Katrina Stone: The Death Row Complex Part 3

The phone rang. Katrina slowly emerged from sleep and then rolled over to look at the clock on the nightstand. The phone rang again, and she picked up. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Katrina, it's Tom." Her ex-husband sounded distressed.

"What's wrong?"

"Don't panic," Tom preempted. "Lexi is OK. But she has been picked up by the police for DUI. I'm on my way to go get her. She's at the precinct on the corner by my house. Do you know the one?"

"Oh my G.o.d, Tom. I'll be right there."

She found him in the hallway of the police station. "What was she doing driving, Tom?" Katrina snapped as she strode toward her ex-husband. "She doesn't even have a license!"

"Katrina, I'm just as upset about this as you are," Tom said with exaggerated patience and a roll of the eyes. "Just because this happened on my weekend... it could just as easily have happened when she was at your house and you know it!"

"No! This would never have happened at my house! It happened at your house because you and Kimberly let her get away with murder. Because you're more interested in being cool than you are in raising your daughter. Where was she? Did you let her go to a party where people were drinking?"

"h.e.l.l no! She snuck out. I didn't even know she was gone until the police called me. I have no idea where she was."

"Oh well that doesn't surprise me. Way to be responsible, Tom!"

"Katrina, spare me! Where do you get off? You are the G.o.dd.a.m.n workaholic. You are the one so wrapped up in your precious research that you don't give a rat's a.s.s about... " He stopped as a uniformed officer came through a nearby door with their fifteen-year-old daughter.

Alexis was wearing a black miniskirt and a red T-shirt that showed her midriff. There was vomit on the front of the shirt. She was shivering violently; the knee-length black jacket that hung open over her clothing, while fashionable, was thin and offered little protection from the early-morning October chill. Thick black lines of mascara streaked down from both eyes, and a stain of wiped lipstick was smeared across her cheek. Her shoulder-length hair was wildly disheveled.

When she saw her parents, Alexis began to cry. "I'm so sorry, you guys," she said. "I only had one beer, I swear."

"Then what's with the puke on the front of your shirt?" Tom asked.

His daughter's tears stopped as suddenly as they had begun. "Oh, gee Dad, I guess you haven't noticed, but I've had stomach problems most of my life. But yeah, I guess any time I puke I must be drunk. Whatever!"

"Only when you just got a DUI," Tom countered.

"Honey, what happened?" Katrina asked. "Why were you sneaking out?"

Alexis began to cry again. Thick rivers of mucus streamed from her nostrils, and she wiped them with the back of her hand.

"I knew if I asked Dad he wouldn't let me go," she sobbed. "This guy's parents were out of town and he was having a party. Dylan was going, and this shady a.s.s ratchet b.i.t.c.h Melinda was going, too. She's always, like, totally hitting on Dylan, and she's such a total s.l.u.t... I had to go. He's my boyfriend, not hers! I went with Erin and Jennifer, and Jennifer was supposed to be driving, but she got totally trashed. I just thought I should drive."

"Do you know how much trouble you're in?" Tom yelled. "Getting a DUI without a license is some serious s.h.i.t, young lady!"

"Lexi," Katrina said quietly, "I know you think that your dad and I are too strict. You're right. He would not have let you go to that party, and I wouldn't have either. But, honey, we're strict because we love you. It's for your own good! We are just trying to protect you. You have no idea how many psychos are out there."

Alexis rolled her eyes at the comment and then looked away melodramatically. "Yes, I do know, Mother! As if you could protect me from any of them."

Jason Fischer woke with a splitting headache and a stranger.

The young groupie from the previous evening was sitting up in the bed beside Jason, her bedcovers draped around her hips, her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s exposed. She was looking through his wallet. As Jason blinked to focus his vision, she withdrew a business card. "You have a Ph.D.?" she asked, reading the card.

"Yeah," he said. Not bothering to veil his annoyance, Jason took his belongings away from her. He stuffed the business card back into the wallet and flipped through the cash. The money from the gig was still there. He sank back onto the pillows of the girl's bed as a wave of nausea hit him.

She tried to nuzzle his bare chest. Jason shrugged her away.

"I saw your car," the girl said. "I thought you were broke."

Jason threw the covers aside and staggered out of bed. "I am," he said and then ran down the hall to her bathroom.

1:12 P.M. PDT.

That afternoon, Katrina was in her office obsessing over her latest rejected grant application to the National Inst.i.tutes of Health. The February 1 deadline for resubmission was already less than four months away.

Katrina was thrilled with the first reviewer's comments. The reviewer had enthusiastically wanted to fund her project. She read over the comments several times to highlight and commit to memory the specific points mentioned as favorable.

But the sentiment conveyed by the second review contrasted starkly. As she examined the reviewer's comments, Katrina wondered, Did this jacka.s.s even look at my data?

Five years earlier, Katrina's graduate work had been exceptional. Rumor of her being offered a faculty slot at the university-a scarcely heard of event-began to circulate even before she defended her dissertation.

Later, in accepting the new position, Katrina made some enemies. Some were other junior faculty, but most were fellow graduates in her cla.s.s.

The unfortunate majority of Ph.D. candidates graduating in her field would have no choice but to endure a postdoctoral stint under a faculty mentor before they were even considered for a faculty post. Postdoc positions paid miserably and subjected researchers to excruciating hours and, often, a total lack of appreciation or respect by their advisors. Tradition dictated that any contributions they made to the field were attributed primarily to their mentors, and so the credit they received for their own work was minimal. To those who had just worked for so many years to acquire a shiny new Ph.D. and the esteem of their colleagues, it was an insult as well as a lesson in mental and physical endurance.

The lucky ones finished their postdocs after only a year or two. The unfortunate were stuck in them for five years or longer. Katrina was among the rare few to bypa.s.s the process entirely. The price she would pay later was huge.

Five years after graduation, as Katrina sat fuming over the comments of the second reviewer of her grant, it was clear that her youth and lack of experience had cost her yet another opportunity for funding.

1:21 P.M. PDT.

While Katrina was agonizing over the rejection of her latest grant, two federal agents were wandering uninvited through her laboratory. Casually observing and taking mental notes, Agents Sean McMullan and Roger Gilman made a slow, deliberate circle around the central lab s.p.a.ce.

Two large, rectangular work islands stood in the center of the room with works.p.a.ces for four people per island. Dozens of clear bottles labeled with colored tape cluttered the benches, along with test tube racks of various sizes. Each bench also held several pieces of equipment, most of which were unidentifiable to the FBI agents. Many of the machines were connected to computers.

Around the outside of the room were several large refrigerators and freezers that produced a loud, constant background hum. A shelving area held chemical stocks divided and color-coded with stickers according to their physical properties and the health hazards that they presented to humans. Next to the shelves were a shower and an eyewash station. On a bench leading out of the main lab and into an adjacent room was a small appliance labeled, "pH Meter," with several vials and bottles next to it. Two of them, labeled "Concentrated HCl" and "10M NaOH," were uncapped.

Gilman peered through the window into the adjacent room just as a large mechanical arm stretched suddenly into view. A metal claw opened, grabbed something, and then backed out of view. Gilman took a leaping step backward and exclaimed, "What the devil is that?"

From behind him came a response with a slight Russian accent. "Oh, that's Octopus."

McMullan and Gilman turned to look at the girl who had spoken.

She stood in an area overtly labeled "Cytotoxic Compounds." She was wearing latex gloves and a lab coat, and her medium brown hair was tied back into a ponytail. Her arms were extended into a fume hood and she was transferring miniscule quant.i.ties of liquid from a vial into a small tube. A lollipop was clamped between her lips.

"What does it do?" Gilman asked.

The girl closed the vial and tube and pulled her hands out of the hood. She peeled off her gloves and tossed them into a waste container before popping the lollipop out of her mouth. "The robot? It runs biological a.s.says for us. Right now, it is looking for inhibitors of an enzyme. It works much more quickly that we can, so it can screen thousands of molecules at a time. It's a very efficient way to do the kind of work we do here."

McMullan chuckled. "Then what do you do?" he asked jokingly.

"Someone has to program Octopus," the girl replied, smiling. "Besides, there are a lot of things that need to be done around here that require a human being to do them. Robots can work incessantly, but they can't really think. Not quite yet.

"You're not from OSHA, are you?" the girl asked.

"No ma'am," Gilman said, "We are looking for Professor Katrina Stone. Is she here?"

Katrina's attention was diverted from the grant review when Oxana Kosova poked her head in.

"Some guys are here to see you," Oxana said.

The two men entered the room and Oxana closed the door behind them on her way out. They fanned out and stood in front of Katrina's desk.

She visually dissected them both. Both wore full suits, which none of her colleagues ever did unless they were presenting at a scientific conference. Clearly, these were not scientists.

One of the men was slightly shorter than the other and looked quite young in the face but was balding considerably. Katrina could not decide if he was young and his balding made him look older, or if he was older and his baby-face made him look young. He seemed uncomfortable.

The other man was taller, and muscular, with salt-and-pepper waves and kind green eyes. A vertical scar ran partially down his left cheek, and his face was weathered and tanned. He extended his hand, and the tip of an old tattoo peeked out from beneath his cuff.

"Dr. Katrina Stone?" the taller man asked in a slight Southern drawl. Katrina nodded and smiled. As she reached forward to shake his hand, he said, "I'm Agent Sean McMullan and this is Agent Roger Gilman-"

Katrina's smile disappeared and she pulled her hand away as if a spider had landed on it. "Oh, for Christ's sake!" she interrupted. "I just talked to Homeland Security two weeks ago, for an hour!"

"What do you expect, lady?" the short one named Gilman blurted out. "You work with anthrax!"

McMullan gave his partner a scowl and lowered his hand to his side following Katrina's rebuff. "I'm sorry, Dr. Stone," he said. "We are with the FBI, not Homeland Security. This is not a routine review of your research."

Katrina flinched. "I'm sorry for my rudeness; please sit down." She gestured toward the two seats facing her desk. "What can I do for you?"

The agents sat down, and he continued. "Dr. Stone, before we proceed, I need for you to very fully understand that we will be discussing matters of strictest confidentiality. Please, do not repeat this information to anyone.

"We are here to solicit your help. A new strain of anthrax has been discovered, and this strain contains an unusual element. There is a plasmid incorporated into its DNA that encodes a potent activator of anthrax lethal factor. What does that mean to you?"

Katrina was silent for a long moment. She cast her eyes between one agent and the other, sizing each of them up before speaking. "That sounds like a biological weapon. A plasmid is a mobile DNA element that can be inserted into a cell at the will of the researcher. And lethal factor is the toxin that causes the clinical symptoms of anthrax. A strain of the bug carrying a plasmid-encoded activator of lethal factor would presumably be much more virulent than wild-type-I mean, eh, ordinary anthrax."

"It is," McMullan said and shuddered slightly.

Katrina glanced down at the rejected grant application on the desk before her. When she looked back up, she was scowling slightly. "What do you want with me? I have recently been reminded once again by the NIH that many other researchers worldwide are working on the anthrax problem, and that most of them are more experienced and better equipped than I am."

McMullan and Gilman exchanged a glance. "One of our scientific consultants was on the review committee for your last grant application to the NIH," McMullan said. "The preliminary data for inhibitor compounds generated in your lab stood out in his mind as exceptionally promising."

"He wasn't impressed enough to fund the project," Katrina said bitterly.

"Actually, he did want very much to fund it. He was overruled by others on the committee."

Katrina thought back to the critiques and realized that McMullan was referring directly to the two reviewers who had provided the comments for her grant application.

McMullan continued, "Anyway, that was before the discovery of this new strain. Your grant application has now been reviewed once again in light of the discovery of the new strain of anthrax. And the NIH committee believes that your compounds have the potential to be developed rapidly into effective therapeutics. So the government has decided to offer you whatever you need in terms of funding, equipment, and staff, to complete the project detailed in your proposal as quickly as possible."

Twenty minutes later, Gilman and McMullan stood to leave Stone's office, and each of them shook her hand politely.

"It is a lot to consider," said McMullan. "Your lab will be effectively turned upside down. It will be a very large intrusion into your life and the lives of your staff. However, we will need your decision as quickly as possible." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. "We'll be in touch." He handed her the card. "And, again, please do not discuss this matter with anyone except Agent Gilman or me. Do not discuss it over the phone or the Internet with anyone."

"OK, I understand," Stone said. She took the business card and peered at it quickly before opening her top desk drawer to tuck it inside.

Gilman was glancing absently at the framed degrees on the wall behind her. There were three of them, all from different schools across the nation.

Next to the diplomas was a full-sized poster of what looked like a subway map. The subway stations were nonsense words, such as "mTOR" and "p53." The caption at the top of the map read, "A Subway Map of Cellular Pathways." Another full-sized poster on the wall to the left was a jumbled mess of overlapping, zigzagging, crossing and merging arrows and brightly colored shapes. It was ent.i.tled "Apoptosis Signals."

Gilman shook his head and turned to leave, but then he stopped short. For a few moments, he could only gape in disbelief at the large poster on the wall next to the door that had been at his back through their entire conversation. He turned to his partner who was also staring at the artwork.

Wordlessly, Gilman reached into his briefcase and took out a doc.u.ment. It was his copy of the greeting card from the White House. The one with the funny bouquet on the front.

The high-resolution poster on Katrina Stone's wall was in full color. The small picture in Gilman's hand was the smeared black and white of a cheap photocopy. Otherwise, the two images of the bouquet were identical.

The agents whirled back around in unison, guns drawn.

"Get your hands up, NOW!" yelled McMullan.

4:56 P.M. EDT.

In Washington, D.C., United States Postal Inspector Teresa Wood stepped out of an underground Metro station. A tall black-and-white pillar announced that she was at the Archives/Navy Memorial station.

In Teresa's right hand was her briefcase; with her left she was shoving the entire second half of a hot dog into her mouth. A fierce gust of wind blew past her at exactly the wrong time, sending a shoulder-length tuft of her fine straight black hair directly into her mouth along with the food. Rubbing her face onto her shoulder to detach the hair from her mouth, she crumpled the foil wrapper from the hot dog and tossed it into a trashcan on the sidewalk as she pa.s.sed. She did not stop walking.

Still chewing the large bite, the USPIS a.s.sistant Director of Forensics progressed briskly up the familiar stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue, her long legs taking half as many strides as those of a man walking nearby to cover the same distance.