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They Key to Believingchapter 10
The Whites in their EyesThere were two reasons Sloane got into her office at seven Tuesday morning early. First, she printed two copies of the full essay that became a part of her speech. She wanted to give it to Carter, to get the opinion of an editor that she respected. Secondly, she wanted to work on the tests Kyle hadn’t finished her vaccine. When she arrived, she had to call Shane at home again. “We’re sorry, but the number you have reached, three-zero-three, five-five-five, one-eight-four-three, has been disconnected.” When Julie arrived to work, Sloane asked her to look up the address and phone number for the Energy Conservation Agency in Colorado Springs. Fifteen minutes later Julie produced a phone number. “You know, Julie, you really have been a life saver.” “What do you mean, Ms. Emerson?” “I mean you’re more than just filling in with odd jobs. You’re a part of this team.” “It’s been a pleasure to see you work,” Julie answered. “Do you want to continue working here?” “You mean after my contracted month is up? Well, I’d really enjoy it.” “I’ll talk to some people here. We could really use it, and I’d hate to see you go.” Julie smiled, knowing there was nothing she could say. She walked out of her office and closed the door behind her. Going back to her desk with her speeches for Carter in her hand, she dialed the number for the Energy Conservation Agency. “ECA, this is Maureen.” “William Owens, please.” “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Owens isn’t here.” “Do you know when he will be back? I need to speak to him right away.” “Who may I say is calling?” All she could do was try to think of something to say. The pause in the conversation was almost imperceptible. “I’m a good friend of Mr. Owens.” “Oh, I’m sorry. Haven’t you heard?” “No. What?” “I hate to be the one to tell you this. Are you sitting down?” The receptionist paused. “Mr. Owens died in a car accident Friday night. I’m terribly sorry.” Sloane held the phone away from her ear for a brief moment. “I’m -- I’m calling from out of town. I didn’t know.” “Oh, I’m sorry to have to tell you this news. Were you close to him?” “Um, yes...” she said, still trying to think about what to say next. “Has any of his family been out there, you know, to take care of his things?” “No, ma’am, no one has been out here. I don’t know if he had any family around here, actually.” “Would it be okay if I came out there?” “I don’t see why not, ma’am.” “I can straighten up his things, make sure nothing happens to them... I can be there within a day.” “Okay, I nobody is planning on going in there. Again, I’m sorry.” “Thank you for telling me. Tell whomever needs to know that they don’t have to worry about cleaning out his office.” “I will. I don’t know what else to say. I hope you are going to be okay. Good-bye.” She knew that his dying was no ’accident’. Acting on her first impulse, she found Julie and asked her to pull every news article on the accidental death of William Owens in Colorado Springs. “When you get that, could you check to see if the plane is being used at all in the next day or two?” “No problem, Ms. Emerson.”
Kyle got to Sloane immediately when she walked out into the lab with reports on the status of the vaccine tests. “Kyle, you have a brother in the police force, don’t you?” He was surprised that she asked him this before work. “Yes, why?” “If I needed it done, is there any chance they could get their police artist to draw someone with a description I can give them?” “I suppose, if they weren’t busy.” “Would they be busy on a Tuesday morning? I suspect foul play in the death of a friend of mine. I saw someone following him and I want to get a police sketch of the person I saw. Could you give your brother a call and see if he could get their police artist to do this for me this morning?” “Sure. I’ll call him now. You want to do it this morning? ... And I’m sorry to hear about your friend.” “If it’s not hard for them to help, that would be great. And I just want to know what happened to my friend.” “I’ll check.” Kyle handed her the reports. “By the way, I loved the news coverage of your press conference last night.” He walked to his desk. Kyle was the seventh person to congratulate her on the press conference. Tyler Gillian was one of the seven. They were attempting different methods to inactivate the virus, with only nominal success. When one test failed, they at least had an idea of which direction to go in afterward. Sloane looked over the results in her office. Then her phone rang. “Hello?” “Ms. Emerson, it’s Julie. Tyler is here to see you.” It comforted her that Julie knew that Sloane would not want to see him. “Tell him I’m in an important meeting and I will talk to him later.” “I will, Ms. Emerson.” Julie hung up the phone before she had the chance to say thank you. Sloane continued reading the reports. Although their last round of testing failed, early results made her think that they were on the right track. She started writing notes. Kyle came in a few minutes later. “I talked to my brother, and he said it would be fine if you wanted to do that police sketch, there’s not much going on at the station.” “Thank you so much, Kyle.” He handed her the address of the precinct his brother was working at. “I was looking over the test results, and noting how the virus reacted when they deactivated the protease enzyme, I think it would make more sense to work on deactivating the integrase enzyme. This way the virus would be able to spread in the body, but not destroy cells. Deactivating the transcriptase enzyme never allows the virus to get into the body in the first place -- and that’s exactly what we don’t want for a vaccine. Run these same tests while attacking the integrase enzyme.” “Sounds good, chief.” “And thank you so much for this, Kyle. I appreciate it.” They walked out of the office together and Julie was standing at her door with a stack of paper in her hand. She looked at Sloane holding her coat and briefcase. “I printed up everything I could get off the Internet about William Owens, Ms. Emerson.” “Julie, you are an angel.” Julie smiled. “I have to go out for a meeting this morning. Did you find out about the plane?” “Mr. Madison went to Los Angeles today and will be back from Los Angeles late tonight; then the plane is not slated for use until a week from Friday.” Having to come up with a back-up plan, she asked, “Could you get me on it for a day trip to Denver tomorrow?” “Consider it done.” “And Julie -- Thanks for saving me from Tyler.” “He doesn’t deserve to talk to you, Ms. Emerson. I saw the speech he wanted you to read, remember?” Having to smile, she thought that she liked it when she met people who thought rationally. They were few and far between. “Well, thank you very much.” They smiled and she continued to walk out to the laboratory with Kyle. “I’ll be back later this afternoon, Kyle.” “Your tests should be under way by then. And was Owens the friend?” Realizing that he caught her mentioning his name a moment ago., she responded “Yes, but please, not another word about Owens.” She paused before asking, “And do you think we’re on the right track with the integrase enzyme?” “Actually, your idea about deactivating the integrase enzyme makes complete sense. We’ll see how it works.” They said their good-byes to each other and she left the office. The first place she went to was a gun shop. Since there was a waiting period of seven days, she placed her request for a handgun and filled out the appropriate paperwork. Then she left for the police station. Detective Mackenzie showed her to Larry, their police artist. After explaining that her request was on more of a hunch, she described the man she saw outside the coffee shop in Colorado Springs in detail, then continued to work with Larry for two hours until he had a pretty good drawing of the man. She asked them to run off a few copies of the drawing for her to keep. “Is it possible to do a computer search for similarities on this drawing in your databases?” she asked Detective Larry Scheinlin. “You know, if you asked me that six months ago, I would have said no, but we got this new computer system in that hooks us up to national criminal databases as well as local ones. It’s been a pain to learn a new computer system in this precinct, though.” Larry searched in every database to attempt to find a match for her drawing, but it turned up nothing. Then she asked if it would be possible to crosscheck this image with a database of government employees. “We can’t do that here,” Detective Scheinlin told her. “Besides, you’re looking for a criminal, right? Why would you want to look at a government employee database?” “Oh, I was just curious,” she answered. One copy of the drawing was placed in her safe deposit box with her Shane files. Then she stopped by the University and asked both her father and Toby Graham to keep copies of her sealed files in a safe place. Toby said he had a safe deposit box he could put them in. Steven Emerson said he had a safe in his office that he could keep the file in for her. She didn’t know who else to ask; all she could think was that she needed to give copies of the files to someone. Both her father and Toby wanted to know what they were holding on to for her. She wouldn’t tell them; she asked them to trust her. Each of them shrugged their shoulders and agreed to comply. Sloane made it back to the office just before one in the afternoon. Julie approached her first. “Ms. Emerson, Mr. Donovan wanted to take you out to lunch before his flight left.” The fact that Carter was still working at her office building completely escaped her for the moment. He was in the conference room with Ellen Bailey right then and there, so she turned around and walked to the conference room and knocked on the door before entering the room. Her hands were full then with a sealed envelope and her essay in her hand as she got to the conference room. “I’m sorry my meetings took so long,” she said as Carter looked up from his papers at her. “What time does your plane leave?” “Four-thirty.” Carter stood up and walked to the door before turning around to look at Ellen. “Are you sure you don’t want anything for lunch?” “I had a huge breakfast. I’m fine. Thanks.” “I’ll be back in a while, then.” Carter closed the door and walked down the hallways with her. “It’s a shame you had to leave so early last night,” Carter said as they walked out of the office building. “I was still hoping to get the chance to get you in the hot tub.” “Why on earth would you want to do that?” “You need to relax. Maybe a hot tub was what you needed.” “Carter, you know me, I can’t relax. I get antsy. I fidget. Besides, I had work to do. I did want to give you this before you left, though --” as she handed him the sealed envelope -- “so you had something to read on your own on the other side of the country.” Carter looked confused, so she continued. “I gave you my speech before, but I wrote more extensively on it that same night, and I thought --” “You wanted me to proofread it?” “Carter, I know you’re a better writer than me, and I respect your opinion. So I thought you’d like to read it.” She handed him the envelope. “If it is as good as your speech, it could be a good closing for the book.” “I doubt that, Carter, but I guess that’s why you are in your business, thinking that way.” During lunch they discussed the release dates of their book, ’Winning the War From the Inside,’ and Carter estimated the printing schedule for her so that she would know when to get to Ohio to watch the press check before her books printed. Carter assured that Quentin Publishing could get her a flight and she could meet him in Ohio. When they returned from lunch she said her good-bye to him as a friend before they got to the rest of the office staff. “It’s been nice having you around, Carter.” “It’s been nice seeing where you work. Hope I wasn’t too much of an inconvenience.” “Of course not.” They looked at each other in the hallway. Carter reached over and gave her a hug. Wanting to with him, she also wanted to avoid him so she could be safe, she wondered and didn’t know why they looked at each other for that moment. Almost relieved to say good-bye to him, she asked Howard make sure that Mr. Donovan and Ms. Bailey got out to the airport on time. It allowed her to focus on her work, even if it would only be for a brief period of time before she went back to Colorado Springs. She checked with Julie about the time she was to leave the next morning for her flight. Afterward, she went into the lab and met up with Kyle to work on lab tests for the vaccine the rest of the afternoon. At eight o’clock she stepped outside the office and walked to her car. Her car was parked in the middle of the vast parking lot, where only a small fraction of the cars remained parked there. She walked alone outside, listening to the sound of her heels clicking on the concrete below her, and she started walking faster. She had no reason to believe anyone was around her, but while she was alone there in the dark outside she gained an immense fear of being killed there. She imagined someone walking right up along her side, pointing a gun to her ribs while walking with her. But she knew that someone would have killed her immediately, the way they may have killed Shane. She knew that if anyone from the government came for her that they would not kill her; her pain and torture would be much slower than a bullet in the head or the chest.
Leaving her apartment for the airport at six in the morning, she looked at her apartment for one brief moment before she closed the door behind her. She wanted to look at her home, wondering whether or not it would be the last time she saw it. She knew she had no reason to worry, but still she took one good look around her living room before she left. At seven-thirty in the morning she stood outside Madison’s plane while Jim made sure everything was in order. When she got on the plane she didn’t wait for take-off to get her notes out on the vaccine and continue working on her ideas. When Jim announced over the intercom that they were landing in twenty minutes, she pulled out her copy of the Shane file and started going over the paperwork. She glanced again at the police rendering of the man she had seen outside the Mountain Ridge Coffee Shop. The taxi pulled up to the Energy Conservation Agency in Colorado Springs at 10:30 in the morning. She walked through the main doors and found a woman sitting behind a large, circular desk. “Hello. May I help you?” the woman asked. “Is your name Maureen?” “Yes, it is. And you are?” I’m a friend of Bill Owens. I spoke with you on the phone yesterday.” Maureen stood up. She was a short blonde; she was barely five feet tall. “Oh, yes, I’m sorry, and your name was?” Sloane tried to think of a name quickly. “Evelyn.” She couldn’t believe she was using her middle name. “Evelyn, if you’d like to sit over there --” she pointed to the row of chairs along the wall at the left side of the room. “You can call me Eve, though,” she said, “that’s what everyone calls me.” “Like Adam and Eve?” “Yes, like sin-free until she took a bite of the apple. I’ve heard them all.” “Okay. I’ll get someone here right away to show you to his office. Again, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.” “Don’t worry about that. I’m just glad I called when I did, or I might not have found out about this until weeks from now.” Sloane tried to look distraught, but consoled by Maureen’s condolences. She thought it was fitting that she had stated on the fly that she had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. Then she sat down in a chair and looked over at the newspapers. She decided it would be best not to look at them, but to just sit and try to look despondent until someone arrived to show her to Shane’s office. After ten minutes a tall thin gentleman in his mid-forties walked out into the lobby and Maureen pointed her out to him. The man walked over and extended his hand, trying to smile. “How do you do, I’m Eric,” the man said to her as she stood up to meet him. “I can get you anything you need... would you like to go back now, or would you like some coffee or something?” “Oh, no, I’m fine. I’d just like to get this over with. It’s strange, being here, having to do this.” “I know, this was such a tragic accident.” “Do you know how it happened? I only heard about it through the receptionist; I’m not from around here.” “Oh well, he was out driving late Friday night, or I guess it was early Saturday morning, and a driver just hit him and drove off. Even though the roads here are really hilly, the police assume the driver of the other car was drunk. No one witnessed the accident.” They walked through the long corridors together toward Shane’s office. “I know, everyone around here wishes they knew who did it, so that justice could be served.” “Were you good friends with Bill?” Sloane asked. “Well, not really, I guess, Bill kind of kept to himself. He was actually stationed here for years, but he was doing special projects work that wasn’t in my department... It seems that no one here really knew him too well, but you know, you still hate to see something like that happen.” “I know what you mean.” “We’re just glad you happened to call. Some government officials came here Monday morning and taped the door shut to his office, so it made me wonder if there was something wrong. But at least someone can go in there and clean up his personal belongings, make sure everything is on order.” “You said some officials were here?” “Yes.” “Were they policemen?” “No, they looked like -- well, businessmen, really. They were government officials, I figured they were working on the same projects he was working on with water reclamation, and they just wanted to keep people out of there until they could go through his work records.” “Have they looked through his office?” “No, not yet. I don’t know when they plan to.” As Eric said those last words they stopped in front of a closed door with tape from frame edge to edge near the doorknob. A small metal sign was at eye-level on the door; it said ’W. Owens.’ Eric pulled the tape off the doorframe and opened the door for her. She walked inside his office and then turned back to Eric. “I can leave you here while you collect his things, Miss --?” Unable to think of a last name, she came up with a response as quickly as she could. “Eve, please call me Eve. And, um, I can do this on my own if you have work to do.” “Okay, but I’ll be right down the hall if you need anything.” “Thank you very much, Eric. You’ve been very helpful.” Eric smiled and closed the door behind him. Sloane looked around the room. She noticed plaques framed along the walls, a few books on the shelves, and two computers on his large desk. He had six four-drawer filing cabinets along one wall of his office. All she had to do was walk over and sit at his desk. She couldn’t believe it was this easy to get into Shane’s office. She wondered if agents had already rifled through his things and took any information that she might have found useful. Then again, if no one had cleared out his office by this time, maybe he really was some harmless Energy Conservation Agency cog, making up the entire story he had told her. She turned on his computer and it immediately asked for a password. She tried to run on instinct and typed in SHANE And hit Enter. Nothing. WILSON Nothing. Straining at other variations of his name, nothing she typed in worked out. Then she looked around the room for icons, tried them. Nothing. Then she typed in AIDS Nothing. Then she hesitated, and then typed in CURE And “Access Granted” appeared on her screen. Seconds later a main page for the CIA appeared on her screen. She had no idea she was logging into the CIA’s network. She attempted to access the database of government employees, but it wanted a referent image, so she opened the lid of the small flatbed scanner next to the computer and scanned the drawing she had come up with yesterday. She watched the light of the scanner move slowly across the image. She waited. After typing in possible locations, it generated no names from the CIA database. It then asked her if she wanted to do an “Advanced Search.” One single click led to “Yes.” The computer was processing, so she decided to pick up one of the boxes that Eric placed on the floor for her and started taking his plaques off the walls. She figured that she better actually clean the place of his belongings, or else she would look suspicious. The computer was still processing her request. The snow globe off of his desk went it in the box. She noticed that he had no photographs on his desk or in his office. When she checked the screen it had changed again. She sat down. The computer found three officials in the Department of Defense that may have been matches for the scanned image. Sloane looked at the first one, then the second. She was sure the second person was a match for whom she saw at the coffee shop. Any information she could collect on this mystery man was instantly printed, then she got off line and continued putting his belongings in boxes, starting to put his files into boxes as well, trying to look through them as she did. Eric saw her out of the office three hours after she had arrived. She told him she could bring Bill Owen’s personal effects back to his apartment, though she didn’t even have his home address, or if he’d prefer, she could leave them here for family to pick up. Eric thought that she shouldn’t have to carry the boxes with her to Bill’s apartment if she didn’t have to. So she took her briefcase, stuffed with file folders from the office of William Owens.
Once she was away from the pressure of being inconspicuous and not getting caught in his office, she leaned back in her seat, listening to the roar of the engine. After she felt the now familiar speed and lift of the plane she rolled her head toward the window of the Madison Pharmaceuticals private plane. She watched the trees blend into one another along the still snow-capped mountains. The details on the ground became smaller and smaller as the plane rose up toward a layer of clouds that looked like a sheet of cotton balls in the sky. The plane entered the cloud layer and her seat was slightly jostled with the turbulence. She took a slight gasp for air and held her breath until the plane flew out over the sheet of cotton. It amazed her to see the sky from her cabin window, and see a layer of clouds that looked like a floor. She stared for a moment, then finally turned to the files she had taken from Shane’s office and started reading, trying to find any information that could help her out in her search. When she got into the airport she started walking down the terminal when she noticed all the security in the hallways. She knew it had always there before; she took for granted there were people who searched you at every chance possible. Checking for metal on your body. Putting your belongings through an x-ray. Asking you if you have been in possession of your luggage at the airport at all times. For the first time in an airport, she looked around at the security guards who watched over the terminals and suddenly felt a wave of fear, like the panic she felt when she left her office the night before and walked to her car by herself, alone in the dark at night. This time, any guard could take her into custody, by request from any federal government agency, and no one in the terminal would question it. She could be taken away in broad daylight and no one would stop to help her. She quickened her pace. At this point anyone from the CIA or the DOD would know that Shane Wilson’s password had been used after his death in Colorado Springs. With a brief description from Maureen or Eric from the Energy Conservation Agency -- along with her middle name as an alias -- she could be easily tracked down. No one stopped her, though. Did they didn’t notice, or could they somehow see that nothing confidential was tracked? Maybe, she thought, it was another agency in the government that had stopped at the office and they did not even know that he wasn’t alive. She didn’t know what to think, and she knew she had nothing to go on. She didn’t think she had enough information, so she couldn’t try to go public with what little knowledge she had and expose the government before they tried to stop her. All she could do was wait until she saw the whites in their eyes before making her move. She decided she had to call her contact, Clint Saunders. Going home, she tried to sleep off her fear. She had no memory of her nightmares she was having when she woke up Wednesday morning. Wednesday morning she called Washington D.C. as soon as she arrived in her office. She listened to the phone ring and waited. “Department of Defense, biochemicals.” “Clint Saunders please.” “One moment.” Sloane was put on hold. She waited. “He’s not taking phone calls right now, would you like his voice mail?” “Yes, please.” “Please hold.” “You have reached the voice mail box of Mister Clint Saunders. After the tone please leave a message, or press pound for more options.” “Hello. You don’t know who I am, but Shane Wilson -- Bill Owens -- gave me your number to call if I needed anything from you. I don’t know if you heard about Shane’s death, but I need to talk to you right away, if possible. Please call me at two oh six, five five five, one five one nine. Ask for Ms. Emerson. Again, it’s urgent, and thank you.” Sloane slowly hung up the phone. She walked out of her office and turned to Julie. “Julie, if a man calls for me by the name of Clint Saunders, could you please let me know? I’m waiting for a call from him.” “No problem.” Remembering that Julie should be kept on full-time, she left a message with Colin about keeping her, and then walked out to the lab. The next week at the lab she worked on her vaccine, with the help of Kyle and Howard. They were making good progress, faster than they expected, and the mid point results from their clinical trial for AIDS and homeopathy had returned and people in the study were doing remarkably well. Things seemed to be going without a hitch. All she could do was try to work in the lab; she hadn’t had the chance to work in the lab lately and needed to be surrounded by her work. Clint didn’t call her. She thought mentioning Shane’s name should have been enough. The next Monday she picked up the gun she ordered the week before. She found a range to practice at and went Monday night. They gave her glasses and headphones and an instructor told her to stand with her feet apart and brace herself. They told her to brace her shooting arm with her other hand under the gun. She stared at the paper silhouette of a man with concentric rings around his heart. She held her breath when she fired her first shot. She thought the kick of the gun would be stronger than it was, and she was surprised -- she had never used a gun before and had no idea of how it would feel. The shock of the crack of the gun firing made her jump more than the actual force of the handgun being fired. The instructor left her after she fired her first round and was reloading her gun. She pressed the button so the target would move up to her for inspection. She fired terribly. She purchased a few boxes of bullets and a small stack of targets, and practiced for almost two hours. By the end of the evening her aim had improved - she had practiced firing with one hand and then the other. She also practiced her speed at lifting the gun and firing, so see how much time she needed to aim before firing. By the time she got home it was after ten in the evening. Her apartment looked too dark. She immediately turned on all of the lights. Everything seemed like a potential threat to her. She got nervous when she was walking alone or driving her car, or when she first entered her apartment. Sometimes she’d check all the rooms before deciding to settle down for the evening. After practicing at the range she was too wired, so she sat down at her computer. * If we could generate estimates of how HIV usually mutates in the body based on past records, we might be able to create a drug that can recognize the mutations and attack them all. Or maybe the drug would be an injection of engineered cells that could actually mutate the way HIV would, to change while the virus changes, and then be able to stop it. * A better idea would be to find the base structure of the virus, the base all of the mutations had in common, and create a drug that could beat it at its base level, at the core. That may be the only way we can get this taken care of for good. After she thought of this, Shane told her that a cure was created, before it had mutated, by using a pure form of the virus. She brainstormed for ways to estimate what the original virus looked like; the only possibility she could think of was generating a computer model of the behaviors of the HIV virus. If a computer program could generate the average ways the virus currently mutates, given a general sample of the virus, the reverse engineering may be able to reverse the process to generate possibilities of how the virus mutated into this original form. She pondered this idea while she wrote notes on how a single injection could attack the virus in the body. “It would have to be a virus as well,” she noted on her computer, “but one that attacked only HIV infected cells in the body. One that attacked powerfully but had a short life-span.” She looked back at her notes before she turned off her lights and went to bed. Tuesday morning Carter got back from a meeting with Ellen Bailey to check on the progress of the editing. She had given the design department a rough version of the text last Friday so they could flow it into pages and see the approximate length of the book. If anyone was interested in theories on artwork for any of the sections, they could have the rough manuscript for a springboard for ideas. This morning she had finished the editing of the book and had given the design department the entire manuscript on the computer for them to work on. They had been working on cover art and typeface choices for the past week, now it was just a matter of scrolling in the type and getting rid of widows and bad hyphenation. Both a hard cover and a paperback version were scheduled to be sent to the printer a week from Friday; after generating film for the pages the press would be ready to start printing two weeks from today. Carter had his secretary reserve a flight for her from Tuesday morning, returning Wednesday night, and called her to confirm that traveling on those dates would be okay. He picked up the phone and dialed her number at work; at this point he had her phone number memorized. “This is Sloane.” “HI, it’s Carter.” “Well, hello, Carter, how are you?” “Just fine, and yourself?” “Oh, I’m handling everything.” “I didn’t ask if you were handling everything.” “Everything appears to be under control. How is the book?” “Ellen finished editing it and it is in production now. You sure you don’t need to see a copy of the manuscript before it goes to press?” “You talked with Ellen -- did she change the style of the text?” “No, just a few typos and run on sentences, grammatical things.” “Then it should be fine. Let’s just get it done.” Carter was amazed that she didn’t need to see the book before it went off to print. He was used to people demanding to make multiple changes once the book was designed and edited and ready to print, costing time and money. He wasn’t used to trust or efficiency. “The schedule is to send the book to the printer a week from Friday, which means it will be printing in a few weeks. I set up a flight for you from this Tuesday morning, returning Wednesday night before it prints, so there’s only a one-night hotel stay. Is that okay with you?” Checking with her desk calendar, she answered, “That’s fine with me.” He told her he’d fax the details of her flight itinerary and her hotel reservations to her and they said their goodbye to each other. She knew she was trying to repress what she felt for him; she knew in the back of her mind that she was falling in love with Carter Donovan. But they were only friends, Carter had never expressed any interest in her; besides, they lived too far away to attempt a relationship. She knew she was avoiding thinking about Carter, but she felt that she had too much other work to focus on and couldn’t let herself be distracted. She wanted to tell him everything that was going on with her. She wanted to tell him about Shane and what was in those files. If all of that information was true, she would be putting Carter at risk by telling him as well. And she didn’t even know if any of the data she was given meant anything. It had been over a week since she had called for Clint Saunders and he never called her back. She looked up his number in her file and called Washington again. “Department of Defense, biochemicals.” “Clint Saunders please.” “One moment.” Sloane was put on hold. She waited. “He’s not available right now, would you like his voice mail?” “I have an urgent message for him. Is he checking his messages?” “I believe he is.” “Then yes, his voice mail, please.” “Please hold.” “You have reached the voice mail box of Mister Clint Saunders. After the tone please leave a message, or press pound for more options.” “Hello. I called you last week with an urgent matter and I have been waiting for you to return my call. Shane Wilson referred me to you, and now he is dead. Plainly put, I need your help. I would hate to have the information I possess fall into the wrong hands. Please call two oh six, five five five, one five one nine, and ask for Ms. Emerson. If you need to contact me in the evening, call two oh six, five five five nine nine oh two. I’ll expect to hear from you some time today. Thank you.” She hung up the phone, wondering if she had been too strict on the phone. She wondered if she sounded like she was blackmailing him by saying the data may “fall into the wrong hands,” but she didn’t know what other tactic to use to get this man to call her back. For the next three days she waited for a return call and never received one. She continued to work on the vaccine test with Kyle, and at one point asked them what they thought about her computer-generated HIV simulation idea. “Sounds like it might work, but you don’t know for sure, and it would cost a ton of money and a ton of time to get someone in the industry to help you with the computer technology to make it happen.” “Yeah, I don’t think you’ll get the financial support for a project that big, when you have no idea if it works, even if it went off without a hitch.” Maybe she should approach software companies independently. If they’d like the exposure to helping a good cause they may be willing too offset the costs. It was an option to keep on the back burner. At the same time she didn’t know if she was grasping at straws to keep herself immersed too deep in her work to avoid thinking about all of the other problems she could be facing. Not knowing where to go next with her theory on how to go about looking for a cure, she decided to concentrate her efforts on the vaccine. By the end of the week she was exhausted from the hours she was putting in, but she felt relieved that she was at least able to get her mind off of the things she could not control and on to a track that might result in a vaccine within a year. When she got home from work Friday night, she dropped her keys on the cocktail table and saw a light flashing on her answering machine. She pressed the button in the darkness of her apartment while she took her coat off. “HI, it’s Steve. You said you needed something, and because I’m an idiot, I thought I’d be nice and say that I can hold what you need in my safety deposit box. I’ll be going out tonight, so I’ll stop by at about nine if you’re there to pick up what you need held. Thanks.” She felt relieved that she would have someone else to hold the file information for her. She will stress the secrecy to him when she saw him. Looking at her watch, she noted that it was almost nine, so she listened to the last message on her machine. “Ms. Emerson. This is Clint Saunders. I don’t know what information you have. In the future I will contact you. Yes, I know about Shane’s death. It was a terrible tragedy. I think I know what is going on, and if I can help you, I will let you know. Do not try to contact me again. I will get a hold of you when the time is right.” Turning on the light in her living room, she rewound the tape to listen to Mr. Saunders’ message again. She had no idea what it meant, or what was going to happen. She still had no idea what she was getting into, and it disturbed her more and more. All she knew was that these men were making her play a waiting game. Then her doorbell rang. She went to the door and asked who it was, Hearing Steve’s voice, she opened the door and let him in. “This better be good,” he said. “You tried to make me feel like shit before.” “I was just wondering if you could store some paperwork for me, if you don’t mind doing it, it doesn’t take up that much space in a safety deposit box, and I don’t want anyone to know about you holding this for me, if that is okay, especially Kyle, because it’s not related to the work we’re doing, and -- did I really make you feel like shit?” “Give me a break, I was getting to like you, not in the way I usually get, and I didn’t need you giving me that kind of treatment, making me feel like this meant nothing to you.” “Did you want your affection to mean something to me? I mean, I can’t imagine you think that way with every woman you pick up.” “Hey, I don’t pick up a ton of women,” he said, knowing in the back of his head that he was lying, “and I like the fact that you’re so damn smart, and I would have liked it if you would get to know me and like me, but you are thinking of me as a piece of meat.” “Oh, that doesn’t sound sexist, Steve. Are you a man-hating feminist?” “No ... but at this point I wanted to just be able to forget about all of this, and then you call me and ask a favor, and I have to accept.” “Well, you don’t have to.” “You know that line has to be incentive for me to help you now. Just give me the envelope. I can leave it in my trunk and bring it to my security deposit box tomorrow.” Giving him the envelope, she thanked him and said, “I didn’t hate you, Steve. You’re a good guy. I mean Hell, I wouldn’t have kissed someone I didn’t like in the first place.” Steve just looked at her, and it was almost as if her words were softening him to her again. “Steve, I don’t like having enemies,” she continued, “and I know I’m not a social creature, but I’d like to be able to think you’re there for me -- and that I am there for you.” Steve looked down after hearing her words, then looked back to answer, “So I get to be your sounding board if you want to talk to me about problems?” “The point was that I could be there for you as well, Steve.” “You don’t play fair, but you know that I will always be there for you. And do you mean it when you say you’d be there for me?” “Steve, I flew across the country to talk to a friend in Miami for a night because he was having troubles. You don’t think I’d make the effort to be there for you?” “You flew across the country to see a guy, you’re making this offer to me... How many men do you do this to?” “Steve, I’m just trying to let you know that I’d be there for you if you needed it. And thank you for being there for me.” She leaned over to Steve and lightly kissed him on the cheek as they stood at his door. He wanted to kiss her then and there so badly, but knew he’d only cause another fiasco if he did. He wrapped his arms around her to give her a hug. “Good luck tonight,” she said. Steve started to pull away as he responded, “Good luck with what? ... It’s not like I could possibly meet anyone anyway.” “Isn’t that what you’re going out for?” she asked. “Nothing will compare to you,” Steve said under his breath before he spoke up again, “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just go home tonight.” “I didn’t mean to get you out of going out.” “I know, but you’re a dangerous woman--” “What does that mean? I don’t do anything.” “I know you don’t. You don’t do it intentionally. That’s what makes you so dangerous.” Steve didn’t explain it any further as he started to walk out the open door. “I’ll be at home if you want to call to talk,” he said as he walked away. “Well, if you need to talk, you know my number,” she answered smiling as he walked toward his car. Working through the night, she even thought of calling Steve just to hear the sound of his voice. But she worked through the entire weekend, trying to focus on her vaccine research. They thought they might be able to have a working vaccine to test, but no one was sure. Besides, who would want to inject a form of HIV into their bodies, even if they were assured it was harmless? Who knew what effects it might have on them? In some tests on monkeys, the females were immune but their children had HIV and it immediately turned into full-blown AIDS. No one would know what effect this vaccine might have on people. And who would be willing to take that risk? The researchers at Madison couldn’t stop to think of these things as they were working on the tests, though. They had to work, strive toward their goal, and do their best to come up with the answers.
Sloane left her gun in the safe behind her desk at the office when she went home Monday night; she knew she wouldn’t be able to take it on the plane with her to Ohio. She typed a letter to Colin about keeping Julie on full-time and put it in his mailbox before she left the office. After working for so long on the vaccine, trying to keep her mind off of everything else, she realized she had to pack to see Carter again.
Click here for Chapter 11 of The Key To Believing
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portions of this book are in the following books:
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