Ripper (56 page)

Jason Ryan, still replete in his stolen candy striper’s uniform, managed to look up to see where he was and then lay his head back down.

“Is this the best you can do for a bed, after all I went through to get back here?”

Denise walked over and shook her head at the naval aviator. Then she smiled.

“You know, that’s not a bad look for you Mr. Ryan.”

“I know.”

Sarah finally got her
smile under control and stopped by to check on Henri. He was lying in bed sans handcuffs with his eyes closed. He had a whole pint of blood dripping into his veins from an IV line attached to his right arm. McIntire was about to turn away when she heard his voice whisper.

“Please tell me this is some of your blood my dear,” he said so low she had to bend over to hear him.

“Sorry to disappoint
you, Henri, but I think you have some of Mendenhall’s blood in you. The blood bank went bad because of no electricity.”

Henri managed to look up and around until he saw Mendenhall sitting on a desk a few feet away getting his head bandaged by a highly attentive Gloria Bannister. Mendenhall saw the Frenchman looking his way and raised his right hand, extending his middle finger.

“I knew you liked
me Lieutenant.”

Sarah smiled, but she knew she had to leave the clinic before the smell of blood and medicine did her in. She stepped into the hallway and Henri watched her as she leaned against the glass. He watched her and knew that he was in love with the woman and wanted to tell her. But he also knew he was going to prison, and he knew that she didn’t love him. She loved Collins and would
for a very long time, even if he was dead.

As he started to lie down he saw Sarah straighten from the wall. He watched as she frowned and then started crying. She stepped forward as two men carried a third man in between them and threw her arms around the man being assisted. Henri Farbeaux felt his heart sink when he saw the familiar face of Jack Collins as he allowed Sarah to hold him. The two
men carrying Collins looked away as Sarah McIntire welcomed Jack Collins back to the Event Group.

Farbeaux turned away and closed his eyes against the harsh florescent lighting.

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

The Baltimore state trooper watched as the two bodies were loaded into the ambulance. He shook his head at the senseless violence that happened on a daily basis along the Baltimore Beltway.

It was
evident from the car that was still sitting on its jack stand and the spare tire lying nearby that the two women had stopped to fix a flat late at night. The two bodies had been found fifty feet from the car. Each had been shot once in the chest and left sprawled in the high grass close to the Beltway. This hadn’t been the only occurrence of violence on this stretch of road. There had been seven
other murders, some drive-bys, others like the one he just recorded in his notebook, a senseless killing, probably at random, of two people changing a tire after a night out.

The trooper was approached by his sergeant. “We ID the driver?” he asked, also shaking his head as the bodies were finally sealed inside the ambulance.

“Yeah, we found her identification in her car. The younger woman we
haven’t discovered anything about yet. The driver is Lynn Simpson. She has a company badge.”

“Yeah, what company?” the sergeant asked as the ambulance drove away.

“That’s why I called you out here, Sarge. She worked for the CIA.”

“Oh, boy.”

EVENT GROUP COMPLEX
NELLIS AFB, NEVADA

Niles Compton listened to the president speak, but his words became almost unintelligible as he listened. With
his ankle in a cast, Niles was forced to sit and listen to his old friend. After the president said his piece he waited for Compton to say something. He waited for a long time as his friend sat stunned at the news that had been delivered. He was so stunned he couldn’t speak.

“Niles, would it help if I called and gave him the news?” the president asked.

Compton finally looked up and into his
friend’s eyes. “You know Jack is not going to buy this bullshit the Maryland State Police are telling you.”

The president shook his head. “Why should he, I don’t. I’ve ordered CIA Director Easterbrook and the FBI to give this investigation a full-court press. I want to know what happened. I’m not a believer in coincidence.”

Niles sat and listened, maybe believing his old friend, maybe not. He
was fast becoming a skeptic in such matters as governing a country.

“We have a detailed briefing by Pete Golding in two days. I think maybe you better be here to hear what he and Europa have to say,” Niles said.

“I’ll see what I can—”

“Mr. President, I never ask you for anything, yet you have asked me for everything. I want you here to learn what in the hell we’re dealing with. Then you can
take your ball and go home.”

The president saw that Niles Compton was in no mood to hear anything other than yes.

“Okay, Baldy, I’ll be there in two days. Also I want Colonel Farbeaux transferred to FBI custody when he’s able to travel.”

Niles nodded his head without really answering and reached out and shut off the computer with the president’s image still on it, breaking every rule of etiquette
and protocol on the books. He didn’t want to discuss the fate of the Frenchman and knew his friend the president just wanted to remind him he was still in charge. Compton reached over and hit his intercom switch to connect with the computer center.

“Golding,” came the quick response.

“Pete, ask Europa the location of Lieutenant McIntire.”

“Okay,” he said and returned just a second later. “She’s
located in suite nine, level eight.”

Colonel Collins’s room?”

“Yes.”

*   *   *

Sarah watched Jack as he in turn looked at her. She reached out, took his hand, and smiled.

“You took your time leaving Alice’s house,” she said.

“You know me, I had to finish painting or Alice would have thrown a fit.”

Sarah shook her head. Then she became serious. “Jack?”

“Yeah, short stuff?”

“Colonel Farbeaux,
what’s going to happen to him?”

“That’s not up to me, but I imagine he’s bound for trial for the murder of our people and possibly many others.”

Sarah bit her lower lip. “Do you believe he killed people from our Group or murdered innocents from anywhere?” she asked watching him closely. “I mean, do you really think he’s capable of cold-blooded murder?”

“Doesn’t seem to be his style does it?
But I wasn’t here in the bad old days. I just don’t know,” he added. “But deep down? Yes, I believe Henri has killed in the coldest blood possible in the past.”

Jack watched Sarah closely. He knew she was feeling indebted to the Frenchman for coming after her in Mexico. But he also knew there was something else he couldn’t quite grasp. The why of it, he supposed. He saw the sadness in her eyes
when he had hinted at Henri’s fate.

“Listen, I think—”

A knock sounded at Jack’s door. Sarah stood and hesitated a moment and then looked down at Jack.

“I love you.”

Collins didn’t say anything; he just winked.

Sarah went to the door and opened it but not before noticing that Jack didn’t respond when she had said she loved him. She looked up when she opened the door. Niles Compton stood there
with a pair of crutches supporting him.

“Lieutenant, may I come in?”

“Of course,” she said as she stepped aside. “Would you like Jack…,” Sarah caught herself a bit too late, “the colonel to yourself?”

“No, I think you better be here for this.”

Sarah’s brows rose as she closed the door and worriedly looked at Collins who lay in bed bare-chested and bandaged heavily across his broken ribs. He
was silent as once more he waited for the other shoe to drop on his head.

Niles nodded at Collins and leaned against his desk.

“Do you want a chair?” Sarah asked.

Niles just shook his head no.

“I’m no good at this Colonel.” Niles lowered his eyes. “So I guess I better just say it before … before I lose the courage.”

“Just say it,” Jack said, keeping his wary eyes on the director.

“Colonel,
uh, Jack,” he said turning to the familiar. “Your sister Lynn was murdered in Baltimore last night—she and a friend of hers from Langley.”

Sarah was stunned as she looked from Compton to Jack’s frozen features. He seemed not to know what to do with his eyes as he looked from the director back to Sarah and then quickly away again. He cleared his throat and then again swallowing several times.

“What … what happened?” he finally managed to ask, avoiding Sarah’s look of shock.

“The Maryland State Police say she and her companion were killed randomly after they had a flat tire after midnight two days ago.”

Jack Collins went silent and remained that way for several minutes.

“Would you excuse me? I have to call my … our mother.”

Niles nodded and limped to the door as Sarah opened it.
He didn’t use the crutches as he felt they would fail him at this, the worst possible moment.

Sarah remained by the door, but Jack never looked up as he reached for the phone.

After Jack had informed his mother of the death of her only daughter, he went silent for two days. Alice had volunteered to take Cally Collins back to D.C. to make arrangements for the family. Then the colonel clammed
up. Sarah couldn’t reach him, and even when Carl Everett came to check on him and jokingly report on the progress of Lieutenant Ryan, the candy striper, Jack remained silent, only nodding that he heard what was said. Even when the president of the United States came into his room just before the debriefing Niles had ordered he remained almost totally mute, nodding his head and mumbling at the appropriate
times in the conversation. He did that with everyone he came in contact with.

*   *   *

The conference room was only half full as most of the departmental managers were busy cleaning up the mess in their various departments from the recent attack on the complex. Niles Compton had decided to keep all of the information to be explained to the people meeting that day tightly controlled. The director
had ordered a select few to hear Pete Golding explain, in theory, what they had been dealing with.

Jack sat in his customary place at the opposite end of the long table facing Dr. Compton. His eyes were dark and still haunted as Everett came in and sat beside him. Sarah was three seats down from the president and chanced a glance at Collins, but he never looked up until the meeting started.

Virginia sat next to Compton. He nodded his head, not making eye contact with anyone. The assistant director stood.

“Okay, we have a lot to cover, and the president can only fool the
Washington Post
for so long before they discover he’s missing.”

No one in the room laughed at her small joke except for the president. As he saw no one else, not even Charlie Ellenshaw, crack so much as a smile,
he went as silent as the rest of the men and women present. Will Mendenhall, who was attending his first debriefing in the conference room, sat next to Gloria Bannister, whom Niles thought deserved to be in on the tale Pete had to relay because of her losing so much in the attack.

“Pete,” Virginia said, “the floor’s yours.”

“Thank you,” Golding said as he stood with pointer in hand. He strode
to the main viewing screen and nodded his head at the navy signalman.

“Perdition’s Fire,” Pete began, “has been kept a well-guarded secret for over a hundred years, but has been in existence for over three thousand years.” Everyone in the conference room exchanged glances at the claim Pete had just made. “The formula has been analyzed by Europa and our Event Group people at CDC and the Harvard
School of Medicine. We also brought in the CSU School of Botany and the National Center for Genetic Research. The information is factual and indisputable.”

The first slide provided by Europa appeared on the screen. It was of Lawrence Jackson Ambrose.

“Our friend here did something truly amazing and also a hundred years ahead of his time. But somehow the good professor Ambrose lost his way. The
man was brilliant but quite possibly the most insane person of his time.” Pete nodded and the next picture depicted confused those watching. “This is an official police report submitted and classified as top secret by the government of Great Britain. It concerns a series of murders that occurred in the year 1888 at a location in London called Whitechapel.” Pete saw the recognition in the faces
around the table. Even the president leaned forward in his chair to read the hazy report from 142 years ago.

Jack finally looked up and stared blankly at the screen. Everett and Sarah watched, but the colonel made no move to take part in the debriefing.

“The report was filed by the metropolitan police, in conjunction with the chief medical examiner’s office in London. This document is part of
the most unbelievable cover-up the world has ever seen. It all started with a writer of some renown doing research for a little book he was writing on aggressive behavior through the miracle of modern medicine. The name of the book researched was a novel we know today as
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
and that author was Robert Louis Stevenson.”

This bit of information caused another
round of talking and exclamations around the table. Still Jack Collins remained silent even though he heard every word spoken.

“It was Robert Louis Stevenson who originally tried to warn the metropolitan police about the true nature of just what they were dealing with.”

“What is it we are looking at on the screen?” Virginia asked Pete.

“This slide lists the autopsy reports of six women murdered
in Whitechapel in 1888. These reports are in direct conflict with the reports filed by the medical examiner in Whitechapel. The local medical examiner listed the horrendous wounds received by these women. They were bad enough that anyone reading them would never suspect the police, or the British government, of trying to hide anything. That is where these reports come in.” Pete slapped the large
screen with the pointer. “They were discovered buried in the archives of Scotland Yard and in the journal of Lawrence Ambrose himself, which the Event Group had in its possession for the past 120 years. But the real gold is the culpability of the British government in all of this that Europa uncovered through police sources directly.”