No Time to Die

by Kira Peikoff

Genres: Medical Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

In a Washington, D.C. research lab, a brilliant scientist is attacked by his own test subjects. At Columbia University, a talented biochemist is lured out of her apartment and never seen again. In the Justice Department’s new Bioethics Committee, agent Les Mahler sees a sinister pattern emerging.... Zoe Kincaid is a petite college student whose rare genetic makeup may hold the key to a powerful medical breakthrough. When she is kidnapped, the very thing mankind has wanted since the dawn of time threatens to unleash our final destruction.

Release date: September 1, 2014

Publisher: Audible Studios

Print pages: 448

Sample

The echo down the hallway didn’t surprise him. Not at first. The old industrial warehouse creaked whenever Eli stayed late to work in his lab. His lab: he could say that finally, after two decades of toiling away in this windowless steel complex, where his most important colleagues were the half dozen chimpanzees in cages lining the side wall. They were the first to try whatever new multimillion-dollar drug was being developed for human use by the research team at Panex Pharmaceuticals—the team that was now officially led by Eli himself.

He was peering through his microscope, reveling in his recent promotion, when the faint echo down the hall assumed the distinctive pattern of footsteps. Usually the researchers wore sneakers, so their movements were announced by squeaks of rubber against the floor. But now the rhythmic slap of a man’s dress shoes struck the ground, drawing closer.

Eli glanced up with a frown. He’d thought he was alone—it was 10:15 P.M. on a Thursday after all. Everyone else had left hours ago. Even the security guard went home at ten o’clock.

“Hello?” he called. Across the room most of the chimps were sleeping, but an elder one with a crown of silvery fur perked up with a grunt, curling his massive finger around the wire of his cage.

“Not you, Jerry,” Eli muttered. He had affectionate names for all the chimps—Jerry and Elaine shared a cage, next to George and Kramer, Larry and Newman—even though he knew theoretically not to get attached to animals who sometimes had to suffer and die for the sake of the research.

The footsteps were louder now, nearly encroaching on the lab.

Eli slid off the stool and nervously tore off his latex gloves.

“Who’s there?” he called.

A lean older man crossed into the doorway. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles and an elegant gray suit that matched the color of his thinning hair. His alert eyes lit up at Eli as if in recognition, though Eli was sure he’d never seen him before. His face was all edges: a pointy nose, jutting chin, bony cheeks. A leather briefcase hung off his left shoulder, and he was double-fisting crystal champagne flutes, each one filled with bubbly golden liquid. One glance at his sharp looks told Eli that this man was shrewd, dignified, respected. He was someone.

Eli felt himself relax as his curiosity piqued. Any brief worry about a trespasser vanished. In any case, Eli cut an imposing six-foot-three figure, albeit more bulk than brawn. He could take care of himself. The man smiled at him.

“Dr. Eliot Shipley?”

He nodded. “Just Eli. And you’re . . . ?”

“Mr. G. I’m on the board at Panex. We’re all very excited that you’ve been promoted to head of R&D.” He walked toward Eli and extended the champagne flute in his right hand. “At our dinner earlier tonight, the board agreed you deserve to be congratulated in person, so I came to surprise you with a little toast on their behalf. We heard you usually stay late.”

Eli took the fancy glass, grinning. He ran a hand through what remained of his sparse blond hair—which, at age sixty-seven, wasn’t much. It was about time the corporate bigwigs sat up and took notice of him, after years of his toiling in practical obscurity to help put the cheapest, most effective drugs on the market for their bottom line. Sometimes too cheaply produced, in Eli’s opinion, though to the execs there was no such thing, so he did as he was told.

“Wow,” he said. “I’m flattered. You didn’t have to—”

The man lifted his own champagne. “Please. The pleasure is mine. Cheers.”

They clinked glasses and drank. Eli recognized the sweet, smooth flavor. It was the good stuff, Dom Pérignon, the kind he bought his wife last year for their thirtieth anniversary.

“Delicious.” He took a few more hearty sips to show his appreciation.

A strangely satisfied smile tugged at the man’s lips. “You’ve done so much, it’s only fitting that you finish on top.”

“Oh, I’m not planning to retire anytime soon.”

The man was still smiling that same odd way, in almost ironic glee.

A vague uneasiness settled over Eli. “In fact,” he added, “I’d rather die than ever retire.”

The man’s smile widened ever so slightly. “I’m glad to hear that.”

There was nothing unfriendly about the way he said it, yet Eli felt a chill of hostility as sure as if he’d delivered a blow.

Eli lifted his leg to take a step back—and that’s when he noticed the sudden heaviness in his foot. Moving it was like trying to uproot a tree. He uttered a little gasp; fear shot through him.

“What’s happening?” he demanded. Then, as if without permission, his fingers loosened around his glass. It slid through his grip and shattered at his feet, splashing the remaining drops of champagne on his white coat. He stared from his weakening hand to the man, terrified. “Who are you?”

“I told you,” the man said calmly. “You can call me Mr. G.”

He racked his brain trying to remember the names of the company’s board members—was there anyone whose last name started with G?—but Panex had been acquired by a major conglomerate, and the management at the highest levels had never interacted with him before.

Now the rest of the chimps were awake, anxious, scratching at their cages. Eli glanced over to them as if for help. Through their cages, six pairs of glassy black eyes were trained on him, set deep in heads the size of globes. His eyes darted to his microscope ten feet away, its light still shining on a petri dish. On the counter nearby, a tray of chrome instruments gleamed under the fluorescent lights.

His eyelids drooped, but he forced them open, his head lolling forward. Then his knees buckled, the walls appeared to shift, and he found himself sprawled on his stomach in the middle of the lab. A pleasant fogginess rolled in, spooling around his brain like cotton candy; it dissolved his fear and his urge to fight. Somewhere far away an inner voice was shrieking at him to run, but all he wanted was to rest his cheek against the cool tile floor for a moment. Just one little moment, and then he would get up. He allowed his eyes to close. God, that felt good.

An acute sting at the base of his neck snapped him awake.

“Ow!” he cried, reaching up to swat away whatever it was.

His fingers brushed against a thin needle as it was being pulled out of his skin.

His mouth opened to scream; a whimper came out instead. His breathing grew shorter as he rolled onto his back. His muscles were turning to concrete, solidifying him from within.

Before, he had imagined death as a distant concept in relation to himself, something that mainly happened to the old and the sick. But now he wondered if he was about to die. He wondered if it would hurt. He wasn’t a religious man, but through his mental fog he sent up a quick prayer to any and every deity he could think of: Jesus, God, Allah, Buddha.

He raged at his body to sit up. He flexed his core, his arms, his chest, yet when he expected to move, nothing happened. He felt utterly limp, a puddle where once there was a man. Struggling to keep his eyes open was like trying to lift a car with his lids. He became aware of a shadow above him. With great effort, he looked up.

The man was sipping champagne, regarding him with a look of amusement, as though Eli had only pretended to lose control of himself for their mutual entertainment. Eli tried to communicate a look of entreaty—I’ll do anything, anything at all—but even his brows had frozen. His throat seized up, choking off his air. He was a statue. He would suffocate in a few minutes if something didn’t change fast.

The man inhaled an indulgent breath. “So, Dr. Shipley, how does it feel to be locked-in?”

Eli could feel his face turning purple. That was when the chemist in him realized what had been plunged into his neck. Succinylcholine. Nearly untraceable, with a quick half-life, the drug was used to paralyze anesthesia patients before they were intubated.

“Don’t worry,” the man said, as if reading his mind. “It’ll wear off real fast.”

Eli tried to wrestle his lips into one question: Why?

“The worst is the surprise, isn’t it? Thinking you’re doing well, better than ever, actually, when out of nowhere your world is destroyed.”

What the hell have I ever done to you, Eli wanted to shout. I don’t even know you. His mouth merely twitched.

A twitch! That meant the drug really was wearing off already. He felt a loosening in his throat, all the way down to his diaphragm.

The chimps were aggravated now. He couldn’t turn his head but he could hear the commotion coming from their cages—the restless pacing and scratching at the bars, the high-pitched shrieks and taunts that sounded like a fight about to break out.

Just as he was able to force a tiny gasp of a breath, the man unhooked the two gold clasps on his briefcase and pulled out a pocketknife. When he flicked it open, a shiny blade popped out. Eli’s eyes widened. The hand and the blade came closer until his whole visual field was a glint of light on a silver edge.

Let it be fast, he thought, bracing his neck for the pain.

But the blade sunk into his cheek. Its point cut across his flesh, ear to nose, in one deep horizontal gash. He cried out as warm blood oozed down his face. Since he couldn’t lift a hand to wipe it away, it dribbled down his lips, over his teeth.

The man crouched down to appraise his handiwork, his impassive face close enough that Eli could smell the alcohol on his breath. Apparently satisfied, he clicked the knife shut, slipped it back into his briefcase, and turned away. Eli felt a jolt of hope. As if it were an afterthought, the stranger threw a glance over his shoulder and remarked, “They like the face.”

They?

The man retreated, but instead of heading for the door, he veered left, toward the chimps.

Eli sucked in a ragged breath, trying to thrash his legs; they moved an inch.

Time seemed to slow as he heard the slide of a metal lock and the squeal of a cage door opening wide. Two of the beasts lumbered out, attracted by the scent of his blood. He braced himself as they stampeded on all fours toward him, their longtime captor. George and Kramer came into view, the two youngest and most aggressive males. He tried to scoot away, but his muscles were too weak.

They tore into his cheek wound with astonishing viciousness. The pain was stunning. But it wasn’t until their teeth sank down to his bone that he knew agony.

Before he lost consciousness, he caught a glimpse of the man sauntering toward the door. He was waving good-bye with a postcard in his hand. On the front was a picture of the Earth revolving around the sun, and on the back, some kind of scrawled message that Eli couldn’t make out. At the bottom was a signature in large cursive, one that meant nothing to him, but that would come to evoke radical feelings everywhere.

It was a single name: Galileo.

Dr. Helen McNair was weeping when the doorbell buzzed. It was after midnight on a sweltering June night, and unless her boss was coming to give her back her job, she wanted to see no one. Not even Natalie, the only person who knew about her soon-to-be infamous resignation from Columbia. No doubt her friend was waiting ten floors below, probably with a bouquet or baked goods, insisting on consolation.

She grabbed a tissue and rose from bed, pressing the button on the intercom. Her studio apartment, decorated with paintings of colorful flowers, failed to cheer her as it usually did.

“You really didn’t need to come over.”

“Actually,” said a deep male voice, “I did.”

She felt her body stiffen. “Who’s there?”

“I’ve come to help you, Helen.”

“Who are you? How do you know my name?”

“I know what happened today and I can fix it. Come downstairs, but hurry—we don’t have long.”

“What do you know?”

“All of it. Your secret experiment. How the dean caught you and flipped out.”

The hair on her arms prickled. “But that’s impossible! It hasn’t been announced.”

“It doesn’t need to be.”

She glanced up at the ceiling as if there might be a hidden camera in the corner, but saw none. “So—you’re stalking me?”

“Not stalking. Recruiting you. I’m the person who can give you back what he took away.”

Her finger hovered next to the intercom. “Excuse me?”

“A lab of your own. No one to bother you. Isn’t that what you want?”

Her voice rose angrily. “Okay, now you’re mocking me and it’s not funny.”

“We’re extremely serious.”

“We?”

“You have allies you don’t even know about.”

“Right.” She rolled her eyes. “Leave me alone or I’m calling the cops.”

A second man’s voice piped up—a gruff voice that sounded oddly familiar. “No! Helen, don’t. We’re here to get you out of this mess.”

There was no way it could be Professor Adler, the chair of the Biology Department, who had contributed to the mess by recommending her expulsion to the dean. More likely, her grief over the sudden death of her career—the four-decade love of her life—was causing auditory hallucinations. She stuck a finger in her ear as if to reset any faulty wiring.

“Just come downstairs,” urged the first man. “If you don’t like what you see, you don’t have to open the door.”

He was right. She had no doorman, but the front door to her apartment building was glass; she could take a peek without letting anyone inside, and then she would have a description to tell the police. She could even try to snap a furtive picture on her cell.

She pressed the button on the intercom again. “Wait right there.”

Then she pulled a terry cloth robe tight around her slender figure, padded into the hall, and rode the elevator downstairs, clutching her phone. The lobby was deserted. As she walked by its oval mirror, she barely noticed her mussed gray bun and puffy eyelids. All her attention was focused on the front door, trying to discern the forms in the shadows. Two men were standing on the stoop. The one on the left was tall and powerfully built, with a gleam of mischief in his eyes and a jaw sharp enough to cut ice; the other was older, stout and bald. The first man she didn’t recognize; the second, she most definitely did.

She let out a gasp and yanked open the door. “So that was you!”

Adler only nodded. “Now will you let us in? There’s a lot to explain and not much time.”

Her gaze darted to the tall man. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar, as though she might have seen him from a distance, but she couldn’t place when or where. “Who are you?”

“You don’t know me,” he said, extending a hand. “I go by Galileo.”

She hesitated, glancing back at Adler.

He smiled apologetically. “I know you think I work for the dean, but I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

“Not ultimately.”

“But we were just in your office—?”

“It’s a good front, isn’t it?”

“Who do you work for, then?”

He tilted his head at the striking stranger. “Him. And now—so can you.”

Zoe Kincaid wrenched the sweaty quilt off her legs and threw it to the floor. Adrenaline ample for a racehorse had been pumping through her since midnight, practically spinning her mind faster than the Earth itself. For what felt like the hundredth time, she glanced at the orange numbers on her alarm clock: 7:59 A.M.

Sixty-one minutes.

She wasn’t sure if she was ready.

Her grandfather’s voice sprung to her mind: If there’s a job to be done, just do it. The first step was to get out of bed. Then, endure the next hour until her secret appointment with Dr. Carlyle. Together, at 9:00 A.M., they were going to reckon with the only enemy she feared: her own body. Time was short—though how short, it was impossible to know—and he was her last chance at a real diagnosis.

Light crept through her window like an intruder, dampening the clock’s glow. She winced when the numbers morphed to 8:00 A.M. A sledgehammer of high-pitched bells assaulted her ears, insolent in their cheerfulness. She tapped the alarm off. Then silence, except for the city noises seeping in from the street: cars speeding down Broadway, doors slamming, the occasional honk. Morning as usual for everyone else.

She looked around the room that had been her sanctuary for twenty years—at the oak desk where she had spelled her name for the first time; at the pink beanbag chair gathering dust in the corner; at the faded rainbow wallpaper she still loved. How simple it used to be to seek relief from her woes, in a lollipop or a Band-Aid or her mother’s arms. Today, not even the most elaborate fort of her childhood could shelter her from the doctor’s imminent news. With a shiver, she realized that one outcome was certain, no matter what he said: Later this morning, she would be returning home distraught—either vindicated but ill, or healthy but ruined. There was no other option.

Outside her bedroom, footsteps fell softly at first, and then louder. She darted to her door and heard a slow shuffle marked by the regular plunk of a cane. Opening the door a crack, she peeked out to make sure no one else was around and whispered, “Gramps.”

In the hallway, he caught her eye and smiled. She beckoned for him to come in, to hurry. Her heart swelled as he tried to speed up. His arthritic grip on his cane tightened and he sank it into the carpet like an oar, pushing off. Despite the effort, his creased face betrayed no hint of strain. A narrowing of his eyes showed his acceptance of the challenge, offset by a slight grin that told Zoe he took pleasure in conquering it. Once an Olympian, always an Olympian. In 1948, he had broken the world record for running the 400 meter dash in 46.2 seconds. After aging out of the sport, he’d carried that determination into medicine, becoming a renowned physician who had never given up on a single patient for being too sick or not sick enough.

He was the only one who had not given up on her.

When he reached her, she put an arm around his frail waist and ushered him into her room, then closed the door.

“I was just coming to check on you,” he rasped, sinking onto her bed. “Are you all right? You look flushed.”

She shook her head, too tired to feign bravery. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Her dainty brow creased. “What if it’s bad?” She looked into his watery blue eyes. “What if I’m dying?”

He shook his head. “Come here, darling.”

“Why could no one ever explain my seizures?” she demanded, standing. “Or why I look like this?”

“You’re small for your age.”

“Stunted,” she corrected. “Thin and short doesn’t even cover it.” They stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror next to her bed. When he spotted the ugly purple bruise inside her elbow, a look of pain crossed his face, but he said nothing. She folded her arms. Gramps was unflinching around any wounds except for hers.

Underneath her tank top and shorts—size 00—was a slight rounding of her hips if she squinted. Beneath two mosquito-bite breasts, her torso was a flat slab of skin and bone, her legs sticklike; she couldn’t gain weight, even eating a diet rich in butter, cheese, and whole milk. Yet her cheeks looked cherubic from a persistent layer of baby fat. With her fine blond hair and freckled sloped nose, she looked on the wrong side of twelve, impossibly far from the woman with high cheekbones and full breasts she had yearned to become for a decade.

“At least you’re proportional,” he pointed out.

“To a ten-year-old boy. Why didn’t the growth hormone do anything? All those shots for nothing.” She turned away from the mirror to look at him.

He frowned. “That was unusual.”

“And why did I have so much trouble at school?” She crossed her arms.

“That’s a different issue, dear. Adjusting to college can be very trying. You were living away from home for the first time—”

“But what if some virus is killing off my brains?”

He ventured a smile. “You’re going to Northeastern. A very respectable university.”

“Not like it’s Harvard,” she declared, reddening at the thought of the professors who had ripped her apart like hyenas over prey, and with the same enthusiasm. Her flush deepened at the other, worse humiliation she’d suffered there, one too unbearable to relate to anyone, even Gramps. “Plus I only got in because of Dad’s legacy. Anyway, that’s over.”

“For now,” he allowed.

“Whatever. The point is, I can feel something is really wrong. I don’t care if Mom and Dad are ignoring it.” She strained past the lump in her throat. “I just don’t want to die.”

He pulled her into a hug, and despite herself, she slackened against his arms. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he murmured. “Everyone is afraid to die. Every single person. And when it’s your own kid’s life at stake, you’re even more scared. That’s why your parents would rather act like everything is fine.”

“But you agree with me, don’t you? That’s why you haven’t said anything about giving me the blank check?” She didn’t add that the check was ripped up; that despite his generous offer, she couldn’t bring herself to take a penny from his savings, which her late grandmother’s illness had drained.

Silence for a moment, then: “Yes,” he said. “We can’t let them stop us.”

She pulled away from his embrace. “I don’t want to leave you, ever.”

“Death is inevitable, darling.” He looked her in the eye, but the warmth of his gaze did nothing to dull the sting of his words. “Mine before yours, I’m sure. But once you get to be my age, it’s not so tragic. I’ve had a long wonderful life—”

“Stop!” she cried, pressing her temples. “I hate talking about this.”

“It’s reality,” he said, clasping her delicate hands with his knobby ones. “We live, hopefully a nice long time, we get old, and then we die.”

“How are you not scared? I thought you just said everyone was.” Her heart pounded the way it always did when she was forced to confront the idea of vanishing—poof—for all of eternity.

“I used to be, when I was your age,” he replied. “But eventually I realized there’s nothing you can do to escape it, and by the time it happens, you won’t even know. So the more time you spend thinking about it, the less you spend living.”

She relaxed slightly. He always made her feel safer around her worst fear, like an animal tamer caging a vicious beast.

“Are you afraid of anything?” she asked.

He looked away. The top of his head caught a ray of light and she could see purple veins snaking across his bare scalp. She glanced at the clock. It was already 8:25 A.M.

“That’s a yes,” she said impatiently. “What is it?”

“I’m afraid of lots of things,” he admitted. “I know you don’t want to think of me that way, but you’re old enough now to know your old gramps isn’t superhuman.”

“Of what most?” she pressed, already conscious of the answer. But she needed to hear it from him, to know she wasn’t a hypochondriac.

“Of anything happening to you,” he said, looking at her. “Will you let me come with you?”

“No, I want to go alone.” It was a lie, but she could detect exhaustion in his face.

Before he could react, there was a hard double knock on the door. As her mother bustled in, Zoe spun around to open her dresser, hiding the bruise in the crook of her arm—evidence of the secret blood tests. Luckily there was no stamp of the MRI or X-ray.

Her mother’s wavy auburn hair fell over her shoulders, framing her smooth face. She was proud to still sometimes get carded, and insisted that Zoe’s youthfulness was a genetic blessing she would one day appreciate. “Dad! What are you two doing in here? I’ve been calling from downstairs. Breakfast is on the table.”

“Thank you, dear. I was just giving Zoe a little pep talk, that’s all.”

“A pep talk?” She hovered in the doorway. “For what?”

“An interview,” Zoe blurted over her shoulder, grabbing a collared pink shirt from the drawer. Then she turned around to face her mother, noticing how her fitted dress emphasized all her perfect curves. “Excuse me,” she said, stepping past her into the walk-in closet and closing the door. After putting on the shirt, black pants, and flats—all purchased, to her chagrin, in the kids’ department at Macy’s—she inhaled a shaky breath. Half an hour, she thought. I can wait thirty more minutes.

She walked back out, stretching her lips into a carefree smile. But the characteristic dimple in her cheek, that barometer of sincerity, was missing. Her mother glanced at Gramps and then at her.

“If you’re too sick to stay in school, then why are you looking for a job?”

Zoe shrugged. “To keep me busy. It won’t be too demanding.”

“Who is going to hire a college dropout in this economy?”

Zoe looked at Gramps; from behind her mother’s back, he glanced at her bookshelf.

“A bookstore,” she replied. “A Barnes & Noble downtown. I’ve got to run.” She breezed past her with an air kiss, amazed at her own sangfroid.

Just as she reached the door, her mother’s manicured fingers clamped around her forearm. “A long-sleeved shirt, Zoe? In the middle of this heat wave?”

“It’s formal,” she snapped, wincing as her tight sleeve constricted around the bruise. She yanked her arm away.

“Good luck, darling,” Gramps called after her, though the forced lightness in his tone betrayed his worry. She wondered if her mother noticed.

She looked over her shoulder, compelled by some force within her that cried out not to leave him. His whiskered chin had sunk to his chest, helplessness incarnate.

“Bye,” she whispered, and hurried down the corkscrew wooden stairs. They lived in a rent-regulated duplex that cost the same paltry sum as when her parents had moved in two decades earlier, before the neighborhood became gentrified.

As she rushed toward the front door, a pile of mail on the counter caught her eye. One envelope had a blue circular logo next to the words Chase Bank. It was addressed to her father. Across the top, in bold capital letters, were the words: IMPORTANT—DO NOT DISCARD.

Zoe felt the blood drain from her face. She looked around, slipped the envelope into her purse, and ran out.

For a Monday morning in June, the streets of New York were bustling. Though Zoe had lived on the Upper West Side all her life, she had only recently begun to appreciate how Manhattan invigorated her. After living on the Northeastern campus for those eight stifling months, trapped in a slow-moving sea of popped collars and red sweatshirts, the caffeinated pulse of Manhattan made her eyes open wider and her heart beat faster.

Dr. Ray Carlyle, the city’s foremost medical geneticist, was located across Central Park on Fifth Avenue and 68th Street. She could make it there on foot if she scrambled.

Finding Dr. Carlyle had felt to Zoe like meeting the Wizard of Oz at the end of a yellow brick road paved by a sadist. The first brick was laid six years ago, when at age fourteen, she still had not gotten her period like all of her friends, nor sprouted breasts or grown an inch. When a prescription growth hormone failed to effect any change, her endocrinologist wrote off her condition as “idiopathic”—one with no known cause—and told her she might never bear children.

But the longer the status quo persisted, the more left behind she felt, especi. . .