“How do you do, Mr.…?”
“Bortman,” he said. “I’m the CEO here at Xenexgen.”
I looked over Bortman’s shoulder at the security guy behind the desk. He shrugged and nodded.
“Unusual for a CEO to respond in person to a request for information,” I said.
Bortman smiled again, weirdly. “We take our support for law enforcement very seriously. So what can we do for you?”
“We’re looking into the disappearance of a young woman named Melissa Brant and a young man named Moose Scott.”
He paused, as if thinking about it, then shook his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know them. Are they employees here?”
“No, but they recently discovered a plant growing in this area that seemed to match some of the genetic characteristics of your Clean Sweep soil remediation microbes.”
Bortman let out a hiccup that was probably intended to be a laugh. “As you said, Clean Sweep is a microbe, not a plant.”
Carrick said, “So you’re not developing green plants with similar characteristics?”
Bortman shook his head.
“Any chance the gene splice could have jumped species?” Carrick said.
Bortman hiccuped again. “No, but we’d be happy to look at a sample, if you have one.”
“We don’t, unfortunately,” I said, handing him a card. “If you have any other thoughts, please let us know.”
Bortman did his smilelike thing and said, “Certainly.” He palmed the card and slipped it into his pocket, reminding me of one of those old-fashioned toy banks with the hand that comes out and swipes the coin.
As we turned to go, Carrick pointed at the stacks against the wall. “What’s with the boxes? Are you moving?”
“Minor restructuring.”
* * *
Back in the car, Carrick said, “That was one strange little man.”
I nodded. “Seriously strange.”
My phone buzzed. It was Bug. I put him on speaker. “What have you got for us?”
“First, that Tapazole is heavy-duty stuff, used to treat hyperthyroidism. Missing a dose can be extremely dangerous. Second, we just monitored two bursts of transmissions from Xenexgen, both seriously encrypted, one routed back to Oslo, and one to a cell phone a few miles away from you. The coordinates don’t match anything on file, but I’ll send them to you.”
Carrick watched as I opened the coordinates in my GPS. The map revealed a solid expanse of green.
“Zoom out,” he said, and when I did, Schoolhouse Road appeared to the south.
“That’s it,” Carrick said. “That’s where Moose found the tiger cress.”
I pressed the navigate button and Carrick turned the car around.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, we were stumbling through the woods, holding out our phones. Me with my GPS, Carrick with a compass app.
“This looks familiar,” he said.
“GPS says we should be almost there.”
He pointed at a rocky incline twenty feet high. “Right over there.”
As we climbed up, I smelled something different from the rest of the woods, but it wasn’t weird or chemical or alien. It smelled natural. When we reached the top, I recognized the smell of soil. Exposed earth.
Below us, the entire valley was stripped clean, scoured of vegetation. It wasn’t level, as if it were ready for builders, it was just a raw, open wound.
Carrick said, “Huh,” as he tramped down into the middle of the glen and turned in a slow circle.
“Not how you remembered?” I called down to him.
He shook his head. “Weird. There’s no sign of heavy equipment.”
“You’re sure it’s the same place?”
He nodded, then something caught his eye, a little scrap of white and blue in the middle of all that brown. He picked it up and looked at it, recoiling as he sniffed it.
“What is it?” I asked, coming over to where he was.
He held up a scrap of white plastic with the blue Xenexgen logo. “Clean Sweep,” he said, holding it up in front of my face.
I caught a faint whiff of that strange mixture of sulfur and menthol.
Just then my phone buzzed. “Bug. What have you got?”
“Shit’s going down.”
“Talk to us,” I said, putting him on speaker.
“I’m breaking into Xenexgen’s files and they’re being wiped clean even as I’m doing it. The place is bustling, too. Lots of data coming in and out, ever since you guys left. We got satellite thermal scans. I’ll send you one. But here’s the thing, people are scrambling all over the place, all except for two figures lying horizontal in a room on the third floor and two other figures standing outside the room, like they’re guarding it. I think your friends might be in there, and it looks like whoever is keeping them there is packing up and getting ready to go.”
By the time the scan came through, we were already crashing through the woods so fast, I was worried one of us would break a leg or get impaled on a broken branch. Miraculously, we burst out of the woods right next to the car, unharmed.
Carrick pulled the car in a tight, loud circle, and we sped back toward Xenexgen.
Almost immediately, Bug called back. I put him on speaker.
“Xenexgen just closed down their operations in Oslo,” he said. “Today. Announced the sale of their assets to a German chemical company, and the transfer of their patents to a trust in the Cayman Islands.”
Carrick whistled.
“Anything else?” I said.
“I’m working on it. I’ll call you when I get anything.”
“If I don’t answer, text.”
“Got it.”
“Do we have anyone in a fifty-mile radius?”
“I’m in Trenton.”
I was quiet. Bug was a badass with a computer, but not so much in the conventional sense.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I hear you. I can assemble a team, but they won’t be our guys.”
“Do it.”
“Probably take them a half hour.”
“Then tell them to bring bail money and Band-Aids.”
I thumbed off the phone and Carrick said, “Jesus, big day at Xenexgen. What’s that about?”
“Let’s find out.”
* * *
Even in the bright sunshine the Xenexgen compound looked dark. Armed guards patrolled the lawn, and Carrick eased up on the accelerator so we could get a look at them. The place disappeared behind a bend in the road and Carrick pulled off the road, rumbling thirty feet down a slight incline.
As we came to a stop, I turned to him. “You’re armed, right?”
He nodded. “One on my hip and one on my ankle. Are we here to ask questions or are we just going in to get our friends?”
I shrugged. “What did you think of the answers we got last time?”
“Point taken.” He rubbed his chin, an expression on his face as if he were chewing something awful that was going to be even worse to swallow. “We sure we don’t want to involve local law enforcement?”
“Do you even know what jurisdiction we’re in?” I could have asked Bug and found out in three seconds, but that wasn’t the point. I did not want to involve local law enforcement. “Technically, Melissa and Moose are still hours away from being officially designated missing persons.”
He nodded, looking relieved. “No, I hear you. I’m trying to make it a habit to at least ask. Nice to hear someone else saying it.”
“You want to wait for backup?”
Carrick shook his head. “I hate waiting.” He paused. “I’m not really crazy about backup, either, but…”
My phone buzzed again with an updated thermal scan, recent enough that it showed our car parked off the road. “There’s seven guards out front plus two in the back,” I said, counting. “Another dozen inside the main building.”
Carrick pointed at one of the two horizontal figures. “This one’s suddenly brighter than the others.”
He was right.
Melissa’s phone buzzed in my pocket and I took it out. Another medication reminder, only this one said, URGENT WARNING: FAILURE TO TAKE TAPAZOLE AS DIRECTED MAY RESULT IN SERIOUS COMPLICATIONS INCLUDING DEATH.
“Jesus,” Carrick said, squinting over at the Xenexgen complex, as if he were trying to see if they were in there.
I called Dr. Rudy Sanchez, chief medical officer at DMS and my best friend.
“Hey, Joe—”
I cut him off. “Sorry, Rudy. Urgent medical question: What are the symptoms if someone taking Tapazole misses a couple of doses?”
“Um…” He thought for a second. “Let’s see, that’s hyperthyroidism, very dangerous. There’s a high fever—”
“Great. Thanks. Gotta go.” I ended the call and pointed at the bright figure on the thermal scan. “That’s Melissa Brand,” I told Carrick. “She’s lighting up because of a fever. She’s in danger and we need to get her out.”
He nodded. “Let’s go.”
We checked our weapons, then got out and slipped through the woods.
From the tree line, the glass façade lay to our right, across forty yards of rolling lawn. To our left was a sprawl of industrial buildings, warehouses, and cargo containers. As we watched, a door at the rear of the main building opened and two guards with rifles emerged. They walked around to the front while the heavy, reinforced door closed slowly behind them. It took forever, especially the last six inches.
When it finally clicked shut, Carrick said, “Nine seconds.”
“Are you fast?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “If I’m motivated. You’re thinking next time we try to catch it before it closes?”
“Without getting shot, yeah.”
“Right. Without getting shot.” He eyed the door, then the two guards disappearing around the front of the complex. “Yeah, I’m fast.”
We hunkered down, waiting.
Thirty seconds later, Carrick tapped my arm and pointed to two guards approaching from the left.
We watched as they opened the door and slipped inside, then we dashed across the grass. I was reaching for the edge of the slowly closing door when it swung out toward us. Two new guards were coming toward us, speaking in Swedish or Norwegian. They had the same saggy skin and drooping eyes as Bortman. I didn’t have time to think about it because they raised their guns and we went in punching. They were bigger up close, but surprisingly fragile. I planted a right on my guy’s chin and he dropped before I could follow up.
Same thing with Carrick—a thunderous right to the other guy’s nose and he was down.
We exchanged a shrug, then dragged them inside, catching our breath as the door slowly closed. The latest scan showed the room next to us empty. We dragged the guards inside, cuffed them to a radiator, and took their ID cards and rifles.
As we headed to the stairway thirty feet away, we heard voices approaching, that same lilting Norswitzdenavian or whatever. We slipped through the door and into the stairwell, hugging the wall behind the door, in case they were headed our way.
They were. The door swung open and two huge Norswitzdenavians came through, looking just like the others. They raised their rifles, but we were already on them: one to shut them up, one to knock them back, then they were crumpled on the floor, leaving us with that weird feeling that we should still be fighting.
A flicker of doubt ran through my mind. They had big guns and they were quick to point them, but maybe they were glorified suburban office park security staff instead of paramilitary goons. Maybe Moose and Melissa weren’t here and nothing nefarious was going on.
That’s what was going through my mind as we rounded the steps and another one entered the stairwell.
“Police!” I said, holding up my DMS badge.
For an instant we all froze, Carrick behind me, the guard six steps up from us, staring down with a blank expression. In a flash, he raised his rifle in an arc headed right up my middle.
I heard two explosions, almost simultaneous, one behind me and one in front, excruciatingly loud in the cinder-block stairway.
Firing around my head, Carrick managed to clip the guard’s shoulder. The rifle went off as he fell, peppering us with hot concrete chips as the bullet slammed into the steps.
I grabbed the rifle before he hit the ground and Carrick patted him down for other weapons, then he stopped and put a hand on the guard’s neck. He looked up at me, bewildered. “He’s dead.…”
I felt the guy’s wrist. Nothing.
It didn’t make sense. Not in the “killing is senseless” way, although maybe that was true. But shooting around me, Carrick had barely tagged the guy. He should be rolling around in pain and calling us assholes.
Carrick shook his head. “He shouldn’t be dead.”
He was right. But we didn’t have time to discuss it. I clapped my hand on Carrick’s shoulder. “Maybe he hit his head or had a heart attack. Who knows? But he was pointing that thing at me, so thanks. Now, we’ve got to get Moose and Melinda and get out of here.”
He nodded and we continued up the steps, pausing at the top while I peered through the door. The scan showed Moose and Melissa—if that’s who it was—in a room with two guards down the corridor to the left of the one I was looking out onto.
As we crept toward the next corridor, Carrick tapped my elbow and motioned that he would go low. I nodded, and took out my badge and held it with my gun. Carrick counted down with his fingers—three, two, one—then I stepped out from behind the wall as Carrick slid across the floor with his gun two-handed in front of him.
“Police!” I said. “Don’t move!”
For an awkward moment, they didn’t. There were two of them in front of the door, staring at us out of faces remarkably similar to the others. I felt bad for Carrick, down on the floor, ready for action that it seemed wasn’t going to happen.
Then, without a word or a glance at each other, they raised their guns at us. “Don’t Move!” I thundered, but they did. And we shot them.
When someone’s ready to shoot a clearly identified cop, you don’t mess around.
Carrick rolled to his feet and we approached them fast but cautious. They were already dead.
“What the hell?” Carrick asked. “Are they even human?”
I was thinking the same thing. It gave me the creeps, but there wasn’t time to discuss it.
The door was unlocked. We burst through it, Carrick first, me covering, ready to shoot the first easy-to-kill whatever-they-were that made a move. But the room was empty except for two sofas, Melissa on one, Moose on the other, just waking up.
Moose looked disoriented but otherwise fine. Melissa was flushed red and shivering, her hair plastered to her face with sweat.
“Joe…?” she said. “What’s going on?”
“Doyle?” Moose said. “What the hell?”
They seemed relieved to see us, but increasingly alarmed, especially when they saw our weapons.
“We’re not sure,” I told them. “Are you okay?”
“Where are we?” Melissa asked. She seemed about to swoon, then her eyes went wide and she hugged herself. “What time is it?”
“It’s two in the afternoon,” Carrick told them. “You’re at Xenexgen headquarters. How did you get here?”
Moose shook his head and said, “I have no idea.”
At the same time, Melissa said, “Two PM?! No wonder I feel like crap. I need my medicine.”
“We have it right here,” I told her, and shook a pill out of the bottle.
She dry swallowed it and said, “I think I need a doctor.”
“Sure thing,” I said. “But first we need to get you out of here.” I squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “There’s been some violence outside. People have been killed.” Her eyes went wide. So did Moose’s. “We had to fight our way to get you, and we’re probably going to have to fight our way out. So you’ve got to keep it together and try to keep up, okay?”
Carrick tried
to give Moose his backup piece, but he didn’t try too hard, as though maybe they’d had this conversation before. Melissa was in no shape to handle one, even if she wanted to.
“Okay,” I said, “you two just stay behind us.” I told them the route we’d be taking. “Stay close and be ready to run like hell when we do.”
Moose put his arm under Melissa’s to steady her. But when I opened the door, there was no sign of the two dead guards, no blood on the floor, nothing. Carrick and I stopped so abruptly that Moose and Melissa stumbled into us from behind.
“What is it?” Moose whispered loudly.
Carrick and I looked at each other, but I didn’t have any answers and apparently neither did he.
He turned to Moose and put a finger to his lips. As good a response as any.
We walked around the spot where the two dead guards had been, then crept along the opposite side. Carrick took the lead. He didn’t bother taking out his badge. We were done with that for now.
The next hallway was clear and so was the stairway. No bodies, no blood, just a divot in one of the steps and a sprinkling of concrete chips that ground under our feet.
Melissa seemed oblivious, just trying to keep up, but Moose studied the looks passing between Carrick and me. We kept moving because we had to, but frankly I would have liked to stop right there and talk it out.
The first floor was empty, too. I was mostly relieved, but something weird was going on and it was getting weirder. Carrick slowed, so I took the lead. The exit was twenty feet away. The car sixty yards farther. I just wanted to get us the hell out of there. But as I was about to open the door, I heard another door open behind me. I looked back to see Carrick checking the room where we had cuffed the first two guards.
He shook his head—it was empty—then joined us at the exit.
Just then my phone let out a long buzz, startling me, a string of texts from Bug, as if service had been cut off and now it was back. The texts asked what was going on, then were we okay, then said backup was on its way. The last one was another thermal scan, showing just four figures—us—approaching the back door. No one else was in the building. No one was patrolling the lawn. The accompanying text said, Is that you? What’s going on in there?