by James Barney
Kathleen watched anxiously as the EMTs struggled to keep Jeremy alive. “He’s lost a lot of blood,” she heard the older EMT say under his breath. The man’s tone was distressingly pessimistic.
Jeremy was lying facedown on the stretcher, his head turned awkwardly toward Kathleen. His eyes were open but glassy and dilated—almost lifeless. Kathleen wondered whether he was even conscious.
“Jeremy?” she said softly, leaning toward his face, which was partially obscured by an oxygen mask that lay loosely by his nose and mouth.
“Ma’am, please,” said the tattooed EMT gruffly, stepping in front of her.
A few seconds passed in silence as the EMTs continued applying compresses to Jeremy’s wounds.
Then Jeremy made a gurgling sound.
“What?” Kathleen said excitedly. “What is it?” She put her ear close to his mouth.
“Sam . . .” Jeremy whispered slowly, laboring hard to speak, “pull . . .”
“Sam . . . pull? Sample? The DNA sample?”
“Uh . . . huh . . .”
“What about it?”
The tattooed EMT pushed Kathleen away. “Ma’am, please. We need some room here.”
A few seconds later, Jeremy spoke again in a whisper. His voice was weak and raspy. “Bro . . . kkkk . . . .”
“Broke? Broken? The sample is broken?” Kathleen was doing her best to decipher Jeremy’s garbled utterances. “It broke?”
“Uh . . . huh.” Jeremy’s voice was barely audible now. His eyelids were beginning to close.
“Blood pressure’s below ninety palpable,” shouted the redheaded kid excitedly. “Heart rate one twenty.”
“Shit,” panted the older EMT. “We’re losing him!”
“Jeremy!” Kathleen screamed. “Stay with us! We’re almost there!”
Jeremy’s eyes widened a bit as he tried once again to speak.
“Don’t talk,” Kathleen said. “Just hold on!”
But Jeremy continued, forcing a series of gurgled, whispered syllables out of his mouth. “I . . . dint . . .” He paused, wheezing. “Clee . . . n . . .”
Kathleen cupped her mouth and shook her head in disbelief. Jeremy was dying in the back of an ambulance, and he was worried about cleanup? “Jeremy,” she said reassuringly, “it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Just stay with us! We’re almost there!”
But Jeremy had lost consciousness.
“Cardiac arrest!” bellowed the tattooed EMT.
“We’re here!” announced the redheaded kid simultaneously, as the ambulance came to an abrupt halt.
“Please stay clear, ma’am,” said the older EMT. “We need to get him out of here.”
Kathleen pressed herself against the side of the van. There was a flurry of activity as the ambulance doors flew open and a team of people in light blue scrubs slid the stretcher out of the ambulance and attached it to a wheeled gurney. An exhausted resident took one look at Jeremy and shouted, “Multiple gunshot wounds to the back! Code! E.R. three, stat!”
Kathleen watched helplessly as Jeremy’s bloody, shirtless body was wheeled down a short hallway and through a set of double swinging doors. Seconds later, he was completely out of sight. Her mind went numb. This can’t be happening.
“Ma’am?” said a deep voice from outside the ambulance.
Kathleen looked down and saw a uniformed police officer approaching.
“We didn’t realize you were leaving the scene,” he said. “I’m going to have to ask you to come back with me.”
Kathleen nodded compliantly and exited the ambulance. She followed the police officer to his squad car.
Fifteen minutes later, they were back in the parking lot in front of QLS. She got out of the police cruiser and gazed in disbelief at the smashed glass doors, the flashing police lights, and the general chaos swirling all around her. What the hell was happening? Six hours earlier, she’d been enjoying a beer with Bryce Whittaker in Annapolis. Now she was standing in the middle of a bloody crime scene. She had no idea whether Jeremy was alive or dead.
Suddenly, she heard a familiar voice behind her.
“Dr. Sainsbury?”
Kathleen turned to see Special Agent Wills standing nearby. He was well dressed, like before. Khaki pants, light pink shirt, fashionable tie, navy blue blazer, overcoat. Everything pressed, buttoned, and polished.
“I’m working with MCPD on this one,” Wills said.
Kathleen had no idea what that meant and didn’t care. “I’m going inside,” she announced, turning her back on Wills and starting toward the building.
“Hold on a sec,” Wills said, grabbing her arm, “We’re still—”
“I don’t care,” Kathleen snapped, pulling her arm from his grasp. “This is my company. That was my colleague. And I’m going in there. If you want to stop me, arrest me.”
Kathleen marched up the walkway to the front door with Wills trailing close behind. “Dr. Sainsbury!” he called after her.
Kathleen ignored him.
A policeman was standing in front of the smashed door. Kathleen locked eyes with him. “Excuse me,” she said resolutely.
The policeman hesitated, glanced behind her at Special Agent Wills, and then slowly pushed open the broken door. Bits of broken glass beneath the door made a shrill, grinding noise as the door swung open, like nails on a chalkboard. The cop stepped aside to let Kathleen and Agent Wills through.
Kathleen proceeded directly to the lab, where two evidence technicians were busy taking pictures and picking up small objects from the floor and placing them in bags. The distinctive odor of ethyl alcohol was heavy in the air. She stood in the doorway and watched in disbelief.
“Hey,” said one of the technicians, “is this your lab?”
Kathleen nodded.
“Anything hazardous in here we should know about?”
Kathleen shook her head slowly, her mind still in a fog. “Some hydrochloric acid in those flasks over there,” she muttered. “Phenol, sulfuric acid, ethyl acetate, chloroform, butyl alcohol . . . that’s about it.”
“How about this liquid on the floor,” said the technician. “Any idea what this is?”
Kathleen looked despairingly at the floor, where the remnants of a glass flask were scattered in a circle of shards near the grated floor drain. “Yeah,” she said despondently. “I do.” She stared in anguish at the mess on the floor. Totally gone! Possibly the most important discovery of the century. She felt like screaming and crying and punching the air all at the same time. Instead, she stood motionless, dumbfounded, shaking her head from side to side.
“And . . .” said the technician impatiently, “what is it?”
“It was a DNA sample,” she said with a heavy sigh. “Probably in ethyl alcohol and chloroform. Just wear rubber gloves and try not to inhale the fumes, and you’ll be fine.”
“Thanks.” The evidence technician bent down and plucked several of the larger pieces of glass from the grated drain and dropped them into an evidence bag.
“They’re going to run those for fingerprints,” said Agent Wills behind her, almost in a baiting tone. “Any idea whose they’ll find?”
Anger flashed on Kathleen’s face. “What, exactly, are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything. It’s just a question.”
Kathleen took a deep breath and exhaled, a bit ashamed of her outburst.
“Look, Dr. Sainsbury,” continued Wills soothingly, “I’m not here to harass you. I want to solve this crime as much as you do, okay?”
Kathleen nodded. “Sorry.”
“Now, is it possible that whoever broke in here was after what was in that flask?” He pointed to the shards on the floor.
Kathleen nodded that, yes, that was possible.
“You want to tell me what was in there?”
Kathleen stared at the remnants of the flask and rubbed her temples. Then she said quietly: “Mummy DNA.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Arlington, Virginia.
/> Bill McCreary entered the Logistics Analysis office at DARPA and said good morning to his assistant. “Anything going on?”
Steve Goodwin held up a single sheet of paper. “Yeah, this.”
McCreary took the classified memo and read it quickly:
TOP SECRET SCI—SERRATE
Re: EVENT SUMMARY, MARCH 22–23
2353 EST—911 call received by Montgomery County central dispatch. Suspected burglary reported at 201E Gateway Drive, Rockville, MD [QLS]
0002 EST—911 call received by Montgomery County central dispatch. Gunshot victim reported at 201E Gateway Drive, Rockville, MD [QLS]
0005 EST—Dispatcher broadcast to Montgomery County Police and Fire & Rescue.
0016 EST—Montgomery County Police and Fire & Rescue on scene at 201E Gateway Drive, Rockville, MD.
0033 EST—Dr. Jeremy Fisher [QLS] admitted to Montgomery County Hospital, multiple gunshot wounds. Current status unknown.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Suspect reportedly fled on foot into adjacent woods, remains at large. Dr. Kathleen Sainsbury [QLS] questioned at scene and released.
McCreary frowned and folded the paper in half. “You should’ve called me immediately.”
“Sorry, boss. I just got this information twenty minutes ago.”
“Then you should’ve called me twenty minutes ago!” He brushed past Goodwin and made his way toward his office. He was already thinking about how to break this news to Secretary Stonewell.
“Uh, boss. There’s something else.”
McCreary sighed and turned. “What is it?”
“I’ve been listening to the audio of the police radio runs . . .”
“Yeah?”
“And . . . well, I could’ve sworn I heard one of the cops say something about ‘mummy DNA.’ ”
“Dear God,” McCreary muttered.
“Just thought you should know.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rockville, Maryland.
“I just got off the phone with the hospital,” Kathleen said as she entered the QLS conference room. Julie and Carlos were already seated at the conference table. It was a little after 10:00 A.M. on Tuesday morning, and they were assembled for their first formal meeting since the shooting Sunday night. “Jeremy’s in critical but stable condition.”
“What does that mean?” asked Julie.
“They’ve stopped the bleeding, but he has some very severe nerve damage. They’re not sure what effect that may have on his—” Kathleen drew a deep breath. “On his ability to walk.”
Julie gasped.
“He also has a significant amount of swelling in his brain, which is a very dangerous situation. They’ve put him in a medically induced coma to try to reduce the swelling.”
Carlos shook his head.
Kathleen continued. “His family is with him now. So all we can do is wait.”
“And pray,” Julie added.
“Sure. That, too.”
The last forty-eight hours had been a chaotic whirlwind at QLS. Julie had arrived at work Monday morning to find the front door smashed, yellow police tape across the entrance, and a hideous bloodstain on the sidewalk. Carlos had tried to call her in advance to warn her not to come in, but her cell phone had been turned off. As expected, she took it hard. “I should’ve been here!” she kept repeating over and over. It took Carlos and Kathleen the better part of the day just to calm her down.
The Montgomery County police didn’t finish their crime-scene investigation until late Monday afternoon, after which Carlos immediately boarded up the broken doors and arranged for replacements to be delivered.
Kathleen had spent nearly all day shuttling back and forth to the hospital, talking to Jeremy’s family, dealing with the police, and fielding calls from worried investors. One particularly nasty investor—a broker from the Aurora Venture Capital Fund in New York City—even mentioned the word “lawsuit,” just to make matters worse.
Now it was Tuesday, and, whether they liked it or not, QLS had to get back to business.
“Julie, are you sure you’re okay to work today?” Kathleen asked with genuine concern. “You can take a few days off if you want. Maybe go back to be with your parents.”
“I’m fine,” Julie said. “I want to finish what Jeremy started. I owe him that.”
Kathleen nodded and smiled compassionately. “All right. Okay.” She glanced at Carlos. “Carlos is going to be with you here at all times. Right, Carlos?”
“Absolutely. In fact, from now on, I don’t want anyone here alone. We’ll use the buddy system just like we did in the Marines.”
“Julie,” said Kathleen. “Any luck recovering an uncontaminated DNA sample from that spill on the floor? I realize it’s a long shot.”
“I wiped up what I could from the drain grate with Chem-wipes, washed them with chloroform into a 500 milliliter beaker, and looked for DNA.” She shrugged. “It was a mess.”
“I figured,” Kathleen said glumly. “But it was worth a try.”
For a fleeting moment, Kathleen’s thoughts flashed back to what Jeremy had said in the ambulance. He could barely speak and was in unbelievable pain, yet, for some reason, he’d made a point of telling her that he hadn’t cleaned up. It was such a strange thing for him to say, given the circumstances. She dismissed the thought. She needed to focus! The annual shareholders’ meeting was less than a week away, and the events of the past two days were likely to shake many of the investors. If they didn’t have some positive news to report by next week, QLS was almost certainly doomed.
“I’ll keep trying,” Julie said. “I’ll add some PCR solution and put it in the thermocycler. Who knows, maybe we’ll get something.”
Something clicked in Kathleen’s mind. “Wait a second,” she exclaimed, straightening in her chair. “The thermocycler!” She was referring to the piece of equipment used to cycle PCR samples through the rapid temperature fluctuations needed to achieve PCR amplification of a DNA sample.
“What about it?” said Julie, obviously confused.
Kathleen stood and began pacing quickly beside the table. “Jeremy said something strange to me in the ambulance. He said he hadn’t cleaned up.”
“Well, of course not,” Julie said, scrunching her eyebrows together. “I mean, he got shot!”
“Right. It didn’t make any sense to me either. It was such a trivial thing for him to say given the situation. Unless—” She froze in mid-sentence.
Julie’s eyes widened too, recognition passing over her face. “He didn’t clean the thermocycler!”
“Uh, you guys want to fill me in here?” said Carlos, looking back and forth between the two women.
“Julie!” said Kathleen. “Refill the comb wells with PCR solution and run it through thirty cycles. No, wait . . . make it sixty. I’ve got to go downtown this morning, but don’t wait for me. Get started right away.”
Julie was already getting up from her chair. “I’m on it.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Rockville, Maryland.
“You’ll need to leave that cell phone at the security window over there,” said the guard at the X-ray machine.
Kathleen nodded and collected her personal items from the X-ray belt at the front entrance to the Montgomery County Municipal Center. Her mission this morning was to look at suspect photographs, as requested by the police detective investigating Jeremy’s shooting.
“Stupid rule,” she muttered, making her way to the security window adjacent the elevators. Behind a thick pane of bulletproof glass, a skinny young man in a security uniform was reading a hardcover book, his head resting heavily on his hand. Kathleen surrendered her cell phone to him and received, in exchange, a yellow plastic tag with the number 33 on it.
“Dr. Sainsbury?”
Kathleen turned to see a tall, clean-cut man by the elevators. She recognized him as one of the Montgomery County police detectives she’d talked to the night of the shooting. He had thin blond hair and a long, pale face. He shook
her hand and re-introduced himself as Detective Philip Andersen of the Montgomery County Police Department.
Kathleen and Detective Andersen took the elevator to the second floor, where they exited and proceeded to Room 202. It was a small, unadorned room containing four chairs lined up on one side of a rectangular table. A computer and a nineteen-inch flat-screen monitor sat atop the table, facing the chairs.
One chair was already occupied.
“Good morning, Dr. Sainsbury,” said Special Agent Wills politely, standing up to face Kathleen as she entered the room. He was impeccably dressed, as always.
“I thought you were with the FBI,” Kathleen said.
“I am. As I said the other night, we’re working this case together with the Montgomery County police.” He gestured toward Detective Andersen. “On account of it being related to the incident on U Street last week.”
“Related? How?”
“Through you,” said Wills matter-of-factly.
Kathleen was sorry she’d asked.
Detective Andersen directed Kathleen to one of the chairs at the center of the table, and he and Wills sat down on either side of her. “Dr. Sainsbury,” Detective Andersen began, “I’m going to be showing you pictures of possible suspects we have on file. We’ve narrowed these down based on your description of the shooter and the type of weapon that was used. Stop me if any of them look like the man you saw the other night, okay?”
Kathleen nodded that she would.
Using the mouse and keyboard, Andersen navigated through a series of windows on the computer screen, entering passwords and bits of information until, finally, a digital photograph appeared on the screen of a scowling man with angry eyes and wild hair.
