JANUARY 24, 2016.
7:34 A.M. PST.
A prison guard opened a door to the visiting room, and Chuck Morales stepped inside. His twin was already waiting.
"Thanks for coming, hermanito," Oscar said. He was smiling.
"It"s a long f.u.c.kin" drive from San Diego." Chuck was not smiling.
"I know it is, bro. I really appreciate it. Besides, it will be worth your while, I promise." He gave his brother a grin.
"So what"s up now?"
Oscar leaned forward and whispered, "Give me some skin." He raised a hand toward Chuck. Chuck brought up a hand to claps his brother"s and a look of shock crossed his face. "Ssh... " Oscar hissed. His eyes were darting past Chuck to the security guard, who did not seem to be looking.
Chuck had been expecting money. When he glanced into his hand before dropping it into his pocket, he instead saw two small, sealed gla.s.s vials. Each vial contained an off-white powder. Chuck began to tremble. "What is this?"
"Don"t touch it. Don"t eat it, and definitely don"t f.u.c.king snort it. Understand?"
"What the f.u.c.k are you trying to get me into!" he snarled.
"Look, brother. Don"t worry. I promise, I"ll walk you through everything you need to know. You trust me, right?"
Chuck only glared.
"Right?" Oscar repeated.
"Yeah, I trust you," Chuck finally said, looking down.
"Good, man, I"ve never steered you wrong, have I?"
Chuck looked away for a moment. When he looked back into his twin"s eyes, he shook his head. "No, man, you"ve never steered me wrong."
Oscar smiled. "I"m the one who"s in here," he said lovingly. "And you"re the one who"s out there. I took the hit and did the time for both of us, you know."
"Yeah, I know. So what"s the plan?"
Oscar looked over at the guard one last time. "You know I"m up for parole next year, don"t you? I"m going to set us up, brother. We"ll be in style for the rest of our lives. First of all, did you take care of the b.i.t.c.h in San Diego?"
"Not yet," Chuck said. "She got away. But I know where she lives and where she works. She won"t get away again."
"Good. When are you going back?"
"Soon as we"re done here, I guess. I gotta stop by the apartment first. At least this time I can plan to leave town."
"Okay," said Oscar. "But hurry up, "cause we"ve got s.h.i.t to take care of in L.A. now."
"Like what?"
Oscar paused. "I"ve got a plan, bro. But I need your help one more time. Do you remember Tony Ortiz?"
"Yeah, he"s the motherf.u.c.ker who got you put away," Chuck said.
"Right. He f.u.c.kin" set me up. Well, now he"s running the biggest operation in L.A. based on my clientele. Yours too, bro. We"re going to take him out of the loop. And while we"re at it, we"re going to monopolize the business."
"How"s that?"
"Turns out blackmail is lucrative, brother. I"ve had a thing going on here for a while with that b.i.t.c.h you"re going to get rid of shortly. Seems she doesn"t want anyone to know she killed sixty-eight people, even if they were just death row inmates. She"s been more than happy to fund our future endeavors.
"I"ve been laying low here. I think I"ll get out on parole this time. And when I do, we"ll have the business to ourselves, because n.o.body"s going anywhere else. See, I"ve taken some of that money and I"ve put it to good use. I"ve got people on a f.u.c.kin" cherry payroll. I"ve got people who have infiltrated all of the major players in L.A.
"Those two vials I just gave you are enough to poison the entire narcotics supply from all of our compet.i.tors combined. All you need to do is divide it up into five smaller containers, and then I"m going to give you the names of five people. I"ll set up meetings for you with the other guys, and they"ll take care of the rest. A couple people will make the wrong deal, and everyone else will stop making deals with those f.u.c.ks at all.
"The customers know me, though. They know I"ve got high quality product for them. They trust me. When they hear I"m getting out, and that people buying elsewhere are sick and dying, they"ll come running back. They"ll be scared s.h.i.tless not to.
"Not everyone knows I have a twin. Let them see you. Let the word get out on the street. Let them think I"m out already. By the time I get paroled, you and I will be millionaires within a year. And n.o.body will be turning our a.s.ses in this time, because they"ll be out of the picture. Starting with Tony Motherf.u.c.kin" Ortiz."
Oscar had expected Chuck to be impressed and excited about the plan. Instead, Chuck looked down and did not answer. Oscar ducked his head, trying to catch his brother"s eye. "What"s wrong, bro?" he asked.
"Why do you need me to do this?" Chuck asked. "Why not just wait until you get out, and then you take care of it. You know how to handle this s.h.i.t. I don"t. I get some of this on me, and that"s it. You think I don"t know that?"
"Look, hermanito. Like I said, I"ll walk you through it. You"ll be fine, I promise. But we can"t wait until I get out. We need to set it up now. The funding for this is about to dry up, remember? Besides, the longer I hold on to those vials in here, the more likely someone will find them. And then, we"re f.u.c.ked. Mostly me, but you"re f.u.c.ked too because you won"t have a big brother to take care of you anymore.
"They"ve been tossing cells here and questioning people-mostly Mexicans. It"s only a matter of time before they come after me. You don"t get life for this kind of s.h.i.t. If they find those vials in my mattress, I"m ridin" the lightning. That"s why I need you to do it now."
8:57 A.M. PST.
The Muslim robe and headscarf were gone. The dark face makeup was gone. The wig and long dress were gone. Today, it was jeans and a T-shirt.
"You did not go to the prison this weekend," the Doctor said.
"I didn"t have time," came the response. "I"m going next weekend. But I need more money before I go. You know I can"t afford to keep up the payments."
The Doctor stood quietly for a moment. Oscar Morales was almost finished. The prison guards were methodically searching cells. It was only a matter of time before Oscar would be found. And culpability would end there. Oscar would only be connected to a single regular visitor who would by then be dead.
The Doctor reached into a pocket and withdrew not a billfold, but a pistol. "Then I"m afraid you are no longer of use to me."
As he embarked on the long drive between San Francisco and San Diego for a second time, Chuck Morales was sick and f.u.c.king tired of being Oscar"s hermanito.
Oscar still wanted him to take the b.i.t.c.h out. Good thing, he thought, remembering the night he had spent in the Pacific Ocean after she had kicked him in the nuts. I ain"t about to let that s.h.i.t go.
But then, when that was done, he was supposed to divide up two vials of anthrax and distribute it. The thought of opening even one of those vials filled Chuck with absolute, merciless, paralyzing fear.
Do I really need to do this for him? he wondered. Maybe not. Maybe it"s time I just did my own thing. Maybe I can use these two vials any way I decide. Maybe I don"t even need to open them.
As Chuck pulled onto the Interstate 5, he began to grin. It could be done his own way. There was a way to kill two birds with one stone. Or better said, one Stone with one vial.
Remember, Oscar had told him. She knows my face. Your face.
The b.i.t.c.h knew who Oscar was. She had seen him every Sunday for months. But there was no way she had any idea he had an identical twin. And Oscar had stupidly revealed to Chuck that most of their customers didn"t know either.
Maybe Chuck didn"t need Oscar anymore, after all. Maybe he could get rid of her himself with just one unopened vial. And maybe he could just take his brother"s advice and become visible on the street. Let everyone think Oscar was out. Approach his contacts in the other networks-and take over the business himself.
And Oscar could do nothing about it from where he sat.
"Hermanito?" Chuck said aloud as he drove. "Not anymore, bro."
"Wait! I can still help you!"
The Doctor moved in and placed the barrel of the pistol against a sweat-glistening temple, and smiled. "Perhaps you can. I think I would like to employ your beautiful penmanship one more time. Generate two more copies of the same greeting card, and I will meet with you again."
"I don"t understand. I"ve used up my entire knowledge of the Arabic language. Do you speak it?"
"These cards will be written in English," the Doctor said. "Now go."
FEBRUARY 3, 2016.
6:09 P.M. PST.
Ever since Christmas Day, the activity at the lab had steadily waned. By the beginning of February, the security guard"s job had been downright boring. Today, before he could wish for boring, he would be dead.
It was late afternoon, and most of the building"s occupants had gone home. Professor Katrina Stone, the woman whose safekeeping was the guard"s main objective, was always among the last to call it a day. He stood watch outside of her laboratory door wishing she would wrap it up and leave.
When a man stepped off of the elevator, the guard barely took notice, until he recognized the face as someone with whom he had previously argued. But before he could reach for his firearm, the man had closed the short gap between the elevator and the laboratory door.
The short, stubby barrel of a pistol jutted obscenely from the inner flap of the dark man"s jacket like a rude, steel p.e.n.i.s.
The guard gasped.
"Not a word," the intruder said quietly. "Open the f.u.c.kin" door and step into the room."
The guard fumbled for his keys and did as the man with the gun had instructed, raising one hand while opening the door with the other, and then leaving the keys hanging from the lock to raise that hand as well. As he stepped inside, he momentarily felt the hot breath of his a.s.sailant down the back of his neck. Then he saw a brief flash of steel as the pistol crossed over the front of him, followed by a ma.s.sive right arm snaking across his face.
Without dropping the gun, Chuck held his victim immobile with one arm for the brief moment it took to unsheathe his b.u.t.terfly knife and slit the guard"s throat. With a near silent gurgle, the guard slumped to the floor, and then he was no longer a concern.
For a moment, Chuck only stared down at the body. It was the same guard who had previously turned him away from the lab with condescending rudeness. Chuck smiled, closed the door behind him, and stepped over the dead guard.
Once inside the laboratory, Chuck cast his eyes around the room"s interior, to familiarize himself with the new surroundings as much as to look for additional human obstacles. The main laboratory s.p.a.ce was square, with additional doors around its edges. Chuck a.s.sumed that most of them probably led to office s.p.a.ces. The opposite wall broke into what appeared to be a corridor. Chuck thought the connecting pa.s.sageway looked cleaner and more freshly painted-perhaps newer than the rest of the lab. He walked past the whirring machines and cluttered workbenches of the lab, through the corridor, and around the bend into the adjacent room.
And no more than ten feet in front of him, there she was.
6:14 P.M. PST.
Roger Gilman removed his gla.s.ses and set them upside down on the page in front of him. He closed his eyes and ma.s.saged his temples in a feeble attempt to quell the headache that had been coming on for the last hour. Then he sat back to roll his aching shoulders back and forth for a moment.
Over the last few minutes, he had finally begun to admit to himself that he was no longer retaining the information he was reading. Confronted with a stack of two thousand abbreviated biographies, all incarcerated Hispanic males, Gilman was beginning to feel as if he had been examining the same biography two thousand times.
He glanced up at the hotel room alarm clock and was reminded that he couldn"t read it. Over its face, Gilman himself had taped a computer printout. On it was the puzzle that sliced away at his nerves, day in and day out, and would stifle all meaning of time until he could solve it.
Taped over the alarm clock was the text from the White House greeting card. It was not the message that had been written in Arabic, which made no sense even to speakers of the language, but the English trace picked up by Teresa Wood"s ESDA a.n.a.lysis.
WHO1315.
DR1630.
AL1800.
The text still meant nothing to Roger Gilman. And right now, he just wanted to know what time it was. He tipped back a shirtsleeve and glanced at his watch.
It was 6:15 p.m. in San Diego. Dawn would still be awake. Gilman picked up the receiver of his hotel room phone and made the call. Dawn"s voice was like heaven.
"Hi, honey," Gilman said when she answered the phone. "How are things?"