Ken hadn’t been in, so I had our admin put me on his calendar for 10:00 on Monday. Scheduling that meeting helped quiet the alarm in my head…but it didn’t stop it.
As Friday evening wore on, I had tried to distract myself. It should have been easy, as the baseball Cardinals had pulled within one game of the wild card lead. The city was on the verge of pandemonium, but my unease wouldn’t be quieted, wouldn’t be buried. So, I had phoned the police department to request a face-to-face meeting with Detective Ahern. The calls between us had done little to convince him, so I figured a look of sincerity on my face, coupled with a touch of concern in my voice might help.
The phone message I left for him was a bit cryptic – I wanted to talk about someone new in the Worthington case, ‘a prominent member of the community,’ but I couldn’t bring myself to mention Taylor’s name. Was I that unsure? I didn’t think so, but I sat down and recorded each of the ‘coincidences’ that tied Taylor to the research anyway. It was talking points, for whenever Ahern wanted to meet.
After that, I played through the coming meeting with Taylor in my mind. Generally, my mental theater centers on positive outcomes. My boss concedes my superior performance and gives me an enormous raise. I run a half-marathon, besting my personal record by 15 minutes. I lean in to kiss Nicole and she kisses me back. Well, that was my brain’s video until recently. Now, it’s more like we shake hands, over and over.
But what bothered me about my thoughts on meeting Taylor was that none of them ended with him confessing. Or even tripping himself up with a contradiction. It looked so easy in the movies, but when you are being truthful with yourself the night before, you know that’s a fantasy. Most of my mental simulations ended with him ignoring us. Why wouldn’t he?
I jumped at the sound of tapping at my window. It was Sue.
“Wake up, Doc. If I can drag myself out of bed the one morning Al is in the mood, you can pry your eyes open.” I chuckled, enjoying the quip more than it warranted. The familiarity of her banter was a welcome break from my thoughts.
“Morning, Sue,” I said, shutting off the car. “Ready?”
“Always,” she replied, and we headed off at a fast walk, neither of us wanting to stand around in the heat or hurry so much as to raise more of a sweat.
A blast of cool air greeted us as we entered a large waiting area. Two food stalls flanked the door, each most likely serving day-old doughnuts and coffee to match. Directly ahead, a dozen or so early morning travelers dozed in chairs scattered around the space. Departure gates were distributed along the remaining three walls. In front of one was a sign bearing the Taylor & Associates name and logo. We had arrived and there was little to do but wait.
Sue pulled a phone from her bag. “I’m going to sit over there,” she said, tilting her head toward some chairs near the gate with Taylor’s name. “I’m going to text Al, but I’ll keep an eye out too.”
“Al gets up at this hour, even on the weekends?” I asked, somewhat surprised.
“Yeah. He’s even playing workaholic this morning, now that his forced vacation is over. I dropped him by the office and I’ll collect him when we’re done.” Sue left for the chairs.
I glanced around, looking for a vantage point. There were four, flat-panel televisions distributed around the room, all showing the news, all leading with the same story – the weather. No one was watching. We already knew the plot. It was miserable and going to get worse.
After four laps of the room, seeing the same wad of gum on the floor, the same guy snoring in a corner, the same selection of high calorie, low nutrition snacks in the vending machine, I positioned myself in a row of seats across from Sue. Taylor’s departure gate was to my right and her left. We couldn’t miss him.
I pulled out my phone. It was 5:47. Taylor was late. I opened a solitaire app. I liked it because with the liberal use of undo and replay, I could win most of the time. Besides, a typical game would chew up six to ten minutes, and I had little else to do.
I played two. It was 6:00, and Taylor hadn’t appeared. I played three more. It was nearly 6:30 and I looked over at Sue. She frowned. Then pointed at her phone, shrugged, and shoved it back into her bag. I thought about going over, but she pulled out a magazine and started reading. When I finished three more games and the time reached 6:52, I stood to join Sue so we could discuss options.
But at that moment, in walked Taylor. Even with the dated picture I had studied and the strange looking sunglasses he wore, I was certain it was him.
Immediately, I noticed one difference between reality and all the times I had played this scenario in my head. In the real world, he wasn’t alone. I should have guessed that someone with his wealth would be driven to the airport and escorted to the safety of his waiting plane. Other than those two duties, the man with him would also have the responsibility of keeping people like me away. Our plan for a chance encounter was on the brink of failing even before it began.
As they walked closer, I noticed a briefcase in Taylor’s hand. It was around six inches thick and clad in metal. A chain ran from the handle up under the sleeve of Taylor’s jacket, almost certainly to a handcuff. The chauffeur/bodyguard walked on the other side and slightly behind, pulling a small, roller bag. He looked tired and hot. His clothes were rumpled. Either driving a limo was harder work than I thought, or he had been doing something else. Maybe fixing a tire?
I stood. The bodyguard must have been well trained, because his eyes immediately swung in my direction. If I had any doubts about his purpose, they vanished the moment he locked eyes on me. I took a step to intersect Taylor. The bodyguard sped up to come between his client and me.
My world narrowed to three people – Taylor, the bodyguard, and me. Taylor strode calmly toward the gate, head high. He looked the important, wealthy businessman he was. I could see the bodyguard clench his jaw, his eyes narrowing as he studied my movement. I could feel the floor push back against the soles of my shoes, as I took another step to intercept them. It would take a lot to widen my field of attention…but something did.
The background noise in the room had increased, and it was continuing to climb. I looked around. I couldn’t make out any words, but people were gathering around the televisions, pointing. The din increased again.
“Larry, you gotta see this,” one man called across the room.
“Linda,” shouted a woman, waving at another to join her.
Someone turned up the sound on a television. The first words to reach my ears were, “…a massive explosion at the Huntington Taylor Building in Earth City.”
On the screen was a live shot, showing flames and rubble. The building was only one story when standing, but looking through the smoke, there was nothing taller than a foot or two. If this was where the building had been, it was gone. The camera panned to part of a wall that had separated the building from an outside dining area. There was some writing on it in a language I didn’t recognize. The media were already using the words ‘terrorist attack’.
The bodyguard had stopped and was gaping at the television, like everyone else in the waiting area. Taylor, however, continued his stroll to the gate, not even turning to look. The possibility that he was simply lost in thought and oblivious to his surroundings was shattered when he turned to the bodyguard and barked, “Move you fool. You’ve made us late enough already.”
“But…,” started the guard.
“I’ll deal with that later. Now move,” Taylor yelled. His eyes shifted to my face. “Price,” he hissed.
I stopped dead in my tracks, my eyes wide in astonishment. I was certain we had never met, but he knew me. How was that possible?
Taylor started walking again and his associate fell in behind, rousting me from my shock. I took a step forward.
“Sir, you need to stay back,” warned the guard, as he held out a hand.
“You need to ask Mr. Taylor how he can put a meeting before the destruction of his business,” I said, holding my ground.
Th
e bodyguard hesitated in a moment of indecision. Then, as if remembering who signed his check, he said, “No, sir, you need to move along.”
Taylor had continued to walk and now was only a few paces from the agent standing at the gate. To ask him now if he knew Worthington was ridiculous. I doubted that he would even acknowledge such a feeble question amid this apparent emergency. I needed to be off-script, so I shouted the first thing that came to mind. “Is the Neural Activity Blocker worth all this cost in human life?”
The question implied more than I knew from the facts, but it also embodied much of what I feared. Taylor turned to me with a look of contempt and said, “You have no idea the value of that device, not just for me, but for all mankind.”
The full implications of that simple statement hit me like a train. The case chained to his wrist held a Blocker. He had killed Worthington to secure it, and he was willing to shed more lives to keep it. Now, he was within seconds of stepping through the departure gate and disappearing, perhaps forever.
My eyes scanned the area frantically for law enforcement. I was under no delusion that they would believe the bizarre story I had to tell, but surely, his identity along with the ongoing news story about the explosion at his office building would be enough to have him detained until the facts could be determined. But I saw no one.
Taylor had reached the gate. The bodyguard was trailing behind, glancing over his shoulder at me. I brought up the rear. I must have come too close, as the guard stopped and reversed direction. “Sir, this is your last warning. Please stand back or I’ll have no choice but to call security.”
“Yes, please do,” I said. Raising my voice, I yelled, “Call security, because that man is Huntington Taylor. He shouldn’t be getting on a plane.”
I pointed at him, but no one looked. Everyone’s attention was still focused on the drama playing out on the screens scattered around the room, all with their volumes now set to the maximum. My shout of his name merely joined the same words echoing around the building from the blaring televisions.
Over the guard’s shoulder, I could see that Taylor had reached the gate agent. I tried yelling to the man, but in vain. A combination of the din from the crowd, the blast of the televisions, and the bulk of the guard standing between us conspired against me. The agent appeared to be questioning Taylor, perhaps asking if he realized what was going on at his office. At one point, he gestured toward a television, but Taylor merely waved a hand.
As the gate agent returned Taylor’s papers with a shake of his head, he turned his attention to me and scowled. He evidently decided I was the greater threat and he started toward me. The bodyguard realized he was relieved of his duty and turned to leave. Taylor stepped toward the door. He was about 10 yards from escape; I felt miles from success.
My only hope was to outmaneuver the gate agent. Then, if I could create enough commotion attacking Taylor’s companion, maybe someone would pry their eyes from the televisions and call for help.
As I was preparing to lunge forward, I heard the voice of a woman scream, “You bastard.” It was Sue.
In the bedlam of the attack on Taylor’s business and my failed attempts to stop him, I had forgotten about her. She had approached the gate from the opposite side and now stood about five feet from Taylor, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“My husband…he used to work for you,” she sobbed. “Until you killed him.”
With those words, I knew what had happened. She had been texting Al at work, but his responses had stopped mysteriously. Now she knew why.
The bodyguard started toward Sue, as Taylor turned to her. A look of contempt covered his face. I looked back at Sue, hearing Taylor snarl, “Save me this maudlin display of….”
Time slowed. In the seconds it took Taylor to say those six words, Sue reached in her purse, pulled out the gun that Al had given her, and leveled it at him. She blinked. The pain in her eyes seemed to recede, replaced by a look of hatred.
“No,” I yelled.
Sue’s eyes flicked to my face, but only for an instant. She turned back to Taylor and fired four shots into his body. At least one hit his forehead, as a pinpoint of red soon blossomed into a stream of blood that ran down his nose and across his lips. Taylor slowly collapsed to the floor.
Sue sunk to the ground, placing the gun in front of her. I rushed to her side, putting my arms around her. Her body shook and I could feel the dampness of her tears on my shoulder.
I glanced up. Our scene had finally escalated to the point where it competed with the news, and three airport security guards now ringed us. Each had his hand on his holster, but none had drawn their firearms. Apparently, no one felt the need to point their gun at the woman who now sat on the floor sobbing uncontrollably.
Thursday, December 17, 9:22 AM
I stood at my office window, hands in my pockets, looking out at the slow-moving traffic on a cold, gray December morning. It had been over three months since the blast at the Huntington Taylor Building and the shooting at the airport. Time seemed to have stopped for me after those events.
Immediately after the shooting, Airport Security had called the St. Louis police. But because of the possible tie to terrorism, the police called the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Soon, FBI agents were on scene, supported by the local police and personnel from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Air Marshall’s service. They all wanted to talk to Sue. And to me.
They set up interview rooms – or maybe Airport Security already had them – equipped with audio and video recording equipment. Over the next six hours, I met with an endless string of faces and names, all with the same questions. They never batted an eye when I implicated Taylor in the theft of the Blocker technology. A business man stealing industrial secrets? It was an all-too-common story. Besides, the case chained to his arm contained one.
Skepticism grew when I suggested he might have killed Dr. Worthington to secure his ill-gotten prize. One of St. Louis most prominent business executives was a murderer? That was harder for them to believe.
But communications broke down completely when they got to the question, ‘why did you suspect Taylor of these crimes?’ ‘Brain rewiring run amok’ was not an explanation they could accept.
A little after noon, they let me go, with the instruction not to leave the area – no surprise there. They took Sue into custody. I found that infuriating and told them so. She had just lost her husband and if we were right, he had been killed by a man who was nothing short of pure evil. ‘If we were right,’ however, was the key phrase, and no one was buying that we were.
On Sunday afternoon, I was asked to meet authorities at the downtown office of the FBI. If anything, they seemed even more certain that the explosion at Earth City was a work of terrorism and that Sue had mistakenly killed an innocent man; all their questions dealt with why we suspected Taylor. And each time I mentioned that we were ‘hypothesizing’ or ‘generalizing’ from published research, everyone in the room started writing.
When I left, I tried to visit Sue. But on advice of counsel, she was only meeting with him or family until the picture became clearer. And her family was still in Oregon. Logically, I understood, but I felt bad that she was going through this alone.
The tide of suspicion started shifting on Monday…at the exact moment Taylor’s emails were delivered to four different inboxes around St. Louis. Unfortunately, before I realized what it was, I read it. Even though Taylor was dead, I shivered as if his hand was reaching out from the grave.
By the time I reported the message, the authorities already knew of the emails to Huston and Nicole…and perhaps Sue too, although they wouldn’t confirm it. I was asked to surrender my laptop, the original email, and all the documentation we had on the Blocker. After verifying policy with Ken and our Law Department, I went back downtown with everything they had requested. The agents promised to return my laptop as soon as the examination was complete. They made no similar promise, however, about the reports we had
on the Blocker.
If the emails produced a seed of doubt in the minds of the investigators, the events at the explosion site were the sun, rain, and soil that nourished them to fruition. First, there were the bodies.
It was the evening news on Monday that reported the recovery of the bodies of three security personnel, one maintenance person, and one Taylor & Associates employee. Even without names, I knew the last to be mentioned was Al. I couldn’t seem to swallow the lump in my throat.
Through blurry eyes, I nearly missed the commentary that followed and soon it was fueling a media frenzy. Two other bodies had been pulled from the rubble and these couldn’t be connected to Taylor’s business. Even more ominously, the reporter described charred remnants of medical equipment and an enclosure described as a ‘prison’. Even forewarned about what the Blocker might do, I was haunted by the pictures these words created in my mind.
Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s news involved more recycling of the same facts. Only the speculation changed, becoming more gruesome and bizarre by the hour. It also seemed to be getting more accurate, if my team and I were right.
On Thursday, the two John Does were identified as a missing businessman from Seattle and a young, postal worker who had disappeared during his morning jog. I had mostly come to grips with the revelations of these first days, but when I heard where the jogger had been taken, a new wave of unease overtook me. I began wondering if Taylor could have set his threat in motion. Logically, it seemed improbable, but I was still jumping at every shadow and flinching at every sound. And sleep came slowly, if at all.
Of Half a Mind Page 28
