Crime Zero (aka the Crime Code) (1999)

by Cordy, Michael

  "What is it, Luke?" Matty asked.

  "I'm not sure yet," he said. He rose from the couch, went for his jacket, and retrieved his wallet. When he got Kathy's card, he picked up the phone and dialed her number at Stanford. But there was no answer. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He had kept it turned off since he'd last spoken with her. Perhaps she'd left him a message.

  Sitting forward on the couch, he replayed the messages. Matty rose from his chair and came to sit next to him. Kathy had left a message, but it sounded much the same as her scribbled note. Apart from a couple of old messages from the bureau, there was only one other voice mail and that had such poor sound quality Luke almost dismissed it.

  "Play that again," said Matty suddenly, his head cocked to one side as if listening to a musical instrument. "Can you turn it up? I heard voices. One sounded frightened."

  Luke turned up the volume and held his ear closer to the phone. Matty was right. A woman's voice was audible now. It was muffled, but Luke knew it was Kathy's. "What do you want?" she said, her normally soft Scottish lilt brittle with shock.

  "Just to keep you safe and silent for a while," said a distinctive nasal male voice Decker also recognized but couldn't place.

  "Why?" Kathy shouted. "This is something to do with Project Conscience, isn't it?"

  Decker heard the man again. "All I've been told is that you're overstressed and are likely to say things you may regret. We're going to take you somewhere you can calm down, somewhere you can have peace and quiet." He was sure he'd heard that voice before.

  There were sounds of interference or a scuffle.

  "Keep that damn needle away from me, you bastard."

  The message stopped then as it reached the end of recording time, but Decker had heard enough.

  "Is she a friend of yours?" asked Matty.

  "Not exactly," Decker replied, still trying to place the voice. Then he thought of Director Naylor, and he knew whom the nasal voice belonged to. It was someone who kept his nose stuck up the FBI director's ass: Assistant Director William Jackson, Naylor's senior Rottweiler in the bureau. Madeline Naylor had to be behind Kathy's abduction; Jackson wouldn't scratch his own balls without clearance from her. But why did Naylor want Kathy Kerr out of the way? It must be serious for Jackson to get personally involved and not just leave it to his goons.

  Kathy was right; they did need to talk. Holding the phone up to his ear, Decker played the message back again, this time listening to exactly what Jackson said: ". . . take you somewhere you can calm down, somewhere you can have peace and quiet."

  Decker's first thought was a bureau safe house. He scanned his memory, remembering all the ones he knew near San Francisco. They were definitely options, but even safe houses were manned and maintained. Naylor would want as few people as possible to know about Kathy's abduction. But it had to be near San Francisco; a long journey would risk discovery. Where was there a discreet institution, controlled by the bureau, that could accommodate an individual in secrecy? Somewhere that guaranteed peace and quiet?

  Suddenly it came to him. The perfect place. Filled with dark memories, Decker pressed a preset number on the phone and waited for the dial tone. The phone line clicked in his ear, and he heard a polite, professional voice greet him.

  "Hello," he replied, "my name is Special Agent Luke Decker. You should have me on your books. I need an urgent appointment."

  "What are you going to do?" asked Matty.

  Decker shrugged with a casualness he didn't feel. "Find her and get her out, of course."

  Chapter 19.

  The Sanctuary, East of Modesto, California. Saturday, November 1, 11:17 A.M.

  "As far as I'm aware, no one's been admitted in the last three days. Certainly not to the secure wing, Luke."

  Dr. Sarah Quirke spoke softly with the trace of a Welsh accent as she sat at her desk in the main building of the Sanctuary. She was a petite woman in her late forties, with auburn hair and a round face; her kind eyes frowned with concern behind elegant spectacles. Behind her, half the wall of the office was a vast picture window through which Decker could see the distant purple haze of the High Sierra etched against a faultless blue sky. Sunlight flooded through the glass, highlighting the copper in Dr. Quirke's hair and bathing the wooden desk and chairs in a warm, honeyed light. His sessions with Dr. Quirke in her office were the only positive memories Decker had of his four-week stay here after his mother died.

  "Luke, what's this all about? I came in on a Saturday only because you said you needed an urgent checkup although in my opinion, you're saner than most of the doctors here. But all you seem interested in are patient admissions to the secure rooms. You know full well that this is an FBI-funded retreat for agents with stress-related difficulties. We deal in counseling and therapy for temporary mental disturbances and dependencies, not insanity. We have only two secure rooms, and those are for short-term emergencies. It's rare for them to be used at all. So tell me, Luke, what exactly are you after?"

  Decker sat back in his chair and rubbed his temples. He didn't like coming back here, and it wasn't just because of the memories. If, as he suspected, Kathy had been abducted and was being held in the Sanctuary, then somebody very senior had to be involved, and that meant Decker was exposing himself just by being here. He had approached Dr. Quirke only because he trusted her absolutely. "Sarah, you probably know me as well as anyone, so please don't be alarmed. Something very strange is going on that I need to investigate. But the last thing I want to do is involve you. Trust me, it's safer this way. All I want to know is, have you a record of all the inmates and their rooms?"

  Quirke frowned. It was clear that although his trust of her was absolute, it wasn't entirely reciprocated.

  "I don't want to know any names," he told her. "I just want to know if there's anybody in the secure wing."

  She paused for a while longer and then gave a small nod. "All right," she said, looking at the computer screen on her desk as she tapped on the keyboard. "I've got all the patients on my screen, and as I said, no one new has come in over the last three days. As for the secure rooms in the garden wing, they haven't been used for three and a half months. The last time was when a patient became violent and had to be restrained overnight in room A."

  "So as far as you are concerned, there's nobody in any of the rooms now?"

  "Correct."

  "Who physically checks them?"

  "No one really, because they're usually empty. Dr. Peters checks them occasionally."

  Decker nodded, remembering the gray-haired doctor. They had never met, but Decker had often seen him around the place when he stayed here, and he knew the doctor's reputation. Peters was more an administrator than a medic. He was a drab career man who worked for the FBI first and the patients second. "Does he still manage the place, making

  sure it escapes the bureau budget cuts?"

  She gave a small smile. "Yes."

  "But you have access to the secure wing as well, don't you?"

  "Well, like most of the senior doctors here, I have keys. I can easily check the rooms. Or I can call Dr. Peters. As I said, he's probably seen them most recently."

  Decker raised a hand. "No, don't do that. If I'm right, I don't want to involve you or Dr. Peters in this. Just let me see inside the rooms by myself. No one need know I've even been here, and if the rooms are empty, no harm's been done. Please, Sarah, help me. If I'm being paranoid, I promise I really will book myself in for a checkup." He smiled at her but could see she was taking him very seriously.

  After a brief pause she opened a drawer in her desk and reached for a bunch of keys. "Perhaps I should come with you," she said.

  Luke was tempted for a moment, but then he thought of Jackson and Naylor. He couldn't endanger one of the few people who had genuinely helped him in his life. "Trust me, just give me the keys to the rooms, tell me when the secure wing will be quietest, and tell no one of my visit here. No one at all even if they ask you
directly."

  Dr. Sarah Quirke frowned again and then handed over three keys. "The large key gets you into the wing; the two smaller ones open each of the two rooms. Go now; the wing should be deserted."

  Decker took the keys and thanked her.

  "I don't know what this is all about," she said as he left her office, "but I hope to God you don't find anyone there."

  He jangled the keys in his hand and smiled back at her. "I hope to God I do."

  It came to Kathy Kerr in her drugged sleep. Madeline Nay-lor and Alice Prince's terrible objective guessed by Kathy's subconscious made no sense, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was that it flouted every reason she had embarked on Project Conscience for in the first place. This made her cry out aloud in her sleep, so loudly that she woke herself up.

  As she came to full consciousness, she became immediately aware of a raging thirst, her tongue so swollen she could hardly swallow. Her arms ached from being strapped in the jacket, and she needed to urinate. So she felt relief as much as fear when she heard the key turn in the lock. Rolling over, she opened her eyes and saw the pair of black shoes enter the cell.

  "Water," she croaked. "I need water." Still groggy with drugs, she closed her eyes and waited, too exhausted to struggle, hoping she wasn't going to be injected again. "I need to pee as well."

  Bending to her level, the man with curly gray hair adjusted his round eyeglasses and smiled his kindly smile. In his right hand he held a bottle of liquid. It had a teat like a baby's milk bottle. "Drink this. It'll quench your thirst. It's rich in vitamins and minerals. I'll feed you some solids later. As for peeing, you're wearing diapers, so please just go ahead. You'll be changed when you're next sedated."

  "I'm not a bloody baby," she croaked, stoking her anger in the face of exhaustion. "I demand to speak to someone. You can't keep me here."

  "Come, come," he said in his condescending voice. "Don't overexcite yourself. Just drink." Kneeling down, he raised her head and laid it on his lap. Then he placed the drinking bottle in her mouth. The liquid was cool and tasted of orange Gatorade. She briefly tried not to drink, to exercise the only control she had, but she was so dehydrated she couldn't stop herself from sucking on the teat, gulping down as much as she could.

  As she drank, she felt him bend over her, so near that his coat brushed her face. To control her claustrophobia, she closed her eyes and tried to ignore his suffocating closeness. Then she felt his hand move to her left breast and start to probe its contours through the fabric of the jacket.

  The narrow tiled corridor leading to the secure wing was enough to bring the memories back. A glimpse of the small confined rooms on either side of him made Decker quicken his step. Just being in a place like this and contemplating the possibility of losing control of his mind set his pulse beating faster.

  When he had been a patient here, he had been terrified of his obsession with hunting down the evil in others, scared it was an addiction, which somehow indicated he was evil himself. He hadn't even seen his mother in the nine months before she died because he had been so busy tracking down criminals.

  Now the fears came flooding back. This time there was a firmer basis for them. He knew he possessed the seed of evil in him.

  Banishing these thoughts to the back of his mind, Decker pushed through a set of fire doors to the secure wing ahead, trying to focus all his thoughts on one aim: finding Kathy Kerr and getting her out.

  At first she couldn't believe he was touching her breast with any sexual intent. But when Kathy heard the catch in the man's breathing and felt him push his crotch against her cheek, she spit out the bottle teat. "What the hell are you doing?"

  "Relax," he said soothingly, smiling down at her as if humoring a troublesome patient. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead below his gray curly fringe. His eyes, magnified behind the round glasses, had a glazed look that sent a cold rush of fear through her abdomen. He put down the bottle and began to stroke her face, rubbing his fingers around her mouth, tracing the line of her lips. She could taste salt on his skin as he moved his fingers over her slick lower lip. She tried to bite him, but his fingers slowly traced the moistness of her lips, barely touching her gums. Totally helpless, she could feel her chest tighten in panic. Especially when his hand moved to his crotch and began to unzip his pants. This couldn't be happening, she thought. Only a few hours ago she had been on the verge of embarking on the final stage of her life's work. Now she was here in this hell. She struggled as the man began maneuvering her head. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him pull his penis out and begin to rub it.

  "I'm warning you. I'll bite anything that comes near me," she shouted.

  This seemed to excite him more as he tried to maneuver himself over her face. As his breathing increased, so did her panic and desperation. "Relax," he said. "In a few days you won't remember any of this. You won't remember anything at all."

  She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. Then suddenly his heavy breathing stopped, and from the door behind her she heard a sound that made her gasp with relief.

  "Dr. Peters? What-the-fuck-are-you-doing?" Crisply controlled, Decker's words were still thick with anger. She tried to twist around to see him, but he was already moving into the room and pulling her tormentor to his feet. Looking up, she saw Decker hold the man with his left hand and punch him hard in the face with his right. It was an easy, powerful movement the way a professional golfer swings a club. The blow was followed by the satisfying sound of breaking eyeglass frames and a hoarse groan. As Peters crumpled, Decker pumped his knee up into the man's groin. Peters doubled over, holding both hands over his open zipper, his face white. Kathy felt such rage she wanted Decker to hit him again and again, but he didn't; he just let Peters collapse, squirming, to the floor next to her. As he lay there, Decker gestured toward Kathy and barked, "I've been sent by Assistant Director Jackson, on direct orders of Director Naylor, to take her to a new location." Decker's face was expressionless, but his green eyes burned with rage. "I'm supposed to deliver her unharmed. So I hope you haven't hurt her. Because if you have, I'll be coming back."

  "No, I've done nothing," the man whimpered, moving his hands from his groin to his smashed nose.

  "Then get out of here and leave me to my job."

  "But I haven't given her all the injections yet. Director Naylor told me I was meant to hold her here for at least four more days."

  "Well, the plans have changed. If you want to check, you can call Jackson or the director. But Jesus Christ, you'll piss me off if you do, and I'll tell them what you've been doing. Now get the hell out of my sight, you sick fuck. I don't want to see you again before I leave this shit hole." With that Decker hauled the man to his feet and threw him out of the cell. Decker waited for a moment, listening to Peters scurry off, before he bent down and silently unbuckled Kathy's jacket.

  The hands that had just demolished her tormentor were now infinitely gentle as they rolled her body and began untying her arms from around her body. He focused on the straps and knots, careful not to hurt her as he undid them. All the time she stared at him, terrified he might not be real. As soon as the jacket felt loose, his strong fingers were massaging her arms, pulling her up. "You came," she said, still not believing it. "You found me."

  "Of course I came," he said, his face breaking into a grin. "I want to, I need to know what the hell's going on."

  "We've got to stop them, Luke," she said. "Something terrible is happening."

  "I kinda gathered that," he said, supporting her as her legs gave way. "I know about Project Conscience and their trying to cover up the mistake over Axelman."

  "It's worse than that," she said, trying to think straight, realizing what little sense her revelation made. "Axelman's death might have been more than a mistake. I think it was a test for something else, something far worse than Conscience."

  "What do you mean?"

  Before she answered him, Kathy again questioned the insight that had come in her drugge
d sleep. Surely they weren't prepared to go that far, she thought.

  "Luke, I don't think they want to treat violent criminals at all," she said. "I think they want to kill them."

  *

  Part 2

  The Peace Plague

  Chapter 20.

  The New Military Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq. Monday, November 3, 1:07 A.M.

  Dr. Uday Aziz knew time was running out. Over the last week the elite Republican Guard had suffered eighteen cases of suicide and sixteen lethal brain hemorrhages. And every indication pointed to the fact that this was just the beginning. All the deceased had been supremely fit, mentally stable soldiers under the age of twenty-five.

  Three days ago the furious Iraqi president had demanded through his generals that Aziz and his team uncover what lay behind the problem. The rais would not countenance any delay of the planned offensive on Kuwait to retake Iraq's old province and reclaim the rich oil reserves. The loss of face was unthinkable. Moreover, after tomorrow's U.S. elections there would be a lame- duck administration in power, making it an ideal time to invade. Aziz knew he had to find the source of the problem and identify the solution as soon as possible or risk joining the ever-growing list of deaths.

  But it wasn't the rais's threats that drove Aziz as he sat in his office on the top floor of the drab brown stone building that made up the main wing of the New Military Hospital. Tapping away at his laptop, trying to complete his report for presentation to the generals tomorrow afternoon, Aziz was desperate to solve the riddle for more personal reasons. He had never been emotionally involved in his work as a doctor, seeing it more as a comfortable lucrative job than a vocation. Now, for reasons he didn't understand, Aziz felt an almost intolerable responsibility for the deaths, as if he were in some way guilty of them. As each new case was recorded, Aziz knew the only way he could ease this crushing burden was to find a cure.