Fredric Stern - The Endorphin Conspiracy

“Some little old lady set her kitchen on fire in my building and apparently died of smoke inhalation. The fire department made us evacuate.” Stefan eyed Geoff at first taken aback by Geoff’s urgent tone, then sensed Geoff’s exhaustion. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks. I feel a lot worse than that. Let’s get out of here and go somewhere we can talk more freely. I’ve got a lot to fill you in on.”

Geoff fled to Kapinsky’s apartment. He didn’t know where else to go, any other place no one would think to look for him, at least not right away. He was fortunate enough to find Kapinsky’s spare key in the same hiding place he had left it in the past when Geoff and he had socialized.

First his patients, then Kapinsky, now the attempt on Suzanne’s life. If they had been killed so readily, Geoff could be eliminated just the same. With murder all around him, bodies stacking up like cord wood, there had to be a reason his life had been spared.

The prestigious position in Balassi’s lab, the chief residency on a silver platter, all for someone who forged a drug log. It never felt right, never made sense. Until now. He had been set up. A goddamn, brilliant scheme. He was to be the fall guy. Geoff was, as O’Malley had put it, at the center of it all .

Geoff was devastated by Suzanne’s assault. He felt totally responsible, having drawn her into a danger zone to solve his own problem. Suzanne had trusted Geoff completely, and Geoff had betrayed her trust, however unintentionally. He didn’t want to make the same mistake with Stefan and endanger his life any more than he already had, but he was the only one Geoff could completely trust. After staying up most of the night talking and recounting the night’s awful events, Geoff felt he had no choice but to send Stefan far away from the city to the family compound in Connecticut where he’d be safe. A kind and gentle soul, he had never been in combat like Geoff, never even been involved in a fist fight, even as a kid. Geoff had always bailed him out of trouble, protected him. And he would protect him again at all costs.

Geoff collapsed on the bed, sat head in his hands. He thought of Suzanne lying in a dark lake of her own blood on the floor of the autopsy room.

Those assholes would pay for what they had done and pay dearly. He didn’t care if it was the CIA or even the goddamned President of the United States. He’d see to it. Nothing mattered greatly to him at this point except that he stay alive long enough to bring a certain end to the Sigma Project. It seemed unlikely he would survive his own accomplishment.

Right now though, he knew he needed to sleep to keep functioning. Geoff was physically exhausted and emotionally drained from the encounter in the autopsy lab. Sleep. The great escape, if only for a little while.

Geoff awoke abruptly at four a.m., body drenched with sweat, his heart racing as he tried to shut out the nightmarish images of grotesque corpses bursting with dancing snakes that slithered out of orifices and bloody wounds. He wiped his forehead with his hand, calmed himself. He needed a plan, and he had to be quick about it. He couldn’t afford to make an error in judgment now. He shut out horrible images of the autopsy room, of Suzanne, chalky white and near death in the emergency room.

Geoff sat up in bed, turned on a small night light. He glanced at the envelope from Suzanne resting on the coffee table. He threw off the bedcovers, walked to the table, grabbed the envelope, sat down at Kapinsky’s desk and emptied the envelope’s contents. Recorder, flash drive, electrophoresis printouts, endorphin vials. Geoff flipped through the printouts, noted the sigma endorphin patterns, assumed they were from the vials he had given her earlier.

At the bottom of the stack of printouts were two newspaper clippings, yellowed with age, edges frayed.

The first one was from The Washington Post , September 13, 1962.

“Professor Jumps to his Death. In an unfortunate incident today, Georgetown University political science professor Cameron Daniels died after jumping from the window of his seventh floor room at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Daniels had been hospitalized for depression. He leaves behind a wife and an infant daughter…”

At the bottom of the page was a picture, the professor’s family, a handsome man with streaks of grey in his hair, a starched white shirt with a perfectly knotted striped tie, his striking, young wife and infant daughter cradled between them. Geoff dropped his jaw in astonishment. He remembered seeing the same photo in an antique pewter frame resting on Suzanne’s bookshelf. Suzanne’s reaction was one of tension tinged with sadness. He was a political science professor, died not too long after that picture was taken….

Geoff flipped to the next article, from the same newspaper, dated November 23, 1962. “Family Sues Intelligence Agency, Wins Settlement. In a landmark decision, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a judgment against the Central Intelligence Agency in which the family of a professor with ties to the CIA had claimed his suicide was the result of CIA experimentation…”

“Oh, my God,” Geoff whispered. Until now, he had not understood Suzanne’s involvement, his feeling of being prodded along, used by her. Now it all became clear. He set down the articles, turned on Suzanne’s recorder.

“I assume you’re listening to this message in a private place and that you’re alone. If not, turn this off immediately until you can safely listen to what I have to say without being overheard.” Geoff switched off the recorder, scanned the room. Silly, almost. He turned the device back on, volume down, his ear close to the speaker.

“You have stumbled into something that is way over your head, Geoff. Your life is in danger. I urge you to leave the medical center immediately and don’t tell anyone where you’re going. Not anyone! Do not trust even those you think are closest to you.” There was a pause of several seconds followed by clicks as if recorder was being switched on and off.

Geoff took a deep breath, looked around, listened. He flipped on the recorder again.

“Now that you think I’m crazy, or simply trying to manipulate you, take a careful look at the papers in this envelope.”

Geoff removed the papers one at a time as she described them.

“The assay of the sigma endorphin you left me earlier today is an exact match with the one I isolated from Jessica’s brain tissue. It’s a synthetic sigma endorphin analog, one so potent it is capable of altering a person’s mental status and inducing a violent state of schizophrenia. Injected, it is like a ticking time bomb ready to go off. The other vial contains a beta endorphin analog, probably just an extremely powerful euphoria-inducing substance with some hallucinogenic properties, similar to, but much more potent than, morphine. I have placed both in this envelope. Keep them in a safe place as evidence.

“I have enclosed digitalized copies of the girl’s and Smithers’ PET scans and those of the rabbi and Jesus Romero. I was able to obtain them from the computer’s data banks. They tried to lock the files, but I was able to break the code.

“I know you are aware of Balassi’s involvement, but it goes much, much deeper than that. PETronics Corporation, the government. It’s all encrypted on the enclosed flash drive.

“Listen, Geoff, I’m sorry to draw you into this, but it was the only way. We needed an outsider to break this thing, and you were identified as the one with the knowledge and skills to do the job. You must, I repeat must , get this information to Dick Bennington at the CIA, Langley, Virginia, soon as possible. He can help protect you and break the project before it gets further out of control.