A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [85]
Chen’s only concession was to keep him employed and provide him a platform for proving or disproving his hypotheses.
Forbush entered the lab and set a box of pipettes on the counter by the stainless steel sink.
“After Sylvia vanished, the FBI wanted to take those notebooks,” he said. “Two guys who looked like Michael Douglas and Harvey Keitel searched her lab and office. They hated the biosuits and ended up knocking over just about everything that wasn’t screwed down. When I told them they couldn’t take anything out of here, they were really upset. They read the notes in Sylvia’s office, but I don’t think they got much out of them. How about you?”
“There are things here and there that might be useful, but I just don’t know if I want to study them. It makes me sick to have to relive that monkey disaster.”
“Now that you mention it, my friend, you really do look a little sick. Can you take a break?”
Griff rejected the suggestion, even though his stomach felt hollow and his body as though Novocain had been pumped in as a replacement for his blood.
“We’ve got to push ahead, Melvin,” he said, “at least for a few more hours. Then maybe I’ll take a short break.”
“Good idea. When you walk, you’re starting to look like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein.”
Arms out front, Forbush dramatized the remark.
“Thanks, Melvin,” Griff said. “You know, I’ve been wondering. What if Sylvia had the wrong animals?”
“How do you mean?”
“She tested on Rhesus monkeys, but never on chimpanzees, partly because she knew I would have drawn the line at that and left the project. Their immune system is closest to our own. I wonder now if that would have made a difference.”
“I can get the chimps,” Forbush said. “Just say the word. It may take a little while, though.”
The notion of working on chimpanzees soured Griff’s stomach. Even assuming Melvin could procure the animals reasonably quickly, Griff would have to abandon Orion to chase another path—one that could prove costly in terms of time, just to satisfy some SWAT—a Scientific Wild Ass Theory.
Would it be worth it?
CHAPTER 37
DAY 5
11:00 P.M. (EST)
The alley behind the Sechuan Hop smelled of rotting vegetables. Frozen towers of cardboard boxes, stacked taller than Angie stood, abutted two Dumpsters overflowing with garbage and refuse. Dense overcast and the buildings themselves obscured any moonlight, and steel fire escapes protruding from the buildings made the narrow passageway seem even more foreboding.
Angie pulled the red knit hat she had bought from a street vendor down over her ears to shield them from a biting wind. At precisely eleven o’clock, as instructed, she knocked three times on the cold steel of the restaurant’s alleyway entrance. On the second knock, the door budged. On the third, it swung open several inches, grating on rusted hinges. Angie took a cautious step inside and glanced about the basement, which was minimally lit from a source ahead and to her right. No one was there to greet her. She was unwilling to close the door any further.
“Sylvia?” Angie called out.
Nothing.
She was forced to clear her throat to speak again.
“Sylvia, are you here?”
But for the wind down the alley, the silence was absolute.
Floor-to-ceiling metal shelving, stocked with dried goods and restaurant supplies, created the feeling of claustrophobia that Angie had recently found so disturbing. Ahead of her, the shelves split to form three narrow aisles, two of which were dark. Angie took a tentative step down the center one, then another. Ahead, she could now make out a bare, low-wattage bulb, suspended on a short cord. A shaft of light from the bulb cast a long, distorted shadow across the cement floor. Angie’s heart was hammering now. She sensed another presence in the