by Tim Tigner
Though the tabletop and floor were now etched with nitric acid, the big Pyrex beaker full of Creamer base sat undisturbed. He could still salvage this batch. That was important. He had a rendezvous with Sheila.
Thirty-two minutes later the recipe was complete. After curing for an hour, the Creamer would be ready. He emptied the eight liters of Creamer into two gallon-jugs and had about a pint of Creamer left over. Rather than pouring it down the drain, he emptied his sixteen-ounce bottle of Dasani into the sink and poured the remaining Creamer inside. He put the Dasani bottle back in his jacket pocket and then secured the gallon jugs in his backpack. The sound of the backpack’s zipper was a welcome one. He had come close to disaster tonight, but in the end he had pulled it off.
With a spring in his step, Odi opened the laboratory door and nearly walked into the man waiting silently in the dark.
“Hello Odi.”
Odi jumped. “Ayden?”
His friend’s face was shadowed, but the corridor’s emergency lighting reflected off the gun in his hand. The surprising scene took too long for Odi’s tired mind to compute. By the time the threat had registered he was flying backwards through space as an explosion of pain ripped through his body from the center of his chest. Agony racked him with an almost physical grip until his whole world was reduced to a blinding white light. Then everything went black.
Chapter 44
Washington, D.C.
“I TOLD YOU never to call me here,” Wiley said, his voice raspy from lack of sleep. “It’s too dangerous.”
“You’re in the office at five in the morning. You didn’t leave me much choice,” Stuart replied. “Check your Hotmail account. I’m sending a file.”
Wiley bit his lower lip and did as he was told. The subject line on the message from [email protected] was “FBI’s Most Wanted.” There was no text, but it contained an attachment. Wiley double clicked. A second later he was looking at a composite picture of Odi’s face. “Where did you get this?”
Stuart scoffed. “The important question is why did I get this. The answer is that it’s time to turn up the heat.”
Wiley looked back at the message header. “You want me to make Odysseus Carr one of the FBI’s most wanted?”
“Don’t be daft. Odi Carr is dead. I want you to make someone who looks like Odysseus Carr—someone who is impersonating a fallen federal officer—one of the FBI’s most wanted.”
Wiley bristled but managed to control his temper. He knew that Stuart was up to something, and Wiley had yet to figure out what it was. “Impersonating a federal officer isn’t a big enough crime to warrant that.”
“No, but assassinating the CEO’s of three major US defense corporations is.”
“True, but what good is that going to do us?” Wiley asked.
“For starters, it’s going to make it a lot harder for Odi to get to us.”
Wiley smiled, pleased that Mister Slider was nervous about that too. They had not discussed it, but both men knew that they were prime candidates for Odi’s next attack—and the man was batting a thousand.
“Furthermore,” Stuart continued, “by proactively framing those murders as the acts of a look-alike foreign assassin—someone whose employer is intent on weakening the US defense industry—you divert the authorities from resurrecting the real Odi Carr and searching for his motive.”
“But what happens if they catch him?”
“Think, Wiley, think. You don’t wait around passively. You stack the deck against Odi to ensure that doesn’t happen. Paint him as a treacherous enough bastard that officers will shoot first and ask questions later. Tell them he’s prone to booby-trap himself, and that he has sworn to never be taken alive. Tell them not to take any chances.”
“That may take care of the police, but what do I tell my own people?”
“You’re not thinking,” Stuart repeated, adding a soprano lilt to give his words extra dig.
Wiley still drew a painful blank.
Stuart prompted him. “How many departments do you have?”
Of course, Wiley thought. He could classify the source of the intelligence as compartmentalized information. Bob would think that it came from Bill and vice versa and so on. He could come up with an excuse to introduce the APB to the system a few layers down the chain of command so that nobody would turn to him for details. The ideas were coming fast now—thirty seconds too late. Leo Tufts would be perfect for running the look-alike-assassin case. He would run with it like the wind, assuming incorrectly that it was a test prior to promotion.
Wiley tightened his grip on the receiver. “Very well Stuart. It will be done.”
Chapter 45
Chesapeake Beach, Maryland
00:08 ... 00:07 ... “What’s the best size?”
The trick question struck Cassi like a balmy Hawaiian breeze on a bitter winter night. She spoke the answer aloud. “A cubic centimeter.” She typed “CC” into the computer. The countdown stopped with four seconds left.
Growing up in a family of scientists, her initials had spurred both a nickname and a longstanding family joke. How could someone so big, be so small? Odi had posed a question that both she and Charlotte could instantly answer, but which would dumbfound anyone else.
Eight hours later, Wiley pulled his black Escalade into Charlotte’s drive.
Cassi remained seated on the front porch, ostensibly enjoying the late afternoon sun. In truth she wanted to watch Wiley’s approach. She was expert at reading body language, especially on people she knew well. Wiley, however, habitually maintained control over his face, eyes, and hands. He was a natural-born poker player. Cassi had discovered his tell, however. It was his walk.
A lump grew in her throat as Wiley trampled grass beneath a testy stride. She knew she had tried his patience by asking him to drop everything and drive out there without explanation. Apparently the drive had not mellowed his mood. “Thank you for coming. I know it’s ... awkward.”
“You said it was important.” Wiley’s words were much softer than his stance, an indication that he was trying. “What happened? You were, shall we say, uncharacteristically nebulous on the phone.”
“Nebulous. I don’t think anyone has called me that before,” she said, trying to lighten his mood.
“So what’s the urgent matter you summoned me to Crisfield for?” Wiley said. He did not alter his stance.
“Come inside,” she said. “There’s something I need to show you.”
She led him into the kitchen and pointed at four folders she had found hidden between placemats in the credenza. She was certain that one of the reasons Odi had booby trapped the cottage was to destroy these files. No doubt he also wanted to destroy his laptop computer, but she was not about to touch that. The first thing she had done after stopping the countdown was re-enable the storm shutters. As she had guessed, Odi had disabled them with a faulty fuse. Unfortunately, she had not guessed or discovered where he had hidden the bomb. Until it was disarmed, she would treat the computer like the Ebola virus.
“What’s in those?” Wiley asked.
Cassi pushed the manila stack toward him. “Take a look.”
Wiley took a half step back after opening the top folder, as though he were afraid it might bite him. Staring up at him from a glossy page was Mark Drake’s smiling face. The posed headshot was part of a Car and Driver article entitled Drake’s Gallant Steed.
Wiley scanned the article and then read aloud the caption beneath the picture of the automobile that now occupied an FBI forensics garage. “A bulletproof chariot drawn by five hundred horses, Drake’s custom Bentley is large enough to accommodate six knights and their round table.” The next page showed Drake entering the Bentley before his Petite Versailles mansion. Wiley was about to flip further when the chauffeur’s familiar features caught his eye. It was obvious to Cassi that that very picture had been the catalyst for Odi’s assassination plan. Wiley seemed to draw the same conclusion too, as he said, “I’ll be damned.”
Cassi watche
d Wiley flip quickly through the remaining pages of the file, having already ascertained its gist. The remainder consisted of similarly laudatory stories from other distinguished periodicals. Business Week, Inc., and American Rifleman each had feature articles with pictures and useful biographical details.
Wiley set the first file aside and opened the second. This one led with an Esquire article entitled “A King and his Castles.” The title was splashed above Mark Rollins’ headshot, which was flanked on four sides by four royal residences: a mansion in Suffolk County, a penthouse in Manhattan, a ranch in Montana, and a beach house on the Virginia coast. “Son of a bitch.”
Cassi did not comment. She knew that the assassin’s mother was anything but a bitch.
Wiley slid the second file off the stack and then paused with his fingers on the third. He pushed it aside as well, apparently grasping the significance inherent in the quantity of folders. Only three murders had been committed thus far—aside from Potchak, whom Odi had no need to research. He looked up at her before opening the forth. Cassi clenched her jaw and nodded.
The fourth folder led with an article from the Rappahannock Record entitled “Celebrity Getaways.” Odi had circled a paragraph in the middle with a red pen. According to Reedville Coffee Stop owner Norm Evans, Director Proffitt never misses the chance to clear his head of city smog and fill his lungs with fresh Chesapeake air. This was doubly true, Evans noted, on the weekends Proffitt was scheduled for a Sunday-morning talk show appearance. “There’s nothing like a Chesapeake morning to put you at your best.”
Cassi felt hot tears running down her cheeks as Wiley studied the words. When he finally looked up, she had no idea what to say.
“So I’m next?” Wiley asked.
Cassi slowly nodded.
Wiley handed her a handkerchief and she dabbed at her eyes. Up until this moment, she had been working alone, feeding off adrenaline. Now she felt like collapsing, knowing that Wiley was there to keep the world from crashing down around her. This was no time to slack off, however, so she closed her eyes and made a determined effort to pull herself together. “Fitzpatrick’s website mentions that you’ll be his guest on PoliTalk this Sunday.”
Wiley nodded somberly. “So you think the assassin will come for me at Asgard?”
“Yes.”
“Why me? I’m not a corporate CEO.”
Cassi had spent the afternoon walking the bluff, thinking about that very question. A satisfying answer, if one could possibly be found, had eluded her grasp like a wisp of smoke. Still, she knew that her conclusion was correct, so she was going to act on it. The motivation would eventually be revealed. “I’m not sure why he’s after you, but I have discovered the assassin’s identity, so I’m sure that it’s my fault.”
Chapter 46
Baltimore, Maryland
ODI DREAMT OF snakes. He was trapped among them, paralyzed in their dark midst as they writhed and hissed. He had harbored an irrational fear of snakes since his eleventh year when a corn snake surreptitiously shared his sleeping bag. It had awakened him after a dormant night while slithering to escape across his naked thigh. At the time his groggy mind was unsure whether he had imagined the sensation or not. When the movement repeated he lay paralyzed with fear until the scaly head emerged an inch from the tip of his nose and broke the spell. The other Scouts found him at the base of the hill, still kicking and screaming and trying to break free of his sodden sleeping bag. Twenty years later Odi could still hear their incessant laughter.
Today his dream recycled as nightmares often do, playing over and over again accompanied by a ceaseless hiss until at last a bolt of pain lanced through his acid-burned shoulder and jolted him awake. The first thing he noticed as his mind pierced the fog was a familiar smell. Once it registered, everything became clear and his eyes shot open like blinds released. He was back in the chemistry lab. The hissing was real, but the source was not snakes. It was gas.
A sea of green met his eyes. Tile. He was on his stomach with his left cheek resting numbly on the cold laboratory floor. His arms were tied behind his back. Ayden.
Complicating his predicament, Odi did not know exactly where the truth ended and the fiction began, but one sad fact was blindingly obvious. Once again he had been betrayed. Ayden’s motivation was also obvious. He wanted two gallons of Creamer. He was left feeling foolish that it took a Taser blast to bring him clarity. No doubt Ayden had invented the story about Sheila and the SASC to accomplish that end. The big question was why. Why did Ayden want an arsenal of Creamer? He had only learned of the Creamer a few days earlier. Before then nobody but Odi knew of its existence. That was hardly enough time to orchestrate a grand plan. Odi supposed that it was possible that Ayden had simply opportunistically inserted Creamer into a preexisting framework, but that seemed farfetched. Or perhaps Ayden had simply grasped the black-market demand for such a weapon and greed had overwhelmed him overnight. Two gallons was the equivalent of two-hundred-and-fifty-six invisible hand grenades. He shuddered to think what the likes of Bin Laden could do with an arsenal like that.
His thoughts returned to Ayden. There had to be more behind his actions than greed. Ayden had abandoned his values. He had turned on his friend. That did not happen in a day. Or did it? Odi asked, turning a mirror on himself.
As uncomfortable questions rolled in, Odi tried to push them aside so that he could focus on the present. Although his hands were bound behind his back, he could tell by the way his legs were sprawled that his feet remained free. Had Ayden gotten sloppy, he wondered, or did that anomaly signify something else? Perhaps Ayden was still in the room.
Wary now, Odi rolled slowly over, trying to get a better look around. As his hands rolled beneath him, he heard a soft metallic click. A shiver shot up his spine as he froze. Nothing focuses an explosive ordnance disposal technician’s attention more acutely than an unexpected mechanical sound. Either he had just rolled onto something metallic that Ayden had placed on the middle of the tiled floor, or a device of some kind was strapped to his arms. Both possibilities yielded the same horrifying conclusion. The room was a gas-fueled bomb, and he was the trigger.
Filtering out the hissing of gas overhead, Odi tried to replay the sound in his mind. He had heard a hollow clack followed by a metal-on-tile scrape. It was mysterious, but mysterious was better than the all-too-familiar arming click of a pressure switch—probably.
He considered screaming for help, but given the hissing jets that might be the worst thing he could do. If Ayden had rigged him to be a trigger, he had probably rigged the door as well. If anyone barged in responding to his call before Odi evacuated the gas, both he and the Good Samaritan would go up in flames.
Odi summarized his situation. If he moved or called out for help, the gas would ignite and he would suffer an excruciating death. If he did nothing, he would suffocate once the gas filled the room. It was not going to be a feel-good day.
He raised his legs slowly until they were perpendicular with the floor. Then, clamping his eyes shut in a grimace, he brought his legs down so that their momentum sat him up without the use of his hands.
No Boom.
He looked over his shoulder to inspect the floor. He saw nothing but tile. That narrowed down the possibilities. Slowly Odi worked his feet beneath himself and stood up, being careful all the while not to move his hands. He tiptoed over to the wall mirror beside the chemical shower. He found the smell of gas much more intense while standing and his head began to swim. He knew he did not have much time before succumbing to the fumes.
The mirror revealed that Ayden had not strapped a bomb between his arms. He had, however, done the next best thing. Ayden had duct taped one arm of a gas-igniting sparker to each of Odi’s wrists and used a third strip of tape to bind his wrists together, leaving the sparker cocked. If Odi pulled his hands free, he would release the tension holding the sparker’s arms together. Then the flint would scrape back across the scratchpad and emit a deadly shower of sparks. Odi pictured h
is life ending with a sucking whoosh and a searing boom.
Perhaps that would be for the best, he thought. Poetic justice. Just what he deserved for releasing two gallons of Creamer into the world, endangering innocents and disgracing his family. A surge of emotion swept over him. He had allowed himself to be used, and in so doing he had betrayed everyone he knew. A fiery death was too good for him after that. Besides, how many times had he cheated Prometheus while working EOD? A dozen? Fifty? A hundred?
Staring into the mirror, his suicidal thoughts disappeared as quickly as they came. He was not one to take the coward’s way out. Speaking of which, now that he understood his predicament, his first impulse was to open the door and run, to get the detonator strapped between his wrists well beyond the reach of the gas. But years on the bomb squad had conditioned him not to yield to rash impulses. He turned his eyes to the exit and spotted the redundant detonator at once. As predicted, Ayden had rigged another sparker over the door. Fortunately, disabling it would be simple—once Odi had the use of his hands.
His mind raced to find a solution, aware that it was competing with a hissing clock. If he passed out now he would never awake. Did he have seconds? Minutes? One? Two? Five? Ten? There was no way to tell. One moment his head would start to spin and the next he would fall. Whoosh-boom.
Although he had disarmed hundreds of bombs, Odi had never been trapped inside one before. Being part of the mechanism brought him a whole new perspective, but it did not help.
He tried to take a mental step outside the box, to approach this bomb like any other EOD problem. The objective was the same. He had to prevent the detonator, the sparker, from exploding the ordnance, the gas. The question was how. He had only very limited use of his hands, and the gas was everywhere. He could not clip a wire or divert a circuit or place a circuit breaker between the sparker and the gas.