Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Quinn cracked open his eyes and saw light bleeding through the cheap motel curtains. The Jack he drank last night had settled into a horrible hangover. His head was pounding, his mouth tasted like shoe leather, and he was dying of thirst - yep, hangover city. He was annoyed, confused, and wondering just who in the hell was ignorant enough to be calling him so early. His hand reluctantly picked up the motel phone and placed it to his ear.
“Yeah…” Quinn said with a heavy breath as he rubbed his bleary eyes.
“Quinn, what the fuck is going on out there! I’ve been trying to reach you and Berkman for an hour! I had to track you down through the rental car company. Where the hell is your cell phone?” Director Thompson barked into the receiver.
Quinn fumbled for his cell phone, which was still in his pants pocket. He opened it and read the display. The time read 9:00 a.m. Pacific, status: off. A sinking feeling came over Quinn; he had turned off the ringer at the Millennium Club...oh shit.
Quinn stammered, “Yes sir, I have it right here. Apparently I turned it off at dinner last night and neglected to turn it back on.”
Now his head really hurt and Thompson’s gravelly voice was splintering his skull.
“God damn it Quinn. I have to report daily to the Pentagon and the Commander in Chief on our progress. How am I supposed to tell them my operatives can’t be reached because a cell phone was turned off?” Thompson bellowed.
“Yes sir, I apologize for the error. We still have to go back to the NSA lab for some tissue analysis this morning. We should have some preliminary results for you by this afternoon.” Quinn recited as he sat upright on the edge of the bed.
“Good, see that you do!” Thompson ordered as he slammed down the receiver.
Quinn hung up the phone and fell back onto the bed. His head was really throbbing. He was looking across the room when he heard Berkman mumbling.
“No…I don’t wanna go to school today mom…I’m sick…lemme sleep…” Berkman mumbled to himself in a dream state.
Quinn walked over to Berkman’s bed and shook him. In a falsetto voice Quinn said “Get up little boy, you have a big test at school today! You don’t want to flunk math class again do you?”
Berkman’s beady eyes popped open, red as the sun, and he eyeballed Quinn quizzically. Reaching for his horned rimmed glasses, Berkman murmured, “Did you get the license plate number of the truck that hit me?”
Quinn chuckled, which made his head hurt even more.
Black coffee in Styrofoam cups from the local Quickie Mart was the only breakfast Quinn and Berk could stomach as they sped toward the NSA lab. Quinn rolled down the windows so that their wet hair would dry a little and the stench of alcohol in the car would dissipate. Berkman complained the whole time that his head felt like a watermelon dropped out of a second story window. Quinn didn’t say so, but he agreed with Berk’s assessment. Finally they pulled into the NSA lab parking lot.
Drudgery was the only way to describe the lengthy process of clearing NSA security, even more so with a killer hangover. Finally, they were granted access and made their way to the refrigerated storage locker.
“Berk, why don’t you run ahead and see which lab space is free. I’ll grab the brain tissue sample.” said Quinn as he fumbled through his pockets for the locker combination.
“Sure. If you can find me a wheelchair I’ll be on my way…” replied Berkman with a slight grin.
Quinn snickered and dialed the combination for the locker as Berk meandered down the hall. Once he had retrieved the sample, Quinn made his way back to where Berkman had been searching for an empty lab. He heard yelling and a commotion coming from just down the hallway. Peeking inside the third door on the left, Quinn saw Berkman rummaging around the lab, opening and slamming drawers and cabinets, and generally acting pissed off and raving about something.
“Hey Berk, what’s going on? You keep this up and we’ll be escorted out of here faster than shit through a pig!” Quinn said as he walked into the lab.
“Damn it!” Berkman yelled as he slammed shut another cabinet door. “What kind of lab is this anyway? All I need is a simple centrifuge! What kind of lab doesn’t have a centrifuge?” Berkman threw up his arms and looked quizzically at Quinn.
Quinn calmly walked over to the far corner of the lab and pointed to a small gray device. Instantly Berk’s face turned beet red and he slipped onto a lab stool.
“Where the hell was that hiding?” mumbled Berk as he covered his face with his hands. “I swear that wasn’t there a minute ago!”
Quinn replied, “Don’t worry about it Berk, we’re both under a lot of pressure to come up with something damn quick. Let’s get everything we need together. You tell me what you want and I’ll try to find it, O.K.?”
Berkman perked up and said, “O.K., see if you can find a few test tubes and some distilled water…I’ll get the centrifuge and that processor.”
>They scoured the lab for the tools they needed. Once they had everything together, Berkman cut the sample in half with a scalpel. He placed one half in the processor with some distilled water and turned it on. The other half of the sample he set aside in case they needed it later. Once the processor had finished pulverizing the sample, Berkman placed the cloudy solution into a test tube as Quinn looked on. The tube was hung in the centrifuge and set to spin for a few minutes. When the centrifuge had finished, Berkman pulled the tube from the apparatus and held it up to the light.
Quinn pointed to the bottom of the tube and asked, “Is that tiny silver dot what I think it is?”
“I sure hope so, otherwise we’ll be back at square one!” Berkman replied. “Let’s examine this stuff.”
Berkman sucked out the silver dot with a pipette and placed it into a small vial with some distilled water. He agitated the vial for several seconds and asked Quinn to hand him a couple of microscope slides. Berk placed a tiny drop of the solution onto each slide and covered the drop with a thin glass cover slip. Placing the slide onto the high power microscope across the room, Berkman began shifting through the optics for the highest power. Quinn paced impatiently beside the bench as Berkman worked the scope.
“Hmmm,” Berkman hummed. “Looks like we need more magnification. Know anybody with an electron microscope handy?”
Quinn remarked, “I think this NSA facility has one somewhere. Hell, first let me see what you’ve got there…”
Looking through the eyepiece Quinn saw numerous tiny masses of a silvery substance. He moved the slide base around and saw more of the same thing.
“What is this stuff Berk?” Quinn asked. “Looks like metal shards or something.”
Berk replied, “Exactly, but the real question is exactly what type of metal is it and how the hell did it get into Moore’s brain? We need to test this material and we need to pinpoint where this stuff is actually located in that brain tissue.”
“Let me call Director Thompson, bring him up to speed on these developments and get authorization to use the more sophisticated equipment. He chewed my ass again this morning so I’d better try to make amends.” Quinn replied with a sigh as he pulled out his cell phone and pushed number one on the speed dial.
Berkman began rubbing his stomach, looked at his watch and asked, “You suppose we can get a pepperoni pizza delivered up here? I’ve got the feeling we’re gonna be here a while…I’m famished!”
Quinn held up his hand just as the call went through. The line clicked for a moment then he heard: “Thompson here, what’s the story Quinn?”
End Part 5
Move on to read part 6
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