The Lightning Stones

9

They had to have used lasers on the windows to detect the glass vibrations and translate that into voices and sounds, because they knew someone was coming to the front door. Harry’s hand was inches from the knob when the door blew inward. Immediately, dark shapes swarmed into the foyer. They must have realized the layout of the house with its towering ceiling made tear gas all but useless and flashbangs were too loud in such a tight neighborhood, so they came instead with overwhelming force.

Harry went down under the weight of three men wearing forty-odd pounds of tactical gear including vests and riot-shield helmets. Drag went berserk as soon as his master fell to the hard marble floor. He clamped his jaws on the nearest target, which turned out to be one of the men’s butts. The guy howled at the pain while Drag tried but failed to find purchase on the slick Carrera tile so he could tear out a chunk of his gluteus.

Mercer heard the commotion and ran past the library to the balcony. Even with three men already atop Harry White, more poured through the front door, assault rifles and shotguns held high and at the ready.

Drag was either shaken off or more likely lost interest because he let go and moved out of the way of the tactical assault team. There were eight in total. Three held Harry, and three others kept their weapons trained on Mercer while two more spiraled up the stairs, never taking their sights off Mercer, who had wisely dropped his barely touched drink and laced his fingers behind his head.

“Mercer,” Harry wheezed from the bottom of the pile. “Someone at the door for you.”

At that moment two more strangers entered the house, a man and a woman, both wearing dark suits, though hers appeared of better cut and quality. Both had automatic pistols in their hands. The woman, blond and about forty, held hers low and relaxed, while her partner kept his up by his head, alert and seemingly eager to pop off a few if the need arose.

“Stand down,” Mercer shouted, trying to regain some modicum of control. “There is a third person in the house. A woman. Jordan Weismann. She is asleep here on the second floor in a back bedroom.”

“Who the hell are you?” the man in the suit hollered up.

“Philip Mercer, the guy you are here to talk to. The eighty-year-old you so righteously took down is a friend. You are FBI, right?”

By then, the tac-team members who had come up the stairs forced Mercer to his knees, frisked him, and cuffed his hands behind his back with a zip tie. Satisfied they had him secure, another agent mounted the stairs to take charge of the prisoner, while the first pair went to search the rest of the house.

The men pinning Harry to the floor finally started to get back to their feet. They looked sheepish and knew tonight’s exploits would be the source of a great deal of teasing once they returned to the Hoover Building. It took a trio of them to wrestle some geezer to the ground, and one of them had a tooth-marked ass thanks to the old man’s fat dog.

“Got one,” the tactical guy yelled from the upstairs bedroom. “It’s a woman and she’s out cold.”

“Be careful,” Mercer warned him. “She has a broken collarbone.”

“Are you Philip Mercer?” the male agent asked, all bulging eyes and puffed-up chest.

“I just said I was no more than ten seconds ago,” Mercer snorted. He turned his attention to the female agent. He could tell by her suit and bearing that she was actually in charge and not her testosterone-fueled partner. “You could have just called me, you know.”

“True,” she said and holstered her boxy Glock automatic, “but where’s the fun in that?”

“Where exactly is the fun in all this?” Harry spat. His clothes were a mess, his lip was bloody, and in all the excitement Drag had peed on the floor. White motioned to the offending puddle with a cuffed hand. “It’s your fault he had an accident, so one of you tinhorns is going to clean it up.”

“Shut up, you old fart,” the male agent barked.

Harry whirled on him, his mouth a grim, tight line, and his eyes so focused the FBI agent couldn’t turn away. He was like a chicken mesmerized by a cobra.

“Just so you know, Sunnybuck”—Harry’s voice was hard, grating, like some Old Testament prophet raging at the furies—“when your daddy was still sucking your granny’s tit and long before he realized his little mushroom prick could do more than piss in his diaper, I was in the goddamned merchant marines convincing kamikazes to dance with the wrong end of my fifty-cal. So fuck you and your ‘old fart’ crack and clean up my dog’s pee.” Still in a huff he turned to Mercer. “This kind of shit keeps up around here, and I think I’m gonna get my own place again.”

Mercer replied without hesitation, “I’ll help you pack.”

A cell phone buzzed in the awkward silence that followed. None of the agents, especially the two seniors in their suits and button-downs, expected such detachment in the face of overwhelming force and firepower. The old man was more concerned about his dog and was practically foaming at the mouth in righteous indignation over the poor thing, while Mercer himself was as icy calm as a surgeon. If anything, there was a spark behind his eyes as if he knew this was some sort of practical joke that only he was in on. The female agent pulled a sleek black phone from her jacket pocket, and her eyes widened and her mouth tightened when she saw the calling number on its display.

If Mercer’s suspicions were right, her self-control was impressive. He figured if this particular call had come to the male agent, he would have had an accident far worse than Drag’s.

She swung the phone to her ear and turned away. The sonic blast of the caller’s voice forced her to pull the cell away from her head, but she was aware that the two prisoners could hear the verbal broadsides coming through the tiny device and clamped it back again. Mercer felt a bit of regret. Because of the culture within the FBI, the chewing out she was now receiving for a screwup that wasn’t her fault could set her career back significantly. Mercer made a mental note to call Dick Henna once more and make sure she and the tac team were protected from the inevitable bureaucratic furor. The male agent could fend for himself.

Though he couldn’t hear the man berating her over the phone, he could listen in on her responses, each one preceded and postscripted by “Sir.”

“Sir, yes sir…Sir, a few minutes ago, sir…Sir, Mike Gillespie and Tom Walsh’s tactical team, sir. Sir, two others, a female and an older male, sir. Yes, sir, one moment, sir.” She clamped a hand over the cell’s microphone and said to Harry, “Sir, is your name Harry White?”

Wary, Harry said, “Who’s asking?”

“My boss about five times removed, Deputy Director William Higgins.”

After a moment’s thought Harry’s wizened face brightened. He had met Higgins years earlier when the FBI had placed a protective detail at Mercer’s house following a murder attempt linked to a radical environmental group. Higgins had been an agent on the rise and had obviously done very well indeed. “Tell Billie it’s old Harry all right and that I haven’t forgotten I still owe his grandmother a night out on the town.”

“Yes, sir. It is White and he says he owes your grandmother a night out. Sir? Yes sir, I will be sure to tell him. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. You will have my report by nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Sir? Yes, of course. Eight o’clock. Good night, sir.”

She clicked off her cell but remained turned away from the men for a moment, no doubt composing herself following what must have been the worst drubbing of her life. She took a deep breath, raked her fingers through her hair, and turned. She pointed a long finger at the leader of the tactical assault team. “Tom, uncuff everyone, and you and your guys can stand down.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the FBI commando replied and nodded to his men to carry out her order.

She then looked to Mercer. “Obviously we have gotten off on the wrong foot. Would it really smooth things over and let us start fresh if we pick up the dog pee?”

Mercer took a moment to delight in the mental image of her knuckle-dragging partner on his knees with a wad of urine-soaked paper towel in his hands. It was a nice fantasy, but he would be better served by not antagonizing the agents any further.

“No,” he said at last. “We can take care of it. For the record, I am Philip Mercer, this is Harry White, and the woman upstairs is Jordan Weismann. The dog’s name is Drag, but short of torture through starvation you won’t get much out of him.”

Her brief smile was partially at the joke, but mostly it was gratitude for not making her order her subordinate to pick up Drag’s mess.

“I am Special Agent Kelly Hepburn and this is Special Agent Nate Lowell.” Both whipped shields and credentials from their belts and flashed them perfunctorily. “At the outset, let me apologize for this intrusion. It was not our intention—”

Mercer cut her off. “Agent Hepburn, it most certainly was your intention to barge into my home, so please don’t apologize. You are sorry because I happened to know the former director of the FBI, and he finally got around to talking to your bosses about who I really am. You are sorry for unfortunate timing. If Harry had waited ten more minutes to walk his dog, Drag probably would have peed in the house anyway, but Deputy Director Higgins would have called in time to warn you not to treat me like a typical suspect and to just knock on my front door. Am I right?”

This time her smile was one of respect. “Yes, sir. You are.”

“You will find my home office is in the back of the house just past the kitchen. I’m going to check on Jordan and I’ll meet you two there in a minute. If you’re so inclined there’s a Keurig in the kitchen. Coffee and cups are above it in the cabinet, but I doubt the milk in the fridge is less than a month old, so I’d take it black.”

“Don’t forget the party,” Harry said, tugging at Drag’s leash to get him out the front door. “There’s some fresh soy milk in there. A few of my guests were lactose intolerant.” He added with a wrinkled nose, “And a few didn’t care they were.”

Jordan was still drugged enough that her being dragged from her bed and deposited on a wingback chair in the library overlooking the foyer didn’t register in the slightest. She was sound asleep, and for a second time Mercer scooped her into his arms and carried her back to the bedroom, then shut off the lights. He took a few more minutes to brew a coffee from the old machine behind the bar that was dialed to his masochistic tastes. He grabbed the plastic bag containing the evidence from Abe Jacobs’s office and joined the two agents in his office. Nate Lowell sat in one of the chairs facing the desk, trying not to look like a leashed and muzzled pit bull. Agent Hepburn resembled neither of the actresses with whom she shared a surname but was attractive in her own right. She was bent over a geological sample Mercer kept on a credenza to the side of his desk. The gray-green stone was unremarkable and rather crumbly, and anyone who wasn’t a geologist would dismiss it as nothing.

“That’s kimberlite,” Mercer said, swinging past her and lowering himself into the chair behind his leather-topped desk. “Named for Kimberley, South Africa, where the first industrial diamond mine was located.”

“Is it valuable?” she asked, taking the chair next to Nate Lowell. She activated the recorder function on her smartphone.

“No,” he replied. “It’s just a souvenir.”

Technically he wasn’t lying. The hunk of kimberlite was practically worthless. The large, gem-quality diamond embedded on the underside was another matter entirely. He placed the plastic scrubs bag onto his desk.

“Why don’t you start from the very beginning,” Kelly Hepburn prompted.

“Before I do, has anyone thought to secure the home and offices of Dr. Susan Tunis, the lead scientist on the project that was attacked in Minnesota?”

The two agents exchanged a look that Mercer had little trouble deciphering.

Hepburn said, “Both her office at Northwestern University and her home in Evanston were destroyed. Her husband was lucky and only slightly injured when he tried to enter the burning house.” She added, “It happened about five hours after the murders at the Leister Deep Mine.”

Mercer did the calculations in his head. They had hit Dr. Tunis outside of Chicago on their way to Abe’s home in Ohio. The time they spent ransacking her office and residence was why he had beaten them to Hardt College. Otherwise they would have driven through the night and struck Abe’s long before he arrived. Had that been the case, he was certain Jordan Weismann would have been killed.

“What about her research?” Mercer asked, purging himself of emotion so he could focus on the investigation. “And we need anything you can recover from the computer servers at Hardt College too. Whatever they were working on is what got them killed.”

“We already have people on that, Dr. Mercer,” she assured him. “Please, why don’t you tell me everything from the very beginning.”

He went through his story again, giving as much detail as he could. Kelly Hepburn seemed impressed by his escape from the mine and subsequent chase in the big bucket loader. Nate Lowell looked at him as if it were all bullshit.

“You can verify my story with Detective Paul Gerard of the Minnesota State Police,” Mercer concluded, not caring what Lowell thought. The guy was a grade-A mouth breather.

“We’ve seen his report,” Hepburn confirmed, “though we aren’t entirely sure why he didn’t keep you at the mine as a material witness.”

Mercer gave a little lopsided grin. “Don’t blame him. I snuck off a minute before he made my presence there mandatory. Also, this bag on the desk contains everything I recovered from Abe’s office. I’m sure your people are going over the space yourselves, so add the contents of his trash can to the other piles of evidence.”

“Hey, asshole,” Nate Lowell snarled. “Whatever you took from the crime scene has already broken chain of evidence. It’s now considered tainted and is worthless to our investigation.”

Mercer kept his anger in check. “Agent Lowell, what I saved from certain ruin from water damage will not help in the slightest in getting a conviction for Abe’s murder, so chain of evidence is moot. What it might provide is a direction to pursue, a clue perhaps as to what he and the others were working on.”

Lowell leaned forward, his jaw working like he was gnawing on his next words before spitting them in Mercer’s face. Mercer ignored him and pegged Kelly Hepburn with his storm-gray eyes. “I am going off the assumption that Abe brought a geologic sample with him to the Leister Deep Mine. My hope is that whatever box or bag or carton it had once sat in was dumped in the trash when he transferred it to a more secure travel case. I could be way wrong here, but it makes logical sense.”

“What makes logical sense here—” Lowell started, but Hepburn pressed a restraining hand against his shoulder.

“Dr. Mercer makes sense, provided that the trash wasn’t emptied after Abraham Jacobs left for Minnesota.”

“Abe arrived the morning he died, and I was in his office less than twenty-four hours later. Also he’s the only one to use this trash can.” Mercer lifted the bag and its sodden contents. “All this crap didn’t get in here by magic.”

Though she’d recorded Mercer’s statement on her phone, she had also taken the time to jot down notes in a small spiral-ringed booklet. She flipped back a few pages. “You said that yesterday was the first time you met Jordan Weismann?”

“Yes, that’s correct.” Mercer leaned back a little in his chair, noting Lowell’s hackles were back down.

“But you hadn’t heard of her before?” Hepburn asked with a touch of doubt in her voice. “She says you share a mutual friend.”

“Trust me, Agent Hepburn, Abe Jacobs was the most generous person I have ever known. He collected friends his entire life, and there are hundreds if not thousands of former students and colleagues left in his wake. I know just a handful of them — and even in those cases I probably haven’t spoken to them in years — so before you ask your next question, no, there is no way I can verify that Jordan and Abe were friends. I suggest finding out who her father is and pursue her relationship with Abe from that direction.”

The agent wrote down Mercer’s suggestion. “We would like to speak to her, of course,” she said, lifting her pen from the pad.

“No problem to me,” Mercer replied, “but she is asleep and spiking a fever. If it hasn’t gone down by tomorrow morning, I am probably going to take her to a doctor.”

“Would you have a problem if I leave an agent here?” Hepburn asked.

“None whatsoever, provided it’s not Agent Lowell.”

Lowell bristled once again and his jaw went into overtime. “Relax,” Mercer said, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s for your protection. You see, Drag has gotten a taste of FBI ass and would go after yours if he had half a chance.”

The agent came out of his chair, propelled by his well-muscled arms and a bruised ego. “You son of a bitch.”

“Stand down, Nate,” Kelly Hepburn shouted. “That’s an order.” She shot Mercer a look that asked if provoking her partner had been strictly necessary.

Mercer shrugged. He had done it because if he hadn’t, Lowell would have been assigned protective detail, and at some point the guy would have crossed a line and Mercer would have been forced to deck him. Nate Lowell looked to be the kind of bully that would stand behind his shield if he got his ass kicked, and Mercer would be facing a striking-a-federal-officer rap. He didn’t want to push his friendship with Dick Henna that far. Better to provoke a Pavlovian response in front of his partner and have Lowell sent home. One of the tac-team guys could come back and babysit.

“Go outside and get some air,” she ordered hotly.

Lowell pivoted on his foot and marched from the office. From Mercer’s perspective the situation got a little funnier because he could hear Harry and Drag coming through the front door as the FBI agent was trying to leave. Harry kept his old dog from biting at Lowell, but Drag barked it up like he was Cujo’s long-lost cousin. Mercer smiled at the ruckus, and even Kelly Hepburn snickered.

“Sorry about Nate,” she said. “He was recently medically DQed from working HRT and hasn’t adjusted to being a regular field agent.”

“Excuse?”

“Explanation.”

“He has the look of a door kicker,” Mercer admitted.

“A damn good one until he took a nine-millimeter to the gut. He’s recovered enough to stay with the Bureau but his door-kicking days are behind him.” Kelly Hepburn stood to leave. Mercer also got to his feet. He picked up the bag of wet garbage.

“One last question,” she said. “What is your relationship to Jordan Weismann?”

“My relationship? I don’t have one with her. She was in trouble. I bailed her out and now she’s asleep in my guest room. End of story.”

“Where does she go from here?”

“That’s not up to me. Call me tomorrow to see if she’s up for questioning and ask her yourself.” He found himself hoping her curiosity on this subject was more personal than professional. He presented the bag to her like a date proffers flowers. “Don’t say I never gave you anything, Agent Hepburn.”

“I’ll be in touch in the morning, Dr. Mercer.” She shook his hand with a firm up and down motion, and she was out the door with the evidence slapping against her leg. Mercer heard Harry rumble something to her, and a second later the front door closed for a final time.

Mercer met Harry and Drag on the spiral stairs, the pair of them struggling mightily. Drag’s slow pace was something Mercer was used to. He was a little concerned about Harry until he remembered the impotent lecher had been dancing for God knew how long before he came home. The old bastard hadn’t been hurt in the scuffle. He’d worn himself out partying.

“Hell of a night,” White said.

“Amen to that,” Mercer agreed noncommittally.

“Hot girl in the guest bedroom, another just in your office, and you’re going to be sleeping with a flatulent basset hound who hogs the covers.”

Mercer chuckled. “You know, I wish I liked at least one of my friends. That’s all I ask for. Just one. See you in the morning.”

Harry moved off onto the library balcony. Drag didn’t miss a step and continued up, following Mercer for his spot on the more comfortable king-size bed on the third floor.

“Damn Judas of a dog,” Harry muttered jealously. He called up after his pet, “No wet food for the rest of the week, you mangy traitor. It’s kibble or nothing.”

He may not have understood the words, but he at least understood the tone. Drag ponderously turned himself around on the sweeping stairs, backing like a semitrailer to make the swing, and dutifully tottered off to bed after his real master.