When we arrived, he was bent over a Zeiss microscope studying a slide. The microscope was fitted with a video camera and projection screen so other people could see what was under the lens without having to peer through the scope. Right now a pollen was projected up there for us to see.
A copy of Ronald O. Kapp’s book Pollen and Spores lay beside the microscope, numerous pages dog-eared and bookmarked.
Peering up from his work, he looked as surprised as I’d been to see Margaret here.
“Director?”
“Yes,” she said simply. “What do we have?”
“I… Well…” Dr. Neubauer was a grizzled, slightly absentminded scientist who’d been working with the Bureau for decades. “I extracted the spores, and the flora of India is really quite unique and, of course, incredibly diverse — but thankfully, in that region of the world, we can look more at species than at the season. That helps us a lot. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I have a personal interest in this case.” It was hard to tell if it was urgency or impatience in Margaret’s words. “What have you learned?”
“The Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany is really the leading research lab on pollen and flora in India. Dr. Bhatnagar was very helpful. We have some pretty conclusive results.”
Margaret furrowed her eyebrows. “He was able to identify the pollen already?”
“Yes. When you know what you’re looking for it’s not that difficult. He named them almost immediately when I sent him the JPEGs of the grains I found.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“We are looking at the state of Andhra Pradesh.”
He indicated toward a slew of slides on the countertop. “We find maize and rice, but that’s to be expected — common all throughout central and south India. Some bajra, mango, ragi, and red chili, which would lead us to think the Hyderabad area, but also…”
Now he pulled up a slide on the microscope projection screen that, quite honestly, looked remarkably similar to the last one. “The Cycas beddomei is an endangered plant sometimes used for medicinal purposes. But it isn’t found in Hyderabad. The only place in India that it’s found is in the hills near Kadapa, northwest of Chennai, about two hundred and fifty miles south of Hyderabad.”
He inserted another similar-looking slide. “We also found a rare plant known locally as sariba, the Decalepis hamiltonii that is also found in the hills around Kadapa. Also, Acacia campelli, and that’s a plant that is—”
“Let me guess,” Margaret interrupted, “found near Kadapa.”
“Not just there, but only there. Yes. At between three hundred and seven hundred meters above sea level.”
“So,” she concluded, “we’re looking for a facility in or near Kadapa, India.”
He seemed a little let down that she’d reached his conclusion before he could state it. “It would appear so. Yes.”
I already had my phone out. Agent Kantsos picked up on the second ring and I told him what Dr. Neubauer had found.
“Sounds reasonable. I’ve worked with the police in Andhra Pradesh. Bribes usually do the trick. I’ll put some feelers out, see what I can dig up.”
His words didn’t exactly surprise me — in many countries around the world bribes are the only way to grease the bureaucratic wheels enough to get anything done. I wished it weren’t that way, but it was the cost of doing business in the international community. Kantsos was up front and blunt about it and that much I appreciated. And he was experienced at working the system, which could play in our favor.
Margaret said, “I’ll contact FDA and PTPharmaceuticals, put some pressure on them to get those results.” She tapped the projection screen of Dr. Neubauer’s microscope. “You were able to figure this out in just a few hours. They’ve had plenty of time to identify the chemical composition of those pills. It’s time we get some answers.”
We all agreed to keep each other updated, then Margaret left for DC and I returned to my office to see if I could dig up anything on Tyree.
I had an idea that just might lead us in the right direction.
Flight manifests.
62
After school Tessa picked up Lien-hua from Ralph and Brineesha’s house and drove toward the shop in Alexandria where Lien-hua had seen the dress that she thought would be perfect for Tessa’s prom.
Back at her office at the J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI Director Margaret Wellington hung up her phone a little more authoritatively than necessary.
She wasn’t getting anywhere with the FDA analysts.
It was time to move up the food chain.
Her brother’s death unnerved her deeply, not just the loss of life, but also the home invasion: by all appearances someone had slipped into his place and contributed in some way to his death.
Thinking about that, she couldn’t help but remember what’d happened to her last summer. Her life hadn’t been threatened directly, but very likely had been in danger.
And whenever she watched the DVD that a serial killer had left in her car — the footage of her sleeping in her bedroom — she wondered why he’d come into her home. Had he been planning to attack her? Was it all meant just to scare her later? And, of course, how many nights had he been there standing just a few feet away from her, watching her, filming her while she slept?
There was no conclusive proof that the man who’d killed the other women on the video was also the man who’d filmed her sleeping in her bedroom, but Margaret told herself that of course it was the same man. After all, who else could it have been?
But so far she hadn’t been able to convince herself.
Not completely.
Ever since she first saw that video, she’d been trying to find some confirmation that the person who’d filmed it was the man she suspected — a serial killer, now dead, who referred to himself as the Illusionist. His partner, known by the name of her online identity, Astrid, was in prison and so far had refused to concede if she was present when the video was taken.
Last year after first seeing the video, Margaret had installed a dead-bolt lock on her bedroom door.
It was tragic: the Director of the FBI was a prisoner in her own home. One of the most powerful women in the worldwide law enforcement and counterterrorism community was afraid to go to sleep.
There are many kinds of prisons and many kinds of doors.
And although she didn’t like to admit it to herself, she knew the truth — some of those doors never open. But here, today, with the probe into the suspicious suicide of her brother, was her chance to at last open one. Even if she couldn’t solve her mystery, maybe she could solve his.
This man, Corporal Tyree, had left his prints on the medicine cabinet. But was he alone? And why was he in the house in the first place? And how did he know Corey?
So.
Up the food chain.
One more call should do it.
She contacted the FDA commissioner himself and related just how thrilled she was that his people were taking so long analyzing the pills that had been found in Montana.
“I’ll be giving a press conference at five o’clock,” she told him firmly, “and I’ll either announce that our two agencies are working closely together on this, or that the FBI is investigating this case by itself without FDA’s cooperation. Your choice.”
Since leaving the meeting with Margaret and Dr. Neubauer, I’d been on the Federal Digital Database searching airline flight manifests to and from Hyderabad and Chennai, the nearest international airports to Kadapa, to see if there was any record of Corporal Keith Tyree traveling through there.