Trofino understood the implications of what Carla was saying. All of the other bodies had exhibited identical signs of thalassemia. She could run the blood and CSF samples all day if he wanted her to while they awaited the genomic profile, but there was one surefire way to answer the question right now.
He cut two diagonal lines from the clavicles to the sternum and another from the point of their intersection to the pubis, then carefully reflected the crumbling black skin to expose the discolored and desiccated musculature. Breaking his own rules of proper dissection protocol, he carved through the upper abdominal muscles so he could gain access to the tenth anterior rib, at the bottom of the right side of the cage.
“Dr. Trofino,” Carla said through the intercom from the anteroom.
He tried to ignore the intrusion before it broke his concentration.
“Dr. Trofino. I know how you feel about being interrupted while you’re working and wouldn’t even dream of doing so unless I felt it was of the utmost importance.”
Trofino sighed in resignation. He left his index finger inside the incision to mark his place.
“Get on with it,” he said.
“One of the front gate guards is down here. He needs to talk to you.”
“You interrupted me because a gate guard—a gate guard—needs to talk to me?”
“You really should listen to what he has to say.”
“Whatever it is, he should take it up with Spears, not me.”
“That’s part of the problem…”
There was a rustling sound and a man’s voice came over the intercom. He cleared his throat and then spoke with his mouth too close to the microphone so that his words were unnecessarily garbled.
“Dr. Trofino. Pahlson here. There was a federal agent in the parking lot of the warehouse across the street, just sitting there watching the compound.”
“And just how does this pertain to me?”
“He said he was looking for a little girl.”
“Again, I ask how—?”
“He described her as pale and bald with big teeth.”
The guard now had his full attention.
“How could a federal agent possibly have gained access to those details?”
“No way that I can think of.”
“You didn’t tell him—”
“Not on your life, sir.”
“What did Spears have to say?”
“I couldn’t find him. His office is trashed and no one seems to know where he is. All I could confirm was that he had signed out a field kit from the armory.”
“A field kit?”
“It’s a case equipped with a disassembled M24 Sniper Weapon System, a Beretta M9 semiautomatic nine-millimeter, a pair of night vision/thermal fusion goggles, a gas mask, and a pair of both fragmentary and incendiary grenades.”
“Why in the world would he—?” Trofino closed his eyes when the answer hit him. “Who was on the mission with Spears last night?”
“Austin, Morgan, Stadler, Keenan, Newland—”
“Damn it!”
Christ. The blood tests had been right. Spears had set them up.
He gripped the edges of the sliced muscle in both hands and jerked them apart to expose the ribs. One of the key distinctions of thalassemia was a thickening of the ribs where iron deposits continued to amass throughout the lifetime. All of the Siberian bodies had ribs that had widened to such a degree that he could hardly squeeze a scalpel between them. The ribs he stared down at now were normally spaced and showed no indication of increased cortical density.
His heart hammered in his chest and his hands started to shake.
The blood tests were normal.
The physical examination was unremarkable.
He’d met Newland, and she couldn’t have been much more than five feet tall.
The FBI knew about the girl and already had surveillance in place.
There was no doubt in his mind.
Spears had hung them out to dry.
He hadn’t gotten the creature last night so he had used Newland’s remains to create the illusion that he had, while he enacted another plan of his own. He must have rolled over for the FBI and let them know exactly what was inside this compound. Was it possible he had done so just to buy himself more time to go after the creature on his own? And hadn’t last night been their final opportunity to hunt it because of the ribbon-cutting ceremony tonight?
“Oh, no,” he whispered. He knew exactly what Spears intended to do, and he would end up taking each and every one of them down with him in the process.
“Dr. Trofino?” Pahlson asked. “What should we—?”
“Code Meridian,” Trofino interrupted. “Initiate the countdown sequence.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Carla said. “We’ll lose everything—”
“Just do it, goddamn it!”
A klaxon blared and the red emergency lights bloomed from their housings on the walls.
“Grab the samples, Carla!” he shouted as he raced across the clean room.
He wasn’t about to go down with the ship.
The sublevel walls were fortified with a solid foot of asbestos-insulated lead and iron baffles. They had been built to withstand a nuclear detonation outside, and then reinforced through the years for a different purpose entirely. The moment he activated the code, the failsafe protocol had been set in motion. In less than five minutes now, these corridors would be flooded with a complex mixture of natural gasses propelled by pressurized oxygen. At the same time, the heptafluoropropane waterless fire suppression system lines would be diverted to a secondary system of pipes that drew gasoline from the storage tanks under the motor pool. In barely longer than it would take for the system to generate the lone necessary spark, the entire basement of the building would be consumed by a fireball that would burn at more than five thousand degrees Kelvin, hot enough to incinerate everything down to the atomic level, while the floors above remained unscathed. No one would ever be able to tell what they had been doing down here. Every last shred of evidence would be vaporized.
Everything but the samples that Carla had hurriedly gathered from her station and packed into the liquid nitrogen-cooled briefcase he had ready and waiting for just this contingency. She handed him the case and they ran together toward the door.
There was no way he was going to lose his research.
It might take several years longer, but he would eventually be able to pick right back up where he left off.
THIRTY-NINE
Seattle, Washington
5:18 p.m. PST
Sturm awakened abruptly to a sound at odds with her dream, which vanished the moment she tried to recapture it. She was confused and disoriented. The darkness surrounding her was oddly unfamiliar. Her eyes closed of their own accord, then snapped back open when she heard banging from somewhere nearby. It took several seconds to recognize the blankets draped over the blinds to block out the light, the heap of dirty clothes in the corner, and the cluttered dresser, all of which were stained red by the numbers on the digital clock. Try as she might, she couldn’t arrange the numbers into a coherent pattern that would allow her to tell the time. Her brain was pudding and each thought seemed to peter and die in the gooey morass. The base of her skull throbbed. She felt somehow detached from her warm body, which stretched away from her under the covers.
She vaguely remembered stumbling into the precinct just before dawn, slapping her badge and her gun down on the watch captain’s desk, and storming back out without a word. Had she called the CSRT to let them know she wasn’t available today? She couldn’t recall. Somehow, she had raced her exhaustion home and passed out under the covers. At least she knew that much. When she had seen the girl’s cooked carcass, every last iota of strength had fled her. Sleep had come bearing down on her like a freight train, and run right over her with a vengeance.
The banging sound again.
She swung her legs over the side of her bed and buried her face in her hands.
More than anything else in the world, she just wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep clear through to the next day. Maybe even the day after. What day was it anyway? How long had she been asleep? It felt like no more than five minutes.
Banging. Louder.
“Christ,” she croaked. Her throat was bone-dry. “I’m coming already.”
She staggered into the hallway and crossed through the living room to the front door.
The thin wooden slab shook with a solid blow from the other side.
“This had better be really flipping important.”
She opened the door and found herself a foot away from Porter, his fist raised to knock again. He stared at her face and her mussed hair, then his eyes traveled down her body. She glanced down and realized she was only wearing her bra and panties.
“I’m thrilled to see you were expecting me,” he said with a wink, and brushed past her through the doorway. He had what could have been a dry cleaning bag slung over his shoulder. It almost looked to her sleep-addled mind like he was wearing a cape.
“Please. Come right in.” She glanced out upon the gray day and saw just the faintest hint of scarlet through the clouds to the west. “You mind if I grab some clothes or have you come to ravish me now that our partnership is officially over?”
“Yeah,” he said. She raised an eyebrow at him. “I mean, yeah…I would mind if you got dressed. I have something special for you instead.”
“You certainly know how to charm a girl. How about this? I go back to bed, write this whole thing off as a bad dream, and maybe we can try again some other day when I’ve actually caught up on a little sleep. Maybe start off with dinner and a movie and see where things go from there.”
“I have a better idea.”
“You already mentioned that.”
“No, no. You’ve got it all wrong.” He lowered the bag from his shoulder. “I mean I have a better idea than dinner and a movie. But I have to admit I dig the direction you were going with that last part.”
He pulled the wrapper off of the hanger to reveal a stunning iridescent blue evening gown that perfectly matched her eyes. She stared at it for a long moment, unsure exactly what to make of it. The dress was a long strapless number that looked as though it was designed to cling to every curve. It shimmered even in the dull light that filtered through her curtains. She looked up at Porter and tried to read his intentions on his face. The corners of his lips cocked upward into a sly half-smile and she realized what he had in mind.
“We’re going to be run out of town, you know,” she said.
“At least we’ll get to enjoy some dinner and dancing first.” His smile widened and lit up his eyes. “Is this more along the lines of what you had in mind for our first date?”
“I thought we already had our first date.”
“Then if this is our second, a guy’s entitled to have some expectations, especially if he’s shelling out a month’s salary for dinner.”
Sturm smiled and snatched the dress out of his hands. She ran her fingertips over the silky fabric and then looked directly into his eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He stepped closer and tipped up her chin. Their lips were only inches apart.
“I told you we weren’t about to let this one go.”
He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. Softly. She parted hers in anticipation and inhaled his breath.
“Save that thought,” he whispered. “We’d better hurry up and get ready. We don’t want to miss out on any of the entertainment.”
Sturm draped the dress over her arm and turned to head for her bedroom. She stopped and peered back at him.
“Why are you doing this? Your career will be over.”
“Now that I’ve seen how easily power can corrupt justice, maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” he said. “Or maybe I just wanted to spend a little more time with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. Either way, it’s going to be a night to remember.”
FORTY
Seattle, Washington
5:56 p.m. PST
Spears crouched inside the old smokestack that lorded over the ruins on a grate coated with lifetimes of accumulated carbon and ash. He was more than a hundred feet above the rubble to his right. From this vantage point, he could clearly see over the chain link fence and onto the patio to the south of the cultural center, where all of the tables had been set up under a series of white gazebo-like tents. The places were already set and the waiters were milling about the wet bars and ice sculptures, killing time. He smelled garlic and peppers and meat roasting somewhere out of sight. Searchlights crisscrossed the sky from in front of the building at the end of the circular drive, where red-vested valets awaited the first arrivals. The mayor and his entourage were inside, presumably making last minute preparations. The Seattle Philharmonic had just finished warming up their instruments in the main exhibit hall.
It was almost show time.
Soon enough, more than two hundred men and women would be gathered around the building for the formal ribbon-cutting, and the drinking and schmoozing to follow.
Spears, on the other hand, already had everything in place and ready to go. His M24 was assembled and loaded, and he’d already sighted in the patio at just under three hundred yards. At this distance, he could put a bullet through a hoop earring without grazing the lobe. Piece of cake. The M9 was loaded and holstered under his arm. His goggles rested on the grate beside him. The grenades were clipped to a diagonal belt across his chest. He had isolated the main power line on the street and rigged it with a small charge of C4 rigged to a timer. At precisely ten o’clock, the charge would blow, killing the power to the center, extinguishing the lights.
And then, he knew, the creature would come.
Complete darkness.
Prey huddled together.
Helpless.
Simply waiting for the lights to come back on.
Spears would be able to see it all perfectly.
The moment the screaming started, he would be able to sight the monster down the barrel of his rifle and put a bullet right through its skull. And if that failed? He was armed with enough firepower to engage an entire platoon. He would wade into the fracas and take it down at close range. Regardless of the civilian casualties. If he had to blow up the whole damn cultural center with him inside, then so be it. There was no future for him beyond this final mission. This all ended tonight.
His son would be avenged.
He slumped down on the grate, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to drift into a state of perfect awareness, where he was neither asleep nor awake, where time passed in a blur as he visualized the siege to come.
And come it would.
Of that there had never been any doubt.
FORTY-ONE
Seattle, Washington
7:03 p.m. PST
Porter glanced at Sturm from the corner of his eye. She was positively radiant. The shimmering dress. The smooth white skin above her neckline. The perfectly styled hair. The smirk on her face that betrayed her thoughts. She was ready to confront the mayor, ready to make him squirm in front of hundreds of the most powerful people in all of the Pacific Northwest. Maybe whoever had applied the pressure to all of the law enforcement agencies would be here and they could put the squeeze on him, too. There were so many possibilities, but only one real outcome. They would have to take their shots quickly, because it was only a matter of time before they were run off and presumably taken into custody, where they would have the honor of watching the careers they had worked so hard for flushed down the toilet right before their very eyes. But would it be worth it? Oh, yeah. At this moment it felt like the culmination of all of his hopes and dreams. He would undoubtedly reevaluate again in the morning under the light of day and realize what a titanic mistake he had made, but right now, there was nothing he wanted more.
“You ready to do this?” he asked as he followed the procession of luxury vehicles into the circular drive toward th
e waiting line of valets.
“You’d better believe it.” Sturm smiled at him from the passenger seat and he knew they had made the right decision, come hell or high water. “I’ve been ready for this since my first night rousting those poor homeless people.”
“We’re going to pay for this, you know.”
She stared straight through the windshield as they coasted to a halt at the curb. The valet opened her door and helped her out, then jogged around to the driver’s side door and swapped spots with Porter. The Crown Vic drove away behind them, leaving them standing on the sidewalk, awed by the spectacle before them. Music blared from inside the main hall over the din of seemingly thousands of competing voices. There was laughter in the air, and yet, at the same time, an aura of refinement.
Porter offered his arm, and guided Sturm up the front walk to where men in tuxedos collected their invitations and ushered them into a different world. Waiters circulated with glasses of champagne on sparkling serving trays. The philharmonic played from the back of the massive hall, beyond a cluster of silver-haired men and their younger wives, who sloshed golden fluid from their glasses as they danced. Older women, dressed in period costumes, guided smaller groups through tours of the displays. There were impromptu gatherings all around. Deferential men laughing haughtily at bad jokes. Women with predatory eyes swirling their champagne as they eyed their next step up the social ladder from across the room. Everything reeked of unchecked ambition and entitlement.
Porter surveyed the sea of faces, searching for anyone who would potentially identify them too soon and put an end to their game before it even started. He recognized a senator and two congressmen, a pair of corporate magnates he’d seen on television, a couple of actors whom he couldn’t immediately place, and in the rear right corner, the district attorney and the chief of police trading stories with his SAC and two other men he had seen paraded through the field office on more than one occasion.
Predatory Instinct: A Thriller Page 24
