Lambs out of Water

By DW Michael

Genetic scientist, Ann Morgan, is drawn into a powerful conspiracy by someone plotting to add a mysterious liquid to the drinking water of the nations capital. She teams up with a rookie FBI agent in a race to identify the liquid and the conspirators before they are targeted for elimination. She has a sample and they will stop at nothing to get it back.
Their intense investigation leads them to the highest levels of government while they play a deadly game of cat and mouse with one of the most powerful organizations in the world.
Can they save their own lives and the millions of citizens as they thwart a plethora of paid assassins to discover the truth while everyone involved is being eliminated one by one.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 27, 2011
• ISBN: 9781463403799

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

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Monday, October 12

Standing totally motionless in the small, dark room, her eyes strained to adjust to the totality of the darkness, but her dilated pupils could not overcome the sheer absence of light, and she was helplessly blind. Her pulse raced and her heart pounded, seemingly vibrating through her whole being. It was so loud. Can it be heard? Beads of perspiration formed on her brow and slowly flowed down her round face to her chin where they momentarily lingered before dropping into the darkness. She clinched her big fists, and her long fingernails dug deep into the palms of her hands.

The darkness always brought back vivid flashbacks of her early childhood, where the seeds of her phobic fear and subsequent hatred of the dark germinated, grew, and festered deep in her subconscious. Her mind drifted back in time as she remembered her father’s voice breaking the silence of the night. It was almost midnight. He was yelling obscenities at her mother, the local politicians, and the world in general. She could still distinctly hear her mother crying.

She knew the scenario quite well—her father would come home after a long evening of serious drinking and lock her in the small hall closet cursing the day she was born. The darkness and cramped space was emotionally overwhelming. He continued yelling obscenities and beating her mother until he passed out in a drunken stupor. She prayed for it to end—for God to strike him dead. Being a mere child, there was nothing she could do. She was powerless to stop him. She could do nothing but sit helplessly in the darkness and wait for the silence to come. She prayed for the silence as torturous minutes became hours. Sometime during the night, her mother would open the closet door, and they would tenderly embrace and silently cry themselves to sleep. For a brief period, their painful world would be at peace and shrouded in a blanket of love.

Fighting to return to reality, she took a long, deep breath, filling her lungs to capacity and slowly exhaling, as her mind gradually returned to the present. However, fear overwhelmed her conscious thoughts, urging her to run from the darkness, but she had to proceed with her plan to telephone Dr. Morgan. Urgency and extreme secrecy were definitely required. Their evil plan had to be exposed, but she had no idea how to stop them. The lives of over a million people were at stake.

Her sense of utter helplessness was overwhelming, but she couldn’t idly stand by and let it happen without doing something to prevent it. That was an enormous burden for a young girl of eighteen. She had been very uptight and distraught for the past several days due to the intense and agonizing struggle within her inner soul, but God and patriotism finally prevailed over apathy. Having won the tumultuous conflict and regardless of the personal consequences, she was now firmly committed to stopping them and had at last formulated a course of action.

She knew she could not fight them alone, but was it fair to involve Dr. Morgan—to put her life at risk too. Yes, it was definitely that important, she had rationalized after much agonizing. She knew in her heart Dr. Morgan would be eager to help, and Dr. Morgan would know what the liquid was in the mysterious drums and how to stop them. Dr. Morgan was very smart and knew everything. Moreover, Dr. Morgan had connections with very important people who could help stop them and ensure that justice was done. They wouldn’t dare harm Dr. Morgan, she reasoned, and Dr. Morgan would see that they spent the remainder of their lives behind bars where they would pay dearly for their sins.

Her strength began to build, and she was now in control of her thoughts and emotions. She summoned a mental image of the filter-operations office and pictured the familiar large wood desk in the center of the small room facing the door where she now rigidly stood.

She cautiously walked forward with arms low and outstretched in anticipation of encountering the desk. Her knee was first to make gentle contact, and her hands immediately began to awkwardly probe the objects on the desk until she found what she was looking for. Her hands were now trembling.

Picking up the phone receiver, she quickly pushed the ten illuminated numbers she had rigorously memorized. Damn. Why can’t I have a cell phone like everyone else in the world? she softly uttered to herself. That was a no-brainer, she realized—there was no extra money in her life for anything but the necessities of day-to-day living.

The phone rang for what seemed like an eternity, and she tapped her fingers impatiently on the desk and nervously shifted her imposing weight from one foot to the other. She blindly stared in the direction of the door and trembled, as she contemplated her fate should they discover she was aware of their diabolical plan.

Finally, there was a click on the line, and a pleasant feminine voice spoke:

You have reached Dr. Ann Morgan. I am unavailable right now. Please leave your name, number, and message after the beep.

She had anticipated the answering machine and, in fact, had counted on it. After all, it was one o’clock in the morning, and she had no expectations of Dr. Morgan actually being at work. Nonetheless, she would feel more confident if she could contact Dr. Morgan later that morning after she had retrieved the evidence of their conspiracy.

She cupped her large hand around the mouthpiece, and at the tone, whispered into the receiver with a quivery voice.

This is Regina… Regina Brown. She paused to catch her breath.

I desperately need your help. It’s a matter of life and death, and I don’t know what to do. They’re going to poison the water supply, and everyone will be killed. I’ll call back at ten-fifteen. Please, please be there. I must talk to you, and I have something important to give you. It’s urgent.

A wave of relief surged through her body as she gently placed the receiver back in the cradle. So far, so good, she softly sighed under her breath as she regained her composure and determination. Turning about-face, she felt her way back to the door. Firmly grasping the door handle, she listened intently to the silence for a moment before quickly leaving the office.

Outside, the large corridor was void of any sign of human presence. A pall of deadly silence hovered over the tall, dimly lit passage. The windowless, concrete walls exuded an aura of being in an ancient Egyptian tomb. She briskly walked toward the archway at the far end that was the gateway to the enormous filter room—her own personal sanctuary. The huge expanse was utterly silent except for the continuous monotone sound of the water cascading through the multiple rows of sand filters.

CHAPTER 2

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Regina Brown was one of two filter operators working the early morning shift at the vast Dalecarlia Water Treatment Plant located in the Northwest section of Washington, D.C. Working the graveyard shift had always been unnerving to her, although the peaceful sound of the gently flowing water had a tranquilizing effect. Having accomplished the first step of her plan by notifying Dr. Morgan that she needed her help, the most difficult and dangerous task still awaited her. It could result in her death, but she knew she needed proof of their conspiracy, or no one would believe her story. After all, she did have to admit that someone poisoning the drinking water of the nation’s capital did sound far-fetched.

Once she regained her resolve, she would be able to carry out the next step alone; however, Dr. Morgan was the most essential ingredient for the fruition of her plan. Suddenly, she grimaced as a horrible thought occurred to her. What if Dr. Morgan is sick and not at work, or even worse—somewhere on vacation. Negative thoughts raced through her mind. Whoa, girl. Calm down. She realized she had to go through with her plan, regardless. She prayed to God that Dr. Morgan would be there for her.

She did not have a phase two yet. With the help of Dr. Morgan, she would soon know what horrible instrument of death and destruction was about to be unleashed on the unsuspecting populace, and Dr. Morgan would then know what phase two should be. She prayed that she was wrong, but the bizarre events of the past few weeks convinced her otherwise. Anxiety consumed her entire being, and the stress was building to an unbearable level. However, stress was not new to Regina, a young black girl who grew up in a poor, crime-ridden Southeast section of Washington.

Regina climbed the short flight of metal stairs to the filter-control room. The front of the elevated room was entirely glass and afforded a panoramic view of the rows of water filters beneath that stretched the length of a football field. A huge, gray instrument panel extended from the floor to the ceiling and filled the back wall. It contained the multitude of indicating and recording instruments used to monitor and control the filters. The only furnishings were two very old wood desks and a row of several dented, but freshly repainted, metal file cabinets. A new computerized system was scheduled to replace the antiquated equipment next year, and she looked forward to learning and using the modern technology. It seemed the government was always behind in adopting new technology due to budget constraints and red tape.

Taking a seat at the desk she shared with the other shift operators, she retrieved a thick, hardcover textbook from her oversized backpack. She opened it to the page marked with a paper clip and began to read. After only a few pages, her eyes became leaden, and her head began to nod uncontrollably. Suddenly, she bolted upright and opened her eyes wide, as if the sleepiness would magically go away. She took a deep breath and savored the smell of fresh water with a trace of chlorine that filled the entire room. The aroma was stimulating. The chlorine odor reminded Regina of the public swimming pool where she had spent every day as a child during the hot and humid Washington summers. There was nothing else poor, inner-city kids could do to escape the relentless heat of their small apartments with no air conditioning.

She anxiously glanced at the large panel-mounted wall clock with nervous anticipation. It was not yet time to proceed with step two of her plan. It was as if time had stopped completely.

Her job assignment was to monitor the effluent from the filters to ensure that the water remained clear and exhibited no cloudiness. She also periodically took turbidity samples to determine the efficiency of the filters, with instructions to notify her supervisor if the readings exceeded the EPA standard of 0.3 NTU (Nephelometric Turbidity Unit: a standard calibrated measure of how much light passes through the water.) While the work was rather mundane and did not require an education or special skills, her grandmother had raised her to have character and instilled a work ethic to do her best at whatever she undertook, no matter how menial and unimportant it seemed. Regina took pride in the fact that her filters averaged less than 0.1 NTU, which was far better than the EPA standard. When the filters reached a point of saturation, or every seventy-two hours at a maximum, she would initiate the filter backwash to clean the sand beds.

Operating the filters did not require her full attention, and between her scheduled rounds, she could read her textbooks and work on her class assignments. The extra time was invaluable on the day of an exam. Her daily routine was to shower, change out of her government-furnished work uniform, and leave shortly after eight o’clock for nearby Georgetown University. She could grab a quick Egg McMuffin at McDonald’s and still make her morning CHEM I class at nine o’clock. She would be home by one in the afternoon, sleep until seven, have dinner with her grandmother and younger brother, and leave for work again by eleven. Tonight, her routine would be slightly different, as she had to attend a required seminar at Georgetown from seven-thirty to nine-thirty.

She had read the chapter on the kinetic theory of gases twice, but under the stressful circumstances, she could not concentrate. The complex formulas quickly dissipated from her mind, like fleeting dreams in the early morning. She closed the red textbook, stood straight, and stretched her taut muscles. Outside in the filter room, she looked at the large clock on the pristine white-tiled wall. It was now four-thirty. Finally, it’s time. One essential task remained to be done before the end of her shift—a task more important than school, more important than work, and perhaps more important than life itself. She had to find out what the mysterious liquid was in the large steel drums they were obviously trying to conceal and intending to add to the drinking water. It was now time to carry out step two of her plan, and God willing, good would prevail over evil.

CHAPTER 3

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Regina went to the large water-sampling station in the center of the filter room where she scanned the workbench shelves and rummaged through the metal drawers looking for a small container with a tight-sealing lid. Having found nothing suitable, she thoroughly washed and rinsed the quart thermos bottle that had contained her early morning Slim-Fast diet shake.

She paused and stared at the thermos with a hint of a sparkle in her eyes. A broad smile slowly formed on her troubled face as she lovingly thought of her mother. Her mother had proudly bought the bright-red thermos covered with yellow happy faces for her first day of school thirteen years ago. She could still recall her mother saying the happy faces were to remind her to always be polite to others and seek happiness above all else. Tears washed away the sparkle in her eyes.

The second step of her plan had to be accomplished this morning before her shift ended. It would probably be her last chance to enter the storage room where the large steel drums were stored, as the door would surely be locked by the end of the following shift.

Stuffing the small hand-operated siphon she had retrieved from the lab bench into the rear pocket of her baggy coveralls, she headed toward the filter-room exit at the north end, tightly clutching the thermos.

At the other end of the large filter room, she saw Fred, her co-worker and immediate supervisor, walking among the rows of filters. She yelled loudly that she was going to the restroom, and the old man waved an acknowledgment. Fred had worked at the plant for forty-plus years, and he was the only person there whom she felt she could really trust not to be involved in the plot to poison the water supply.

Her heart raced as she walked stealthily down the long hallway past the foreman’s office and the maintenance shops. She paused at the large steel door at the end of the hallway with the cardboard DO NOT ENTER sign that had been hastily fastened with masking tape. Having satisfied herself that no one was watching, she quickly opened the heavy door and entered, closing it quietly behind her. The room was pitch-black, and the darkness again increased her anxiety. She bit her lower lip and controlled her fear, as she felt along the adjacent wall until her groping hand found the light switch.

The room was filled with forty fifty-five-gallon, black-painted steel drums. Regina surveyed the drums looking for the one with the dented top. She had witnessed the delivery of the drums last Thursday morning while taking her early morning break at two o’clock. Of all the strange events that had spurred her suspicion in the past few weeks, delivery of the drums in the middle of the night had led her to believe that something very secretive and illegal was going on. If it had been a legitimate delivery, they would have been delivered to the loading dock at shipping and receiving during normal work hours. And why had the general manager of the plant come in himself to receive them, she wondered. These questions weighed heavily on her mind.

While the men were unloading the drums from the delivery truck, she had witnessed one of the drums rolling off the conveyor ramp, tearing the sealed fill cap from the top of the drum. She found the damaged drum in the second row and carefully removed the duct tape now holding the plastic cap in place.

Her hands trembled as she inserted the small siphon pump and filled the red thermos with the clear liquid from within the drum. Hurriedly, she replaced the cap and neatly redid the duct tape exactly as she had found it. They must not discover she had tampered with one of the drums. They would surely kill her if they found out she had not only uncovered their diabolical plot to poison the water, but also now had the evidence to prove it. The adrenaline surged through her body as she contemplated that possibility.

She turned off the lights and slightly opened the door to peer down the dim hallway—it was deserted and deadly silent. She quickly exited the room and walked down the hallway with an accelerated pace. Feeling confident that she had not been seen, her anxiety quickly turned to elation. However, she was completely unaware of the small surveillance camera obscurely mounted above the row of light fixtures that had been triggered as she opened the door. If she had paid more attention to the ongoing construction in recent weeks, she would have been aware of the extensive security system being installed throughout the plant—the same security system that also logged and recorded her earlier telephone call to Dr. Morgan.

As she approached the foreman’s office, the door opened abruptly. A large, shadowy figure loomed in the obscure light directly in her path, towering over her own substantial five-foot-nine frame. Startled, she let out a loud shriek and jumped back, almost dropping the thermos.

Oh my God! You nearly scared me to death, Mr. Bradford.

What are you doing back here, Regina? the foreman firmly inquired with a hint of anger in his voice.

His tall stature and gruff tone intimidated her, and his penetrating eyes, set deeply in prominent cheekbones, sent chills up her spine. She quickly hid the thermos behind her back, feeling like the kid who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, except the stakes were much, much higher. Her mind raced as she searched for a viable reason for being there. She mentally scolded herself for not considering the possibility of encountering someone in the hallway.

I think one of my turbidity meters is out of calibration, and I need someone to look at it, she finally blurted out in a shaky voice. Her eyes darted about, as she avoided direct eye contact for fear he would see through her facade.

Are you okay, Regina? You’re trembling. His perceived anger had now transformed to a tone of fatherly concern.

I’m fine, Mr. Bradford. You really startled me. Sometimes it gets really spooky here at night.

I apologize for scaring you, and I agree, the vastness and emptiness is eerie. I’ll have Tom look at your meter when he gets back from the pump room, the elderly man assured her.

Thank you, Mr. Bradford. A cup of coffee will fix me right up, Regina responded, as she awkwardly held out the thermos in gesture.

She clenched her teeth and walked steadfast down the hallway back toward the filter room before she could be further interrogated. She feared that she would not have been able to hold up under additional scrutiny. Was my excuse convincing? Did he suspect where I had been? Did he wonder why I brought the thermos along? Doubts raced through her mind, but surely, Mr. Bradford was not one of the bad guys, she reasoned. After all, he had worked at the plant for many years as a mechanical foreman, and she had been told he was a good Christian, a family man. She felt confident that he certainly couldn’t be a party to such a heinous act. Nevertheless, his overpowering and intimidating stature reminded her of her own father. As a little girl, her father frightened her, and she avoided all contact with him. Anger and hatred consumed her daily life as a child.

There were always others to blame for her father’s failures, and his paranoia and bad temper kept him from holding a job for more than a few months at a time. Her father’s drinking progressed rapidly from a few beers in the evening to nightly binges at the local bar. Regina’s unexpected birth had been the final straw. With no work, welfare came quickly.

Her alcoholic father deserted the family when she was seven, leaving her mother pregnant with her younger brother. Her mother died five years later from the rigors of a life of abuse and hardship. After the death of her mother, Regina and her brother had no choice but to move in with their aging grandmother. They all shared a one-bedroom apartment in a rundown, public-assistance housing project. She was determined not to become third-generation welfare. That was stress, but her present dilemma was a different kind of stress. She was obsessed with apprehension over the impending disaster that would soon befall the entire D.C. metropolitan area unless she could somehow prevent it. To make matters worse, she was now fearful of losing her own life over the action she had taken only moments ago.

Still trembling, she made her final rounds of the filters, and after reporting to Fred that everything was okay and wishing him a good day, she headed to the locker room. The hot water of the shower pulsated on her back, and her tense muscles began to relax. She reflected on what she had done and wondered if she was truly doing the right thing. She realized that her actions placed her in grave danger; nevertheless, it was her obligation, her Christian duty to stop them. Her grandmother had not been able to offer her material things, but she had strictly instilled in her the virtue of love of God and mankind.

As planned, she would call Dr. Morgan again after her chemistry class. She hurriedly dressed, punched her time card, grabbed her cumbersome backpack, and rapidly walked past the sedimentation basins to the employee parking lot, tightly grasping the red thermos with the yellow happy faces. Happy faces—how ironic, she thought, as she pondered the unknown and perhaps deadly liquid the thermos contained.

CHAPTER 4

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The white Metro bus with the narrow red and blue stripes inched its way down Wisconsin Avenue through extremely heavy rush-hour traffic. Ann Morgan disliked taking the bus immensely, but public parking was almost nonexistent and much too expensive for her entry-level government salary. Approval of her own employee-parking permit at the facility should be forthcoming by next week, and she could arrive and leave work on her own schedule and not that of the bus company.

Between mid-September and Thanksgiving, traffic in Washington, D.C., was always extremely congested. Washington was a government city, and government employees went to work every single day after Labor Day, saving the remainder of their generous leave allotment for the holidays and the end of the year. Ann, like most government workers, lived in the suburbs and commuted to work. For the most part, only two classes of people actually lived in the District of Columbia—the very rich and the very poor.

The bus idled roughly, as it struggled to maintain the stop-and-go pace of the traffic. Each time the huge diesel engine revved up to move forward, the noise became intense, and the entire bus seemed to vibrate. Exhaust fumes permeated the bus, and she felt slightly nauseated. Her impatience with the slowness intensified. Besides having a lengthy work agenda planned for the day, she was an active person, a doer, and considered the forty-five-minute bus ride an absolute waste of her valuable time.

She opened the thick, red textbook—The Genetics of Behavior by Dr. George M. Andrews—to where the fifty-cent Cheerios coupon marked her place. The renowned Dr. George Andrews was the world’s most authoritative expert in the field of genetics and was a previous Nobel Prize winner. A man she had never met, but nevertheless, a man she greatly admired. She couldn’t believe that she had worked down the hall from him for the past three months, and their paths had never crossed—a situation she intended to remedy this week, or else.

The sun was just beginning to rise, and she had to rely on the dim, overhead lighting in the bus to read. Even though her eyesight was excellent, she could hardly make out the small print. The bus came to an abrupt stop, and she lunged forward losing her place. Realizing that reading was impossible, she placed the book back in her canvas tote bag.

After urging several cars—which were illegally unloading passengers in the bus lane—to move on with some vigorous horn blowing, the bus finally pulled up to the Metro bus stop in front of the National Institutes of Health. The NIH complex, situated on several grassy acres with its multitude of buildings, resembled a college campus more than a government facility only minutes north of the District Line in the suburb of Bethesda, Maryland.

Ann disembarked, entered the employee, pedestrian entry gate, and began the long walk up the tree-lined sidewalk past the Clinical Center to Building 98. Weather permitting, she preferred walking the considerable distance to her building for the exercise in lieu of riding the campus shuttle bus. Her five-foot-eight frame and long, slender legs allowed her to make long, graceful strides. She immensely enjoyed her noon-hour jogs around the campus grounds with the other workers.

It was now mid-October, and the morning sun was just beginning to penetrate the low cloud cover. Pausing for a moment, she stood in awe at the beauty of the changing season. The faint morning sun glistened through the array of stately maple and oak trees. The leaves were beginning to turn multicolored with various shades of yellow, red, and gold, and the scene looked very much like the subject of a landscape painting.

She took a deep breath and held it to savor the crisp smell of the dry fall air. What a great day to be alive, she thought. She hurried along the walkway, completely unaware that the events that would unfold this day would change her life forever.

CHAPTER 5

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With eager anticipation of completing the computations from Friday’s work, Ann briskly climbed the dozen steps and entered Building 98 through the large, glass doors into the main lobby.

Good morning, Dr. Morgan. Lovely day isn’t it?

Good morning, Sam. Yes, it is a wonderful day, she replied to the uniformed security guard, as she hurried through the metal detector and past the reception desk. The official time to report for work at NIH was eight-thirty, and at seven-thirty in the morning, the lobby was completely empty. Only the sharp click of her mid-heel pumps on the highly polished, glazed-tile floor broke the utter silence.

She felt somewhat embarrassed being referred to as Doctor since she had always associated the term with medical practitioners and not to persons, like herself, who merely held advanced academic degrees.

As she approached the main elevators, she spotted Mary Taylor disappearing into an elevator. Mary, hold the door, she called out.

Good morning, Ann, Mary cheerfully responded, as she used her petite body to wedge the elevator doors apart as they repeatedly tried to close, noticeably jarring her with each attempt.

I see you are here earlier than usual this morning, Ann remarked.

"Yes, I have a thousand and