The Bone Chamber

4

Sydney examined the sketch pad, the nearly finished drawing. She’d been sitting in this damned room for the last couple of hours, and the autopsy photo had yet to materialize. Still, Sydney doubted she’d need it. The original crime scene photo contained the necessary elements such as the hair, and she made a rough sketch on a separate sheet of paper. She’d complete it from that-wanted to complete it from that, as anything was better than looking at the crime scene photo, the memory of which was bound to stay with her far too long.

Her cell phone vibrated. Thinking it was probably Tasha returning her call, she pulled it from her belt, saw her ex, Scotty Ryan’s number showing on the screen, then looked over at Griffin to see if he would object.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“My boyfriend. He’s an agent out of HQ,” she said, figuring Griffin was in the business, and undoubtedly knew she meant the Washington, D.C., office.

“I was under the impression the two of you had broken up.”

“Delving a bit on the personal side, aren’t you?”

“This is a sensitive case.”

“So what do you know about me?” she asked, ignoring Scotty’s call for now.

“You’re thirty-three, five-nine, brown hair, blue eyes-”

“Besides the obvious?”

“You were a cop in Sacramento for eight years before joining the Bureau four years ago. According to SAC Harcourt, you’re one of the best forensic artists the Bureau has. You transferred from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco when you and your boyfriend broke up, and you were recently looking into your father’s murder, which took place twenty years ago. His murder case is why you took the transfer back to D.C.”

“Maybe I should have asked if there was anything about me you don’t know.”

“Red wine or white.”

His answer surprised her, and she was tempted to quip that apparently he hadn’t seen her and Tasha drinking the other night, or he’d know it was red. Instead, she merely stared at him, noted there was actually a spark of amusement in his previously unreadable gaze, and it wasn’t until her phone vibrated again that she was able to look away. “I need to take this call. Scotty’s a little on the possessive side. But then you probably already know that if you’ve done a complete background.”

As quick as that spark appeared, it was gone. “Nothing about this case.”

Sydney ignored him, flipped open the phone. “Hey, Scotty.”

“I called your mom’s house, and she said you were already back at Quantico. Are you okay?”

“Just a crime sketch. I’m flying back to my mom’s this afternoon.”

“I mean about Tasha.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The hit-and-run.”

Sydney stilled, felt her heart beat several times as she absorbed what she was hearing. “What?”

“I figured you knew, why you flew back to D.C. It was in the papers. She was crossing the street and-”

“Oh my God,” she said, since that was all she could think to say.

“I’m sorry, Sydney. I know you were good friends.”

“I can’t believe it…”

He was quiet for a moment, then, “Call me when you’re done. I’ll pick you up, and you can decide what you want to do.”

“Thank you…”

He disconnected, and she closed her phone, staring at it, unable to believe any of this was real. They’d just gone out drinking…

And then it hit her. That’s why Griffin had handed over a set of notes that weren’t included in a finished report. Tasha had been killed before she’d been able to complete it. It was also why Tasha wasn’t present, because she would’ve insisted on being here.

What was it Griffin had said to Sydney, why they’d refused to tell her what was going on? Because someone would kill her if she knew…

She spun around in her chair, looked right at him, very much aware that he’d heard the entire conversation, knew that she knew. “How dare you keep me in the dark about my friend’s death.”

“This case takes priority.”

“Was Tasha killed because of it?”

“At this time, we have no proof that there is any connection.”

“And being that it’s a hit-and-run, how would you know?”

He didn’t answer.

She turned away in anger and disgust, closing her eyes against the pain and confusion. Was it her fault her friend was dead? Sydney had recommended Tasha. She was-had been-one of the best forensic anthropologists on the East Coast. But if she was killed because of the case, then it stood to reason that anyone Sydney might have recommended would have come to the same fate…“Were you aware of the danger in this?”

“Not all of it.”

It was said with such quiet conviction, that she believed him. “Then why keep it from me?”

“Because we had to reevaluate. If Dr. Gilbert was killed because of this case, then we had to protect anyone else we had working on the identification. You think you were followed on your run this morning? If you were, it was by someone who can gain access to these grounds. Someone who knew we were bringing the skull to Quantico. You can understand why I didn’t want to involve yet another artist. And why we let you go home to San Francisco to preserve the illusion that you were not connected to the case at all.”

“Hence the private jet to bring me back?”

“Exactly.”

And that she could appreciate. Because if someone came after her, they could certainly do it while she was visiting her family. “I need a few minutes, if you don’t mind.”

Griffin hesitated. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

She nodded, waited until she heard the door close behind him, then stared at the skull through a blur of tears, wishing that Tasha had left for her dig in Italy a week earlier.

By the time Griffin returned about fifteen minutes later, she had composed herself enough to attempt finishing the Jane Doe sketch. Pencil poised over paper, she suddenly doubted herself and her hurried sketch of the victim’s hair. “I need to see the crime scene photo one more time before I finish.”

He picked up the briefcase, unlocked it, removed the folder, set it on the table in front of her. She opened the folder, tried to force her gaze past the woman’s visage to the surroundings, everything she needed to remember. It was not an easy task. Look at any photo of a person, and one’s gaze is drawn to the face. Look at a photo where the face has been savagely removed, and it’s just as hard not to stare at where the face is supposed to be.

But do it she must. An ID of Jane Doe was imperative, assuming that Jane Doe’s killer had also killed Tasha. Eyeing the photo, and making a few tentative strokes on the paper, Sydney tried to mentally take in everything from the obvious to the not so obvious. She noted what the victim wore, blue jeans and a zippered sweatshirt. She noted the ground, the neatly manicured lawn, and more importantly the absence of snow, which, if the murder had occurred in this area, meant it was at least a week or more ago. To the right of the victim was what looked like the base of an old-fashioned streetlamp, black iron, and beyond that the corner of a building made of massive blocks of hewn stone that, other than the reddish color, reminded her of the historic brownstones seen in the New York area.

“How much longer?” he asked.

“Almost done.”

She finished up the hair, another ten minutes to get the basics, try to emulate the style she presumed the woman would’ve worn, judging from what she could tell in the photo, what wasn’t matted in congealed blood. Brunette. She’d been a brunette. After that it was simply shading to give the sketch depth and realism. An hour later she was done.

“All yours,” she said, eyeing the sketch of the young woman she’d drawn, and then the skull. She lifted the vellum from her sketch pad, the drawing of the skull beneath it, then held up the vellum sheet with the actual sketch on it, to size up the real skull behind her rendering. It fit. When she held up the sketch pad so that Griffin could view the drawing, he looked at it. And had she not been watching his face, she might have missed the flash of emotion. Guilt, maybe even pain. He knows this girl, she thought, but just as quickly as that look appeared, it was gone, and she couldn’t help but wonder who the girl was, where she had been found.

And who killed her?

Sydney knew better than to ask. Instead, she handed the sketch on vellum to the agent, and then the skull drawing from her sketch pad.

“I’ll need the entire sketch pad,” he said.

She didn’t bother to ask why. She knew. They were taking no chances that she might be able to reproduce the sketch at a later date using any sort of technology that might enhance what was compressed on the pages beneath. She simply flipped through the sketchbook, made sure there was nothing written on the other pages, then handed that over to him as well.

“You worried about the pencil?” she asked.

“Feel free to keep it.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“But I’ll need the notepad.”

She slid the yellow lined tablet next to the crime scene photo and the skull. “All yours,” she said, dropping her pencil into her drawing briefcase, which, unlike his, didn’t lock.

She phoned Scotty the moment she was out of the basement and up in her room, keeping the call brief. She was finished, and he could come pick her up. She packed, took her overnight bag and briefcase, turned in her key, retrieved her gun from the guard, then looked at her watch. Scotty wouldn’t be there for another forty-five minutes. So instead of sitting patiently in the reception area waiting for him, she walked to the outdoor range, trying to stay in the sun where the snow had melted and the path was clear.

The range master put her at the end of a group of recruits who, judging from the coins atop their weapons as they stood poised to fire, were honing their breathing and trigger-pull skills. The coin would be knocked off with the recoil of each shot. But it also meant the range master had loaded the magazines with one or two dummy rounds somewhere in the fifteen live rounds, and the recruits had no idea what order. If the recruit was firing with proper trigger pull, breathing, etc., when he reached the dummy round, whether it was the first, third, or fifteenth round, the penny would remain atop the weapon when he pulled the trigger, quite simply because no shot had been fired. More often than not, the coins jumped, because the recruits anticipated the shot and recoil, then jumped themselves-one of the primary reasons for bad shooting.

Sydney focused on her own target hanging at twenty-five yards. She needed this after working on the Jane Doe sketch. It was mentally taxing enough doing a drawing under ordinary circumstances, but there was nothing ordinary about this case. Her friend had been killed, quite possibly because of this case. And beyond that, there was a young woman with a triangle carved where her face was supposed to be. A young woman who was nameless, who could no longer tell anyone what had happened. In concert with the other investigators, Sydney’s job as a forensic artist was to speak for the dead, give them the voice to help discover who they were, and in the case of homicide, who had killed them. The sketch of her Jane Doe was so clear in her mind. Maybe too clear, perhaps because of Tasha’s death…Anger surged through her about being kept in the dark over that, and she knew she needed to expunge it if she was to think with a clear head. Just breathe in the cold air. Calm. Right now she needed calm.

Calm and some damned answers, she thought, firing off two rounds, then deciding the other thirteen needed to go as well. She emptied the magazine, reloaded, then concentrated on her target, knowing it would do her more harm than good to let any anger get the best of her. The target swayed slightly as the other recruits shot, but Sydney stared ahead, raised her weapon, and cleared her mind. There was something meditative about outdoor range practice, focusing your gaze on the front sight and aligning it with the target. Evening out your breathing, then gently pulling, pulling, hearing the slightest of clicks before the gun went off. And if you did it right, you barely heard the report of your weapon, or any other weapon out there. Nothing but you, the target, and the slow, even pull of the trigger. Just breathe in the cold air. Calm.

But there was no calm for her. She had to know if Tasha’s death was related. And to do that, she thought as she walked to the cleaning station to begin the process of field stripping her weapon, she had to know who Jane Doe was, and then who killed her.

She was wiping the cleaning oil from each piece, reassembling it, when who should walk up but Mr. Federal himself, Special Agent Griffin. “We have a plane available to take you home.”

She glanced at him, deciding it would do little good to unleash her anger on him. “Not going home yet,” she said, holding out the barrel of her semiauto so she could look down inside, make sure there was no residue, before dropping it in place. “My ex is picking me up. But feel free to take the plane yourself. You could use a vacation.”

“Your ex can’t make it.”

She looked at him. Saw he was serious. “And why not?”

“Bank robbery. Suspects are holed up in the surrounding area, may have hostages.”

She decided that he was telling the truth, dismissed the absurd thought he’d set up the robbery as part of some plot to get her on that plane. “Guess I’ll catch a ride into the capital and wait for him to get off. Sometimes you have to go the extra mile for a chance at true love.”

“And sometimes love is really, really blind.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve met your ex. He’s not your type.”

She laughed. Not kindly, either. “And how would you know?”

“Your plane is waiting.”

“To hell with the plane. I’m not getting on it.”

“That your target?” He nodded at the bull’s-eye on the table next to her. Every round but one was in the Ten X.

“What’s it to you?”

“I beat you, you get on the plane.”

She said nothing, merely finished the reassembly. “And if I beat you?” she asked, pointing her weapon into the clearing barrel, slapping in a fully loaded magazine and pulling the slide back to load it.

“Then I’ll take you where you need to go.”

“Sorry. I don’t play games. But have fun.” She holstered her weapon, smiled, and walked off.

He followed her back to the main building’s reception area. She ignored him, until he said, “I’m driving past your place, if that’s where you’re headed.”

“Actually, I’m going to wait for Scotty at his place.”

“I’m driving past there, too.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“I’ll bring the car to the front.” He walked off, and the only reason she didn’t stop him was that one could learn quite a bit when sequestered in a car together. Assuming she could get him to talk.

Ten minutes later, Sydney saw his gold Ford Crown Victoria pull up. She walked out into the bracing cold, carrying both her briefcase and overnight bag. A dark-haired man stood off at the distance, smoking, well away from the building per government regulations, his arms tucked close as though warding off the chill. He watched her walk over to the car until a group of young female recruits strolled past, giving him something better to look at apparently.

Zachary Griffin got out, walked around and opened the rear door, allowing her to put both her briefcase and overnight bag in the back, then opened the front door for her.

“A gentleman after all.”

“There are a few of us left.”

Once they’d driven past the marine stationed at the gate, she said, “I’m assuming you know where he lives?”

“Vaguely.”

“You mind filling me in on why all the secrecy? The background?”

“The case is important. We needed to know that everyone involved could be trusted.”

“Thought that was why the Bureau did the backgrounds before they hired us.”

“People change.”

The conversation ended there, and they drove in silence. About ten minutes later, her phone vibrated. Carillo. “Hey,” she said, answering.

“Not only is your guy not with the Bureau, but any record of whatever you’re working on? Your Jane Doe? It’s not there. Like you’re not even in Quantico right now.”

“So I’m beginning to find out.” She kept her gaze straight ahead, tried to keep her voice conversational, pleasant as they sped past the barren trees, the gray winter sky.

“Can you say OGA?”

OGA stood for other government agency. Only problem was that term ran the gamut, and if there was one thing the government had, it was lots of agencies and shadow agencies, some above board, some so far undercover that even the legit agencies didn’t know they existed. “I’d rather not.”

“I’m thinking CIA, but I haven’t gotten a verification on that yet. Can’t get shadier than them. When you coming back to your mother’s?”

“Tomorrow. I’m spending the night at Scotty’s.”

A long pause followed. “Fine. It’s your life. Just don’t forget he’s no good for you.”

“One of our friends was killed in a car accident.”

“Oh.”

“Gotta go.” She eyed Griffin as she tucked the phone on her belt. “You don’t work for the Bureau.”

“Never said I did.”

“But you never denied it.”

“No one asked.”

And she had to agree, it had only been implied. “You were willing to let me believe you worked for us.”

“Why do I get the feeling we picked the wrong forensic artist?”

“A little late for that direction.” She crossed her arms, trying to figure out what agency he possibly worked for.

“Everything in your background that we conducted alluded to you being…compliant. The sort who doesn’t ask questions.”

“Well, like you said about backgrounds. People change.”

“In a couple months?”

“Trust me,” she said, trying to rein in her anger, since it would do her little good to get on his bad side. “It was a hellish couple months. So, what are you? CIA?”

“That bothers you?”

“Uptight as you are, Secret Service fits better. Presidential detail.”

He glanced over at her, then back at the road, signaling for a lane change. “I used to work for them.”

“Figures.”

A slight smile creased the corners of his mouth, but then just as quickly faded back to the staid, unexpressive personality he’d exhibited throughout their short tenure at Quantico. Definitely a Company man.

Zach Griffin glanced over at Sydney Fitzpatrick. It would’ve been better had she returned to San Francisco, so that no one would suspect she’d been working on the case. Then again, maybe it was just as well. Keep a better eye on her here. Find out what she knew or suspected. She’d said nothing the last ten minutes, just watched the passing scenery, no doubt grieving for her friend. Unfortunately, he’d been ordered not to tell her, even though he’d argued that her compliance might be greater if she knew the risks up front. Now she had even more reason to distrust them, and she didn’t know the half of it.

He turned his attention back to the rearview mirror, saw the smoke-gray Honda. He’d watched it for the last dozen miles, thinking about how Fitzpatrick had said she was followed on her run this morning. He wondered if the Honda was a tail, a bad one, or if he was just being his usual paranoid self.

Turned out he wasn’t the only paranoid one, because Fitzpatrick nodded toward the mirror. “Either that gray Honda’s been following us the last fifteen minutes, or the driver’s got some obsessive-compulsive complex that requires he stay exactly two cars behind us.”

“Or,” he said, “the car we’re in looks like any other unmarked police car, and he’s worried about getting a ticket.”

“He’d be inching up on us if that were the case. Peeking into the window to find out if we really were cops.” She was quiet a few seconds, then, “So what sort of case is this that you have people following you when you leave Quantico?”

He wasn’t about to answer that, but he decided to find out if they were in fact being followed and he pulled behind a particularly slow motor home. The Honda swept past, and he noted the license number as well as the physical description of the dark-haired male who drove. He continued trailing the motor home, right up until his exit, satisfied that no other vehicle seemed to be tailing them.

Then again, if someone knew where he was headed, there was no reason to tail him, a point brought home as he made a left turn toward the office, stopped at a red light-directly behind said Honda. Fitzpatrick crossed her arms, glanced over at him. “Now what?”

“On the off chance this guy is part of a tail, I don’t think you want me dropping you off at your ex’s place until we lose him. How about we stop for coffee first?”

“Coffee works for me.”

The light turned green. The Honda continued through. Griffin made a hard right, took several more evasive turns, all with no idea if the vehicle was or wasn’t following. For him it was just in case. Old habits die hard. When he was certain he was in the clear, he pulled into a driveway of a nondescript warehouse, then hit a remote control on his visor. A bay door opened and he drove into an enclosed garage, the door closing as he pulled in. “Get your things,” he said. “We’ll be changing cars after we get our coffee.”

Fitzpatrick made no comment, merely got out, opened the back door, and took her possessions.

He popped the trunk, gathered his briefcase and bag, then slammed the lid shut, hanging the keys on a wall hook. “This way,” he said. She followed him to an innocuous-looking scarred and battered door at the rear of the bay, bearing a sign that read “Janitorial Supplies.” He lifted the air-conditioning thermostat cover set in the wall adjacent to the door, revealing a biometric scanner and keypad. He placed his right index finger to the scanner, then punched in his code. The door buzzed open, three inches of solid steel.

Fitzpatrick eyed the door, then him. “Must be some damned good coffee you keep in there.”

He indicated she should precede him, and she stepped through the threshold, onto the top landing of a stairwell, the steps faintly lit by unseen lights at the base of the walls. At the bottom, a brick tunnel stretched off in either direction, and the same base lighting illuminated the concrete floor.

“Which way?” she asked as they neared the bottom.

“Turn right. My office is the second door down. The one marked ‘High Voltage.’”

“How apropos,” she muttered. The rumbling of a passing Metro subway train reverberated through the walls, then quickly faded. “Why not just walk in the front door?”

“After the tail, I’d rather not take a chance.”

“And this door?” she asked as they passed one that was unmarked.

“A convoluted exit into the Metro. Comes in handy sometimes.”

The “High Voltage” door appeared just as unassuming as the garage bay door, until it, too, was opened, revealing the several inches of solid gleaming steel. The small space looked like any high-voltage electrical room. The only voltage within, however, was the hidden biometric keypad in one of the boxes, which, once engaged, caused the back wall to slide open, revealing a normal-looking elevator. They stepped in, the door slid shut, and up they went. It stopped on the fifth floor of his building. “My office,” he said.

She looked around, taking in the monotonous off-white walls, standard industrial linoleum flooring. “I give. Where are we?”

“The Washington Recorder.”

“A newspaper?” She laughed. “Mild-mannered reporter, à la Clark Kent? I thought federal law prohibited intelligence agencies from having cover identities as reporters.”

“Reporters from American media. Unlike Clark Kent, I’m not a reporter,” he said, pulling a business card from his pocket and handing it to her. “I’m an editor.”

“Of course.” She looked at the card, which read, “International Journal for World Peace.” “Convenient. Offices throughout the world, no doubt?”

“Would you expect anything less? My boss is the publisher. Not that he publishes or I edit.”

“A shadow paper.”

“Precisely. It just so happens that the IJWP rents space from the American newspaper that occupies this building.”

“The American paper you rent space from wouldn’t also happen to be owned by the agency you work for?”

“We need a place to go to work every day without raising suspicion that we’re drug dealers or earning a salary without means of support. Unlike the IJWP, our American paper has a staff that fully mans, reports, and publishes on the floors below ours, and we use the AP. A lot.”

“So you’re a covert operative,” she said, walking to the window, looking down to the street below. “Running a paper.”

“A foreign paper. You’d be surprised what we learn from the letters to the editor.” He unlocked his desk, grabbed a set of car keys, then checked the messages his secretary had left for him. When he looked up, he saw Fitzpatrick trying to make a call from her cell phone. “You’ll have to use a landline. No signals in, no signals out on this floor.” He pushed the telephone toward her.

She picked it up, punched in a number. “Hey, Scotty,” she said, then listened to whatever it was her ex told her. “Yeah, I’ve still got a key. Be careful.” She hung up, looked at him, her expression unreadable. “He’s still out on the robbery. They’ve holed themselves up somewhere in the downtown area.”

“Hostages?”

“Only one bank teller, and she escaped when they tried dragging her into their car.”

“Lucky for her,” he said, picking up the inside line to call his secretary and let her know he was back. “Done. We deliver the briefcase, then we’re out of here.”

They stopped for a cup of coffee in the break room, then, coffee in hand, continued on to the director’s office. Griffin knocked, waited for the “come in,” then opened the door. His boss, Ron Nicholas McNiel III, was talking to one of Griffin’s team members, James “Tex” Dalton. Griffin introduced Fitzpatrick to both men.

Tex stood, and with his usual shit-eating grin, said to Fitzpatrick, “You doing anything tonight?”

“She’s visiting her boyfriend,” Griffin said.

“Doesn’t hurt to ask.”

Fitzpatrick smiled at Tex. “If plans change, I’ll let you know.”

“You do that, darlin’,” Tex said, laying on a thick drawl he used to impress the ladies. Like many on Griffin’s team, Tex spoke several languages, but with an added skill of having accents down to an art. He’d recently finished a stint in the Boston area. No one could’ve told he wasn’t Boston born and bred.

“We should be going,” Griffin said, then directed Sydney toward the door.

“Zach?” his boss called out. “Have a minute?”

Fitzpatrick gave a neutral smile. “I’ll wait out here.”

Griffin stepped back in, shut the door.

“They recovered the car that ran over Tasha Gilbert. It matches the description of the vehicle that hit Dr. Balraj’s car a couple weeks ago. They’re doing an analysis on the paint transfer. The color matches.”

“So she was targeted by the same people?”

“So it seems. Why Tasha, though? She has absolutely no connection to Balraj or his assistant.”

A good question, Griffin thought. Dr. Balraj was a microbiologist who was working on the evolution of plagues. On the day in question, Balraj had lent his car to his assistant, who later died in a solo car wreck after the car allegedly blew a tire and went off an embankment and into the river.

At least that was the official story released.

The real story was not for public consumption. There was no doubt that Balraj was the real target, but it wouldn’t do the public any good to know that someone was picking off the world’s foremost scientists one by one, especially when those scientists were known for their work in biowarfare research. As to who was doing it, a print found at the scene of one of the murdered scientists had been matched to a suspect they knew worked for Carlo Adami, an American crime boss based in Italy. Unfortunately, Adami had the man killed before they could prove a connection in any court of law.

“Any word on Balraj?” Griffin asked.

McNiel’s secretary called on the intercom before he could answer. “Congressman Hoagland’s on the phone.”

“Put the call through,” McNiel said. When his extension rang, he said, “Martin, what can I do for you…? No, sir, we do not believe there is any truth to the rumor that Alessandra was having an affair with Congressman Burnett…No, we haven’t heard from her yet, but I’m sure we will, soon. Yes, sir, I do agree that it’s best to clear his name. We are looking into that, but at this point, it won’t help matters to bring it out in the open…”

To which Tex whispered to Griffin, “Clear his name my ass. Hoagland would like nothing better than to publicly humiliate him and gain the chair when Burnett resigns.”

Griffin wasn’t interested in politics at the moment. “What about Balraj?” he asked Tex. “Anything else on that investigation?”

“We don’t know if he’s been kidnapped or killed, but knowing Adami, I’d have to guess the latter.”

“So much for hope,” Griffin said, not that they’d ever held much. He’d been in this business far too long to think that Balraj’s fate would be different from that of the other microbiologists who’d been murdered. The only consolation-if one could call it that in a twisted sort of way-was that it was because of Dr. Balraj that they’d found Alessandra’s body. After his assistant had been killed, two agents were assigned to watch Balraj. They’d lost him somewhere in the vicinity of the Smithsonian, and it was during their search for the microbiologist that they’d found Alessandra-and why they’d been able to keep her murder from the police and the press.

Griffin looked down at his briefcase, thinking about the forensic sketch within. Alessandra had never told them about any meeting with Dr. Balraj-they couldn’t even imagine a reason that she would have contacted him-and so it took them quite some time before they realized she was missing and the body might have been hers. But now, thanks to Sydney Fitzpatrick, there were no doubts…

“Of course, sir,” McNiel said into the phone. “We’ll put every effort into the investigation.” He slammed the phone into the receiver. “Congressman Hoagland is a pompous idiot.” He leaned back in his chair, eyed Griffin. “You have the sketch?”

Griffin opened the briefcase and took out the drawing.

Tex saw it as he pulled it out. “Hell.”

Griffin laid the sketch on McNiel’s desk, and he saw the moment of recognition, the pulse pounding in his neck. “Sometimes I hate this job,” McNiel said. “Alessandra. And now Tasha.”

“What about this third key that Tasha mentioned?”

McNiel turned the drawing facedown. “With what we can gather from the chatter we’ve picked up, our best guess is that the third key is some code for a new super-plague that Adami’s scientists are working on. I’d have to guess that’s why he’s hell-bent on killing off anyone in the business.”

To which Tex said, “Knock off the competition and the possibility that anyone can counteract whatever the hell his scientists are coming up with.”

“Exactly,” McNiel said. “All the more reason to concentrate on finding his lab, which, thanks to Tasha, we know isn’t in Egypt.” He looked at Griffin. “After you notify Alessandra’s father, that is your main objective. Find his lab, destroy it.”

“Understood.”

McNiel straightened a stack of papers on his desk, clearly bothered by the drawing, and doing his best not to show it. “I’m afraid it’s public transportation en route. Tex will be using the jet as part of his cover. Marilee has your ticket on her desk,” he said, referring to his secretary. “And speaking of planes, I thought this artist of yours was to be on a plane back to San Francisco, not on a private tour of our building.”

“She had other plans.”

“That wasn’t part of our plan. I agreed to her involvement because she played by the book, which made her predictable and compliable. Someone who would do as she was told, and not ask questions.”

“What we didn’t count on was someone calling her and informing her that her friend was killed in a hit-and-run.” It was as close as he would ever come to telling his boss, I told you so, about keeping her in the dark over Tasha’s death. “Short of hogtieing her, I didn’t think it wise to force the issue. She’s already asking questions. And that was before her partner told her I was CIA.”

Tex laughed. “CIA?”

Their boss threw Tex a dark look, then tapped the drawing of Alessandra. “This forensic artist. Do you think she’s made any connections?”

“That’s exactly what I intend to find out.” Griffin turned to Tex. “You busy? I might need your skills in the next hour or so.”