Free Mirrors by Karl C Klontz

extracted a small package. “He left this for you.”
    Inside were a cell phone, passport, and business cards with the inscription:
    Oscar Fields
    Sales Manager
    Omega-3-Seafood
    Frederick, Maryland
    “Your identity,” she explained.
    “Seafood?” I mumbled.
    “You’re traveling as a prospective buyer.”
    I found it odd to see my photo in a passport paired with the name
Oscar Fields
and a birth place of Iowa.
    Eve took the passport and set it down. “Are you ready to talk about your trip to California?”
    I hesitated.
    “I visited Danny’s house,” I said after a while. “I found a letter he was writing to me in which he said someone had broken into his home and took the letters I’d written him.”
    “Why would they do that?”
    I shook my head and told her about the rest of the trip.
    After eating, we walked home along empty streets, although with traffic almost absent, the black SUV that trailed us was hard to miss. At least Flagstaff was true to his word: a security detail had been assigned.

    The new cell phone rang as we stepped inside.
    “Good, you got the packet,” Flagstaff said. “You leave tomorrow first thing, which is just as well because the XK59 story will break then. The Task Force thought it was time to inform the public.” He paused. “In the meantime, do you know someone named Charles E. Oxford, PhD?”
    “No, why?”
    “Because, our security team saw a young woman leave his business card on your door mat. You’ve never heard of his company—
BioVironics Pharmaceuticals and Neutraceuticals
?”
    My heart skipped. “Up the road, in Germantown?”
    “You know it, then.”
    “I learned about it in California.” I told him about the bottled drink Danny’s parents had given me.
    “Stay put. I’ll have someone from the lab come get it immediately.”
    Forty minutes later, a man in a natty suit with boyish good looks appeared at the door. “
Distamus ab aliis
.”
    “
Proprius orbis
,” I replied with scorn.
    He extended his hand. “Alistair Brubeck, director of the UNIT lab. I’ve come for the bottled drink.”
    I gave it to him.
    “What about the results on levels of XK59 in the victims?” I asked. “Have you got them?”
    “Not yet.” He started down the steps. “But I’ll call you with them soon.”
    He raced away in a chauffeured car.

Day 3.
    “Mr. Fields, your passport,” a voice beckoned as I stared at a departure screen at Dulles International Airport.
    “Mr. Fields!” the voice repeated.
    I shifted my eyes to the counter.
    “I’m sorry.” I handed the airline agent my passport.
    He took my suitcase in exchange for a boarding pass, and after clearing security, I rode a shuttle to the gate where I received a call from Alistair Brubeck.
    “Can you talk?” he asked.
    I glanced about. With an hour remaining before my flight’s departure, the gate was sparsely populated.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “I’ve got the results you requested—levels of XK59 in the victim who died in Seattle and in leftover shrimp recovered from his refrigerator.”
    “Let’s hear them,” I replied.
    “It’s odd, but the levels in the shrimp were far lower than those in the victim. We triple-checked them.”
    “Give me the values.”
    Papers rustled.
    “In the shrimp, there was one
microgram
of XK59 per kilogram of tissue, which is equivalent to 1 part per
billion
, whereas in the victim, there was one
milligram
of XK59 per kilogram, or 1 part per
million
. That’s a thousand-fold higher concentration in the victim.”
    “One part per million in the victim,” I repeated. “That’s the same level of XK59 I found in the mice that bled to death, only to produce that level, I had to feed the rodents chow that contained 10 parts per million of XK59.”
    “Sounds like one part per million of XK59 in tissue causes fatal bleeding,” Brubeck observed.
    “Yes, but it’s baffling that the concentration of XK59 in the shrimp was so low. For the victim to have accumulated a level a