Element 42

by Seeley James

  At the front gate, a young guy and one of our agents argued. Otis Blackwell, Emily’s archrival from the TV side of the news, faced us. Rumor was he’d taken Ms. Sabel to the prom in high school.

  Ms. Sabel rolled her window down. “What brings you out tonight, Otis?”

  The reporter leaned to the window. “Mass graves on Borneo, shootings at St. Muriel’s, that kind of thing.”

  “How did your documentary turn out? Asian rivers, wasn’t it?”

  “Thanks for remembering,” Otis said. “You’re close. It was water conservation in China. We’re having distribution issues at the moment. But thank you for funding the project. What happened on Borneo?”

  “No comment,” Ms. Sabel said. “But I owe you one. I’ll call you.”

  Otis frowned and put his hands on her window. “Why didn’t you call the Malaysian authorities?”

  “I did, they … No comment.”

  “Right now, the news feeds make it sound like you were involved somehow. You should tell your side of the story before it gets out of hand. What did you find? How much did you see? Who did you tell?”

  “We found a … No comment.”

  Kevin leaned across her. “I’m her attorney. She said she will call you. Back away—NOW.”

  Otis stepped back and put his hands up.

  Ms. Sabel rolled forward before putting the hammer down on the accelerator.

  Driving and talking, Ms. Sabel had me go over the plan several times. When we arrived at the Montgomery County Detention Center, Kevin and Ms. Sabel went into the administrator’s office to finalize visitation arrangements.

  Tania and I waited in a room with neatly grouped chairs sitting on the only scrap of carpet in the otherwise concrete building. Fluorescent lighting buzzed over our heads while an officer filled in paperwork at a big desk.

  Tania leaned over and scowled at me. “You mess this up for me and I’ll mess you up.”

  “Mess up what?”

  I smelled burnt vinegar, same as the death camp. I sniffed the air. I wasn’t sure if it was coming from Tania, or a memory of the smell.

  “This job,” she said. “I don’t know how you wormed your way into this deal but I’ll wreck you if you think you can cut me out.”

  Not wanting a confrontation, I stood and examined a plaque on the wall. Detention officers-of-the-month going back five years, minus the last six months, were listed on little brass tags.

  Tania came up behind me. “You turned down Officer Candidate School in the Army because you didn’t want your psych evaluations coming up. You know they’ll check. Why did you go for this one?”

  I looked over my shoulder at her. “I didn’t put in for it. I didn’t know Marty was leaving until this morning.”

  She grabbed my arm with a hot hand. “Don’t mess with me, Jacob. I deserve this promotion.”

  “Tania, we talked her out of preventing a mass murder.”

  “We could’ve been killed. Or worse.”

  “She doesn’t care about dying. She has some weird philosophy about death.” I pulled her hand off me. Her whole arm was hot.

  “Yeah, she told me that. If she dies, she joins her parents and if not, she has to fix the broken world we live in. Noble theory. But I know the real Pia, and she wants to live. No way she was going to flame out on Borneo.”

  “She thinks we should’ve tried harder.” I bit the inside of my lip. “After I saw that picture of Kaya, I agree with her. We could have pulled it off.” I reached for her forehead to check her temperature but she batted my hand away.

  “Could have? We were outgunned big time. Gimme some of what you’re smoking.”

  “Think about it. We park off the road. The Pak Uban flies by. You and I circle around and sneak through the bushes, pick them off, one at a time.”

  “You listening to those voices in your head again? More likely, the Pak Uban backtracks to the clinic and we face thirty hostiles with only three weapons and a translator.”

  “Might have worked.” I shrugged. “Ms. Sabel thinks we should’ve tried.”

  “What’s all that got to do with the promotion?” she asked.

  “Tania.” I gently squeezed her feverish arm. “It’s not a promotion.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Blue glass from Violet Windsor’s ultra-modern condo reflected the dawn’s rays down to the streets of Guangzhou like solar reflectors. People below held newspapers over their heads as much to block the rays as to fend off the industrial silt eternally suspended in the air.

  “What do you mean ‘arrested,’ Marco?”

  Violet took an orange from the bowl and stepped onto her balcony, where a strong breeze fluttered through her hair. She pulled her Dolce & Gabbana bathrobe tighter and retied the belt. Five hundred feet below, the city bustled with morning traffic as fourteen million people began their working day.

  Marco Verratti made excuses on the phone while she checked the air quality index on her tablet. 154, the unhealthy zone, but that was at ground level.

  “Your friends in Washington failed?” Violet interrupted him. “You’re telling me that in a matter of days, your people managed to get arrested without destroying the vials? Can these men be traced back to you?”

  “Violet, these situations are difficult—”

  “I warned you she was dangerous,” Violet said. She squeezed the orange so hard it split open. “How could you be so stupid?”

  “I sent an attorney to—”

  “Oh, god no. They’ll follow the money back to you.”

  “You don’t leave men incarcerated or they’ll eventually rat you out. No, I take care of my people.”

  “Take care of your people? Are you crazy?” Violet said. “Pia Sabel will take care of your people. She’ll have them turned against you in a day. Don’t underestimate her. You have to do something. I don’t care what it is. Blow up her house or—”

  “Those are not options. She’s stepped up security at Sabel Gardens, she has bulletproof autos, agents—”

  “Thanks to you and your bumbling idiots!” Violet hurled the orange into the wide-open space before her. She looked at the juice dripping from her hand. “You thought you could beat Pia Sabel with street thugs? I should revoke your shares in the company and throw you off the board!”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “This is China. I can do anything Chen lets me.”

  “Don’t threaten me,” he shouted. “I have the package and my people are standing by with drones to deploy it. I’m in this just as deep as you.”

  He was right. She needed Element 42. She did her best to calm her rage.

  Her phone clicked with another incoming call: Anatoly Mokin, one of the few board members outside her control. She said, “Do you know where the vials are?”

  “Not exactly.” Verratti said. “I am calling because you claimed to know someone close to her. I need to know where she’s been. Where she might have taken them.”

  “I’ll call you back.”

  She clicked over to the incoming call. “Anatoly, what can I do for you?”

  “Stalin send my grandfather to Astana. There he establish our family. He teach us old Russian proverbs. My favorite: bird is known by its flight. You not tell Chen truth, and he is very angry. Now I discover you not tell me about missing blood vials. You not tell Chen either. We begin to know Violet Windsor by her flight.”

  “Mukhtar lost a few vials on the Borneo expedition. I didn’t think it was worth getting him in trouble.”

  “Very big trouble.” Mokin was silent for a moment. “But not for Mukhtar. Pia Sabel took them and now she is back in USA. Your project manager, Teresa, know this but did not tell Mukhtar.”

  Violet felt her jawbone tighten. She stared across the city for two beats. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know what Violet Windsor think.”

  “I think Mukhtar should be shot for allowing the operation to be compromised by anyone who walked by. I think you should be ashamed of the wa
y your incompetent security team—”

  “Why you steal Element 42?”

  “Don’t try to change the subject. You need to take responsibility for security. You need to track down those vials and destroy them.”

  “You not answer question.”

  “I won’t answer a loaded question. If you have any board-specific business relating to the direction of Windsor Pharmaceuticals, then state it. Otherwise, this conversation is over.”

  “I leave you with other Russian proverb: Every cricket must know its hearth.”

  She clicked off and tapped her phone against the railing.

  She strode back into her penthouse and into her bedroom. She shouted to her maid. “Bring me coffee.”

  Tossing her robe on the floor, she kicked off her house-leg and considered the closet brimming with clothes. Turning her attention back to her phone, she chose “Prince” from her contacts and dialed. She placed it on speaker and set it on a shelf while she chose a business suit.

  “What do you want?” Prince said.

  “Hello, how are you? It’s been too long. I left you a message and hoped you would—”

  “I’m busy. What do you want?”

  “Well, I’m trying to get hold of Pia Sabel and she’s never home these days. I don’t have her mobile number. Do you know where she’s been lately?”

  “You heard someone shot up her old school?”

  “Oh my god. Is she OK? Did she go straight to the police afterward?”

  “She doesn’t go to the police. They went to her. They met her at NIH.”

  “Why there?”

  “She gave them some kind of grant for research.”

  “Of course, I should’ve known. Well, can you tell her I’m thinking about her?”

  “Does she know who you are?” Prince clicked off.

  Her maid held out her designer-leg and fresh stump sock. Violet grabbed them and put them on herself, then slipped into her skirt and pulled on a blouse. Violet sat at the table, dialed Ed Cummings, and opened her jewelry drawer.

  The maid returned with a cup of coffee, premeasured creamer and sweetener, and set it on her dressing table.

  When he picked up, she said, “Marco’s men are in police custody.”

  “Jesus! Did they at least get the vials?” Cummings asked.

  She chose a Mouawad Lava necklace and slipped it around her neck. “He can’t be trusted. We need to replace him.”

  “I’m sending you the number for the Velox guy, Kasey Earl.” Cummings sent her the contact. “But we can’t replace Verratti’s guys on deployment.”

  “You said Velox could do it.”

  “They can supplement on things like logistics, delivery of unmarked boxes, that kind of thing, but not deployment. Only Mafia guys will send up drones over every major city without asking questions.”

  “We can’t use Marco.” She picked up a matching bracelet and earrings. The dark yellow diamonds and citrine contrasting perfectly against her black velvet dress.

  “I see. Call Kasey at Velox. Keep me out of it.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Tania tried to intimidate me with her glare, but she blinked too slowly.

  I said, “Babe, you’re sick.”

  Addressing her with a term of endearment was a mistake. Like a rattlesnake trying to strike, she took a deep breath and pushed her nose up to mine. “What do you mean, not a promotion?”

  “She’s punishing us for failing to back her up. I think she’s going to make us find the killers and take them down.”

  Tania’s eyes darted around the visitor’s room. She knew I was right but would never give me the satisfaction of admitting it. She wobbled on her feet.

  “Sit down.” I grabbed her arms, held her steady, and guided her back to the chairs.

  “Shut up.” Her eyes closed for a long time. “I’ll be taking care of myself.”

  Ms. Sabel stepped in behind me. “We were in a quarantined area. You’re going to the hospital for a full exam.”

  Tania dropped into a chair. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all. Don’t mean I’m sick.”

  Ms. Sabel told the cop on duty to call an ambulance. Then she dialed Doc Günter, the Sabels’ doctor, and set him up to meet Tania at the hospital. He walked us through some basic tests for heart rate and fever.

  Mercury said, Yo. Told you it was Ebola. Now the only woman you had a shot at is going to die. You should’ve gotten tests as soon as you got back.

  I said, It’s not Ebola. Now shut up, I need to think.

  Mercury said, Go ahead, think. I know how hard that is for you.

  Her eyes had a hint of blue in the sclera. My stomach twisted in knots as I realized just how sick she was and how many opportunities I’d had to do something smart.

  The ambulance arrived and whisked her away in minutes. Ms. Sabel and I made some serious eye contact.

  “You look good,” she said.

  “So do you,” I said. “I mean your eyes look good. Uh, your eyes aren’t blue.”

  She wrung her hands, a movement I found myself imitating without thinking.

  “She’s strong and healthy,” I said.

  Ms. Sabel nodded, unconvinced.

  Doc Günter called and assured us he would give us periodic updates from her isolation room, but we were not to visit until they understood her condition.

  With our ability to help her ended, we resumed our mission and followed a detention officer to the visitor’s room.

  The gray-haired thug, now clad in bright orange, sat in a booth behind inch-thick Plexiglas. Shiny silver handcuffs kept his wrists close together.

  The booth was narrow, so I motioned for Ms. Sabel to take the seat. Kevin, the attorney, carried himself like a former soldier, so I whispered, “Parade rest.”

  He and I stepped into the small space slightly behind Ms. Sabel. We clasped our hands, planted our feet shoulder distance apart, squared our shoulders, chests out, and fixed our eyes on a distant horizon.

  Zebo Amato—Gray-hair—stared at us, pretending he wasn’t impressed. He picked up the handset tethered to the wall.

  Ms. Sabel picked up hers. “Mr. Amato, my sources tell me the LaRocca Family has recalled their lawyer. You took a job on the side, off the Family’s turf, and word has it they’re pissed.”

  Amato sneered.

  “Whoever asked you to do this job should’ve done it himself. But he didn’t. He left you in jail with a public defender. Why did he leave you hanging like that?”

  Amato didn’t move.

  “No doubt you’ve figured it out by now. Your friend forgot to tell you I employ three thousand veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He set you up to fail.”

  Amato shifted in his seat.

  “You have two options. First, you can do the tough-guy thing where you do a little time instead of talking. The prosecutor will go hard and the jury will be horrified that you shot up a school in Montgomery County. But you’ll only get a couple years. The drawback to that option is not the sentence, it’s Jacob’s friends—the other twenty-nine hundred ninety-nine Sabel Security employees who plan to take turns visiting you back home. Do the math. You’ll have a visitor every day for more than eight years.”

  Amato smirked. Then coughed.

  “Before you think you’re tougher than them, remember, they were not only trained to kill, but they’ve had plenty of practice—not scaring strung-out dope dealers and young prostitutes, but going up against insane fundamentalists who think dying for Allah is a good thing. However many people you killed, my veterans have killed ten times that, each. Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Amato. I don’t condone violence in my organization. I’m just telling you what my people do in their free time when someone attacks a member of their family.”

  Amato’s gaze swung up to check me out then back to Ms. Sabel. He squinted while the wheels of logic creaked into action in his head. Anyone watching him could tell he didn’t like the odds of a rumble against my team. What could LaRocca put
on the field, twenty gangsters? Thirty? We had a hundred veterans show up for a company Frisbee game. I forced back a smirk of my own.

  “You have another option.” She tossed a thumb over her shoulder at Kevin. “I’m offering you this man as your attorney. Kevin charges a thousand dollars an hour and will get you off as lightly as possible. I pay the bills. You go home sooner rather than later. Jacob’s friends will complain, but I’ll let them take down Boko Haram for fun, and they’ll stand down. Probably.”

  Amato leaned toward the glass. “What I gotta do?”

  “Tell me who called you.”

  Amato looked like he’d been slapped. He leaned back.

  “He set you up to fail. Do you owe him enough to take a fall for him? Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the guy. He will never know how I found his name.” Ms. Sabel paused. “You have five seconds to decide. Then I’m walking to the room down the hall where I’ll offer the same deal to Mr. Pecora. I spoke to you first because the guards said you were the smart one.”

  Amato said nothing.

  Ms. Sabel put her phone on the counter and held up a hand with her fingers outstretched. After the first second ticked by, she pulled down her thumb. Then her index finger.

  Amato grinned.

  She pulled down her little finger.

  Amato frowned.

  Just as she tucked in her ring finger, leaving only her middle finger fully extended, he leaned forward and nodded at her handset. She picked it up.

  “Marco Verratti. And go ahead, tell the fat fuck I squealed. He let me do his niece a few years ago and called this in as payment. Fuck that shit. She was fat and ugly like him.” Zebo Amato put the phone down and nodded at the guard.

  We played the same game with Mr. Pecora and came up with the same name. Pecora didn’t like Verratti either. Since the answers matched, we headed out.

  Doc Günter called from the hospital. Tania was very sick but he was stumped about the cause. A battery of tests were underway. She ended the call as I held the detention center’s door open.

  In the distance, burning leaves brought comfort-scents our way. Autumn surrounded us with a damp chill and slow-moving clouds obscured the moon.