A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [130]
Correction, Griff was thinking, you’re the bottom of the barrel. You and Sylvia Chen.
“So the brothers and sisters Dr. Chen worked on—they all died?”
Griff forced back a fresh surge of anger.
“They did.”
“How many of them were there altogether?”
“I don’t know. Six? Seven? Eight?”
Greed in action—financial and scientific.
Griff felt utterly repulsed.
“What did you do with the bodies?” he asked.
“We have a large furnace down another passage. Heats the whole building. We cremated the bodies in the furnace, then eventually discarded the ashes in a steel drum. I don’t know what Chen did with the drum.”
“Why are you telling me all this now?” Griff asked.
Tears streamed down Bartholomew’s flushed cheeks.
“Because I’ve been secretly praying that you’d come,” he said between heavy sobs. “I was too weak-willed to kill myself. Believe me, I’ve wanted to. And I’ve tried—more than once. So I prayed that somebody would find out the truth and come to free me from my sins. I guess that person is you.”
Griff detested and pitied the charlatan with equal vigor. His intentions may have been honorable at one time. His methods and his avarice, however, never were.
“According to my information, not all of the subjects involved in Chen’s experiments died.”
Bartholomew nodded.
“Oh, now that I think about it, that’s true. One of them escaped. I had given in to Chen and started coming down here and wearing those biocontainment suits, as you called them. I was inexperienced at working in those horrible things and didn’t set the lock properly on his cell. Chen blamed me for the mistake.”
“Why didn’t the guy turn you both in after he got out of here?” Griff asked.
“That wasn’t ol’ J.R.’s style. He looked out after J.R. and no one else. Besides, he was already wanted for robbing a convenience store someplace at gunpoint. The man had a heavy habit. I mean heavy. Habits like that need constant feeding.”
“What do the initials stand for?”
Bartholomew did not answer immediately. His cards were almost played out, and Griff could see him trying to calculate some sort of deal. Griff could no longer hold back his anger. He lunged at Bartholomew, seizing him by the front of his robe and slamming him backward against the stone wall.
“Tell me his name!” he rasped.
“Johnny … Johnny Ray Davis. He called himself J.R., though, like the guy from TV.”
Griff felt his pulse begin to race. The blank space beside the man’s name in Chen’s notebook was no accident. It was certainly possible that he had escaped before being exposed to the WRX virus. But then again …
“Do you know whether Chen ever gave J.R. the virus?” Griff demanded. Bartholomew hesitated and Griff slapped him across the face with all his strength. Then he lifted his hand to do it again. “My patience is gone, you fraud. Answer me!”
A trickle of blood had formed at the corner of Bartholomew’s mouth. Even in the dim light, Griff could see his handprint in scarlet on the man’s cheek.
“He … he was here for more than a week, so I suppose he got the virus. In fact, I’m sure he got it.”
“And he didn’t get sick?”
“Not so far as I know. He was well enough to pick the upstairs lock and then steal a bunch of stuff from my desk before he took off.”
“Jesus,” Griff whispered, his heartbeat now a jackhammer. “Do you know where he is?”
Bartholomew looked at him with feigned bravado.
“What’s in it for me?”
“Your life,” Griff snapped, fiercely grasping the man by the throat.
Bartholomew managed a nod of surrender, and Griff let up.
“He’s in prison. El Dorado Correctional Facility. Now ain’t that a kick. He escapes from this cell here, and winds up in El Dorado.”
“What’s he in there for?… I said, what’s he in there for?”
Griff could see the end of what resistance remained in the man.
“Murder. Double murder, in fact,” Bartholomew said. “Bastard’s there on death row.”
CHAPTER 58
DAY