The Serpent's Kiss

44

Fred Ball, the WDET National Public Radio news reporter, was still at Scott Hall, interviewing anybody who would talk to him. Several FBI agents who knew Frank McMillan personally told him flat-out that the man was definitely not The Serpent. He was inclined to believe them. The entire situation had taken on a kind of surrealistic FUBAR quality, FUBAR being the old military acronym for Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

He was talking to a Detroit cop, Officer Tom Medina, who had been guarding the tent where the FBI and Fire Department guys staged their entries and exits into Scott Hall. “Yeah,” Medina was saying. “I saw McMillan leave. We talked for a minute about how we thought something was going on. ‘cause of the helicopters and all the activity. Shit. I was watching him when he took the round in the head.”

“What was your job, exactly?” Ball asked.

“Mostly to keep civilians out of here. Just stand outside the tent and make sure that reporters and civilians don’t get in.”

“Did you check identification or have a checklist?”

“What? No. There was a handful of people working inside. They were either Detroit FD or FBI. There was that one guy at the other site, Stillwater, with Homeland Security, but I never saw him here. Heard a rumor Gray wouldn’t let him in.”

Fred Ball, keeping the microphone of his digital tape recorder pointed toward the cop, said, “Did anybody you didn’t recognize go in or out?”

Medina shrugged. “I mean, I didn’t notice anybody. Well, there was that one fire guy. He just popped in and out.”

Ball paused. “When was this?”

Medina thought for a minute, scratching his chin. “Well, let’s see. That would have been twelve-thirty or so. I think the only reason I remember was, you know, these guys pretty much work in cycles. Forty-five minutes on, fifteen off. More or less. They stagger it, but it’s pretty regular. So they all pretty much went in at the same time, a little after twelve, and nobody came out for a while. Then this guy comes in, nods, goes in, then comes right back out.”

Fred Ball was getting an idea. It was a pretty exciting idea, and there wasn’t much fact to hang the idea on, but he had an idea nonetheless. “You said this guy was with the Fire Department?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you know?”

“Uh, he had the windbreaker and hat on.”

“Hat? He wore a fire hat?”

“No. He had a blue windbreaker, the one that says Detroit Fire Department on the back, and he had a cap, like a baseball hat, with the DFD on the front.”

“You see him before?”

“No.”

“What’d he look like?”

Medina shrugged. “I don’t now. Why?”

“I’d like to talk to him, that’s all,” Ball said.

“Just… just a guy.”

“Young, old, what?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking he was fairly young. I don’t know why, though.”

“What color hair?”

“All I saw was the hat.”

“Skin?”

“What?”

“Black, white, pink, gray? What? Is he a white guy? An Arab? What?”

“Oh. You know, he might’ve been Asian. Or Hispanic. Brownish skin, but not, you know, black.”

Ball asked a few more questions, then clicked off his tape recorder. He had a feeling Medina had seen The Serpent. But how to follow up on it?

Suddenly Ball’s telephone rang. He clicked it on. “Fred Ball here.”

“Fred Ball with National Public Radio?”

“Yes.” Fred tensed. There was something odd about the voice. Then it hit him. It was distorted. “Who is this?”

“This is The Serpent. I want you to take down a message.”