“He’s good on everything except letting the Syrians get away. He wants to arrest them, too.”
“I had a feeling he might.”
“He’d like to catch them with the dog. That will complete all the links in the chain.”
“It would if I hadn’t switched dogs. Catching them with Barkley isn’t going to be good for anyone. Except Lance. His buddy wants the dog back.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“If only.” Teddy sighed. “I take it this is a deal breaker?”
“There’s no deal to break,” Dino said. “The Paris police have all the information. He’s going to move on it.”
“Okay. Time for a little razzle-dazzle.”
“What?”
“A little hocus-pocus. A little bait and switch. A little skin game.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Look. Two out of three’s not bad, right?”
“It depends what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about your friend, the prefect of police.”
“I thought you were. I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“You’re going to love it, and so will he. After all, you’re doing him a favor. If he winds up nailing a mad scientist and the Silver Fox, he’s not going to feel that bad about the dog. He’ll be too busy taking bows to give it any thought.”
Dino groaned. “What do I have to do?”
“You have to pull a scam on the prefect.”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“Sure you can. You just need to keep him from showing up at the airport.”
“How?”
“Here’s the story. You got a tip from your source that the Syrians are picking up the dog at the handler’s house the morning after the conference. If he wants to take out both ends of the operation he should arrest them there. He’ll get the Syrians, the dog, and the handler who was housing him.
“At the same time, he hits the scientist’s lab and Rene Darjon’s office. He has to do it all at once, so no one is tipped off.
“The beauty of that is he’ll want to be personally involved in the arrest of Rene Darjon. Which means he won’t be one of the cops busting an empty house.”
“As if that makes it all better,” Dino said dryly. “If he doesn’t get the dog, there’s no connection between Rene Darjon and the Syrians—and Rene Darjon walks. And the scientist walks. And the Syrians get away. Everyone gets away except me. I’ll probably get the guillotine.”
“I think they stopped using that.”
“I’m not eager to find out.” Dino spread his arms. “I’m right, aren’t I? Without the dog, the prefect’s got nothing on Rene Darjon?”
“That’s probably true,” Teddy admitted.
“So?”
“So let’s get something.”
83.
IT TOOK TEDDY forty-five minutes to break into Kelso Labs. The majority of that time was spent disabling the security system. The main system wasn’t hard, but they had more backup systems than Fort Knox. Once the last alarm was silenced and the last camera was turned off, it was a simple matter of picking a lock.
Teddy entered through a maintenance door and followed the back hallway to the main corridor. Dr. Stephan von Heinrich’s lab was the third door on the left. Just in case there was any doubt, the good doctor had slapped his name on it. He also had locked it more securely than the other labs on the wing.
Teddy made short work of the lock, slipped in, and closed the door. From what he could see in the dim light, Dr. Heinrich had all the latest technological improvements, from electron microscopes to centrifuges, to a device that looked like a CT scanner.
Teddy shone his flashlight beam around. In addition to shelves of tubes and beakers, crates and cages lined the walls. There were no animals in them, but water bowls indicated there had been.
Teddy bypassed all the equipment. He sat at the doctor’s desk and switched on his computer. He opened the network folders and scanned the files. None seemed relevant. A global file search for the name Rocky came up empty.
Teddy got up from the desk and searched for hard copies. A file cabinet looked like it hadn’t been used in years. He checked it anyway. It hadn’t. None of the papers in it were current.
Teddy struck pay dirt in the coat closet. He pushed the lab coats aside and discovered a safe.
The safe was a formidable-looking affair, but still no match for Teddy’s skill. A few minutes of work and he had the door open.
In the safe were several file folders. Most were of no interest to him, but one was labeled VIRUS X.
Teddy flipped it open. Virus X was a new strain of virus X759C4743P, discovered in the lab by Dr. von Heinrich himself. While the virus was not touted as a biological weapon, its attributes were listed. It was a highly contagious and fatal airborne pathogen.
A subfolder dealt with the surgical procedure on the dog, the insertion of the vial into his stomach, and the sutures anchoring it in place. The removal of the vial was described in detail, with emphasis on maintaining its integrity to ensure against the slightest leak.
Teddy went through the files from top to bottom. Nothing in them implicated Rene Darjon.
Teddy took the files over to the desk. He skimmed through them again, looking for an appropriate page. He selected one, and fed it into the doctor’s scanner. He converted it to a Word document he could edit. After the phrase, “conducted by Dr. Stephan von Heinrich,” he added, “under the authorization of Rene Darjon.” He printed it out and compared it to the original. It was perfect.
Teddy stuck the original page in his pocket, replaced it with the altered page, and copied the whole document. He put the original back in the file folder labeled VIRUS X, returned it to the safe, and locked it. He put the full-document photocopy in a blank file folder and took that file with him.
84.
R & D ENTERPRISES WAS much easier to break into than Kelso Labs. The only trick was timing the rounds of the night watchman to be able to get in and out without being seen. The lock on the front door was a joke, the alarms were turned off because of the watchman, and the security-camera controls were conveniently located behind the reception desk.
Rene Darjon’s offices took up the whole ninth floor. His reception area could have serviced the entire company. It boasted three couches and two large chairs. They weren’t the least bit worn. Teddy doubted if they were used much. Reception struck him as the first line of defense. Only the elite few were allowed into the office of his personal secretary.