Cain's Blood Read Online Free PDF Page A

next step. What in God’s
name happened here? his vision narrowed to a pinpoint. he felt it go, felt
the scramble to regain control. Blackandwhite Blackandwhite . he turned
to erdman. “Where’s Jacobson’s office?”
“right through here.”
he followed erdman toward the far left corner, kept his eyes locked
on the doctor’s back. They’d stopped at a door, where erdman waved
his hand across a security sensor on the wall. The sensor flushed blue,
showing a spectral replication of the hand and the blood vessels within.
“Vascular recognition.” erdman turned as the door bolts clicked open.
“Matches the unique vein pattern and heart rate in your palm to stored
scans. As unique as fingerprinting, but more difficult to fake because it
requires flowing blood.”
Castillo nodded, allowing himself the distraction of the technology. “No more fear of Play-Doh or cadaver fingers fooling the system.
Would it have picked up and refused an accelerated heart rate?”
“yes.” erdman seemed curious.
Control flowed back for Castillo, like it had never been lost. A relief to be talking about simple security, gearhead stuff. “So, then, who
opened it last night? Who had access?”
“The security log shows Dr. Jacobson opened this door at 10:13
p.m.”
Castillo and erdman left the obvious unspoken for now. Why Jacobson? And, if a hostage, why hadn’t his heart rate been up? “Only one security
guard?” Castillo asked instead. “I would think that when working for
the Department of Defense —”
“Massey has only the one. The labs, the DSTI building, are far
more secure.”
“Why’s that?”
“here you are . . .” erdman pretended not to hear the question and
motioned toward an already-open doorway. “Dr. Jacobson’s office.”
The room proved spacious and expensive. It had also been totally
destroyed. The chairs and dark sequoia coffee tables splintered into
pieces. The cabinets emptied. Built-in shelves split and bare, the books
in lopsided piles on the floor. Someone had clearly tried to start a fire
with some of the paperwork. Mirrors and framed pictures had been demolished into shards of glass, and several computers and monitors were
smashed, so that the whole room glittered beneath the harsh, unnatural lighting recessed above. The large desk was covered in blood that
pooled along the edges of the missing doctor’s laptop.
“This the teacher’s blood?” Castillo asked. “The one from the stairwell.”
“Mrs. Gallagher,” erdman confirmed. “right. She would have been
sixty next month.”
Castillo looked around, pointed to the swaddled cloth in the sink of
the understated wet bar tucked into the corner of the office. “And that’s
the . . .”
“yes.”
Castillo nodded, made to examine the room casually, while his mind
absorbed the information. Mrs. Gallagher’s entrails and uterus not ten
feet away. This is worse than Towraghondi, he thought suddenly. God, I
didn’t think that was even possible. To clear his mind, he tried focusing
on the only two things in the room not completely destroyed. The fish
tank, which, though tinged slightly pink with blood, was still intact with
a dozen saltwater beauties still swimming about.
And the framed needlepoint behind the desk. Old english lettering:
    And our LORD set a mark upon Cain,
And he dwelt in the land of Nod,
on the east of Eden.
    “he nicknamed it the ‘Cain gene’ early,” erdman said behind him.
“Cain XP11. for Cain and Abel.”
“Got that part. first killer ever. Cute. What’s the ‘XP11’?”
“A coding gene which influences the protein transcription and enzymatic activity of DArPP-32, dopamine, and cAMP-regulated phosphoprotein.”
“Don’t be a dick,” Castillo said. So much for playing quiet and nice.
The doctor held up his hand in apology. “Dopamine influences
anger. In short, MAOA, or monoamine oxidase A, helps govern dopamine levels and is a keystone for high biological plausibility in