The Chemist

CHAPTER 30

“This way, Dr. Reid,” Carston said, and he led them to a blank gray door. Daniel stayed close on his heels, his back to Alex. She walked briskly behind them, struggling to keep up with her shorter legs.

Carston didn’t knock on the door; he merely stood directly in front of it. Expectant, like he’d already rung the bell.

The door opened a second after Carston planted himself. The man who answered it wore a suit not unlike Daniel’s, though this man’s was so new it still had a sheen on it. He was shorter than Daniel and wider through the shoulders. There was an obvious bulge under his left arm.

“Sir,” the man said, and saluted Carston. His hair was high and tight, and she guessed he’d feel more at home in a uniform. But his appearance was still part of the camouflage. The uniforms would be downstairs.

“I need to see Deavers immediately.”

“Yes, sir, he informed us you’d be arriving. This way.”

The soldier turned abruptly and paced inside.

She followed Daniel into a drab office space: gray carpet, a few tight cubicles, some uncomfortable-looking chairs. The door closed behind her with a solid-sounding thud and an ominous click. No doubt someone was still watching; she couldn’t afford a glance back to look at the lock. She would have to hope it was meant to keep people out and not in. It hadn’t taken the soldier long to open the door to them.

The soldier turned sharply down a dim hallway, took them past several darkened rooms with open doors, then stopped at the very end. There was a door there labeled JANITORIAL SUPPLIES. He reached into his left sleeve and pulled out a spiral cord with a key. He unlocked the door and led the way inside.

The room was dimly lit by an emergency exit sign over another door opposite the first. Mops and buckets lined the wall, presumably for show. The soldier opened the emergency door, revealing a featureless, metal-lined box. An elevator. She’d known to expect this; she hoped Daniel was controlling his expressions.

They joined the soldier in the elevator. When she turned to face the doors, she saw that there were only two buttons. He pressed the bottom one, and she felt the descent begin immediately. She couldn’t be sure, but it felt like at least three floors. Not entirely necessary, but definitely disconcerting. Though this building had not been used for the same kind of interrogations she had conducted, it would still be part of the routine to make the subject feel alarmed and isolated.

It worked; she felt an increase in both.

The elevator came to an abrupt halt, and the doors opened on a brightly lit anteroom. It looked like an airport security post, only much less crowded and more colorless. There were two more men, these in dark blue army uniforms, and a standard metal detector with a short counter and even the little plastic trays for belt buckles and car keys. The uniforms made Alex think these must be Pace’s men.

The surveillance cameras were very obvious in this room.

Carston moved forward, impatient and sure of himself. He put his phone in the tray, and a handful of change. Then he stalked through the square frame. Daniel moved quickly behind him, putting the car keys in another tray, then retrieving Carston’s belongings and handing them back to him before reclaiming the keys for himself.

Alex wheeled the steel toolbox to the side of the detector.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to search that by hand,” she said as she walked through the frame. “I have a lot of metal tools. Please be careful, some of my things are breakable, and some are pressurized.”

The two soldiers looked at each other, obviously uncertain. They looked at her damaged face, then at her toolbox. The taller one knelt down to open the top compartment while the shorter one stared at her face again.

“Please be careful,” she repeated. “Those syringes are delicate.”

The short soldier watched now as the tall soldier lifted the top tray of syringes, only to find an identical tray below it. He carefully replaced it, not checking the two trays beneath. He opened the second compartment, then looked up quickly at his companion. Then at Carston.

“Sir, we aren’t supposed to let weapons past this point.”

“Of course I’ll need my scalpels,” Alex said, letting some irritation bleed into her tone. “I’m not here to play Scrabble.”

The soldiers looked at her again, understanding beginning to dawn in their eyes.

Yes, she wanted to say, I’m that kind of guest.

They might have read the words in her expression. The tall one straightened up.

“We’re going to have to get authorization for this.” He turned on his heel and strode through the metal double doors behind them.

Carston huffed out a big, exasperated breath and folded his arms across his chest. Alex schooled her expression into one of impatience. Daniel stood very still by Carston’s right shoulder, his face blank. He was doing well. No one had paid him any attention at all. To the soldiers, he was just one of those anonymous briefcase holders, which was exactly what she’d hoped for. Val was right thus far – they would have paid much more attention to her.

It was only a few minutes before the doors opened again. The tall soldier was back with two other men.

It was easy to tell which was Deavers. He was smaller and more gaunt than the voice had suggested, but he moved with an obvious authority. He didn’t watch to see where the other men walked; he expected them to move around him. He wore a well-cut black suit, several pay grades in price and style above what Daniel and the door guard were wearing. His hair was steel gray, but still thick.

From his lack of formality, Alex guessed the man behind Deavers was the interrogator. He was dressed in a rumpled T-shirt and black pants that looked like scrubs. His lank brown hair was greasy and disheveled; there were substantial bags under his bloodshot eyes. Though he’d obviously had a long day, there was fire in those eyes as he focused on her lab coat, then her toolbox, the scalpel tray still exposed.

“What is this, Carston?” he blustered.

Neither Carston nor Deavers looked at him. Their eyes were focused on each other.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Deavers asked in an even voice.

“I’m not going to let that hack kill the subject when I have a better option.”

Deavers looked at her for the first time. She tried to project calm, but she felt her heart racing as he examined her, his eyes lingering on the damage to her face.

He turned back to Carston. “And where did you suddenly get this better option?”

At least he hadn’t recognized her immediately. And he hadn’t so much as looked at Daniel. The two men were focused on each other again, antagonism running between them like an electric current.

“I’ve been developing alternatives to save the program. This alternative has already proven herself more than capable.”

“Proven how?”

Carston’s chin moved up an inch. “Uludere.”

The current seemed to break on that word. Deavers took an unconscious step back and blew out an annoyed breath. He looked at Alex’s bandaged face again, then at his adversary.

“I should have known there was more going on in Turkey. Carston, this is beyond your authority.”

“I’m currently being underutilized. Just trying to make myself more valuable.”

Deavers pursed his lips and glanced back at her again. “She’s good?”

“You’ll see,” Carston promised.

“But I’m at a critical point,” the interrogator protested. “You can’t pull me off the case now.”

Carston gave him a withering glance. “Shut up, Lindauer. You’re out of your league.”

“All right,” Deavers said sourly. “Let’s see if your better option can get us what we need.”

The room was as Carston had described. Plain concrete walls, plain concrete floor. One door, a large one-way mirror between this and the observation room, a round overhead light flush with the ceiling.

At one time, there would have been a desk in this room, two chairs, and a very bright desk lamp. Subjects would have been questioned, harangued, threatened, and pressured, but that would have been the extent of it.

Now a surgical table took the place of the desk. It was like something from a World War I movie, one solid piece of unpadded stainless steel with the kind of wheels a gurney had. There was a folding chair in the corner. This facility was nowhere near as functional as the state-of-the-art suites back at the department, but clearly, this interrogation was off even the most covert section’s records.

She kept her inspection clinical and prayed that Daniel would have the restraint necessary for this.

Daniel had accompanied Carston and the others into the observation room, and he was invisible to her behind the glass. Before the group divided, neither Deavers nor any of the others had looked at his face. She desperately hoped he would do nothing now to change their indifference to suspicion.

Kevin lay on the table under the one light, handcuffed and shackled in place. He was naked, his body gleaming wet with sweat and blood. Long burns blistered a multitude of uneven parallel lines down his chest. Thin slices ran up his ribs, ragged skin blanched at the edges – probably with acid. The soles of his feet were covered in blisters and bleached white as well. Lindauer had poured acid into those burns. Kevin was missing another toe on his left foot, the one next to the first stump.

Lindauer’s tools littered the floor, messy with blood and his dirty handprints. She knew there was a toe down there, too, but she couldn’t find it at first glance.

She’d expected a clean, clinical setup; that was what she was used to. This was savagery. Her nose wrinkled in disgust.

Kevin was alert. He watched her as she walked in behind the interrogator, his face tightly controlled.

With a precision meant to mock Lindauer’s unprofessional work habits, she bent to her toolbox and carefully laid out a few of her syringe trays.

“What’s this?” Kevin asked hoarsely. She glanced up automatically to see that he was addressing the mirror, not her. “You think a little girl can break me? I thought this flunky was the low. Honestly, you guys never cease to disappoint.”

Lindauer, who had insisted on being in the room, leaned furiously over the table. He jammed one finger into a slash wound that cut across a burn on Kevin’s chest. Kevin grunted and clenched his jaw.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Beach. The little girl is just a nice rest period for you. Get your strength back. I’ll return later, and then we’ll have some productive conversations.”

“Enough, Doctor,” Alex snapped in a ringing tone. “I agreed to let you observe, but you will kindly step away from my subject now.”

Lindauer glanced at the mirror as if expecting backup. When he got only silence in response, he frowned sullenly and went to sit in the lone chair. Once he was down, he seemed to collapse a little, whether from exhaustion or disgrace, she couldn’t tell.

Alex turned her back on Lindauer and pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves. The small piece of metal she’d palmed in the process was invisible beneath the right glove.

She stepped to the edge of the table, gingerly clearing a swath in Lindauer’s mess with one foot.

“Hello, Mr. Beach. How are you feeling?”

“Good to go a few more rounds, sweetheart. Looks like somebody already had a nice time with you, eh? Hope it was fun for him.”

While he spit the words through his teeth, she began examining him, shining a small flashlight in his eyes and then assessing the veins in his arms and hands.

“A little dehydrated, I think,” she said. She looked directly at the mirror while she put his right hand back on the table, leaving the thin key under his palm. “I assumed there would be an IV in place. Could I get a pole, please? I have my own saline and needles.”

“I’ll bet you know your way around a pole,” Kevin said.

“No need to be crass, Mr. Beach. Now that I’m here, things will be much more civilized. I do apologize for the current conditions. This is all very unprofessional.” She sniffed scornfully, giving Lindauer her most cutting side-eye. He looked away.

“Honey, if this is the good-cop routine, sorry, but you’re not really my type.”

“I assure you, Mr. Beach, I am not the good cop. I am a specialist, and I should warn you now, I won’t play the same silly games this… interrogator” – the desire to use a less flattering word was clear in her inflection – “has wasted your time with. We’ll get down to business immediately.”

“Yeah, sugar, let’s get down to business, that’s what I’m talking about.” Kevin tried to keep his voice loud and his tone derisive, but she could see the effort it was costing him.

The door opened behind her. She watched in the mirror as the tall soldier brought in an IV pole. So far she’d seen only four others besides Deavers and Lindauer, but there were probably more hidden from view.

“Just put that at the head of the table, thank you,” she said without turning to look at him, voice dismissive. She bent to retrieve the syringe she wanted.

“You gonna dance for me now?” Kevin muttered.

She looked at Kevin coldly as she straightened. “This will be just a sample of what we’ll be doing tonight,” she told him as she circled the table. She placed the syringe by his head while she hung the saline bag and the tubing. The door closed, but she didn’t look away from Kevin. She examined his veins again, then chose his left arm. He didn’t resist. While she carefully inserted the needle, she tried to spy the key she’d given him, but it was nowhere in sight. She picked up the largest blade she could see on the floor and laid it next to his right arm. “You see, I don’t need such crude weapons; I have something better. I always think it’s fairer to let the subject understand what he’s up against before I go full strength. Let me know what you think.”

“I’ll tell you what I think, you -” Kevin launched into an avalanche of profanity that put all his previous creative descriptions to shame. The man had a talent.

“I appreciate your bravery, really, I do,” Alex said when he was done. She held the point of the syringe against the IV port. “But please know, it’s a wasted effort. Playtime is over.”

She stabbed the needle through the plastic and depressed the plunger.

The response was nearly immediate. She heard his breathing accelerate, and then he started shrieking.

Lindauer’s head snapped up. She could tell he’d never gotten a reaction like this from Kevin, despite his best efforts. She heard movement behind the glass as the audience edged closer, and the faint murmur of voices. She thought she could pick out a surprised tone, and it was gratifying. Though, honestly, it was all due to Kevin’s acting.

She knew how he would be feeling now as the strength raced through his veins and all the pain vanished. She’d used more than double the highest dose of Survive she’d ever used on herself, taking into account his greater mass and need. His screams were primal, almost triumphant. She hoped she was the only one to notice that nuance and that he’d remember that the damage done to his body was still very real, whether he felt it any longer or not.

She waited only five minutes – tapping her foot and watching him dispassionately – while he did his part, keeping his screams loud and constant. She wanted him to have as much time with the drugs in his system as possible. When they wore off, he would be incapacitated.

“There, Mr. Beach,” she said as she shot ordinary saline into the IV line. She gave him the cue he would need. “I think we understand each other now, so I can let this end. Shall we talk?”

Kevin took longer to recover than he should have, but then, he didn’t know her drugs. He pretended to come out of it slowly, and she was glad Daniel was standing close to Carston with the venom-coated ring ready. Only Carston would recognize the fraud.

Kevin was still breathing heavily after a minute, and he actually had tears streaming down the sides of his face. It was easy for her to forget he was an undercover professional, because she’d never seen him in the field, but she should have known he would nail this performance.

“Well, Mr. Beach, what now? Shall we continue to full strength, or would you like to talk first?”

He turned to stare at her, his eyes wide with convincing fear.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“A specialist, as I told you. I believe the gentleman” – sarcastically, with a nod toward Lindauer – “had some questions for you?”

“If I talk,” he said, still in a whisper, “do you go away?”

“Of course, Mr. Beach. I am merely a means to an end. Once you have satisfied my employers, you will never have to see me again.”

Lindauer was openly gaping now, but Alex was worried. They had to keep moving forward, but at the same time, would anyone believe Kevin could fold so easily?

Kevin moaned and closed his eyes. “They won’t believe me,” he said.

She wasn’t sure how, but she thought his right handcuff was no longer locked to his wrist. There was just the tiniest misalignment of the two halves of the bracelet. She didn’t think anyone could see it but her.

“I’ll believe you, if you tell me the truth. Just tell me what you want to say.”

“I did have help… but… I can’t…”

She took his hand in hers, as if she were soothing him. She felt the key drop into her palm.

“You can tell me. But please don’t try to buy time. I have little patience.”

She patted his hand, then walked around his head to examine the IV line.

“No,” he mumbled weakly. “I won’t.”

“All right, then,” she said, “what do you want to tell me?” She dropped her hand onto his left, inserting the key between his fingers.

“I had help… from a traitor on the inside.”

“What?” Lindauer gasped out loud.

She shot him a dirty look, then turned to the mirror.

“Your man is unable to control himself. I want him removed from this room,” she said severely.

An electronic crackle sounded through the room. She glanced up for the speaker but couldn’t find it.

“Continue,” Deavers’s disembodied voice commanded. “He will be escorted out if there is any more misconduct.”

She frowned at her own reflection, then turned to lean over Kevin.

“I need a name,” she insisted.

“Carston,” he breathed.

No!

Nerves already frayed and strained, she had to fight back the urge to slap him. But of course Kevin had no way of knowing how she’d gotten here.

She heard a commotion in the observation room and hurried on in a louder voice. “I find that very hard to believe, Mr. Beach, as Mr. Carston is the reason I am here with you. He wouldn’t send me in if he wanted to avoid the truth. He knows what I’m capable of.”

Kevin shot her one disgusted look under half-lowered lids, then groaned again. “That’s the name my contact gave me. I can only tell you what he told me.”

Nice save, she thought sarcastically.

The commotion hadn’t ended with either her pronouncement or Kevin’s. She could hear raised voices and some movement. Lindauer was distracted, too, staring at the glass.

She tried again, pulling a new syringe and slipping a small device from beneath it into her pocket. “Forgive me for thinking that was all a bit too easy -”

“No, wait,” Kevin huffed, pitching his voice a little louder. “Deavers sent the guy; he knows who I’m talking about.”

Well, maybe that would muddy the water a bit. Get both names on the table.

It wasn’t stopping whatever was happening in the observation room, though. She had to make a move. The one good thing about the unanticipated situation on the other side of the glass was that they obviously weren’t watching her very carefully. Time was up.

“Mr. Lindauer,” she called sharply without looking in his direction. In the mirror, she could see that he was preoccupied with the other room as well. His head whipped around to her.

“I’m worried these ankle restraints are a little too tight. I need his circulation performing optimally. Do you have the key?”

Kevin could guess what this was about. His muscles tensed in readiness. Lindauer hurried to the foot of the table. One voice was raised above the others in the observation room, shouting.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lindauer complained, his eyes on Kevin’s ankles and mangled feet. “These aren’t cutting off his circulation. It wouldn’t be safe to have them any looser. You don’t know what kind of man you’re dealing with.”

She stepped close to him, speaking softly so that he would have to lean in toward her. Inside her pocket, she pressed her thumb against the tiny flash capacitor of the electromagnetic-pulse emitter.

“I know exactly what kind of man I’m dealing with,” she murmured.

She switched on the capacitor with her left hand and stabbed the syringe into Lindauer’s arm with her right.

The light overhead flickered and popped; the shattered bulbs tinkled against the Plexiglas face of the fixture. Luckily the pulse didn’t blow out the Plexiglas or it would have been bad for Kevin’s exposed skin. The room went black.

The pulse wasn’t strong enough to reach the other room. Muted light shone through the mirror, and she could see dark figures moving on the other side of the glass, but she couldn’t tell who was who or what was happening.

Lindauer managed only half a scream before he was convulsing on the floor. She could hear Kevin moving, too, though those sounds were much quieter and more purposeful than Lindauer’s thrashing.

She knew precisely where her toolbox was in the dark. She whirled and fell to her knees next to it, yanked the second-to-last drawer open, emptied the tray of syringes to the floor, and felt for the hidden compartment beneath.

“Ollie?” Kevin breathed. She could hear he was off the table now, near the IV pole.

She grabbed the first two guns she touched and lurched toward the sound of his voice. She collided with his chest, and his arms came up to keep her from falling backward. She shoved the guns against his stomach just as two shots rang out in the other room. There was no shatter of glass – they weren’t shooting into the interrogation room. A third, and then a fourth shot.

“Danny’s in there,” she hissed as he yanked the guns out of her hands.

She fell back to her knees as he spun away and slid into the toolbox. She grabbed the other two guns, the familiar shape of her own PPK and another she didn’t recognize by touch. She’d given Kevin her SIG Sauer by accident.

It didn’t matter. She’d accomplished the main objectives of her strategy: free Kevin and get a loaded gun into his hands. Now she was primarily backup. She just had to hope that the star performer was in good enough shape to do what she needed him to do. If that sadist Lindauer had injured him too greatly… well, then they were all dead.

Lindauer had gotten his. He was probably still alive, but not for much longer. He wouldn’t enjoy what was left of his life at all.

A full second hadn’t passed when another shot echoed deafeningly through the small concrete room, and this time there was the muffled crunch of buckling safety glass.

Cracks of yellow light spider-webbed through the window as four shots responded back in quick succession. The answering shots didn’t change the splintered pattern of light; again, they weren’t aimed into the interrogation room. They were still shooting at each other inside the observation room.

She stayed low as she moved forward, guns pointed at the fractured square in case someone burst through it. But the movement came from her side; a dark shadow hurtled into the mosaic of glass fragments and crashed through it into the next room.

The men in the observation room were only ten feet away from her, so much closer than the hay bales she’d practiced on that it seemed too easy. She braced her hands against the steel table and fired toward the uniforms that filled the room. She didn’t allow herself to react to the fact that she couldn’t see Daniel or Carston. She’d told Daniel to get down when the shooting started. He was just following directions.

A storm of shots rang out now, but none of them were aimed at her. The soldiers were firing at the bloody, naked man who had exploded into their midst with a volley of bullets. There were six uniformed men still on their feet now, and she quickly dropped three before they could realize the attack was coming from two fronts. As they crumpled, they revealed the man in the suit they’d been protecting. His eyes were focusing toward her as she aimed, his body already in motion when the bullet left her gun; she wasn’t sure she’d done more than just wing him as he ducked down out of her range.

She couldn’t see Kevin’s position, but the other three soldiers were now on the ground. She had nothing left to aim at from this vantage.

Alex darted to the edge of the open window, glass crunching beneath her shoes, and put her back against the wall beside it.

“Ollie?” Kevin called, his voice strong and controlled.

Relief flooded through her body in a hot rush at the sound of his voice. “Yes.”

“We’re clear. Get in here. Danny’s down.”

Ice washed down the same path the heat had just blazed.

She dropped the guns into her pockets, wrapped her hands in the folds of her lab coat, and boosted herself over the jagged ledge of the window. The floor was a mass of bodies in dark uniforms, with deep red splatters marking everything light enough to show it – the faces, the floor, the walls. Kevin was shaking off a body he’d evidently used as a shield. There was still movement, and more than one gasping murmur. So, not entirely clear, but he must feel it was under control, and, obviously, the need was urgent.

Daniel was in the back right corner – she could see the white-blond hair ringing his pale scalp, but most of him was obscured by two bodies in uniform that looked to have crumpled on top of him. Carston was down a few feet away, blood blossoming across his white shirt from multiple wounds. His chest was still moving.

It took less than a second for her to absorb all this, already in motion as she assessed, heading straight for Daniel.

“Deavers is alive,” she muttered as she passed Kevin, and in her peripheral vision, she saw him nod and start moving in a crouch toward the far left corner of the room.

There was very little blood on the soldier lying across Daniel’s chest, but his face was an unhealthy shade of purple and there were pink bubbles on his lips. A quick glance at the man draped over Daniel’s legs revealed the same manifestations. Both of these men were dying from the venom on Daniel’s ring. A new froth of bloody bubbles foamed on the first man’s lips as she tried to pull his paralyzed body off Daniel.

Part of her was very far away from what was happening – the part that needed to scream and panic and hyperventilate. She let the ice of her fear keep her focused and clinical. Later there would be time for hysterics. Now she had to be a doctor on the battlefield, quick and certain.

She finally rolled the man off Daniel’s chest, and suddenly there was blood everywhere. She ripped Daniel’s crimson-drenched shirt out of the way and found the source only too easily. All of her training, all of her time as a trauma doctor for hire, told her she was far too late.

It was a perfect kill shot, right through the upper left side of his chest. Whoever had placed that bullet knew exactly what he was doing. It was one of the few shots that would fell a person instantly, straight through the heart, dead before he hit the ground. Dead probably before he could even register the pain.

There was nothing she could have done, even if she’d never left his side. She’d let him come here to protect her, and that choice had killed him just as surely as the bullet in his heart.