The Devil's Pitchfork (14 page)

The notes seemed to be a collection of To Do Lists, all on folded yellow Post-It notes. There was one with a list of things labeled one through five, number one being “Pick up dry-cleaning” and number five being “Staff mtg @ 3:30.” The staff meeting was crossed out, but none of the others were.

There was a yellow note that said, simply: Derek Stillwater @ Jimmy’s, 7:00.

He wanted to say Ah-ha!, his gaze shifting thirty yards to the entrance to Jimmy’s. Nothing like a real clue to make you feel like a real detective.

He went through the rest of the wallet, angling it to the light from several patrol cars, their headlights cutting brilliant swaths through the dark night. Finally he handed it back to Fawkes. “Anything else?”

“Not so far.”

Matthews thanked the CSI and headed over to where his partner was deep in discussion with a female patrol officer. She was built like a weight lifter with broad shoulders stretching the tight uniform blouse, and had the bad complexion of a steroid freak. She adjusted her hat and brushed a flyaway strand of brown hair out of her face when he approached. He introduced himself and she identified herself as Officer Sheila Broadway.

“I was just telling your partner here what we’ve been doing.”

“Got a wit’,” Flemming said. He pointed to a patrol car. “Supposed to be a good one, too.”

“Good. So, what’s going on here?” Matthews asked Broadway.

“Witness reports that the victim was walking down the street with another man. The victim was shot and the other man ran. There were other shots. Then the second man jumped into a vehicle and drove off.”

“Huh,” Matthews said. “The witnesses think the second man shot the first man?”

Broadway shrugged. “Conflicting accounts. Some do, some don’t. Some think it was a sniper and the shots were coming from across the street, maybe from a vehicle. Some people think the second man was the shooter. At least two people were sure he had a gun.”

“They describe the second man?”

“Tall, muscular, jeans and a T-shirt, dark red windbreaker. Curly brown hair. Age is anywhere from twenty-five to fifty.”

They asked her more questions and she consulted her notes and answered them as best she could. “And the wit’ in the patrol?” Flemming asked.

“Got a good description of the vehicle the man jumped into. Plus a license plate.”

“Quite an eagle-eye.”

“Yes sir. He scribbled it on his hand. He was lying in the street, hoping not to get shot. I’ve already run the plate. Belongs to a D.C. address, a Dolores Smithson.”

Flemming said, “Call dispatch, have a patrol sent to that address and have them pick up Ms. Smithson and bring her in for questioning.”

Broadway grinned. “Yes sir.”

“Let’s talk to this eagle-eye witness,” Matthews said.

The wit’s name was Andy Rosenbaum. He was thin, average height, with long dark hair and a scraggly beard. They invited him to step out of the car and he did, stretching, arching his back.

They questioned him back and forth and inside-out. Officer Broadway had been right. Rosenbaum was the best witness. They got his contact information and let him go. Matthews walked back over to Fawkes. “Any idea on the angle of those bullets? Or caliber?”

“No, but large.”

“Handgun?”

Fawkes shrugged. “If it was, it was a cannon. And not point blank. There’s no burn on this guy’s shirt. We’ll be able to work out trajectories later. Winston’s measuring everything. My guess—and that’s all it is, a guess—is that the shooter was across the street, shooting from a vehicle using a rifle.”

They were headed for Jimmy’s when Officer Broadway caught their attention. She hurried over. “Cops went to look for that address for Dolores Smithson. The address doesn’t exist. It’s not anywhere in the computer.”

Matthews and Flemming looked at each other. Then they called in a Be On the Lookout on the Chevy Blazer. And they wanted a check ran on somebody called Derek Stillwater.

17

U.S. Immunological Research

“...T
HE
D
EPARTMENT OF
H
OMELAND
Security has declared a Level Red Alert, indicating an active threat of a terrorist attack. In a press conference a short time ago, Secretary James Johnston said that the government was on high alert after a group of unidentified commandos made an armed assault on a government funded biological research facility in...”

Aaron Pilcher reluctantly clicked off the radio as he pulled up to the first checkpoint outside the U.S. Immuno facility. The Army had set up a double perimeter of Humvees and armed, uniformed soldiers. Portable floodlights cast a harsh, uncompromising glare across the parking lot. It looked as desolate and barren as a lunar landscape. The press was out in force and Aaron knew it would make good, though frightening, images for TV.

A soldier asked him to step out of his vehicle. Aaron did and handed over his FBI credentials and showed them his gun. The soldier made a phone call, then nodded and hung up. “You’re expected. Please get back in your vehicle and follow the route ahead to the main gate.”

“Sure.”

Aaron saw that an entry road wide enough for two vehicles to pass had been formed out of concrete barriers. He drove along it, noting the regularly posted sentries. At the main gate the way was blocked by more concrete barriers and guarded by heavily armored vehicles with machine guns mounted in the backs.His skin prickled as he thought of unseen snipers with high-powered rifles and night vision scopes, of fingers on triggers.

The front gate double-checked his ID, checked his gun, searched the car, then gave him an armed escort in a Humvee to the front entrance. In the hours since Pilcher had been there, U.S. Immuno had transformed from a research facility to a military command post. He was led to a command center and met by a Captain Theresa Kavalevski, who demanded to see his ID once again. Kavalevski looked about forty years old with a youthful, oval face. She wore dark hair cut short and round, wire-rimmed glasses that flashed in the harsh fluorescent lights.

She took his ID, compared it to something on a computer screen in front of her, and returned it to him with a brisk nod. “I received a lengthy fax for you from SIOC.” She handed him a folder marked TOP SECRET, AARON PILCHER ONLY, FBI.

“What happened to your face?” she asked.

He involuntarily put a hand to his cheek, felt heat radiating off his skin. “A little too close to an explosion.”

“The one at the municipal airport?”

He nodded.

“You were lucky. I heard we lost a lot of people today.”

“Good people. My people.” He didn’t like to think about it. Thinking about it enraged him and being pissed off didn’t help him be analytical. He needed to think, not freak out. He compartmentalized and hoped he’d still be able to open the door to the compartment when the time to examine those emotions came.

Kavalevski nodded. “Dr. Frank Halloran is changing now. He should be down any minute.” She gestured to a soldier who hurried over.

“Adam, please take—”

”I need a few minutes to go through this file,” he said, lifting it. He pointed to an empty desk. “That okay?”

“Certainly.”

He sat down and adjusted the lamp. Besides a computer there was a photograph of a family, a man, woman and three children. They were at Disney World, hamming it up with Minnie Mouse. They were happy. He wondered which of them was dead. Had the terrorists killed the mother or the father? Had they been told? What were they thinking now? What were they feeling?

Shaking it off, he proceeded through the file. It contained a summary, which he read carefully, then proceeded on to the next twelve pages of documentation. He was a very fast reader with an excellent memory. He put the file aside and reviewed the information in his head. The Bureau had done their usual fine and fast job of background checks. It was what they did best, gather information. But he understood that the FBI wasn’t good at preemption. Preemption required more than information gathering, it required a willingness to break away from a standard mind set and imagine what the terrorists might do. Intuitively he understood that Derek Stillwater was trying to do that, to think outside the box.

“Do you have a shredder?” he asked Kavalesky.

She looked startled. “Yes, right here.”

He shredded the contents of the file and then shredded the file itself. “Ready,” he said.

She called the soldier back over. “Adam, please take Mr. Pilcher to Dr. Halloran’s office. Thank you.”

The U.S. Immuno facility had become a ghost town. Private Adam Nabreau led him silently down empty corridors, walls pocked with bullet holes, tiled floors looking freshly clean—the refuse of violent death having been mopped up.

Halloran’s office must have been one of the few in the building to actually have a window. Considering he was the head of the place, it was pretty spartan. There was a large burled walnut table for a desk, cluttered with paperwork. A computer dominated one corner. A wall of bookshelves were crammed with textbooks and bound technical journals. Gray utilitarian filing cabinets stood sentry, doors shut. On one wall hung photographs and memorabilia from when Halloran was in the military. Pilcher recognized Scully in one of the photographs.

Pilcher welcomed the few minutes in Halloran’s office alone, a chance to get a feel for the man, a chance to get into character. He had three distinct characters he preferred to use for interrogations, with varying degrees of range between each three. With his white blond hair, though thinning, and his square jaw and lean build, he was able to pull off what he referred to as Icy Bastard. By bringing forth a more fussy nature, and generally by working as second fiddle to Spigotta’s Raging Bastard, he could do a very effective Officious Prick. Then, when needed, he was able to totally mellow out and be Surfer Buddy. Somewhere between Officious Prick and Surfer Buddy was the good cop he needed when Spigotta toned down Raging Bastard to his own version of Seriously Bad Cop. With Halloran’s military background, Pilcher thought that Icy Bastard was the way to go.

When Halloran walked into his own office in khaki slacks and a green scrub shirt, Pilcher was sitting behind Halloran’s burled walnut desk, hands clasped in front of him, a hard frown on his face.

“Who are you?”

“Sit down, Doctor.”

When Halloran didn’t sit, Pilcher reached inside his jacket, making sure that Halloran saw his gun in its holster, and retrieved his ID. He held it up. “Special Agent Aaron Pilcher. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Sit down.”

Halloran reluctantly sat. To his credit, he didn’t ask what this was about.

Pilcher stared at him for a long moment. He said, “The Bureau has some questions.”

“I thought I answered all of them earlier.”

“We have more. Are you happily married, Doctor Halloran?”

Halloran raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“Are you happily married, Doctor Halloran?”

“Why are you asking that? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Answer the question!” Pilcher shouted.

Halloran jumped. “Jesus Christ! Yes. What’s your—”

”Do you love your children?”

“What? Now look—”

”Answer the question!”

“Yes.”

“Who are you having an affair with?”

Halloran squinted and leaned forward in his chair. “What?”

Voice cold, colder than ice, Pilcher said, “I asked you a question, Doctor Halloran. In the interest of national security, I want you to answer it.”

“National security?”

Pilcher stared at him. “Every Wednesday night for the last two months you have eaten dinner at a number of restaurants in the Baltimore area. After eating at those restaurants, you have checked into a variety of hotels nearby.”

“How—”

”Since this occurred two months prior to a terrorist assault on your facility resulting in the theft of a bioengineered germ that could cause a pandemic, it amazes me that you would be so stupid to think there’s no connection.”

Halloran’s face drained of color. His voice shook as he protested, “There isn’t.”

“Who is she?”

“A ... just a friend. She’s not involved in this.”

Pilcher thought Halloran was an idiot. Voice dripping with ice, he said, “The Bureau will decide whether or not she is involved in this. We want a name. We want a telephone number. We want an address. If you have pictures, we want them. If you do not give us this information ... immediately, I am authorized to take you into custody. We will be forced to ask your wife and your children questions ... in the interest of national security ... concerning your relationships. Do I make myself clear, Dr. Halloran?”

Obviously he was making himself crystal clear, because Halloran’s hands were shaking in his lap. He clutched the arms of the chair and shook his head. “No. No, my life ... this ... you ... you’re ruining my life.”

“Name.” Pilcher intoned.

Halloran leaned forward and pressed his face into his hands. “Oh God. I can’t believe...” He fell silent, fingers pressing into his closed eyes. Finally: “She’s just a friend.”

“Phone number.”

“She’s married. I never called her. She called me.”

“Phone number.”

Halloran looked up. “I don’t have one.”

“Where does she live?”

Halloran shook his head. “Somewhere in D.C., but I don’t really know.”

“How did you meet her?”

Halloran sighed. “Dear God. She’s ... she’s just a friend.”

Aaron Pilcher thought of the Scully family, of what had been done to them. He wondered if there was a connection. There probably was. “More than a friend. How did you meet her?”

“A talk I gave at ... Georgetown University. She was in the audience. She’s adjunct faculty there. You know, she teaches but isn’t a member of the faculty. She taught microbiology. She has a masters degree in microbiology, taught a lot of laboratory courses.”

“How old?”

He shrugged. “Thirties, I guess.”

“Her name?” Pilcher waited.

Halloran said, “Look, she’s not involved in this. It was a—”

”When you met her for the first time, what did she say?”