Severe Risk Read online

  “Did you talk to any of the people working on the place?” Ollie said.

  “No, they didn’t even notice us. P.J. was going to take some pictures, but he leaned on the fence and it knocked him on his ass. It was electrified. I took him to the hospital and he was okay, but obviously they wanted to keep people out. So I started doing some research.”

  In 1987, the hospital and the property on which it stood had been purchased from Humboldt County by the Springmeier family. Ivan learned the Springmeier estate still owned it but had leased it to DeCamp Pharmaceuticals, who then rented the facility to Vendon Labs, a wholly owned subsidiary of DeCamp. Vendon was a biochemical company that popped up often in the world of conspiracies because of its history as a government contractor.

  Both DeCamp and Vendon had been involved in Project MK-Ultra, a covert US government research operation begun in the early 1950s. The program experimented in the areas of mind control and effective interrogation and torture tactics, and it was carried out at universities, hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies using drugs, electroconvulsive therapy, sensory deprivation, and physical and sexual abuse, among other techniques. The experiments were performed on mental hospital patients, students, and private citizens, usually without their consent or knowledge, leaving many with permanent mental and physical damage.

  Outside of conspiracy buffs, few people were familiar with MK-Ultra, although it had been made public in the 1970s by a US Senate committee investigating illegal activity by the CIA. Due to its connection to MK-Ultra, any mention of Vendon Labs grabbed the attention of the kind of people who were drawn to Ivan’s show. People like Ollie Monk.

  Ivan said, “All we could get out of Vendon was that they’re using the hospital to develop new antibiotics to combat infections that have become resistant to standard antibiotics. They didn’t want to talk about it at all, but when they finally did, that’s what their PR person told us. And she wouldn’t tell us any more. She stopped taking our calls. And that’s how I found out about it, Ollie. Nothing suspicious.”

  Ollie nodded once, then thought for a moment, looking around the office. Finally, he turned to Ivan and said, “They started working in there a little over a year ago, right?”

  “Longer than that. A year and a half.”

  “The disappearances have been going on for about nine, ten months, or so. I was the first to notice. I’m the one who brought it to the attention of law enforcement. I know some of the people who’ve disappeared.”

  “I know, Ollie. I don’t want you to think I’m dismissing it. I’m not. But I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “I want to know everything you know.”

  “You do,” Ivan lied.

  Ollie stared at him for a long moment, eyes narrowing again. Then he slowly turned his head from side to side. “I don’t think so. I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “And what do you think I’m not telling you?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. To see if you’d open up about it before I decide to act.”

  “Act? What do you mean?”

  Ollie stood and slowly paced in the short space behind his chair. “Homeless people don’t just up and leave, y’know? They may be homeless, but this is their . . . home. If that makes sense.”

  “It does.”

  “Sure, there are drifters, but they’re easy to spot. They come, they go. But I know the homeless around here. They might move around the area, y’know, from Eureka to McKinleyville to Arcata, that kinda thing. But they don’t just up and leave. Some of the folks I know have been around here for a while. Now a bunch of them are gone. I got two eyewitnesses say they saw a plumber’s van picking up a couple of homeless people a little over a week ago, and that’s the last time anyone’s seen ’em. Minuteman Plumbing. That’s what was painted on the side. I’ve asked around and over the last few months, other people have seen that van on the street, just driving around. There’s no Minuteman Plumbing around here. I checked. Doesn’t exist.”

  “Have you told the police? The sheriff?”

  “Of course, I have. But try getting them to give a good goddamn about the homeless. If they found out somebody was tryin’ to get ’em to disappear, they’d probably give him a fucking grant, or something. They don’t care.” He stopped, placed both hands on the back of the chair he’d been sitting in, and leaned forward. “But I do. A van with a fake plumbing company painted on the side tells me somebody’s up to something. With Vendon Labs working here, it’s hard not to make the connection.”

  “I agree, but that doesn’t mean it’s true.”

  “You don’t think so?” Ollie removed his phone from his pocket, thumbed a couple of buttons, then handed it to Ivan. “Google Earth. That’s a view of the old mental hospital.”

  Ivan recognized the bird’s-eye view of the hospital. In front, the parking lot was empty, but the lot in back had several vehicles parked in it. One of them was a white rectangle. He felt a small chill when he realized what it was.

  “It’s a white van, Ollie.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You know how many white vans there are? Everywhere? This proves nothing.”

  “It’s enough for me.”

  “Have you shown this to the police?”

  Ollie nodded. “Sheriff Kaufman. Said he’s already been there and talked to them. He said the same thing you did, that they’re developing new antibiotics. He believes that story and said he had no reason to think they were experimenting on homeless people. ‘Lotsa white vans out there, Ollie,’ he said.”

  “Well, he’s right.” Ivan handed the phone back to him and Ollie put it in his pocket. “It doesn’t mean anything.” He felt his voice quaver a little because he was lying. It meant plenty. “What did you mean when you said you were going to act?”

  “I mean if nobody else is gonna do anything about this, we will, and we aren’t waiting around any longer.”

  “We?”

  “Me and my men. We all know Vendon Labs doesn’t have any qualms about experimenting on people. And homeless people are perfect. Nobody’ll miss ’em, right? Wrong.”

  “You’re making assumptions, Ollie, and that’s dangerous. You can’t just—”

  “Look, you sit in your little studio and you talk about this stuff. But I’m not a talker.”

  “Be serious, Ollie. You’re the loudest and most prolific talker I know.”

  “Yeah, okay, I talk a lot, I know. But I’m not a talker, I’m a doer. Nobody else is doin’ anything about this. We’re going to. If you’ve got something more you want to tell me, Ivan, you’d best do it today, and soon. You’ve got my number.”

  He turned and left the office, even though Ivan tried to call him back. Ivan got up and followed him, but Ollie just kept walking, grabbing his raincoat on the way out.

  “Oh, shit,” Ivan muttered.

  “What was that about?” Mike asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I don’t like the sound of it.” Ivan went back into his office and sat down at the desk. If Ollie knew that Ivan had managed to plant someone in that hospital, he’d want to know everything Ivan knew. And Ivan was afraid if Ollie knew everything he knew, he’d do something crazy. Like trying to storm the place with his militia. From what Ivan knew, that could be very dangerous, not only for Ollie and his men, but for everyone around that hospital.

  He decided to call Sheriff Kaufman and reached for the phone on his desk, but his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. When he looked at the phone’s screen and saw who was calling, he felt a jarring rush of adrenaline.

  3

  “How do you feel, Will?”

  “Feel?”

  “Yes. How do you feel? Right now?”

  As he waited for a response, Corcoran glanced at Fara, as if to make sure she was paying attention.

  Will was thin and wiry, face creased with premature lines, head and face shaved clean, and he wore only the pale blue hospital gown and slippers
provided him. He stood in the tiled chamber they called the Tank, facing the glass through which Fara and Corcoran observed him, but he could see only his reflection. He stood erect, almost defiant, not intimidated or cowed by his strange surroundings or Corcoran’s disembodied voice.

  “I feel, uh . . . shaky. A little shaky. And, uh, kinda achy.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well . . . kinda cold.” He folded his scrawny arms across his chest.

  “Sounds like maybe you’ve got the flu?”

  “Could be, yeah.”

  “How long have you felt this way?”

  “Just started.”

  “Just now?”

  “Few minutes ago, yeah.”

  Will kept squinting at the reflective glass, as if trying to see if he could make out anyone on the other side.

  A moment later, Corcoran said, “And how are you feeling now?”

  Will slowly looked around at the tile floor and walls, at the cameras on the ceiling, and the drain in the floor. It looked like a big shower room, but with no showers.

  “Same,” he said. “Only . . . worse.” He hugged himself and his body shuddered as his face tightened into a deep frown.

  The door through which Will had come opened and a woman stumbled into the tank.

  “Hello, Margaret,” Corcoran said.

  She was already hugging herself in the flimsy hospital gown and shaking all over. She was scrawny and weathered and looked at least a decade older than her actual age of sixty. Her head was shaved, and she looked more annoyed than frightened.

  “How do you feel, Margaret?”

  “Not good.”

  Corcoran checked his watch, leaned over and muttered something to Holly Im, his young assistant, who stood on the opposite side of him from Fara.

  Fara could feel the muscles of her shoulders and back tensing, neck stiffening, palms becoming moist. Her insides shifted like a knot of sleeping snakes. She stole a look to her left at Corcoran. He watched Will and Margaret intensely, with anticipation. On the other side of him, Holly jotted notes on a glowing tablet cradled in her left arm. Fara tossed a look over her shoulder to see if anyone had joined them, but they were alone in the basement.

  She did not want to be there and had to fight the pressing urge to turn and run out of the room. But she knew Corcoran had more planned that afternoon. He seemed all but unaware of the coming storm. The fact that a hurricane was heading straight for them did not seem to concern him in the least.

  Fara tried to look at Corcoran without being too obvious. He held his left forearm across his chest and rested his right elbow on it, his right hand absently stroking his cheek as he watched Will and Margaret. His lower lip was slightly tucked inward along the edge of his upper teeth. He was waiting.

  It happened more suddenly than in past tests.

  Both of them stood there looking increasingly uncomfortable, and Will began to scrub his palms up and down over his face, then rub his eyes with the heels of his hands, and then he was on her like an animal, making a high, shrill sound that first seemed to be fearful, then became enraged.

  Fara’s entire body stiffened and she clenched her eyes shut. But she opened them after a moment. She did not want to watch, but she felt it was an obligation. This was her handiwork. These people were suffering the effects of something she helped create. It seemed wrong to look away simply because it disturbed her. But it made her stomach churn, her throat tighten. The blunt tips of her nail-chewed fingers pressed into her palms.

  Will threw Margaret down on the floor and began to beat her with his fists as she struggled and kicked. Blood spattered the tiles in crimson blossoms and speckles. She screamed hoarsely as he wailed with rage and Fara thought it would be over quickly.

  Margaret sat up with a furious shriek and managed to grab Will’s arm with both hands and bite into his wrist like an ear of corn. He roared in pain and tried to pull his arm away from her, but her hands and teeth were tenacious. He reared away from her, but she stayed with him and did not let go. Blood bubbled up around her lips and streamed down her battered face, her eyes impossibly wide. Will ended up on his back with Margaret straddling him, her sharp knees jutting up on both sides as she clawed and punched, then leaned forward with her bloody mouth open. She was about to bite his face when Will lifted his head and closed his yellow teeth on her left cheek.

  Fara pressed her lips tightly together and sucked in a sharp breath through her nose as Will tore a strip of flesh away from Margaret’s face, revealing her remaining bloody molars. Margaret released a long, gargling scream.

  Fara turned away from the gory struggle, toward Corcoran, and croaked, “I have to go.”

  His head jerked toward her and frowned. “But we’ve just started, we’ve still got more to—”

  “Dr. Corcoran, in case you’re not aware of it, we’re going to be hit by a hurricane in the morning.” She intended to speak more forcefully, but her voice was weak because her stomach was so sick and she was so horrified. Once again. Not only by what she’d seen in the Tank, but by what she was doing there. By what she had done and was continuing to do.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got Emilio on that.” His attention was torn between Fara and the screaming activity in the Tank.

  She turned and headed for the door, saying over her shoulder, “Bullshit. I just saw Emilio. He’s mopping floors.”

  “This is your job, Fara,” Corcoran said angrily.

  I’m ruining his high again, she thought as she left the room and rushed back upstairs, hands trembling, heart hammering in her chest. And his fun.

  She reached the first floor, but stopped in the stairwell and vomited in a corner.

  She had reported Corcoran three times, and the last time, she had included the fact that he was testing on homeless people taken off the street. The first two reports received aloof responses assuring her the complaint would be investigated. The third received no response at all. She took from that the message that any further complaints would only cause problems for her.

  Fara had stayed this long only because she was afraid if she left, something disastrous would happen. She no longer cared. She had to get out. The nightmares, when she was able to sleep, were already bad enough, and she knew if she stayed, nightmares would be the least of her concerns.

  She leaned on the wall in the stairwell for a moment to catch her breath and calm herself. Then she headed down the corridor, still taking slow, deep breaths.

  The hospital was big, but Corcoran’s entire staff was comparatively small because they weren’t utilizing the entire hospital. Such high-ceilinged corridors seemed cavernous with no activity in them. They were drafty—especially with the wind battering the building outside—and those drafts whispered around corners and through open doorways like restless ghosts. Most of the time, Fara felt as if she were all alone in the building. It gave her the creeps.

  She passed Emilio’s utility closet, which was closed now. The fact that her door was closed meant Emilio had finished cleaning up her office and had moved on. Fara turned the knob, pushed the door open, and gasped as she stepped inside.

  Emilio stood at her desk, hunched over her computer, with a cell phone held to his left ear, speaking into it quietly. He lifted his head but did not straighten up.

  Their eyes locked and stared for a long stretch of time, and the wind and rain battered against the window.

  4

  “Authorities are advising everyone in the state’s coastal areas to stay home unless absolutely necessary,” said the steady, professional-sounding woman on the radio. “While Hurricane Quentin is not expected to make landfall until tomorrow morning, driving conditions are bad throughout most of northern California right now, and they get worse as you near the coast. A massive pileup has closed the westbound lanes of I-80 near Fairfield, and more closures are expected as conditions worsen.”

  As Latrice Innes drove north on 101 toward Humboldt County and her destination in Eureka, she began to wonder if s
he’d made a terrible mistake. After leaving work early, she’d figured she could make the drive to Eureka and be home by eight that night. If Leland was right and all she had to do was drop the package off, collect her payment and leave, she’d thought that, even in the rain, she could get home before the weather became dangerous.

  Now she wasn’t so sure.

  She hoped Leland was right. He had to be right. She needed the money he’d promised. She had a scared, sick little boy at home and didn’t know what was wrong with him. More tests were needed, tests that would cost more money than she had. She tried not to think about it because it always sent her into a chest-tightening panic and she couldn’t afford that right now, not on the road in this weather.

  The powerful wind buffeted her Toyota Highlander and the windshield wipers weren’t doing a very good job of keeping up with the pouring rain. During the entire drive so far, the woman on the news station had been telling people to stay indoors and stay off the roads. And it was too late for Latrice to take her advice.

  Her phone began to play “Hangin’ Tough” by New Kids on the Block. People laughed at Latrice’s ringtone and her affection for New Kids. But it was genuine affection. Their music had loomed large in her youth and she’d become emotionally attached to it. She knew a lot of people who had Bruce Springsteen ringtones, but did she tell them she thought he sounded like a gorilla having a stroke and accuse them of having bad taste? No, she ignored it and moved on like an adult. She wished they would show her the same courtesy. One of these days, someone would make a crack about New Kids and her musical tastes and she would give in to the temptation to tell that person to kiss her taint.

  The call was coming from her mother’s house. For a moment, her blood chilled. She feared the call was about Robert. He’d gotten worse, maybe. She thumbed the button on the phone in its dash mount and said, “Hello!” She had to shout to be heard above the din of the rain.

  “Mom?” It was Tamara, her oldest. “Robert is being mean to me and Grandma won’t make him stop.”