Code of Blood Page 13

  “Indeed. Shall we finish our sushi and then pursue that subject?”

  “No. Let’s first pursue that subject, then finish the sushi.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The tattooed Chuck Politan was there, along with the other “graduates” from Chant’s section of the project at Blake College; Chant was certain that the Greenblatts’ murderer and Jan’s attacker had come from this plant in Houston, and he wondered how many other men among the hundred or so working the three shifts were ex-convicts mixed in with people, like himself, hired off the street.

  Using the name Tom Marsh, wearing horn-rimmed glasses with a bushy wig and false mustache, Chant had completed his disguise by walking with a slight limp and speaking with a trace of a Scottish brogue. Although he worked at close quarters with Politan and the other ex-convicts, no one had given the slightest hint of recognition. Satisfied after three days that he was totally accepted as just another laborer in the warehouse and the loading docks, Chant worked, waited, and watched.

  And worried about Jan.

  “I checked the names you gave me,” Jan said. “You were right, of course—but I’d never have known the names and records were phony unless you’d told me Each of those men has been given a completely new identity, including a phony Social Security number and an employment history dating back twenty years or so.”

  Chant nodded. “The men believe their pasts have been completely obliterated Thinking that they have the opportunity for a fresh start, with good jobs and no criminal records, must be highly motivational—obviously, they pretty much manage to stay out of trouble When Blake wants someone killed, for whatever reasons, one of those men is selected as the assassin. That man is abducted, put into a drug-induced hypnotic trance, and programmed somehow to kill the target subject. The man is sent off—or, more likely, taken—to a point of attack, then let off the leash. At that time, of course, his regular identity is restored to him. All of his records at R.E.B are destroyed, so there’s no way to trace him back here. They must do the dragging and programming in the closed-off section.”

  “My God, Chant, it’s frightening …”

  “Yes Maybe it’s time you resigned your position.”

  “No,” Jan said defiantly “When I said it was frightening, I didn’t mean I was frightened. In fact, I made you a copy of those men’s applications and phony records Good stuff?”

  “Good stuff,” Chant said as he took the papers from Jan and placed them in a black leather briefcase “How much risk was there for you in getting these? Be honest.”

  “No problem,” Jan replied with a shrug “These came right out of files I was assigned to work on.”

  “What about the copying?”

  “I’ve been there a few days now, so I’m accepted People are using the copying machines all the time, for one reason or another. I just slipped these in with some other files I had to copy.”

  Chant gently kissed the woman. “You be careful.”

  “I will, my dear. Don’t worry.”

  Chant drove the huge forklift truck he operated over to a docking bay, shut it off, got down, and walked over to where the other men were taking their coffee break. He bought a container of black coffee from the vendor, sat down on a carton next to Chuck Politan.

  “You drive that forklift pretty good, Marsh,” Politan said with an approving nod.

  Chant shrugged. “Been doing it most of my life.”

  “Yeah, well, fast isn’t always good. I heard a story about a guy getting himself crushed under one of those things.”

  “Here?”

  “Here It happened sometime last summer They say the guy had only been on the job a couple of weeks.”

  It could very well have been Ron Press, Chant thought; somehow, Blake or Hammerhead had found out about the letter the man had written “I’ll be careful to watch what I’m doing,” Chant said evenly.

  “Chant, they make everything here from aspirin to plant food, ship products all over the world, and their billings are enormous. It’s incredible how many sole patents R.E.B. Pharmaceuticals holds. The profits are enormous—and they’re legitimate, as far as I can tell. Why on earth should this R. Edgar Blake do things that are illegal? He doesn’t have to!”

  “Blake did a great many illegal things to get to his present position of wealth and power; corruption and killing can get to be habits Also, I told you that, with Blake, evil is a kind of hobby. What about the gluteathin?”

  “It’s manufactured over in the research section, shipped directly from those loading docks. There isn’t really that much of it made; it’s incredibly potent in small doses, and highly controlled—for all intents and purposes, it totally cuts off a person from his own will and sensations.”

  “Do they manufacture any other controlled drugs over there besides GTN?”

  “I don’t know; I haven’t been able to find out yet what else goes on in those labs I do know that they use lots of animals, and that the people who work there don’t mix with the rest of us Those people come and go through their own separate gate.”

  Chant nodded. “I’ve seen.”

  “I know they have a separate payroll, and I can’t find any records of it.”

  “They probably have a separate administration section there, and they keep their own records. Be careful what you look for.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What do you mean, ‘that’s right’?”

  “They do keep separate records for everything—I just haven’t been able to gain access to them And I’ll tell you something else I know the amount of GTN they make may be minuscule compared to all their other products, but they still make three times as much as they’re licensed to.”

  Chant was silent for some time before he spoke “How the hell did you find that out, Jan?”

  The woman’s brown eyes glowed as she smiled “I have my ways” When Chant remained silent, she continued, “There’s a computer terminal in the manager’s office, and I know it’s hooked up to another one in the research labs; it’s how my boss Granger calls up information from that section without having to get up and go over there. Yesterday, I noticed that the cleaning people had dumped a whole load of computer printouts from Granger’s office wastebasket into the communal trash bin—usually, Granger shreds them, but these were intact At the end of the day, I managed to save a few things There were too many to take out, and I didn’t dare try to make copies, but I did manage to do some quick reading.”

  “You’re going far too fast, Jan,” Chant said, his voice low and intense “And trying to do far too much.”

  “I realize that,” Jan said evenly, “and I’m not going to do anything like that again In fact, I have some news for you that you’ll definitely like—but I have to tell you something else first, something I picked up from those sheets By now, I recognize the chemical formula for GTN; the one-third of the stuff they manufacture under license is ‘straight,’ pure GTN. The illegal two-thirds, I’m sure, has something added to it. I have no idea what it is, because I’m not a chemist, but on the printouts you can see just a slight difference in the formulas—and the different chemical symbols are included in the GTN formula, but placed in parentheses.

  Chant thought about it, nodded. “Physical amplification.”

  “Come again?”

  “Physical amplification. They probably add steroids, amphetamines, that sort of thing. For a short period of time, whoever ingested the drug would not only be in a trance, but would have considerably greater physical strength; it would take more than one man, and probably more than one bullet, to put him down. It would explain how the assassins in both Rome and Switzerland managed to get to and kill their targets, despite the presence of bodyguards Physical amplification would make these assassins human battering rams as well as mindless killers.”

  “But wouldn’t things like GTN, steroids, and amphetamines show up in the bloodstream at an autopsy?”

  “For GTN, a pathologist would probably have to know wh
at he was looking for. Amphetamines, and any number of other drugs, would be expected, and nobody would pay attention. Finally, nobody has thought to do an autopsy. Why should they? These men are just crazed, ex-convict killers, right?”

  “Right,” Jan said, and shuddered. “That’s all I was able to find out.”

  “You’ve done enough, Jan. You’ve already taken far too many risks. You’ve given me time on the inside to see the layout, and I think I know the best way to get into the research labs—from the inside, during the changing of a shift You’ve done an absolutely marvelous job—but now it’s time to get out With no arguments.”

  Jan wrapped her arms around Chant’s neck, went up on her toes and kissed his lips. “Surprise; I agree with you. I know when to quit—which is what I’ve done.”

  Chant smiled. “This is the news you told me I’d be happy to hear.”

  “That’s it.”

  “You were right, I’m happy to hear it.”

  “I’ve given a week’s notice—they wanted two, but I said I had a great job offer in Seattle and simply had to leave in a week.”

  “Why don’t you just not show up, Jan?”

  “I thought it would be wiser and safer in the long run if I did it this way; if I simply drop out of sight, somebody might get suspicious By giving notice, they’ll expect me to leave and won’t think anything of it when I just walk out at the end of the week.”

  “You’re certain that nobody’s suspicious now?”

  “I’m certain. As far as Granger is concerned, I’ve been nothing more than a model employee—and that is all I will be for five more days Then I’ll be safely out All right?”

  “All right.”

  With his forklift Chant raised a pallet of cartons bound for overseas off a loading platform, turned around, and gently eased them into the back of a truck Then he turned off the engine and waited while his crew loaded another pallet He watched idly while Hammerhead, an expensive gabardine overcoat draped around his shoulders, walked across the warehouse floor and stopped to confer with Uwe von Deck, the huge, solidly built chief of security at R.E.B Pharmaceuticals. Once, Hammerhead turned around and glanced in Chant’s direction, but gave no sign of recognition.

  “Who’s the ugly guy in the overcoat?” Chant asked one of the men inside the truck unloading the pallet.

  The man looked up, glanced in the direction where Chant had nodded, grimaced slightly. “Oh, that’s Mr Wing.”

  “Who’s he? I haven’t seen him around here before.”

  The worker straightened up, arched his back, took off his cap and scratched his bald head “I don’t know what he does exactly, but I’m pretty sure he works for the big boys in Switzerland—the people who own this place.”

  “R.E.B. Pharmaceuticals is Swiss-owned?”

  “That’s what they say In fact, you see all the tough-looking security guards around here? We call them the Swiss Army; they’re trained in Switzerland. That von Deck is a fair guy, but he can be a mean son-of-a-bitch when he wants to be; he’s the toughest of them all.”

  Not quite, Chant thought. The man talking to Uwe von Deck might not be the smartest or most stable man, but he was the toughest of all R. Edgar Blake’s employees—and the most dangerous. It appeared that Blake had sent Hammerhead on another errand. “Why all the muscle?” Chant asked. “I don’t see anything we ever load that would call for all the security.”

  “It discourages pilfering,” the worker said, and laughed loudly. “Hey, I’m only half kidding; nobody steals anything out of this place, I’ll tell you. And you don’t see fights or shit like that. For some reason, we get some strange types working here. I remember one time one of these strange types started mouthing off to von Deck about something, and von Deck just about took his head off; knocked him cold with one punch. Him and his guys are good. Anyway, I think the real reason for the heavy security is because of the stuff they do over in the research section.”

  “What do they do in the research section?” Chant asked mildly.

  The worker shrugged. “I haven’t got the slightest idea; government work, I guess It’s secret.”

  Chant grunted, glanced once more in the direction of Hammerhead and Uwe von Deck, then started up the forklift.

  “Chant, there’s something funny going on there that I don’t undersand; whatever it is has Granger and the other biggies all excited.”

  “Any chance they’re on to the fact that you’ve been poking around?” Chant asked tersely.

  Jan shook her head. “No I think whatever it is involves a man Uwe was in and out of Granger’s office all morning, and the door was always closed when they talked, but I did manage to pick up a few words here and there. I heard Uwe say something about ‘keeping him locked up.’ Then Granger said that wasn’t good enough, that they had to know how he found out about the place.”

  Chant sat away from the others in the cavernous warehouse, sipping black coffee and once again going over in his mind his planned entry route to the research section. He had already purchased a uniform similar to those worn by the guards, brought it to the plant, and hidden it behind a stack of dusty pallets that looked as if they hadn’t been moved in months. He would make his move the next day, he would stay behind after his shift ended and hide until dark, dress in the uniform, and cross the grounds to the power plant, where he would short out the circuits that fed power to the entire facility In the ensuing confusion and darkness, he would enter the research section through a maintenance access tunnel that ran underground from the administration building to the laboratories.

  In the meantime, Chant noted that Dale Reeves, one of the “graduates” from his section of the Blake College project, had not been to work for several days.

  “Here, he was known as Arthur Hudley He quit last week.”

  Chant shook his head. “None of those men are in a position to quit.”

  “I shouldn’t think so.”

  Chant opened his briefcase, brought out the applications and employment records Jan had copied for him. He found a telephone number for Arthur Hudley, picked up the phone, and dialed it. A recorded voice informed him that the phone had been disconnected.

  “I’m going over there,” Chant said as he hung up the telephone. “But later tonight—after we celebrate your last day of work with dinner and a beverage of your choice.”

  “Good,” Jan said, grinning. “But first, I have a present for you.”

  “Oh?”

  Jan went into an adjoining room, reappeared a few moments later with a large package wrapped with red paper and a pink bow. Chant unwrapped the first box, only to find another inside. “Cute,” he said as he bemusedly unwrapped the second package, and found a third inside that.

  “I was alone in the office—you just keep on unwrapping!—for a couple of hours today when the idea for bringing you that little present occurred to me. There’d been an awful lot of activity—and loose talk—going on because of whoever it was that they caught. Granger’s private phone line linking him to the research section was constantly ringing, and Uwe was running all over the place. Finally Granger just got disgusted and left—I assume he went over to Research. He left his office door unlocked. Now, I know I said I was going to be good, but this just seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up.”

  Chant opened the last, small package, found inside a single floppy computer disc. He glanced up at Jan with surprise and alarm.

  “That’s a copy of whatever Granger had loaded into that computer,” Jan continued, “which means the payroll must be there, employees, shipping records—all of it. Don’t worry; I left everything exactly as I found it. I’m computer literate, so I knew what I was doing, and the extra disc came from an opened carton in a supplyroom used by all the office employees. Nobody will notice a thing. I don’t have the slightest idea of everything that’s on there, but I figured you’d be interested in finding out Are you pleased?”

  Chant took Jan in his arms, brushed his lips against her hair. “I�
�m pleased. But now you’re retired.”

  “Now I’m retired. Isn’t that why we’re going out to dinner?”

  Chant called in sick the next day, went into downtown Houston and rented space in a temporary office center with a computer and printer.

  Five minutes after he had broken the security code lock on the disc, Chant knew that Jan Rawlings had done all his work for him; he did not need to go into the research section, for everything he needed to know was on the disc—including a series of dates, one of which corresponded to the day on which Vito Biaggi had been shot, linked to names and sums paid in various currencies.

  R Edgar Blake had been renting out his assassination service, Chant thought; the names next to the days and sums of money would be those of people around the world who had availed themselves of it, for one reason or another. The name next to the date on which Vito Biaggi had been killed would be a master link in the chain his friend had been trying to break.

  Safely away from Houston, there would be plenty of time to sort through all the voluminous information on the disc, glean what data would be useful to him for his next objective, and then send on the rest to various authorities, newspapers, and television networks around the world Vito, he thought with a grim smile, would be pleased.

  Now it was time to go back to England, where Jan would be safe and he could leisurely plan his assault on the fabled castle of R. Edgar Blake.

  Chant made several copies of the disc, printed out typewritten copies of a terse report summarizing what the coded material undoubtedly contained. Two of the discs and reports he placed in manila envelopes, which he addressed to the Dallas office of the FBI and the Washington office of Interpol. He mailed the envelopes at the post office, then headed back to the motel. On the way the news came over the radio that a militant Southern union official had been knifed to death by an ex-convict named Dale Reeves, who had apparently run amok.

  The door was open when Chant pulled into the parking space outside their motel suite He hurried inside, and immediately knew that whoever had taken Jan were professionals, and good. He had probably only missed them by minutes, he thought, for the eye-watering smell of chloroform still hung in the air.