Heroes In Uniform (109 page)

The medical information in Caterina's file was therefore clear. Coupled with the information he had gathered on the good doctors Edwards and Wells, he once again tried to imagine the real life results which would occur from the last statement in her medical history.

Patient . . . uncontrollable seizures . . . episodes of rage . . . full expression . . ., he repeated to himself before turning to the notes he had made from her medical history and his own research.

Apparently, Edwards and Wells had been able to identify beneficial gene sequences in nearly half a dozen creatures. Using modern cloning techniques, they had isolated those sequences and replicated them in sufficient quantities to be able to combine them with viral carriers.

Although the idea of intentionally letting a live virus loose in someone's body made him nervous, apparently it was a common practice. Once those altered viruses were injected into the subject, the natural viral process took over, replicating and insinuating the DNA into the subject's genes.

As Mick reviewed his scribbling by the light of the street lamp, he realized that Edwards and Wells also appeared to have found a way to not only target where the recombination occurred, but to control the replication process and expression of the implanted gene sequence.

Or at least they thought they had learned to control the replication and expression.

The seizures from which Caterina had supposedly been suffering together with the weird activity caused by the gene clearly meant their control wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

If that entry in her medical history was even true. The entry could be the start of the groundwork for framing Caterina for Wells’ murder.

He put aside his pad and leaned back against the stone balustrade which surrounded the center of the square and formed a back rest of sorts for the nearby cement bench. He laced his fingers behind his head while he imagined what kinds of behavior the foreign genes might cause as well as how desperate someone might need to be to try such a risky procedure.

Once again it occurred to him that he would have chosen to blow out his brains, but . . .

He surged forward and pulled out Caterina's photo from his jacket pocket. Ran the pads of his fingers across the glossy surface, intrigued not only by her beauty, but also by her tenacity.

Such strength.

Passion.

Intelligence.

Hard traits to resist
, he thought until he remembered the check he had folded and slipped into his wallet.

Quite a lot of money.

Enough to make him set for a couple of years and help out his family. Maybe even enough allow him to leave this nasty life for another one. Possibly even an honorable one with simpler demands and easier decisions to make.

He risked another glimpse at Caterina’s photo. It was a damn shame that the sole decision he would have to make about her was whether to take her in dead or alive.

* * *

With the light of a full moon guiding her, Caterina moved from the safety of the Pine Barrens and slipped through an unlocked door into one of the buildings along the edges of Camden.

Inside she kept close to the outside wall, plastering herself to its rough cinder block. When she heard a sound, she paused and held her breath.

Someone was coming her way. The footsteps were soft, regular as a metronome as the person approached.

A night watchman?

A flashlight beam swung back and forth, back and forth in a determined arc. Swept across the unlocked door and then in her direction. For one heart-pounding moment, the light tracked across her midsection, but then moved on.

Why hadn’t the guard seen me?

The light had been directly on her. She glanced down at her stomach, recalling where the light had hit her body.

Grey mottled with specks of black had blossomed across not only her midsection, but all of her torso, making her nearly invisible against the cinder block wall.

Wrong.

I am so so wrong
, she thought again.

She raised her hand and stared at it. She couldn't understand the color of her skin any more now than she could the earlier forest hues which had covered her flesh.

She focused on her hand until slowly, the mottled color faded away leaving behind the tones of normal human skin. But almost immediately after that, the odd vibrant colors from the night before reappeared, painting everything around her with a bold impressionistic brush.

She didn't understand the colors.

On her skin.

In her vision.

They weren't right. I'm not right
, she remembered.

She was sick. Only a sick person would hurt . . .

The memories pounded at her brain again, creating a crater of pain in the center of her skull.

So much blood on the floor and walls.

All over her and the pieces of Dr. Wells.

Soft wet pieces beneath her fingers.

Control
, she urged and leaned back against the wall to stabilize herself. Her fingertips sank into the cinder block, grounding her as she tried to focus.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

She repeated the word like a mantra until the reminders of blood and death receded, replaced by scattered recollections of people and pictures and music.

Music
, she thought, imagining the black and white of notes on the page. The rough bite of metal strings beneath her fingers. Smooth wood and cold varnish.

I love music
, she recalled and with that came the picture of a building in her mind's eye.

A building filled with welcome.

She had to get to that structure.

The music would be there. Music and happiness.

Retracting her fingers from the cinder block, she carefully kept to the outside wall, following it around the edge of the building until she came to some lockers. Slightly rusty and battered, they nevertheless might hold what she needed.

She quickly found a grey t-shirt in one open compartment and slipped it on. It hung on her, overly large on her slender body. A musty smell clung to the thin cotton.

All the other lockers had locks dangling from their handles, protecting their contents.

With a sharp twist of one lock, however, it sprang free and inside she found a pair of men's jeans and shoes. Both were immense. She effortlessly opened the other combination locks, the metal bending like putty beneath her fingers.

Within a short time she scrounged together more clothes and a pair of sneakers she could wear. Dressed, she hurried toward the open back door, ever vigilant for the presence of others. She listened for a hint of any approach, the sounds of the night exceptionally loud.

Only no one came.

At the exit, she paused, hesitant. She felt surprisingly strong and energized, but still unfocused. Her vision drifted from the surreal colors which came unbidden to those familiar hues of reality.

A reality which she had struggled to maintain since escaping the lab. A reality which seemed to elude her more often than she wanted.

As she escaped into the night, she knew she still had some distance to go until she reached anything familiar. Until she got to the building with the music, certain that once she got there, things would make more sense. Maybe even go back to normal, but more importantly . . .

Instinctively she knew that once she got there she would be safe.

Sins of the Flesh: Chapter Four

Mick stared at the bright yellow police tape and evidence seal on the door of Caterina’s town home which was located a block off trendy South Street. No matter how much Edwards wanted to avoid police involvement, they were clearly already on the job. He would have to hurry and locate her in order to curtail any further investigation. He wouldn’t try to guess why Edwards didn’t want the police poking around. His job wasn’t to question; only to acquire his target.

Or so Mick told himself, hating that the scruples he still possessed insisted that he had to find out why Edwards wanted Caterina so badly before turning her over.

As he examined the evidence seal, he realized that someone had carefully slit it open. The razor-fine cut wouldn’t be visible to a casual observer, but upon a more thorough examination someone would discover the break-in.

With a quick look down the street to make sure no one was watching, he easily turned the knob, slipped beneath the caution tape, and entered the town house.

He stopped short at the mess within.

Someone had knocked over bookshelves, tables and chairs, and knifed open the sofa and cushions. In the upstairs bedrooms, drawers and closets had been rifled, the contents strewn carelessly on the polished wood floors. The linens tossed and the mattresses slashed.

The deception with the evidence seal and the devastation in the home were not the kind of action he expected from an everyday burglar. Damage of this nature was intended to deliver a personal message. A message that warned about either evening a score or scaring someone off.

I'd put my money on the latter
, he thought as he glanced out through the front windows to check the street outside before exiting into the night.

At a brisk pace, shoulders hunched and head tucked down to conceal his face, he walked toward South Street where it would be more populated and he could get lost in the crowd just in case anyone was tracking him.

As he considered the wreckage of Caterina’s home, it was clear that someone didn't want her to stay there, not that she would anyway if she had a lick of sense remaining in what was left of her tumor-laden gene-invaded brain.

A common criminal would avoid any places they regularly visited, knowing that the police would look for them there first. But someone like Caterina might head to familiar things where she likely felt safe and would know where to hide. Maybe even to people she could trust, like her best friend Elizabeth Rogers.

He contemplated immediately heading back to the Rogers residence, but didn’t believe Rogers was covering for her friend. She had let him into her home too quickly and there had been nothing suspicious in her manner, only concern.

If Rogers was not hiding her friend and Caterina had already come by her home and seen the destruction, she would either head toward Rogers or another safe haven.

The Rogers home was a far walk from Caterina’s townhouse while his second targets were closer – the Kimmel Center and nearby Music Academy.

At the corner, he turned onto South and walked toward Broad, all the time keeping an eye out for either a tail or anyone who fit Caterina’s general physical description since she might have had the sense to try and disguise herself.

In the shiny windows of the Whole Foods Market on South Street, he thought he caught a reflection of unusual activity behind him and paused, seemingly to peruse the sign listing their specials. Instead, he focused on the reflection of the few people walking by, trying to pinpoint what had snagged his attention.

A minute or so passed, but whatever he had seen was long gone.

Or maybe he had only imagined it.

He continued onward, hurrying down past the more residential section of South Street until he hit Broad.

It was nearly midnight, but a fair amount of vehicular traffic still traveled along the street as well as some stray pedestrians, mostly twenty something students by the University of the Arts. Heading down Broad, he crossed the street and hustled toward the Kimmel Center. The rounded arches of the center's vaulted glass ceiling radiated shards of light into the murkiness of the night sky.

The marquee by the ticket office indicated there had been a performance of the philharmonic that night, but now only a few people lingered in and around the periphery of the building.

He had calculated that Caterina might return here because she would know where to hide within the performing arts complex, but given the event that night, there would be too many people around for her to enter undetected.

He wouldn't find his target here, but he also suspected she would not be far away.

He continued down the section of Broad known as the Avenue of the Arts until he stood in front of the plain red brick facade of the Academy of Music.

The building was quiet tonight. The only life was the muted glow of the gas lanterns glimmering light onto the empty sidewalks surrounding the building.

The gated entrance near the front of the building was too conspicuous, even though the recessed stage door lay in the shadows, providing some protection from prying eyes.

Mick had downloaded the blueprints for the building from the Internet and knew just where to go. Turning onto Locust, he proceeded to a narrow alley behind the building. The light from the street lamps illuminated the mouth of the alley, but beyond that only darkness lingered.

He looked around.

The cobblestoned street was empty of any pedestrians, so he slipped into the narrow alley and paused a few steps in to allow his eyes to adjust to the lack of light and to check for signs of anyone else.

The long slender alley was also empty.

Time for him to move in.

He stole down the alley while hugging the wall, the ground uneven beneath his feet. The area lit only by the small beam from a flashlight he pulled from his pocket. He moved quickly, every action efficiently cautious, until he located the entrance shown on the blueprints.

Pointing the flashlight at the door, he prepared to jimmy the lock but found that someone had beaten him to it. A shit job for sure. Large sharp gouges along the seam of the door and at the lock gleamed silvery bright in the beam from his flashlight.

He reached behind him, pulled out his 9 mm Glock from beneath his leather jacket, and released the safety. With a gloved hand, he slowly opened the door and risked but a sharp glance inside before he cleared the entrance.

The interior was almost as gloomy as the night outside, but since his eyes had adjusted already, he could make out the tangle of shapes before him.

Large lockers and an assortment of equipment lined the edges of a hallway, but there was a clear path down the center. Slowly he inched along, pausing well before the low light cast by an illuminated exit sign so that he would remain hidden.