by E. A. Copen
“Are you supposed to be intimidating?” Hector asked, his tone even.
“I am intimidating. It’s why I am good at my job, Timothy.”
Hector’s whole face twitched when I addressed him by his old name.
I placed my hands on the table and spread my fingers as if I were about to play the keys on a piano. “Now, tell me what you know about Gideon Reed. What’s he got to do with you? I have an eyewitness that puts you at the scene, fleeing when he showed up.”
“I have rights—”
I reached over the table and grabbed him by the shirt. “You don’t get it, do you? You still think I’m in here as a cop. Gideon Reed is a friend and if you fucked him up, I swear to God I will do the same to you.”
A smile spread over Hector’s face, the smile of a madman. He chuckled and then broke down into laughter until I let him go. “Your witness is useless,” Hector spat. “He made sure of that himself when he showed back up, trespassing on my property. No jury will buy that. It’s clear he’s only saying that because he’s stalking poor Tamara Speilman.”
“You son of a—”
“As for Gideon Reed,” Hector interrupted, “You have no evidence tying him to me, and no hope of obtaining it, especially not once BSI secured the scene of that unfortunate ambulance accident.”
I flexed my fingers and then pulled them into a fist. He knows. Abe knows. Everybody but me seems to know something. Is BSI protecting this asshole for some reason? Why do I feel like I’m getting the runaround?
Keep it together, I thought, shaking my head. Hector had already turned the tables and gotten control back over the interrogation, revealing that he did have more information than me. Hector held all the cards and I had nothing to negotiate with.
I leaned forward further on the table. “When I find out what you and your people are up to, Hector, you’re going to regret stringing me along like this. I promise you.”
“If you find out.”
I glanced up at the broken camera hanging from the wall by two wires and pushed off the table. “Next time, that’ll be your head, and remember what I said about making threats.”
I pulled the door open, hooking one finger in the hole the doorknob had left and giving it a firm jerk. It wasn’t difficult, especially considering how angry I was. Two days into the investigation and I had no evidence, no leads, nothing but shaky testimony from an unreliable witness. I needed something to break this case wide open, and Hector’s testimony wasn’t going to do that.
I hope Ed has more luck with that hard drive than I had in the interrogation room, I thought and met Espinoza in the viewing room.
He frowned. “No dice?”
I shook my head. “He won’t crack. Would you mind giving me a ride home?”
Espinoza grinned. “Just take my car, Judah. We’ll trade back tomorrow.”
Chapter Fourteen
I drove back to Paint Rock and pulled into my driveway. Not the driveway to Sal’s trailer, but the house next door. I’d called ahead to let Sal know I wouldn’t be over until later. There was too much work to do, and I needed quiet to think. I pulled out my laptop, poured myself a drink and got right to it.
I typed Timothy Dekker into the search bar of the BSI database. The picture in the file that came up matched Hector’s and Hector Demetrius was listed under known aliases. Damn. Couldn’t hold him on that. He’d registered his change of address, change of name, even dotted every I and crossed every T on his marriage and breeding application. Hector Demetrius was as squeaky clean as clean could come. At least until his file history ended abruptly. There was nothing documenting Hector’s existence under either name prior to a date in May three years ago.
I know this date, I thought and went searching through the old case files I kept on my computer. It took another twenty minutes to find it again and confirm that, yes, I had seen that date on another case before. It was the same day Andre LeDuc blew up Doctor Han’s lab and stole all that genetic research.
It could be coincidence that Han’s genetics lab got blown up the same day Timothy Dekker suddenly existed. Maybe. If I believed in coincidences.
It didn’t prove anything, so I moved on.
There was a section on the BSI paperwork for a personal narrative. Normally, everyone gave a detailed history and testament when they completed their compliance paperwork. Only in rare instances could the registrant waive that requirement and BSI was required to document why that part hadn’t been filled out. The code used on Hector’s paperwork was one I hadn’t seen before.
I clicked on the coded reason in Hector’s history and testament box. The database jumped over to a new page that demanded log in credentials from someone with a clearance level C or higher. I blinked at the screen. BSI field agents had clearance up to level Q, their supervisors up to level P. Secret service agents were only cleared up to level K and one of them had the unhappy job of collecting presidential turds to keep them out of the hands of terrorists. The point is, the more access you had to the president and his cabinet, the higher your clearance level. The directors of BSI, the FBI and the NSA only went as high as J. There was no clearance level C.
My phone rang and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I quickly closed all the windows and disconnected from the internet, just in case, before glancing at the number. I recognized it as Ed’s. “Holy shit, Ed. You scared the crap out of me just now.”
“Maybe you should be scared,” he answered, his tone serious. “Where are you?”
“Home. Why? Any luck with that hard drive?”
“It’s heavily encrypted. Lots of files here to crack. Looks like mostly video, audio and photos. I’ve been working on it all day.” The phone creaked as he shifted it. “Look, I really don’t want to do this over the phone. Would you mind meeting?”
“Sure, I can drive back over to your house.”
“No,” Ed snapped suddenly. “I mean, how about out in front of the clinic?”
“The clinic?” That was a strange place to meet. It was out of the way for both of us and oddly out in the open. Maybe that’s why he’d picked it. He was being paranoid and wanted to make sure we’d be somewhere cameras were likely to pick us up. I rolled my eyes. “Sure, Ed. Tomorrow morning.”
“No, it has to be right now.”
I rubbed my forehead. “Ed, I’m working. I have a case to crack.”
“Five minutes from now in front of the clinic,” he said quickly. “Don’t be late.”
Ed hung up.
I stared at the blank screen on my phone a minute, frowning. That wasn’t like Ed at all. If he said it couldn’t wait, I believed him. His words from earlier flashed through my head. Maybe he’d gotten himself into trouble with that hard drive.
“Dammit, Ed,” I growled, rising to grab my keys. “I told him not to plug that in anywhere that BSI could trace it.”
~
The clinic looked abandoned when I pulled up in front of it. There was no sign of Ed anywhere. I checked the clock. I’d made it there in four minutes, plenty of time to catch Ed. Maybe he was the one who was running late.
I parked the car, running the passenger side tires up onto the sidewalk, and switched off the headlights. The sound of my door closing echoed through the empty street followed by my footsteps. Above, a streetlamp buzzed. Gnats circled in the light, making the shadows dance. I stepped up onto the sidewalk and turned a full circle. “Ed,” I called, “are you here?”
“Keep your voice down,” Ed hissed. I turned to face the front of the clinic and watched as Ed stepped out of the shadows. “You want to wake the whole town up or just this block?”
“Is this about the hard drive?”
“Not exactly,” he answered. His eyes scanned the street from north to south, darting back and forth like he was expecting to be attacked.
“Why are we here then? You know, you could have just had me meet you at your place.”
“If he were just meeting you, maybe.” Another figure shifted in the shadows. Lig
ht flashed in two circles as he reached up to adjust his glasses. A wobbling mass of hair helped me identify the figure as Doc Ramis. “Did you come alone?”
I glanced around. “What do you think?”
A set of keys jingled as Doc pulled them from the pocket of his white coat and inserted one of them into the door. “If anyone asks, you’re both here because you forgot something.” He threw open the door and held it.
I exchanged a glance with Ed. “You want to tell me what this is all about, Doc?”
“Once we’re inside. Please.”
I followed Ed and Doc into the dark clinic. Doc passed by the front desk without stopping, the glow of the emergency exit sign casting a watery red tinge on everything. The hallway was lined on either side with numbered double doors. A long time ago, the building used to be a movie theater. When Paint Rock was converted into a reservation, they gutted the seats from each of the three screens. Doc didn’t use them for exam rooms, instead retrofitting them as sterile operating rooms, an autopsy theater, and housing for his six zombies when they weren’t on the road. We stopped in front of the third theater, the one he used for dissections and autopsies.
Here, Doc spun around with his hands still resting on the double doors. “Before I show you, I have to make sure you both understand that what you see inside can’t get out. You can’t tell anyone I showed you or even that we spoke.”
I lifted my chin and gestured to the door. “What’s in there?”
“Something no one is supposed to see,” Doc answered. “I’m only showing you because… Well, when somebody with a gun tells me not to do something, normally I wouldn’t do that. I’m a doctor. Do harm to none is my motto and if keeping quiet saves lives, that’s what I’m inclined to do. But this… Some secrets don’t save lives. They cost them.”
Doc’s statement created more questions than answers, questions I pondered as he turned to remove a heavy chain and lock from the door. The chain fell away loudly and Doc pushed the door open, charging through. Ed and I followed.
Because the room was an old theater, the floor sloped gently downward before evening out in the front. The front was where the two tables waited. Our footsteps carried all the way down and bounced off the floor before being eaten by the curtains running along the walls. As we came closer, I saw that each of the two tables was occupied by a body. Doc had tossed a white cloth over each body, but I could vaguely make out the outlines of a face, nose, and feet. A rolling table with all manner of hacking and cutting medical tools sat between the tables. Doc walked up to the rolling table and pulled out a cardboard box of gloves, offering them to each of us.
Ed gulped. “I think I’ll pass.”
I took two and put them on. “Who’re the stiffs?”
“Not who,” Doc said, snapping on a pair of his own gloves. He went to stand by one of the tables. “What. Now, what you’re about to see will probably shock you. I need to remind you that you can’t tell anyone what you see here tonight. Your life probably depends on it. All of our lives.”
I made a rolling gesture with my hand. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s get on with it, Doc.”
Doc nodded, sucked in a deep breath and pulled off the first sheet with a flourish.
The body underneath didn’t seem remarkable at first. He was a normal, thirty-something male in good shape except for some ash and blackened, burned skin around his face. He was pale, lips and fingertips blue. I noted some bruising on his forehead and knuckles, but nothing to suggest what I was looking at warranted all the secrecy.
Doc took up a scalpel from his tray of instruments and instructed, “Observe.” He pressed the scalpel to the man’s sternum.
It snapped in two, the sharpened blade flying off and clattering to the floor.
“Damn, Doc. Be more careful with that, will you? You should probably replace some of that second-rate material, huh?”
“That scalpel was surgical grade,” Doc replied and picked up something that looked like a battery powered rotary saw. “This is meant for cutting through bone. Its diamond plated, Judah. I’ve never had to use it before.”
The saw buzzed to life as he switched a button on. I plugged my ears as he put the blade to the man’s clavicle. After a moment, a small cloud rose from where the tool made contact with the body and the nauseating stench of burning flesh filled the room. My stomach tried to do a somersault. I moved my hands from my ears to cover my mouth and nose.
Doc suddenly shut off the saw and held it up. When it stopped spinning, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The blade was completely worn off, leaving only an uneven, spinning disc. The dead man’s body was still intact.
“What the hell?” I asked, leaning in. “Who is this guy?”
“That’s just the thing.” Doc put the broken saw down and grabbed the dead man’s hand, flipping it over to show me the palm. I squinted for a better look. In the dim light, it was hard to make out details until Doc switched on a flashlight and handed me a magnifying glass. I held it over the man’s hands, searching for whatever it was Doc wanted me to see. “Look at the fingertips,” he encouraged. “What do you see?”
I did as instructed, but shook my head. “Nothing.”
“Exactly.”
I lowered the magnifying glass to give Doc a doubtful look.
“No fingerprints,” he explained.
That wasn’t possible. I looked again. Sure enough, the lines and contours that decorated a normal person’s fingertips were absent, leaving behind completely smooth skin.
“I can’t identify them,” Doc said. “I wasn’t asked to. I was only asked to store them here for pickup overnight. I’m not supposed to have access to them.”
“Spill it, Doc,” I said, lowering the magnifying glass. “I want to know where these guys came from. Everything you know, I need to know.”
“I didn’t have any information at all,” Doc said and moved to the other body. “At least until I moved onto her.”
He pulled the sheet off, revealing a woman of similar age and build to the man. Again, she looked completely unremarkable except that she still had shreds of clothing clinging to her skin. It looked like much of it had melted onto her, as the area around the clothing scraps had turned black with burns.
Doc grabbed a pair of long tweezers and tugged at some of the scorched fabric clinging to her hip. Some of the layers flaked away as he separated them and pulled something from what would have been her pocket. He held it up for a moment before dropping it gently to an empty space on the table. It clanged as if it were made of metal, despite being blackened.
“I found this and knew I had to call you,” he said.
I cautiously reached out to pick up the scorched metal. It was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand with chunks of something black stuck all over it. The shape was similar to that of a medieval shield, round on the sides and coming to a point on the bottom. On the top, there was a small, warped point and two swooping lines that kept it from being flat. I ran my thumb over it, scraping bits of the black material away, but I knew what it was even before I could see the picture. It was a badge, not at all unlike the one I had clipped to my belt. The black material was probably scraps of the leather it had been pressed into.
But it wasn’t until I scraped away more of the material and saw the engraved picture underneath that I understood why Doc had called me. The words “Federal Agent” decorated the top in a band that would have been blue before the fire. At the bottom, three letters told me everything else I needed to know: BSI.
I met Doc’s eyes. “You want to tell me why you’ve got two dead BSI agents in your autopsy room, Doc?” I glanced over at the man with impenetrable skin. “Two really weird BSI agents?”
“A black van pulled up this afternoon,” Doc said, glancing to Ed. “Two military types got out, told me to shut down the clinic for the day. They brought these in as is and placed them on my tables, telling me they’d be gone by morning. I just needed to make sure they stayed secure. I was forced to sign some so
rt of agreement that I wouldn’t disclose any information whatsoever. They implied doing so could be fatal and I believed them.” Doc looked back at the man with impenetrable skin. “But professional curiosity got me, Judah. I had to know. My guess is they died of smoke inhalation. Nothing else could’ve done it. But why the secrecy? Who are these agents?”
I exchanged glances with Ed. “I bet the military types were the same ones we ran into at the blockade earlier.”
“I told you there was a cover-up going on,” Ed replied.
“What blockade?”
“I’m sure you heard about the fire at Reed’s place?”
Doc nodded.
“Well,” I said after a sigh, “I shot Gideon Reed in the middle of that and he was supposed to have been taken by squad to the hospital.”
Ed jumped in. “Only the squad never made it to the hospital. It crashed out at Four Corners Concho. We went to investigate but, by the time we got there, they weren’t letting anyone through. Bunch of military tough guys and Abe Helsinki basically assaulted us and told us to turn around.” His eyes widened. “Hey, what if these were the guys in the squad? It’d make sense. The reason they’re all burned up is because Reed roasted their asses on his way out. Paramilitary guys show up, remove the bodies and place them here for safe keeping before BSI cleaners can get here.”
“BSI doesn’t have cleaners,” I snapped, though I was suddenly unsure whether or not that was true. “Besides, what reason would they have for trying to take Reed wherever they were trying to take him?”
There was a sudden, loud squeal that made all three of us jump. Doc sucked in a panicked breath and grabbed me by the arm. “That’s my door alarm! They’re here. You two need to go.” He hauled us toward a side exit that would have once been the theater’s emergency exit in the front near the screen.
We passed under a heavy curtain and Doc jerked open the emergency door. Bright searchlights flooded over us, behind which I could just barely make out the shape of an armored truck. Doc yelped and pulled the door shut. “Not that way.”
“What other way is there?”