by Sarah Lovett
"That's unpleasant, but it's not motive."
"After Samantha Grayson died, Lang started investigating on his own and found a string of incidents: abrupt arguments, paranoia, accusations of misconduct and negligence leveled by Palmer against her coworkers. He also found a disturbing number of 'untimely' deaths—accidental and 'natural.' Together, the incidents and the deaths began to carry weight."
"Were the accusations of negligence and misconduct groundless, or did Palmer have a point?"
"Either way, a punishment of death is a bit harsh," Sweetheart said, his expression flat, his voice deadpan.
Sylvia took a drink of her vodka tonic. Ice beaded on the glass, dripping onto her fingers and then onto the deep mahogany wood. "In her line of work, psych screens are a given. Is she a full-blown psychopath? Paranoid? Schizotypal?"
"Her test scores fall within normal range."
"So she's smart enough to fake good."
"As far as the world's concerned, she's hyperfunctional. She's abnormal only because she's brilliant, ambitious, highly moral, and charismatic."
"Since when do you care what the world believes? What's the real story?"
"The surveillance team has seen some eccentric behavior." Sweetheart crossed his arms over his broad chest. "And there have been fleeting rumors of a breakdown, time spent at private retreats—we'll have to look more closely at the rumors. It's our job to figure out why she kills, her pattern, her particular system of reference." He paused, his expression shrewd, then opted for understatement. "It's an interesting case."
Sylvia didn't speak immediately. In her glass, the last of the ice was melting in front of her eyes. What's there, what's not there? It took her a moment to focus on Sweetheart's face. She said, "Why do I have the feeling you've left something out?"
He didn't blink, didn't react. From a distance Sweetheart could almost pass for a tourist. Almost. He was dressed in slightly rumpled gray linen slacks, his broad, muscled shoulders softened by a casual yellow shirt. But even in shadow, his symmetrical features teased the viewer with alternating glimpses of European and Polynesian ancestry; the power of his body was undeniable, and the dark eyes gleamed with extraordinary intelligence.
The dead cases, the inactive files—there were no such things in Sweetheart's language. She'd heard whispers of his alliances with the CIA and MI-6, as well as the FBI. (She didn't know how much was truth.) But his specialty could be summed up in the phrase "the ones that got away."
She stared at him. She didn't know exactly what drove him—hadn't figured it all out yet. But she would. She was filling in the pieces slowly. Constructing her own profile of the profiler. The ice clinked softly in her glass as she set it down.
The first fugitive she'd known about was Ben Black, a terrorist with ties to the IRA and Osama bin Laden. Sweetheart had pursued Black for years—he'd seen Black "killed" more than once. In the end, Black had died in an explosion of his own design.
And there were others on his most-wanted list. A bomber responsible for a plane crash in British Columbia that claimed 221 lives.
A sixties radical who had participated in a bank robbery that ended with three civilians dead, including a pregnant woman. (This one arrested a month ago, tracked down with the help of Sweetheart's profiling system, MOSAIK.)
And now this—a serial poisoner . . .
Sweetheart shook his head, a gesture meant to dismiss her appraisal.
But Sylvia felt his hesitation. She considered the fact that he hadn't told her the whole truth; she didn't press him. She'd learned not to push Edmond Hommalia Sweetheart.
As partners she and Sweetheart made interesting chemistry. He—analytical, obsessed with empirical data, prone to intrapsychic denial. She—an equal mix of intellect and intuition, capable of faith under pressure.
Officially, Sweetheart was an expert in psycholinguistics, an antiterrorism specialist, and the creator of the multitiered computer profiling system known as MOSAIK. In his spare time he practiced sumo, collected rare timepieces, and consulted with federal and international agencies.
Officially, Sylvia was a forensic psychologist who had extensive experience with criminal and institutionalized populations; she was the author of several books, including one that had brought a popular readership. She had a mother in San Diego and a father who'd been missing for more than two decades. She had a highly perceptive eleven-year-old foster daughter named Serena, two dogs, and a lover named Matt England, whom she adored and was about to marry and who shared her tendency to prefer an adrenalized life in the trenches over mundane, day-to-day problems. In her spare time she ran miles, played Mom, and consulted with law enforcement agencies and private parties.
Placing the empty glass on the table, Sylvia stood and stretched her arms above her head. "You haven't asked about my life." She crossed the room to join him at the window. When she reached his side, she waved her ring finger in front of his nose. Light made the ruby shimmer. "You haven't said a word about my wedding."
"How was it?"
"Do you work hard to be this—obtuse—or does it just come naturally?"
"I want you on this case."
"Why?"
"Because you'll understand Palmer in a way I can't." He waited a beat, waited for the question she refused to ask, before he finished his answer. "Because you worked Riker."
Sylvia turned away from him to stare out at the city—a shadowy, muted Santa Fe at sunset, purple and peach waves across a turquoise sea. Sounds drifted up from the streets: a car horn, laughter, radio songs. At that instant she felt poised between two worlds, between dark and light, between bad and good. "Hey, Sweetheart." Her voice was soft and flat. "What do you think of my city? How do you like this view?"
He shook his head, his gaze impolite in its intensity. His carotid artery was responding visibly to his heart. She felt as if she'd been penetrated and recognized.
"You want me on this case because of what I saw in Riker," she said. "It's what I saw in me that gives me nightmares. Riker made me touch a place within myself—a place without compassion, without mercy." She turned away and her eyes were drawn toward the glass, but what she saw was her own reflection, her face distorted, a softening that read as compromise, a blurring of line. Her voice came out as a whisper. "That's a horrible realization when compassion is what separates you from the monsters. And you know mercy and compassion must be the lifelines that offer the only glimmer of salvation—if not humanity, what's left? But all I touched was emptiness. Do you understand why I can't keep going back?"
"I know you can't turn away." He reached toward her; she shook her head and he said, "You're burned out from the Riker case, I understand that. You've lost your balance, but just for a moment—"
"It's more than that."
"I need you, Sylvia."
She heard the urgency in his voice, and when she looked into his eyes, she saw an almost desperate entreaty that left her shaken. She took a breath, trying to retreat but feeling the internal pull. Strong. Sharp.
She sighed, abruptly exhausted—taking the first step in his direction. "What's the time line on Palmer?"
"Four months ago she joined a team of researchers who've been working on a highly sensitive contract for the DOD—potent marine toxins, analyzed and manipulated in a way that's cutting-edge. There's no evidence to arrest, and she's too valuable to freeze off the project."
"I can spend the next few days reviewing the files. I'll let you know . . ."
"Not acceptable. I need you now."
"I can't do that." She pushed away from the window—physically distancing herself once again, as if freeing herself from some invisible force field. "Not until after the wedding."
"As of last Friday morning, we have a new victim. A molecular toxicologist. Part of the original research team in England."
"What did she use?"
"A neurotoxin—" He faltered.
Sylvia shook her head, and Sweetheart countered harshly: "You said it yourself, the beau
ty of poison is invisibility. The toxicology screens will take time. They're not looking for the standard compounds."
"What happened to him?"
"The victim drove his car at seventy miles per hour directly into the path of oncoming traffic. Yes, it might have been a vehicular malfunction, it might have been an accident, it might have been suicide. But I'll stake my career it was murder."
"Can't they shut down the project on some excuse?"
"They'd lose invaluable research, and they'd tip her off." He shook his head. "She's under twenty-four-hour surveillance. The feds need to catch her in the act. Or they need a confession. That's where you and I come in. Sylvia, I'm asking you—give me five days, then go have your life."
"She's in England? What—London?"
Sweetheart shook his head. "Dr. Thomas died on U.S. soil—and his murderer's in your neighborhood. Why do you think I'm here? Dr. Palmer's heading up this project at LANL."
CHAPTER
3
redrider: are you ready to talk?
alchemist: what do you want?
redrider: a civil response
alchemist: who are you?
redrider: friend / no I confess a fan!
alchemist: colleague?
redrider: we travel in concentric circles
alchemist: then we've met
redrider: not so fast
alchemist: introduce yourself
redrider: not yet
alchemist: why not?
redrider: you'd have to kill me
alchemist: repeat what do you want?
redrider: to earn your trust / the feds are watching
CHAPTER
4
Since the Cerro Grande fire of 2000, the vast tracks of acreage surrounding Los Alamos National Laboratory, fifty miles north of Santa Fe, had resembled the dark side of the moon. The isolated lab located near Technical Area 58—once enclosed by dense forest—stood out against charred tree stumps and singed earth. Moonlight only intensified the atmosphere of ruin.
B-30/T, part of the facility's bioscience division, looked more like a war-era bunker than a secure biocontainment lab equipped to handle lethal microorganisms. Lit by a dozen halogen lamps mounted on the necks of thirty-foot steel poles, the single-story structure had originally been designated as an interim lab, to be in use only until construction of the three-thousand-square-foot $4 million biosciences secure-containment complex was complete. But demand—due to the escalating threat of biological terrorist attacks and the beefing up of the nation's biothreat programs—had outstripped supply, and the "temp" BSL-3 lab had remained in operation long past its original date of obsolescence.
The building had no true windows; instead, narrow plastic casements and electricity provided light, while a ventilation system of pumps, filters, exhaust shafts, and fans ensured breathable air.
Ongoing maintenance of the artificially balanced environment of B-30/T—the monitoring of closed-air systems and hazardous materials containment and disposal—was provided by workers in the facility maintenance unit. Periodic full-systems inspections were carried out in B-30/T after the last member of the research team had logged out for the day or night.
For more than forty-eight hours the lab had been functioning at basic survival level as dictated by security protocol: researchers and technicians would not be allowed on-site without authorization. When anything unusual happened to a member of a team working on highly sensitive, potentially lethal microcritters, people got nervous. Doug Thomas's death—a headlong Subaru dive into high-speed traffic—was definitely unusual. In search of cause, basic HazMat and HHAS inspection protocol could rule out chronic environmental exposure to toxins: toxins that might create any number of exotic and unpleasant symptoms—toxins that could effect death.
This particular security protocol—and the resulting vacated lab—provided a rare window of opportunity for Edmond Sweetheart and Sylvia Strange. They could tour the lab with minimal possibility of contact with their surveillance target, Dr. Christine Palmer.
But they were on-site only after a round of complex jurisdictional wrangling between FBI and DOE bureaucrats.
They were on-site under the watchful and wary eye of LANL's internal security division.
"We've completed checks on air-filtration systems, power sources, containment areas," Drew Dexter said. "All systems are clean, which tells us environmental exposure ain't the culprit." Dexter—buff, late forties, with a close crop of wheat-colored hair, a permanent sunburn, and a soft Louisiana drawl—had recently retired after two decades with the U.S. Army's criminal investigation division to take over as LANL's deputy division director of internal safety and security.
The lab was Drew Dexter's turf.
He announced that fact loud and clear before his actual appearance—he made them wait: five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen dragging into twenty. No apology, no explanation, when he finally deigned to meet them in a gleaming white all-terrain security vehicle.
It took Sylvia less than a minute to sum up Drew Dexter: possessive, proprietary, agressively polite, smart, and vigilant in the way guys who've spent a lifetime weathering intelligence bureaucracies are. Dexter had survived the fall of the Wall, Cold War meltdown, and the fallout after September 11. He didn't give two hoots about civilian consultants to the FBI.
She watched Sweetheart, curious about his initial reaction to the deputy division director. But whatever feelings Sweetheart had, he kept them to himself, controlling any stray urge to engage in a futile pissing contest.
They followed Dexter and two uniformed men from the maintenance unit along the cement walkway leading from the parking area to B-30/T's main entrance. The night air hummed with the sound of electrical systems. Overhead, insects and predatory bats swarmed the powerful lights. The high mountain air had a crisp, wintry edge.
For all the years Sylvia had lived in Santa Fe, the lab was foreign territory. In spite of having close friends who'd worked there, she thought of it as one massively dysfunctional family, complete with patriarchy in denial, brilliantly eccentric firstborns, their less brilliant and sometimes jealous siblings, a slew of distant relations (usually grumpy and less privileged), a black sheep or two, and finally the "help"—those people who arrived each day to clock in for an eight-hour shift sorting radioactive scrap metal or logging urine samples from the plutonium facility.
LANL made news when computer disks disappeared or when physicists were suspected of becoming spies. On a more positive note, scientists moved from Los Alamos to Santa Fe's "Silicon Mesa," where they opened up nonprofits (the Santa Fe Institute) and technology transfer businesses (GenTech and NightSky).
Sylvia knew LANL was still under the administration of the University of California; she wasn't surprised to learn that a small city of fifteen thousand scientists, technicians, administrators, and support staff worked at LANL's one thousand facilities, which included labs, a hospital, industrial sites, administration buildings, and utility units. Researchers from around the world came here to study the business of cryogenics, supercollider magnets, linear proton acceleration.
And, more recently, biohazards.
B-30/T was secured by an alarm system as well as physical barriers. The FMU workers led the way; Dexter, Sweetheart, and Sylvia followed. Inside, the air was cool, not cold, and the light was uncomfortably bright.
Beyond the protocol security barrier, manned by a blue-blazered guard, there was a small reception area where workers and visitors could discard the superficial trappings of the outside world—coats, boots, backpacks, hats. The next six hundred square feet were taken up by common areas, storage units, bathrooms, a small kitchen, and offices. Computer monitors glowed like huge eyes, desks were surprisingly free of clutter, perhaps in preparation for the security clampdown.
Dexter opened a glass door and flipped a switch. Fluorescent lights buzzed to life, illuminating a narrow hallway with fractured brightness. As he led them all the way to the end of the hall, Sylvia notice
d the thick gold wedding band on his manicured finger, the heavy-duty watch cuffing his broad wrist. "Palmer's administrative office," he drawled as he unlocked the second-to-last door.
Sylvia followed Sweetheart inside the office while Dexter waited in the hall. The space was about ten feet square; the ceiling was particle tile vented in two places, the floor was light blue industrial linoleum. A large desk faced the door; a computer and monitor snoozed on the desktop; a long table lined one wall; filing cabinets covered the lower half of the opposite wall. A cardigan sweater had been left behind, draped over the shoulders of the desk chair, as if the wearer had just stepped out. Presumably the sweater belonged to Palmer; it was quality cashmere, quite new, the color of pale jade. When Sylvia ran her fingers along the edging, the delicate mother-of-pearl buttons felt cool to the touch.
Sweetheart seemed to catalogue each item carefully, but now his attention had been caught by a painting, the only decoration on the walls. Sylvia moved to his side to examine the small oil of a New York street scene: brick buildings, the glow of streetlamps, a solitary woman standing expectantly on a snow-covered street corner. A Wiggins. The mood of the painting was wintry and mysterious.
"She looks lonely," Sweetheart said softly.
"You think so?" Sylvia glanced at him in surprise. "I think she's meeting someone. It's evocative."
And Sylvia realized—was startled to realize—that although she'd never met Christine Palmer, she already admired the woman's taste.
At first glance, painting and sweater were the only two non-work-related items in the office, which was neat to the point of obsession. Books were arranged by size, files by color, while the surfaces—desk and cabinets—were clear of all clutter, all papers, all folders. The cabinets, marked with alphabetical tags, were unlocked. When Sylvia pulled out a drawer, she scanned the tags and saw what she presumed were test sequences—pages filled with comparisons, biochemical analyses, protocol notes. To truly evaluate what was here, she'd need a translator fluent in hard science.
