by Graham Brown
“What do you mean?”
“A ball like this should shatter bone and rip muscle out in huge chunks as it goes in. Don’t see any of that in this guy.”
“So how’d it get in there?”
He shrugged. “Then there’s this,” he said, holding out a vial of liquid. It looked like rusty water, the kind that came out of a pipe that hadn’t been turned on in years.
“What is it?”
“His blood.”
“What?”
“This is the guy’s blood. It’s coagulated. It’s as thick as molasses. The cells are all deformed in a way I’ve never seen.”
Kate looked at it as she turned the vial upside down, and the blood ran slowly to the bottom like syrup. “What would cause this?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “But if this was the consistency of the blood in his body before he got shot, I can’t see how his heart was pumping it.”
“Meaning what?”
John Black looked over his glasses. “Your suspect should have been dead instead of running a four-minute mile in the Ninth Ward.”
Kate found herself getting more confused. “So it happened afterward,” she guessed. “Right?”
“It had to,” he said unconvincingly, “but I still don’t know how or why.”
“Could drugs have played a part? Could he have been exposed to some toxin?”
The coroner looked over his chart. “No drug I’ve ever heard of could cause something like that.”
She sighed. “Anything else?”
“You want there to be more? This guy is already a giant medical mystery.”
Kate almost laughed, a feeling she’d forgotten existed. “No, I don’t want there to be more,” she said. “I want there to be less—less of everything. Then maybe something would make sense.”
The door swung open, and Billy Ray walked in. He looked bad, rubbing the back of his neck like he was fighting a knot or a pinched nerve. He’d been in the ICU all day, guarding the victim and waiting for her to come around.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” the coroner said and then pointed to the body. “No touching.”
As the coroner stepped out, Kate looked into Billy Ray’s eyes. “What did the girl say?”
He shook his head. “She didn’t say anything, Kate. She went into cardiac arrest a couple of times. The last episode started an hour ago. She died on the table without ever waking up.”
Kate felt as if she’d just been punched in the gut. “Damn,” she said.
“There’s going to be hell to pay for this,” Billy Ray said. “We could have stopped them.”
“You were right,” she said. “We should have gone in.”
“Yeah,” Billy Ray said. “If we had, she’d be alive right now.” He looked down at the table. “And so would he. And we’d be getting something out of him.”
She looked away, remorse overflowing from within. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “But you know there’s something bigger going on here. Thirty missing persons cases in the last five days. A dozen victims in Boston. I thought it was worth the chance. All we have to do is find the guy I painted last night, and we’ll break this case. He knew this guy. He holds all the answers.”
“You just don’t get it, do you?” Billy Ray said. “We’ve got zero. We broke all the rules, and we got people killed. There is no next time; there is no finding this blond guy. You’re damn lucky not to be lying on the slab down here yourself.”
A long silence hung in the air. He was right.
“Come on,” he said. “We have to go. We have a conference call scheduled with Director Tan’s office in an hour.”
She’d never seen Billy Ray so angry. She felt the need to apologize more, but her mind was still working the evidence. Even things that didn’t add up could tell you something. And nothing was adding up to her right now.
“Why’d he do it?” she whispered.
“Why’d who do what?”
“Why’d the blond guy let me live? Why am I not down here on a slab?”
“I don’t know, Kate,” he said. “I can’t tell you what these psychos think—”
“He wasn’t a psycho.”
“He executed this guy in cold blood.”
“After what we saw this bastard do, do you really have any qualms with that?”
Billy Ray exhaled sharply. He looked at the dead body once again. “No,” he said finally.
Kate felt something changing, some bit of clarity growing within her.
“He had my gun,” she said. “He obviously wasn’t afraid to kill. And he must have had an escape plan already set up, or we’d have nabbed him. He was calm, he knew what he was doing, and he obviously didn’t want to get caught. So why let the only person who’s seen you up close live to tell the world? Why let someone who’s trained to remember details and sworn to arrest you if she sees you again get out alive? It makes no sense. He has to know an accurate description of him will be out within an hour. So why not kill me and prevent all that?”
“Maybe he doesn’t care,” Billy Ray said. “Maybe he’s already on a plane to South America.”
“Or maybe he thinks we’re on the same side.”
Billy Ray just stared at her. “Are you out of your freaking mind?”
“Look, I’m not saying he’s on our side,” she explained, “just that he might think so. Arsonists sometimes think they’re on the same side as the firefighters. Domestic terrorists think they’re out to save the country. This guy might be thinking along the same twisted lines, and that might play to our advantage.”
“More likely, he’s part of it,” Billy Ray said. “And he’s trying to kill off anyone or anything that connects him to this stuff.”
She didn’t think so, but it was a possibility. “Even better,” she said. “That means if we find him, we can find the rest of this cult.”
Billy Ray continued to stare. “Tracking paint,” he said.
She nodded.
“They’ll probably arrest you for using it without authorization,” he said. “Even if they don’t, they’ll never let us use the satellite. It’s military.”
Kate shook her head, growing more confident once again. “If they want to end this, they’ll do whatever we ask.”
CHAPTER 43
LEROY ATHERTON had never seen the wetlands or the deep bayou before. But something had drawn him here, and even as the shadows grew long and afternoon turned to night, he’d continued to hike deeper into the great swamp.
Now that darkness had fallen over him, he began to think he’d made a mistake. He’d begun on a trail but had long ago wandered off it. Now he was lost.
Strange birdcalls pierced the night, startling him. Bullfrogs and crickets and a thousand other kinds of insects kept up a background noise that was so odd and all encompassing it made him feel dizzy. Bright eyes reflecting the moonlight seemed to stare at him from all sides.
He pulled the hood of his gray sweatshirt up over his head after the tenth mosquito buzzed in his ear. A few seconds later, he jumped back as something scurried out from under a bush and raced into the water.
“Water rat,” he muttered as the thing disappeared.
It struck him as funny. He’d lived his whole life in the badlands of Compton. He’d been in fights, seen people shot and killed. He’d been harassed dozens of times by overzealous cops or threatened by punks in the neighborhood. He’d seen bigger rats in kitchens and alleys, and yet, he felt utterly ill at ease. He guessed it was the difference between the danger you know and the danger you don’t.
“What am I doing here?” he asked himself.
He was about to turn around when a light in the distance caught his eye. He lifted his head in an attempt to see better. The point of light was moving, coming closer. It flickered like a candle.
Unsure of what to do, Leroy crouched down behind a great cypress, trying to see what was coming his way.
The source of the flame came into focus. It was a torch, like the kind lynch mobs
ran around with in those old movies. Fear suddenly gripped Leroy. He wanted to run but felt as if he were paralyzed.
A figure holding the torch slowly came into view—a woman dressed in white. She seemed to glide across the water’s surface, and the mist gave her a ghostly effect. She stopped about twenty yards away, stepping onto a dry mud bank.
She didn’t look like she belonged in a swamp. How many people are lost in this place? Leroy thought.
“You’re not lost,” she said out loud, as if reading his mind. “Nor am I. Both of us are right where we’re supposed to be.”
Her voice sounded like a song, like a melody. And Leroy found he was free of his terror almost instantly. He came out from behind the tree. “Who are you?”
“My name is Elsa,” she said. “I’m here to be your guide.”
Leroy almost laughed. “My guide,” he said. “Well, I am in the middle of a swamp, in the middle of the night, without a flashlight or a map. I guess I need something. A guide would be good, or maybe to have my head examined.”
She smiled. “I’m your second guide, Leroy. I’ll take you part of the way. If you don’t give in to fear, a third will take you the rest.”
As she spoke, the moonlight reflected off her face. She was beautiful. She had the brightest eyes he had ever seen.
“Second and third?” he asked. “Who was the first?”
“Your son,” she said plainly. “Tre.”
“My son?” Leroy didn’t know what to make of this. The dream of his son had been so real, but he was pretty sure it was just a dream.
“He sent you forth,” the woman in white added. “You have been chosen for a great task—chosen because of the mercy you’ve shown. You are honored with freeing the souls of those who’ve been enslaved.”
Leroy thought back to that night he was going to avenge his son. At the moment he was about to pull the trigger, he remembered feeling sympathy for the kid—this lost soul—a product of his environment. It had all started then, at that very moment.
He considered the feeling that was drawing him deeper into the swamp. It felt as if others in great pain were waiting on him. “They’re out there,” he said. “That’s why I’ve been drawn here.”
She nodded, but the look was sad. He thought he could guess as to why.
“There’s danger where I have to go, isn’t there?”
“I’m afraid there is,” she said. “Danger and death lie ahead in your path.”
He looked past her. He felt it. He knew she was right.
“What do I do?” Leroy said.
“Walk with me a little while, and I’ll tell you that which you need to know.”
CHAPTER 44
KATE STARED at the drab cinder block wall of the hallway. It matched her mood perfectly. Her request to use the satellite to search for the suspect she’d painted had ignited a firestorm. She’d already been raked over the coals by the local FBI brass. Now the big dogs—Kim Tan, the FBI’s director of operations, and Doug Salome, the head of Homeland Security—would get their turn. As a conference call was being set up, she was made to wait in the hall like a kid outside the principal’s office.
This is probably the end, she thought, firing time or at least reassignment to some miserable desk job. Something painful enough to make her quit.
She was almost fine with it now. She could see more time with Calvin on the horizon. She could see the fights with her mother fading to a subtle, passive-aggressive Isn’t this better? victory smile on her mother’s face.
But even if it was better for her, there were others it wouldn’t be better for.
She took full responsibility for everything that had happened in the Ninth Ward. Despite that, Billy Ray was out on the same limb and about to get chopped off with her. He hadn’t said much in the past few hours, staring at his phone most of the time, texting and e-mailing and reading the responses with a scowl on his face. It felt like their friendship was gone, another casualty of the case.
And then there was the other issue. Who would take the case next? Probably someone competent. But months of effort, knowledge, and boots-on-the-ground experience didn’t just transfer with the files. She and Billy Ray had been learning from every mistake, getting closer and closer. She felt they had the killers on the defensive for the first time. She felt they were so close to ending this.
The new agents would be back at square one, and the killers would get some breathing room. And who would pay the price for that? More victims. More daughters and sons and brothers and sisters. More wives and husbands, like hers.
A year ago, she hadn’t gone home when she should have. How the hell could she go home now?
She glanced at a small picture she kept in her purse. It was Calvin. He was three, and his dad was holding him. How far away that moment felt. She tried to conjure up the joy and contentment she’d felt back then, but it was nowhere to be found. It felt alien—in fact, as if it were someone else’s life. Maybe that would change if she could just finish the damn job.
The elevator door opened, and Billy Ray came out carrying two cups of coffee.
She hid the picture away. “Thought I was going to the guillotine alone.”
“Got caught on the phone upstairs,” he said, handing her a Styrofoam cup. “Here. Consider it a peace offering.”
“Thanks,” she said, taking it. “But you don’t owe me anything. The way things are going, I’ve probably gotten us fired and ruined that political career your father wants you to have.”
He smiled. “Well, then perhaps some good has come of this, after all.”
Billy Ray seemed to be himself again. Thank God for that.
He took a sip of the coffee and made a terrible face. “That’s…just… awful. I don’t even know where they get off even calling it coffee.”
Kate studied her partner’s face. “What is it you’re not telling me?”
Before he could answer, the door to the videoconference room opened, and Charlie Gallagher, the regional director, snapped his fingers at them to come inside. “It’s showtime.”
They stood, and Billy Ray held the door. “In case you’re wondering, I’ve got your back.”
Thankful to hear that, Kate sat down in front of a fifty-inch flat screen. A second identical screen sat to the left. On one screen was Kim Tan, the director of the FBI, and on the other was Doug Salome, the secretary of Homeland Security.
Kim Tan spoke first. “We all know each other here, so we’ll dispense with the pleasantries. There are two main questions we have to answer. One concerns your continued employment with the FBI, but to answer that, we have to get to the bottom of a few things. To begin with, what the hell were you doing with the radioactive marker paint?”
“It was checked out to me under standard protocol,” she said.
“Three months ago,” Kim Tan said. “For another case!”
“When I packed equipment for this assignment, I realized I still had it,” Kate said. “It seemed prudent to use it if we got the chance.”
Salome broke in. “This equipment was issued only to be used in connection with a terrorist plot here in the continental United States. It’s beyond expensive, and it’s also classified. It’s for tracking terrorists and guys smuggling plutonium and WMDs.”
“With all due respect,” Kate began, “if you don’t consider eighteen horrific murders and thirty missing persons to be domestic terror, then I’m not sure what qualifies.”
The secretary of Homeland Security looked shocked at her response. He fell silent. She hoped that was a point in her favor.
Kim Tan didn’t react much either way. “We’ll let history decide if you made the right call,” he said. “In the meantime, the question becomes what we do now.”
The room fell quiet.
Salome didn’t say a word. There was a slight buzz from the phone on his desk.
Kim Tan stared directly at the agents. “We’re waiting.”
“You’re asking us?” Kate said. “I thought we were
getting fired.”
“I ought to fire you,” the director told her. “But if I do, I have to fire the senator’s son. And if I fire him, I have to explain myself to his budget committee. And quite frankly, I don’t want to do that. More to the point, getting rid of you means I screwed up by giving you the case in the first place.”
She thought she saw a hint of a smile crease Kim Tan’s face.
“Besides, if it ever came out that we did anything less than everything in our power to stop this madness, I could kiss my own ass good-bye. So, in a way, your lunacy has given me cover. And since the suspect is already painted, we’re going to look for him.” He paused. “Doug, you want to take it from here?”
The secretary of Homeland Security cleared his throat. “The NSA is going to give us use of a military satellite designed to track this marker for the next twenty-four hours. They insist that this time limit is absolute. It’s not the first time they’ve helped us out this way. When the Beltway Sniper was running loose in DC, they did a similar thing, loaning us a bird that watched for muzzle flashes. It didn’t solve the case, but at least it gave us precedent to ask.”
Kate could hardly believe what she was hearing. She looked at Billy Ray. He’d definitely gone to bat for her, probably twisting arms right up until he’d arrived with the two cups of the world’s worst coffee.
She caught his eye. He smiled.
Kim Tan spoke again. “The satellite will be in position by nineteen hundred hours, but the team needs some basic information to complete the setup, so get your butts over to Communications and give ’em what they need.”
Kim Tan smiled at her.
Salome added a word of warning. “Don’t forget, this activity is not to be spoken about outside this building.”
Kate nodded. Billy Ray did the same. A moment later, they were out the door, headed down the hall to another part of the building where the remote surveillance feeds would be monitored.
“This was all your doing,” she said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “And you don’t want to be a politician.”