Dead End (21 page)

‘You weren't thinking like a bad movie script, setting yourself up as an intentional target, were you, Mr Parnell?' said the other FBI man.

‘No!' denied the scientist, honestly. ‘I was thinking that if something happened … if I
thought
something happened … something occurred I thought was odd … I could tell you.'

‘You do that,' pressed Dingley. ‘You tell
us
, don't go off on your own.'

‘I've already given that undertaking,' insisted Parnell. ‘So, I need numbers where I can reach you?'

It was Dingley who offered the cards, Benton's as well as his own. Parnell saw there were cellphone listings as well as the field office land lines. ‘Day or night,' said Benton.

‘I'd like to keep in touch, hear how things are going,' said Parnell.

‘You got the numbers,' said Dingley. ‘We'll probably need to get back to you when things come up we haven't covered.'

‘What's come up so far?' demanded Parnell.

The two agents exchanged looks. Dingley said: ‘Anything we tell you, we're telling
you
. Only you. If it turns up in a newspaper or on television it could wreck the investigation, you understand?'

‘Of course I understand.'

‘We're concentrating on forensics at the moment,' said Dingley.

‘And you found what?' pressed Parnell.

There was a further hesitation from the two men. Parnell said: ‘I told you I understood!'

‘There are some marks, dents, on the rear fender of Ms Lang's car that our people don't think were caused by it going over the edge of the gorge,' disclosed Benton. ‘They think she was hit, shunted, in the back several times …'

‘Being chased, hit and hit again, not knowing who or what it was …' imagined Parnell.

‘Something like that,' agreed Benton.

‘Seat belts!' broke in Parnell. ‘The police officers told me Rebecca was outside the car when she was found – that she hadn't been wearing a seat belt. But seat belts were a thing with her. She always wore one: that's how her parents died, not fastening theirs. Was Rebecca's broken?'

‘We haven't been told it was,' said Dingley. ‘Our forensics guys aren't helped by everything being moved and collected from the scene …' He paused before saying: ‘There's going to be another autopsy, too. By our pathologists.'

‘The seat belt's another mystery, to add to all the rest,' said Benton.

‘Could it be significant?' asked Parnell.

‘It's something to flag,' accepted Benton.

‘I interrupted you,' apologized the scientist.

‘They're not happy about the damage to your car, either,' continued Benton. ‘They don't think the dents and the paint loss was caused by your car being hit by another vehicle. The damage is too regular. They think it was more likely caused by being hit and scratched by some sort of implement or tool. If another car had been involved, it's almost inevitable that some of its paint would have been left on yours. There's absolutely no trace.'

‘Something else,' remembered Parnell. ‘I got the impression that the police already knew about the damage to my car, before they questioned me. But I hadn't reported it to Dubette security. During the day, there must be what, three, four hundred cars in the lot. Maybe more. How come they knew about my car, among all the rest?'

‘How indeed?' echoed Dingley.

‘You discovered the damage on the Thursday?' queried Benton.

‘Yes.'

‘In the lot?'

‘Yes. When I went to get into the car, to go home.'

‘What time was that?' took up Dingley.

Parnell shrugged. ‘I can't be precise. Late. Seven thirty, eight o'clock.'

‘Half-light?'

‘Getting that way. The lot's lighted, of course.'

‘What about paint on the ground? Anything at all?'

Parnell shook his head, recalling the courtroom examination. ‘I don't remember seeing any. Looking even. I just thought it was a car-park knock. One of those things.'

‘It was certainly that,' said Benton. ‘You go through this with the deputies?'

‘Maybe not in quite so much detail,' said Parnell. ‘You going to talk to them?'

Benton smiled at the question. ‘We're going to talk to just about as many people as we can. And maybe it was worthwhile letting you in on the preliminary forensic findings after all.'

‘You are going to find out who did it, aren't you?' said Parnell.

‘We're going to try our damnedest,' promised Dingley.

Parnell felt self-conscious, embarrassed, concentrating upon everyone around him as he left the FBI field office and went into the multi-storey car park to retrieve his car, checking the mirrors before and after driving out, trying to establish whether he was being followed, which he couldn't. Remembering what one of the Bureau agents had said, Parnell decided it was just like being in a B movie, but tried to convince himself that it was the sort of precaution they were advising, but couldn't do that either. How long would it have to go on? Until the unknown
they
were caught, he supposed. What if they weren't? Howard Dingley's parting remark hadn't sounded particularly hopeful. Parnell didn't think he could maintain the vigilance forever – wasn't sure he could maintain it even over days or weeks. It was a frightening conclusion, frightening enough for it to stop being embarrassing and become unsettling reality. Parnell tried to check his mirrors all the way to McLean and, with the Dubette building in sight, came close to hitting a suddenly braking car in front because he was studying the reflection of vehicles behind.

He reached the pharmacogenomics division – still an object of attention as he walked the windowed corridors – disorientated, knowing it would be difficult to keep his mind undividedly upon the priority work in which he'd decided to involve himself. Initially, however, he didn't try. He shook his head against Kathy Richardson's gesture that she had some messages, and securely closed against interruption the office door he recalled telling the staff would always remain open. He dialled Barry Jackson's office number. Parnell was connected immediately.

‘I just got back from an FBI interview. I don't think I did very well.'

‘Why didn't you tell me you were going? Ask me to come along?'

‘It didn't occur to me. Didn't think it was necessary.'

‘Why don't you think it went very well?'

‘I couldn't tell them anything!'

‘Of course you couldn't.'

‘It sounded like … oh, I don't know what it sounded like, as if I could even have been hiding something.'

‘I should have come with you.'

‘You're probably right. But wouldn't it have appeared that I
did
have something to hide, needing my lawyer beside me?'

‘Representation's your legal right. We've already proved in a court that you're not involved.'

‘In murder. They're concentrating on terrorism! They said they'll probably need to speak to me again.'

‘Next time I'll come along.'

‘They said something else, too. That I might be in physical danger. Not from the Metro DC police, although they agreed with your warning. From whoever killed Rebecca. They told me to be careful.'

‘Sounds like good advice.'

‘You agree with them, that it's a possibility.'

‘Of course it's a possibility. I would have thought that was obvious.'

‘It hasn't been, until now. It's not a very comforting thought.'

‘It's not intended to be. It's intended to be advice you should take.'

‘I'm trying.'

‘Don't stop. And don't try going alone any more. Talk to me. That's what eventually you're going to pay a lot of money for.'

Parnell was conscious of Kathy Richardson through the glassed separation, intently watching for him to replace the telephone, so he turned the movement into a welcoming gesture, opening his closed door to admit her.

The woman said at once: ‘Dwight Newton wanted to see you, the moment you got back …' She offered a strong, sealed manila envelope. ‘And this came from Dr Spacey.'

Parnell weighed the choices as well as physically testing the envelope, and decided upon the vice president first. On his way further into the Spider's Web, he thought he should have telephoned ahead but continued on anyway. He was admitted immediately, to a reception in distinct contrast to the previous day. The white-coated man remained hunched forward over his desk and said at once: ‘You didn't tell me you were going to the FBI!'

‘When we spoke, I didn't know I was.'

‘I should have known! Been told! Dubette are being dissected in the media, in connection with it all. I should have known.'

‘It was my oversight. I'm sorry.'

‘What was it all about?'

‘They wanted to interview me, obviously.'

‘Someone from Dubette should have been with you.'

‘I don't think so, Dwight, do you?'

‘Yes, I do.'

‘The lawyer you chose for me would have railroaded me into God knows what sort of situation if I'd let him represent me. If I'm accompanied for any further meetings, it'll be by the man who got me freed, on the spot.'

‘Rebecca Lang's tape would have been found,' insisted the other man.

‘Not by me. Or a court official.'

Newton coloured. ‘So, how was it? The interview, I mean.'

‘Still very preliminary. There wasn't a lot I could tell them.'

‘What was said about Dubette?'

‘Nothing, specifically. As I said, everything was preliminary.'

‘They got any leads?'

Parnell looked steadily at the other man for several moments. ‘Preliminary,' he repeated, for the third time. ‘No leads, no nothing. Just mystery.' The greatest of all was when and how – and by whom – will an attempt be made to kill me, he thought, and wished he hadn't, because he was back into a B-movie mindset.

‘Your people working on the flu request?' abruptly switched Newton.

‘The current samples were only due today. I haven't yet had time to check if they've arrived. I'm going to head it up, with three others.'

‘I want everyone involved,' insisted Newton. ‘And I want to be kept in the closest touch. About everything.'

‘I hear the message,' said Parnell. It would be difficult not to, so often had it been repeated.

Back in his office, the door secured again, Parnell sat for several moments gazing down at Barbara Spacey's sealed report, wondering if the man he had just left had read it before their confrontation, confused by Newton's pendulum mood swings. Impatiently Parnell tore open the envelope, not expecting the brevity of the woman's assessment. In Barbara Spacey's opinion the events to which he had been subjected had profoundly affected him psychologically. He was making every effort, much of it subconsciously, to suppress any obvious reaction, but would be overly worried by the reaction of others towards him. She was unsure of the true depths of his feelings towards Rebecca Lang and believed Parnell felt, although he might be unable to identify the reason, a deep sense of guilt. There was a marked absence of the overconfidence that she had commented upon in her first report. She wanted another interview in the near future.

She might, thought Parnell. He didn't.

Sixteen

T
here appeared to be no resentment at Parnell's announcement that he was joining the expanded flu research team and it was automatically accepted that he would be its leader. From Tokyo there were frozen specimens of the current bird flu virus, as well as quite separate – and unexpected – samples of SARS from the masked palm civet cat, the wild animal species considered a culinary delicacy in China, and suspected of being the source of a renewed but so far limited outbreak of the disease that became an epidemic in the Far East in 2003. There were also cultures from two human victims of the new SARS outbreak in China's Guangzhou city. The inconclusive research notes on both from Dubette's Japanese subsidiary ran to forty pages and included warnings from the World Health Organization of a potential pandemic from both respiratory illnesses.

‘We didn't know we were getting the additional severe acute respiratory syndrome material?' queried Parnell.

Ted Lapidus shook his head. ‘Maybe Tokyo is treating them as allied conditions to examine in conjunction.'

Parnell said: ‘And if the viral composition is different, we could confuse ourselves.'

‘It could be something Russell Benn and his merry men want to work on at the same time,' suggested Beverley Jackson.

‘I'll find out,' said Parnell. ‘And if it is, then let them. Here, for the moment, we'll leave the WHO worrying about SARS pandemics. We'll concentrate on avian flu and come back to SARS as a separate project.' A part of his mind was still preoccupied, which he guessed it would be for a long time to come, but Parnell believed the majority of his concentration to be back upon the work at hand and it pleased him. It made him feel in charge of himself, which he'd always been supremely sure of but hadn't felt for the last few days, needing to be reliant on – or at the mercy of – others. Which, he acknowledged, had been Barbara Spacey's psychological assessment.

‘We could have a boost for our flu experiments,' said Sean Sato. ‘Did a Web surf yesterday while I was waiting for the Tokyo stuff to arrive. The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, working with the National Institute for Medical Research in England, have found how the 1918 influenza transferred from birds to humans. The importance of the discovery, from our point of view, is that it's genetic.'

‘Take us through it,' said Parnell.

‘They worked with genes from the 1918 virus recovered from an Inuit woman whose body was preserved in a frozen Alaskan tundra grave, and from kept samples from US soldiers who died in the pandemic,' recounted Sato, enjoying the audience. ‘And isolated the bird-flu viral protein, haemagglutinin. It's got spikes, like darts. It's the darts that locked it on to human cells, like spears, and by which it gained entry to cause the infection …'