The Serpent's Kiss

by Mark Terry

  Derek leaned forward. “I noticed his name, too. What kind of problems?”

  She took in a deep breath. “Well, emotional problems.”

  “What kind?” Jill asked.

  “Well, he was—”

  ”Was he the religious nut?” her husband asked.

  Taplin-Smithson swallowed and nodded. “Well, you know, in a university situation you get all sorts of students. Especially in a big city university like Wayne State. Very multi-cultural. We get students from all sorts of religions. Christian and Jewish and Seventh Day Adventists and Muslims, even had a Quaker once. Buddhists, everything. And a fair number of seemingly normal people with nutty religious or political beliefs.”

  Jill said, “And Kevin Matsumoto?”

  “Well, he dropped out of school. Brad was pretty upset about it, because Kevin was such a gifted biochemist. Like I said, a little bit nutty, but...” She sighed. “We’re talking graduate students in the hard sciences. Sometimes these are the geekiest of the geeks, if you know what I mean? Social skills aren’t always all that polished. It’s a cliche to say that, but a lot of times it’s true. Kevin was like that.”

  “Was he Japanese?” Derek asked.

  “Oh yes. In appearance? Sure. I was under the impression his mother was American. I don’t think he was born in the U.S., but aside from his last name and his Asian features, he seemed to be completely American.”

  “And the religion?”

  “Well, a few months before he dropped out of school he started talking a lot about some religious group called Aleph. How he was a part of Aleph ... wasn’t that it, honey?”

  Dr. Smithson nodded. “I was thinking Alpha, but you may be right. Aleph sounds right.”

  Jill noticed that Derek had gone rigid, his hands clenching the armrest of his chair.

  “Anyway,” Taplin-Smithson said, “he got really erratic and sort got going on about the end of the world and how only Aleph could pave the way or save the world or something like that—”

  Derek lurched to his feet and started hobbling for the door.

  Jill startled, said, “Well, thank you very much,” and hurried after Derek.

  Jill caught up to him halfway across the Taplin-Smithson’s lawn. She caught his arm. “All right, Derek. Out with it. What is Aleph?”

  Derek turned to her. “After the 1995 sarin gas attack in Tokyo, Aum Shinrikyo changed their name and went underground. Their new name is Aleph.”

  75

  6:15 p.m.

  MATT GRAY WAS ON the phone in his office when Simona Toreanno was ushered in. He held up a hand and pointed to a chair. Then he spun sideways to her, displaying his profile. “Yes. Yes,” he said into the phone. “I understand. No, I think we got lucky on this one. No.”

  He listened for some time, nodding his head. Then, “Yes, sir, I understand. No, they are no longer involved. I personally saw to it that Agent Church was suspended pending a hearing. After Harrington’s body was found at the casino, Stillwater disappeared. No, sir, they’re still here. It’s taking some time to get the three scenes and the car fit for analysis and re-use. The HMRU will be here for at least another twenty-four hours.”

  Simona Toreanno sat patiently, listening. Matt Gray was clearly convinced the entire situation was over, The Serpent dead. It was a convenient ending. You wrote up your reports and moved on. No prosecution attempts, no bail hearings, or un-ending follow-up investigation, nothing.

  But, if everything she, Jill and Stillwater thought was correct, The Serpent had played them for fools, using his knowledge of their procedures and expectations to manipulate the Bureau, the cops, and the entire public health sector.

  She studied Matt for a moment, then let her gaze wander around the office. A photograph of the President. An American flag. A photograph of Ground Zero in New York City.

  Then an abrupt shift from the trapping of the office to the trappings of political success. Matt shaking hands with the President. Shaking hands with the Attorney General. Shaking hands with the Director of the Bureau. Shaking hands with the Mayor of Detroit.

  Other photographs from earlier in his career, standing with a gun at Waco. Not a big plus on his career calendar, she thought, but who knew? Maybe Matt was proud of that debacle.

  And there on his desk were photographs of his wife and kids. Pretty wife. Three kids.

  The man was a pig, she thought. Jill wasn’t the only one to have fallen briefly for his charms. He was good-looking, attentive, successful. When he first took over the Detroit office, his wife and children had stayed behind in Miami and Matt had let everybody think they were separated, the divorce imminent. He had swept through the female ranks of the local office like the plague. Jill had been caught in a career snafu around the time Matt’s wife and family moved to town and heard rumors about their affair. Matt tried to lay it all off on Jill, spreading rumors that she was a slut, that she slept with all of the men in the building, let alone the Bureau. She had fought back with the weapon at hand—the truth. It had gotten ugly before Matt solved it with apologies and a forced questionable promotion for Jill that resulted in Jill becoming mostly administrative rather than operative.

  Some agents would have appreciated the administrative duties. But Simona knew that to Jill, it had been a demotion. So did Matt. He could claim she was being groomed for command, that she needed administrative experience, but what she was being groomed for was a low-level paper-pushing position. Filing reports and compiling statistics, not solving crimes or chasing bad guys. Everybody knew it. Moral of the story: don’t have an affair with your married boss.

  “Yes,” Gray said. “Thank you, sir. I’ll keep you updated.” Gray hung up the phone and swung back toward Simona Torreano. “That was Director McCully. He’s quite pleased with how this ended.”

  “I’m not sure that isn’t a little premature,” Simona said. “I was over at the Medical Examiner’s Office.”

  Gray steepled his fingers. “Why?”

  “Somebody needed to be.”

  “You were supposed to be tracking down the members of the Working Group.”

  “I did. Then I called the office. I—”

  ”Fine,” Gray said with a wave of his hand. “So what? It is William Harrington, right?”

  “Yes. That seems to be confirmed. But the—”

  ”Sarin gas?”

  “Yes, I think so. Look, Matt, we received a call from The Serpent around 2:40.”

  “Well, actually, that reporter for NPR, Ball, he received the call. But yes, I think that was the right time.”

  “And we found him around what? 5:30 or so?”

  “Earlier than that, actually. Pretty close to 5:00.”

  “Okay,” Simona said. She took a photocopy of a partial report that she had insisted Dr. Vijay Rajanikant provide, and placed it in front of Matt.

  “What’s this?” He picked it up.

  “Read it.”

  He scanned the sheet, then pushed it aside. “How sure is he of this?”

  “He seemed pretty sure. As sure as he’s likely to be.”

  “As you know, time of death isn’t precise.”

  “No, but there’s a difference between eight to ten hours and two-and-a-half hours, Matt.”

  Gray shrugged. “There’s great variability, as you know. And perhaps he couldn’t take into account the temperature, and conditions in the car and the parking garage. It was pretty cold in there. And for all we know, the air conditioning was on in that car.”

  Simona stared at him. “That’s nonsense, and you know it.”

  “I don’t know it, Agent Toreanno,” Gray snapped. “I don’t know it at all. The third attack did not happen. Understand me? It did not happen. And further more, our prime suspect for the attacks was discovered dead from sarin gas at the scene of where the third attack was to occur. Which part of one plus one adds up to three for you?”

  “The time of death of the body.”

  “There’s no evidence besides that, and it’s no
toriously unreliable. For all we know, sarin affects the body temperature in peculiar ways.”

  “You don’t think Dr. Rajanikant would have known that? Or Dr. Stillwater?”

  She knew she’d blown it even as she said it. Matt narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me? What did you say?”

  “I’m sorry. That was a slip. Nothing.”

  “No,” Gray said, getting to his feet. “You mentioned Dr. Stillwater. What does he have to do with this?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  Gray came around his desk. There was something about his posture and the aggressive nature of his movements that suggested he was stalking her. “I’m going to ask you a direct question, Agent Toreanno. It’s verifiable. One phone call to the M.E.’s Office and I’ll know. Think about that when you answer.”

  She stared at him, feeling trapped.

  Gray said, “Was Derek Stillwater at the M.E.’s Office?”

  She hesitated before answering. “Yes.”

  Gray glared at her. “In what capacity?”

  “Sir?”

  “Why was he there?”

  “I think it was his job. He wanted to confirm the time of death.”

  “Why?”

  Jill sat up straighter. “I imagine because he thought Harrington’s death was rather convenient.”

  “Yes, lucky for us he killed himself before he killed a couple hundred more people. Did Stillwater influence Doc... the M.E.’s decision?”

  “No.”

  Gray moved closer, looming over her. “Are you sure? Did Derek Stillwater in any way affect the M.E.’s decision?”

  “No.” Firmly.

  Gray turned and walked back behind his desk. He stared out at the city below him, the lights of the city and the traffic a moving mosaic of illumination against the early evening darkness. Voice low, Gray said, “Was Jill Church there as well?”

  When she didn’t answer, Gray turned. “I expect an answer. Was Jill Church at the Medical Examiner’s Office with Derek Stillwater?”

  Simona swallowed. “Matt, you have to take this seriously. This guy—”

  ”Stillwater?”

  “What?”

  “This guy, Derek Stillwater?”

  “No! This guy, The Serpent. He’s been playing games with us all day long. He’s basing these attacks on these written scenarios—”

  ”Yes, I’ve had a chance to read the one it was all based on. Very interesting. And it ended with the attack on the casino at 4:00, which we know didn’t happen.”

  “But he would know we would have found that out by now. Why else would he have booby-trapped Harrington’s office and his house? How—”

  Matt rapped his fist on his desk. “Agent Toreanno, enough. You’ve given your report. Thank you. Go back to your office and write it up. And I want a written report on exactly what happened at the Medical Examiner’s Office, including the presence of Jill Church. With an accurate time line.”

  Toreanno slowly stood up. “You’ve got to take this seriously. You’ve got to realize he might be planning an attack somewhere for eight o’clock tonight. We can’t stand down now.”

  Gray turned to his computer and began tapping keys. “You’re dismissed.”

  Feeling rising hysteria in her voice, Toreanno said, “Matt, you’re being a fool.”

  He turned to her. “What was that?”

  “Stop being a jackass! You’re assuming the best. You need to assume the worst! What will happen to your precious career if The Serpent’s still alive and he kills again and you shut the op down?”

  Gray’s voice was flat. “Dismissed. And consider yourself warned, Agent Toreanno. Another outburst like that one and you will be looking for work with Jill Church.”

  She started to respond, considered better, and spun on her heel, leaving his office. She clenched and unclenched her fists, frightened, truly frightened that she had two choices and neither was good. She could go to her office, file her reports and go home and pray that William Harrington had really been The Serpent and it was all over. Or she could ignore orders, commit insubordination and no matter what the outcome, quite possibly lose her job, her career and her pension.

  It was no choice, really. She had to coordinate with Jill and Stillwater.

  Simona was heading for the elevator when Roger Kandling appeared. “Simona!”

  She turned, impatient. “What?”

  “I need to talk to you for a moment. Come on.”

  Puzzled, she followed Roger Kandling. She and Roger were at the same level in the Bureau, competitors, in a way. Kandling was pretty much Matt Gray’s protégé, being groomed for the SAC job, should Matt move on. He was a good agent, political, ambitious, smart. In her opinion he was too by-the-book, lacking creative initiative, but in the Bureau that could be the way to get ahead, too.

  He led her through the office and to an interrogation room.

  “What’s in here?” she asked.

  “I need to talk to you in private. It’s important.”

  With a shrug, she stepped into the interrogation room, basically just an office with a table and chairs, no windows, no decorations. She stepped in, then spun as the door shut behind her. She reached for the knob, but it was locked. “Hey! Let me out!”

  After a moment, Roger Kandling’s voice came over the intercom. “This is by direct orders of Matt, Simona. I’m sorry. He feels it’s for your own good. He knew you were going to go off on your own and he doesn’t want you to get in trouble. Just relax and—”

  Simona didn’t pay attention to the rest. She couldn’t believe this was happening. But maybe she could. Matt Gray wasn’t a dummy. He’d likely know that she would pursue what she felt was the correct avenue.

  Instead of screaming and shouting, she took out her cell phone and dialed Jill Church’s number.

  76

  6:25 p.m.

  KEVIN MATSUMOTO, ACCORDING TO the DMV, lived in a small house in Ferndale. Jill was able to get a photograph of Matsumoto from his driver’s license file downloaded to her laptop. Like most driver’s license photos, it was somewhat useless. Matsumoto’s headshot indicated a dark-haired Asian male with a goatee, an angular face and a sullen expression. She didn’t think the expression was significant, because she had yet to see a really perky expression on anybody’s face in a driver’s license headshot.

  The vital information indicated he stood six feet tall, weighed 175 pounds, and had brown eyes.

  Derek studied the photograph while she drove to Ferndale. “I wonder what he’s doing now,” he said.

  “Plotting to kill somebody.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I mean, he quit school. Did he re-up at one of the other universities around here, did he get a job, or what?”

  “He was a graduate student in biochemistry. If he had his Bachelor’s in chemistry or biochemistry, he may well be working somewhere.”

  “With access to all the ingredients to make sarin.”

  “Is it hard to make?”

  Derek shook his head. “Not for a grad student in biochemistry. Not for a halfway decent undergrad in chemistry or biochemistry.”

  Jill’s phone chirped. She answered it, listened, said, “Okay. We’re on top of things. I’m sorry, Simona. Why don’t you just sit tight...” she listened. “Yes, you might do that. All right.”

  She put her phone away.

  “What was that all about?” Derek asked.

  “Matt Gray’s locked Simona in an interrogation room. I told her to sit tight and not make waves, basically. She said she’s still got her cell phone, but the charge is low. She’s going to make some calls, let other agents know what’s going on, maybe go over Matt’s head.”

  Derek sighed. “Is Gray always this nutty?”

  Jill laughed, a short, unamused bark. “He’s been more paranoid than usual lately. One thing you have to keep in mind about Matt. We’ve all got our areas of expertise. When they wanted an SAC in Detroit, they had to take a couple things into consideration. The Bureau’s pushed a
ll the communist hunting and organized crime work to the back burners and put the majority of our resources into fighting terrorism. That’s fine, I guess. But in Detroit, there are a couple different issues to be concerned about in fighting terrorism. One is immigration and border security. The Ambassador Bridge to Windsor is the busiest commercial border crossing in the United States. And Michigan has a huge international border with Canada. Secondly, Detroit and Dearborn have the largest Shiite Muslim populations outside of the Middle East. So when they wanted a new SAC, they were really looking for somebody who either had experience dealing with immigration and border security, or somebody with experience with an Arab population. Matt worked port security in Miami for years before he came here.”

  “So he’s not really an expert on domestic terrorism.”

  “He’s not operational in that sense, no.”

  “That doesn’t exactly explain the raving paranoia.”

  “No. That’s more...” She hesitated. “Matt’s got a few personal problems. One is he’s married with three kids. Matt sleeps around.”

  Derek turned at the bitterness in her voice, but chose not to ask the obvious question. “And that makes him paranoid?”

  “This is sort of unsubstantiated,” Jill said, turning off Woodward onto Eight Mile Road. They moved from light commercial onto what looked to Derek like light industry, a few factories manufacturing things like septic tanks and machine shops making tools and parts in support of the auto companies.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Well, Matt’s wife is the daughter of Senator Walker.”

  Derek thought. “Republican from Georgia?”

  “Right. And chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.”

  “So his father-in-law’s got a lot of clout.”

  “Very much. And Matt’s wife has been suspicious of his philandering for some time. Rumor is the marriage is on the rocks and if she goes to daddy with the truth, Matt’s career is likely to be toast.”

  “So he thinks everybody’s out to get him?”