VIABLE (21 page)

Four of the calls had been with women whose first name was Alison and he had ordered background checks on each of them, prioritizing the women that lived closest to Fallon. The first three had yielded nothing, each just residents of Hawthorne who for whatever reason had had business with the sheriff’s office. The fourth woman hadn’t even been from Nevada but he had ordered her to be checked as well, although he hadn’t been expecting anything there. He had already begun contemplating his next move. If Alison Berkeley couldn’t be found he would disperse the teams to the surrounding states and hope that Gant would show at a train station or a bus depot. The man was still wanted by the authorities and so was unlikely to risk either an airport or a border, at least until he had managed to establish a new identity for himself. He had a little time – not much, but some. He would use that time to bring in both Henrikssen and Fitzpatrick. They might be able to tell him something. Two helicopters had been fuelled and were ready for take off, simply waiting for his instruction.

He’d had Henrikssen under surveillance for the last week; a team at Fallon for far longer. Nevertheless the snatch teams would have little time to prepare and even with proper planning it was a risky strategy. Kidnapping a Nevada sheriff and the commander of the Navy’s premier aerial combat training facility was certain to draw more attention than he would ever have wished for. But what else could he do? If he didn’t act quickly Gant would disappear and
Der Eckzahn
had told him that could not be allowed to happen.

He had been so engrossed in his thoughts that for a few moments he hadn’t noticed the results of the final background check appear on his screen. When he looked up again Alison’s picture was staring down at him from the center screen. He recognized her immediately from the photos his men had taken outside Fallon - it was the young blond woman who had been with Henrikssen when he had met with the base commander the day after Christmas. The brief report accompanying the photograph identified her as Doctor Alison Stone, lecturer and faculty member at the Department of Genetics, University of California, Berkeley. Alison Stone from Berkeley. Alison, Berkeley. His fingers had hit the comms link connecting him to the pilots of the two Lynxes even before he had finished reading.

Now through his headphones he heard the pilot announce that they were a minute out. He could already see the buildings of the campus ahead of them. From this height the place seemed deserted, a small silver hatchback pulling into the empty parking lot the only car visible. Good. With luck they could be in and out without running into anyone.

He looked around at the five men sitting in the back of the helicopter, all dressed in civilian clothes, weapons concealed inside their jackets. Two of the men he had recruited personally. The other three he knew less well, a team that had recently been called back from Minnesota. Each of them had been promised a million dollars for bringing the woman in alive, another two if they brought Gant in with her. He would receive a further five million if either team were successful.
Der Eckzahn
had insisted on two teams per helicopter, which was excessive; a single team would be more than enough for a woman and an injured man. Gant may well have some training - he wasn’t about to make the mistake of underestimating his quarry - but so did his men. But what did he care if Old Dogtooth wanted to piss his money away? He wasn’t about to take it personally as long as he got paid.

25

ALISON
PULLED
INTO the car park, choosing her usual space.

Heavy, grey clouds hung low in the winter sky. She had held out a tiny hope that she might see him waiting for her there, as he had been the night before. But the place was deserted, her Honda the only car in the large lot. A single fat drop of rain spattered on the windscreen, then another. She left the engine running, for a moment contemplating simply turning around and driving home. What was the point? He wasn’t coming and she was exhausted. Her mind balked at the prospect of another day spent by herself in the lab. She hadn’t slept much, watching as the small clock on her bedside table had slowly counted out the minutes and hours. She had been dreading getting up. The campus would be deserted and she would spend the day waiting in vain for him. If he didn’t show – and she was now certain that he wouldn’t – she would have confirmation that he didn’t plan to help her. It was too late for her to try and make it back to Manchester and she was resigned to spending New Year’s Eve alone in her apartment. What did it matter? Without him the year was already ruined.  She should just go back to her apartment, climb under the covers and try and get some sleep, try and forget about him.

She switched off the engine. It was no use. As tired as she was she knew if she went home sleep would not come. She got out of the car, grabbing her bag from the front seat and the coffee she had picked up at Starbucks from its holder. As she was making her way towards the entrance to the lab building her cell phone rang. Her heart leapt as she recognized the voice.

‘Alison? It’s Cody. Listen, I’ve decided to stay for a little while but it’s too dangerous for us to use your lab. Is there anywhere else we could use, somewhere you don’t normally go?’

She thought of a place immediately. The university had ten campuses throughout California. Davis was only fifty-five miles to the northeast. She had worked there when the protesters had forced her from her lab that summer. The biomedical engineering faculty had all the lab facilities she would need - in many respects it was probably better equipped than her own lab for the tests she needed to run. And she still had access. She gave him the address, telling him that she would ring ahead and arrange a pass for him with campus security.

‘No. I can find my own way in. And don’t tell anyone where you’re going either. Right after this call I want you to switch off your phone and remove the battery. We have to assume that by now they know your number, which means they can use it to trace you.’

‘Okay. Okay. I just need to grab a few things from the lab, and then I’ll go straight there.’

He hung up.

Alison stood in the car park, a smile spreading across her face. He hadn’t left! She started walking towards the lobby, already thinking of the things she would need to bring with her to Davis. She looked at her phone. She thought he was being a little paranoid, but she would do whatever he wanted if it kept him around. She flipped the phone over, slid the back off the plastic case and dumped both phone and battery in her bag.

It wouldn’t take her long to prepare. Twenty minutes at most. And then she could be on her way.

26

FRIEDRICHS
WATCHED
AS the pilot brought the helicopter over the campus, pointing down to a building where the woman was expected to be. They would set down on the sports field several blocks to the south and the pilot would take off again, maintaining a high orbit of the campus. Once Friedrichs radioed in that they had what they had come for the pilot would land the Lynx in the car park next to the lab and pick them up. If all went well the operation would be over in minutes. 

The helicopter dropped almost vertically right in the center of a large oval running track. The high bleachers on both sides would shield them from prying eyes for the few moments it took his men to exit. He hadn’t noticed anyone during the approach. Most of the students wouldn’t return until the New Year and the rain that had started to fall would keep those few that might be on campus indoors.

The large sliding crew doors on each side were open before the Lynx had touched down. The last of his men jumped clear even as the pilot twisted the throttle, the twin Rolls Royce Gem turboshaft engines whining as the helicopter lifted back into the air, the downdraft from the four rotors tugging at their clothes as the men split into two teams and calmly walked off in opposite directions.

Each man had memorized a map of the campus on the flight in and now the two teams made their separate ways to the building where they expected to find Alison Stone and hopefully Gant. There was supposed to be a single security guard at the entrance to the lab building. They would deal with him if they had to but it would be better if they could complete the mission without being seen. The schematics they had received in-flight showed a fire exit to the rear of the building. Friedrichs didn’t expect difficulty with the alarm system, and once that had been disabled they could enter without being detected. From there a back staircase took them up three flights to the rear entrance to the lab.

It took less than half a minute to bypass the sensors on the fire door and then his men were running silently up the stairs, the rubber soles of their boots padding softly on the concrete steps as they took them two at a time. They gathered briefly outside the door to the lab, drawing tasers. Neither the woman nor Gant were to be harmed, at least for now. He paused for an instant to check the men. They were ready, each breathing slowly and regularly in spite of the rapid ascent. Satisfied, he moved forward, turned the door handle smoothly and stepped through. The other men followed immediately behind him, fanning out to secure the lab.

There was no-one there.

A single cup of coffee sat cooling beside a stack of journals on the woman’s desk. He indicated to his men to stand ready. It was possible that she would be back any moment.

But after half an hour she hadn’t returned and Friedrichs radioed the pilot to pick them up. The team in the second helicopter had found nothing at her apartment and were already on their way back to Las Vegas.

Scheiße
.

She had been here. They had just missed her.

27

ALISON
SPENT
THE afternoon setting up.

In the end it had taken her less than ten minutes to grab what she needed from her lab and she had run back out to the car park, her coffee untouched, forgotten on the desk. She had headed north on the Eastshore Freeway, driving as fast as she dared in the rain, anxious to get to Davis as quickly as possible so that she could start preparing for his arrival. As she had left the campus in her little Honda she had failed to notice the sleek grey helicopter lifting out of the athletics stadium behind her, banking sharply, passing briefly overhead as it climbed, commencing its orbit of the campus.

Cody hadn’t shown up until that evening. They could have waited until the morning but all traces of her earlier tiredness were gone and she had asked whether he minded if they began right away. She was still a little worried that something might cause him to change his mind and he would once again disappear.

She had decided to start with a superficial physiological examination. She wanted to confirm that his wound was healing satisfactorily. She also hoped to verify some of the things he had told her about how his senses had developed.

When he had lifted his shirt to let her examine his abdomen she had found only the slightest trace that he had even been injured. The wound certainly looked like it would heal without even a scar. An ultrasound revealed that his right kidney had re-formed and appeared to be functioning normally. It was incredible to think that a little over a week ago a bullet had removed much of the organ on that side.

Satisfied that he was in good health she started with a simple eye test. While she had waited for him to arrive she had printed a Snellen chart and had taped it to the wall, measuring out twenty feet. Now she asked him to read down through the rows of letters as they decreased in size, first using only his right eye, then the left. He read down to the eleventh row without difficulty, indicating his vision was better than 20/20. She had anticipated this and had printed smaller charts, rearranging the letters in each successive chart to prevent him simply memorizing the order in which the letters had appeared on the first. By the time he had read to the bottom of the second chart she realized that her last chart may not be sufficient to test the limits of his vision, at least at the standard distance of twenty feet. She marked off another twenty feet, almost the length of the lab, and asked him to read the final, smallest, chart. From that distance he had been able to read most of the chart, only finally beginning to struggle as he approached the second last line.

Alison hadn’t intended to perform much more than a basic eye test as part of her initial examination but now her interest was piqued. Davis had an ophthalmology department but she wasn’t sure whether the pass she had been given would grant her access. She left the lab, telling him to stay where he was. A few minutes later she returned with an ophthalmoscope. She turned off the lights, directing him to one of the lab stools so that she could examine the internal structure of his eyes. As she turned the scope on she noticed once again how his pupils were strangely luminescent in the dark, the same effect that had startled her the evening before in the car park. His pupils had dilated once the light was turned off, perhaps a little more than she would have expected, but not much. No doubt that contributed to the night vision he claimed to possess, although she wasn’t sure that by itself it could explain it.

She had asked him to focus on the far corner of the room, switching on the ophthalmoscope and clicking between the lenses to show a magnified view of the back of his eye. She knew that the retina contained the photosensitive rod and cone cells with their associated neurons and blood vessels, and that the density of these photoreceptors was critical in determining a person’s visual acuity. Towards the center of the retina would be the fovea, the part of the back of the eye with the greatest density of receptors, the area providing the sharpest, clearest vision. She located the optic nerve, a bundle of nerve fibers responsible for relaying messages from the eye to the relevant parts of the brain. There was a small blind spot without photoreceptors at the optic disc, under which the optic nerve and blood vessels joined the eye. But there were two additional structures she didn’t recognize. The first was a comb-like collection of blood vessels projecting from the retina from the point where the optic nerve entered the eyeball. The second was an additional layer of tissue in the back of the eye that seemed to be reflecting light back through the retina. She made a note of what she had found. She would look it up later.