Nate walked into Jeff’s office, but his supervisor was on the phone. Jeff mouthed “One minute” and motioned for him to sit.
As Nate settled into the leather chair, waiting for Jeff to finish, he looked around the room. His eyes were drawn to a US Army poster from Jeff’s old division. The motto “Do what has to be done” was emblazoned on it in red letters.
Jeff, Nate knew, had spent twenty years in the Army’s equivalent of the Criminal Investigation Division. Having spent nearly a decade in the Army himself, Nate understood the pride Jeff had for his brothers in arms. It was probably why the two of them got along as well as they did. They had a mutual respect and understanding. Similar roots.
Jeff finished his phone call and hung up. “Thanks for coming in, Nate. I’ve got some bad news to share with you, and figured it would be better to do it face to face.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“You shouldn’t. I’ll start with my attempt to get surveillance established on German intelligence. In short, it was denied by the FISA court.”
“What? I thought the FISA court was pretty much a rubber stamp for these kinds of things.”
Jeff shrugged. “Evidently, a request from a CID assistant director doesn’t always have the pull you’d think it does with the FISA judges. Requesting surveillance of a foreign government can be a tricky thing. They have immunity, and there’s a bit of cat and mouse that some of the intelligence folks play. We claim professional courtesy and promise not to spy on each other, but we do it anyway. And this time, we got blocked.
“I also reached out to my CIA contacts—official and unofficial. I even went through the front door. Nothing. If what happened on that island is a CIA op, nobody’s talking. Sorry, Nate.” The sixty-something-year-old man jabbed his index finger in Nate’s direction and asked, “So how about on your end? Have you tracked down that witness from the island yet?”
Nate swallowed the disappointment he felt over the lack of cooperation from both the FISA court and the CIA. His mind flashed back to the redheaded coed he’d interviewed only three days ago. “Yup, I found her and you won’t get an expense report, because it just so happens that she’s local now. Katherine O’Reilly is enrolled in Georgetown University, and she was particularly helpful.”
“Oh? How helpful?”
“Well, let’s just say that the poor girl and her boyfriend were definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Imagine doing a Gilligan’s Island and getting yourself stranded somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but instead of coconuts and paradise, you’ve got killer birds coming at you from every direction, all of them trying to get a piece of your ass. It’s a miracle she got off that island at all.”
Jeff frowned. “And you believe her?”
“One hundred percent. She showed me some of the scars.” Nate shook his head as he recalled her pushing up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. The puckered quarter-sized pink scars ran all up and down her pale arms. “It’s not like I had her on a polygraph, but Jeff, I’ve done this for nearly two decades, and I’m telling you, she believed every word of what she told me. I’d stake everything on that.”
“I’m not doubting you, just asking. You said there was a boyfriend there too? It would help if we had a corroborating statement.”
Nate shook his head. “Officially, Brad Harper is MIA. He’s been missing ever since the incident four months ago. Presumed lost at sea. But Miss O’Reilly was pretty heated about that AgriMed company. She believes wholeheartedly that they let him die somewhere on that island and then covered it up.”
“Then why didn’t she go to the cops?”
“Because some corporate guy from AgriMed flew out there and got her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. In exchange for her silence, they paid her off to the tune of six figures.”
Jeff stood and began pacing the otherwise empty conference room. “Now we know they’ve got something to hide. Did she give you a name for the corporate guy?”
“Yes. Dr. Harry Winslow. I looked him up—he’s some kind of vice president and director of research at AgriMed.”
“A VP?” Jeff frowned. “Seems odd that a multinational would send a VP out to the middle of nowhere to pay hush money to some girl who saw their dirty little secrets.”
“Alleged dirty secrets,” Nate said. “Remember, AgriMed claims the military had already torched the island by the time they arrived. And we only know about any of this because of them.” Nate drummed his fingers on the table as his mind raced. “I doubt they would have called us in if they were doing something squirrely over there.”
“Maybe… I sure wish we had some information on what was going on on that island.”
With a smile, Nate withdrew a sheet of paper from his suit jacket and placed it on the desk—a summary document of all the paperwork that the woman had turned over to him. “You mean like a bunch of classified documents that Miss O’Reilly smuggled off that God-forsaken island, including names, descriptions, and all sorts of things that I’ll need subject-matter experts to make sense of.”
“You’re shitting me!” Jeff grabbed the sheet and looked at it. “How the hell did she manage… never mind. DARPA? As in our DARPA?”
“Yup.” That had jumped out at Nate too. If the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was involved, things were getting even more curious. “They were represented by a Dr. Ian Wexler. He’s a program manager at the Biological Technologies Office in DARPA. He’s also a medical doctor who used to work at the CIA, doing lord knows what.”
Jeff ran his finger down the page. “And who’s this? Dr. Reinhardt from… Bundesnachrichtendienst?”
“I’m impressed you managed to spit that word out on the first try. Hans Reinhardt might be associated with German intelligence, but I’m not certain on that yet. It’ll take a while to be sure—in part because much of it’s in German, in part because it’s some pretty technical mumbo-jumbo. But they’re using some kind of evolution algorithm, and they’re applying it in experiments on animals. In particular, they were messing around with finches.” Nate grinned. “Jeff, this is a smoking gun if there ever was one.”
Jeff didn’t return Nate’s smile. In fact, his expression was grave. “Nate, what this is is some serious shit. I’m going to go to the top with this. No more of this pussyfooting around. These people have at least one MIA to answer for and a whole lot of messed-up shit going on. Plus, somehow our military is involved, maybe the CIA, German intelligence… it makes no sense.”
Feeling antsy about the next steps, Nate nodded at the sheet of paper in Binghamton’s hand and asked, “Do you want me to get translators and the lab guys looking at the document? It’s got classified markings all over it.”
“File a copy of this in evidence and give me one as well.” Jeff laid the single sheet of paper back down on the table and pointed at some of the classified markings. This ‘COSMIC’ marker is a NATO Top Secret classification. As to the ‘SI-G DRWN’ markings, we’ll have to look into this. I have no idea what this ‘DRWN’ compartment is and who controls it, but we’re definitely not read-in on that. I’ll reach out to our special access officers and see what I can learn.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nate was about to ask another question, but Jeff held up his hand and gazed off into the distance.
“Nate, I need you to track down this Winslow guy. Ask him about this stuff—”
“But Jeff, isn’t that violating the classified—”
“I didn’t tell you to read him this shit, just go with what the girl told you. I’m sure she told you all about this document before she handed it over, right?” Jeff nodded in an exaggerated manner.
Nate smiled. “As a matter of fact she did.”
“Good. And Nate…” Jeff leaned forward. “Watch your six, you got me?”
“Yes, sir.”
###
Juan wrinkled his nose as he glanced at the day-old pizza sitting beside his computer. It had been a few weeks since he’d gone to the supermarket, and there was no other food in the house. Throwing caution to the wind, he picked it up and took a bite.
He returned his attention to his computer screen and made some minor adjustments to what he’d now dubbed the Darwin Algorithm. He and his assistants had been hard at work eliminating the genes that hadn’t contributed to producing Hercules’s fantastic results. It was tedious work, and the knockout assay had been progressing at a slower pace than he’d like, but he couldn’t afford mistakes if he was going to try to get permission for entering human trials.
Still, it felt like he was playing whack-a-mole. He’d eliminate one of the affected genes, and suddenly a quarter of the next generation of animals would die due to a congenital malformation of their ventricles. Then he’d remove a block of twenty affected genes, and absolutely nothing would happen. You just didn’t know until you tried.
All of the results were fed back into the ever-changing algorithm. Ultimately, the goal was to narrow down the tens of thousands of changed genes to the bare minimum needed to create a “mouse of the future”—one with none of the downsides and all of the benefits. Having that, they’d be ready for applying to get human trials underway.
Juan sighed, hit the “compile” button, and sat back. It would now take hours for the program to churn through the millions of lines of genetic code and spit out the resulting updates. Only then would Juan be able to compare the results against the changes he’d expected in the genome.
On screen, the words “Darwin’s Cipher being calculated” appeared.
Juan smiled. Whenever he saw that name, he was reminded of Kathy. It was frankly a good thing he hadn’t had the guts to ask for her number, because if he did, he would have called her a hundred times by now. Her face had been haunting him ever since he’d first seen her at the airport.
And it wasn’t just her beauty. He was drawn to her intellect, her smile, her down-to-earth and independent nature.
Yes, it was definitely a good thing he didn’t have her number.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the screen.
Harry Winslow.
Juan was pretty sure the director had never before called him directly. Certainly not on his personal phone.
“Juan? This is Harry Winslow, am I catching you at a bad time?”
“Dr. Winslow, not at all, I’m just sitting at home. Good to hear—”
“Are you alone?”
Juan instinctively panned his gaze across his empty apartment and nodded. “Umm, yes.”
“I just got out of a meeting with two men from the FBI.”
Juan’s mouth opened slightly as shock registered. “FBI?”
“Listen to me, and just give me a yes or no answer. Do you know what I’m talking about when I refer to the Darwin Algorithm?”
“Yes.” Juan glanced at the desktop computer as it processed his latest changes.
“Good. Listen to me. I know what this sounds like, and I’ll explain it to you, but only in person. I’m sending the company jet up to Rochester. There’ll be a driver with an AgriMed ID at your door any minute now. Pack up anything you have at home related to what you’re working on and bring it with you to DC. The driver will help load it up.”
With his heart pounding, Juan glanced at the old and new printouts scattered throughout the apartment. Juan’s mind raced with a million questions. “Dr. Winslow, what is this all about? Are we in trouble for something?”
The line remained silent and Juan panicked, “Dr. Winslow?”
“No, Juan, nobody is in trouble. I’ll explain more in person. Don’t forget, don’t leave anything behind related to your work. You understand?”
“I understand.”
“Take a deep breath, everything is fine. Now go gather up your stuff. I’ll see you soon.”
The line went dead.
Juan stared at his phone. Why the hell was the FBI talking with Winslow? And why the rush to have Juan gather up his things? And take a private jet, with a driver?
He didn’t like this. At all.
The possibility dawned on him that maybe he was being set up for something. But what? Juan’s breathing grew more rapid and a chill raced up his spine.
He pocketed his phone, ran to his nightstand, and grabbed the only weapon he had: a four-inch folding knife. He shoved it in his front pants pocket.
A knock sounded on the front door, and a rough voice called, “Dr. Gutierrez, I’ve been sent to bring you to the airport.”