Exposed

it.

'He obviously doesn't consider it an acronym,' Sloane slowly said and now he enunciated each word as though he were speaking to a foreigner. ' To him it's the Federal Bureau of Investigation.'

'So maybe it's somebody who's fed up with the feds?' Ganza persisted.

Sloane glared at the lab director instead of offering a response. He put the envelope aside, glanced at his wristwatch and picked up the second plastic bag.

'The note's open,' Tully told him, 'but it had been folded to fit the envelope.You can see from the creases it was—'

'A pharmaceutical fold,' Sloane finished for him. He looked up at Tully with thick eyebrows raised. 'Your people still opened it when it was folded like this inside the envelope?'

'The envelope hadn't been sealed.' Tully tried not to make it sound like he was being defensive despite Sloane's accusation and the man's continued glare. Tully hadn't even been the one to open it and yet he was feeling the need to explain. Maybe it was something that came with the professorship—a superior aura that made everyone else feel like an underling student.'There was nothing inside,' he finally said without adding what he wanted to say, that Cunningham was the one who opened it. He knew that would sound childish.

As if on cue Sloane pursed his lips again, reminding Tully of a pouting child. He glanced at his watch.

'Come on, George,' Tully said, 'we already know this has all the markings of a remote-control killer. This guy might be getting ready to send another of his special deliveries. What can you tell us about him? Are we going to find him holed up in some backwoods cabin or in a suburban garage?'

Sloane sat back and crossed his arms over his chest.

'He won't be holed up in a cabin,' he said with what sounded like a snort at the end to tell Tully what he thought of his two-cents' worth. 'Nor is he someone in the pharmaceutical business. He may have simply done his homework. The anthrax killer in fall of 2001 used that same fold. I'd say he has it right down to the quarter-inch sides.'

'You were brought in on that case?' Ganza asked.

'Who do you think told them to start looking stateside at our own labs and scientists and not at some Muslim living in an Afghanistan cave?' Sloane fidgeted in his chair. 'Though I shouldn't be surprised you wouldn't know that. No one hands out much praise around here, do they?' He hesitated, looking as if he was considering whether to share more. 'Not that it matters,' he said, waving the plastic bag. 'You FBI guys believe what you want to believe, like your profile for the Beltway Sniper. You guys stuck to that generic description of a young, white male, a loner in a white paneled van. Never had a clue, did you, that it might be two black guys in a muscle car.'

'I wasn't in D.C. then,' Tully said.

'Oh, right. You were still in Cincinnati.'

'Cleveland.'

'Sorry, my mistake.' But he didn't sound sorry. He brought the note up close and read it out loud with a sort of bellow like a sports announcer:

'‘CALL ME GOD.

THERE WILL BE A CRASH TODAY.

At 13949 ELK GROVE

10:00 A.M.

I'D HATE FOR YOU TO MISS IT.

I AM GOD.

P.S.YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT SAFE ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME.''

Then Sloane put the plastic bag down on the table and pushed his chair back, letting it screech across the linoleum. Ganza and Tully waited and watched.

'He's smart,' Sloane said without looking up at them. 'Not only smart, but well educated. He's precise and detail oriented. He wants you to believe that all of this may be religious based, but I think he uses his references to God much more literally. He simply thinks he's superior to you. Even using the pharmaceutical folds is sort of a ploy, a…' Sloane waved his hand around and Tully thought of a preacher emphasizing points of his sermon.'He's playing you, wanting to throw you off.'

Then the professor shrugged and stood up, signaling he couldn't tell them any more. But still, he continued, 'His choice of ten o'clock may be significant. The address or the numbers in the address may be signif-icant.There's no way for me to tell you that without more information.'

'What's your best guess?' Tully asked and watched Sloane wince.

'Guess? Is that what you call your profiles? Because I certainly don't call mine guesses.'

Tully held back a sigh of frustration. Sloane looked from Ganza to Tully like he was deciding whether or not to take pity on them.

'My best guess—' he dragged out the word until the s's sizzled '—is that he could be an insider. Maybe you start looking at research labs again. The anthrax killer was never caught. He wouldn't be the first guy to come back out for some attention. Some killers can't stand it. Look at the BTK killer. Nobody would have caught that guy had he not gotten greedy for more attention.'

'Maybe this means something to you,' Tully said, and he pulled out a photo of the indentation they'd found. He handed it to Sloane. 'We lifted this from the envelope.'

Sloane took it and held it up to the light, a smile starting at the corner of his lips. If Tully wasn't mistaken it looked like they might have actually impressed the professor.

'Son of a bitch,' he said. 'You guys found this, huh?'

CHAPTER

42

The Slammer

It was long past breakfast by the time they brought in a tray for Maggie. By now food was the last thing on her mind. She picked at the eggs, ate half the wheat toast, took two sips of orange juice and left the rest. There was a weight on her chest making it uncomfortable to breathe, like something heavy was sitting on top of her, pressing hard against her rib cage. Even swallowing became a conscious effort. She caught herself listening to her own heartbeat. She put two fingers on the pulse point at her throat. Did she expect to feel or hear the virus multiplying inside her? Is that what the extra weight was?

Colonel Platt had asked if there was anyone she wanted to call or perhaps anyone she needed him to call for her. Off the top of her head she couldn't think of a single person. Maybe Gwen. Certainly not Nick Morrelli. Probably not her stepbrother who she had only just met within the last year. How would that conversation go?

'Hey, bro, guess what? I've been quarantined with a highly infectious virus. Might not be able to do that first Thanksgiving get-together after all.'

And she wouldn't call her mother. Somehow her mother would find a way to make this about her with little or no regard about the impact it had on Maggie.

'But Mom,' Maggie could hear the exchange in her mind, 'I'm the one dying from a deadly virus.'

'And how am I supposed to explain that to anyone?' That would be her mother's response but only after first asking if it was contagious.

No, Maggie had no one. No close family members. No significant other. No one on her first-to-call list. And no one for whom she was a first-to-call. When she divorced Greg the exhaustion of that relationship had left her with more relief than regret. They had gotten married in college. He had been a sort of security blanket for her, an attempt at normalcy, a chance to have a real family. That was until he wanted to tear her away from the one thing, the only thing that had ever given her a true sense of being—her identity, her career at the FBI.

She left that relationship, bruised but relieved. But she also left believing she'd never find anyone who would accept what she did for a living or, more importantly,that it would always be her first priority. Adam Bonzado and Nick Morrelli included. Of course, through no fault of their own. Maggie hadn't quite let anyone into her life long enough or deep enough to give them a real chance. She knew that she was to blame, not them. Maybe she had taken that lesson from her mentor, from A.D. Cunningham, a bit too far. It wasn't something she wanted to share