A Heartbeat Away

CHAPTER 33

Angie’s odyssey from Denver was something of a nightmare. Engine problems delayed the flight for several hours, and then canceled it altogether. By the time she arrived in Midtown Manhattan it was nearly eleven in the morning. She used the time before her noon meeting with Sliplitz to buy some toiletries, makeup, a large Giants T-shirt, and a pair of yellow sweatpants, which she packed inside the carry-on she had borrowed from Melvin.

She slept in short bursts on the flight from Denver, awakening damp with perspiration from dreams reliving her clandestine departure from Kalvesta. The adventure began with a problem—Melvin reported that all vehicles leaving the compound were being inspected. After scouting the search procedure for more than an hour, he came up with a plan based, not surprisingly, on something he had seen in a movie.

The key was timing. In fact, she and Melvin practiced their maneuver half a dozen times in a secluded corner of the parking area. They were down to less than ten seconds beginning to end when she finally proclaimed they were as good as they were going to get.

First, Angie, holding an armload of blankets as an excuse in case someone stopped her, concealed herself against the wall of the bungalow closest to the main guard post. Melvin, positioned by the hood of his Taurus, waited for the trunk to be checked and closed, and then began coughing violently, and crying for help. Academy Award–worthy, he would later call his performance.

“My asthma!” Melvin called out, pounding on the hood. “I’m choking.… Inhaler … in glove compartment.… Help me!”

The soldier conducting the inspection set aside the mirror he had been using to examine the underside of the car, and raced to Melvin’s aid. At that moment, Angie moved quickly across the fifteen-foot space separating the bungalow from the rear end of the Taurus. Keeping low, she unlocked the trunk with Melvin’s spare key and opened the trunk eighteen inches. Then she shoved in the blankets and followed them through the small opening.

“Damn,” she murmured reverently, when she felt the car accelerate and realized that Melvin’s plan had worked.

Six miles in the trunk—that’s what Melvin told her it would be. Six short miles before he felt comfortable they would be clear of the facility and any patrols, and he could get her out and into the passenger seat. Despite being propped with pillows and the blankets, and having tested the space out, Angie felt the gnawing pangs of claustrophobia set in the moment she closed the trunk from the inside.

There had to have been a better way, she was thinking one moment.

I can do this, she was thinking the next.

Her discomfort would have been even more acute had she known that five minutes out, Forbush’s cell phone had lost any signal.

By the time they had passed what Angie felt had to be the six-mile mark, her dry-mouthed anxiety had mushroomed into an air-hungry panic. She began to hyperventilate. He forgot the deal! Melvin’s going to drive the whole way with me in here!

She tried calling him and then lit her flashlight, which had only a brief calming effect. Next she pounded on the trunk’s underside. Nothing. The car motored on, jarring her from side to side as her breathing grew even more rapid and shallow. At one point, they slammed in and out of a huge pothole, snapping her teeth through the inside of her cheek.

More time passed and she began imagining terrible things—being buried alive and smothered to death; being kidnapped, and even raped. When Forbush finally released her from the trunk, she learned that they had traveled less than two miles when they hit the huge pothole, nothing near the five miles she had guessed.

Never again, was all she could think as Forbush helped her to her feet and into the passenger seat. Never again.

Angie fought back the urge to call Griff. They had little doubt that nearly everything they did at the lab was being monitored. She shuddered at the notion of how compressed her world had become. The constant scrutiny, the airlocks, the elevator, the biohazard suit, the trunk. The claustrophobia of what had recently been a carefree existence in one of the most fascinating cities in the world had actually shaken her confidence. She expressed those feelings to Melvin, who did his best to be supportive. But there were obvious limits to the man’s ability for empathy. For now, she would have to gain strength from Griff’s final words to her.

I believe in you.

In contrast to the sleepy Garden City airport, the terminal at JFK was a near gridlock of travelers. Angie was jostled by several of them as she followed the signs to ground transportation. One of them, a lean and swarthy man wearing sunglasses, had been on the flight from Garden City to Denver, as well as on the flight from Denver to New York. He muttered an apology as he passed her, then hurried away, a cell phone pressed to his ear.

From a small television set embedded into the back of the cabby’s seat, Angie watched the latest Fox News report from the Capitol. The broadcast reporter was a sharply dressed woman in her late twenties, and behind her were hundreds of television cameras from other news outlets jockeying for the most eye-catching shot. Despite the reporter’s complete confidence in her story, Angie knew the information she was reporting was woefully inaccurate. Allaire’s PR machine had done a masterful job categorizing the virus threat as flulike and explaining the extensive security measures as precautionary only.

Angie turned the volume off, unwilling to listen to any more misinformation. She knew the truth—hell, she had the story of the century to report. All she had to do was direct the driver to any of a number of media outlets in New York, and in no time she’d be given her choice of plum jobs and probably a seven-figure book deal as well. But the country was at stake, and for the first time in her professional life, she opted for perpetuating a lie over printing the truth.

When she arrived at her Midtown destination, Angie paid the fare plus tip in cash. Genesis had found ways to frame Griff and to bypass the security system at the State of the Union Address. There was no reason at this point to underestimate their resources, creativity, or viciousness. It was hard to believe her credit card transactions were already being monitored, especially given that Genesis had no reason to know who she was or how she was involved with Kalvesta, but there was no sense in taking chances.

Angie had never lived in New York City, but she always felt at home there. Once on Broadway, she located Sliplitz’s number, and rang the buzzer to apartment 3E. Seconds later, she heard the intercom click on.

“Da?” said a man’s voice.

“Gottfried, it’s me.”

“Ah, zis gloomy day is suddenly brighter,” replied the heavy German accent.

Angie quickly opened the outside and inner doors, entering the dreary foyer before the buzzer shut off. She walked up to the third floor, carrying her small suitcase rather than bouncing its wheels against every stair. Her energy was returning—the fog that had slowed her down following the horrible ride from Kalvesta had lifted. She was back on the job. This was what she lived for. Her ADD personality was made for the frenetic, unpredictable world of reporting.

The man who answered the door to 3E was short, fat, bearded, balding, and, he had told her over the phone, recently divorced for the fourth time. Of all her professional contacts, Gottfried Sliplitz had proven to be one of the most useful. When they first met, Sliplitz was an analyst with the Health and Human Services Agency in Rockville, Maryland. Angie was researching a story about salmonella contamination at a local drug manufacturing plant, and Sliplitz was a source. Within minutes of her concluding their first interview, the affable German professed his love for her. To prove it, he falsified documents that gave her unprecedented access to plant employees and corporate records.

The story of greed gone bad and public safety ignored was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. It didn’t win, but she came close to winning a jail sentence for contempt of court, for not giving up her contact at the HHSA. She knew never to turn on a source—especially one like Gottfried Sliplitz. As a result of that code, she had come perilously close to jail for contempt on several other occasions as well. Now she needed the man’s help again. And with his adoration for her still in bloom, he was more than willing to oblige.

“You look vonderful, liebchen. Can you come in for a while?” Gottfried asked, his eyes begging the way a puppy might plead for a pat.

“Thanks for the offer, Gottfried, but I don’t have time. Were you able to get me what I need?”

“I am chief analyst for ze New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene,” Gottfried said. “Big step up from Rockville. Good money, too.”

“Strange name, though.”

“It could have been vurse. Ve are also responsible for dog licenses, developmental disabilities, und STD prevention, to name just a few.”

He extracted a manila envelope from a drawer and handed it to her. “With these papers, you are officially an investigator in our department.”

Angie kissed Sliplitz on the cheek and hugged him.

“You’re the best, Gottfried. I promise, soon as I can I’ll make it up to you.”

“On a date?”

She smiled at him.

“I’ve just started seeing a terrific man. Besides, I need to keep our relationship professional. Think of what could happen if we turned sour? I would lose a dear friend and an invaluable resource.”

“I’ll take ze risk.”

“But I won’t. Look, I have lots of friends I can hook you up with,” she promised. “Just not right now.”

“You break my heart.”

She kissed him again on the cheek.

“Luckily, you heal quickly. Between us, right? Nobody knows about this?”

“Between us,” Sliplitz confirmed.

Angie gave the man a final embrace before she departed. As she headed down the staircase she passed a man on his way up. He was wearing dark sunglasses, and grunted a greeting as he brushed past her.

Once on the street, Angie flagged another cab. As they pulled away, headed downtown, the driver of the Town Car parked behind them set his cell phone aside and followed.