘Sure Sheriff. Want me to enter Gant as a missing person in NCIC? I checked with highway patrol up in Churchill and they haven’t done anything about it yet. Figured if this guy’s linked to your case might as well do it here.’

Lars thought about that for a moment. The National Crime Information Center database had been pioneered by the FBI in the late ’sixties, recognizing that law enforcement officers all over the country needed fast access to the growing pool of criminal data. When the database had first gone online its records had been limited to stolen cars, vehicle license plates, stolen or missing firearms and wanted persons, but a missing persons database had subsequently been added. The NCIC computer was housed in the Bureau’s headquarters in Washington but connecting terminals were located in FBI field offices, police departments, sheriff’s offices and other criminal justice agencies throughout the country. Lars was certified to use the terminal here in Hawthorne – he’d been on the required refresher course only that fall - but Connie knew he hated computers. 

‘Let’s wait ’till I’ve spoken with the base commander at Fallon. No sense running point on a missing person that doesn’t belong to us if it’s not connected to what happened at Mount Grant.’

But twenty minutes later he was on the phone to Captain John James Fitzpatrick at Fallon, a scanned picture of Master Chief Carl Gant on the desk in front of him. The quality was poor but he was certain it was their man. Fallon had also confirmed Gant’s blood group as
hh
. They even maintained stocks at the base in case he was injured.

Fitzpatrick had no idea however what his Master Chief had been doing strapped to a gurney in the back of a van that had crashed into Mount Grant the day before. He explained to the sheriff that he wasn’t at liberty to disclose much about Gant’s military background, other than to confirm that he was a highly experienced member of one of the Navy’s most prestigious special forces units. When Lars raised the possibility that Gant might have been involved in a terrorist plot the commander laughed out loud.

‘Listen Sheriff, I may not be able to tell you much about what Gant’s done during his time with the Navy, but I have known him personally for almost ten years. He’s no Oklahoma bomber. Only thing that’s got me puzzled though is why he allowed himself to be bundled into the back of that van if he didn’t want to be there. As I expect you’ve read from his jacket, Cody’s job here at Fallon is to train Navy SEALs. I can’t see him going anywhere against his will.’

‘Cody?’

‘Sorry Sheriff, that’s what everyone here at the base calls Gant. Except for the CSAR candidates of course. To them he’s just Master Chief. I haven’t heard anyone call him Carl in years.’

Lars flipped back in his notebook to find where he had first written Gant’s name and then scribbled
Cody
next to it in the margin. Then he explained to the base commander that traces of a fast acting sedative had also been found in Gant’s blood, and at least one of the other men in the van had been ex-military. Fingerprints had been taken from the man in the morgue and a match had already been found. Vincent Keogh had served with the 10
^th
Special Forces in the Gulf. He had left the army shortly afterwards, but the report showed nothing about his activities in the sixteen years since. Lars asked a few more questions, jotting the answers down in his notebook. He was about to end the call when it occurred to him to ask why Gant might have chosen to break out of the hospital and why he hadn’t contacted his base. 

‘Well, Sheriff, I’m guessing he broke out of the hospital because he didn’t feel safe there. I mean, if he could overpower your guard and leave without anyone noticing, in the state he was in, why then I suspect he’d also figured out it wouldn’t be difficult for someone else to get to him. As to why he hasn’t got in touch with anyone here, I honestly have no idea. However, we’re just as keen as you are to find him, so just let us know what we can do to help.’

Lars replaced the receiver and leaned back in his chair.  What Fitzpatrick had told him tied in with what he had already suspected. But if Gant wasn’t a terrorist, what had he been doing in the back of that van?

10

ALISON
WAS
KNEELING on the floor sorting through a stack of periodicals when Lars walked in. She was wearing faded jeans and an old Harvard sweatshirt, a rubber band holding her hair back in a loose ponytail. The sheriff placed the cooler box he was carrying on one of the lab benches, removing his hat before holding out his hand.

‘Much obliged you could find time to meet with me on such short notice, Doctor Stone.’

Alison got to her feet. In truth she had been a little annoyed when she had found out that her assistant had committed her to the meeting. She had a flight to catch that evening and there was still a lot she needed to do around the lab. And Rutherford had been on her mind. She had explained to him outside the restaurant that she was only interested in a professional relationship and he had been offended, claiming that she had misunderstood. She hadn’t seen him since, which was unusual; in recent months he had been a frequent visitor to the lab. Had she over-reacted, reading something into what he had said? She didn’t think so - she had replayed the conversation in her head a thousand times. Not that that would ultimately matter; if the dean decided to make life difficult for her she would have no way to prove he had suggested anything inappropriate. The man certainly had a reputation, but then she had been spending a lot of time with him since she had arrived. Her colleagues at the faculty might be just as likely to believe she had led him on. More than anything she just wanted to forget the whole incident. She had half hoped to finish up early, grab an earlier flight and surprise her mother; seeing her might take her mind off Rutherford for a few days. Well, she could forget about that idea now.

‘So, Sheriff, what is it that brings you all the way out to California just before Christmas?’

‘Well, Doctor Stone, I’m not sure how much you’ve been told, but we’ve had an interesting few days in Hawthorne. Far more excitement than we’re accustomed to.’

She nodded towards one of the lab stools.

‘Why don’t you start at the beginning, and I’ll see what I can do to help.’

Alison listened as the sheriff explained the events of the last few days, starting with a van that had crashed in his town, and ending with the sudden disappearance of a man named Gant from the local hospital.

‘If you’ve been watching the news Doctor Stone you’ll have seen that Hawthorne’s getting a lot of press over this. There’s a theory spreading that this was all part of some terrorist attack on the munitions depot just outside town, and now there’s talk of shutting it down. There’s a lot of folks in Hawthorne that depend on that depot for their livelihoods and they’re all pretty worried right now. It’s my job to get to the bottom of what actually happened, and if the truth is that the guys in the van were terrorists then that’s what I’ll report.’

‘But as things stand right now I just don’t see that being the case. Problem is for anyone to listen to me I’ve got to show what these guys were actually doing if they weren’t planning to blow up the depot. Now we caught a bit of a break yesterday when we figured out this guy Gant’s identity, but the truth is we’re no closer to finding him or the driver. For what it’s worth I don’t think Gant planned to be in that van that day. But if he wasn’t there by choice I need to understand what he
was
doing there. Now the van was set up with medical equipment and chemicals to test for a rare blood type that Gant has. The lab at Mount Grant have also found something in his blood that they can’t explain. I’m hoping whatever you can tell me will throw some light on this whole mess.’

‘Okay Sheriff, show me what you’ve got. I can’t promise anything and I really have to be out of here in a few hours, but that should be enough time for an initial look. It’ll take me a little while to prep the samples, so I’d suggest you head for the cafeteria and get yourself a coffee. Leave me your cell number and I’ll call you when I’m done.’

An hour and two pieces of apple cobbler later Lars was back in the lab, bent over the eyepiece of a microscope staring at what looked like overlapping splotches of vivid blues and reds. Beside him Alison was describing what she had found. She seemed much more excited than she’d been when he’d first arrived.

‘What you’re seeing, Sheriff, are cells taken from Gant’s first set of blood samples. Now as you probably know blood cells are responsible for the maintenance and protection of every cell type in the body. As a result they have the greatest powers of self-renewal of any adult tissue – your blood literally has to produce billions of new cells each day. This capacity to renew is down to a type of cell called a hematopoietic stem cell. HSCs are created in the bone marrow. You’ve probably heard of patients with blood disorders like leukemia getting bone marrow transplants, right?’