“What was the label on the vial?”
“There was a standard bar code from the hospital. I wrote my name on another label, and ‘runner’ on it, as shorthand. There’s a lot of blood going over there with my name on it. I was trying to be careful, in case the bar code came off. Pia, I’m sorry this happened but it’s not the end of the world—”
“Right,” Pia said abruptly, and ended the call. It may not be the end of the world for Dr. Caldwell, but it left Pia in a mess of frustration. She was back to square one — she had nothing. And she felt a certain amount of anxiety. The fence seemed like a sinister presence to her, an unnecessary second protective curtain around the border of Nano, shielding it from the outside world. The main fence that flanked the parking lot was taller than this one and was impressive enough on its own. She supposed this outer boundary could be breached more easily, but she had no doubt there were sensors that would indicate any intruder. Or was it the case that Nano was more concerned with stopping people from getting out rather than preventing them from getting in? She had no answer.
Before she could think too much along those lines, cutting through the still mountain air, Pia heard the high-pitched whine of an engine. An approaching motorbike, she thought, and she ducked back down into the fringe of the woods, where she wasn’t visible from the road. Before she could see any motorized transportation she saw first one, then a second cyclist dressed in black gear with Nano logos and wearing solid black bike helmets and dark, wraparound sunglasses. They were breathing evenly and climbing the hill at an impressive speed, their shoes clipped into the pedals, their rhythmically swaying bodies centered over the handlebars. As the first one passed, he glanced back over his left shoulder toward his colleague, and Pia caught a glimpse of enough of his face to tell his background. He was Asian, possibly Chinese.
Close behind the cyclists was a man in biking leathers on a dirt bike wearing a full-face helmet, maintaining the same speed as the larger road bikes. Further back, a white van followed at the same pace, but keeping more distance than the motorbike. Pia could see nothing through the vehicle’s blacked-out windows. A couple of minutes after the group had passed and no one else appeared, Pia followed, running, half expecting to see the group heading back in the direction from which they had come.
Rounding a hairpin turn at the top of the rise, Pia had a view into the distance. Ahead was a long, steep uphill grade. Up near the summit she could just make out the cyclists who had not slowed. Even from that great distance she could tell they were moving remarkably fast despite the gradient. Who were they and why were they wearing Nano logos? While Pia watched, they disappeared over the crest of the distant hill, followed by the motorcycle and then the van.
For a moment Pia stood where she was, staring at the spot where the group had disappeared, straight up into the Rocky Mountains. She shook her head in disbelief. It was all too much of a coincidence. As there had been a runner, there were cyclists apparently operating out of Nano in some way, and they were important enough to be trailed and shepherded by a motorbike and a white van.
The interruption had stopped Pia from fully assimilating what Paul Caldwell had told her. Blood from the Chinese runner that had been accidentally saved had been sent to a lab and then lost. Such a loss had never happened before, and there was no good explanation for the sample’s disappearance. The lab was being turned inside out in a desperate attempt to locate the missing sample, or so she had been told by a contrite Paul. Good grief, she thought dejectedly.
Pia was sure the lab workers were wasting their time. She had no doubt that someone from Nano had taken the blood sample before it could be tested. Nano knew that blood had been taken from the runner but they may have assumed it was all intercepted in the ER. This later action meant they were very thorough and had a long reach. They must have stationed someone at the hospital or, more likely, at the lab, to intercept anything coming in from the ER at that particular hospital. Such an action wouldn’t be difficult to pull off for an outfit with Nano’s resources.
All the same, she cursed her foolishness in trusting Paul Caldwell with the blood. He could just as well have attached a giant sign to the blood saying, STEAL ME! He’d not only written his name, but indicated the sample was from the runner.
Then Pia’s more rational self kicked in. Despite the odd encounter in the ER, Pia had given Caldwell no reason to act in a clandestine or secretive manner with the blood. Sure, Nano had snatched the other samples away, but it was too much to expect an ER doctor to anticipate something that had never happened before: the loss, for whatever reason, of a blood sample after it had reached the lab. The message that Pia got from the unfortunate episode was that the stakes were raised and that she would have to be more careful in the future. With the enormous amounts of money involved with nanotechnology, she was up against a formidable foe carefully clothed in secrecy.
Pia turned around and started jogging back the way she’d come. She’d take her run and skip the idea of circling Nano on foot. After all, what difference would it make if there was a second or even third entrance to the complex? Such a discovery wasn’t going to tell her anything except add to the sense of secrecy. What was becoming progressively clear to her was that her only and most promising resource of learning any secrets about what Nano was doing was Zachary Berman. There were no iris scanners at his house, or at least she hadn’t seen any, and no razor-wire barriers. But thinking about going back into his house unaccompanied by George sent an involuntary shiver down Pia’s spine. Intuitively she knew that if Berman was anything, he was a dangerous snake in the grass.
CHAPTER 20
Before she went home and changed and showered for her dinner date, Pia had one stop to make after leaving Nano for the day. She knew Dr. Caldwell was on duty because she had called the hospital. When the receptionist heard the caller was a doctor, she offered to page Dr. Caldwell. Pia declined and hopped in her car and drove straight over. Her task at hand couldn’t have been done on the phone. She needed a favor that required person-to-person contact.
Pia walked into the ER, and as luck would have it, Paul Caldwell was standing in the second bay she looked into, having been called in to check a first-year resident’s care of a young boy who’d taken a serious blow to the head from falling off his bike. Pia watched as Caldwell finished assuring the anxious mom that the kid would be fine. When he was finished and had turned the case back to the first-year resident, he turned and came out of the cubicle, on his way to the main desk. He saw Pia, smiled an uncertain smile, and raised his eyebrows.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said. He’d hoped to see Pia again, but not so soon, especially after her reaction to the lost blood sample and precipitous end to their phone conversation. He was quite sure she had hung up on him.
“I’m sorry I gave you a hard time about the blood,” she said, lowering her voice. They were standing in the middle of the busy ER. “I realize it wasn’t your fault.”
“You realize I didn’t lose the sample on purpose. Well, I’m glad you’re giving me the benefit of the doubt. That’s very generous of you.”
Paul continued on to the ER desk, where he dropped off his paperwork on the head-trauma case. Pia followed close behind. She noticed he was dressed impeccably, just as he’d been the day before when she had first met him.