MIND FIELDS Page 12

  “Kind of.” It was an interesting twist, but one that Kincade didn’t have time for at the moment. He decided to file it away for now, but this slant on Hingston added a twist to the case that Kincade hadn’t considered. When he thought about BNI, he assumed that everything revolved around JT Anderson. “But BNI is the reason I came to talk to you.”

  “Ahah! I knew those bastards were up to something.”

  Sandi’s animosity toward the company was almost tangible, and Kincade wanted to keep this more factual … for now. Sometimes it paid to play on the emotions of a witness, but at this point, he needed to understand what bots could and could not do.

  “Maybe,” he waved off the notion with his right hand, “but let’s get back to you for a minute.”

  “Me?” She sounded insulted.

  “Yeah, you are the nanobot expert, aren’t you? That’s why I came here — to learn more about nanobots. More specifically, to learn more about those bots they are using to repair damaged brains.”

  “Neuronanobots,” she nodded. “Pretty amazing stuff, isn’t it?’

  Kincade nodded.

  “Most of the basic work in their development was done right here in my lab.”

  “Then I came to the right person. Tell me, are they really safe?”

  “Absolutely. We engineered layers of safety protocols into their programming. They’re safer than the cells we were born with.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, for one, they prevent seizures.”

  “Prevent them? I thought that any trauma to the brain can cause seizures, and it seems to me that putting artificial cells into a brain is certainly a form of trauma.”

  Sandi was surprised. “Well, I see someone’s been doing his homework.”

  “Spoken like a true teacher, Doc.”

  She blushed again. “Sorry. It’s second nature, I guess. Anyway, that was precisely one of our concerns when we started the project. We knew that implanting nanobots in the human brain would create a risk of seizures. Even the new organic bots, which are a lot less irritating than mechanical bots, could create a nidus for a seizure. The solution was kind of brilliant, if I say so myself. I programmed a code into the genetic sequence of the nanobots, so they would secrete a natural neuronal cell membrane stabilizer.”

  Kincade was lost. “Uh, could you say that in English, maybe.”

  “Oh, sorry,” she giggled. “I get carried away sometimes. The bots make a chemical that acts like an anti-seizure medicine, and release it into the surrounding area in the brain. Once they do that, there is less risk of a seizure occurring than there would be in you or me.”

  Kincade raised an eyebrow. “Curious.”

  “What?”

  “Did BNI build in that same safety protocol?”

  “Yes. Of course they did. I went over all their patents myself as soon as they were public. That’s how I know Paul stole my work.”

  Kincade was almost disappointed. So much for his theory about Rocky Stankowski’s auto accident. He was sure after having heard about Helen Jensen’s seizures that Stankowski must have had a seizure just before his accident, one caused by those BNI nanobots in his brain.

  “So it’s impossible for someone to have a seizure after the bots are implanted?”

  “Well, not impossible. If that person were to have a seizure originating in some other area of the brain, the chemical secreted by the bots may not stop it, but the bots definitely would not cause the seizure.”

  Kincade sat quietly, absorbing the new information and trying to piece it together, not only with the Rocky Stankowski case, but also with the four strange cases Dr. Shelly Lange had described from her days at BNI.

  “Were any of the bots used before you perfected the anti-seizure stuff?”

  “Well, in some animal studies, yeah, but no human trials were started until we got over that hurdle.” Sandi was growing suspicious at the line of questioning. “What’s this all about, anyway? You’re not just gathering a little harmless background info for a case, are you?”

  Kincade thought for a moment, and then let out a brief sigh. He figured he wasn’t going to get much further with this unless he leveled with Dr. Fletcher about his suspicions. What harm could it do? She was no big fan of BNI anyway; she certainly wouldn’t leak the information to them.

  “Look, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but my source detailed some strange happenings over at BNI during the two years before nanobots were approved for brain injury treatment.”

  Kincade described the four cases related to him by Shelly Lange in as much detail as he could recall.

  “So what do you think, Doc? Could there be something to all this, or do I just have a paranoid informant who’s out to get BNI, maybe even dislikes them more than you?”

  Sandi eyed him closely. “More than me? Am I a suspect here, Detective? Am I the one you’re investigating?”

  Kincade laughed. “No, no, Dr. Fletcher. I’m sorry if I … I guess I can see why you might have thought … No, I was just thinking about your earlier comments about how BNI stole Dr. Hingston away from academia, how he … jumped ship, I think you put it. But I certainly did not mean to implicate you in any wrongdoing. Not in the least.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. I mean, there’s no love lost between me and BNI …” Her voice trailed off as she realized that there really was love lost, in the truest sense of the word, when BNI stole Paul away from her. “…but I certainly would never do anything illegal, or even immoral for that matter, to try and get even with those bastards.”

  “Of course not, Doctor. My apologies, but I really could use your help on this one. What do you think? Could BNI be using the nanobots to control people’s minds?”

  “Who sounds paranoid now, Detective?”

  Kincade chuckled.

  “In theory, yeah, I suppose so, but we don’t have anywhere near the technology to do that. Either the bots would have to be preprogrammed to carry out some specific action before they were even injected into the patient, or they would have to be somehow altered after they were injected. The latter is impossible with what we know today. The bots can’t be altered once they are injected; there would have to be some sort of remote signal to control the nanobots, to reprogram them from outside the body. The only way we can program them now is by direct DNA sequencing that has to be done before they are injected. The only guy I know who could conceivably program something that complex would be Paul, and there’s no way that Paul would do something like that, not for any amount of money. Besides, even if he could do it, which I’m not really too sure of, there would be no way to control the timing...to control when the bots would affect the brain once they were in place.

  “In other words, the bots, in theory, might be programmed to cause somebody to veer a car off the road, but you would have to know exactly when that individual would be on the road before the nanobots are ever injected. And more complex actions, like having a mechanic de-chip a car … I can’t imagine even Paul doing programming that complex.”

  “So most likely I’ve just got me one crazy paranoid informant out to get BNI, huh?”

  “I’d say that’s a hell of a lot more likely, Detective.”

  Kincade stood and extended his hand. “Well, thanks, Doc. Sorry if I wasted your time.”

  “I hope that’s all you did, Detective Kincade.”

  “Me too, Doc. Me too.”

  Kincade turned and walked back to his car.

  ___

  Columbia was about a forty-five minute drive from headquarters. Richie had been aching to go question JT Anderson, but he knew he had better do his homework before confronting the savvy tycoon. He had spent the remainder of Wednesday afternoon researching the history of BNI and Anderson’s rise to power. T
he web of business and political ties that wove themselves through the life of JT Anderson were mind-boggling. He was probably the most well-connected man in the country, aside from those who worked in the West Wing. This was not going to be an easy fish to hook.

  Kincade decided that it would be best to catch Anderson off-guard rather than to schedule an appointment, which not only could delay the investigation by weeks, but could also give a man like Anderson plenty of time to investigate the investigator. Richie didn’t really have anything to hide, but he preferred to keep Anderson in the dark as much as possible. Over the years, he had come to realize that this was generally the best way to get honest responses – not always honest answers, but honest reactions. Richie was pretty good at reading people.

  Richie arrived at BNI at about seven the next morning. He flashed a badge at the security guard at the main gate, but a twenty-dollar bill proved to be even more effective at convincing the guard to stay off the phone.

  Kincade pulled the beat-up ’43 Malibu into the empty visitors lot by the main entrance, and picked a spot facing the employee parking garage at the left of the main building. There was a bit of a chill in the early morning air, and he decided to wait in his car until Anderson arrived. Richie knew from his research that JT Anderson was one of those executives who believed in being the first one into the office each morning. He focused his Global Positioning System monitor on the grounds of BNI and zeroed in on the front gate. “Nothing to do but wait now,” he said to no one in particular. “Let’s hope that son of a gun didn’t oversleep this morning.”

  He settled back into his seat and took a long sip of his luke-warm coffee. Before he could even finish wincing at the bitter taste, the GPS started to beep.

  “Right on time,” he said as he adjusted his rear-view mirror for a better view of the main entrance road.

  JT Anderson eyed the beat-up Chevy sitting in the parking lot as he rode by in his black Mercedes sports coupe. The lot was usually empty this time of day, and the appearance of Unit Five unnerved him. As he pulled into the garage, he tried to call the guard at the front gate on his car phone, but the steel reinforced structure interfered with the signal. He parked in his usual spot and glanced over the roof of his car toward the visitors lot as he got out. A man in a trench coat was running towards him, waving.

  “Mr. Anderson,” Kincade shouted.

  JT fumbled quickly for his key and hit the panic button on the car alarm. His car started beeping and flashing its headlights as Anderson ran for the door to the covered walkway that connected the parking lot to the main building. He burst through the door waving for the security guard just inside the building at the other end of the walkway.

  Kincade realized what he must look like and tried to calm Anderson down. “Mr. Anderson,” he shouted again, “I’m Detective Kincade from the BPD. I just want to talk with you.”

  Anderson was too panicked to hear a word that Kincade had said. He caught the attention of the security guard, who ran over with his pistol raised in Kincade’s direction as Richie came through the parking garage door into the walkway.

  Richie saw the guard, a man who had obviously not had much experience with either guns or emergency situations. He stopped dead in his tracks and raised his hands, holding his badge open and facing the two men.

  “Whoa! Take it easy there, buddy. BPD, Detective Richard Kincade. I’m just here to have a few words with you, Mr. Anderson.”

  Anderson was still breathing rapidly. A second security guard, looking a bit older and more experienced than the young man waving the gun in Kincade’s direction, arrived on the scene. He assessed the situation quickly.

  “Everybody just calm down here,” he said. “Ease off that trigger, Tony. Let’s just see what we have here.”

  “The man was chasing Mr. Anderson into the building, Mr. Seymour.”

  Richie chuckled. “Do I look like a man who does much chasing?” Richie wasn’t in bad shape for a middle-aged man, but his days of running down renegades was long gone. “I get winded running to the bathroom these days,” he smiled.

  Mr. Seymour walked calmly over to Kincade, who still stood with his hands high, watching the anxious young guard named Tony very closely. Seymour grabbed the badge out of Kincade’s hands, and scanned it into his security system.

  “Mind putting your thumb into here?” he asked Kincade, who slowly lowered his hand and slipped his thumb into the scanner.

  The information from the badge was sent, along with the thumbprint, to the central identification computer at the police department, where it was analyzed immediately. The screen on Mr. Seymour’s security PDA confirmed the identity of Richard Kincade, along with a picture ID. Seymour looked at the ID, and then looked up at Kincade. He glanced back and forth a few times.

  “I know, I know,” Richie said. “It’s an old picture. What can I say? I’ve added a little gray since then.

  Seymour ran his hand along his own balding forehead. “A little gray isn’t such a bad thing, Detective.”

  He turned toward Tony and JT Anderson. “It’s OK, he’s a cop.” He looked at Kincade again. “You can put your hands down now, Detective.”

  Kincade motioned with his head toward Tony, still holding his pistol up.

  “Jesus, Tony,” Seymour snapped, “Put that thing away before you hurt somebody.”

  Tony holstered his pistol.

  Mr. Seymour shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “Kids.” He shook his head side to side. “Now what can we do for you, Detective.”

  “I just need to ask Mr. Anderson a few questions.”

  Anderson looked at him incredulously. “Jesus, man! You scared the hell out of me. What’s wrong with you?”

  Kincade shrugged. “Sorry, I …”

  “Make an appointment like everyone else, Detective,” he said in his most authoritative manner, having now regained his composure enough to take the offensive. He turned to enter the building.

  “I’m afraid it can’t wait, sir.”

  JT Anderson stopped. He turned slowly toward Kincade. “Do I need a lawyer for this?”

  Kincade smiled. “No, sir. Just a few questions I have about nanobots. Something about an auto accident I’m investigating.”

  “Our nanobots?” JT asked.

  “Aren’t they all, Mr. Anderson?”

  “Wait in the lobby, Detective, would you? I’m going to call my lawyer.”

  “Suit yourself, sir.”

  Kincade was disappointed as he watched Anderson walk into the building. He had hoped to pry a little information from Anderson before the legal eagles interfered. A man’s reactions to probing questions were quite a bit different when his lawyer was by his side.

  Mr. Seymour motioned Kincade toward the door. “I’ll show you to the lobby.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Tony, get the detective a cup of coffee, would you?”

  ___

  As for digging up any incriminating evidence, the meeting with JT Anderson turned out to be as fruitless as Kincade suspected it would be, but he could tell from the CEO’s body language that Anderson had something to hide. Whether it was just the usual corporate paranoia or something more sinister, Kincade was not sure, but he suspected the latter. A man of Anderson’s stature was not usually so unnerved by a simple visit from a lowly detective.

  Kincade didn’t even bother asking Anderson if he could review the employee files to check out the story that Shelly Lange had told him. It was obvious that he would not get his hands on any private company information without a subpoena, something that would not be so easy to get with the connections that a man like Anderson could use to block the detective’s path.

  Kincade left after a few short questions about nanobots and BNI’s processing system.

  And
erson dismissed his attorney, and sat alone at his desk contemplating his next move. He was unnerved by the sudden turn of events. He didn’t like someone snooping around so soon after Harold Bradley’s accident, the accident that had killed Rocky Stankowski.

  He glanced out the door as his secretary entered the outer office and reached up to hang her coat on the rack.

  “Carla, make sure I’m not disturbed.”

  She nodded and walked over to the coffee machine as he closed his door.

  ___

  Kincade was disappointed, but knew he had not come away empty-handed. He pulled out of the lot in his ’43 Malibu, and turned north on Highway 29 toward Baltimore.

  Richie didn’t mind driving; it gave him time to think. This morning was no exception. His meeting with JT Anderson hadn’t gone as well as he had hoped, but he had definitely touched a nerve. Anderson was hiding something. Richie wasn’t sure exactly what, but he did know that he would eventually find out. This sort of thing, spending time chasing down information from a deceitful weasel like Anderson, irritated most guys, but Kincade loved it. This was the part of the job that made it fun. The information that someone was trying to hide, that he really had to dig for, that was the stuff that was always the most useful.

  “Computer, get me the phone records from BNI. I need a list of the most recent calls made form there, anything after seven-thirty this morning. Download the results to my desktop computer at the station.”

  Chapter thirteen

  James O’Grady had been in law enforcement for as long as he could remember. He and his sister Jenna were born in Dublin, Ireland, but the family immigrated to the United States shortly after Jenna’s birth, and settled in Baltimore. His father, Timothy, worked at the steel plant and made an honest living. Jimmy needed more excitement in his life. He was a good student, but one who was always getting into trouble. He was just fourteen when his parents were killed in an auto accident on I-95, later determined to have been caused by a car bomb planted by members of the Irish Republican Army, who feared that Timothy O’Grady, once a member of the IRA, would divulge sensitive information to the wrong people. James and Jenna had no other family, and were placed in an orphanage.