The Serpent's Kiss

14

jill had her cell phone in her hand and was punching numbers in as they left Taplin-Smithson’s office. She frowned. “Dammit! The call won’t go through. I can’t tell if it’s this building or there’s too much caller traffic.”

“Probably both. Try a land line,” Derek said.

Jill stopped at the receptionist’s desk and asked to borrow her phone. Derek frowned, thinking, then turned and walked away. His gaze took in the names on each door. Finally he found the one belonging to William Harrington, Ph.D. He glanced at his watch. It was now 11:22 A.M. If The Serpent didn’t get his money in 23 minutes, another group of people were going to get killed in 38 minutes. He had absolutely no reason to doubt this guy’s intentions or willingness to go through with his plans.

And he was pretty certain the university wouldn’t be able to get the money moving that fast, even if they were willing to. It would have been time to negotiate under other circumstances. The FBI would contact The Serpent and tell him that there wasn’t enough time to do this, but if he could just give them an extra hour, maybe two, they could get this done. They would try to negotiate the money, try to get him to decrease it. And all the while they would have people tracking the calls. But this guy knew that, didn’t he? He was smart. He made the call through the media, gave his demands, his time table, and hung up.

Derek was sure of it. Matt Gray would be scrambling. They’d be back-tracing that phone call just as fast as they could — if the media didn’t stonewall him.

Was it traceable? Had The Serpent called from a cellular phone? Was it a cloned phone? A disposable phone? Had he called from a phone booth? From an office? A house?

And who was the next target?

What was the code this terrorist spoke in? What symbols were in his head?

Derek reached for the door knob, pulse hammering in his ears. Suddenly he felt exhausted and dizzy. Bitter, metallic sweat seeped from his pores. His knee throbbed with pain. All the squatting and kneeling necessary to go through the pockets of the victims at the Boulevard Café had aggravated his knee injury.

Around his neck were beads and a chain. Involuntarily he clutched at the rabbit’s foot and the St. Sebastian medal around his neck.

Behind this door was… what?

If Harrington was The Serpent, it was possible he could have booby-trapped his office.

Sweat beaded on his forehead.

Taking in a deep breath, he closed his eyes, then gripped the knob and turned. Locked.

He glanced at his watch again. Thirty-seven minutes left. Quit screwing around, Derek!

He flung his shoulder against the door. It cracked with a loud bang, but didn’t open. Again, he slammed against the door. With a wood-and-metal shriek the door burst inward. He stood there on the edge of the office, panting, relieved he hadn’t been at the mouth of an explosion or a gas attack. If Harrington was The Serpent, it was possible he could have booby-trapped his office.

It was still possible.

The hallway was filling up with people. Across the hallway a woman in a white lab coat said, “Who are you?”

He held up his ID, announced his authority, and stepped into the office.

Somebody else said, “Call security.”

Even less time than he hoped for.

The office was less quirky than Taplin-Smithson’s, but about the same size. There was a large, round-edged desk, possibly made out of some sort of maple or bleached oak. A large computer monitor dominated. There was a high-backed cloth office chair and two other chairs in front of the desk. A credenza held a laser printer. Two matching bookcases contained medical reference books and bound copies of medical journals. There were two four-drawer metal filing cabinets. On the wall was a painting of a seascape that looked like it was painted with acrylics. On another wall were several diplomas and award certificates.

Derek sat at the computer and popped it on, waiting for the Windows desktop to come to life. When it finally did, he brought up Microsoft Outlook, clicked on e-mail and looked through the SENT file.

It was all correspondence with students and colleagues. He scanned as quickly as he could. One header caught his attention. It read: CHEM/SCENARIO 14.

Derek clicked on it. The body of the e-mail read:

Attached to the e-mail was a Word document. Derek clicked on it and read the title.

It was all very interesting, Derek thought, but the auto show was held in January and this was October. But if Harrington was involved in this, then maybe there was another scenario here somewhere. He fingered the row of computer CDs in a disk case, the sense of urgency weighing him down. Jill Church appeared at the door, her face white.

“Are you insane? What are you doing in here?”

He ignored her, continuing to search.

“We can’t just go breaking and entering,” she said, anger lacing her voice with tension. “We have procedures. We have the chain of evidence. Everything will get thrown out of court the way—”

He spun in the chair and reached for a filing cabinet drawer. “Feel free to tell the families of the next group of victims that you didn’t stop things in time because you were waiting for a search warrant.”

She still didn’t enter the room. He stopped, his hand inches from the cabinet handle.

“What?” she asked.

Again, a wave of fear swept over him. He said, “There’s some sort of working group here that puts together chemical and biological terrorism scenarios. I’m wondering—”

Suddenly she was next to him. “You’re sure?”

He nodded and waved at the computer. “There’s one there.”

She glanced at it, her eyes opening wide. “Dear God! You don’t suppose…?” She whirled and started to open the filing cabinet. His hand caught hers.

“What?”

“We have to be careful of booby-traps.”

“What?” Her face went even chalkier. “What are you talking about?”

Derek pointed to the floor. From behind the filing cabinet ran a wire. It looked like fishing line and was almost invisible. It ran along the crease between the floor and the wall, out of sight behind a bookshelf.

Voice low, Derek said, “You need to evacuate the building.”

“I’ll call the bomb squad,” she said.

Derek nodded. He glanced at his watch. It was 11:29 A.M. They had 16 minutes until their money deadline and 31 minutes until the next group died. He was going to have to take the chance.