Harlan Coben - Miracle Cure

"Get in the refrigeration room," he whispered.

"You killed Michael."

He glanced at the gun and then back at Sara.

"Don't make me kill the nurse too."

She knew it was no idle threat.

"Drop the cane on the floor and move back. Now."

With her eyes still on him, she dropped the cane and slowly backed up into the refrigeration room. Her foot bumped into something and she realized with revulsion that it was Eric Blake's body.

"The room is soundproof so I wouldn't try screaming," he said.

"Please don't bring any more innocent people into this.

Enough have died."

The cold closed in around Sara as Harvey shut the refrigerator door and locked it with a padlock. Then he moved across the room, unlocked the lab door, and stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

"What is it?" he asked the nurse.

"It's Michael Silverman," the nurse said excitedly.

"He's here."

"What?"

"He just arrived from Bangkok."

The sirens blasted.

"Drive faster, Willie."

"Jesus, Twitch, I can't drive through cars."

"Then drive on the sidewalk."

"Here." Willie handed him a pencil.

"What?"

"Suck on your pacifier and tell me what's going on."

"I was an idiot, that's what's going on." Max tossed the pencil on the car floor.

"I spent so much time trying to figure out who wanted to destroy the clinic that I couldn't see what was so obvious."

"What?"

"The murders were helping the clinic, not hurting it."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Willie asked.

"I just got the test results. Riccardo Martino was HIV positive.

Krutzer, Leander, and Singer were HIV negative."

"Speak English."

"Martino had AIDS. The other three don't." "I thought Martino was cured by this miracle drug."

"SRI is not a miracle drug. It doesn't work. Harvey Riker faked the whole thing."

"The head of the clinic?"

Max nodded.

"At first I thought it might be his assistant, Eric Blake."

"So what changed your mind?"

"Something that happened the night Michael was kidnapped.

Sara was about to go home for the night when she bumped into Eric Blake. He was heading upstairs to run an errand. Sara volunteered to do it for him, and he let her."

"So?"

"If Eric Blake was behind the kidnapping, he would have never let Sara go back upstairs. He would have insisted on running the errand himself."

"Let me get this straight this Riker guy faked like he had a cure?"

"Right." "But he didn't run all the tests. I thought you said the other docs ran blood tests too."

"They did. But look at the rotation. Our three murder victims were Trian, Whitherson, and Martino. All three were admitted by Bruce Grey.

That meant that Bruce Grey took a blood test, concluded that they had the AIDS virus, and admitted them.

Then Riker took over. He was the one who drew the blood that was used to determine if they were cured. He must have sent the lab someone else's blood someone who never even had AIDS.

Naturally, when the lab tested this blood, it came back negative.

Ergo, they were 'cured'. A 'miracle'."

"But I still don't get it, Twitch. Didn't Bruce Grey do the later tests with some of the patients? And didn't you just say the three guys Dr. Zry tested were all cured?"

Max smiled.

"Krutzer, Leander, and Singer weren't cured," he said, "because they never had AIDS in the first place."

"Huh?"

"All three were admitted by Harvey Riker. So what did he do? He switched the blood samples right in the beginning except this time he switched their HIV negative blood for the blood of someone who had AIDS."

"Mother fucker," Willie exclaimed.

"So it looked like they had AIDS when they never did?"

"Right. Then Harvey probably infected them with a few mild flu viruses to make it look like they were really sick. When the time came, Bruce Grey performed the blood tests. Since they never had AIDS in the first place, their tests came back negative.

Ergo, they were 'cured'."

"Unfuckinbelievable. When did you start putting it together?"

"When George Camron was raving about being paid late. I didn't pay much attention at the time, but then I got to thinking why was he paid all of a sudden? How did his boss get his hands on money so fast? Then I remembered my original question who benefits? Who got the good press? Who put pressure on his foes to keep financing them?"

"The clinic."

Max nodded.

"And all the donations solicited from Newsflash went directly to the clinic."

"Riker used the money to pay off Camron?" "Some of it. Camron also said he never killed Martino. So I got to thinking who had the best opportunity to kill Riccardo Martino? Riker claimed to be the last guy who saw him alive.

He probably injected him with cyanide a few minutes before O'Connor knocked him over the head."

"You got a motive for all of this?" Max thought for a minute.

"It's an unselfish, albeit warped, one Riker thought he could cure AIDS. He tried desperately to keep his clinic financed, but after their first year he must have realized that he needed something big or their grant would get cut off. That's when he decided to fake the cure. But he also knew that Trian, Whitherson, and Martino would never stand up to close scrutiny and eventually they would die. So he had to find other patients who could stand up to any test. He had to find patients who would be legitimately HIV negative when tested by the government. That's when he brought in Krutzer, Leander, and Singer."

Willie swerved around a van.

"It's a nice little theory, Twitch.

Have any evidence?"

"I will. Riker's one problem was the storage house in Bangkok.

All lab material was immediately packaged by either Eric Blake or Winston CXConnor and sent to Bangkok for safekeeping. If Riker had tried to divert it, it would have looked suspicious. But Riker really wasn't worried about it anyway. He figured he could always have the storage house destroyed if anybody got too close to the truth."

"Which is what he tried to do, except you nailed Camron first."

Max nodded.

"Colonel Ts men are guarding the building twenty-four hours a day. When we test the stored blood specimens, it will prove that the blood taken upon admittance could not possibly belong to the same person as the blood taken when they were supposed to be cured. That's one reason Riker wanted the safehouse in Bangkok. It was far away and yet it was George Camron's hometown. Markey and the government would have a lot of trouble finding it. If they really tried, Riker could always have George destroy it."

"Case solved."

"I hope."

"Do you think Riker knows you're on to him?"

"I doubt it."

"So calm down. We're almost there."

"You don't understand."

"What?"

Max leaned down and picked up the pencil.

"Sara is alone with him."

It was so cold.

Sara wrapped her arms around herself but it did no good.

The frigid air cut through her skin to the bone. She looked down, coughing. Eric's body was in a twisted, fetal position. His eyes were closed, a bullet wound in his throat. She wondered how Michael had died. Had he been tortured or had it been quick and painless? She fought back tears and tried to think clearly.

For the sake of their unborn child, she had to find a way out of this.

She tried the door, but it would not budge. Her cough had become relentless, racking her body with powerful jerks. She could feel the cold settle into the bottom of her lungs. She wondered if it was an infection. Her lips trembled. She felt weak, drained. She hunched her body into a small ball, her eyes darting about the small room.

There were shelves filled with various codes. One test tube said 87m332. Another read 98k003. The beakers were labeled Naoh, So2, H2So4, Hspo Hd and CHd3.