Jack didn’t know exactly what was needed for home brewing but had an idea it was minimal and centered around a fermenter, some sort of brew pot, and a heat source, but what he was now seeing was hardly minimal. It was extensive, and the closest machine he was able to recognize. It was a thermal cycler or PCR machine, which he knew for certain wasn’t needed for home brewing. Next to it was a centrifuge, and next to that a fluorescence microscope. Once he had recognized these instruments, he guessed the other larger units were chromatography and electrophoresis systems. There was even a small biosafety cabinet.
Jack suddenly straightened up. All at once it hit him. Abruptly he knew what he was looking at, and he was absolutely certain it was not a home brewery setup. It was a biomolecular laboratory, specifically a recombinant laboratory for using microorganisms to synthesize proteins.
“Good Lord!” Jack said out loud, staggering several steps backward before regaining his balance. It was almost as if he’d been smacked in the face. The neurological disease that Bob was seeing wasn’t typical, meaning the pathological proteins building up in the patients’ brains weren’t the usual variety. This indicated that the particular prion causing the disease was different than the usual. Terrifyingly, perhaps this laboratory that he’d inadvertently discovered was secretly making a totally new infectious prion, and if that was the case, then these supposed Netherlander militiamen werecertainly not who they pretended to be. It even made sense that Alexei was a microbiology technician, causing Jack to wonder what the real roles were of the other three, particularly the so-called commander.
Not at all thinking clearly about his vulnerability, Jack dashed to the end of the building to try the door. He had in mind making himself absolutely certain he’d stumbled onto a makeshift recombinant laboratory. He knew full well that once he spread the word, it was going to cause one hell of a seismic response. In the back of his mind, he was already frantic to get in touch with Detective Lieutenant Lou Soldano the second he got back to the Hiram House. On multiple occasions in the past the detective had talked about his particularly close relationship with one of the higher-ups of the New York City Joint Terrorism Task Force. In Jack’s mind, if these Netherlanders were cooking a novel prion and spreading it, maybe even via the municipal water system, it was clearly terrorism.
Unfortunately, Jack’s immediate plans were foiled by a large, old-fashioned padlock on the stable’s front door. After giving the lock a frustrated shake, he decided the view he’d had of the barn’s interior was confirmation enough, and more to the point, he’d better get the hell away from the Bennet Estate. Spinning around, he started off at a run down the manicured lawn back toward the dock. As he ran, another possibility dawned on him: What if Ethan Jameson had discovered the existence of the laboratory? If he had, it certainly could have led to his demise and even to the disappearance of his body. All at once it was clear to Jack that the missing body and the mysterious neurological disease had to be connected.
Reaching the dock, Jack lost no time picking up the landward end of the canoe and quickly walking the front off the end of thedock. Poised, he leaned forward with the intent of dropping the back of the canoe into the water, but then he froze as he caught sight of something startling. In the depths of the lake, to his right directly off the end of the diving board, maybe twenty feet down, was a school of large trout in a feeding frenzy, flashing in and out of view. Looking a little closer amid the shifting shafts of sunlight seen when sun shines into water depths, it appeared as if the fish were feeding on a ghoulish object. It was a half-eaten human face with portions of the skull and eye sockets visible. Less visible in the murky depths were portions of shoulder bones.
Jack blinked and looked again, fearing that his imagination was running amuck. But not only did he continue to see what he feared he’d seen, but not that far away, maybe four feet or so, was yet another, more intact human head with fish nibbling away. He had no idea what was keeping the bodies—if they were in fact bodies—submerged. But what he did believe was that one of these remains had to be the missing corpse of Ethan Jameson.
“Hold up!” a breathless male voice suddenly and loudly commanded.
Jack straightened and spun around. To his shock, he was facing Alexei and another man, both of whom were at that moment stepping up onto the dock. Their heaving chests and gasping breaths suggested they had just raced down from the house. Alarmingly, both were armed—Alexei had a Glock while his compatriot carried an AR-15—and their expressions were hardly welcoming. Behind them, about halfway up to the house, Jack could see two more men approaching at a fast clip.
“Alexei!” Jack said, trying to sound upbeat despite the guns. “I’ve been hoping to run into you the whole time I’ve been out canoeing on the lake. I was eager to ask if you and your roommates mightallow me to take a few dives off your springboard. By chance I happened to catch most likely you using it early this morning when I took a dip, and I was so jealous.”
“Shut up!” Alexei managed between gasps. He was clearly winded as he motioned with the pistol toward the ground and added: “Let go of the boat!”
“It’s called a canoe,” Jack corrected. “I don’t know if you have canoes in Holland, but I assure you they are a pure pleasure on a lake like this. It’s kind of an American thing, part of our heritage particularly here in New England. You’re welcome to give it a try if you’d like.”
“Shut up!” the second man managed, equally out of breath. To emphasize his wishes, he raised the rifle and menacingly pointed it directly at Jack’s face.
“Okay, okay,” Jack said. “Take it easy!” Following orders, he let go of the boat. It dropped about a half foot and slid forward slightly but then stopped. There it hovered with the very aft portion of its keel resting on the outer lip of the dock.
“You seem to have taken me for a trespasser! I don’t think a gun is necessary,” Jack said. “Alexei and I know each other, don’t we, Alexei?”
“Shut up!” Alexei repeated. His breathing was beginning to return to normal.
“I missed our afternoon pickup game,” Jack said. “Didn’t you?” He had an urge to keep talking, as if talk alone might get him out of an obviously dicey situation. What was going through his mind was that if he was at all correct in his most recent suspicions, these men had to be biological-weapon manufacturers on top of whatever else they were, and if that was true, it was terrifying not only for himself but for the entire country.
At that moment the other two men arrived and stepped onto the dock. Both eyed Jack with obvious disdain.
“This was exactly what I have been worried about,” Alexei snapped angrily, using his Glock to point at Jack and talking as if Jack wasn’t there. “This fellow is trouble a hundred times worse than Ethan or JD. We should have left Monday like we planned or at least when we heard a forensic pathologist was here.”
“Quiet!” the commander ordered. Then looking at Alexei, he asked: “What does he know?”
Alexei laughed humorlessly. “I’ve no idea specifically, but it can’t be good, Viktor. We’re lucky I just happened to see him trying to get into the barn, which he thankfully wasn’t about to do thanks to the padlock. Following that, he was hell-bent on leaving, which suggests to me he knows something, and it can’t be good. What I’m imagining is that he got a look through one of the barn windows and understood what he was seeing.”
Viktor nodded and walked directly up to Jack, hostilely sticking his face up close. He was three or four inches shorter and probably as much as thirty pounds lighter. He and Jack stared at each other for maybe thirty seconds until Viktor broke it off, shook his head in frustrated irritation, and then stepped back.
“Does he have a mobile phone with him?” Viktor questioned angrily.
“We haven’t seen one,” Alexei said.
“Check the boat, Dmitry!” Viktor ordered. “We need to be a hundred percent certain he made no calls.”
Dmitry handed his rifle to Nikolai and then brushed past Jack to make sure there was no phone in the boat.
“I didn’t bring a phone,” Jack offered airily. “Canoeing and phones don’t mix.”
“No phone in the boat,” Dmitry called out almost immediately.
“Launch the boat!” Viktor commanded to Dmitry, still sounding angry. “We’ll let the westerly wind blow the damn thing out into the lake and ultimately back to the distant shore. That will have them looking for him over there when he’s found missing.”
As the others watched, Dmitry shoved the canoe off the dock and then gave it a forceful shove. As Viktor suggested, the late afternoon breeze immediately caught it and turned it perpendicular to its direction, then the steady breeze began to push it out into the lake. With its shallow draw, the unoccupied canoe moved surprisingly quickly.
