"How the h.e.l.l do we know? Heart attack? He was scared s.h.i.tless. The presence of that substance in his body was an advanced case. It could have been that."
"What does Sienna say?"
"The same thing I am. She doesn"t know. She said she couldn"t tell until the medical examiner got through with Briggs"s body. When they took him to the morgue, she trailed along with them. She said she"d call me with the results."
"Weird," Kendra murmured. "The whole thing is bizarre."
"You think it"s weird," Griffin said. "I think it"s big trouble. He died under interrogation. There"s bound to be an investigation. They"ll probably accuse us of waterboarding or something. We"ve got to clean this mess up quick. It won"t look so bad if we"ve saved the nation from biological catastrophe. Jamerson said that Charles Schuyler is involved. Have you questioned him yet?"
"No, he wasn"t at the main office."
"Find him," Griffin said. "I checked him out after I talked to Jamerson, and his company is going bust. Desperate men do desperate things. And I sent a couple agents to pick up Denton for questioning."
"Let me know when you have him," Lynch said. "I think it will all be going down very fast from now on. We"re heading for Ocotillo Wells to check out the airport and any warehouses in the vicinity."
"Schuyler"s there?"
"We don"t know, but we"re going to find out. Rancho Bernardo didn"t look promising, so we"re going to try the desert. It might be a good spot from which to make a quick getaway."
"Nothing like being positive," Griffin said sourly. "Do you need backup?"
"I have no idea, but it wouldn"t hurt to send them."
"I"ll have a team on their way within five minutes," Griffin said curtly. "And I"ll yank Sienna off that autopsy and send her with them in case you find any of that substance out there."
"I"ll be in touch." He hung up, and said to Kendra, "We"ll have help, for what it"s worth. You heard Griffin. They"ll be leaving San Diego in five minutes."
"We may not need help. Ocotillo Wells is only guesswork." She frowned. "Briggs..."
"You"re right, it"s weird."
"Dammit, I want to know how he died."
He studied her face. "It"s really bothering you."
"It may have something to do with that escalation of the effect of the substance. It could be there is a contagious factor involved, it might be-" She shook her head. "I"m guessing. I just want to know." She reached for her phone. "I"m calling Sienna."
"She may not know anything yet."
She dialed Sienna"s number. "Then she"ll tell me that she doesn"t." She made a face. "Voice mail." She hung up. "I"ll call her later."
"Griffin may have already pulled her away from the examination and sent her our way. Or maybe she"s still in the exam room. I"m sure she"ll get back to you."
She nodded. "That sounded both patronizing and soothing, Lynch. Knock it off."
"Yes, ma"am. I"ll watch it in future." His smile faded. "I wasn"t patronizing, but I was trying to soothe you. Briggs"s death seems to have upset you. I don"t like to see you upset. So accept it. My instinct is to try to make your pain go away. That seems to be how it is."
She felt a surge of warmth move through her. "No pain. Just curiosity and puzzlement. And it wouldn"t be your business anyway." She was silent, and added, "But it"s kind ... and surprising ... of you to care." Her gaze shifted to the scenery flying by outside her window, and her brow once more knitted in a frown. "I just don"t ... it"s weird..."
THERE WERE THREE WAREHOUSES a short distance down the slope from the Ocotillo Wells airstrip. As Lynch drove over the hill, they saw that all of the vinyl-tiled warehouses appeared to be deserted. But then so did the rest of the airport, Kendra noticed. There were several small aircraft parked in an adjoining holding area but there was no one servicing them.
However, no one could say the same for the Gulfstream jet parked in a hangar set off from the runway. There was an aura of luxury, urgency, and speed surrounding the plane. The doors of the hangar were thrown wide. The plane was already being fueled for takeoff. The cargo bay was open, and there were two gray-uniformed men loading boxes from a hand truck. Another man with a blond crew cut, wearing a brown leather jacket, was obviously calling out orders to the men.
"Oscar Laird?" Kendra asked, her gaze on the man with the crew cut. It was difficult to see his face from that distance, but he resembled the photo of the security head.
"Good chance. What do you bet some of those boxes have Panama City labels?" Lynch said softly as he pulled the Ferrari out of sight behind the bank of warehouses. "I think we"ve struck pay dirt."
"It looks like they"re in a big hurry," Kendra said. "Tehran express? It"s terrifying. If these formulas work the way they"re intended, entire cities could be infected with Pegasus 1 without the population"s even realizing it."
"Making those people susceptible to being murdered with just a whiff of the second formula," Lynch said soberly. "The idea p.i.s.ses me off. What do you say we cheat those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out of making their delivery?"
"How?" Her eyes narrowed on the three warehouses. "Which one? It could take us hours to search all of them for those boxes."
"Watch the trucks and see which warehouse they go back to after they load the boxes from the hand truck on the plane." He glanced around the field. "I don"t see any vehicles except that beat-up gray truck over by the fence. Either Schuyler hasn"t shown yet, or we could be wrong about their leaving immediately."
"It wouldn"t make sense for them to load those boxes if they hadn"t scheduled an immediate departure," Kendra said. "They couldn"t keep-They"re coming back."
The small truck was speeding back toward the warehouse area. The truck pulled into the loading dock of the middle warehouse and the uniformed men jumped out of the cab. The next moment, they had disappeared inside the building.
"Let"s go." Lynch jumped out of the car. "See those metal fire-escape balconies that line the second-floor rear of each of those warehouses? We"ll go to the building on the right, climb to the rear balcony, then swing over to the balcony of the center warehouse. When we get inside, we"ll verify that those boxes are Pegasus Project, then see about disabling that jet."
"When we get inside? They"re bound to be locked, right?"
"I"m not worried about that part of it."
"I am. And hadn"t we better tell Griffin to get a move on it?" She was hurrying after him up the four flights of stairs of the warehouse. "Or have your Jamerson stop that plane from taking off?"
"Griffin already has agents on the way. If he said they"d be out of the office in five minutes, he"ll see that they are. If we get a chance, we"ll try to escalate. And we can"t have Homeland Security scrambling jets to take down a plane until we verify that it"s a national threat."
"How sensible and discreet. Not like you at all, Lynch." She had reached the second-floor balcony and was gauging the open distance between that warehouse and the balcony of the center warehouse. "It"s at least ten feet." She looked down at the ground at least thirty feet below. "No rope. No ladder. How do we get across?"
"Jump." He positioned himself outside the iron railing surrounding the balcony, then turned to face the center warehouse. "I"m six-four. I"ll launch myself and grab the rails."
"And how do I-"
He was already in motion, pushing off with the b.a.l.l.s of his feet and flying through s.p.a.ce.
He missed!
No, he"d grasped one of the rails with one hand and was hanging, swinging, by that grip.
"Lynch!"
He didn"t answer as he reached up with the other hand and grabbed the rail. "It"s-okay." He pulled himself up to the floor of the balcony and lifted himself over the rail. "Piece of cake."
"Yeah, sure." Her heart was beating so hard, she could scarcely breathe. "You"re an idiot."
"I only misjudged by a little." He took off his jacket, shirt, and gun holster. He tied the arms of the two garments together. "I"m going to swing this jacket over to you. Try to grab the arm of the jacket, and I"ll pull you across. You"ll have to get on the other side of the railing."
She was already climbing over the railing. "And what if that shirt tears away from the jacket?"
"I won"t answer that. You seriously object to soothing. Well, maybe a little soothing. You have a good chance. I don"t buy cheap clothing, and the material is good." He swung the jacket.
She reached out.
She missed it.
He swung the jacket again.
She lunged and grabbed a bit of the material. The weight of the jacket pulled it out of her hand.
"Again," she said.
This time, she grabbed it and held on tight with both hands.
"Are you ready for me?" she asked.
"Most of the time. But you"ve been known to surprise me."
"Lynch," she said through her teeth. "If you drop me, I"ll not be pleased with you. I"ll be so displeased that you"ll be in grave danger of extinction."
He smiled. "Come ahead. You"re safe with me."
"Like h.e.l.l." But she took a deep breath and jumped into s.p.a.ce.
Her palms were burning with friction.
She was dangling, her arms almost jerked from their sockets.
Hold on tight.
He was pulling hand over hand.
She was moving upward.
"Got you!" He released the jacket and grabbed her arms and pulled her over the railing. He held her close for an instant and then released her. "I did that rather well. You may compliment me now, Kendra."
She could scarcely breathe, and her knees were weak. "You may still be in danger even though you didn"t drop me." She took a step back. "See if you can get us inside this warehouse."
He nodded as he fastened the holster with his .44 Magnum back on over his white T-shirt and moved along down the balcony. He checked two windows and stopped at a narrow door. "The security system is probably off since those guards are going in and out packing and loading..." His gaze narrowed on the lock at the door, and he bent above it. "We"ll know in a minute..."
He swung the door open.
No alarm.
"Come on," he whispered. "Let"s find those boxes. Quiet."
It was hard to be quiet as she moved through the halls of the building, which seemed to squeak at every other step. Though Lynch seemed to move with catlike litheness as he led her down the staircase from the second floor to the first. The place was like a rabbit warren, with the huge area divided up into crude wooden-walled compartments of various sizes, demarked by a series of mazelike corridors.
She froze as she saw daylight pierce the dimness across the huge room as the ma.s.sive doors were thrown open.
Sounds suddenly a.s.saulted her.
Curses.
The creak of wheels on the loading dock.
Then the light disappeared as the guards slammed the door shut. The next minute, she heard the roar of the truck.
Lynch held up his hand, listening.
No sound.
"I think we"re okay," Lynch whispered. "You take the compartments on the left. I"ll take the ones on the right. Call if you run across the stash. Now"s the time to take the safety off the gun I gave you. Be careful."
As if she needed him to caution her. She was wound as tightly as a violin string. She only wanted this to be done. She took the safety off her gun and shoved it back into her jacket pocket. She moved toward the first compartment.
Trash.
A few magazines.
An ashtray overflowing with cigarette b.u.t.ts.
The second compartment.
An old Domino"s pizza container.
She tensed, her eyes widening.
And a surgeon"s scalpel stained with dried blood lying on the floor.
She moved slowly toward the third compartment.
Even in the dimness, she could see the bloodstains on the rough wood floor.
She could smell sweat and blood and pain.
It was all pain.
She could hear the sound of it in the breathing that came from the figure huddled in the corner of the compartment.
She came slowly toward that corner.
It was too dim to see clearly.
But she knew. Oh, G.o.d, she knew.