The Power of Poison, page 1
The Power of Poison
A Dr. Lily Robinson Novel
BJ Magnani
Encircle Publications
Farmington, Maine, U.S.A.
The Power of Poison Copyright © 2021 BJ Magnani
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-64599-165-6
Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-64599-150-2
E-book ISBN-13: 978-1-64599-151-9
Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-64599-152-6
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher, Encircle Publications, Farmington, ME.
This book is a work of fiction. While the science and toxins are real, names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual places or businesses, is entirely coincidental.
Editor: Cynthia Brackett-Vincent
Book design: Eddie Vincent
Cover design by Deirdre Wait
Cover photographs © Getty Images
Published by:
Encircle Publications
PO Box 187
Farmington, ME 04938
info@encirclepub.com
http://encirclepub.com
Dedication
To my mother—nurse, novelist, and educator—who did not
have the opportunity to read this book before her passing.
A unique, reserved copy is on its way—to heaven.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my colleagues who were my first readers—your comments, as always, help to enrich Lily’s story, and my life.
Chapter 1
The Tundra
Kallik felt the vibrations ripple under his feet. He could see the cracks beginning to form in the ice, and the hole for his fishing pole widen. The dogs started howling, and Miska, the lead, was pulling at the sled while the swing dogs were up on their feet whining and shaking. The thunder in the sky had a fiery red tail as it raced toward the earth. Kallik put his hand up to his face to block the light from above as the object burned its way to the ground. Pressure waves from the blast knocked him off his feet, and the dogs continued their barking after the boom ceased. Brushing the crust from his eyes, Kallik struggled to stand, conscious of the pain deep within his ears. When he regained his sense of awareness, he pushed the dogs forward toward the village, only sixteen kilometers away. Miska balked, but Kallik reassured his canine partner that going home was their safest option.
The disrupted ice sheet held onto the sled’s runners making the escape difficult. Kallik steered the team away from newly formed crevasses and headed south. The tundra with a landscape of desolate snow-covered lichens and mosses, morphed to dwarf trees popping out above the frost. As he neared the village, downed evergreens blocked much of his path. Kallik jumped off the sled and grabbed hold of Miska’s harness, the musher now working as the lead to get them home, weaving in and around the strewn brush, stone, and ice chunks. In the distance, he could see a large crater and debris—the remains of his small village.
Man and beasts slowed the pace as they felt their muscles stiffen in the deep snow. Miska and the other dogs started salivating. Kallik, too, felt his eyes tearing, and he started drooling. The sounds from his breathing slowed. His pupils shrunk, diminishing the little bit of light remaining in the northern sky, but he could still see the dogs fall to the ground, one by one, twitching and choking. Fear overtook him, and the insides of his pants became sticky while a warm stream ran down his legs, wetting his socks. When his chest could no longer expand to bring in air, he dropped to his knees, embracing the uncontrolled electrical disturbance that engulfed his brain. Still warm, Miska’s body covered in dense fur provided a soft landing for Kallik. The dog’s blue eyes stared lifelessly into space, missing the stunning ribbon of purple and green sky in the closing darkness. Kallik blinked for the last time as a trickle of pink slipped from his mouth.
Chapter 2
Boston
Grigory Markovic is still out there. We thought we had him, and then like smoke, he just dissipated into the atmosphere without a trace. It’s hard for me to accept that the Agency failed to capture the man behind the biggest terror threat to our country. The Russians distributed ricin-laced scratch-and-sniff cards along the Northeast Corridor, the epicenter being New York City, in an attempted mass poisoning. When the pad was scratched, the whiff of scent inhaled was not of exotic perfume and essential flower oils, but instead, weaponized toxin fine enough to work its way into the smallest alveolar spaces in a person’s lungs.
And it didn’t end there. We also discovered ricin embedded in the glue used in the souvenir program guides for the Super Bowl. But a flawed extraction process resulted in an unstable product, ultimately leading to the degradation of the ricin, inevitably saving many lives. The authorities chose to blame the deaths on a highly virulent strain of a novel virus. It would have been difficult to tell the American people that their safe world had been penetrated by Russian terrorism. Most likely, they would have felt betrayed that they weren’t informed about the actual circumstances from the beginning, so the cover-up continues. At some point, the truth will come out when the right computer is hacked.
There’s a knock at my office door. It must be Lisa. She’s been with me for most of my career at the hospital. As an administrative assistant, she keeps my schedule, helps plan my days, and covers for my lengthy disappearances when the Agency pulls me away. Lisa knows that I’m a professor at the medical school and that I run a toxicology consultation service at the hospital. She understands just how many questions she can and cannot ask. Today she’s got on her sneakers, so she must be running around the campus taking care of a lot of business.
“Hi, Dr. Lily. Just checking in with you to see if you have everything you need.”
“Thanks, Lisa,” I answer. “I’m working on those book chapters that were due months ago. I’m just way behind because I’ve had too many outside distractions.”
“Dr. Lily, you have been traveling much more than usual. Is everything okay?” she says, eyeing my snakeskin stilettos. Her eyebrows are knitted together, and her lips are swollen with ointment. Those muscular legs of hers disapprove of high-heels.
She’s concerned. Not just about my shoes, but by the fact I’ve had more unexplained absences than usual from the hospital these last few months. Oh, and the high-heels. They’re staying put. They make me feel tall, and sexy. I can’t say that for the travel.
“Do you want me to leave you your schedule for the week?” Lisa says. “You have some meetings, and Dr. Kelley was looking for you a little earlier.”
Kelley is my fellow; he’s training for two years in toxicology post his residency program. I’ll go into the lab and check in with him. He’s probably got a couple of consult cases that we need to work up.
When first-year medical students enter the clinical laboratory for the first time, they are amazed and overwhelmed. There is a dizzying array of tracks and instruments flooding the room with blood-filled tubes circling the perimeter. LCD screens on the walls hold dots of rolling averages of critical analytes, so if one moves outside the recommended range, it can quickly be brought back to baseline. Kelley is leaning over a large neutral gray analyzer with a blood tube in his hand. His white lab coat has his name neatly embroidered on the right breast pocket. He sees me, pokes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, and heads over.
“Hey doc,” Kelley says, “We have a few drug consults and, wait for it,” he says with anticipation, “they pulled this big larva out of some guy’s forehead and want you to ID it. Apparently, this patient was traveling along the Amazon in Brazil a few weeks ago, and when he got home he noticed a lump on his scalp. He let it go for a week or two, and it ballooned to the size of a ping pong ball. When the surgeon cut into it, out popped this mother. Techs want to know if it’s poisonous. Can we see that first?”
Kelley is so eager, this plump little man with a brain that works with the same precision as his favorite analyzers.
When we reach the other lab section, we find the larva residing in a Petri dish waiting for me to place and poke it under my dissecting scope. This fat blob of tissue in the shape of an oval has mandibles at one end and slits for breathing at the other. The mandibles eat their way into your flesh, and the slits remain close to the surface of your skin so the larva can get oxygen to live. If the surgeon hadn’t cut it out of the man’s scalp, it would have eventually burst through the skin like the creature from the movie Alien and finished its life cycle on the ground.
“Kelley, this is nasty but not poisonous. It’s a bot fly larva. The bot fly captures a mosquito on the wing, lays its eggs on its underside, and secures the package with a bit of organic glue. When the mosquito lands on its blood meal, the heat from the warm-blooded animal—in this case, our Amazon explorer—melts the glue, and the eggs fall onto the skin. Then the parasites burrow into the warm flesh to begin the next phase of their life cycle, feasting on the host’s tissue. This patient will need some antibiotics, and several weeks with images of puppies and kittens to replace those of this creature found living beneath his skin.”
Kelley laughs. “That’s great, doc. I left a couple of folders by your door
* * *
When I get back to my office, I check for any messages from Chad, one of my contacts from the Agency. He usually brings me my assignments. Chad replaced Pixie Dust, an agent with a pink streak in her hair, who cornered me years ago after I suffered a traumatic event in the Colombian jungle. This woman, with charisma and cunning, snared my emotions and shepherded me into this undercover world. My daughter died while I was on a field trip in the jungle collecting poison dart frogs. This not-so-insignificant fact was buried deep within my limbic system until my therapist helped me regain the lost memories of that time—horrible memories of death and devastation. We never recovered my sweet baby’s body, and the guilt of that loss has plagued me for most of my life. She was my gift, my flower, and I mourn her in every moment my brain is not swamped with facts. This is why I stay busy.
It’s only been a few months since I returned from New York City. I killed a man, but only after he tried to kill me—and millions of others. I took a syringe filled with concentrated aconitine and unloaded the contents into his neck. Aconitine is an ancient poison and most reliable. It stops the heart. Derived from the plant monkshood or Wolfsbane, this beautiful hooded purple flower can grow right in your back yard. That’s what I do.
Poisonous plants breach the boundaries of my secret garden. Twelve square feet hidden behind my coastal cottage is all I need to coax nature’s miracles to assemble molecules in such an order as to make unique toxins. It’s a summer pastime I enjoy. Digging in the soil, sowing seeds of death, and harvesting a bit of terror packaged in colorful petals. It’s my first choice to use nature’s gifts to protect my country and other democratic nations. We weed the garden of political threats, of undeniable evil, and hope that our actions will be undiscovered. My phone rings. It’s Chad. The acid in my stomach swirls, unfiltered and potent, knowing Chad will want something that defies my inner core. I listen to his voice, and my ears select only the most painful words. He confirms what I had suspected. A new mission is being planned for overseas, and they need my help. Yes, Markovic is still out there… and he knows who I am.
Chapter 3
The Cottage
The weather has been the worst. The winters never seem to end, and today it’s snowing without any regard or respect for spring. Still, stormy days can be irresistible to watch as the trees blow horizontally in the wind, and ducks and geese struggle to stay aloft against the invisible force.
Without much sunshine, depression sets in, and life seems darker. Sunshine actually increases the chemical serotonin in your brain, which elevates your mood and gives you that feel-good feeling. What else can give you that feeling? MDMA: 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, known on the street as Ecstasy, stimulates the brain to release more serotonin and a little less dopamine and norepinephrine. It’s not surprising that some people on the bleak edge of life choose to wrap themselves in neurochemicals that transport them to a warm, happy place. For most of us, it’s that bright burning globe in the sky. We wish for sunshine, a single ray through the clouds, to highlight our path forward.
I’m up at the cottage to get my head in the right place. Still shaken by the events in New York, I can’t let it go. Markovic identified me in front of the concession stand while we were at the Super Bowl. It all happened so fast. We were sitting in the Agency van scrutinizing monitors that looked everywhere around the stadium when this figure lurking by the main concession stand caught my eye. I have a memory for people—silhouettes and all. This stocky, balding man and I had had a previous encounter. My curiosity and my intuition kicked in when I noticed that he was wearing an N95 mask. Highly unusual. I ran out of the van and down to the concession stand before Agent Parker even realized I’d left. When I reached the booth, Markovic was just standing there, observing the football fanatics buying their souvenirs. And then, almost mechanically, he turned and looked directly at me with those hooded dark eyes. “Dr. Robinson,” he said, “enjoy flipping through pages to satisfy your curiosity.” He said my name. I couldn’t believe it. He knows who I am.
Somehow, he managed to elude Agent Parker and the other men, who by that time had come out of the van and into the stadium to try and snare Markovic. That Russian moved through the air like a ghost on the wind, and the team just couldn’t catch up to him. I hope they know where he is now, so they can chase him down like the vermin he is. When the hounds surround the den of this trapped fox, my hope is that the master of the hunt will easily cut off his head.
It’s Sunday. I have time to think about what Chad told me the other day, and plan my course over the next few weeks. The light is spectacular this afternoon. It bounces off the water with such intensity that it appears like a hot flame reflected in a mirror.
Someone’s at the door.
I look through the side glass panel and see that it’s the dark-haired man—my Agency field operative, my savior, my lover, Jean Paul.
“JP, what are you doing here?” I say as I open the door. My face is alight with surprise.
“Lily, I know you spoke with Chad. We have a lot to discuss.”
His thick French accent always places the emphasis on the second syllable of my name, like I’m Lil-lee. I adore it.
“Come in, come in,” I say, pulling him by the front of his jacket as if I’m an impatient schoolgirl.
“JP, this is truly a surprise. Things must be worse than I thought if Chad has you coming up here. It’s cold out there. Would you like some tea?”
“Ma chérie, I’m not sure anyone should have the tea that you brew. However, I would like a nice cup of café, s’il vous plait.” He kisses me gently on one cheek, then the other.
We retreat to the kitchen. I don’t think JP has ever come up to my cottage before, at least not while I’ve been here. He’s about to see the inside of the “oyster shell”—the luminous mother of pearl that lines the dusky exterior. I make him a cup of coffee, dark roast, black. What was he like as a young man, I wonder? It was only just recently that I learned his full name is Jean Paul and that he grew up in the Champagne region of France. Although JP and I had worked together for many years, the Agency revealed little about him, and the other full-on operatives, to shroud their existence. Of course, they know about my academic life and use me only as a “freelance consultant,” you could say.
The government mines my brain regularly in its quest for new poisons or stealthy ways to conceal the true cause of death. My encyclopedic knowledge of toxins is the nectar they desire. Yet these assassinations leave a stain on my heart, and it’s only the lives I save while keeping the Hippocratic Oath that provide an overriding iridescent light to blanch that darkness. I’ve been trained to handle myself as a field operative, just as I have been in the field of medicine; there have been many targets, and many clinical cases, over the years. No one other than the Agency knows what I do on my “away” time, and in all those years, only John Chi Leigh, the gifted chemist from Hong Kong, had discovered my true identity—that is, until Markovic.
“JP, how’s the coffee? Come, let’s sit down by the fire.”
“Lily, the coffee is exquisite, and the view quite extraordinary. The wind sweeps across the water as if to pile it all into one corner,” he says.
He looks around the room, eyeing the jewel-tone colors that pop against the winter white. Moving away from the window, he settles on the couch closest to the fire and places his coffee mug on the table. There’s a candle burning brightly, its vanilla scent hanging in the air.
“Lily, I know you are worried about Markovic. We believe he has gone back to Russia. Alexis may be there too, and we do not know if they are together. But, we have an undercover operative in Russia, eh Scottie, who is well integrated into that world. So, we hope that he can locate Markovic’s specific operation and uncover his next move. Like a chess game, oui?”
Jean Paul is trying to reassure me, knowing full well he is about to ask more of me.
