The Serpent's Kiss

51

Jill Church finished talking to the Birmingham Fire Department captain and walked back to the car, where Derek had remained the entire time. She felt exhausted and stressed. She didn’t want to talk to Derek, find out what he was planning next. It was time — way past time, probably — to check in, so she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Matt Gray’s number. She was routed through the switchboard.

“It’s Agent Church,” she said. “I need to talk to Agent Gray.”

“Just a moment.”

It seemed like a long moment. Too long. While she waited, she watched the firefighters dowsing William Harrington’s house with water. There were two trucks, lights still flashing red, coils of hoses, the smell of smoke. The house was a disaster. It had been a large enough explosion with enough heat generated to engulf the entire second floor within seconds. By the time the fire fighters showed up the house and been completely involved and the roof collapsed not long afterwards.

The Birmingham P.D. were not pleased that she and Derek had done their own illegal search, resulting in triggering an incendiary device. The Birmingham Police chief himself, Chief Walter D’Agosta, had pulled her to one side to hear her story and to make sure she knew just how much trouble she was in. He was a heavyset, balding man in a navy blue three-piece suit, wrinkled white shirt and blue patchwork tie. Mostly bald, he had a classic comb-over that threatened to lift all at once like a lid whenever the wind blew. He chewed gum and acted like he wanted to take a bite out of Jill at any moment. He probably figured he was intimidating, though Jill didn’t feel very intimidated.

“I should lock you up, you and that asshole Stillwater. I went over there to talk to him and he slammed the damned door in my face, said he was busy. I don’t appreciate this, Church. You had no warrant. That’s going to be very nice for the D.A. And the only person who was in the house when this bomb went off won’t talk to me. I think you’d better go over there and make sure your partner gives us a statement.”

“Sure,” she’d said placatingly, knowing by now that Stillwater didn’t give a rat’s ass what the Birmingham Chief of Police wanted. “I’ll talk to him.”

“And you, you should know better. And by the way, you’re aware that the media is buzzing about Stillwater? That your own people are suggesting that he’s this guy, The Serpent?”

“Do you trust everything the media says, Chief D’Agosta?”

Chew, chew, chew. “I do not. I’m not a fool. But maybe if he’s working with you guys, you should get your story straight.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more.”

“I should lock him up.”

“It’s the Bureau that wants to talk to him, Chief D’Agosta. I’m the Bureau. Consider him to be in my custody.”

D’Agosta chewed some more, staring at her disbelievingly. “Where the hell’s the owner of this house?”

“We don’t know.”

“Is he The Serpent?”

“Possibly.”

D’Agosta chewed some more, then swore and stomped away. He turned around and jabbed his thick finger at Jill. “No more of this in Birmingham. You hear? No more. You step foot inside my jurisdiction, you drive through my jurisdiction, you alert me. We’ll have you escorted by one of my officers. You understand me?”

“Yes,” Jill said. Putz, she thought.

Now Matt Gray came on the line sounding breathless and angry. “Church, where the hell are you?”

She gave him a synopsis. Gray was silent for a moment. “Were you there with him?”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“There was a canister of what we assume is sarin gas and a bunch of computer disks. I was taking them out of the house. Because of what happened at Harrington’s office, we were aware of the possibility the office might be booby-trapped. We wanted to get evidence out of the house, just in case.”

“Tell me this, Church. Is there any possibility that Stillwater is in cahoots with this guy, The Serpent? That maybe Harrington’s The Serpent, but Stillwater’s along to muddy things?”

“No, sir. I don’t think so. Agent Stillwater is righteous.”

“Don’t give me that ‘righteous’ bullshit, Church. He’s under investigation for a reason.”

“His entire focus is stopping the next attack, Matt. Not building a case or going to court. He could care less what happens as long as he stops more people from dying. That’s why he cuts corners. You don’t have to agree with the approach — I don’t — but you need to understand it. It’s our job to build a case and go to court. That’s not his agenda, whatsoever. We don’t have to like it. He doesn’t work for us. What’s going on at your end?”

Gray was silent for a long moment. Then, “The Serpent called a reporter with NPR and said there’s going to be another attack if somebody doesn’t put five million in that Bermuda bank account.”

“What time? 4:00?”

“Right. Four o’clock. And here’s the odd thing. He didn’t specify who was to pay the five million.”

They were both silent. Jill said, slowly, “What do you think that means?”

“I think it means the money is bullshit. That’s what I think. I don’t think this asshole is doing this for money. He’s doing it to jerk everybody around. I think he’s doing it because he likes doing it. And you know what, he’s great at jerking people around. We’ve got everybody and their brother here at the Federal Building because he placed his last call from the Federal Building. And get this, from the Department of Veterans Affairs on the 12^th floor. They think somebody waltzed right in, sat down at an empty cubicle and made the call, then walked right back out.”

“Surveill—”

”We’re stripping the tapes now, Church. But it makes us look bad, that’s for sure.” More silence. Then Matt said, “Jill.”

“What?”

“This guy, Stillwater… he know what he’s doing?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Are you making any progress? Because I got to tell you, Jill, I don’t want another attack on my watch. I’m serious.”

“I know. Yes, he knows what he’s doing. One thing you can do is try to track down names of everybody involved with writing scenarios with the Center for Biological and Chemical Terrorism Research.”

“I’ll get… I’ll get Agent Toreanno on it.”

“Good. That’s good. And get the University to track down a photograph of William Harrington. Security should have it in a database or even on the university website. Get it to the media. Be on the lookout.”

“Good. Good. That’s good. Very good. Anything else?”

Jill hesitated. She knew at some level that Matt Gray was a good agent. A politician, an ass coverer, a careerist, but a good agent. He sounded a little desperate. Another successful attack today would kill his career. Maybe he was trying to get on the ball and make sure that didn’t happen, no matter what his motivation.

Or maybe, she thought, he’s exploring ways to pin the blame on other people if everything goes to hell.

She said, “Anything on the bank account?”

“No. Not yet. They’re stalling us.”

“Okay. We’re working our end. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

“Good. You do that.”

Jill hung up, swallowed, and walked past the firemen and onlookers to her car. She tapped on the window. Derek glared at her, punched a button on his tablet PC, snatched out a disk and flung it into the backseat. He reached over and punched another disk into the slot.

“Open up,” she said.

Derek leaned forward and unlocked the door. She pulled it open and looked in. The backseat was covered with a scatter of computer disks. “Any luck finding anything?”

Derek scowled. “So far, every fucking one of these things is blank. The floppies look like they’ve been run over with a magnet and every damned CD is unformatted. This is all bullshit. Bullshit!” he yelled. “The bastard’s playing games with us!”

He pounded his fist on the dashboard, voice rough with emotion and frustration.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay, Stillwater. Take a second. Think. We’ve got an agent trying to track down the rest of the scenario writers. What else—“

Derek snapped his fingers, reaching for his Iridium phone. “I’ve got to get back to the boss. He’s got somebody trying to track down the guy in California. The guy with SKOLAR MD.”

“Call,” she said.

And then, wondering if she was being set up to take a fall by Matt Gray, she said, “And Stillwater?”

He looked at her.

“No more mistakes. We can’t afford them.”