Chapter 45

The next day, Holley came by the house and picked up Olivia and the two of them headed for Sea-Tac airport for their flight back to Sydney. Everyone, especially Kiana, was sad to see Olivia go. If Kiana could have had her way Olivia would have stayed with them forever.

Regardless, she had little time to mourn Olivia’s departure for her phone buzzed and it was a text message from Beckman. “Report to my office immediately.” Michael and Christine had received the same message so they hopped in Michael’s car and headed for the USIA headquarters in Bellevue.

Thirty minutes later, they were sitting in Beckman’s office, as usual directly across the desk from her. She handed them a photo. It was of a man in his early to mid-sixties. He had a thick, gray beard and a head that was much too big for his body (to Kiana, it looked almost comical, as though he were some type of deranged comic book character). He wore a white laboratory coat and a badge that had his name printed on it.

“This is Dr. Charles Zander. He’s widely considered one of the world’s most talented and knowledgeable brain surgeons. At the same time, however, he is also one of the most unstable and dangerous men in the world.”

“Why do you say that?” Michael asked.

“For years, he was the lead on research teams that were studying Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Thanks to Zander’s research and theories, and his team’s experiments, cures for both were thought to be right around the corner. Unfortunately, however, there was an incident and Zander was never quite the same thereafter.”

“What kind of incident?” Kiana asked.

“As part of their research, Zander and his team had developed a serum, supposedly a potential cure of some sort, but apparently it had had inconsistent results and at times had shown some serious side effects. As such, Zander could not get clearance to begin human testing. Frustrated and impatient, he injected himself with it.”

“What happened?” Christine asked.

“Apparently, he changed dramatically. He became short-tempered, obsessive, paranoid at times, and even violent. After a few months the company he worked for transferred him to another project because his fellow team members refused to deal with him any further. At that point, however, his company still had faith in him since he had been such a prominent and promising scientist once. They wouldn’t allow him to continue his work on Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, but in an attempt to keep him from leaving and joining a rival company, they gave him the freedom to begin a new project. They were happy at first, for about a year, because, surprisingly, he seemed to embrace the idea and apparently dove headfirst into it. Unfortunately, however, they were finally forced to fire him when they discovered the true nature of his new project.”

They all waited anxiously for her to continue.

“Zander created a zombie.”

At first, Kiana almost laughed out loud. Was Beckman playing a joke on them? Kiana had only known her for a short time, and she had always seemed pretty serious, especially during briefings, so she doubted it, but at the same time she couldn’t be serious, could she? Zombies were fictitious creatures from books and movies. There was no way to create a real one. Was there?

Apparently, Christine had had the same reaction. “Excuse me? Did I hear you correctly? Did you say a zombie?”

“I did. No one knows how or why, but one day in his lab, Zander brought a cadaver back to life. The reports from his coworkers are inconsistent and cryptic, but they claim the corpse was fully animated for at least five minutes. During that time, however, it was extremely hostile and dangerous. It attacked and killed one of Zander’s assistants. When the shareholders at the company found out what Zander had done, and what he had been working on the whole time, they terminated him.”

“That’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever heard,” Christine said.

“Me, too,” Kiana said.

“I don’t know,” Michael said, turning to Christine. “That mission we went on a few years back, the one in Germany, that was pretty weird, too.”

Kiana raised an eyebrow. What in the world was he talking about? “Germany?”

“Christine and I were sent on a mission to investigate a scientist named Dieter Neumann who had developed a method of creating and cloning genetically enhanced soldiers. He had an entire laboratory filled with them, in these large, cylindrical tanks, and he intended to use them to conquer Europe. By doing so, he felt he could restore Germany to its proper ‘place of glory’ as the center of the world.”

“Freaky,” Kiana said. “What happened?”

“With the help of the German authorities we found the laboratory and destroyed it. But man those clones were weird. They all looked exactly alike. It was like looking at twins multiplied by a thousand.”

Beckman sat forward in her chair. “I, too, have encountered some strange things in my time. This one time, when I was on an assignment in Jamaica, I met a witch doctor who had voodoo dolls that actually worked. He’d light one on fire and your skin would start to get warm. I’ve never seen anything like it and I’ve never been able to explain it. It was really creepy.”

Kiana sat there in shock as she listened to their stories. She had never heard anything like them before.

“But anyway,” Beckman said, “getting back to the task at hand, the USIA has been concerned with Zander since he was fired due to the nature of his research and its possible implications, and we even contacted him to see if we could learn a little more about what he had done. As expected, he was uncooperative and defensive. And, much to our chagrin, he has now disappeared completely. As far as we can tell, no one has seen or heard from him for at least six months.”

“What do you want us to do?” Michael asked.

“Zander has several vacation homes in the US and Canada. One of them is in Whistler, British Columbia, and another is in San Diego. I want you to take a look at them and see if you can find anything that would tip us off to his current whereabouts. Start with the Whistler residence since it’s closer.”

“Do you have any reason to suspect any wrongdoing? Christine asked.

“Not really. And we may eventually learn he just went on an extended vacation and is sipping margaritas under a palm tree somewhere. But at the same time, I’d like to know just to be safe.”

“The San Diego residence,” Michael asked. “Wouldn’t it be easier to send someone from the LA branch?”

“I already checked with them. Like usual, they’re overloaded and have no available agents. And I don’t want to request they transfer someone from another project since I’m not really certain what we’re dealing with here. It may be nothing. As such, it’s better if we handle this one ourselves. I want you to depart for Whistler immediately and when you’re done there catch a flight from Vancouver International Airport to San Diego. Alyssa has already taken care of your tickets and they will be waiting for you at the airport. Report back to me as soon as you are done in Whistler, then again once you’ve arrived in San Diego. Understood?”

They nodded, hopped up, and headed out the door.