“Now I’ve got a question,” I said.
“Great.”
“Could Minor Roar have escaped from your lab?”
Her eyes lashed onto mine. “What do you know about Minor Roar?”
“Ellen told me about it.”
“Goddamnit.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“How about none of your business?”
“How about answer the question, or I call Rita Alvarez with a story?”
“Enough.” There was iron in her voice now. Chicago steel. And I knew, for the first time, who had the grit to take CDA where it needed to go.
“If Minor Roar had escaped from our lab,” Molly said, “it would have presented itself in Chicago. There’s no evidence of that.”
“Ellen told me it shares an almost identical DNA signature with the released pathogen.”
“ ‘Almost’ is the key word. There are dozens of organisms that have a similar genetic structure to what we’re seeing on the West Side.”
“So it’s a coincidence?”
“Not a coincidence. Just a different branch on the same genetic tree. But definitely not Minor Roar. Or somehow sprung from Minor Roar.”
“Does Ellen agree with you?” I said.
“Of course she does. Now, where is she?”
“I don’t know. Ellen also told me she left you a possible vaccine. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“Then what are you waiting for? Hold your press conference and be a hero.”
“You think that’s what this is about?”
I didn’t respond.
Molly inched closer. “Is that what you think?”
“I try not to.”
“If Ellen contacts you, please let us know.” Molly pushed the folder on Gilmore an inch in my direction. “Meanwhile, there’s Mr. Gilmore.”
“Yes, there is.”
“Find him, Michael. And you’ll find the person behind the pathogen.”
CHAPTER 55
I drank my coffee and watched Molly melt into the morning fog. My cell phone chirped. I didn’t recognize the number and didn’t answer.
I left the shop and walked north on Plymouth Court. The unmarked cruisers were still at the end of the block. Lights still flashing. I walked over to a silver Crown Vic with tinted glass. Vince Rodriguez popped the locks, and I eased into the front seat.
“You responsible for this?” I said.
“Shooter sees all the blue, he thinks twice.”
“Thanks for helping out.”
“Not a problem. Molly Carrolton just walked by.”
“I know.”
“You want someone on her?”
“Leave her.”
“All right. You want to tell me who it is that wants to pop your ass?”
“Might be better if you didn’t know.”
“Might be better if I did.”
Rodriguez was right. At least from where he sat. So I told him about the man with the limp.
“His name was Robert Crane. Homeland Security ID. I suggested he take an early retirement. He was more than happy to disappear.”
“Probably should have killed him.”
“That what you would have done?”
“No. Sounds good, though, doesn’t it?”
“Someone in Washington is nervous, Vince.”
“If they only knew how little you know.”
“Not quite.” I pulled out the report on Gilmore and tossed it across the car. “Molly got a DNA hit on the cigarette I gave her. Former operative for the Agency.”
Rodriguez’s eyes glowed as he read through the file.
“She also got an address.” I took out the slip of paper Molly had given me and held it between my fingers. “Says he might be holed up there right now.”
Rodriguez whistled. “Goddamn.”
“Exactly.”
CHAPTER 56
Molly’s address turned out to be a small warehouse in an industrial park on the northwest edge of the city. The park itself had been shut down for a couple of years. Yet another TIF project, waiting to go into someone’s patronage pocket.
Rodriguez had wanted to come with, but we both knew it was better if he didn’t. So I drove to the address alone and sat in an empty parking lot. Storm clouds grumbled overhead, and it smelled like rain. The package Ellen had given me lay on the seat beside me. I pulled it open and reread the note she’d written. Ten minutes later, I locked up the car and walked toward the warehouse.
The west side was a long face of tired brick. There was a loading dock at the south end, with a double set of rolling doors secured by a heavy chain and padlock. Beside the dock was a single green door. I crept up and turned the knob. Locked. I thought about trying to pick it. Then I just kicked it in.
The room was large, with high ceilings and wooden stairs that led to an open loft. Dull light filtered in from windows cut just under the pitch of the roof. The rest of the room was painted in varying degrees of shadow ending in black. I ran my hand across a wall of rough stone. The floor was broken cement and dirt. The smell of stale grease and cut metal hung in the air. To my left was a large dark lump. I reached out and felt the curved groove of a lathe. An old machine shop.
My eyes drifted up and into the loft. A lamp lit a desk. There was a laptop on it, and a spread of papers. To the left of the desk was a fire exit. The door was ajar, rocking lightly on its hinges.
I took the steps two at a time. My eyes swept over the desk on my way to the door. I pushed it open and stared down a run of black iron stairs that led to a dirt parking lot. The lot was empty. I hadn’t heard a car start. And I should have. Instead, there was gun in my ribs and a voice at my shoulder.
“Why aren’t you more surprised, Kelly?”
He stripped off my coat and checked to see if I was wearing a vest. Then he lashed my wrists together and threw me in a chair. I could see out a window to my left. An old tree, polished branches naked against the darkening sky. A hard patter of sudden rain. I looked back at the man I knew as Peter Gilmore. He was long and angular, with hard, crusted features and a salt-and-pepper buzz cut. My gun was in one hand. His own, in the other.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“What was that?” I said.
“Why weren’t you more surprised when I stuck that gun in you?”
“Next time I’ll make sure to faint.”
“You come here alone?”
“Go on outside and check.”
He seemed to think about that, then shifted my gun to his belt.
“I got a question,” I said.
“I bet.”
“Why?”
“That all you want to know?”
I nodded. Gilmore shrugged. It was my dime. And it wouldn’t play for very long.
“Money,” he said. “If you knew that, maybe you wouldn’t be in the chair.”
“The body bags?”
“A little cash on the side.”
“What about the Fours’ drug stash?”
“Now that’s gonna be a lot of cash on the side.”
“It was a mistake, Gilmore.”
“You’re gonna lecture me about mistakes?”
“Whoever paid you to release the pathogen isn’t gonna like all the extras. Gonna get around someday to thinking you’re a liability.”
“Insurance, Kelly. Gotta have it. And I do. But thanks for the concern.” He waited a beat, to see if I’d make things any more fun. Then he tightened the skin around his eyes and pulled back on the trigger.
The first round hit me in the shoulder. My head snapped to the left and back. I could see the desk behind Gilmore, tilting crazily in liquid swirls of light. I leaned to the right and managed to keep the chair upright. His eyes were back, flat and empty, sitting at the other end of the gun barrel. I zoomed in on the cut iron of the hammer pulling back a second time, then snapping forward. A boom in my ears. Compression in my chest. And a Chicago summer floated in. Grass cut fresh. I
was kneeling in the on-deck circle, looking back to talk to my coach. Jimmy McDonald hit a single. I turned at the sound and caught his bat flush in the temple. I fell to the ground and looked up. There was nothing there. Nothing but blue sky, and my brother’s voice.
Except this wasn’t a bat. It was a bullet. And Philip wasn’t here. Just me. Falling backward. The desk toppling until it was standing on its head. Then a row of rafters, slabs of scarred wood, laid across the ceiling. After that it was over and down, heels first through a hole in the floor. The tunnel, black and smooth. The fall itself, fast. A long way up, I could still see the gun. Eyes like boreholes above it. Hammer falling. Always falling. There were voices in my ear. Images reflected in the stygian gloom. I tried to stop my fall, but couldn’t. Silence pressed against my skin. The physical weight of falling. And the wind. Without a shred of pity. Then the fall stopped. I lay in the darkness. Darkness became light. And then they were one. And that one was nothing.
CHAPTER 57
My eyes moved under their lids, then opened. I saw tiny honeycombs of white. Soft cells stretching around my face, enveloping. A voice scratched at my consciousness. I wiggled my hands, pinned to my sides. I was lying on what felt like a wooden floor, wrapped head to toe in plastic bubble wrap. The voice scratched again. It was Ellen, talking through a micro-receiver tucked into my ear.
“Can you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I whispered and hoped Gilmore wasn’t standing over me giggling.
“Good. Just give me a minute.”
The package Ellen had given me contained a “smart shirt”-one of CDA’s prototypes made with a weave of carbon nanofiber. Testing showed it could take a. 40-caliber round at fifteen feet. I moved my shoulder. Deflect, yes. Entirely bulletproof, no. All in all, however, no complaints.
“Michael, the shirt detected some loss of blood and released a little Adrenalin into your system. Your vitals look fine, but I’m going to give you another spike. Should wake you up. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I was shot twice. Might have gotten clipped in the shoulder. Or at least bruised.”
“Can you move?”
I wiggled my fingers again. “Give me a minute.”
Ellen fell silent. I felt for the small knife I’d stashed in a pocket along my thigh. Gilmore hadn’t bothered to check me for weapons. Why would he check a man he’d shot point-blank in the chest? It was a couple of minutes’ work to get the knife into the palm of my hand. Another minute to cut myself loose. I was in a small room, just off the main space on the second floor. Someone was typing in the next room. Gilmore. Probably figured he’d finish up some paperwork, wait until it got dark, and dump me somewhere. Fuck him. I crept to the door and took a look. He was fifteen feet away, back to me, working at his desk.
I edged out of the room and across the floor. I had the knife. There was a gun at Gilmore’s elbow. It was still raining, harder now, and the sound of it against the windows covered my approach. I got to within two feet before I saw his shoulders tense. He grabbed for the gun and turned. But it was too late. I cracked him across the side of the head with the brass butt of the knife. He fell sideways off the chair and hit the floor hard. I was on him quickly. He tried to turn his body, but I was behind and had the leverage. I slipped my good arm around his neck, fitting his Adam’s apple into the crook of my elbow. Then I squeezed.
He snapped his head back, hoping to break my nose. I kept the pressure on. He struggled to his feet. I stayed with him. We circled backward and to the right, locked together in a staggering sort of dance. His arm swept a stack of papers off his desk. His hand pawed at my face. I bit his finger. He went to a knee. I hung on. It had been fifteen seconds. His brain was begging for blood. Oxygen. He tried once more, rearing up, slamming me into a wall. Then he crumpled to the floor and was done.
I flex-cuffed one arm and leg to a chair. He sat forward, head lolled against his chest.
“Ellen?”
“I’m here.”
She had listened to the struggle and never said a word.
“I’ve got him tied up.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Who else knows I’m here?”
“No one. Just like I promised.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, Michael.”
“I’m gonna shut down this comm for a bit.”
“What are you gonna do?”
I looked down at Gilmore. He was starting to come around.
“He’s got a lot of paperwork here. Hang tight until I check back in.”
I took out the earpiece and shut down the transmitter. Then I pulled out my knife. Gilmore’s head was just starting to lift off his chest. I spread his free hand out flat and took a final look out the window. The rain was sluicing off the roof and running past the windows in tiny waterfalls. I drove my knife through the meat of his hand until the blade buried itself in the wooden desk.
The scream made me feel almost sorry for the one who had killed so many. But not quite. He thrashed around for a second, not realizing his predicament and only causing himself more pain. I kept my hand on the hilt and leaned close.
“Awake yet?”
I cracked a couple of teeth with a straight right. He spit out a knot of blood. His arm was spasming despite himself.
“Fuck you.”
I twisted the blade. He grunted. Then smiled.
“Need to do better, Kelly.”
“Don’t worry, I will.”
I pulled the knife out. He couldn’t help but look down at his ruined hand.
“Up here.”
He glanced up. I slashed his left check to the bone. His left eye trembled in its socket.
I slashed the other cheek, taking a flap of skin from the jawline as well. Gilmore was shivering. Still smiling, but now a little shocky.
“Kill me.”
“In due time.”
“I did them all.”
“I know.” I moved forward with the knife. And pretty soon I knew the rest.
CHAPTER 58
“Fruits and vegetables. That’s what it says, Kelly. Fruits and vegetables. Like it’s one category.”
I was sitting at the bottom of the fire escape, watching Johnny Apple peel his namesake with a knife and expand on the reason why.
“Doctor tells me more vegetables. I say, ‘What does that mean?’ He shows me the pyramid. With the categories.”
“Fruits and vegetables?”
“That’s right. I figure one covers for the other. Now, I love apples.” Johnny took a bite and held up the aforementioned fruit. “Good for six or seven a day. Cunt of a wife tells me I’m a dumb fuck. Like I need her to tell me that? Says they need to be green and leafy. Green and leafy? What the fuck is that?”
“Vegetables?”
“Exactly what she told me.”
“It’s not fruits or vegetables, Johnny. So maybe you can’t substitute one for the other.”
“You don’t like the categories?”
I shrugged. Johnny finished his apple. I finished my smoke. Then Vinny DeLuca’s hitter took a look up the stairs.
“He up there?”
“Yeah.”
“Wrapped.”
“Bubble wrap.”
Johnny chuckled. “Bubble wrap. Federal Fucking Expresso. Bet it does a nice job.”
“Where are you going to take him?”
“Better if you don’t know. Don’t worry. He won’t never be heard from.”
I stood up. Johnny put out a hand. It was full of knuckles and rings. “You don’t have to go up.”
“I got a few things I need to grab.”
Johnny shrugged. “You all right?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t look it.”
“Let’s get him out. I’ll feel a lot better.”
We went upstairs. Johnny Apple commented on the fine packing job. Then he threw the bundle over his shoulder, took it downstairs, and dumped it in his trunk. He slammed the lid and offered his h
and on a job well done.
“Got something else for you, Johnny.”
The hitter’s face went blank. His hand dropped to his side. In Johnny’s line of work, no one likes surprises.
“It’s in the basement,” I said, and pointed the way. Johnny took out his gun and insisted I go first. The door to the cellar was unlocked. I pushed it open. The black duffel bag with gold trim was right where I’d left it. Johnny Apple tucked his gun into his belt and zipped the bag open.
“It’s the dope Gilmore lifted from the Korean. I counted twenty-six kilos. The Fours already took delivery on number twenty-seven. Pretty much makes your boss whole.”
Johnny zipped up the bag and carried it out to the car, where he locked it in the trunk beside Gilmore. Then he climbed behind the wheel.
“You hear me, Johnny?”
“I heard you. Not sure if my boss is gonna hear you. You understand what I’m saying?”
“I do. And I think I can live with it.”
“We’ll see. Be good, Kelly.”
“Bye, Johnny.”
Johnny Apple drove off the lot and disappeared around a corner. The rain had stopped, and the sky had cleared. I sat on the black iron stairs and had another smoke. Watched the muddy parking lot dry in the early afternoon sun. After a while I went up the stairs and walked through Gilmore’s computer a second time. Then a third. When I had what I needed, I slipped out the back door, found my own car, and left.
LOOSE ENDS
CHAPTER 59
The crisis ended with a press conference. After seventy-two hours with no new infections, the feds linked arms with the mayor and took a collective bow. There was a lot of vague talk about vaccines. Sixty Minutes ran a piece on CDA Labs and the emerging bioterror-industrial complex. The reality, however, was that the pathogen had just expired. Apparently of natural causes. No one seemed to understand why. And, for the moment anyway, no one really cared. Immediately after the press conference, work crews began to dismantle the quarantine fences. And the backlash began.
BioKatrina, the press called it. From the White House to City Hall. A core meltdown at all levels of government. The New York Times ran a piece offering a glimpse inside Chicago’s quarantine zones. Three hundred forty-three dead from the pathogen. Another two hundred from the dogs the pathogen let loose. There were just a few pictures that got through the government net, but the Times had them. A block of buildings reduced to chunks of rock and raw timber. Three bangers on “patrol,” smiling and pointing guns at the camera. A single body, curled in an alley, while residents, faces and mouths covered, picked through the deceased’s effects. This was America, the editorial intoned. This was ourselves.
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