The Ninth Day (21 page)

“What are you doing? Let’s go,” Mono’s voice sounded harsh with tension.

“I’m looking up the symptoms. One more minute.” Emma kept her eyes on the screen.

“Dr. Raynor? Please respond.” Sullivan’s voice came through the cell phone. After twenty more seconds that felt like twenty minutes to Emma, the computer screen listed thirty results, with the ten highest ranked displayed first.

“Move!” Mono said. Emma exited the search and went to stand next to Mono.

“I’m ready,” she said.

Mono cocked his weapon and cautiously peered around the door into the hall. He waved them forward. Oz went next, and Emma last. When she pulled even with Raynor she glanced at him. He continued to watch her with a hard stare.

I’m sorry, she thought. She flicked off the light and stepped through the door.

They jogged down the main hall and turned into the branch, heading for the side door. Mono hit the bar and Emma heard the beeping noise as it opened. He was gone, with Oz right behind. Emma jogged forward.

“Stop!” A woman’s voice gave the order.

Emma sped up. She sprinted the ten feet and slammed the bar against the door. The panel opened so fast that she stumbled through. Emma heard the woman yell again, but she was out and the steel door was closing behind her.

The Escalade idled twenty feet away. Emma put on a burst of speed, yanking open the door and crawling in the back. Oz drove, Mono was in the passenger’s seat with the window rolled down and his gun poised on the outside, ready to shoot. A glance at the door revealed Sullivan, her gun in one hand and her cell phone in the other. Emma saw the woman’s lips move as she ran toward the Escalade.

“She’s trying to get a plate, let’s move,” Emma yelled the warning.

The Escalade dug in, and then shot forward. Mono leaned out and squeezed off two shots in Sullivan’s direction. Emma winced at the loud sound the gun made as it fired. She watched the guard dive to the ground.

“Enough!” Emma said.

“I missed her.” Mono aimed anew.

“Stop it!” Oz said. He yanked the wheel to the left and the Escalade skidded into a turn. Emma grabbed at the handrail above her head. Mono fell ten inches backward, into the car. The hand holding the gun flew up, and he hit his knuckles on the top of the window’s frame.

“Watch what you do!” Mono said. Oz ignored him. He turned right at the top of the driveway in front of the corporate offices and the car gained even more speed on the straightaway down the drive toward the main road. The Escalade’s headlights were off, but low solar street illuminators glowed on either side, making it possible to see despite the darkness. Emma watched behind them the entire length of the road, but Ms. Sullivan didn’t appear.

Oz turned the car onto the street and took the vehicle to an even higher speed. Once they were out off the campus, he switched on the headlights and barreled ahead.

“Where are we going?” he said to Mono.

Mono pressed a key on his cell phone and spoke in low tones. After a moment he said, “The interstate entrance is coming up in two kilometers. Take it east.”

Oz nodded.

The blue-and-red interstate sign reflected the beam of the car’s headlights. Oz entered the eastbound ramp, opening the throttle when they reached the top, and merged onto the highway. The Escalade raced down the interstate, dodging slower traffic that appeared in its path. They continued to drive, Oz keeping the speedometer at ninety and concentrating on weaving in and out of traffic.

No one spoke. Emma sat and worried about the various diseases Oz could have, and the list running through her mind was an ugly one. She felt despair nipping at the edges of her mind. She pushed back the thought. She’d cure him.

She wouldn’t let today be his day to die.

Chapter 25

“E
mma Caldridge broke into a pharmaceutical lab in Nebraska, tied up a scientist working there, used the lab to run some tests on an accomplice, and, when she was discovered, shot at the security guard on duty.”

Banner and Sumner were sitting in an all-suite business hotel near the Phoenix Airport when Stromeyer called to deliver this news. Banner was lounging in front of the hotel-room desk, his feet on the top, eating a Subway sandwich, when he’d hit the speaker button to take Stromeyer’s call. Now he swung his feet off the desk and stood, unable to believe what he’d heard. Sumner stopped eating his own sandwich and stared at the phone with an expression of surprise on his face.

“Are you joking?” Banner asked.

“No. I have the sheriff of the town on the line, do you want to speak to him?”

Banner sat back down in his chair. “Yes, I believe I do.”

“Mr. Banner? Sheriff Carl Wiley here.”

“Can you tell me what happened?” Banner said.

“Near as we can tell, Ms. Caldridge lied to gain access to the Medicant Pharmaceutical building. Once inside, she opened a side door, and two accomplices, both men, joined her. She then helped herself to the equipment and supplies in a lab. When a scientist who was working late stumbled upon them, one of the men threatened to kill him and the other tied him up. The security guard for the building intercepted Caldridge as she ran out of the building to join her buddies, and they sped away in a black SUV. They escaped, but not before they squeezed off a couple of shots at the guard.”

“Was the guard hit?”

“No. Missed. There’s a security camera in the main hallway that leads to the lab. We’re looking at it now. Maybe we can get a picture of the three of them. Figure out who the men are.”

“Sheriff, I’ve known Ms. Caldridge for some time now, and she would never allow someone innocent to be attacked. She must have been coerced.”

“Doesn’t sound like it at all. The scientist said she was marching around the lab issuing orders that the two men followed.”

“Do you have any idea where she is now?”

“I do not. Got an APB out on a black SUV. American made.”

“I’m on my way.”

F
our hours later Banner and Sumner pulled up in a rented car in front of the county police station in a town a hundred miles from Omaha. It was a small modern, rectangular brown brick building with glass doors. An empty flagpole held a prominent position on the front lawn. Banner parked at the side of the building.

Once inside, Banner saw a long counter facing him that was covered in some sort of pressed wood veneer. Tacked on a far wall was a large seal with the words E P
LURIBUS
U
NU
on it. A tired-looking cop sat behind the counter under a harsh fluorescent light, reading the newspaper. He threw it down when they entered.

“Can I help you?”

Banner introduced himself and Sumner. He pointed at the seal. “You’re missing the em,” he said.

The cop gave a world-weary nod. Like he’d had that pointed out to him a thousand times before.

“Fell off in the ’06 tornado, and the county hasn’t authorized the repair.”

“Been a while,” Banner said. The cop smiled.

“Bureaucracy gears turn real slowly around here.” The cop swung open a lower half door that separated the private area behind the desk from the hall and waved them forward. “Josh told me you were coming. He’s got the witness in the interrogation room.” Banner looked at his watch.

“That’s a long time to talk to a witness.”

“Oh, they just started. Get a load of this: witness went back to work after the incident. Only came here after. Crazy, huh? I’d be home popping a beer and saying thanks to the Lord. Guy must be a real workaholic.”

“Bet if he worked for the county you’d have that em back on your seal by now,” Sumner said.

The cop guffawed. “Bet you’re right.” He pointed them to a door with a sign that read A
UTHORIZED
P
ERSONNEL
O
NLY
. “Through there. Second door on your left.”

The room contained two men and a long wooden table with four chairs, all of which had seen better days. One of the men, the one that Banner presumed was Sheriff Wiley, was in uniform, the other—Banner knew his name was John Raynor—in conservative clothes. Raynor looked tired, but not nearly as tired as Sheriff Wiley, and a Blackberry phone sat on the desk in front of him. Once again, Banner introduced himself and Sumner, and shook hands all around.

“Can you run down what happened? I know you’ve probably told the story a thousand times already, but I’d like to hear it from you directly,” he said to Raynor. The man nodded.

Banner listened as Raynor gave the same essential facts that Wiley had already relayed.

“Can you describe the accomplices?”

“One Mexican guy, early twenties, and one white guy, maybe late twenties. Both slender. The white guy had hair past his ears and he wore beat-up jeans and a band tee shirt.”

“What band?” Sumner said.

Raynor looked confused. “I beg your pardon?”

“What band was on the tee shirt?”

“Uh. Rex Rain.”

Banner had never heard of them. “Either of you guys know them?” he said to Wiley and Sumner.

Wiley snorted. “Not me. I like Tim McGraw and Gretchen Wilson. Dolly Parton’s good, too.”

“They’re an alternative rock band out of England. Just completed their first U.S. tour this year. Definitely up and coming,” Sumner said. “You like alternative rock?”

Banner liked old rock and new jazz. “You mean like Led Zeppelin or the Stones?”

Sumner smiled. “I mean like Gomez or Phoenix.”

“I’ll put Stromeyer on it,” Banner said. Sumner’s smile broadened. Banner turned back to Raynor.

“We’ve had another witness describe this band guy as handsome, like someone on television with an effeminate manner. That right?”

Raynor shook his head. “He wasn’t effeminate at all. He took charge of the Mexican guy and helped him tie me up. When she took a knife to his hand he didn’t even flinch.”

“She took a knife to his hand?”

“He had sores on his left hand. He said they’d been growing for only eight hours, but they were already pretty extensive. She did a pretty deep cut to get some tissue for a slide.”

“Did she analyze the skin?”

Raynor nodded. “She said she saw bacteria, and when he asked her what he had, she said possibly meningitis or tuberculosis.”

“I got a call into the CDC,” Wiley interjected. “Figured if this guy is running around with tuberculosis, he could be infecting everyone he’s coming in contact with.”

“Was he coughing?”

“Not at all,” Raynor said. “And he didn’t look feverish or sick the way meningitis would make him look.”

Banner sat back, thinking.

Raynor leaned forward. “I’ve been thinking about this all night. I went back and dug up the slide that she threw into the sharps container. I put it under a microscope.”

Banner was liking this Raynor more and more. “Great. And?”

“It was tainted, but I thought I did see some rod-shaped bacteria. Could be tuberculosis, sure, but the guy wasn’t coughing or pale, and that didn’t explain the sores. Just by the way she acted, I thought she had a different idea in mind. She hesitated to tell him. It was as if she was holding back. Then she asked him if he had been digging in the dirt at the compound.”

Banner threw a glance to Sumner. He was staring at Raynor with as intense an expression as he’d ever seen on the man.

“Is that significant?” Banner said.

“She thought he got the bacteria from the dirt on the compound,” Sumner repeated.

Raynor turned to Sumner and nodded. “But not bugs. She told the guy no worms or parasites.”

“How big were the sores?” Sumner asked.

“Large ones. They covered his whole hand.”

“Does anthrax present in rod-shaped bacteria?” Sumner asked.

Raynor looked triumphant. “Yes, it does.”

Chapter 26

B
anner and Sumner were back in the car. Sumner drove while Banner called Stromeyer. She answered in a sleepy voice.

“I’m sorry to wake you up, but we may be running this Caldridge thing down.” Banner filled her in.

“I can’t believe Caldridge would try to kill the guard,” Stromeyer said. “What I
can
believe is that she’s trying to help this guy with the sores.”

“I agree, but why not just get him to a hospital? Raynor told us that if it’s anthrax and he’s reached the sores stage, he’s not likely to survive. The good news in all of this is that anthrax is not contagious. The guy isn’t spreading it throughout the States on this crime spree of his, or whatever the hell he’s doing.”

“Did you notify the Mexican authorities? They’d better test everyone who came in contact with the soil in the compound.”

“They’re on it. Can you check on something for me? It’s an English rock band called Rex Rain. Have you heard of them?”