Expectation (Ghost Targets, #2)

by Pogue, Aaron

  "Is that why you wanted to meet with the chief tonight?" Katie said, her hopes rising. "You ready to hand this back to her?"

  He walked a few steps in silence, his eyes on the path beneath his feet. Then he shook his head. "I don't know about that." He forced a weak smile. "I'm not in any hurry to get back to DC." A chuckle to match the smile, and then he sighed. "I don't see the chief letting go, anyway. And, truth be told, I want to know what the hell is going on here." He stopped and turned on his heel to look back toward the clinic one more time. He put his hands up on the bars and peered through the distance. "It may not be criminal, but something strange is going on here."

  "It's the secrets," Katie said. She could feel it, a deep disquiet at the power of the place. "But how much are they going to let us see?"

  Reed didn't answer for a long time. But when he finally tore his gaze from the clinic, Katie's question seemed to hit him all at once. His mouth curled up in a wicked grin that climbed into his eyes. "Sometimes I forget you're new to this," he said. He waggled a finger at her, then fell back into his easy pace toward the late-night cafe. "You're a good cop, Katie, and that makes me forget how much you don't know." He chuckled. "But this is what we do. It's not a question of how much they'll let us see, but what tools we will use to peek around their blindfolds."

  He fell silent for a moment, thinking. Then he started nodding, and said, "Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. I need to get you up to speed, and this is a perfect training ground. We're seeing this one through, Katie, if only for the practice."

  "I can live with that," she said, some of his enthusiasm finally reviving her spirits. Just then the black-and-white police car pulled around the corner up ahead, and flashed its brights at them twice. She sighed. "If I can get through tonight, anyway."

  He laughed and clapped her on the back, then pulled the door open for her. "You'll be fine," he said. "Thanks for the ride, Chief!"

  As soon as Katie ducked into the car, she regretted some of her honesty. Something in the chief's eyes told Katie she'd been listening in. By the time Reed settled beside her, though, the look was gone, replaced with an enthusiastic curiosity. She put a hand on his knee and said, "What did you find?"

  "Not a lot," he said, shaking his head. "I spent half my time in there trying to find a gap where I could get a Hathor connection on my handheld." Katie's eyes grew wide. She hadn't even thought to try. Reed went on, "But there was nothing. They have that facility locked down, and they know what they're doing. Now, as far as Barnes goes—"

  "I know," Hart said. "I heard." She turned her gaze out the window to the dark night. Katie saw her hands clench in fists. "There's something here, Agent Reed. Barnes had a perfect medical history. I don't know if you've had a chance to look at it in Hippocrates, but it's not just that this was unexpected. They checked. As important as he was to this program, they checked him for damn near everything. And he was clean." She shook her head. "Maybe you didn't see it. They pulled access to those tests once I started pushing for a more thorough investigation."

  "Of what?" Katie said, and her voice carried more of a bark than she'd intended. She tried to soften it. "I still don't understand what you want to investigate. The man's in a coma, with no sign of violence—"

  "That can be faked."

  "How?" Katie snapped.

  "Drugs," Hart said, snapping right back. "I guess you didn't bother to look too close, but I saw what could easily have been an injection mark on his neck."

  "And that could just as easily have been part of the medical response to his condition," Katie said. "Maybe the doctors did that. Besides, if he was poisoned, wouldn't it have shown up in Hippocrates?"

  "That depends. Whatever happened to him, it should have shown up in Hippocrates and it didn't. That's almost reason enough to believe it was engineered."

  "Engineered? How? I don't think you can't just invent a miracle poison—"

  "No?" Hart said, and she jabbed a thumb back in the direction of the clinic. "What do you think they do in there, all day, every day? What do you think those extraordinarily expensive tables are for? All you'd have to do is program a simulation on any of these tables, feed in your desired effects—a coma, say—and some key medical information about your patient—"

  Katie fell back, deflated. "And they have every last detail of his medical information."

  "Exactly," Hart said. "How hard would it be to make something up that would leave him like...like that?" For the first time since Katie had met her, the other woman looked weak. The chief turned away to dab at her eyes, and Katie dropped her gaze.

  After a moment, Hart went on. "That's why I want an investigation. They've got the means. I just want to know what happened."

  "But why would they block it?" Reed asked. "I understand they want to protect their secrets, but like you said, this guy was important to their project. Why would the army get in the way if there were anything suspicious?"

  "Ellie Cohn." She spit out the name like a curse. "She was the military liaison working with Barnes, and something in my gut tells me she's up to no good. If she wanted to stop an investigation, I imagine she'd have the pull to make it happen."

  "But what about the wife?" Katie said, leaning forward. "If Barnes's wife started pushing for an investigation, the army would be hard pressed—"

  Hart cut her off with a bitter laugh. "The wife," she said dismissively. "That woman is worse than the army. She's done with him, Miss Pratt. You can see it in her eyes when you talk to her. He's been unconscious for a couple weeks, and she's already walked away and started her life without him." She looked back to Reed, and her eyes were pleading. "There has to be some other angle."

  Reed thought about it for a while, then shook his head. "No," he said. "No, I'm pretty sure those are our two angles. But we may be able to bring a bit more strength to bear on them than you were." He looked over at Katie, considering, and said, "You've never been military, huh?"

  "Cop all my life, sir."

  He smiled at that. "I'll take Cohn, then. Can you handle the wife?"

  Katie had to fight down a contemptuous snort. She could handle the wife. Better than this police chief, she was sure of it. All she said was, "Yeah, I'll take a run at it."

  Reed nodded. "Good. Good. In the morning, of course. In the meantime, Chief Hart, I'd like to get a look at your records on the investigation so far."

  A delighted smile took Hart's face, even as the car slowed to a stop. "Of course, Agent Reed. Everything I have is yours." She pushed open the door and waved to the hotel entrance just outside. "Since we're already here, though, Miss Pratt can go ahead and get some sleep, if she wants." She turned that same dark gaze back on Katie again, and said too sweetly, "You look tired, dear."

  Katie smiled back, her own tight, and shook her head. "I'll be fine," she said. "Let's go to the station."

  Reed clapped her on the shoulder. "I like to see that enthusiasm," he said, "but you do look tired. And I'm not convinced you're completely recovered from your incident in Argentina. Go on up and get some sleep. I'll fill you in on the details tomorrow morning."

  She wanted to argue—she hated the thought of being dismissed by that woman—but she was tired, and not too enthusiastic about spending the rest of the night in close quarters with the chief. After a moment's tortured hesitation, she finally nodded her thanks to Reed and climbed out of the car. An instant later it sped away. She watched it go, then turned and headed into the hotel while her handheld checked her in and her headset told her the room number.

  Her headset woke her the next morning with the angry trill of an alarm. She answered it with her face still stuffed in the pillow. "I'm up! I'm up!" Then a moment later, "Ten more minutes." When it went off again, she threw the covers off her and sat up, hooking the headset over her ear.

  "Fine," she said, blinking bleary eyes. She grabbed her headset to check the time, 7:11 a.m., and found a voice message indicator. She sighed as she opened the message center on her handheld. "Play me R
eed's message. Thanks." She left it on, her boss talking quietly into her ear, while she got ready for the day.

  She was in the middle of brushing her teeth when it occurred to her to wonder, and she grabbed the handheld from its place on the counter. The message had come in at 5:04 a.m. It was twelve minutes long, probably the whole time he'd spent in the cab between the police station and the hotel. Reed had pulled an all-nighter. She shook her head while he filled her in on the complexities of the army's involvement.

  The investigation, as it stood, was currently in the wife's hands. While the army had a significant role in the clinic's operation, they couldn't release Barnes's medical information without the wife's consent, and she was aggressively withholding it. As the police chief had indicated, the army wasn't spending any real effort trying to compel her, primarily because their investigators had all the details they wanted through Barnes's role in the clinic. It was just the police and the public left out.

  That put some real pressure on Katie's morning. She had an appointment to meet the wife at her home in the suburbs, about an hour from then. Reed signed off with an apology, saying he would like to accompany her for the interview, but he had to meet with the army officer coordinating the clinic's research. Katie slipped into her jeans, pulled a gray sweater over a green t-shirt, and then slipped out into the hall.

  Before she pocketed her handheld, she pulled up Reed's handheld activity, just out of curiosity. He had obviously called her on his drive home last night and apparently been up doing his research for another half hour after that. He had set an alarm at 5:37 a.m. for six thirty, and he had an appointment at the military base at eight thirty. She shook her head, wondering how he would handle it.

  Then his voice spoke from her right shoulder. "Whatcha reading?" She looked up with a blush just as he recognized his own details. He chuckled. "Spying on your boss?'

  "Just wondering how you're going to handle a full day after the night you had."

  He lifted a white hotel mug to her in answer and took a long sip before he said, "Strong coffee." He took another and then nodded to her. "Come on, they've got a decent breakfast downstairs, and you've got a few minutes before you need to head out."

  She grabbed a bagel while he helped himself to the scrambled eggs, then they sat across from each other at a tiny table while he idly scrolled through a World Events news feed. She just watched him. His eyes were sharp and clear. He seemed relaxed, collected, and there was no sign of weariness, let alone the emotional wreck he'd been getting off the airplane yesterday. Eventually, she couldn't contain herself any more. "What's gotten into you?"

  "Hmm?" He glanced up at her, then blanked his handheld. "What do you mean?"

  "You're operating on an hour of sleep. You were a total mess yesterday afternoon, if you'll excuse my saying so. But right now, there's no sign of any of that."

  He tilted his head, considering, and then shrugged. "I'm working," he said. "I guess Rick taught me that. Going without sleep barely fazes me. Having to defend my loyalty, to answer for my friendship to a man barely six weeks dead, that's...that's not easy for me. But I'm good at my job." He tapped his handheld to get the time and nodded. "I've seen the same from you."

  Katie laughed. "I don't do well on an hour's sleep. I sure don't do this well!" She waved at him, his pressed suit, his perfect tie. "Anyway, I got your message, and listened through it. I think there's a pretty good chance I can get the wife to cooperate."

  "Don't be too sure," Reed said. "Dora has put in some serious time working on her, and she's gotten nowhere."

  Katie snorted. "Dora has a certain way about her." When Reed just looked blank, Katie sighed. "She's not good with women. I've seen it before, especially the kind of girl who gets to a position of authority like that." Reed frowned, and Katie blushed. "Fine, whatever. I'm telling you, this lady doesn't know how to talk to women. She would've put Mrs. Barnes on the defensive from the start, and that's no way to get access to private information."

  Reed sat back in his chair, a thoughtful frown dragging down a corner of his mouth. After a moment, he shrugged one shoulder. "There's a little bit more there. Dora likes the wife for the crime."

  "What?"

  "She thinks Mrs. Barnes might have done it. There's a financial motive, and it's very specific to his situation. You saw the setup they had at the clinic? As long as he's showing real brain function, the army has committed to keeping him on staff. Full-pay, full medical expenses. If he'd been killed, she'd be looking at a moderate life insurance settlement right now, but this coma he's in...it's a full paycheck. Long-term, it'll pay out ten times what his life insurance would have."

  Katie thought about it for a moment, chewing her lower lip, then shook her head. "That doesn't make sense. Without the coma, he'd be bringing in the same paycheck, right? And she'd still have her husband. Well..." She thought about his short evenings and his long days at the office. "Sort of."

  Reed shrugged. "Maybe there's trouble at home. Maybe he wasn't such a safe bet, long term. Or maybe it's all nothing, but I want you to see what you can find out. Given the curious nature of his current situation, it's worth at least looking into."

  "Will do," she said. She wadded up her napkin and wiped off her spot at the table, then jumped to her feet. "Okay," she said, "I'm off to see what I can see. Good luck with the men in green."

  He smiled back at her. "I'll be in touch."

  It was a twenty-minute drive to the Barneses' household. Katie spent it dividing her attention between the breathtaking vistas outside her window and a replay of Reed's late-night message. Knowing what she knew now about the chief's suspicions, Katie could hear the subtle hints of it in Reed's message. It was in phrases like "stubborn refusal to cooperate," and "withholding crucial evidence." Katie wasn't ready to adopt Hart's conclusions, though. The woman was protecting her husband's privacy—and he was one of the last men left in the world who really had any worth protecting. That didn't exactly sound like a crime to Katie.

  She felt that all the more strongly when the car pulled to a stop halfway down a suburban street, and she climbed out into the bright morning sunlight at the end of a well-tended gravel walk. Mrs. Barnes stood waiting in the doorway, and she gave a friendly wave when Katie met her eyes. "Come on in," she called, "I've got some breakfast on the stove."

  Just inside the door, Katie let out a contended sigh at the mixed aromas of cut wood and freshly baked cinnamon rolls. A fire crackled on an open hearth, welcome glow of warmth on the chilly morning. The walls were paneled in stained oak, the floors thickly carpeted with a deep blue pile. A stairway in the left-hand wall climbed to the living quarters, while the wall opposite the door was given entirely to dark-tinted picture windows that gave a shadowy panorama of the Rockies climbing into the sky.

  Katie followed Theresa to the right, up a step into the open dining room, and beyond that into a sprawling kitchen. Here the walls were painted sky blue, and the tile was white ceramic. Following Mrs. Barnes into the kitchen was like stepping back out into the brilliant spring morning after the rich, dark tones of the sitting room.

  Mrs. Barnes went straight to the stove, snapping the burner and the broiler off with two sharp twists of the wrist. She moved a frying pan full of scrambled eggs off the hot stovetop, then pulled a tray of cinnamon rolls out to cool. She took two china plates from the upper cabinet and turned to Katie with a smile.

  "Can I tempt you?"

  Katie smiled. "I really shouldn't. Besides, I ate at the hotel."

  "Oh, pshaw!" She waved dismissively and started preparing both plates. "That fake stuff? No. It was probably grown in a vat. You need to have a good meal in you."

  Before Katie could object further, Mrs. Barnes scooped up both plates and directed her with a nod toward a cozy breakfast nook at the far end of the kitchen, sunlight pouring in through three windows.

  "So," she said, sinking into a spindle-backed chair and pushing Katie's plate across the table. She raised an eyebrow, almost de
manding, and Katie finally sank down across from her.

  The other woman continued in a pleasant voice. "I understand you wish to press forward with my husband's investigation." She raised her eyebrow again. "Eat! Eat!" Again Katie relented, more to her own stomach than to the woman's urging. She took a bite of the sticky bun and rolled her eyes in delight.

  "Oh," she said. "So good!"

  "Thank you," Mrs. Barnes said, matter-of-fact. "Try the eggs. That's cayenne and just a drizzle of maple syrup. You'll love it." She watched until Katie took a bite then nodded once, satisfied. "Good," she said. "Now, Agent Pratt, as you can see, I'm a gracious hostess. I would love for you to spend some time here this morning, learning everything you can about my amazing husband. But if you've come here to get medical access to his body..." She leaned forward, hands clasped on the table, and her eyes flashed. "Then you've wasted your time."

  Katie wiped her mouth with a silk napkin and set it aside, then she met the woman's eyes. She smiled. She had a clever answer ready, but she set that aside, too. Instead, she said simply, "Why?"

  "Eric is a hero," she said, the answer ready on her lips. "He's a superstar. He's famous." She stopped, considering her hands, and shrugged. "He's famous, Agent Pratt, because he changed the world. He cured aging, and now he's languishing in a coma, living on a machine." She sighed. "If I gave access to him, if I took him out of the clinic, that story would be all over the news. I can't bear that. I can't let his whole legacy collapse to a statement of irony."

  Katie placed a comforting hand on the other woman's, sympathy in her eyes. "I understand your concern, Mrs. Barnes. It's noble of you." Theresa nodded with a sniffle, and Katie pressed on. "But there's a question of justice here. The police are confident some amount of foul play was involved in your husband's attack, and no matter how painful it would be to see him on TV—"