Dr. O

by Robert W. Walker

  To hide his inner trembling, Joseph Swisher quickly asked, "This file for me to keep? You got copies, I presume."

  'You've got a complete background file here, Joe. It's all yours."

  "Swish," said Robyn, "you can't seriously be thinking-"

  "If this nut's running around Chicago; if he's the guy that did Stavros—"

  "We don't have any proof of that," replied Robyn.

  But Joe, for the first time, was giving it very serious consideration. He lifted and quickly put down the box with the severed penis inside it, saying, "I'll get this typed; determine if it is Stavros. Meantime, I want something for our trouble in return for Ovierto, should we get him."

  "Name it."

  "Alpha status with the company."

  "What?" asked Thorpe.

  "You heard me."

  "I don't know if I can —"

  "If you and I bring in Ovierto, you can write any ticket, Thorpe. I know how things work in D.C."

  "All right," she replied. "You've got it."

  Alpha status meant free access to all FBI files, including those considered top secret.

  "Something stinks in all this," said Robyn. "She's just interested in getting you killed, Joe."

  "I'll admit people have died around me, and sometimes because of me," Thorpe said, "but Joe, you know that you and I are not so different. I see an ends, I make a means, same as you. I see a wrong, I make it right. This wrong can best be righted here and now, by you."

  "I don't like it, Joe," Robyn said in his ear.

  "Complete access to the files?" he asked Thorpe.

  "My own terminal."

  "In Lincoln?"

  "In D.C."

  This made Joe laugh. "No horshittin' with partitioning programs to keep me out?"

  "My word on it."

  "I want more than your word."

  "Anything."

  "I want it in writing, a contract."

  Thorpe hesitated.

  Robyn shook her head in disbelief. "How're you going to trust her, Joe?"

  "Well?" pressed Swisher.

  "All right. I'll have the papers drawn up."

  "A contract to kill Maurice Ovierto at your request, for payment in information retrieval from the central computer at Virginia's FBI headquarters to search for two men. I want the names in the contract."

  "Done."

  "Shit," moaned Robyn.

  "Done," said Joe. "And Robyn, Stavros is yours if this—" he held up the box again, "turns out to belong to someone else."

  "Thanks for the crumbs." She suddenly stormed out and down the corridor and stairs. Maybe it was for the better, he thought. Maybe he should have spoken to Donna Thorpe alone in the first place. He slammed the door hard on returning to Thorpe, who'd once again made herself comfortable in the sparsely furnished room that sported glistening, well-kept wood flooring, and paneled walls hung with citations and guns.

  "Good riddance," Thorpe mumbled. Swisher made no reply to the remark, but simply paced before her before suddenly taking her in his arms and kissing her.

  "Lieutenant, you do have a great deal of work to do." She pointed to the file. "Study it carefully. You must understand Ovierto. He's like no other adversary you have faced. He's diabolical, far more so than either you or I. The first man he killed, Dr. Coleman, you can read about it. He was skewered in ten places by a falling chandelier in his ancestral home. It's postulated that Ovierto got to him by becoming an electrician. He so timed the fall of the chandelier that Coleman was sitting under it having his brunch when it crushed him, a mammoth piece of metal and crystal. He was killed on impact."

  "Tricky"

  "Like you," she said, pulling away from him.

  He moved to kiss her again, but she put him off. "Strictly business partners."

  "Why is that? Was it that way with you and Tom Sykes?"

  He knew he had struck a sensitive cord when she darted for the door. "I'll be in touch."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  "You're going to do it? After what that bitch did to you?" Robyn was furious as she stormed about her apartment the next day. "You poor, dumb bastard."

  "Look at it this way, sweetheart," he said with a casualness that she found attractive. "I bag this guy and the sky's the limit for my career. This guy's big time bad, baby."

  "I smell something; something's just not right. And that Thorpe woman!"

  "Woman's intutition doesn't change the fact this filth, Ovierto, is out there cutting people up, dicing guys who work for NASA and that not even the FBI's been able to stop him. Suppose a Chicago cop did the job for them? How's that going to look on Thorpe's record, huh?"

  "Is that your plan? Embarrass her? Burn her?"

  He raised his shoulders. "Why not."

  "You're playing with fire, Joe. That woman is a forest fire."

  "Come on, Robyn, I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself."

  "Think so, Joe? She's capable of using you, Joe. You should know that by now."

  He put both hands on his head, nursing a hangover, saying nothing.

  "Where is she now?"

  "Flew back to Nebraska where she's headquartered now. How do you like that? She was booted from Quantico over this Ovierto business."

  "What'd she promise you, Joe? What?"

  "Will you get off it, Robyn? Christ, I don't owe you any explanations."

  "No... no, I suppose not. What am I to you anyway?"

  "Come on, Robyn... Robyn, don't—"

  She pulled away from him. "What are your plans?"

  "Plans?"

  "For Ovierto. For the operation."

  "Going to wait for him to show up."

  "She seemed to think he already has."

  "No, I mean I'm going out there today, to Fermilab, set myself up as a janitor, keep watch."

  "Backup?"

  "This guy would smell backup a mile away."

  He'd done it before, and they had argued over the chances Swisher took. Now they stared across the room at one another, and he finally said, "You just get busy on that Stavros thing —I mean, case."

  "Sure... sure. Now, if you don't mind, Joe, I'd like to get dressed. Maybe I'll see you later."

  "Yeah, later, much later, and stop worrying." He kissed her at the door.

  "Joe, be careful. This guy's a real nut case."

  She closed the door on him without returning his kiss.

  Dr. Ovierto, dressed in a drab coat and tie with wire-rim glasses, looked bookish and priggish as he moved down the crowded corridors of O'Hare International Airport. He found the necessary doorway, marked Airport Security, and, readying his badge, wandered through. On the inside a pair of uniformed guards were having coffee at an urn, laughing over some recent incident at the airport. It sounded as if it had something to do with a dog and an old lady, Ovierto only caught snatches of the tale. The uniformed men barely gave him a glance, continuing with their socializing until one was beeped and had to answer the call, saying good by to his friend. Behind a desk a clerk with glasses too large for her face squinted up at him.

  "Can I help you?"

  "FBI," he said, "Inspector Bateman." He flashed the ID and badge, and she became nervous.

  "Can, can I help you," she repeated.

  "I need to know if an Inspector Thorpe has arrived in Chicago. She would likely have used an FBI helicopter. Now, I've checked with Mid-Way and they've had no contact with her. Inspector Donna Thorpe."

  "When would this have been, sir? I mean, we have a lot of small traffic."

  "Yesterday some time."

  She frowned. "It will take some time to—"

  "Please, can I just come around. I believe I could bring up that information, if you don't mind, in just a moment, using the call numbers of the helicopter. It's most important, vital even."

  "Vital?"

  "National security, you might say."

  The uniformed officer had moved over, curious. Dr. Ovierto felt the scalpel in his breast pocket as if it were enlarging there. He'd
have to use it if they began to suspect anything. "What's the problem, Molly?"

  "Special agent Bateman," he said, turning and taking the other man's hand, spilling some of his coffee. "FBI. Just a routine check on another agent's arrival."

  "Molly, can you get that information?"

  "Sure, Mr. Banks. What are those call numbers?”

  “HL-705."

  Banks hung close by, sipping his coffee, watching. He had heard that some FBI chopper had flown in and out the previous day. He wondered why this fool didn't know that it had already left O'Hare, if he was one of them. He was about to ask when Molly declared that the flight had arrived at 11:09 the previous night and had left at 2 AM.

  "Damn, then I did miss Inspector Thorpe... shame, a real shame. We've worked together for many years, but it has always been long-distance—fax machines, telephone, wires, you see. No one told me she'd be in town. Ah, well... thank you... thank you both for your time."

  "Sorry we couldn't be of more help," said Banks.

  "Yeah," agreed Molly.

  Both of them went back to work as Ovierto darted a glance back at them, wondering if he wouldn't like to turn around and kill them both, wondering if doing so would serve his purpose or not. He quickly decided that it would not. He'd let them live, as he had let the girl in Colorado live. He had set her free in the wilderness, blind and naked, to wander wherever she liked. He would not be returning to Colorado.

  Molly gave him a perfunctory, kind smile, without any special twinkle in her eye, without any real feeling. He thought she was rather plain and unappealing and his look may have conveyed this, for suddenly she dropped her eyes, turning a bit pink in the cheeks with a blush, pretending to work. Ovierto smiled and gave her a little wave as he slipped through the heavy door. Outside the door the rush of the river of people in the corridor swept him up.

  "Oh, shit," said Molly at the desk the other side of the door.

  Banks stepped again to her desk, asking what now was the problem.

  "That guy left his pen —an expensive one, too." She held up a Cross pen and it sparkled beneath the florescent lights here.

  "Maybe I can catch him," said Banks. "Give it here."

  "Oh, can you try?"

  "Give it a shot." He placed the pen in his own pocket and went for the door.

  Molly returned to some filing that was piling up be-side her. She was angry with her sister, Nan, who had gotten ill and left her responsible for getting her kids off to school that morning —for the fourth such morning in what was getting to be a tiring routine —and her work had been suffering as a result. Along with my looks, she told herself as she glanced at her reflection in a strip of metal that ran across the top of the filing cabinet.

  Her desk was cluttered with items that needed typing, duplicating and filing. She dug in, her mind going back to the FBI man who had seemed such a gentleman. Most men in police work, even the stiffs in uniforms about the airport, like Banks, were usually so concerned about being macho that they didn't know how to be a gentleman. Bateman seemed an exception.

  While she shuffled the papers on her desk, one flew out at her and wafted to the floor. It was a report from the FBI, the very woman that Bateman had been asking about, Thorpe. She hadn't seen it before and imagined it had been given to the night girl. She saw that copies were attached and a message said, "Distribute to all airport security. Urgent request from FBI."

  This made her frown. Why hadn't Cathy simply done the job? Why make the copies and stop at that? What was the bitch trying to prove? Then she looked at the bulletin board in the security guards' coffee room, finding a copy tacked up there. That was Cathy's idea of distribution, all right.

  Sighing, she decided she'd have to get the copies around, but she'd have to wait until Banks or someone else came in to hold the fort, catch the phone, and such. Then she noticed one of the names on the list she held in her hand. It was Bateman.

  She decided that perhaps she ought to read the memo. It said that the FBI's most wanted could be coming through the airport, and that he frequently used the aliases attached: Dr. Richard Armour Dr. David Samson Wolfgang Meir Thomas or Tom Sykes David Bateman

  The last two names, the memo informed her, might be used in connection with an FBI badge. An accompanying photo of the real Bateman didn't look at all like the man.

  Her first thought was for Banks and his safety. She shakily rushed for the door, looking both ways for Banks, unable to find him. She cursed and raced back to her desk and the PA system, trying to clear it, to override flight deputies and information and people being paged, calling her need Priority One, an emergency. She feared she'd be too late, or that she'd say the wrong thing and place Banks in worse danger than he already was in or that Banks would mistake her call —or, worse, not hear the message at all if he were himself radioing other security to help locate the supposed FBI man to return his Cross pen.

  She feared what the man would do to Banks if he felt suddenly threatened.

  Hesitantly, she first tried buzzing Banks via his radio, but he wasn't responding. He was likely sending.

  She spoke into the PA, using Bank's security number. "311, please return to airport security, 311... 311 ... respond if you hear... 311... 311..."

  An overwhelming fear engulfed her and she immediately radioed other guards, telling them that Banks was in danger and that the man the FBI wanted was in the airport at this moment.

  She was immediately cut off by a woman's voice, a woman who said she was Inspector Donna Thorpe, FBI.

  "You? It was you that he was looking for."

  "Where is your location?"

  Someone beside Thorpe told her where the security offices were.

  "Is Banks following the suspect?" she asked Molly.

  "Yes, but Banks doesn't know who he is! He's trying to—" she was cut off "—give him back his pen."

  He was truly sorry that he had missed Thorpe. He would like to see her again, face to face. But he didn't know that he could end her life. He had come to the realization of late that he needed someone like Thorpe, someone who paid particular attention to his whereabouts, his comings and goings, and, most importantly, his deeds. For it is through deeds and acts that ye shall be judged, he told himself wryly now.

  She had come in to warn the good doctors at Fermi- lab about his imminent arrival. Guards would be doubled, and perhaps there'd be police staked out all around. It only made the challenge more enticing for the killer. She knew that... knew that he'd respond like a titillated child with a dare in his face.

  He looked over his shoulder to see that Banks, the security guy, was carefully following, keeping him in sight. He saw other men who looked like plainclothes cops all around. He realized it was a trap, a setup, and his options were limited. He jumped onto a down escalator, pushing people aside as he rushed onward. He saw Banks taking the stairs, calling out to him. At the foot of the escalator he dodged around a corner and stepped into a men's room, hoping the airport cop would continue past. In the meantime, he fought with a quarter to step into one of the stalls. He worked free of his disguise, casting off the suit to create a more leisurely look, and had tossed away the glasses when he heard Banks rapping on the stall door, saying, "Mr. Bateman. Inspector!"

  Ovierto tore out the scalpel from the coat he'd hung on the stall door, yanked the door open and lunged at Banks, driving the scalpel into and across the stout man's throat. Banks caromed off the wall and into the row of sinks, holding himself before the mirror, staring for a moment at his own death before he slid to the floor in a pool of blood where the shimmering Cross pen that Ovierto had left behind now swam.

  Another man stepped from a stall, saw what was going on, and locked himself back in. Ovierto rushed from the men's room and back into the teeming life- pool of the airport.

  In another part of the airport, Donna Thorpe got word of the airport guard's slaying. She rushed to the scene with a handful of men working in the Chicago Bureau. She'd sent the helicopter out of the airpo
rt the night before for Ovierto's benefit, knowing he was quite capable of learning her whereabouts. When she got to the men's room, finding Banks dead of blood loss and shock, she pounded her fists into one of the stall doors. It rattled under the pressure and a sport coat fell onto the floor. She found the glasses beside the coat.

  "It was him," she said.

  One of the Chicago men said, "How can you tell?"

  "I can smell the bastard. Get a forensics man down here to take charge of the coat and glasses," she said as she rifled through the pockets. She found wadded bubble gum papers, a pack of cigarettes with only a few missing. She found a locker key which made her eyes light up. She pocketed the key and asked one of the airport security men to take her to the locker number she wanted.

  Ten minutes later she carefully opened the locker, fearing a bomb might greet her. But there was no explosion, only a package, carefully wrapped, about the size of a bread box. It smelled, and she knew that it was some part of Bateman. The package had a carrier stamp on it: DV.

  "Denver," said the airport guy.

  "Go back to my men. Tell them I need an E.T. team over here."

  "E.T. ?"

  "Evidence techs. Now."

  "Yes, ma'am, yes ma'am!"

  There was also a small envelope with her name on it. Thorpe swallowed hard, lifted it with a pair of tweezers, and opened it, flattening it out against locker, reading his words:

  Glad you could make it to Chicago, Donna. Sorry I missed you, but maybe this will make up for your bad luck....

  "Bastard! Bastard!" she said, gritting her teeth, making a lady with several children cringe and move her children away. She didn't see the man behind the » newspaper, sitting amid the crowd across from the locker, grinning like a jackal over her distress. She didn't see Ovierto enjoying himself to the fullest. She just wondered how he knew that she'd be here to find his crumb-trail of bodies.