"The DNA-bound antibiotic? I thought you gave up on that"
"Oh, no, my friend. The shortsighted pawers-that be did. I always knew they were wrong, so I just stepped back and retooled. Put me together a quality team with vision, and set about making DS-Nineteen a reality.
Now then, why don't you just wriggle on out here and we'll find someplace a little drier to continue our basic science seminar?"
Without hesitating, Eric swung the bottle as hard as he could.
The glass exploded against the flash, shattering its lens and bulb and sending it flying out of Subarsky's hand.
"Hey, race move!" Subarsky cried. "But I thought you wanted to hear about my antibiotic."
Eric had already spun around and scrambled out from under the trailer on the other side, He splashed back to the Saab. Laura, her mouth sealed beneath a broad piece of adhesive tape, stared out at him helplessly.
She was lashed by her wrists to the steering wheel, and a single piece of rope across her throat pinned her back against the headrest. Eric was trying to kick in the passenger window when Subarsky stepped up beside him.
"Please," he said, "don't do that. Don't do that. I have a five-hundred-dollar deductible that doesn't coven" Eric took a roundhouse swing at his face. Subarsky blocked it with his forearm, then cahnly shoved Eric backward at least ten feet and down into the mud.
"I'm sorry this is happening, old friend," he said.
"If I hadn't had to go back to my apartment to get these magic keys to use on that he-man lock over there, you would have missed us, and you wouldn't be nearly so muddy."
Eric pushed himself to his feet. Subarsky circled around and cut him off it-from the road, but Eric knew he needn't have bothered. As long as Laura Enders remained the man's prisoner, he was never going to run.
One way or the other, it was going to end right here.
"Dave," he said, trying to stall until some idea, some flicker of an advantage came to him, "how can you hurt so many people just to develop a goddam drug?"
"Hey, watch your tongue, fella. Use any delaviniz tactic you want. I like that, and I'd expect nothing less from you. But don't stoop to calling DS-Nineteen names. We're talking about a living antibiotic herean antibiotic that kills viruses and keeps killing them because it mutates as fast as they do."
"It didn't work. That's why no agency would fund its development."
"Didn't work in a test tube or a culture bottle," Subarsky corrected.
"But tinker with it, tighten a nut here, a bolt there, and stick it into a living infected person, and whainmo! The field is suddenly bloody with little teeny virus corpses, including-we are about to — prove-the one that causes you-know-what.
Impressed?"
Eric squinted across at him and, in spite of himself, realized that he was impressed. The government grant agencies had clearly underestimated the man's genius. Faced with possibly the most lethal epidemic the world has ever known, they had blithely cast off one of the few scientists equal to the challenge "So," Eric said, "the tetrodotoxin was your tool for diverting no-next-of-kin patients to your place in Utah.
Get 'em pronounced dead, and then get 'em out of town."
I wish it were that simple. I tried using that doggone toxin in every way, shape, and form I could, but in the mind, only the houngans could do it right.
Can you believe it? A PhD. in biochemistry from M.I.T, and I've had to imrort my stuff from a bunch of witch doctors."
"Enter Rebeca darden."
"Ah, you know about my little island princess too.
Eric, you are really quite a guy. If you know, I assume ol' Haven knows as well."
"Not yet, but I plan to tell him."
Subarsky laughed merrily at Eric's bravado.
"I wish you hadn't said that, pal, because now that makes you a real threat. You see, I don't think ol' Haven would approve of me.".
"He wouldn't be in the minority."
"Oh, stop it! Be witty or be silent."
Eric glanced about for a board or rock, but saw nothing he could use.
Behind Subarsky, traffic continued splashing along Meridian, but no one even slowed.
A police cruiser was about the best he could hope for.
He decided to continue stalling for as long as his adversary would allow.
"So Rebecca Darden uws the contacts her father helped her make in Haiti, and gets the powder for you.
Subarsky slapped a spray of water from his beard.
"She does that, yes," he said. "But mostly she uses her contacts to get cocaine for me and Lester to sell. Cocaine and some of the best poppy this side of Istanbul. How in the hell else was I going to finance tim my work? Lester and I tried doing it for a e with weapons, but as our operation's grown, we just haven't been able to generate enough business to meet our overhead. So we decided to diversify. We haven't abandoned the weapons business, but cocaine is much easier to handle than Uzi semiautomatics, know what I mean? Damn sight better markup, too."
"Jesus, David, you are sick. How did you make a thug like Wheeler understand something as complex as DS-Nineteen?"
"Simple," Subarsky said. "I just told him that the real name of the drug was Money. Once it's perfected, we bargain for amnesty if we need to, and then name our price-as in eight zeros; maybe even nine.
Oil Lester understood that kind of science. Believe me he did.
"So we skim enough from our business endeavors to maintain life and limb, and keep sweet Rebecca in shoes, and then we throw the rest into the project.
The way things are going out in Charity, another year, maybe two is all it's gonna take."
"I don't believe it."
"Frankly, Eric, I'm very ticked off at you, so I don't really give a damn what you believe. Things were going mighty smoothly until your friend in there showed up and turned your head. Now, with most of my teammates gone, we may have to consider a relocation-whole new players, and even a new base hospital." He sighed theatrically. "Still, I have managed to salt enough away to take Rebecca on a sabbatical if I find I must."
"You are really sad, David."
"You're damn right I am," Subarsky shot back, his tone suddenly much harsher. "I'm sad because thanks to you, I may have to retool again.
And I'm sad because I'm getting soaked and catching a chill standing here talking to an old pal from Watertown who doomed himself by being too goddam smart for his own good."
He reached his long arms up like an attacking grizzley, and took a step forward.
"Now," he said, "since the lovely Laura over there is absolutely positive that a certain video is locked in that trailer, and since the well-known chap buying poppy and blow from us on that tape is waiting to reward me handsomely for it, suppose you just let me-Head down, Eric charged the man, hurling himself through the rain at his chest, flailing with his fists at Subarsky's face. Subarsky stumbled backward. En'c lashed out again, connecting solidly with his cheek.
Then Subarsky reached out and effortlessly shoved him back to the ground.
"Happy now?" he said. "Is it out of your system?"
Eric looked up. He had hit the man with everything he had, yet Subarsky was merely standing there, licking at a small tear in his lower lip and smiling at him through his beard. Eric tried another onslaught, but the advantage of surprise was gone. Subarsky grabbed him by the front of his jacket and slammed him against the trailer as if he were weightless.
Eric's head snapped against the metal door.
His arms and legs instantly went limp, and he dropped into a muddy puddle. Before he could fight through the dizziness to react again, Subarsky was on him. Kneeling on his back, he pulled Eric's arms behind him and tied them with a short length of clothesline. Then he knelt heavily on the back of Eric's thighs, and tied his ankles with similar quickness and.
"AD right, then," he said, making no effort to ron Eric over or remove him from the puddle. "There being no further objections, I move we take out the magic key set and find the one that fits this Bozo lock.