Mirrors Read Free Page B

revolving credit card accounts. By the start of my hematology fellowship, I was a quarter million in the hole. I began trading options, futures, and commodities. Between seeing patients, I tracked the price of pork bellies, coffee beans, and sugar. For a while, luck returned, but then I got cocky and traded without doing the required research. The debt deepened. Collection agencies began calling. The Repo man took my car, but then XK59 bailed me out.
    Or so I thought. Standing on the walkway over the Amygdala, I realized that instead of being my salvation, the protein had turned me into a suspect for a mass poisoning event.

    Glenn Bird waved a hand before me to get my attention. “We need to talk about the firm you sold XK59 to. It was called
Natow Pharmaceuticals
, right?”
    “Yes
…
in New Orleans.”
    “And you consulted for them?”
    “Yes, to help them try to turn XK59 into a clot-dissolving drug.”
    “Didn’t the medical center in Las Vegas hold a patent on the protein?”
    “Initially, but they allowed me to acquire it because they concluded the protein was too hazardous.”
    “Did you work on-site at
Natow
?”
    “No, electronically only.”
    “So you never visited their office?”
    “Didn’t need to; a computer and a phone did the job.”
    Every week for several months, I conversed with the CEO, a hematologist who led the company. I met him initially when he approached me after I presented a paper on XK59 at a conference in Singapore shortly before my paper was published. Over coffee, he convinced me that
Natow
had a future in producing drugs to treat blood disorders. After learning I owned the patent for XK59, he offered me a consulting position and, later, paid me a quarter million for a gram of XK59. I was surprised two months later to receive a call from him saying the firm had gone bankrupt. I had hoped to delve into the matter further but was in the midst of getting married, completing my fellowship, and moving to Maryland. When I finally called him, I got a recording stating
Natow
had shuttered.
    Bird turned to Flagstaff. “Alright, let’s do it.”
    Flagstaff placed a palm on my head and pressed on it.
    “What are you doing?” I protested.
    “On your knees,” he ordered.
    “Why?”
    “Do it.”
    I buckled onto the walkway above the Amygdala.
    “Repeat after me,” Flagstaff commanded. “
Distamus ab aliis
.”
    “What the hell’s that?”
    He pressed harder.
    “
Distamus ab aliis
,” I cried.
    “It’s Latin for,
We stand apart
. Repeat it.”
    I did.
    “Now:
Proprius orbis
.”
    I obeyed.
    “
A world unto our own
,” he translated. “Repeat both.”
    I did my best, accent flawed.
    “Again,” Bird insisted.
    Slow improvement.
    “Good enough,” Flagstaff said, helping me up. “Welcome to the UNIT.”
    “I didn’t ask to join.”
    “Too bad,” Bird said. “You’re here until we solve the XK59 affair.”
    “And if I refuse?”
    His face hardened. “Wanna end up in a dumpster like the CEO of
Natow
? Someone lodged a bullet in his head.”
    I froze. Two days earlier, my wife informed me that a car had followed her while she strolled through our neighborhood, departing only after she glared at its tinted windshield. I assured her it had been innocent.
    Flagstaff swished his pony tail. “You’re safer with us than at your job until we figure out what’s going on. We’ll assign a security detail to your house.”
    “What do you want from me?”
    “Tell us who killed the CEO of
Natow
,” Bird said.
    “I don’t know! This is the first I’ve heard of his death.”
    “The place was torched, so we know little more,” Bird added.
    “What about bank statements, tax returns, employee records?” I asked.
    “What remains is unrevealing,” Bird replied, his eyes narrowed. “But we think we know who’s behind the XK59 poisonings—white-supremacists. Spell
Natow
backwards.”
    I did.
    “That’s right:
Wotan
. Heard of it?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “Acronym