Androcide (Intel 1 Book 5)

by Erec Stebbins

  “I can’t disagree with you.” He sat down, the fatigue overtaking him. “Then there’s the local connection.”

  “You still don’t know who that’s going to?”

  “No. It’s not any known organization. No business. Might be an individual account. We’re looking into it. But the money’s from her organization. Her tentacles reaching out over the seas, through the wires, tended by some hands in New York.”

  He exhaled and set his jaw.

  “Nemesis is here.”

  36

  Gone On

  Two in the morning and the 12th Precinct was as quiet as the morgue they were headed to. Sacker escorted Gone through the loading dock. An old friend in security looked the other way, only the precinct cameras recording. An investigation would reveal everything, of course. He knew if it ever got to that, his career was over.

  What you can’t change, you don’t think about.

  First he brought her to his desk. The footage from the security cameras around Saint Patrick’s had come in. He played it for her, the choppy still images enough to make out the approach of a hooded man. A very large hooded man. The tall shadow carried a body toward the cathedral, concealing himself in tree-lined walkways. He returned slowly, struggling with the concrete doughnut. Few pedestrians roamed at that hour, and the killer took care. Delaying, hiding, and springing into motion when the opportunity presented itself.

  “He took a terrible risk,” said Gone.

  “It happens sooner or later, especially with the more clever ones. They’ve got to go and make a damn show, rub our faces in it. Prove they’re more clever than the rest of us. That’s how we usually catch them. They push the envelope too far.”

  “His build matches my assessment. But we can’t see anything in detail from this footage. We’ll get nothing more here.”

  Sacker yawned. “Okay, Grace. Then I think that means the bodies.”

  Gone smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  They took the stairs. Fewer cameras. Maybe it didn’t matter. They’d been recorded several times already. But the less stress he felt under Big Brother’s eye, the better.

  One way or another, maybe this case means early retirement.

  He was burning through his favors fast with Gone. As he’d arranged, one of Sutherland’s techs had left an examination room open. In his hand was a strip of paper with the current code for the cadaver room and cooler box. He would get the body, roll it to the open room, and, God help him, let this nobody PI have a go at the corpse.

  Yeah, my career is probably over.

  He decided he might as well unplug the smoke detector and light one up while he was at it.

  “Wait,” said Gone as he keyed in the code, yanking open the door to the morgue. “Take me to the examination room first.”

  “Let’s just get the body. Door’s open and I’m nervous enough.”

  “No,” said Gone, with a firmness that gave him pause. “I want us in biohazard gear.”

  Sacker’s eyebrows danced. “Biohazard?” What is this woman on?

  “A hunch, Tyrell. I want to be careful. Just humor me.”

  “Sutherland didn’t wear anything. He’s fine. His techs are fine.”

  “The bodies are cold, nearly frozen. Maybe they got lucky. If we’re careful there should be little risk of contact. But I want to be cautious.”

  “Contact with what?”

  “Not sure yet.”

  I should just have gotten the patch. Mainline the goddam nicotine.

  “Alright, Sherlock. Let’s go.”

  It took ten minutes to find the boxes. By the end of it, he was covered in sweat. What were the odds that someone wouldn’t come down and discover them? Would his contact above phone, warn them in time? As they hunted through lockers, closets, and storage boxes, a sickening claustrophobia took hold of him.

  Gone found the gear in a hallway closet. Ebola or no Ebola outbreak a few years ago, the NYPD wasn’t too concerned about meeting biosafety specs. Dusty, unopened boxes were shoved into the rear of the room, covered with random paraphernalia of medical forensics. A small miracle they found the suits.

  Or maybe because this crazy genius is with me.

  She bobbed around, a foot shorter than him, her form in the biohazard gown and mask like some post-apocalyptic sprite on a mission. He rolled the body into the examination room as she hopped behind him, bulging bag in hand.

  Unaccustomed to moving bodies, he managed to get the corpse of Jack Reaper on the table without embarrassing himself. He turned around, beads of perspiration dripping into his eyes. Gone brushed past him. She unzipped the bag, removed a host of instruments, tools, vials, slides, and items he didn’t recognize. He’d gotten a taste of her mad scientist vibe at the NYU lab, but this stepped it up to some new level of crazy.

  Grace, you’re either fucking Asian Holmes or a total nut job.

  The thought chilled him. High-functioning crazies preyed on the desperate. With just enough plausibility, and tons of con, they lured those who needed what they sold.

  And I need a breakthrough in this case. Please, Grace, be the real thing.

  She went to work.

  37

  Gone Dark

  The following symptoms characterize a multisystem cascade, including prostration, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, chest discomfort, labored breathing, coughing, nasal discharge, conjunctivitis, postural hypotension, edema, with headache, confusion, even coma.

  The lab results danced in her mind along with the entries in the medical diagnostic manuals. Words and phrases, microscope slides and biological assay readings. A terrible sense of danger and madness lurked behind every drop she pipetted and every instrument reading. Every movement she made vibrated with tension. She’d never felt so disturbed in the quiet order of her lab work.

  And when upset, Grace Gone made tea.

  Others took walks. The movement and scenery change, the repetitive biomechanics, the solitude created mental spaces to process the difficult. Some knitted, or fixed cars, or played a musical instrument.

  Making tea was not so different. Any kind of tea would do. Black, green, even these faddish fruit teas. It was as much in the making as drinking.

  It is more in the making than in the drinking.

  And when very upset, she made tea with effort, gongfu cha. Today was a day for serious tea. Her hands shook from the anxiety burning through her.

  Hemorrhagic manifestations occur as the illness matures, with petechiae, ecchymoses, discharge from venipuncture sites, mucosal hemorrhages, and post-mortem evidence of visceral hemorrhagic effusions.

  She broke out the small Yixing teapots, thermometer, and her favorite caramel-smoke Oolong blend imported from a small shop in the Wuyi Mountains. Black dragon tea. Her mother insisted she determine the temperature by bubble monitoring, but she was too much the modern scientist. A disturbing day in her private lab haunted her. Precision and care meant everything when examining a murder victim’s tissues. For gongfu cha, she would match those efforts. The thermometer it would be.

  She laid the pot and cups on the table, warming and sterilizing them with hot water, the excess discarded. She examined the tea, inhaling its powerful and musky fragrance, gazing on its dark hues and texture. All her senses strained to appreciate its complex nature.

  “The black dragon now enters the palace.”

  Her voice hummed, full of memory. Childhood. Before the chaos. Before the men with guns. She saw her mother’s beautiful and sorrowful face.

  She filled the pot with the dried tea. The small vessel received a weighed eight grams of leaves, promising a rich and potent brew. Gone liked her tea strong. Underneath the pot, she placed a catching bowl, raised hot water a hand height above it, and poured the steaming liquid over the leaves to rinse them. Raising the pot, she decanted the water inside.

  “Xuan hu gao chong.”

  Glancing to her left, she noted the thermometer in the large bowl read 96.7 degrees Fa
hrenheit. Grasping the bowl, she poured the hot water until the pot overflowed. With a jade spoon she scooped away the top layer of bubbles and debris.

  “The spring breeze brushes the surface.”

  Several days into the disease progression, erythema and desquamate with maculopapular rash can be observed. Terminal stages include shock, convulsions, acute metabolic dysfunction, and disseminated intravascular coagulation.

  She decanted the first brew into the cups, liquid never to be drunk.

  “Drifting clouds and flowing water.”

  She filled the pot again with the remainder of the hot water. The sound of her mother’s voice filled the air around her.

  “Zai zhu qing quan.”

  She removed the bubbles at the top and closed the pot with the lid. A minute later she poured the tea into a set of clean cups, repeating the process for the second and third cups. After that, it was drinking water.

  Laboratory diagnostics include early leukopenia, lymphopenia and neutrophilia, thrombocytopenia, spikes in serum aminotransferase concentrations, hyperproteinemia, and proteinuria. Diffuse intravascular coagulopathy will manifest in detectable proteolyzed fibrin with extended prothrombin and thromboplastin time courses. Secondary bacterial infections can cause elevated white cell counts in advanced stages.

  She stared at the row of cups, steam rising from the tan brew within. Hints of caramel and peat danced in the air.

  Success.

  A near-perfect brew. A taste of divinity.

  Then why am I so sad?

  Why had the joy risen away from her like the fragrant steam?

  She knew the answer but wished it were different. She would enjoy the tea. But it was an echo. A fogged memory of the joy of the making.

  It is more in the making than in the drinking.

  But now she was calmer. She drank the tea and returned to the laboratory. She would call Sacker.

  Gone removed the blue gloves and dropped them into an orange biohazard bag picked up on eBay. She’d raided the odd sales from shuttered biotech and university labs. But those were hard to find, and too often the school or governmental red tape made them impractical. But online markets amazed. Centrifuges, PCR machines, the odd HPLC and mass spectrometer. Most were either vintage or unsupported by the manufacturers. Fixer-uppers requiring epic quests for spare parts.

  Necessity, motherhood, and invention.

  Whatever the challenge, investigating with the power of modern science was priceless. For the Eunuch Maker case, she’d performed a long list of tests on the surreptitious NYPD samples. Some of the more in-depth genetic analyses still ran, but the pathological tissue microscopy shook her.

  I was right. God help us, I was right.

  She fitted the Bluetooth headset over one ear and tapped the smartphone surface on the table beside her. With her other hand she dimmed the bright lights in the cellar lab.

  “Uh, yeah. Hello?” The voice on the other end sounded hoarse.

  “Tyrell?”

  There was a short pause. “Gracie? Well, how the hell you doin’ girl? Just thinkin’ of you. Yeah. You on my mind, honey. And damn! Here you are callin’.”

  Is he drunk? They didn’t have time for this!

  “Tyrell, we need to talk.”

  “Mm-hmm. I’ve been thinkin’ that. I didn’t want to be the one to say it, you know.”

  “Tyrell, stop. Sober the hell up. We need to talk about the case.”

  “The case? Yeah, that case. Fuck the case.”

  Jesus! “Tyrell, I’m serious. We—”

  “Fuck the case and fuck the Eunuch Maker and fuck the Mayor and fuck the goddamned FBI!”

  “FBI? Look, Tyrell, this isn’t a good time. I see that. Sober up. I’ll call tomorrow. But we have to talk! I’ve had a look at the samples. It’s my worst fear.”

  “A look at the samples.” His voice slurred. “You QuestLabs now, too?”

  “Tyrell, this is possibly a medical emergency! People’s lives are at stake!”

  “That’s what happens when you got a serial killer castratin’ bros left and right. Dumping them all over the motherfuckin’ city.”

  This is impossible!

  Gone pressed her fingers to her temples. How was she going to get through? Collaboration with an alcoholic brought risk, but she’d assessed him as more stable!

  Unless something has happened...

  “Look, Tyrell, I think we need to redouble our efforts. You need to convince NYPD. I need to brief you—”

  “Might not be any point now.”

  She strained to decipher his words.

  “Not a point? Why?”

  There was a deep sigh and a belch.

  “Fucking Feds called. We’re outta time.”

  38

  Gone To Seed

  Fuck the Feds.

  He’d hated to rabbit, but he couldn’t take any more of her positive, can-do! spirit. The flood of confusing technobabble. Her holier-than-thou critical tones.

  Yeah, babe, I’ve been drinking.

  He’d told her the FBI called. Didn’t she get it? G-boys didn’t make social calls. One thing and then another and soon they’d be damn interns. But she wouldn’t shut the hell up. She wouldn’t see the truth of it. She just went on and on with medical terms and bleeding and infections and God his head hurt!

  Doesn’t she know what drunk means?

  She was young and hungry and talented and wanted to make a difference. She hadn’t had the world laugh and kick her in the teeth. Rip every ideal to shreds before her eyes year after year.

  Maybe she’s seen more than you think.

  That voice inside. Arguing, pointing out missed facts, weak assumptions. Like Gone, too often right.

  Fuck that voice.

  The room wobbled. He braced on the armrests of the chair. His stomach lurched. He swallowed more whiskey.

  Fuck the bottle.

  Sacker stared at the medicine cabinet in the bathroom down the narrow hallway. He’d left the light on. The blue glow from the LCD screen on the wall mingled with it somewhere in the middle of the dark tunnel between them. He knew what was behind the mirror.

  Fuck the meds.

  He fought down a spasm from his throat. Stomach acids burned. His thoughts blurred. They bounced around like some kid’s mad superball.

  Murder, television, police, Gone, autopsy, hormones, smokes, FBI.

  It was bound to happen. He’d known that. The case was too high-profile. The NYPD getting nowhere. Somewhere, someone demanded something be done. Some agent saw a chance to make his bones. They start with the phone call. The collaboration. They send field agents. Share data. Move in on crime scenes and evidence.

  Steal the damn case out from under us.

  The room spun again. He fought to hold focus on the medicine cabinet.

  Why tonight, Tyrell? Because you’re fucking drunk? Because the case of your lifetime just got swiped? Because you can’t face that damn mirror anymore?

  What price for the alchemy behind that mirror? What did normal people see when they looked in a mirror?

  Normal people.

  He laughed. Embrace the metamorphosis! So what if he had played mad scientist with his body and brain? Who the hell hadn’t?

  Pills and potions. Hair dye. Hair growth. Skin whiteners in Asia and tanning booths in America. Makeup and hairstyles. Clothes for the job, for the crew, for the country club. Glasses to look smarter or contacts to look dumber. Valley accent or faux-British, lose the street slang. Up your damn vocabulary. Facelift, boob job, penile-pec implants. Steroids. Piercings. Tattoos and nail color. Swing those hips, walk like a man, firm grip, teasing fingers, shoulders back, legs open. One thousand different masks.

  All acts.

  All for each and every person to fit into some preconceived and bullshit icon of self or society. From the moment the cord was cut they dressed, instructed, and adapted us to some internal gyroscope, instilled a desperation to fit in with others and with ourselves.

&n
bsp; Fuck all of them.

  Another smirk as his stomach dared him to laugh. Images of mutilated bodies blended with visions of the crimes those bodies once perpetrated. Multiplied by the teaming mass of humanity committing crimes high and low, consistently and constantly, all congealing to an obscene satanic idol.

  Fuck the medicine cabinet.

  To hell with all the pharma, impossible demands of mind and flesh and confusions and why is my bottle empty? What the ever-loving hell!

  Sacker fell out of his chair. He groaned on the ground a long moment, dizzy and sick. The bottle spun on the wood floor inches from his face. Unbroken. Mocking. Absurd.

  He crawled. Across the small carpet in the living room, down the wood floor of the hallway, sweat building on his brow. He crawled to the light of the bathroom.

  Steadying himself on the door frame, he rose, swaying, planting one foot in front of the other. He lurched inside and confronted the mirror of the cabinet.

  “You look like shit, brother.”

  A slurred voice he didn’t recognize. Eyes glared, fissured with red, his skin an oily and sweaty mess. His mouth hung open like some idiot’s.

  He dropped toward the toilet, the vomit roiling through him like an angry express train. A jet of orange and pink splattered the porcelain sides and splashed into the water. He heaved again, gripping the sides of the bowl, soiling his hands and shirt. The stink sickened him more, bringing a third wave.

  He fell against the wall panting.

  Just let me die.

  He closed his eyes to stop the spinning. In the darkness, the words of the Chinese detective flitted in his mind. What was it she said?

  High-functioning alcoholic.

  Grace. Her name was Grace. Gracie. Gracie Gone. Small. Sharp like a tack. Vulnerable. She’d called him. What had she said? Hemorrhagic something or the other. God, his head was pounding!