Androcide (Intel 1 Book 5)

by Erec Stebbins

  “There are senior agents who shouldn’t be involved, who are known substance abusers in and out of rehab,” said a source from the 12th who requested to remain anonymous. “It’s all politics and seniority. Meanwhile, there’s a killer out there and we’re dropping the ball.”

  The latest corpse summoned the locust plague of press, police, and public to his grisly circus show. The ratings-starved media excelled at its job. Time to do his.

  The blond man approached an alleyway on the NYU campus, his features concealed in an overlarge fog coat and wide brimmed hat. Staring at the university buildings, grinning beneath the brim, his fogged breath billowed skyward like some unclean brew.

  So few guards.

  His distraction thinned the NYPD presence at the Richards lab, set there on behalf of the NIH to guard the scientific products the Eunuch Maker demanded be destroyed. Officers milled about the main entrance, the fools not learning, still focused on the front door. A single, young man in blue shivered outside the back door in the alley. The police assumed the crime scene dead to him. They understood little from his last deposit at the labs.

  Now theatre.

  The killer took on a staggering gait, stumbling and catching himself on the brick walls of the old buildings. In his right hand he drank colored water from a whiskey bottle. The policeman sighed and approached the drunk’s bent figure.

  “Hey, buddy, see the yellow tape?” he asked, pointing behind him, his right hand on the butt of his firearm. “Crime scene. Off limits. Get plastered somewhere else, okay?”

  The young officer was careful to keep his distance, an instinctual caution in the presence of so towering a man a force field pushing him backward.

  But he’s close enough.

  Click. Two blurred lines shot out toward the policeman, striking his face and neck. He convulsed, dropping to the ground, a series of low grunts escaping his lips.

  The massive figure swooped over him like some bird of prey, bringing the bottle down over the young man’s head. It shattered and blood sprayed, the form on the ground twitching while sporting a vacant expression.

  The killer removed the taser wires and stuffed the device inside his bulky coat. He jogged to the broken back door, still not repaired, yanked it open, and dashed up the stairs.

  Breathless near the top floor, he approached the door and turned the knob, peering through a thin opening. He saw no one. Passing like some vampire in his overlarge garments, he ignored the crime scene and entered the laboratory. The security system beeped, a green light flashing as he swiped a card.

  Inside, he rushed, one by one opening the bench gas valves across the lab, a putrid stink overpowering his nostrils. Returning to the door, he set a device on the ground, flicked a switch, and a digital timer glowed and began a countdown from eight minutes. He checked the fuse and flint, spun and dashed out of the room, down the stairs and into the alleyway.

  The downed policeman hadn’t moved. Still alive, the killer left him with a major concussion and taser burns. His radio crackled with calls from other officers. They wanted to know why he wasn’t answering.

  It didn’t matter. The police guarding the lab would soon have something bigger to deal with than a downed officer. The killer sprinted down the alley, paying no heed to sights or sounds on his left or right. Eight minutes left little to chance, and he was going to make sure he cleared.

  He turned the corner, reaching halfway up the block when the ground shook. He put his hands to his ears and covered his face in the coat. The blast wave knocked him to his knees. Windows shattered above him. Glass rained.

  He opened his eyes to dust and stark shadows from a flickering orange light behind. People screamed. Car alarms blared in the cold air. He stood, picked up his pace, and rounded the next block, disappearing into the evening chaos.

  54

  Their Fill of Ambrosia

  “Well, there’s something we didn’t think of.”

  Sacker stood with junior detectives Hill and Snyder gazing from the South Street Seaport into the East River. Lights from Manhattan behind them and Brooklyn across the water danced over the waves. Camera shutters stuttered and a helicopter hovered over the water. A murmuring crowd of onlookers pressed from behind, NYPD officers shoving them back.

  Small police boats, red and blue lights strobing the river, escorted Lightship LV-87, a New York tourist attraction. Christened The Ambrose, its sides glowed a deep crimson, the white letters of its name bright in the port lights. But all eyes focused elsewhere, ignoring the helicopter, police boats, and the painted sides of the ship.

  Lashed to the forward light tower, just below the beam shining from the lightship’s lantern, hung the latest victim of the Eunuch Maker. The garish corpse gleamed in the spotlights and swayed. Sacker closed his eyes and imagined thousands of images circulating the web at the speed of hype. He tried to block out the photo captions and how the NYPD would fare in them. Despite the warnings, despite police preparation and manpower set across the city, the killer again made them look the fool.

  Snyder gaped. “How’d he get it up there?”

  Why should I answer you, you little bastard?

  Sacker was wise to him now. The Daily News article made it obvious. The anonymous criticism of the 12th precinct. The flood of leaks soaking the press. Too many details. The smug little brat pocketed Benjamins while he undermined Sacker’s standing before the public. Bad enough. It was harder knowing the personal nature of the attacks, the slander of his character, poisoning him with the NYPD.

  A simple thank you for the mentoring would’ve done, asshole.

  “He really knows how to jerk our chain,” whispered Hill.

  Sacker wanted to hug the lady. He’d taken two rookies under his wing and tried to mentor them in one of the most difficult cases of his lifetime. One betrayed him, using Sacker as a possible stepping stone in a case of myopic ambition. But Hill was a model trainee. Thoughtful, hard-working, and minus one stabbing instrument in his back.

  And it will be the asshole who gets promoted.

  Hill should’ve been a guy. Better odds.

  He turned away from his young charges. Feet tromped behind him. The Feds poured out in force for this kill, sealing off the area. The team emerging from a black van with hazmat gear really got the crowd buzzing.

  “What the hell?” said Snyder.

  Hill looked between the federal spacemen and Sacker.

  “Any idea what’s going on, sir?”

  He kept a poker face, lighting a cigarette. “Government works in mysterious ways. They’ll let us know when they’re good and ready.” He blew the smoke toward Snyder. The kid coughed.

  A new commotion drew his attention to the crowd behind. Onlookers congealed around a focal point, a raised arm waving, besieged by the NYPD and bystanders. A sheen of black hair surfaced from underneath the sea of bodies.

  He winced. Gracie, what the hell?

  He’d agreed to let her near the crime scene. He’d promised to give her access along with INTEL 1.

  But later, girl.

  “Detective Sacker! Tyrell!” she cried above the noise.

  “Ah, hell.”

  Snyder and Hill stared his way. He had to do something.

  Marching up through the blue wall, he reached Gone as men began to haul her away. A few quick words and he led the diminutive woman down to the seaside railing. His trainees approached with great interest.

  “Ah, detectives Hill and Snyder, this is a former NYPD consultant, Grace Gone.”

  “Consultant?” asked Snyder. Hill blinked.

  Gone flashed a smile their way. It dropped.

  “No time, sorry.” She turned her back to them and addressed Sacker. “This is all interesting, but we’ve been played.”

  “Played?” His stomach dropped. He pressed her elbow, trying to distance her from the other detectives. “Maybe we can talk a little later? As you see, I’m involved in—”

  “All this!” She waved her hand at the approach
ing corpse above their heads. “The killer needed a diversion. He targeted the science.”

  Hill scribbled in a notebook as Snyder glanced between them. Sacker’s head spun.

  “Gracie, this is a hell of a distraction. What science?”

  “Dr. Richards! Remember the Eunuch Maker’s demands?”

  “Sure. Stop working on the male pill.”

  “And destroy your science. He asked her to destroy her work.”

  “Right. But she didn’t. Federal property. It’s all under lock and...” His face fell.

  “Exactly. Explosion on the NYU campus. The lab’s gone.”

  He bent down and stared into her eyes. “Wait a minute! How the hell do you know this? I haven’t heard a thing!”

  His cell buzzed. I can’t believe this.

  “Ladner, right? Your boss?”

  “You’re infuriating.”

  “While we’re huddled around kill number five, he’s erasing the evidence.”

  “The science? How’s that evidence?”

  Gone limped, tugging him to the side and whispering in his ear.

  “It’s all too coincidental, don’t you think? Hemorrhagic virus in the victims, killer demands a cessation of work and destruction of samples of a viral approach to male contraception.”

  The detectives strained to hear. Sacker wanted to scream.

  Gone continued. “No, it’s not a coincidence. There’s a link. I need to review Richards work, find out what kind of viruses they used.” Her voiced dropped again. “See if there is any link to the Marburg family.”

  “She said it was harmless,” said Sacker. “I’m thinking, no?”

  “Yes. You’re right. It can’t be that trivial, of course. But something less obvious, but a real link. Why else would he demand all her work be destroyed?”

  “Because of the rape-drug theory?”

  “He just blew up the place, Tyrell. It’s got to be much more than that.”

  “Well, what, then?”

  Gone shook her head. “I don’t know. But the key to this entire case is in the Richards lab.”

  55

  Gone Mental

  Gone adjusted the volume of her headset. “Agent Savas, can you move your mic? I’m getting a lot of noise from the fabric of your shirt. Clip it on your tie or something.”

  Thunder rolled and scraped over fabric. Then voices.

  “Much better, thanks.”

  Adrenaline coursed through her. The difference a month made. In September, she drowned in desperation, nearing the end of her rope. Broke, without a client, and for the first time questioning her life’s choices.

  “You’ll never make it on your own, Qiānjīn. You can’t leave home.”

  Her father’s confident words echoed in her mind. She fought the old response, tried to deflect the bubbling anger. Qiānjīn. Always with him it returned to money. But she’d shown him. Shown them all with one wild night in Mexico City and out of the cartel’s protection. The only downside—she never saw his face when he learned the news. Learned just how wrong he was.

  INTEL 1 sequestered her in a small office at the 12th precinct. A radio transmitter linked her to the interrogation in the adjacent room. Savas and Sacker questioned Dr. Richards. Cohen worked elsewhere, following up on the biological analyses of the virus Gone requested.

  They actually did what I asked.

  The adrenaline spiked again, the percolating data and what it might reveal raising goosebumps. Maybe she couldn’t sit in the interrogation room with them, but she was there. Live. With the FBI—INTEL 1 in reality—on her side. She was privy to law enforcement efforts to stop one of the most notorious serial killers in a century. Grace Gone was central in a chain of investigation closing in on that monster.

  Sacker’s voice crackled through her headset.

  “But we’re having trouble understanding the main event, Dr. Richards. Why would this killer risk so much, perhaps even his own life, to blow up a building? Why would he target your work?”

  The frustration and fatigue in his voice pained her. She wanted to raid his apartment, throw out every last bottle of whiskey and ship him to rehab. She couldn’t for a number of reasons, the most important that Sacker had the right to wreck his own life. But he was killing himself. Watching it, living the truth, hurt.

  Richards sounded even more frazzled than Sacker. Her voice rose in pitch. “We’ve gone over and over and over this same damn question for an hour! If you don’t like my ideas, then let me go! I’ve told you, I’m not a psychologist. The maniac threatened to kill my own people if we didn’t destroy the research. You and these Feds posted guards around the damn place because of the threats. And he still managed to get past all of you and erase my life’s work!”

  Metal rang in Gone’s ears. Is she pounding the desk?

  “He’s fucking insane! Okay?”

  Savas spoke, his voice steady.

  “And the work he demanded you destroy—”

  “That is now destroyed!” snapped Richards.

  His voice didn’t waver. “My understanding is that this was based on using a virus to infect men and render them infertile?”

  Richards sighed, her voice an octave lower and hoarse.

  “Temporarily, yes. A harmless virus, limited in replicative ability. It spread to reproductive cells specific to the testes. There it shut down the production of sperm. Voila! The perfect condom. The male pill in a shot. Early testing in humans showed that it was male specific. Women were not infected efficiently, and men had very few side effects besides low sperm count. Honestly, adenovirus is much nastier.”

  “Adenovirus?”

  “Common cold. Still had to work out dealing with immunity, but there was progress.”

  “But the killer obviously had major issues with the treatment?”

  “Obviously. I feel like I’ve gone over this one hundred times.” There was a long pause. “Some celebrated our work—yay gender equality! Women don’t have to bear the brunt of contraception! But others had a darker view. With men freed of the fear of fatherhood, sexual assault would increase.”

  “Rapists don’t care about babies,” scoffed Chief Ladner. His voice boomed through, popping and distorted, for the first time in the interrogation.

  Richards scoffed back. “The overwhelming majority of rapes are committed by people known to the victim. It’s not some slobbering election-prop thug. It’s the clean-cut boy next door who thinks he owns women’s bodies. Friends, lovers, relatives. Smirk away, but those are the stats. That’s what people call rape culture. Some fear it will get worse if there’s one less risk.”

  We’re getting sidetracked.

  Gone’s alarm bells clamored, her intuition churning through the facts, catching a scent it couldn’t quite identify.

  “We’re missing something here. It’s right in front of us. Ask about the prison experiments.”

  No one interrupted as Richards continued a long sociological discussion in the background.

  Did they hear me?

  She pressed. “Remember? They began limited testing in humans. Prison records. We have them. Something went wrong with one of them.”

  “That’s all very interesting,” said Sacker. “Can we return for a moment to the studies at the women’s prison?”

  Finally!

  “Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women,” said Savas, his voice neutral. “That’s the place?”

  “All ethical protocols were followed,” said Richards. “By the book. We needed blood samples to test early versions of the virus. We needed blood from men and women. Prisons were available in both cases. Whatever your personal code, it was legal.”

  “One of your subjects died at Bedford Hills,” said Sacker.

  “It wasn’t related to anything we were doing. We just took blood samples. From what I understand it was a suicide. He jumped from a window and fell to his death.”

  “He?” Papers rustled. “I thought this was a women’s prison?”

  �
��Sorry, yes, ‘she.’ The inmate was born male but identified as female, having undergone hormonal and physical alterations for many years. She happened to be arrested as a woman. I’m getting a little old for all this gender bending and tend to focus on the biological sex.”

  Gone caught her breath. “Wait a second!” Her mind raced. “We’ve got to get to the prison. We’ve got to—”

  Her cell vibrated. A text message from Rebecca Cohen.

  “Virus sequencing completed.”

  56

  Gone Haywire

  When it rains, it pours.

  Gone unplugged the headset from the transmitter, pressed her smartphone screen to call Cohen, and flipped open her computer. She plugged the headset into her phone, dropping the volume on the unit as the ring tones exploded in her ears. Her fingers typed the password for her computer and she opened DNA sequence files.

  “Ms. Gone,” came Cohen’s voice. “That was fast.”

  “Call me Grace, please. I’ll call you Rebecca.”

  “Okay with me. Aren’t you participating in an interrogation with John?”

  “Was. Remotely. I don’t exist at NYPD, remember? They were wrapping up, but dropped something big at the end.”

  “What?” asked Cohen.

  “Later. I need the data. Now.”

  Cohen laughed. “You’re intense. I’m sorry, but I don’t have the data. I got a call from the labs at CDC and Columbia. They’ve been coordinating and verifying each other’s work. But you need to reach out to them. INTEL 1 isn’t a bioinformatics center. Well, maybe if we still had Angel. Unfortunately, she’s—”

  “Okay, how do I reach the labs?” Her head pounded.

  “I sent you an email. All the information’s there.”

  Gone opened an email app and scrolled through messages. Cohen continued.

  “But I did get a summary if you’re interested.”