The Prague Plot: The Cold War Meets the Jihad (Jeannine Ryan Series Book 3) (2 page)

A gust tore the door from his hand and lifted the hood of the poncho upwards. The rain pelted his cheeks. He found that stimulating. He seized the door and slammed it shut.

The unpaved roadway was puddled with ankle-deep stretches of water. Shoes sloshing, he stepped onto dryer sand. Face to the wind, he trudged north behind the dunes. There was no beach. Instead, foaming waters, cut and coursed through a foot-deep channel along the edge of the dunes, well above the usual high-water line. The flow paralleled the roiling Labrador Current offshore.

He had walked only a few minutes when a flash of lightning revealed a large house ahead, standing high on a stilt-like foundation. The form disappeared instantly, but that momentary illumination sufficed. He smiled for a second time. The target was closer than he had imagined.

He trudged onwards. The wind exhilarated him. This storm was not bad. Thanks to it there would be no witnesses to what he had to do.

After last night’s storm, the morning sun was bright. Jim Harrigan of the Duck, North Carolina, Police Department was not on duty, at least not officially. He was moonlighting in Corolla, to check the empty vacation home of a Norfolk resident who paid Jim to provide security for the property during the off-season.

Though not on police duty, Jim’s police instincts were always active. At the moment those instincts were telling him that something was wrong. Ahead, to his right, a lone minivan appeared to be abandoned. It was “parked” off-road just behind the storm-washed dunes that fronted what had been a wide beach only the day before.

Harrigan carefully kept his wheels in the ruts of the narrow lane and guided his Ford F250 toward the stranded vehicle. He stopped his pickup facing the van, and immediately saw the problem. The two wheels on the passenger side had strayed from their rut and sunk up to the hubcaps in the sand. The driver-side wheels were still on the lane, but in the “wrong” rut to Jim’s left.

Clearly, the ground in front of the minivan had been inundated during last night’s storm. Evidently, the driver had swerved to avoid the pooled water and dug the wheels into loose sand.

The van was locked and unoccupied. Jim peered through the driver-side window. His worst worries were confirmed.

The window was splotched red with blood and the passenger seat was smeared with dark stains!

Harrigan circled the van to look for tracks, but if there had been any, the rain and floods had obliterated all traces. He climbed a dune. To the east, a path wove around and between impenetrable thickets whose tops had a salt-spray trimmed look. He followed it and, after climbing a final dune, the ocean came into view.

The waves were low, and the water looked cold. The beach, what was left of it, was littered with a stranded brown seaweed whose air bladders gave the dark washed-up clumps the look of leafy bubble wrap. Jim was no marine biologist, but a friend of his once had told him that the ugly seaweed was “bladderwrack.”

Jim stepped onto the beach. He kicked at one of the clumps of wrack in frustration, but his foot met something more than seaweed. He stooped down. There entangled in the brown mass was a man’s jacket. He pulled it free from the wet sand.

There was little wear on the cloth. It had not been in the water long, perhaps no more than a few hours.

There was a hole in the left front of the jacket matched by a similar hole in the back. Worse, the back of the jacket had a wide dark stain, clearly visible despite being soaked in the sea.

The stain surely was blood. The owner of the jacket had been shot once, from the front. The bullet had penetrated cleanly and exited almost as cleanly.

Jim felt certain that the passenger in the minivan and the wearer of this garment were one and the same. He looked ocean-ward. Had the body been swept away? He scanned the beach. At a distance, the accumulated drifts of bladderwrack could easily be mistaken for a body.

He took out his cell phone to inform the Duck Police Department of his find, but the battery was dead.

He pocketed the useless instrument and headed north along the cluttered beach.

In Nags Head, Mila Patekova awakened early. She was troubled. She had not revealed the identity of the visitor to her cousin, because Anne might not have agreed to meet him. Now Mila was filled with self-doubt. The visitor had arrived earlier than expected, and the meeting should have taken place last night.

Anne was not answering her phone. How had the meeting gone?

Either Anne’s cell-phone was turned off, or last night’s Northeaster had disrupted service from the cell tower. The latter possibility was not likely. Mila’s phone service was working perfectly, and her call to the North Banks Restaurant & Raw Bar in Corolla had gone through perfectly.

She left a message.

“Anne, it’s Mila. Call me!”

She decided to drive to Corolla. She picked her way through the water-filled depressions left in the parking lot by last night’s storm. Her feet were dry when she reached her four-wheel-drive Ford Escape. At least she had the proper wheels to reach the remote location of Anne’s rental in Corolla.

Mila headed north
Damn it, Anne return my calls. Don't you know that I worry?

She pressed hard on the accelerator.

When she arrived in Corolla, Mila Patekova still had not heard from Anne Simek. The long lane to the beach house was covered with debris, and badly puddled. Even with four-wheel drive, there was the real possibility of getting stuck.

A broken branch of a scrubby pine blocked her passage. Mila hopped out and dragged it to the side of the driveway. She continued on foot. The beach house was in view, and she could see the rear deck clearly. At this distance, it appeared that the deck and its walkway over the marsh were unscathed by the storm. She saw no movement.

Mila continued her trek to the house. Several gulls sat on the rail of the side deck. They shifted feet and fluffed their feathers as Mila approached, but did not take flight. Last night’s winds had rendered them wing-weary.

There were no cars parked under the elevated house, and there was no evidence of damage to the wooden supports. Mila rounded the ocean side of the house and climbed the stairs to the top-level deck. She peered through the expansive glass front. She saw no one, but someone, doubtless Anne, had piled towels against the base of the sliding panels to stem incoming water. Mila nodded to herself. Anne was always responsible, even for property that was not hers.

Mila called through the door. There was no answer.

She dialed Anne’s cell one more time. It switched immediately to message mode. She frowned and stuffed the unresponsive instrument into her handbag.

Mila studied the expanse of dunes to the east of the house. Again, no sign of Anne.

Damn it, Anne, where are you?

From the front deck, Mila descended steps to a gray wooden walkway that led through the dunes to the ocean. She stopped halfway. At her feet, projecting vertically from a crack between the weathered planks was a small object. She pushed it with the toe of her shoe. It flipped free of the crack and landed flat on the gray boards.

Mila recognized the item. It was a passport. It lay face down on its cover.

She picked it up. Before turning it over, she guessed what was on its cover. The reddish color, standard for the European Union, bore the words “
ČESKÁ REPUBLIKA
.” It was a Czech passport whose pages were soaked from last night’s storm and stuck together.

Mila’s hands shook as she separated the cover from the first wet page. She hoped she was wrong, she was not. She saw the name,

Vaclav Pokorny.

She shuddered. It was Vaclav Pokorny who was supposed to meet her cousin, Anne.

Mila had arranged the meeting when Magdalena, a close childhood friend, had begged her to set it up. She had hesitated. Vaclav’s father, Dr. Pokorny, had been Anne’s professor in medical school. He had resigned from Charles University, when Anne revealed that he wanted sexual favors in exchange for grades. Shortly thereafter, Anne had quit her studies in Prague to return to the U.S.

Still, Mila knew Vaclav a bit, and Magdalena had spoken well of him.

“Vaclav is trustworthy. He understands his father’s weaknesses. He only wants to make things right for Anne. He’s truly honest, ...
etc.
etc.
And he’ll be in the U. S. only for a short while. ... He has urgent business.”

Finally, Mila had succumbed to Magdalena’s pleas. She had arranged the meeting. But now?

Anne are you all right? What went wrong? What happened here?

Mila’s realty agency handled the home that Anne had rented for the weekend, and she had a key to the rear door that faced the Currituck Sound. She followed the walkway on the side of the house towards the rear.

She looked down. Below the walkway was a dark object, half buried in the sand,. Mila peered over the railing.

It was a gun.

Jim Harrigan stood on the beach before the wooden walkway. A contorted mass of brown bladderwrack lay on the sand that buried the first step. He kicked the seaweed aside. A small mottled crab scuttled sideways and disappeared.

This was the first house he had encountered since finding the bloodstained jacket. Jim left the beach and headed up the wooden planks.

A female voice stopped his progress.

“Excuse me. Can I help you?”

In a reflex action, Jim hid the bloodstained jacket behind his back. With his other hand he held out his badge.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. My name is Harrigan. I’m with the Duck Police Department. Are you the owner of this house?

“I’m Mila Patekova. My realty handles this rental, but no, I’m not the owner. My cousin is renting here this weekend. What are you looking for?”

Jim hesitated. He decided to be forthright, but did not mention the bloodstains in the van or the bullet-holed jacket.

“There’s an abandoned vehicle stuck in the dunes a half-mile south of here. This is the nearest house. I thought someone here might know something about it.”

Mila turned sideways so that Harrigan did not see her slip Vaclav’s passport into her handbag. She spoke.

“My cousin, Anne, was supposed to stay here last night. I thought she would be here. I don't know where she is.”

Mila cast a furtive glance at the gun protruding from the sand. Harrigan did not notice. He handed her his card.

“Miss Patekova, when you see your cousin, please have her call me at the Duck Police Department. It could be important.”

His tone scared Mila.

“Was someone hurt?”

“It would seem so, but whoever it was is gone.”

“My God. It might be my cousin.”

Jim Harrigan had not meant to alarm her. He thought of the jacket, and spoke.

“It wasn’t your cousin. It was a man.”

Mila was more disturbed than before. She felt the passport in her bag and glanced furtively at the gun in the sand.

She blanched.
My God, Anne, what have you done?
”

In Bethesda, Maryland, Jeannine Ryan lifted her head from her pillow and groaned. She pushed auburn strands of hair from her eyes as diagonal rays of sunshine lit the bedroom. The room faced southeast, onto a backyard bordered by a mature stand of tall tulip poplars and white oaks with a lower stratum of dogwoods. Thanks to the trees, privacy was not an issue. Her windows had no curtains, only blinds that were permanently up. One result of the unfettered windows was her habit of rising early. When there was no cloud cover, the early sun was bright.

Last night, Jeannine had worked on her laptop until two in the morning when, finally, the incessant swish of disturbed branches and the sound of rain pecking the window had lulled her senses. She had slept only a few hours.

She sat up, bare feet on the cold floor. She shivered, grasped her arms, and looked out the window. The storm had left a clear sky, but the back lawn was strewn with fallen branches amid a carpet of stripped leaves. Nothing moved. A lone squirrel huddled high on a branch, its fur fluffed against the cold.

Jeannine shook her head awake just as, dictated by the timer, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the bedroom.

All right Jeannine, it’s time to face the day.

Jeannine Ryan headed her own firm, Ryan Associates, that specialized in statistical consulting. She was a Ph. D. statistician, a specialist in statistical forensics, the exposure of fraudulent data. Aileen Harris, a Ph.D. in Bioengineering, was a minority owner of the company. Previously, she and Jeannine had found suspicious data in a medical research project. Their discovery uncovered terrorist plans to use a novel medical device to assassinate an Israeli official. Jeannine and Aileen, together with Bill Hamm their friend, had thwarted the plot.

Jeannine and Bill were close, but their romance was on hold. At the moment, work came first. Bill had returned to the CIA and was overseas, based in Vienna, Austria. Jeannine was occupied with building Ryan Associates into a first-class consulting firm for the detection of fabricated research.

Thanks to a contract with the Israeli government, Ryan Associates was financially solid. However, Jeannine was keenly aware of the dangers of over-expansion that depended on “future” contracts. Her last employer, the consulting firm StatFind, was now defunct partly due to such expansion. Because of that experience, Jeannine kept expenses to a minimum. Ryan Associates worked from a modest office in the refurbished basement of her home in Bethesda.

The basement was at ground level. The most expensive part of the office design had been the construction of an outside rear entrance along with a driveway and rear parking area. Those features had been installed after dickering with the local home owner’s association and city officials. Approval had come at a potentially irritating cost; informally, Jeannine had agreed to help the home association when statistical assistance was needed.

After a quick shower, she slipped into her jeans and a gray pullover. She noted that they were the same size as when she had attended graduate school at Fairland University some years previously. Closer to thirty than twenty, Jeannine still drew second looks when she walked by.

Before going downstairs to the office, she stopped in the kitchen and poured a large cup of dark, French Roast coffee, black. She savored the rich aroma and sipped. Her head cleared.

Time to work.

Jeannine was in the basement office and on her second cup of coffee when the phone rang. She picked up.

“Jeannine, this is Larry Hodges at the Food and Drug Administration. What’s happening with Hus-Kinetika’s report defending its anticonvulsive drug, Xolak?”

“Dr. Hodges, it’s on my desk. I started it last night.”

“Jeannine, please. It’s Larry, remember. But when can I see your comments? An advisory committee has been formed to see if Xolak should be removed from the U. S. market. Two of the members will be in town next week for the American Pharmaceutical Society meeting. I need to give them the FDA’s evaluation.”

“OK, Larry, You’ll have my comments in 48 hours. All right?”

“Thanks. That's great. The Commissioner is pressing me to act. Hus-Kinetika is a Czech company and the State Department is on our back. There’s a lot at stake. There’s some sort of defense deal with the Czech Republic in the works and they don’t want any glitches. There are a lot of users of Xolak in this country.”

“I’ll do what I can, OK?”

Larry hesitated and then added.

“Jeannine, maybe we could do lunch to go over your comments? How about it?”

“Thanks Larry, but I’m busy.”

“All right. I’ll send a messenger over for your comments whenever they’re ready.”

Dr. Hodges hung up.

Jeannine frowned.
When will he get the message I’m not interested?
She opened the report and started to read.

Jeannine was still reading when her partner, Aileen Harris, entered the office.

“Jeannine, I’m sorry I’m late. Mary Catherine isn’t feeling well. She didn’t go to school. My mother is taking care of her.”

Aileen Harris was a divorcee. Her mother lived with Aileen and her daughter, Mary Catherine. Aileen’s ex was not part of her life.

“No problem. You remember that drug Xolak, from that Czech Pharmaceutical House?”

“You mean Hus-Kinetika?”

“Yes. Their headquarters are in Prague. A Doctor Zeleny at a Clinic in Chicago, reported an increase in the number of patients exhibiting adverse allergic effects to Xolak. The clinic reported the cases to the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA told Hus-Kinetika to monitor the allergic side effects of Xolak.

Jeannine placed a graph in front of Aileen.

“This graph is from Hus-Kinetika’s response. They recorded severe reactions to Xolak in five states, Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, almost half a million current users.”

“Why does the graph start in 1986?”

“The FDA only approved Xolak for use in the United States in 1985.”

Aileen nodded and studied the graph. After 1993 there was a stable level of subjects with adverse allergic reactions. There was no increase in the numbers of new allergic cases.

“But Jeannine, I can’t interpret this graph without knowing the total number of cases. If the number of users decreased, then a stable number of new cases would mean an increase in the per cent of adverse reactions.”

“You’re right, of course, but the report gave the total cases too. They don’t change much since 1995. The graph shows no increase in new cases as numbers or per cents.”

“So there’s no problem. What's worrying you?”

“I have a bad feeling about this graph, that’s all!”

Aileen was surprised. Normally Jeannine was driven by logic, math and analysis, not intuition.

“OK, why does the graph worry you? Is it because of Dr. Zeleny? That guy is a jerk.”

Dr. Zeleny, the neurologist who was the original complainant to the FDA about Xolak, had called Ryan Associates several times yesterday to schedule a visit. Aileen had taken the calls. He had treated her as a secretary.

Jeannine started to speak, but the phone rang and Aileen picked up.

“Ryan Associates, Dr. Harris speaking.”

She covered the mouthpiece and held the phone to Jeannine.

“It’s him! It’s Zeleny.”

Jeannine took the instrument. Aileen heard only Jeannine’s side of the conversation.

“Yes, this is Dr. Ryan. … ... Yes, Dr. Zeleny, I’m consulting with the FDA on the Hus-Kinetika report. … ... No, I didn’t know they had given you my name.”

She motioned with her hand for the report in question. Aileen lifted a spiral-bound volume from the desk and handed it to her. Jeannine flipped the pages while keeping her ear to the phone. Finally she spoke.

“Dr. Zeleny, I’m looking at the report right now. According to Hus-Kinetika the rise in adverse reactions at your clinic isn’t repeated elsewhere. Doesn't that concern you?”

Aileen did not hear his reply. She only heard Jeannine.

“Dr. Zeleny, I didn't realize you were in the area. I thought you were in Chicago. Of course I’ll meet with you. If you’re on Bradley Boulevard you’re only minutes away.”

Jeannine hung up. Aileen spoke.

“What was that all about?”

“Dr. Zeleny is coming here. He was in Rockville at the Parklawn Building to see Larry Hodges. Zeleny says the number of reactions to Xolak is increasing at his clinic. He doesn’t believe the Hus-Kinetika report.”

“So?”

“So, Hodges warned me that Zeleny’s clinic is small. The increase in reactions there may not be typical. Maybe they’re doing something wrong. And too, Zeleny may be biased. Larry says Zeleny is a Czech who has no love for Hus-Kinetika.”

“Why is that?”

“Zeleny was a resident at the Motol Teaching Hospital in Prague when his mentor, a Dr. Pokorny, found fake data in one of the company’s clinical trials. Hus-Kinetika objected and complained to the medical school. There was some sort of scandal with a female student named Simek and Zeleny’s professor was canned. Zeleny hasn’t forgiven or forgotten.”

Aileen frowned.

“OK, so he doesn’t like Hus-Kinetika, and I don’t like him. What does he want from us?”

Before Jeannine could answer, Aileen sniffed.

“This jerk is biased against women.”

A loud knock on the office door stopped further comment.

Dr. Zeleny had arrived.

Dr. Zeleny was not as Aileen had imagined. First he was young, trim and tall, the sort of man who turns eyes when he enters a room. He wore a loose gray sweater and fitted jeans. He turned towards Aileen. He spoke with a slight accent.

“Dr. Ryan?”

Jeannine stepped forward.

“I’m Dr. Ryan, and this is Dr. Harris. She’s my associate. You must be Dr. Zeleny.”

Dr. Zeleny scanned the wall of the office. He took in the framed doctoral diplomas on the wall, and the two certificates of appreciation from the Israeli government, one each for Dr. Harris and Dr. Ryan.
Impressive.
His eyes bounced from Aileen to Jeannine and back. As a blonde, Aileen matched Jeannine’s auburn good looks. His smile grew.

"I’m Peter. Larry, Dr. Hodges, at the FDA referred me to you. Do your husbands work here too?”

Jeannine laughed.
Kind of obvious, but I’ll play along.

“No husbands. We’re both single, although I have a friend. His name is ‘Bill,’ and you?”

“Sorry. I forget myself. I do not try to pry. I’m
svobodný
, that’s Czech for ‘free’ or ‘single,’ however you prefer to interpret it.”

He glanced sideways at Aileen.

“Now we’re introduced, maybe I can know your first name?”

“I’m ‘Aileen’ and Dr. Ryan is ‘Jeannine,’ but do you treat all women as secretaries? Are you always so rude?”

Peter fell silent. Aileen continued.

“Dr. Zeleny, we all know this isn’t a social visit, so why, precisely, are you here?”

Peter Zeleny’s brow furrowed. He sighed.

“I think that Xolak has dangerous side effects. Some of my patients have been seriously hurt by it. Hodges, at the FDA, thinks I’m biased against Hus-Kinetika, but I can explain that.”

He took a breath.

“My problems with the company started after I completed my studies at the First Faculty of Medicine at Charles University in Prague. I took a position in the Motol Teaching Hospital of the Faculty. My mentor, Dr. Pokorny, had a dispute with Hus-Kinetika over one of their clinical trials.”

Jeannine interrupted.

“A dispute?”

“Actually, he found faked data in one of their reports. They weren’t happy. They located a student of his, a woman named Simek. Her father had been an anti-socialist agitator, and everyone knew that my mentor, Dr. Pokorny, was a communist. It was a set up. This Simek woman was quite attractive.”