by Lou Paduano
“I told you!” the third figure on the monitor snapped. Morgan Dunleavy stood taller than the pair, towering in the room with flawless ebony skin and deep brown eyes. “We never should have left him in there.”
Ruth seethed, “I’m done talking about this with you, Morgan. So back off or I swear to—”
“Knock it off,” Metcalf hissed into the line.
“He was infected. The specimen activated when he came into contact with it, and the pathogen was released.”
“But his mask?”
Heller shook her head. “Direct contact negated our protocols. The virus was in his bloodstream before we had a chance to react. The only reason we’re still standing is because of Grissom.”
Metcalf covered up the receiver on her set, then turned to Zac. “I need the op rundown. Now.”
It was in her hand in the next breath. She glanced through it, noting every milestone. The breach occurred at 0738 hours to the southern wall of the structure. The team split upon entry. Ruth and Lincoln focused on the server room and the research of Oliver Blake. Grissom and Morgan attempted to locate the man himself.
At 0751, Ruth had checked in. The servers had been wiped clean. It was a definite surprise, considering they represented the man’s entire life. It was research maintained in secret for years from what they’d learned in their own study of the situation. Blake would never delete something so vital to his being.
That summed up the next line item with a nice question mark as well. Grissom and Morgan had located Oliver Blake in the hall, dead, at 0754. The gun sat in his hand, the initial thought suicide.
Metcalf skimmed the rest. Nothing indicated chatter of a secondary objective. Nothing mentioned Grissom leaving behind his partner and his duty to pursue an unspoken mission.
“Why was he in the lab?” she asked, more to herself than those around her, but the team sought to fill the void of her silence.
“He was right next to me,” Morgan said. “We found Blake and were examining the wound. Evidence pointed to self-infliction, but I wanted to run some tests on the gun. When I looked up, Grissom was down the hall in the lab looking through the samples inside.”
“One fell. He went to catch it and—” Ruth couldn’t finish.
“He sealed the lab,” Lincoln said.
“Grissom saved us,” Morgan continued. “Now we should save him.”
“Don’t,” Ruth snapped. “Just don’t. You saw him. You saw what one minute of exposure did to Grissom. You want that out in the world?”
“No. I want him out in the world. And we can save him without risk to ourselves—without direct contact. I have to try.”
“No,” Metcalf said. “We don’t know what he’s been exposed to. We have no way of handling the toxin.”
“He’s dying in there!”
“Metcalf,” Lincoln uttered, the name straining from his lips. He pulled the Glock from his right shoulder. “Let me do this. He doesn’t deserve to suffer.”
“Put that damn gun away, Lincoln!” Morgan shouted. “Before I shove it up your—”
“You’re going to expose us to the same—”
Their voices bellowed through the line. They echoed in the Operations hub. Tears fell from the cheeks of the analysts behind Metcalf. Sorrow filled the faces of everyone in attendance. The fighting was not that of professionals, but of colleagues and friends. Family, of a sort: one built through years of training and experience with the man locked in a room down the hall.
“We have no way of knowing what this is,” Metcalf started, silencing the trio on the screen. It should have been a flawless operation, the same as Grissom had executed since the department’s inception. “We have no idea what Blake was working on, especially since his servers have been wiped clean. We also don’t know whether he was aware of our arrival or some other player intervened. We don’t know anything.”
“We have to try,” Morgan said. Her medical training shone through in every situation. Her time as a physician dictated her priorities.
“He’s already gone, Morgan,” Lincoln answered. “At least my way—”
And they were lost to it again: their failure and their anger. Ruth, however, maintained a modicum of respect, head bowed in thought and prayer for a moment until she tapped her mask.
“I need your orders, Director.”
Metcalf understood the meaning of her statement, the truth behind the request being made. She knew it had been coming the moment the call arrived from the team before the predetermined exfil time. Ruth wanted more than to ask Metcalf’s opinion. She wanted absolution from what had to be done. She wanted to put it on someone else, anyone other than the team.
That left Metcalf. It always left Metcalf.
“Director?”
Every choice fell to her. Every stare in the room waited for an answer. She became the center of the world for the DSA in that moment—but she was elsewhere. She relived a decade’s worth of memories in an instant, recalling the man who had stood at her side through it all. A memorial in the blink of an eye, for that was all the time she had left.
“CDC agents are en route,” Metcalf said, her words cold and booming in the silence of the operations hub. “Lock down the structure then proceed to exfil point C.”
“Grissom will die,” Morgan replied. Her eyes pleaded for more. The bio-readings flickered and faded. Grissom’s heart rate had slowed, and then it finally flatlined with the rest of his readings. “Grissom is dying in there!”
“Metcalf, this isn’t right,” Lincoln agreed. “He deserves a quick end.”
Ruth said nothing. The mantle of leadership already caused her shoulders to slump forward.
“Follow my orders,” the director commanded. Disdain shot her way. It surrounded her in the faces of everyone in the room. Zac, especially, looked shocked and unable to stand at her side as the words echoed through the line. “Extraction in one hour.”
“I can save him,” Morgan begged. “Let me—”
“He’s dead, Agent Dunleavy. Casualty of war.” Metcalf removed the headset, unwilling to listen to another word. She nodded to the team, all slipping back into place to continue their work. Zac’s thin glare burned through her, but eventually he returned to the monitor—plotting the course for their exfil point.
The silence abated and a dull hum filled the room. The murmurs began, the questions rising from everyone’s lips. Grissom was dead and Metcalf had ordered it.
She didn’t care at that moment. She couldn’t care about Zac’s anger or the concerns from the field team. Or about the twenty eyes that followed her departure from the Operations hub to the quiet of the hall.
Chapter Three
People swarmed the E-District Precinct. The masses took control and chaos ensued. Lines formed to the right and spread the length of the lobby, barring the entrance. Ben shuffled through, his badge accepted with groans from the unfortunates left to rot due to staff budget cuts. Those officers present did what they could. They pulled support from other departments where necessary, but the damage was done. The blame was placed on the full moon hovering over the city.
It certainly took its toll on everyone, including Ben. He rubbed at his eyes, wishing for sleep on his pillow-top mattress. Nothing sounded sweeter than eight to twelve hours of rest before starting all over again.
Emily needed him, though. When she called, he didn’t hear his phone. Only the missed call notification alerted him, indicating her presence at work. He found her waiting just inside, away from their shared desk. She stood at the printer, a Brooklyn Dodgers cap atop her head, short brown hair tucked tight within. The cap was a tradition, one of many held by the Wright family and passed down from her father’s line for three generations—like the job itself, and their family home. The Wrights were a staple of the city, inseparable.
“Em,” Ben called. He waved to grab her attention. “Hey, Emily!”
“Ben?” Her eyes connected with his, then da
rted around the room. She ditched the spewing papers at the printer and cut him off at the entrance. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Is your dad all right? Are you—?”
Emily shook her head. “My dad? Ben, what are you talking about?”
“You called me. I thought something might have happened, so I—”
“He’s fine,” she answered, hand to her brow. Her father’s chemo treatments were starting up again. It was another attempt to save his life, each one more desperate than the last. “My dad’s fine, Ben. But you shouldn’t be here.”
A crowd gathered in the stable, surrounding his desk in the corner. It was typical, considering the growing line outside looking for assistance. Most of the time, cops fed each other stories from the events of the day—exaggerated for laughs—all to cloud the misery and darkness seen in the city.
The job had that effect on everyone. When all you saw was the bottom, you had to reach for the top to try and find some light. That was a lesson from Ben’s mother, one taught through sarcasm and laughter, one he always appreciated—and one told daily thanks to his father’s impact on their home life.
When he noticed a pair of plainclothes from Homicide digging through his personal effects, Ben’s gaze thinned. “What’s going on?”
Emily shook her head, then grabbed his arm. She pulled him in the opposite direction, down the interrogation wing. The first room was empty. The door crashed against the paneling before swinging back. She held it open with her hand as she ushered them in for a modicum of privacy.
“Tell me you weren’t there.”
“Okay, I wasn’t,” Ben said. He leaned on the lone table in the center of the room. Emily slammed the door shut behind them. “Where wasn’t I supposed to be?”
“Cut the crap, Ben.”
“Your call sounded frantic and I assumed the worst,” he continued, trying to calm her down. She clenched tighter and her arms crossed her chest. “Hey, talk to me.”
“Did you actually listen to my message? The one where I said to stay away from the precinct?”
Ben tossed her an awkward smirk and shrugged. “I was busy, Em. I figured I’d come down and—”
“You were there again, weren’t you. That damn house on Wex?” Emily let out a heated breath. Her back settled against the wall. “I asked you not to go back. I asked you to drop it.”
“I can’t, Em,” Ben admitted. “And yeah, I was there. It’s my time and I can use it however I choose.”
He had gone every night for the last three weeks. He’d taken photos and circled the property for some sign of life. Nothing had cropped up since his initial visit. No visitors. No warehouse hidden inside the modest dwelling. It was just another abandoned property in the Lovejoy District as far as anyone could tell, but he’d witnessed the truth that first night: the technology, the operations, and the mystery of what was tucked beneath the surface. He was out to prove it to her—to anyone who would listen.
“I… I asked you to stop talking about it, Ben,” she stammered, her words barely a whisper. No longer angry, they were filled with disappointment and sadness. “I begged you to let it go and focus on the job.”
“This is the job, isn’t it?” Her anger had dimmed, but his rose. Citations and petty crime swallowed his existence. The dregs of humanity pulled at him with each shift, but when an honest-to-God mystery presented itself, he was supposed to forget about it? The impounded car had turned up nothing in their search—the vehicle listed as stolen months earlier. The man who had run from them was a ghost. No clues. No leads. “Someone is building something in that place. Working with technology I’ve never seen before. No one has.”
“You told me.” Her gaze fell low. “Another obsession. You’re always looking for more in the job, but sometimes there isn’t anything more, Ben. I wish there was too, but there isn’t.”
“That’s not what this is,” he said as he pushed from the table. He reached for her, but she turned for the door. “Hey. It’s not, okay? I took it up the chain—filed the proper reports. I played it smart, Em.”
“You always were the better cop, Ben.” Emily nodded, staring out the glass occupying the upper half of the door. “Until now.”
He joined her at the small window. The group gathered around his desk scattered. Two individuals paused outside the interrogation wing. One wore a white suit coat over khakis and had slicked-back hair. His companion, an aging African-American in a leather jacket, proceeded down the hall. Greasy fingers ran through his thin mustache.
“Is that Waters?”
Detective Horace Waters had served the precinct with distinction for over a decade. He’d transferred in from successful tours in four other major cities before settling on the Queen City as his home. Few held higher honors, including the role of hero to the masses.
“He took over the investigation, Ben,” Emily stated. She backed him away from the door. “He’s looking for you.”
“Who was that with him?” The man in the khakis kept his head down. He turned for the exit without a glance back.
“Government spook. Didn’t catch a name,” she replied. She pinched the bridge of her nose while pacing the length of the room. Ben returned to the table. His concern grew with each step. “Listen, Ben. They secured a search warrant for the home. What they found in there—”
“They found a way inside?” Ben stood upright, excitement in his eyes. His stakeout had drummed up zero information. His resources, however, were limited compared to the department. If they’d managed to secure a warrant for the space—a chance to explore the structure from top to bottom? “I knew something was going on. What else—?”
“Let me finish,” Emily snapped. Thin eyes burrowed into him. “They found a body, Ben.”
“A body? Who?”
“Our runner from that night,” she answered. “That wasn’t the end of it. DNA was found at the scene on the murder weapon. Your DNA.”
“What?” he nearly shouted. The bottom fell out from under him. His world faded, the truth about the impromptu gathering at his desk suddenly snapping into focus. “I never—”
“I know. Ben, I know, but they—”
The door opened, which caused both to jump. Emily reeled, falling back from the entrance. Horace Waters grinned at the pair. He had a thick file tucked under his arm.
“There you are, Sergeant Wright.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I was just—”
Ben shook his head and she retreated farther along the wall. Both understood the implication, both recognized the situation he had created with his stakeout of the house on Wex. This was bigger than they’d imagined and Ben refused to risk her position on top of his own. He owed her too much, cared too much, to allow that to happen.
“Well, I’ll take it from here,” Waters said and glanced to the open door. Emily shuffled slowly into the frame, but she refused to vacate completely.
Ben pressed forward, the accusations running through his head. “Detective, I don’t know what’s going on, but I—”
“I think the evidence speaks for itself.” Waters smiled. He circled the table and dropped the file in the center. A brush of his finger flipped the cover off and the images fell into view. Ben loomed over them, aggressively thumbing through each in turn.
There were dozens of photos of him from the last few weeks. They started innocuous enough. There were images of him outside the house, his nightly stakeout. With each new photo, a much different story unfolded. A large stash of drugs was uncovered in the domicile—meth, baggies of powder, and more of the solid crystal form. Scales and more paraphernalia were collected in the corner of the yellow-tinted entryway. Blood soiled some of the bags. When Waters flipped to the final image, Ben understood why. The man he’d chased inside the home on Wex that night weeks earlier was found dead in the living room. Blunt-force trauma to the back of the head made a clear case for the homicide detective. And the lab results of the DNA found a
t the scene pointed to only one other individual in the room.
“I didn’t do it!” Ben snapped. He rushed to the far side of the table. The set-up took hold, the score obvious the moment Waters stepped foot in the room. “What the hell is this? What kind of game are you playing, Waters?”
“Ben!” Emily yelled. He stopped an inch from Waters’ smug grin, then lowered his clenched fist. Her eyes softened as she fought back tears. “Don’t.”
Waters chuckled. He spun the overwhelmed officer around. A pair of cuffs snapped with finality against his wrists. “Listen to your girlfriend, pal. You’re under arrest.”
Chapter Four
The knob fought to turn. When it wasn’t a physical obstacle before Metcalf, it was her own doubts. She stood in the doorway, the same way she had every day for the last two weeks, unable to penetrate the confines of her office—unable to move on from Grissom’s death.
His belongings had been cleared out days earlier. She watched on, no words to temper the maelstrom swirling within her. No way of letting out the grief and the pain at letting him die. Without so much as a goodbye. Without so much as an explanation.
That was what it boiled down to in the end. She failed to understand—failed utterly and completely to figure out—the chain of events that led to the loss of this central figure in her life.
“Dammit, Jake,” she uttered as she stepped into the silence of her office. Darkness held firm, the shadows deepening as the door shut behind her. In the distance she almost felt his presence, the same way she had each day since. Waiting to hear his voice, an inappropriate joke or a kind word whispered in her ear. Then the lights snapped to attention, wiping away the small hope left to her—forcing her to face reality.
“What were you looking for in there? What the hell were you thinking?”