David Dun: Unacceptable Risk

"This is Harry, he kind of adopts Grady when I leave and he's my pal and he's smarter than most people."

Figgy nodded at Harry, but Harry left the cube, most likely for Sam's desk.

"Figgy here, as you can see, is a cursing, uncouth man who can't make breakfast taste good without the f word, but he helped teach me the spy trade."

"The private spy trade. We could never persuade Sam to be come a government man, although it wasn't for lack of trying."

"He was good enough to teach me and they don't come any better than this professor emeritus of the spy business. He's here on behalf of the French government."

At the mere mention of the word "French," Grogg stuck his head up from a nearby cubicle, his quarter-inch-thick glasses hiding his eyes but not his emotions. Grogg couldn't stand the French, but his feelings were based on nothing more than a nasty divorce to a rotund and mouthy woman of French descent.

"The French are the only human subspecies actually ca pable of fitting their own nose up their own ass," Grogg said.

"This, as you know, I'm sure, is Grogg," Sam said. "He no longer drinks French wine and he's given up French women altogether." Before Grogg could say anything, Sam said, "Come on. Let's go to the conference room."

As they turned to leave Grady's cubicle, they ran into Jill. "Well, well," she said. "Figgy Meeks, the legend himself."

He kissed her hand, continental style, and she joined the group.

On the way down the hall Figgy stopped. "That must be the infamous 'Big Brain.' " He stood at a large glass-walled area with racks of computer hardware.

"Officially it's called the Common Object Repository for the Enterprise," Sam said. "And Grogg here-our expert on French ex-wives-helped me conceive her."

Grogg nodded.

"Bet she's some kind of memory hog, huh?" said Figgy.

"Anything we download is in there forever," Grogg said. "It's amazing how much we use old stuff."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Oh, we have investigators trained in what to feed Big Brain."

"From people's garbage cans to your computer," Figgy said.

"Yep. We're good at collecting garbage and other things. But it's how you query the database that really matters."

Figgy nodded, feigning interest for Grogg's sake.

The conference room was large enough to seat thirty around the massive table. It was a room with character, col lectors' items in a bookcase, pictures on the wall, heavy wood moldings, quite out of sync with the high-tech cubi cles in the rest of the office. Sam had a cubicle like everyone else, just a little bigger. When he wanted complete privacy, he worked in the conference room.

On a sideboard stood a jug of coffee, juice, soft drinks, and Danish pastries stuffed with a combination of cream cheese and blueberry preserves. Sam wanted two, but duti fully he passed on the pastries and high-calorie juices, poured himself some water, and thought about whether de fined abs were really worth it. The prior day he had suffered through the sight of Grogg wolfing down a Reuben sand wich. Sam had turkey on whole wheat, mustard, but no mayo. He was still thinking about the Reuben. Somehow he sensed that Grady was watching him and the Danish to see who would win and, of course, it was imperative that he be a rock. When alone, Sam had no problem with food, but there was something about watching another man expressing his satisfaction that tested Sam's steel.

"So, let's start with what I've got to know." Figgy sat and took a giant bite of a Danish. "Fill me in on this technology."

Sam leaned back in his chair. "Let's not be disingenuous, Figgy. You work for the French, and they know the score. Better than we do. So don't ask me — tell me."

"Actually, the French are in the dark about this technol ogy."

"According to the French, Grace Technologies never made any successful gene-altering discoveries. So what do they have to be concerned about?" Sam pressed.

"They know it's a gene-altering technology that can induce violence or tranquillity in people. The French want to stop Gaudet as badly as you do. News of your incident with your neighbors up north sparked their interest. They sent me." Figgy sat back in his chair, hands down, palms out. "Sam, we go back a long way. I'm telling you what they told me. I have no reason to disbelieve them."

Sam looked at Grady and Grogg, chuckling. "See how good Figgy is. Now he's using old times' sake to get what he wants."

Figgy finished the Danish. "Do we have a deal?"

"First you tell us what the French know about our problem; men we'll get serious about deals and the like."

Figgy sighed. "Grace was into all kinds of research-"

"I was there, Figgy. We all know in general about the vec tor technology. We know your clients have it and are proba bly floundering around with it. They're probably torturing monkeys as we speak."

"France now owns all the assets of Grace Technologies, including this vector technology. Devan Gaudet also has it, which could mean disaster anywhere, anytime. What we can't figure is why Gaudet would use this extreme vector on a couple of your neighbors in the mountains."

"Because he's a twisted son of a bitch," Jill said. "He has history with Sam. Maybe it's a thrill to kill a guy using his neighbors."

"What kind of history?" Figgy asked Sam.

Sam tried not to think about it. There had been plenty, and it wasn't a favorite topic. "Like a lot of high-powered criminals, you tend to run into Gaudet in more than one sewer. He's killed people who were close to me. That isn't the point. The point is, yes, Gaudet possesses a powerful, poorly understood, destructive technology. But he doesn't have the whole thing, at least as I understand it."

Figgy's face was a blank. "Meaning?"

"It's an immune-system issue. It doesn't take long for the body to reject this gene-changing vector, because it literally creates foreign tissue in you. It appears that with this particular vector, when they change the DNA in your brain cells, they might as well have been transplanted from another per son. Or it may be that the body is rejecting the vector, treating it the way it would a virus. So far, Gaudet doesn't have the immunosuppressive part of the technology that we think was used by Grace. Either that, or he isn't using it." Sam paused. "Tell me if this isn't familiar to you. The French know this. If they aren't telling you, you're of no use to them… or us."

"I know what Grace did with the vectors. Generally. Grace used the vectors on human and nonhuman subjects. The vector worked to alter brain cells and the subjects lived without an immune-system catastrophe. Some of these people, like Chellis, are still in the custody of the French gov ernment, so we're sure about this. Gaudet and Benoit gave Chellis what the Grace company staff called the nervous- flier vector-an extreme form that was cooked up just for him. The opposite end of the spectrum was an extreme version of a soldier vector called raging soldier."

"You think that's what Gaudet used on my neighbors?"

"No doubt. Best we can tell, the original vector technol ogy, as used by Grace, included some other exotic mole cule-the French have named it Chaperone, because that is what Benoit Moreau called it. Chaperone prohibits the vector from killing its host."

Sam nodded.

"Gaudet doesn't seem to have the Chaperone part of the vector. If he did, he'd have an unbelievably powerful-and valuable-tool. He wouldn't waste time coming after you and your neighbors. He'd be selling it and maybe using it, depending on whether he'd like his homicidal creations to last more than a day or two. Instead, he doped your neigh bors with the raging soldier vector and, according to your re port to the FBI, one of them died within hours from the immune reaction."

"Don't be sure Gaudet wouldn't be coming after me. He probably wants me as bad as I want him. But I do believe that Chaperone isn't being used by Gaudet and that he prob ably doesn't have it or understand it," Sam said. "And I don't understand why he didn't try a much more efficient method of killing me. Using my neighbors wasn't the best method and that is unlike Gaudet."