by C G Cooper
In the living room, Zelda dumped the remote control on the coffee table. Her knees cracked as she got to her feet. Mac ducked into a half-bath that opened off the hallway. He listened from behind the door for the sound of her shuffling his way, but after a moment heard her go into the kitchen. Pans rattled.
She was still talking to her lawyer. Actually shouting at him was more like it. He moved out of the bathroom with less noise than a man his size should have been able to make.
According to Anne’s schematics, the stairs to the Jarralds’ basement were accessible through a door off a perpendicular hallway to the one he was in. To reach it, he’d have to make himself visible from the kitchen for less than a second. Concealment was a matter of picking the right moment. He stood at the end of the hall listening until he heard a cupboard open on the other side of the room. Then, in one long stride, he stepped across the gap.
Hunting for a tea bag, Zelda missed him entirely.
The door to the basement had no lock. Mac opened it soundlessly. Taking deliberate care, he put his weight on the outside edge of the first step. The step accepted it without protest. Mac shut the door. The darkness was thickest near his head. At shin level, a thin band of light shone in under the door.
He listened for several minutes for the whine of a kettle and Zelda’s hurrying feet. When it came, he made his descent, bracing against the handrail to take the creak out of the stairs. At the bottom, he fished out his flashlight from a jacket pocket.
The basement was windowless, crowded with the usual odds-and-ends. The family had been uprooted a number of times. This was clear from the dilapidated condition of their cardboard boxes.
As he made his way around the space, swinging his flashlight, he spotted plastic bins labeled “Spring,” “Summer,” and “Charity.” An open toolbox, containing mostly empty space, almost tripped him, and he had to duck under a hanging basket of ornamental pine cones. When his light fell on a little girl’s bike, he paused for a two count before moving on.
Against the far wall stood a dusty wooden shelf. Beyond it stood the metal door that housed the family’s water heater. The door was locked, as Mac had expected it would be. With his LockAid, he sprang the tumblers in a few minutes. The door opened with a long creak.
Inside was a recessed space with cinderblock walls. There was generous clearance on three sides of the water heater and a gas detector on the ceiling in case the pilot went out. Mac stepped inside and closed the door. The cinderblocks trapped the heat well.
Resting the flashlight on top of the heater, he felt along the left-hand wall. A block at floor level was loose. He kicked it. It didn’t grind along the concrete but floated, a quarter of an inch off the ground. After pressing it in a couple inches, Mac heard a click, followed by a pneumatic sigh. The wall lifted slightly and floated away from him on a gleaming metal track.
The room Anne had sent him to find was coal-black. It had an acrid odor that Mac recognized instantly as belonging to the chemical Jordan had exhaled into his face. He retrieved his flashlight. There were no light switches on the walls of the secret lab. Evidently Brian controlled them remotely.
Thinking that the door was probably alarmed, Mac returned briefly to the basement and found the toolbox. Inside was a plumber’s wrench made of drop-forged steel longer than his forearm. He wedged it into what he could see of the sliding door’s mechanism. Confident that he couldn’t be locked in, he stepped inside.
Other than the built-in sinks and chromed gas piping, the resin tops of the four sturdy tables that occupied the middle of the lab were empty. Metal racks lined the walls, housing tins with handwritten labels. There were flasks in enough shapes and sizes to furnish a stage production of Frankenstein. A few were scorched; all were empty.
The absence of clutter suggested that Brian was in the process of shutting down his operation. Perhaps DIOS was killing the project, moving on. The author of the transmissions had scorned the “veil of unreason,” promising to “illuminate the true face.” He’d been playing for time. Had the patience of his masters run out?
On the right side of the back wall were a pair of double doors, set into a rounded depression. On the left, Mac’s flashlight picked out three metal cylinders, six-feet tall and half that in diameter. He snapped some pictures with his phone, shutting his eyes so the flash wouldn’t spoil his night vision.
Crates of aerosol cans were stacked beside the tanks. He picked one up and popped the lid. It was identical to the canister Jordan had used. Mac snapped a picture. He could tell by its weight that the can wasn’t empty. Mack slid the can into his jacket.
Would that be enough? It was the evidence he was after. Mostly evidence to convince himself that Anne’s account of events was on the level. She’d led him right to the “brilliant mind” behind the chemical that had sent Tiffany Garrett to her death. He was sure she was telling him no more than he absolutely needed to know, manipulating him as surely as Brian’s accomplices had manipulated Jordan Ross. She would spurn the comparison, but that didn’t make it less true.
DIOS, she had told him, would have a plan to destroy the lab. They didn’t leave loose ends. He had to get in quickly, while it was still possible to document the chemist’s activities. She’d encouraged him to get out quickly as well.
He did a rapid count. There were a dozen cans in each of the seven crates. Eighty-four, including the one he had taken. Whatever doubts Brian’s overlords had about his efforts, they’d supported him through the prototyping stage. Mass production couldn’t be far behind. The leftmost tank was fitted with a valve stem, from which the cans could be filled.
Curious about Brian’s back stock, he twisted the handle above the stem. Nothing happened. He examined the stem. Nothing was blocking the flow. He flashed his light on the other tanks. Their valve handles were twisted opposite the way the leftmost tank’s had been. He turned the middle tank’s handle, heard a faint hiss and turned it back the opposite way as fast as he could.
How could I be so stupid?
Then it hit.
The fear came first, followed by dizziness and mounting panic. Lightheaded, he stumbled against a table. The flashlight slipped from his grasp, cracked against the slate floor. Mac pitched sideways and fell. His cheek struck the ground, then his shoulder. The pain was welcome. Without it, he couldn’t have known if he had finished falling or was still spinning through space. He’d lost all sense of balance.
Fluorescents buzzed to life overhead. The black behind Mac’s eyes turned red.
A slightly metallic voice said, “Stay down. I’ll shoot if I have to.”
Mac said, “That a good idea in a gas-filled room?”
“PHOBOS isn’t flammable,” said the tall man.
“Good to know,” said Mac. He squeezed three shots out of the Beretta, aiming around the table legs and above the floor. The lack of screaming told him he hadn’t hit flesh, but that was okay. Pushing off his screaming shoulder, he rolled under the table. His back slammed up against a wooden brace. Looking around made him want to puke, but he did it anyway. His opponent was nowhere to be seen.
From somewhere across the room the tall man said, “This is pointless. You can’t even stand.” His metallic vibrato was less pronounced. Like Anne’s, his accent sagged under pressure. “Drop your weapon.”
Mac squeezed off another shot, just to let his opponent know he was still there. An eight-bullet magazine, Anne had said. That meant he could miss three more times.
Music began to play. It was faint, maybe a phone’s speaker, but in the quiet room it was loud enough.
“Put your weapon down,” said the tall man.
The spinning room began to take on new shapes. The wooden table legs elongated, becoming a dark forest. The trees watched him through knothole eyes. The slate floor cracked, threatening to tumble Mac into a pit of snakes.
Mac rubbed his lips together. He remembered Anne’s “topping up” in the headlights of the SUV, Emma’s kiss for luck, and the voodoo sh
e’d put on him the night he got beat up. The memories did as much to pull him out of his hallucinations as whatever neuroactive compounds the women had mixed into their lipstick.
“Put down your weapon and push it away,” insisted the tall man.
The volume of the music increased. Momentarily, his deep brain connected disobedience with death. His fingers loosened around the Beretta.
“You’re scared,” the man said. Mac could hear his frustration. “Let me help.”
The broken flashlight had rolled up against the leg of the table, ten inches away. Mac tilted onto his left side, shot another precious bullet into the ceiling past the man’s table. As it thudded into the soundproof paneling, he snagged the flashlight and tucked it under his belly.
An answering bullet ricocheted off the tile close to his head. In a terrified, pleading voice, Mac said, “Don’t shoot! I didn’t mean— The eyes. Help me. Help me, please.”
If their roles had been reversed, Mac would have put a bullet into himself. But the man who protected his identity with a robotic intonation was a psychopath and a narcissist. His inflated ego was a weakness Mac could exploit, he hoped.
“Put down your weapon,” said the man.
Mac clanked the Beretta on the floor, in imitation of Chance’s trick at the gym. He shoved the flashlight away from him, hard enough to spin it across the narrow aisle. It came to rest out of sight beneath a distant shelf. He slid the Beretta up the sleeve of his jacket.
“Good,” said the man. “Now slide out, slowly. You should be steady on your feet by now.”
“Yeah. Okay,” said Mac, clipping his words so that he sounded out of breath. He crawled out the way he had rolled in. The man on top of the table was wearing his red-ringed balaclava and brandishing a black semiautomatic whose trigger guard was long enough to admit his gloved finger.
“Help me,” said Mac. He held up his hands, flexing his forearms to keep the Beretta in place.
“Obey,” the man said. “Victory is near.” He waved his gun, directing Mac toward the open door.
Chapter Forty-Two
Mac moved haltingly, obeying his captor’s instructions one at a time. In stages, they moved out of the lab, the psychopath stopping twice to set charges of gelignite. They visited the four corners of the basement for the same reason. Anne’s instincts had been right about DIOS cleaning up behind themselves.
As Mac mounted the stairs at gunpoint, he guessed why he hadn’t been shot on sight. The tall man meant for him to murder Zelda, proving that Brian’s mind control technique worked. With Brian in jail, and his lab destroyed, only his surviving enforcers would possess the knowledge of how to recreate his work.
“Open the door,” the man ordered.
Mac obeyed, stepping out into the hallway to let his captor get clear. Zelda poked her head in from the kitchen.
“Em?” she said. Her eyes widened. “Mac? What are you—”
“Take her,” said the man.
The music swelled and Mac felt the surge of impulses that were meant to make the command irresistible. The walls were jagged cliffs, trembling on the verge of a rockslide. Mac’s only clear path led down the hall to Zelda, who glowed as if backlit. He ran at her, not because he couldn’t resist, but because he knew the man would shoot them both if he didn’t obey.
She retreated into the kitchen. He followed, making a swipe at her wrist that deliberately came up short. She dashed into the living room. He wondered if she kept a gun hidden nearby. If he could buy her enough time to go for a weapon, the distraction might be enough to let him pull his own.
Instead of reaching for a gun, Zelda grabbed her cell phone. She’d given up surfing news channels. The TV was tuned to the Food Network. Mac didn’t bother slapping the phone away.
Stepping over her back leg, he tripped her halfway to the floor, cinched both of his arms around her in a bear hug, and turned his head so that she wouldn’t be screaming directly into his ear. Behind her back, his hand slipped inside the sleeve of his jacket.
“Shut her up,” said the tall man.
Mac squeezed hard enough to turn Zelda’s scream into a gurgle, but not quite hard enough to break her bones.
“I want you to choke her,” said the man. “For science.” Despite the metallic accent, Mac could hear the excitement in the voice.
Mac propelled the birdlike body forward, completing the leg trip. Just before his arm hit the floor, he shifted his weight to the right. His hip hit hard as he squeezed off his last three shots.
The first exploded a knuckle of the tall man’s gun hand. The second bit into his shoulder. Shock made him throw open both arms, spreading his palms like an offer of salvation. The final round blew a hole in his chest, a perfect shot that dropped him to the ground like a sandbag.
Emma was standing in the entrance to the hallway, holding a rifle. She didn’t aim at the body. Mac wasn’t sure afterwards if that was because she knew it for a corpse or if she guessed, from its stained clothes, what the face under the balaclava looked like.
Zelda was rigid with fear. Mac sat her up gently and tucked the gun in his belt. Resting on one knee, he flipped the man over. When he found that the balaclava was stitched into his shirt, he tugged harder, snapping the threads.
Tad Marshall’s eyes stared up at nothing. Formulaically, Mac felt for a pulse. It was long gone.
He stood and took the rifle out of Emma’s hands, leaving her staring down at the body.
Summoning up Lynn’s face in his mind’s eye, Mac walked to the other side of the room and placed a call.
Chapter Forty-Three
In his office on the third floor of the Schuyler University Administration building, Brian Jarrald dusted his hands over a cafeteria tray piled high with empty plastic food cartons. Patting his gut, he smiled across the desk at Mac, said, “Last meal for the condemned man, eh?”
“I’m sure there’ll be more,” said Mac.
Brian chuckled and gave him a shrug.
“We doing this thing?” said Chance. The detective was leaning against the far wall, looking as anxious as Mac would have been if he’d not been so exhausted.
Mac pressed the start button on the app that would receive, encrypt, and transmit every sound picked up by the high-gain microphone he’d clipped to Brian’s coat. The Dean of Chemistry was manacled by left wrist and right ankle to his chair. Thankfully, the kitchen had already cut his blue cheese steak into modest bites.
As he cleared away some of Brian’s cartons, Mac scanned the back of his hands. He’d spent ten minutes in the Jarralds’ half-bath, scrubbing like a surgeon while Wilburville PD secured the scene.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Mac said, barely containing the disgust he felt.
“Very well,” Brian said. He cleared his throat. “As the mathematician prescribed, I’ll begin at the beginning. My father was born Ben-Zion Elihu Katzenellenbogen, in the German town of similar name. My parents avoided a good deal of unpleasantness by emigrating before the Second World War, settling in Scotland as the Jarrald family. Father was as red-headed as I am. That, I believe, was his motivation for choosing our new home.
“I grew to manhood in Renfrewshire, mixing happily with the sons and daughters of Navy men from HMS Sanderling, known in these commercial times as Glasgow International Airport. At the age of eleven, I lost my father to fever. Mother did me the kindness of remaining until I was seventeen, when cancer called her to heaven, or wherever nominal Presbyterians go.” His voice was inflectionless as he recited his backstory.
“I was the senior among my at-home siblings. That lent me a degree of immunity to the influence of a maiden aunt. Subject to her ministrations, I might have been persuaded to take on social work. Instead, I enrolled at the University of Aberdeen. I had a measure of talent in biochemistry. In due course, I earned a doctoral degree.
“Public record has it that I joined the Newlyn Institute directly following my student career. In fact,” he said, looking conspiratorial for a moment, “
I was courted by the Secret Intelligence Service while yet a sophomore. MI6 did not seek my immediate recruitment but promised certain favors should I agree to work covertly with institute boffins. They trusted me to keep our arrangement confidential. This was the glory days of the Cold War; all parties were committed one another’s undoing by secret means.
“For sixteen years I labored for Queen and country, devising chemical weapons and defenses against the same. Bullets kill so many, young and old, and make such a mess, yet it is our creations - neat, discreet, not to be beat,” he rhymed, “that are deemed the viler. Suffice it to say, all researchers at Newlyn were patriots in Her Majesty’s employ. Publicly, we created tests to detect homemade bombs. Privately, we supplied the UK and its allies with sophisticated tools of regime change, assassination, and enhanced interrogation.
“The work was exciting, for a time. I used to begin each day by hunting through the newspaper, estimating my impact on the world stage. Thanks to my strong brain and my predecessor’s weak heart, I became the youngest Director of Operations in Newlyn’s history. Mere mortals marveled at the hours I put in. Still,” he acknowledged, “I was not inhuman. If you had pricked me, I would have bled.
“Marriage, among other delights, I’d put off for so long that I despaired of ever finding a woman who’d have me. When I did, and a beauty to boot, I set all aside.” His voice turned gentle. “Keren was an angel. Not only that, she was a bridge back in time. Having been born into a family that forswore its name, a return to the ancestral homeland held undeniable appeal. On Keren’s suggestion, I retired from the directorship and departed the UK for Israel.
“It was not until I set foot on sacred soil that Keren admitted the truth. She was Mossad.” His expression turned wry. “Our meeting at a newspaper stand in Glasgow had been no accident. Within hours of touching down, I was approached by a recruiter and offered a salary that I can only describe as surprising, considering the modest holdings of my prospective employer. But I was not for sale. Familiarity with government work had bred contempt.