Katrina Stone: The Death Row Complex Part 21

It was obvious to Jason that right now, Katrina was at her breaking point. The inmate uniform covering her body was way too large, and in it, her diminutive size was accentuated. In looking so small, she also looked exceptionally vulnerable. Her thick auburn waves, streaked with the occasional gray strand, were tangled and unkempt. Several frizzy, unruly strands sprang outward from her face in a crazed, electric halo. Her normally animated blue-gray eyes were swallowed in deep black cavities. The look on Katrina's face was madness.

And the biotechnology convention was eminent. The opening keynote speech was scheduled for the next morning. The scheduled keynote speaker was Katrina Stone.

"What's going on?" Jason asked.

"Jason, it's a long story," Katrina said nervously. "In a nutsh.e.l.l, the FBI found the activator data, along with some other stuff that gave them reason to think I was the person who released the anthrax at San Quentin and killed the whole death row wing."

Jason was immobile.

"I need to ask two favors of you," Katrina continued. "You're the only person I can trust right now."

Without hesitation, Jason asked, "What do you need?"

"First, I need you to give my keynote speech at the convention tomorrow. Obviously, I can't be there. Obviously, the fact that I won't be there because I am in jail is going to put a minor wrinkle in my credibility and my career as a scientist. I'm trying like h.e.l.l to negotiate a release, but it's not looking good. So if I can't be there, I want you to be there. My talk is on the desktop of my computer. If the FBI has confiscated that, you can still find the presentation in the Cloud. You know the pa.s.sword. Give the talk, and do the best you can to control the damage when people start asking questions about why I'm not there. I don't know if it's going to be public by tomorrow that I'm in jail. So far, I don't think the press has caught wind of it."

Katrina paused. "I know this is a lot to ask," she said. "If word gets out about where I am, I'll be crucified at the convention. And you'll be crucified based solely your a.s.sociation with me. So I'm begging you-just do what you can."

To Katrina's surprise, Jason smiled. "Dr. Stone," he said, feigning formality, "as the resident death-metal-head of the SDSU biology department, I'm no stranger to being judged out of context. I'm also no stranger to conflict. I look forward to the convention." His smile widened when he saw the look of grat.i.tude on Katrina's face, and the tear that streaked down her cheek. She gently wiped it away with one forefinger.

"What is the other thing I can do for you?" he asked.

"I need you to look into someone. His name is Oscar Morales. He is a prisoner at San Quentin. The man who attacked me-twice-was his monozygotic twin. I don't know the twin's first name but he had a vial of the Death Row strain of anthrax on him when he came after me in the lab.

"I think he was in the lab to poison me with it or just kick my a.s.s, whichever became more convenient. I also think that Oscar had to have been the one on the inside who released the bug in the prison. If you can find out Oscar's story, and who gave it to him, and why, you might be able to save my reputation. And by a.s.sociation, your own."

"My reputation's beyond salvation," Jason said, "but I'll see what I can do."

As Jason was leaving the visiting area of Las Colinas Detention Facility, an FBI forensics researcher at the San Diego headquarters was confirming what Jason had just been told by Katrina. The vial found in Chuck Morales' pocket had been filled with the Death Row anthrax strain.

10:02 A.M. PST.

Mr. Gilman

How unfortunate that you do not speak my language.

The Doctor In an office of the San Diego FBI headquarters, Sean McMullan and Roger Gilman stared at the Xeroxed copy of the card that had been inadvertently opened by Gilman's wife. And at the copy of a nearly identical version, addressed instead to a "Mr. McMullan," and sent to his personal mailbox.

The original cards were in Dulles, Virginia in the hands of the United States Postal Inspection Service. The fact that the agents had not heard a word from Teresa Wood suggested to them that nothing of value had been found on either card. And Katrina Stone was confessing to nothing.

The image on the front of both cards was the same image as that on the original card that had been mailed to the White House just before the Death Row anthrax attack. It was the crystal structure of anthrax infiltrating a mammalian cell. But the text of the latter cards was not like that of the first. It was written in English, not Arabic.

"How unfortunate that you do not speak my language," Gilman said under his breath, "written in English, as if to make the point. Just when I was starting to think that ISIL was off the hook."

"Maybe it's not ISIL," McMullan said. "Maybe it's another terrorist organization. But what the h.e.l.l is the connection between any terrorist organization and Katrina Stone?"

"I'll give you that," Gilman said. "There most definitely isn't one. If there was, she would never have worked with live anthrax in the first place. She started her own lab after 9/11, which she never could have done with any red flags in place. So if she's made friends with ISIL, she has done it so discreetly that the FBI and Homeland Security had no clue."

A moment later, McMullan changed the subject. "And who the h.e.l.l is the Doctor?"

Gilman shrugged his shoulders. "Katrina Stone is a doctor."

"Yeah, I realize that. But as you just pointed out, she couldn't possibly have been involved with ISIL, and I'm fairly certain she doesn't speak Arabic."

"I know!" Gilman yelled, picking up a paperweight off the desk and throwing it across the office. The paperweight smashed into the wall clock, breaking its face, and then landed with a thud on the thin, worn carpet.

McMullan let out an exasperated sigh, and Gilman sat back down. "Sorry," he said.

McMullan didn't hear. His mind was elsewhere. "Maybe you're onto something, Gilman. Maybe it is a scientist. Maybe it's a doctor. Maybe it's not Stone."

"You really want it to not be Stone, don't you?" Gilman said.

"Admittedly, I just don't feel the pieces fit with her, even though they increasingly seem to. But... do you remember what Guofu Wong said a while back? About Johnson."

Gilman looked into his partner's face. "Johnson thought that Stone plagiarized his data," he recalled.

"So he could have motive to frame her," McMullan said.

"But like this? By terrorizing a prison?"

"He, too, is a doctor. And there's something else that fits as well. Johnson is in the FBI. He leads the infectious disease division. He has access to personal information for other agents, and he knows that you and I are the two agents on the case. Johnson has all of the information necessary to be running this show. Katrina Stone doesn't."

Gilman was unconvinced. "With that logic, anyone at the FBI-especially any doctor, could be this Doctor."

"Correct," McMullan said, "but not everyone at the FBI has motive to go after Stone."

"So I ask you again, why do you think Johnson would do any of this in the first place? Just to frame Stone? There are a million other things he could do to get even with her besides the anthrax prison attack. Things that would have been a lot simpler. He is in the FBI, after all."

McMullan thought for a moment. "Do you remember that first meeting we had about this case? Do you remember how he and Guofu Wong argued about her?"

Gilman cast his mind back to the FBI meeting. "Wong wanted to fund her research and Johnson didn't."

"Yeah, but there was a bigger issue. Wong wanted to fund Stone's research because he thought she could bring some really cutting-edge science to the forefront. Johnson was against the idea just like you were, and for similar reasons. He believed that scientists needed more time to earn their stripes than she had put in, but like you, he was also really old-fas.h.i.+oned in his thinking. Remember, this is a guy who has been in science since before there were computers. He probably chiseled his Ph.D. thesis on stone tablets. I think that Johnson didn't want Katrina's research to go forward for reasons other than just a lack of national funding."

Gilman looked skeptically at his partner's face, which had acquired a renewed enthusiasm as he spoke. "What do you mean?"

"I think," McMullan continued, "that he didn't want her technologies in the mainstream at all. I think he was afraid of what could happen if those technologies became commonplace and fell into the wrong hands.

"So maybe he released the Death Row strain in order to warn us. To show us what her work-those molecular screens she does-can produce. Maybe he knew from her preliminary data that those kinds of activators would be found in those molecular screens. In fact, maybe she even mentioned them in the grant proposal. Maybe he thought he could punish her, and stop the technology from going forward at the same time. Maybe he thought the release of the strain was a necessary way to show the world how catastrophic it could be."

10:35 A.M. PST.

In the back room of an Army Surplus Store, an Animal Liberation Front officer stopped talking upon hearing a knock on the door. He cast a questioning look around the table. It was met by equally confused glances. The officers were not expecting anyone else. The knock on the door came again, this time, more loudly.

"Yeah?" shouted the officer from inside.

A female voice came through the door. "Code word Lincoln."

"s.h.i.+t," the officer muttered under his breath. And then to the table, "It's Lexi! Cover this s.h.i.+t up!"

The five officers hurried to conceal a floor plan of Katrina Stone's BSL-3 facility. After a cursory glance around the room to confirm that nothing was out of place, the speaker nodded to the boy nearest the door. The boy opened the door, and Alexis Stone entered the room. She was beaming.

"Hi!" Alexis said cheerily to the boy and tried to kiss him.

He pulled away, scowling. "What are you doing here? You know this meeting is officers only."

"You won't be mad when you hear what I'm about to say," she said. She was still smiling but now there was hurt behind her eyes.

"OK then," said the leader. "What do you have for us?"

Alexis popped her gum and grinned again. "So I was at my dad's house a while ago, and I was supposed to go back to my mom's tonight. My dad calls me into his bedroom to talk to me. He's all serious. My step-mom is in there, too. They're both, like, totally upset." Another gum pop.

"Cut to the point, Lexi," the leader said.

Alexis sighed. "Fine! OK, so, my dad tells me I can't go back to my mom's house tonight. Guess why!"

"I give up," said her annoyed boyfriend.

"Because my mom is in jail! She got arrested because they found something on her computer the other day when those FBI guys busted into our house. I don't know what she did, but it must be pretty bad, because I'm supposed to stay at my dad's house, like, sort of indefinitely right now. I think it's something having to do with her work. So maybe she won't be able to finish the monkey studies she's been doing! Maybe she'll have to let the monkeys go!"

The leader exchanged a glance with Alexis' boyfriend and then asked, "Aren't you the least bit worried about your mom?"

"Oh, G.o.d no," she said. "Whatever my mom did, it's her own fault! Besides, she's a heartless, hard-a.s.sed b.i.t.c.h! I'm sure she'll be fine! It's the monkeys I'm worried about! They're the ones who can't defend themselves!"

For a moment, n.o.body spoke. Finally, the lead officer said, "Lexi, can you give us a moment to talk amongst ourselves?"

Alexis looked thrilled to have been asked, rather than ordered out of the room. "Sure!" she said and skipped out the door.

"I told you we can trust her," the boyfriend said when she was gone.

"I'm inclined to agree with young Kevin here," the leader concurred. The others agreed. And there was so much more that Alexis could do for them. When Alexis re-entered the room, the leader sat her down. "We weren't going to tell you this because we weren't sure you could be trusted. No offense, but it is your mom. Anyway, what you just told us gave us confidence that we can let you in on the rest of our plans. When you and Kevin are at the biotech convention tomorrow, there will be a group breaking into Katrina's BSL-3 facility. We're going to free the uninfected monkeys. You and Kevin will be keeping the press and the scientists occupied in the meantime, and drumming up a bit of controversy over your mom's work."

Alexis thought for a moment, and then looked accusingly at Kevin. "I can't believe you didn't think you could trust me with that! Of course I'm happy to help you free the monkeys! Then, we just carry on with the plans like we said?"

Kevin looked at her warily, but felt relieved. She would get over her offense at his lack of faith in her. And, more importantly, she was on board. "Yeah, you and I just go down there like we planned," he said. "These guys have everything else taken care of already."

"So, really, it doesn't even matter that she's in jail," Alexis said with disappointment.

"Oh, yes it does," said the leader, smiling. He turned to Kevin, and said, "Call the media."

11:43 A.M. PST.

McMullan walked into a private consultation room, and Katrina glared when she saw him.

"If I wasn't in handcuffs, I'd punch you," she said.

McMullan dismissed the jail guard with a gesture and a flash of his FBI badge. Before the guard left the room, McMullan confiscated his keys. Then, he removed Katrina's cuffs.

She struck him in the jaw-hard-with a closed fist.

McMullan took the blow. "Fair enough." An angry, swelling welt began rising. He ran his tongue over his teeth and the inner lip. "But now, start talking."

"You've got to get me out of here. I'm supposed to be talking at the biotechnology convention tomorrow, first thing in the morning. If I'm not there because I'm in jail, my career is over. You know this. You know how hard I've worked for this career. You know that without it, I have nothing. And you also know that I'm innocent."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because you're here."

McMullan sighed. "I can't possibly get you out of here," he said. "The evidence against you is too strong. So it's irrelevant what I think." He paused. "Explain something to me in lay terms, Katrina. How and why did you make that activator? And why in G.o.d's name did you hide it from us? From me? What was your role? What was Jason Fischer's role? We've already gathered that the data was from his notes."

"OK," she said. "Listen, McMullan. I wish you had your infectious disease experts here right now. They would back up the science of what I'm saying."

"Well, then you won't mind my recording this conversation and playing it back for them?" he said and clicked into the voice-recording app on his cell phone.

"Jason and I did make the activator."

McMullan stared at her without speaking.

"It was an accident," Katrina said. "Look McMullan, you know that my research involves screening for inhibitors of anthrax lethal factor. We have a very simple enzymatic a.s.say. We program the robots, and the robots run hundreds of thousands of molecules through that a.s.say. Inhibitors are found because the a.s.say produces a fluorescent signal. When an inhibitor is in the mix, the signal is decreased. That's all there is to it.

"Sometimes the a.s.say can pick up activators as well. It's not like we are looking for them-they just pop up. We see them in our data because all of a sudden, there's an increase in the fluorescence produced by the a.s.say when that particular molecule is tested.