by Wally Duff
Or is it Jamie?
55
“Maybe it’s not my bomber in that car,” I said.
“You think it’s Jamie instead?” Tony asked.
“It could be.”
“What’s he got to do with the bomber?”
“Nothing.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I missing somethin’ here?”
“I didn’t tell you, but after Jamie tried to blow me up, I went back into his burning apartment and grabbed a blob of C4 residue off the wall. I’m afraid he saw me do it.”
“If he did, you gotta problem ‘cause it’ll match the C4 used by his buddies, and he knows we can nail him with that.”
“What about the chain of evidence problem?”
“Gotta’ work on it. There are ways around evidence problems.”
Something’s not right here.
“I really appreciate you doing this, but why risk getting in trouble?”
“Dude pisses me off because I coulda’ been in there too. Asshole coulda’ blown me up!”
There it is. It’s always about him.
“When you drop me at home, I’ll give you some of the C4 residue from Jamie’s,” I said.
“Done.”
He kept looking in his rearview mirror as he drove.
“Car following us has a sticker that looks like it might be a rental, but can’t make the front license plate. Mud or somethin’ on it.”
I twisted around in my seat. “Which car is it?”
“Black Ford compact three cars behind us.”
I continued to stare out the back window. “Prove it to me.”
“Thought you might say that.”
Abruptly, he turned right at the next corner and stepped on the gas. My chest and shoulder tugged against the seatbelt. He went two blocks and turned left. The black Ford followed. I saw that a female drove the car. She had long blond hair and big sunglasses, which covered the upper part of her face.
He made another left turn, but the Ford continued on. The driver stared straight ahead, seemingly ignoring us.
“Looks to me like your bomber has a helper,” he said.
She also looked like the woman I saw drive away from the fire at Jamie’s apartment, but that woman drove a white Prius.
“Did you see a female sitting in a white Prius at Jamie’s apartment building before you left?” I asked.
He double-parked in front of my house and took out his spiral notebook. He thumbed through a few pages. “White Prius, blond, sunglasses, couldn’t see her body.”
“Plates?”
“Dirty, just like that Ford’s. Couldn’t make them.”
“Your thoughts?”
“Maybe the bomber likes to dress in drag.”
“Not funny.”
He snapped his fingers. “Got it. It’s Jamie.”
“You think he dresses in women’s clothes?”
“You asked me what I thought. That’s my answer.”
I ran inside and retrieved part of the C4 residue from Jamie’s to give to Tony. With his help, we might have a way to stop the man who wanted to kill all of us.
56
Wednesday afternoon, Linda texted me. She wanted to meet and discuss what she and David had found out from the download from Micah’s office computer. It was raining again, so we decided to meet at Dinkel’s.
I texted Cas and Molly. Linda texted David.
A fresh donut would brighten everyone’s day in this miserable weather.
Dinkel’s Bakery is located on North Lincoln, about two blocks from our home. It opened in 1922, and according to the elderly locals who frequent it, the taste of the yummy baked goods hasn’t changed much over the years.
I’m in love with the contents of the glass cases in the main room. They’re filled with all types of fresh baked goods, including chocolate and vanilla cupcakes slathered with multiple flavors of frosting and multiple varieties of their famous donuts.
The new addition is a full bay-sized eating area off to the right side, accessed through a doorway next to one of the glass pastry cases. This room has become a meeting place for the Irregulars when, like today, the weather turns sour and we don’t want to stay in our homes.
Everyone was there, including the kids. Linda did the honors of introducing David to the rest of the Irregulars. Since none of them had met Margaret, David took care of that introduction.
David seemed to have picked up on how he’d previously overdressed his daughter. This time she looked like a normal kid wearing red shorts, a white T-shirt, and sandals.
Margaret gravitated to Molly’s two older sons, and they began playing a game on her computer.
I took Kerry out of her stroller, and we sat down. She sat on my lap, and we shared a glazed donut.
“David, if you don’t mind, let me give our report on what we learned from Micah’s office computer,” Linda said.
“Go right ahead,” David said.
“To prove what we discovered, we had to hack into several federal computers,” she began. “But we found the major source of Micah’s funding.”
We waited.
“As we suspected, the President of the United States is behind it.”
The only noise in the room came from our kids jabbering and playing.
“There were only two patients in Micah’s MS treatment trial: Hannah and one of the president’s daughters,” Linda continued. “He illegally provided almost all of the funding to save his daughter and, secondarily, Hannah.”
“I guess the Big Guy doesn’t mind breaking the law to save his kid,” Molly said.
I thought of the recent events at my home and O’Hare where I confronted that same issue. I agreed with the president. I would do anything to save my daughter too.
“How did you figure it out?” Cas asked.
“Using the information from Micah’s lab computer, David broke the encryption code Tina and I had previously downloaded from Micah’s home computer,” Linda said.
“Once I had that, I was able to uncover the real reason Micah didn’t elaborate the details on his financing to Tina and me,” David said.
“You’re certain that all of Micah’s funding has been obtained from the president?” I asked.
“Yes, except for Hannah’s original money from her trust,” Linda responded.
“The president isn’t stupid,” David added. “He knew he would have to break the law to shift the funds to Micah’s lab, so he used Sherman Krevolin to do it for him.”
“And since Krevolin is one of his biggest supporters, no one would ever question the real source of the funds,” Linda said.
“This brings us back to Jamie,” David said. “Hannah and her kids at home, and Micah and his lab, are now being covered by around-the-clock security teams.”
“Jamie can’t get to them?” Cas asked.
“He can still try,” David said. “But he’ll really have to work at it to get close to them.”
57
“On September 11th, the president is coming to Chicago to announce his full support for embryonic stem cell research,” I said.
“Then why would Jamie even bother going after Micah?” Molly asked. “Once the Big Guy announces his full support of what Micah is doing, the news’ll be out, and no one will care about all this funding business.”
“But a motivated reporter could eventually uncover the same financial information Linda and I did,” David said.
“One reason reporters might not do it right away is because they’ll be covering why the president is unexpectedly supporting embryonic stem cell research when he’s always been against it,” I said.
“Plus, there’s the possibility that Micah has discovered the cure for MS, and he’ll probably win the Nobel Prize for medicine,” Cas said. “Those will be the stories of the year, but everyone will miss the most important one.”
“Which is?” Molly asked.
“Micah is illegally cloning embryos and then killing them to harvest their stem cells,
” Cas said. “In my opinion, he’s performing abortions in his lab.”
“David and I suggested this to him, and that was one of the reasons he let David help place security in his lab,” I said.
I munched on a second donut and put a coloring book in front of Kerry. I considered what we had just discussed.
“Guys, I have to tell you that, as an investigative reporter, I lived for stories like Micah and his illegal financing,” I continued. “What if one of my former colleagues wonders why one of the president’s daughters is suddenly better? I would chase that down, and if you two could discover this, a competent reporter could too.”
“And to answer your question, Molly, that’s one of the two reasons to worry about Jamie,” Linda said.
“With a little nudge from someone in the president’s party, Jamie might still make a run at silencing Micah to prevent that story from coming out before the president’s September 11th speech covers it up,” David said.
“Linda, you mentioned this is one of the reasons to worry about Jamie,” Molly said. “What’s the other one?”
“If Jamie can’t get to Micah, he might settle on another target for what happened to his group at O’Hare,”
I felt like puking up my two donuts. “Me.”
“Not just you, but all of the Hamlin Park Irregulars,” David said. “He already tried to kill you, Tina. It’s not much of a stretch to assume that he might try it again.”
“And if we and our kids are around Tina and Kerry, we might be collateral damage,” Linda said.
“What do we do?” Cas asked.
“No brainer, guys,” Molly said. “Catch him.”
58
“How would you suggest we accomplish that?” Linda asked. “We don’t know where he lives now that he burned down his apartment.”
“As a starter, we could show his picture around in the other exercise clubs in this area,” Cas suggested. “It seems logical to me that he’ll keep working out, and that’s where we’ll find him.”
“Good suggestion, but we don’t have a picture of him,” I said.
“Wrongo,” Molly said. “As you guys probably noticed, Jamie talked to me in the exercise classes all the time. He digs hanging with a hot chick while he works out.”
“And how does this help us?” David asked.
“Start with the picture,” Molly said. “He’s really proud of his body. You know where I’m going with this?”
“Don’t tell me he sent you some pictures,” Cas said. “I can’t stand it!”
“You don’t have to look at them if you don’t want to.”
“Give me your phone,” Cas demanded.
Molly opened it up and showed Cas what was on the screen.
“Oh, my God!” Cas yelped.
“Kind of what I thought too,” Molly said. “The dude is really a stud.”
“Let me see,” I said.
Cas handed me Molly’s phone. There were multiple pictures of Jamie. In most of them, he had some clothes on. In several, he did not. “I have to agree that he’s a stud, but hung might be a better word.”
I handed the phone to Linda. She didn’t blink as she stared at the screen.
“Is she still breathing?” Molly said to Cas.
“I’m not sure, but if she isn’t, I understand why.”
All David did was blush. “Ladies, I don’t understand how this is going to help us.”
“I have to agree with you, David,” I said. “Jamie might try to kill all of us. We need to do something right now.”
“Okay then, here’s our plan,” Molly said. “First, as Cas said, he’s gonna keep working out, so we check all the fitness places in this area.”
“I’ll do that,” Cas said.
“And what about all those women you say he likes?” David asked.
“I’ll handle that,” Molly said. “I know which websites he’s always on.”
“One small question,” Linda said. “What do we do when we find him?”
“I’ve got an idea about that,” Molly said. “Let me handle it.”
59
It was late Thursday night, and Carter was upstairs putting Kerry to bed. I went down to the laundry room to run a load of laundry. As I turned the knob to start the cycle, my computer dinged.
I ran into the office. On the screen was a message from my mole:
I lost track of him after Arlington.
I assumed he might have died as a result of the injuries he suffered from either the explosion or the gunshot wound after you shot him.
Or both.
Are you sure it’s him?
I replied:
In Hinsdale, Deerfield, and a new attack on the North Side of Chicago, the C4 bomb was hidden in the men’s bathroom, as it was in Arlington. I think he may be using this technique to alert the authorities and the national press that he is back, but he has added to it. In the Deerfield attack, he lured a doctor to the building before he detonated the bomb. The doctor was killed in the blast.
On the North Side, he shot and killed a doctor with a sniper rifle. A bomb had also been placed in the bathroom there, but the bomb squad thought it couldn’t be remotely detonated because the lead shielding in the adjacent room blocked the signal.
The response was immediate:
Clearly, he is back and seems to be accelerating his attacks.
I will do anything to stop this monster.
I will begin an active search to find and stop him before he strikes again.
If I cannot, I will at least try and discover his next target for you.
I ran upstairs. Carter rocked Kerry in her room. “Houston, we have lift off. My mole just contacted me.”
“Outstanding,” he said.
I took in a deep breath. “Have you selected a reporter to help me?”
“I did. It’s Brittany Simon. I recently moved her from the police desk to be a feature reporter.”
“Is she a rookie?”
“She is relatively new, but she’s tenacious and works extremely hard.”
“Like I did when I first started.”
You just described me as a cub reporter, my dear.
He didn’t say anything.
“Do you expect me to be her mentor?”
“That would certainly help.”
“Is she cute?” I continued.
“I never noticed.”
Which means she is.
“I told you I would do this story your way, and I will. Give me her text and I’ll set up a meeting as soon as I can.”
I went back to the office and called Tony. “I need something from you.”
He waited.
“Carter picked a young reporter to work with me on the bomber story. If you want me to continue to help you, she’s going to be part of the package.”
“Looker?”
“I haven’t met her yet, but Carter didn’t deny that she was cute.”
“He picked you, so he’s got great taste. I’m in.”
“Is that simply a compliment, or are you hitting on me again?”
“For you to figure out, sweets.”
He’ll never change.
60
On Friday afternoon, I sat in Dinkel’s dining room. Kerry was at Cas’s. Brittany Simon, the reporter Carter had assigned to the clinic bombing story, was next to me with her Tribune work laptop on the table in front of her. Carter had one exactly like it.
Brittany has long, straight blond-streaked hair, way too cute dimples, flawless tanned skin, and an athlete’s body. Her short white skirt prominently displayed her muscular legs.
Tony sat next to her. His testosterone level had risen so high it was bubbling out of his ears. I had shown him the copy of the email I had received from the mole confirming a commitment to help us.
So far, Tony hadn’t said anything. Since most of his brain cells were located south of his belt, he was clearly not concentrating on police business.