Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lexi
“Can you fill us in regarding what you know of their current operation?” I asked.
Barbie took a moment to compose herself and then looked down at her notebook, now filled with notes.
“You already know the essentials and more.” She tapped her pen against the paper.
“I’d heard whispers about something called ‘For the Birds’ in regard to the original federal contracts and the CIA ties, but it was classified, so I never got traction there.
Whatever sources you’re using…” She let out a low whistle.
“You’ve done in days what took me months, even years, to discover and piece together. ”
Gray glanced at me. “We’re motivated.”
“And your original piece on the lab was incredible,” Gwen said. “You inspire us by your dedication to helping animals.”
Barbie’s gaze lingered on all of us. “I can see that,” she said quietly. “And while I’m impressed…I’m also a little scared of you guys.”
That, frankly, felt fair.
“Sure, we’re capable, but we also had some help from our significant others,” I admitted.
“We’re all professionals at this type of thing and have some…
unique skills. Unfortunately, today I tried to follow the money and hit a wall.
It’ll take me longer than we have to break through on that front.
However, we were able to confirm that Tango Bio is a privately held company and they have no current federal or state research contracts. ”
“They also don’t appear to be currently licensed or permitted for biological or vertebrate research in New Jersey, as far as I can tell,” Gwen interjected.
“Their prior license with the state lapsed three years ago. Their federal biological safety cabinets, or BSC certification, has also expired. Looks like their biosafety level four certification was last renewed and inspected over fifteen years ago. It’s possible they could be developing biomechanical technology solutions, such as automated prostheses, but that wouldn’t correspond with the surgical implants we found on Ginger or even the fact they’re experimenting on animals in the first place. ”
“Not to mention, the current lab and staff must be expensive to maintain,” Gray said emphatically. “We need to discover who’s paying for it and what they hope to get out of it.”
Barbie reached down and pulled out a folder from her portfolio.
“That’s precisely the million-dollar question I’ve been trying to answer.
Unfortunately, I don’t have that answer, but I do have some information that might point you in the right direction.
It starts back with Vision Zone. There was plenty that didn’t make it into the article because I could never corroborate it, and frankly, it wasn’t essential to exposing the animal mistreatment and shutting the operation down. ”
“What kind of information?” I asked.
“When Vision Zone resurrected the old Tango Bio lab in Arizona in the late ’90s, they believed technology had finally caught up with their ambition. Miniaturization, neural mapping, computing. All of it had advanced enough that they thought they could succeed where they’d failed before.”
“So, this wasn’t a new idea?” Gray asked.
“Not even close,” Barbie replied. “It was a second attempt. Same dream. Better tools.”
“And they expected government contracts?” I asked.
“That was the goal,” Barbie said. “But they needed seed money first to build out the lab, buy equipment, and hire staff. None of that’s cheap. And that money didn’t come from the US government.”
I leaned forward. “Foreign?”
“My source insisted it was,” Barbie said. “Likely Middle Eastern. He never met the investors. Never saw them or knew what they wanted. Just money appearing in the accounts and orders flowing down.”
“There has to be a trail,” I muttered.
“But it gets worse,” Barbie said. “By then the intelligence community wasn’t interested in theory anymore.
They wanted working prototypes. Proof. When Vision Zone couldn’t deliver fast enough, the government lost interest and the lab had to scale back their plans to limp along on foreign funding alone. ”
“And they cut corners,” Gray guessed.
Barbie nodded grimly. “Staff. Care. Oversight. Everything. That’s what led to the conditions I exposed. My source didn’t turn because of ethics. He turned because he hadn’t been paid in two months.”
A heavy silence settled over the table.
“I never managed to track down the investors,” Barbie continued. “When the investigators returned to the lab after the initial visit, they found the place wiped and the business files gone. Like someone vacuumed the place clean.”
Gwen frowned. “How was there anything left for Tango Bio to buy years later?”
Barbie smiled thinly. “Excellent question. I don’t have a clean answer. But I do know several key Vision Zone personnel resurfaced here at Tango Bio’s New Jersey facility.”
“So, the research survived,” Gwen breathed.
“Some of it,” Barbie replied. “But Tango Bio was already struggling by then. Their biomedical devices division had a bad decade. Products failed and the ones that worked got undercut by cheaper Chinese manufacturing.”
“So, they were desperate,” I said.
“Yes. A former manager told me an overseas company approached them with money. Enough to keep Tango afloat, but only if they acquired Vision Zone’s assets.”
I blinked. “That’s…a deal with the devil.”
“Tango leadership saw it as low cost, high upside,” Barbie said. “They handed the Vision Zone people a separate lab and gave them whatever they wanted. No questions asked.”
“And no one knew what they were doing?” Gwen asked.
“Officially, no,” Barbie said. “Unofficially? People knew better than to ask.”
I paused. Something wasn’t adding up. “Why wouldn’t the foreign investors just hire the researchers directly?”
“I asked that question and several experts gave me the same theories,” she replied.
“First, you have US tech-transfer restrictions. Some high-technology computing research can’t legally leave the country.
Second, sometimes there are domestic or religious limits in the home country regarding research.
Third—and, in my opinion, the most important—is that they want the results without their fingerprints on the crime scene. ”
Basia blinked. “So, that’s the scary, unethical part.”
“Yes, because it suggests intent, and not a good one,” Barbie confirmed.
We sat with that, thinking over everything Barbie had just said. She’d confirmed almost everything we’d uncovered and added more.
Gray pushed away from the table and stood, holding a coffee mug in her hand. “So, what’s the next move, Lexi?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I pulled up Google Maps and studied the satellite view of Tango Bio Research Solutions.
Tango Bio’s lab sat about an hour north of Atlantic City, tucked into a deeply forested area without a close neighbor.
In fact, the nearest site was the Batsto Village where we’d met Ginger, and that was two miles east of the laboratory.
Ginger had either been incredibly lucky or awfully smart to have gone in the right direction to reach humans to help her.
Had it been coincidence or intelligence?
Frustrated, I peered at my screen, trying to improve the visual.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t see much of the lab from the satellite view.
There was only a single road to access the facility.
The view from the satellite showed the building to be aggressively boring.
Rectangular. Gray. Nondescript. There was a parking lot out front and that was about the extent of my view.
The large forest practically swallowed it up.
I suddenly stood up, surprising everyone. “We need to check out the lab for ourselves.”
“In person?” Gray asked, clearly skeptical.
“Yes. I’ve probed online, and Tango Bio’s external network firewall and security is pretty good.
I doubt I can hack in when I’m limited by time, the casino Wi-Fi’s bandwidth, and the resources on my laptop.
But there’s a chance their local network security isn’t as robust. So, I recommend we check out the site to give me a chance to probe their security from up close. ”
“Did you just say ‘hack in’?” Barbie asked, staring at me, confused.
“Yeah, that’s kind of my job,” I said.
“Don’t worry, she’s a white-hat hacker,” Basia explained. “Meaning she doesn’t hack for malicious purposes. Right, Lexi?”
“Technically, I’m a computer security expert,” I said.
“Walks like a duck…talks like a duck,” Basia responded, and I sighed.
“Well, I like the plan,” Gray suddenly said. “Reconnaissance. Figuring out what kind of security setup the lab has. How do people get in and out of the building? It’s not a bad idea, Lexi. The more information we have, the better decisions we can make.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “I just want to look at the place and see it for myself. We don’t go in. We don’t confront anyone. We just drive up, look at the facility, and see what kind of security they’re running. I probe their Wi-Fi and just get a feel for things.”
“Maybe we can confirm whether something big is about to happen,” Basia said.
“That will be doubtful from our vantage point, unfortunately,” I said. “But that’s okay. We’ll gather what intel we can and leave.”
“When do we go?” Gwen asked. “Tonight?”
Gray shook her head. “I recommend sooner. It’s better to reconnoiter in the daylight so we can actually see things. Plus, there’s only one road in and out. We don’t want to leave our car alone, or nearly alone, in the parking lot. It’ll be conspicuous.”
“It’s Sunday,” Basia pointed out. “Won’t we be conspicuous based on that alone?”
“We don’t have to park in the lab parking lot,” Barbie interrupted us. “There’s a hiking trail about half a mile past the turnoff. I used it the last time I scoped the place. If we park there, no one will see the car. The trail runs behind the building. I’ve used it before to observe the lab.”