The Devil's Pitchfork (15 page)

“Well, uh, she said she liked my talk, thought it was really interesting, she’d like to know more about my work and the research we do.”

“And?”

“And what?” Halloran, the poor fool, looked utterly confused.

“And what? You offered to buy her a drink somewhere and talk about your work?”

“Well...” Halloran’s face grew red. “Yes. Exactly.”

“Or did she offer to buy you a drink and let you talk about your work?”

He shook his head. “I-I ... no, I ... I don’t remember.”

Pilcher stared. “What’s her name?”

“Look—”

Pilcher reached under his jacket and retrieved his handcuffs. “I’m really quite through with you, Doctor.”

Sweat beaded on Halloran’s forehead. “No, really. Her name ... her name is Irina Khournikova.”

“Sounds Russian,” Pilcher said.

“It is. Her English is excellent. She’s been here in the U.S. for years, but she’s originally from Russia.”

“Adjunct faculty at Georgetown?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any photographs?”

“N-no.”

“Describe her.”

“Well, mid-thirties, athletic, shoulder-length brown hair. Attractive. Very intelligent.”

She played you like a goddamned piano, Pilcher thought. He stood up. “I wouldn’t be surprised if someone comes back to discuss this with you again.” He walked past Halloran and was halfway out the door when Halloran said, “You ... you think she’s involved in this, don’t you? In the theft of Chimera.”

Pilcher nodded and walked out of Halloran’s office. He was immediately on his cell phone, calling Spigotta, giving him the name and the information. Spigotta said, “Have you been in touch with Stillwater?”

“No.”

“Get hold of him. I want an update. Brief him on what we know.”

Pilcher clicked off and called Stillwater’s cell phone. Stillwater sounded cagey. “What have you got?” Pilcher asked.

“I’ve confirmed my theory.” He sounded like someone was in the room with him.

“Are you alone?”

“No.”

“Is Richard Coffee behind this like you think?”

“Yes. And others.”

“Okay. I’ve got a lead on somebody we can check on. A microbiology instructor at Georgetown U. Irina Khournikova—”

”Say that again.”

Pilcher did, wondering at Clearwater’s interruption.

“I’ll call you back,” Clearwater said, and clicked off.

“Wonder what that was about,” Pilcher said out loud. He turned to leave and was just walking around the corner when he heard a gunshot fired from behind him. He froze, then slowly turned back, heading toward Halloran’s office. The shot must have been heard throughout the building, because two soldiers swept past him at a dead run. He followed, reluctant to witness what he knew he was going to see.

Halloran had taken the time to get up from his chair, retrieve a Colt .45 service weapon from a desk drawer. Then he had sat down behind his desk, written on a piece of stationary merely the words,
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry
. Then Halloran put the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

18

Washington, D.C.

D
EREK
S
TILLWATER STARED AT
the photograph of Richard Coffee and Kim Pak Lee, the Korean bioweapons expert. Then he slid it aside.

“How many in this organization?”

Irina Khournikova shrugged. “Estimates say as small as ten, as large as fifty. It may be that its size is fluid. I don’t have dossiers on all the members. Just a few confirmed cases.”

“Let’s see them.”

He followed her into the bedroom that apparently served as a makeshift office. She retrieved a handful of files and turned, seeing him standing close behind her. She moved around him without comment, but her expression said:
You don’t trust me.
That was okay by Derek. He didn’t trust her.

He followed her back to the kitchen and joined her at the table. She opened a folder. In it was a head-and-shoulder shot of a scowling woman with dark hair. She appeared to be in her fifties and had a fleshy face and dark, unhappy eyes. “Masha Khattan. An Israeli expert in nuclear weapons.” Irina tapped the photograph. “Mossad would very much like to find her.”

She opened four more folders, describing the nationalities and expertise of the people inside. Japanese, Korean, Italian, German. Expertise in biological and chemical warfare, nuclear physics, computers, intelligence.

“What’s their goal?”

Irina met his gaze. “Money, Dr. Stillwater. The Fallen Angels buy or steal weapons—any kind—or the materials to build weapons of mass destruction and sell them. Sometimes they auction them. Sometimes they fill an order.”

Derek said, “For instance, Syria is willing to pay ten million dollars, U.S., for fifteen pounds of enriched plutonium.”

“Exactly.”

He flipped through the files again and felt his heart sink. He would not ever have thought Richard Coffee would go bad for money. In the years he had worked with the man, he had known him to be a professional, a patriot, a man who was unusually knowledgeable about geopolitics and was concerned, legitimately concerned, about the growing threats of terrorist organizations and their access to weapons of mass destruction.

A part of him refused to believe that Richard could be behind this.

And yet...

If it had been ideological; maybe Derek could believe that Richard had had a breakdown over ideology. The man had been passionate about his beliefs.

Soldiers were trained to support their commander in chief, to fulfill the commands and obey orders without question. Yet, at the same time, both Richard and Derek had been in branches of the military requiring a great deal of independent thought. Derek, as a bioweapons specialist, had been required to give his honest opinion on a course of action. He gave it. Richard had been like that, too. But, like Derek, he had also questioned orders and decisions made by politicians and commanders with motives other than success, or questioned orders that required too large or senseless a sacrifice of men.

What had Richard seen in Chechnya? What had happened to him there?

Derek’s phone chirped. He saw Irina tense. He got up from the table and turned sideways to her. “Yes?”

“Stillwater! It’s Pilcher. I need an update. What have you got?”

“I’ve confirmed my theory.”

“Are you alone?”

“No.”

“Is Richard Coffee behind this like you think?”

“Yes. And others.” Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Irina watching him, sitting still, hands in her lap, out of sight.

“Okay,” Pilcher continued. “I’ve got a lead on somebody we should check on. A microbiology instructor at Georgetown U. Irina Khournikova—”

Derek stiffened, then forced himself to relax. He turned further away from the Russian so she couldn’t see his face. “Say that again.”

“A Russian microbiology instructor at Georgetown. Her name is Irina Khournikova. She was having an affair with Halloran at U.S. Immuno, the simpleton.”

“I’ll call you back.”

Derek clicked off the cell phone at the same time he heard a ripping sound. He was already in motion as Khournikova pulled out a handgun that had been duct-taped to the underside of the kitchen table. He flung the cell phone in her face and dived to the floor as the air filled with bullets.

He rolled and came up under her, shoulder into her chest, slamming her back against the kitchen cabinets. She kneed him. He turned, catching it on his hip. Caught her gun hand with his own, twisting. She clawed at him with her free hand.

He twisted again. Her gun went flying.

She spun, booted foot catching him in the ribs. He stepped back and she moved in fast with flying arms and legs. He shuffled back, shuffled, like fencing, slapping her blows away, on the defensive. He caught a blow to the shoulder. His arm went numb.

He shuffled back before her attack, back, hit the wall. Turning sideways to her, he got his gun out of its clip, only to have her kick it away.

“Fuck this,” he snarled and dived after it.

She went after it, too, just as he had expected.

Derek shifted his weight and caught her on the side of the head with his closed fist, followed up with an elbow strike to the jaw. She staggered and he kicked her in the stomach.

It knocked her off her feet. She stumbled over a chair and crashed to the floor. She lay on the cheap linoleum, struggling for air, dazed.

He picked up the guns and quickly ripped the cords out of the two living room lamps. Before she could completely recover he grabbed her by the hair and lifted her into one of the kitchen chairs. Using the cord he tied her securely to the chair.

Derek stepped back and took a deep breath. Her eyes were half open, breathing ragged. He didn’t trust it. She could be faking.

He looked for his cellular phone and found it in pieces on the floor. He searched for a phone, but found none. The computer was hooked to a cable line, no help there. She didn’t carry a cell phone. Maybe it was in the SUV.

When he returned to the kitchen she was fully conscious, eyes lit with rage. Derek leaned close to her. He was overly conscious of the time ticking away, aware that everything she had told him so far could be an outright lie.

“Is your real name Irina Khournikova?”

“Fuck you.”

He nodded. “Now listen carefully, Irina. I’m going to ask you some questions. You’re going to answer them. Here’s what I want to know. One, what does your group—”

”The Fallen Angels! I told you!”

“Fine. What do The Fallen Angels plan to do with Chimera M13? That’s number one. Number two—”

”We are going to release it,” she hissed. “We are going to start over. Eliminate nations, politics, war. We’re going to wipe out most of the human race and start over again.”

“Where and when?”

She turned her head away from him, chin raised in defiance.

“Where are The Fallen Angels?” he asked.

She did not answer.

“Where will they start?”

Again, silence.

“Well,” he said, standing up, “so much for the easy way.” He stepped behind her and began to rummage in the kitchen drawers.

“Oh, Derek,” she said. “Going to torture me?” She clucked her tongue. “Richard doesn’t think you have the will for such an action. He said you’re too nice a guy. He wanted you delayed. I was to find out what you knew, then detain you. Richard could have killed you back on 19
^th
Street. But he wanted to pick your brain. He wanted me to try and recruit you. It’s too bad you didn’t let me; you might have liked it.”

“Sorry. I’m not much of a joiner.”

“So now you will torture me?” She laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“Were you at the Scully house, Irina?”

She laughed again, goading him. “Oh yes. I enjoyed her screams. Is that what you’re getting back there, Derek? Looking for a sharp knife? Going to threaten to cut off my ear if I don’t tell you what you want to know? Going to threaten to cut off a nipple? Ha! You do not have the—”

Derek brought a plastic freezer bag over her head and pulled it tight. She struggled, gasping for breath. In her ear he whispered, “Knives really aren’t my style.” He waited, then pulled the bag away.

Face red, Irina gasped for air, struggling to pull oxygen into her lungs.

“Where can I find The Fallen Angels?” Derek said.

In a gasp she said, “Never.”

He yanked the bag back over her head. Held it there, watching her twist against her bindings, sucking the plastic against her open mouth. He pulled it off.

“Where ... are they?”

“Fuck—”

Back went the bag. Again and again he took her to the edge of unconsciousness and asked her where The Fallen Angels were, asked her what their plan was, where and how were they going to release Chimera.

She did not tell him. Her voice, hurling epithets in his face, grew weaker. He felt frantic. If he went hunting for a phone to call Pilcher and waited for an FBI team to show up, then waited for her to be officially processed, for paperwork to be filled out, for lawyers to be consulted, hours would pass. He didn’t have hours. The world didn’t have hours. She wouldn’t tell them anything. She would not deal.

Derek pulled the bag over her head and held it tight. He held it, held it.... She passed out. He removed the bag and checked her pulse. He couldn’t tell if it was his imagination, but her pulse seemed erratic. It was there, however, beneath his finger. She was still breathing, still alive.

He took the time to search the apartment again, going through closets, looking under the bed, through every drawer. Nothing. When he returned Irina was conscious, a line of spittle oozing down her chin. She looked up and glared at him. He didn’t like her color. She looked gray. And despite the hatred in her eyes, he thought they had lost their brightness.

“Hello,” he said conversationally. “Ready to go again?”

“I won’t tell you anything.”

He sighed and deliberately pulled the bag over her head, pulling it taut. “I know,” he said in her ear. “But I’m going to keep going, just in case. I’m a thorough professional. And the stakes are just too damned high. I’m very sorry. I guess Richard never told you that, nice guy or not, I would do what I had to do.”

She struggled, her energy dissipating fast.

“I know you’d rather die than betray The Fallen Angels, and that’s too bad. What I’m wondering is, Which will come first? Irreparable brain damage? Or death?”

She twisted her head, groaning. Then abruptly slumped. He removed the bag and checked her pulse. With a growing sense of unease, he shifted his touch, trying to locate her heartbeat.

“Goddamnit!” He peeled back an eyelid, saw a fixed pupil. No pulse.

Heart racing, he untied her, pulled her onto the floor and started CPR. Compression, one, two, three... Breathe, breathe....

But he knew it was too late. He’d screwed up. Caused a fatal heart arrhythmia. He had killed the only lead he had.

Derek left the apartment after going through Irina’s pockets and finding the keys to the Blazer. The neighborhood hadn’t improved with the descent of night. The people who drove by seemed to belong to the darkness, to be on errands and business that fell on the wrong side of the law. Like me, he thought.