Dart leveled his handgun, sighting down the short barrel at the man’s head. The shooter cowered, curling up tighter. Dart’s arm began to shake. A voice from inside him demanded he pull the trigger.
The man shook with fear.
He couldn’t do it. Dart lowered the weapon, securing the safety, and walked silently off into the woods.
He knew well what hell Zeller’s murder would create-three, perhaps as many as five, investigators would be assigned. The forensics work would be exhaustive, the meetings endless. When the second dead man proved to be a hired killer from out of state, the governor and the FBI would be brought in. The press would get wind of it and the story would take off like wildfire, stealing headlines and news radio leads from Greenwich to Putnam, perhaps as far as Boston and Providence. And in the process, Dart knew, the opportunity to sink Roxin would disappear quickly. The cover-ups would begin, the fictitious stories welded in place, the connections quickly distanced. Within a few short hours following the first news leak of Zeller’s death, any and all hope of exposing Roxin could be lost, all Zeller’s efforts defeated.
Zeller’s methods had ultimately killed him-Dart could not escape this thought. Despite his good intentions, the man had chosen the wrong solution. By violating the very laws he had once upheld, he had dug himself into isolation and desperation, convincing himself, no doubt, that he was engaged in noble self-sacrifice. The truth, it seemed to Dart, was more that Lucky’s death had pushed him over the edge. And it felt sad to Dart that such a man could become so lost.
Dart went off, first at a walk, then at a run, in the opposite direction from the arriving police who were already crowding into the woods. As shouts raised behind him, he felt filled with an overwhelming wish that Zeller’s death would not be in vain.
Martinson had not destroyed the files. Dart felt certain of it.
CHAPTER 42
Haite glanced up from his desk at the detective standing in his office doorway and said, “Jesus H. Christ.” Dart was all mud, blood, and wet clothes. “Shut the door,” were Haite’s next words, closely followed by, “You were
“I won’t be dragged into the investigation,” Dart said.
“The hell you won’t.” Haite glanced over at the wall clock-it was one in the morning. “I’ve got a dozen patrol and four detectives out there.” The CAPers office area was empty. “What the hell happened?”
“The shooter?”
“Died in transit. DOA at HH,” he said, referring to Hartford Hospital.
Dart looked Haite directly in the eyes and said, “I was wrong about the suicides. They weren’t murders.”
“Is that right?” Haite asked, not believing Dart for a moment but not questioning him either. This was what Haite wanted to hear.
“I misread the evidence, Sergeant. It’s my fault,” Dart said.
“Did you?”
“Yes. I may be able to prove that Roxin Laboratories is involved in a cover-up concerning a gene therapy treatment they are testing. The drug apparently has severe psychological side effects, resulting, I assume, in some of these suicides. It’s a terrible thing.”
“Where does Zeller fit in?” Haite asked bluntly.
“I don’t believe I have ever mentioned Zeller’s name to you, sir. I’m not sure what you’re referring to.” The use of “sir” was certain to catch Haite’s attention. “His death,” Dart choked out, “is certainly a tragedy to us all.”
“I want him to die a hero, not a criminal,” Haite hissed, openly honest. “How much of this is going to surface?”
“How much of
“You can keep it that way?” Haite asked, sounding both surprised and impressed.
“We’re under some time pressure, sir,” Dart said, making sure to repeat the formal address. He coughed and picked some mud out of his teeth. “If we’re going to prove Roxin’s involvement, we have to move quickly. We’ll need a variety of warrants, a full ERT, the surveillance van…. If we fail,” he said, maintaining his eye contact with Haite, “I fear that accusations may be made against Sergeant Zeller in an effort to discredit him and divert blame from where it belongs.”
“You can really keep him out of this?” Haite asked again.
“I wasn’t aware that he was ever implicated in anything,” Dart answered calmly, playing his part. “Has his name ever come up in regards to any of these investigations?”
Haite dragged a hand across his mouth, contemplating Dart’s offer.
“Can you actually pull this off, Dartelli?” Haite understood that to commit the resources Dart was requesting would necessitate his own involvement, putting his ass on the line should Dart’s plan fail and the truth of Zeller’s criminal activity be revealed. They would both be risking their careers to save Zeller’s reputation. “Can you?” Haite repeated, wanting an answer that they both knew Dart could not give.
“I had a good teacher,” said Joe Dart.
CHAPTER 43
They needed Martinson’s password.
Driving a department-confiscated Lexus, Dart approached the employee parking lot entrance to Roxin at 2:30 A.M. He wore jeans, a sweater, and a windbreaker.
The lineman at the top of the phone pole, armed with a high-powered monocular, worked Narcotics but had done a good deal of undercover surveillance work. Across town, the worker down the manhole not far from the governor’s mansion was with SNET, and was awaiting court permission to tap into a high-speed data transmission line that serviced a remote computer terminal located in the study of Dr. Arielle Martinson’s home. Ginny had determined the existence of this remote terminal after questioning Dart thoroughly about the computers he had seen there. Bud Gorman’s check of SNET billing had confirmed it.
The unmarked black ERT step van was parked half a mile down the hill from Roxin, the team ready with black ladders to assault the facility’s west wall if necessary.
Haite was in the command van with two techies. Parked near Roxin’s main entrance, it had the rear left wheel jacked off the ground, and a number of tools lying nearby, as if abandoned with a flat tire. In fact, the all- wheel-drive vehicle could be driven right off the jack, if required.
In Dart’s left ear, a small earpiece kept him in touch with the command van, and thereby, Ginny and the spotter atop the phone pole. He wore taped to his chest a fiber-optic camera no thicker than a fountain pen and curved on a piece of flex so as to capture Dart’s point of view-an interesting twist demanded by the judge issuing the warrants. There were few guidelines for a hostile raid on a computer network. They were improvising.
As Dart pulled up to the unmanned security gate, he switched on the video recorder-no bigger than a Walkman-and spoke to the microphone clipped under the collar of his jacket. “Position one. I’m all yours, Gin.”
The techies inside the van were recording his every word.
Dart heard Ginny’s voice answer. Wearing a telephone headset at her kitchen table with two laptops in front of her, both connected to high-speed data lines, Ginny echoed “Position one” and said, “Here goes nothing.”
Dart wondered what this validation must feel like to her. She had hacked into Roxin’s mainframe with the
