Y
ou seem to have some sort of loyalty to Logan,” Maggie said. “And yet there’s an animosity between the two of you.”
“Yeah, that’s true. I don’t like him.”
“And the loyalty?”
“It’s not loyalty. I owed the man a favor. He’s collecting it.”
When Creed noticed Maggie shivering he pointed to the neon light of a small diner. They settled into a corner booth. The place smelled like greasy fried food, and despite how good the free meals had been at the school cafeteria, both Creed and Maggie ordered cheeseburgers and fries.
“How do you know each other?”
“If you want to know about Peter Logan, why not ask your friend Ben?”
She looked away, out the window, and Creed wanted to kick himself.
“Look,” Creed said, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It’s just that before this week I hadn’t seen or heard from Logan for about seven years. I don’t know much about him at all. It sounds like Ben works with him. He must have a helluva better understanding of him than I do.”
“I’m here because Ben asked me to check on a couple of victims who may have been murdered. The facility was federally run by DARPA. So the murders will be a federal investigation. My boss approved me to come down here.”
To Creed it seemed as if Maggie was going through this explanation for herself as much as for him. Like she needed the reminder of why she was even involved.
Their waitress, who had introduced herself as Rita, interrupted them with their Cokes, served in tall glasses made of red plastic.
Outside Creed noticed the clouds were feathery wisps, allowing an almost full moon to finally shine.
“We were in Afghanistan together,” Creed said as he watched streetlights flick on and more neon fill store windows. “My K9 unit was assigned to Logan’s platoon. He was the platoon leader.”
“So you were comrades.”
“No. That’s not the way it is. K9s move from one platoon to another for weeks at a time. For that reason we’re the outsiders. Also we’re the first out, first to die. They know not to get attached to us. But they have to depend on us to get them through a field. What we do—it’s always a little bit like magic to them. They’re not sure whether we’ll end up saving them or getting them all killed.”
“That’s why Logan calls you dogman. I didn’t know you were in the military.”
“I signed up to escape. After Brodie was taken, life just kind of crumbled.”
“How old were you at the time?”
He glanced at her. They’d never talked about this, but he figured she knew that his sister’s disappearance had been the reason for starting his business. Even Jason had found out that much by doing a simple Internet search. Maggie was FBI. She had access to much more.
But she couldn’t know—no one knew—how agonizing those searches in the beginning had been. Hell, who was he fooling—many of them were still agonizing. Because each time he found the unidentified cadaver or remains of a young woman, he found himself wondering if it could be Brodie.
“I was fourteen. Brodie was eleven. My mom was obsessed with searching. She’d get a tip about a little girl fitting Brodie’s description and she’d drop everything and go. One week it’d be LA. Then Houston. Portland. Chicago. It was crazy. After a while she went a little crazy. And yet it was my dad who ended up shooting himself.” He shook his head at the irony.
Rita interrupted again, setting down platters with burgers, fries, and enough garnishes to make a salad. She thumped down a bottle of ketchup and a jar of mustard, asked if they needed anything else, and off she went, leaving a new and awkward silence.
Despite the circumstances, Creed’s mouth watered as he smothered the fries in ketchup.
In between bites Maggie asked him, “How did you choose to be a K9 handler?”
“Brodie and I always had dogs growing up. As far back as I can remember I guess I always preferred their company. Present company excluded.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re gonna want whatever fries you think I won’t be able to eat.”
“Oh, I’ve seen you eat before. I’m pretty sure there won’t be leftovers.”
They enjoyed their meals and Maggie didn’t ask any other questions. It was Creed who brought up the subject again. Maybe he felt like he owed her for saving Bolo. For saving him, too. Besides, it didn’t matter anymore.
“When I was with Logan’s unit I knew he was selling stuff on the black market.”
She looked surprised.
“He always had free samples, whether it was pills or designer running shoes, sunglasses or protein bars. He was giving his guys stuff. I think some of it was experimental. But he was selling some of it, too. There was this Afghan kid named Jabar. Logan had him coming in and out of the camp so often that everybody knew him. So he never got stopped. Never got checked.”
Creed pushed his plate aside and stared out the window again. The memory was fresh because of the recent nightmares. Seven years and he could still see that kid’s crooked smile.
“One day Jabar came into camp and he was acting strange. Erratic. He was arguing with Logan about something. My dog started alerting. We were in the middle of camp. It wasn’t like we were out anywhere that IEDs could be. It didn’t occur to me that it was Jabar he was alerting to until I saw the kid reach under his jacket.”
“My God. He had explosives?”
Creed nodded. “I woke up in a military hospital. Later I found out that Logan was being hailed as a hero for saving his platoon from a suicide bomber. No one even questioned that maybe he was the one who put all of them in jeopardy in the first place.”
“Wait a minute. You said you owed Logan a favor. This sounds more like he owes you for keeping silent.”
“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it? I landed on my dog when the bomb went off. Thankfully he wasn’t hurt. I loved that dog. Before the explosion I was even going to sign up for another tour of duty so we wouldn’t be separated.” He saw the look on Maggie’s face. She knew where he was going.
“But dogs are considered the military’s.”
“Equipment. That’s how they were categorized. At least back then. Rufus was reassigned to a new handler. I tried everything I could think of to bring him home. For four years he was my rock, my stability, my life. Nobody would listen. Nobody except Logan.”
“Rufus is the chocolate Lab that sleeps beside your bed.”
Creed nodded, impressed that she remembered from her brief visit about a month ago.
“Logan made it happen. He got me my dog back.”
T
hey were headed back to the high school gymnasium. O’Dell felt a bit numb with exhaustion. She knew it had been tough for Creed to share what he had. They were a lot alike in that respect—both slow to trust and stubborn about keeping their personal lives personal.
They walked side by side along the narrow sidewalk and she hated that each time their arms brushed she felt a spark of electricity. Suddenly she was keenly aware that later that night they’d be lying in their cots watching each other, less than two feet separating their bodies. Those broad shoulders, six-pack abs—and she imagined what he’d feel like beneath her touch. The scrape of his bristled jaw against her skin.
Later she’d realize the irony that she had been thinking about sparks when she saw the first flames. She wasn’t totally familiar with the layout of the town, but she knew immediately that they were coming from Ralph’s.
Creed pulled out his cell phone and was punching in numbers. She left him behind. Took the shortcut through the alley. The front door would still be padlocked. She’d take a chance that the back door might be open. She was half sick to find that it was. She didn’t get far. A body lay just inside the door, and in the darkness O’Dell tripped over it. Her hands came down in a puddle of what she suspected was blood, still warm and sticky.
She heard a gurgle.
Maybe not dead.
The door opened and Creed stood against it. In the light that seeped in from the back alley, O’Dell could now see Dr. Gunther’s crumpled body. Her throat was slashed.
“We need to pull her out,” Creed yelled.
Already smoke billowed at them from deep inside.
O’Dell helped Creed lift the old woman, and she was sickened by the rag-doll feel of her body. He carried her to the back parking lot and laid her down on the concrete. In seconds he was on his knees, his hands trying to staunch the bleeding. But O’Dell could see the gap was too wide.
She could hear shouts and calls from the street on the other side of the building. Sirens filled the night air. So loud. So close.
The old woman was gone and yet Creed kept his hands pressed into the wound. O’Dell knelt on the opposite side and searched for a pulse. She didn’t know what else to do. She was worthless to the dying. She never had a clue what to do or say. Only after they were dead did she know what her job was.
Volunteer firefighters made their way into the building. The sound of water rushed from a nearby hydrant. The heat was enough that she was drenched in sweat on a night that had made her shiver earlier.
O’Dell imagined everything inside would be lost to the flames. Everything including the body and the severed hand. Every piece of evidence of what may have happened at the government facility that once sat up on the mountain.
And O’Dell couldn’t help thinking it was no coincidence that this should happen only hours after she had told Peter Logan about the strange bruising and rash that covered the dead man inside. The man whose body was now being incinerated.
Y
ou think Logan started the fire?” Creed asked Maggie and watched her face in the flickering light of the blaze that engulfed Ralph’s Meat Locker.
Her eyes had been wild with adrenaline just moments ago when they pulled the woman from the building. Now he worried as she stared, almost hypnotized by the dancing flames.
Rescue crews who had been coming in from a day of working the landslide had joined the firefighters. They were hosing down the neighboring buildings, hoping to keep the fire from spreading. A second explosion inside the brick structure prevented them from entering.
Creed felt the spray of cold water raining down even as the heat from the flames felt like it would scorch his skin. He and Maggie stood in the back alley, guarding the old woman’s body, now covered by a tarp.
Earlier, one of the medics had taken over, shoving Creed aside. But he knew it was too late. The blood had been warm on his hands but there was no sign of life. No fluttering eyelids. No beat of a pulse under his fingers. Not a single gasp or breath.
Maggie had told him the old woman was Dr. Gunther, the medical examiner. And then she went silent. Now she stood, arms crossed over her chest, looking angry and annoyed that the firefighters had asked them to keep back and stay with the body. Maybe it wasn’t anger as much as frustration. That’s what he was feeling—frustrated that there wasn’t anything more he could do.
But then out of the silence, Maggie said, “Logan did this.”
It was almost as if she was telling herself. She didn’t even seem to have heard his question.
Just when Creed was about to ask again, she said, “You don’t think he’s capable of doing something like this?”
“If he thought it might save his own skin, I think he might be capable of doing just about anything. But why would he do this? Especially after being such a pain in the ass about recovering those bodies?”
Now Maggie’s eyes darted around. Was she looking for Logan? Or was she worried they’d be overheard? No one was paying attention to the two of them. People were rushing by, once even bumping a hose over the tarp, not noticing as Creed pulled it up and readjusted it.
“The body we dug up yesterday had a strange bruising all over it. At first Dr. Gunther thought it looked like chemical burns.”
“There’s a lot of weird stuff that leaked into the mud.”
She shook her head, moved closer to him, and turned so that she was facing him. “They weren’t postmortem.”
“She was sure about that?”
“The skin had bubbled up in places. We discounted burns. It almost looked like a rash, except that it was deeper. More like a bruise. And in some areas the skin practically fell away with the slightest touch.”
“Fell away? Not from decomp?”
“He wasn’t dead long enough for that kind of decomposition.”
He realized that she had quieted her tone. Anything less and she’d be whispering.
“What did she think it was from?”
“She hadn’t been able to make that determination. I’m guessing that’s what brought her back here tonight.”
“Why come at night? Wasn’t she hired to process the bodies we recovered?”
“Someone padlocked the front door. Ralph gave her a key to the back door. Otherwise she wouldn’t have had access until Logan allowed it.”
“So Logan didn’t really want anyone examining the bodies?”
“I guess not. But here’s the weird part. I told him about the condition of the body, and he seemed surprised. He knew about the bullet hole in the back, but he pretended not to know about the strange bruising.”
“So you think this is how he prevents anyone else from knowing?”
She was biting her lower lip when she nodded this time.
“Only one problem,” she said. “He knows that I know.”
C
reed hadn’t noticed in the last twenty-four hours whether or not Maggie was carrying a weapon. Now as she sat on her cot and peeled off her sweatshirt he saw the shoulder holster snug against her side, just under her left breast. There was an unsettling nervous energy about her. Even the dogs sensed it.
All the way back she had been obsessed with her cell phone, leaving messages, then checking every five minutes. She had it beside her. Creed sat down opposite her on his cot, so close their knees brushed.
“Maggie, what’s going on?”
“I’m trying to find out.” Her eyes were on the phone, waiting. “Logan told me recovering the bodies was only part of their mission. He said the facility had samples of Level 3 and Level 4 pathogens.”
“Why would they have those?”
“They’re a research facility.” She shrugged. “It’s actually not that unusual. Unfortunate, but not unusual. If they were trying to come up with a vaccine or antidote, they’d need samples of the real stuff.”
“Wait a minute. What are we talking about? You mean like anthrax?”
“Anthrax. Possibly the bird flu. Maybe Ebola.”
Creed took a deep breath and winced. He was hanging on to the final threads of the pain medicine Dr. Avelyn had given him.
“He said the samples are stored in a lockbox. He thinks someone was trying to steal it. That they murdered Dr. Shaw and Dr. Carrington and these other men and hoped it would be covered up by the landslide.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he asked.
“I am telling you.”
“When did you find out?”
“Just before I came to get you.”
“But you’re only telling me now?”
“Logan told me in confidence. The bastard,” she mumbled. “Now I don’t even know if it’s true.”
“Wouldn’t Ben know about all this?”
She rubbed her hands over her face, wiping at the exhaustion.
When she didn’t answer he realized it was one of the phone calls she was waiting for.
Creed let it go and asked instead, “Do you think this dead man—the one with the strange bruising—do you think he might have been exposed to one of those deadly samples?”
Her eyes looked up at him and he could see that she had already thought about this.
Creed said the obvious: “If he was, isn’t there a chance that you and Dr. Gunther were exposed?”
“We had gloves and masks on. We didn’t come in contact with any of his bodily fluids.”
“Are you sure?”
His eyes held hers until he saw the realization strike her. She grabbed his hand.
“I know what you’re thinking. Your hands were drenched in her blood. I can’t say for certain that we weren’t exposed, but I do know that she was careful. She hadn’t even cut him or taken any blood.”
Her phone rang, startling both of them.
She grabbed it, looked at the screen, and answered without a greeting.
“Thanks for calling me back. Have you heard from Logan?” Her face remained unchanged as she listened. “He told me earlier that you found where the facility is buried. I need you to take me there.”