A Heartbeat Away (23 page)

CHAPTER 43

DAY 6
2:00 A.M. (EST)

From the recesses of the upper gallery, Ellis watched Sean O’Neil patrol the aisles of the House Chamber. He looked ill at ease, and avoided any eye contact with the anxious faces that he passed, perhaps feeling as if he were being held responsible in some way for their plight.

Ellis felt some pity for the man. He was at once prisoner and jailer, neither of them very enviable positions. At least amid this mess, she had a purpose—some control and power over her fate. Soon enough, though, O’Neil would have some purpose as well. And once Allaire and his vice presidential toady were put in their places, once she was president, she would reward the Secret Service agent’s assistance by keeping him on staff, pledged to take a bullet for her.

The speaker descended the carpeted stairwell to the chamber floor level, approached O’Neil from behind, and tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around, reaching for his gun.

“Easy, cowboy,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to switch over to decaf.”

O’Neil glared at her.

“Next time you come up on me like that, don’t expect me to stop.”

“We need to talk,” Ellis said.

“I’m busy right now.”

“Oh? Doing what?”

“The president asked me to make some observations and report back to him.”

“Observations?”

“Check and see how people are holding up.”

“Oooo. Sounds important.”

“What do you want?”

“I told you, to talk. Please?”

Ellis motioned to a dark corner where she felt assured they’d have a modicum of privacy. O’Neil grumbled an unintelligible protest, but followed her anyway.

“Okay,” the agent said, when it seemed they were safely out of earshot of others, “what do you want to talk about?”

“Where is Archibald Jakes?” Ellis asked.

“The Navy chief of staff?”

“Is there another?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are we going to be difficult, Sean?”

“That depends. Are you going to keep trying to talk to me?”

“I have a Web browser on this BlackBerry,” Ellis said, waving the device in her hand at waist level so that only he could see. “Do you have any pictures of your kid I can bring up? I love children, you know. Had some myself once upon a time.”

“You are really a bitch.”

“It’s so nice how we can work together for the greater good, and still make time to share our personal lives as well.”

“You keep my son out of this,” O’Neil growled.

Ellis made a tsk-tsk sound, her expression one of mock sorrow.

“I am sorry, Sean,” she said, “but unless you cooperate, that is simply not an option. Look, here’s the deal: I need you to get me egress from this chamber, a passage that is presently denied to me.”

“And then?”

“And then take me to wherever Jakes is holed up.”

The agent considered the request.

“I want your word never to mention my son again.”

“But—”

“I said
never
!”

“Goodness. This is a snippy side of you I never knew existed. All right, then. You cooperate and get me to Archie Jakes, and I won’t say another word about your kid.”

O’Neil mulled over the pledge for a second time.

“Jakes is in the Senate Chamber,” he said, finally.

“I thought you said you didn’t know where he was.”

“I lied.”

“I know. It rubs off from Allaire. So, get me in there.”

“Not that simple. I don’t have the key.”

“A key? You mean to tell me the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is locked inside the Senate Chamber?”

“Yes. Along with the rest of Group C.”

“Tell me Sean, have you asked yourself why that might be?”

“No.”

“You’re either very trusting of your president, or dreadfully uncurious.”

“Both. My job is to guard, not question.”

“Well, if you want that job of yours to continue, I suggest you get me inside that room.”

“I can’t do that,” O’Neil said.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Does it matter?”

“You’re a really dreadful liar, Sean. Way out of your league here. I know you have a key to the Senate. I’d bet my right arm on it. That’s how certain I am.”

“Go to hell.”

“Do you know about my recently formed special committee?”

“I do. You’re investigating Mackey’s death.”

“Mackey’s
murder
. That’s right. Which means I will be having a whole lot of interaction with our dear president. Which means plenty of opportunities to let my knowledge of your extracurricular activities in the Lincoln Bedroom slip out. Perhaps if he and I mend our fences enough, he’d even grant me a temporary reprieve from this lovely chamber to retrieve the photographs of you and whatever-her-name-is that I stashed away in my office safe for a rainy day. Dear Agent O’Neil. How could you not know that everything that happens in the White House is recorded one way or another?”

O’Neil grimaced and said, “I want those photographs.”

“Of course you do. But either you get me into that chamber, or Allaire and the judge preceding over your custody battle get first looks.”

Ellis watched the agent’s jaw muscles tighten.

“Come with me,” he said in a coarse whisper.

They circled in front of the rostrum and headed along the passageway leading across the Capitol. At a doorway, two agents stood guard. Both looked extremely capable. O’Neil introduced Ellis to them.

“Jill,” he said, “the president asked me to escort Speaker Ellis to the Senate.”

“Didn’t come over the radio,” the woman replied.

“Well, he asked a while ago, but I forgot until she just reminded me.”

“Lots going on,” the other agent commented. “Easy to forget. Last night they ordered the security detail off the Senate doors. Now they just do a walk-by every two hours.”

“Any idea why?” Ellis asked.

“Nope. Orders are orders, I guess. As far as I know, the only one who’s been going in there is Dr. Townsend, the president’s doc.”

“That’s strange.”

“What isn’t around here?” the guard said.

“I wonder what she’s looking for.”

“Well, thanks, Scott,” O’Neil said.

He led Ellis forward a step, but the guards remained in place and exchanged questioning looks.

“Do you mind if we take a look at your hands?” Jill asked.

“There’s noting there,” O’Neil said. “That’s one of the things the president has had me looking for.”

He held out his hands, palms up, and motioned for Ellis to do the same.

“What’s this all about?” she asked.

“Beats us,” the agent named Scott said. “But Secretary Salitas has us checking anyone who comes this way.”

“Agent O’Neil, do you know what’s going on?”

Her expression was serpentine.

Ellis held her palms up for the guards.

O’Neil shrugged.

“We’re looking for some sort of red pattern—a circle or swirl. If we see anyone who has it, one palm or both, we’re supposed to send them to Salitas.”

“Interesting,” Ellis said. “Interesting. When’s the next walk-by supposed to happen?”

“Fifteen minutes. Right when our shift ends.”

“Thanks, you two. We’ll probably be back before you leave.”

The two guards stepped aside and allowed the speaker and O’Neil to pass.

Ellis quickened her pace.

They descended to the first floor of the Capitol complex. Ellis was accustomed to the stairwells and corridors bustling with activity, but the only footsteps she heard now were their own. The odd silence evoked a childhood memory of being locked inside a museum after closing time. They followed the House connecting corridor through the Crypt, where Doric columns helped support the huge central rotunda, and then passed into the Senate connecting corridor. Finally, they ascended to the Senate Chamber itself.

Outside the door was a cardboard sign printed in neat Magic Marker that warned:
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
To the right of the sign, hanging on a coatrack inside a small plastic ultraviolet chamber, was a single blue biocontainment suit. The chamber bore a label written on tape that read:
DR. B. TOWNSEND.

“Only one suit for one person,” Ellis said. “Don’t you think that’s a little strange?”

“No. I think that’s a lot strange,” O’Neil replied.

“Explanation?”

“Townsend doesn’t want anyone else going in there except her.”

“Probably so, but why the suit? She’s been exposed the same as the rest of us. Could it be that the risk of exposure inside the Senate is even greater than in the rest of the building?”

A padlock connected the ends of a thick steel chain that was looped between the semicircular brass pull handles of the chamber’s double doors. Ellis flicked a manicured finger toward it.

“I’m not doing this,” O’Neil said.

“The problem with you, dear Sean,” Ellis replied with icy calm, “is that you can’t think without orders. I need to see exactly what’s going on in there and why these people have been locked away. So here’s my order to you: Open that goddamn door, or I swear to you, I’ll make ruining your life my full-time occupation.”

Reluctantly, the agent took out his key and inserted it into the padlock. They could hear sounds coming from inside. Some of what they heard sounded like coughing. But mixed in with those sounds were what might have been screams. Then they heard a noise that was even more distinctive—and getting louder. Somebody on the other side of the door was clawing at the wood.

“I don’t think we should be doing this,” O’Neil said again.

“I only need a minute in there, Sean,” Ellis demanded. “Turn the damn key!”

And so he did.

CHAPTER 44

DAY 6
1:00 A.M. (CST)

Griff was asleep at one of the two tables in the small library when he was roused by a gentle hand on his shoulder. He shot upright, flailing to maintain his balance. His hand caught two tall stacks of reference books, sending them flying. Standing beside him, Forbush looked down with undisguised concern.

“You fell asleep,” he said.

“The understatement of the day,” Griff replied thickly. “I seem to remember you pledging to check on me every fifteen minutes.”

“I did. You must have just passed out.”

Griff nodded and caught a glimpse of his haggard reflection in the dark glass of the nearby videoconferencing system. His beard was making a rapid reappearance, not unlike the ground cover after the eruption of the Mount St. Helens volcano. But his sunken cheeks and hollow eyes were most disturbing, exceeding even what he remembered from his time in the Alcatraz of the Rockies.

The videoconferencing system had a direct link to the Capitol, and Allaire was expecting an update from Griff in the morning. The news Griff planned on sharing would not be well received.

“Did you at least find anything useful in these reference books?” Forbush asked.

“Maybe,” Griff said. “No matter what, it was worth getting out of that suit, even for a short while. Still, I need more time to think.”

“Just like Russell Crowe in
A Beautiful Mind. He
was always thinking, too.”

“Didn’t he turn out to be insane?”

“That all depends on your definition of the term.”

“Terrific. Something’s missing, Melvin. I’m thinking if we could give Orion a nudge—maybe from an adjuvant of some kind that boosts the immunologic response.”

“Would an adjuvant be toxic?”

“Possibly, but certainly no less toxic than what’s already inside those poor souls in the Capitol.”

Before Forbush could respond, the fax machine in the corner of the library beeped that it was receiving a transmission.

“Who could possibly be faxing us?” Griff asked.

Forbush crossed to the machine.

“It could be from Ms. Angie. I gave her this number with instructions that it would be the safest way to communicate with us.”

“Really? Are you sure a fax transmission can’t be intercepted by Genesis?”

Melvin turned back to him and shrugged.

“As sure as I can be where they’re concerned,” he said. “They’re a shifty bunch.”

“So how can you be so confident?”

“I found a phone number on the Internet that supposedly will produce a short tone if the landline is bugged, and a longer one if it isn’t. I checked, and according to that program, at least, the line was clear.”

“That’s putting a lot of faith in the Web,” Griff said.

“Sometimes, boss, we reach the point when faith is the only thing we have left.”

“Good quote. What movie is that from?”

“The one I’m going to produce when I win Publisher’s Clearing House.”

Forbush was chuckling as he gathered the fax pages from the printer tray. Then abruptly, he stopped.

“Griff, this fax isn’t
from
Angie, it’s
about
her.”

Griff leapt up and crossed the small library in two steps. The logo on the fax cover sheet was from the Riverside Nursing Home in Manhattan.

“Read it out loud,” Forbush said, his expression uncharacteristically grim.

Griff’s throat tightened at the first lines of the note, handwritten inside the cover sheet’s comment box.

My name is Mei Wu. I am the duty nurse at Riverside Nursing Home in New York City. This is regarding Angela Fletcher, who is in the hospital.

The rest of the note was typed on a computer.

“ ‘Before Ms. Fletcher collapsed,’ ” Griff read, “ ‘she admitted to forging health inspector documents to gain access to our residents. She was desperate to find a woman named Sylvia Chen. She believed Chen’s mother was a resident here.

“ ‘I am sorry to inform you that Sylvia Chen is dead. I only know that Ms. Fletcher said she was. I have no details on that. Ms. Fletcher was being chased by a very bad man when she sustained a head injury from which she eventually lost consciousness. We had her transported by ambulance to Lower Manhattan Hospital. I have no update on her condition at present.

“ ‘The man chasing her died in a fall down our elevator shaft. Before she collapsed, Ms. Fletcher was given a box by a resident here whom we knew as Ms. Li. It now appears that Ms. Li is actually Sylvia Chen’s mother, Chen Su. Inside the box was an envelope labeled
RECIPES FROM THE KITCHEN
, with some papers apparently belonging to Sylvia. Ms. Fletcher regained consciousness long enough to ask me to fax these pages to you. She believes this information might be critical to your work, and to what is happening in Washington, D.C. You can reach me here if necessary.

“ ‘Dr. Rhodes, you should know that despite deceiving us, Ms. Fletcher acted with extreme bravery, and saved the life of Chen Su. I will never forget her.’

“Melvin, we’ve got to get a call to Lower Manhattan Hospital in New York.”

“I wouldn’t advise that,” Forbush said. “Assuming the man who was after Ms. Angie in New York was with Genesis, we’ve got to believe the leak to them was somewhere here in Kalvesta.”

“What should we do?”

“That depends.”

“On what?” Griff asked.

“On whether or not you have any friends in high places.”

“Allaire!”

“I believe we’re set up for secure communications with him. Why not go that route?”

“Put yourself in for a raise, Melvin. Listen, let me finish looking at this stuff from Sylvia, and then we’ll get ahold of Allaire and see if he can insert himself on Angie’s behalf—at least make sure she’s getting the best care from the best doctors.”

“Poor Sylvia. Mixed up with the wrong crowd and so desperate to succeed in her work. I wonder how she died. With all those people looking for her and none of them finding her, I sort of thought she might have fallen on hard times.”

“Hopefully Angie’s okay and can tell us what happened.”

Griff flipped to the next page in the stack. Chen’s lab reports followed a very consistent format, and Griff did not have to study the pages long to know that they were, in fact, written by her. But the contents of the reports were not associated with any experiments that he had ever seen.

The same title was printed on the upper right of every page.

The Certain Path

The test subjects, most likely monkeys, were each identified in a code Griff had never seen before. The reports, one sheet for each animal, included basic information about sex, cage number, viral dose, route of administration, and antiviral treatment, as well as the dates and times of each run.

Sylvia knew that Griff had drawn the line at her performing experiments on chimpanzees. But she also knew that he seldom set foot in the Hell’s Kitchen animal facility. Was it possible she had somehow managed to sneak some chimps into her lab? If so, why had she taken the results away from the Kitchen—especially when they did not seem to have been any more successful than the rest of her primate work? And how did she get the sheets of paper through the sterilizing showers and UV lights?

The questions gnawed at Griff.

The recorded results noted clinical signs, along with quantity of virus injected or given by inhalation. In every instance but one, speed of death was directly proportional to the size of the inoculum.

These could have been any number of Chen’s past lab reports. What made them so special? The answer to this and Griff’s other questions was on the final page. As he read them, he felt his blood turn to ice.

The test animals were identified not only by code, but by first initial and last name.

Griff grabbed a legal pad and wrote down the identifying code of each test subject, then the name. Beside each name, he wrote Sylvia’s recorded result.

Robotlike, he handed the page to Forbush, who scanned the names with the same disbelieving expression as Griff.

“This is terrible,” he said, with his characteristic lack of excessive emotion.

“If it’s true, Melvin, then it’s worse than that.”

“The certain path—the certain path to a cure, I guess. That’s what the title on each page must mean.”

Griff could only stare down at the report.

“I know Sylvia was desperate to keep the program going,” he said, “but I never would have dreamed she was this desperate.”

“No more monkeys,” Forbush said, with a shrug.

“No more monkeys,” Griff echoed. “She took the leap and somehow began experimenting on people.”

“And they all died.”

“Assuming she just neglected to mark that in next to J. R. Davis’s name, they all died.”

“Leaving us with one huge unanswered question.”

“Where could these subjects have come from?”

“And I guess one other huge unanswered question,” Forbush added. “Where did she do the work?”