A Conspiracy in Blood

By K McConnell

Detective Dan Cunningham hunts a madman. A very powerful and diabolical madman, known only as Dr. Oblique, who leaves an endless trail of bodies in his wake. Officially, Dr. Oblique doesn't exist, but forces in the government know who he is and what he's after: a military experiment by the name of Elliot whose blood may be the end to disease---or the perfect weapon. Leah Stearns is an FBI agent caught in the middle of a web. Is she here to help Cunningham stop a madman? Is her mission even officially sanctioned? Who are all these other government agents after Elliot? As the body count climbs, Leah will have to make some hard choices about where her loyalties are.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K McConnell
• Release date: Apr 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311265739

K McConnell

K McConnell grew up in a small Michigan town sadly similar to the town of Hamlet in the Hamlet Mysteries. He graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a degree in English Literature with a minor in Writing that adequately prepared him for unemployment, a vocation he has fully embraced whenever possible. He has travelled extensively surviving numerous misadventures along the way. These days he spends a majority of his time writing for his own entertainment and anyone who wishes to listen in.

Book preview

A Conspiracy in Blood

The Hunt for Dr. Oblique

K McConnell

www.kmcconnellbooks.com

[e-mail]

1

This is bullshit. What a waste of time. How the hell did I pull this gig? I sure must have pissed someone off at the agency. Well, actually, now that I think about it, I have, quite a few times, but what have I done lately to earn this job?

Theo Drexler leaned his tall frame back against the wall. He pulled briefly at his nose, a habit he had when he was restless, and, pushing sandy brown hair back up out of his eyes, he stared across the street at the dormitory. The light in the window was on. In his earpiece he could hear virtually everything that went on in the room, though there typically wasn’t much to hear. If he wanted to see anything he could flip out his phone. The app would switch between several hidden minicams with a click. Not that there was much to see either. If need be he could even track the kid down via the tracking app and an implanted chip, but only field operatives were aware of that. It was need-to-know only.

This sucks. Watching this kid was asinine. He doesn’t do anything. He walks to class. I follow. He walks to the library. I follow. He goes back to the dorm room. I follow him back there. He has his meals specially prepared and delivered to him---by us. What the hell is up with that? We are the premier intelligence gathering agency in the world and…we moonlight as Meals On Wheels. Go figure.

This kid has no friends---except the one geeky kid. He has to be the dullest human on the planet. What a loser. If the agency is going to provide him with food they could at least send over a prostitute once and awhile. At least it would give me something to watch. Why the agency is so interested in this kid is beyond me.

His right leg ached and he rubbed a hand down along the back of his thigh. It often bothered him when he was on his feet for a lengthy period of time. It was the result of a poorly healed femur fracture from several years before. He would definitely not recommend jumping out of a helicopter at 20 feet into a Central American jungle. That was a major screw-up anyway. We should never have worked that idiot into the presidency. That country was a ticking time bomb. Primarily because all that guy ended up being was a right-wing general pretending to be the president while he set up his torture state. It was only a matter of time before we had to go in and haul his corrupt ass out of there.

Someone turned a corner up the street and headed towards Drexler. This was not a busy street. What few people did come by seemed to be headed to no place in particular. There were, he guessed, far better parts to this city than here. The block itself held little of interest. Very few people frequented the dry cleaner and even less stopped by the secondhand clothing store. The only place that saw an occasional visitor was the shabby bar. Drexler had chosen one of the several vacant store fronts as his spot to hang out.

He gave the woman as she approached a quick visual once over. Nothing significant. Nonetheless he slid down to the sidewalk and assumed his usual drunken homeless pose. He nudged his rumpled and grimy hat forward over his eyes and mumbled quietly to himself.

The woman circled around him as she passed maintaining a comfortably safe distance. She kept her eyes averted---pretending she didn’t know he was there.

Two and a half weeks. They probably pulled the last guy off this assignment because he went insane from sheer boredom. The mandate is to watch this kid day and night and, of course, I get the night shift. Don’t know who has the days. They never tell us that kind of information. You know only what you need to and you do whatever you have to. If I had nickel for every time I nearly blew away another operative because of miscommunications or some jackass all hyped up over security I would already be enjoying---wait…

Drexler put his hand up to his earpiece. Covering it and pushing it into his ear slightly. He started to pull his phone out. He stopped. He recognized the sound.

Snoring. I don’t know why this kid even has a bed. He almost never uses it---for anything. Hygiene wasn’t his strongpoint either. I don’t remember the last time he took a shower. He must smell like death warmed over.

Drexler shifted his weight and pulled at his nose. The sidewalk was not a comfortable seat especially when he weighed more than 200 pounds. There was a time when he had been in much better physical shape, but after that trouble in Guatemala they had been giving him softer assignments. He wasn’t really sure what that meant. Had he earned easier jobs in their eyes or did they have less faith in him after the difficulties he had completing that one? Hell, maybe they just thought he was getting too damn old to take on the wilder stuff.

There was a time when he was the go-to guy or, at least, one of them. He was pulling gigs like Somalia and Kurdish Iran. When something needed to happen to head off trouble. Sometimes it was just giving someone a push in a particular direction, sometimes something more was required. It didn’t matter. A job was a job. For the agency the trick was to keep all the simmering pots bubbling along without letting any boil over---at least, until you wanted them to.

He leaned his head to the side slightly listening to the earpiece again. He could make out a faint sound now. It was something between a whimper and a one-sided mumbling conversation.

Damn. We’re starting early tonight. I don’t know what this guy has to dream about. He doesn’t have a life. If he had to guess from the sounds the kid made it wasn’t girls and parties like most of the rest of the college boys here were dreaming of. Whatever it is that goes through his head at night it can’t be fun.

Sometimes the dreams were accompanied by some thrashing about and when Drexler would flip on the video it often looked like the kid was flailing about in some kind of freefall. Guess we all have those kind of dreams, Drexler thought.

Drexler felt something akin to empathy for the kid. On his job sleep was often difficult and restless when it did come. Some assignments were bad. You did things, you saw things…and they just wouldn’t leave you alone at night for a long time afterwards. It took you awhile to get back to getting any decent rest. Listening to the kid night after night Drexler just shook his head. How do you function during the waking hours when the nights are seemingly just one long nightmare?

Most people are just clueless. They skip through their lives pretending that they know the rules. They think because they live in a ‘civilized’ country they are safe. This is a world made up of predators and prey. In the deepest tropical jungles or the cleanest prettiest cities the rules were the same. A handful of people keep this world from slipping right back into a primitive violent struggle for survival. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies, that’s all there was between this powderpuff world and medieval times. What is it they tell us: .0001% of the population keeps this world civilized.

He liked the thought that he was a part of that .0001%. All the butterheads out there trudging through their lives in utter ignorance of how lucky they were to have him watching their backs, they didn’t appreciate him, but he did.

Drexler twitched his head. Did he hear that right? What the hell did that mean? There it was again: ‘Decade without sink’? What did that mean? Something in the back of his head told him this wasn’t the first time he had heard this, but it was the first time he actually caught enough of it to make out words. Not that it made any more sense than when it was just mumbling.

This kid was just weird. He just couldn’t figure out why the agency was so concerned about him. On most of his assignments it was possible to deduce the gist of what was going on. Even if his role ended up being relatively small he generally could figure out what the overall point of the assignment was, but not this time around. There didn’t seem to be anything significant about this kid. Still, Drexler had developed a couple of his own theories for shadowing the boy. Perhaps, he had thought, the kid was the son of someone in power. Someone at the top and was under the threat of kidnapping or assassination. Though, he acknowledged, if that were the case they would have briefed him to watch for something along those lines.

Maybe he was a government witness and just needed to be parked quietly somewhere. But that would actually be the Justice Department’s jurisdiction which would mean he wouldn’t have been assigned to this. Nonetheless, coming up with various scenarios to explain this job passed the time.

The hours crawled past. Gray light crept between the buildings from the east. Drexler checked his watch. The last hour or so at least had been somewhat quieter. This night’s tour was up. The kid was someone else’s baggage now.

He stood up in the doorway and tried to stretch the stiffness away. He scanned up and down the street for anything out of place one last time. Nothing. With an approving nod he made his way up the street. As he walked a line from a song kept repeating through his head. He couldn’t get it out nor could he place where he had heard it. ‘Sigmund Freud, analyze this, analyze this, this, this, this...’ Sometime, when he had the time, he would find out where that came from.

He had a room just a couple of blocks up around the next corner. 15 minutes brought him to the shabby door of a dark maroon brick building. The door was between a pawnshop and a long since abandoned storefront. He flipped the door open and walked into the dim and grimy foyer. The dusty gray light hid walls adorned with peeling paper, discolored from age. The wiring behind the bare bulb fixture in the middle of the ceiling had long since burned out and a small window next to the door was the only light in the room. The window was so utterly filthy that even on the brightest of days it afforded minimal light. The front of the building faced west so in the early morning hours such as this only the barest gray light filtered in.

To his left there were steps, worn and decrepit, leading up and down. His room was up one flight of stairs. He didn’t know what was downstairs and from the condition of the building he didn’t want to. Sometimes he heard sounds from some of the other rooms, crying, screaming, physical violence and occasionally less identifiable noises. Which was actually kind of surprising since he had been in some rough places before and was pretty good at discerning what was going on around him.

His own room would have turned the stomach of any decent person that had to stay there. One grungy window that looked out on the backside of another rotting brick building. Similar peeling wallpaper to the ‘lobby’ area. Holes here and there that had been obviously kicked or punched right through the crumbling drywall. A decaying smell that nothing could smother. A bed, a chair, a wobbly table---it even had an old refrigerator in it. It was capable of keeping things cool, but not cold. Given the refrigerator he felt he must have one of the penthouse suites.

He could tolerate it because he had seen worse. Though, even he had to admit that some of his forays into Third World countries weren’t significantly different from this. He had already sprayed his room several times in a futile attempt to limit the number of little creatures that seemed intent upon sharing the room with him. If he fumigated it any more he was afraid it would become toxic even for him.

As his eyes adjusted to the light inside the building he sensed something and glanced over towards where the mailboxes in the wall were located. At first he saw nothing then a shadow moved. He hesitated for a moment, purely out of surprise, then he tried to react. He shot a hand around behind his back for the holster there. The shabby old coat he was wearing, though, slowed him down slightly. Given this assignment, being something of a lightweight case, he hadn’t really expected to draw his weapon. As a result it was only now that he realized how restrictive his clothing was.

He saw twinkling lights and an enveloping darkness. He stared into the darkness, his mind trying to understand what he was looking at. A feeling crept into his mind and he realized it was massive pain and a headache growing from the right side of his head. As he slumped to the floor a very surprised voice in his mind was saying: Someone just hit me…

He was spinning. Upwards. Out of an immense darkness that plummeted into nothingness below him. Time had no meaning here. His mind struggled to clear itself, but a conflicting message from his body suggested returning to wherever he had been.

The pain…where was coming from? He felt dizzy and nauseous. Where did it hurt? Everywhere it seemed like. No. His head screamed. Both from the point of impact and a general throbbing from all points inside his cranium.

His upper arms and wrists hurt. His lower legs also hurt. It took him a few moments to realize his arms and legs hurt from being bound tightly to a chair. Everything was dark. He thought it was night then felt the hood covering his head.

He heard muffled voices, a lock turning and a door creaking open. Two sets of feet walked in.

He is awake Doctor. A voice spoke. There was a slight unrecognizable accent to it.

Indeed. The second voice drew closer. It seemed to lean towards Drexler. Who sent you and why? The question didn’t seem to be directed at Drexler. It seemed almost to be part of an ongoing internal conversation the speaker was having with himself.

More importantly, does it have anything to do with the boy? Is he here? The voice also possessed some kind of accent and it hid a trace of excitement in the last question.

The first man seemed to be working some kind of cart through the doorway. Metallic items clanged about on it as the man maneuvered it into a position not far from where Drexler sat. With the hood covering his head Drexler couldn’t tell what the cart was, but it had an ominous and creepy sound to it.

Don’t know what you are talking about. Drexler hoarsely whispered.

There was slight chuckle as the man stood straight again. Something in the man’s voice, in his laugh, and in his words as he spoke sent a chill through Drexler that he had never felt before. It was a feeling that the man behind this voice did whatever he wished and what he wished to do was often probably not pleasant things.

Oh, I am not interested in discussing this with you now. We will talk later. After my assistant here is through with you. I know you are government. The question is: are you NSA?

Drexler almost flinched when the ‘Doctor’ said NSA.

Or are you from the Department of Defense? You are government, that much I am certain of.

Don’t know what you're talking about. I’m just trying to get by mister. That’s all. You got me mixed up with…

Be silent. There is no point in denying this. What I need to know is this: where is the boy? You will tell me this.

Drexler shook his head. I don’t…

The first man was spooling out some kind of cable or cord and plugging it into the wall.

Enough. I have never understood why people are so ignorant of their fate. How is it that you cannot see the inevitable. It matters little. As I said: we will talk later. After Tomas here has worked with you for a while. He is…gifted in what he does.

The clink of a large switch was followed by a faint hum that Drexler recognized as a heavy electric current firing up some kind of equipment.

The ‘Doctor’ moved towards the door and stopped. When we talk again you will know more and you will tell me everything. Drexler could tell the man smiled as he spoke.

Tomas, the second man, chuckled softly at the Doctor’s words and was, from the sound of it, clearly putting on large industrial rubber gloves.

A faint shiver passed through his body and it was at this moment that Theo Drexler knew he was a dead man.

2

I am very disappointed Tomas.

Tomas stood motionless. He said nothing, but nodded slightly. He knew, at a time like this, to be careful. The Doctor was known for quick and callous decisions. Tomas had worked for the Doctor for many years now, but that did not exempt him from the Doctor’s wrath.

Dr. Otto Bleche II sat in a large swiveling office chair with deep maroon leather upholstery. He had his back to the desk, across from which stood Tomas. The chair swiveled slightly from left to right and back again. The office was lit only by the lamp on the desk. It seemed darker because of the dark stained wood paneling and the copper plating of the ceiling. The lack of windows made the office seem more like a tomb. Not that windows would have helped this late into the night.

The chair slowly spun around. Bleche rested his elbows on the arms of the chair. His hands were clasped in front of his face. He stared at Tomas over his hands.

Tomas stared blankly back at a man he knew to be one of the most dangerous in the world. Massive wealth and a network of connections that seem to allowed him to pull strings at the highest levels within the governments of several of the world’s powerful countries including, of course, the United States.

He was a man in his later years. White hair, sharp features, tall, over six feet and a little on the heavy side. Not fat, just broader, giving him an imposing stature. As always, he wore black. A black blazer, black vest over a white dress shirt and black slacks. It was his eyes, though, that caught a person’s attention. An uncanny gray color they pierced into one’s soul, like demons searching for the core, the essence, of one’s very being and any and all weakness that may lie there.

When he loomed in front of a you it felt as if you were standing on the threshold of a gaping doorway into the black infinity of oblivion. As if a great darkness was now overshadowing the rest of the universe. It felt like if you didn’t turn right then and there and run you would be enveloped into that darkness and never see the light again. Such was the look and feel of Bleche’s presence.

I believe that man knew the whereabouts of the central piece in this project. Do you understand how important that is?

Tomas nodded slightly. Yes sir.

Tomas, I consider you to be one of the best at what you do. I find it difficult to believe you allowed this one to slip away.

He…was stronger than I had estimated. I was forced to push him further.

Too far obviously. Bleche snapped. He isn’t going to tell us anything useful now, is he?

No sir. I…do not believe he is capable of speech now.

Bleche’s voice carried sarcasm. I hardly think so since you have nearly melted his brain. The fact that he is still actually breathing means nothing. We got nothing from him.

No sir. Other than the one slip.

Bleche shook his head. I already knew he was here because of the boy. I had also already assumed him to be NSA.

Yes sir.

Bleche was silent for a minute. Well, where does that leave us?

Tomas recognized that this question was not directed at him. He stood silently and waited either for instructions or some kind indication that their discussion was at an end. His eyes moved quickly around at the décor of the room. There were several large framed photographs. One was clearly a photo from Germany sometime during the Second World War. Several men standing together in what appeared to be a laboratory. A couple of them in grey uniforms with the insignia of the SS, the rest were in civilian clothes, including a boy, maybe ten years old. Down in the lower right corner was stenciled in the word: Ravensbrück.

Another photo was that of the Doctor with someone Tomas had heard mention once was a senator from Virginia. The senator held a football in one hand as he shook hands with the Doctor.

We must find that boy. The genetics in that one are one in a billion. We know he is close by. You were, at least, more successful in your interrogation of the kid in Virginia. We were fortunate that he happened to know what city they were moving the boy to. Why they were stupid enough to let that thing out of the lab I will never understand. They are bureaucratic idiots. They can see nothing beyond the stated parameters of their funding. They have no concept of what they stumbled on to or what that genetic composition could be used for. But, we do. We know just how to utilize that material. We can grow exactly what we need and tailor it to perfectly interface with our nearly completed system. But, we must have that boy.

He focused again on Tomas. He was furious at Tomas’ error, letting the man die before they extracted the location of the boy, but Tomas was of too great a value to him to dispense with him out of frustration.

Who did we use to bring this agent in?

Uh, Crow sir. In an effort to avoid looking directly at the Doctor, Tomas glanced sideways at the short bureau along the right wall. On it stood a couple of glass cases standing erect. They contained an assortment of gold and silver objects. Most appeared to be coins or watches or jewelry, but some were difficult to recognize. They were roughly the size and shape of teeth.

Bleche thought for a moment then shook his head. I see no further use for him. Get rid of him.

I’ll see to it.

Bleche glanced coldly at Tomas. Do it yourself.

Tomas nodded. Yes sir. He knew that was part of his punishment for this failure. And the…agent?

Huh? Bleche glanced across at Tomas. Oh. Terminate that thing. Have you cleaned the room up already?

Yes sir. I will execute him and have it bagged and ready for transport to the river. Tomas scanned across the desk. There was an assortment of documents laid out on it. Some were technical in