Blood Harvest Page 12

  Steve nodded and without another word walked around the side of the car, climbed into the driver seat, started the vehicle and drove toward the exit of the garage.

  As they were about to pull into traffic Steve said, “This may be the most conspicuous vehicle we could have chosen for a stakeout.”

  “Probably, but remember what Dennis Miller said: ‘When a person is driving up the side of a hill in a tropical rainforest, a Hummer is a tool. When a Hummer is cruising up Rodeo Drive looking for a parking space, the driver is a tool.’”

  “And your point is?” Steve queried.

  “There are a whole lot of ‘tools’ in LA. No one will pay us a second thought.”

  Chapter 16

  The Inferno

  10:45 P.M.

  Steve parked the H2 less than a block from The Inferno on the opposite side of the road, staging the vehicle in the proper position so he and Chris could keep an eye on the front of the deserted club. The two men sat quietly as they watched from the street. After about 45 minutes Chris began to get restless.

  “So…this is a stakeout, huh? Well, at least you get paid by the hour.” Chris said.

  “What? You thought it was all action? Hot cars, hotter women and secret agent stuff?”

  “Honestly no, after all I’ve seen your car; however, this is really tedious. How long do we wait for something to happen?”

  “A stakeout can last for hours, even days with a proper team or support system.”

  “Oh, great,” Chris said without trying to hide his exasperation. Reaching into the backseat he pulled out some papers from his messenger bag. He sorted through the various documents and quickly became totally engrossed in whatever was written on the pages.

  “Well it gives me time to look into a couple of theories I have about what might have happened to those catatonic people from the other night.”

  Steve waited and when Chris saw the interest on his face, he continued.

  “Based on what information I was able to gather before I left the scene, I have a couple of working theories on what could be the cause for the condition of the victims.” Steve nearly jumped out of his seat. “What! All of the victims were taken to quarantine before any of our medical people could examine them. We’ve had nothing to go on and no leads to follow.”

  “Right, but remember, I was at the scene and was able to do some cursory examinations on a couple of the victims before I was shooed away by the Captain.”

  “And?”

  “Well, from what little I had to go on I would guess that something, and I have no idea what, basically shut down the part of the brain that controls all skeletal muscle function.”

  “Skeletal muscle function?” Steve repeated.

  “Exactly. You see, with the exception of the heart, there are basically two types of muscles in the body, smooth muscle and skeletal muscle. Smooth muscles are controlled by the brain and keep our body processes operating without us having to think about it. Skeletal muscles, on the other hand, are muscles we consciously control in order to produce movements and perform tasks. A good example of each type of muscle would be the combination of skeletal and smooth muscles in the esophagus. The top third of our throat is the part we consciously use to swallow our food. After that we don’t think about moving the food we swallowed from the throat, down and into our stomachs. It just happens because the brain senses there is substance in the esophagus and it sends impulses for the smooth muscles within the lower two thirds of the esophagus to push the food down into the stomach.”

  “I remember this from science class.”

  “Okay, without getting too technical try to imagine the brain being a fuse box with several hundred different fuses. Now if the sense of smell is controlled by one fuse and you flip the switch to the ‘off’ position the body would no longer be able to process any stimuli for smell. All other functions in the body, unrelated to smell, will function normally but the body will be totally devoid of the sense of smell.”

  “So far I am following you.”

  “Good, now let’s look at what happens when a person has a stroke. A stroke is caused by something cutting off the blood supply to a part of the brain. It is usually caused by a blood clot blocking a specific blood vessel in the circulatory labyrinth of the brain. This leads to ischemia, or lack of blood supply, to which the brain is highly sensitive and will quickly begin to deteriorate if the blockage is not removed. The damage to the brain is usually permanent and whatever part of the brain it controlled will be compromised by the damage. Still following this?”

  “Everything except how this relates to those people at The Inferno.”

  “Skeletal muscle is controlled by that part of our brain responsible for conscious thought. It happens to be in the lower aspect of the brain close to where the brain becomes the spinal cord.”

  “The medulla oblongata?”

  “Uh, well, more or less.”

  “I told you, I remember some of this stuff from science class.”

  “Well, that’s basically correct. Anyway, what I am thinking is that something managed to flip the switch on that part of the brain which regulates the conscious ability to control the skeletal muscles of the body without disrupting the remaining brain functions.”

  Steve thought about it. From a layman’s perspective it did sound like what the victims he had seen could have been experiencing. He asked: “Any idea how that could be caused?”

  “It could be caused by that aforementioned blood clot or a tumor or something else blocking off the blood supply to the brain. The transmissions from the brain could be normal but the message could be cut off somewhere along the nerve pathway before reaching its destination. Such is the case with spinal injuries. The brain is working fine but the impulses it sends to the body never arrive as the nerve pathways have been severed.”

  “Could some kind of chemical or biological agent make blood clots?”

  “Sure, but the distribution pattern and severity of the injuries would not all be the same, as is the case for The Inferno victims. I don’t see how only a specific area could be targeted. If an outside agent caused the blood to form clots, then the clots would be everywhere in the body and you would have various levels of destruction. Many of the victims would die as clots formed in the lungs, along heart tissue and throughout the brain. The type of injury would be as random as rolling a pair of hundred-sided dice, with no way to control the outcome. Tumors would act in a similar fashion and take time to grow.”

  “What about cutting off the transmissions like you said?”

  “The problem with that scenario is how The Inferno victims presented. The first tests performed in the field when dealing with an unconscious person, after checking their breathing and heart rates, involve checking the brain for injury. Some of these tests require examining the integrity of the cranial nerves. Several of these nerves innervate the skeletal muscles of the head and face and originate directly from the brain. The only way to cut off the transmission of these nerves is at the source, which means the brain. In the case of the victims at The Inferno I couldn’t detect any skeletal muscle function anywhere, including the muscles innervated by cranial nerves. It was as if that entire aspect of their bodies had been shut down; as far as I could tell there was nothing else wrong with them.”

  A frightening thought occurred to Steve. “You said that the part of their brain allowing the conscious control of skeletal muscle had, in effect, been shut down. Right?”

  “That’s the theory, but I have no idea how to specifically target an area of the brain like that on such a multiple level.”

  “Right. Is there any chance the victims’ thoughts or self awareness has been compromised?”

  Chris’ face melted into an expression of sorrow.

  “I didn’t see any evidence that would confirm that but…”

  “Just say it.”

  “While I was taking the pulse of one of the victims, one of the EMTs asked if we should try to inject adrenali
ne directly into the heart to “jump start” those affected. As he spoke, I felt the victim’s pulse jump in speed and intensity as if he had heard what had been said and was afraid of the injection. At the time I thought the victims were comatose; it has been recorded that people in comas can hear. Now, I am afraid maybe they are conscious and completely aware of everything going on around them, but they are completely powerless to do anything about it.”

  Steve could feel his anger building at the thought of those poor people being trapped within their own bodies. He remembered reading short works of fiction written about people who were in coma-like states, completely immobile and yet their minds functioned normally. Mercilessly they waited and listened to the world pass them by as time crept forward. Steve’s heart began to beat faster as his anger swelled.

  “I’m sorry,” Chris spoke quietly.

  “What?” Steve had been so lost in his anger. Chris’ voice brought him back from the depth of his thinking.

  Chris spoke with empathy in his voice that was written all over his face.

  “I’m sorry for laying all of that on you. At this point everything is just theory. Don’t take it as fact yet. You look as though I really upset you, but try to remember, I may be completely wrong about everything.”

  Steve was only able to weakly reply, “I’m no expert, but somehow, I don’t think you are wrong.”

  Chapter 17

  The “secret lab” wasn’t really much of a secret to anyone who worked for Pharmanetics. Everyone in the company knew there were several floors within the building which were off limits to anyone who didn’t have the proper security clearance. The mystery was that no one really knew what was being worked on behind those restricted doors. Most of the day-to-day employees thought it was simply quality control for the multitude of pharmaceuticals the company manufactured, that the security was merely in place to prevent industrial espionage. If the truth about what was actually happening behind those closed doors ever came to light many of the Pharmanetics employees would find themselves in a very difficult moral conundrum.

  Alex Daniels passed through the last security checkpoint and entered the main lab. As he surveyed the room he took in the massive number of refrigeration units with glass doors packed to capacity with plastic IV bags of glucose solution and other food supplementations. On the far end of the lab were the few lab technicians and nurses brought in to care for The Inferno abductees. Apparently they were all taking a simultaneous break from their duties as they watched Dr. Whelan prepare a slide and place it under a microscope. Once the slide was properly inserted Dr. Whelan moved to a computer screen and clicked the mouse to bring up a live feed from the camera housed in the microscope.

  Alex moved quietly behind the techs and looked at the images on the screen. He couldn’t decipher anything he saw.

  “Find what you are looking for?” Alex asked and startled a few of the techs in the process.

  “Not really,” Dr. Whelan replied as if he had known Alex had been there the whole time. This brain tissue shows only a trace amount of change as a result of the anesthetic; otherwise, it is completely within the parameters of normal brain tissue.”

  “And that means what exactly?”

  Dr. Whelan turned away from the computer screen and spoke to the techs. “Could you all excuse us for a moment, maybe run a few diagnostic tests on our guests upstairs?”

  Silently the techs all nodded and walked to a rear door, leaving Alex and the doctor alone in the laboratory.

  When the last of the techs had exited Dr. Whelan said, “I think the subject who was immune to the anesthetic must have somehow been shielded from the effects as opposed to having some kind of genetic predisposition which made him immune.”

  Alex shook his head. “We picked The Inferno precisely because of the way the place was wired. There was no section of the club that should have been able to block the process.”

  “I agree, but there is nothing special about the subject’s brain tissue, DNA or any other biological aspect that might have led to his immunity. No chemical components were in his blood that would have dulled or subdued the effect and his vision was more than sufficient to receive the input. The only possibility left is that he was shielded somehow.”

  Alex was trying to figure out how Phillip Devereaux managed to evade the effects of the anesthetic when a stray thought entered his mind.

  “Brain tissue?” Alex asked. “How did you acquire the brain tissue samples from Phillip?”

  “Dissection, of course.” The doctor looked confused, as if the answer should have been obvious.

  “But I thought you said the pathway the anesthetic affected was deep within the core of the brain.”

  “Yes…It is.”

  Alex frowned. “Then how did you manage to retrieve a sample without killing the subject?”

  The doctor simply shrugged his shoulders.

  “You killed him?”

  Dr. Whelan looked thoughtful for a moment then said, “I like to look at it as he didn’t survive the surgery; however, the end result is, of course, the same.”

  Alex sighed. “Did he even have a chance?”

  “His well being was never of any real interest to me. My only priority was the collection of the tissue I needed in order get the information required.” Dr. Whelan frowned at Alex. “Most, if not all, of the great breakthroughs in medical science have always had a particularly nasty, yet necessary, dark side to them. Now is not the time to get squeamish Mr. Daniels.”

  Alex suppressed a chill traveling through him at the coldness in the doctor’s tone of voice. He changed the subject. “So how could he have been shielded?”

  “We’re working on that, but I would surmise there was a private area cut off from the rest of the nightclub, despite all of the plans and schematics we looked at prior to running the test.”

  “But we don’t know, do we?”

  “No, the police were alerted too quickly for me to properly search the entire club after I dropped Devereaux with the mobile device. Perhaps after things calm down a bit more we can use the cover story Kunnert put together to get another look inside the club.”

  Alex nodded. “Good idea. I think I’ll have him get on that as soon as you all return from this second test of yours.”

  Dr. Whelan smiled. “All my bags are packed and I’m ready to go.”

  Then he started singing in one of the worst Elvis impersonations Alex had ever heard.

  “Viva, Las Vegas…Viva, Las Vegas… Viva… VIVA… LAS VEGAS!!!”

  Chapter 18

  “Hey! Oh my goodness. Who the hell is that?” Chris bounced in his seat with excitement as he spoke.

  Steve’s head whiplashed back to the street to see a woman, deliberately avoiding the direct beams of streetlamp light, walking alone down the opposite side of the street. Her back was already to the H2 as she moved away from where they were parked. Long, luxurious raven hair reflected an almost metallic sheen as ambient light flashed across her mane.

  Initially, Steve felt a surge of panic, but as the woman passed under a streetlight he realized it wasn’t Lei.

  Chris was excited at the enticing garb the prostitute was wearing. His mood instantly changed for the better. “Damn, I need to do more ride-alongs with you!”

  Steve chuckled, “Still thinking with that part of your anatomy are you?”

  “Well c’mon bud, you know I spend most of my nights looking at…Uh, oh.” Chris sounded suddenly alarmed.

  “What?”

  “Look a little further down the street.”

  Steve turned to scan the darkness and saw them immediately. Two young men were cruising right for her and, from the look of their gait they were clearly hopped up on some kind of pharmaceutical.

  The woman had noticed them and initially moved into the shadows in an attempt to keep from being seen. Too late she realized the men had already seen her and were now changing their course to move where she was hiding.

  Steve killed
the interior light of the H2 and opened the door. He could immediately hear the three separate voices speaking anxiously. Realizing the scene was going to turn violent, Steve drew his weapon and exited the H2.

  Before he could take a step, Steve recoiled from a sudden ear-splitting scream. He spun around just in time to see the two men dragging the woman into an alleyway between The Inferno and the neighbor building. The woman was fighting them. Kicking, screaming and slashing with long fingernails, she desperately tried to escape their hold on her. She connected with her nail weaponry across the left cheek of one of her assailants. This small triumph was rewarded with a hard right cross to her jaw. Her body went slack as she moaned from the blow to her face. Steve was running full speed toward the commotion as the three disappeared around the corner and into the shadows of the alley.

  “Freeze, Police!” Steve shouted toward the darkness. No response came from the void.

  He rounded the corner to find one of the two men lying in a heap on the ground with his neck displaying an unnatural angle. Steve cautiously approached the body and immediately knew something was terribly wrong. He knelt to check for a pulse at the neck. The slightest touch to the neck caused the head to roll back and away. The man’s neck had been fatally broken. Steve aimed the weapon in front of him as he moved further into the alley.

  The alley split into two possible outlets, both leading back to a street. Steve noticed a door in the brick wall to his right standing slightly ajar. He squinted into the darkness but could not see any evidence of anyone moving. Deciding the remaining man must have been looking for a private place to take the woman, Steve reached for the door.

  Steve jumped as Chris slid to a stop next to him with a completely uncoordinated flailing of hands, arms and shotgun. To his credit, Chris kept his graceless dance quiet as he read Steve’s body language about the door. Chris stood to one side of the door with his back to the wall and readied himself as Steve again reached for the doorknob.