The Serpent's Kiss

by Mark Terry

  Derek and Jill pushed their way through the onlookers, flashing their identification, ignoring the shouts of the media until they were standing next to Matt Gray and Agent Zoelig. Zoelig, still in his biological hazards suit, wet from being washed off, looked at Derek. “Puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it?”

  Derek peered into the vehicle. Behind the wheel of the Outback was a man he recognized as William Harrington. His face was pulled back in a rictus of horror, clearly dead. In the rear of the Outback were what appeared to be several gray metal canisters, almost the size of scuba tanks. Derek studied them through the window. “Those look like the canisters you mix soda in,” he said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Gray said. “I don’t want you anywhere around here, Stillwater. This is an FBI operation. You’re not FBI. Get lost. Go. I’m telling everybody concerned to keep you away.”

  Gray turned on Jill. “And you’ve been suspended. Get out of here.”

  In a mild, friendly voice, Derek said, “Kiss my ass, Gray.”

  Gray’s face turned plum. “You—”

  Zoelig interrupted. “In restaurants, in vending machines for pop, the syrup comes in one canister and gets mixed with the carbonated water in the other. Haven’t you ever had your Coke taste bad because the mix was off?”

  “I’m dealing with a problem here, Zoelig!”

  “Yeah,” Zoelig said. “I see that. Try focusing on the real problem. A car filled with sarin gas. Derek’s an irritation, not a problem.”

  “You’re saying—”

  ”Looks like something sprung a leak in the car,” Derek said.

  Gray glared at him. “And what?”

  Derek ignored him, moving back to study William Harrington. Definitely dead.

  Zoelig said, “There’s a dolly cart in there, too. The canisters are probably filled with sarin. He probably had plans to waltz into the restaurant, replace the containers—hell, even just put them in the storage area—and leave. Maybe there’s a timer on them. Only when he got here, maybe there was a bump or a regulator busted, but whatever happened, this guy, The Serpent, died from it. We’ll check it out--Andy’s getting our stuff.” He gestured toward the body in the car. “He’s our boy, isn’t he, Derek?”

  Derek nodded.

  Gray spun on him. “Out! You, out of here.” He turned to Jill. “And you’ve had your orders. Try following them for a change.”

  Zoelig said, “Derek stays.”

  Gray whirled on him. “What are you ... you don’t have the authority to countermand my orders!”

  Zoelig smiled lopsidedly. “Actually, I do. The only person here who knows more about this shit than me is him. And I’m in charge of hazardous materials removal and examination. If Derek wants to stay and supervise, that’s up to him.”

  Derek shook his head. “You’re fine. I’ll be in touch.” With a nod to Gray, he shuffled away. Jill, eyebrows arched, followed him in silence.

  69

  5:00 p.m.

  AFTER STILLWATER AND CHURCH left, Matt Gray checked his watch. The local news cycle started at 5:00. If he made a statement now, it would make it on both the five o’clock and six o’clock broadcasts. He clicked on his radio and called the office, reading off the license plate of the Subaru and asking for a DMV verification. Feeling energized, Gray said to Zoelig, “How soon can you get at the body?”

  Zoelig sighed. “In a few minutes. Why?”

  “I want to verify this guy’s ID.”

  “Derek gave us a visual identification.”

  Gray sneered. “If Stillwater told me the sky was blue I’d want verification.”

  “In a few minutes, Matt. I take it you’re planning a press conference?”

  “Yes.” Gray turned, looking for Roger Kandling, wanting him to organize the conference in the next few minutes.

  “Matt,” Zoelig said, voice soft.

  Gray turned. Zoelig waved him closer. Gray approached, impatient. In a low voice so bystanders couldn’t hear, Zoelig said, “Do you think a press conference is premature?”

  “You’re a technician, Zoelig. Stick to your area of expertise.”

  Zoelig glowered at him. “Gray, don’t make me drop-kick you off the top of this parking structure. I’m not a technician. Are you planning on announcing that this guy is The Serpent? That The Serpent died by his own hand by accident?”

  “Wait and see, Zoeig,” Gray said. “Wait and see.” He moved away, then turned back to Zoelig. “Oh, and Zoelig. Don’t threaten me again, or you’ll find yourself working anti-terror in South Dakota.”

  Zoelig didn’t blink. “Give it your best shot, Gray.”

  Gray, finding his threat to be hollow, turned and strode away. He found Kandling and told him to organize a press conference in front of the casino in ten minutes. Kandling said, “Who’s running it?”

  “Me.”

  Kandling looked relieved. “Sure. Ten minutes.”

  And ten minutes later Matt Gray stood in front of the doors to the Greektown Casino, the media spread out in front of him, cameras and microphones ready.

  “I am Matthew Gray, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Here is the official statement.” He cleared his throat, scanned the crowd, looking right into the cameras, lingering for a moment at the CNN, FOX and ABC cameras, making sure he looked authoritative. “The individual calling himself The Serpent who committed two acts of chemical terrorism in Detroit today has died by his own hand, apparently by accident. The Serpent has been positively identified as Dr. William Harrington, the director of the Wayne State University Center for Biological and Chemical Terrorism Research, professor of biochemistry, and adjunct professor, Department of Public Health. Harrington’s body was found in his vehicle on the top level of the Greektown Casino parking garage with several canisters of sarin gas in the rear cargo area. Apparently at least one of the canisters leaked, killing Harrington before he could mount his attack on the Greektown Casino.”

  A reporter interrupted. “What was his motive?”

  Gray said, “We’ll probably never know his real motive, but it’s quite possibly linked to his divorce. His ex-wife, Rebecca Harrington, an employee of the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, was found murdered in her Ferndale home earlier today. Rebecca Harrington’s lover, and the cause of their divorce, was the assistant director of the Center for Biological and Chemical Terrorism Research, Dr. Bradley Simmons, who died this morning during the attack at the Boulevard Café.”

  “You’re saying this was all caused by some sort of sick love triangle?” a reporter called out.

  Gray nodded. “Those elements are definitely there. Clearly, Harrington must have been suffering from some level of mental illness—”

  ”You mean he was crazy?”

  Gray felt like he was losing control of the press conference. “Crazy is a legal term,” he said, “not a psychological one. But yes, don’t you think a mass murderer could be defined as crazy?”

  Another reporter shouted, “What of your previous statements about Derek Stillwater?”

  Gray paused. “Although we no longer feel that Dr. Stillwater was involved with the attack, we believe that his conduct today was unprofessional and quite possibly illegal. He is currently under investigation by the Justice Department pending a congressional hearing concerning his conduct last month for the events at U.S. Immunological Research in Baltimore. I intend to conduct a personal investigation into his actions today, as well. It is my recommendation to the Attorney General and to the Department of Homeland Security that Dr. Stillwater be asked to resign.”

  The reporters clamored for more, shouting to be heard. Gray smiled and pointed to Steve Shay. “Yes?”

  “What of reports...”

  And so it went.

  70

  5:10 p.m.

  JILL CLICKED OFF THE car radio. Derek and Jill had been listening to the press conference in the car as they drove north. “No comment, Matt,” she
said to the radio. “You could have said, ‘no comment.’” She tapped Derek’s arm. “Doesn’t that piss you off?”

  Derek shrugged. He had been unusually quiet and thoughtful after they left the parking garage.

  “Come on, Stillwater—”

  ”Derek.”

  “Fine. Derek. Doesn’t that piss you off? I mean, really? He’s trashing your reputation. Smearing you all over the media. It’s uncalled for. It’s unprofessional.”

  Derek shrugged again.

  “Earth to Stillwater. Hello?”

  “I’m really hungry,” he said. “And I could use some caffeine. Is there a decent restaurant around here?”

  “How about the Motor City Grill?”

  “Whatever.”

  She found a parking spot behind the Fisher Building and they entered the Motor City Grill, past the fish tanks, and were seated by a window looking across Second Street toward the New Center One building.

  “So,” Jill said, as they looked at the menus. “The Serpent killed himself.”

  “Mmm,” Derek said.

  Jill put her menu down. “Stillwater?”

  The waitress appeared and took their drink orders. They both wanted coffee.

  “How’s their caesar salad here?” he asked Jill.

  “It’s fine. What do you think about The Serpent killing himself?”

  “Interesting.”

  Exasperated, Jill pulled the menu down so she could look at Derek. “You haven’t kept your opinions to yourself all day. Now you’re keeping your mouth shut. Come on, Still... Derek. What do you think?”

  He leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table. “What do you think?”

  “I think Matt’s statement was premature.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Why?”

  “You first.”

  “Okay,” Jill said. “They should have run everything at the garage before they made that statement. They still need to thoroughly search the casino. They need to make some sort of physical evidentiary link between Harrington, his house, his office, the car, the Boulevard Café, Scott Hall, Rebecca Harrington’s house...” She trailed off.

  “And?”

  Jill frowned. “And intuition.”

  Derek launched a cockeyed grin. “And your intuition says what?”

  “It’s too easy.”

  Derek nodded. The waitress reappeared with their coffee and took their orders. Derek stuck with a tried and true chicken sandwich and a salad. Jill ordered the caesar salad. When the waitress left, Jill said, “What about you?”

  “I think it’s very convenient. And very careless.”

  “So you think...”

  “I think we’ve been manipulated every single step of the way today, and this strikes me as being too good to be true.”

  Jill sighed. “So now what?”

  “Well, you’re unofficial. And you could get into a lot of trouble, Jill. I don’t really want to jeopardize your livelihood more than I already have.”

  “Oh, so now you’re concerned about my career.”

  Derek shrugged.

  Jill considered. She leaned toward Derek. “Here’s the deal, Derek. I’ll help you. I’ll go out on a limb and help you dig and see if we can satisfy ourselves as to what’s really going on and what happened in the parking garage. But first, you have to come clean on a couple things for me.”

  Derek toyed with his fork. He nodded.

  “Irina Khournikova,” Jill said.

  Derek leaned back in their booth. “You don’t have a high enough security clearance for that.”

  “And I suppose you’ll have to kill me if you tell me.”

  Derek toyed with his fork some more, not meeting her gaze. Finally he said, “You know better.”

  Jill blinked. “Fine. When we’re done eating, I’ll drop you off somewhere.”

  Derek shrugged. “Let me think. I can probably tell you some of it.”

  Jill cocked her head. “Is this for real, Derek? Or are you feeding me a line of bullshit?”

  “Not everything that happened last month has gone public. You know that.”

  She did and she said so.

  Derek nodded, as if to himself. “The real Khournikova is an agent with the Russian FSB, the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, or the Federal Security Service. She’s a Russian anti-terrorism expert.”

  It took Jill a second to process that. After a long silence, broken only by the tinkle of silverware and the music playing overhead, she said, “They say you killed her by suffocating her to death.”

  “They are very wrong,” he said. “Irina Khournikova, last I heard, was back in Moscow. She may be in Mexico, though, because she’s dedicated herself to hunting down The Fallen.”

  “The terrorist behind last month’s attack at U.S. Immuno.”

  Derek nodded.

  “But what about the woman you...”

  “She was impersonating Irina Khournikova. She was The Fallen’s lover. I killed her, yes. It was accidental.” Something blurred his face for a moment, a complexity of emotions. “What do you call an interrogation that accidentally results in death, Jill?”

  Before she could respond, he said, “They call it an assassination. She knew the location of her group’s headquarters, she knew where they had taken the biological agent they stole, and she knew what they were going to do with it and when. I didn’t have time to take her to headquarters and dick around waiting for the paperwork to go through. I needed to know what she knew and I needed to know it right there. But she accidentally died before I could get that information from her.”

  Jill saw the pain on his face as he recounted that story. She said, “I’m sorry. And Matt mentioned something about a helicopter pilot.”

  She watched as Derek put a studied neutral expression on his face. Slowly, he said, “I was working with a Coast Guard helicopter crew. I commandeered them, actually. They were shot down by The Fallen. The only survivor was the pilot, but she’s in pretty bad shape. Broken back, broken pelvis, legs, burns. She’s alive, but her recovery’s been tough. She’s not walking yet. Maybe never will.”

  “That doesn’t seem like it’s your fault.”

  He shrugged. “A lot of people do, though. Like your boss.”

  Jill sat back. “Okay, Derek. I guess that’s enough for now.”

  Derek frowned. “These cases ... like today ... they get hairy. And I usually work alone. Sometimes, like with Cindy, and the fake Irina, people around me get hurt.” He looked her in the eye. “And killed. It can be dangerous working with me, Jill. And you’re not official any more. So think about that before you agree to pursue this with me. Think about it hard. You’ve got a son to take care of.”

  She nodded. “I have. I have thought about it. What’s next?”

  Derek smiled. “After we eat, I want to check out William Harrington’s body. You know where the morgue is?”

  71

  5:20 p.m.

  MICHAEL CHURCH AND RAY Moretti were crashed out in Ray’s bedroom, door closed, playing Battlefront on Ray’s Playstation 2. Michael was getting creamed. Generally he and Ray ran neck-and-neck with video games, though Ray had a slight advantage because he played more than he did. But today his concentration was a mess. He couldn’t keep his mind off the dead body he’d seen, what he’d learned about his dad, and everything else that was going on, including the feeling that something had happened between him and Ray’s sister, Ann. Some connection, or something. He really couldn’t keep his mind off her.

  Ray crowed as his storm trooper took out an enemy outpost with a grenade. “Take that, rebel scum!”

  Michael rolled his eyes. Ray was wired. Wired even more than usual. He wondered if Ray had popped something, ecstasy or more likely speed. He didn’t know if Ray was into stuff stronger than pot, though it wouldn’t surprise him. He sensed he and Ray were coming up on some sort of crossroad. He felt like maybe there were choices he had to make. Choices like: be like Ray and get high and spend all you
r time chasing girls and playing video games, or think about his life and get serious about doing things, getting things done, like Ann and her plans for college and medical school. It was coming, though he really only sensed it. He couldn’t identify it or verbalize it. Just a sense that more was being demanded of him and it was up to him to make those choices.

  Maybe it was the concert tonight that had Ray so manic. Michael felt uneasy about that. His mom had definitely not given him permission. He knew that what he should do is just pass, say, “No, man, Mom said no, I’m going to go home.” Go home, workout, do his homework, watch some TV.

  “When’re your parents getting home?” Michael asked.

  Ray shrugged. “We’ll be gone before they get here. You know, Mom won’t be home ‘til six, six-thirty, and Dad, who knows. He works all the time.”

  If there was any bitterness in that, Michael couldn’t hear it, though he wasn’t really listening for it, either.

  “They’re cool about us going to the concert, huh?”

  “They don’t give a shit,” Ray said, shifting the game to another planet.

  “I don’t know if I should go.” He threw it out there tentatively, trying to convince himself, see what Ray’s reaction would be.

  Ray froze, then jerked toward him. “Hey! What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “My mom, you know, she, like, you know, she didn’t want me to go, and all this shit today...”

  “No fuckin’ way! Pussy! Don’t back out on me here. This is going to be fuckin’ great! J Slim! And shit, I got those I.D.s I was telling you about.”

  “What?”

  “I showed you, didn’t I?”

  Michael shook his head.

  “Oh man,” Ray said. “That’s right. I got them this afternoon. You remember the picture I took, right?”

  Michael shook his head. Ray was always fooling around with his digital camera, though he used it mostly to snap shots of girl’s asses and tits.

  Ray jumped up and scrounged through his backpack, coming up with two Michigan driver’s licenses. He tossed one to Michael. It looked like an official driver’s license. And there was his photograph. But his birth date had been changed, making him twenty-one years old.