“Where do you start?” she finished for him.
They walked on in silence, October’s head turning as she watched two laughing, shouting boys on bicycles run the makeshift obstacle course they’d set up in a nearby driveway.
Following her gaze, he said, “The problem is, wherever it is released, this thing is going to spread like wildfire. Not just here in the States, but across the world. That’s always been the problem with biological warfare: the world has grown too small. A disease targeted at one country will circle the globe within a year.”
“But that’s what these people want, isn’t it?” said October, turning toward him. “So it seems to me they’d be likely to pick someplace with Arabs and Jews from all over.”
“What are you suggesting? Disney World? Or how about-” He broke off as his phone began to vibrate.
Unclipping it from his belt, he hit Talk and heard Hannah Clark’s hushed, troubled voice. “Mr. Alexander? I’ve had a long discussion with my father. He says he had a visit last winter from one of his former graduate students at MIT, someone from Florida. They’ve kept in touch over the years, so the visit didn’t strike my father as unusual at the time. But it seems this former student asked a number of questions about DP3 and the samples that were sent out of Germany on U-114.”
“Who?” said Jax. “Who was it?”
“He won’t say. His concern is that the man’s questions were unrelated to what is happening, and that by telling you about this former student, my father will be implicating an innocent man. If you could somehow convince him-”
“We’ll be right there.”
On the way to Kline’s house, Jax put in a call to Matt. “See if you can get a printout of the personnel who’ve accessed the Navy’s files on U-114 in, say, the past two years. That might help verify that Boyd’s really our man. And while you’re at it, you might take a look at the flight records for the General’s jet. Maybe we can get something from his travel patterns.”
“I’ll get on it,” said Matt.
October said, “They have boats and palm trees in Florida.” Jax clipped his phone back on his belt. “They what? Oh,” he said, remembering the viewing she’d done with Dr. Bukovsky in Russia. “Florida is also a very big state.” He shifted down for a curve, then punched the gas again, hard. “We need this guy’s name.”
“And if Kline won’t give it to us?”
Jax shifted rapidly back up through the gears. “He’ll give it to us.”
Jax was slowing for the turn into Kline’s long drive when he spotted the white commercial van parked on the gravel sweep, beside the green-and-white Mini Cooper that he’d seen parked at Hannah Clark’s house. He hit the gas and kept going.
“What?” said October. “What’s the matter?”
“The Acme Cleaning Service van.”
“What about it?”
“See the guy standing next to the front door? The open front door?”
“The one in the Tyvek suit?”
“Yeah, that one. The one who’s just standing there.” He pulled off the road in the lee of the oaks down by the creek and reached over to pop open the glove compartment. “Here,” he said, handing her a Smith and Wesson 9mm. “Present.”
“Why do people keep handing me these things?”
“Because bad men keep shooting at you.” Easing open his door, he slipped his own Beretta from the holster he’d clipped inside the waistband of his slacks. “Let’s go.”
Following the tree line, they swung around until they reached a thick privet hedge that ran down to an arbor-shaded patio with a French door that looked as if it opened off the kitchen.
“Got the safety off?” Jax whispered as they edged close to the patio.
“Yes,” she answered with some annoyance.
“Just checking.”
Keeping low, they crept to the door. In the room beyond they could see an old round oak table, white beadboard cabinets, the gleam of a stainless steel fridge. No one was in sight.
Carefully reaching out, Jax turned the knob. The door popped open. The pungent odor of spilled petroleum wafted out to them.
“Why do I smell gasoline?” whispered October, following him into the house and across the kitchen.
“They’re probably getting ready to torch the house,” said Jax, just as a big black dude wearing a Tyvek suit and carrying two red plastic gas cans walked through the doorway from the hall.
“Fuck!” cried the guy. Dropping the gas cans with a sloshing thump, he reached for the Glock he wore in a shoulder holster.
October grabbed a giant chef’s knife from the pine block on the counter beside them and drove the blade deep into his chest.
“Christ,” said Jax. He snatched the guy’s silenced Glock 21 as his eyes rolled back in his head and he tumbled to the floor.
Pausing for a moment, Jax listened to the sounds of the old house stretching out around them, but heard nothing.
Taking a deep breath, he nodded to October to follow him. At the entrance to the hallway, they had to step over the body of the dead housekeeper. His gaze lifted to October’s. This wasn’t looking good.
They crept down the hall, treading warily on the old heart-of-pin floors, past the arched entrance to a shadowy dining room and the living room beyond. To their left, a staircase with an elegant turned banister swept up to the second floor. The front door to the porch still stood open. Through it, Jax could see a trio of pumpkins lined up at the top of the porch’s steps.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs from the second floor jerked his head around. He turned, the silenced Glock coming up, just as the man in the Tyvek suit they’d seen waiting outside walked in the front door.
70
“Take him!” shouted Jax. Dropping to the floor in a roll, he pumped three rounds into the dude coming down the stairs.
He heard the crack-crack-crack of October’s Smith and Wesson. Looking over, he saw the guy in the Tyvek suit stumble backward.
October yelled, “Behind you!”
He swung around just as Carlos Rodriguez came charging through the doorway of a book-lined room at the front of the house. Jax fired both the Glock and his own Beretta at the same time. Slamming back against the wall, Rodriguez hung for a moment, then slid to the floor, leaving a bloody trail down the plaster.
Jax realized his ears were ringing. A blue haze filled the entry; the stench of burnt powder and spilled gasoline stung his nostrils. He waited, his heart pounding, his grip on the two sidearms tight. He heard the wind scuttling dry leaves across the gravel drive, the drip of gasoline from the cans dropped by the man on the stairs.
Jax pushed to his feet. The guy hanging upside down on the stairs was missing half his head. His Tyvek-suited buddy on the front porch was a red, pulpy mess. From the looks of things, October had landed at least half a dozen rounds in him.
“You hit him,” said Jax.
She was leaning against the entry wall, her breath coming hard and fast. “He was five feet away and I emptied the gun into him. I should hope I hit him.”
Walking over to Rodriguez, Jax hunkered down to lay two fingers against the guy’s carotid artery and felt nothing. “He’s dead.”
She said, “Good.” Swiping the sleeve of her sweater across her eyes, she paused in the doorway to the study. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
Jax went to stand beside her. Kline was sitting in a chair beside the empty hearth, his ankles and wrists duct taped, his eyes wide and sightless. A line of blood trickled down his chin. His daughter lay facedown on the rug beside him.
Crossing to her, Jax gently turned her over, then pushed up to grab October before she got any closer. “Don’t look,” he said, pulling her back toward the hallway. “You can’t help her. Did you touch anything?”