“I went by the lab about seven-fifteen,” Kurt said on the way to his Chrysler Cherokee. “Everything was quiet. So I think you’ve beaten them if they are planning on coming at all.”
“Let’s go directly to the lab,” Sterling said. “I’d like to be there if and when Mr. Murphy breaks in. Then we could do more than merely deliver him to the police.”
“THIS SHOULD work,” Sean said. He had his eyes tightly closed while he fiddled with the two ballpoint pen refills. He’d bent the end of one to a right angle to serve as a tension bar.
“What exactly are you doing in there?” Janet asked.
“I told you back at Forbes,” Sean said. “When we were trying to get in the chart vault. It’s called raking the pins. There are five of the little guys in there keeping the cylinder from turning. Ah, there we go.” The lock opened with a click. The door swung in.
Sean entered first. Since there were no windows, the interior was as dark as a moonless night, save for the light that spread up through the stairwell. Groping on the wall to the left of the door, Sean’s hand hit against a panel of switches. He flipped them all on at once and the entire ceiling lit up in a wink.
“Well, look at this!” Sean said in utter amazement. Here was the lab he’d expected to see at the Forbes Cancer Center research building. It was enormous, encompassing the entire floor. It was also very white, with its white floor tiles, white cabinets, and white walls.
Slowly Sean walked down the center aisle, appreciating the equipment. “Everything is brand new,” he said admiringly. He put his hand on a desktop machine. “And strictly top notch. This is an automated southern blotting instrument. It runs at least twelve thousand dollars. And here is the latest chemiluminescence spectrophotometer. It’s a cool twenty-three. And over there is a high phase liquid chromatography unit. That’s around twenty grand. And here’s an automatic cell sorter. That’s at least one hundred and fifty thousand. And my God!”
Sean stopped in awe in front of a peculiar egg-shaped apparatus. “Don’t let your credit card get near to this big guy,” he said. “It’s a nuclear magnetic resonator. You have any idea what this baby costs?”
Janet shook her head.
“Try half a million dollars,” Sean said. “And if they have that, it means they have an X-ray defractor as well.”
Walking on, Sean came to a glass-enclosed area. Inside he could see a Type III maximum containment hood as well as banks and banks of tissue culture incubators. Sean tried the glass door. It opened out, so he had to work against the suction holding it closed. In order to prevent the escape of any organisms, the pressure inside the viral lab was kept lower than the rest of the laboratory.
Stepping into the maximum containment area, Sean motioned for Janet to stay where she was. First he went to a floor freezer and opened its hood. The temperature on an internal gauge stood at minus seventy degrees Fahrenheit. Nestled inside the freezer were multiple racks containing small vials. Each vial contained a frozen viral culture.
Closing the freezer, Sean glanced in some of the tissue culture incubators. They were being kept at ninety- eight point six degrees Fahrenheit, mimicking the normal internal temperature of a human being.
Moving on to the desk, Sean picked up some electron photomicrographs of isometric viruses as well as accompanying engineering-style drawings of the viral capsids. The drawings were done to study the icosahedral symmetry of the viral shells and included actual measurement of the capsomeres. Sean noted that the viral particle had an overall diameter of 43 nanometers.
Leaving the maximum containment area, Sean proceeded into an area in which he felt very much at home. A whole section of the lab seemed dedicated to oncogene study, just what Sean was doing back in Boston. The difference, however, was that in this lab the equipment was all brand new. Sean longingly looked at shelf upon shelf of appropriate reagents for the isolation of oncogenes and their products, the oncoproteins.
“This place is state of the art in every regard,” he said. In the oncogene section there were additional tissue culture incubators the size of thousand-bottle wine coolers. He opened the door of one and glanced at the cell lines. “This is a place I could work,” he said, closing the incubator.
“Is this what you expected?” Janet asked. She’d followed behind like a puppy except when he went into the maximum containment area.
“More than I expected,” Sean said. “This must be where Levy works. I’d guess that most of this equipment has come from the off-limits area of the sixth floor of the Forbes research building.”
“What is all this telling you?” Janet asked.
“It’s telling me I need a few hours in the lab back at Forbes,” Sean said. “I believe . . .”
Sean didn’t get to finish. The sounds of voices and footsteps were heard coming up the stairway. Janet put a hand over her mouth in panic. Sean grabbed her, his eyes desperately sweeping that area of the lab for a place to hide. There was no escape.
11
“Here they are!” Wayne Edwards announced. He’d just pulled open a stout metal door to a small storage closet near the glass-enclosed maximum containment lab.
Sean and Janet blinked with the sudden intrusion of light.
Sterling stepped toward Wayne’s discovery. Kurt was at his side.
“They may not look like fugitives or agents provocateurs,” Sterling said. “Though of course we know the truth.”
“Out of the closet!” Wayne commanded.
A subdued and remorseful Janet and a defiant Sean stepped out into the bright light.
“You people should not have left the airport last night,” Sterling scolded. “And to think of the effort we’d expended on your behalf to thwart your abduction. Some gratitude. I’m curious to know if you’re aware of how much trouble you’ve caused.”
“How much trouble I
“Ah, Dr. Mason mentioned you were brash,” Sterling said. “Well, we’ll allow you to vent your impertinence on the Key West police. They can do battle with their Miami counterparts as to jurisdiction of your case now that you’ve committed a felony here as well.”
Sterling picked up a phone in preparation to dial.
Sean pulled the long-dormant gun from his jacket pocket and pointed it at him. “Put the phone down,” he commanded.
Janet sucked in her breath at the sight of the gun in Sean’s hand.
“Sean!” she cried. “No!”
“Shut up,” Sean snapped. The threesome surrounding him in a wide arc made him nervous. The last thing he wanted to do was let Janet give them an opportunity to overpower him.
As Sterling replaced the receiver, Sean motioned for the three men to group together.
“This is extremely foolish behavior,” Sterling commented. “Breaking and entering in the possession of a deadly weapon is a far more serious crime than mere breaking and entering.”
“Into the closet!” Sean commanded, motioning toward the space he and Janet had just vacated.
“Sean, this is going too far!” Janet said. She stepped up to Sean.
“Get out of my way!” Sean snarled. He shoved her roughly to the side.
Already dismayed at the appearance of the gun, Janet was doubly shocked at the sudden change in Sean’s personality. The cruel and vicious sound of his voice and the expression on his face cowed her.
Sean succeeded in herding the three men into the narrow closet. He quickly closed and locked the door behind them. Pocketing the gun, he moved some sizable furniture against the door, including a heavy five-drawer file cabinet.
Satisfied, he grabbed Janet’s hand and started toward the exit. Janet tried to hold back. They got halfway to the stairway when she managed to pull free.
