THE VIRON CONSPIRACY (JAKE SCARNE THRILLERS #4) (16 page)

CHAPTER 26 - THE BIG LEAGUES

When Scarne came to, he was face down on the floor inside Lenzer’s office. The lights were on. He looked up slowly, to see a woman’s ankle, with a small butterfly tattoo.

“You can get up,” Anne Rasmussen said. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”

She was holding a Glock in one hand and Scarne’s wallet in her other, reading its contents.

“My, my,” she said. “A private investigator from New York. A little bit off your turf, aren’t you, Mr. Scarne?”

Scarne slowly got to his feet.

“I could say the same about you,” he said, trying not to wobble. “Or are all Department of Agriculture personnel armed?”

He reached out to a desk for support. His head was throbbing and he felt nauseous. She threw his wallet back to him.

“What are you doing here?”

“Give me a second,” Scarne said. “That was pretty good. Shutting the outer door to lure me out. I never saw you.”

“I got down behind a desk.”

“How did you know I was in the office? The light?”

Rasmussen smiled.

“The scratches you made when you worked the lock. They weren’t there this afternoon.”

Scarne considered that. She was a pro.

“My tax dollars at work,” he said. “What are you? C.I.A., F.B.I., or N.S.A.?”

“Come on, stop stalling,” Rasmussen said. “I didn’t hit you that hard. You went down like a sack of bricks. Big, tough private eye you are.”

“You managed to hit me exactly where someone else slugged me a couple of days ago.”

Scarne’s head was clearing, although the dull pain that had just gone away from his first bruise had returned. He touched his head gingerly. The throbbing increased exponentially. But his hand came away clean. No blood. 

“You’ll live,” Rasmussen said. “Now, what are you doing here?”

“Probably the same thing you are. Trying to figure out what Lenzer is up to
with that Russian.”

“How’s it going so far?”

“I seem to be getting hit on the head a lot.”

Scarne bent to the floor and picked up his glasses, which had shattered.

“Cheap,” Rasmussen said. “You should invest in shatter-proof lenses. And those frames are from hunger. Not very stylish.”

“I don’t wear glasses. These cost ten bucks at the drug store.”

“A disguise? Lord save us.”

“Hey. I can’t pose as a sexy Department of Agriculture official.”

“You can’t pose as a writer, either. They were bound to see through you. You’re lucky you’re not lying under 100 tons of soybeans in a grain silo.”

“It’s worked before.”

Rasmussen suddenly smiled.

“Scarne. Jake Scarne. I thought that
name sounded familiar. You were involved in that literary cock-up in New York with the Indian guy. And before that with the Chinese. Jeez. I didn’t realize I was in the big leagues.”

She was being sarcastic.
And enjoying herself.

“How did you know about that?”

“We keep up on everything related to foreign nationals. But enough chit chat. Why are you interested in Lenzer?”

She holstered her weapon.

“He killed Bryan Vallance.” Scarne could tell that surprised her. “You didn’t know?”

She looked at him.

“Tell me about it.”

“Not here. Let’s go get a cup of coffee in the cafeteria.”

Scarne saw her face.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We can talk. The place is deserted.”

***

“I must say, Roland, you cook an excellent steak.”

Lenzer and Turchin were finishing up the last of their meal.

“Thank you. I’ve grown quite fond of barbecuing. I’m not a recluse, you know. I often invite co-workers over on weekends. Must play the part. I’ve even become quite knowledgeable about American football. Much more interesting than our version in Europe.”

“Man of the people?”

“Something like that. But it also gives me a chance to catch up on office gossip. Especially when people have had too much sun, food and drink.”

“Do you have your staff from the Black Hole over?”

Lenzer laughed.

“Yes, but not all at once. I sprinkle them in in bits. I wouldn’t want them en mass. Too much scrutiny might not be in our best interests.”

“Yes,” Turchin agreed. “They are somewhat conspicuous. All so … blond and Germanic.”

“They are the best of the best. Totally loyal and dedicated. Brilliant scientists all.”

Turchin helped himself to more potato salad.

“I’m sure they are. But your staff looks like the Waffen SS. Aren’t you worried someone might think you are trying to clone Adolf Hitler in there.”

“Once a Russian, always a Russian, Anzor? Still worried about the Nazis? Well, enough small talk. I suppose you want an update on where we stand.”

“Of course. I realize you couldn’t say much with Rasmussen looking over our shoulders.”

Lenzer smiled.

“Yes. You got the standard tour, the one we give to all V.I.P. guests. I wish I could have added that pesky writer. Now I have to send him through tomorrow.”

“Are you worried?”

“Oh, no. Just another distraction. He won’t see anything we don’t want him to see.”

“What kind of questions has he been asking?”

“Mostly background about Vallance. The book is about what a wonderful fellow he was.”

“Too bad he couldn’t fly,” Turchin observed. “You understand, Roland, that’s not how I would have handled it.”

“We agreed that he had to go, didn’t we?”

“Yes. But in such a spectacular fashion? With so much collateral damage? His family.”

Lenzer shook his head.

‘Why so queasy all of a sudden, Anzor? There will be a lot more collateral damage in what we are planning. In fact, as you are well aware, there already has been.”

“I’m talking more about the publicity. Couldn’t you just have him run over by a tractor, or something?”

“You provided the contact to the people who did the work. It had to be done quickly, before Vallance closed down my labs. We were sure to be discovered then. I told the team leader to be inventive, and I didn’t micromanage. I thought the plan was inspired. The more bizarre the death, the less likely the police would look for the obvious. And it has worked out magnificently. An accident might arouse suspicion. Now everyone thinks Vallance was a murder victim, but they pinned it on the wrong murderer, who as it happens is
also dead. But enough about Vallance. I’ve spent months telling people how much I admired him. How I’ve lost a dear friend and so on. I hated the son of a bitch. It was all I could do to keep a straight face talking with that writer today.”

“Will he be a problem?”

“Stone? No. It’s just a vanity project. I hope our little project has made progress before he publishes, so I won’t have to buy thousands of copies of the fucking book to distribute to my workers. That’s how those things become best-sellers, you know.”

Lenzer got up and pulled the bottle of the Moskovskaya vodka from an ice bucket.

“Speaking of our plan, we’ve come up with a name for our little discovery,” he said, pouring two glasses. “So, a toast! To the Viron!”

CHAPTER 27 - THE BLACK HOLE

Anne Rasmussen sipped her coffee. They were the only ones in the cafeteria.

“So, you know Lenzer ordered Bryan Vallance’s murder,” she said, “but you can’t prove it.”

“That’s why I was burgling Lenzer’s office when you so rudely interrupted. You still haven’t told me why you were there, or who you work for. Was I right about those initialed agencies? My bet is on the F.B.I. Or hasn’t Lenzer been paying his taxes. Are you with the I.R.S.?” Scarne smiled. “No, not the I.R.S. They don’t carry Glocks. They’re more into racks and whips. So, what is it
?”

Rasmussen hesitated.

“Come on, Anne. We’re on the same side here. If you don’t tell me, I won’t give you the antidote to the poison I put in your coffee while you weren’t looking.”

She laughed.

“I thought the coffee tasted better. It’s pretty dreadful, isn’t it?”

“I think they make it with left-over soybeans.”

Rasmussen looked at Scarne, making up her mind.

“I work for the D.C.S., the Defense Clandestine Service,” she said. “It’s a new department set up by the Pentagon to monitor foreign threats.”

“Just what the country needs. Another damn intelligence service. You know, the alphabet only has 26 letters. Pretty soon you guys are going to run out. But that doesn’t answer my question. Why Lenzer? Because he’s a German?”

“He’s a naturalized American, now. No, we were only interested in him because of Turchin. He’s former KGB and has some nasty friends among the old guard in Russia. He doesn’t know we know that. He also doesn’t know we know he’s lied about never meeting Lenzer. We have them on surveillance video together at various secretive meetings in Europe. But we thought it was just a case of the Russians trying some old-fashioned corporate espionage. If they killed Vallance, they must be up to something more serious.”

“Well, we’re not likely to find out what it is in Lenzer’s office. I didn’t think I would, but I had to try. I was only looking for anything that would connect Lenzer with Vallance’s murder, but I’m sure I would have noticed if he was planning World War III. Even if he’d left his laptop, it probably wouldn’t have contained anything incriminating.”

A young man and a woman came into the cafeteria and walked over to the coffee machine. Both got cups and sat down at a table about 20 feet from Scarne and Rasmussen. The woman smiled and gave a little wave. Rasmussen smiled and waved back. The other couple was soon in deep conversation, holding hands, heads close together across their table.

“Office romance,” Scarne said.

“Newlyweds,” Rasmussen said. “They both have wedding bands.”

“Maybe they’re not married to each other. I hear a lot of cheating goes on out here in the boonies. Not much else to do.”

“You’re a cynical bastard. I should have hit you harder.”

“God forbid. Listen, Anne, I think I have to move up the time for my visit to the Black Hole. Say, to about 15 minutes from now. I won’t learn anything on the official Disney tour tomorrow. Maybe I can find something that will help us both.”

“Your last break-in left something to be desired.”

“But, now, you’re on my side.”

“I am?”

“Aren’t you? Come on, Anne. We stand a better chance if we watch each other’s back. Or are you planning to call in some of the boys at the Pentagon to share the credit. This is a career-maker for you. We’re here, on the ground and ready to go. If you’ve read my file, you know you’re not likely to do better on short notice.”

Rasmussen smiled.

“You are a piece of work, Jake. But the Black Hole has tight security. There will surely be alarms.”

“I’ll figure something out.”

“I may be able to help out with that. But I’ll need more than 15 minutes. I have to make a call and get something out of my car. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

As they passed the other couple, Rasmussen said, “How long have you kids been married?”

“Just over a month,” the girl chirped.

“Good luck,” Rasmussen said.

On the way out of the cafeteria, she turned to Scarne.

“Told you so.”

Rasmussen’s car was in the same lot as Scarne’s, a few rows away. She took out her cell phone and opened her trunk.

“I’ll be right back,” Scarne said, heading to his car.

“Where are you going?”

“To get my gun.”

“You won’t need one. I’m very good with my Glock.”

“I don’t doubt it, Annie Oakley, but I’m not about to ignore Private Eye Rule Number One.”

“Which is?”

“Never break into a place called ‘The Black Hole’ without your own gun.”

“Are you sure you’re up for this,” Rasmussen said, pointing at his head.  

Scarne smiled.

“Sure. You hit like a girl.”

When he returned, she had put on a black windbreaker and was just ending a call. She pulled out a small backpack and closed the trunk. Then she looked at her watch.

“We have to wait 20 minutes.”

“For what?”

“Until the power blackout. Knock out the power and you knock out a building’s security system.”

“
That was your phone call?”

“
Fortunately,” Rasmussen said, “the entire BVM facility is on its own grid, so it was a no-brainer. You’d be surprised how many short blackouts are arranged by law enforcement. But we’ll only have a half-hour.”

“I’m moving to Australia. But any security system worth its salt will be tied to a central monitoring station that will send people to investigate. And there is always
a backup generator.”

“If we time it right, the blackout will mask the break-in. They’ll still call the cops but the nearest police station is a half-hour away.”

“What about a roaming area car. One of them might be a lot closer.”

Rasmussen smiled.

“They’ll presumably go to the bank alarm in town that I’ve also arranged.”

“
And BVM security? I have seen a few of them walking around.”

“
Not to worry. We’ll give them, and the cops, a diversion. Get in the car.”

Rasmussen
handed Scarne the backpack and pulled out of the lot. He looked inside the bag.

“Anne, why do I get the impression that you’ve done this before?”

“Only in training.”

“Wonderful.”

“Hey. This was your idea.”

“I didn’t know you’d go commando on me.”

Rasmussen drove to a small electrical transformer outside a building a few hundred feet from Lenzer’s laboratory.

“I thought this might come in handy,” she said.

“You reconnoitered this already didn’t you?”

“Semper Paratus.”

“Be Prepared? You were in the Coast Guard?”

Rasmussen sighed.

“It’s also the motto of the Girl Scouts.” She paused. “I was a Scout.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Listen, wise guy, Katie Couric was a scout. Twenty astronauts were former Girl Scouts, including Kathryn Sullivan, the first American woman to spacewalk.”

“You’re sexier than
her. In fact, you look a little like Sandra Bullock. She was an astronaut in that movie,
Gravity
. Good flick. ”

“Thank you, I guess.”

“I’m starving. I don’t suppose you have any Girl Scout cookies in the trunk. I’m partial to the Do-si-dos, myself.”

“Please shut the fuck up.”

Rasmussen took the backpack from him and they got out of the car. She took out a small canister and several flares and checked her watch.

“Any minute now,” she said.

They waited. Suddenly, all the lights in the complex went out. Rasmussen pulled the pin on the canister and threw it over the small fence toward the transformer.

“Flash bang grenade,” she explained. Then she set off the flares and threw them after the grenade. “Let’s go!”

They jumped in the car and she headed to the Black Hole. Behind them there was a large bang and the transformer was bathed in light from the flares.

“With any luck,” she said. “Everyone will assume the transformer blew and somehow knocked out the power to everything. That should buy us some time before the cavalry shows up.”

“Very impressive. But why didn’t we just really blow up the transformer?”

“Who am I? Rambo? I don’t carry real explosives with me. I had to steal that flash bang from one of our exercises. Those are just road flares. They may scorch the transformer housing but probably won’t do any re
al damage.”

Scarne smiled at her. This woman certainly could think on her feet.

As they neared Lenzer’s building, they spotted a man in a white lab coat standing outside looking toward the glow coming from the transformer.

“We caught a break,” Scarne said. “Park here. That door is open. Go up to that guy and distract him.”

“How?”

“Show him some leg or try to sell him some Girl Scout cookies, whatever works. Here, give me the bag.”

Rasmussen walked up to the man, positioning herself so that his back was to Scarne. He was only too happy to talk to an attractive brunette and never heard Scarne, who hit him on the neck. The man dropped. Scarne threw the bag to Rasmussen, who held the door while he dragged the unconscious scientist into the door. The lights were on and they could hear the hum of emergency generators. They immobilized and gagged the man, using tape from the bag. Rasmussen worked quickly and efficiently.

“Must be a hell of a training program at the D.C.S.,” Scarne commented.

He dragged the man into a nearby empty office and emerged wearing his lab coat. They could hear activity down the hallway.

“Just walk with me,” Scarne said. “Act like we belong. They might think I work here and you have something to do with restoring the power.”

They passed glass-fronted labs in which a few technicians were working. Scarne gave a collegial wave to anyone who looked their way. A few of the techs even waved back.

“Jesus,” Rasmussen muttered.

They passed a fire alarm and Scarne pulled it. Almost immediately the floor was filled with a strident siren and technicians began to peek out of the labs.

“Everybody out!” Scarne shouted.

The alarm, coming on the heels of the explosion and blackout, had the expected effect. Scarne grabbed one of the techs as he ran by.

“Dr. Lenzer wants me to secure his private papers. Where would I find them?”

“His private lab, I suppose.”

“Where is it?”

“Second floor, in the rear.” The man suddenly looked suspicious. “But it’s locked. Only Dr. Lenzer has access. Who are you? Didn’t I see you in the cafeteria?” He looked at Rasmussen. “And you, don’t you work for the Department of Agriculture?”

Scarne hit him in the throat and kneed him in the groin. The man said ‘awk” and crumpled to the ground in agony, unable to speak.

Two other techs were running down the hall.

“You two! This man has collapsed. Get him outside and call 911. We’ll look for
other casualties.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know. Think he caught a whiff of something from a vent. You’d better get out of here.”

Both men looked frightened. They picked up their colleague and dragged him away.

“I hope that poor bastard wasn’t an innocent bystander,” Rasmussen said.

“I don’t think anyone in this joint is too innocent,” Scarne said. “Did you see their faces when I said that something might be coming out of a vent. They’re not making soy burgers in here.”

Scarne and Rasmussen ignored the elevator in favor of a stairwell. They sprinted up to the second floor, which appeared deserted. When they reached Lenzer’s private lab, the door, as expected, was locked. Just to the right of the door was a pedestal with a tilted pad for palm recognition.

“What now?” Scarne said. “Want me to go and cut Lenzer’s hand off?”

.