Cutting Edge f-3

by Allison Brennan

  “Lovitz! Surrender. You can’t get out,” a voice boomed over loudspeakers. Nora couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from.

  She heard Cameron swearing, then he called out, “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” Lorraine said.

  “Do it!”

  Do it? Do what?

  Lorraine moved from behind the truck and threw something over Nora’s head. It rolled away from her.

  It looked like a bomb. Just like the bombs Nora had helped her make. Oh, God, it was over. They were all going to die.

  I’m going to die tonight.

  “Cover!” Lorraine shouted at her.

  Nora scrambled behind the crates closest to her. Seconds later, the bomb exploded.

  “Run!” Cameron told her.

  Nora didn’t move. She had to stay here. She wasn’t one of them, she didn’t know if whoever was out there knew that she was helping, that she wasn’t a terrorist. She didn’t want to die. If she just stayed here, she’d be okay. Don’t move. Don’t breathe. Where was Andy? Did he know where she was? Would he come for her?

  Cameron grabbed her arm and dragged her with him.

  “It was you,” he whispered in her ear. “You fucking bitch traitor, you talked.”

  “N-no,” she cried.

  “We’ll see who’s lying.”

  He held the gun to her neck and walked her out into the open. She squinted against the intense brightness of the industrial lights. How could Cameron see? From the corner of her eye, she saw he’d put on glasses, then remembered how he always wore sunglasses backward, around his neck. Even tonight. As if he’d anticipated what would happen.

  “We’re leaving!” Cameron called out to the unseen federal agents. “You won’t stop us. We have more grenades; we will use them!”

  The hand grenades were homemade, and Nora had always been terrified of them. Lorraine didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with having her daughters measuring sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate to create black powder for homemade bombs. The bombs, Lorraine said, were never to hurt anyone. They were to save people from themselves.

  Nora realized Cameron had brainwashed her mother. Murder was okay, as far as they were concerned, if it advanced their cause.

  Cameron started moving away from the building, across the open yard toward where they had come in.

  The FBI would never let them leave.

  “Cameron Lovitz!” the voice shouted. “Put down your weapon.”

  “I’m leaving!”

  Cameron continued walking backward, dragging a stumbling Nora with him.

  “You’re dead, Nora,” he growled. “You’re a traitor to the cause.”

  The barrel of the gun dug into her neck and she cried out.

  Cameron called out, “Lorraine! Now!”

  Another mini-bomb flew over their heads, landing at the edge of the lights.

  The explosion knocked them both to the ground. As they fell on hard pavement, Nora realized that Cameron hadn’t expected such a powerful blast.

  Nora thought she was dead, that Cameron’s gun would discharge right into her neck. Clean through, in and out, and her only thought was whether anyone would find Quin and the Jeep.

  Cameron fell on top of her, but his hands instinctively reached out to brace himself.

  The gun dropped from his grip.

  Another explosion, then shouts from everywhere at once, and she thought she heard her mother scream. Cameron reached for the gun. Nora’s hand shot out, trying to bat it out of the way, hitting his wrist.

  “Freeze! Don’t move or I’ll shoot.”

  Cameron slammed her head into the concrete and everything spun out of control. Nora’s mouth filled with blood.

  “Fuck you, pig!” Cameron screamed, his hand on the gun, and his arm jerked up and fired without hesitation. Once. Twice?

  The report was deafening. Nora’s ears rang. So much noise, in her ears, in her head, around her, everywhere. And blood, everywhere blood, she must be dying. The pain was all-encompassing, her head spun, she was suffocating. Someone was on top of her. Cameron.

  She opened her eyes, barely able to draw a breath as a heavy weight pinned her down. She saw only Cameron Lovitz’s dead eyes. Lifeless. He had her trapped.

  Four hands pulled her out.

  Her head was too heavy to hold up. Her eyelids closed.

  “Was she hit? Nora? Can you hear me?”

  “Andy.” She thought she spoke, but she wasn’t sure.

  “It’s ASAC Rick Stockton. Nora, where were you hit? Nora? Can you hear me?”

  Hands all over her. Shouts and orders, but nothing she understood. Someone was crying. A scream. An ambulance in the distance. No, it was close. Flashing lights everywhere, but her eyes were closed.

  “She wasn’t hit,” someone said.

  “She’s not okay!” Stockton snapped. He shined a light in her eyes. Stockton. Stockton. Andy’s boss. Partner? She didn’t know. She didn’t remember.

  Someone touched her chest and she cried out. Her shirt was ripped open. “Ribs. Cracked?”

  “Are they in custody? God fucking dammit, what’s going on? Status report!”

  Stockton sounded worried. Where was Andy? Why wasn’t he here? He promised. He promised everything would be all right …

  “Andy,” she whispered. It was hard to speak.

  “I’m getting you to a hospital, Nora. You’re going to be okay.”

  “Critical,” someone called from far, far away. Everything began to fade. Voices running away from her.

  Maybe they were leaving her here.

  Lorraine’s shrill voice was like an icepick in her aching head. “I’ll sue you fucking pigs! All of you!” An anguished cry. “You killed him!”

  “Get her the fuck out of here!” Stockton ordered.

  “Lovitz is dead,” another voice said. “Wright and Potter are in custody.”

  “Quin-” Nora said. She tried to get up.

  “Don’t move, Nora.”

  “Quin-sh-she’s …” She couldn’t make her throat talk.

  “We have Quin,” he said. “Quin’s safe. We followed the Jeep.”

  People ran past her. She tried to reach out, to touch someone, but the noises dimmed. Someone grabbed her hand. “I’m not leaving you,” Stockton said. “You’re going to be okay, Nora. I promise.”

  Her mind snapped shut and she didn’t wake up for three days. When she did, Agent Stockton told her Andy was dead.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The arson had been hot, fast, and lethal.

  The cloying, acrid scent of the extinguished arson fire had FBI agent Nora English breathing through her mouth as she walked carefully through the remains of what had been the research wing of Butcher-Payne Biotech. The bright white light from emergency spotlights cast an eerie starkness throughout the burned building. Her boots sloshing through the water left behind by the firefighters. Tens of thousands of gallons had flowed into this building to put out the blaze, and the fire crew was surveying the structure to insure there were no remaining hot spots.

  They’d been damn lucky. Last winter had been dry, creating a summer combustible with dry brush and trees. The hill of dead, brown foliage behind Butcher-Payne, and the arid canyon across the two-lane highway, could easily have caught fire, spreading through the crisp timber and underbrush faster than they could respond. Fortunately, there’d been no wind to push the fire, and the first responders had done a magnificent job saturating the rooftops and surrounding grounds. In addition, the solid exterior and internal firewalls of the five-year-old building had contained the fire within the research wing.

  “The fire sprinklers didn’t go on as they were supposed to,” the Placer County fire chief, Ansel Nobel, said while he escorted Nora to where the body had been found. “The most recent inspection was three months ago; then, they were functioning properly. I don’t understand.”

  “Have you checked the water-pump station? Is this area on city or well water?”


  “There’s a water storage tank uphill for-damn, that’s it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The water storage tank is for the hydrants. The sprinklers are on a pump system maintained by the county. We hooked up the hydrants without any problems, so when my crew chief told me the sprinklers hadn’t come on, I assumed they were faulty.”

  He gestured at the ceiling with his flashlight. The sprinkler heads had distended, but had no water.

  “I’ll ask my partner to check it out.” She called Pete Antonovich using the walkie-talkie feature of her BlackBerry. Technically he was no longer her partner, now that she’d been temporarily promoted to squad leader while their SSA was teaching for four months at Quantico. But old habits; she and Pete had been partners since she transferred to Sacramento FBI headquarters nine years ago.

  “Pete, it’s Nora. Chief Nobel said the sprinklers didn’t activate. The pump may have been sabotaged-can you talk to the sheriff’s department and get a team over there to check it out?”

  “Will do. What’s it like inside?”

  “Wet.”

  His voice had a modicum of restrained humor. “I meant damages.”

  “Same apparent burn pattern as the previous arson fires. Started in the lab and was contained ninety percent there and adjoining offices. The lobby walls have some damage. Hot enough to melt electronic equipment. Arson investigation will know more.”

  “When’s Quin going to get here?”

  Nora hesitated a moment. Her sister had a reputation, and she hated to fuel it. But this was Pete, so she simply said, “She had a date.”

  “It’s five-thirty in the morning.”

  “In San Francisco. She promised she’d leave immediately. She wasn’t on call tonight,” Nora defended.

  “I’m not being critical, but we need her. I don’t need to tell you they’re escalating.”

  The arson gang they’d been investigating for twenty months had never killed before. The three previous arsons had targeted the same industry-biotechnology-but the first two were set in warehouses, and the third fire in a small genetic research building at Sacramento State University. Nora wasn’t certain yet exactly what Butcher-Payne did, but they had “Biotech” in their name and that, coupled with the “message” that had been spray-painted on the exterior-STOP MURDER, signed with the moniker the previous arsonists used, BLF-was enough to make Nora and Pete feel comfortable adding Butcher-Payne to the list.

  The only difference in the arson at Butcher-Payne was the victim. Why kill now? Accident or premeditated? Was Jonah Payne targeted because he was Jonah Payne, or simply because he headed the research lab?

  “Something else is going on. This just doesn’t feel right to me.” Nora caught herself twisting her shortish, dark blond hair between her thumb and forefinger. She tucked the loose curls behind her ear and dropped her hand.

  “Have you seen the vic?”

  “I’m heading that way now.”

  “I did a field test on the graffiti. The paint is identical to the other arson fires. Chances that this is a copycat drop dramatically.”

  “Dammit, Pete, they haven’t killed anyone before.”

  “It was just a matter of time, you know that. I’ll go check the pumps and get back to you.”

  Nora pocketed her BlackBerry as Chief Nobel said, “It’s happened before.”

  That seemed obvious to Nora, and should to Chief Nobel, who was well aware of the previous three arsons. “Excuse me?”

  “Arsonists setting a fire not knowing someone is inside.”

  “It still makes them murderers, whether they intended to kill someone or not.”

  Nobel stood at the entrance to Jonah Payne’s office. “Brace yourself, it’s not pretty.”

  Nora buried her emotions deep. It didn’t matter how many times she saw a dead body, or in what condition, the anger and deep sadness at a life taken too soon could overwhelm her if she didn’t close off her feelings. She couldn’t afford to impair her critical judgment. Cops learned to compartmentalize to do the job or they ended up dead or drunk. There was a reason cops had nearly twice the suicide rate as the population at large.

  Her ability to fully detach herself had earned her a reputation as levelheaded with those who liked her, and a cold bitch with those who didn’t.

  Chief Nobel stepped aside. Bright crime-scene tape crisscrossed the charred opening leading into Dr. Jonah Payne’s office off the main research laboratory. The metal door was open, the paint burned off on one side. Had it been open or closed when the fire crew came in? The office itself wasn’t large, approximately fourteen feet square. Paper fueled the flames in here, soggy remnants of pulp everywhere, higher piles of wet ash and partially burned paper on the credenza behind the large desk. No windows, no natural light-Nora didn’t know how anyone could work in such conditions. She’d put skylights in every room of her small country home because she needed sunlight.

  The only thing her mother had ever done for her was give her an appreciation of nature.

  Good job keeping your emotions in check, thinking of that woman.

  Nora focused on the victim, presumed to be Jonah Payne, who lay flat on his back in front of his desk. His position seemed odd to Nora. She’d investigated only one domestic terrorism case that had resulted in fire deaths: in that case, the fourteen victims had been trapped in a burning building and all had died of smoke inhalation. The bodies had been either in fetal positions or prone.

  Payne had second- and third-degree burns over all exposed areas of his body. His hair was gone, and the metal from his glasses had melted into his charred skin. His shirt was completely gone, but he’d been wearing jeans, she noted, and while they were black they appeared intact. Denim could withstand fire longer than many other natural-fiber materials. They’d need to put together all these details to figure out exactly what happened to Payne and whether his death was intentional or accidental.

  Fire fatalities were among the most difficult crimes to investigate. Much of the damage to the body came from necessary fire-suppression activities, but when firefighters discovered a victim, they did everything they could to preserve evidence while also putting out the flames. Unless there was a bullet in the body, severe blunt-force trauma, or another obvious external force, determining cause of death was extremely difficult.

  The man inspecting the body glanced up. “Chief.”

  “Keith, this is Special Agent Nora English with the FBI’s domestic terrorism unit.”

  “Don’t come in,” he ordered.

  “Nora, have you met our M.E., Keith Coffey?”

  “No,” she said. “Dr. Coffey, does it seem odd to you that the victim is on his back?”

  He stopped his inspection and looked at her. “Yes, it is very odd. But I don’t want to jump to conclusions before the fire inspector gets here.”

  “She’s on her way,” Nora said. “She was out of town and-”

  A raspy voice behind her bellowed, “She? Last I checked I’m still a man, sugar.”

  Nora bristled and turned. The smoker’s voice belonged to a man who looked old enough to be her grandfather. He wore black pants and a red plaid shirt on which was clipped a fire marshal’s badge.

  The man grinned at her and winked. “Yep, still a man.”

  “Ulysses, this is Special Agent Nora English with the FBI. I told you about the task force-”

  Ulysses waved away the chief’s introduction. “Task force,” he said with derision. “All talk, no action.”

  “We should discuss this, Mr-” Nora began.

  “Ulysses.”

  “I’ve brought in a consultant from the state fire inspector’s office, who’s been on the task force since the first fire twenty months ago-”

  “This is my jurisdiction, or are you going to flex your federal muscles and screw everything up?”

  Nora didn’t want friction with the locals, but she would “flex her federal muscles” if she had to. Domestic terrorism fell squarely on the FBI�
��s shoulders. She was about to say that when her sister Quin bounced into the room, the polar opposite of the craggy fire marshal.

  “Ulysses!” Quin exclaimed, all petite blond ball of energy fawning over the graying man. She gave him a hug that was longer than it needed to be and Nora watched, bemused, as Ulysses turned to putty.

  “If I’d known you were coming, sweetheart, I’d have put out the red carpet.”

  Quin laughed. “Nora is my sister. Cut her cute federal ass some slack, okay?”

  “Anything for you, sugar.”

  Quin caught Nora’s eye with a happy smugness that had Nora twisting her mouth to avoid smirking back. At least the victim was in good hands. Her sister didn’t take anything but her job seriously, which had been a bone of contention between them for years, and there was no one Nora trusted more than Quin with this case. Quin would catch Ulysses up on the previous arsons, freeing Nora to focus on interviewing Payne’s partner and staff. While there was little doubt that this arson was connected to the others, she needed all documentation of threats either in person or writing, a list of any known trespassers over the last few weeks, and information on current Butcher-Payne projects.

  Dr. Coffey turned to Nora. “To answer your question, Agent English, I’ve never seen a case where the victim was on his back except if he was dead or unconscious when the fire started.”

  Quin crossed over to where Nora stood by the entry and said under her breath, “Sheriff Sanger is here, and he’s on a rampage about Professor Cole, yada yada. That slimy reporter Buttface is here-”

  “Belham-”

  “Right, Buttface. He’s hanging around Sanger, who’s giving this hot, tall, and sexy hunk an earful. Don’t know if he’s Payne’s partner, but-” She gave Nora the I think he’s stirring up shit sideways glance.

  “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “I’ll take care of Ulysses-he’s ornery, but he’s one of the smartest in the business.”

  Nora excused herself after one final look at Jonah Payne’s remains.

  Unconscious or dead before the fire. That would mean his death wasn’t an accident-he’d been intentionally murdered. Had he caught the arsonists red-handed? Why not hit the panic button? She assumed he would have a method to alert security quickly, but she’d need to double-check with the security company. What happened to the alarm system? Why hadn’t he called the police? Was he unable to? Maybe he had confronted the arsonists and been killed. Or he might have known the perps. Payne’s murder could have been premeditated, and the arson merely a way to cover up the crime and destroy evidence. That would make this crime far more personal, and the culprit more likely to be someone who’d benefit from his death: a partner, wife, or relative. But the M.O. matched the other BLF arsons, which made the personal scenario unlikely.