Chapter 16

“All right, the bleeding’s stopped,” Dr. Cynthia Jones said as she sat in the back seat and examined the wrapped wound on the arm of the man she knew as John Smith.

“Thanks, doc.” Ed Lawrence looked around at the dark street as they drove by. He hated that someone else was driving his car but that couldn’t be helped. He needed medical attention while they needed to separate themselves from the fire.

Dr. Michael Radford drove the stranger’s car because he had been told that his car would be tracked and discovered by the authorities within ten minutes of them starting to look for it. That was also why he’d had to leave his cell phone behind.

Radford hadn’t liked leaving anything behind but when Cynthia vouched for the security man’s competence by saying that he had saved her life, it was good enough for him.

“Don’t speed,” Lawrence said.

Radford looked down at the speedometer and took his foot off the gas so the car could coast to the speed limit ten miles below what he was currently going. “We need to talk about what happened.”

“So, talk.”

Radford looked in the rear view mirror. “No, I mean you need to talk about it. I’ve no idea what happened, I wasn’t there.”

“The silent alarm I set this afternoon went off. I went to investigate. After I got there, I was questioning your students as to why they were there when the Arab shot me. I shot back. The other one dragged him away so I’m assuming I hit the Arab and not the other one. Or at least, not bad enough to stop him from dragging the Arab away. That’s all I’ve got.”

Lawrence was quiet for a couple of seconds, then said, “Now, you tell me, why would they copy information on your computer?”

Radford looked back in the rear view mirror. He was not a practiced liar. Convincing a graduate student whose future he held in his hands was one thing; convincing a man who used a fake name and carried silencer-tipped handguns was quite another.

He decided to start their conversation slowly, with a question he already knew the answer to. “May I ask, how much did Miles tell you about what it is we’re doing?”

“Not a damn thing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“I’m paid for security. I don’t need to be screwing around with microscopes, computers, and those doo-hickeys you had in that lab.”

“Of course.” Radford knew Devlin wouldn’t risk telling the man what they were doing. The truth was, their organization was made up of a small, closely knit, group of true believers and a much larger group of people whose job it was to follow orders. Because of the compartmentalization of information, the ones in the larger group had no idea what the overall plan was.

“I can’t imagine what they were doing in there,” Radford said. “This makes no sense.”

“I’m assuming you’re working on a secret thing for Devlin. Maybe one of his competitors wants it.”

Competitors? Radford was grateful for the explanation. “Yes, I suppose it’s possible one of Miles’ competitors hired them to steal the intellectual property. But I had a much higher regard for the character of both of the young men in question.”

“If you give some people enough money, it’ll buy their character. Or at least rent it for a little while.”

Radford wanted to say, if you can buy it, it isn’t really character, but instead he said, “Of course.”

“Do we know where we’re going?” asked Jones. She was also extremely uncomfortable having left her cell phone behind. She had wanted to take out the battery and take the phone with her but Smith had nixed the idea.

“I need to get to the backup laboratory,” Radford said.

“Later,” Lawrence said, “Right now we need to hide and regroup.”

☣

Fish sat at one end of the desk in the interrogation room and checked his watch. It was a quarter to four in the morning. He’d been walked into the room and told to sit down about a half hour earlier. Since then, no one had come in to speak with him.

He looked at the mirror on one wall and assumed someone was watching him. Part of him wanted to tell them to hurry up; his friend had been shot and was out there somewhere in need of help. But he had told them that already. And they either didn’t believe him or they had more important things to do.

Xavier Fisher was not a troublemaker. As a child, he had tried to follow the rules. Because that had worked out so well for him, when he became an adult, he kept following the rules. Now, here he was, in federal custody, unable to help the man who had risked his life to help him. And the feds were stalling.

Fish sat back in his chair so whoever was behind the mirror could see his hands on the desk and started twiddling his thumbs.

“What’s he doing?” Special Agent Vincent Cataldo said looking at Fish from behind the two-way mirror.

Analyst Danielle Lynette was also looking at him. “Wow, he’s literally twiddling his thumbs. I’ve never seen that before. I strongly suggest you get in there soon.”

“What for? Let him stew.”

“I’ve seen no sign of deception. If he’s telling the truth, we’re going to need his cooperation. I think there’s a possibility that if you make him wait any longer, he might lawyer up on us just out of spite.”

The door to their room opened. Special Agent in Charge Ronald Putnam came in the room. “What have we got?”

“Sir, what are you doing here?” asked Cataldo.

“The words, weapon of mass destruction, have a way of getting me out of bed and into the office. So, what have we got?”

“He gave us a preliminary debrief at the scene of the fire but I haven’t interrogated him, yet,” Cataldo said. “I’m sweating him out a little bit.”

Putnam looked at the young man sitting back and twiddling his thumbs. He turned back to Cataldo. “I’m sweating more than he is! Get in there and find out what the hell is going on!”

“Yes, sir.” Cataldo left the room.

A few seconds later, the door to the interrogation room opened. Cataldo came in holding a folder in one hand. He sat in the chair on the other side of the desk from Fish and said, “Mr. Xavier Fisher, I’ve got your file right here.”

Fish was stunned. “The FBI has a file on me?”

“We do now,” Cataldo said opening it. He looked over the first piece of paper in the packet. “So, Harvard? This isn’t some sort of prank where you guys try to top what those nuts at MIT did, is it?”

“I don’t know any nuts at MIT or what they may have done. Please, you’ve got to believe me.”

“You know who believed you? The fireman. And he didn’t find anyone on the roof. But you know that because you broke the law and jumped in that basket after you had specifically been told you couldn’t--”

“That’s not a federal offense, so don’t bother me with that. I’m here to discuss a weapon of mass destruction in the city of Boston that will be turned loose on the world.”

Cataldo didn’t like that he’d been interrupted. Still, his boss was watching from the next room and he wasn’t there to observe a pissing match. “Fine. Tell me in your own words what’s going on?”

Fish started his story. The federal agent had let him talk uninterrupted until he got to the part about Abdul.

“His name is Abdul Jasser?” Cataldo asked.

“Yes.”

“Has Mr. Jasser ever tried to convert you to Islam or said anything bad about the United States?”

“What? No.” Fish saw the agent writing something down on one of the paper’s in Fish’s file. “Abdul isn’t the problem. Dr. Michael Radford is the one who’s responsible.”

“You mentioned that. You also said he was the head of the Genetics department at Harvard.”

“Yes, but I don’t have any evidence that anyone else at the department knows anything about this.”

“Right. Except for your part in the weapon.”

Fish sighed. “Yes, except for me.”

“So, you see why I’m having a problem.”

“Actually, I don’t.”

“You don’t see why I have a problem with a man who admits to participating in the creation of a weapon of mass destruction?” Cataldo looked down at his notes. “You described it as a super-virus that could kill billions of people.” He looked up at Fish. “You really don’t see my problem?”

“I see that you don’t want to believe me. In which case I didn’t do anything wrong. If you do believe me, then, since I’m already in custody, you should be going after Michael Radford. And whoever that guy was that shot my friend.”

“Yes, the mysterious Abdul who disappeared from the scene of the crime.”

“You seem upset that my friend might not be dead. Why is that?”

“I’m not upset about anything.”

A knock at the door interrupted them. Cataldo got up from the desk and went to the door. He opened it and stuck his head out.

Putnam was standing in the hallway with Danni next to him. She was holding two cups of coffee in her hands along with a small plastic bag.

“Yes, sir,” Cataldo said.

“I want Danni to talk to him,” Putnam said.

Cataldo looked at Danni, then back at Putnam. The idea that he would be replaced by someone who had less experience than him was bad enough, but she wasn’t even an FBI agent. Still, Cataldo kept his composure. “Sir, I just started.”

“You’re not being punished, Vince; we’re gonna double team the guy, that’s all.”

Cataldo came out of the room and held the door for Danielle. She smiled at him and went into the room. He closed the door behind her.

Cataldo turned to Putnam. “Sir, with all due respect, she’s not even an agent.”

“Vince, don’t take this the wrong way but you have a confrontational personality.”

“And you don’t?”

“Yeah, I do; that’s why I’m not in there, either. Three weeks ago, that woman, who’s not even an agent, went in unarmed to negotiate with armed robbers and convinced two of them to shoot the third. She has skills that you and I don’t. And as long as she’s under my command, I’m going to use them.”

Danni smiled apologetically as she came in the room. “I don’t know how you take your coffee.”

Fish was exhausted. “Under the circumstances, throwing it straight into my eyes might be best.”

Danni laughed out loud. “Oh, no. That won’t be necessary, I’m sure.” She sat in the second chair and set the coffee cups on the desk. She opened up the plastic bag and took out some packets of sugar and cream. There were two stirring sticks. “Please.”

Fish took one sugar and one cream and put them into his coffee cup. He started stirring his drink. “So, you must be the good cop.”

With a smile, she said, “I’m sorry?”

“You know how it goes, the bad cop wears me down and I talk. The good cop cheers me up and I talk a little more. The bad cop comes in and wears me down again and I talk a little more.”

“Oh, my gosh, is that really a thing?” Danni said stirring her sugar into her coffee cup. “I thought it was just on TV shows.”

“I couldn’t say for sure. This is my first time being interrogated.”

“Oh, that’s okay. It’s actually my first interrogation, too.”

“Really? They think that little of me, that they sent in a rookie? No offense.”

“Oh, no, I’m not offended. But I’m not a rookie. I’m also not a cop or an FBI agent. I’m an analyst with the Department of Homeland Security.”

“Department of Homeland Security? Well, I got the right agency, at least. This is what you do, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re in the right place.”

“How long have you been with DHS?”

“About six years now.”

“Is this your first WMD?”

“Yes.”

“She’s giving up more information than she’s getting,” Cataldo said from the observation room on the other side of the mirror.”

“Settle down,” said Putnam. “Those criminals didn’t start shooting their leader until she’d been in there a few minutes. Give her a chance to get his guard down. She’s doing fine.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about what’s going on,” Danni said. “Something to help me stop it.”

“I can tell you a lot of things. But if you don’t listen and if you don’t act, then everything I say is meaningless.”

“Xavier, I want you to understand that I am listening. What do you friends call you, ex?”

Fish smiled despite himself. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me ex in my life. My friends call me Fish.”

Danni giggled. “Fish? Oh, my gosh, that’s so cool. Can I call you Fish?”

“Sure.”

She gave him a soft smile. “And you can call me, Danni. So, Fish, how do you think we should go about stopping this thing?”

“You know who Miles Devlin is, right?”

Her smile disappeared. “The multibillionaire?”

“Yeah. I met him at a party at Dr. Radford’s house about three weeks ago. It’s my belief that he’s the one who paid for everything.”

“Okay. Okay. Now help me understand something; why would one of the richest men in the world do something like this?”

“If I had to guess, I would say he doesn’t know what was being done with his money.”

They were quiet for a few seconds, each looking at the other.

“You should also look into Dr. Cynthia Jones,” Fish said.

“Who’s she?”

“She knows Radford and she knows Devlin. Please understand, I’m not accusing her of anything but she was at the party. She was in our group.”

Danni wrote something down on one of the papers in Fish’s file. “Okay. If that’s everything…”

She stood up from the table. He looked up at her. Their eyes locked. He knew he had to trust someone and it was either her or the guy who didn’t really seem to believe him. And who knew who or when someone else might come to speak with him. No, Fish decided Danni was his best chance. “One more thing.”

He reached into his front pocket and pulled out the USB stick. He reached across the table and handed it to her. “Here.”

“What’s this?” she said taking it.

“Abdul made a copy of what the virus can do.”

“You didn’t say you had this.”

“The other agent didn’t listen to me. You did. Make a copy and show it to the Center for Disease Control. After they see it and shit their pants, you’ll have a better understand of just how screwed we’ll be if we don’t stop this thing.”