Death Angel (7 page)

“And five suspicious deaths connected with this facility in the last six months,” Jack countered. “There may be more to come.”

That gave McCoy a start. “Eh? How’s that?”

“Peter Rhee would have been here now if he hadn’t been
killed. Anyone here could be marked for death. One of us or all of us.”

“That’s utterly fantastic—”

“I advise everyone to be extremely cautious of their safety from now on. Watch your back. Avoid dark, lonely places. Exercise extreme precautions.”

“Shun secret meetings?” Orne Lewis suggested dryly.

“It couldn’t hurt,” Jack said.

Debra Derr put her hands palms-down on the table. “What about Harvey Kling?” she asked Jack.

Jack was caught off-guard. “What about him?”

“He’s gone missing, too.”

“I don’t have him.”

McCoy made a disgusted face. “Don’t confuse the issue, Debra. You know Harvey. He comes in late on Saturdays when he comes in at all. Too busy sleeping off Friday night’s session with the bottle.”

“I know you’re not a fan of his but the man is part of the office.”

“Don’t blame me—I had nothing to do with his hiring. That was Rhodes Morrow’s doing. It was a pity hire. He felt sorry for the guy. Kling was one step short of being homeless, living in his car.”

Jack leaned forward, interested. “Kling used to work for the Department of Energy, didn’t he?” he asked McCoy. “He was a big man there.”

“He was—DOE’s top investigator. Until he botched the Sayeed case, and then they bounced him out of there like a bad check.”

“Dr. Sayeed, Ironwood’s own atom spy,” Jack mused, thoughtful.

“That didn’t happen on my watch. That was a long time ago,” McCoy said quickly.

“Not so long. Four years back,” Jack pointed out. “Just four.”

McCoy looked defensive. “Seaton Hotchkiss was OCI chief then and Morrow was his deputy. Morrow had more sense in those days. He warned Hotchkiss that Kling’s obsession about convicting Sayeed for spying was putting the case in jeopardy and Hotchkiss’s job, too. He was right. The case collapsed and took down Hotchkiss and Kling both.”

“Morrow must have changed his mind about him since. He hired Kling when no one else would,” Lewis said.

McCoy gestured as though physically trying to brush the matter aside. “Morrow felt sorry for him. Put him to work doing routine background and security checks. Donkey work that even a dipsomaniacal gumshoe like Harvey couldn’t screw up. It freed the rest of staff for more important stuff.”

“If he’s so bad, why don’t you get rid of him?” Lewis challenged.

“Please. Do you know how hard it is to get a grossly incompetent employee fired, even in a department as sensitive as this? Damned near impossible. Everybody’s got lawyers nowadays and the contracting authority is terrified of a lawsuit or some bad press.”

Derr cleared her throat. “Don’t give me that look, Debra. You know it’s true,” McCoy said. “Why do you think I’ve been keeping Kling frozen out of this investigation? He’s not going to take me down like he did Hotchkiss.”

Derr flashed a quick, embarrassed smile at Jack and Orne Lewis. “Pardon us for airing our dirty laundry in public.”

“No apologies necessary. I’m quite enjoying it,” Lewis said.

McCoy raised his hand palm-up, as if to signal that the subject was closed. “It’s ancient history. Climb out of the time machine and come back to now.” He made a chopping motion with the hand.

A long, awkward silence followed. Jack broke it. “Might
be a good idea to check up on Kling, make sure he’s okay,” he said.

“He’s fine. You know the old saying about the Lord looking after drunks and fools? Kling’s doubly blessed.” McCoy’s upper lip curled in a half sneer. “Take it from me—the only thing Harvey Kling is fit to investigate is a whiskey bottle. Curled up in the bottom of one is where you’ll find him.”

Jack kept looking at the other man.

“Still—I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to follow up on him. All right, I’ll have inquiries made when the meeting’s over,” McCoy said at last. “You’re so concerned, Debra, you do the follow-up.”

“I will.”

“Fine. Now let’s get back to business, the real business at hand. Where do we stand?”

“Sabito’s got an FBI forensics team coming down from Santa Fe. The County Sheriff and his deputies are helping to secure the crime scene,” Jack said.

McCoy groaned. “Oh god. Nothing Buck Bender likes better than seeing his name in the papers and his face on TV. This’ll get splashed big and the mud’ll spatter all over Ironwood.” He squeezed the lower half of his face as if trying to massage some feeling into it.

Lewis made a placating gesture. “Sabito will keep this in check and keep the lid on it if anyone can. He knows how to ride herd on ol’ Buck. Lord knows how he does it but he does, somehow.”

“He’s probably got something on him. That G-man’s got files on everybody.”

“Including you?”

“And you, Lewis!” McCoy fired back. “Mark my words, Bauer. You’ve only been here a short time but Sabito’s probably already opened a file on you, too.”

“I’m sure he has—I opened one on him. I don’t pretend to be an expert on him but I can tell you this: He’s not dumb. He knows how to get things done. We can use the Bureau’s resources and depth of backfield. We’re waiting on an ID of the killer maid at the motel, an analysis of the toxin on the needle, and the forensics report from the Rhee murder scene.

“The woman’s photos are up on the CTU net and available for downloading. If you ID her let me know. For now I’d like to go to the lab and talk to Nordquist, Carlson, and a few of the others.”

“Good luck,” McCoy said.

“Is there a problem?” Jack asked.

“Those scientists are all prima donnas. Carlson talks only to Nordquist and Nordquist talks only to God, except maybe when he condescends to take a call from Livermore or the top brass at Kirtland.”

“I’d like to talk to them anyway.”

“Why?”

“To see if Rhee had recent contact with any of them.”

“I suppose it can be arranged,” McCoy said without enthusiasm.

“I’d also like an update on Kling, as soon as you have something.”

“Debra will keep you posted. Anything else, Bauer?”

“If I need anything else I’ll let you know.”

“Any other items on the agenda? No? Lewis?”

The CIA man shook his head.

“This meeting is adjourned,” McCoy said.

When the vault door cycled open Jack was the first out of the room.

3:00
P.M
. MDT
Laser Research Facility,
Ironwood National Laboratory

A long enclosed walkway connected the admin building with the Laser Research Facility. Jack Bauer and Orne Lewis followed it to the LRF.

Located off the northwest corner of admin, the lab occupied a separate structure of its own. It was the matrix where the Perseus Project was being born. Perseus was the legendary hero of Greek myth who slew the snake-haired Medusa, the monster whose gaze turned living beings into stone.

The lab had its own Medusa, one with a single ruby-red eye no less lethal than that of its fabulous counterpart. A laser cannon.

“You don’t have to come along if you don’t want to,” Jack told Lewis.

“No, no, Jack. You can’t get rid of me that easily. Now that you’re around, things are happening. You’re what they call a catalyst. An outside agent that speeds up the rate of chemical reactions.”

Jack cut him a dubious side glance. “You’ve been hanging around the scientific crowd for too long, Lewis.”

“I’ll stick to you for a while then.”

“Careful—it could be hazardous to your health.”

Lewis wasn’t buying. “You’re doing fine so far. Two dead today and you’re still vertical.”

“I said your health, not mine.”

“I’ll take my chances, Jack. Besides, this is probably the safest place to be right now. All the killing’s taking place out in the world, not on-site.”

“Except Freda Romberg,” Jack pointed out.

“I forgot about that one. I must have blanked it out of my mind.” The corners of Lewis’s eyes and mouth turned down.

“That was a ghastly thing. The poor woman looked like she’d been hit by a wrecking ball. Which in a sense she had. That robotic arm weighs a ton if it’s an ounce.

“No need for an ambulance to take her away. Just a sanitation crew. What was left of her after the apparatus crushed her could have been scooped up with a shovel,” Lewis said, his dark eyes glittering.

“Sentimental, aren’t you.” Jack’s tone implied the opposite.

Lewis shrugged, unconcerned. “You know how you get in this business.”

They halted at the far end of the walkway. A set of gray metal double doors barred further access to the LRF. A triangular yellow metal plaque was attached point-down to the center of the wall above the doors. It was blazoned with a bold graphic of a black starburst—the scientific world’s universal symbol for laser.

A boxy console was attached at waist-height to the wall on the right of the doors.

Lewis swiped his Q-cleared blue badge smart card through a slot in the top of the console.

After a pause a pinging tone chimed. The doors slid open.

Jack could have followed Lewis through the portal but so-called piggybacking on another’s badge to enter a restricted area was a security violation at LANL.

Jack was a great believer in proper procedures.

He swiped his badge through the slot, triggering a second
ping
.

He and Lewis entered a reception area, the auto-doors sliding shut behind them. “These badge access reader scanners will tell us if any of the Perseus cadre went off-site today,” Lewis said.

Jack nodded. “We’ll use that to verify their oral statements.”

Similar scanners, hardened to a greater or lesser degree, were liberally salted throughout Ironwood. They controlled and documented all coming and going to restricted areas. Some merely required a swipe of the badge. Others required the input of a PIN number via a numerical keypad; the most tightly secured areas required a badge swipe, PIN, and biometric reading of the user’s fingerprints.

“Personally I doubt whether any key personnel went off-site. Nordquist would strip the bark off any of his people who dared absent themselves during a test firing day. But I’ll check it anyway.”

“While you’re at it you might check Peter Rhee’s movements for this week,” Jack said. It was a command couched in the form of a suggestion. “See if he visited the LRF anytime and if so, when. I’m interested in knowing what recent contacts he might have had with any of the top cadre, if any.”

“Roger that.”

“Check McCoy’s and Derr’s movements during the same time period. Especially today.”

Lewis halted, raised an eyebrow. “What are you trying to say? Surely you don’t suspect either of them of anything.”

Jack’s response was a thin, meaningless smile.

“Oh, so that’s how it is. Everyone is suspect. I suppose you’ll want a report on my movements, too,” Lewis said.

“Don’t bother.”

“That’s a relief—”

“I’ll get it from McCoy. He’ll be more objective.”

Jack resumed walking and Lewis fell into step beside him. They crossed to the reception desk. The receptionist was an attractive brunette in a sleeveless yellow dress. Lewis nodded to her. “Hello, Betty.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Lewis.” She had a big smile for both of them. It brightened noticeably when she turned it on Jack. She didn’t know him yet, but her smile said she’d like to know him better.

“Did they do the test firing in the LRF yet?” Lewis asked.

Betty checked the time. “No, they’re still running the pre-ignition countdown sequence right now.” She picked up a phone. “I’ll notify Dr. Nordquist of your arrival.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’m sure he’s very busy. We don’t want to trouble him.”

Betty looked flustered. “But the doctor insists on all visitors being escorted—”

Lewis flashed his badge. “We’re not just any visitors. And we’ve got the clearances to prove it.”

Betty’s evident distress deepened.

“Don’t worry about the good doctor, I’ll take full responsibility,” he added.

“You know how he is.”

“We all do, but we love him anyway.”

Fretting, she sighed. “Okay, Mr. Lewis, I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t know about that, but I’ll tell Nordquist you did your best to protect the sanctity of his domain.”

Behind and to the left of Betty’s workstation was a closed door with a scanner box beside it. Lewis swiped his badge, triggering an electronic buzzing from somewhere in the door panel. A relay clicked, thudding into place, releasing a locking mechanism.

Lewis turned the doorknob, pushed the door open, and went through the doorway. The buzzing continued while the door was open. Jack swiped his badge and crossed the threshold. The door was weighted so it swung shut when Lewis released his hold on it.

A relay clicked, bolting the door and sealing it shut. The buzzing stopped.

Lewis grinned. “What’ll you bet she’s on the phone to Nordquist right now?”

“No bet,” Jack said.

“Security regs are one thing but stroking Nordquist’s hyper-developed territorial imperative is quite another.” Lewis frowned, his grin dissolving.

A dozen paces along a blank corridor brought them to a set of swinging double doors. No scanning was required to pass them, only a stiff-armed push.

Beyond lay a short passageway; a left turn around the corner put them in a long, empty hallway. Centered in the long wall on the right-hand side was a pair of elevators.

Opposite them was a fire door.

“Let’s take the stairs, it’s quicker,” Lewis said.

The door opened into a stairwell. Stairways slanted up and down the shaft.

Jack and Lewis went down four flights of stairs, exiting through another door into the vast, cavernous space of the LRF.

They emerged onto a mezzanine jutting from a long, high wall. The ceiling was sixty feet above; the floor thirty feet
below. The interior echoed to a clangor of machine sounds, heavy pumps, engines, and power plants. It smelled of stone and steel, dust, fuel oil, and industrial chemicals, laced with a stimulating scent of ozone.

Rows of narrow slatted windows of treated glass set high in the walls shed a weak, milky, blurred glow. A skeletal metal framework hung suspended from the ceiling, supporting banks of floodlights and spotlights that fitfully lit the gloomy interior.

Jack crossed to the end of the mezzanine where a waist-high balustrade was topped by a tubular metal guardrail. Resting his hands on the top rail, he surveyed the scene.

Lewis stood beside him. “Welcome to the Snake Pit,” he said. “Some researcher tagged it with the nickname and it stuck. But don’t let Nordquist hear you call it that. The LRF is his baby and he’s got no sense of humor about it, none at all.”

They were in the building that looked like a college gym when seen from the parking lot. A gym big enough to hold an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Where the pool would have been was a second structure, a kind of building within a building: a flat-roofed concrete blockhouse forty feet high.

It bristled with spiky bunches of antennae and was hung with multilevel metal frame scaffolding, catwalks, and flights of stairs. Roof and walls were draped with various colored pipes and tubes that came together in tangled knots before branching off in different directions, only to rejoin later at other junctions.

Jack had had enough of the view. He and Lewis went to the right-hand end of the mezzanine and descended several flights of steeply slanted metal stairs to the main floor.

A figure approached, coming from the blockhouse. “It’s Stannard,” Jack said. “Let’s keep quiet about Rhee’s death for now. The scientists have enough on their minds. They’ll hear about it soon enough.”

Lewis nodded. “Good thinking. If the test flops, Nordquist can’t hang it on us for distracting his team at a crucial moment,” he said. They spoke low-voiced so Stannard wouldn’t hear them.

Dr. Don Stannard was the youngest member and most recent addition to Perseus’s inner circle. He hadn’t been there long enough to get a parking space in the reserved area.

He was thirty, looked like a college undergrad, and held a doctorate in several advanced branches of applied physics. Jack had met Stannard and the other key members of the Perseus cadre during an introductory meeting in an office in the admin building a week earlier. He greeted him now.

“Uh, hi.” Stannard blinked, his eyes owlish behind thick-lensed glasses. “I was supposed to meet you in the reception area…”

“We saved you a trip,” Jack said. “How’s the test going?”

“Fine. We’re going to be firing soon, in about fifteen minutes.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, why’d they send you out to meet us? I’d think your presence in the control room is vital.”

Stannard grinned self-consciously. “My work on the pre-ignition sequence is done, so Dr. Nordquist decided he could spare me. I won’t be needed again until the firing. I’m glad of the opportunity to stretch my legs; I’ve been cooped up in there since early morning.”

“We won’t delay your return. Let’s go.”

Stannard reversed direction and the three men crossed to the blockhouse. “You’ve never seen a firing?”

“No.”

“Me neither,” Lewis said.

“It’s something to see,” Stannard said.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Jack said.

“You picked a good time to come. Uh…but why are you here, if I may ask. If it’s not a state secret, ha-ha.”

“Just following up on a few routine matters for our files. You can help out if you like. You know Peter Rhee.”

Stannard looked blank.

“From OCI,” Jack prompted.

“Oh. Yes, I know him. Not personally but professionally. In the line of business. Your business, that is, not mine. Though I guess security is all our business. Sure, I’ve met him a couple of times. Nice guy. He came around after Freda’s terrible accident and interviewed all of her coworkers. And then he came around again after Director Morrow was killed.”

“Was he around this week?”

“If he was, I didn’t see him. That means nothing in itself—the LRF is a big place. When I’m working on some calculations, somebody could be in the same room and I wouldn’t notice them. I get tunnel vision when I’m concentrating. He certainly didn’t talk to me. No, I haven’t seen him since last month when he came in about the Morrow matter. Is that of any help to you?”

“Just routine, thanks.”

They paused at the near end of the blockhouse, at an entrance in one of the short walls. A SECTRO Force guard stood on duty at the door.

“Hello, Bruno.”

“Hi, Mr. Lewis,” the guard said.

“This is Jack Bauer. He’s with me.”

Stannard was allowed to breeze through; Lewis flashed his badge and got the nod from the guard. Bruno examined Jack’s badge and passed him through.

A short elevator ride took the trio up to the second floor. They went to the control room. All, including Stannard, swiped their badge cards through the scanner before entering.

The control room was decidedly unglamorous. It was a big oblong room whose long walls paralleled the block-
house’s short walls. Not so different from the bullpen where computer analysts labored back at CTU/L.A., Jack decided.

Rows of computer consoles were occupied by about twenty scientists, board operators, and technicians. Flat-screen panels on the walls imaged various views of the blockhouse interior beyond these walls.

Men and women hunched over monitor screens and keyboards, exuding an air of quiet concentration. The percussive rattle of fingers inputting data on keyboards was counterpointed by the well-modulated voices of operators giving their readouts. The ambience suggested the humming efficiency of a beehive.

Perseus Project Director Dr. Glen Nordquist stood off to the side in conclave with Dr. Carlson and Dr. Tennant. Nordquist, fifty-something, looked older. An oversized cranium and bulging forehead topped a long, angular face marked by sharp eyes, a beaklike nose, and sharp pointed chin.

Dr. Hugh Carlson, Assistant Director and second-in-command, was ten years or so younger than his chief. Big, bluff, and hearty, he had wavy brown hair, bushy eyebrows, moist brown eyes with heavy bags under them, and a firm jawline.

Dr. Cheryl Tennant was in her mid-thirties, short, stocky, with short straight dark hair framing a square-shaped face.

There could be no doubt that Nordquist was in charge; he was the one holding a clipboard.