An emergency alarm blared with a deafening din, drowning out numerous shouting voices. A thick cloud of dust hung in the air, choking the breath for several minutes. Through the smoky haze, Pitt saw a crowd of people fighting their way down a nearby stairwell. The damage appeared most severe along a main corridor that stretched in front of him. The explosion had not been powerful enough to structurally damage the building but had blown out scores of windows and several interior walls. Looking past the immediate congestion, Pitt grimly realized that Lisa’s lab was near the heart of the blast.
He made his way down the hallway, giving way to a group of coughing scientists caked in dust. The ground crunched underfoot as he passed the shattered remains of a hallway window. A pale-looking woman staggered out of an office with a bleeding hand, and Pitt stopped and helped her wrap a scarf around the wound.
“Which one is Lisa Lane’s office?” he asked.
The woman pointed toward a gaping hole on the left side of the corridor, then shuffled off to the stairwell.
Pitt approached the jagged hole where a doorway had stood and stepped into the bay. A thick cloud of white smoke still hung in the air, slowly drifting out the shattered remains of a picture window that faced the street. Through the vacant window, he could hear the sirens of approaching fire rescue vehicles.
The lab itself was a jumbled mass of smoldering electronics and debris. Pitt noted an old Bunsen burner embedded into a side wall from the force of the blast. The smoking remains and punctured walls confirmed what he had feared. Lisa’s lab had indeed been the epicenter of the explosion. The walls still stood and the furnishings had not been obliterated, so it was clearly not a completely debilitating blast. Pitt guessed there would be no fatalities in the rest of the building. But any occupants of the lab were probably not so lucky.
Pitt quickly scoured the room, calling out Lisa’s name as he picked through the debris. He nearly missed her, just catching sight of a dust-covered shoe protruding beneath a fallen cabinet door. He quickly pulled the cabinet aside to reveal Lisa lying in a crumpled heap. Her lower left leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, and her blouse was soaked in blood. But her listless eyes turned and gazed up at Pitt, then blinked in acknowledgment.
“Didn’t they teach you to stay away from chemical experiments that go boom?” Pitt said with a forced smile.
He ran his hand along her blood-wet shoulder until finding a large sliver of glass jutting from her blouse. It appeared loose, so he yanked it out with a quick tug, then applied pressure with the palm of his hand to the stem the bleeding. Lisa grimaced briefly, then passed out.
Pitt held still and checked her pulse with his free hand until a fireman entered the room wielding an ax.
“I need a paramedic here,” Pitt shouted.
The fireman gave Pitt a surprised look, then called on his radio. A paramedic team arrived minutes later and quickly attended to her injuries. Pitt followed as they placed her on a stretcher and carried her down to a waiting ambulance.
“Her pulse is low, but I think she’ll make it,” one of the emergency workers told Pitt before the vehicle roared off to Georgetown University Hospital.
Threading his way through a horde of emergency workers and onlookers, Pitt was suddenly grabbed by a young paramedic.
“Sir, you better sit down and let me take a look at that,” the young man said excitedly, nodding at Pitt’s arm. Pitt looked down to see that his sleeve was soaked red.
“No worries,” he shrugged. “It’s not my blood.”
He made his way to the curb, then stopped in dismay. The Auburn sat covered in a blanket of shattered glass. Dings and scratches pockmarked the car from nose to tail. A piece of file cabinetry was mashed into the grille, spawning a growing pool of radiator fluid beneath the car. Inside, a chunk of flying building mortar had carved through the leather seats. Pitt looked up and shook his head as he realized that he’d unknowingly parked right beneath Lisa’s office.
Sitting on the running board and collecting himself, he observed the scene of chaos around him. Sirens blared as dozens of disheveled lab workers wandered around in a daze. Smoke still rose from the building, though fire had thankfully not materialized. Taking it all in, Pitt somehow had an odd sense that the explosion was no accident. Rising to his feet, he thought of Lisa as he gazed at the damaged Auburn, then felt a pang of anger gradually swell from within.
Standing behind a row of hedges across the street, Clay Zak watched the mayhem with idle satisfaction. After Lisa’s ambulance roared away and the smoke began to clear, he walked several blocks down a side alley to his parked rental car. Unzipping a gray jumpsuit, he tossed it into a nearby trash can, then climbed into the car and cautiously drove to Reagan National Airport.
15
A low mist hung over the still waters surrounding Kitimat as the first gray swaths of dawn streaked the eastern sky. A distant rumble of a truck rolling through the streets of the town drifted over the water, breaking the early-morning silence.
In the cabin of the NUMA workboat, Dirk set down a mug of hot coffee and started the boat’s engine. The inboard diesel sprang immediately to life, murmuring quietly in the damp air. Dirk glanced out the cockpit window, spying a tall figure approaching on the dock.
“Your suitor has arrived right on time,” Dirk said aloud.
Summer climbed up from the berths below and gave her brother a scornful look, then stepped onto the stern deck. Trevor Miller walked up with a heavy case under one arm.
“Good morning,” Summer greeted. “You were successful?”
Trevor handed the case to Summer, then stepped aboard. He gave Summer an admiring look, then nodded.
“A lucky stroke for us that the municipality of Kitimat has its own Olympic-sized swimming pool. The pool maintenance director willfully parted with his water quality analyzer in exchange for a case of beer.”
“The price of science,” Dirk said, poking his head out the wheelhouse door.
“The results obviously won’t be on a par with NUMA’s computer analysis, but it will allow us to at least measure the pH levels.”
“That will give us a ballpark gauge. If we find a low pH level, then we know that the acidity has increased. And an increase in acidity can occur from elevated amounts of carbon dioxide in the seawater,” Summer said.
Summer opened the case, finding a commercial-grade portable water analyzer along with numerous plastic vials. “The important thing is to replicate the high acidity readings identified by the lab. This ought to do the job for us.”
The results of the Seattle lab test had been shocking. The pH levels in several water samples taken near the mouth of the Douglas Channel were three hundred times lower than base levels taken elsewhere along the Inside Passage. Most disturbing was the final sample taken, just minutes before the Venturanearly ran into the NUMA boat. The test results showed extreme acidity not far removed from the caustic levels of battery acid.
“Thanks for sticking around,” Trevor said, as Summer cast off the lines and Dirk powered the boat into the passage. “This certainly appears to be just a local problem.”
“The waters know no international boundaries. If there is an environmental impact occurring, then we have a responsibility to investigate,” Dirk replied.
Summer looked into Trevor’s eyes and could see the concern ran much deeper. Left unspoken was the potential connection to the death of his brother.
“We met with the police inspector yesterday,” Summer said quietly. “He had nothing more to add about your brother’s death.”
“Yes,” Trevor replied, his voice turning cold. “He’s closed the case, reporting the deaths as accidental. Claims an accumulation of exhaust gases likely collected in the wheelhouse and killed everyone. Of course, there’s no evidence for that…” he said, his voice trailing off.