by Jan Coffey
Bryan didn’t doubt anything his friend had just said. But for a change he was trying to remain optimistic. These shootings were so different from the ones that had affected him so adversely when he and Hank had been developing the profile. Back then, he’d had other things on his mind. Things like his teenage brother’s suicide.
Lexi was right. As tragic as the losses were, the fact that these kids were being driven to commit acts of violence by a specific implant made it so much easier for him. Now, he had perpetrators to pursue, not just angst-ridden, self-destructive teens to try to understand. This was straight law enforcement work. That’s why, Bryan decided, he was doing so much better than expected working on this case.
“Hold on a second,” Hank said. “Something is happening…”
The woman at the counter was back. Lexi was digging through her pocketbook.
“Turn the news on,” Hank told him, his tone gruff. “There’s been another one.”
“Christ,” Bryan muttered under his breath. There’d been a shooting in Florida last night. Now this morning. The frequency of them was increasing dramatically. He turned on the radio.
Lexi stepped out of the building with a package under her arm.
Bryan found the news on a New York AM radio station. She opened the door and got in just as a reporter was relating the events.
“The assailant—reportedly a top student at the school—killed two and wounded six before taking his own life right outside the Phoenix Union Magnet School, moments before the bus full of students was to take Arizona high schoolers on a field trip. We’ll have more on this latest in the growing epidemic of school shootings as the details become available…”
“Not another,” she whispered in shock.
“It sounds that way.”
“Are you still there?” Hank asked.
“I’m here,” Bryan said.
“CNN has a chopper showing live video of the school. Looks like a mess. Not many details.”
“We need to confirm right away if this one is related to the others.”
“Leave that to me. I’m already on it,” his partner assured him. “Call me back if the letter Lexi is picking up has anything useful.”
“She’s right here. Hold on a second. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
Bryan switched off the radio. She passed the package to him. The sender’s name was handwritten, and it was totally illegible.
“The method of payment is not a credit card, but an account number,” Bryan said into the phone.
“Why don’t you read it to me, and I’ll start the ball rolling on it from this end.”
Bryan read off the account number and the tracking number and everything else that he could make out on the exterior of the package.
“Hold on,” Hank said when he was finished.
Bryan could hear a muffled voice in the background.
“We just got some additional information from Geary,” Hank said. “About the shooting this morning in Phoenix.”
“What have you got?”
“The assailant, a fifteen-year-old named Josh Maury, was adopted.” Hank read him the rest of the report, including the parents’ names and home address. The teenager’s birthday was also in December.
Bryan relayed the information to Lexi.
“How many is that?” she asked.
“Eight that we think are connected.”
“I’m waiting for the report on place of birth and adoption agency and the rest of the medical records,” Hank explained.
“Should we open this now?” Lexi asked, looking impatiently at the envelope.
In a perfect investigation, Bryan would have waited until the envelope could be taken to one of their labs and dusted and analyzed while being opened. They didn’t want to overlook anything that might be used later as evidence. But this wasn’t a perfect world, and Bryan didn’t know when the weather would ease up enough for them to do that. The increased frequency of the shootings made the need for immediate action essential.
Snow was beginning to block the visibility out the side windows. Bryan didn’t like the fact that they were vulnerable sitting there in the lot. At the same time, he didn’t trust the cell service enough to get on the road and still keep the connection with Hank.
Taking a penknife from his jacket pocket, he slit the top of the package. There was only a single sheet of paper inside. “It’s a handwritten list of names,” he said into the phone.
“How many?”
“Eleven,” Bryan counted.
“Read the names.”
He started giving his partner the names.
“The sixth one,” Lexi cried out before he’d gotten to the third name on the list. “Juan Marquez. That’s my son. These have to be the names of the teenagers who’ve been involved with the shootings. Maybe their names before the adoption.”
Bryan nodded and then finished reading the names to his partner.
“The first six are in sequential order to the shootings,” Hank said from his end. “He must have made the list and mailed it prior to the Orlando, Florida shooting.”
“I assume Michael Saul is the birth name of Michael Forbes,” Bryan said, looking down at the list. The teenage shooter from Orlando was the tenth name.
“I’m looking him up right now. I was going through his adoption records right before you called,” Hank told them.
Other voices could be heard at the other end. It appeared that Hank was getting some help at the FBI field office.
“Saul was the pre-adoption family name for Mike Forbes,” Hank affirmed in a minute. “And the same goes for the other shooters.”
This was better than anything Bryan might have hoped for. They actually knew the name and scope of how many teenagers were involved with the experimentation.
“Who are we left with?” Lexi asked.
Bryan read down the list again, leaving out Juan’s name.
“We have three that we have to find,” Bryan said. “Billy Ward, Roy Carter, and Donald Gray. Will you call Geary with the names?”
“Right away. I’ll also contact the Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico state departments of Vital Statistics, Family Services, Child Welfare…whatever. We need to start tracking any records they have on these kids.”
“How about a social security number search,” Lexi asked him. “I had to get one for Juan the moment the paperwork started. I used his original last name as a middle name on the records. I was told a lot of parents do that.”
“Did you hear that?” Bryan asked Hank.
“Yeah, I did. We’ll get on that, too.”
“Thank you, whoever you are,” Lexi whispered, staring at the envelope. “You’re saving lives by doing this.”
~~~~
Chapter 27
Thursday January 17, 1:42 p.m.
Manhattan, New York
Riding up the elevator to his office, Curtis Wells was feeling pretty good.
He brushed some of the melting drops of snow off his black cashmere overcoat. It was still snowing, though not as hard as it had been. It was difficult getting around the city, but not impossible. Actually, in all his years of living and working in the city, Curtis couldn’t remember too many times when New York traffic had come to a complete standstill because of a snow storm.
New Yorkers just knew how to deal with whatever was thrown at them. Be it blizzard, power failure, or transit strike, people still got around, went to work, met for their appointments. Restaurants found a way to stay open and serve food. City dwellers were much better off here during a heavy snow than just about anywhere else on the East Coast.
Another great thing about this city. Only in New York could you find a first-rate restaurant around every corner, and Curtis had taken advantage of that this morning. He’d had his secretary change the lunch reservation to a nearby restaurant for the four Japanese investors who’d arrived last night. He was meeting with them for a business lunch before the two o’clock press conference. The end result had been a
huge success. Curtis even had about ten minutes to look over his notes before taking his show public.
When he’d started in this business, Curtis had never imagined he’d be making millions in the fight against cancer. But that was exactly what he was doing…or rather, what he was about to do. Every technological and business venture he’d been involved in had led him to this.
This was his time. This was when he cashed in.
Quantum dots. Who knew that something so small could be so effective in the fight against disease? The nano-sized crystals that he’d been funding scientists to develop were now at the breakout point. The tiny particles, injected into living cells, actually created probes that detected DNA sequences associated with cancer. It was the cutting edge…the place where he’d always wanted to be.
Quantum dots were tiny product that would produce big returns. Very big. And today, the next step. Curtis was presenting their product and business plans to the general investment community and the public.
It didn’t matter that they were still waiting for FDA approval. That was going to happen. Besides, a little pressure from the American public on the importance of this technology was a good thing for everyone. It was especially good for him.
Coming back to his office after lunch, Curtis nodded to his secretary as he passed by her desk. She was on the phone.
The presentation was to be virtual-reality and three-dimensional. Very high tech. A team of game programmers from Microsoft had adapted special technology for this presentation, and Curtis planned to impress…no, blow the doors off reporters and investors with the colors and sounds and the futuristic feel of the production. He was going to take his audience right into the human cell. The techies would be on stage with him to make sure the show went the way it should. His brief introduction and the presentation itself would steer the questions directly into the areas he wanted to cover during the question and answer period.
He was in the perfect mood—pumped up just enough to give one of his most brilliant performances. He didn’t need any distractions, nothing to take his mind off one of the most important moments of his career.
He’d left his notes in the middle of his desk, but as he walked into his office, the envelope in his inbox caught his attention. Block letters in red marker spelled, “Confidential.”
He knew that handwriting.
Curtis picked it up, the presentation forgotten. He swiveled his chair around to the glass wall of his nineteenth floor office. The envelope was light. He turned it over in his hand and then hesitated, looking out for a moment at the snow falling on the city.
The concept that Curtis was presenting today had a lot to do with the research that he and his partner had started more than two decades ago. Even in recent years, Mitch knew what Curtis’s company was doing, but never once had he objected or asked for some credit for the developing product. That was one of Mitch’s greatest faults. His generosity. He could have been standing next to Curtis on that podium today.
But Mitch was gone. He was dead.
Curtis looked down at the envelope. It had been shipped from Reno last night. He ripped the tab and pulled out the contents. Two sheets of paper. That’s all there was.
The first page was a short handwritten note from Mitch. The second contained a list of names. Curtis perused the list first.
Back when they’d been in the midst of testing their theories, Curtis had had no interest in knowing the names of these children. They were only case numbers to him. Subjects used for important experimentation. Their work was supposed to help improve their chances in life, not injure them. During the first week, though, they’d lost five and a half percent of the subjects.
So they’d remained numbers for him. Still, this past month, Mitch and his frequent phone calls had forced Curtis to become familiar with some of the names.
He looked down at the long list again. Fifty seven names. He knew this was the original list. All of them were undoubtedly here. Mitch was nothing if not thorough. There were dates before most of the names. He knew that had to be the date they’d lost the subject. Five names were highlighted in yellow and had no dates before them. Mitch must have made the list before the last two shootings.
Curtis frowned and considered those shootings. They were becoming the top news item of the day. Even the Japanese investors who were no strangers to teenage burnout and suicide in their own country, had been talking at lunch about what they’d heard on the news this morning. Except for the early business reports, Curtis hadn’t looked at the news himself. He didn’t want to know anything beyond what the headline provided as it scrolled across the bottom of the screen. He definitely didn’t want to pay attention to the names. He knew that these two teens had to be theirs.
He looked down at the list. That meant there were only three left. As he’d said to his former partner, things were taking care of themselves.
He started to crumple the list in one hand, but stopped and looked over Mitch’s note. It was undated.
Curtis,
Too many lives have been lost for me to let all the research be shredded and burned. If we’d taken our time, stayed with laboratory subjects before moving to human test subjects—if we hadn’t allowed ourselves to be rushed by investors and politicians—some good might have come out of our work.
In case you decide to do the right thing, here is the list. You know what the right thing is. Each life is precious. Too many of them are gone. Save the ones you can. Do it for you and me. For God’s sake, save us all.
Mitch
Curtis read the letter again. Did this mean that there were still files out there? Was it possible that everything his people destroyed in Reno last night hadn’t been all of it?
“They’re ready for you in the meeting room, sir.”
Startled, Curtis spun around in his chair. He hadn’t heard his secretary poke her head into the office. He crumpled the pages in his hand.
“Are you okay? Can I get you anything?” the young woman asked, looking concerned.
“No, no,” he said hoarsely. “Tell them I’ll be there in a minute.”
She went out. Curtis stared at the two crumpled pieces of paper. He was in trouble. The nightmare was back.
He hadn’t been able to kill Mitch, after all.
~~~~
Chapter 28
Lexi had never been nervous about flying. But the snow-covered runway and the gusts of wind rocking the small jet from side to side were making her knuckles white and tying her stomach in a knot even prior to takeoff.
The fold out doors to the cockpit had been left open. A pilot, co-pilot, Bryan, and Lexi were the only ones on the eight-seater jet. The snow continued to fall, and through the front windshield she could see a plow working to clear the single runway. Bryan told her the wind had subsided enough for them to take off safely, but Lexi had a sense that the decision to go had less to do with the weather and more to do with the series of phone calls that Bryan had been involved with since they’d opened that envelope in Watertown.
They’d stopped back at her house for five minutes so that she could pack an overnight bag. Then, they’d come directly to the small private airport just north of the town, where the jet was waiting. Even though the aircraft did not have Air Force markings, the pilots both turned out to be uniformed officers.
Bryan hadn’t shared much of the information from the telephone conversations with her, but Lexi already knew he was not happy about some of the decisions being made by his superiors. He’d still been on the phone when they taxied to the end of the runway. Lexi had a feeling that at least some of those arguments had to do with her; she’d heard her name mentioned a few times.
She looked ahead, but she could barely see the end of the tarmac. When the jet started down the newly cleared runway, the incredible power of the aircraft pressed her hard into her seat. The sensation was far more pronounced than anything she’d ever felt flying in a commercial liner. In seconds, it seemed, the front wheels lifted, and then the
y were in the air. She breathed a sigh of relief but stopped as the jet bumped and shook as it rose into the sky. In less than a minute, she could see nothing but white out her window. The ground had disappeared.
“You both okay back there?” the pilot asked, turning around and smiling briefly at her.
Lexi nodded, taking from his calm that they must have reached a safe altitude. She looked over at Bryan sitting next to her. He was still on the phone. She had known him for so little a time, and yet she understood that his mood always seemed to be reflected in his expression. Right now, he looked positively pissed off.
“Excuse me, sir,” she joked. “The captain has not turned off the ‘no electronic devices’ sign. You’ll have to turn that off and talk to me.”
His blue eyes turned to her, and he shook his head with obvious frustration before putting the phone away.
She touched his hand. “What is it?”
“Talking to you is exactly what Geary wants.”
“Who’s Geary?” she asked.
“The FBI Special Agent in Charge. He’s the team leader for this investigation.”
She remembered hearing his name. “What is it that he wants you to talk to me about?”
“He wants me to explain his plan to you,” he said. He seems to think that there’s a much better chance of you going along with it if it comes from me.”
“What does he think? That you’re special?”
He narrowed his gaze and looked into her eyes, and he laughed. “Actually, now that you put it that way. Yes, I am.”
She punched him on the arm. The muscles were like rock. She liked the sound of his laughter. Lexi thought this was the first time she’d heard him do that. Really laugh.
The plane angled sharply to the left and right, dropping and then rising again. Lexi grabbed for Bryan, catching his forearm, and he held it firmly in place with his other hand. Something in his response, so immediate and natural, warmed her inside, and she suddenly felt very conscious of his touch.
The pilot said something to the co-pilot, who turned around.
