A Heartbeat Away - Michael Palmer [98]
“ ‘Dr. Rhodes, you should know that despite deceiving us, Ms. Fletcher acted with extreme bravery, and saved the life of Chen Su. I will never forget her.’
“Melvin, we’ve got to get a call to Lower Manhattan Hospital in New York.”
“I wouldn’t advise that,” Forbush said. “Assuming the man who was after Ms. Angie in New York was with Genesis, we’ve got to believe the leak to them was somewhere here in Kalvesta.”
“What should we do?”
“That depends.”
“On what?” Griff asked.
“On whether or not you have any friends in high places.”
“Allaire!”
“I believe we’re set up for secure communications with him. Why not go that route?”
“Put yourself in for a raise, Melvin. Listen, let me finish looking at this stuff from Sylvia, and then we’ll get ahold of Allaire and see if he can insert himself on Angie’s behalf—at least make sure she’s getting the best care from the best doctors.”
“Poor Sylvia. Mixed up with the wrong crowd and so desperate to succeed in her work. I wonder how she died. With all those people looking for her and none of them finding her, I sort of thought she might have fallen on hard times.”
“Hopefully Angie’s okay and can tell us what happened.”
Griff flipped to the next page in the stack. Chen’s lab reports followed a very consistent format, and Griff did not have to study the pages long to know that they were, in fact, written by her. But the contents of the reports were not associated with any experiments that he had ever seen.
The same title was printed on the upper right of every page.
The Certain Path
The test subjects, most likely monkeys, were each identified in a code Griff had never seen before. The reports, one sheet for each animal, included basic information about sex, cage number, viral dose, route of administration, and antiviral treatment, as well as the dates and times of each run.
Sylvia knew that Griff had drawn the line at her performing experiments on chimpanzees. But she also knew that he seldom set foot in the Hell’s Kitchen animal facility. Was it possible she had somehow managed to sneak some chimps into her lab? If so, why had she taken the results away from the Kitchen—especially when they did not seem to have been any more successful than the rest of her primate work? And how did she get the sheets of paper through the sterilizing showers and UV lights?
The questions gnawed at Griff.
The recorded results noted clinical signs, along with quantity of virus injected or given by inhalation. In every instance but one, speed of death was directly proportional to the size of the inoculum.
These could have been any number of Chen’s past lab reports. What made them so special? The answer to this and Griff’s other questions was on the final page. As he read them, he felt his blood turn to ice.
The test animals were identified not only by code, but by first initial and last name.
Griff grabbed a legal pad and wrote down the identifying code of each test subject, then the name. Beside each name, he wrote Sylvia’s recorded result.
DWM—1, S. Coughlin (M) Deceased
DBF—2, G. Anderson (F) Deceased
DBM—3, T. Geffman (M) Deceased
DWM—4, L. Warshalski (M) Deceased
DWM—5, M. Scheffer (M) Deceased
DWM—6, J. R. Davis (M)
Robotlike, he handed the page to Forbush, who scanned the names with the same disbelieving expression as Griff.
“This is terrible,” he said, with his characteristic lack of excessive emotion.
“If it’s true, Melvin, then it’s worse than that.”
“The certain path—the certain path to a cure, I guess. That’s what the title on each page must mean.”
Griff could only stare down at the report.
“I know Sylvia was desperate to keep the program going,” he said, “but I never would have dreamed she was this desperate.”
“No more monkeys,” Forbush said, with a shrug.
“No more monkeys,” Griff echoed. “She took the leap and somehow began experimenting on people.”
“And they all died.”
“Assuming she just neglected to mark that in next to J. R. Davis’s name, they all died.”
“Leaving us with one huge unanswered question.”
“Where could these subjects