Big Medicine (A John Tall Wolf Novel Book 5) Page 10

  John sat, unbidden, in one of Nelda’s visitor chairs.

  Nelda understood the assertion of who had more power in this room or any other.

  John would stay as long as he’d like and she’d have to put up with him. After all, he was the one who’d unofficially sponsored Nelda for her current position. His contacts in the government went far above and beyond her own. She was certainly smart enough to have confirmed that for herself.

  What’s more, with Marlene Flower Moon having left her cabinet post, Nelda no longer had any truly powerful advocate to protect her career.

  “Where’s Auntie?” John asked.

  Nelda’s first impulse was to crack wise, but she refrained.

  Her response was simply factual but satisfying nonetheless. “I don’t know.”

  “When was the last time you saw her or heard from her?”

  “We haven’t spoken about official business for months. My personal conversations are none of your damn business.”

  John thought she was right about that. Didn’t mean he couldn’t throw her a curve, though. “What if Marlene’s in trouble?”

  Nelda’s jaw dropped. Not a lot, but she’d bought the idea for a second.

  Then she recovered with a mocking laugh. “I don’t know anyone who could give Marlene Flower Moon trouble. Not even you. Especially not you.”

  “You look a lot like her, you know. The resemblance is remarkable.”

  That caught Nelda off guard. She knew better than to think Tall Wolf was either coming on to her or simply complimenting her. So what was he getting at? “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just an observation. Of course, you’re a young woman, and Marlene is who knows how old. Saying Marlene is well preserved doesn’t do her justice. Makes me wonder how you’ll feel when you get older and she still looks the way she does now.”

  Nelda blinked rapidly and her cheeks turned bright red.

  Apparently, she’d never thought of that and didn’t find the prospect appealing.

  John stood up and said, “Oh, well, we all have our problems with Marlene. Tell her I said hello and I’m thinking of her. You know, if you have a little personal chat.”

  John half-thought Nelda might stab him in the back with a letter opener as he walked out. She didn’t, but she’d planted a conceivably valuable thought in his mind. Nelda had said she didn’t know anyone who could give Auntie trouble.

  That didn’t mean there wasn’t someone.

  Only that Nelda didn’t know who it might be.

  So who could it be, John wondered, that might scare Coyote?

  Before he got back to his car, John called his secretary, Johanna Green Eyes.

  In her typically blunt fashion, she asked, “What do you need, boss?”

  “It’s time I know the specific conditions of my great-grandfather’s parole. Check with the Bureau of Prisons and see what they are, please. I don’t want him locked up again because of any negligence on my part.”

  “Yeah, you did that, the old guy might come back to haunt you.”

  Just what he’d need, John thought. Marlene lurking in the shadows and Great-Grandpa popping up and saying, “Boo!”

  “Before the close of business today, please,” he told Johanna.

  “Sure,” she said, “I’ll skip my pedicure.”

  Prometheus Labs — Washington, DC

  John had just pulled into the parking lot outside Dr. Yvette Lisle’s laboratory when his laptop chimed to let him know it had received either an email or a text message. He kept such annoyances off his phone. He hoped the dispatch, in whatever form, wasn’t from the President telling him she needed an immediate answer to her invitation to join her cabinet. He knew he should be honored by the prospect, but the idea itself made him cringe.

  He was not now and never would be a bureaucrat.

  He wouldn’t even want to be Secretary of State, though he might have to accept that post, if only to appease Rebecca, his parents and great-grandfather.

  He fished out his laptop from its not-so-secret hiding place under the front passenger seat. He lifted the lid and kept only one eye open in the hope that might mitigate any bad news by half. Luck was with him. He hadn’t received any greetings from the President.

  Cale Tucker, the NSA whiz kid, had delivered on his promise to send John a list of Dr. Lisle’s most likely competitors in the race to overcome the growing scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. John didn’t recognize the names of any of the medical scientists involved, but he readily knew the names of the giant drug companies sponsoring their work.

  So would any American whose health plan didn’t cover the tab for prescription drugs provided by those companies. The prices of buying life-saving medicines these days were high enough to kill you. Wonder drugs could be godsends, but if paying for them didn’t leave you any money for food, shelter and clothing, what good were they?

  John would have to ask Dr. Lisle about that conundrum.

  Then he saw Cale Tucker had gone the extra mile and had delivered more than he had promised. In addition to the list of Dr. Lisle’s competitors and their corporate sponsors, he also provided the names, addresses and curricula vitae of the people assisting Dr. Lisle at her own laboratory.

  Cale noted: “There are external enemies and possibly internal enemies. The NSA has come to learn that second point all too painfully in recent years. It would be foolish not to look at the possibility that someone outside of Dr. Lisle’s lab has subverted someone inside it.

  “The motivations for such treachery are all too obvious: money, a yearning for undeserved fame and simple spite. Unlike the battalions of personnel working for the big-pharma efforts, Dr. Lisle has only a baker’s dozen in her lab. No superstitious dread of the number 13 for her.”

  “Still, she did have her computer swiped, but I don’t think one fewer or additional employee would have made a difference. Hope you find at least some of this info to be helpful. We’ll keep looking for the doctor’s computer. Will let you know immediately if we succeed.

  “Good hunting, Cale.”

  John skimmed the material he’d been sent. The names, addresses, phone numbers and credentials of the big money research personnel would come close to matching a small town’s phone book, if anybody still printed such things. The list for Dr. Lisle’s small workforce was much easier to absorb, at least on a superficial level.

  Nobody’s name stood out at first glance.

  John got out of his car and locked his laptop in the trunk. He armed the compartment’s security feature. If someone popped the lock by force and lifted the lid, he, she or they would get sprayed from head to waist with luminescent green dye impregnated with hydrogen sulfide, the chemical that smelled exactly like rotten eggs. Any would-be thief would be both visible and sniffable at a great distance.

  That would make an arrest much more likely, if more challenging, to execute.

  John rang the doorbell to the lab, after being pleased to see the entrance was locked. He’d yet to count to ten before Dr. Lisle opened the door. The reason for starting to count at all was he wanted to see to what extent the people inside were absorbed by their work. It seemed to John like hardworking types with clear consciences might fail to take notice of a single distraction.

  On the other hand, somebody feeling guilty, maybe even half-expecting to be hauled away by some type of cop, could be listening for heavy footsteps coming his way. Or her way, to be gender equitable. Women might not be as larcenous as men, but they had their moments.

  The missing Marlene Flower Moon being a prime example.

  “Director Tall Wolf,” Dr. Lisle said.

  A momentary gleam in her eyes expressed hope that her computer had been recovered. Then she read his expression correctly and saw that wasn’t the case. She didn’t even need to ask the question, only saying, “Please come in.”

  John stepped in, hearing Dr. Lisle close and lock the door behind him.

  Looking around, he saw they were alo
ne.

  “Everyone knocked off early?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I gave the staff a day off.”

  “You didn’t tell them —”

  “That I’d been robbed? No. We frequently work six days a week here. Seven-day work weeks are not uncommon. I simply told everyone to take a well-deserved rest.”

  John thought about that. How the news of a day off would be received would, again, likely depend on a person’s state of mind. An honest person with nothing to worry about would greet the prospect of an unexpected day of leisure with joy. Somebody who’d been up to no good might fear discovery and already be on the run.

  He mentioned the latter possibility to Dr. Lisle.

  The thought of having a traitor in her midst made the doctor totter. John took hold of her elbows and steadied her. “Are you all right?”

  She gathered her wits, regained her balance and nodded. “I think I should have taken the day off, too. I didn’t sleep well last night. You didn’t recover my laptop, did you?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “I’d like to sit down. Let’s go to my office.”

  Just to be safe and make sure she didn’t fall, John looped an arm through one of hers and walked her to her office, got her seated behind her desk. He took a guest chair and said, “I’ve got some very good people helping me to look for your computer.”

  “From the BIA?”

  “No, the NSA.”

  Puzzlement etched itself on the doctor’s face. “Aren’t they spies?”

  “In a technical way, yes. I think their term of art is electronic intelligence.”

  “How did they get involved?”

  “I have friends in high places. Also, it’s been considered that your work might have possible military aspects.”

  That sat the woman back in her chair. “What?”

  John explained the notion that in biological warfare having only one side inoculated against a widely dispersed pathogen could be a sure path to victory.

  Now, Dr. Lisle seemed to shrink before John’s eyes.

  She said, “That kind of attack couldn’t be limited to military targets. Communicable diseases spread indiscriminately. Civilians would be affected, possibly by the millions. Small children and the elderly would be especially susceptible.”

  John nodded. “Not a happy prospect at all.”

  “I can see why the wider federal government is getting involved.”

  He didn’t tell her that he was still carrying most of the load himself.

  “Do you really think one of my people could be involved in the theft?” Dr. Lisle asked.

  “It has to be considered a possibility, say someone inside working with an outside competitor. The most likely motivation for that, of course, would be money. Do you have any knowledge that one or more of your employees might be in a monetary bind? Or even be prey to some compulsive behavior like a gambling addiction?”

  Feeling a need to be helpful now, Dr. Lisle sat straighter in her chair, extending her arms and legs into a forward leaning posture. She shook her head. “No, I haven’t heard anything like that. If somebody here was in a financial predicament, I’d hope they would come to me and ask for help.”

  John thought for a moment. “In most cases, I’d never think to ask something like this, but do you have a substantial financial stake in the outcome of your research?”

  She didn’t flinch. “Yes, I do, but I assure you it’s well earned.”

  “I don’t doubt that. But what about your staff? Do they get a piece of the pie, too? If so, how does it compare to your slice?”

  Her face tightening now, Dr. Lisle said, “The staff is included in profit sharing, at my insistence. In relative terms, their share is considerably smaller than mine. Compared to what they might get elsewhere, if they got anything at all, it’s significantly larger.”

  John sat silent for a moment, thinking about the situation.

  “Do you really think one of my own people might have betrayed me?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m just thinking of how an approach might be made from one of your big competitors. The sales pitch might be something as simple as saying, ‘We’ll give you an amount of money equal to what all of the staff at your lab will get.’ The difference for a misguided individual would be substantial, but the overall expenditure for the bad guys wouldn’t be a dime more than you’re willing to pay.”

  Now, Yvette Lisle looked as if she might weep.

  “Are there really people so self-centered and uncaring of others …”

  She didn’t need to complete the question, already knowing the answer.

  Seeking another counter-argument, she asked, “What about those children in the security video, the ones right here in the lab?”

  John told her about his visit with Calvin Morley and what the special effects artist had told him.

  “Was he definitive?” Dr. Lisle asked.

  “No, but he was persuasive. Still, that’s one of the reasons I came here today.”

  “What is?”

  “Children are small, supple beings. They can squeak through spaces smaller than an adult might imagine possible. I want to search this building for any nook or cranny through which a young child might slip. You can tag along and offer a second opinion if I find any possibilities.”

  She stood up. “I’ll do that. Where should we start?”

  John got to his feet. “If there’s a below ground level, we’ll start there and work our way up.”

  “I’ll lead the way,” Dr. Lisle said.

  As they walked to the stairway leading down, John said, “My great-grandfather said you’re a member of the Omaha nation.”

  “On my mother’s side, yes.”

  “And your father’s side is French?”

  “Oui. Why do you ask?”

  “When I drove over here today, I noticed the name of your laboratory once again: Prometheus. The fire-bringer in Greek mythology.”

  Dr. Lisle flipped a light-switch and they started down the stairs to the basement.

  “Do you know who the fire-bringer is in Native American lore?” John asked.

  She nodded. “Coyote.”

  Taos, New Mexico

  Taos Pueblo had been occupied for an estimated 1,000 years, making it almost certainly the oldest continuously occupied community in the United States. It had been named a United Nations World Heritage Site. About 150 people lived in the pueblo buildings year-round. Another 1,800 or so lived in modern housing most of the year, staying in the pueblo dwellings only during cooler weather. Even then, some paid only brief visits to the traditional abodes.

  Contemporary comforts and conveniences exerted a powerful pull.

  Marlene Flower Moon had no trouble securing space in a pueblo. She paid more than a fair price for her lodging and, as ever, she was an irresistible presence to almost everyone she met. To those who opposed her wishes … well, the foremost among them lived 70 miles south in Santa Fe.

  That was where Hayden Wolf and Serafina Wolf y Padilla were domiciled.

  Where John Tall Wolf also had a house.

  That thought made Marlene smile. If there was to be a showdown, what better place than Tall Wolf’s hometown? Before that could happen, though, Marlene needed information to stack the odds in her favor. She knew from bitter experience how formidable Tall Wolf’s parents could be, and now as a grown man how capable he was, too.

  She’d already considered that she might have crept too close to Tall Wolf’s parents. His mother, as he’d told her many times, was a bruja, a witch. The modern mind scoffed at such a notion. Marlene didn’t. She knew for a fact there were forces of nature that couldn’t be explained by rational thought.

  She was one of those forces.

  In many communities, her energy would have stood out like a spotlight in a dark sky. Not so in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Magic there was more plentiful in the air than snowflakes in the winter. Whatever heightened powers of perception Tall Wol
f’s mother and father might have, they would not find it easy to isolate Marlene’s presence.

  Especially while she was lying low.

  Using conventional means of communications.

  She’d texted Bodaway five minutes ago, demanding to know what he’d found out about Tall Wolf’s parents. She badly wanted to observe them. Take them down quickly if they were not ready for her. Show them the deadly mistake they’d made by threatening her.

  But she didn’t want to fall into a trap, if they’d been cunning enough to bait her.

  Another minute ticked by without a reply from Bodaway and Marlene’s patience ebbed like a receding tide. If Bodaway had thought he could run from her wrath … No, the smartest thing for him to do would be to ring the Wolfs’ doorbell, tell them that she was hunting them and beg for their protection.

  Of course, they would see through him. Would quickly learn that Bodaway had once intended to kill their son. Hardly the kind of thing to endear someone to a mother and father. Still, they might spare Bodaway long enough to use him as bait, knowing Marlene would want her vengeance against all three of them.

  That desire would be all but impossible to resist.

  Having had Bodaway’s throat in her jaws twice now, though, she doubted if he would dare to take such a step. If he did, the next time she found him would be his last to draw a breath. As for the elder Wolfs, she would have to withdraw and lay new plans, forcing herself to be patient, no matter how much that galled her.

  Then Marlene’s phone chimed.

  It wasn’t Bodaway texting her, though, it was her niece Nelda calling.

  For a moment, Marlene hesitated to answer, but she’d told Nelda to call only if she thought it would be a great mistake not to do so. Then again, the nature of what constituted a terrible error was highly subjective. In the end, it was simple but compelling curiosity that forced Marlene to answer the call.

  Marlene could always scold Nelda if the young woman had made a mistake, but if she was the one who was in error …

  She accepted the call and said, “What is it, Nelda?”