of you gentlemen are going to find what I have to say very interesting.”
“That’s the second time you’ve referred to three of us, Ms. Pearce,” Jim Allenby said. “What are you implying?”
“Let me tell you a story,” she said. “Bruce Andrews over at Veritas develops a drug that he considers to be the next big thing. This baby is going to generate his company billions of dollars in sales. He’s so sure of its success that he manipulates the company books in order to assure himself the capital he needs to send the drug through Phase II and Phase III trials. Ms. Ripley has looked into the illegal use of tax credits by Veritas, and she assures me that there will be civil actions arising from her investigation.
“But this goes so much deeper than just stock manipulation. Bruce Andrews had two Veritas employees killed and he wiped out a family in Denver. He tried to kill me three times, but obviously he missed. And here’s the part you guys are going to love.
“Bruce Andrews actually developed the virus threatening our country. It makes coming up with a cure so much easier when you’re the one creating the problem. Andrews or one of his associates distributed the virus to random locations across the country at carefully selected intervals to let the tension build. Finally, when your task force decided to ask the private sector for help in finding a cure, he was ready. Andrews bided his time, waiting for the fuse to burn down a bit, then handed the cure to Rothery with one condition. Get the drug through the New Drug Application stage and get FDA approval. And that, gentlemen, is what it was all about. Getting a potentially dangerous drug on the market.”
“Why?”Warner asked.
“Money. Billions of dollars that without Zancor getting FDA approval would be flushed down the drain. And with the taxcredit accounting scandal ready to hit without the money being replaced, and with his stock options coming due in December, time was of the essence for Bruce Andrews. He needed Zancor on the market. What better way than to create a false crisis? Just the first round of invoices from the government to protect the population against a threat that was never going to materialize was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. If everything goes according to plan, Mr. Bruce Andrews is a billionaire.
“But he needed help. No one person can sit at the helm of a huge pharmaceutical company, murder people, create dangerous viruses, and manipulate the company stock all by himself. And he
Four pairs of eyes stared at her and she stared back, allowing her gaze to rest on each man’s eyes for a few moments before switching to the next. Nothing. Whichever man it was had the poker face of the millennium. She turned to Keith Thompson.
“I remembered reading about Keith’s work on the case in one of the local newspapers. I called him and asked him for a favor. He agreed to help.” She waved her hand at the splitscreen television. “Keith’s brought some high- tech equipment with him today, and I’ll let him explain it to you.”
Keith Thompson took over. “The recording device in Ms. Ripley’s purse has a sample of each of you speaking tonight, in response to her question.” He turned on the screen. The right side remained dark, but the left side showed an image of the masked terrorist threatening the country. Keith let it run for a sentence then stopped it.
“This line is Mr. Rothery’s voice,” Keith said, moving a cordless mouse and drawing the two lines together. Once they were overlaid on each other, he moved the cursor to the right, dragging the second line across the first. After about five seconds, he said, “No match. Mr. Rothery is not the man in the video.”
“Damn right I’m not,” Rothery said.
“Mr. Simms is not our man,” Keith said, loading another voice.
“Jesus, Jim. Why?” Rothery asked. “We’ve worked together for twenty years. What the hell have you done?”
“Why, J.D.? I’ll tell you why. Money. I finally decided to take care of myself. Something the government never considered important. I’ve been working my ass off for over a quarter of a century, and I’ve got shit to show for it. Two failed marriages, three screwed-up kids because their dad was never home, and my health is starting to go down the tubes. And you couldn’t even dream what Bruce Andrews was offering me. You couldn’t even dream the amount.”
“Money, Jim? Money? That’s a pretty lame reason.”
“Twenty million dollars, J.D. Twenty million. That buys a lot of nice things for my retirement years. And it’s not just the money. The Bureau doesn’t give a shit about us anymore. Nothing’s the same as it was when I first got in. Used to be the Bureau was run by law-enforcement guys. Cops. Now it’s all controlled by the fucking bean counters. And don’t put your toe over the line or it’ll get shot off. I’m sick of it. Sick of it.”
“You killed innocent people, Jim. You betrayed your country. You killed Boy Scouts, for God’s sake.”
“I was careful where and how I introduced the virus. Austin and San Diego went exactly as I planned. I didn’t know the Scout troop would pick up that case of Pepsi in Boston. That was just bad luck.”
“You sick, twisted asshole,” Rothery said, leaping from his chair. He moved toward Allenby, his hand outstretched. “Give me the gun, Jim.”
Allenby trained the Colt 1911 on the Under Secretary. “You come one inch closer and I’ll kill you.” Rothery stopped but didn’t move back.“You know, this whole thing was working until you two got involved,” he said, looking at Gordon and Jennifer. “Now look what’s happened. Everything’s totally screwed up.”
“So where does it end?” Craig Simms asked, leaning forward in his chair. “You’re in the middle of a secure building. You won’t get out the front door unless it’s with an escort or in a body bag. This is no way to end things, Jim.”
“To hell with you it’s not. I’ve lived my entire life with a gun under my arm or my pillow. Live by the sword, die by the sword. But first, I’d like to pay someone back for all their help.” He jerked the gun around, trained it on Jennifer Pearce, and pulled the trigger.
“No,” Gordon screamed, and threw himself in the line of fire. Too late. The bullet hit Jennifer in the chest and the impact sent her crashing back into an end table. The table took out her legs and she went over on the back of her head on the floor. She lay unmoving, a pool of blood spreading under her on the carpet.
“You bastard,” Gordon yelled, and lunged for Allenby. A quick movement with the gun and a second bullet hit its target.
This time it was Allenby lifting the gun to his head and firing. The bullet entered his temple as a small piece of red-hot metal and exited the other side of his head in fragments, taking a sixinch chunk of skull with it. Gray matter spattered across the room and Allenby dropped to the carpet.
Gordon froze for a second, then looked at Jennifer. Simms and Rothery were already working on her, trying to stop the bleeding, and Elizabeth Ripley was on the phone, demanding an ambulance immediately. He stood in the center of the room surrounded by death. Then something washed over him and he felt a hate that he had never experienced. A loathing so horrible that only one action could cure it. He grabbed the Colt from the floor and ran into the hall. There was nothing he could do to help Jennifer that the men inside that room couldn’t do twice as well. And he had seen the bullet hit. She was fatally shot, he was sure.
Tears welled in his eyes as the elevator arrived and he pushed his way in. He tucked the.45 pistol into his waistband and pulled his shirt over the handle. He had one thing left to do. And nothing was going to stand in his way.
