If you haven't done so yet, please read Sergeant Ch. 1. No jerk material in this chapter, just chills and thrills!
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I was on my way to Georgetown University to check out a high security lab that might have been used to conduct research by a certain bright biochemist. Unfortunately, she was kidnapped and was being held hostage by former government, now renegade agents. Their public demands were for money; a huge pile of it. $50 million to be exact. And being that she was the daughter of the prime minister of Canada, they were probably going to get it. However the revelation of her contribution towards the development of agricultural vaccines, one of which turned into a deadly nerve agent under certain conditions, changed the nature of the ballgame completely.
It was very likely that the goal for the renegade agents wasn't simply the ransom money. Although a tidy sum, just think of what they could get by selling the nerve agent to unfriendly nations or to terrorist groups. The $50 million that they asked for could look like chump change compared to what others might be willing to pay for something like this. Especially if no one has had the time to properly evaluate it and develop counter agents for it.
If this were the case then the effort to find Annalisa Somer should be moved up several notches. But we needed more information as soon as possible. I called David Betno, my control;
"David, this is Tim. Anything new for me?"
"Yeah, the lab at Georgetown's been trashed. Campus Security went in to check it this morning after I called and it's been gone over by someone already. Ask for a George Hatcher at the main entrance security shack. He has instructions to let you into the lab and to cooperate with you fully."
"Understand. What should I be looking for? I have no idea of what's important or what's not as far as biochemistry is concerned."
"Me neither. The head spooks will be sending a team down later this morning so let them take care of the technical stuff. Just nose around and see if anything doesn't look right to you."
"Ok."
We rang off and I was at the security shack sooner than I thought. Hatcher turned out to be retired Army. Initially he was all formality and stuff. But we got along really well after he saw my military ID and learned of me being a Ranger. He jumped into my vehicle as we left the security shack at the entrance to the campus.
"Ok Tim. The lab is over beyond these admin buildings. You can park in the back of the building." George said as he guided me around the campus.
We parked and George keyed us into the building. As we entered the lab, I asked;
"Are we in any danger of breathing in any lethal stuff?"
"Don't think so. No air scrubbers on this building so I doubt that anything volatile was worked on here."
George went through a series of computer lock security doors.
"George, do you have records of who comes and goes through these doors?"
"Yep. Computer monitors all card activity. We'll have a report generated for you for the last week before you leave."
"What about video?"
"Only on the entrance and exit doors. No one thought that there were any high security needs for the lab. I'll have copies of that made for you too."
George let me into Annalisa's lab and it looked as if someone had gone through it with a vengeance. In contrast to her apartment, furniture was thrown around the room. Papers were strewn everywhere. A computer monitor had been thrown against the wall and a computer lay in pieces. As I picked through it I realized that its hard drive was missing.
A White Board had been recently wiped clean. A slight odor of the chemical agent used to do so lingered near the board; probably from the eraser that was used. And the erasing had been done recently. Someone didn't want us or someone else to see what was on the board.
CD's and DVD's were strewn all over the lab. Most were unmarked but some had cryptic labels on them. Heck if I knew what they were for. Figured I'd let the techno spooks look into them.
Ok, I thought to myself, if I wanted to keep something secure, where would I keep it? It could be data, it could be test results, it could be anything! Man this was not my cup of tea, that's for sure!
As I scanned the room, I saw a column of lockers that employees would normally use to store handbags, backpacks, jackets, and that sort of stuff. A couple of them used to have locks on them, but the doors had been forcibly removed from them. Whoever it was that was here had probably ripped the doors off with something. But one open, unlocked locker on the bottom was not touched.
I swung it wide open out of curiosity and looked in. At first glance it seemed empty. But something in that locker didn't look right. As I stared at the empty space in the locker, it finally dawned on me that the left hand wall of the locker was a little thicker than the right. I checked out the other lockers on top and their left hand walls matched the right. Hmmmm. Interesting.
I got down on my hands and knees and felt the left wall of the bottom locker. It was plastic, painted to look like the locker. Very good resemblance. Don't know what caught me eye but whatever it was, I'm glad it did.
As I felt along the edges of the plastic piece, I must have pushed something because the piece suddenly fell away revealing a mini-DVD. I retrieved it and figured that it had to be important to be hidden away like this. There wasn't anything else in the small hidden space. I stuck the DVD into my jacket pocket for safekeeping for now.
I went to the middle of the room and slowly scanned it, looking for anything that might look strange or out of place. And there it was. A box of cereal. Now, ok, people snack on all sorts of stuff, cereal included. But in a lab?
As I picked it up I could feel the heaviness of the box. Strange. Cereal boxes are usually full of air. Normally light. I opened it and there was the missing hard drive! Ok! Something important is in here! Annalisa must have realized that someone was after her so had ejected the hard drive and dumped it into the cereal box. Ok cereal box, you're coming with me!
Scanning the room once again my eye was drawn to a hand held recorder that people use to dictate. The record button was still depressed. Annalisa must have left it in record mode when her assailants came in! Normally these things only have a one or two hour capacity. And they tend to be voice activated so it should hopefully give us a hint as to who was in the lab last. I turned it off and slipped it into my pocket also.
Finishing up my room scan, I saw a handbag laying on the floor; its contents dumped on the floor. I took a quick look and found a wallet with Annalisa's ID, some charge cards, and a little cash in it. There were a couple of other items in it including a claim check for some dry cleaning, a membership card to a gym, and a key. The key didn't look like a spare house key or car key. It was too small. It looked as if it might fit a lock or a locker. I took it thinking that it might come in handy later.
Other contents of her handbag included a set of her keys, a container of breath mints, a small note book, and some other personal things. The small note book looked as if Annalisa used it to write notes to herself. I saw reminders to buy stuff, notes to call people, and some other stuff. Didn't know if anything was of significance so I left it.
"George, do you know if Ms. Somer brought other people to the lab?" I asked Hatcher.
"Nope. Usually just her and her bodyguards. What was she working on that she needed bodyguards anyway?"
"Sorry George, can't tell you." I replied. "But let me know if anyone turns up that doesn't look like they belong, ok?"
"Can do."
With that, I gave George the phone number for David Betno. "This number is for my contact so just relay the message through him."
I placed the DVD, the hard drive and the voice recorder in plastic bag that I found in the lab, and stored the stuff in the spare wheel well in the back of the SUV. Hopefully they'll survive without too much damage.
Dropped George off back at the security shack on the way out, "Hey George, thanks for the assist. The techy guys will be by later this morning."
"Yeah, your Betno fella told me to expect them also."
As I pulled out of the campus, I got Betno back on the phone; "David, Tim here. Picked up a couple items that we should have someone you trust take a look at."
"What do you have?"
"Got a DVD, a hard drive, and a voice recorder."
"Ok, let me see who I can dig up. You got them in a safe place for now?"
"Yep." At least the spare wheel well was better than being my pocket!
"Good, wouldn't want anything to happen to them until we can take a hard look at them."
"Hey, anything turn up on the Jeff guy?"
"Zippo. The phone number turns out to be one of those prepaid cell phones. I'm having the phone call record pulled on it but I was told that there wasn't much on it. Looks like it may be a dead end."
"Pros huh?"
"Yep."
"Any other updates for me?"
"Yeah, the ransom demand just got pushed up a couple of notches. Now they want the other two scientists."
