The Path of Silence

by Edita A. Petrick

  Guns held ready, two SWAT members faced the office door. Field stood to a side, also ready. I didn’t see Ken and worried about him. He hadn’t said a word all through the ride.

  Since I was part of the SWAT briefing, I knew the strategy. Two officers would cover Field when he burst through the door. I moved closer because I wanted to see inside, even though “passive observation” wasn’t part of the plan. The SWAT team leader called this a Seize and Rescue operation.

  Field slashed down his hand, a sign he was going in.

  He was quick and efficient. The SWAT members were right behind him but I managed to glimpse what I felt I might see all along.

  Patterson sat behind his desk, holding a cup of coffee. He was raising it to take a sip. Brenda sat in one of the antiquated wooden swivel-arm chairs, also drinking coffee. They weren’t expecting visitors—and definitely not the police. A strange sensation washed over me, a mix of relief and apprehension. I was right. Or more precisely, my instinct didn’t let me down. The phone message was a tip-off and this was a set-up.

  Even as such thoughts flashed through my head, the peaceful scenario in the office cracked as if someone shattered it with a hammer. Patterson jumped up and ran to take cover between the rows of gray filing cabinets. Black-clad bodies rushed inside, momentarily obscuring my view of Brenda’s upturned shocked face. Someone ran into me and shoved me aside. Ken ran past me, gun held ready. By the time I shed my observer’s cobwebs and ran after him, two SWAT team members had Brenda between them, dragging her out. Ken turned, hands gripping his gun outstretched, protecting their departure. I heard a whirring noise and a row of filing cabinets beside me started to rotate. Before I could jump out of the way the lights went out. The SWAT members had night-vision goggles. Since I didn’t, I backed out of the office, away from the whirring noise. Part of my mind sought relief in the fact that not a single shot had been fired.

  An hour later, when it was over, I knew it was a set-up, though Patterson was the right target.

  “For once Joe will get a bullet-riddled body, as opposed to an exploded one,” I said to Field when we stood outside again, watching all the activity winding down.

  “It was easy,” he murmured.

  “For the FBI, maybe. But for the BPD and SWAT an hour of chasing the suspect all over a stone fortress, is a hard night’s work.”

  “Brenda said she wasn’t threatened,” he said.

  She was taken away in an ambulance, even though she protested that it wasn’t necessary. I saw that Ken wanted to go with her and told him it was all right. We could finish up without him.

  “Patterson was part of it,” he sounded again when I made no comment.

  “Yes, he was a major player but not the key player. I think there are other parts,” I said.

  “His partners set him up,” he said, raising his brows at me.

  Once he remote-shut off the lights, Patterson used all the automation at his fingertips to thwart the SWAT team and escape. By then, the BPD sent reinforcements because Mongrove was a huge facility and a thousand patients couldn’t go unattended for long, even at night. Patterson must have seen the outside swarming with police vehicles. The search lights they’d set up all along the perimeter would have told him that it was a bad idea to try gain freedom via the ground floor. With SWAT and the rest of the police officers conducting corridor searches, Patterson made his way quietly to the roof. He knew how to avoid the monitoring cameras. No one caught him heading for the rooftop staircase. He correctly assumed the police would be watching all the exits and windows. The rooftop was six stories above the ground and the hospital didn’t adjoin any other building.

  Each time we visited Mongrove, Patterson strove to make a point about the underfunded state of his facility. No one expected the hospital to have a helicopter pad, never mind a helicopter on the roof.

  In a sense, my curious and analytical nature was responsible for Patterson’s death. Even as Ken climbed into the ambulance and sat down next to Brenda, I reached over and tapped her knee.

  “Why were you in Patterson’s office?” I asked. “Joe told me you went to visit your friend, Valerie.”

  Brenda pushed away a paramedic’s hand, restraining her from leaning out and said, “I was waiting for her in the foyer. Patterson came out to tell me that though she finished her shift, she was helping to settle down two post-op patients they’d just brought back by a helicopter from Hopkins. The chopper ride upset the patients and one of them became agitated enough to break his stitches. Patterson invited me for a coffee in his office. I saw no reason to refuse. He was charming and witty. He said if Valerie took much longer, we’d order in and have her join us for late night dinner.”

  When I overheard Field giving instructions over a radio to one of the SWAT team members to cover exits, no matter how well screened or steel-barred, I remembered Brenda’s words—and the chopper on the roof.

  Sven Olsen shouted once at the doctor to get out of the charging chopper then shot Patterson through the cockpit glass just as the blade started to whirl around.

  “Meg,” Field moved a hand in front of my face. When I smiled, he continued, “It’s almost four o’clock. Do you think there’s a coffee shop open somewhere?”

  “I know a café in Washington that stays open late,” I said, shaking off the reflections.

  “In Washington, I wouldn’t have asked you.”

  “Is your memory that good?”

  He put his hand around my shoulders. “Do you want to find out?”

  I leaned against him. “We ought to get some sleep. I’d like to come back tomorrow and take a look around Patterson’s office. He had to keep records of the operation. Creeslow has moved but they’re still operating—somewhere. I’m pretty sure they would have set up in Washington—as another business, not the same but a similar business that uses limos.”

  “We’ll come back tomorrow,” he drew me closer. “Now let’s get some sleep.”

  We walked over to his car and climbed inside. He reached to start the car and paused, staring ahead. “Is Mrs. Tavalho staying with Jazz tonight?”

  “She’ll stay as long as needed.” I talked to my housekeeper, even as the SWAT team searched the hospital corridors.

  “I have a room at the Harbor Court,” he said.

  “Really? Room service too?”

  He flashed me a grin. “If memory serves…”

  Chapter 41

  The next day, Field called his agents and the trio went to meet with the Chairman.

  “Should I return this?” he asked, shaking at me the sheet of paper with twenty-one account numbers my father dictated to me last night.

  Once again the feeling of uncertainty washed over me. I didn’t know what to tell him.

  “Patterson was set up but he was the mastermind behind the implants,” Field said, prompting me with a forward head thrust to endorse his statement.

  “Meg!” he raised his voice when I still wouldn’t reply.

  “I’m no longer sure of anything, Field,” I finally said, blinking to banish my fatigue and confusion.

  “You tossed and turned all night, mumbling,” he said.

  “Not all night,” I said, cracking a feeble smile.

  His expression softened. “No,” he said, “but you’re still struggling with many issues that won’t let you get a good night’s sleep.”

  “It’s not over, Field,” I said quietly.

  “It’ll take some time to get at the minor players in this scheme. Blank had years to develop the infrastructure of his US organization and populate it with operatives. However, Blank’s offshore principals are probably threatening him already, because two billion dollars is still sitting frozen in those accounts. It’s just a matter of time before Mr. Blank either retires for ‘health’ reasons or disappears altogether. Now that we have retired the bomb-maker, the FBI and the BPD can continue in a more relaxed atmosphere. We’ll set up a taskforce to keep digging into the—”

  I interrupted hi
m. “Have we retired the bomb-maker, Field?”

  “I spoke with Mattis and Bourke while you were in the shower,” he said, turning his profile to me. “Your colleagues are still at Mongrove, collecting evidence but they already found several scraps of paper filled with chemical formulae. It seems Dr. Patterson was a ‘bright boy’ who liked to scribble down the results of his brainstorms while enjoying his fast-food lunches and dinners.”

  “What kind of formulae?” I asked.

  “Mattis is not an expert on chemical and biological warfare. He showed it to one of the Mongrove resident doctors with background in microbiology. He thought it looked like some kind of new synthetic virus, something along the lines of instant Ebola in terms of liquefying internal organs, hemorrhage and death. That would be consistent with the kind of toxin we think figured in the pacemakers—a two-tiered virus. Tier one results in instant death, while tier two is something that renders tier one virus flat in seconds. We’ll be sending those scraps of notes to Atlanta’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.” He turned and shook his head at me, smiling, “Relax, Meg, Patterson was our man.”

  I tried hard to smile back at him but something kept tightening my throat.

  “But Dr. Patterson was an impostor, Field. I doubt he’d have the knowledge to scribble down a complex chemical formula,” I said, dry-voiced. “The real Dr. Patterson is buried in Peru.”

  For a moment his eyes flickered with uncertainty then he said, “Meg, Patterson functioned as a doctor at Mongrove for four years. He had to have some medical background. He could have been an expelled medical student, even a bona fide doctor who, for whatever reasons, lost his medical license. You know, a brilliant ‘hacker’ of medicine.”

  I didn’t think so.

  “I’m going to take a look around at Mongrove but I have to pick up my partner. Would you mind giving me a lift to our headquarters?” I asked.

  “If I finish our meeting with the Chairman early I’ll join you,” he said. “Meanwhile, if you need to convince yourself that Patterson was the mastermind, why don’t you go and talk to Smeddin? Your medical examiner is another fan of popular mechanics—and research journals. Besides, you can check if he’s already finished Patterson’s autopsy.”

  “Why would Joe have to autopsy Patterson’s body? He was shot. What’s there to…” my voice trailed off when I saw his pushed up brows. “Oh, come on, Field, get real!” I moaned. “You don’t think Patterson would have tried out his deadly pacemaker product on himself?”

  “Well,” he cleared his throat. “You believe that Patterson was just an accomplice so…his overseer might have implanted him with the pacemaker device, to assure eternal cooperation, something like Brick’s case.”

  My mouth crept open. I hadn’t considered this angle yet. Then I caught Field’s grin.

  “You’re laughing at me,” I said, grimacing. He came over and put his hand around my shoulders.

  “Sorry, Meg. I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

  When I entered our headquarters I met with an almost eerie silence.

  “Mary Lou,” I asked our dispatcher when I stopped at her desk to see whether Ken was in. “Why is it so quiet? Aren’t Baltimore citizens worried anymore that they’ve been implanted with a chest-bomb?”

  “We couldn’t cope anymore. Bourke appealed to Commissioner Walton and got a permission to implement a temporary sanity-saving solution. All the phone lines save 9-1-1 have been routed to electronic message screens,” she said.

  It may have been a sanity-saving measure but electronic messaging didn’t reflect very well on BPD. Mary Lou must have seen what flashed on my face.

  “Walton is giving a press conference as we speak,” she said. “The criminal who was exploding Baltimore citizens has been shot dead. Everyone should calm down and make a regular appointment for a medical check-up with their doctor to put their mind at ease. Walton is stressing the fact that the victims lived for years with the bomb in their chest—normally. You look tired, Meggie. You should take time off once all the reporting and news conference shit dies down.”

  In a couple of weeks Jazz would be out of school and summer would be upon us. Vacation sounded ideal. The mere thought of being able to take time off should have at least cheered me up. It didn’t but I didn’t want to worry Mary Lou for too long.

  “Is Ken in yet?”

  She made a face. “He came in with Brenda. She gave her statement and then he drove her home. Do you want me to get a hold of him for you?”

  I told her to give Ken a message that I was going to Mongrove and asked her to get me a car since my Acura was sitting under my carport.

  There was still a marked police presence at Mongrove. I saw half a dozen police cruisers haphazardly parked around the entrance and there would be more unmarked sedans sitting in the parking lot. The receptionist raised her head when I knocked on her window, waiting without saying anything.

  I took out my badge and she nodded to go inside.

  I flipped my badge to show my shield and fitted it inside my jacket breast pocket so the officers I met en route to Patterson’s office wouldn’t stop me.

  “Are you back or you’ve never left?” I asked Sven when he came toward me as I walked into the office that didn’t look much different from how I saw it looking last night. Other than a few plastic baskets filled with paper and files, the officers conducted their search neatly.

  “My washroom break counted as a nap,” he said, chuckling. “The FBI contingent left. It’s just the BPD now.”

  “Inspector Weston told me that you found scraps of paper with chemical formulae,” I said, waiting.

  “Agent Mattis took most of them with him but I knew you’d want to go have a chat with Joe, pick his brain, so I ‘put aside’ a couple for you,” Sven winked at me.

  “Withholding evidence?” I murmured. “What about greasy fingerprints?”

  He made a face. “We’re all one big happy team, Meg and we’ve already checked for prints. None. Doctors wear latex gloves, especially when jotting down notes. And these days, staff at fast-food joints wear plastic gloves too so food paper bags are print-free.”

  He gave me two palm-sized scraps of brown utility paper, scribbled with formulae. Other than chemical symbols for carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, nothing else made sense. I turned them over but the reverse side didn’t have any notes, just half of what looked like a fast-food place logo.

  “Do we know where Patterson ordered his meals from?” I asked.

  Sven motioned at one of the large, black plastic garbage containers. “We cleaned out his desk—and even some of his files. He was a real junk-food freak. Salerno’s Pizza, A&W, Pete’s Chilli Grill, Denny’s, Mamma Dimitri’s, McDonald’s, Nando’s Chicken, Mikes Tacos—food bags from what seems like every other fast foot outfit within greater Baltimore area.”

  “A&W, McDonald’s and Nando’s Chicken don’t deliver,” I mumbled.

  Sven gave me an injured look. “He was the Chief Resident honcho, Meg. He’d send out his underlings to fetch his chow.”

  “All the way downtown Baltimore? We’re in Brooklyn,” I said, for some reason uneasy.

  “Franchise, Meg. There’s McDonald’s and A&W just up the street,” Sven said.

  He was right. Most franchised fast food had outlets all over Baltimore—but not Nando’s Chicken.

  “I talked to Brenda’s friend, Valerie,” Sven said. “Her statement supports what Brenda told us. Valerie was late coming to meet her because she was helping settle down the agitated patient who broke his stitches. The piles of junk-food wrappings bothered me too so I asked Valerie about her boss. She said Patterson frequently accompanied his patients to Hopkins, when they had to have surgery or other medical procedure that couldn’t be done here. He’d bring back tons of junk food from uptown and downtown and share it with his staff. He could not only fly a chopper but small aircraft.”

  “Didn’t Valerie think it strange that a Chief Resident would accompany patie
nts to Hopkins?” I asked.

  Sven smiled. “No. She thought he was just a dedicated doctor. Most of his female staff loved him.”

  “Why?” I was taken aback.

  Sven shrugged. “From what they told us, he flirted with them but never hit on them, if you know what I mean.”

  “You did make sure that all this glowing character reference for Dr. Patterson got to our Commissioner in time for him to include it in his press statement,” I said, grimacing.

  He laughed and waved me on. “Walk around, Meg. See for yourself. Other than the futuristic formulae that might turn out to be a recipe for chicken soup, there’s not much in this office to incriminate the suspect…I shot,” he finished with a lot less bluster than before.

  “He was a suspect and definitely implicated in the scheme, Sven,” I said, trying to ease his conscience. “He was…” I stopped before the rest came out—an accomplice. Sharing information with a colleague about the case was one thing. But what I had were only feelings and doubts, not information that could be substantiated with evidence—facts.

  Sven left to oversee collection of whatever could be considered evidence and I walked around Patterson’s spacious but drafty office. Now that all technology has been either dismantled or shut off, the air grew stale and officers opened windows. The iron bars driven into the old masonry were rust-free. They must have been a relatively new addition. Patterson’s constant hints about the underfunded state of his facility were just like the rest of him—lies, illusions.

  I walked between the steel grey filing cabinets but even though our people would have finished dusting for fingerprints, I didn’t get an urge to open the drawers. I didn’t doubt that if I did all I’d see would be patients’ files.

  After about ten minutes, when I saw that my presence was surplus and inspiration didn’t visit me as I walked around, I headed for the door. Two officers squeezed by me, carrying a large plastic garbage bin filled with balled and crumpled paper food bags.