Scott Nicholson - Liquid fear

After standing at the urinal for two minutes, Mark washed his hands, taking his time. When he left the restroom, the two guards were nowhere in sight. An Asian man raced by, arms loaded with baggage. A mother with two small children in her lap read USA Today by a ticket counter. A teenage couple swayed to the rhythm of separate headphones, and Mark couldn’t tell which set was emitting a bass beat loud enough to be heard from twenty feet away.

He gripped the handle of his luggage and was joining the crowd again when the guards suddenly appeared, one at each elbow.

The tall guard took the suitcase while the other gripped Mark’s upper arm. “Has this bag been in your possession the entire time?” the tall guard asked.

“It’s never left my sight,” Mark said.

“Are you sure it’s yours?” the short guard said. His head resembled a thumb.

“Yes. It has my name on it, as well as stickers with numbers from other flights.”

“This way please,” the tall man said, nodding down the corridor toward a less-traveled area of the terminal.

“Can you tell me what this is about?”

“Routine baggage check.”

“It was cleared at Dulles when I boarded.”

“Please, sir. You wouldn’t want to make a scene, would you?”

Mark wondered if a scene might be required. The DEA, CID, FBI, CIA, and National Security Agency could all have an interest in Halcyon, or, more likely, the rage drug Briggs had discovered through the back door. Any of the agencies might want to hang a bull’s-eye on Burchfield, particularly if the president viewed him as a rival.

“Look, I can open this right here if you want,” Mark said. “Someone’s picking me up in a couple of minutes and you know how traffic is.”

Thumb finally spoke. He even sounded like a thumb. “National security.”

Mark sighed. No one could fight against those words. Best to go through the dog-and-pony show and let the puppet masters flex their strings.

They led Mark to a door as innocuous as that of a janitor’s closet. Mark entered to a brightly lit room containing nothing but a wooden table and a chair. Thumb planted the briefcase on the table. “Open it.”

Mark turned the serrated metal wheel of the lock until he’d dialed the proper combination and stepped back. “Please keep my papers in order,” he said.

Thumb grunted and opened the lid. The contents looked just as Mark had left them. He tried not to smile. He suspected Thumb wouldn’t trust a smile.

The tall guard removed his sunglasses and flashed gray eyes. “Mark Morgan.”

“I didn’t tell you my name.”

Thumb emitted a guttural noise that might have been satisfaction. He pulled an orange pill bottle from some hidden crevice. “Prescription?”

“Never seen it before,” Mark replied.

Thumb gave the bottle a shake. No rattle. Grimacing, he twisted the lid free and a piece of paper fluttered to the tabletop.

The tall guard picked it up and unfolded it. “‘This could have been ten years in jail,’” he read in a monotone.

“I don’t know where that came from,” Mark said.

“A joker, huh?”

“No joke.”

Thumb rummaged around a little more, checking every pocket and flap until he was satisfied.

“Ten years,” the tall guard said, handing the vial back to his partner, who dumped it in the briefcase and snapped the lid shut.

“I don’t know who you’re working for, but I didn’t put that there,” Mark said. He knew it wouldn’t have mattered, because the note was right. The bottle could just as easily have contained twenty grams of cocaine, TNT, or stolen jewelry.

“You might want to be a little more careful, then, and quit lying about letting a bag out of your sight.” The tall guard held out the briefcase, his eyes like winter clouds. “You might get yourself in trouble.”

Mark nodded and headed for the door. Even if there had been no bottle, the guards could have easily planted one. He wasn’t sure if the encounter had been a friendly reminder from Burchfield or a wry warning from his CRO superiors or even Briggs. With the stakes mounting, the players would be pushing their bets. He would be glad when Halcyon was out of his hands.

He straightened his tie and exited the room, joining the stream of travelers. He glanced at his watch and didn’t wipe the sweat from his brow until he had reached the far end of the terminal. He punched numbers on his cell phone. “Meet me out front,” he said.

The green sedan with the tinted windows was so modest that it drew attention. Mark glanced around, wondering which of the exhausted, sullen-faced travelers might be an agent of some sort. Then he slid into the passenger’s seat.

“You’re late,” Briggs said.

“The flight attendant insisted on a second bag of peanuts.”

Briggs navigated away from the curb, gaze fixed straight ahead. His eyes were onyx, large pupils ringed by deep brown. The hooked nose gave him the aspect of a bird of prey, and touches of gray hair at his temples suggested a professorial, distinguished demeanor.

“How’s the senator?” Briggs asked.

“Is the car clean?”

“You’ve been watching too many spy movies. I picked this up at Hertz. Cash, no reservation. Therefore, no bugs.”

“You can’t be too careful,” Mark said.

“Do I have the go-ahead for the experiments?”

“Carte blanche. Just don’t harm any innocent bystanders. A little collateral damage is okay, as long as it stays inside the building.”

Briggs twisted one corner of his mouth in a smirk. “Selective ethics, Mr. Morgan. Maybe there’s a career for you in politics after all this is over.”

“I work for CRO,” Mark said. “If there are fringe benefits like helping the human race, then fine. But don’t forget who’s boss.”

“A lesson we should all keep in mind.” Briggs merged off a ramp onto I-40, headed for Chapel Hill. “How’s your wife?”

Mark froze. “She’s out of this. That was the deal.”

“Relax. Just inquiring about a colleague, that’s all.”

“She told me about the original trials. What little she remembers. She thinks you’re a charlatan, or worse.”

Briggs cackled. “Alexis believed in the goal. You can’t treat people’s trauma until you know where the border lies. We all have different breaking points.”

“But you enjoyed breaking people, not putting them back together. That’s the difference. And that’s where Halcyon comes in.”

“What’s that saying? ‘You have to crack a few eggs to make a good omelet.’”

“Alexis said the trials were a failure.”

“The real failure was that she didn’t get any credit. She always wanted a breakthrough, and that could have been hers. Don’t you find she’s just a little bit bitter?”

Mark was annoyed, because he sensed some truth in the words. “She came out of it just fine. She’s resilient. But she thinks the other subjects might have suffered permanent damage.”

Briggs took his eyes from the teeming traffic to study Mark. “Anita Molkesky, David Underwood, Roland Doyle, and-”

“Wendy Leng?” Mark clutched the briefcase. “Handy that three of them are still in the Research Triangle.”

“We have to finish those trials.”

“They’re off the books. You know we can’t present any of those old results to the FDA. Stick with the new group, the aboveboard project.”

“But at least we know Halcyon works. All the subjects dealt with their fear and trauma and have gone on to productive lives.”

“‘Subjects’? They’re people, Doctor. Alexis had years of therapy to deal with those issues. They nearly ruined our marriage.”

“Halcyon would have eased those problems.”

“By erasing whatever happened in those trials. You seem to be the only one that remembers everything.”