“Jerry also said Angie had this tattoo done on her eighteenth birthday. I heard him teasing her about her wild days. He asked her when she’d get a matching one on the other side.”
“But I see needle marks, as if she’d had this done recently,” Dean said.
“Exactly. It’s also irritated, indicating she had it inked in the last few weeks.”
Dean stepped back and began pacing. Lucy clicked off the lamp and pushed it away. “Have you ever watched an autopsy, Dean?”
“No.”
“To begin, a J incision is made under the rib cage on each side. It’s a very messy procedure, with bits and pieces of bone mass spraying about.” As he watched she traced a pattern on Angie’s chest, beginning at the base of her throat, and working down and under her breast. “You cut into the lungs with shears and a saw. Particles become airborne. It’s very difficult to perform an autopsy in a hot zone. The precautions you have to take are cumbersome and make it difficult to maintain a clean site. That’s assuming you’ve been trained in bio-hazards, and you know the body has been infected.”
She waited for him to put the pieces together.
“You think the terrorists injected Angie’s tattoo with the bio-weapon?”
Lucy nodded.
“Why?”
“An autopsy would cause the bio-agent to become airborne.”
“Which would kill everyone in the room.” Dean studied Angie’s still form. “But it would only kill everyone in the room. We’re talking at the most one or two people.”
“Who was scheduled to perform this autopsy, Dean?”
They shifted to the end of Angie’s slab, picked up the clipboard fastened there. The orders were written on the top sheet.
Angela Brewer to be picked up by military personnel and transferred to White Sands Military Base at eight A.M. Autopsy to be performed by Dr. Benjamin Kowlson.
“It would kill Dr. Kowlson,” Lucy said.
“And anyone else with him.” Dean shoved the paperwork back.
“Why make it look like a mob hit?” Lucy asked. “Throw off Eaton? Maybe Eaton’s in on it. Who knows? The point is, when there’s two bullet holes in the head, people don’t usually look for a cause of death.”
“So how could they be sure we’d even do an autopsy?” Dean slammed a fist against a metal table, causing Lucy’s taut nerves to sing like strings on a guitar.
“Eaton let slip they found Angie’s body outside of town, in the desert. How did she get out there?”
“This has been a setup from the word go.”
“Talk me through it.”
“The bullet holes were to get her in this morgue to begin with—keep the body cold but without an autopsy. The desert location assured she’d end up at White Sands eventually, same as the other vics.”
“Dean, there’s something else. I still believe these have been trials. We should expect them to accelerate things. There’s a possibility they may merge the bio-agent with another virus—a communicable virus.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Take the common cold, for instance. They could merge what we saw in the former victims with something that can be passed through casual contact. If they injected that into Angie, and released it—”
“Dr. Kowlson wouldn’t even know he’d been infected.”
“Not before he had infected hundreds of others.”
“God help us.” Dean’s face blanched even whiter above the surgical mask.
For the first time since Lucy had met him, he seemed unable to move—the restlessness drained out of him by the sheer enormity of what they faced.
Lucy wheeled the lamp across the room. After she’d slid the stool under the lab station, she turned back to Dean. “What are we going to do?”
Dean proceeded slowly but deliberately to the end of the morgue table, zipped up the body bag around Angie. “We’re stealing this body, and we’re taking it to Commander Martin.”
“WE NEED TO DOUBLE BAG the body,” Lucy insisted.
“Whatever you say, Doc.” Dean pulled out drawers, looking for an extra body bag.
“Check the outer room,” Lucy suggested. “Sometimes they have, uh, accidents during the autopsy and need an extra bag.”
Dean stood straight up so suddenly, he cracked his head on an overhead cabinet door. “Do not say another word. If I mess up on the job, a terrorist gets two bullets instead of one. You mess up, some poor bloke’s family needs a coffin with a hatbox. I don’t want any details, Doc.”
“Got it.” Lucy located packing swabs and placed them around Angie’s torso, taking special care to pad the area around the butterfly tattoo, then zipped the bag shut.
“I hope they shot her first,” Dean said as he pushed the image from his mind and carried the extra body bag across the room. He set it on the ground and unzipped it.
Together, they picked up Angie in her original bag and tucked her into the second one.
“There’s no sign the bio-agent traveled from the site of injection. My preliminary analysis indicates they did kill her first, then injected her. It’s fair to assume Angie never knew what she stumbled into.”
Carrying the body into the outer room, they both ripped off their gloves, masks, and caps.
“It still seems small-time to me. The clock’s ticking. With less than two weeks, why mess with a girl and a few people on a military base?”
“Think of it as the perfect field test for an airborne weapon.”
“Not quite a bomb,” he said.
“But the next step.”
“A sort of Phase Two.”
“Exactly.” Lucy dropped her suit inside the bio-hazard bin.
“Stop. We take it with us.”
“Right. Old habits die hard.”
“We might have a few hours before they find the missing body.” He unzipped his black bag, handed her his night goggles and picks. “Put these in your pack. I’ll carry the bio-hazard stuff. Give me the entire trash liner with all our garb.”
“What else do you have in there?” she asked.
“Cover story. Don’t worry about it.” He quickly zipped it shut, motioned for her to put her earpiece in. “Go move the truck. Hurry, but be careful. I’ll bring Angie to the back door, then reconnect the cameras.”
“I thought you didn’t find any security.”
“No exterior security, but they had a hidden camera system for the interior—maybe they watch the docs. Don’t worry. I took care of it. Walk back the way you came, in case anyone drives past, then drive over with your lights off.”
Lucy made it to the door, but didn’t open it. “Dean, we can trust Commander Martin with this, right?”
Dean had been wiping down surfaces. He stopped and looked her directly in the eye. “Lucy, I’ve trusted Martin with my life before, and now I’m trusting him with yours.”
She thought about it a minute, nodded, and stepped out into the night.
The hospital parking lot was still deserted when Lucy reached the truck. She left the lights off, drove back to the morgue, and pulled up to the back door, talking to Dean the entire time.
“We need to cover her body, Dean. We can’t just throw it in the bed of this truck.”
When she pulled up, Dean told her to stay in the cab, keep watching out the front window. She heard him rummaging around in the toolbox, pulling out items, and finally securing a tarp with bungee cords.
She watched him work in the rearview mirror, near darkness cloaking his movements, only the light of a quarter moon occasionally revealing his silhouette.
“That should do it.”
Lucy stared at Dean, struck by how casually he spoke. “Tell me you’ve never done this before.”
“Why do you think I have a truck?” he asked.
“I was hoping you liked to fish or take women to make-out points.”
“A good backup use.” His wolfish grin flashed in the moonlight. “Let’s go, Doc.”
He climbed into the driver�
��s seat, but when she started to scoot over to the passenger side he stopped her, snugged her in close to his side.
“People don’t do it this way in Boston,” she admitted.
“I imagine not.” She searched his eyes for any sign of worry, found none.
He whispered, “Stay close,” put the truck in gear, and drove to the edge of the parking lot. The dashboard clock said four ten. Roswell slept in peaceful ignorance.
Dean switched on the lights, pulled out, and accelerated to the speed limit. He’d gone approximately three miles, and Lucy had drawn her first easy breath, when red lights flashed behind them. Dean sighed and pulled over.
Lucy watched Sheriff Eaton approach Dean’s window.
Dean opened it, keeping his hands in view. “Sheriff.”
“Dreiser. You’re out late tonight.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Saw you pull out from the morgue’s parking lot. License and registration, please.”
“License is in my back pocket.” Dean pulled it out. “Lucy, look in the glove compartment for the registration.”
“Is it all right if I do that, Sheriff?”
Sheriff Eaton shone his flashlight in the car, settling on her for the first time. “Yes, ma’am.”
Lucy found the papers, and handed them over to Dean. Eaton took his time looking them over. “Step out of the vehicle please, Dreiser.”
Lucy and Dean exchanged glances, but she resisted the urge to look in the rearview mirror.
“Sure thing, Sheriff.”
“Have you been drinking, son?”
“Had some whiskey about four hours ago.”
“Nothing since?”
“No, sir.”
“Are you willing to do a sobriety test?”
“You want me to count backwards or walk a line?”
“I didn’t ask you to do anything, yet, Dreiser.” Eaton continued to look at the two of them, frowning.
Lucy could practically see him trying to add the numbers together and come up with the correct equation.
“You carrying?”
“Yes, sir. I have a nine-millimeter Glock in a shoulder holster. Would you like me to remove it?”
“Put your hands in the air for me, and turn and face the truck.”
Dean did so, and Eaton removed his weapon. “Nice piece.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m partial to it.”
“I assume you have a license.”
“Yes, sir. Lucy, my CHL is in the glove box.”
Lucy retrieved the license and used it as an excuse to jump out of the truck.
“Ms. Brown, do I need to ask if you’re carrying?”
Lucy thought Eaton looked older than he had only a few hours ago, but she followed Dean’s example.
“Yes, sir. I have a Sig P229.”
“You don’t appear to be wearing a shoulder holster. You want to tell me where you keep this pistol?”
“Ankle holster, sir. My daddy insisted I have a handgun permit from the time I was old enough to legally carry.”
“Understandable, since he’s a Boston cop.”
Lucy met the man’s eyes, appreciated that he’d done his homework.
“Why don’t you remove your piece real slow, set it on the ground here, then back up next to Dreiser.”
Lucy took out the Sig, placed it on the ground.
“You can turn around, Dreiser.”
With Lucy, Eaton had remained relatively calm, but one glance at Dean seemed to set him off. Lucy feared the sheriff might burst a blood vessel in his bald head.
“You want to tell me what you were doing in the morgue’s parking lot, armed, with your lights off?”
“Lucy’s hobby is UFOs, and there are woods behind the morgue where UFOs have been sighted twice before.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“I do, sir. I researched it on the internet for her.”
“And you needed to be armed for UFOs?”
“Yes, sir. You never want to underestimate a situation.”
Lucy tried to look innocent, then remembered she needed to appear capable of believing in UFOs. What did a person who believed in aliens look like? No telling. She aimed for clueless.
Sheriff Eaton continued his efforts to stare Dean down. No doubt, it worked with most of Roswell’s boys. Dean, on the other hand, acted like he was having the time of his life. Lucy’s chest tightened, and she didn’t need her doctorate to recognize the beginnings of a panic attack. They stood on the side of the road at four-thirty in the morning, waiting for the real questions to begin. In minutes, Sheriff Eaton would discover Angie’s body.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Pardon?” Dean asked.
“What’s in the black bag on the floorboard of your truck?”
“Personal items.”
“Don’t mess with me, Dreiser. I’m very tired.”
“Personal items, sir.”
“Brown, bring me the bag.”
“Yes, sir.” Lucy retrieved the bag and set it on the ground. Back beside Dean, she put her hands in the air, mimicking his stance.
“You can lower your hands, Ms. Brown. Unzip the bag, please.”
Lucy tried to breathe evenly while she unzipped the bag. She worked to push away images of the Roswell jail cells, but something told her she would soon be offered a tour.
“Take out the items, please.” Lucy removed wine, a blanket, a flashlight, and the trash sack liner full of surgical scrubs.
Sheriff Eaton looked like he needed a drink. “Can you explain what you have there, Dreiser?”
“Which part, sir?”
“All of it. Any of it.”
“Well I had hoped to have a romantic evening, sir.”
Lucy knew it was past time for her to jump in. Call it her second sight. “Don’t you ever play games, Sheriff?”
“Excuse me?”
“You know, games. At college we play games, and I talked Dean into bringing those things. I wanted to play doctor.”
Dean lowered one hand to encircle Lucy’s waist. “Maybe you and Sally should try it sometime, Sheriff.”
Eaton placed his hand on his pistol, and Lucy closed her eyes. But instead of shooting him, the Sheriff began walking around the truck. “What’s in the bed?”
“Tools.”
“I didn’t ask what’s in the box. I asked what’s in the bed. What’s under the tarp?”
“I was hauling some things for Lucy.”
“Take the tarp off.”
Lucy and Dean exchanged a quick look. The gig was up. They had no choice but to reveal they worked for USCIS. If Eaton was in with the terrorists, it would come down to who could shoot the fastest. Unfortunately, their guns lay on the ground.
Dean nudged Lucy in the direction of their weapons. He moved toward the corner of the tarp, stepping between Eaton and Lucy. She might have enough time to hit the ground, grab the gun, and roll.
Or she could fall back on the law. “Don’t you need probable cause, Sheriff?”
He turned on her like a hurricane changing paths. “I’ll tell you what I need—answers.”
“I know I’m new to the South,” Lucy offered her best smile. “Daddy’s always complaining about due process in Boston. How he can’t so much as go through a perp’s car without having drug dogs alert on it first, and another officer standing by as a witness. Course it could be different here.”
Dean stepped closer, slid his arm around Lucy’s waist. “She has a point, Sheriff. We can all sit out here waiting for your dogs and backup officers to arrive, or you can let me and Luce get on home.”
Eaton chewed on his mustache, but didn’t move away from the tarp.
“A girl has to protect her reputation, Sheriff.” Lucy practically purred.
When Eaton still didn’t answer, Dean nudged Lucy toward the cab. “Get in, Luce. Let me and the Sheriff talk for a minute.”
She sat facing the front, but could hear them murmuring. At one point, Eaton�
��s voice outshouted Dean’s.
Then she heard Dean say, “Fine. But make it quick.”
She thought it was over, but Dean picked up their weapons and climbed into the cab beside her.
“Don’t say a thing,” he whispered.
Eaton peeked under the tarp, returned to Dean’s window and said they were free to go. After he drove off, Lucy collapsed into Dean’s arms. She needed him to hold her until her trembling stopped. She felt like a hypothermia patient, coming in out of the cold.
“It’s the adrenaline, Lucy.” His voice was a caress, like the breeze in her hair. She needed the warmth his hand brought to her back. When his lips brushed against hers, she wanted to wrap herself around him. His hands cupped her face, and he forced her to meet his gaze. “You did great.”
“But I almost went for the gun.”
“You didn’t though. You waited to see how it would play out. You did good, Lucy.”
“But he looked—”
“He only saw a tent, some sleeping bags. He only saw what I wanted him to see.”
She wanted to feel his heart, to lean against him for a moment and forget the threats closing in from all sides.
But they couldn’t wait there long. They had a body to deliver.
DEAN WANTED SHERIFF Eaton in his rearview mirror. Since Eaton had driven toward the southwest, Dean headed out of Roswell in the opposite direction. “Call Martin. Tell him to meet us at PS5. Tell him we have a package.”
He had to give her credit. Lucy pulled the phone from the pack without asking a single question. Two minutes later, she’d delivered the message and repacked the phone. “Answered on the first ring. Does he ever sleep?”
“The man’s a ghost. I’ve never known him to sleep or eat for that matter.”
Dean rolled his window down halfway, needing the fresh air to revive him. The clock crept toward five. The eastern sky showed faint signs of lightening. He pushed the truck’s speed over eighty.
“I’m sure someone mentioned a PS5 in training, but it’s slipped my mind.” Lucy stifled a yawn.
Dean slipped an arm around her, pulled her close, and ignored the tug in his gut when she rested her head against him.
“Pre-designated Site Five.”
“Pre-designated by whom?”
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