Chapter 14:
"You sure this is the place," asked the DEA agent? "We're sure," muttered Nick. They'd only been surveilling the place for two days. The reality was that this guy had been giving Helen and Lucy the eye since he and his guys showed up. They made him nervous. For Nick, the feeling was mutual. He trusted Lucy, and he'd come to rely on Helen. He didn't trust the Feds. No local cop ever did. They were outsiders with their own agenda. Fortunately this time that played to the NYPD's needs. With a mole in the ranks, using one of their own SWAT teams was risky. They didn't need Rillec finding out that they now knew his smack was 'Imported from New York'.
Speaking of which, thought Nick as he turned to look at Helen. Helen looked up from Fergi's gadget and announced, "no frogs." "Ok," said Agent Peters. "Let's do this." Now the vehicles started moving, pulling out of the parking lot where they'd staged.
Nick held on tight as the Chevy Suburban wove its way through the late-afternoon traffic toward Gen-Term's office in Brooklyn. His hand stroked the big .50 at his hip. The DEA guys' eyes had gotten big when they saw that. Nick refused to be drawn when asked what the hell he needed that for. Beside him, Lucy was in the zone. She had one of those crazy multi-weapons like Helen, and she'd come dressed to kill in the same armored jump-suit. Meanwhile Helen was still monitoring the frogs' comm channels. Today there was only one altered phone even in the area, and she thought it belonged to Gen-Term's president.
Gen-Term had been laundering money. There was a lot of churn in their corporate bank accounts traceable to offshore accounts in Africa. Supposedly they were being paid for research on some of Africa's peculiar regional maladies. But the money kept coming, and the countries in question could barely feed their people.
The plan was simple. Nick was going to move in and shut down building security. The DEA would move in after and start securing the building. Lucy and Helen were headed straight for the top floor to find that phone and whoever was holding it. They needed to have a little chat.
The fellow who manned the desk at Gen-Term's front door was typical of the breed. Portly and bored out of his mind by endless hours staring at computer monitors, he rarely did anything particularly daring and never moved quickly. In fact, he didn't even notice the convoy that pulled up outside. Nick dismounted first, strolling up quickly and getting the door open. Absorbed in a chat-session on his phone, the guard didn't notice until Nick's badge was in his face.
Nick cuffed the fat man's hands behind his back, then motioned for his cohorts. Within moments, the lobby was filled with SWAT personnel. "Spot us two minutes," said Helen as she and Lucy headed for the stairs. Their target was sixty floors up. Nick checked his watch and began waiting. The lead DEA agent called the fire department to let them know not to show up for the impending false alarm.
Helen went speeding up the stairs, Lucy following along behind her. Using the ability of the proto-suit to stretch with her, the Lenopan woman extended her body to its limits, hauling herself up eight floors at a time. In just moments, the two reached the top floor. Weapons ready, the two stepped out into Gen-Terms' offices as the fire alarms began to ring. With 9/11 still fresh on the minds of many, there was a rush for the stairs. Standing off to the side, Helen continued to monitor the scanner for sign of their quarry. Nodding at a youngish fellow headed for the elevator, Helen took off. Stretching herself over the stream of fleeing humans, Lucy followed.
Bart Cass was not the sort of fellow who followed rules. He typically thought of rules as being for other people–men and women who didn't have the guts to go out and make their own. It was the way of thinking that had put him at the head of a major corporation at the ripe old age of thirty. It was characteristic of him that he didn't believe in taking the stairs, fire or no fire. The scofflaw was prepared for the voices behind him calling out to him. They always did that. Every fire-drill there was somebody who shouted at him for taking the elevator–at least until someone else warned them off. Bart didn't like to be corrected.
Bart kept right on walking. He was the CEO, after all. Who was going to say he couldn't? A glance back told him that things weren't quite what they seemed. The blue-skinned woman and the stretchy thing coming after him sent a chill down his spine. His new business partner had warned him of interference. Fearful of capture, the rogue pharmaceutical mogul accelerated, sprinting for the elevator bank. If he could reach his private elevator, he could get away!
Just as Bart Cass reached the elevators, one of them opened, disgorging a dozen heavily armed men wearing bad-attitudes and flak-jackets festooned with the word 'Police' Their leader shouted, "get on the ground! Get on the ground!" Bart threw up his hands in terror as a death-dot appeared on his forehead. Catching up, Lucy and Helen announced, "good work, Agent Peters." In short order, the DEA was in possession of Gen-Term's corporate offices, lock, stock, and barrel.
Across town, Valerie Stack was in the midst of doing something she knew she probably shouldn't be doing. Curiosity had gotten the better of her–that and suspicion. Her boss was another idiot who didn't really understand how computers worked. He just used them. Valerie had been tinkering with them since she was a teenager. She'd learned early on that the little recycle-bin folder on her computer didn't magically annihilate information when she used it. The data was still there, floating around on the computer somewhere.
After making sure that Mr. Valley was nowhere in sight, she'd gone and opened the deleted folder in Outlook, finding the giant message she'd been sent was still floating around in there. Deftly, she moved it to an innocuous folder where she kept internet jokes and website links that people sent her. Now, with nobody around, she began to dig into the test document in question.
It wasn't easy to understand. She wasn't familiar with the compound in question, and she really didn't understand what the effects were that they were describing. A little googling on her phone helped with those issues though. Working her way down through the document in question, the young woman began to get the disturbing impression that her boss was up to something that might be illegal.
As she perused that confidential document, Val found herself glancing over her shoulder now and again. In cubicle land, there really wasn't any privacy, and you never knew who might come strolling by on their way to the bathroom or break area. The more she read, the deeper she got, and the more afraid she became. Mr. Valley's research seemed to be focused on delivering narcotics to the brain in a more efficient manner, and there even seemed to be a little work being done to tailor the shape of the molecules to be more effective. Worse, when Val finally decided to look up the chemical formula Valley was testing, she found it was more akin to Heroin than any of the legal pain-killers the company worked with.
Terrified, Val realized that she needed to see her brothers. She needed to talk to them about this. She wasn't sure if what Valley was doing was legal, and, with the way he was acting, she wasn't sure she wanted to ask him about it. He could easily do her in and make it look like an accident. Convinced now, the young biochemist closed the file, shut off Outlook for good measure, and locked her computer.
As she was gathering up her purse, she looked up and found Mr. Valley there. "Hello, Ms. Stack," said the older man. He was wearing an oily smile that looked sinister to Val. "In the interests of security," said Mr. Valley, "the IT team's going to wipe that file from the servers, but they wanted to come down and make sure it was gone from your computer too. Do you mind if they do that?" "N-no," stammered Val. "'Course not... Just business..." "Thank-you," said he. He stepped aside, and Val slipped out of her cubicle.
Creeped out, Val quickly made her way to the elevators and headed for the first floor. She wanted out of here. If she could make the subway without trouble, she could get home. Behind her, she left a man in turmoil. He'd seen the little bitch on the security monitor looking at something and checking over her shoulder over and over again. That wasn't something that Valerie Stack did. Little miss goody-two-shoes rarely did anything more sinister than looking at off-color jokes on the internet. So why was she looking over her shoulder? There was just one reason in his mind. The fact that she was now rushing to get out the door suggested that he was right. She'd read the file, and now she had some idea what he was doing. Given her family background, that meant she now had to be silenced. Reaching into his pocket, he drew out the modified phone he'd been given and dialed.
Val knew the day was headed south when the bus she usually caught to reach the subway was out of service. She'd forgotten all about the sign she'd seen the previous day. Now she had to schlep down six blocks in the cold. Glancing over her shoulder, she started walking.
Reaching the subway after a long walk in the cold, Val was a little disturbed to see four men there wearing their gang affiliations like a flag. They were there at the subway entrance, and they were looking for somebody. Shivering in fear, Val pulled out her phone and called Mike. Almost immediately her big brother picked up. "Hey, Val," said Mike. "Is it important? I'm kinda busy..." "I think my boss is cooking dope in our labs," replied Valerie. "Now there's a buncha' gang bangers at the subway entrance..."
Mike had heard about what Lucy had learned from his sister. Now he feared Val was in the middle of something very dangerous. "Sit tight, Val," said Mike. "I'm sending somebody..." Val didn't answer. One of the men went from checking his phone to staring straight at her. Mike heard shouts. Then running feet. Then silence.
Lucy was in the middle of interrogating one of Gen Term's top minds when her comlink chirped. Drawing it out, she flicked it on, announcing, "go..." "Luce," replied Mike? "Val's in trouble. I think Rillec's infiltrated her place too. Need you to g'down there..." "On it," said Lucy. Leaving Nick in charge, the two raced down the stairs. Grabbing the nearest car, the two flicked on lights and siren and took off in a cloud of tire-smoke.
Val had been a star of her highschool track team once upon a time, and she still kept in shape, running every morning before work. Now she put that to use, sprinting down the street away from the trio of gangsters who were in hot-pursuit. The three young men hurled curses as they chased her. Val was certain now that her boss was up to no good. She just prayed she could survive this.
The car the the three had arrived in skidded to a stop at the end of the street, cutting her off. Val darted into an alley to get away. The thugs ran in after her, chasing her through filth. Val feared they would catch her. They were gaining, and they had a car. Huffing and puffing, Val raced to the end of the alley, praying like never before. Prayers turned to curses as she tripped over a rut in the alley and went down. The gangbangers closed for the kill.
As Val scrambled away from them, a voice from down the alley shouted, "police! On the ground!" Val glanced down the alley to find a cop standing there with his hand on his gun. To her horror, one of her assailants drew a pistol and shot the cop in one smooth motion. The cop was astonished to feel pain. His vest had been penetrated! Val screamed as her rescuer went down. "Get the bitch, yo," shouted the shooter! He strode forward to finish off the cop.
Before he could, Lucy and Helen raced into the alley. Leveling their proto-tools, the two lit into the gangsters, laying out the three of them. Helen rushed to the fallen cop as Lucy went to Val. "He's alive," Helen announced! "Get him to the truk," said Lucy. She helped Val get up and hobble to where the proto-truk waited at the end of the alley.