“What’s he talking about, Ro?” Wendy said.
Roland raised his hand to quiet her, a big change from a minute ago when he’d seemed intent on brutalizing her. But she’d calmed down as well, as if learning to ride out his wild mood swings. He handed her the tiny microphone he’d found.
“Yeah, we got some e-mails,” Roland said. “It made references to the Monkey House trials. If you’re really a fed, you probably know about those.”
Gundersson nodded. He couldn’t believe he was winning Roland’s trust so easily. Uncle Sam might save a few bucks on ammunition today.
“Yeah,” Gundersson said. “Can you keep a secret?”
“That’s our full-time job,” Roland said, with a bitter laugh. Wendy eased over to her husband’s side and gripped his arm in loyalty, as if she’d already forgiven his homicidal rage.
Jesus. I’m glad I’ve never been in love. Talk about shell games.
Gundersson thought about standing, but he didn’t trust his ankle and Roland would consider him less threatening if he maintained an inferior position. But he also wondered if copperheads or water moccasins might be sliding through the weeds and rotten leaves.
“The NCS thinks you guys have the drug Dr. Briggs was testing on you. I’m not supposed to tell you this but…”
Gundersson licked his lips. Neither Roland’s nor Wendy’s faces expressed eagerness. But neither did they show fear. If half the stuff in the file was true, they had faced down more torments than a normal person would undergo in Dante’s nine circles of hell.
He continued. “Somebody in the NCS wants you dead.”
“Yeah, I got the memo,” Roland said, drawing a confused look from Wendy.
“They said it was all destroyed in the fire,” Wendy said. “And we don’t remember anything anyway. The other drug, Halcyon, wiped it all away. At least, that’s how Alexis explained it.”
She said it with such hope, with such a fervent desire to believe the trials had never happened, that Gundersson almost regretted having to drag it all out again. Roland must have worked hard to protect her, but his instability was a lingering effect of the drug exposure.
Another reason why half the truth could get us all killed, including me.
“Look,” Gundersson said. “My job is to keep an eye on you so the NCS doesn’t get what they want.”
Roland’s hand crawled to his pocket, where he cupped the outline of the gun like a teen jock flaunting his package. “And you expect us to believe the U.S. government is interested in protecting the rights and the lives of ordinary American citizens?”
Gundersson saw that brand of bullshit wouldn’t fly. So he decided on another half-truth. “If I find Seethe, then I take it back to Washington, the heat follows me, and you guys live the rest of your lives out of the spotlight,” he said. “Once it’s not a secret-at least, not your secret-there’s nothing the NCS needs to take from you.”
“And no need to kill us to keep us quiet.”
“Maybe you need to talk to Alexis,” Wendy said. “She said somebody’s been watching her.”
Gundersson’s heart skipped a beat. Fuck. I knew there were free agents working the case, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the CIA wanted a piece of the action, but maybe somebody’s closer than Harding told me. In which case, I can’t even trust my own people.
“Hush, honey,” Roland said, the supportive husband again. “Let him talk.”
“Can I get up first?” Gundersson said.
Roland took out his revolver and pointed it at Gundersson’s chest. “As long as you can do it without making me nervous.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dominic Scagnelli took a sip of his Pike Place Roast and glanced around the Starbucks. The shop was redolent of scorched beans, old newsprint, and a faint chocolate odor that lay over it all like fudge sauce. At the table across from him slouched a Japanese chick with a purple Mohawk, obligatory painful-looking nose ring, and a stained white wifebeater that clearly revealed she was braless.
Is it a “wifebeater” when a woman is wearing it, or do they call it a “tank top”?
The way America was headed, she very well could have a wife, and she very well could be beating her like rented mule. He was tired of Chapel Hill and its post-grads with no job prospects and a deep fear of leaving such a haven of the chronically hip. He was ready for a change of scenery.
Still, he didn’t like Forsyth’s new plan.
Killing was easy and usually led to a lackluster, by-the-numbers investigation. Murder was so common that unsolved cases didn’t seem to bother anyone except the victim’s family. And once those tears dried up, or fresher tears erupted, the media packed their tents and hit the next freak show.
Plus, Scagnelli had ways of eliminating people that left no fingerprints. Anita Molkesky’s death had probably been discovered by now, but it hadn’t raised any public alarm. For all their prurience, the media had an unwritten code of not covering suicides, their one bit of false morality disguised as sensitivity to the feelings of the survivors. Since her death was unattended-as far as investigators knew-the ME would be called in for an examination, but given Anita’s history and the copious amounts of drugs in her system, it would be a simple matter of documenting a foregone conclusion.
Scagnelli wouldn’t take the same route with Mark Morgan. If he had his way, he’d go with an automobile mishap of some kind. After Mark’s little exhibition in his law-enforcement class, his reckless behavior created the perfect cover story. Hell, even a self-inflicted gunshot wound would have done the job.
But kidnapping was complicated compared to murder.
For one thing, a corpse was easy to handle. But a living person tended to kick, scream, and generally make a fuss. Corpses could show up eventually, particularly if they had been processed with care, but kidnapping victims had to stay hidden. Corpses inevitably brought closure to the cops, the press, and the justice system, but a kidnapping stayed an open book that commanded attention and effort.
Plus, if he was going to kidnap somebody, he’d rather do Dr. Alexis Morgan. Not that he ever played around on the job, but all things being equal, if he had to drug, bind, and wrestle somebody, he’d just as soon have a pretty victim with soft curves. Mark probably stank of the kind of cologne they marketed in Sports Illustrated, and he’d try some macho, psycho shit like he’d pulled on the driving course.
Which is what he was trying to tell Forsyth on the phone, but the man wasn’t used to having his orders questioned. Considering Forsyth was chief bottle washer and towel jockey for Senator Burchfield, such an arrogant attitude seemed a little excessive. But Forsyth had the two qualities guaranteed to fuel his self-righteousness: a career in politics and a fervent belief in Jesus Christ as the world’s only redeemer.
“Assuming I can pull it off, where I am supposed to stash him?” Scagnelli said.
“The place where you followed them would have done perfect,” Forsyth said. “But the Monkey House is ancient history now.”
Scagnelli made a mental note to dig around in that history a little more. He knew about Halcyon, since it had been registered for a clinical trial with the FDA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. But no case outcomes had ever been recorded, and no patents were filed on the compound. All he’d uncovered so far was the same stuff everybody already knew.
“If we know Dr. Morgan has the Seethe formula, why do we need her husband?”
“Bait,” Forsyth said. “Dr. Morgan’s two weaknesses are pride and love.”
“Hell, that’s true of just about any woman, but I don’t see how we can crack her.”
“You’re like the city slicker who comes out to the farm to buy mule eggs,” Forsyth said. “I could sell you any old thing and call it ‘mule eggs,’ and you’d never know the difference. You ain’t the kind to ask questions.”
True enough. But I’ve never been this curious before. And I’ve never been this close to the White House before, either.
“Okay, just tell me where to dump him and it’s done.”
“Umstead Correctional in Butner. It was a center for young hooligans but it closed two years ago. Minimum
