Chasing the Dime (42 page)

Pierce tucked the gun into the pocket of his jeans so he could crawl more quickly and efficiently. He once more concentrated on calming himself and his breathing and then started crawling forward and to his left.

He reached out one hand until he touched the wall and gathered his bearings. He then crawled silently forward, using the wall as a guide. He passed the threshold to the wire room — he could tell by the concentrated smell of burned carbon — and moved to the next room down, the imaging lab.

He slowly stood up, his ears primed for the sound of any close movement. There was only silence and then a metallic snapping sound from the other side of the room. Pierce identified it as the sound of a bullet clip being ejected from a gun. He did not have a lot of experience with guns but the sound seemed to fit with what he was imagining in his head: Wentz reloading or checking the number of bullets he had left in his clip.

‘Hey, Bright Boy,' Wentz called out then, his voice splitting the darkness like lightning. ‘It's just you and me now. Better get ready because I'm coming for you. And I'm gonna do more than make you put the lights back on.'

Wentz cackled loudly in the darkness.

Pierce slowly turned the handle on the imaging lab door and opened it without a sound. He stepped in and closed the door. He worked from memory. He took two steps toward the back of the room and then three to his right. He put his hand out and in another step touched the wall. With fingers spread wide on each hand he swept the wall — his hands making figure eight motions — until his left hand hit the hook on which hung the heat resonance goggles he had used during the presentation to Goddard that morning.

Pierce turned on the goggles, pulled the top piece over his head and adjusted the eyepieces. The room came up blue-black except for the yellow and red glow of the electron microscope's computer terminal and monitor. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gun. He looked down at it. It too showed blue in the vision field. He put a red finger through the guard and pulled it in close to the trigger.

As he quietly pulled the lab door open Pierce saw a variety of colors in the central lab. To his left he saw the large body of Six-Eight sprawled near the mantrap door. His torso was a collage of reds and yellows tapering in his extremities to blue. He was dead and turning cold.

There was a bright red and yellow image of a man huddled against the wall to the right of the main computer station. Pierce raised the gun and aimed but then stopped himself when he remembered Rudolpho Gonsalves. The huddled man was the security guard Wentz had used to gain entrance to the lab.

He swept right and saw two more still figures, one slumped over the probe station and turning blue in the extremities. Cody Zeller. The other body was on the floor. It was red and yellow in the vision field. Renner. Alive. It looked like he had turtled backward into the kneehole of a desk. Pierce noted a high-heat demarcation on the detective's left shoulder. It was a drip pattern. The purple was warm blood leaking from a wound.

He swept left and then right. There were no other readings, save for yellow reactions off the screens of the monitors in the room and the overhead lights.

Wentz was gone.

But that was impossible. Pierce realized that Wentz must have moved into one of the side labs. Perhaps looking for a window or some sort of illumination or a place from which he could attack in ambush.

He took one step through the doorway and then suddenly hands were upon him, grabbing his throat. He was slammed backward into the wall and held there.

The vision field filled with the blaring red forehead and otherworldly eyes of Billy Wentz. The warm barrel of a gun was pressed harshly into the softness under Pierce's chin.

‘Okay, Bright Boy, this is it.'

Pierce closed his eyes and prepared for the bullet the best he could.

But it didn't come.

‘Turn the fucking lights on and open the door.' Pierce didn't move. He realized Wentz needed his help before he could kill him. In that moment he also realized that Wentz probably wasn't expecting that he would have a gun in his hand.

The hand that gripped his shirt and throat shook him violently.

‘The lights, I said.'

‘Okay, okay. Lights.'

As he said the words he brought the gun up to Wentz's temple and pulled the trigger twice. There was no other way, no other choice. The blasts were almost simultaneous and came instantaneously to the lights in the lab suite coming on. The vision field went black and Pierce reached his other hand up and shoved the goggles off. They fell to the ground ahead of Wentz, who somehow maintained his balance for a few seconds, despite his left eye and temple having been torn away by the bullets Pierce had fired. Wentz still held the gun pointed up but it was no longer under Pierce's chin. Pierce reached out and pushed the gun back, until its aim was no longer a danger. The push also sent Wentz on his way. He fell backwards onto the floor and lay still, dead.

Pierce looked down at him for ten seconds before taking his first breath. He then collected himself and looked around. Gonsalves was getting up slowly, using the far wall to hold himself steady.

‘Rudolpho, okay?'

‘Yes, sir.'

Pierce swung his view to the desk beneath which Renner had crawled. He could see the cop's eyes, open and alert. He was breathing heavily, the left shoulder and chest of his shirt soaked in blood.

‘Rudolpho, get upstairs to a phone. Call paramedics and tell them we have a cop down. Gunshot wound.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Then call the police and tell them the same thing. Then call Clyde Vernon and get him in here.'

The guard hustled to the mantrap door. He had to lean over Six-Eight's body to reach the combo lock. He then had to step widely over the big man's body to go through the door. Pierce saw a bullet hole in the center of the monster's throat. Renner had hit him squarely and he had gone down right in his tracks. Pierce realized he had never heard the big man speak a single word.

He moved to Renner and helped the injured detective crawl out from beneath the desk. His breathing was raspy but Pierce saw no blood on his lips. This meant his lungs were likely still intact.

‘Where are you hit?'

‘Shoulder.'

He groaned with the movement.

‘Don't move. Just wait. Help is coming.'

‘Hit my shooting arm. And I'm useless at distance with a gun in my right hand. I figured the best I could do was hide.'

He pulled himself into a sitting position and leaned back against the desk. He gestured with his right hand toward Cody Zeller, handcuffed and slumped forward over the probe table.

‘That's not going to look too good.'

Pierce studied his former friend's body for a long moment. He then broke away and looked back at Renner.

‘Don't worry. Ballistics will show it came from Wentz.'

‘Hope so. Help me up. I want to walk.'

‘No, man, you shouldn't. You're hurt.'

‘Help me up.'

Pierce did as he was instructed. As he lifted Renner by the right arm he could tell the smell of carbon had permeated the man's clothes.

‘What are you smiling at?' Renner asked.

‘I think our plan ruined your clothes, even before the bullet. I didn't think you'd be stuck in there with the furnace so long.'

‘I'm not worried about it. Zeller was right, though. It does give you a headache.'

‘I know.'

Renner pushed him away with his right hand and then walked by himself over to where Wentz's body was lying. He looked down silently for a long moment.

‘Doesn't look so tough right now, does he?'

‘No,' Pierce said.

‘You did good, Pierce. Real good. Nice trick with the lights.'

‘I'll have to thank my partner, Charlie. The lights were his idea.'

Pierce silently promised never to complain about the gadgetry again. It reminded him of how he had held things back from Charlie, how he had been suspicious. He knew he would have to make up for it in some way.

‘Speaking of partners, mine's going to shit himself when he finds out what he missed,' Renner said. ‘And I guess I'll be headed to the shitter myself for doing this on my own.'

He sat down on the edge of one of the desks and looked glumly at the bodies. Pierce realized that the detective had possibly jeopardized his career.

‘Look,' he said. ‘Nobody could have seen all of this coming. Whatever you need me to do or say, just let me know.'

‘Yeah, thanks. What I might need is a job.'

‘Well, then you've got it.'

Renner moved from the desk and lowered himself into a chair. His face was screwed up from the pain. Pierce wished he could do something.

‘Look, man, stop moving around, stop talking. Just wait for the paramedics.'

But Renner ignored him.

‘You know that stuff Zeller was talking about? About when you were a kid and you found your sister but didn't tell anybody?'

Pierce nodded.

‘Don't beat yourself up on that anymore. People make their own choices. They decide what path to take. You understand?'

Pierce nodded again.

‘Okay.'

The door to the mantrap snapped loudly, making Pierce but not Renner jump. Gonsalves came through the door.

‘They're on the way. Everybody. ETA on the ambulance is about four minutes.'

Renner nodded and looked up at Pierce.

‘I'll make it.'

‘I'm glad.'

Pierce looked back at Gonsalves.

‘You call Vernon?'

‘Yes, he's coming.'

‘Okay. Wait upstairs for everybody and then bring them down.'

After the security man was gone Pierce thought about how Clyde Vernon was going to react to what had happened in the laboratory he was charged with protecting. He knew that the former FBI man was going to implode with anger. He would have to deal with it. They both would.

Pierce walked over to the desk where Cody Zeller's body was sprawled. He looked down upon the man he had known for so long but now understood he hadn't really known at all. A sense of grief started to fill him. He wondered when his friend had turned in the wrong direction. Was it back at Palo Alto, when they had both made choices about the future? Or was it more recently? He had said that money was the motivation but Pierce wasn't sure the reason was as complete and definable as that. He knew it would be something that he would think about and consider for a long time to come.

He turned and looked over at Renner, who seemed to be weakening. He was leaning forward, hunched over on himself. His face was very pale.

‘Are you okay? Maybe you should lie down on the floor.'

The detective ignored the question and the suggestion. His mind was still working the case.

‘I guess the shame of it is, they're all dead,' he said. ‘Now we may never find Lilly Quinlan. Her body, I mean.'

Pierce stepped over to him and leaned back against a desk.

‘Uh, there's a few things I didn't tell you before.'

Renner held his gaze for a long moment.

‘I figured as much. Give.'

‘I know where the body is.'

Renner looked at him for a long moment and then nodded.

‘I should have known. How long?'

‘Not long. Just today. I couldn't tell you until I was sure you would help me.'

Renner shook his head in annoyance.

‘This better be good. Start talking.'

Pierce was sitting in his office on the third floor, waiting to face the detectives again. It was six-thirty Friday morning. The investigators from the county coroner's office were still down in the lab. The detectives were waiting for the all-clear signal to go down and were spending their time grilling him on the moment-by-moment details of what had happened in the basement of the building.

After an hour of that Pierce said he needed a break. He retreated from the boardroom, where the interviews were being conducted, to his office. He got no more than five minutes by himself before Charlie Condon stuck his head through the door. He had been rousted from sleep by Clyde Vernon, who had of course been rousted from sleep by Rudolpho Gonsalves.

‘Henry, can I come in?'

‘Sure. Close the door.'

Condon came in and looked at him with a slight shake of his head, almost like a tremor.

‘Wow!'

‘Yeah. It's “wow” all right.'

‘Anybody told you what's going on with Goddard?'

‘Not really. They wanted to know where he and Bechy were staying and I told them. I think they were going to go over there and arrest them as co-conspirators or something.'

‘You still don't know who they worked for?'

‘No. Cody didn't say. One of his clients, I assume. They'll find out, either from Goddard or when they get into Zeller's place.'

Condon sat down on the couch to the side of Pierce's desk. He was not wearing his usual suit and tie and Pierce realized how much younger he looked in knockabout clothes.

‘We have to start over,' Pierce said. ‘Find a new investor.'

Condon looked incredulous.

‘Are you kidding? After this? Who would — '

‘We're still in business, Charlie. The science is still the thing. The patent. There will be investors out there who will know this. You have to go out and do the Ahab thing. Find another great white whale.'

‘Easier said than done.'

‘Everything in this world is easier said than done. What happened to me last night and in the last week is easier said than done. But it's done. I made it through and it's given me a hotter fire than ever.'