“Yes. She ID’d him from a picture I pulled from the Montana DMV database. Not a great picture but she was sure.”
“How did Buchanan get from Montana to Richmond without you knowing about it? I thought you were monitoring the airlines, watching for his name to appear on a manifest.”
“We were and we are. I have no idea how he got to Virginia. The only plausible explanation is that he chartered a private jet.”
“That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?” Andrews said.
“Not really. The man is wealthy-the cost of hiring a Lear or a smaller Gulfstream would be well within his reach. It would give him anonymity and speed, either of which may have been important to him at the time.”
“Check it out. Find out how he got here. But get to Denver first and take care of that problem. Things are starting to come unglued, and I want to tie up loose ends before everything unravels.”
“Denver is not a problem. In fact, I’ll quite enjoy it.” The line clicked over to a dial tone.
Bruce Andrews sat back and smiled. Evan Ziegler had been a useful cog in the wheel for a while, but that usefulness was over. And since that was over, so was his life. Perhaps it was just morbid curiosity, but Andrews found himself wondering what method his associate would use to kill Ziegler. Certainly, a great deal of caution was necessary when dealing with someone as dangerous as Ziegler.
Killing the killer-what an excellent title for a book.
47
J. D. Rothery took the call on his cell phone as his driver turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue and approached the entrance to the White House. The caller was Tony Warner, and the NSA man had an update for him on the efforts of the big pharmaceutical companies in their quest to find an answer to the virus.
“Be quick, Tony,” J. D. said. “I’ve got about two minutes, then I’m on the hot seat in the Oval Office. For some reason, the president wants to hear the latest directly from me.”
“Okay, I’ll be fast. The news is not entirely bad. Three of the companies we got packages out to have had some success identifying the nucleic acid genome inside the capsid. One of the three has already isolated the envelope.”
“What’s an envelope?” J. D. said, scratching notes as the car pulled up to the main security gate. “I’m not a viral specialist, but I’ve got to know what this terminology means when I pass this information along to the president.”
“Some viruses are encapsulated with an envelope, which is a membrane of virus-encoded proteins, with either DNA or RNA genomes. Identifying these genomes is crucial to finding a drug that can penetrate the membrane.” “So how close is this company to finding a drug that might work against the virus?”
“No idea at this point, but the CEO is positive they’re on the right track. He thinks this virus is beatable, not like Ebola.”
“That’s excellent news, Tony. Which company is it?”
“GlasoKlan. I’ve been speaking directly with Eric Stallworth, the head of North American operations, and he thinks this is doable.”
The car passed through the security checkpoint and drove slowly along the winding drive toward the White House. “Call Stallworth and ask him to be near the phone in case the president wants to speak with him.”
“Okay. Here’s Stallworth’s number at the office.” Warner recited the number to the CEO’s direct line, which bypassed the automated voice mail that answered incoming calls.
“You said there were three companies having success with the virus. Which are the other two?”
“Marcon and Beringer Ingels. Both are major players in the pharmaceutical business.”
“I know who they are,” Rothery snapped, immediately wishing he could have the comment back.
“Anything else?” Warner asked, his voice cool.
“No, just keep me in the loop with their progress.”
“Good luck with the president.”
“Thanks. Stay next to your phone in case I need to patch the president through. He may want to speak with you directly for an update from NSA.”
“Okay,” Tony said, his voice back to normal. The line went dead.
J. D. Rothery exited the car clutching his leather attache case. He was ushered through security, joined by two serious-looking secret service agents, and whisked down the wide hallway toward the Oval Office. There was an urgency to their stride, and Rothery was pressed to keep up with them. He reached the outer door of the nation’s most hallowed sanctuary and stood quietly as they got clearance to enter. One of the
agents touched his earpiece, then turned to him and asked, “Are you ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Rothery said. How could you ever be ready to face the president with the news that a lethal, contagious virus was being unleashed on the nation by an unknown enemy? The door opened, and he followed the agents into the room.
48
Thursday.
Two days since he had left Jennifer Pearce teetering over the edge of a cliff in the Shenandoah Mountains. Two days with no contact from Bruce Andrews. Two days of sitting on a powder keg with one burning question that had yet to be answered.
Was Veritas really terminating its brain chip program?
Evan Ziegler had no idea if what the woman had told him was true. And he had no way of finding out, save calling Bruce Andrews and asking him. And that was not going to happen. He had searched the Internet, using every keyword he could think of, to see if there had been any press releases about Veritas phasing out the program. Nothing. The only proof he had that Andrews was using him was the word of a woman facing certain death. And he knew that when a person was placed in such a predicament, integrity went out the window. Even the most honest person would lie if she thought it might save her life. He knew this from firsthand experience. Not knowing the answer to that question was killing him.
On top of that, Evan Ziegler’s mind had been consumed with Jennifer Pearce’s fate over the last 120 hours. She had been drugged and asleep when he left the scene, and still alive. But her car had been perched precariously on the lip of the dropoff. And the result of the car going over was not in question- she would die. A sudden gust of wind, an updraft surging along the cliff face, a small animal running across the hood of the car-all were insignificant events that could cause the vehicle to slide slowly into the valley. Jennifer Pearce could not possibly survive such a crash.
There had been no word from Richmond since Wednesday morning, and he took the silence as an indication that she had not survived. If Jennifer Pearce was alive and Bruce Andrews had found out, all hell would be breaking loose. Andrews would have called on the private line with questions. Questions that would be difficult, if not impossible, to answer. But that had not happened. And as time progressed, he had to assume there was only one possible scenario.
Jennifer Pearce was dead.
But the other factor that was weighing on his mind was the sudden appearance of Gordon, whoever the hell that was. Some guy who had talked Kenga Bakcsi into providing him with information on that Triaxcion drug. What had he been doing at Pearce’s house early Sunday morning? Had he managed to find her before the car went over the cliff? And if so, why had he not heard from a pissed-off Bruce Andrews? Nothing was making sense.
And what had she said about both Albert Rousseau and Kenga Bakcsi being innocent victims? Had Bruce Andrews asked him to kill these people for other reasons? He’d been adamant that both Bakcsi and Rousseau were threats to the brain chip program. But Andrews could have been lying.
He glanced at the clock on his desk. Three-thirty. He shut down his computer and told his receptionist he was
