True Evil

CHAPTER 36

Neville Byrd lay on the bed in his hotel room and stared openmouthed at the screen of his notebook computer. He was masturbating. Thanks to the scope he'd mounted on the Marriott's roof, he could watch Andrew Rusk's secretary lying spread-eagled on Rusk's desk, while the lawyer pounded her for all he was worth. This was light-years better than the pay-per-view porn flickering on his TV screen. This was real. And he was getting it all on videotape. He made a mental note to dub himself a copy for later whack use before he gave the original to Dr. Traver.

The secretary got off the desk, turned her back to Rusk, and leaned over the wood. Rusk took hold of her hips, went into her, and continued his attack. The guy must be angry at her, Neville thought, the way he was hammering her. Relentless, man. Neville had never fucked like that, personally. He wasn't sure he could. Rusk was one of those guys who worked out all the time, went surfing, mountain climbing, the works. Maybe all that shit paid off during sex. Because this was marathon stuff. Forty-five minutes without a break, not even a pause for water.

Then suddenly it was over. Rusk pulled out of her and walked out of the frame, leaving the secretary to mop herself up with Kleenex from the desk. Neville yanked for all he was worth and brought himself to a screaming climax before she could vanish, too.

Sure enough, the secretary soon limped out of the frame. Rusk reappeared, fully dressed again. He sat at his keyboard and checked his watch. Then he lifted his right hand and started working his mouse. A few clicks, and then he typed several strokes on his keyboard.

Neville checked his other computer, the one giving the readout from the laser rig. Then he began to laugh. Rusk had typed in pi to the ninth decimal place, a password Neville could appreciate. He recorded a few more seconds, then rewound the image and zoomed in on Rusk's monitor. He saw what looked like a black hole-or the event horizon surrounding one. Then this image was replaced by the gateway of a Web site he had seen yesterday: EX NIHILO.

"Boo-ya!" Neville shouted. He had pegged EX NIHILO yesterday, but he'd needed another day to confirm his suspicion. Now Andrew Rusk was entering a deeper level of the site, and typing another password to confirm his identity. This was the key to the mechanism that Rusk had created to protect himself. Neville was tempted to log into EX NIHILO himself and do a little scoping, but Traver had told him not to waste a moment. As he dialed the number the vet had given him, he was tempted to press for a higher fee. After all, he was holding the cards now. What did he have to lose? Traver was just a gray-bearded old veterinarian. But then again…he had known about the laser and the scope. Your average puppy doctor didn't know that kind of shit. Such knowledge pointed to something else. Something in the intelligence line, or even the military.

Nah, Neville thought. I'll take my money and boogie. After all, he's already paying double rates.

Eldon Tarver sat alone in his office at the University Medical Center, studying numbers on a stack of paper in front of him. His research assistant had given him the most recent data on the in vitro testing, and all it did was point up the inherent shortcomings of laboratory-based research. But only part of Dr. Tarver's mind was occupied with this problem. On a deeper level, he was working out his next move. He had received several false spams from Andrew Rusk, the "Viagra ads" that constituted their agreed signal for a meeting at the Annandale Golf Club. But Dr. Tarver had not gone to the club. Nor had he driven the forty-five miles to Chickamauga Hunting Camp, despite the aluminum foil glinting brightly from the sixteenth-floor window of the AmSouth tower since yesterday.

He chuckled at the idea of Andrew Rusk standing in the oppressive heat of Chickamauga, waiting for someone who would never arrive. Rusk was probably freaking out because he had pitched the new potential client he had boasted about. Rusk lived for money, for the status he believed it conferred on him, and he would do anything to get it. Even with the risk quotient rising daily, all he could think about was the next big score.

Dr. Tarver knew that score would never happen.

Their collaboration was over. Christopher Shepard's injection marked the end. Eldon would have liked to have another year or so, but there was no use crying about it. It was time to move on. He was already shutting down the primate lab. The dog-breeding facility he would sell; he'd had a buyer waiting in the wings for some time. Only one problem remained.

Rusk himself.

For five years now, Dr. Tarver and the lawyer had had an escape plan in place, one that would allow them to leave the United States and live in safety and relative luxury for the rest of their lives. The only problem with that plan-until recently-was that when it came right down to it, neither of them wanted to leave the United States. The heyday of nonextradition havens such as Costa Rica and Tenerife was long past. The diplomatic corps had been working like a busy little beehive to sew up every loophole that allowed tax evaders to flee to island paradises, and by so doing they had also closed the doors to criminals of other stripes. Andrew Rusk's Jimmy Buffett fantasy of frozen margaritas and willing senoritas had died a quick death as soon as they looked into it for real. Sure there were still places that wouldn't play ball with Uncle Sam-hellholes like Mali or Chad or Burundi. But if you wanted to commit lucrative crimes and get away in style, you had to be creative.

Using intelligence connections that dated back to the late 1960s, Dr. Tarver had worked out a one-of-a-kind deal for the two of them, a deal worthy of a greedy lawyer's fantasy. But not worthy of a dedicated scientist. Not anymore. Dr. Tarver's primary goal was not spending his accumulated funds in the most hedonistic way imaginable. He had ongoing research projects to maintain, and he preferred to remain in the United States to do that. After all, his in vivo subjects resided in the U.S. Moreover, five years of working with Andrew Rusk had convinced him that he never wanted to see the lawyer again. Rusk was an accident waiting to happen. Eldon could see him sitting at a bar with an umbrella drink in his hand, bragging to some expatriate real estate developer or record company exec about how he had saved the rich and famous millions by snuffing their wives. No thanks.

The irony was, Eldon had always had a choice of escape routes. There had always been countries ready and willing to pay him to work for them. Some of the offers had been quite tempting. The money was staggering, and as for government interference…forget it. The only problem with that scenario was that Eldon Tarver was a patriot. And the countries who wanted to pay for his services were simply the wrong ones.

Eldon remembered a time when the research climate in America had been supportive, a golden age when government and industry and the military had worked hand in hand. But now you had shrieking Ivy League brats throwing cans of red paint on scientists who might someday save their pathetic lives. It made him homicidally angry to think about it.

There were still a few people in the corridors of power who remembered how it used to be-and how it would be in the future. And the golden age would inevitably return, because war was eternal. Cyclical, maybe, but eternal. And real war, not shitty little "conflicts" like Iraq or Afghanistan. All-out war that put the holy motherland at risk, that amped up even heart-on-their-sleeve liberals until they were ready to bayonet any bastard who came over the wire. And when people got like that, the research climate got very favorable very fast.

Edward Biddle remembered the good old days, and not merely with nostalgia. Biddle worked tirelessly to prepare for the day when things went bad again. It had been Major Biddle when he worked with Dr. Tarver at the VCP. The major had been a liaison, of sorts, between the army, corporate America, and academia. He had eventually risen to the rank of general, long after the project was terminated, of course. After retirement Biddle had joined the TransGene Corporation, one of the many granddaughters of Bering Biomedical, the chief corporate beneficiary of the VCP, the project that had brought Tarver and Biddle together.

Five years they had worked side by side. Longer, if you counted the prep work and dismantling of the project. They had accomplished some miraculous things, too, despite the fact that the technology just wasn't there yet. They hadn't lacked for ideas. But so much of the technology they'd needed to bring the ideas to fruition had simply not yet been invented. Sequencing the human genome had been a pipe dream in 1969. Even in 1974, when the army got some real control in the project, successfully mapping the genome lay more than a quarter century in the future. Yet still…they had accomplished so much.

Dr. Tarver looked over at his Wall of Respect, where a picture of him and Biddle hung. Biddle was wearing his major's uniform, Tarver a white coat with VCP emblazoned on its breast. In the background stood one of the lab buildings at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The VCP had started as an academic project, but they had eventually moved everything to Detrick. It was the only place that could handle the risks.

There was a woman in the picture with them: a leggy blonde named Wyck. She had represented Bering at Detrick, unusual for a woman in those days. Degrees in microbiology and statistical analysis, no less. Eldon had lusted after her until he figured out that Biddle was banging her. Quite a shock at the time, he recalled. But understandable. Wyck was fascinated by power, and Biddle had it. A free rein, within certain limits. Wyck had possessed power of her own, and you could see that in the picture. Her eyes shone with confidence, and her face practically glowed with energy, with pleasure at being there in that place at that time, bookended by two men who wanted her in their beds.

Dr. Tarver started at the sound of his cell phone. He stared a few moments longer at the photo, one of many on the Wall, then looked down at the caller ID and answered, "Dr. Traver."

"It's Neville Byrd, Doctor."

"Yes?"

"I've got it, sir. I mean, I think I do."

"Got what?"

"The thing Rusk is doing to protect himself. Two days in a row, near the end of the day, he's logged on to this one Web site and entered a series of passwords. All at the same site."

Dr. Tarver's pulse quickened. "Did you record his keystrokes?"

"Yes, sir. Every one."

"Fax them to me."

"Are you at the fax number you gave me?"

"No. Take this down." Dr. Tarver read off the fax number of his university office. "Do you have that?"

"Yes, sir. I'll send the keystrokes through. But I can give you the site right now, if you want to check it out. It's called EX NIHILO. It's a Dutch site, and it exists solely to let people be anonymous on the Net."

"This sounds very promising."

"Yes, sir. And Dr. Traver?"

"Yes?"

"This guy Rusk is screwing his secretary's brains out."

"Is he?"

Neville's voice changed. "I thought you might want to know that."

"Thank you. Please send the data through."

"Coming up, sir."

Dr. Tarver chuckled as he hung up.

Ten seconds later he was staring at the black hole that welcomed visitors to the world of EX NIHILO. One click took him to a page that listed the company's available services. It was obvious that EX NIHILO could handle the kind of arrangement that Eldon suspected Rusk was paying them to handle. If the price was right, of course. Thirty seconds later, Neville Byrd's fax came through. Two pages of keystrokes: the keys to Andrew Rusk's life.

"My God," said Dr. Tarver, using Rusk's passwords to retrace the lawyer's digital footsteps. It was just as he had suspected. Each day Rusk would log on to the site and verify his existence by entering a sequence of passwords. If he failed to do this for ten consecutive days, EX NIHILO would forward the contents of a large digital file to the Mississippi State Police and to the FBI. Eldon tried to open the file, but the site refused to allow it. He cursed and tried again.

No dice.

He needed a separate password to open the file. Obviously Rusk had not accessed the file since creating it, which meant that Neville's laser system had been unable to record him opening it. Without the password, Eldon could not delete the file.

It doesn't matter, he told himself. As long as he logged on to EX NIHILO once a day-as Andrew Rusk-the system would not send out its destructive file, and he would remain safe. He could kill Andrew Rusk five minutes from now, and nothing would happen to him.

Eldon laughed. It started as a chuckle, then grew in his chest to a rolling, heaving barrel of laughter. EX NIHILO changed everything. By faxing him those passwords, an out-of-work software engineer named Neville Byrd had cut the thread holding the sword above his head. With those passwords in his possession, Eldon could write Andrew Rusk right out of his plans. Or, he thought with a unexpected thrill, I could rewrite them with a much different ending.

From the beginning, Eldon had demanded his fee in uncut diamonds. Rusk had groused at first, but he soon realized the wisdom of this system of payment. Unlike cash, rough diamonds were immune to both fire and water. They could be buried for years. If they had not been engraved with ID numbers in their source country, they could not be traced. Any cash deposit over $10,000 had to be reported to the IRS, but you could carry $10,000 worth of uncut diamonds in your mouth without detection, and more elsewhere in your body without discomfort. You could hold millions of dollars' worth in a safe-deposit box, but why risk it? You could bury them in your backyard and no one could ever deny you access to them with a judicial writ. Best of all, when it came time to move them, they looked like rocks. A box of rocks!

Eldon laughed again. He'd built up quite a rock collection over the past five years. Rusk had, too, albeit a smaller one. Rusk had taken his early payments in the form of inclusion in the business deals of his wealthy clients. He'd thought this was a brilliant stroke that could keep him on the legitimate side of the IRS. And he was right, to that extent. Rusk paid taxes on the earnings, and that kept the IRS off his back. It did not, however, make what he had done to earn those profits legal. And as the business connections multiplied, so accrued his traceable connections to a list of murders. And that, Eldon was almost sure, was what had brought Special Agent Alex Morse down on their backs.

Rusk had realized the error of his ways after a couple of years. He, too, had started taking his fee in uncut diamonds. Now and then he accepted a business deal as payment, as with the Fennell deal. But he had quite a box of rocks built up by now, as well. The only question was, where did he keep them? If Eldon could learn the answer to that question, he could make the transition to his next life as a much richer man. He would be a fool not to add Rusk's stash to his own if he could.

And I can, he thought with satisfaction. Rusk doesn't have the sand to hold out under duress. All that mountain climbing and skydiving and running marathons won't add up to five minutes of guts in the face of true pain.

It was time for drastic measures. It was time to call in his markers-all of them. And that meant Edward Biddle. Eldon hadn't spoken to Biddle in over two years, not since the TransGene man had delivered the gas canisters to him. Biddle seemed to feel that the less he knew, the safer he was. Still, the gas delivery had made one thing clear. Biddle was living up to his promise to "take care of my people." And "his people" were, of course, the former staff members of the VCP. Not everyone, but the dedicated few who had understood the true relationship between technology and life. Every scientific discovery was a two-edged sword. A scalpel could cut out a patient's tumor or slit his carotid artery. Morphine could extinguish pain or extinguish life. A viral infection could deliver lifesaving gene therapy or cause a global holocaust. It was the responsibility of some to discover and develop those potentialities; others would make decisions about how to use them. Eldon had always understood his place in this hierarchy, and Edward Biddle had valued him for that.

He flipped through the Rolodex on his desktop-he still preferred it to a computer-based organizer-and found Biddle's card. Edward Biddle, Vice President, TransGene Corporation. And below that: America Leading the World. Dr. Tarver loved them for that, for having the balls to put it right on the card in the so-called Age of Globalization. But TransGene could say it and dare anyone to gripe about it. Microbiology was one arena in which America had kept its competitive lead. Look at the Koreans and their cloning scam: Our cloning works better because we keep human beings in our labs to babysit the cells every night. Who did they think they were kidding with that warm-and-fuzzy bullshit? Sure enough, the truth had finally come out, as it always did in science. You could bluff for a while, but not forever. And therein lay the cruel beauty of science; there was nothing warm and fuzzy about it. Science was truth. And truth didn't care a fig for morality. Dr. Tarver dialed the number on Edward Biddle's card. It rang twice, and then a clipped voice accustomed to command answered.

"This is Biddle."

"This is Eldon Tarver, General."

An irony-laced laugh came down the line. "Hello, Doctor. What can I do for you?"

"It's time for me to relocate."

A brief pause. "Do you have a destination in mind?"

"I'd like to remain in-country."

"I see."

"I'm almost certain to require a new identity."

"I understand." Not a moment's hesitation. A good sign. "I know you've been doing research at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. I've been following that, off and on. It's interesting stuff, as far as it goes, but I can't help but feel you're not making full use of your talents there."

It was Tarver's turn to laugh. "The regulations on research are pretty claustrophobic these days. For that reason, I've been carrying out some private studies for some time. Five years, to be exact."

"Interesting. In what area?"

"Very similar to what we were doing at the VCP."

"Is that so?" Deep interest now.

"Yes, sir. You might say I picked up where we left off. Only this time, I had the equipment I needed."

"Very interesting."

"Yes, sir. And, ah, these are not in vitro experiments I'm talking about. These are in vivo studies."

"Primate studies?" Biddle asked.

"Higher primates, sir. Exclusively."

"I'm very intrigued, Eldon. I have a feeling your work might dovetail nicely with some things our more adventurous people have been doing at TransGene."

"Like-minded colleagues would be a nice change."

"I expect so. What sort of time frame do you have in mind for your relocation?"

"Two or three days, if possible. Maybe sooner."

A brief pause. "That's certainly possible. You and I should speak face-to-face. If I flew down in the next couple of days, could we meet?"

Eldon smiled with satisfaction. Biddle had taken the bait. Now he need only set the hook, and that he would do face-to-face. "Absolutely, sir."

"Good. I'll call you later."

"Thank you, sir."

"You, too, Eldon. It's good to be working with you again."

"You, too."

Dr. Tarver hung up, then logged into his anonymous e-mail account and sent Rusk a copy of their CHEAP VIAGRA! CHEAP! spam. In it, below the ad pitch, he inserted the line Satisfy the youngest CHICKs! The word chick in all caps meant that Rusk should meet him tomorrow at the Chickamauga Hunting Club rather than the Annandale Golf Club. It was Dr. Tarver's version of Reynolds Wrap in a window: his crisis code.

After logging out of the account, he removed Biddle's card from his Rolodex and put it in his pocket. Then he folded the faxed pages that Neville Byrd had sent him and slid them into the same pocket. His whole future in a single pocket. Only one threat to that future existed: Andrew Rusk. Without Rusk, Alex Morse could not connect Eldon Tarver to any crime. And by tomorrow night-if Biddle lived up to Eldon's expectations-Rusk would be dead, and his cache of diamonds would be part of Eldon Tarver's unreported-asset portfolio. Eldon stood and went into the hall, then locked his office and walked down the corridor to see the chief of Oncology.