The Serpent's Kiss

by Mark Terry

  “He’ll contact me down there. It’s a game to him.”

  “We need you in Detroit.”

  “You miss the part where I resigned, Jim? Five weeks ago. Letter of resignation. I quit. You remember? Not on the motherfucking payroll! I’m going to Mexico—”

  ”Sarin gas,” Johnston said. “Somebody let loose sarin gas in a restaurant in Detroit less than an hour ago. Looks like about seventy people dead.”

  The sound of the rotors of the battered Huey the FBI’s Hazardous Materials Recovery Unit used, was roaring toward him. Derek clutched the phone, cursing to himself. Why couldn’t he let go of this tiger’s tail?

  “When this is done—”

  ”Mexico,” Johnston agreed, his deep, rough voice not showing any smugness or satisfaction. “With full backing of DHS.”

  “Damn you, Jim. Damn you to hell.”

  “Godspeed, Derek. Take care of yourself. Keep me informed.”

  5

  8:41 a.m.

  MATT GRAY, THE SPECIAL Agent in Charge, glared at Jill Church as she walked over to where he stood. Gray was tall and thin with salt-and-pepper hair and had the pinched angry face of a toddler whose mother had told him no for the first time. Jill knew they were in big trouble because Gray was wearing combat boots with his suit. It was something she’d seen only in Baghdad, when politicos like Donald Rumsfeld or Paul Bremer were out and about, wearing their suits with army boots, like, I’m really a military tough guy, but the suit says I’m better than you.

  “About time,” he growled.

  Jill didn’t comment or try to explain that she lived in Troy, one of the northern suburbs. Gray knew it and he didn’t care. Gray, despite his position as SAC, didn’t handle tense situations diplomatically. Gray was also the FLA for this situation, which was the Federal Lead Agency in what was called the CONPLAN, or the United States Government Interagency Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operations Plan. That meant he coordinated all efforts in dealing with a domestic terrorism attack, working with the local police, emergency medical personnel and whoever else was involved until FEMA could be brought in, if necessary.

  “Where are we?” she asked. Her gaze roved the scene. The Boulevard Café was peculiar. It appeared to be a two-story redbrick building, except the main floor jutted out by itself and had been painted a shade of off-white that resembled custard. There was an awning across the front done in bright green. Massive white pillars, doric or ionic, she didn’t know, rose up as if someone had wanted to make the place look like the White House. It didn’t. It just looked weird, not that it was all that strange in Detroit. This was a city whose major sculptural artwork was a big black fist.

  On either side of the Boulevard Cafe were parking lots jammed with cars. She suspected they were used by Henry Ford Hospital employees.

  The Detroit Fire Department’s Haz-Mat Team had set up a red and white inflatable tent resembled one of those blow-up jumping playgrounds for little kids. The scene was otherwise mobbed with ambulances, two fire engines and assorted cop cars. There was also the media. The satellite vans for channels 2, 4, 7, 50 and 62 were all present and accounted for. Above them helicopters jockeyed for space.

  Gray said, “Fifty-two.”

  Jill turned her attention away from the scene and focused on her boss. “What?”

  “Fifty-two dead,” he said. “Everybody in the damned restaurant. No survivors. Kitchen staff, wait staff, customers.”

  Jill felt something slide down her spine and curl into her stomach. Something that felt suspiciously like an electric eel. Fifty-two.

  Swallowing back bile, she said, “Okay. What do you—”

  ”The HMRU are on their way, ETA fifteen minutes. They’re going to land at the pad behind the hospital.” He waved behind him. “They’ll be handling the scene processing. Nobody’s going anywhere until they go in, do their forensic thing as best they can.”

  Gray craned his neck, his blue eyes popping in anger. His navy blue suit fit him poorly, baggy at the shoulders, the pants too long. His face flushed an unpleasant shade of red. “The Department of Homeland Security’s sending one of their troubleshooters over. Guy’s name is Derek Stillwater. Heard of him?”

  “His name sounds familiar.”

  “He was involved in that mess a while back.” Gray paused. “He’s still under investigation for that mess.”

  “I thought he—”

  ”Secretary Johnston has reinstated him and we’re stuck with him. I don’t trust him. You’re assigned to him. Tell him you’re the FBI liaison to DHS. But your job is to keep an eye on him and make sure he stays out of our way.”

  “I’m a babysitter,” Jill said, the bitterness there in her voice.

  Gray scowled at her. “Yes, Church. You’re the babysitter. Get over it. I don’t trust Stillwater. Bullshit him. Keep him in the dark. Keep him out of the way. That’s your job. Do it.”

  6

  8:59 a.m.

  JILL LEANED AGAINST A metal railing alongside a red brick stairway at the northeast corner of Henry Ford Hospital. It was a plaza of sorts, a park-like area between the six-story Education & Research Building and a 15-story high-rise that looked like apartment buildings, probably for residents, and two parking garages. There were tennis courts, not in use, and next to that was a helicopter landing pad painted red with blinking red lights at each corner. Henry Ford Hospital security police had cordoned off the area. There was a thunderous roar as a big old military Huey hovered overhead, approaching for landing.

  Jill scowled. She had read a file she’d downloaded from the HQ databases on Derek Stillwater, and she wasn’t wild about what she read. There had been a lot of incidents of heroics, and a lot of incidents of insubordination. The man was a cowboy.

  The Huey thundered to a halt and she walked over as the rotors came to rest. The door opened and a number of FBI agents in navy blue windbreakers clambered out hauling gear. She stood waiting. Finally when the last agent climbed out, she said, “Derek Stillwater?”

  The agent, a grim-faced black man built like a refrigerator, jerked a thumb over his shoulder, back into the Huey.

  Jill stepped over. She saw a man leaning against the far interior wall of the chopper, his face pale. A backpack and a duffel bag were at his feet. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his hands were clenched into fists.

  “Derek Stillwater?” she asked, wondering what the hell was going on.

  He nodded and seemed to come to life. He grabbed the bags and jumped out of the chopper. He tossed the bags at her feet, leaned with one arm against the helicopter and vomited all over the landing pad. Dragging in air, he wiped his forehead with his sleeve and turned to her.

  “Sorry.”

  “Problems with flying?”

  He shook his head and picked up his bags. “No. Problems with scenes of biological and chemical warfare.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “You’re Derek Stillwater, right?”

  “That’s me. Who are you? My FBI babysitter?”

  She blinked. “Agent Jill Church. I’m your liaison.”

  “Uh-huh. Agent Church, I don’t work for the FBI. Got that?” Color was returning to his face and she was startled to see his entire demeanor change. There was authority in his voice. He was tall and good-looking, an intensity about him.

  “I didn’t say you did. I’m here to help you communicate with the Bureau.”

  He looked at her. His blue eyes blazed like a gas jet. He stepped into her personal space. She held her ground, puzzled because suddenly she felt like he was familiar. She didn’t know why. Had they met?

  More puzzling was a wave of emotion that swept over her. Negative emotions, like a sudden case of the blues or depression. She shook her head.

  Stillwater said, “The Bureau is investigating me and you damn well know it. But I don’t work for you. I work for DHS and my job is to—”

  ”—coordinate, evaluate and investigate. Yes, I know. And you’re some sort of expert on biological and chemical warfare.�
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  He turned away from here. “Where are we going?”

  They locked gazes. Jill again had that peculiar sense of deja vu. She tore her eyes away. “Follow me,” she said.

  7

  9:17 a.m.

  DEREK TOOK IN THE scene before him. The Detroit Fire Department had set up a red inflatable tent as their transition area for the hazard site. The Detroit P.D. had shut down the street. The FBI HMRU guys were trailing ahead of him into the tent. Walter Zoelig, the head of the HMRU, was conferring with somebody he figured was the SAC for the local FBI field office. Derek pointed to Zoelig. “Who’s he talking to?”

  Jill said, “Matthew Gray, the SAC.”

  Derek nodded. “I’m going in.”

  “The tent?”

  He turned to face her. “I’m going into the tent and then into the scene. Unless you’re coming in, too, find me after I come out.” He hesitated, then handed her his backpack. “I don’t want this in the tent. You keep an eye on it for me, okay?”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he had already turned away and headed for the tent. Derek met a Detroit fireman at the sealed entrance. He was a large, angry-looking black man with massively wide shoulders, a narrow waist and a gold tooth. “This is for authorized personnel only,” he growled.

  Derek held out his DHS ID. “I’m authorized,” he growled right back.

  The fireman looked at it, nodded and peeled open the doorway. Derek ducked inside with his duffel bag, took in the agents from the HMRU in one corner stripping down and climbing into their hazardous materials suits. Derek joined them, tossing his bag down next to a lanky agent named Andrew Calloway. Calloway looked at him and said, “Not a false alarm this time.”

  The HMRU spent most of their time chasing down false alarms for biological and chemical terrorist attacks. Typically, Derek or some other DHS troubleshooter tagged along.

  “I don’t know whether to be happy or sad about that,” Derek said, stripping off his clothes and hauling his hazardous materials suit from the bag. It crinkled. It was a baby blue Chemturion protective suit manufactured by ILC Dover in Delaware, the same company that made spacesuits for NASA. He spread it out on the ground, unzipped it and slithered awkwardly into it.

  “You’re happy some fifty people got killed with sarin gas?” Calloway asked.

  Sitting up, Derek said, “You know what I mean. I’m happy we’re not wasting our time. I’m not at all happy this happened.”

  “You should get out of this business.”

  Derek struggled to his feet and zipped the suit up to his neck. “We should all get out of this business. Got the tape?”

  Calloway handed him a roll of duct tape.

  “You first,” Derek said.

  Calloway pulled his square plasticized-face mask over his head. Derek sealed the zipper, then tore off pieces of duct tape and sealed Calloway’s ankles, wrists and neck. He helped put a single air tank on Calloway’s back and hook it to the intake port. He turned the knob on the regulator and tapped Calloway’s shoulder. Calloway turned around. Through the mask Derek saw the agent’s face was already covered with sweat. He shouted, “I’ll check for leaks.”

  He examined the suit. Everything seemed okay. He gave him a thumb’s-up. Calloway helped him seal his suit and checked for leaks, then the two men headed out of the tent toward the crime scene.

  It was a short, cordoned-off walk to the restaurant. Inside the suits, it was noisy and hot and claustrophobic. Derek followed Calloway through the door and felt the sense of claustrophobia get even worse. Like so many inner city businesses, the windows were covered with metal bars, as if they were all prison cells. Just inside the entryway was the cash register and a diner counter. Off to the right were four booths all crammed in front of the main window. Derek quickly counted eleven dead bodies.

  Straight ahead, parallel to the counter, was what should have been a clear walkway, though it wasn’t very wide. Along the wall on the left were two-person booths. The problem was that there had been seven people sitting at the counter eating breakfast, perched on stools. When they died, they fell to the floor into the aisle. At the back of the aisle was the kitchen. Before you hit the kitchen the restaurant angled to the left. There were bathrooms and the main dining area. But getting there would require negotiating over or around the dead, tangled on the black and white linoleum in pools of vomit and excrement.

  “This is such a glamorous job,” Derek muttered.

  Calloway turned awkwardly back to him. Through the clear helmet Derek could see how chalky white the agent’s face had become. “What?” he shouted.

  “I said ‘I love my job.’” Derek had to shout to be heard over the fan in the suit.

  “Fuckin’ A,” Calloway shouted. “Five years till retirement.” He turned around and began to stumble over the corpses. Waiting for a little space, Derek followed.

  The main room was worse. There must have been thirty people in this part, and they were all dead. He stood next to the chalkboard listing the day’s specials—farmer’s omelet, Texas bacon cheeseburger, chicken gyro, each one came with a bowl of soup for $5.99—and took it all in. Cheap vinyl seats or black metal and plastic chairs. Plastic flowers and vines. A mirror on one wall.

  The damned place was crowded with Detroit firemen in hazardous materials suits. The addition of five FBI agents and one DHS troubleshooter didn’t help. They were practically tripping over each other, trying to get organized. At least they were photographing and videotaping the scene, he thought.

  But Derek wasn’t seeing what he was looking for. He shuffled over to one of the HMRU FBI agents, Leon LaPointe. He put his face place close to LaPointe’s, point-man for the HMRU. “What’s the source of the sarin?”

  “Beats the fuck out of me.” LaPointe had curly black hair and an angular pointed face, and sweat was dripping into his eyes, causing him to blink repeatedly as he shouted.

  A firefighter stomped over. “Who’re you?” Through his mask Derek saw the firefighter was an older black man, his skin pocked and scarred.

  LaPointe made introductions. “Who’re you?”

  “Thomas Fitzgerald,” the firefighter shouted. “That’s Captain to you guys. I’m the head of this unit. Come over here.”

  They followed him to the center of the room. There was some sort of quasi-divider there, with a row of padded bench seats on both sides. It looked like it might have been some sort of internal support for the building, but it was hard to tell. There were poles that went up into the roof, but otherwise the divider seemed to hide plastic plants and be a space for large clear-plastic covered menus. Fitzgerald pulled back a panel to reveal several small red metal cylinders, about the size of propane canisters for camp cookstoves. Each of them was aligned to a single nozzle and regulator, which had been hooked to a radio receiver.

  “Shit,” said LaPointe. He turned to make eye-contact with Derek. “That’s not exactly lunch boxes and umbrellas, is it?”

  “No,” Derek said, expression grim. Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that had unleashed sarin gas on a Tokyo subway in 1995, had filled lunch boxes with sarin, worn masks onto the subway, punched holes in the boxes with umbrellas and left. It had been a primitive, largely unsuccessful way of distributing the gas—that nonetheless killed a dozen and “wounded” over a thousand. This device in front of them was something entirely different. If this device had been used in Tokyo the numbers would have rivaled the attack on the World Trade towers.

  Derek looked around, heart racing, then focused on the group of people who had been closest to the device. The group facing the front of the restaurant appeared to be three separate parties at three separate tables, two people each. The group on the side facing the back of the restaurant appeared to be nine people together sitting at tables pushed side-by-side.

  “Captain,” he said. “Once you get the pictures and video, you need to get the names of everybody before you move the bodies.”

  LaPointe had managed to cross his arms o
ver his chest in the bulky suit. He was watching Fitzgerald closely. Fitzgerald looked outraged. “You nuts? How we going to do that? Let’s get these poor people off to the morgue.”

  “No,” Derek shouted. “ID them in place. I want a drawing of every single body with a name attached to it.”

  Fitzgerald thumped Derek on the chest with one heavily-gloved hand. “You some kind of ghoul? You do it. That’s way outside what I’m going to do today. You do it.”

  Derek stared at him, then said, “I need a clipboard, paper and pen. And I need somebody who can write, because I’m going to be the volunteer who gets to go through the bodies looking for driver’s licenses. Or are you going to assign someone. Captain.”

  Fitzgerald said, “I’ll get you a the clipboard, paper and pen. I’m not assigning any of my men to work for you.”

  “Fine.”

  LaPointe said, “I’ll do the writing.”

  Derek turned to him. “Thanks.”

  “I hope you’re wrong, Stillwater.”

  Fitzgerald, who had been striding away, turned back and leaned toward them. “What? What did you way? Wrong about what?”

  Derek didn’t answer. LaPointe said, “Dr. Stillwater’s got a theory, don’t you?”

  Derek shrugged. It was a largely wasted gesture in the Chemturion.

  “What? I didn’t hear him offer no theory. This is the work of some crazy dudes. Terrorists.”

  “Maybe,” Derek said.

  “Maybe? What else could it be?”

  “A murder,” Derek said. “That’s just one option. But if it’s targeted, it was targeted at someone—or something—specific. So we need to know who’s here and where they were so we might be able to narrow things down. That’s why I want the names.”

  Fitzgerald scowled. “What you’re sayin’ is you think some whacko killed fifty-two people using sarin gas because he wanted to murder one person?”

  “It’s one theory to work with,” Derek said.