by Alex Kava
He’d have to stop by the house. What time did the mail usually come? There was a sense of urgency pumping through his veins. A sense of dread. Who else did the killer intend to hurt? He grabbed his jacket and car keys. As he rushed to the elevators he punched in Gwen’s number. Four rings and her voice-messaging service picked up. Didn’t anyone answer their phones anymore?
“Gwen, it’s Tully. Don’t open any packages you get in the mail. I’ll explain later. Just don’t open any.”
In the parking lot he called Maggie back.
“This is Maggie O’Dell.”
“If I’m the target, how does Chicago fit in?” He tried to hide the panic in his voice.
“Does the name Markus Schroder mean anything to you?”
“Not a thing. At least not off the top of my head.” He was sweating, though the day was chilly. He wrestled out of his jacket, balled it up and tossed it into the backseat.
“You may be one on his list of targets. Like a hit list. People who’ve done him wrong over the years. That doesn’t mean you’d know everyone on the list.”
“Good point.” He was already gunning the engine, zigzagging out of the parking lot. He needed to calm down. “But why Caroline? She’s my ex-wife. Why does he think he’d hurt me by hurting her?”
“Maybe he thinks you still care about her,” Maggie suggested. “Listen, Tully…” She waited as if to get his attention. “Have you ever worked with anyone at USAMRIID? Ever had a confrontation or a run-in with one of their scientists?”
Tully remembered his earlier suspicions. That the Ebola may have come from one of the Army’s labs. Now Maggie must be thinking the same thing.
“I don’t think so,” he said slowly. He couldn’t think straight. He just wanted to make sure Gwen and Emma were okay. “Let me think about that.”
CHAPTER
75
Maggie left at the same time Platt did. Both of them on a mission to find the killer.
After breakfast he’d given her the shot, his fingers gentle, his eyes comforting. With him so close and without the glass between them Maggie found herself thinking about his conditions of release from the Slammer. No swapping body fluids, not even a kiss. She was surprised to find her mind wondering what might happen without those restrictions.
Now on her way to Quantico, Maggie pulled into a gas-and-shop parking lot. She flipped through the personal phone directory she kept in her briefcase. She punched in the number, expecting to leave a voice message and surprised when he picked up.
“Yeah?”
“Professor Sloane? It’s Agent Maggie O’Dell.”
“Agent O’Dell? What can I do for you?”
“I understand you talked to Agent Tully and Keith Ganza on Saturday about the note we found.”
There was a pause, then a gruff, “Yes, that’s right.”
“I found some things on my own that I’d like to run by you and see if they make a difference in your assessment.”
“What things?”
He sounded defensive. From what Maggie remembered of her brief encounters with the professor, being defensive was nothing unusual.
“You had mentioned that there were some similarities to the anthrax case. I think I may have made some connections to a couple of other cases.”
“Good for you.” There was the George Sloane she knew. “I can’t be racing up to Quantico every time you people have something you want to run by me.”
“Of course, I understand. It’s just that you mentioned the anthrax case. I believe I’ve made a connection to the Tylenol murders in 1982, the Beltway Snipers in 2002 and the Unabomber.”
“All of that? Well, you hardly need me, Agent O’Dell. Sounds like you have it all figured out.”
She ignored his sarcasm. “Except I’m not sure of the significance of any of it other than to show off.”
“To show off?” He sounded angry now rather than defensive. “You think he’s gone through all this trouble just to show off what he knows about a few famous criminals? And tell me, Agent O’Dell, when you find this show-off, will he be wearing a double-breasted suit and living with his two elderly sisters?”
Sloane was referring to the Mad Bomber in New York during the 1950s and Dr. James Brussel’s on-target profile.
“You either need my help, Agent O’Dell, or you already have it all figured out.” He was back to his mocking self. “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”
She was growing impatient with him. He was playing with her. The cake reference was from the Unabomber’s manifesto. She was on the verge of saying to hell with talking to him but she knew Cunningham had respect for the man’s work. The note and the mailing envelopes were all the evidence they had right now.
“Look, Professor Sloane, I’m just hoping you might be able to help us connect more dots here. Perhaps I could stop in at the university later. I understand it’s fall break this week.”
“Christ,” she heard him mumble. She wondered if he was surprised she had already checked out his schedule. “If it’s that important. I suppose I can make time. Meet me in forty minutes. My office is in the basement of the Old Medical School Building.”
He hung up before she could tell him whether or not that worked. She checked her wristwatch. It would take her at least forty minutes to get to the university.
She leaned back in her car seat. She had a backache. Probably from her morning run. Not true about her headache. It had started before the run. When she’d called Gwen earlier, her friend had told her she shouldn’t go back to work so soon.
“Kiddo, stay home and relax for a couple of days. Or at least work from home.”
Maggie had tried to explain that the best thing for her right now was routine. She didn’t need more time alone to think. She’d had plenty of that in the Slammer.
She punched in another phone number. It went over immediately to voice mail.
“Hey, Tully, it’s Maggie. Sloane agreed to meet at his office in forty minutes. It’s almost noon. I’m heading over to UVA now. I’ll see you over there.”
She sat back up. They didn’t have much to go on. She kept trying to think what Cunningham would advise. Sometimes the ordinary becomes the invisible. What wasn’t she seeing here?
That’s when she felt something drip down her chin. On the steering wheel was a drop of blood.
She glanced at herself in the rearview mirror. Just the sight of blood dripping from her nose stirred up a panic. She grabbed for a tissue. This wasn’t happening. And just as quickly she tried to calm herself. It didn’t mean anything. It was just a nosebleed.
She held the tissue to her nose and leaned her head back against the car’s headrest. She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing.
Oh, God, a nosebleed.
CHAPTER
76
USAMRIID
Platt stood in front of Commander Janklow’s desk, unflinching and prepared for an attack.
“You were out of line, Colonel Platt,” Janklow told him. “I didn’t authorize you to release the vaccine to anyone.”
“I had no direct orders that forbid it, sir. And as the head of this mission—”
“Cut the crap, Platt.”
Janklow surprised him. His voice was impatient, bordering on not just anger but something else. There was an edge to it.
Platt waited, not sure how to respond. Not sure how far to push. This morning the man looked shredded, though his uniform was pressed as usual and his office tidy. His stance slouched a bit at the shoulders. His face creased in places Platt had never noticed before. His eyes were bloodshot. And when he showed his hands, Platt could see a slight tremor in the fingers.
“At some point in your career, Dr. Platt—if you still have a career available—you will need to choose between being a soldier, a doctor or a politician. The three contradict each other on many levels. They cannot coexist for long. Today you’re choosing to be a doctor. That’s fine. You probably think that’s noble. I’m here to tell you, it
’s not noble. It’s foolish.”
He turned away from Platt to stare out his window, and for a minute Platt thought he was dismissing him. Platt decided he had to push.
“Sir, I think I know why you did it.”
Janklow turned slowly, eyebrows raised but his face still angry.
“What is it, Dr. Platt, that you think I did?”
“I considered it myself. That the Ebola may have come from our own labs. You want to protect USAMRIID. After the anthrax debacle I can understand—”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Sir, I just know—”
“Did you find any Ebola samples missing?”
“No, sir, I did not, but it would be difficult—”
The hand went up to stop him. Palm facing out. A definite tremor.
“There are no Ebola samples missing from USAMRIID.”
Platt kept his shoulders back, his stance tall, his face impassive.
“Let me ask you this, Dr. Platt…” Janklow’s voice leveled to normal. “Do you have any idea how much the vaccine for Ebola brings on the black market?”
Platt stared at him and he could see it wasn’t a question Janklow expected an answer to.
“I better find out that you have no clue,” Janklow warned. “Because although there are no Ebola tissue samples missing from this facility there is vaccine missing.”
CHAPTER
77
Reston, Virginia
Tully found Emma in her usual lounge spot, in the living room on the floor and in front of a blaring TV. He was relieved to see no packages. Just the regular teenage mess of magazines and junk food.
A news brief interrupted her television show. She muted the sound, but Tully asked her to turn it back on when he saw that it was a press conference at Saint Francis Hospital in Chicago. There wasn’t anything he didn’t already know. Two doctors and a CDC guy fielding questions and keeping to the basics. In the corner of the screen was a picture of Markus Schroder. It looked like a wedding shot and included his wife. The guy looked like an ordinary joe. An accountant, they were saying, for a Chicago firm. Tully didn’t recognize him. He’d batted the name around his brain all morning and couldn’t place it. Even now as he studied the photo there was nothing he recognized about the man. Then Tully glanced at the wife. There was something familiar about the eyes. Did he know her?
“It’s so sad,” Emma was saying.
“Did they say the wife’s name?”
“Yeah, something with a V. Vera, maybe.”
Vera Schroder. No, the name didn’t mean anything to Tully, either.
“Gotta go, sweet pea. Remember everything I said, okay?”
He was back on the road again. He got Maggie’s message and revised his route. It would take him more than forty minutes to UVA. He was looking for a radio station with more news from Chicago when his cell phone rang.
“This is Agent Tully.”
“Conrad’s mom got one of those cute little packages filled with money, too.” It was Caroline again and even more angry. “What the hell’s going on, Tully?”
The realization hit him and it felt as if Caroline’s words had injected ice water into his veins. He could see everything so clearly.
He had recognized Vera Schroder. And now he remembered where. It was a photo from a newspaper clipping that his roommate had insisted he keep tacked on their bulletin board to motivate him. A distraught young woman, devastated at finding her parents dead in their home after taking cyanide-laced Tylenol. Only, her name wasn’t Schroder then. It was Vera Sloane. She was George Sloane’s sister.
CHAPTER
78
University of Virginia
UVA at Charlottesville was Maggie’s alma mater, so when Professor Sloane told her to meet him in the Old Medical School Building she knew exactly where it was. She also knew from her alumnae newsletters that the building was now used for faculty offices. Other than offices, it housed research laboratories and clinical-training facilities. Fall break made it possible for her to find a quick parking spot.
Maggie had worked with Professor Sloane only once before, but she knew him from teaching at Quantico. His forensic-documents class used to follow her criminal-behavior class. Cunningham frequently called on Sloane as a consultant when documents were a part of a case. She wasn’t surprised that Tully and Ganza hadn’t pressed the professor when he gave them what sounded like a quick assessment. Tully and Sloane rubbed each other the wrong way. She knew it from the tension the two men gave off just being in the same room. She was hoping she could get information out of Sloane that perhaps Tully wasn’t able to.
The front door to the Old Medical School Building was unlocked, though there was no one in the halls. She took the elevator to the basement, and as soon as she got off she could hear what sounded like monkeys screeching at the end of the hallway. Doors were closed and secured with key-card locks. A few signs indicated most of the rooms down here were research labs. One had a QUARANTINE sign posted.
She continued to search for what could be Sloane’s office. Unsuccessful she headed down the other direction despite the screeching. Her cell phone started ringing and she grabbed it out of her pocket.
“This is Maggie O’Dell.”
“It’s Sloane,” Tully said, and he sounded out of breath.
“I’m looking for him now.”
“No, you don’t understand—”
That was all Maggie heard before she felt the blow to the back of her head.
CHAPTER
79
Tully couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it earlier.
He barreled down the Hwy-20 exit off of I-95. It would take him forever to get to Charlottesville. Maggie’s cell phone was going to voice message. Had Sloane already done something to her?
Now, of course, it all made sense.
He remembered George Sloane asking where he was when the box of doughnuts was delivered.
Sloane had said, “If I remember correctly, you can’t resist a chocolate doughnut.”
Chocolate doughnuts were Tully’s one constant obsession. He went through stages. Oreo cookies, licorice and once upon a time jelly beans, but chocolate doughnuts were a mainstay. But that wasn’t what should have set off the trigger. Sloane had also said, “So terrorists are delivering their threats at the bottom of doughnut boxes now?”
How did he know the note was at the bottom of the box? Only Cunningham, Maggie, Ganza and himself knew that. You’d never assume a note to be at the bottom. Sloane knew because he placed it there.
And why would Caroline and her fiancé be targeted by the Ebola mailer unless her old sweetheart, who had still been in touch with her as recently as July, was somehow involved?
Her old sweetheart, Indy aka George Sloane, had gone a bit berserk the last time she had chosen someone else. It had even gotten him thrown out of the FBI before he finished training. As a result he became a forensic-document expert, still working with the FBI but always on the outside, working on the fringes. Working on every major case but never getting the credit he thought he deserved. George Sloane had always wanted to be a feebie, not a professor.
How many other packages had Sloane mailed?
And Maggie was with him right now. Unable to answer her phone.
Maybe Tully was wrong. Maybe she wasn’t in danger. It was possible her cell phone was just out of range. Maybe there was no reason for Tully to panic.
Tully told himself this as he continued to punch down on the car’s accelerator.
CHAPTER
80
University of Virginia
Maggie’s head throbbed. High-pitched fingernails on a chalkboard brought her back. Her eyes fluttered, blurry images, swishes of green. The air was foul, something rancid, sweaty fur, animal feces.
She recognized the screeches from down the hall. Only, they weren’t down the hall. They were closer. She opened her eyes, kept them open, willed them to focus. Then jerked to consciousness.
Beady eyes stared out at her. Green fur flicked and swirled. Razor-sharp claws scratched out between the metal bars of cages. She was in the middle of a small room lined on both sides with cages of screeching monkeys.
She tried to bolt upright and fell back. Her wrist was anchored to a corner table, strapped tight with a plastic tie. She pulled and yanked at it, but it dug into her skin. Her movement only made the monkeys scream louder and bang around inside their cages, slamming their small hands against the bars or reaching out.
Maggie tried to calm herself. To steady herself. Keep quiet. Don’t move.
With her free hand she patted down her jacket pocket and wasn’t surprised to find her cell phone gone. So was her Smith & Wesson. She looked around the room to see if there was anything she could use to cut the plastic tie. There was nothing but monkey cages. Pellets of food and monkey feces scattered across the floor around and even underneath her. She rose to her feet, keeping her movements slow and easy. She couldn’t stand upright with her wrist bound to the metal table.
She searched the room again for anything she could use. This time she noticed the two end cages and a chill slid over her. Both the doors were flapping open. That’s when she saw a flick of a long green tail slip out from behind the table by the door.
Instinctively she grabbed at her shoulder holster, again, before remembering it was empty.
Then she saw a second ball of green fur out of the corner of her eyes. This one was sitting high up on top of the cages and he was staring down her.
Okay, so there were at least two monkeys loose. Sharp claws, sharp teeth. Somewhere from her data bank she remembered that they spit, too.
Don’t look them in the eyes. Stay quiet and calm. Don’t move.