The Serpent's Kiss

25

Derek was parked outside William Harrington’s house in Birmingham. Birmingham was a little further north, straight up Woodward Avenue from Ferndale. Birmingham was trendy in a way that Ferndale could only dream of being. Birmingham was where old money lived. Not old money like the Pointes on the southeast side of Detroit. Birmingham had a population just under 20,000 people, but the median income level was slightly over $100,000 with a 3 % poverty rate; the average home went for over $360,000. Looking at William Harrington’s house just off Main Street, Derek doubted the numbers he was pulling off the web via his tablet computer. It appeared to be a small cape cod-style house on a tiny lot. It was beautifully maintained, and the yard seemed well-manicured, but it was not a large, elaborate house. None of the houses on this street appeared large, but they all seemed older, well-cared-for, and richly appointed. The house had a one-car garage, which was closed.

He dialed Harrington’s telephone, but nobody answered. An answering machine picked up with a male voice saying, “You have reached the Bill Harrington residence. I can’t come to the phone right now. Your call is important to me, so leave your name and number and I’ll get back with you as soon as possible.”

The voice was deep, with careful, formal diction and enunciation.

Derek needed to take a minute. He felt like he was being spun a bit, that events were controlling him instead of the other way around. He had moved his GO Packs to the front seat and he reached into one of them and took out the special cellular phone the Department of Homeland Security assigned their troubleshooters. They weren’t cellular phones, but hand-held modified Iridium satellite phones with a scrambler function. In theory, he could use it from anywhere on the planet due to a series of geosynchronous satellites scattered around the globe. The scrambler was state-of-the-art as well, having little or no obvious distortion.

He speed-dialed #1 and held the phone to his ear. “Derek? It’s about time you called with an update,” growled the voice of the Secretary of DHS, General James Johnston.

“I’ve been a little busy.”

“I just heard there’s been a second attack.”

“Yes.”

“Will there be more?”

“I haven’t heard any news of a threat, but I doubt this guy will quit until he gets whatever he wants.”

“What does he want?”

“According to the first call, he wants money, but I doubt if that’s really what he wants.”

“Fine. Update me.”

Derek ran it all past him. Every bit of it.

There was silence on the phone, then Johnston said, “You punched out the SAC?”

“Yes sir, I did. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about that yet.”

“Not yet. Derek, was that necessary? Or are you just trying to get me to pull you off this assignment?”

“I wouldn’t come off it now if you ordered me to.”

Johnston sighed. “That doesn’t surprise me much. I’ll call him, see if I can smooth things over.”

“I need something, sir.”

“What’s that?”

“I need you to get somebody over to a guy named Bernard Schultz at Stanford. He’s involved in something called SKOLAR MD. That’s spelled S-K-O-L-A-R-M-D. It’s a database. Anyway, Harrington was sending him chem terrorism scenarios that this think-tank was putting out. We never got a chance to track down the people here who were writing these things, but Schultz had at least one of them. Can you handle that?”

“I’ll get somebody on it.”

“Good. And e-mail them directly to me once you do.”

“Will do. Anything else?”

Derek hesitated. “Yes. Two things. See if you can track down all the names of people involved with the Center for Biological & Chemical Terrorism Research here at Wayne State. Names, contact information, C.V.s if you can get them. It might be tough. The U’s closed down because of the second attack.”

“Can do. I’ll e-mail that to you, as well. What’s the second thing?”

“Run a background check on an FBI agent named Jill Church.”

“The one who’s babysitting you.”

“Right.”

“You have doubts about her?”

“No, not really. But I feel like I’ve met her before and I don’t know why. She spent five weeks at Redmond. That might be it. But my gut tells me it’s something else.”

“Is this a priority?”

“No. The other data’s top priority. Especially the information from Schultz if you can get it.”

“I’ll take care of it. Anything else?”

“No. Not yet.”

“All right, Derek. Good work so far. But try to be more diplomatic with the authorities.”

“That never seems to get me anywhere.”

“That’s because you’ve never tried it. What’s next?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Derek—”

”What you don’t know can’t hurt you, General. Goodbye.” He hung up and stared at Harrington’s house. He needed to go inside Harrington’s house. He remembered going into Harrington’s office all too well. He hoped The Serpent hadn’t booby-trapped his house as well.