D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

“You’ve done great,” Camilla smiled. “Don’t let Phillip upset you. He understands the complexities but he also wants results. He’s not getting younger. He wants to see it come to pass before he does.”

“I know that. I just need him to appreciate that at this point it’s almost unstoppable. Seth has mapped out our strategy for distribution, we’ve got everything in place and once we get the Carriers on their planes we’re essentially done.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said.

“I could never have done this without your support.”

“It was our dream, Sarah.”

She turned and hugged Camilla, burying her face in her old friend’s curly blond hair.

After a minute, she let go and said, “There is one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We might have a little problem back at the lab.”

Camilla’s smile wavered and then disappeared altogether. “Really? What’s wrong?”

“You remember David don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Well,” Sarah swallowed hard. “He kind of defected earlier this week.”

“Defected?”

“We got him back,” she paused and looked at Camilla.

“And?” Camilla prompted.

“We had to take him out.”

“Take him out?”

“We killed him.”

Camilla looked stunned, “Oh my God!”

“We couldn’t risk him exposing us,” Sarah explained. “But before he died, he managed to tell somebody about what we’re doing.”

“He what?” Camilla stepped back as if she had just been slapped in the face. “Someone knows all about this? How could you let this happen, Sarah? When Phillip hears this he’s going to be furious.”

“We know who he is, and we’re trying to find him. I’ll know more tonight after I call Seth, but as of eleven o’clock eastern time this morning, he had managed to elude us.”

Camilla dropped into a chair. “This isn’t good. We need to find this guy now. Hell, this could expose all of us. You should have been more careful, Sarah. Who is he? What are you doing about it?”

“I know this looks bad,” Sarah replied. “But we’ll find him. Seth’ll deal with it.”

Camilla looked up and said, “He better because if this guy gets to the law…I just don’t want to think what that could mean.” She got up and looked Sarah straight in the eye. “Sort it out, Sarah. I want to know this has been dealt with.”

Walking out of the room she stopped and said, “The bathroom’s over there. Why don’t you get freshened up and then come back downstairs?”

“Don’t tell them about what I just said, Camilla,” Sarah pleaded. She had no desire to have to explain this situation right now.

“I won’t,” she said as she turned and headed for the door. “Yet.”

The door closed. Sarah turned to take in the view one more time. A cloud passed in front of the sun casting a gloom across the beach, suppressing the vibrant colors as it raced up the hill – a shadowy apparition proceeded by an ominous wind. She stepped off the balcony and shut the door before it reached her.

“Do they know who gave him a ride?” Seth asked, frowning hard as he banged on the window to get Jerry’s attention outside.

Mark replied over the horrible cellular connection, “Yeah, but nobody knows where he went. All they said was that he was looking for a ride to Bangor, and this guy gave him a lift. Apparently he’s a regular at the diner but keeps to himself, no-one knows too much about him. We should be able to track him down and see if Foster told him anything or where he dropped him. We just need some time.”

“At least we know where he was headed. Bert can help us track down the guy who gave him a ride. Can you get a description of the car? Get down to Bangor and we’ll contact you as soon as we find out more.”

“Got it,” Mark replied.

“You know what’s at stake here, Mark. If you find this guy, Sarah is going to be happy – very happy.”

“You got it. I’ll call you when I get to Bangor.”

“So what’s happening?” Jerry asked as he ambled into the room. His slicked back jet black hair still wet from a shower.

Seth hung up the phone. “It looks like he got a ride to Bangor. Mark’s going down there to try to find him, but I’ll bet he’s long gone.”

“You think so?”

“Sure, why wouldn’t he be? He was from Massachusetts. I bet that’s where he’s heading,” Seth said as he flexed his arms and hands, twisting them in a martial-arts learned motion. Jerry’s lazy eye bugged the hell out of him. He never knew if the guy was looking at him or not. Maybe a roundhouse kick would knock that thing inline.

“Think about it,” Jerry said, his left eye staring at Seth and his right roaming over a topological map on the wall. “David told this guy something, probably everything, before he died. There’s no other explanation as to why he ran from the Wild Bear. He must know about Gen96, and he saw what happened to David. He knows we’re looking for him. If I were him, I’d be going to the authorities.”

Seth smiled. “Of course. He’s going to want to find help.”

“Absolutely.”

“He won’t go to the State Police. He probably doesn’t know who he can trust. This isn’t local-cop stuff anyway. He’s going to try and go to the government.”

They both said in unison, “The FBI.”

“We don’t want to be messing with those guys,” Jerry said.

“Maybe not, but there’s always the chance that he hasn’t got there yet. Or if he has, he’ll still be in Bangor. If he’s reported anything and they believe him, they’ll want him to stick around for questioning. We need to get down there as fast as possible. Maybe we can get lucky and snag him.”

“I can have you there in just over an hour,” Jerry said as they both rushed for the door.

After landing at Bangor International, Jerry rented a car while Seth used his mobile phone to get the address of the FBI. Within the half hour, they were parked across the street from the dumpy little two-story building in a small industrial park.

“Now all we can do is wait,” Jerry said.

“I wish one of us would have seen this guy,” Seth said. “Bert said he could get us a picture, but it would take a bit.”

“So what’s this guy’s description again?”

“According to Bert, he’s early thirties, about six-two and around two-hundred-twenty pounds. Kind of long, light brown hair that’s thinning on top. Unless he bought some clothes, he should be wearing a green, long sleeve shirt, jeans, and some LL Bean hunting boots.”

“You just described half of the men in this state.”

“I know,” Seth said. “We’ve got to get this guy. He could flush the last eighteen years of work right down the toilet and worse than that, he could put all of us in jail for the rest of our lives. We’re so close I can taste it. All we need is another month or so and it’ll be unstoppable and we can disappear into the sunset.”

Pell unlocked the door, and they walked into the empty office. The FBI team obviously keep to strict business hours up here, Chris thought. God forbid if there was a federal crime outside of nine to five. They hadn’t said two words since leaving the helicopter at BIA. Pell was obviously agitated.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

Chris stood alone in the lobby contemplating the events of the day and feeling a strange combination of excitement and vindication. He had been telling the truth – Sarah Burns and her cronies were for real. What was unraveling with each passing minute was pure James Bond – villains, heroes, evil plots and he was right in the middle of it. Wow! A little more exciting than signing up a new client or writing some cool code. He paced the small room.