by Mark Terry
“Evidence that William Harrington is The Serpent.”
“You think he maybe left a signed confession?”
“No.”
“Upstairs?”
They climbed the stairs to the second floor. Like Rebecca Harrington’s house, one of the bedrooms seemed to be a guest room, the other appeared to be an office. Derek stood just outside the office/bedroom. There was a computer desk with computer and printer, office chair, filing cabinets and two bookshelves filled with text books. There was a big lounge chair with a good reading lamp next to it. Piled next to the chair was a two-foot-tall stack of technical journals.
Derek studied the room, then said, “Could you give me a hand, please?”
Jill approached him. “What do you need?”
“I want to get down on the floor. I need your help.”
She met his gaze. “Okay.”
“And I’ll really need your help getting back on my feet.”
A smile flickered across her face. “Oh, I don’t know. Leaving you lying on the floor might move things along smoother.”
“Ha. Ha. Very funny, Agent Church.” He held out his hand.
She helped him to the floor, where he sprawled on his stomach. With the flashlight in hand, he scanned the floor. He blinked.
“See anything?” Jill asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“What?”
He waved her down to his level. She joined him on the floor. He pointed the flashlight and aimed it into the foot-well of the desk. From this vantage point they could just see what appeared to be the bottoms of two red metal canisters.
Derek rolled over and sat up, breathing in deeply. Jill sat up, studying him. “You going to be okay?”
Sweat had broken out on his forehead and his complexion had turned gray. He held up a hand, leaning forward so his head was close to his knees. He inhaled deeply. His hand crept to the throat of his shirt and clutched a medallion around his neck.
Jill reached out and pulled up the chain to look at the medallion, a rabbit’s foot and ju-ju beads. “St. Sebastian?” she asked.
“Supposed to help protect against the plague,” he said, voice muffled. “My patron saint of choice. Might work better if I were Catholic.”
“Can you defuse it?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes. I should be able to.” He panted slightly, sounding strangled. “Just as soon as this panic attack passes.”
Jill studied him. “Maybe you should get into another line of work.”
“Yeah,” Derek nodded. “Why didn’t I think of that?” He reached into his pocket and retrieved the set of tools. “Here’s the thing,” he said. “After this morning I’m worried about a secondary device. It’s not the kind of mistake you get to repeat. But I’ve got another concern. If he set this to go off when a desk drawer or filing cabinet drawer is opened, great. But I’m worried about a pressure switch.”
Jill’s eyes widened.
“Yeah,” Derek said. “Like underneath the carpeting somewhere.” A smile tweaked his lips. “You want to go in first, or shall I?”
43
2:32 p.m.
INCH BY INCH, DEREK crawled across the floor toward the desk. As he moved, he gently ran his hands across the carpeting in front of him, feeling for any bump or irregularity in the floor. Nothing. Finally he made it to the desk. He slowly rolled over on his back so his head was in the foot well and he could look up at the metal canisters.
Jill crouched in the doorway. “Well?”
“It looks straightforward,” Derek said. “There’s a wire here that’s attached to a trigger switch. The wire goes into the desk. So it looks like if you pull at least the top drawer of the desk out, it’ll trigger the canisters.”
Derek continued to lay there studying the device.
“Do you want me to come over there?”
“Actually,” Derek said. “I want you to be here and me to be in another state.”
“That’s—”
”I know what you meant. No. Not yet. Stay right where you are.”
Derek scooted further into the foot well, using the flashlight to try and peer behind the desk.
“See anything?”
“Dust bunnies.”
Jill made a disgusted noise. “Anything important?”
“No.”
Derek edged out of the foot well and sat up. He looked around the room, taking everything in. He stared at the desk and frowned. “I’ve got a problem.”
“What?”
“I want to stand up and look at the stuff on top of the desk, but in order to stand up I’m going to have to use my cane or lean on the desk. And I really don’t want to lean on the desk.”
Jill held up the cane. “Here I come.”
Taking careful, small steps, she walked across the room until she was standing next to Derek. She held out her hands. Derek grasped her hands and allowed Jill to help him to his feet. He took the cane and leaned on it, studying the surface of the desk. It was a big, rectangular desk made out of highly polished oak. There was a computer on top, a desk lamp, a beer stein filled with assorted pens and pencils, a yellow legal pad, a pad of pink Post-It Notes, a diskette holder and a day planner.
Derek glanced at his watch. “I wonder if The Serpent called in another threat.”
“Want me to call in?”
He looked at her over his shoulder. “And Matt Gray will order you to put me in protective custody, right?”
She didn’t answer.
“Why don’t we concentrate on what we’ve got here,” Derek said. He raised an eyebrow. “If that’s all right with you?”
“That’s fine.”
Derek looked at the printer on an end table. “You suppose this guy is a one-trick pony?”
“Don’t move,” Jill said, and knelt on the floor. She slowly moved across the room the same way Derek had, testing the carpeting as she moved until she was next to the end table holding the printer. It was a Canon laser printer. She held out her hand and Derek dropped the flashlight into it. She popped it on and focused the beam on the tray where the printer paper fed in. “In his office, you triggered the explosion when you hit print, right?”
“Yes.”
“But we don’t know if it was the print command that set it off or the paper coming out that actually triggered the switch.”
“Or the roller moving. That would probably be the easiest way to set it up.”
Jill thought for a moment. “As simple as gluing a stick or rod to the roller so when it moved it moved the trigger. A simple mechanical switch.”
“Maybe.”
Jill leaned to the left and looked toward the wall, then leaned right and did the same thing.
“What?” Derek asked.
“I’m wondering if unplugging the printer would be a good idea or a bad idea.”
They stared at each other. Derek said, “I’ll do it. You leave the room.”
She shook her head. “No. You leave the room.”
“I’m not—”
Jill crouched down and said, “I’m counting to three.”
“Jesus,” Derek said, dropping to the floor. “A little fucking warning!”
“One. Two. Three.” Jill yanked the plug.
44
2:39 p.m.
FRED BALL, THE WDET National Public Radio news reporter, was still at Scott Hall, interviewing anybody who would talk to him. Several FBI agents who knew Frank McMillan personally told him flat-out that the man was definitely not The Serpent. He was inclined to believe them. The entire situation had taken on a kind of surrealistic FUBAR quality, FUBAR being the old military acronym for Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.
He was talking to a Detroit cop, Officer Tom Medina, who had been guarding the tent where the FBI and Fire Department guys staged their entries and exits into Scott Hall. “Yeah,” Medina was saying. “I saw McMillan leave. We talked for a minute about how we thought something was going on. ‘cause of the helicopters and all the activity. Shit
. I was watching him when he took the round in the head.”
“What was your job, exactly?” Ball asked.
“Mostly to keep civilians out of here. Just stand outside the tent and make sure that reporters and civilians don’t get in.”
“Did you check identification or have a checklist?”
“What? No. There was a handful of people working inside. They were either Detroit FD or FBI. There was that one guy at the other site, Stillwater, with Homeland Security, but I never saw him here. Heard a rumor Gray wouldn’t let him in.”
Fred Ball, keeping the microphone of his digital tape recorder pointed toward the cop, said, “Did anybody you didn’t recognize go in or out?”
Medina shrugged. “I mean, I didn’t notice anybody. Well, there was that one fire guy. He just popped in and out.”
Ball paused. “When was this?”
Medina thought for a minute, scratching his chin. “Well, let’s see. That would have been twelve-thirty or so. I think the only reason I remember was, you know, these guys pretty much work in cycles. Forty-five minutes on, fifteen off. More or less. They stagger it, but it’s pretty regular. So they all pretty much went in at the same time, a little after twelve, and nobody came out for a while. Then this guy comes in, nods, goes in, then comes right back out.”
Fred Ball was getting an idea. It was a pretty exciting idea, and there wasn’t much fact to hang the idea on, but he had an idea nonetheless. “You said this guy was with the Fire Department?”
“Yeah.”
“How did you know?”
“Uh, he had the windbreaker and hat on.”
“Hat? He wore a fire hat?”
“No. He had a blue windbreaker, the one that says Detroit Fire Department on the back, and he had a cap, like a baseball hat, with the DFD on the front.”
“You see him before?”
“No.”
“What’d he look like?”
Medina shrugged. “I don’t now. Why?”
“I’d like to talk to him, that’s all,” Ball said.
“Just ... just a guy.”
“Young, old, what?”
“I don’t know. I was thinking he was fairly young. I don’t know why, though.”
“What color hair?”
“All I saw was the hat.”
“Skin?”
“What?”
“Black, white, pink, gray? What? Is he a white guy? An Arab? What?”
“Oh. You know, he might’ve been Asian. Or Hispanic. Brownish skin, but not, you know, black.”
Ball asked a few more questions, then clicked off his tape recorder. He had a feeling Medina had seen The Serpent. But how to follow up on it?
Suddenly Ball’s telephone rang. He clicked it on. “Fred Ball here.”
“Fred Ball with National Public Radio?”
“Yes.” Fred tensed. There was something odd about the voice. Then it hit him. It was distorted. “Who is this?”
“This is The Serpent. I want you to take down a message.”
45
2:40 p.m.
WHEN JILL CHURCH PULLED the plug on the printer nothing happened. Derek, laying on the floor, arms over his head, looked up. “Agent Church, you’re getting reckless.”
Jill breathed a sigh of relief and held out her hand, which shook slightly. “You’re wearing off on me. Now what?”
“Dismantle these gas canisters and get into this desk. And I’d like to get into this computer.”
Jill nodded. Moisture dampened her forehead. She wiped her brow with her sleeve and said, “What can I do to help?”
Derek rolled over on his back, placed his tools on his chest and held his hand out for the flashlight, which Jill gave him. In exchange, he handed her the atropine injector. “Familiarize yourself with this thing. Just in case.”
Laying on his back, Derek studied the switch to the gas canisters. It seemed straightforward. In fact, he thought, it seemed too straightforward. If you pulled the wire, it triggered a switch that opened the regulator on the canisters. There didn’t seem to be anything more complicated than that to it. The canisters had been attached to the desk with a metal bracket screwed to the wood.
“Can you lean over the desk and look behind it?” he asked. “Without putting any weight on the desk?”
Jill gingerly did as he asked.
“What do you see?”
“An extension cord and dust. What am I looking for?”
“Something that might trigger the device or some other booby-trap if I take this damned thing off the desk.”
“I don’t see anything like that.”
“Okay. I’m cutting the wire. You read the directions on the atropine injector yet?”
“Just cut it,” Jill said.
He cut the wire. The wire sagged and nothing hissed or exploded. Derek, who had been holding his breath, let it out in a rush. “You dead?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. Glad to hear it. Okay. I’m going to unscrew this thing and hand it out to you.”
In his tool kit Derek had a small battery-powered screwdriver. He adjusted the bit, then cautiously unscrewed the bracket. When the screws were about halfway out he said, “Problem.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to drop this thing. You’re going to have to climb in here with me and hold it while I do the, uh, screwing. It’s going to be, um, cozy.”
Jill maneuvered to the floor and slithered in next to Derek. It was more than cozy.
Derek grinned. “If we die like this we’ll never live it down.”
“Shut up.”
“Watch the knee.”
“Just start screwing.”
Silence.
“Don’t. Say. A. Word.”
Derek reached up and completed unscrewing the bracket. Jill slowly pulled the canister away. Derek, lying on his back, was nose to nose with her, pressed against her, toes to chin.
“It’s not just a job,” he said. “It’s an adventure.”
“Shut the fuck up. Hold this.” Jill handed him the canister. Once he had it in his hands, she slipped back out of the foot well, reached in and took it from him.
“Now what?” she asked.
“Take that thing out of here.”
“Don’t do anything while I’m gone.”
“No problem,” he said. “The next thing we have to do is open the drawers. I’m going to spend the time you’re gone asking for forgiveness for my sins.”
Jill hefted the canister and picked up the diskette case. “I’m sure I won’t be gone nearly long enough, then.”
46
2:41 p.m.
FRED BALL GRIPPED THE phone and waved to get Officer Tom Medina’s attention. He mouthed “The Serpent’s on the line! FBI!” and started walking in the direction of the Mobile Command Center. Into the phone he said, “How do I know this isn’t a prank? Everybody thinks The Serpent was that FBI agent that just got killed.”
“Then the FBI is just as stupid as I think they are,” The Serpent said. “I’m going to make a statement. Are you prepared to take it?”
Moving quickly now, Medina racing on ahead, Ball said, “I’m recording. But why don’t you tell me what this is all about?”
The Serpent continued. “There will be another attack—”
”Where?”
“There will be another attack,” The Serpent continued. “If five million dollars is not wired into account number 84-532-68873-23 at the Bank of Bermuda Limited by 3:45 today, Eastern Standard Time, I will set off another attack.”
“Can you repeat that number?” Ball asked desperately. His heart raced and his hands were sweaty. Ahead, he saw Medina come out of the MCC truck with a female FBI agent and point to him. She sprinted over.
Fumbling in his pocket, Ball yanked out his wallet and flipped it open, showing it to the agent. She looked blankly at it. He tapped the business card. She took it, slipped out the card and held it up, pointing to the cellular phone number printed there. Ba
ll nodded. She disappeared into the van.
“It’s the same account as earlier,” The Serpent said.
“Why are you doing this?” Ball said, hoping he could keep this nut on the line long enough for the FBI to triangulate.
“Five million dollars in that account. By 3:45. Or more people will die at 4:00.”
“Who’s supposed to pay the ransom?” Ball asked. “Before it was Wayne State University. Is that who you want—”
The connection ended.
Ball stared at the phone in his hand. Agent Simona Toreanno appeared at the door of the MCC, eyes wide. “He disconnected?” she asked.
Ball nodded. “Did you get him?”
“Not live,” she said with a shake of her head. “But we’re locking in.” She held a radio to her lips. “Do you have the—”
She listened. “Go!” she said. “Go!”
Above them, the helicopters began to move away, heading south. Ball stared at her.
“Somewhere around the Ren Cen,” she said. She held out her hand. “I need your phone.”
He handed it to her.
“And the tape.”
Ball shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t—”
Toreanno stepped forward. “We’ll make a recording of it for you. But we need that right now. Right now.”
Ball swallowed. He nodded and handed over the tape recorder, wondering if he’d get it back.
47
2:43 p.m.
ONCE HE WAS CERTAIN Jill was out of the house, Derek turned back to the desk. They could go on like this forever, taking precautions for every single aspect of the office, then every other part of the house if they came up dry here. But time was running out. William Harrington was The Serpent, that much seemed clear. And the bastard was playing tricks with everybody, setting up the cops and investigators who might follow up on him.
All Derek wanted was a clue. One clue that would point to the next target, so they could evacuate. So they could save some lives.
Reaching out, he slowly pulled open the top desk drawer.
