He took the warning in stride—but obeyed.
She clamped down on her own impatience and swallowed it firmly as Tarrington finally retrieved the black rugged case that had been stashed on the deck at the starboard side of the OR since before they'd entered. The moment he hefted the case atop a waiting cart and cracked it open, the connection between that seizure, the rictus, those pinpoint lung hemorrhages, as well as the colonel's unusual fascination with the liver, locked in.
Hope outright exploded within.
Riyad stiffened. "Is that a—"
"Shhh." But she nodded, even as she mentally crossed every single one of her un-contracted fingers and toes. Hell, her soul.
If she was right—if Tarrington was right—what she now knew he suspected wasn't mitigating at all. It was outright exculpatory.
She also understood the fresh round of confusion burrowing in between her fellow agent's brows as he watched the ME fire up the specialized equipment within the case. After all, Riyad was a counterintelligence specialist. He was used to thinking in terms of terrorists. Bomb-making materials and explosive residue.
The microTLC that Tarrington had brought with him to the aircraft carrier was definitely used in the course of those types of investigations. The Thin Layer Chromatography system was often crucial to solving them. But it was capable of so much more. The portable gem had been designed to analyze forensic and environmental samples in the field, and even on the battlefield, in a variety of ways. The microTLC could detect explosives, illicit drugs, insecticides and pesticides from samples taken from a surface, liquid or solid.
In this case, liquid.
She watched as Tarrington switched on the microTLC's screen, retrieved one of the small plastic developing chambers and placed it in the waiting slot, then added the mobile phase. Next, he swabbed a sample from the blood he'd drawn from the translator's heart, added in the acetonitrile and began the agitation.
From there, the agonizing wait commenced as he nudged the sample through the remaining steps until, finally, it disappeared into the machine.
She tried to keep her hope in check as the minutes continued to tick out…and failed. Unlike Riyad, she knew the colonel wasn't looking for evidence of tetanus any more, or even epilepsy. He was looking for something else.
Something that could turn this entire case on its head.
Based on the sudden release of tension in the colonel's shoulders, he'd found it.
Unfortunately, she was too far away to read the confirmation on the microTLC's screen.
"What—"
She glared at Riyad, cutting him off once again. "I said, shhh." Tarrington wasn't ready to share, and she'd be damned if she'd allow the spook to jinx this.
Somehow, she found the patience to stand there beside Riyad, silent, as the colonel repeated the entire procedure with yet another sample. This one taken from the collection he'd removed from the translator's liver.
"Agents?"
That was their cue.
Relief flooded in as the ME turned to wave them over. The colonel's face and body were still set in impartial stone. But he was smiling inside.
It was in the gleam in his eyes.
She followed the spook around the gurney and stepped up to the microTLC's screen beside the men. And there it was. That lovely, exculpatory word.
Strychnine.
With it came the second tectonic shift in her day—as well as her current mission. Someone aboard the Griffith was guilty of murder, but it wasn't John.
Because Tamir Hachemi had been poisoned.
11
Regan dug her fingernails into her palms to keep from swaying as the relief blistered through her body, burning through the tension and the terror of the day.
She still couldn't quite believe it.
Strychnine.
She freely admitted that deep down, she'd been praying for a reprieve for John. The proverbial stay of execution. But what he'd received was so much more. That single word had granted John an honest-to-God Get Out of Jail Free card.
Of course, the container designed to preserve Tamir Hachemi's brain, along with the blood and tissue samples Colonel Tarrington had culled, still needed to be shipped to the Joint Pathology Center at Fort Detrick for a more detailed workup. But those ten tiny letters on the microTLC's screen were definitive.
Unless—
She turned to the ME. "Did you find anything else?"
The welcomed burn intensified as the colonel shook his head. "Nothing to contraindicate poisoning as cause of death. And much to support it. Mr. Hachemi's pupils are still dilated; his mucus membranes are cyanotic."
"The pinpoint hemorrhages in the lungs?"
"Those, too." Tarrington nodded. "I also found star-shaped scarring in the tissue of the heart consistent with previous arrhythmia. Whether or not Mr. Hachemi or the US Army were aware of it, the man's heart was not healthy."
"So that seizure Corporal Vetter and Staff Sergeant Brandt reported to me—"
"Was not a seizure at all. It was the beginning of Mr. Hachemi's first convulsion, which unfortunately also led to the heart attack, that killed him. If Mr. Hachemi's heart had been healthy, he would have most likely suffered several more convulsions. With this particular compound, there tend to be two to four, on average. Unfortunately, given that no one would've been looking for the strychnine, I'm almost certain he would've died anyway. And those additional convulsions would have been excruciating."
"Strychnine?"
Riyad was still staring at the microTLC's screen, seemingly stuck on that beautiful, exonerating word. And his scowl had returned.
What the hell was wrong with the guy?
Give the dicey geopolitics of the case—not to mention that the White House, Islamabad and Kabul were bound to be read in on the autopsy report—he should've been as relieved as she was that John's actions hadn't led, or even contributed, to an Afghan translator's death. Especially this translator.
Instead, the spook was pissed.
Why?
Tarrington must have been wondering the same thing, because he'd begun frowning too. "Yes, Agent Riyad. Strychnine." The colonel retrieved the blood and tissue samples he'd finished testing and began to pack them up for transport. "Unfortunately, this is not the first case I've heard of in the military. The poison is obtained from strychnos nux vomica and related plants found in southern Asia and Australia, and is quite deadly. Death usually occurs within two hours of a fatal dose. Though strychnine was once available as cathartic pills, it has no true medicinal use. However, since the early sixteenth century, the compound has also been used to eradicate—"
"—rodents. I know." The spook had finally shifted his scowl from the screen to her. "What I don't understand, is how the hell it got on board a naval vessel. Especially since rat poison hasn't contained strychnine for decades."
An excellent question.
Unless they weren't looking for rat poison at all.
Regan had finally placed the case that had been dogging her brain since the beginning of the autopsy, quite possibly the same case to which Tarrington had referred. One of her instructors had shared the details during her CID course—ironically, the same instructor who'd become her mentor and one of Hachemi's many victims: Art Valens.
A decade earlier, Art had been tasked with investigating the death of a married sergeant in Bagram, Afghanistan. During the autopsy, the sergeant's body had displayed the same distinctive rictus and contracted digits as Hachemi's. The coroner had initially suspected rabies from one of the dogs that soldiers snuck onto the airbase.
It hadn't been rabies at all, but gopher bait.
Unbeknownst to the sergeant, the bait had been mixed in with the food his extracurricular girlfriend had been bringing to his quarters. But, according to Art, it had taken time and a hell of a lot of the stuff to kill the sergeant.
Not only had Hachemi been aboard the Griffith for the past fourteen days, he'd been in the brig the entire time.
D
id the killer work in the galley?
But even if word about that cave massacre had leaked out and someone in the galley had decided to exchange his or her integrity for revenge, how would a sailor have gotten ahold of the poison?
Rats were one thing. Surely warships didn't have a reason to keep gopher bait lying around?
Then again, "It's possible the ship's rat poison was mislabeled at the factory. If so, the container might actually contain gopher bait. Or perhaps the bait was manufactured outside the States, in a country without stringent pesticide oversight."
As soon as she left the OR, she'd have someone from the carrier hail the Griffith via ship-to-ship comms. Chief Yrle could begin collecting up any bait the Griffith had aboard before she and Riyad even returned.
Naturally, Hachemi's cell would have to be searched too; Durrani's as well.
And soon.
Tarrington nodded. "It's also possible your suspect only intended to make Mr. Hachemi ill. The murder may have been accidental due to his heart."
Riyad ignored the ME's comment as he continued to scowl—at her. "That's what CID's nauseatingly feted agent is going to toss onto the table? A mislabeled carton?"
Regan ignored the feted agent crack as she shrugged. They had to start somewhere. And, frankly, she'd come across weirder over the past few years. Granted, Tarrington's possibility was by far the more likely scenario of the two. But until she had a chance to sit down and work out a timeline of who, besides those two Marine guards, even knew the translator had been coming aboard the Griffith—as well as who had access to strychnine—she was as stumped at the spook.
Except, Riyad wasn't stumped. Far from it. It was right there in that scowl.
He couldn't possibly still believe John was guilty of murder?
But his next words suggested yes. They were also directed not at her but at the ME. "The injuries to the translator's face—"
Tarrington's shake was swift and decisive. "Did not contribute to his death. Mr. Hachemi would've needed to have his jaw wired shut for six to eight weeks, and his nose set into place, but that's all. The poison caused his first convulsion, which in turn caused his heart attack. Without the strychnine in his system, the man would have lived."
There. Surely that was definitive enough?
But if anything, Riyad's scowl deepened, even as he continued to ignore her in favor of the ME. "Can we borrow the microTLC?"
Tarrington nodded. "Certainly. Not only is Agent Chase certified on its use, I don't anticipate needing it over the next twenty-four hours. Possibly longer. My suicide involves a handgun. If my needs change, I'll contact the Griffith."
The ME removed the disposable materials he'd used for the two tests he'd run and closed the case. He turned to pass the microTLC to her, only to be intercepted by Riyad.
Tarrington's brow rose as the spook brusquely thanked him for his time and turned to depart the compartment…with the case.
Wow. Riyad must've skipped military etiquette at his NCIS agent's course, because he'd been nothing short of an absolute jerk since they'd met. With everyone.
As for the microTLC, she didn't care who carted it to the Griffith. The only thing that concerned her was the tests she needed to run—and the results.
She offered the colonel a shrug and her own decidedly more sincere appreciation for his time and expertise during the autopsy.
"You're welcome, Agent Chase. I'll forward my initial report to your email before I depart for Bahrain." With that, the ME resumed packing the samples he'd collected.
She'd been dismissed.
Regan departed the OR.
She hadn't expected Riyad to be waiting outside the door for her, and he wasn't. But neither had she expected to find him at the far side of the otherwise deserted patient ward, already unmasked and with one of those shipboard, sound-powered phones—powered by, well, sound—fused to his right ear and mouth. From the tension knotting up the muscles beneath that polo, not to mention his voice, the man's mood had yet to improve.
"Yes, Lieutenant. All of it. Every goddamned carton of bait you've got. Tell Chief Yrle I want it waiting in the master-at-arms shack before my return. No exceptions." He jammed the receiver home and spun around. Glared. "Well? You still got a problem with my investigative procedure?"
"Nope." Not on this. "It'll save time."
He blinked. The scowl faded—slightly. "You don't think the bait's mislabeled either, do you?"
She shook her head.
"Then why the hell—"
"It needs to be excluded." Might as well start there while she worked out the rest.
"Then how do you really think strychnine got onboard?"
This time, she offered a shrug—and the truth. "I have no idea. Yet." But she would. As mysteries went, they were dealing with a doozy of a locked-room scenario. Only in this case, the poison appeared to have been located on the outside of the door. Damned if she could figure out how it had been nudged across the proverbial threshold, let alone who was responsible for the nudging. "None of this makes sense."
On the one hand, they had Nabil Durrani.
As a physician, Durrani could've easily uncovered and chosen to abuse knowledge of his cohort's preexisting heart condition. Not only had Durrani been the brains behind that Afghan terror cell, the doc also had one hell of a motive to kill his bastard-in-arms. Namely, to shut Hachemi up before the translator could identify their unknown American traitor. But Durrani also had less access to strychnine than some unnamed, affronted shipboard sailor.
Hell, Durrani had had even less opportunity to actually poison Hachemi than the Marine guards.
In short, the Afghan doc would have to have found a like-minded marionette aboard a US naval warship willing and able to do his bidding.
A situation that appeared extremely unlikely.
As for Corporal Vetter and Staff Sergeant Brandt, either Marine could've tainted Hachemi's food as easily as one of the mess cooks, possibly more so, given that the Marines were bound to have been entrusted with said food without others present.
But Vetter and Brandt weren't just Marines. The corporal and staff sergeant currently served as US embassy security guards. As such, the men were considered the best of the best—for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which included loyalty, personal and professional restraint, and the proven ability to keep their mouths shut.
Both men would've known who they'd be guarding from the moment the assignment came down, but would either have shared that knowledge out of turn?
She suspected not.
Nor did the math add up. Both Vetter and Brandt had been on board the Griffith for four weeks, since the fifteenth of December.
But the Marines weren't the only guests the Griffith had hosted lately. And a politician was a whole other animal. One more akin to a loose-lipped hyena than a silent, steadfast bulldog culled from the cream of the Corps.
"When did the diplomats board the ship? Where?" She'd assumed the Griffith had been at sea at the time, as it had been when she'd arrived.
Was she wrong?
Riyad must have anticipated the direction of her thoughts, because he shook his head. "The Griffith has been at sea since mid-November. She was taking part in a multi-national training exercise in the Indian Ocean when she was rerouted to the Arabian Sea to house the diplomats. All of them. The US ambassador and her staff, as well as the Pakistani and the Afghan contingents. Everyone arrived via the same Super Stallion that's waiting for us up on the Reagan's flight deck. The ship has been underway for nearly sixty days."
Damn.
While that underway timeline stunk for those sailors, it was even worse for this case.
But speaking of that CH-53E, "What about the pilot and the crew of the helicopter? Where did they drop off the diplomats once the geopolitical bitch-fest wrapped up?"
Odds were, the American ambassador and her staff, as well as the Pakistani and Afghan contingents, would have all been told that the translator and the doc were headed for
deep interrogation aboard the same ship that the diplomats had just departed.
Given the current drawdown in the region, surely that gaggle of Afghan diplomats would've included at least one member of the Taliban, possibly more?
If so, would that Taliban have been as tight-lipped as the Marines?
Riyad removed his latex gloves and dumped them in the biowaste container beside him. "They left via the same UAE airstrip where they retrieved you. They all picked up the final legs of their respective US military hops from there."
"And Durrani and Hachemi? Were they picked up at the same place, at the same time? Or was there a delay between the diplomatic departures and the prisoner boardings?"
A delay during which someone on that chopper crew would also have known who they were now waiting on…and why.
The spook nodded. "Same strip. Same day. The crew was forced to wait at Al Dhafra for roughly three hours before the prisoners arrived."
"You're certain?"
This nod was firmer. "I was there. My orders put me on the same helo hop to the Griffith as the prisoners. I arrived at Al Dhafra before the helicopter touched down with the diplomats and the embassy guards. I watched them all disembark."
"What about the guards? Did either Vetter or Brandt—or any of the Super Stallion's crew—leave the apron during the wait?"
A third nod. "All of them. But no one left the terminal."
But who was to say one of them hadn't been met in, say, the latrine?
Still, three hours? A tight window to say the least. So tight, a potential perpetrator would have to have phoned a trusted contact ahead somehow, so that the poison would be waiting for him. On an airstrip in the middle of the desert in the UAE.
Damned difficult. But not impossible.
She'd noted tighter timing—and harsher, seemingly insurmountable odds—before. And when she added in that fact that the Marine guards and chopper crew had to have known who they were supposed to be picking up…
But it was still a damned dicey stretch.
Regan peeled off her gloves, surgical mask and shield, and deposited them into the same biowaste container where Riyad had dumped his gloves. "What about port calls? Has the Griffith pulled in anywhere since the translator and the doc reached the ship? Even briefly?"
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