"Yeah... you're right... you're right. And thanks, Robyn."
"What do you suppose he's done with their remains?" Donna Thorpe asked Robyn hours later at headquarters, out of the blue.
"I wouldn't even hazard a guess... not with this guy"
"Profile guys can't even get a fix on Ovierto."
"It'd be a lot easier if they had those Pentagon files," replied Robyn. "Like the business of his having bouts with some disorder?"
"What's that?"
"Something I saw as I was rushing through the in-formation General Wright so graciously provided us."
"What kind of disorder? What was the name?"
"Iiiiiy... can't recall, Poppy something or other."
"Damnit, think."
"It looked like paprika or poppyriaya. Noticed it just as Wright returned."
She called for Boas to come over to her temporary office here. Boas did so, and on entering he greeted them both warmly. The pleasantries over, Thorpe told Robyn to tell Boas what she had seen on the reports on Ovierto.
Boas nodded several times and grunted.
"What does that sound like to you, doc?" asked Thorpe.
"Porphyria?" he asked.
She said, "Spell it... no, no, write it out for me."
He did soon a chalk board behind him.
"That's it," said Robyn.
Donna asked, "Are you certain?"
"Absolutely."
"All right, Boas, tell us what you can about the disorder; is it rare, for instance, and is there medication for it, and if so would it have to be prescribed?"
"All of the above."
"Now we may have his Achilles heel! We've got to contact every M.D., every pharmacy —put it on their damned computers that we want to know about any dispensing of the drugs someone in his condition would require until we can check them out. If we move fast, before he has a chance to replenish his supply—"
"However you want to handle it, Inspector," said Robyn.
"We alert every agent, get the entire agency on this."
"Good thinking," said Boas, writing out a list of the kinds of medication a man of Ovierto's age would re-quire to combat the disorder. "Primarily this new miracle drug called tertracychterane, for advanced cases."
"Now, we turn the tables on him," Thorpe said firmly, the image of her parent's bones in an evidence box clearly before her. She had obviously returned for the ring, however, and had recovered this, for it flashed at Robyn from her finger.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Time passed. And then came more time. A long day and night stretched into two.
And they waited to hear from the villainous Dr. O, who had chosen to let time pass in order to drag out Thorpe's anguish over her parents' remains.
Robyn Muro had watched helplessly as Donna had taken first to drink and then to self-recriminations. She spoke often of having missed her chance to kill Ovierto the first time around. Any reassurances Robyn gave her that she'd get another chance fell as flat as cliches in a hospital waiting room. Robyn stayed close by her side, but there was nothing she could do to ease the pain, and the waiting was taking its toll on her as well now. She imagined it was like waiting for a strike force in a war, a strike force you knew was coming at you, but there was no escape —only the waiting.
"Let's get out of here," she suggested, "go to dinner," she pleaded, "see a movie, maybe... anything."
"You go ahead. I'm not very good company lately."
They were at the apartment they'd shared since arriving in D.C. Robyn was no longer on the payroll of the CPD, and a threat hung over her head that if she did not soon return to active duty there she'd be terminated. All of this news seemed not to phase Donna in the least, and for this reason Robyn was beginning to get annoyed with her. Finally, she said, "Look, we've got to talk. I'm going back to Chicago in the morning, pick up my duties there. I've been offered a lieutenant's position—"
"Joe's old post?"
"Yes."
"And lieutenant's pay?"
"Equal pay, yes."
"Maybe we'd better talk at that. Let's find a bite."
They took a cab to a restaurant a few miles from the apartment and were soon seated opposite one another and looking into one another's eyes over a bottle of Zinfandel. "I haven't been very pleasant to be around lately, I know," said Donna. "My husband is... he called last night... filing for a divorce... wants custody of the children..."
"Oh, jeez, Donna, I had no idea. I'm... what can I say that won't sound hollow?"
"It's just that now I need you more than I ever did," she replied. "And I wish you'd reconsider... stay on."
Robyn looked away. "I don't know."
"I've got papers in the works for you to become an agent, Robyn. We... the department... need you. I'm not just being selfish here. I mean it."
Robyn reached across and placed her hand on Donna's, saying, "I'm sure you do."
The restaurant was large and busy and bustling with people and waiters and the noise of dishes, but Robyn felt for a moment as if they were completely alone, the only two people on Earth who understood the enormity of the problem they referred to as Dr. O. Donna said, "You've been a great comfort to me, you know?"
"How? I haven't done anything. I haven't known what to do."
"Just being near, Robyn."
They'd ordered earlier and now their meals arrived. Robyn dug into her pasta salad while Donna cut into a Quiche Lorraine. After a few bites, Donna tensed, her fork jabbing at something in her food. It was a finger bone with a message wrapped about it. Donna lurched away from it, shaken and cringing. Robyn grabbed it up whole in her napkin and said, "Stay calm, kid... stay calm. See if you can place our waiter! It could be him
Robyn tore open the message as Donna tried to pull herself together, to find the professionalism that Ovierto had so carefully eroded, and to fight back.
Robyn kept saying, "He's here! Somewhere here! We've got a shot at him."
"What... what does it say?" Robyn read from the note:
Your parents' parts are on ice for now, perfectly preserved, save for the parts I've had to use to convince you that I am serious. Now, Donna dear, you'll hold hands with me or their bones will be cleaned and sold for what they'll bring. A simple ransom is all I require: your parents for Pythagoras. And you're to come alone. No girlfriends or boyfriends in the department.
"Where? Where is the drop?"
"Upstate New York at the Massena, New York dam on the St. Lawrence Seaway where the locks are. He says you'll know what to do when you get there. He says if he smells backup agents, you'll never see the bones."
"Let me see that," she said, a tinge of the old toughness returning to her voice. "The bastard's holding two dead people hostage."
"And he brought the message right to us and we never saw him."
"Don't take another bite of your food. No telling what's in it."
"Where's the guy that waited on us?"
"Come on!" she said, stuffing the note and the finger bone into her coat pocket, rushing for the kitchen, where a confused maitre d' tried to stop them. Robyn flashed her badge at the man and he relented. Donna pushed through the kitchen, staring at the people there, forcing her way to the rear door and out into the night. Robyn caught up as she prepared to fire at a figure in the distance who was walking away.
"You're not sure it's him, don't do it!"
A dog came bounding up to the man she was about to shoot. The man tore a stick from the dog, threw it and the dog gave chase.
"There!" said Robyn, pointing to a figure in an over-coat running deeper into the park.
"Come on!" They ran after the fleeing man, going deep into the park, below a viaduct and along the water's edge. In the distance stood the Washington Monument, lit against the sky. The fleeing man was running in the direction of the Lincoln Monument. If he got across the grounds he could hail a cab and disappear into the city.
He had a good lead on them and he appeared only as a shadow on the h
orizon. He could be a jogger, an-other mistake. Thorpe couldn't afford any further mistakes and she slowed in her pursuit, saying to Robyn, "We've got to split up! You that way. Circle around. I'll meet you on the other side. He gets a cab, and we've lost him. And remember, he a master at disguise and sleight-of-hand."
"Got it. Go!"
They didn't see one another for ten minutes, each continuing in a dead heat after the fleeing shadow they prayed was Ovierto.
Robyn came up from the south end, and in the distance she saw Donna coming on fast. Between them, climbing a restraining chain link fence, was the man in the overcoat, lumbering over into traffic, trying to hail a cab on Constitution Avenue, where the cars whizzed by like electronic flashes.
"Stop! Police!" shouted Donna.
Robyn cried out, "Hold it, or I shoot!"
The big man didn't seem to fit, Robyn thought; his size was much bigger than Ovierto's profile indicated. But then, he could be wearing lifts and padding.
"Geeeeeet awayyyyyy from meeeeeee!" he cried, turning and lifting a large knife that flashed, reflecting the orange street lamp.
"Put it down!" shouted Robyn at the same moment the man turned and ran out into the traffic, dodging cars. Donna and Robyn climbed the fence. Together again, they parted traffic as best they could, trying to keep track of the weaving figure of the suspect as he disappeared into the enormous, sprawling Lincoln mall that was lit like a temple before them.
"Damnit, he'll disappear in there!" shouted Donna.
People in cars cursed them and Robyn lifted a finger to more than one of the drivers as they weaved across Constitution Avenue. Someone threw a smoking pipe from a car window at them; another man threw catcalls instead.
Inside the mall, there were several directions the big man might have gone. If he wore a disguise, the men's room for a quick change, Robyn suggested. There were several levels to the mall which crisscrossed and tangled about themselves in a kind of concrete taffy pull, and it was fairly crowded with people.
Robyn located a map, but Donna knew the place well, and so she pushed on. Soon they were outside the men's room and nodding at one another. Donna kicked through the door, and they rushed in, bringing up their weapons. Men inside at the urinals responded with curses and confusion.
"Police!" shouted Robyn out of habit.
"FBI business," said Donna. "You, you, you! Out!" she told the men who were obviously not what she wanted.
"Out of the stalls, now!" shouted Robyn.
A flush and a young teen stepped from the only occupied toilet. He was shaken and unnerved by the women holding guns on him.
"Come on!" shouted Donna. "We've wasted enough time here."
"Maybe this guy knows the back areas here," suggested Robyn.
"So do I. Come on! Ovierto isn't getting away from me this time."
Robyn could hardly keep pace with Donna as she rushed from the men's room down the long corridor to a door marked Mall Personnel Only. They pushed through and ahead of them they heard the movement of a caged animal knocking over items in his way.
"It's him! We're back on!" said Donna, cocking her weapon, holding it to her cheek in the semidarkness of the mall's back corridors. It seemed like a human maze, filled with the debris of a merchant's nightmare—discarded, disused, abused, and broken items, stacked boxes, trash, mannequins staring from vacant eyes, dollies, and half-filled racks. Ahead of them they heard whimpering and heavy breathing.
"We've cornered the bastard," said Donna.
"Are you sure it's him?"
"Of course it's him! You saw the knife."
"He's too... too large."
"Disguise."
"I'd have noticed our waiter if he was that god-damned large!"
They faced a dead end but there was no one in sight. There was a door at the back. Along the sides were naked, statuesque plastic women and men leaning in rows upon one another. The opposite wall was covered with a pair of gurneys filled with cardboard.
Robyn crossed to a door, but found it electronically bolted. "No one's gone through here."
Donna indicated the gurneys with a flick of her gun. They approached cautiously. "He's a brutal bastard," Donna said. "Doesn't deserve to breathe another breath." She reminded Robyn of Joe's death, of Sykes, Bateman, and what Ovierto had done to her.
"I'm going to pull it over," said Robyn, taking firm hold of the gurney and bringing it down with her weight, spilling the useless contents all about them. There was no one inside. They approached the second of the gurneys. There was no doubt now.
"Wait," said Donna, taking out a book of matches and lighting them.
"Donna!"
But she cast them into the cardboard collection which ignited like old rags. "Let the devil take him!" she said, laughing.
As the flames whooshed upward, Robyn said, "No!" and pulled this gurney over as she had the other, singeing her hair as she did so .The flaming cargo spewed across the floor, and, at the same time, the mannequins behind them exploded outward, hitting both of them as the hiding figure of the big man came at them with the knife.
Donna's gun had cascaded from her. Robyn brought up her weapon and fired as the knife came at Donna's eyes.
The gunshot was like an explosion in the confined area, and it sent the lumbering man in the overcoat sprawling against the wall, his blood smearing in an uneven line behind him as he slid to the floor. He was so stunned he could not move, and the huge, ebony- handled kitchen knife lay on the floor beside Donna Thorpe, who picked it up and stared at the helpless figure before her. Donna's arm arched upward, the knife flashing death as it came down, but Robyn grabbed her arm to put an end to the thrust. Their eyes met; both women were breathing heavily and shaking.
"Let me go! Let me kill him!"
The big man before them looked up with pleading eyes, blubbering something unintelligible, crying.
"Look at him now!" shouted Thorpe. "Go ahead, plead with me, Ovierto! Beg! Beg for mercy!" She pulled free of Robyn, the knife still clearly in her control.
"Donna! It's not him! It's not Ovierto!" Robyn shouted.
Thorpe froze, looked from the dying man to Robyn and back again. "It's... it's just another of his disguises. That's all. He came at us with the knife! It's him."
"It's not Ovierto," Robyn said firmly, taking the knife from her. "Look closely at him. He's a dupe, another stand-in for Ovierto."
"Oh, Christ... Christ..."
"Get the lights turned up in here, and get an ambulance," Robyn told her.
Thorpe did so but not before Leonard Groiler was dead. A check of his work permit made it clear that he was a former mental patient with some retardation who had been working at the restaurant about the kitchen. Robyn was certain that an FBI check of Ovierto's acquaintances among the mad of the world would show that Groiler was one of them. He had done exactly as Ovierto had instructed, playing his part to the end, made to fear these two women who were bound to come after him with guns.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
At the Lincoln Mall the scene was chaotic until Dr. Samuel Boas arrived to take charge of the body, his familiar calm and dignified comportment lending comfort even to Thorpe, whom he took aside and spoke to. Thorpe was visibly crumbling, and Robyn feared she'd come apart completely. Boas gave her some sedatives and sent her home in a car.
Ovierto had them laboring under the delusion they were the hunters, when in fact he was the hunter, Robyn realized too late. Still, Groiler had come at them wielding the knife, and the shoot was a clean self- defense maneuver. Anyone looking at the evidence would have to grant that much.
Thorpe had shown Boas the note from Ovierto, and Boas had taken it from her and placed it in an evidence bag. But before she left, Donna pleaded with him to return it to her, saying, "It's come down to him or me, Sam... him or me."
Boas had argued, but she was adamant, refusing to leave until he returned the note to her.
"But it's evidence."
"I don't want anyone else knowin
g about it, Sam."
He relented, walking her to the car, putting her in the care of two other agents.
Meanwhile, Robyn, too, was shaken. The result of her firing a weapon had been the death of a retarded man, knife in hand or not. No one walked away from a shooting feeling good about it, except in the movies. Taking Gotopolis's life was more of a reflex response to danger than anything else, and, given what she had seen Gotopolis capable of, she hadn't been overly remorseful. But the lumbering retard was very likely acting out of fear, threatened by a scenario placed in his brain by the sick predator, who had convinced him that he, Ovierto, was the only one he could trust. For this reason, she felt a great remorse for the man she had killed.
Ovierto had twisted them around his little finger again.
Why hadn't she seen it coming?
At what point could she have slowed the events?
Had it been necessary to fire as she had?
Could she have wounded the man enough to stop his assault?
Had she time for two shots instead of the single deadly one to the chest?
If she hadn't fired, wouldn't Thorpe have been killed?
A thousand questions about the seconds it took to kill Groiler.
Donna was blaming herself, saying that she should have known what was going on, angry at herself for not seeing it for what it was. Robyn had spent the last half hour trying to convince her otherwise, but to little avail.
Now Robyn was being questioned by another FBI agent, a guy named Riley. Riley was good-looking in a quiet, reserved way; something about his manner calmed her, even though his job, obviously, was to get a clear picture of what happened. He, like Boas, wanted to see the note that had come, presumably, from Ovierto. She promised him he'd get it tomorrow, if she had to pry it from Donna's grip. She was tired, weary, and weak.
"Let's get out of here, then," he told her. "They've got more than enough help. Let me take you home. Where are you staying?"
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