The Soul Collectors

56

The big black Lincoln Navigator drove them to Boston in a wail of sirens and flashing lights. Coop sat next to her, silent, the two of them protected by bulletproof glass, and they watched the cars parting in front of them, trying to manoeuvre to the shoulder to give the Lincoln room to move.

She didn't tell him about the call, not yet, wanting a moment to process it. And for some reason her thoughts kept sliding back to John Smith. She'd seen him stand up and then his face had been blown apart. Saw it again. A post-traumatic reaction? Maybe. But there was something… off about it. Something that didn't quite gel. She closed her eyes and tried to chase it through the waves of exhaustion, but lost sight of it completely when the vehicle came to a hard stop that made her buck against her seatbelt.

Through the tinted window and through the darkness outside she could see the familiar rectangular brick building sitting on the corner of Albany Street. Keats waited until he got the all-clear signal, then he drove to the front, stopping in front of a pair of Secret Service agents. They opened the door for her, and then Keats and another agent — one of the big linebackers she'd seen at the BU Biomedical Lab — quickly ushered her and Coop through the building's twin tinted-glass doors and into the lobby of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Office of the Medical Examiner. They stayed by their sides as Darby walked with Coop through the long, bland institutional corridors lit up by fluorescent lights.

Two other Secret Service agents had been posted outside the autopsy suite, along with a federal agent who had a big black rolling suitcase parked next to him.

An agent with a crooked nose busted from too many fights stepped forward. 'Dr Ellis asked me to tell you to make sure you wear the Nomax gloves and the hoods with the face shield.'

Darby thanked the man, then headed into the locker room with Coop. She started pulling the gear they needed from the shelves. Keats, she saw, stood outside the door.

'I'm going to need to pick up some clothes,' he said, stripping out of his suit jacket. 'The only thing I packed was my passport.'

'I'll take care of it. You can stay with me.'

They dressed quickly and quietly. She headed to the door and saw him smiling.

'Feels like old times, doesn't it?'

She nodded and kissed him once, lightly, on the lips. 'Thanks again for coming. It means a lot. And I'm sorry I dragged you into this.'

'If the roles were reversed, would you have done the same thing for me?'

'In a heartbeat.'

'Then save the Irish Catholic guilt for something else,' Coop said, opening the door and moving across the hall to the autopsy suite.