The Death Row Complex (6 page)

“Hello, Dr. Wong,” the agent said when he picked up. “I assume that you’ve gotten my e-mail.”

“Yes, I’ve just finished reading over it,” said Wong. “So the source of the anthrax was the rice. I’m not entirely surprised. It seemed that the majority of victims were suffering primarily from gastrointestinal anthrax, and I can see how others could have become inoculated through skin contact with the food or through inhalation while eating and ultimately displayed various symptoms. So what does that mean in terms of suspects? Who else had access to the kitchen?”

“A number of people. The food is cooked and distributed by inmates, under the supervision of a prison employee, of course. The three dead inmates who were not living on death row were all kitchen workers who had been preparing and serving the food for North Seg that afternoon. So the contamination was definitely introduced into the rice specifically fed to that wing of the facility. We have questioned everyone who would have been involved with the process.”

“Nobody on the Terrorist Screening Center list, I assume?” Wong asked.

“I’m afraid not,” the task force agent responded. “We did get a lead during the questioning, but it’s weak. One of the kitchen workers was clearly nervous when we questioned him. After some pushing, he admitted that even though he had duty in the kitchen for that entire week, he had not performed it on one occasion.”

“Why is that?” Wong asked.

“Because someone paid him two hundred dollars to not show up. He didn’t know the guy. For two hundred bucks plus getting out of work, he wasn’t asking questions. So it looks very likely that someone—probably another inmate—gained access to the kitchen and poisoned the rice.”

“Did he give a description?”

“Just a racial slur against Hispanics.”

“Oh, great,” said Wong. “So, basically, our possible suspect list includes anyone at San Quentin of Hispanic or Latino origin. That narrows it down.”

“Yes, to about two thousand suspects,” said the San Francisco agent. “I’m waiting for the sketch artist, but I’m not putting too much weight on what that might yield. Meanwhile, we
are
cross-referencing prisoners of Latino or Hispanic origin at San Quentin with terrorist factions. We are focusing those efforts on ISIL, based on the information from Jack Callahan about the greeting card. So we are also looking at people of Mediterranean or mixed descent who might look Latino to an inmate not paying attention, and focusing on Arabs since the text was written in Arabic.

“Of course, these are death row inmates we’re talking about. They tend to have a lot of people who hate them. I have assigned a team to track down the extracurricular activities of the victims of these particular inmates and
their
families. It’s a huge task.

“But we are also considering the possibility that this could have been orchestrated by a disgruntled scientist.”

6:25 P.M.
PDT

Thirty minutes later, Jason Fischer cleared security at the BSL-3 facility and rushed into the lab to do his work. As it turned out, there was less work to do than he had planned on. He only had to sacrifice half of his mice.

The control group, which had been inoculated with anthrax in the absence of Jason’s test inhibitor, was already dead. The experimental mice, those Jason was using to test his most promising inhibitor of lethal factor, were alive and did not appear to have any symptoms. Jason smiled at the efficacy of the compound.

“
Ding, ding, ding
, we have a winner,” Jason said under his breath as he euthanized the animals. With the precision and speed of a gourmet chef, he began isolating internal organs for his standard biological work-up, handling each mouse as if it were a vegetable and not a concentrated reservoir of deadly bacteria. After dissecting dozens of mice and properly storing their organs, he hurried through the decontamination procedures, exited the animal facility, and entered the clean room.

Once out of the Biosafety Level Three area, Jason snatched a paper towel out of the rack by the sink and scribbled down some notes. On the way out of the building, he shoved the paper towel into his pocket.

At San Quentin State Prison, an inmate was just returning from the showers. His cellmate’s bed was empty.
Good, the dickhead is gone,
he thought.
Too bad I can’t have my own room like those pieces of shit on death row.
The thought brought a grin to his face.

The prisoner raised a dark, heavily tattooed arm and grabbed the metal frame of the bunk to swing himself up onto the bed. Looking around to make sure nobody was watching, he reached down and found a familiar slit in the mattress. He shoved his hand inside and withdrew a thick wad of cash. The prisoner counted the money. It was almost enough.

He shoved the money back inside the mattress and covered it with loose cotton.

The prisoner jumped down from the top bunk and peered into the corridor. Satisfied that nobody was coming, he returned to his bunk once again and reached into another hiding place within his mattress. He pulled out a handful of small glass vials. One was empty.

The prisoner still had two vials left, and two would be more than sufficient.

“Dude, we didn’t think you were gonna make it,” Zack said with annoyance as he helped Jason pull his guitars and amp from the car and carry them toward the club’s entrance. A large red-on-black poster next to the door read “Lethal Factor! Performing Tonight!” A second sign read “Welcome to The Metal Shop. We are not responsible for the loss of wallets, purses, hearing, or teeth.”

The two young men pushed through the line of patrons to bring Jason’s equipment inside. It was ten fifteen.

“How much did we make?” Jason asked as they approached the stage.

“Seven fifty including both ticket sales and door draw.”

“Thank God. I need my cut for my rent before we leave tonight.”

The rest of the band was already on stage and had done their sound check without Jason. Hook, the affectionately nicknamed bass player who was missing a finger, looked emphatically at the clock on the wall and shook his head when Jason mounted the stage. As Jason hurried to set up his equipment, Hook flashed one of his remaining fingers toward Jason behind his back.

Jason worked as quickly and expertly on the stage as he had earlier in the lab, connecting his guitar, amp, and accessories and checking his tuning. As he did, a scantily dressed young woman brought a pitcher of beer and a shot of whiskey to the stage. Jason winked at the stranger and tipped back the shot, then drank deeply and quickly from the side of the pitcher. He offered the girl the pitcher, and she licked the side from which Jason had drunk.

Satisfied that his guitar was tuned, Jason gave Zack a nod. Zack grabbed the microphone off its stand and threw the stand into the crowd, then motioned to the soundman behind the audience. The lights went down and the house music was cut. The violence in the crowd began.

“
How’s everyone doing out there?”
Zack screamed into the mic.
“WE ARE LETHAL FACTOR!
”

O
CTOBER 16, 2015
4:27 A.M.
PDT

The phone rang. Katrina slowly emerged from sleep and then rolled over to look at the clock on the nightstand. The phone rang again, and she picked up. “Hello?”

“Katrina, it’s Tom.” Her ex-husband sounded distressed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Don’t panic,” Tom preempted. “Lexi is OK. But she has been picked up by the police for DUI. I’m on my way to go get her. She’s at the precinct on the corner by my house. Do you know the one?”

“Oh my god, Tom. I’ll be right there.”

She found him in the hallway of the police station. “What was she doing driving, Tom?” Katrina snapped as she strode toward her ex-husband. “
She doesn’t even have a
license!
”

“Katrina, I’m just as upset about this as you are,” Tom said with exaggerated patience and a roll of the eyes. “Just because this happened on my weekend… it could just as easily have happened when she was at your house and you know it!”

“No!
This would
never
have happened at my house! It happened at
your
house because you and Kimberly let her get away with murder. Because you’re more interested in being cool than you are in raising your daughter. Where was she? Did you let her go to a party where people were drinking?”

“
Hell no!
She snuck out. I didn’t even know she was gone until the police called me. I have no idea where she was.”

“Oh well
that
doesn’t surprise me. Way to be responsible, Tom!”

“Katrina, spare me! Where do you get off?
You
are the goddamn workaholic.
You
are the one so wrapped up in your precious research that you don’t give a rat’s ass about… ” He stopped as a uniformed officer came through a nearby door with their fifteen-year-old daughter.

Alexis was wearing a black miniskirt and a red T-shirt that showed her midriff. There was vomit on the front of the shirt. She was shivering violently; the knee-length black jacket that hung open over her clothing, while fashionable, was thin and offered little protection from the early-morning October chill. Thick black lines of mascara streaked down from both eyes, and a stain of wiped lipstick was smeared across her cheek. Her shoulder-length hair was wildly disheveled.

When she saw her parents, Alexis began to cry. “I’m so sorry, you guys,” she said. “I only had one beer, I swear.”

“Then what’s with the puke on the front of your shirt?” Tom asked.

His daughter’s tears stopped as suddenly as they had begun. “Oh, gee
Dad
, I guess you haven’t noticed, but I’ve had stomach problems most of my life. But yeah, I guess any time I puke I
must
be drunk. Whatever!”

“Only when you just got a DUI,” Tom countered.