The Cure Page 7

  Thomas looked at her with sorrow in his eyes. “Gracie, how could you?”

  It wasn’t sorrow in his eyes. It was betrayal.

  “Thomas… no. Please, think it through. You of all people know this is all a lie.”

  “Let’s go ma’am.” Quinn walked her out of the building.

  The place looked like a police patrol car parking lot. Helicopters were hovering above, and news vans were beginning to assemble. Two Suburban SUVs pulled up over the sidewalk in front of them.

  “I don’t know what’s happening! I was framed! The mayor was coming to help me get into human FDA trials. You have to believe me!”

  Quinn said nothing as he guided her into the truck.

  Gracie looked over her shoulder, trying to lock eyes with him. “I can prove it. I’ve been submitting patents for months. My company isn’t a front. We found a cure!”

  Her gaze into the agent’s eyes was long and confusing; there were all sorts of different energies happening there, almost as if he badly wanted to believe her; but then hardness overcame him. “It’s really sick to prey on people’s hopes. You have no idea.”

  The agent shoved her into the truck and, as he was preparing to close the door, she saw the agent next to her—and he looked like a stone-cold killer.

  She leaned forward. “Agent Quinn!”

  He turned, his face cold.

  She said, softly, “Someone you love has cancer. Who is it?”

  Quinn’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched.

  Fully committed, reading his mannerisms, Gracie continued, “The statistics bear me out. Odds are, someone you love has cancer or has been taken by it.”

  Quinn regained his composure. “Your mind games won’t work on me, Mrs. Green.”

  “It’s Miss. And there are no games. Someone is trying to frame me as a terrorist and stop my cure from seeing the light of day.” She folded her hands around his, not wanting to let go. In her heart, she knew this man had a legit reason to help her. She pulled him close to her and whispered, “I promise you, I can help. They haven’t destroyed everything.”

  An agent broke them apart and slammed the door shut on her before Quinn could respond.

  21

  Bic was driving through Wisconsin on his way back to Chicago when his phone rang. It was Tony.

  Bic knew that if anyone would know what was happening behind the scenes, it would be his old friend Anthony Parelli, the man who had arranged all his jobs during his career as an assassin. Just as professional athletes had agents, so did elite killers. But with an elite killer, if your agent messed up, you’d wind up dead, so the bonds in these relationships ran really deep. Plus, it didn’t hurt that they’d also fought side-by-side in Vietnam.

  “Find anything?” Bic asked.

  “Yeah. Bad news. The Feds picked her up about an hour ago at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.”

  Bic clenched the steering wheel, “Are they going to…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish.

  Parelli picked up on it. “I wouldn’t think so. What I heard, the FBI is clean. It’s the CIA we have to worry about. If they get to her, well, I don’t even want to speculate.”

  “Do you know where they’re taking her yet?”

  “ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison in Colorado. A little over the top pretrial—but hey, crimes against the country, right?”

  “Can we get her out?” Bic asked, already analyzing and planning.

  “Welll…” he drew the word out in a way that didn’t inspire confidence, “they call it the Alcatraz of the Rockies. It’s tighter than a clam with lockjaw.”

  “There’s gotta be some way.”

  “I’m working on seeing who might be friendly to us. An Aryan Brotherhood leader is housed there. I supply them with a lot of their weapons, so I’m seeing if they’re willing to work with us.”

  “Did you just suggest enlisting the help of Nazis to get her out of prison?”

  “Enemy of my enemy, Bic.” Parelli’s voice wavered. “Look. All I’m saying is that we need to do it from the inside.”

  Bic blew out a frustrated breath. “The CIA will get to her before we can figure that out.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. Not sure what they’re planning, but I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

  “Can you get me hired on there as a guard or a cook or something? Or how about getting me in as a prisoner?”

  “I can do a lot of things, but that ain’t happening.”

  “Why not?” Bic’s blood was heating up fast.

  “It’s a supermax, Bic. As an employee, you’re under constant surveillance, and I mean constant. As a prisoner, you’re locked in a cell for 24 hours a day, and after six months of good behavior, they’ll let you out of your cell in shackles for an hour a day while guards walk around you. Even you can’t beat that.”

  “I’ll figure something out,” Bic said, and hung up the phone.

  It was more than an idea, it was a vow.

  22

  A lot had happened to Mack Maddox in the past two years, most of it pretty amazing—but the dining room table covered in medical supplies was a constant reminder of something terrible.

  The most miraculous thing that had happened was cradled in his arm: his four-month-old daughter, Samantha. It had all happened so fast it had nearly blinded him. But no one ever made him feel the way Caroline did, and after all they’d been through together, their bond was unbreakable.

  Caroline was upstairs, resting. He sat on the living room couch of their three-bedroom bungalow in Glendale, just outside L.A., feeding Samantha her eight PM bottle. It was just starting to get dark out, and the temperature was finally dropping—though they kept the windows and doors closed, favoring A.C. as well as keeping out the smell of a wildfire burning in to the north.

  He stared into the girl’s eyes. They were her mother’s, huge and jade-colored.

  He couldn’t help but replay his favorite love-filled moments with Caroline while gazing into Sam’s eyes. With all the complications Caroline had had over the last year, Mack was no longer a field agent, having instead put in for a nine-to-five desk job at the Bureau. He missed the adrenaline rush of fieldwork, but his responsibilities had changed, and he’d made a promise not to put himself in harm’s way.

  When Sam began to cry, Mack put her over his shoulder, trying to pat a burp out of her as he sang her go-to calming song: “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are gray…”

  Sam belched like a tiny 40-year-old beer drinker.

  “That’s my baby girl,” he said.

  Someone knocked at the door.

  “It’s open,” Mack said loudly, expecting his father.

  Bic Green entered through his front door and strode into the living room in a surreal, seemingly slow-motion clip, wearing those same damned sunglasses he’d always worn, holding a leather binder under one arm.

  Instinctively, Mack shielded Samantha and backed away from Bic, who rapidly closed the distance. Mack ran out of room as he back-pedaled as far back as he could, ending up against a desk at the back wall.

  “I often wondered if you’d come back to clean up the loose ends,” Mack croaked—with his hand behind his back—as he slid open the top desk drawer.

  Bic shook his head once, “I’ve never left any loose ends, Mack.”

  Mack finally found what he was looking for in the drawer. Gripping the 9mm SIG Sauer tightly, Mack swung the weapon around his body and pointed it at Bic.

  The weapon didn’t even faze Bic.

  “This time there are real bullets in it,” Mack said, as he pointed the actual gun he had shot Bic with two years ago, when everything had gone down at the Ralston Templeton estate.

  Bic sat down, tossing the dossier on the coffee table. “I’m here for your help. Put that away.”

  "You got a lot of nerve showing your face here,” said Mack. Samantha began to wail in his arm. />
  “Get out of my house,” Caroline shouted coarsely from the stairs. She was standing there in her pajamas, holding a gun in one hand and grasping the banister with the other. She looked different. Her cheeks were sunken and there were dark circles below her eyes.

  Bic turned to Caroline, hand still on the table. “I have an offer for your family.”

  “Your filthy money’s no good here,” Caroline barked. Her hand trembled as she spoke, her arm struggling to hold the weapon up.

  Bic stared at Caroline’s obvious frailty. “Not money. I have the cure.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Mack.

  “Get out,” Caroline hissed.

  Bic shook his head. “You’ve seen the news. Gracie Green from Greentech?”

  “What about her?” Mack asked, drawn in despite his best efforts.

  “She’s my niece.” Bic took a deep breath. “When you and I met at Ralston’s, Gracie was graduating from Stanford with her Ph.D. in biomolecular chemistry. This is her dissertation.” Bic held up the binder.

  “Easy,” said Mack. Samantha wailed in his arm.

  “It’s alright. See?”

  Mack, with Caroline covering Bic, quickly placed Samantha in her playpen, where she immediately stifled her tears and busied herself with a dog on wheels.

  “Just hear me out,” said Bic. He held up the binder again. “This describes a new molecular approach to curing cancer. This was her life mission since she was a little girl. She’s been curing cancer in mice for months. The FDA has denied her request to begin human trials three times for unwarranted reasons. We’ve both dealt with evil people in the past who will stop at nothing—”

  “Enough,” said Caroline. “Like hell, I’m going to let you get him killed for some false hope while carrying out your agenda.”

  “Mack,” Bic said softly, "she’s in ADX Florence, and they are going to kill her if we don’t do something about it. Some very powerful people don’t want this cure to see the light of day. They killed the mayor of Chicago and Gracie’s research team, wiped out her company, wiped out all her research. All that’s left is Gracie. And they’re destroying her name and next they’ll remove her completely. And when she dies, so does the cure.”

  “Mack, there is no cure. This man is a killer. We both know it,” Caroline said. At that moment, she stumbled on the stair, losing her balance and dropping her weapon.

  Bic, closer than Mack to the stairs, reacted instantly. He dropped Gracie’s thesis and darted toward Caroline, leaping up three steps at once, catching Caroline in time to break her fall.

  Mack closed the gap, and had his gun pointed between the big man’s eyes.

  “You okay?” asked Bic.

  “I’m okay, thank you. I need to sit.”

  Bic helped Caroline to the couch with Mack still tracking him.

  Caroline closed her eyes and put a hand to her head. “Mack, put the gun down.”

  “Not happening.”

  Bic turned to Mack. “I’m not asking you to break the law, or kill anyone, all I’m asking is for you to keep Gracie alive until I can flush the truth out. They are going to kill her. Everything I have done is in service of her finding that cure.”

  “What the hell am I supposed to do about that?”

  “Go through your channels. You have pull in the bureau. Have Gracie moved under your local office’s protection before the CIA kills her.”

  “Supposing I do. Then what?”

  Bic looked down at Caroline. “You’ll keep hope alive, not just for you, but for the world.”

  Mack’s eyes glistened as he stared at his wife. “No, no. There’s another angle to this. It’s not adding up. That girl is a terrorist. I think we’ve heard enough.”

  “Mack,” said Caroline, “enough.”

  “You heard the woman,” said Mack. “Get out.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Bic nodded. “I’ll leave. But I’ll leave Gracie’s thesis. And one more thing. There’s a woman by the name of Cecilia Graham. Her daughter was Dr. Anna Graham, who worked with Gracie. Cecilia was dying of cancer. My guess is she’s not any longer.”

  Bic walked to the door. “The cure does exist Mack. Save Gracie and you’ll keep hope alive.”

  With that, Bic Green walked out the front door.

  Mack lowered his weapon. His wrist was throbbing. He looked at Caroline on the couch. She had a funny look in her eye.

  “What?”

  “You know damn well what.”

  “You’re not telling me you believe that crap, do you?”

  She pointed to the dissertation. “We know people who can give that thing a proper evaluation.”

  Mack took a steady breath and sat down next to his wife. She was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman, and she was here, and his. And she was wasting away.

  She put a frail hand on his cheek. “I like it when you don’t shave.”

  He smiled, took her hand and kissed it.

  That night, while sitting in a glider chair in their master bedroom, Mack rocked back and forth as he silently prayed at Caroline’s bedside. Sam slept in one arm, his nine-millimeter rested in the other hand, and Gracie’s thesis paper lay in his lap as he continued to pray for his wife.

  She seemed to be sleeping peacefully, but the thought of what was happening inside her body made him want to scream out loud. A massive invasion was taking place as her body fought the relentless adversary that had spread through her. The dormant tumor had been sleeping inside her for years, hiding in her sternum of all places, well before they had ever met; but last year it had exploded into metastasis. Maybe it was the stress of the pregnancy, but there was no way he could ever regret the creation of the tiny form he held cradled in his left arm. Nor would he ever give up hope for Caroline; but because the cancer had spread to several major organs before she could start her treatment, there was nothing much they could do. She was stage four by the time she gave birth.

  She was so stubborn, he thought; she’d been just two months pregnant when they discovered the cancer. She’d had a 50-50 chance then, assuming they terminated the pregnancy and started aggressive treatment; but their child had no chance at all if she did, and she couldn’t bear that thought.

  Just like that, the decision had been made; and while Mack hated the consequences, he respected the hell out of his wife. Even though her hair didn’t shine like it used to, and her piercing green eyes were always tired and bloodshot now, all he saw was the stunner he’d fallen in love with back at the Bureau.

  23

  Gracie Green could feel the maximum security all around her as she sat in the interrogation room at ADX Florence, an administrative maximum federal prison in Colorado. Shackles bound her ankles and wrists and thick, reinforced steel doors blocked her exit. She hadn’t seen a window to the outside since she stepped foot into the facility. And in her heart was the terrible feeling that this was the type of place prisoners never left.

  Leaving Bic to go to Thomas, a respected colleague, for help was a mistake. She knew that now. She’d thought one of the few colleagues she’d trusted to share her research with outside her lab would have come to her aid. Instead, he’d bought into the terrorism line.

  Two hours later, an agent from the Department of Homeland Security entered the concrete-walled room. He was the G-man from central casting: a standard six feet tall, short, slick hair, athletic build. He placed a manila folder full of paper on the steel table as he pulled his chair from its position across from Gracie over to her right side and sat. His expression was pure psychological torture: A friendly smile.

  “Gracie, I’m Agent Jim Kessinger. Can we get you anything? Water?”

  “Water would be nice.”

  The agent nodded to a burly guard blocking the door, who opened it and whispered something to the outside.

  Kessinger opened the folder and began spreading the papers out on the table.

 
“Those are my patents, right?”

  “They are,” the agent said, reading through them.

  “They prove I’m telling the truth.”

  “Well, let’s talk about that.”

  “I’m not a terrorist.”

  The agent looked up from the patents and placed his folded hand on top of them. “Gracie,” he said, looking her in the eye, “the only way we’re going to get anywhere today is if you start telling the truth. Now, I need you to help me to understand why you’re here today.”

  "I don’t know,” she said.

  He placed a flat palm on the patents. “These applications were rejected as non-patentable subject matter. You see what I’m saying. So, that’s not a question. There is no question in my mind that you’re not who you say you are. I need you to help me to understand why.”

  “It’s… my cure…”

  The agent shook his head slowly. “Gracie, you and I both know there’s no cure.”

  “That’s not true, I have proof…” Gracie slouched, remembering that all the proof she had was in her office.

  “Greentech doesn’t have any issued patents on file with any U.S. jurisdiction.”

  "I’m not a terrorist.”

  He grabbed the stack of paper from the file. “Gracie, we have folks who go over stuff like this, and they went over it with a fine-tooth comb. I think you know what they found when they did.”

  “What did they find?”

  “Gracie…?”

  “I want to know.”

  “Gracie, you know what they found. These are nothing but a bunch of jumbled thoughts and proof-sources cut and pasted from other scientists’ published work on the Internet. It’s double-talk.”

  “That is not true.”

  “Gracie, I understand why it’s upsetting. Maybe you had some other notions about where this would get you. Maybe you were just used by someone. I don’t know unless you tell me.”

  “I… don’t know what to tell you.”

  The detective leaned back and took a deep breath. “Who recruited you, Gracie?”

  With tears welling, Gracie shook her hands. The chains rattled like a ghost. “I am not a terrorist! They executed my friends and were about to kill me until Bic saved me!”