Powder Burn

by Blake Banner

  “What’s up?”

  She came to a halt a few feet from me, shaking her head. “You are a really obstinate man, Lacklan.”

  “Don’t beat around the bush, say what you really mean.”

  “What more can I do to convince you that I am telling the truth?”

  “Are you really asking me, or are you telling me there is no more you can do?”

  She closed her eyes, took a very deep breath and let it out slow. “I am, genuinely, asking you.”

  I nodded a few times. “Well, it might help if you stopped trying to justify something that has no justification.”

  Her face went real serious.

  “I have heard a hundred and one explanations for an unfortunate error of judgment. I haven’t heard a single person say that they feel like shit because these kids died through your collective ambition, egotism and incompetence.”

  “That is very harsh.”

  “It is also very true. Why don’t you try to convince me that you care more about Hattie’s life, and Hans’ life, and Zack and Bran’s, than your goddamn experiment? Why don’t you try to convince me that you care more about them than justifying your total lack of concern for the fact that you were playing with their lives?”

  She was very still, staring just past me at an empty space in the air. After a moment she gave a small nod. “Yes.”

  “You don’t need to convince me that you’re telling the truth. I know you’re sincere. But what troubles me is that you think it’s enough that your intentions were not bad. And I will never be OK with you, Lucia, until I know that you realize it is not OK to use other people’s lives to satisfy your own ambitions. I have two questions for you.”

  She raised her eyes to meet mine. When she spoke it was almost a whisper. “What?”

  “How come you didn’t take the powder yourself? How come the three of you aren’t the world’s greatest, most accomplished geniuses?”

  Her cheeks flushed and she looked away.

  “What made it OK for them to take the powder, but not you?”

  “You made your point. I am really, genuinely ashamed.”

  I nodded, then asked, “My second question: how much do you know about Martin Sykes?”

  She looked surprised. “Nothing at all. He works for the Ceres Corporation. Why?”

  I shook my head. “I have to go.” I opened the car door. “Take my advice, Lucia, distance yourself from those guys. They are bad news.”

  I climbed in and drove home to talk to Kenny.

  TWENTY

  Kenny had taken the Zombie back to Weston to have it fixed, and left me with the more sedate Aston Martin DB9. It had only 550 bhp and comparatively slow acceleration at 0 to 60 in four and a half seconds, but it was a car I liked. It was handsome and it had heritage.

  I had also contacted Philip Gantrie, an IT genius my father had put me in touch with before he died. He had helped me out a few times in the past, and I had a hunch he might become useful. I had outlined the situation to him and asked him to stand by.

  The next morning, I parked near the corner of W 120th and Broadway and made my way to the New John Jay Science Building. I pushed through the doors and took a moment to look around. Great, warped slabs of light lay across the floor from the huge, plate glass windows. There were a few clusters of people here and there, but the place was largely quiet.

  I had already chosen my position from which I would watch the people arriving at the conference. It was opposite the two doors with my back to the staircases, so that I would be invisible, but I would have a good view of everyone in the line for the door. The sumo wrestlers were on duty again and must have recognized me, because they remained immobile and impassive as I approached and went through into the auditorium.

  Sykes was on the other side of the door and turned as I went in. He gave me the once over and said, “What d’you want? You’re supposed to be on the other side o’ this door.”

  “Show me the other doors, back stage.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “If I leave this auditorium, Sykes, it will be to go to the 43rd Precinct in the Bronx, to give them the information I have on you. They will come and take you in for questioning, just when your boss needs you the most. And while you are busy losing your job, I will go and check the doors. Your call.”

  He didn’t answer. He took me back stage and showed me the only door there was, which led from a corridor into a small reception room and office. It was locked. I said, “Give me the key.”

  He sighed. He really wanted to do something bad to me. I held out my hand and he gave me the key.

  “When do the dynamic duo arrive?”

  “They’re here. They’re with Dr. Salcedo. They have two men with them.”

  I didn’t answer. I knew Charlie wouldn’t do anything until the conference was under way, until they were both on the stage, where everybody could see them. Instead, I said, “I want one of the doors to the auditorium closed and locked. I want everyone bottlenosed into one door and slowed down there so I can see them.”

  He nodded. “Nay problem.”

  By the time I crossed the auditorium again and stepped back into the foyer, it was ten thirty and people were beginning to gather. I did a quick scan of the room, but I didn’t want to scare him off before I had a chance to get a hold of him, so I pulled up a chair in the shadows, beneath and behind the staircases, and settled to wait. Five minutes after that, Troyes and Fokker showed up with Lucia. They were deep in conversation, but Lucia was scanning the room and saw me. She broke away from them, came over and hunkered down beside me.

  “Any news?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing.”

  “Lacklan, after the conference, can we talk? What you said to me yesterday, it struck home.” She smiled in a way that was rueful. “You have a way with words. Like everything else you do, it’s brutal, but effective.”

  I didn’t rise to the bait. I nodded. “After the conference, we’ll talk. Right now, let’s stay focused on making sure Charlie doesn’t get killed.”

  She nodded and went to rise.

  I said, “Lucia?”

  She stopped. “Yeah?”

  “If you really want to help, keep an eye on Sykes. He’s a professional killer. If he didn’t kill those kids with his own hands, he organized it. Keep a watch on him for me today.”

  She had gone very serious. “Are you sure about that?”

  I nodded. “I know who he is.”

  “I should tell Francoise and Wolfgang…”

  I shook my head. “No, Lucia, they already know.”

  Her frown deepened. “I can’t believe…”

  “Don’t do anything at all until after the conference. Just keep an eye on Sykes for me.” I took a hold of her hand. “And don’t do anything that will put you at risk.”

  After a moment she smiled.

  I went on. “Charlie won’t make it into the auditorium. But if he does, you get out of there immediately, understood?”

  She nodded. “Understood. I’d better get inside. Paul will be arriving soon.”

  I watched her hurry to the door. Sykes met her there, they exchanged a few words, and he and the Sumo Twins started setting up the door, and the line started forming to go in.

  A moment later, two Secret Service guys arrived and took up positions on either side of the door. From where I was sitting, I could just see the stage, with the long table set up at the back and the lectern at the front. At that point, there was nobody on the stage.

  There had been something nagging at my mind, troubling me since the day before. Charlie was smart. He had always been smart, that was how he got into Columbia. Alpha-G powder had added considerably to his intelligence. It had made him super smart. A genius. But he didn’t just have an IQ that would incinerate a roast. He had street smarts, too. He excelled in the fighting arts. He knew about strategy and tactics. That was why, where the other four had died, he had survived, and now gone on the offensive. In a few days, he had
turned from prey to predator.

  All of that was fine and made sense with his background, but what didn’t make any sense at all was what I was looking at, from where I sat. There was no way that Charlie could successfully get into that auditorium and kill Troyes and Fokker.

  If it were a case of his being able to kill them but not get away with it, I might just buy it and chalk it up to passion and the need for revenge. But he wasn’t even going to get that. He wasn’t even going to get into the auditorium. And he knew that. He had to know it, because he was smarter than any of us, and he would be anticipating everything that we were thinking and doing.

  But whichever way I turned it, and whichever way I looked at it, I couldn’t see his play.

  At twenty to, they started letting people in. I studied each face individually, and each body. So far, he wasn’t there. Inside the theater, I saw Troyes and Fokker come out and stand by the table, talking. O’Brien followed and joined them. He had two more Secret Service guys with him, and they took up positions on either side of the stage, looking out at the audience. I took that in at a glance and kept scanning the faces and the bodies that were slowly passing in front of me. Charlie was not among them.

  The line was moving slowly, and I began to study the people further back, one at a time. He was not there, and a voice in my head kept telling me it was logical. He would not be there any more than I would if I had decided to hit Troyes and Fokker. Even if I was determined to make a public exhibition of them. Hitting them there and then was stupid. It was more than stupid, it was impossible.

  And the more I thought that, the more I began to feel that something was very wrong. I got up, made my way around the staircases and took in the whole line as it curled around the foyer and out the main door. There was no sign of him.

  Slowly, the end of the line started to move inside the building. Outside, among the gardens and the canals, people stopped showing up. The line was feeding through the door and, inside, the seats were filling up. Troyes was taking up his position to make his introductory speech. Lucia, Fokker and O’Brien were behind the table, talking and laughing. I walked the length of the line. I had examined every face and every body that had gone in. Charlie was not there.

  So maybe he had decided not to make the hit. Maybe he’d stopped taking the powder and its effects were wearing off.

  Maybe.

  The last fifteen people were moving through the door. Sykes was there, watching me. He shrugged the question at me, ‘What’s going on?’ I shrugged back that he hadn’t shown.

  Then, there was movement outside. I stepped behind a billboard announcing a talk on entangled gravity and peered through the plate glass. There was somebody running. It wasn’t a dash, just a steady run. He had a knapsack over his shoulder and a baseball cap on his head. He loped up the steps and came through the door, making for the line. I stepped behind him, between him and the exit, and spoke quietly.

  “Don’t move, Charlie. There’s nothing you can do. The place is crawling with security and Secret Service. It’s over, give it up.”

  He turned to face me. He looked calm. He showed me his knapsack, then spoke as he tossed it to me. “Here, check…” As I caught, it he said, “It has a bomb in it.”

  It was smart. It caught me off guard and I wasted three valuable seconds trying to process what he had said. During that time, he bolted for the door.

  I went after him. He sprinted south, toward the biology department. As I ran, I ripped open the bag. It might have blown me to bits, but there was nobody close enough to get hurt, and I figured I had no choice. As I suspected, there was nothing in it but a bunch of books. I dropped it and sprinted after Charlie. He was weaving and dodging among passers by, looking over his shoulder at me. His behavior seemed crazy and erratic, and I was closing on him. After the strength, speed and agility he had shown the other night, that surprised me.

  He dodged down past the Chemistry Department, headed towards the gardens around Alma Mater, and collided with a guy on a bike and they both went sprawling. I forced an extra turn of speed out of my legs and closed the gap. But he was on his feet again and running frantically toward the art gallery, and Amsterdam Avenue.

  He was maybe forty feet ahead of me and gasping for breath. I smoke, but I run ten miles every day and he didn’t stand a chance. I shouted to him, “Charlie! Stop! Give it up, goddamit! I’m trying to help you!”

  In the distance, I could hear sirens. That’s not unusual in New York and I thought nothing of it. I had gotten within six feet of him and I hurled myself at his legs in a rugby tackle. I wrapped my arms around his knees, squeezed tight, and he went down like timber, smashing his face on the sidewalk.

  I got up on one knee and he rolled on his back, groaning and staring up at the sky with unseeing eyes, wheezing through his mouth. All around, people were standing, staring. I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.

  “Are we done?”

  All he could do was groan and repeat, “Oh, Jesus! Oh, my head…”

  This was wrong. It was very wrong. The sirens were growing louder, down Amsterdam and Broadway. In the distance, I could hear a chopper, then two. I stared down toward the Alma Mater monument and saw two helicopters landing on the south lawn with armed men pouring out of them, running, sprinting toward the John Jay lecture theater. I stared down at Charlie, my mind reeling, uncomprehending. I said, “What the hell have you done?”

  He was trembling, sobbing, “I don’t know. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I don’t know what’s happening.”

  I heard screams coming from the direction of the lecture theater. People were running. Cops were streaming into the campus from Amsterdam, Broadway and College Walk, herding people, cordoning the area, talking on radios.

  Then the truth began to dawn on me. His speech patterns had been all wrong the other night and I hadn’t made the connection with the diary. I stared down at him. He was sobbing, staring around him. I shook my head. “You’re not Charlie Vazquez…”

  He shook his head. “I’m Joey Lopez. I’m just an actor, dude. They paid me a thousand bucks for the gig. They told me it would be OK. I didn’t know… all I had to do was turn up…”

  I dragged him to his feet and walked back toward the lecture hall, knowing what I was going to find there. Outside the main entrance, among the gardens, canals and fountains, the four hundred attendees had been herded together by Feds in body armor and Secret Service men.

  I shoved Joey toward them. “Go tell the Special Agent in charge everything you know.”

  “What…?”

  “Just do it.”

  I made my way past the crowd, moving toward where I had left my car. At the cordon of cops, I didn’t break my stride. I showed them my fake FBI badge and just kept walking.

  When I got to the Aston Martin, I climbed in and sat for a moment, staring at the wheel, trying to work out the ramifications, the consequences, what it meant. I reached out to fire up the engine and noticed the Cadillac parked a few cars down. I had seen it before, at Troyes’ place. I pressed the ignition and the big engine rumbled into life.

  Then there was a small huddle of people. Sykes, the two giants, a couple of Feds pressing their ears and talking into mikes. Then Troyes and Fokker, and Lucia, being hurried across the sidewalk toward the Cadillac. The two hulks got into a Jeep in front. Troyes clambered into the Caddy while Sykes got in the driver’s door. Fokker got in after Troyes. Then, as though in slow motion, I saw Lucia turn and look at me. She smiled and winked, then held out her arm and pointed her fingers at me like a gun. I saw her lips form the word, ‘POW’, and she climbed in after Fokker. A Fed in body armor closed the door after her and they took off.

  I was motionless. There was an appalling stillness everywhere, as though all the traffic and the people and the noise were happening in some parallel world. Where I was, there was only a ghastly, deadly stillness.

  A text message arriving on my phone startled me. I picked it up, only half aware of what I w
as doing, still struggling with the meaning of what had just happened. It was from an unknown number. I opened it and read it. My skin went cold and crawled up the back of my neck and my arms.

  I guess I win this round, Lacklan. You can’t win them all, can you, Bro?

  TWENTY-ONE

  I watched the meat wagon arrive and O’Brien’s body wheeled out at a run on the gurney. It was shoved in the back of the van and then they accelerated away, surrounded by motorcycle cops, with an unmarked car in front and behind.

  O’Brien had been the target all along, and I had been chosen as the witness. I had had to watch how they did it, and report back to Marni and Gibbons. O’Brien had been right. My work wasn’t finished yet.

  I called Marni. She answered at the second ring.

  “This is becoming a habit, Lacklan. What’s up? You missing me already?”

  “O’Brien is dead.”

  She was silent for a count of three, then said, “What?”

  “He was just murdered at a conference, at Columbia. He was going to be involved in a debate on testing some protein-based powder that allows alterations to DNA. Alpha-G. He was going to raise concerns about it… Marni, I think Omega are behind this. I think Ben is still alive.”

  “That’s insane, Lacklan. You killed him yourself. You saw him die. We both watched him buried.”

  “Did we?”

  “Lacklan, for God’s sake, don’t become paranoid!”

  I laughed without much humor. “What’s the old joke? ‘You’re not paranoid, Mr. Smith, everybody really is out to get you.’”

  “I’m serious, Lacklan. You’re allowing this to get to you.”

  “I was set up, Marni. I wasn’t framed, I was set up to witness O’Brien’s execution. I was played by Troyes, Fokker and Dr. Salcedo, for no other reason than to show me they could. There is only one person who could have wanted to do that. He wanted me to be here, to discover the experiments, to be present at O’Brien’s death. And just now he sent me this text…”

  I forwarded it to her.