Ground Zero (The X-Files) (16 page)
A homicide detective was studying clues and 139
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taking notes around the pool and patio. He looked baffled. He overheard Mulder’s introduction, and looked up. “FBI?
Now that’s calling in the big guns. Why were you brought here?”
“We might have a certain background on this case,” Scully answered. “This death may be related to another investigation we’re working on. There have been two similar deaths in the past week.”
The detective raised his eyebrows, then gave a weary shrug.
“Anything you guys can do to help. Takes work off my shoulders. This is a weird one, all right. Never seen anything like it.”
“No question: this one goes in
your
special file cabinet,”
Scully said quietly to Mulder.
Scully began a perimeter inspection of the crime scene, working around the bustling evidence technicians and detectives. She took out a small knife to probe a large charred patch on the redwood fence that bounded the Scheck property.
“The burn doesn’t go very deep,” she said, flaking away an external film of charcoal. “As if the heat was intense, but very brief.”
Mulder inspected the mark she had made with her knife. Then he noticed the shattered bug lights around the pool.
“Look, they’re all destroyed,” he said. “Like some sort of power surge blew them up, every one. Doesn’t happen every day.”
“We can check electrical company records to see if there were local power fluctuations at the estimated time of death,”
Scully suggested.
Mulder nodded. He placed his hands on his hips and turned slowly around, hoping that an answer would jump out at him. But nothing did. “Okay, Scully,” he said. “This time we’re not at a nuclear research lab or a missile testing site—just somebody’s patio in Maryland. How are you going to explain this one scientifically?”
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Scully sighed. “Mulder, right now I’m not even sure how
you’re
going to try to explain it.”
“Not necessarily by the book,” he said. “First off, I’m going to see if there was any connection between Nancy Scheck and Emil Gregory and Oscar McCarron. Or nuclear weapons testing. Or even the Manhattan Project. It could be anything.”
“She wasn’t old enough to be involved with the Manhattan Project in World War II,” Scully pointed out. “But she did work for the Department of Energy, an important person, according to the dossier. But that’s a tenuous link at best. Tens of thousands of people work for the DOE.”
“We’ll see,” Mulder said.
The coroner had already wrapped up the charred body in a black plastic bag. Mulder went cautiously over to the coroner and motioned him to unzip the body bag so he could study again what remained of Nancy Scheck.
“Weirdest thing I ever saw,” the coroner said. He sneezed, then sniffled loudly, and muttered something about his allergies. “Never seen a death like it. Isn’t just a burn victim. Can’t imagine offhand what could blaze that hot. I’m going to have to dig in my reference books.”
“An atomic bomb could have done it,” Mulder said. The coroner gave a nervous chuckle, then sneezed again.
“Yeah, good one. Everybody has an A-bomb go off in their backyard. Must have been
some
argument with the neighbors!
Unfortunately, no witnesses reported seeing any mushroom cloud.”
“I’d agree that it sounds preposterous—” Mulder said, “if this weren’t the third identical death we’ve seen in the last week or so. One in California, one in New Mexico, now here.”
“You’ve encountered this before?” the coroner 141
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perked up, then rubbed his reddened eyes. “What on earth caused it?”
Mulder shook his head and allowed the stocky man to zip the bag shut again. “Right now, sir, I’m as stumped as you are.”
A man in a general’s uniform stood just outside the glass patio doors speaking with two policemen, who took copious notes in their small notebooks. The general was short, broad shouldered, with close-cropped black hair and a swarthy complexion. He appeared deeply distraught. The scene instantly captured Mulder’s curiosity.
“I wonder who that is,” Mulder said.
“I heard one of the policemen talking,” Scully said. “I think he’s the one who discovered the body last night.”
Mulder hurried over, eager to pick up on what the general was saying and ask a few questions of his own.
“The concrete was still hot when I got here,” the general said, “so it couldn’t have been long. The back fence was smoldering. The paint was bubbling, and the smell…” He shook his head. “
The smell
!” The general turned to look at Mulder, standing beside them, but didn’t seem to register his presence. “Listen to me—I’ve seen combat before, and I’ve witnessed some accidents, awful ones…even helped recover the bodies from a plane crash once, so I’ve gotten a glimpse of death and how hideous it can be. But…in her own backyard….”
Mulder finally managed to read the general’s engraved plastic name tag. “Excuse me, General Bradoukis—did you work with Ms. Scheck?”
The general seemed too much in shock to challenge Mulder’s right to ask questions here. “Yes…yes, I did.”
“And why were you here last night?”
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The general stiffened, his eyebrows drawing together. “We were going to have dinner. Steaks on the grill.” His wide face flushed somewhat. “Our relationship was not a complete secret, though we were discreet.”
Mulder nodded, understanding the general’s extra measure of distress. “One thing, General—I understand that Ms. Scheck was a fairly important person in the Department of Energy, but I’m not sure I know which program she ran. Can you tell me?”
Bradoukis averted his black eyes. The two policemen fidgeted, as if uncertain whether they should chase away this new investigator, or let the FBI agent ask their questions for them.
“Our…uh, Nancy’s work wasn’t much talked about.”
Mulder felt a quick thrill of excitement, a new trail to follow. “You mean it was one of those black programs, an unofficially funded project?”
The general cut him off. “The media call them ‘black programs.’ There’s no official designation for them. Sometimes it’s necessary to get certain things done by nontraditional means.”
Mulder leaned forward like a hawk swooping in for the kill. Everything depended on the next question. “And was Ms. Scheck’s work connected with a project called
Bright
Anvil
?”
The general reared back like a startled cobra. “I’m not at liberty to discuss that project, especially not here in an unsecured area.”
Mulder gave him an understanding smile. “That won’t be necessary, General.” Bradoukis’s reaction had been answer enough. The sound Mulder heard in his mind was the clicking of puzzle pieces falling together. Things were still not entirely in place, but at least they were arranged into some semblance of
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order. He decided his best tactic would be to leave the distraught man alone for now.
“That’s all for me, General. Sorry to have bothered you during this time of great distress. I take it you have an office in the Pentagon? I may visit you in person if I have further questions.”
Bradoukis nodded without enthusiasm, and Mulder stepped over to the pool, looking down at the blistered, blackened paint that had once been sky blue around the concrete rim. Half of the water had boiled away in the flash of intense heat, leaving the pool warm and murky with brownish scum collecting in the corners. The fireball must have been utterly intense—yet it had not set Nancy Scheck’s home on fire, nor had it spread to the neighbors’ yards. Almost as if it had been
directed
, intentionally focused in a specific area. Several people on the block claimed to have seen a brief, bright flash, but had not bothered to investigate. Neighbors kept to themselves in these upscale areas.
Mulder’s usually sharp eye glimpsed an object floating near the bottom of the pool, a small glass bottle that drifted about as if only partially waterlogged. He searched until he found a skimmer net and yanked it off its hooks near the patio doors. The flash of heat had twisted the handle, but the net remained surprisingly serviceable. Mulder took it to the edge of the pool and dipped the skimmer deep, swirling it around until he succeeded in netting the dark object and fishing it out. Water trickled off the edges of the skimmer.
“I found something here,” he called. He lifted free a small vial that contained a black substance. Some pool water had leaked into the vial, but just a few drops. The detective and Scully came over to look. Mulder held the vial between his thumb and forefinger, tilting it to the light. The object seemed 144
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very odd to him, and by its sheer oddness he decided it must be important to this case.
He offered it to Scully, and she took it, shaking it to disturb the contents. “I can’t say what it is,” she said. “Some sort of black powder or ash, but how did it get to the bottom of the pool? Do you think it has something to do with her death?”
“Only one way to find out, Scully,” Mulder said. He turned to the homicide detective in charge. “We have exceptional analytical facilities at the FBI crime lab. I’d like to take this back with us to run a full analysis. We’ll copy you on all reports, of course.”
“Sure,” the detective said. “One less thing for my people to do.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like this case, and I think it might be beyond me. Do me a favor and figure this one out.” With one hand, the detective brushed his hair back. “Sheesh, give me a stabbing or a drive-by shooting any old day.”
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FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
Tuesday, 3:10 P.M.
After so much time on the road, Scully found it comforting to be working in her own lab for a change, even on as gruesome a subject as this. She basked in the solitude and familiar surroundings. She knew where all her equipment was located. She knew whom to call for help or a technical consultation. She knew specialists whose skills she respected in case she needed an unbiased person to verify what she found.
The FBI crime lab was the most sophisticated facility of its type in the world. It was filled with an oddball assortment of experts in the forensic sciences whose unusual interests or skills had proven time and again to be the keys to solving bizarre and subtle cases: a woman genetically predisposed to detect the bitter-almond odor of cyanide that many people could not smell, a man whose interest in 146
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tropical fish had led him to identify a mysterious poison as a common aquarium algicide after all other methods of analysis had failed, another man who specialized in identifying the type of photo-copying machine that had made a particular copy.
In their numerous X-Files cases, Scully and Mulder had stretched the capabilities and imagination of the FBI crime lab more often than most other field agents. The labyrinth of labs lay on an interconnecting grid supposedly designed to facilitate cooperation between separate units, each with its own jurisdiction and expertise: Chemistry/Toxicology, DNA Analysis, Firearms and Toolmarks, Hairs and Fibers, Explosives, Special Photography, Video Enhancement, Polygraph, Latent Fingerprints, Materials Analysis, and other more esoteric specialties. After her years with the Bureau, Scully still didn’t understand the actual organization of the units. But she did know where to find what she needed.
Scully entered the main lab of Berlina Lu Kwok, in the receiving area for the Biological Analysis Unit, where specimens were given their first cursory inspection before being subjected to other, more specific analysis routines. When she stepped through the door, the stench that assailed Scully’s nostrils was far worse than usual, and the heavyset Asian lab director was in a foul mood.
“Agent Scully!” Lu Kwok said, her sharp voice slicing through the air, as if Scully were somehow to blame for the smell. “Is it too much to ask? Don’t we have clear-cut and regularly posted procedures for submittal of samples? Isn’t it as easy to do it the
right
way as to do it the
wrong
way?”
Scully clutched a packaged sample of the black residue Mulder had retrieved from Nancy Scheck’s backyard pool; she shifted it to her side
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in embarrassment. “I thought I’d fill out the forms in person—”
But the lab director was determined to finish her lecture, sniffing the sour air with disgust. “The FBI has every right to expect that local law-enforcement officials will make some sort of
attempt
to follow simple procedures, isn’t that correct?
It helps us all out, doesn’t it?”
She waved an old memo in her hand, squeezing the edge with fingers powerful enough to snap wooden boards. Without pausing for a response, she began to read from it.
“‘All submissions should be addressed to the FBI’s Evidence Control Center. Bullets should be sent by the United Parcel Service, registered mail, or private courier. Human organs should be
packed in dry ice
and sent in plastic or glass containers via UPS, private express mail, or special delivery.’”
Berlina fluttered the memo in the air to fan away the stink.
“Now some podunk town in South Dakota has sent me a victim’s liver for toxicology analysis. They stuffed it in a zipper-lock plastic bag labeled with handwriting on masking tape—and they didn’t even pay for overnight express.” She snorted. “Economy two-day!” The memo floated to the floor as Berlina tossed it away. “It’ll take us weeks to get rid of the smell around here, and we probably won’t be able to find out much from the tissue, either.”
Scully swallowed, hoping to deflate the other woman’s tirade. “If I submit a sample using proper procedures, may I request a favor?”
Berlina Lu Kwok fixed her with a glare from narrowed almond eyes. Finally she laughed with a sound like a storm breaking. “Sorry, Agent Scully. Of course. Is this for your DOE exec murder? We’ve been told to give you high priority.”
Scully nodded and handed over the sample, 148
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