by Glenn Cooper
I’ll wait for you, Cyrus thought. You’re running in circles.
Weller eventually stopped in front of the bleachers and stood, hands on hips, while Cyrus climbed down. In between breaths he said, “Sorry to keep you waiting … but you lose the benefit when your heart slows down … at least that’s the theory.”
“Do a lot of running?” Cyrus asked.
“Just enough to counteract the beer.”
Cyrus refused to respond in kind. “Do you know why I’m here?”
“Frank Sacco?” Alex asked. “Is the FBI involved with Frank’s murder?”
“We’re aware of it. I’m interested in what you know.” He studied Weller’s eyes for an evasive glance, a twitch, but there was nothing.
“I know what I’ve seen on the news, read online. It’s horrible. I’ve known the lad for three years. He was a good worker, a pleasant fellow; never had issues with him. I was shocked he was involved with anything like this.”
“Anything like what?”
“Whatever it was that would have led to someone killing him!” Alex had a water bottle and towel on the lowest bleacher step. He reached for them.
“Do you know where he lived?”
“Of course. Revere.”
“Ever been to his house?”
“We didn’t have that kind of relationship.”
“Did he ever go to your house?”
“Yes, several times.”
“I thought you didn’t have that kind of relationship.”
“He attended my salon.”
“The Uroboros thing.”
“That’s right.”
“Active participant?”
“He wasn’t much of a talker.”
“When was the last time he attended?”
“A couple of weeks ago. Early January sometime.”
“I thought you said you’d invite me to the next one you had.”
A sip from the water bottle. “Must’ve slipped my mind.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“At work the day he died. He seemed perfectly normal.”
“Nothing at all to indicate he was nervous, stressed out, in any kind of trouble?”
“Nothing.”
“Where were you two nights ago? In your lab again?”
“No, actually. I was home with my girlfriend the entire night.”
“I might want to talk to her.”
“She’d be delighted, I’m sure.”
“Any past issues with Sacco’s performance, his behavior, any signs of drug use?”
Alex toweled his arms dry. “He was a bit rough around the edges but he came to work without fail, did his job adequately and that’s that. So, look, I’ve really got to get back to the lab. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
Cyrus watched closely as he told him, “Yeah, there’s one more thing.” He produced Desjardines’ report and showed it to him. “Ever seen this chemical?”
Cyrus almost wished he had the guy hooked up to a polygraph because from the outside he looked cool and nonchalant when he answered, “I certainly have. I discovered it. Where did you get this?”
“You discovered it?”
“That’s what I said. No one else has seen this so I’m surprised, to say the least.”
“You don’t look surprised.”
“I’m British. Maybe you’re not used to our demeanor.”
“Maybe. Are you aware that a new drug called Bliss is on the streets?”
“I’ve read a little about it. I don’t follow the news religiously.”
“Well, it looks like your chemical is Bliss. This was analyzed from a sample bought on the street.”
“I see,” Alex said evenly. “Mind if we sit? Bit much to take in.”
They sat on the lowest step. Cyrus let Alex read through the lab report more thoroughly.
“Do you want to know why I may not have seemed as surprised as I might have been?” Alex asked.
“Try me.”
“This compound, this pentapeptide: I had a small supply of it locked away in my desk. It went missing.”
“When?”
“About a month ago.”
“Did you report it to the police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Alex paused. It occurred to Cyrus he was rehearsing the answer in his mind. “It’s a thorny matter of intellectual property. I haven’t filed patents yet. I’m not ready scientifically. If I filed a complaint with the police, I would have had to prematurely disclose details, such as the structure.”
“Uh huh,” Cyrus said skeptically. “What’s your reaction to it being used as a street drug?”
“I’m horrified by the notion. It’s not intended for human use. There’s been no testing whatsoever.”
Horrified? You don’t look horrified, Cyrus thought. “What’s the source of the chemical? How’d you discover it?”
“You recall I’m interested in the biology of the dying brain. My compound was isolated from the brains of animals suffering from severe oxygen deprivation, close to time of death.”
“What kind of animals?”
“Mice, rats, dogs.”
“You used the word isolated. How do you isolate it?”
“You mean my techniques?”
“Yeah. How do you get the chemical out of the brain?”
“Well, you put a needle into the brain and extract a sample. Why do you need to know that?”
Cyrus didn’t answer. He felt his heart pound and tried to sound as controlled as Weller was. “What about humans?”
“I wouldn’t know that, would I?”
“That’d be a hell of an experiment,” Cyrus said. “What would you have to do, drill a person’s brain?”
“It’s a ridiculous idea! I can’t imagine anyone volunteering for that!” Alex collected his things and stood.
“Yeah, you definitely wouldn’t raise your hand for that kind of maneuver,” Cyrus said. He stood too. “What’s the purpose of the chemical?”
“I’m sorry, its purpose?”
“Yeah. What does it do?”
“It activates a receptor in a part of the brain called the limbic system. Beyond that, I don’t know. It’s early days in the research program.”
Cyrus said suddenly, “Did it occur to you that Frank Sacco might have taken your chemical?”
“Until now, no. Based on what I’ve just learned, I’d have to consider it. He didn’t have a key to my desk but maybe he knew where I kept it. I’m very troubled, to say the least. I’ve got to go. Sorry.”
Cyrus walked with him toward the locker room. “So what do you make of the wild trips people are describing, the ones who’ve taken your drug?”
Alex stopped at the locker room door. “I hadn’t been paying much attention. Obviously, now that I know it’s mine, I plan on paying quite a bit. I’m very troubled, but I’m a scientist so I’ll process whatever data comes my way.” He swung the door open then recollected himself. “I’ve been remiss. I’ve neglected to ask after your daughter.”
Cyrus winced. “She’s fine.”
“Seizure-free?”
Cyrus wouldn’t let him take back control. “I said she’s fine. I’ll be back to you soon with more questions.”
“I’m sure you will.”
Then Cyrus he lowered his voice and said, “I know what you did.”
Alex looked at him quizzically. “What did you say?”
At the question, Cyrus turned his back to him and left.
Twenty-nine
“Don’t take it so hard.”
Stanley Minot was doing his best to be supportive but Cyrus was in a foul mood. The U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts had shot down their request for a search warrant on Alex Weller’s workplace, home, and automobile. Despite a loosely cohesive story, there was no credible evidence, in her opinion, to link Weller to the murders of Thomas Quinn, any of the prostitutes, or Frank Sacco. “Keep digging,” she’d said
before escorting him and Avakian to the elevators at the Moakley Federal Courthouse.
“Weller’s our man,” Cyrus told Minot glumly. “I know it, you know it.”
Minot dug his hands into his sweater pockets, stretching them out, as he often did when he was about to be philosophical. “Look, I think you’re building a case. The circumstantial evidence is getting compelling but you’ve got to convince the U.S. attorney, not me.”
“I think Weller’s a twisted fuck,” Avakian volunteered.
“Well, that’ll put us over the evidentiary hurdle, Pete.” Minot laughed.
Minot’s mobile rang. He stepped out of Cyrus’s office to answer it.
“What now?” Avakian asked O’Malley.
“We need to interview Weller’s girlfriend again. She vouched for him the night Sacco was killed but she was shaky. Maybe we can get her to slip up. And we need to get the names and addresses of everyone who’s in this Uroboros deal.”
“Bunch of wackos,” Avakian observed.
“Maybe. But we need to talk to them.”
Minot came back with a grave face. “When it rains it pours. We’ve got to drop everything.”
“What is it?” Avakian asked.
“Kidnapping. And I was going to catch up on paperwork today.”
“Why’s it ours?” Cyrus asked sourly.
“It’s probably interstate,” Minot said. “A guy’s wife and baby were taken from Nashua. The kidnapper’s plates were from Mass. Grab your stuff. We’re going to Woburn.”
“Why Woburn?” Avakian groused.
“The husband works there at a biotech company.”
“What’s he do?” Cyrus wondered.
Minot checked his notes. “Says he’s some kind of a chemist. A peptide chemist.”
Paul Martell was in his midthirties, a man with a pasty complexion and a doughy body. Love handles bulged around his polo shirt and spilled over his khakis. His eyes were red; it looked to Cyrus that he’d been bawling his eyes out.
They interviewed him in the company’s boardroom. Chemotherapeutics, Inc. was a start-up operation, only a few years old. Cyrus heard something about cancer and made a mental note to check if they had anything new going for brain tumors. The company’s CEO was pacing the hall outside the boardroom incessantly yapping on his mobile. He was the one who found Martell in the lab burning the midnight oil over the weekend. Martell broke down and told him what was happening. The CEO called the police.
On Friday night, Martell told O’Malley and his team, he and his wife, Marcie, were watching TV. Their six-month-old baby was asleep in her crib. Marcie, as usual, had one ear on the TV, one on the baby monitor. The doorbell rang, probably a neighbor, she thought, but it wasn’t.
Two men barged in. Martell didn’t know them—and still doesn’t. They brandished guns, made no effort to conceal their faces. They told him they knew he was a peptide chemist. They had a bottle of powder. They wanted him to make them more of it, right away: and to keep him motivated, they were taking his wife. Then they heard the baby crying on the monitor—the kid too. Martell needed to get cranking. They wanted half of the goods Saturday night. They’d check it out. If it was good, they wanted the other half Monday. Then they’d let his family go. If the stuff he made was crap, God help him.
“How’d they know you were a peptide chemist?” Cyrus asked.
“They said they needed one, asked around, knew someone who knew me from somewhere and Googled me. That’s all I know.”
Martell told the kidnappers he had no idea what the crystals were or how long it would take him to do a synthesis. His problem, not theirs, he was told. They made his wife bundle up the baby and get in a waiting car. As it drove off, Martell saw a Mass plate and glimpsed only one number, a three. It was a black Maxima, he thought.
The other one climbed into Martell’s passenger seat and made him drive to the research facility. He told him he’d be calling to check on him and warned him not to call the police or he’d crush the baby’s head and make his wife watch.
Martell threw himself into the task, running around various labs, utilizing the company’s sophisticated hardware. By 4 A.M., he’d analyzed the compound and knew its structure.
“What is it?” Cyrus asked.
“It’s a circular peptide,” Martell answered. “A new one on me.”
Cyrus wasn’t surprised. He sighed and showed Martell the Desjardines structure. “This it?”
“Yeah!” Martell exclaimed. “That’s it. That’s the exact isomer!”
“Were you able to make it?” Minot asked.
“Yes. I’ve made circular peptides before. I ran it through our peptide synthesizer and did the linker chemistry. No problem.”
“How much did they want? Cyrus asked.
“They said they wanted a minimum of one hundred thousand doses, about fifty grams of compound.”
Avakian whistled. “At the current street price, that’s ten million bucks worth.”
“Street price of what?” Martell asked, dazed.
“Bliss,” Cyrus answered. “Ever hear of it?”
“I’ve been making Bliss?” Martell moaned. “I had no idea.”
“How much have you made so far?” Minot asked.
“About twenty-five grams. The guy who drove me here picked it up Saturday night. I’m just purifying the second batch now.”
“So another fifty thousand hits are on the streets?” Avakian howled. “Man alive!”
“Look, I don’t care about that!” Martell cried. “I want my wife and son back!”
Minot was soothing, something he was good at. “We’ll get them back, Mister Martell. Believe me, we will.”
“She’s so scared.” He started sobbing.
“How do you know she’s scared?” Cyrus asked.
Before the chemist could respond, Minot said helpfully, “Of course she’s scared.”
Martell, though, looked at Cyrus. “Because I talked to her,” he replied.
When? they all wanted to know.
“Last night?”
How?
“On her cell phone. She had it in her bag when she left. They called me on it and let her speak to me.”
Minot jumped up muttering, “Can they be that stupid?” He got her number from Martell and sprinted into the hall.
Martell looked alarmed.
“No, it’s good. In this case stupidity is very good,” Cyrus reassured him. “If we have her phone, we have her.”
By the time it was dark, a coordinated plan was in place involving the FBI, the Mass State Police, and the Boston Police Department. Minot handled interdepartmental issues and left the tactical plan to Cyrus and Avakian, who mapped out a minute-by-minute scenario.
Marcie Martell’s cell phone signal was tracked to Clark Street off of Hanover in Boston’s North End. Multiple drive-bys gave them a high probability the source was a five-story narrow brick apartment building with only ten units.
At four in the afternoon, Comcast agreed to cut off cable service to the building. Within five minutes, the cable company received calls from three of the apartments reporting the problem. Cyrus chuckled at the speed as he and Avakian, dressed in Comcast gear, responded to the service call.
For an hour they had nearly free rein of the building, sketching the layout and planting listening devices. They were most suspicious about one of the units on the top floor where a woman angrily refused them access. On the roof, they scoped out access points from adjacent buildings and took photos to help them finalize the takedown plan.
Then they left and had the cable turned back on.
Two hours later, they instructed Martell to call his wife to confirm her safety. She was tired but fine—but most importantly, the FBI listening team picked up her ringtone in the hall outside Apt. 9, top floor, rear.
At 11 P.M. a car pulled into the vacant parking lot of Chemotherapeutics. It was Martell’s Kia, driven by John Abruzzi. He was on his own. When Abruzzi knocked on the glass door Martell
came out and handed him a large plastic jar of powder. A sniper from the state police had Abruzzi in his sights with instructions to fire if he made a move to attack the chemist but the exchange was benign.
“Your first bottle was good, at least that’s what the junkies reported,” Abruzzi joked into the microphone Martell was wearing.
“Will you let my wife and son go now?” Martell pleaded.
“Soon. Go back home and wait. And keep your mouth shut about this. We know how to get you. Be smart. When we need more, next time, maybe we’ll pay you. Bring you over the wall. Don’t be a jerkoff and you’ll do good.”
Another car pulled into the lot.
Abruzzi tossed Martell the keys to his car, climbed into the other sedan and drove away.
Cyrus was inside the company building, peering through the blinds of a darkened window. “Okay, he’s rolling,” he announced into his radio. “Keep four vehicles on him at all times and don’t move on him till you get the word.”
A quarter of a mile away, a state police helicopter was waiting in a parking lot to fly Cyrus to Boston. Within fifteen minutes he was disembarking onto the helipad roof of Mass General Hospital and was then whisked off to Boston Police District A-1 on New Sudbury Street where the operation was being staged.
Minot sat quietly, watching Cyrus lay out the tactical plan to the Mass police SWAT commander and Boston police support teams. When O’Malley was done, Minot patted him on the back in his fatherly way, filled his pipe bowl with fruity tobacco and wished him luck.
At midnight, the state police SWAT team was in place on the roof of the Clark Street building. Eight armed men in flak jackets, night vision goggles and assault rifles anchored their rappel lines.
Cyrus was in an unmarked communications van up the block near North Street. Before giving` the go ahead he called Avakian, who was in one of the cars trailing Abruzzi.
“Where’s your guy?” Cyrus asked.
“He’s still in the Seagull Lounge in Revere. We’ve got front and back covered. He’s not going to be showing up at your party.”
The lights were black in Apartment 9.
Cyrus gave the green light.
On the count, the SWAT commander initiated.
There were two windows at the side and two at the rear. With a looping rappel the first four went through the windows boots first. Then a second wave crashed in.