NH3

by Stanley Salmons

  “Dr. McKinley, please hold for the President.”

  “Yes, okay,” he replied.

  He covered the mouthpiece and mouthed ‘President’ to Maggie.

  “Terry?” came the President’s voice.

  “Yes Mr. President.”

  Terry saw Dominguez’s head swivel round. “You gotta be shitting me,” he whispered.

  “Terry, how is the investigation coming? Chris tells me you’ve found out who made the organism.”

  “Yes Sir. A scientist called Zak Gould. We’re working with the FBI and local police to track him down.”

  “You will find him soon?”

  “I hope so Sir.”

  “So do I, Terry. So do I.” The President’s voice was tight. “I’ve been looking at the reports on the atmospheric ammonia. At the rate it’s increasing we’ll be over the threshold in days. Days! I don’t want to push that button Terry, but at the same time, well, you know.”

  Terry breathed out. “Yes Sir, I know.”

  There was a pause then the President spoke again. “We’re all counting on you Terry. Good luck.”

  The call ended and Terry put the phone back in his pocket.

  “Was that who I think it was?” said Dominguez incredulously.

  “Don’t ask, Eddie,” replied Milner. “Just don’t ask.”

  For a few minutes they travelled in silence. Then Milner said:

  “This Chinese thing, Eddie. Why now?”

  “I don’t know. Snatched him from right under our noses, though.”

  “That could have been the intention,” Terry said. “We’ve been all over that company in the last few days. Their mole certainly passed that on. Maybe they wanted to exact revenge before we could make an arrest ourselves.”

  “Possibly,” said Dominguez. “Pity they couldn’t do it before Signett ordered up Challoner’s murder.”

  “What about Wyatt?” Milner asked. “Do you think he had a hand in that?”

  “I’d say not,” Dominguez replied. “I could be wrong but my feeling is, Wyatt’s clean. He was clued up on the broad strategy but I don’t think he had the key to the dirty tricks cabinet. Your question on security, for example. He was the one suggested we talk to Rose about it.”

  “Yeah, what happened about that, Maggie?” Milner asked, turning round to her.

  “I asked Rose if she could show me where the ladies’ room was. She got the point. She told me Signett did have a security consultant he used from time to time, a man called Francis Kelly. She didn’t have any contact details because Mr. Signett insisted on handling anything to do with security himself. And then she said after we left on Tuesday she had to rearrange his appointments for almost the whole afternoon. I thanked her and left.”

  “What did she mean by that?” Sam asked.

  “In that context? I can only assume she meant that Signett consulted Kelly at short notice on Tuesday afternoon. And I think she wanted me to know that.”

  “So why didn’t she just say?”

  “Same reason she didn’t just give me that disk. I think it’s a question of divided loyalties. She’s a confidential secretary to Signett but she wants justice for Challoner.”

  Dominguez whistled softly. “And Challoner was killed that night. That just about ties it up for Signett. Thanks, Maggie. We’ll be looking into the dealings of Mr. Francis Kelly. And maybe we won’t be wringing our hands too much about the fate of Mr. Warren Signett.”

  He turned the police cruiser into the station and they followed him inside. He spoke over his shoulder.

  “I just want to drop in on the Forensic Team. See if they’ve made any progress.”

  There were six people in the room, standing around a large table covered with evidence bags, taking notes and making lists. Kate, the girl they’d seen briefly at Challoner’s house, came over. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Without the bulky coveralls she was stick-thin.

  “Hi, Eddie,” she said. “We’re all done at the house.”

  “You find anything?”

  She shook her head. “Cell phone was missing. He certainly had one – Rick found the account when he was looking through the filing drawer in the desk. They could have taken it. We’re monitoring the number in case someone switches it on but they’re probably not that stupid.”

  “Damn, he probably kept his contacts on it.”

  “No. I don’t think so. I’d say he preferred to keep a conventional appointments diary and address book.” She gave the others a quick glance, then returned her attention to Dominguez. “Something like this, maybe.”

  She led them over to the table and picked up a sealed polythene bag. Inside was a small notebook with black, plasticized covers.

  “Have forensic finished with it?”

  “Yeah. Don’t worry, there’s nothing on it. Too textured. In any case it looks like they were wearing gloves. We haven’t found a print anywhere, other than the victim’s.”

  “Hard to believe someone gave him that beating wearing gloves.”

  “That’s what we thought. Maybe just one of the perps was wearing gloves and he was the one going through the stuff. Meanwhile the other one was using the victim as a punching bag.”

  Maggie grimaced.

  Dominguez pointed. “So did they miss this?”

  “No, we don’t think so. It was on the floor, face down and open. Like someone took a quick squint and threw it aside.”

  Dominguez opened the seal and took out the notebook. He leafed through it and pursed his lips.

  “It’s not an address book,” he said. “It’s not indexed. There’s a few memos, shopping lists – here’s some notes from one of his meetings.”

  He continued to turn the pages.

  Kate said, “From the other examples we’ve seen, it’s the victim’s writing, for sure. Small, neat hand.”

  “Yeah. Oh, here’s some formulas. Terry, Maggie: you’re the scientists. You’d better take a look.”

  He passed the notebook to them, opened at a page. They saw a list of chemicals, with percentage contents written against each one.

  Sulphur: 0.54%

  Rhodium: 84.73%

  Potassium: 0.958%

  Argon: 3.3%

  Oxygen: 2.81%

  Zinc: 8.448%

  They frowned, then looked at each other.

  Kate said, “I need to get on, Eddie. Can I leave that with you?”

  “Sure. Thanks, Kate.” He turned to the others. “We’ll use an interview room. My office is a tip.”

  They went down the corridor and entered a room marked “Interview Room B”. It was a small, square room, furnished only with a table and four upright chairs. Terry sat down, still studying the open notebook, and Maggie took the chair next to him. Dominguez and Milner stood behind them, looking over their shoulders.

  “It’s weird,” Terry murmured to Maggie.

  “There’s no way you could make up a solution from that lot,” she said. “I thought for a moment it might be an analysis, but it can’t be that either. Argon and oxygen are gases, and rhodium’s a rare and very unreactive metal.”

  “The numbers don’t make sense either,” Terry said. “Why are some ingredients quoted to three decimal places, and others to only one?”

  “He’s written the elements down with their full names,” she mused. “You wouldn’t do that normally, not in a notebook.”

  “What happens if...?” He snapped his fingers.

  “What?” Milner and Dominguez said simultaneously.

  “I think it’s a code of some sort. Replace the elements with their accepted abbreviations and what do you get? S, Rh, K, A, O, Zn.”

  Milner said, “That doesn’t spell anything.”

  “Maybe it’s an anagram.”

  Maggie was still frowning. “What about the percentages?” she asked.

  Terry shook his head. “I don’t think they are percentages; if they were, they’d add up to a hundred percent, and these add up to slightly more than that. Maybe the
letters just give you the order, telling you how to combine them. Put them in alphabetical order, A, K, O, Rh, S, Z, and you get one long number.”

  “A phone number?” Milner asked.

  “Too long,” Dominguez said. “There’s twenty digits there.”

  “Could be two phone numbers,” said Maggie.

  “True.”

  “But why encode them?” Dominguez asked.

  “In case someone got hold of the notebook? He could be protecting the identity of the people in here. Maybe one was Rose – yes, it could be, look, Rh, O, S. I bet that’s what the letters are for. There’s no E but it’s near enough. Rose!”

  “What about the ‘h’?” Milner asked.

  “He couldn’t help that,” Maggie answered. “There isn’t an element with R on its own. What does that leave, Terry?”

  “K, A, Z. No, it’s Z, A, K – Zak. It’s Zak Gould!”

  “Nice one, Terry!” Milner exclaimed.

  “The ‘Dr. Gould’ they mentioned on the disk?” Dominguez asked. “Who exactly is this guy?”

  Terry answered. “He’s a scientist. He’s the one who engineered the organism that escaped. He worked for Vance for a time, then just left without saying anything. We need to track him down but no one seems to know where he is. Maybe this is what Challoner’s killers were looking for.”

  “Someone must be pretty darn anxious to get their hands on him if they’ll kill just to get his phone number.”

  “Yeah – someone like Signett,” said Milner, grimly. “Zak Gould developed the organism, knew exactly what went into it. He’d be a major threat.”

  Maggie pointed. “Remember what Rose said? ‘They got him. They’ll get the other one, too.’ Zak’s the other one.”

  Milner nodded. “That’s the way it looks.” He took out his own notebook. “Here, read those numbers out.”

  “Rose is 847-328-1954. And Zak is 844-833-5908.”

  “Must be cell phone numbers,” Dominguez said, reaching for his belt.

  “Whoa, baby!” Milner said, pushing the phone down. “Not so fast. Who are you calling?”

  “Rose. It’s okay, she won’t be at the office at this hour. She’ll be at home.”

  “And suppose Maggie is right? Suppose she’s under surveillance? They could have bugged her house.”

  Dominguez pulled a face. “Yeah okay, I’ll get one of our guys to run the numbers. We’ll have an answer in a few minutes.”

  He came back in a few minutes later with a smile on his face. “Bingo”, he said. “Rose Fitzgerald”.

  “What about the other number?” said Milner

  “No dice there, I’m afraid. One of these top up phones, not registered to anyone.”

  “Must be him, though,” said Terry. “So do we call him now?”

  “No,” Milner said.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Listen, if the guy was living any normal sort of life the Bureau would have tracked him down by now, and they haven’t. What that says to me is, he’s gone to ground. If we just phone him chances are he’ll go to ground somewhere else and we’ll never find him. What we have to do is trace the number. If his cell phone is switched on we should be able to find out where it is, within fifty to a thousand metres, depending on how built-up the area is. We can throw a cordon around it and then phone him and move in.”

  “Come on, then,” Maggie said. “What are we waiting for?”

  Dominguez stared at her. “Are you crazy? You’ve got one shot at this and you want to rush in and blow it?”

  “Eddie, finding this man and talking to him is essential – it’s the whole reason why we’re here. If Challoner’s killers are after him every minute counts.”

  He opened his hands. “It takes time to set something like this up! It’s too late today – the whole operation has to be in daylight or he could just slip away in the dark.”

  Maggie turned away with a small moan. “We have to find him, we have to. Tell him, Sam.”

  Milner looked at her and shook his head. “Maggie, be realistic. It’s Thursday, and Challoner was murdered Tuesday night. If he told his killers where Zak Gould was, the man’s dead already. If he didn’t, they’re still looking. Better we do like Eddie says.”

  “Just give me the rest of the day,” said Dominguez. “We’ll go in first thing tomorrow.”

  Back in Terry’s hotel room, Maggie took off her shoes and lay on the sofa. Terry took his shoes off, too, but he stood at the window, staring pensively down at the coloured ribbons of cars sliding past one another in the street below.

  “So now we know what Signett was up to,” Maggie said. “I still don’t understand, though. One moment he’s happily distributing the organism in the Far East; the next he’s killing everyone who knows anything about it. What triggered the change of heart?”

  Terry turned to face her. “You want to know what I think?”

  “Go on.”

  “My feeling is, it was the escape from Richmond. Up to then Signett hadn’t fully understood the risks – that or he didn’t want to understand them. We know the man was stubborn; he saw it as a power struggle – he convinced himself Challoner was being over-cautious and pushed his own agenda through. But Challoner was right: testing the stuff in an open field was far too risky; the organism was probably washed into the river with the first big storm. I expect there was a massive algal bloom, the river stank of ammonia, and Signett started to have second thoughts.”

  Maggie frowned. “He couldn’t have known how far it would spread or what it would do.”

  “No, but suddenly he saw the potential risk. Trouble was, by that time he’d already set up his field trials abroad. The best he could do was conceal everything to do with the organism at Richmond. That way if things went pear-shaped in China or India or Thailand the trail wouldn’t lead back to his company. At the end of the day he was a business man, not a scientist. He never saw the potential consequences.”

  “And those two research staff who were run off the road were the first victims?”

  “Yes. He’d have had Zak killed, too, but Challoner warned him and he went into hiding.”

  “Challoner didn’t go into hiding, and he could have gone public at any time.”

  “Zak was the real danger. Without him, Challoner would have found it hard to prove anything – all the evidence had been destroyed. Signett must have known the two were close – perhaps very close – so he left Challoner alive in the hope he’d lead them to where Zak was hiding. Then we turned up and he realized he couldn’t afford to leave it any longer, so he sent his thugs to beat it out of him.”

  She nodded slowly. “Signett must have thought he had everything wrapped up. Unfortunately for him the Chinese had inside information. He underestimated them.”

  “Yes, very badly.”

  She curled up on the couch. “Poor man.”

  “He had blood on his hands, Maggie.”

  “Still, no one deserves to face that.”

  “You may want to revise that view if his goons get to Zak Gould before us.”

  She sighed. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  CHAPTER 51

  Dominguez picked them up from the hotel at seven-thirty the next morning.

  “The others are on their way,” he said. “We’ll meet there.”

  He turned onto Route 9.

  “Where’re we going?” Milner asked.

  “Newton Center. Small township about ten miles outside Boston.” He turned to Maggie and Terry in the back. “Bet you’re glad you’re here right now, not Chicago.”

  Maggie’s face fell. “Why, what’s happened?”

  “You didn’t see it on the news last night? Got hit by one of those white smogs. First all the dead fish, now this. Lot of fatalities – some people say five thousand, maybe more. Hospitals are bursting at the seams.” He shook his head. “Big city like that. Bad place for it to happen.”

  Terry met Maggie’s eyes. They said nothing.

  The call wa
s taken by the officer on reception at Boston police headquarters.

  “This is Captain Mulhern,” the voice said. “Could you take a message for Detective Dominguez? Tell him I’m running a bit late but I’m on my way right now. I should make it to our meeting in a half hour. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll pass the message on when I see him, but Detective Dominguez isn’t at HQ right now.”

  “He isn’t? Well, what about our meeting?”

  “I don’t know anything about that, sir. He’s out on a case.”

  “He’s what! When will he be back?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t say.”

  “Aw, hell. He must have forgotten. And I’ve lost his cell phone number. That’s why I called you.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t give out information like that over the phone, sir.”

  “No, I’m not asking you to… Shit, I can’t meet him tomorrow either; I have to be back in Memphis. Maybe I can meet him where he’s at now. Did he say?”

  “I believe he went down to Newton Center, sir.”

  “Okay, I’ll try my luck there.”

  She looked at the dead receiver for a moment, shrugged, and replaced it.

  The police deployed quietly, sealing off the street at each end. A series of short service roads branched off to one side. Dominguez had parked the car opposite one of these and they sat there, waiting.

  “These here ranch houses,” he said, “were built after the last war for returning GIs. They’ve changed hands plenty of times since then, and the owners put their own mark on them, so each one is different now. Anyhow the layout’s not bad from our point of view. For each house we’ve got a service road on one side and a sort of communal area with a path on the other. Once we’ve located Zak’s house we can watch it front and back. The fix we got suggests it’s in one of these three roads.”

  They watched the uniformed officers going from house to house, talking to the residents and showing them a picture of Zak Gould, extracted from the record of his driver’s licence. A little more than an hour later all the officers returned to the street. “Wait here,” said Dominguez, and got out of the car to speak to them. They were in a huddle for several minutes, then one of them pointed and he came back. He got in the car.