convince witnesses that what they ‘thought they saw’ wasn’t what they really saw. And if the news agencies happened to get some scent of truth, Division had a way of burying most stories. Everyone had skeletons in their closets, even reporters. And those that didn’t, well, they usually had a friend or family member with skeletons. In other words, everyone had something they wanted to keep quiet, and most times that was enough to shut down the stories.
But stuff like this, news that got out ahead of them, was the shit that made their job harder. There was no way to control a mob of reporters.
Grayson put the car in park and turned to Brad. “Seven dead humans, all naked, in a $800 a night room, with all four walls completely covered in cum? You know the local cops couldn’t keep that quiet, Hammer. Someone was gonna talk.”
The agents stepped from the Lincoln, then flashed their badges to the cop standing guard in front of the hotel and entered the lobby.
“Top floor I imagine?” Brad said, half-way to the elevator.
Grayson nodded.
They crossed the hallway, nodded at the two officers standing guard in front of the private elevator, then rode the lift to the top floor. They sent the two officers standing in front of the hotel room door downstairs, then repeated the order for the four inside.
Both agents had seen a lot of crime scenes, some with enough DNA evidence to blind you when you clicked on the black light. But they’d never seen anything like this.
“You ever seen anything like this before?” he turned to Grayson.
She looked around the room, shaking her head.
“Not even when you worked Utah?”
Agent Grayson shook her head. Her eyes were fixed on the wall. She walked across the room, stopping just inches away. Then she put on her gloves and ran her pointer finger in a long line down a six foot length of hardened semen.
Brad muttered, “What the fuck?” under his breath, then started combing the room.
The room smelled like gallons of sex and a sprinkle of death. There was semen everywhere, coating the inner thighs of all six female victims, along with their breasts and mouths. It even glazed the face of the man in the middle of the harem, the scientist who had to be the center of it all.
They wouldn’t know without lab work, whether all the spunk had been shot from the one scientist’s sack, but there were no other men in the room, and the hotel had no record of anyone else coming or going from the private elevator.
Grayson was kneeling next to one of the women, a leggy blond with store-bought tits. The agent’s face was in her pussy, until she turned around and looked up at Brad. “Have you seen this?” she asked.
Brad squatted, then whistled. “Looks like salmon pounded with a mallet.”
She shot him her usual look, ignoring the crude remark.
“How many times would you say this guy shot his wad?” Hammer asked.
“That’s what I can’t get my head around,” Grayson said. “Several dozen at least. But there had to be other guys in here. An orgy gone wrong?”
Brad shook his head. “I don’t think so. Usually with orgies, you’ve also got lots of food, drinks, drugs, and other stuff laying around. These people look like they were here to do one thing and one thing only.”
“It could’ve been ghosts,” Grayson suggested.
Brad shook his head again. “That doesn’t make any sense. The girls were too willing. No signs of resistance. Besides when have you ever seen spectral spunk that thick? It looks like they were filming Big Bang Bukakee Seven and Eight back-to-back in here.”
Grayson shot him another dirty look. Brad said, “What? You don’t like the series?”
“No,” she said dryly, “I stopped watching after Number Four. After a while, it just felt like they were recycling plot-lines.”
Brad laughed, then held up the locked black briefcase, the only thing in the room not covered in cum. Brad had found it tucked neatly in the back of the closet. “I’m sure the answer’s in here. So do we report the briefcase to Division, then head over to Helix, or do we forget for a little while, until we see how deep we can dig.”
Brad was hoping Grayson wouldn’t think it was worth the fight. For once, it wasn’t. She didn’t even reach for her cell. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, heading toward the door. She called the Division’s lab geeks, who had been held up at the airport to see when they’d get there.
“Forensics will be here in about 20 minutes, and I don’t feel like waiting, so let’s get going. We’ll catch up with them later.”
Brad followed Agent Grayson out the door, to the elevator, and out of the hotel, happy to leave the company of six naked women for the first time in his life.
The male victim’s name was Richard Madsen, a 58 year old employee of Helix Pharmaceuticals and Advancements, just as he had been for the last 29 years. Helix was one of those giant corporations with their hands in everything from medicine to military defense, so Brad could already feel the clusterfuck it would be working the case. Companies with that much money, power, and connections, didn’t exactly play by the same rules as everyone else.
No one was willing to say what Madsen had been working on at Helix, at least not over the phone. They were sure as shit trying to hide something, which irritated the holy hotbox out of Grayson, but Brad figured the climax was always better when you had to work it.
Sure enough, the agents were expected. Before Grayson even killed the engine, there was a tall man with a beaming smile and floppy hair trotting toward the Lincoln to meet them.
“How do you do?” he said, running his left hand through his hair as he held out his right. “I’m Arthur Rothstein, Head of Public Affairs for Helix. Truly terrific to meet you. I regret it’s under such unfortunate circumstances.”
Brad stepped in front of Grayson and gave Rothstein his right hand. “I’m Agent Hammer,” he said. He turned to Courtney. “This is my partner, Agent Grayson.”
“Thank you for helping us out with this,” Rothstein said, as though the agents had agreed to help him move a sofa. “We’re all so distraught about what’s happened with Dr. Madsen. If there’s anything any of us can do, please let us know.”
Brad said, “Well, first we need a list of employees who worked in any capacity with Mr. Madsen, along with contact info.”
“I’m afraid that’s classified information,” Rothstein said. “I can however introduce you to the employees who worked closest with Mr. Madsen. I will, however, need to be present, to make sure no confidential information is revealed.”
“Of course,” Brad said offering a thin smile. This guy seemed more lawyer than PR douchebag, and Brad could tell things were gonna get ugly quick if he didn’t bite his tongue at least a little more than usual.
“I’m certain you understand the need for discretion, Agent Hammer. Our research here is quite sensitive and much of it’s classified.” His smile thinned. “I’m quite sure things are similar where you come from. I assure you that classified materials aside, we at Helix are at your disposal.”
Grayson thanked the PR douchebag.
Rothstein said to follow him, then led them to Dr. Madsen’s research team and nearly four hours of bullshit interviews that didn’t yield a single minute of anything worth giving a fuck about.
After finishing an interview with a dipshit scientist who looked slightly older than Bob Hope and nearly as dead, wasting nine minutes Brad would never have back telling him about Helix’s first experiments back in the 60‘s. He surrendered, thanked the scientist for his time, then stepped from the lab and turned to Grayson.
“Listen, Grayson. I don’t want to argue about this so I’m just gonna do it. You can yell at me on the way back to the hotel. But something is going on here, and whatever it is got Madsen killed. I want answers, and they’re going to be infinitely harder to get once we leave here. They were prepared for us this morning, but not nearly as prepared as they will be when we return with a court order. I need you to cover for me, it’s now or never.”
Because Grayson knew she couldn’t argue, she didn’t. She went on with the interviews while Hammer slipped back into the lab, asked the receptionist to show him the bathroom, then entered the little boy’s room feeling the
