Poison Control

by Dom Testa

  “Do you need any further medical attention?” When I assured her I didn’t she asked, “What about transportation? Can you get back to where you need to go, or will I need to drive you?”

  “I can get back. Thanks for the help.” I explained who Aiken was, where he was, and his importance to the case. She took no notes and I knew she didn’t need to. Sanitation people were complete badasses in every way.

  And that was it. With just a nod and not another word, she left me and rejoined her partner. A pretty standard interaction with that secretive department.

  I pulled out my phone and called for a ride.

  Back in my room I took a long shower, carefully cleaning around the new red racing stripe running across my chest. Under the pounding hot water I allowed myself a few minutes to grieve for poor, love-struck Aiken. He’d gone from naive accomplice to wanna-be helper before settling into some vague middle ground.

  Now he was dead. And I had no more concrete information than when I’d returned to Phoenix. Just another name which might not even be right, and a connection that was completely unknown.

  I didn’t know where Steffan Parks and Jayanti Pradesh were hiding, and I didn’t know which water treatment plant could soon release deadly poison to an unsuspecting public.

  I’d now eliminated two of Steffan’s goons, so he’d need replacements. The next encounter would undoubtedly involve someone with more advanced skills in the thuggery department, and Troy had been pretty good. Parks had to know he was no longer playing in the minor leagues.

  Once out of the shower I ordered food and propped myself up on the bed. I called Christina and left a voicemail with a gooey goodnight and assurances that I missed her. I really did. Surviving a death match usually brought out my drippy tendencies, regardless of the fact that being on the losing side was a temporary setback for me. It still triggered some evolutionary need to reflect and appreciate.

  I hoped I’d never evolve out of that. Holding on to my little sliver of humanity through all of these various embodiments had recently become an obsession. Christina represented an anchor point. The day I stopped thinking of her when I was close to being killed would signal my transformation into a monster.

  Of course, a cynic might deduce that Q2’s insistence that field agents never enter into a long-term relationship — especially marriage — suggested they wanted us to make that transformation. Monsters may be scary, but they’re less likely to suffer from emotional baggage. I was designed as a killing machine; machines aren’t supposed to have a heart.

  And wasn’t that the issue with Data, the android on one of those Star Trek shows? He wanted to be more than, as he put it, a collection of circuits and sub-processors.

  Was Q2 pushing me in the opposite direction? Would I make a better employee if I didn’t rush to call my wife after almost getting killed?

  Okay, I probably would. I could damn them for their intent — if it truly was their intent — but even my emotional, sappy mind recognized the superior position such a shift would bring about. In fact, the truth was that I was probably just one step along the way to fully autonomous artificial intelligence in human form.

  Robot killers. Something akin to the Terminator and Westworld, to name some pop culture examples. Throw in HAL, the killer computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and you see that we have a long history of imagining artificial intelligence that does dirty work.

  And we often end up creating what we first imagine.

  When the food arrived I was almost too tired to eat. I managed a few bites of my club sandwich before shutting off the light and navigating a tortured, restless sleep.

  In the morning I got a call from Quanta.

  “So you got yourself cut,” she said without inquiring as to how I felt. “And lost another asset.”

  “He was a good guy,” I said with a little more mustard than I’d intended. “I’m sorry he’s gone.”

  “We can assume he was followed to his meeting with you yesterday. That’s when they confirmed he was an impediment to their plan.”

  I let out a resigned breath. “Yeah. Probably. I specifically told him to be careful about that, but Jonas was too naive when it came to Parks and way too trusting of Pradesh. I don’t think he ever believed she’d hurt him.”

  “So we can now write off your decision in San Antonio as flawed. You should’ve grabbed Parks when you had the chance.”

  I tamped down my temper. It wouldn’t do to piss off the boss right now, no matter how much I disagreed with her. Instead of erupting I said, “I don’t think so. We never would’ve found out about this Bailey person, or whatever their name is.”

  “You think Aiken’s life was a good trade for a murky name?”

  “Depends on if we’re able to catch Bailey or whoever he or she is. If that saves hundreds of lives, then yeah, I guess it was a good trade.” My voice was getting chippy again. I changed the subject. “Where are we with that motivation we talked about? Have we isolated a reason why Steffan Parks might choose an Arizona target?”

  “That’s why I called. Your thought process in this area, at least, may have paid off.”

  “So I’m not a total screw-up, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Not totally.” Most people would have a twinkle in their voice when they said this. Quanta stated it as fact.

  “You mentioned Parks and his galvanizing moments,” she said. “He does have a history of lashing out directly at people he feels have harmed him. His murder of Leon Haas is but one example.”

  “Right,” I said. “So something associated with Arizona, or specifically the Phoenix area, had to inspire him to bring his poison here. What was it?”

  Quanta said, “We went back over his history with the United States government. Since winning his awards he’d been very well compensated through grants and other programs. Most of it quite lucrative, actually.

  “But when things began to fall apart, those programs were gradually cut back and then completely eliminated. The killing blow, so to speak, was when he lost a substantial, multi-year grant for research and development of one of his desalination devices.”

  I’d been staring out my hotel room window, listening to this. Now I sat down. “And?”

  “And the woman who led the committee that eventually revoked his grant was a representative by the name of Suzanne Thresh. Congresswoman Thresh also delivered the censure of Steffan Parks when he submitted his plan for a military application of his tabun-laced poison.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, now riveted. “Let me guess: Congresswoman Thresh is from Arizona.”

  “That’s correct,” Quanta said. “And she’s scheduled to speak at a fundraising dinner in Mesa tomorrow night.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I sat back in my chair, absorbing this news.

  We had no proof this was the connection we were looking for. But it was all we had and, at least in my mind, it was everything. And it might shrink our search area from an entire state to a suburb of Arizona’s most populous city.

  Mesa itself was not tiny by any measure. With more than half a million people it was not only the largest suburb in the country, it was one of the largest cities, period.

  And now it might be ground zero for a madman.

  Quanta and I discussed this briefly. She stressed that nothing was confirmed yet, and that it was still possible another city would be the target. But I could tell she was equally confident that we’d found our motivating factor.

  We had to be sure. There were too many lives at risk to ignore other possibilities.

  “What about the three suspected accomplices you told me about? Hart, Oosterhaus, and Franks. One of them must work for Mesa Water.”

  She let out a frustrated breath. “No. Hart is in Tucson, Oosterhaus is in Chandler, and Franks is in Phoenix. All three of them have been checked in terms of criminal record, and, other than speeding tickets and other minor infractions, they’re all clean.”

  “Shit,” I muttered. “
They could’ve made this a lot easier.”

  We hung up. I looked at the remains of my barely-touched dinner from the night before and realized how hungry I was. Waiting around for room service was out of the question. I got dressed and went downstairs to the hotel restaurant for some overpriced French toast and copious amounts of coffee.

  Just as I was sopping up a puddle of syrup with the last piece of toast, I sensed a presence next to my table. Looking up it took me a moment before the name came back to me.

  “Agent Kowalczyk. This has to be the most remarkable coincidence in history. You’re staying at this hotel, too?”

  She smirked at my dripping sarcasm.

  “Because,” I said, setting down my fork and wiping the corner of my mouth with a napkin, “there’s no way you’d be assigned to help me here in Arizona without someone telling me. Right?”

  She pulled up a chair and sat down.

  “Don’t be mad at me, Eric. I have to follow orders just like you. You do follow orders, don’t you? Or are you the wild mustang we always read about, the maverick who goes his own way?”

  I answered by sipping my coffee in silence.

  “For what it’s worth,” she said, “I’m not trying to horn in on your assignment. I was just told the agent I worked with in San Antonio might need another set of eyes and ears.”

  “Good thing you have a full set of each. What else were you told?”

  “That the suspects we dealt with in Texas are now in Phoenix and perhaps attempting to poison a large number of people. They said you’d fill me in on the rest.”

  I grunted. “Oh. So I’m supposed to finish the briefing, too.”

  “Might make it easier for me to help if I’m not guessing.” She paused, then added softly, “Look, I’m sorry if you’re angry. But I didn’t ask to be sent here.”

  She was right, and I was being an ass for no reason. I just hated it when Quanta sprang things on me. She tended to do that when she felt I’d dropped the ball. Which, if I looked at things from her perspective, I could grudgingly understand.

  I tossed my napkin on the table. “All right. It’s just a surprise, that’s all. I’ll pull up my big boy britches and get over it. Things have just been . . . challenging in the last 24 hours.”

  This produced an empathetic look from Kowalczyk. Professional operatives, regardless of the agency, all dealt with the same challenges I’d hinted at. When someone had a bad day, everyone knew what that usually meant.

  “Unless you’re in a hurry, I’ll get some coffee, too, and you can give me the highlights,” she said. “I just flew in and I’m pretty exhausted.”

  “Of course.” I caught the attention of the server and had him bring a fresh pot to the table.

  Over the next 20 minutes I explained as much of the case as I could, leaving out certain elements that Kowalczyk — Kat, if I remembered correctly — wasn’t privy to. My murder in Scottsdale was one example. Anything about my agency, for that matter.

  Much of the background on Parks she’d been told; the killings in Santa Fe, however, were news to her. When I got to the part about Jonas’s death in the public restroom she cringed.

  “That’s a shame,” she said. “I only had to babysit him for a while, but he was a likable guy, in a dorky kind of way.”

  I nodded. “Got a bit too attached myself. And I’m supposed to know better than that.” Taking a deep breath I plunged forward. “So now we’re dealing with Congresswoman Thresh coming to town. All the signs point to Parks planning something spectacular with her appearance.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think it makes more sense than assuming he just picked a city out of a hat. But really, I don’t see that we have much choice. We can’t cover dozens of water plants. We’re going to reinforce security at every treatment plant in and around Mesa.

  “And when did you say Thresh is here?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow night. That gives us less than 36 hours to save the day.”

  I fell silent after that, deep in thought. Kowalczyk picked up on my mood.

  “You seem perplexed,” she said. “Something else bothering you?”

  “Yeah. It’s too easy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  It took me a moment to put my thoughts into words. “Think about it. Parks has known we were on his trail for a few days now. He has to know we’ve figured out his beef with the congresswoman. And with all that, he has to know we’ll have security teams three deep around every place he could try his poison trick.”

  Kat ran a finger around the top of her coffee cup, considering this. Then she said, “Maybe we’re thinking too big. What if Parks isn’t staging some bombastic act of terrorism, but instead just wants to take out Thresh. Maybe find a way to poison her at the banquet.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  I shrugged. “Look, we don’t really know shit, and we haven’t from the get-go. Everything we’ve learned has been stitched together from tiny pieces here and there. It’s one of the most frustrating cases I’ve handled. It would be one thing if we knew for sure what Parks had planned. But we don’t know what or where.”

  I sat back and ran a hand through my hair. “No, it has to be something big. Otherwise he wouldn’t have had that special device developed in Texas. That means he’s up to more than just poisoning one water glass.”

  With that I picked up my own glass of water on the table and examined it. “I don’t like having to react every time. It would be nice to be proactive just once on this case.”

  Kowalczyk nodded. She mixed some half-and-half into her fresh cup of coffee and stirred it thoughtfully for a moment. “So what the hell do we do next?” she asked.

  I sat back. “Kat, that’s the best question yet. Part of me believes the next move isn’t ours.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s something about Parks and Pradesh that makes me think I’m going to hear from one of them. The more they live this lifestyle, the more I think they want to flaunt it.”

  “The downfall of most idiotic criminals,” Kat said.

  “He knows we’re scrambling for anything right now. And since he’s lost another team member — this Troy guy — Parks will probably want to put on an act that it doesn’t trouble him.”

  My new partner laced her fingers together on the table and asked, “What do you need me to do?”

  I gave it some thought before answering. “I’ll tell you what; you know those potential allies of Parks who work in the water treatment industry?”

  “You want me to check them out?”

  “Yeah. In fact, would you go and actually talk with a couple of them? Hart strikes me as just a loudmouth crybaby, plus he’s down in Tucson. I think we can back-burner him for the moment. But the other two, Oosterhaus and Franks, could be candidates.”

  “And where are they?”

  “Chandler and Phoenix. Maybe they have nothing to do with Parks, but an eyeball-to-eyeball meeting can stir things up. Remember, none of the people involved in this were professional criminals before all this started. They’re supposedly just nerdy scientists. A visit from an FBI agent could shake one of them up to the point where you get something useful.”

  “Okay, I’ll get right on it.”

  I thanked her and said I’d forward their names and departments.

  We got up to leave, and she put a hand on my forearm.

  “Oh, someone said to tell you hello. He would’ve been the one flying here to help you but he’s tied up with another case. Said he worked with you recently, though.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Agent Fife.”

  I had to laugh. “That son of a bitch. Ask him if he’s getting better at being on time.”

  Another run sounded good, especially since the one the day before had ended in such a nasty way. But it also felt like time had become too precious. A workout would have to wait until everything played out.

  I
nstead I sat down at the desk in my room and began making notes the old-fashioned way. On a piece of hotel stationery I scribbled out a few columns. At the top of the first I put Santa Fe; next to that Arcetri; and finally Mesa/Thresh.

  For the next hour I listed what we knew — even if it was scant information — below each heading. Regardless of its perceived importance, it went on the page. It was mostly a depressing exercise, but one that had served me well in the past. Many times a clue or vital tidbit hid within notes like these, and it took actually looking at them to make something click.

  This was the real work of an agent, anyway. Talking with Christina I once compared it to a football game, where the vast majority of the clock was spent in the huddle, walking back to the huddle, or just standing around. If you condensed all the plays, I told her, a 60-minute NFL game — which takes about three hours in real time — had less than 11 minutes of action.

  You invest three hours of your life to savor those 11 minutes.

  An agent for Q2 was expected to think his/her way through the bulk of a case just to get into a position where the action counted. We didn’t spend all day fighting criminals; most of our time was spent figuring out where the hell they were.

  The Santa Fe column intrigued me. We’d assumed that was just a layover for Parks and Pradesh, a quick revenge killing before focusing on the main event. Now I wondered if there was more that could be attached to those deaths. Specifically, the importance of the person or persons who’d done the deeds. Was the same person responsible for the Marquart Labs murders and the killing of David Torres? Was it a small team?

  And would Stacey Haas be the next to go? Did we need to warn her, maybe even hide her for the time being?

  All of these thoughts shifted my attention to the next column. I thought about this group of pissed off scientists, calling themselves by a name that, to them, represented the ultimate in repression and humiliation of the sciences. When Aiken first told me about the Arcetri I hadn’t assigned much concern to them or their ‘cause.’ Now there were four more bodies added to the count, more than doubling the Santa Fe tally, and suddenly I couldn’t take these angry lab coats lightly any more.