Critical Reaction (33 page)

They began walking down the hall. And yet, she thought, her dad was right about one thing: the strategy had worked. She’d have found another way, but it had worked.

That realization birthed another: that even if he’d tricked her, it was her at the podium. She’d done it. And her father had seen her do it. The man who was the master of courtroom tactics had just watched her succeed.

“Is there somebody in the back yard?” Suzy called toward the living room from the kitchen. “Checking the meter maybe?”

Poppy was focused on his laptop, doing his thousandth search for any mention of Lew on the Internet and Facebook, LinkedIn, anything. “Don’t know,” he called back.

“Well, could you check?”

He grunted an assent and reluctantly got up from the computer. Putting on his shoes at the door, Poppy went out the side exit, through the garage, to the back yard.

There was no one in the back. He walked around to the side yard.

A white van was pulling away from the curb.

Poppy started to run after it—but it was no use. His heart pounding, he turned around and jogged to the back yard.

They were lined up in a row against the side of the house next to the rosebushes: five crows, buried hurriedly, head first in the soil. A white medallion was draped across their carcasses.

Poppy started to approach—then stopped. Going back into the garage, he grabbed the Eberline counter from his truck and returned. From ten feet away, he began to wave the wand in the direction of the black carcasses.

At six feet, the counter began to rise. At four, it was wailing.

He had to call Security, Poppy thought over his accelerating fear.

Except . . . who would they send? Who could he trust?

“What’s that sound, Poppy?” his wife called through the kitchen window.

“Suzy, go pack a bag,” he said, trying hard to sound calm. “I’d like you to stay at your sister’s tonight.”

CHAPTER 36

“I got your text to call,” Eric King’s voice said over the phone. “I’ve only got a minute before noon recess is over. But don’t worry. Things are going great.”

Adam was seated at his desk, behind the closed door of his office in the HR Department. Now he had to put up with more puffing from his overconfident barrister. “I would appreciate details, Eric.”

“Okay. Today, they’re going through a bunch of workers from LB5. They’re getting nothing from them.”

“And yesterday?”

Hesitation. “Yesterday, it was Dr. Trân. Their expert.”

“I know who Dr. Trân is. Did he testify?”

Pause. “Yes.”

“I thought you told me you could keep him from testifying. You said there was too little evidence to support his opinions.”

“Yes, well, I thought that would be true. I was . . . a little surprised that the judge overruled my objection. But,” the lawyer hastened, “the judge reserved the possibility of excluding the testimony later.”

What good would that do after the jury had already heard it?

“Anyway,” King went on, “we’ll cut up his testimony with our own experts.”

“What did Trân say?”

King outlined the scientist’s testimony.

Adam was staggered. “He testified there were other explosives in the building?”

“Yes.”

“Did he say what kind?”

“Powerful ones, he claimed. Like were used in nuclear triggers. The judge didn’t let him go too far down that speculative road. But hey, his testimony shouldn’t be such a surprise: I sent over his expert opinions three days ago.”

King had. And with preparation for the run-up to the big test at LB5, combined with King’s assurance that Trân would never get to testify, Adam had failed to review them.

“But he’s got no real proof,” the lawyer went on. “Like I said, we’ll cut him up with our own experts.”

He couldn’t trust what he might say next, so Adam moved to end the conversation. “Keep me apprised,” he said.

Where had Trân come up with this opinion? Did he know any more than the threads of proof King just described over the phone?

Adam went to his corner closet mirror to check his bow tie. The face that looked back was shaken.

This wasn’t the only bad news. The chief of security for Wolffia had reported that Patrick Martin was contacting people in Savannah River trying to locate Lewis Vandervork. That meant not only that Dr. Janniston had failed after weeks of exams to force Martin’s cooperation, but also that Martin was actively pursuing information he
could not
have access to
.

Adam had already told the Chief to raise the pressure on Martin. Now he was wondering if increased pressure was enough.

Adam returned to his desk. All right, he told himself, put it in perspective. What was most critical here was that Martin not testify. If he didn’t take the stand, Martin’s knowledge or suspicion was irrelevant.

That was why they’d kept the man’s name out of the investigation report in the first place. And it had worked so far. The first lawyer hadn’t bothered to take Martin’s deposition and Martin hadn’t made the trial witness list. Once they were through this trial, the man’s suspicions would have no platform—especially after they ruined him with a negative psych evaluation.

Still, Adam railed silently again at Foote’s insistence on going forward with Wolffia this summer. Only two months’ wait and they could have run the final Project tests without the balancing act of this trial. Then it wouldn’t have been necessary to take the precaution of confronting Patrick Martin on his statement, which clearly set the man off, or worry about a court-ordered inspection of LB5.

Plus, a few more months and Lewis Vandervork’s trail would have been that much colder.

Adam opened his desk drawer and pulled out the coin purse that contained the dexamphetamine tablets Schutten’s treating physician had sent him. Though he hadn’t planned for it at the time, it was another thing besides the physician’s silence that the generous check had bought Adam.

Four hours of sleep a night were taking their toll. The stimulants he’d begun using the past week should only be necessary a little while longer, he told himself, just while they wrapped the follow-up testing and prepared to move the lab south.

He took a pill with a glass of water from the desk. For a moment, he thought of all the work still to complete today. Then he took another.

Ryan stood at the podium glancing quickly through his notes. With Kieran and Dr. Trân done, the rest of their case was becoming more of a fishing expedition. They were working through witnesses from LB5, seining for any evidence to support
Dr. Trân’s theories. These included technicians at LB5 who’d sampled the vats in room 365 over the years, other stabilizing engineers who’d worked at LB5, at least one data technician, and anyone who might confirm evidence of the “detonation substances.”

Frank Schroeder, the HVAC worker now on the stand, was dressed in dungarees and a sweatshirt. The message was clear: he had no need to impress anybody. And he was also making it perfectly clear he didn’t want to be there.

Like all of these “outside” witnesses who predated Dr. Trân’s theories, Schroeder hadn’t been asked in his deposition key questions that might reveal the existence of other explosives. The past ten minutes had already established that Frank Schroeder had never, in his life, graced the dark side of LB5. That eliminated any chance he might have seen explosives in the LB5 lower levels. Ryan’s only decision now was whether to take the time to go through the events of October sixteenth, since he already had the tech on the stand.

He would, Ryan decided. It should only take a few questions.

“I was in a cafeteria building—at the corner of LB5,” Schroeder replied to Ryan’s questioning. “Johnny Rose and I, we were having our midshift dinner. Then we started down the hill toward the front side to get back to work. That’s when it happened.”

“What happened?”

“The big explosion. Only it was muffled, since we were outside.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, there was no siren. If there’s an emergency, they’ll blow the ‘take-cover’ siren, and then you’re supposed to get inside—anywhere inside. Except there was no siren. So me and Johnny, we stopped and talked for a sec about what to do. Then we kept walking.”

“Which way?”

“Toward the front side, along the side of the building.”

“Did you keep going all the way to the front side?”

“Nope. Because then this guy fired a weapon. Up on the roof.”

“Did you know this man?”

The HVAC guy shrugged. “I guess he was a security guard. I’d never met him before, but I know they have guards up on the roof.”

Guards. Plural. The investigation report had only mentioned the one. “What did you do when you heard the gunshot?”

“Well, this guy on the roof was trying to get our attention, I guess. Because we looked up and he was waving us back to the cafeteria. And we saw why—because there was a big cloud of smoke rolling off the roof.”

Ryan stopped for a moment. This was news too. Nothing in the investigation report told of a cloud of smoke coming off the roof.

“So what did you do?”

“Well, we ran like a couple of rabbits.” The jurors laughed.

“Ran where?” Ryan continued as soon as the laughter tapered off.

“Back to the cafeteria. And then, just as were getting there, the sirens finally went off.”

“They went off?”

“Yes. Just as we were going inside. And it’s a good thing we’d gotten back there—because then the
lights
went out.”

More news. “What lights?”

“The perimeter lights. All of them. Went out for about ten minutes, then came back on again. It was really strange.”

“Do you know why that happened?”

“Nope. Never saw anything like it.”

“Do you know the security guard’s name? The one that fired his rifle?”

“Yeah. I went to the hospital afterwards with everybody who might’ve gotten exposed. I was asking around about the guy on the roof, the guy who’d warned us. I wanted to thank him. Then
I ran into the other guard. His name was Lewis something. His last name started with a V, but it was tough to pronounce, and I don’t remember it. But he told me his partner had warned us. I remember his name because it was a lot easier. That guy was Poppy Martin. I think his real name was Patrick.”

Knight passed on any cross-examination of this witness. Ryan took his seat as Emily started with the next witness—Schubert’s fellow worker, Johnny Rose.

Ryan listened only vaguely to the testimony, running Schroeder’s description through his mind. He’d read it so often that Ryan had almost memorized the investigation report. There was nothing in there about lights going out, late sirens, smoke. And there was nothing in there about two security guards on the roof.

The absence of the witnesses was especially curious. It was hard to imagine what difference it could make to their evidence since the guards were outside the building that night. But it was strange so many details relating to the events outside the building were completely left out of the report.

Ryan felt a tug on his coat and looked up. It was Kieran, leaning across Emily’s empty chair.

“Mr. Hart,”
he whispered.
“This Patrick Martin that the last witness talked about? I
know the man.”