The Adamas Blueprint

CHAPTER 11

The closest spot Erica could find to South Texas University’s Campbell library was still a quarter of a mile away, and the temperature was inching toward one hundred. She took a barrette from the glove box and clipped her hair into a pony tail before getting out of the car.

She tried to make some sense of Kevin’s story as she hiked through the university’s main entrance. She wanted to believe him, but the idea was just so farfetched, even preposterous. No one wanted to kill a college student. Kevin admitted as much. Their relationship had never gone past friendship, but it wasn’t because he was odd. Far from it. He was one of the most well-adjusted men she’d ever met. It was just that after four months of getting to know him, there still seemed to be a barrier there. Distance. In some ways she thought he understood her better than anyone else did, but in others she felt like she barely knew him.

Despite the distance, Kevin was the best friend she had. There was potential for more. She saw that in the way he looked at her when they talked. She just wasn’t sure if she had the will to risk their friendship.

She’d almost decided to spend the hour doing something else, pretending she had gone to the library, but she knew she would never be able to look him in the face and lie to him like that. Which left actually looking for a library book marked “DA483 H3.” She still had no idea what she would do after she told him there was nothing there.

Several other people dotted the campus, mostly students enjoying the last days of the break between summer and fall terms. A few older men in suits and sports jackets strode purposefully across the quad, no doubt professors returning to their offices.

Erica reached the shadowed portico leading to the library’s main entrance and took off her sunglasses. She looked at the number scrawled on the piece of paper in her hand and shook her head as she opened the door, wondering what type of book she would be looking for.

Across the main quad, a suntanned blond in his mid-twenties, wearing a gray suit and sunglasses and saddled with the name Vernon Francowiak, watched the woman entering the main library. His gait never slowed as he saw her disappear into the library’s foyer, then he abruptly changed directions when he was sure he wouldn’t be noticed.

Franco had been posted at the university to look for any signs of the student or his girlfriend, a picture of whom he had been faxed only half an hour before from Bern. His boss, Stan Wilson, was watching the building where Hamilton did the research with Ward. At the briefing this morning, Franco had been told to roam the campus in the hopes of seeing one or both of them, in case they tried seeking help from a friend at the university. Another operative was at the hospital with the same instructions.

The woman he’d seen enter the library fit the description, but he’d been too far away to make a positive ID from the photograph he’d been given. He wasn’t going to pass up any chance he might have of making a few points with Lobec, who Franco knew had Tarnwell’s ear. He retreated to the cover of the physics building’s shadows before removing a small, but sophisticated, walkie-talkie from his pocket.

He clicked the button on the side of the device, which was set to communicate scrambled messages with one of its matched handsets.

After a second’s pause, he heard, “This is Wilson. Go ahead.”

“This is Franco. I have a possible on the woman.” A click when he released the talk button told Wilson it was okay to speak.

“Where?”

“She just entered the main library.”

“When?”

“Ten seconds ago. Should I follow?”

“No, the library’s too big. She’s got too much of a head start. She might come out before you find her.”

“But it hasn’t been that long…”

“I said no.”

Franco swore under his breath, eager to get a chance to prove himself.

“How sure are you about her identity?” Wilson said.

“I was about a hundred yards away. Just a possible.”

Another short pause. “The library has only one entrance. Wait outside to make a positive. If it’s her, buzz me twice.” He meant the walkie-talkie’s vibrating ringer; an auditory alarm would have been too suspicious to passersby.

“Then what?”

“Follow her until I join you. We’ll make contact together.” Franco knew better. Wilson wanted to take the glory for himself.

“She looks like a fucking student. I can take her.”

Wilson’s voice hardened. “You have your orders. Understood?”

Franco clenched his teeth. “Yes, sir.”

He replaced the walkie-talkie and shifted the fake HPD badge to his front pocket. As he walked toward the library’s entrance, he deftly unsnapped the restraining clip on his shoulder holster. No way was he going to let Wilson take the credit for this one.

Muted colors and warm lights bathed the library’s information center. The lone staffer at the island reference desk looked up as Erica entered the room and then went back to reading his paperback when she didn’t approach him. Computer terminals lined the room’s walls, and Erica took the nearest one.

She stood as she typed the search parameters into the library’s electronic search system. Several seconds passed as the system processed her request, and then green characters scrolled up the screen. She was startled when she read the four titles listed under the “DA483 H3” call number.

She hadn’t really expected to find any books under that call number, but the name Hamilton in the last two titles had to be more than a coincidence. Her stomach started fluttering. Of course, it could still be a prank, with a goofy note left in one of the books, but now she was intensely curious as to what she might find. She headed for the nearest stairwell. The “D” section was located in the basement.

Rather than instilling a sense of wonder as edifices of learning and freedom, libraries always gave Erica the creeps, and this one didn’t change her mind. The tall bookshelves interfered with the fluorescent lighting, which wasn’t especially effective to begin with. Occasionally, bulbs flickered or were burned out, and the whisper of her Keds along the linoleum was the only sound she could hear, making it seem as if she’d entered a dank catacomb. She could almost imagine that she was the first to set eyes on this place in a thousand years.

I can see why this would make a good hiding place for something, Erica thought as she rounded the corner of the stacks where she would find her books. I bet at most two people have been in this stack in the past three months. Including me.

She ran her fingers across the bindings as she walked down the stack. CS. CT. D. DA. She stopped and looked at each shelf, bending over until she found the bottom row. There it was. DA483 H3. There were four books with that call number. Nothing seemed out of place, no notebook amongst them. She reached down and took the first title, quickly flipping through it to see if there was a note contained inside. Nothing. And no notes written on the book itself, either. She replaced it and did the same with the next book.

With no luck on the next two, she picked up the last one, grunting as she did so because it was about as thick as the other three combined. Erica wondered aloud how this much could be written on somebody she’d never heard of. She flipped through it with the same negative results. It was huge though; she could have missed something. Erica grabbed it by the covers and shook it to see if a note would fall out. As she was shaking, she lost her grip on the heavy book, and it tumbled to the floor.

She crouched down to retrieve it, embarrassed that she might have damaged it. It landed on one of the covers, however, and wasn’t harmed. She was about to put it back, somewhat disappointed that she hadn’t found anything, when she noticed a small piece of yellow paper toward the back of the empty slot where she had removed the book. She hadn’t noticed before because the ledge above had blocked her view of the back of the shelf when she was merely bending at the waist and not crouching.

Skeptical, but still curious, Erica reached into the slot and found that the paper was partially covered by the other books labeled “DA483 H3.” She removed them and could now see that they covered a large Post-It note, folded and taped down on the bookshelf. She tugged at it until the tape peeled off the surface.

The note felt unusually heavy, and as she unfolded it, a key fell into her palm. Although she didn’t have one, Erica knew that this was a key to a safe deposit box. Stenciled on it was the number “645.” On the note, only three words were written: First Texas Bank.

No one would hide a key to a safe deposit box in the library. It was absurd. Yet here it was. The only reason would be because its owner had to hide it quickly. She immediately regretted doubting Kevin, afraid now that men really were after him — maybe her too. She was shaking as she walked back toward the stairway.

“Miss!” said a voice from behind her.

She whirled to see a tall, gaunt man in jeans standing at the end of the stack. Her heart raced.

“If you are going to use our facilities,” he said, pointing at the books she had left on the floor, “the least you can do is clean up after yourself.”

Franco felt the vibration signal on the walkie-talkie. He retreated farther behind the pillar from which he had been watching the front entrance of the library and pulled the walkie-talkie from his pocket.

While keeping an eye on the entrance, he said, “This is Franco. Go ahead.”

“It’s Wilson. I just got an update from Hornung. We’ve got more info on the woman.” At the briefing this morning, they’d only had the woman’s picture, and they thought Hamilton would be found shortly. But later they’d found out that Hamilton had gotten away from Lobec and Bern. Franco didn’t know many of the details. The last he’d heard was that they were at a stakeout, ready to use their Barnett and Kaplan identities to try and capture him.

“Her name’s Erica Jensen,” Wilson continued. “She’s a fourth-year med student at South Texas and is probably dating Hamilton.”

“So it’s possible she’s here to study in the library.”

“Correct. Remember. Just wait outside, and don’t let her get out of your sight once you make a positive ID. We already lost our boy once today. She’s probably the best way to find him.”

“Acknowledged.”

Franco replaced the walkie-talkie. Just as he did so, the front door of the library opened, and a woman burst through, out of breath. She was dark-haired, approximately five foot eight, with bright green, almond-shaped eyes that darted from side to side but did not see him behind the pillar. The T-shirt and shorts she wore conformed well to her lithe, athletic body, and her high cheekbones and delicate jawline enhanced an already pretty face. The overall effect was a girl-next-door attractiveness that made her easily identifiable from this distance.

Franco looked at the photo in his hand and smiled. He now had a positive. It was Erica Jensen.

Erica’s eyes darted around as she hurried back towards her car. The man that had scared her minutes before had only been one of the librarians, but she was still worried about the prospects of meeting one of Kevin’s policemen. Her right hand clutched her purse and the safe deposit box key inside it, and her left was wrapped tightly around the mace canister.

Footsteps rushed at her from behind. She turned, hoping it was only a student late for an appointment. Her breathing stopped when she saw a handsome young man wearing a suit. He had his hand raised. She couldn’t see what he was holding, but he started to call to her.

“Miss Jensen! I need to speak with you!”

She didn’t recognize him and had no idea how he knew who she was. She almost turned to run when she realized that he was flashing a badge towards her.

He came to a stop in front of her. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on his face.

“Miss Jensen, my name is Detective Watson with the HPD. It’s urgent that I speak with you regarding Kevin Hamilton.”

After Kevin’s story about the police detectives, she didn’t know what to think. The badge looked authentic, but then she had never seen a real badge before. If he wasn’t a policeman, he was very convincing.

Nervously, she looked around again. She could see only two other people. Both were far away and moving out of the quad.

“What do you want?” she said. She could hear the nervousness in her voice, but she couldn’t do much about it.

“Actually, this concerns both of you. I think it would be better if we discussed it at the station.” He motioned in a direction away from her car. She didn’t move.

“First, I want to know what this is about.”

“It’s in connection with Dr. Michael Ward’s death last night. We have reason to believe Mr. Hamilton might have some information that would be helpful in the case.”

“Why?” Erica asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t discuss the specifics of the case. Have you seen Mr. Hamilton this morning?”

She wasn’t going to commit herself just yet. “No, I just talked to him a little over the phone around 9:30. He said a Detective Robley was going to call him. Do you know him?”

“Robley? The name doesn’t sound familiar. But I’m with the arson squad, investigating Dr. Ward’s death as a possible arson. Detective Robley is probably in another division. Do you know why Mr. Hamilton would call him?”

The fact that he didn’t know Robley might not mean anything, but she was still wary. “He said it had something to do with Dr. Ward, but I don’t know what.”

“Then I’m sure you can understand why I have to speak with him. I’m going to have to ask you to come with me. I’d like you to help me locate Mr. Hamilton. As I said, it’s very urgent.” Again, he motioned toward the west end of the campus.

She started to slowly walk in that direction with Detective Watson beside her. She decided she had to be convinced.

“Detective Watson, there was one other thing that might help. Kevin said he was talking to two police officers. I can’t quite remember their names. I think one was Barnett. You might try one of them. He might even be with them.”

Watson seemed to think for a second. Then he said, “You must be talking about Detectives Barnett and Kaplan. We could try contacting them when…”

Erica whipped her hand up and blasted him in the eyes with the mace. He sank to his knees, his hands went to his face, and he began screaming. As she ran, she could hear him yelling after her.

“Goddam bitch!”

No one was in the quad anymore. She bolted for the nearest building, passing a sign that said “Cooper Physics Building.” She pulled furiously on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Locked. She ran down to the next door. This one was wedged open with a piece of wood. She yanked it open, pausing only to look back at the police impersonator, who was now on his feet just forty yards behind her.

The literature that came with the mace said a full-grown man would be incapacitated for twenty minutes. Either the claims were exaggerated or her aim must have been off and she didn’t spray the chemical right in his face.

She kicked the wedge out and ran down the hallway. Turning, she was horrified to see that, instead of slamming shut, the door had hydraulic hinges. It was closing, but excruciatingly slowly.

Ahead, she saw a stairway and decided to take it. Over her footsteps echoing on the stone floor, she could hear Watson slam the door open, sputtering as he did so. It sounded like he tripped and fell as he crossed the door’s threshold, but she didn’t dare turn to look. She took the steps two at a time.

The second floor hallway was dark, but some sunlight filtered through the office transoms. The stairway was about midway between the ends of the hall and topped out on this floor. She randomly chose left and started twisting knobs in an effort to find an unlocked door.

After trying three doors unsuccessfully, she came to the last room in the hall, whose massive metal door was equipped with a lever instead of a knob. She pushed down on it and the latch clicked. Someone had left it unlocked. She pushed in and slammed the door behind her. She scrabbled for the deadbolt switch and then realized it needed a key to lock from this side as well. Two wooden wedges were on the floor, probably used to prop the door open. She jammed them under the door. They’d hold for a minute, but not against sustained pounding.

Looking around the room, she now knew why it had a door different from the others on the floor. Surrounding her was thousands of dollars worth of complex machinery and gadgets, the purpose of which she couldn’t hope to decipher. Along one wall, storage cabinets stretched from floor to ceiling, and a huge metal box took up a quarter of the 30 foot by 20 foot room. Jumbles of cable connected many of the devices together, and she almost tripped on one as she searched for a telephone. Because there was so much electronic equipment, it took her several seconds to realize that there wasn’t even a desk in this laboratory, let alone a phone.

As she frantically hunted for a hiding place, she noticed that a door on the metal box was slightly open. On a table next to it sat a heavy-duty padlock with the key still in it. The box’s door had three steps leading up to it, putting the bottom of the door at mid-thigh level. She examined the door’s handle mechanism, trying to ignore the fact that Watson was going to be pounding at the laboratory door any second. The thick steel handle had an eyelet that lined up with a similar eyelet in the door when the handle was closed. The padlock was big enough to go through both eyelets and lock the door. Erica opened the door wider and climbed the steps to look inside.

She’d seen a room like it once before, while she was taking introductory physics. It was called an anechoic chamber, used to study sound in an environment which was almost completely free of any echo. Large foam wedges covered the floor three feet below. A wire mesh was suspended above the wedges for walking and mounting equipment. Only some of the wall and none of ceiling was covered by the sound-absorbing wedges. In the far corner, construction materials and a sheet of plywood leaned against the wall. Apparently, the chamber wasn’t finished.

Erica examined the inside of the door, hoping she could lock herself in the chamber until whoever was using the room returned. The door was actually composed of two sections, one that swung into the outer room, and a second insulating door that swung into the chamber. It was covered on the inside by more of the foam wedges. Both doors had handles on the inside, but neither had eyelets for a padlock. She could close the doors, but there was no way to lock them from the inside.

Faintly, she heard pounding outside the chamber.

Franco had stopped at the top of the stairs, seeing the door slam on the room at the end of the hall. He removed the walkie-talkie while wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket and repeatedly pressed the button calling Wilson.

“Wilson here. Go ahead.”

“It’s her. Goddammit! The bitch maced me!”

“What! You idiot! I told you not to contact her without me.”

“She made me when she came out of the library,” Franco had lied. “She started to run. I had to go after her.”

“Did she get away?”

“No, I’m in the physics building. I’ve got her trapped in one of the rooms on the second floor, but it’s going to be tougher getting her to the car now. Get over here and help me out.”

“On my way.”

Franco had run down to the room, pulling out his Glock 19. With the automatic raised, he gently pushed down on the lever. He heard the click of the latch disengaging and pushed the door slightly. No deadbolt.

He threw the full weight of his body against it, ready to crouch and duck another mace attack. He’d shoot her, but not to kill, much as he’d like to. Expecting to hit a yielding door, he wasn’t ready for the sudden stop almost immediately after the door had begun to open. His head smacked against the steel with a resounding thud, and he almost fell to his knees again.

Holding his head, he shook out the stars. Maybe his aim would be off just this once, and there would be a fatal accident. Lobec wouldn’t like it, but tough shit. Franco had had just about enough of Erica Jensen.

He threw his shoulder against the door, this time anticipating the shock. On the third try, the door gave slightly. Three more times and it flew open.

He crouched as he’d originally intended, but no mace came. A quick look around the room. She wasn’t in sight.

Then he heard it. A faint, almost nonexistent, beeping. It was coming from the direction of the open door of a large metal chamber in the opposite corner of the room. The sound of a doctor’s pager. It abruptly stopped, and he realized the hospital must have paged the med student. Tough luck for her. It didn’t matter, though. He would have found her anyway.

He eased over to the door and opened it wider. He peeked around the corner. The chamber was faintly lit, but he could tell that the Jensen woman was not in view. He crept up the stairs, his back to the door, the Glock held at arm’s length.

As he stepped onto the wire mesh, he still couldn’t see her. But he knew where she was. A 4 by 8 sheet of plywood leaned against the far corner, plenty of room for someone to hide behind.

“Miss Jensen, why don’t you come out? I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. And if you spray me again, I will hurt you.”

No response. This bitch was tougher than he thought. He slowly walked over to the plywood, then hooked his foot under it and kicked it aside.

The woman wasn’t there. Only two things sat on the wire mesh: a pager and a key.

Shit!

He whipped around to see the door swinging shut.

Erica pulled on the chamber’s outer door as hard as she could, but the enormous metal frame was as heavy as it looked and only with effort started to shut. She didn’t dare look into the chamber, but she heard the police impersonator curse as he realized what happened. The lock in her hand poked her skin, but she pulled harder.

The door was almost closed, traveling at a tremendous rate, when a hand shot through the opening. The man’s weight fell against the other side of the door, but it wasn’t enough to halt the inertia of the door’s massive bulk. His hand was crushed as the door slammed it against the jamb. He let out a scream, and the weight momentarily lifted. The hand disappeared into the chamber.

Erica used the opportunity to latch the door. As she tried to thread the lock through the handle mechanism, gunshots rang out, and she almost fell from the stairs in surprise. She looked down and saw with relief that the bullets, unable to penetrate the thick door, only made small protrusions on her side. Her fumbling hands finally got the lock in place just as the man began pounding on the other side, and she closed it with a satisfying click.

Suspecting that she didn’t have much time before his friends arrived, she collected her purse and headed for the exit. The impersonator’s muted curses faded quickly as she ran down the hall.