Dead Wrong (4 page)
Sikes aimed to McCarthy’s right and squeezed off a round, blowing away the table lamp. “Sit the fuck down.”
But McCarthy was up now, heading toward the door. A sudden blur in the corner of his eye appeared as pain exploded in his temple.
T
HE NEXT THING he knew, he was on the floor, looking up at Sikes. Sikes grabbed his shirt, jerked him up into a sitting position.
Breathing hard, face crimson, Sikes said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Your call, but I’m not leaving until I have the files and the names of anyone you gave copies to.”
Mistaken identity or not, the situation was out of control. “Listen to me, I’m telling you the truth.” He spoke with a slight pause, punctuating each word. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is a mistake.”
“You don’t, huh.” Sikes turned. “Elroy.”
A fist slammed into McCarthy’s cheek, whipping his head left. Stunned, McCarthy gasped. “Stop. I don’t know.”
Sikes’s eyes were slits, his jaw muscles bulging. “Where are the DARPA files?”
“You got the wrong person. I don’t have them.”
Maria screamed.
McCarthy turned to see Maria just inside the office door, hands to her face, cardboard tray, Coke, and sandwich strewn across the carpet. As she turned to run into the hall, Washington yelled. “Stop right there, ma’am; don’t move.”
She kept moving, right hand pushing off on the doorknob. McCarthy heard a
thump
, like a fist hitting a pillow. Maria’s thin body hit the heavy door. Still upright, face against the dark wood, she struggled to move but her strength seemed to vanish as a red spot enlarged on her white blouse. Her mouth opened as both knees buckled. She slumped onto the door then slid to the floor, legs twisted awkwardly, leaving blood streaks on the wood.
“Maria!” McCarthy scrambled up off the chair, rushed to her, and knelt. He slipped his right arm under her back and lifted. She felt surprisingly light and delicate. He put her flat on her back, straightening both legs, and felt the large exit wound on her chest. He heard the sickening sucking of her lung deflating. Gently, he pressed a palm against the wound to stop entering air from collapsing the lung further.
He realized she was dying in his hands.
Suddenly, a tug on his collar catapulted him back, pulling him off balance. Both arms windmilling, his hand slammed into something hard just before his head hit something harder.
Fireflies danced in his dim vision. He sat against the wall, disoriented, believing he would die soon. He watched Washington kneel beside Maria to check for a neck pulse. He probed again, then shook his head. “Fuck, man, she gone.”
Sikes nodded, licked his lips, glanced around. “Secure the entrance, disable all communications, phone, wireless, everything. I’ll deal with him.”
“Roger that.” Then Washington was up, closing the hall door.
McCarthy was still sitting with his back against the wall, fighting to clear his mind when Sikes leaned down to get directly in his face. “See what you did, motherfucker? You killed her. If you’da cooperated, none of this would’ve happened. Time to get with the program, McCarthy. Where are the documents?”
“Front office secured, sir.” Washington called, moving behind the reception desk.
Still in McCarthy’s face, Sikes called, “Communications?”
Washington ripped the main phone line from the wall. “Disabled.”
Sikes grabbed McCarthy’s necktie, jerked him to his feet, pulled him down the hall to his office like a dog on a leash, and shoved him into one of two chairs in front of the desk. For a moment Sikes glared, Washington’s large frame appearing behind him in the doorway.
Sikes bent down, his face an inch from McCarthy. “Listen up, asshole, we
will
get the information. One way or another. My advice? Save yourself a shitload of hurt. Tell us where they are.”
McCarthy thought of Maria in the other room, bleeding, most likely dead, but maybe not. Maybe a small chance still remained to save her remained. He had to do something for her. If he could get a second alone …
Tell them anything to get them out of here
.
“The computer down the hall,” he said, lying. “In there.”
Washington muttered, “That fucking workstation? Shit. Might’ve known.”
Sikes said to Washington, “Guard the front. I’ll check out the computer.” Then to McCarthy, “Don’t fucking move till we get back, hear?”
“But Maria—”
Sikes grabbed his neck. “I
said
stay the fuck put. Keep your sorry ass glued to that chair.”
“Understood.”
Just get out of here long enough to dial 9-1-1
.
Frustrated, Sikes shook his head, took a quick look around the room, stepped over to the wall, and ripped the computer and phone lines from the outlets—then crushed the connectors with his heel. Satisfied, he pointed at the door. “If I see you in that hallway, you’re one dead doctor. Got that?”
McCarthy said, “Go to hell.”
Sikes nodded, “Just keep lipping, see what it gets you.” Sikes grunted and started for the door. “When I get back I want the names of everyone you work for and how many copies you passed.” He stormed out.
McCarthy closed the door just enough to reach his sports coat on the coat hook, pulled out his cell phone, and checked the signal strength. Zero. His office was a cellular dead zone. He dialed 9-1-1 anyway. Nothing.
Frantic, he scanned the room for a way to summon help. The window? Break the glass and yell? Those two whackos would be on him before he could catch anyone’s attention. There was no ledge, just a nine-floor drop onto concrete.
He peeked out the doorway toward the reception room where Maria still lay. He blinked: did she just take a breath? At the end of the hall, Washington aimed the gun at McCarthy. “Thought Sikes warned you to stay the fuck down.”
McCarthy drew back just as bits of drywall sprayed from the jamb, peppering his forehead.
He brushed a splinter from his forehead and glanced up. He caught sight of the ceiling, then did a double take. A false ceiling actually, made of acoustical tiles and recessed fluorescent lighting, created a space for ventilation ducts, electrical conduits, and plumbing to run to various offices. Could the struts support a man’s weight?
Good question.
Quickly, he stepped from a chair onto the desk, pushed up a tile, and poked his head into dense warm darkness. A rectangular grid of inverted steel T-rails bolted into the real concrete ceiling supported the tiles, forming a vertical crawl space three feet high for a maze of pipes, conduits, and heating ducts wrapped in silver insulation.
He heard Sikes yell something to Washington.
Okay, here they come
.
ONFERENCE
R
OOM
, T
HE
P
ENTAGON
C
OLONEL CLYDE CUNNINGHAM pressed a button and the fifty-inch plasma screen came alive with the image of a middle-aged male at a table in a small cramped interrogation room, his interviewer sitting across from him.
Cunningham scanned the eyes of the seven CIA brass he’d handpicked for this highly sensitive meeting—each a trusted friend. That is, if such a thing existed in the intelligence community.
On screen, the man—visibly uncomfortable with what he was about to say—started speaking:
I stop at the curb in front of this tacky joint that claims to be a sports bar on account of they got these bigscreen TVs for watching ESPN. Call it what you want, it’s still a piece of shit tavern filled with alcoholics who think hanging there’s a social outlet. This pale, skinny chick, about twenty, comes over to the passenger window, leans down so I can see her tits, says, “Looking to party?”
I noticed her on my first pass. Picked her out from the others on account of she’s more attractive and younger. More important, she’s too fucking strung out to be task force. I mean, seriously, how stupid, the cops telling the media about the decoys. What’d they think? It’d scare me off ? Fuck no. Only thing it does is make it more exciting.
I can still see the red and blue neon on her pale skin. Gave her a kinda punk look. She had this silver ring through her eyebrow and this bar through her lower lip. Always wondered how one of those would feel on my cock.
I tell her, “Got that right. Wanna come?” Emphasizing the last word, seeing if she’d catch it and say something witty. But she didn’t. Dumb bitch.
Instead, she fakes this smile. I always know when they’re faking it and I hate that.
She says, “This girl is always looking for a party. What’d you have in mind?” She’s wearing cutoffs, a skimpy halter, and dirty white low-top deck shoes. It was warm that night. But she’s got this ugly acne on her chin the makeup can’t hide, and her breath stinks. She had to be less than twenty but, Jesus, the meth makes her look more than thirty, especially with two lower teeth gone and these really rotten gums.
So I tell her, “Hey, you tell me,” ’cause then I knew for sure she’s not a cop. Besides, no cop would be that skanky.
She opens the door, slides in, puts her hand high on my thigh. “Hundred for a suck and fuck. Fifty for a blow. But you gotta use a rubber to fuck.”
Way too high. I know damn well I can get her down to twenty, she’s so desperate. But hell, she ain’t leaving with it anyway, so why bother. Instead, I tell her, “Shut the door and let’s party. I know just the place.”
A
S THE INTERVIEW continued, Cunningham studied his guests’ faces, their eyes riveted on the man’s story. But, could he sell it? Any brilliant concept has a downside. Would they accept this one?
The interviewee finished his story, his eyes to the floor, face painted with disgust and self-loathing. Cunningham stopped the video, freezing the image on screen.
Mike Lawson, the most senior agency official, flashed a what-the-hell-was-that-all-about look.
“This discussion,” Cunningham began, “is highly classified. What I’m about to tell you will
not
leave this room. If any of you have a problem with this, leave now. Anyone?”
No one moved.
“Shall I continue?”
All the CIA brass nodded in unison. Two shifted in their chairs, impatient.
“This man,” Cunningham said with a nod at the screen, “describes murdering a prostitute. Okay, so what? We’ve all seen videotaped confessions. This one’s different. Because in spite of vividly describing his memory of the incident, he wasn’t there and he’s not the murderer. He doesn’t know, and has never met, the person who actually committed the crime. The man you see on screen is, instead, a volunteer in a small study code-named Operation Cuckoo’s Nest. The experiment is designed to test the feasibility of transferring memories from one person to another by transplanting small homogenates of the brain. As fantastic as this may sound, the experiment you just witnessed proves that memory transfer
can
be done.” He paused to sip water, allowing this last statement to sink in.
Lawson started to say something but Cunningham raised a hand, cutting him off. “Before you ask how we know his story isn’t total fabrication—one that he drummed up from watching
CSI: Miami
or
Dexter
, or even hearing it from the real killer—let me finish.”
Lawson wasn’t the only one who appeared to have doubts.
“The man the police believe is the killer had a tiny bit of brain removed before he died. This brain matter was transplanted into the man in this interview.”
Lawson started, “Still—”
“Please, Mike, let me finish. His description contains information never released to the media. And,” raising his voice to emphasize the point, “there’s no evidence that the recipient ever met the murderer in person or via any other means of communication.”
“If the facts were never released, how can you attest to their validity?” asked Tony Hennessey, the least senior agency member present.
“Because I verified them with the King County police. King County, as in Washington state, that is.”
Hennessey began drumming a ballpoint against his free hand. “Wouldn’t they be suspicious of someone verifying unpublicized details? I certainly would.”