Calypso Directive (29 page)

“Yes, the woman who brought me the sample, Julie Ponte, and my lab assistant, Jon Henning.”

“I want you to listen very carefully. All computer files and records associated with this event need to be deleted. All hard copies and prints need to be destroyed. Any slides or sample volumes need to be packaged and locked in the secure refrigeration unit for pick up by one of my couriers.”

“Okay, I understand. What do you want me to tell my assistant, Jon?”

“Don't worry about Mr. Henning. He's going to be reassigned.”

“Reassigned? Nothing bad is going to happen to him, right? I mean, it's not his fault he found out. He was just doing his job,” Bart protested feebly.

“What would ever make you think such a terrible thing? Of course nothing is going to happen to him. We just need to occupy his mind with other things right now. A transatlantic reassignment will give Mr. Henning other things to think about besides antibodies and lymphocytes.”

“He's been a great lab technician. I'd hate to lose him.”

“The world is full of great lab technicians. Besides,
Director
Bennett will have much more pressing responsibilities to fret over than the job satisfaction of lab technicians. Am I making things clear?”

“Yes, crystal clear.”

“Good. Now, tell me about the woman who brought you this sample, Julie Ponte. I want to know everything.”

•     •     •

MEREDITH COLLAPSED ONTO
the king-sized bed in her hotel suite at the Copley Plaza and stared at the ceiling. Her morning had begun with a slap in the face, but thanks to Julie Ponte, she was officially back in the game. To say she was in control of the situation would be an overstatement, but at least she was equipped with knowledge she could use to influence each of the players' next moves. As she lay there, still dressed in the frayed Princeton University T-shirt she wore as nightshirt, she weighed her options.

The report from Pope needled her. Yes, the surprise Health Ministry inspection could have been legitimate, but she harbored doubts. If Nicolora had directed his minions to infiltrate her Chiarek Norse facility, then it was because he didn't trust her. She wondered if he truly trusted anyone. When they were together, he was always probing, testing her loyalty. It had driven her crazy. One day, when she'd finally had enough, she blasted him in a fiery, accusatory assault. Instead of denying her allegations, he had argued vehemently that she adopt a similar philosophy, stating that trust is a luxury that people in power cannot afford. Surveillance is the cornerstone of prescience, he stated; intelligence collection the cornerstone of insight. She asked him to teach her to think as he did—like a field general in battle—and he had granted her request.

In the years since their split, she had honed her skills.

She had contemplated a variety of security breach scenarios concerning Chiarek Norse, and prepared for them. Tracks had been covered. Electronic files, paper documents, and official statements for multiple contingencies had been readied in advance. If the inspectors had been Nicolora's team, she was confident they hadn't discovered anything of consequence. Still, she couldn't stand
not
knowing. Her lips curled into a coy little smile. It was time for her to spend some private time with her old teacher; collect some intelligence of her own. She had reserved her hotel room for an extra day for this very exigency. In her experience, a man's mind was surprisingly unfettered after a fierce orgasm. She decided she would not tell Nicolora about Julie Ponte—at least not before she knew his true agenda.

Her hunting dogs, the Zurns, were another matter. When she had last spoken to Raimond, he was still in Prague, trying to pick up Foster's trail at the infamous cybercafé. His pride was bruised after the events in Prague; she was confident he would not underestimate Foster again. Still, he had threatened to blackmail her, could she rely on his discretion? She had already tried firing him, but that had only enraged him. She exhaled slowly. Realistically, she was stuck with the Zurns to the bitter end. With a single phone call, the brothers could be standing in Ponte's apartment in less than four hours. Better to send them to Vienna now, while the window of opportunity was still open. There was no telling how long Foster would linger in one place before running again.

Next, her mind drifted to Julie Ponte, and how she could best use this new chess piece that had appeared on the board. Was Ponte a knight or a pawn? Could she intimidate Ponte into cooperating with her? From talking with Bennett, it was obvious that she was clever. Had Bennett not already been read into CALYPSO, Ponte would have succeeded in using his laboratory to uncover Foster's secret—and possibly Meredith's agenda—without anyone the wiser. If she had not yet pieced together the connection between Vyrogen, Leighton-Harris, and Chiarek Norse, she undoubtedly would in short order. Meredith inspected her fingernails. French-manicured, polished, elegant . . . nothing like the razor sharp claws she deployed in battle. If she were in Ponte's position, she would size up her enemy, quickly realize it was a fight she couldn't win, and ditch Foster. Actually, if
she
were Julie, she would negotiate a lucrative payoff and turn him in herself. This begged the question, what type of woman was Julie Ponte? How deeply did she care for Foster? Would she be willing to sacrifice her career to help him escape, or would she cave under pressure?

Meredith picked up her iPhone. It was time to find out.

Prague, Czech Republic

“
I
'M SORRY, BUT
the hard disk from the computer at the cybercafé is a dead end,” announced Stefan Zurn to his brothers Raimond and Udo, as they walked into the hotel room carrying sandwiches. “Public computers in cybercafés are notorious for being infected with keystroke-logging spyware—a phenomenon I had hoped to exploit. But in this case, the computer had an updated security suite installed. Also, cookies were disabled in the browser, and there was nothing useful cached in virtual memory. I found no clues to help lead us to Foster.”

“It's okay. I know where he is,” Raimond replied, clapping his hand on his younger brother's shoulder.

“How?”

“It appears the American made a fatal mistake—he trusted a woman,” Raimond said. Udo laughed loudly at the comment, too loudly, and it annoyed him. “As I was saying, Foster contacted a woman who lives in Wien and asked her for help. She's also an American; her name is Julie Ponte.”

“And your source is?”

“Our employer, Frau Morley, she phoned me personally with the good news five minutes ago.”

“Even the coldest of bitches eventually warm to your charms, brother. How do you do it?”

Raimond laughed. “After you hacked her VoIP account, I called her directly in her office and blackmailed her. She's been most cooperative ever since. The hack was a nice piece of work, by the way.”

“Danke. It was nothing. A child could have done it,” Stefan said and then added, “Blackmail is terribly underrated in my opinion; it has been working so well for us all these years.”

Raimond tapped the top of Stefan's laptop computer screen and said, “Let's find out where Julie Ponte lives, shall we? Ponte is spelled “P-O-N-T-E.”

Stefan opened a browser window and performed an Internet search. “Hmm,” he mumbled as his eyes scanned the list. “I find only one woman in Wien named Julie Ponte. I'll SMS the address to your phone.”

Raimond's phone chimed and the text message with Julie's address appeared on the screen. Their job had become so much simpler with the advent of the Internet and mobile phones. Finding people had once been a tedious and painstaking endeavor, now it was as simple as a click of button.

“What now?” asked Udo.

“We pack the van and drive to Wien. It's time to collect our fee.”

“Tell me something, Raimond. Why is this American, Will Foster, so important?” Stefan asked.

“They don't tell me why, and I don't ask. Remember, we are like garbage men; we get paid to clean up other people's messes. They don't want to see us. They don't want to talk to us. And most of all, they don't want to know what we do with the trash.”

Vienna, Austria

“
O
H, MY GOD
,” Julie uttered. Will looked at the screen and then at Julie, perplexed, “Is it significant that Vyrogen owns Leighton-Harris?”

She stole a glance at the maroon-colored mouse pad on her desk. Printed beneath the company logo in bright white letters were the words:

Wien Bioscience
a Vyrogen Company

She repositioned the mouse so that it covered the text. Dodging his question, she redirected, “What was the name of the facility in Prague where you were held in quarantine?”

“I don't know. It was total information blackout at that place from the day I arrived. The facility was part research hospital, part laboratory. All I know is that my pants had the words ‘CN Hospital' stenciled across the butt.”

Julie opened a new browser tab. She entered “Prague + CN Hospital” as a new search string in Google and pressed the search button. The page refreshed with the search results. She scanned the list and clicked on a link she thought looked promising. The site was written entirely in Czech and had no English language option. As she scrolled, she quickly ruled out the site, as it was full of pictures of dogs, cats, and smiling veterinarians. She clicked back to Google and entered a new search string: “Vyrogen + Prague + CN Hospital.” The screen populated with a new list of links, and she read through them until one caught her eye. She clicked on the link and it took her to a BBC World News article reporting:

“. . . US-based multinational drug giant, Vyrogen Pharmaceuticals, has announced today that it has acquired Chiarek Norse, the fifth largest research hospital in the Czech Republic . . .”

“Holy shit! That's it!” Will said, reading over her shoulder.

Julie looked up at him. “So it seems. I have one more hunch I want to check.”

She opened a third browser tab, and repeated the drill. This time she searched for “Vyrogen + CDC + Xavier Pope.” The first hit was a link to a
Wall Street Journal
article. She clicked on it and found an announcement listing:

“New Jersey-based Vyrogen Pharmaceuticals has announced today that Dr. Xavier Pope, formerly of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been hired as the director of the company's Immunological Therapeutics Division.”

“When did you enroll in the vaccine trial?”

“About five months ago.”

“Look at the date of this press announcement,” Julie said.

“Four months ago.” Will grimaced. “So, Vyrogen recruited Pope away from the CDC because of me.”

“Do you know how huge this is, Will?”

“That's what I've been trying to tell you.”

Julie rubbed her temples. She didn't dare tell him that, technically, she worked for Vyrogen too. When she had accepted the position at Wien Bioscience five years ago, it had been an independent and privately held Austrian company. Eighteen months ago, Wien Bioscience had been acquired by Vyrogen. As was the Vyrogen strategic policy, any acquisition that had strong brand equity retained its name and was permitted to function with tolerable autonomy. Julie had never really considered herself as working for “Vyrogen,” but she knew who wrote her paychecks. She could only imagine how Will would react, if she told him. He would immediately reclassify her as the enemy and distance himself from her, if not physically, definitely emotionally. His trust in her would be obliterated.

Her mobile phone chimed. She retrieved it from her purse and checked the caller ID.

BLOCKED.

“Hmm,” she said, and then warily pressed the TALK button. “Hello?”

“Julie Ponte, my name is Meredith Morley,” said the voice on the line, “You have something that belongs to me, and you're going to help me get it back . . .”