The Rook

by Steven James

  “Which track did you like best: ‘Terrible Plight’ or ‘Don’t Open Your Eyes’?”

  He took a drag from his cigarette. “‘Terrible Plight.’”

  “Me too,” she said, then continued by quoting the song’s lyrics,

  “‘Currents of pain beneath the golden sky. Just can’t seem to find solid ground.’”

  “‘I’m always looking for a place to stand,’” he said. “‘Never finding the promiseland.’ Yeah. That song rocks.”

  She tore her eyes off him. It wasn’t easy. “So,” she said to the greasy-haired guy who looked good to drunk girls. “Can you give me a tattoo, or do I have to go somewhere else. I have money.”

  “Let’s see it.”

  She laid the stack of twenties on the table. He plucked them up, flipped through them.

  “Satisfied?”

  “Lachlan,” said the surfer guy. “Give the girl a tattoo.”

  “I don’t know if it’s enough money. Depends on what she wants.”

  “It’s enough.” He took another slow drag. “Give her whatever she wants. You work for me, and I’m tired of paying you to just stand around there doing nothing.”

  Lachlan mumbled something in Spanish, reached below the counter, and pulled out a beat-up clipboard with a blank form on it. “So,”

  he said. “You’re eighteen or older, right? Just say ‘right.’”

  “Right.”

  “Good.”

  “Sign this. It says that if you die from infection you can’t sue us.”

  “Oh,” said Tessa. “And does that happen often, then? Dead people suing you?”

  The guy in the corner laughed his easy free laugh, and Tessa tossed him a smile. He tipped his cigarette to her, sending a curl of smoke in her direction.

  “Just sign it,” said Lachlan.

  She jotted down the day’s date, her contact info, and then scribbled an indecipherable name across the bottom of the form. Slid it back to him. Without even looking at it, Lachlan yanked the paper off the clipboard, pulled open a file drawer, and stuffed it inside.

  She glanced at the blond guy in the corner. “Thanks.”

  “For what?”

  “Letting me have whatever I want.”

  He seemed to consider her words for a moment. “Don’t mention it. I’m Riker.”

  “That your first name or your last name?”

  “It’s what people call me. What do they call you?”

  She thought fast. She didn’t want to give him her real name.

  “Raven.” It felt like a slight betrayal to say it, but she covered her discomfort with a smile. “I like Edgar Allan Poe.”

  “Cool. Well, pleasure to meet you, Raven.”

  Oh, he was so cute. And twenty at least. And he was flirting with her. She felt a flutter of excitement ride through her and tried to keep it out of her reply. “Pleasure to meet you too, Riker.”

  Then he leaned his chair against the wall again.

  Lachlan stepped into the first tattoo room and twisted the chair beside the tattoo machine so that it faced Tessa. “So, where do you want it? Let me guess, your ankle? Back? Lotta girls are doing feet these days—”

  “My arm.” She rolled up her sleeve.

  He stepped to her and pinched her bicep loosely, gazing at it like a farmer might look into the mouth of a horse. “Here, on the bottom of the arm,” he said, “it’s one of the most painful places to get one. One of the most sensitive places on your body.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  His eyes paused on her scar. “That looks pretty recent.”

  “Couple months ago.”

  “Still hurt?”

  “Naw. It’s OK. That’s where I want it.” He was still feeling the skin on her arm. It was starting to creep her out.

  “Around the scar?”

  “No. Over it.” She pulled her arm away.

  “Scars don’t hold color so good.”

  She turned to Riker. “Is this guy any good?”

  Riker let out a swirl of smoke and leaned forward, bringing his face out of the shadows once again. He really did have gorgeous eyes. “Gotta go to L.A. to find anyone better. Trust me. He’s the real deal. Just ignore the smell, you’ll be fine.”

  “Very funny,” said Lachlan. Then he looked at Tessa. “So, OK.

  You wanna cover up your scar.”

  “How many different ways do I have to say the same thing?”

  He walked over to the sets of needles spread across the countertop beside the sink. “All right, whatever. So what do you want? Lotus?

  Butterfly? Heart? Tribal—”

  “I want a raven.” She didn’t just want a raven because of the poem by Poe, but mainly because of Patrick, because he called her his little Raven sometimes and it made her feel special and loved and accepted in a quiet, private way. Since they were trying to draw closer to each other, she thought it might be cool to get a raven. She wasn’t sure he’d be happy about her getting a tattoo, but she was sure a raven would mean a lot to him.

  “You want a raven?” said Lachlan.

  She called over to Riker and let sarcasm color her words. “Is he always this good at listening?” It was a way of flirting with him, and it felt good.

  “He’s on his A-game today.”

  She rolled her eyes lightly. “Oh. Great.”

  “Would you two knock it off?” said Lachlan. “I gotta get a visual of what she wants.”

  “OK. Here’s what I want.” She pulled out the picture she’d printed at the Internet cafe and handed it to him.

  He studied it. “Looks like a crow.”

  “It’s a raven, OK? And I want it on the front of my arm with its tail feathers curling around the back to cover the scar that the serial killer gave me after I stabbed him with a pair of scissors—kind of like those lying right over there on the counter. That’s what I want.

  Can you do the tat or do I need to go somewhere else?”

  “I can do it. I’ll do it. Just chill.” Lachlan’s eyes traveled back and forth from Tessa to the scissors. “But a tat that big, wrapped around your arm like that, it’s gonna take me, I don’t know, maybe four or five hours if you want it done right.”

  “I’m cool with that. I want it done right.”

  “You want it filled in, like this picture? Some bluish highlights, maybe a little sliver of sunlight reflecting off the feathers, gray talons?”

  “Exactly.”

  Lachlan shrugged, pulled out a razor and some shaving cream, and started shaving the light, feathery hair from the area surrounding Tessa’s scar. “So be straight with me,” he said, somewhat hesitantly.

  “You stabbed a serial killer?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “For what?”

  “Asking me too many stupid questions.”

  Riker’s laughter cut through the room and landed in her lap, and she returned it with a smile. After a few moments, Lachlan started sketching out the raven that was about to land on her arm. And, as Tessa began anticipating the first prick of the first needle, she promised herself that she wasn’t going to cringe, no matter how much it hurt. Not with Riker watching her.

  209

  46

  5:21 p.m.

  2 hours 39 minutes until Cassandra’s deadline I was striking out. The only image of Cassandra on the Sherrod Aquarium’s surveillance video was the one of her entering through the employee’s door at 5:03 a.m. No footage of her abductor.

  Solomon swung by my workspace to tell me he’d found a match on the dart. “It’s a Sabre 11, military issue. He could have gotten it at any of a dozen places in town. No prints.”

  “What about the drug?”

  “Tox screening is backed up. It could take a couple days.”

  “We need it now. Get on their backs, and if they won’t put a rush on it, sic Ralph on them.”

  He nodded and was about to leave when he added, “Oh, and by the way. We still don’t have anything solid on Cassandra’s family
.

  We confirmed her mom’s death, found strangled in an alley, but can’t find any record of her dad. He might be dead too. No way to tell.”

  That was par for the course. “Thanks.”

  Solomon left and I returned to my research on Cassandra’s grant, but that didn’t seem to lead anywhere helpful either. All I found were a few references to something called Project Rukh and some PDF files with additional information about magnetoencephalography technology and mucopolysaccharides, the jellylike substance that acts as a semiconductor in the shark’s electrosensory organs.

  But how was it related to the case? A way to improve an MEG’s efficiency for a new generation of machines? Maybe trying to figure out how sharks can sense and locate fish so you can find a way to do it synthetically?

  Possibly. But how that might be connected to her abduction I couldn’t even begin to guess. To use Lien-hua’s analogy, I needed to step out of the car. Or maybe look out a different window.

  Since the aquarium was owned by Drake Enterprises, I thought maybe I could find out more about the grant by following the money backward.

  Their website featured a prominent picture of the CEO, Victor Drake, and I recognized him as the man who’d almost knocked me down when I was leaving the aquarium earlier in the day. Even though I hadn’t heard of his company before this week, he’d apparently managed to build one of the leading biotech firms in the country.

  But how is that relevant? How is it connected?

  Biotech?

  Shark research?

  Magnetoencephalography?

  They all seemed to have something to do with the fires and with finding Cassandra, but what?

  It seemed like every step I took toward gathering more clues led me farther away from the heart of the case. I looked at the clock: 5:34

  p.m. With each passing moment, the chances of finding Cassandra alive were shrinking and I was tense, so when the phone rang it jarred me. I grabbed it. “Pat here.”

  “Dr. Bowers, it’s Aina Mendez. Agent Hawkins told us that Hunter might go after an inhabited building.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Well, because of that, we brought the bomb squad to his apartment. They found traces of radioactive isotopes on Hunter’s clothing.”

  “What?” I gasped.

  “Cesium-137. It’s nasty stuff. Faint, but definitely present. It might have come from something as innocent as visiting a chemo lab at a hospital, or from someone working on a dirty bomb. The team is doing a more extensive sweep now, but I thought you should know.”

  The case cycled through my head, facts tumbling over each other.

  “Aina, have your team check the fire sites, see if they find any traces of the cesium there. Start with last night. I’m wondering if Hunter might have added something else that we didn’t think of to the paste he used as an accelerant. And hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  “But we’ve already done that.”

  “You have?”

  “Si. San Diego is one of the world’s most important seaports and military hubs, so MAST regularly does sweeps through the city to look for radioactive isotopes, for any evidence of terrorist activity.

  In the past we’ve identified traces of cesium-137, but mostly that’s from the medical research facilities here.”

  “Cross-check the records.”

  I knew I was getting tense, and I think she could hear it in my voice because it was a long moment before she said, “All right. I’ll let you know what we find.”

  We ended the call. I looked at the clock.

  5:37 p.m.

  Lien-hua Jiang watched the video of Cassandra over and over again, each time pausing at different places. At last, she opened her notepad and wrote, “It isn’t the killing that excites him the most.

  It’s the power, the high he gets from holding another person’s life in his hands. And he wants to make that feeling last as long as possible.”

  She paused. Yes. Cassandra’s terror would go on for hours as she watched the water slowly rise around her—all the while knowing she couldn’t escape. And he would be enjoying every minute of her suffering. Lien-hua put her pen to paper again, “Once the victim is dead, the thrill is over, so killing once isn’t enough for him. He wants to experience it again and again. That’s why he’s taping her death.”

  When Lien-hua closed her eyes, she saw the face of a woman staring lifelessly through the water. A face pale, and shaded with death. She’d seen a face like that floating in the water once.

  A long time ago.

  She opened her eyes, rewound the video to the beginning, and started watching it again.

  I felt the familiar tug in my heart: dad vs. FBI agent.

  I needed to pull away and be a dad for a couple minutes. I tried Tessa’s number. No answer.

  Of course not.

  I was a little worried about her, so I punched a few buttons on my cell phone to see if I could find her. Then I stood to stretch and clear my head, walked around the room twice.

  When I took my seat and looked at my screen, my video chat icon was flashing. I clicked it and Terry’s face appeared. “There you are, Pat. Good news. The video of Cassandra isn’t on the Internet.”

  “How can you be sure?” I asked.

  “Angela’s team scanned the web with their latest image-based search engines. We don’t have to type in text anymore, just grab an image and go. It’s like worldwide facial recognition. Web looks clean.”

  “Good. What else?”

  “We deciphered the encrypted files. It’s mostly all shark research, something about the ampullae of—”

  “Lorenzini.” I was getting antsy. “I got that too. Anything else?”

  The clock on the wall.

  5:49 p.m.

  “Well, there’s a Project Rukh and some guy named Dr. Osbourne.

  I looked him up. He works for Drake Enterprises. First thing we thought—maybe the kidnapper, right? We did some checking on him, though, he’s speaking at a convention in Boston. Been there for the last three days. Won’t be back in town till tomorrow.”

  I thought through flight times and time zones and realized he couldn’t have flown to San Diego and then back to Boston during the night to be part of the abduction. But I wrote down his name.

  I could follow up on him later. “What’s Project Rukh, Terry? Do we know?”

  “Looks like a DARPA project, although the Pentagon is pretty guarded about its defense contracts, and my intel is patchy. All I could come up with is that Drake Enterprises landed the contract.”

  Drake Enterprises again.

  So, Cassandra did have a grant from the government after all.

  In my mind I flew through a few of the things I knew about DARPA: theoretical weapons research—technology that’s still twenty to fifty years out, sometimes they subcontract weapons systems to civilian organizations. But why an aquarium? Why a biotech firm? “Terry,” I said, “DARPA. Talk to me. Quick summary.”

  “They’re way out on the lip, Pat. If I wasn’t here I’d be there.

  NASA grew out of DARPA, so did modern computer operating systems, artificial intelligence, voice recognition …” He must have been a bigger fan of DARPA than I thought. He continued to rifle through his list: “Hypertext, virtual reality, laser technology for space-based defense systems, submarine technology, and the Internet—all DARPA babies.”

  For just an instant I felt like saying that I thought Al Gore invented the Internet, but this wasn’t the time to joke around. “So, what are you thinking?”

  “DARPA doesn’t just subcontract the big projects like jets or armored vehicles anymore. They use private firms to develop lots of smaller, high-tech items.”

  I thought back to my conversation with Maria at the aquarium.

  “What about killer ray guns?” I asked.

  Silence. “What’s going on here, Pat? This isn’t just an abduction case, is it?”

  That’s when the door banged open and Ralph bur
st in. “Hunter struck,” he said. “There’s been another fire.”

  5:53 p.m.

  “Terry,” I said. “Keep looking into the DARPA connection. I’ll talk to you later. I have to go.” I closed my computer and directed my attention on Ralph. “Casualties?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Dirty bomb?”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  I slipped my computer into its bag and gathered my notes. “How do we know it’s Hunter?”

  “Aina can explain when we get there.”

  “So where is it?”

  “You’re not gonna believe this: Coronado Island. One of the buildings on the Navy SEAL Amphib Base. They call it Building B-14.”

  I was already halfway to the door. “Game on.”

  General Cole Biscayne paced to the window and stared into the night. Sickly moonlight wandered over the hills surrounding his West Virginia home.

  He’d seen someone out there in the yard last week, just on the edge of the tree line. He knew he had, even though he couldn’t be absolutely sure, even though the military police he’d brought in to investigate the area hadn’t found anything. Still, Cole knew he’d seen someone. And he had a feeling he knew who it was.

  Sebastian Taylor.

  Years ago they’d worked together in the CIA, back when Cole served as the handler for a team of covert agents in South America.

  He’d trained Sebastian himself. Honed him into one of his unit’s top operatives. But since Taylor had disappeared last October, the ex-assassin had contacted the general twice and made it quite clear that he blamed him for his fall from grace. Cole had done everything in his power to track down his protege.

  And had failed.

  Cole scanned the yard again and saw nothing unusual, nothing out of the ordinary.

  He was turning away from the window when the dogs began to bark.

  47

  6:06 p.m.

  1 hour 54 minutes until Cassandra’s deadline Lien-hua, Ralph, and I skidded to a stop in front of the huge, slithering blaze that had all but consumed Building B-14. The ocean stretched like a dull smear of oil in the background.

  A cluster of military personnel, firefighters, and even a smattering of what appeared to be privately hired security detail scurried around the burning building. Thankfully, the fire’s location on the amphib base precluded a crowd of civilian onlookers.