We All Fall Down (20 page)

CHAPTER 53

I had two advantages. First, he was outside in the cold. And I wasn’t. Second, he knew about me. But didn’t know I knew about him.

I watched for half an hour from a second-floor stairwell. He moved every five minutes, drank coffee to stay awake, smoked cigarettes to keep warm, and kept his eye on the front door of the Raphael. A squad car rolled by once. He did a nice job of fading into the overhang of a Gold Coast brownstone.

The coffee especially intrigued me. A curl of steam when he took the lid off told me it was still hot, which meant he probably got it somewhere close. Even better, it was a large, at least sixteen ounces. I waited until he finished and threw the blue-and-white cup into the gutter. Then I cut through the lobby and found the back service entrance. Once out in the street, it took all of three minutes to find the only coffee shop open in the area. I looked through the plate-glass window and saw a stack of blue-and-white paper cups beside a large silver urn with black handles. I turned up my collar and stepped inside. The place smelled of Vaseline and earwax. The cook was at the far end of the counter, talking to a slip of a woman in a long black jacket and jeans. She sat on a stool, jacket open, legs crossed, a shoe dangling off her right foot. Neither of them looked at me, and I hiked down a short corridor to the men’s room.

I had a plan. Like most plans, it needed a little bit of luck. I went into the bathroom and got my first small piece. A latch on the door. I left it unlocked.

To my left was a single stall, a long white urinal trough, and a window at the far end. I pried the only mirror in the place, a small plastic stick-on, off the wall above the sink. In a room like this, reflections were something I could do without.

I stepped inside the stall, crouched up on the toilet, and closed the door. Ten minutes later, I heard the diner’s front door open and a soft scraping. My second piece of luck had just walked in.

The seconds stretched and hung. But they always did just before. I thought I heard him in the hallway. Then I was convinced he’d stopped at the counter, probably got himself another cup of coffee. I was thinking about taking a look when the men’s room door pushed in. I watched his left foot drag past and let him settle in front of the urinal. He might have done his business in an alley. Might have never left the street. But it was cold out. And I was upstairs in the hotel, warm, with a woman. And the goddamn large coffee. So the man with the limp came inside for his piss. And made a mistake. I wouldn’t make a second.

I eased the stall door open, grabbed him by the hair, and cracked his face into the fly-specked drywall above the trough. His nose burst in a cloud of red and he went to a knee, right hand reaching inside his coat. I slammed his temple into the porcelain edge of the urinal. A gun skittered across the tiles and he sagged sideways. I stepped to the bathroom door and slipped the latch. I was back in less than five seconds. He was already struggling to get up. I put a boot to his head. Then hammered home two straight rights. This time, he was out.

I found his cuffs and chained him to a pipe running along the base of the wall. The ID inside his pocket said he was a special agent with Homeland. Name was Robert Crane. I picked up the piece he’d been reaching for. A twenty-two with a suppressor. He had a second gun, a standard .40-caliber service weapon on his belt. Crane groaned and tried to raise his head. I took out a handkerchief and threw it at him.

“Wipe off your face. And zip yourself up.”

“I’m a federal agent, Kelly. And you’re in a world of shit.”

“Zip yourself up.”

He did.

“Why does a federal agent carry two guns?” I held up the forty. “I mean, what’s wrong with the one they gave you?”

“You got it all figured out. You tell me.”

“Why didn’t you take a run at me when we were in Little Kings?”

“Not exactly the best place for a white guy to be pulling a piece. Even if it is to shoot another white guy. Besides, the woman was a problem.”

“She’s not on your list?”

“Who said I had a list?”

I crouched down. “You got a list, Crane.”

His nose was leaking blood. He wiped it clean, only to have it leak all over again.

“How long you think before the moron up front decides to check on the two perverts in his bathroom?” he said.

I glanced at the latch on the door. “We got time.”

“For what?”

“Why do they want to kill me?”

“Piss off.”

“I’m the one with the gun.”

“Do what you have to. Or give me back my piece and get out of town before your luck runs out.”

“You think I’m gonna shoot you?”

“I’m thinking you better.”

“What does that mean?”

He spit a bright red wad onto the floor, stretched one leg, and rolled his good foot in a small circle. “In a job like this you’re an asset but also a threat. An asset until you’re no longer reliable. Then a threat because of everything you know.”

“No retirement package, huh?”

“They hire your replacement, and his first assignment is you. So we all do what we do. Until we don’t do it so well anymore. Can I stand up?”

I uncuffed him and stepped back as he got to his feet. His nose was badly broken. The blood had slowed to a steady drip. For the first time I noticed his eyebrow was crushed. He winced every time he blinked.

“Thanks,” he said.

“For what?”

“I always wanted to be standing. Don’t know why, but it seems right.”

I felt my cell phone buzz in my pocket but ignored it. Crane was studying me. Hands loose at his sides. Not looking for an advantage. Just studying.

“It’s not that hard, Kelly.”

“Looks like it took its toll on you.”

“They’re coming either way. For me. For you. So just do it. And don’t spend whatever time you have left worrying about the rest.”

Crane buttoned up his overcoat, wiped his face for a final time, and straightened his shoulders. He looked at the thin gun in my hand and nodded.

“Ready when you are.”

Twenty minutes later I climbed out the bathroom window. The sky was lightening in the east, and I needed some sleep. I’d walked two blocks when my cell buzzed again. I had two text messages. Both from Molly Carrolton. It appeared she’d been up all night as well. And had the piece of the puzzle I’d been waiting on.

CHAPTER 54

I met Molly at a coffee shop in Printer’s Row called Stir. She was bundled into a short black coat, her hair a riot of red tucked under a knit cap. It was 6:00 a.m. We were their first customers. The coffee was fresh and wonderful.

“Have you slept at all?” Molly said.

“I had a busy night. How about you?”

“I have something.” She took a perfunctory sip from her mug, eyes never leaving my face.

“What’s that?” I said.

“A DNA profile from the cigarette butt you gave me.”

I looked out the shop’s front windows. Cold water beaded up and ran in broken rivers down the other side of the glass. Thick wrappings of morning fog floated off the lake and filled the crooked streets. A cop siren whooped once and was squelched. At the end of the block, three unmarked cars had blocked off the intersection. I watched, fascinated, as their blue lights pulsed like muffled heartbeats in the gloom.

“Did you hear me?” she said.

“I heard you. That was quick.”

“I ran it last night. Got a little lucky.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I pulled it from the filter.”

“Saliva?”

“Probably.” She reached down for a file in a leather case at her feet. The black grip of a gun was tucked neatly into her jeans at the small of her back. Scientists with guns. The latest thing, apparently.

“It’s a good profile,” Molly said. “Male. Sixteen distinct loci.”

“What are the chances of an ID?”

“Already on it. Homeland now requires that all employees and private contractors working in classified areas submit genetic samples to keep on file. I was able to run our profile through their database.”

“How did you manage that?”

“You’re probably better off not knowing.” Molly flipped open the file and pulled out a photo. The face looking back at me was maybe mid-forties. Long, thin nose and sharp chin, eyes of mixed color, and black hair, shiny with a shock of white running through it.

I took a sip of coffee. “Who is he?”

“He’s the guy from your photo.”

“You sure?”

“Take a look.” Molly laid the photo Vinny DeLuca’s men had snapped against the profile picture.

“Could be him,” I said.

“Well, he’s a match for the cigarette butt. Name’s Peter Gilmore. Former SEAL. Now in private practice. CIA started using him about ten years ago on some black ops. Strictly a pay-as-you-go thing.”

I picked through the file. Names, dates, operations.

“What else?” I said.

“He has expertise in the deployment of chemical and bioweapons.” Molly paused.

“Yes?”

“And he worked with Danielson. A little more than five years ago.”

I looked out the window again. My reflection looked back, carved out of smoky gray and cold, blowing rain.

“Michael.” Molly had slid a little closer. “You okay?”

My gaze moved across the line of her jaw and fine fuzz on her cheek.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You don’t look so hot.”

“It’s nothing. Rodriguez got back a ballistics report. The bullet you took came from the same weapon as the slug I found in Lee’s cellar.”

“What does that tell us?”

“Maybe he was targeting you. Maybe me.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know.”

Molly tapped the photo. “So this is the guy.”

“Seems like it. Now we just have to find him.”

She pulled a slip of paper from her pocket and pushed it across the counter.

“What’s that?”

“I’ve got a friend inside the Agency. He gave me an address. Says Gilmore uses it sometimes when he’s in the city. At least he’s used it before.”

“And you think he’s there now?”

“It’s a long shot.”

I put the note in my pocket. “I’ll check it out.”

“I’m trying, Michael.”

“I know.” I smiled for the first time and took another sip of coffee.

Molly fidgeted in her seat.

“Is there something else?” I said.

“There is, but I need you to be straight with me.”

“What is it?”

“Ellen was able to slip out of the lab last night. Now she’s off the grid and isn’t picking up her cell.”

“And you want to know if we met?”

A nod.

“We had a drink. Talked for a bit. Then I put her in a cab.”

“We need her, Michael.”

“Why?”

“I told you. Ellen’s one of this generation’s brilliant minds.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

“I was number three in my class at CalTech, so that’s not a problem. I’m still not Ellen.”

“She was going to pick up her sister’s ashes. That’s all I know.”

Molly wasn’t buying it. I could feel her anger wedged into the small space between us and knew things were about to get worse.

“Now I’ve got a question,” I said.

“Great.”

“Could Minor Roar have escaped from your lab?”

Her eyes lashed onto mine. “What do you know about Minor Roar?”

“Ellen told me about it.”

“Goddamnit.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“How about none of your business?”

“How about answer the question, or I call Rita Alvarez with a story?”

“Enough.” There was iron in her voice now. Chicago steel. And I knew, for the first time, who had the grit to take CDA where it needed to go.

“If Minor Roar had escaped from our lab,” Molly said, “it would have presented itself in Chicago. There’s no evidence of that.”

“Ellen told me it shares an almost identical DNA signature with the released pathogen.”

“ ‘Almost’ is the key word. There are dozens of organisms that have a similar genetic structure to what we’re seeing on the West Side.”

“So it’s a coincidence?”

“Not a coincidence. Just a different branch on the same genetic tree. But definitely not Minor Roar. Or somehow sprung from Minor Roar.”

“Does Ellen agree with you?” I said.

“Of course she does. Now, where is she?”

“I don’t know. Ellen also told me she left you a possible vaccine. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Hold your press conference and be a hero.”

“You think that’s what this is about?”

I didn’t respond.

Molly inched closer. “Is that what you think?”

“I try not to.”

“If Ellen contacts you, please let us know.” Molly pushed the folder on Gilmore an inch in my direction. “Meanwhile, there’s Mr. Gilmore.”

“Yes, there is.”

“Find him, Michael. And you’ll find the person behind the pathogen.”

CHAPTER 55

I drank my coffee and watched Molly melt into the morning fog. My cell phone chirped. I didn’t recognize the number and didn’t answer.

I left the shop and walked north on Plymouth Court. The unmarked cruisers were still at the end of the block. Lights still flashing. I walked over to a silver Crown Vic with tinted glass. Vince Rodriguez popped the locks, and I eased into the front seat.

“You responsible for this?” I said.

“Shooter sees all the blue, he thinks twice.”

“Thanks for helping out.”

“Not a problem. Molly Carrolton just walked by.”

“I know.”

“You want someone on her?”

“Leave her.”

“All right. You want to tell me who it is that wants to pop your ass?”

“Might be better if you didn’t know.”

“Might be better if I did.”

Rodriguez was right. At least from where he sat. So I told him about the man with the limp.

“His name was Robert Crane. Homeland Security ID. I suggested he take an early retirement. He was more than happy to disappear.”

“Probably should have killed him.”

“That what you would have done?”

“No. Sounds good, though, doesn’t it?”

“Someone in Washington is nervous, Vince.”

“If they only knew how little you know.”

“Not quite.” I pulled out the report on Gilmore and tossed it across the car. “Molly got a DNA hit on the cigarette I gave her. Former operative for the Agency.”

Rodriguez’s eyes glowed as he read through the file.

“She also got an address.” I took out the slip of paper Molly had given me and held it between my fingers. “Says he might be holed up there right now.”

Rodriguez whistled. “Goddamn.”

“Exactly.”