The Doctor flipped forward over the balcony, that absurd, quizzical look still on his face. Three floors below, or what might have been four in the numerically devoid architecture of Horton Plaza, he smashed through a cla.s.sic San Diego gaslamp before coming to a rest on a staircase.
Katrina turned backward to behold Tom, whose eyes moved from her to the man on the stairs. Tom shrugged. In answer to a question she had not yet posed, Tom shouted, "It wasn"t me! I didn"t shoot him!" Tom trotted over to join Katrina. Together, they scanned the crowd alongside and below them. And then they saw Sean McMullan, at ground level, walking slowly toward the Doctor"s body and holstering his pistol.
"Holy s.h.i.t," Tom said. He cast his eyes at the impossible angle and distance between McMullan and the balcony, on which the FBI agent had somehow managed to put a bullet into the Doctor"s eye while avoiding his daughter. Tom looked toward Katrina, and the respect on his face was unmistakable.
A frustrating five minutes later, Katrina and Tom finally made it to their daughter.
Alexis was sitting on the concrete of the balcony where the Doctor had lost his eye, her body slumped over, her mother"s maroon suit filthy and torn. Her breathing was shallow and labored, her face pale. Katrina raised a hand to Alexis" forehead, while Tom examined the wounds on her arm.
"He stuck me with a needle," Alexis said quietly.
Katrina and Tom exchanged a look.
"When?" Katrina demanded. "How long ago?"
"Maybe an hour?" Lexi guessed.
As they processed the information, McMullan came running toward them, panting. Katrina was amazed that he had found them so quickly.
"Nice shot," Tom said.
"Hurry," McMullan panted, leaning forward momentarily to catch a breath. "He"s still alive."
10:58 A.M. PST.
Behind a one-way mirror in a small room at San Quentin, a young inmate sat fidgeting in his chair. He was in way over his head. All this stuff with the cops, the FBI, and a bunch of lawyers babbling legal bulls.h.i.t at him, and n.o.body would tell him anything about what was going on. But two things had been promised. If he told the truth, his own sentence would be reduced. And they"d keep him away from the guy he ratted on.
Several months earlier, the young prisoner had been serving kitchen duty. All he had to do was ration out a bunch of dinners for one of the death row wings. Some Mexican had paid him to take over the job for one night. And he wasn"t about to argue about it or ask why. He took the money and went back to his cell.
Now, months later, he was supposed to point out the Mexican. He wasn"t sure if he"d get the right one. It was a long time ago, and he hadn"t been paying much attention. He didn"t know what would happen if he picked the wrong guy. Maybe they already knew who the right guy was, and this was a test. Maybe his sentence would be even longer if he gave the wrong answer.
When eight dark-skinned and heavily tattooed men were lined up in front of him, he sighed with relief. Seven of them were men he had never spoken to before. He was sure.
"Number three," he said quickly.
"Are you sure?" the guard asked. "Take your time."
"I"m sure. It"s number three. Can I go now?"
In a temporary holding cell within the same building sat the blind, disfigured twin brother of the man who had just been identified. Chuck Morales was quietly tearing his shirt into thin strips and tying them together.
11:00 A.M. PST.
Katrina felt a wave of physical revulsion when she reached her daughter"s would-be killer.
The Doctor looked peaceful as he lay on his back, a halo of shattered white gla.s.s surrounding him from the gaslamp he had fallen through. His body rested on the staircase, his head elevated on a higher stair, his legs spilling downward and jutting out at sickening angles. It was obvious that the legs had taken the brunt of his fall.
To Katrina"s surprise, his one remaining eye was alert. When she reached him, he even smiled-a freakish smile that only graced half of his face, the other half paralyzed by the bullet that had pa.s.sed through his brain.
"Who are you?" Katrina demanded.
"That"s Guofu Wong," McMullan said quietly from beside her. "He"s the scientist who wanted to fund your research from the very beginning. He"s also the head of epidemiology from the CDC."
Katrina tore her hypnotized stare away from the man on the ground and looked at McMullan. Why? It was incomprehensible.
She stepped over the man on the stairs, straddling him, and leaned in, inches from his face. Her voice was trembling. "Who gave you the Death Row strain of anthrax?" she demanded.
The life in Guofu Wong"s eye was fading, but his grotesque half-smile persisted. With considerable effort, he whispered, "You did, Dr. Stone. It was your activator." And then the light in his one remaining eye burned out.
11:02 A.M. PST.
The four San Quentin guards made quick work of tossing the cell of Oscar Morales-its contents were spa.r.s.e. For the most part, the cell was devoid of contraband. Oscar"s cellmate was removed for the event, and Oscar himself stood by, handcuffed and shackled.
The guards diligently checked the usual hiding places-under the inner rim of the toilet, within small cracks in the concrete floor, gaps in the walls. But it was a small slit in Oscar"s mattress that revealed what they were looking for. A wad of cash amounting to almost sixteen thousand dollars. The final piece of evidence that would surely suffice in a reasonable court of law. Even without the testimony of his accomplice.
But the police and the FBI hoped to obtain that as well. Roger Gilman was already on his way to San Diego to try.
Money in hand, a lanky, pale guard approached the prisoner and waved the wad toward him. His accent was pure back-country Mississippi. "This worth it for ya, spic?" he asked. "Sixteen grand an" a woman who looks like first kin to a yak?"
"I can turn sixteen grand into six million, b.i.t.c.h," Oscar retorted.
The guard laughed. "Not now, ya can"t. You"re gettin" the needle, boy."
In the private holding cell where he had been detained for the last two hours, Chuck Morales finished his handiwork. Guided only by feel, he stood on his chair to grope along the ceiling, periodically stepping down to reposition his chair around the room, until he found an exposed rafter. He tested its strength with a half pull-up. Satisfied, he groped around again until he relocated the table on which he had laid the long, thin, knotted strand that had previously been his own shirt.
Quickly, Chuck tied one end of the make-shift rope to the rafter and the other to his own neck, and kicked the chair out from under himself. The shirt ripped in two from the weight of the thick man, but not before snapping his neck. And the remainder of Chuck Morales" miserable life was unceremoniously extinguished.
11:04 A.M. PST.
When Katrina finally looked up from the dead man before her, she slowly realized that she was no longer alone with McMullan and the remnants of a family she had known in a former life. Until now, she had failed to notice the entourage of news anchors and cameramen gradually encircling them like a school of sharks. She looked helplessly toward McMullan.
"Don"t say a word," he said. And then, to the press, "We have nothing to say at this time. Step aside or you"re interfering with an official FBI investigation." McMullan flashed his badge and took Katrina"s hand to lead her toward a nearby exit sign. Numb, Katrina remained quiet, grateful that he had taken control.
"This way," Tom corrected, and motioned toward another exit sign. "I"m driving."
Only then did Katrina realize that their mode of transportation-McMullan"s sedan-was still parked at the convention center. She fell into step behind Tom. Alexis was still in Tom"s arms. The reporters followed like stalking predators.
Tom laid his daughter gingerly into the pa.s.senger seat of his Jeep, tipping the seat back to grant as much comfort for his daughter as he could. The teenager was looking increasingly ill.
Katrina and McMullan leaped into the Jeep behind Tom and Alexis.
"Hang on," Tom said as he started the Jeep"s engine. Without further warning, he tore rapidly out of the parking s.p.a.ce and began the downward spiral to exit the parking structure of Horton Plaza. The reporters who had escorted them to the Jeep were now meeting up with their respective vans, which waited like vultures at the 4th Avenue entrance to the structure. Tom did not seem concerned.
Pulling out of the parking structure, Tom surprised all of them by making a left onto 4th Avenue-the wrong way up a busy one-way street. Horns blaring, two oncoming cars parted to avoid crashing into the speeding Jeep, and Tom hit the gas hard to pa.s.s between them, then jerked the Jeep to the left to avoid a third car.
Several news vans were left behind, but two remained glued in caravan to his rear b.u.mper, apparently trusting that if an accident occurred the Jeep would take the brunt of it. An even juicier scoop.
McMullan looked over to Katrina with one eyebrow raised. Looking surprisingly calm, she shrugged. "We used to fight about his driving all the time."
Tom jerked the Jeep to the right and narrowly missed one more car before crashing through a small barrier-the barrier designed to prevent traffic from entering C Street off of 4th Avenue. That stretch of C Street was closed off to automobiles-it was trafficked only by the Trolley, San Diego"s public transit rail.
As Tom"s Jeep straddled the set of Trolley tracks on the right side of the street, the driver of the news van immediately on his tail evidently lost his nerve. The van swerved away and came to a halt, still facing the wrong direction on 4th Avenue. As Tom sped down the Trolley tracks, Katrina turned around to see the defeated news van making a three-point turn in an effort to find the correct flow of traffic. But the other van surged forward and a.s.sumed the alpha position behind the Jeep.
"Watch out!" McMullan yelled.
Immediately in front of them, an Orange Line Trolley was halted at the stop on the corner of 5th Avenue and C Street. Several cars long, the Trolley blocked the rail on the right side of the street, but it was the pedestrians who were in danger. Dozens of men, women, and children on both sides of the Trolley were crossing over the tracks to enter the waiting train. None of them seemed aware of the speeding Jeep bearing down on them.
Tom laid on his horn and swerved to the left to head down the opposing set of tracks. Startled pedestrians scurried out of the way. And as the Jeep cleared the rear car of the parked Trolley, the characteristic triangle of lights of another oncoming train came into view.
"Jesus Christ!" Tom yelled. "These things only come every fifteen minutes!" But as he said it, his foot was already pressed to the floor, a deft right hand slamming the Jeep into a lower gear for a burst of speed.
The screech of metal upon metal was hair-raising as the Trolley driver attempted to stop the train from ramming the Jeep speeding directly head-on toward it. A man on the northwest corner of 5th Avenue and C Street dove to the side as the Jeep cut over the sidewalk to turn left, heading northbound on 5th Avenue. A loud clank marked the collision of the train with the overhanging rear b.u.mper of the Jeep, and the b.u.mper was pulled clean off.
The Trolley came to a stop just inches from a halted news van, wide-eyed reporters staring up at the driver of the train. Tom"s Jeep jetted up 5th Avenue, finally in accord with the flow of traffic, and finally clear of the press.
Tom weaved in and out of traffic to pa.s.s the cars heading northbound on Fifth Avenue, his three pa.s.sengers silent. Finally, Katrina spoke. "Where are you going?"
"Where do you think? The hospital," he said grimly. "We"ve gotta get Lexi checked out, now."
"No," Katrina said and both Tom and McMullan swiveled in their seats to look at her. "Not the hospital." Katrina looked toward Tom. "Trust me. We have to get her to my lab first."
Tom visibly flinched, but made the necessary changes in direction to get to San Diego State University.
"How do you feel, Lexi?" Katrina asked then. Her voice was clinical but concerned.
"Like a.s.s," the girl answered quietly. A moment later, Alexis added, "I saw him before."
"Who?" McMullan asked.
"The guy who kidnapped me. He was getting a drink of water."
McMullan and Katrina looked at each other and Katrina slapped a hand over her mouth in shock. McMullan began fidgeting with the pockets of his pants.
"Where?" Katrina demanded. "Inside the convention? How did you even get in? You would have needed a badge."
Alexis shook her head. "It wasn"t inside the convention where I saw him. It was outside."
McMullan spoke up. "I don"t know what you mean. I was inside the convention and I saw all the water they had for it. I actually collected some bottles"-this part was directed at Katrina-"but I guess I"ve dropped them. They"re gone now." He paused, an expression of concern clouding his face. "Anyway, I thought all the water for the scientists was inside."
"Not for the scientists," Lexi said quietly. Her breathing was shallow and labored. "We had a bunch of carboys set up. The water was for the protestors. The only people who drank it were protestors... except for a few scientists who stopped by to ask us about our cause."
From his seat in the auditorium, recent n.o.bel laureate Jeffrey Wilson stood up in the middle of watching a presentation. The speaker droned on, but Jeff had lost interest, the growing sensations of fever and nausea distracting him. As quickly and quietly as possible, Jeff gathered his belongings and exited the lecture.
11:18 A.M. PST.
On a private plane from San Francisco to San Diego, Roger Gilman stared absently out the window and watched the sprawling California coastline slowly inch by. His brow was furrowed as he struggled to connect the pieces of a convoluted puzzle.
Oscar Morales had released the death row strain of anthrax into the rice in San Quentin"s death row several months before. He had been sought out for his knowledge of safe laboratory practices and had turned the occasion into a lucrative blackmailing situation for himself-for a while. The unfortunate late Chuck Morales had been dragged in by his brother to dispose of Katrina Stone, because Stone was the one who had known of Oscar"s involvement.
But it was not Stone who had involved Oscar. Nor was it Stone whom he had been blackmailing. The video was crystal clear proof of that. It was a member of her staff. A male member. And it was possible that he, or Stone, or any member of her staff, had actually planted the Death Row strain of anthrax on Chuck Morales in the lab.
How far would she go to manipulate them? Gilman thought back to a conversation-could it really have happened that very same morning? "You and your advisor have a pretty close relationship, don"t you, Jason?"
"Um, yeah. I guess so... we"ve been working together for years."
The train of thought brought Gilman"s mind to McMullan-another person with whom Stone seemed to have developed a closeness over the last several months. Gilman had not spoken to his partner all day, and not entirely because he was too busy to call him. Gilman reached absently for the small gold cross that hung around his neck from a thin chain, a habitual gesture he employed when in the throes of an ethical dilemma.
As the plane slowed and then came to a halt on the runway, Gilman pulled out his cell phone to call McMullan. And then, for the third time that day, he decided against it.