The Serpent's Kiss

by Mark Terry

“Yes.”

  “Here is my statement. The University has failed to meet my demands. The Serpent will strike again. In five minutes. It is on their heads.”

  The phone clicked off. Fred looked at her curiously. “Was that him?”

  She nodded and swallowed, her throat dry. She felt excited and sick, all at the same time. She snuck a peek at her watch. The digital readout clicked from 11:55 to 11:56.

  “Four more minutes,” she said. She scanned the crowd, looking for an FBI agent. Any FBI agent. Where the hell were they?

  With Fred trailing behind her, she sprinted back inside the lobby, elbowing her way through the press, trying to force her way to the doors of the Administration Building, desperate to find Matt Gray.

  18

  11:47 a.m.

  WHEN DEREK CUT THE wire, Jill flung herself sideways to the hallway floor. She sprawled there for a moment, then, even angrier than ever, got to her feet and stepped into Harrington’s office. Derek was still crouched before the bookcase. His face was gray and coated with sweat.

  She slipped her gun back into its clip. “Get up,” she said. “Get on your feet so I can kick your ass.”

  “Hear that?”

  “Hear what?!”

  He held up a finger. It was hard to hear anything over the clang of the alarm. “That hissing noise,” he said.

  Jill’s heart dropped. “You think—”

  Derek stood up, shaking his head. “No,” he said. “I’d already be dead.”

  “I don’t smell—”

  ”Sarin is odorless. But you’ll feel a burning sensation in your nose and throat. If this was sarin, I’d already be dead.”

  He fixed his attention on the filing cabinet. “Still feeling lucky?” he asked.

  “Don’t—”

  Derek pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet. With a pop!, a plastic inflatable cobra sprang upright out of the drawer, bobbing back and forth. A tinny recorded voice said, “Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha!” over and over.

  Derek stared at it, then turned to Jill. He looked pointedly at his watch. Without a word he opened all the filing cabinet drawers. Every one was empty. Beneath the cobra was a familiar red canister. When he cut the wire, it had triggered the canister, which had filled the cobra figure with whatever gas was in the canister and set off the voice recorder. He didn’t know what gas was in the cobra, and had no plans to cut it open and find out. Leave that for the lab boys or the bomb squad.

  Derek turned to look at the computer. “Let’s take the disks and get out of here. Let the—”

  Jill set her jaw. “We’re not doing any such thing. I want to make something perfectly clear to you. What I’ve seen in the last fifteen minutes makes me suspect that everything you’re being investigated for might be justified. You don’t follow procedures. You don’t take precautions. You’re a goddamn menace. You contaminated what could be the best evidence to this guy—none of it will be usable in court now—and you put both of our lives at risk. For nothing. Besides, you’re not here to run an investigation—”

  ”Actually, I am,” he said. “Evaluate, coordinate, investigate.”

  “Are you listening to me?”

  He walked over to the computer, studied the menu, then tapped PRINT, so he could get a copy of the Chemical Terrorism #14 scenario. There was a peculiar click!, from the printer. Without hesitation Derek launched himself at Jill. Almost simultaneously the printer exploded, a blast of heat and flame engulfing the office. From the floor Derek felt the energy wave roar over them. The office was an inferno, crackling and roaring.

  He rolled off Jill. “Dammit! Where’s the extingui—”

  The sprinkler system in the office kicked on, drenching the space in water, further destroying anything that wasn’t already charred or shattered by the blast.

  Jill, next to him on the floor, shielded her eyes from the roiling black smoke and oily cold water. “Guess you forgot to check for secondary devices,” she said.

  Derek stared into the office. “At least you’re alive. You can thank me later.”

  19

  12:00 p.m.

  THE CLASSROOM WAS ON the second floor of Scott Hall, where the Wayne State University Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department was centered. It was a medium-sized tiered lecture hall that could accommodate over one hundred people, though there were only about sixty today. IBS 7010, Molecular Biology, was an Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences class that the majority of graduate students in any area of biology had to take their first term in their programs.

  Dr. Isaac Tschevkov was a mousy gray man with a slight hunch to his shoulders. Pink scalp peeked through white fly-away hair that he rarely combed. He stepped in front of the lectern and fumbled with the microphone. He had a wispy voice with a deep accent, and he used the microphone to project his voice throughout the auditorium. “Okay, okay,” he said over the scratching, screeching sound of the microphone he clipped to his coat lapel. He wore black dress shoes, brown slacks, a white shirt and black tie, with a brown plaid sport coat over it all. “Let’s get going,” he said. “I am Dr. Isaac Tschevkov. I’ll be covering unusual aspects of molecular translation and transcription. Presumably, since you are all graduate students, you will already be familiar with the basics. I will look at the exceptions. Today, we’ll be covering A to I RNA Editing. Can anybody tell me what this is?”

  A couple students raised their hands. Tschevkov pointed to an Asian woman toward the back of the room. She had long black hair and wore jeans and a white sweater. “During—”

  ”Speak up,” Tschevkov said, amplified voice booming around the auditorium. “Speak up so everybody can hear you. Go ahead, stand up.”

  IBS 7010 was team-taught, professors from various departments taking a swing at their areas of expertise. Tschevkov was a molecular biologist; he had spent years studying the genetics of flatworms. Today was his first day of lecturing.

  She stood up, looking awkward and uncomfortable. She tried to project her voice. “Before transcription, adenosine deaminases modify individual adenosines under certain circumstances.”

  “Modify them to what?” Tschevkov boomed.

  “Um, inosine.”

  “Ja. A, for adenosine, to I, for inosine. Thank you, miss.” Tschevkov walked over to the overhead projector and began to sketch out the molecular structures of adenosine and inosine. “This happens on particular spots of the—” He abruptly stopped speaking, a hand reaching for his throat. He coughed. “Excuse me. As I was saying...” He coughed again. Slowly, Tschevkov dropped to his knees, hand at his throat.

  20

  12:14 p.m.

  MATT GRAY WAS ON a roll. The mobile command center was parked outside Scott Hall. Derek and Jill sat in chairs in the back while Matt paced in front of them. Gray’s face was turning a dangerous shade of purple. Derek said, “You’re going to blow a blood vessel at this rate. Why don’t you calm down.”

  Gray spun on him. “Why don’t you shut the fuck up, Stillwater. As far as I can see, you’ve done nothing but cause trouble. You’re here to observe and liaise with the office. So why don’t you shut up and observe.”

  Derek gave Gray a flat, unemotional look. “Anything else?”

  “Yes! Follow procedures. Even DHS has procedures you follow. When you think there’s a bomb in an office, you call in the bomb squad. You don’t try to defuse it yourself. Especially if there was no risk of it going off.”

  The bomb squad and the crime scene team, those not at Scott Hall, were going over Harrington’s office. At Scott Hall, 43 were dead, 21 were injured and in the hospital. The university had been officially closed. Gray had called for reinforcements and had people coordinating with the Detroit PD. The Mayor and the Governor were on the phone constantly asking for updates so they could talk to the press. Gray was having a meltdown and he needed to focus his aggravation on somebody. Derek was handy.

  “Did you hear me?” Gray demanded.

  “Sure. I heard you.”

  “Th
en what are you going to do?”

  “My job,” Derek said. He stood up. “Which, if you’ll get out of the way, I’ll continue to do.”

  Gray shook his head. “You are not going into Scott Hall. This is my operation, Stillwater. I’m not giving you access.”

  Derek provided a tight smile. “Excuse me. I have work to do.”

  “I’m not finished, Stillwater. Sit your ass down.”

  Derek took a step inside Gray’s personal space. “I’m not part of the Justice Department. I don’t answer to you. Now, I’ve got a job to do. Maybe if you’d do yours, those kids would be alive now.”

  Gray blocked Derek’s path. “Okay, hotshot. You’re done. Sit down.”

  “Out of my way.” Derek moved around the FBI agent.

  Gray reached inside his coat and yanked out a pair of handcuffs. “I’m done with you and your bullshit, Stillwater. Hands behind your back. I’m arresting you for obstruction of justice, for hindering a federal investi—”

  Derek hit the FBI agent in a flurry of fast, short punches. Jill lunged to her feet, but before she could do anything Derek was over the prone figure of Matt Gray and out the door. She crouched beside Gray. Gray’s face was a mask of blood, mostly from a bloody nose that was spurting scarlet all over his face. Gray appeared dazed.

  “Are you all right?” Jill helped him sit up.

  Gray struggled to his feet, trying to shake off the assault. He staggered momentarily, then focused on Jill.

  “He hit me,” he said, his voice more puzzled than astonished. “The bastard hit me. He assaulted me. You saw it.”

  Jill bit her lip.

  “You saw it, right? He hit me. You saw it.”

  She nodded. It occurred to her that over the years she had wanted to do exactly what Stillwater had done more than a few times herself.

  “What are you waiting for?” Gray snarled, his voice nasal and choked. “Go get him.”

  “What about—”

  ”Don’t worry about this Serpent crap. Go get Stillwater. It was your job to babysit him. Now you’ve got a real job to do.”

  She frowned, hesitating. “You want me to arrest him.”

  “Yes. For assaulting me. Arrest him. You get him in cuffs and I want him locked up until this is over.”

  “Matt—”

  He turned on her, spitting blood. “Do you want to be arrested with him? Do I need to sideline you for insubordination? This is a direct order, Jill. Go arrest Derek Stillwater.”

  “Yes sir,” she said, and left the command center.

  When she got to the spot where she left her car, it was gone. “Derek! Goddamn you! You stole my car.”

  She rubbed her forehead for a moment, took in the ambulances, fire trucks and press vehicles, debating what to do. She had no desire to go back to Matt Gray and tell him Stillwater had hot-wired her car. She would just have to improvise.

  Otherwise, she had a pretty good idea where Derek was headed.

  21

  12:15 p.m.

  MICHAEL CHURCH AND RAY Moretti were rattling down Crooks Road in Michael’s old Honda Civic, Michael behind the wheel. It was lunchtime and they were headed for a McDonald’s drive-thru. Ray, short, swarthy with dark hair cropped close to his scalp, was jamming his finger down on the radio channel selector with his left hand, while lighting up a joint with his right. He stopped for a moment as a radio announcer talked about The Serpent.

  “...there has been a second sarin gas attack, this time at Wayne State University. The attack took place in a second-floor auditorium at Scott Hall. So far, 43 students and a professor have been reported dead. Twenty-one students—”

  Ray punched the seek button again. This time a rap tune by J Slim came up. “Hey, man,” Ray said. “I can’t wait ‘til tonight. Wanna hit?” He held up the joint for Michael. Michael shook his head and pointed to the radio.

  “Go back to that news story.”

  “What, you think your mommy’s working that?”

  Michael knew she was. And that scared him. He’d never admit it to anybody. Not his mom. Especially not to Ray. He worried about her. His father had been killed in a terrorist bombing while working at the embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. That had been August 1998 and his father had worked for the State Department. Michael didn’t remember his father that well—he’d only been a little kid--and really didn’t remember Tanzania at all. What he remembered was a sense of loss and how his mother had changed afterwards. And he wouldn’t admit it to anybody, but he no longer really remembered what his father looked like. His mother didn’t keep any photographs around. He knew she hadn’t thrown them away. But she had put them away and stored them out of sight ... out of mind.

  A part him, right now, was pleased that his mom was tied up in this investigation. It meant she probably wouldn’t be home tonight. And that meant he could go to the J Slim concert and she’d never know about it.

  He smiled at that thought and reached out for the joint. “Yeah,” he said. “Gimme that. Mom’s probably working this case. The Serpent. What an asshole.”

  “Yeah. The Serpent. This guy watches too much TV.”

  Michael giggled. “Maybe he’s hoping he’ll get caught and they’ll make a made-for-TV movie about him.” They both burst into laughter.

  Then Michael’s cell phone rang. He snagged it, clicked it on, not glancing at the caller ID function. “Yo!” he said.

  “Michael! It’s Mom.”

  For a wild, panicky moment Michael thought she knew he was smoking a joint with Ray. His heart thumped, then he said, “Yeah?”

  “Honey, I have an emergency. I need your car.”

  “What?”

  “I need you to drive down into the city and pick me up.”

  “What?” He was stupefied. He felt like he had lost 30 IQ points in response to her statement. “I don’t get it.”

  “Michael. Listen closely. Are you in your car? Are you going to lunch?”

  He glanced nervously at the joint Ray was holding to his lips. “Y-yeah.”

  “Then keep right on going. I’m going to walk to the Fisher Building. Do you know where that is? It’s where we saw ‘Cats.’ Remember?”

  “Yeah.” What a stupid play that had been.

  “It’s on West Grand Boulevard. Get on I-75 and go south to—”

  ”I know where it is,” he said. “But I’ve got Ray with me—”

  ”Fine. Bring him along. Come get me.”

  “Mom—”

  ”Michael, this is an emergency. Just do it. Now. Can I count on you?”

  He clutched the phone. Then, “Yes.”

  “See you soon.”

  After she clicked off, Michael stared at the cellular phone. He looked at Ray, toking his brains out in the passenger seat. Michael rolled down his window, reached over and snatched the roach from Ray’s fingers and flung it out into space.

  “Hey! What the fuck?”

  “We’ve got to go pick up my mother. Roll your window down. Roll your goddamned window down. We’ve got to air this piece of shit out.”

  “Are you fuckin’ nuts? Your mom’s FBI. She’ll bust my ass. Stop the car.”

  “Ray—”

  ”Stop the motherfuckin’ car. Are you nuts! What’s the matter with you? Where’s your mom’s car?”

  “I don’t know.” Michael gripped the steering wheel, feeling oddly exhilarated at the same time he felt claws of fear tear at his spine. His mom had said it was an emergency. She needed him.

  “Stop the car. Dammit, Mike! Stop the fuckin’ car.”

  Michael pulled onto the shoulder of Crooks Road. Ray practically exploded out of the car.

  “What are you gonna do?” Michael asked, leaning down so he could look at Ray.

  “Hitchhike. Walk. I don’t fuckin’ know. You’ve lost your mind. Fuck off, man. What’s going on?”

  Michael shrugged. “Hey, man—”

  ”Get the hell out of here, man. Go! Go rescue your mommy.”

  Michael s
wallowed. “Hey, Ray!”

  “What?”

  “Fuck you, too!” He stepped on the gas, spraying gravel behind him, leaving Ray in his dust.

  22

  12:22 p.m.

  FERNDALE WAS A SUBURB north of Detroit. It called itself “Fashionable Ferndale,” and maybe the alliteration was appropriate. Ferndale was where the twenty-somethings who couldn’t afford the considerably more fashionable neighboring suburb of Royal Oak lived, at least those for whom shopping, night life and overpriced upscale living relatively close to Detroit were a priority.

  Derek had Rebecca Harrington’s address, but it was proving to be a little harder than expected to actually find her house. Ferndale appeared to be a tidy little suburb with scads of cottages and bungalows, all nearly identical—small two-story houses on small lots with a concrete porch, shrubs, sidewalks, and white aluminum siding. There were very few garages or car ports. It was like every house had been built in the 1940s, which, he reflected, they probably had been.

  Finally he found her house on a cul-de-sac. It was a pleasant enough neighborhood, not unlike all the others he had driven through. Mature oak, sycamore and willow trees. Small, fenced-in yards. There was an elementary school two blocks away. He parked on the street, considered his options, then hunted through his GO Packs. While he was at it, he knocked back some Tylenol with tepid water from a bottle. Then he retrieved an electronic lock pick from his GO Pack with an additional set of small tools, as well as a small but powerful Mag-lite flashlight.

  He strode up the walkway, onto the front porch and punched the doorbell. As he expected, nobody answered. Nonetheless, he hit the doorbell again, then knocked with a good solid rap. Still no answer. Yet there was a car in the driveway, a maroon Jeep Cherokee.

  He took out the electronic lock pick, inserted the thin rods into the keyhole and tapped the activator button. Within seconds the door was unlocked and he stepped into the house.

  Immediately in front of him was a carpeted staircase rising to the second floor. Off to his right was the living area. Blue carpeting, a sofa, rocking chair, love seat, maple coffee table and TV. The wall decorations were framed quilts that he suspected Rebecca Harrington had done herself. They looked great.