Sweet Dreams (11 page)

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A KNOCK SOUNDED ON Kirk's door. He stirred, trying to forget what happened, all he wanted to do is sleep in for a change. The morning was slipping away as he slept, but he did not seem to notice. No one knew where he was, and he did not have anywhere to be, so what crazy suicidal person would have the audacity to knock on his door at this hour? The hotel room was small, with just a queen bed in the center and a bathroom with a tub and a toilet. It wasn't much, but he didn't care, it was a place he could be alone.

The sun was splitting through the curtains, glaring into his eyes like a nagging wife, forcing him to wake up. Groaning, he pushed himself to an upright position, and his feet hit the floor with a thud. "Bah!" Kirk wasn't a morning person. In fact, he wasn't a people person, either.

Finally getting to his feet, he dragged each foot to the door. It was the newspaper and a list for the different breakfast options here at the hotel. This hotel was a few steps up from the last one. It even had a little fridge filled with bottled water and liquor. If you touched it you bought it, but hey, it beat a sharp stick in the eye.

"Eggs, toast, or a breakfast sandwich served until eight a.m." He looked back at the alarm clock on the nightstand it read eight thirty. "
Whatever
." He didn't want their dry, lukewarm breakfast anyway. Kirk decided to take a shower in order to wake himself up, he clicked on the TV on the way to the bathroom, turning it up loud, so he could hear the news through the sound of the water. Undressing, he took the bandage off his leg, and looked at the gunshot wound. It looked like it was scabbing over well and would heal up and be nothing but another scar to add to his collection.

The water felt good, and it even made him smile for just a minute. He could hear the anchorwoman jabbering on about some high-pressure system that was coming in, or some crap like that.

"And in other news, the NYPD have been investigating cooperatively with the FBI, into the food poisoning incident out at the David's Island last week. They have no new leads in

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the case or how the food was contaminated, but they assure the citizens of New York that our food is safe."

"Safe. Ha! I bet they've still got their agents chasing around family members, asking about what kind of childhood they had." Grumbling as he finished shampooing his baldhead, he dripped water on the floor when he reached for a razor to shave. While finishing his shower, he thought about the case so far.

He had a bunch of dead inmates, but no dead guards, notes with the letters W.J.A. on them, and a mystery woman involved in a food drop. "
This woman had to be linked to this
W.J.A. thing
," Kirk thought. "W.J.A. It might be a code or a name of a group of terrorists."

"Hmmm, I wonder what Deb would think about this one. Deb?" Why was he thinking about his ex-wife? Granted she was nice to think about, but in the bitter end, it would always end in a raging fight. Even in his mind.

He shook his head, as if to shake her out of his thoughts. Maybe it was because she was great at helping him crack cases. She could always figure out who the bad guy was, and was a great sounding board.

Kirk was married to the fiery redhead longer then he should have been but then again, Kirk should never have gotten married in the first place. She always spoke her mind, a little too much, and between Kirk and her, it was not a good combo. The fighting just got too much for her, and they split up two years ago, no kids. "
A clean break
," he told himself, but he still loved her. He just couldn't ever bring himself to change the way he was, maybe he didn't want to change.
It
was better this way
, but then again, he told himself many lies. Kirk met Deb in front of a stand of tomatoes in his rare visit to the local supermarket. She was only five foot tall and not even one hundred pounds, and for a second he thought she was just a kid but then she turned and smiled at him, and it was all over. Kirk asked her to marry him four months later. Kirk's cell phone rang vibrating on the nightstand liker a rattlesnake ready to strike. The sound jolted him back to the here and now. He didn't recognize the number, but he decided to take the call anyway.

"Detective Weston," Kirk answered.

"Hello, this is the crime lab. Well, this is the lady from the prison. I gave you my card," Kirk tried to remember her name.

"Ah, yeah, hi, uh..."

"Cassy Meyers," She said.

"Right! Cassy! How are you doing?"

"The FBI gave me your phone number yesterday morning. I've been so busy with everything going on and I remembered that you wanted to know if we found anything new." Kirk grinned with good luck beaming from his eyes. She must have called the FBI for his number before he ticked off the big dogs.

"So what did you find?"

"After testing all the food samples and coming up empty I decided to look into the guards blood work and I found something very interesting." Her voice started to rise in excitement.

"The guards?"

"Yes. I thought since we didn't find anything in the inmates'

bodies or in their food, that maybe we would find something in the guard's blood that the inmates lacked--and we did! Are you ready for this?"

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"Yeah, hit me!"

"Okay. The guards all had traces of Dypethline in their systems, a drug used specifically to protect their immune system."

"Hmmm," said Kirk. "So the question is--why would they need a protected immune system? And protected from what?"

"Wait! It gets more interesting. This drug is still...well, it's experimental, and still in a test form and, as far as we know, it has never been tested on humans. We don't even know who else would have access to it besides the government." Kirk tried to process the information he was hearing.

"So how did they get it into their system?"

"I'm not sure. However, this opens up more options. If they were protected, then, like you said, they were being protected from something, something that would have the exact opposite effect of Dypethline." The phone was silent as Cassy waited for the information to sink in.

The picture started to clear up. "What you're saying, Cassy--is that this drug, Dypethline, has a partner drug that is like its polar opposite. If a good drug helps the immune system, the partner drug kills the immune system. And from the looks of it, it seems they also can cancel each other out."

Kirk paused for a moment, "So, basically, whoever did this poisoned all the food, but it didn't affect the guards or whoever had Dypethline in their blood!"

She laughed like a child who just learned to ride a bike for the first time. "Very good, Detective, you catch on quick. All I have to do is find out what its partner drug is, and then we have our killer."

"This drug, where is it, and who has access to it?"

"I'm not sure where it is now or if they are still testing it, but I read an article about it a year or so back in a medical journal."

The thought ran through Kirks mind but he dismissed it. If it was what he thought, it might be then the government and maybe even the FBI had something to do with the killings. Was that why they had the misfits running the investigation?

"Could you do me a favor, Cassy? Keep this conversation under your hat for the time being? I need to check into a few more leads, and the FBI isn't too happy with me at the moment."

"Sure. Until I find out definitely what we're dealing with, I'll tell them the truth--that we still don't know what we've we're dealing with yet."

Kirk folded his cell and put it into his pocket. This was getting more twisted by the second. He had a bad feeling his friends at the FBI were playing with something they shouldn't be playing with. Either way, he was going to find out, but first he needed to eat!

Chapter Seven

MARK DIDN'T NOTICE THE BLACK SPORTS CAR

parked up the street, waiting like a panther for the right moment to strike. Mark walked back from across the street, and made his way through traffic and this time he managed not to tick anyone off because he decided to use the cross walk. Mark hit the unlock button and stopped dead in his tracks, there was a note sitting on the leather seat staring up at him as if to say, "Hello."

The paper looked expensive; he could tell from the feel of it...linen or something like it. A logo of sorts was stamped on the front, with raised letters popping from the paper that cried out like a warning, "WJA...Hmmm, interesting." He unfolded it and read the note.

"NO ACCIDENT!"

Mark looked around to see if he could spot the person who put the note in his car. People were walking up and down the street; anyone could have done it.
What is that supposed to
mean? No Acciden
t? Mark thought about the explosion and a sickening feeling washed over him. Did someone think it was something other then an accident? That meant it was planned, an attack of some kind. He crumpled the note and shoved it into his pocket. Whatever it meant, he did not have the energy to think about it now. He felt drained, as if his life was being sucked from him, and all he wanted to do was crawl in bed underneath his warm covers and dream about what used to be. ________________________________________

THE MYSTERY WOMAN PULLED out into the street and followed Mark making sure to keep her distance, trying to stay three or four cars behind Marks BMW. She picked up her cell phone and hit a few keys; it rang on the other end and a male voice answered. "You got him?"

"Yes... I am tailing him now," she said. "I delivered the note; he didn't seem to know what it meant, or maybe he doesn't want to know, but that will come in time."

"Okay...find out where he's staying, and then come back to base...we will need to debrief you ASAP!"

She shut the cell, and then returned it into a small black purse. This was going to be a long night.

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THE JUICY CHEESEBURGER DRIPPED sauce down the

front of Kirk's blue T-shirt, and he cursed as he wiped it up with a napkin. The car swerved as Kirk tried to hold onto the burger and clean up the mess at the same time.

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"Aw man...this is my favorite shirt!" The cleaning job was only making the stain worse. It was hard to get a shirt to fit these days, with his abs turning into a one-pack as his once sweet six-pack was now merging into itself. Kirk used to be a gym rat but then life, marriage and, well there was no excuse that made it past
, lame
. Now he had a beer belly that was threatening to overflow his belt.

The road turned to the right just like the pictures he had printed off from the e-mail Mooch sent him. He wanted to see the old run down mill from himself. He didn't imagine he would find anything more than dusty tire tracks but it was all a part of being a detective.

He could see the old building standing against the horizon like a sleeping giant. It looked like the entire building was constructed of plywood and old tired planks. Kirk popped the last fry into his mouth, and burped in satisfaction. Nothing like a burger to chase the hunger pains away.

Parking his Charger in the front of the mill, he turned off the ignition and pulled out his .45 from his shoulder holster. Pulling the action back, he loaded a bullet into the chamber and it made a clicking sound as it slammed back into place. Holstering his weapon and looking around one last time, he got out of the car. It was about one o'clock, according to his watch; he had some time to check the place out. The building was starting to rot due to lack of maintenance; the front doors held chains and twisted boards across the doors in a diagonal fashion in an attempt to keep people out. Kids throwing rocks for fun had broken out most of the windows on the two upper floors. There was white paint across the middle of the building that was what was left of the sign:
Lakeland Mill,
it was all but washed out but Kirk could still make out most of the letters. Kirk walked to the back of the deserted parking lot and found what he was searching for. Tire marks in the dirt wound around to the back of the main building. A thick layer of dirt and weeds had covered most of the pavement on the parking lot. The tracks must have been from the truck that Gus was driving. He followed them to the corner of the building.

He leaned against the cinder block wall and drew his weapon. Quickly moving around the corner, his eyes darted around, up to the windows, in the adjacent out buildings, anywhere someone could hide. Kirk had been in too many situations to take for granted that he was alone. The area was clear, with only a few tumbleweeds stacking up against the side of the structure like bums in an alley.

Be careful, Detective.

The tracks came to a stop, and he could see where Gus had backed up to leave. Footprints were everywhere and most of them belonged to Gus, or a man with very wide feet. Then he saw what he was looking for...a second set of prints, smaller ones...the mystery woman! He pulled out a small digital camera from his pocket and snapped a few shots of the footprints and of the tire tracks.

Walking toward the back, he saw where the second truck had parked; it was back behind the structure just out of sight from the road. Squatting down on one knee, he looked intently at the tracks; his face scrunched and his eyes closed almost all the way. The tracks looked weird, not like a normal delivery truck, the rear tracks were about twice the size of the front ones.
Must be some kind of armored truck...Ah, it was an ar-

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mored vehicle, one like banks transport money in.
Looking up as he thought, his eyes opened wide, and his lips parted in shock, he couldn't believe what he was seeing...

right in front of him stood a large silo tower with a rusty ladder strapped to the side. The tower was about fifty feet tall with a cone-shaped top; it was most likely used to store sawdust or something like that in it, but now sat empty and alone. He could now smell it, sawdust, and dirt, it stuck to the roof of his mouth like a cancer. He stood to his feet, with both eyes on the tower...