“Okay, so what does this mean?” Knight asked.
“If they have a file on it, then it means that they’re either testing it, creating it, or trying to find a cure for it. Unfortunately, it’s all medical lingo and I don’t understand it.”
“Pull it up,” Hunter said, leaning forward in his chair as he stared at the screen. Becky pulled up the file, but I didn’t understand what any of it said. “It looks like they’re testing it. See right here,” he said, standing and walking over to the screen. “These are trials that they’re doing. It looks like testing is being done, but it doesn’t say what they’re testing it on.”
“Any idea what it is?”
He shrugged. “They don’t say. This is all just data on the trials, dosages and outcomes. It could be a vaccine for something or a cure for cancer for all we know.”
“And you think this is what the senator is interested in?” Knight asked Becky.
“I’m pretty damn sure. So, I checked the accounts that the senator used to make these donations and I tracked the dollar amounts. The same donation amounts are transferred into the funding budget for this section of the research lab. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the funding is for this particular thing, but it’s the only unknown in this section of the lab. I mean, there were a bunch of other funding transfers also, so who knows why exactly all that money was headed there.”
“How far back does the research date?” Knight asked.
“Um…about a year, maybe just over.”
“That fits the timeline,” Knight said, pulling out a file. He opened it and flipped through some papers, finally pulling one out. “This particular email is attached to the senator’s account. It’s very vague, but it states that the plan is ready and will go into effect next year, and it’s dated eleven months ago.”
“So, the senator is involved in something to do with the research lab and this…whatever this is…for what purpose?”
“It could be anything,” Cap said in frustration. “Maybe a gimmick for one of the candidates. They could say that they’re working with a lab to create a cure for cancer. Becky, does this research facility have anything to do with the bioengineering company that Jamie Hanson owns?”
“Who’s Jamie Hanson?” I asked curiously as Becky got back to work.
“He’s a client that we’ve worked with. He told Florrie, Alec, and Craig that he had bought this company because of the nanotech they were using in medical research. He said that they could eventually use this research to cure cancer and other diseases.”
“No connection,” Becky answered.
“Could you imagine how it would look to be running for President and to walk out, saying that you had partnered with a company that was making the latest advancements in curing diseases?” Cap asked.
“Or that you had a vaccine for HIV or AIDS?” Hunter added.
“Wait, I thought that they had treatment for those?” I asked.
“They have treatments, but no cures or vaccines. Same with Malaria or RSV. Cap’s right. People are looking for cures, and with big pharma charging more and more for drugs, something like this could be life-altering. If this research facility comes out with anything that could save millions of lives, the person connected with them stands to gain a lot of power.”
Knight scrubbed a hand over his face, shaking his head slightly. “I don’t like it.”
“Why? Because they would be doing something good?” Hunter asked.
“Because it seems too clean, and if I know anything about senators, they are never clean.”
“I think you might be letting your past interfere with your judgement on this one,” Cap said quietly. “I’m not seeing a smoking gun here.”
“Well, maybe this will help,” Becky said, pulling up another file. “This is a list of names. Now, it’s not attached to anything in particular. I found the file under this particular lab, but I can’t figure out why they have all these people listed. However, they also have all their vital statistics listed, along with known medical issues.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” I asked, confused why this would change our minds.
“Because when I found this list, but couldn’t find out what the names were associated with, I dug into each person, and guess what I found?” She paused for effect with a big grin. “Some of these people are listed as missing. Others are people that literally just dropped off the face of the earth.”
I stood and walked over to the screen on the wall so I could read all the information. “They’re not listed as missing?”
“Nope,” Becky grinned. “They just don’t have family or friends that seem to care. I can’t find current employment or even an address for any of them. They’re just gone.”
Cap sighed and ran a hand over his jaw. “God, this sounds an awful lot like that trafficking ring.”
“But why would a trafficking ring have anything to do with a testing facility?” Hunter questioned.
Knight pulled something out of a file folder and tossed it across the table to him. “Maybe it has something to do with this.”
“What is this?” Parker asked, picking up the paper. The rest of us crowded around him, trying to read what was written.
“That is a paper that I found among the senator’s things in his safe. The senator had all this blackmail information in his safe, along with that paper. And the only thing people use as blackmail is something that can hurt another person. I couldn’t figure out what it was.”
“This is a list of testing results. It doesn’t give names though.”
“What does this mean?” I asked, pointing to the different columns.
“This one is symptoms that developed. This one is how long the patient lived. This one is date of death,” Hunter said, studying the paper.
“What are we looking at?” Cap asked. “Human trials?”
“It appears that way. Becky, are there any trials that would line up with anything like this?”
“I can sort through the database again, but anything they were trialing is also
