clarified. “Kelly, I need your help. I need you and John to work with me on this. I don’t know whom else to trust until we know what’s going on.”
She was skeptical. “Why trust me? Why me and John?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, you’ve given me more reasons to not trust you. The fact is that Lorne trusted John, yet Lorne might have been behind whatever’s going on, and you’re getting shot at could indicate some pretty big-time criminal activity. I guess I’m just hoping I’m right. Am I?”
She nodded. “So, what’s next?”
“I’d like you to go back into the virus storage cell and finish what you started.”
Edgy
“What do you mean you killed them! You fucking moron! You were going to just rob them. … So, why did you shoot them, they didn’t have any guns. … What do you mean unimportant, this was a friend of the Institute, we needed her. … Oh, don’t give me ‘the will of Allah,’ you lunatic. … Respect you – Bullshit! Look, I could care less if you rag heads kill each other, but this wasn’t necessary. … So, where’s my money? You got the shipment, now transfer the money. … No, I will not be patient! We had a deal and, if you want any more, you need to play ball. … Yeah, it’s all there; everything you need to kill an entire village and to immunize your buddies. … What do you mean it was ‘broken’? … You shot what? … Well, that’s your problem, pal. … I didn’t say it was bullet proof. … How many? … Did you notice which vial it was? … The numbers on the side – you do know how to read, don’t you? … Well tell those other idiots to stop handling everything and send me the numbers: it could be vaccine or it could be the germs. Chances are you just killed your entire team; so, send the money pronto, just in case you guys all die in the next couple weeks. … Yeah, well, fuck you and your murderous god, too! Just send the money.” He pushed the “end” button and sat overlooking the bay. How could I be so stupid? He started the engine and drove out of the parking lot. He wasn’t headed home.
Uncertainty
John shook his head. “I don’t know, Kelly. With everything that’s happened, do you think we can trust him?”
“John. Call it woman’s intuition. Call it whatever you want, but we need to trust someone. You and I can’t get much further otherwise, and I can’t live being scared all the time. The virus inventory must be the key to everything that’s happened. We can only count and look at a spreadsheet that’s already outdated, and compare to the Institute record on the server. We know there are differences, but not what it all means. I don’t want to get shot at again. I don’t want you shot. If Jules is a bad guy, then nothing has changed; we’re still in danger. On the other hand, why say anything to me? He already knew I was in the virus cell, so why ask me to get a complete count? He could just as well have told me to stay away, and we would be stuck right where we were.”
He grimaced. “You’re right, but I still don’t like it. He’s a strange duck, trying to make a fortune. I just figure there’s more going on than we know. But, I get your point. We should try to get an accurate count on the virus vials.”
Kelly nodded and went to the dressing chamber, then disappeared into the lab interior, visible to John on the closed circuit cameras. She was only inside for less than an hour before entering the data into a terminal for John to use in the outer lab workstation. He had thought about sending a text message to Mary, but wasn’t sure what to say. Getting Jules involved might lead back to her if he wanted to dig deep enough, but that was a big “if,” and she was still hidden from view if someone was watching them. He didn’t want to scare her unnecessarily.
As Kelly decontaminated, John was busy collating the information she’d gathered. He would compare it to the Institute records later. For now, he wanted to update Lorne’s spreadsheet.
Her hair was disheveled as she came out of the last airlock. “So, what’s it look like?”
He didn’t take his eyes off the monitor for more than a few seconds, then returned to the keyboard. “I don’t know yet. I think the live virus errors are all in one group, and it looks like the numbers shrunk again, down ten more vials. Are you sure you counted them all accurately?”
She looked at the screen over his shoulder. “Yeah, I got them all. It’s pretty foolproof in there. Everything is isolated by batch numbers. The vials are arranged in numbered carrier slots. It’s easy to count.”
He leaned back toward her. “Then that’s it. Another ten vials have been removed. I just need to check the Institute records. I didn’t think they’d ever be shipped out of here, but I need to make sure they were on the manifest over the weekend. If not, then there’s a different problem.”
He didn’t need to elaborate. Even if it was an errant shipment, the missing vials would make national news if reported and probably shut GHI down.
Disclosure
Irina’s glare turned from her normal unfriendly scowl to sinister. “Do you know how bad this is? Do you! I should never have gotten involved with you, such an imbecile.” Her normal distain for other scientists didn’t compare to the disgust she felt for anyone without a PhD in hard science. She was wringing her hands together.
Matt Hanson wasn’t a scientist; he was a CFO, a bean counter; but, he’d been around these prima donnas all of his career and learned to hold most of them in equal disdain. Most of them couldn’t manage a checkbook. Besides, Irina looked like she was raised by monkeys then beaten out of the trees with an ugly stick. “Fuck you, bitch.”
“What? You think you can talk to me this way!”
He didn’t smile. “Yeah, I’ll talk to you any way I want. You’re a fraud … an ugly fiend and a fraud. Everyone thinks you’re a genius; well, I know better. Don’t forget that I know your secret. You only exist because I created you! You were just naval lint a few years back, and I made you a star. You wanted fame and fortune, and I gave it to you.”
She demurred, only slightly. “Without my credentials, you would still be alone in that lonely little office of yours watching your 401K and wondering if you’d live in a double-wide in Wyoming in a few years. You had nothing. You know nothing important. Without me, your little scheme would still be a fantasy. I do not know how you married such a beautiful woman who had your beautiful children. She must be even more of an imbecile than you.”
The bantering went on until both were exhausted of it. They did, in fact, have important business together: dark, evil, illegal business. They were bound together by the scheme that implicated both of them in murder.
She finally broke the chain of dialogue. “We must speak to Jules immediately.”
Later, coming directly from the lab’s, John and Kelly were no longer following office protocol. They walked directly into Jules’s office where Kelly spoke, while John stayed by the door. “Jules, we’ve done a physical inventory and double-checked everything. There are more than ten virus containers missing.”
He looked at the printout she’d handed to him. “Ten, you say?”
She touched a line on the paper. “More than ten. Ten since the last update by Dr. Bridger. There were vials missing before then; that’s what Lorne was recording, we’re sure of it.”
He thumbed through the pages. “This is a huge report, how can you be sure it’s accurate? There could be lots of errors.”
John didn’t like what he was hearing; there was something skewed in Jules’ attitude. “Dr. Bridger didn’t make any mistakes. There were only two batches that showed bad counts. Everything else was dead-on correct.”
He looked at the cocky technician, “You found this, John?” You? By snooping around in Dr. Bridger’s private files?”
Kelly was mystified by his attack on John. Just hours earlier, he’d been polite, even inviting, suggesting more investigation. Now he was obtuse, like he’d forgotten their whole discussion, the alliance in truth. John was angry and about to launch into tough dialogue, or worse, when Kelly preempted him. “
What’s going on, Jules? You were all over this in the morning. You agreed with us and asked me to check the inventory more thoroughly. I did it, and John just checked it again and updated Dr. Bridger’s records.”
“I didn’t ask you to update some unofficial spreadsheet. We have an official record, and I wanted to have it verified, that’s all!”
She stared at him, speechless. Everything about his attitude was different. Jules continued. “Now give me the information and give me that copy of the spreadsheet. And you, John, go to the lab right now and erase the data. I don’t want confusing reports rattling around the Institute. Lorne’s not here anymore, and we don’t know what that report is about, so get rid of it. It only confuses things.”
John took a step forward as Kelly turned to confront him. “John, don’t say anything. Just go back to the lab and delete the folder with Dr. Bridger’s spreadsheet.”
John had been ready to deck the older man. It wasn’t that an asshole boss was belittling an employee. To John, at that instant, it was personal. As a young man and trained soldier,