Vladimir: I would need the name.
Michaeclass="underline" Ashanti Davis.
Vladimir: We could find out now if you would like.
Michaeclass="underline" I would be very grateful. Since I am not immediate family I haven’t been able to visit her. How could we check about her today?
Vladimir: We can go back into the institute, and I can quickly find out.
Michaeclass="underline" I can go in with you?
Vladimir: If you would like, but it is not necessary. It will only take a few moments. You can wait here if it is better for you.
Michaeclass="underline" I would be interested to come with you. I didn’t think I would be allowed.
Vladimir: Who is to know? There is rarely anyone in the institute’s NOC, or network operations center, and I know there is no one there now. The institute’s servers are also monitored in the main hospital NOC. I’ve been working in the Shapiro NOC for a month and haven’t seen anyone. The door that I came out leads directly to it.
Michaeclass="underline" I’m with you. Let’s do it!
Following a half step behind, Michael followed Vladimir back to the blank door. Just to the right of the frame, at chest height, was a small, hinged metal housing. Vladimir lifted the front. Beneath was a touch screen. Vladimir pressed his right thumb against it, and almost instantaneously a click sounded as the door unlocked. Vladimir pushed it open and motioned for Michael to follow. Michael was not impressed. He thought that the ultra-futuristic Shapiro Institute would have had something a bit more up to date than decade-old thumbprint security.
Beyond the door was a hallway. The walls were all white, and the hallway was illuminated by bright LED light behind translucent ceiling panels. As he walked, Michael’s eyes roamed the ceiling for signs of video devices. He saw what he thought had to be one in the middle of the ceiling, about twenty feet from the door. If it was one, Vladimir was unconcerned, although as someone knowledgeable about the institute’s IT system, he had to know about security. Michael shrugged. If Vladimir wasn’t worried, he wouldn’t be, either. Maybe over the years there had been no intrusions and they had become lax.
Pushing through the first door they came to, Michael found himself in a relatively small room housing four multiscreened computer terminals, each with a small work desk and an ergonomic chair. Like the hallway, the walls were all white and the illumination came from translucent ceiling panels. Opposite the door was a large window that looked into the server room, with its stacks of processors and storage devices. The room was air-conditioned to the point of feeling as cold as a walk-in refrigerator.
Without hesitation Vladimir sat down at one of the workstations, and Michael came up directly behind him. If Michael’s proximity looking over Vladimir’s shoulder bothered the Russian, he didn’t let on. Quickly the Russian typed in his user name, which Michael could see was his e-mail address. Then, as he was about to type in his password, Michael stepped to the side so he could see the keyboard. The password started with a 7, and Michael tried to concentrate on the series of digits. With his speed-reading forte, this was an exercise he was relatively good at. By the time Vladimir got to the sixth digit, Michael realized it was the dude’s mobile number. After eleven digits Vladimir switched to lowercase letters, the first one being M. Soon Michael recognized he didn’t have to remember that, either. The Russian was merely spelling out his last name. So much for tight security.
“Okay, we good,” Vladimir said as he navigated the task bar. When prompted, he typed in Ashanti Davis, which he had written out on a piece of scrap paper before logging in. A second later Ashanti’s home page came up: Cluster 4-B 32. Beneath that was: DROZITUMAB +4 ACTIVE. “She still here,” the Russian said.
“Right on!” Michael said, looking at the screen, wondering what Cluster 4-B 32 meant as well as the meaning of drozitumab +4 active. Taking the initiative, Michael reached out for the mouse and moved the cursor to HEALTH STATUS on the menu bar and clicked. He then clicked on VITAL SIGNS in the drop-down. A second later he and Vladimir were looking at an active graph of the woman’s vital signs, which were being followed in real time. Blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, oxygen saturation were all within normal range.
“Seems she is still in the game,” Michael said. Without giving up the mouse, he went back to the drop-down menu under HEALTH STATUS and clicked on COMPLICATIONS. A moment later he and Vladimir were looking at a list of problems — some active, some solved. What jumped out at him among expected conditions like BACTERIAL PNEUMONIA/CURED, CYSTITIS/CURED, was the ominous diagnosis of multiple myeloma. Michael knew that it was a serious type of blood cancer seen more often in African Americans than among Caucasians, but more in males than females and very rarely in young people.
Michael pulled out his cell phone and made a motion as if to use it to take a screen shot. He treated Vladimir to a questioning expression with the explanation: “So I can tell my mamma how she is doing.”
Vladimir seemed to understand the gesture. Responding with a shrug he said: “Okay.”
Michael took the shot and checked to see if it came out adequately enough to read. It seemed to be fine. He would have liked to look at more of the record, but didn’t want to push his luck. He had already accomplished far more than he could have dreamed of a half hour previously, and he surely did not want to alienate his new Russian buddy.
“We go?” Vladimir questioned.
Michael responded with a double thumbs-up. He couldn’t believe his luck. Lynn was going to be shocked.
12
Monday, April 6, 11:48 P.M.
As far as Darko Lebedev was concerned, the weather had totally cooperated. Although it had been a bright, clear spring day, early evening had witnessed a sudden change. The wind had shifted, blowing in moist, tropical air from the south that quickly turned into a dense fog. Now, as Darko looked out the windshield of the nondescript Ford van, he could see swirls of vapor enveloping the trees and scrubs around the target house, 1440 Bay View Drive. The moon was conveniently blotted out. The circumstances couldn’t have been more perfect for what was about to happen.
Darko and his partner, Leonid Shubin, had driven about twenty miles north from Charleston earlier that evening to a town called Summerville, where they stole the van they were now using. It was dark blue with no markings whatsoever, which was the reason they had selected it. From Summerville they had driven to Mount Pleasant and had made a few drive-bys of the house they had targeted, to check it out. It was the last residence on a dead-end street, with only one way in and one way out, the single minor complication for what they were planning: a home invasion.
After their last drive-by a half hour earlier, they had pulled over to the side of the road in front of the closest neighboring house and killed the engine. They were waiting for signs that the family was in the process of turning in for the night. They didn’t have long to wait.
“The lights just went out in what must be the master bedroom,” Leonid said in Russian. Both men had become adept at English, as they had been living in the Charleston area for a bit more than five years, but when they were alone, they preferred Russian. They had known each other for almost fifteen years, having met as members of the Russian Spetsgruppa “B” Vega, in which they had served almost ten years in Chechnya, where they had done dozens of home invasions. They considered the process their specialty. In the north Caucasus, suspected terrorists were simply eliminated along with their families without any attempt at due process. It was the Russian way of dealing with what they labeled terrorism.