What Lies Behind (20 page)

Chapter 37

Fletcher’s house

MARCOS DANIELS MET
them at the door, shivering in excitement. Sam was further reminded of an eager puppy, wanting to please, happy to see them home. She used to play a game with the twins, trying to match people to their canine counterparts. It was a teaching tool, giving them a way to learn different breeds. The moment Matthew and Madeline had figured out what
d-o-g
actually correlated to, they were obsessed, in the way only little ones could be. They’d both been wildly creative, precocious, able to pull breeds she’d never heard of from their tiny brains, enhanced with a book she’d bought them from the American Kennel Club.

What breed would Daniels be, if he were a dog? Loyal, smart, eager. Short-haired, clean, quiet unless agitated. Quick and lethal if necessary, she was sure of it; he wouldn’t be assigned to Baldwin’s unit if he wasn’t very capable. A Doberman, then. Yes, looking closer, she could see it, a darkness inside him that would only be unleashed in the most dire of circumstances.

Her rumination was quickly interrupted by the Doberman himself. “I found Robin Souleyret. She has a carriage house out in McLean, lives on the estate of a couple of French diplomats. We have a BOLO out on the Lexus your witness saw this morning. It’s registered to her, at this address in McLean. I’ve sent a car to start surveillance on the house, subtly, of course. From what I’ve been able to uncover, she’d pick up a tail a mile away. She’s got a pretty impressive CV. Been all over the world, and most of it’s redacted.”

“Baldwin told me she was CIA black ops. How much did you actually find?” Sam asked.

Daniels grinned. “More than they’d want me to. Remember, I can work a little magic with the computer.”

Sam grinned back at him, then shook her finger with mock sternness. “Agent Daniels, tell me you didn’t hack the CIA databases.”

“Oh no, ma’am. That would be illegal. I walked in through the front door and asked politely.”

She clapped him on the shoulder. She was liking Daniels more and more. “Good job. What else did you find?”

“Souleyret was badly injured when the Humvee she was traveling in ran over an IED, north of Kirkuk. They were on a secret mission, traveling dark, with satellite guides, and someone screwed up royally, sent them off the road to hide from an oncoming patrol in exactly the wrong place. She pulled three men from the vehicle, saved their lives, got a big commendation for it, too. But she had to retire from field work. She had a pretty severe head injury which DQ’d her from active duty. Once she got out of the hospital, they sent her back to Langley, doing analyst work. She was bored, by all accounts, and difficult to work with. They blamed it on the head injury, but there were rumors—there always are—that she was aggressive and uncontrollable. They booted her, put her on administrative leave.”

Sam looked at Fletcher. “We need to be looking at Robin closer.”

“She could have been helping Amanda off book, for sure,” he replied. “Good job, Daniels.”

Fletcher started toward the kitchen, and Daniels grabbed his arm. “Um, before you go in there, a heads-up. Your friend is here.”

“Jordan? She’s back in town early.” A smile lit his face, one that made Sam warm up inside. He really did dig the FBI agent he’d been dating.

“No, it’s your other friend. The one you called to help. She said her name was Mouse.”

“Ah, Rosie.” Then he eyed Daniels. “What exactly is Freedom Mouse
doing
in my kitchen, Marcos?”

Daniels had the decency to look abashed. “If it won’t piss you off, she’s been dissecting the SD card. If it will piss you off, she’s been cleaning up the lunch dishes.”

Fletcher looked torn for a minute, and Sam knew he was thinking Mouse was yet another person to keep quiet. There was no way for them to manage a cover-up that had spread through so many people. At this point, she didn’t give a whit what Regina Girabaldi wanted. This story was too big to contain, and doing so was hurting their chances of finding the killer.

“Don’t worry, Daniels,” Sam said. “I think Fletcher’s level of aggravation will be in direct proportion to what, exactly, Mouse has found. Let’s go see, shall we?”

The girl sitting at Fletcher’s table was the furthest thing from a Mouse as Sam had ever seen, but she supposed that was the whole point of having an alias—you chose something to disguise yourself. Mouse’s right arm was a sleeve of colorful tattoos that ended sharply at her wrist. Though she was clearly young, her dark honey-blond hair was streaked with silver. Whether it was natural or purposeful, its effect was stunning. She had a pierced septum, and she wasn’t wearing a bra; her nipples were pierced, as well. Sam could see the outline of small barbells through the girl’s thin shirt.

Mouse saw Fletcher, smiled widely and put up two fingers in a peace sign. “I come bearing good news.”

“You better,” Fletcher growled at her, but Sam could tell he was too interested to see what she’d found to be truly angry at Daniels’s slipup.

“Good to see you, too, Lieutenant.” She glanced at Sam, one eyebrow hiked.

Sam nodded in greeting. “Dr. Samantha Owens. FBI.”

“Fletcher told me you were a professor at Georgetown.”

“Normally I am. I’m an FBI consultant, too.”

“Do you know anything about my world, Doc? What it is that I do?”

“A bit. Not enough to follow if you’re going to talk hacker, though.”

She smiled. The top teeth were perfect, gleaming white, but the bottom were crowded, the canines at an odd angle. More imperfections that looked utterly right on this mercurial girl.

“All right, then. When Marcos decoded the SD card, he only skimmed the top layer. There’s a second level of encryption inside the card. Really advanced stuff, theoretical, even, if you want me to be honest. This card can take down the entire network of a company with a clean keystroke. It’s a weapon, plain and simple. And if the wrong person gets their hands on it, someone’s going to end up having a very bad day.”

“In English, Mouse, for the old folks. Please,” Fletcher said.

She nodded patiently. Genius she might be, but she was used to having to make herself clear. “You’ve heard of server proxies? It’s what keeps a website secure, allows them to move and store people’s private information. Some hackers sell proxies to the highest bidder. I’m talking millions of dollars changing hands. There’s code on this card that will take down a website’s secure proxy, and allow the hacker access to all the financial data stored in the servers.”

“What would Amanda Souleyret be doing with this? Or what did she want it for? Is there any indication?” Fletcher asked.

Mouse took a gulp of her soda, her eyes never leaving Fletcher’s. “To be honest, I’d assume she needed to get into a really secure database and steal something.”

Sam nodded. “That makes sense. That’s what her job was. Getting secrets out of databases. And the program worked, right? She was able to get the vaccination schedules, and the proof of the superbug...” She stopped. Mouse wasn’t at all cleared to know anything more.

But the girl rolled her eyes. “I saw it all. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. I assume your people will know what to do with this information more than me. It’s wild, though, to think that they’ve managed to come up with a medication that might work. That’s some cool shit, dude.”

“What do you mean,
work
?” Sam asked. “The parts I read showed a ninety percent mortality rate.”

“
Au contraire, mon frère
. Inside the second layer of information, there’s a list of survivors, actual names and such. The data on the first layer was a year old—this is current, real time, like last week. There are a bunch more people who did survive. But here’s the kicker. The ones who survived are being killed by the soldiers and families. They think they’re zombies. There are a lot of superstitions in that part of the world. They know no one gets better once they contract the blood diseases. There’s a patient in here who was in isolation for over a month, but got better, and when they released her and sent her home to her family, they stoned her to death, thinking she was a monster.”

“Zombies?” Fletcher said. Skeptical had nothing on him.

Mouse shrugged. “That’s what the files say.”

“How many patients are we talking about who survived?” Sam asked.

“Of the people who were given the fake vaccine with the superbug in it, at least a hundred. The mortality rate is still tremendous, but some people are surviving. They’re all identified by code letters. That’s the important part of this, what was deeply encrypted. They are using antibodies in the blood of the ones who survived to create a real vaccine that will help fight the spread of the superbug. Which means there are samples somewhere—blood, tissue, all that icky stuff. I can’t find where, but they exist. There’s a log of them in the files.”

Sam felt a spark of hope. “Who is
they
?”

“Some virologist here in D.C.”

Bromley. It had to be. She exchanged a look with Fletcher. “So you’re saying that they’re using the samples from the survivors to work on a new vaccine that protects against the superbug?”

Mouse nodded. “They just have no idea how or why it works. And it still only works on about seventy percent. So the numbers are moving in the right direction, but it’s still fatal for a lot of people.”

“Tell me more,” Sam said. “The physical samples taken from the survivors...what are they doing with them?”

“I’m not sure. The labeling system is a bit wonky, but it’s consistent from area to area. That’s the trick with codes—you find the similarities, and everything falls into place.” She pointed to a line of code on the computer. “See, this one is from ground zero. It’s a small village in Sierra Leone—Anchurra. AN. So all the samples from this area are labeled with a GR—for ground zero—and AN for Anchurra. The next letters are which strain they’ve been given, and lastly the patient number or letter. But I can’t find where the samples got off to. Who knows where they are.”

Sam felt a zing of recognition, looked at Fletcher. “I think I know where at least one is. God, I can’t believe I didn’t realize it before. I’m slipping.”

“Where?”

“Remember the vials we pulled out of Cattafi’s refrigerator? The one no one could identify?
Gransef.
GR—ground zero. AN—Anchurra province. SE—the strain. F—the patient. We have one of the samples in evidence right now. It was rather elegantly hidden, wasn’t it?”

Fletcher’s smile grew wide, and he bumped Mouse on the shoulder. “Damn good work, kiddo.” He nodded at Daniels. “You’re forgiven.”

“Wait. It’s not all good news.”

“What is it, Mouse?” Sam asked.

“It’s the ultimate biological weapon, right? Even at its best, it still has a seventy to ninety percent mortality rate. You manage to slip this superbug into a shipment of flu vaccines heading to your local doctor’s office or drugstore, and you can infect the populace. And even with our great sanitation and medical care, there would be a massive mortality rate, because the vaccine against the superbug still kills so many of the people who get it.”

“What are you saying? That it’s possible a terrorist organization might have their hands on some of this and is planning to put it into our vaccines?”

“Ma’am, I may be paranoid, but I think we can’t rule it out. That would explain why the SD chip has the software proxies. So someone can load them into the firm’s servers and download all their financial data. To condemn, or to prosecute or to cover all this up. If they’re being funded by a terror group, or selling this superbug to them? We could have a much bigger problem on our hands.”

The kitchen went silent. This was what Girabaldi had been worried about. Now they had proof, in one way.

Sam took a deep breath. “We need to get our hands on those vials from Cattafi’s right now.”

“And figure out who is actually behind this,” Fletcher added. “What company has created this killer bug, and who was moving it in and out of Africa. All we know right now is there’s a man with a British accent involved.”

Mouse nodded, excitement shining in her eyes. “I’ve tracked the money to a shell company with French papers, but it’s going to take some time to unravel exactly where this is coming from.”

Fletcher’s phone rang, jarring them all. He glanced at the screen. “This is the hospital. I asked for updates on Cattafi. Fingers crossed it’s good news.”

Sam watched him answer, and his face drained of color. “Are you sure?” he said. “Son of a bitch. Start running the name, right now. Find out who it is. You hear me? And send me the picture. Call me immediately when you know.”

He hung up. “Cattafi threw a code blue. They’ve managed to bring him back. He’s still in the coma, but he’s breathing. Apparently, a doctor no one recognized came to see him just before he tried to croak. Put her name down as Margaret Preston. Problem is, there isn’t a doctor named Margaret Preston at GW. I’m going to have heads over this.”

“Wait, Fletch. An impostor doctor got in to see Cattafi? How?”

“Marched right in. They’re sending a photo.” His phone dinged. He opened the email.

There was a good shot of the impostor’s face as she exited the room, taken from the nurses’ station. It was grainy, but clear enough to work with. The doctor was small, gray-haired, stooped a bit.

He turned the phone around. “Look familiar?”

Sam had to strip away the hair, the demeanor, the attitude. Once she did, she saw someone she recognized. The hair was wrong, but the face was unmistakable. “That’s Robin Souleyret.”

“Yes, it is,” Fletcher replied. “And she just tried to kill Tommy Cattafi.”

Chapter 38

Foggy
Bottom
Dr. David Bromley’s lab

ROBIN SAW THE
glint of the weapon, immediately went into a defensive posture, crouched, ready to spring. She didn’t hesitate; her fist struck out, nailing her assailant in the throat. With the other hand, she smashed her wrist against his forearm, knocking the gun loose. She whipped around and planted her left leg behind the gunman’s right knee and shoved. He went over on his back—it was a he, she could smell the acrid scent of his sweat and feel the thick hair on his arms. He scrambled backward and landed heavily on his back with a curse—French, she thought dimly, did he just say
putain
?—then shot from flat on his back to his feet with breathtaking speed.

He came at her, both hands free now, confident in his skill, not even glancing for the gun she’d held. She took two punches, one to her cheek, one to her forehead, before she could turn to the side and kick him. He went for her leg and missed, but caught her sharply on the neck, right in the notch by her carotid, hard enough to make her see stars.

He had a momentary advantage, and he knew it. He grabbed her by the wrist and flung her against the wall. She caught herself before she slammed headfirst, curled her body for the impact. Hit the wall with a dull thump, pain shooting from her shoulder.

He launched after her, teeth bared, his face so close she could see the small vertical lines that bisected his upper lip. Got his hands on her neck, but that was just where she wanted him. She went limp for a moment, surprising him, then turned in his arms and shoved hard against the wall with her legs, sent them toppling backward across the room. She beat him back to standing, but he was quick, right there. She didn’t stop, turned and crashed an elbow into his throat and, without waiting to see the effect it had, threw her head back in a reverse Glasgow kiss.

She tagged him square in the nose, felt the crunch of the cartilage and a fine mist of blood warm down her back. He started to sag, and she jammed her right heel into his knee, which bent backward in an unholy way.

He screamed. The one-two head-knee combination was enough to stop him in his tracks. She felt him going down, sprang away so he didn’t land on her, and calmly picked up his gun. A Beretta, with suppressor attached. Had it not, she wouldn’t have had the luck she did to disarm him so quickly; the suppressor added just enough weight to make the gun off balance if you weren’t gripping it tightly. She knew; she’d been disarmed once in the same way, not expecting the weight of the weapon to shift in her hand when her arm was hit.

She was breathing hard. It felt like the fight had taken years, not minutes.

The assassin was down, hands around his ruined knee. He wasn’t crying, and she was impressed. She knew he must have been in an incredible amount of pain.

She stood near him, the gun trained on him, listening to a clever assortment of invectives in French. She’d been right; he had called her a
putain
and a
salope
, and suggested she do a few rather base things with her mother, father and grandmother.

She kicked him in the nuts and said, “
Baise-toi, connard.
Who sent you?”

“Nique ta mère.”

She laughed, the adrenaline starting to fade a bit, leaving her light-headed. She spoke in French. “You’re a nasty one, aren’t you? I don’t think I will. Tell me who sent you, or I’ll pull the trigger. And if you know anything at all about me, you know I’m not kidding.”

He shook his head. She debated for only a moment, then smoothly fired. The gun kicked gently in her hand, and the man’s leg erupted in blood. He howled.

“Now both knees are shot. I’ll give you one more chance. Tell me who sent you.”

He was crying now, the pain and the shock of the gunshot too much on top of the fight. She took no pleasure in this conquest. He wasn’t a worthy opponent. She’d taken him down too easily, too quickly.

“Quit crying like a little girl and tell me who you work for.”

He shook his head and she started to move the gun. His eyes tracked it, moving slowly from his leg, to his groin, to right between his eyes.

“Who?”

“Denon,” he said.

“James Denon?”

“
Oui.
Have mercy, sister.” He was finished. He shut his eyes, ready. His throat convulsed once as he swallowed.

“Merci,”
she whispered, and with a small frown pulled the trigger twice more.

* * *

Riley showed up five minutes later. He found Robin sitting on the floor of Bromley’s front office, the suppressed Beretta in her lap, a look of surprise on her face.

He dropped to his knees beside her, gently plucked the gun from her hand. She let him. She was tired. So tired.

Riley looked worried, but she hardly noticed it. She just wanted to close her eyes and sleep. The blood from the man she’d shot smelled of copper and iron, hot smoke, and when she finally relaxed against the wall, allowed herself to step away from warrior mode, she saw the whole lab was coated in a fine yellow smog, like bile.

Seeing the mess, Riley roughed her up, yanked her to her feet, whispering harshly in purple-veined words. “What are you still doing here? You need to leave. Now. You’ve been compromised. The police know you’ve been to see Cattafi. He coded right after you left. You’re a suspect. What the hell were you thinking?”

Riley’s fury brought her back to herself. “I didn’t touch Cattafi. Rather, I touched his hand, but he was already gone. I didn’t do anything else.”

“The police don’t think so. They think you went in disguised and shoved something into his IV. We need to get you safe, right now.”

“It’s fine, Riley. I’ll just tell them what happened.”

“And this?” He swung an arm out and she saw the detritus of the fight clearly for the first time—furniture toppled, paintings askew, the ruined husk of the French assassin on the floor opposite her.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Riley so angry. It made her want to kiss away the frown lines between his brows. She settled for touching his jaw lightly.

“I didn’t have a choice. But I found out something before he died. He told me James Denon had sent him after me. How is that possible? I thought Denon was on our side?”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about Denon. Let’s go. We need to get you out of the city.”

“If I run, they’ll think I’m guilty. There’s another body here. The guy who ran the lab, Bromley. He was shot earlier, though it’s been made to look like a suicide. Note and everything. He was already dead when I got here. Promise.”

She gave him a wry smile.

Riley’s green eyes glinted dangerously, then he threw his hands in the air. “So help me God, Robbie. Listen to me. If you don’t run,
I’ll
think you’re mad. Get moving. Down the stairs. Now.”

She resisted the urge to be flip and snap to in a salute. She cast a last glance at the body of the Frenchman, and holstered her Glock. Riley pocketed the Beretta, and they slipped out of the office toward the stairs.

This wasn’t how her day was supposed to go. Then again, she assumed Amanda had felt exactly the same way when faced with the silver power of the knife.

They got out of the building without notice. Riley marched her down the street and into his truck. Reached over and fastened her seat belt. She felt hollow and strange, the way she always did after a massive adrenaline rush, and a few choice bruises were beginning to throb. She pulled down the visor, looked in the mirror. She had the beginnings of a nice black eye; she didn’t remember receiving that particular punch.

“Where’s your car?” Riley asked.

“Back on I Street. At a meter.”

“Lola will get it. I’m taking you to my place. You’re too damn hot to go home now.”

He yanked the gearshift into Drive, and she put a hand on his leg. “I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice.”

He looked at her strangely. “You always have a choice, Robin. He could have been of use to us.”

She retracted the hand, watched the cloud of red follow. Sat up straighter. “He wasn’t. He killed my sister, and there wasn’t any reason to keep him alive.”

“Except he didn’t kill your sister.”

The world around her pulsed
red, red, red
.