Stephen Berry - The Biofab War

"The Bureau's come a million light-years since the overdue demise of the late Director. They're good people. I know-I work with them every day. And if I thought this a case requiring the wherewithal to walk unblinking into a firefight, I'd pick the Bureau over the Outfit any day. But this one's weird and political dynamite. If the Hill gets wind of our involvement in a domestic matter, it's good-bye Bill.

"So, I need you, the Outfit needs you, and, at the risk of being thought a jingoist, your country needs you. Or at least two of you. Zahava, think of it as indirectly helping Israel.

"Well?"

Bob raised his hand. "Aye."

"Why not," said Zahava, her hand joining McShane's in the air.

Shaking his head, John looked at the cluttered desk top. "Aye," he said with a sigh.

"Ah, I knew you couldn't let the Gipper down.'' Sutherland beamed. Rising, he switched off the tape recorder and pocketed it. "With your help, we'll get that port facility built and some producing wells dug. Can't run an armored division on cord wood."

He turned at the door. "I'll send a courier around with a full briefing packet.

"Oh, and John. Throw that coffee out. You'll live longer."

"Don't you feel Bill's just using us to get himself out of trouble?" asked Zahava over brunch the next morning.

John shrugged, looking up from the patio to the trees surrounding the townhouse's bricked-in yard. A pair of cardinals contended noisily with a blue jay for the last piece of winter suet hanging from the budding cherry tree.

"Yeah, probably. Don't complain, though. The last two assignments were easy money. Besides, it's often complex, sometimes intriguing work-even dangerous. Those are hard qualities to come by in a job these days. Especially one that pays as well as this."

"Israel doesn't lack for danger," she said pointedly.

"There you go, recruiting for the Mossad again." He smiled easily. Her glare vanished. "Look, again I promise-we'll live in Israel once we've enough money to be free of that horrible inflation rate."

It was a widening gap between them. Zahava had come to the States for the summer-several summers ago. John had met her in a grad seminar, learned of her Intelligence background and hired her to help out on a case. Despite their dissimilarities, they'd worked well together, become friends- close, intimate friends, much to the ill-concealed amusement of John's occasional helper, Bob McShane. After a year of living together, Zahava had extracted a reluctant promise from John to return home with her when he graduated and if they had enough money. Well, he was graduating next month and they had enough money, but he didn't want to go.

He'd confessed to McShane-the Mideast with its insoluble carnage wasn't where he wanted to raise a family. But it was the only place Zahava would. Next month there'd be one very ugly confrontation.

"It's all arranged," called Bob, stepping onto the patio.

"What is?" John asked.

"Miss Tal's new career. Special Assistant to my old friend, Dr. Lawrence Levine. Larry's currently Director of Plankton Research at Leurre Oceanographic."

"I don't know anything about microorganisms, Bob!"

"Ah, but can you type?"

Agilely ducking the napkin ring, the professor sank into one of the white iron lawn chairs. Zahava menacingly hefted a grapefruit half.

"Peace, quarter!" McShane laughed, crossing his arms over his face. The grapefruit slowly returned to its bowl.

"Now listen, you two,'' he continued. ''Zahava will have to type, marginally, but it's superb cover. Someone on the staff knows about that Egyptian stele and its origins. There are only about two hundred people at the Institute, and Oystertown's a small place."

"All right," conceded the Israeli.

"We're agreed, then? Zahava goes tonight? Larry will meet her at Hyannis Airport and see her to her motel." The two nodded.

"And tomorrow," John said, "I'll drop in on Fred Langston, the Institute's Director. I'm an investigator from Royal, checking into the project delays.

"And you're going to Boston?" he asked Bob.

"Yes. I've some related research to do, mostly at Harvard. I'll meet you two at your motel Wednesday."

"Sounds good."

"Typing-yeech." Zahava made a face, then raised her coffee cup. "Well, to a quick and successful investigation."

As the men lifted their cups, a lone mockingbird sang from the suet-hung tree.

John flicked on the Buick's headlights. The gray Cape Cod twilight found him alone on the two-lane road, flanked by scrub pine. The flight from National to Logan had been uneventful, only the cold driving rain marring his arrival.

Not chancing the box kite of a commuter plane that shuttled between Boston and Hyannis, he'd rented a car and was now nearing the end of a lonely drive down a nearly deserted Route 6, the only other traffic an occasional truck.

Wondering how Zahava had fared her first day at the Institute, his thoughts turned to dark, slender legs, supple thighs and sleepless, steamy nights in the big king-sized bed.

The tractor-trailer rig jackknifed across the road snapped him back to the present. Slowing to a stop, he saw no sign of a driver. Raincoat turned against the cold Atlantic drizzle, he got out and started toward the overturned cab, silently cursing the moron who'd evidently gone for help without setting flares.

Senses honed on a hundred night patrols saved him, sending him flying back behind the car as the bullets came, shattering the windows. Wrestling the big 9mm automatic from under his trench coat, John crawled toward the back of the car as the concealed gunman continued spraying the Buick.

Risking a quick look, he spotted the muzzle flash just as the rifle bolt snapped at the end of a magazine. Leaping up, he braced the pistol with both hands against the wet vinyl roof and emptied the weapon into the brush. Changing magazines, he charged across the slick road and into the bushes.

There was no one there, only spent shells and a small pool of viscous green liquid, melting away in the rain.

Shaken and angry, John returned to the car, checking tires and engine. They were okay, but the windows were mostly gone.

Breaking away the remaining fragments of windshield with the tire iron, he got in and drove slowly into the gathering dark, ignoring the rain that swept in, soaking him.

Stephen Ames Berry

The Biofab War

John got to Oystertown just before five. Once a sleepy Nantucket Sound fishing village, it had been transformed by Leurre's endowers into a gentrified summer colony, a cobblestoned, yacht-slipped enclave for anyone with the money and a taste for what the Boston Globe had dubbed Louisburg Square by the Sea.

Doric columned brick townhouses lay astride pristine lanes that ran like wheel spokes to Oystertown's centerpiece, a tidy gas lit square and it’s tastefully tarnished bronze fountain, cast as a vaulting dolphin.

The Institute fronted on the marina at the end of the square. A rambling old brick and stone warehouse that had once stunk of tar and salted fish, it had been gutted and rebuilt by the Leurre Founder's Committee, a consortium of energy corporations. At one end was a small pub, at the other a cozy bistro, Chez Nichee.

Dedicated to "Aid in the Exploration and Utilization of the Oceans for the Betterment of Mankind," according to the brass plaque set in the entrance way, the Institute served as a major research facility for much of the nation's undersea energy and mineral extraction.

Parking the shattered Buick under the "Visitors" sign, John repaired himself as best he could, combing his hair, drying his face and shucking his sodden raincoat.

Once in the foyer, the Institute's nineteenth century mercantile facade vanished, replaced by the gleaming modernity of chrome and glass.