Exposed (28 page)

Quantico, Virginia

Tully had heard him the first time. He didn’t need George Sloane to inform him again that Tully and Ganza had “exactly fifteen minutes” before Sloane had to return to his class.

Tully watched the man make a ceremony of sitting down in front of the documents like a priest about to perform some sacred ritual. He played the role of professor very well, even dressed it—black knit turtleneck, tight enough to show off his trim physique, along with well-pressed trousers and matching suit jacket. He wasn’t a big man, five-foot-seven. His strut into the room asked for but didn’t quite command attention. He was Tully’s age but had none of the salt-and-pepper Tully had been discovering at his own temples. Instead, Sloane’s thick hair, that he wore long enough to curl over the turtleneck, was almost jet-black, and Tully suspected it was because of Grecian hair formula rather than youthful genes.

“The lighting is horrendous in here,” Sloane announced in place of a greeting. “Does Cunningham expect me to work miracles?”

Tully wanted to say, “No, just your regular voodoo will do.” Instead, he said what he knew would pacify the man and not waste their precious fifteen minutes. “We’re just grateful you can take time out to help us, George. Anything you can offer will be appreciated.”

“See if you can find me a better light,” Sloane told Ganza, dismissing the director of the lab with a wave of his hand as if Ganza were one of his college students.

Ganza stared at Sloane’s back for a second or two then glanced at Tully, who could only offer a shrug. Ganza checked his watch then pulled down the bill of his Red Sox cap and headed for the conference room’s supply closet.

“So terrorists are delivering their threats at the bottom of doughnut boxes now?” Sloane said, scooting his chair closer to the table. “Where were you at the time?” he asked Tully. “If I remember correctly, you can’t resist a chocolate doughnut.”

“Stuck in traffic,” Tully said, trying not to show his annoyance and impatience. Sloane had already used up five minutes fidgeting with his preparations.

“Thank God for morning rush hour, huh?”

Ganza hauled a long, metal contraption out of the storage closet that looked like something from a garage sale. He set it on the table beside Sloane.

“What the hell is this?” Sloane sat back as if the thing had accosted him.

Ganza ignored him. He unwrapped the cord, plugging it in and then snapping on the fluorescent lamp. It lit the area enough that even Sloane couldn’t complain though he grumbled a bit before scooting his chair back into position.

He picked up the plastic bag with the envelope first, holding it up and examining it, pursing his lips and furrowing his brow. Tully couldn’t help thinking of Johnny Carson’s Carnac the Magnificent.

“Uppercase,” Sloane mumbled under his breath like it was exactly what he had expected. “Every maniac from the Unabomber to the Zodiac killer used uppercase printing. In everyday life few people print entire words and phrases in uppercase, so it’s more difficult to match.”

“So it’s easier to disguise their handwriting,” Ganza said from his perch standing over Sloane’s left shoulder.

“That’s what I just said. If you already know all this why did Cunningham call me in?”

Tully watched from across the room as the two men exchanged glares. Ganza was totally harmless, definitely not the type who engaged in pissing contests. He was a professional, and he was actually a bit of an introvert. Perhaps George Sloane brought out the worst in everyone.

When Sloane seemed satisfied that Ganza would no longer interrupt he sat up even taller in the chair.

“It’s not just about disguising his handwriting,” Sloane continued. “Uppercase gives an appearance of urgency to the message. He’s shouting it. But see here,” and Sloane held up the plastic-encased envelope and pointed. “He pushed down harder on the periods after Mr. and F.B.I. He’s taken time to carefully print out the message, letter by letter, but those periods almost poke through the paper. He’s revealing a bit of emotion there.”

“Yeah, what’s up with him putting periods after each letter of FBI?” Ganza wanted to know while Tully wanted to wince. Didn’t Ganza get it, that he was supposed to be quiet and this would take less time. Be less painful. Tully waited for Sloane’s look of simmered annoyance and wasn’t disappointed. Ganza, however, seemed oblivious to it.

“He obviously doesn’t consider it an acronym,” Sloane slowly said and now he enunciated each word as though he were speaking to a foreigner. “To him it’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

“So maybe it’s somebody who’s fed up with the feds?” Ganza persisted.

Sloane glared at the lab director instead of offering a response. He put the envelope aside, glanced at his wristwatch and picked up the second plastic bag.

“The note’s open,” Tully told him, “but it had been folded to fit the envelope. You can see from the creases it was—”

“A pharmaceutical fold,” Sloane finished for him. He looked up at Tully with thick eyebrows raised. “Your people still opened it when it was folded like this inside the envelope?”

“The envelope hadn’t been sealed.” Tully tried not to make it sound like he was being defensive despite Sloane’s accusation and the man’s continued glare. Tully hadn’t even been the one to open it and yet he was feeling the need to explain. Maybe it was something that came with the professorship—a superior aura that made everyone else feel like an underling student. “There was nothing inside,” he finally said without adding what he wanted to say, that Cunningham was the one who opened it. He knew that would sound childish.

As if on cue Sloane pursed his lips again, reminding Tully of a pouting child. He glanced at his watch.

“Come on, George,” Tully said, “we already know this has all the markings of a remote-control killer. This guy might be getting ready to send another of his special deliveries. What can you tell us about him? Are we going to find him holed up in some backwoods cabin or in a suburban garage?”

Sloane sat back and crossed his arms over his chest.

“He won’t be holed up in a cabin,” he said with what sounded like a snort at the end to tell Tully what he thought of his two-cents’ worth. “Nor is he someone in the pharmaceutical business. He may have simply done his homework. The anthrax killer in fall of 2001 used that same fold. I’d say he has it right down to the quarter-inch sides.”

“You were brought in on that case?” Ganza asked.

“Who do you think told them to start looking stateside at our own labs and scientists and not at some Muslim living in an Afghanistan cave?” Sloane fidgeted in his chair. “Though I shouldn’t be surprised you wouldn’t know that. No one hands out much praise around here, do they?” He hesitated, looking as if he was considering whether to share more. “Not that it matters,” he said, waving the plastic bag. “You FBI guys believe what you want to believe, like your profile for the Beltway Sniper. You guys stuck to that generic description of a young, white male, a loner in a white paneled van. Never had a clue, did you, that it might be two black guys in a muscle car.”

“I wasn’t in D.C. then,” Tully said.

“Oh, right. You were still in Cincinnati.”

“Cleveland.”

“Sorry, my mistake.” But he didn’t sound sorry. He brought the note up close and read it out loud with a sort of bellow like a sports announcer:

Then Sloane put the plastic bag down on the table and pushed his chair back, letting it screech across the linoleum. Ganza and Tully waited and watched.

“He’s smart,” Sloane said without looking up at them. “Not only smart, but well educated. He’s precise and detail oriented. He wants you to believe that all of this may be religious based, but I think he uses his references to God much more literally. He simply thinks he’s superior to you. Even using the pharmaceutical folds is sort of a ploy, a…” Sloane waved his hand around and Tully thought of a preacher emphasizing points of his sermon. “He’s playing you, wanting to throw you off.”

Then the professor shrugged and stood up, signaling he couldn’t tell them any more. But still, he continued, “His choice of ten o’clock may be significant. The address or the numbers in the address may be significant. There’s no way for me to tell you that without more information.”

“What’s your best guess?” Tully asked and watched Sloane wince.

“Guess? Is that what you call
your
profiles? Because I certainly don’t call mine guesses.”

Tully held back a sigh of frustration. Sloane looked from Ganza to Tully like he was deciding whether or not to take pity on them.

“My best
guess
—” he dragged out the word until the
s
’s sizzled “—is that he could be an insider. Maybe you start looking at research labs again. The anthrax killer was never caught. He wouldn’t be the first guy to come back out for some attention. Some killers can’t stand it. Look at the BTK killer. Nobody would have caught that guy had he not gotten greedy for more attention.”

“Maybe this means something to you,” Tully said, and he pulled out a photo of the indentation they’d found. He handed it to Sloane. “We lifted this from the envelope.”

Sloane took it and held it up to the light, a smile starting at the corner of his lips. If Tully wasn’t mistaken it looked like they might have actually impressed the professor.

“Son of a bitch,” he said. “You guys found this, huh?”

The Slammer

It was long past breakfast by the time they brought in a tray for Maggie. By now food was the last thing on her mind. She picked at the eggs, ate half the wheat toast, took two sips of orange juice and left the rest. There was a weight on her chest making it uncomfortable to breathe, like something heavy was sitting on top of her, pressing hard against her rib cage. Even swallowing became a conscious effort. She caught herself listening to her own heartbeat. She put two fingers on the pulse point at her throat. Did she expect to feel or hear the virus multiplying inside her? Is that what the extra weight was?

Colonel Platt had asked if there was anyone she wanted to call or perhaps anyone she needed him to call for her. Off the top of her head she couldn’t think of a single person. Maybe Gwen. Certainly not Nick Morrelli. Probably not her stepbrother who she had only just met within the last year. How would that conversation go?

“Hey, bro, guess what? I’ve been quarantined with a highly infectious virus. Might not be able to do that first Thanksgiving get-together after all.”

And she wouldn’t call her mother. Somehow her mother would find a way to make this about her with little or no regard about the impact it had on Maggie.

“But Mom,” Maggie could hear the exchange in her mind, “I’m the one dying from a deadly virus.”

“And how am I supposed to explain that to anyone?” That would be her mother’s response but only after first asking if it was contagious.

No, Maggie had no one. No close family members. No significant other. No one on her first-to-call list. And no one for whom she was a first-to-call. When she divorced Greg the exhaustion of that relationship had left her with more relief than regret. They had gotten married in college. He had been a sort of security blanket for her, an attempt at normalcy, a chance to have a real family. That was until he wanted to tear her away from the one thing, the only thing that had ever given her a true sense of being—her identity, her career at the FBI.

She left that relationship, bruised but relieved. But she also left believing she’d never find anyone who would accept what she did for a living or, more importantly, that it would always be her first priority. Adam Bonzado and Nick Morrelli included. Of course, through no fault of their own. Maggie hadn’t quite let anyone into her life long enough or deep enough to give them a real chance. She knew that she was to blame, not them. Maybe she had taken that lesson from her mentor, from A.D. Cunningham, a bit too far. It wasn’t something she wanted to share with Colonel Platt. So when he offered to call someone, she simply shook her head.

Colonel Platt had gone on to tell her a number of things. Some of them now a blur. He explained that the virus had not shown up in her blood…
yet.
He added that last word like a lead anchor. He told her about an incubation period. He wasn’t gentle with her. He gave it to her straight just like she’d asked.

Be careful what you ask for,
she reminded herself.

She knew a little about these viruses. She knew that even if she didn’t show any signs now, it didn’t mean that it wasn’t already in her system, lying dormant, silently waiting.

When Colonel Platt left, Maggie sat staring at the wall of glass, watching the monitors on the other side, listening to their hums and beeps. It all seemed unreal, something totally out of
The Twilight Zone,
indeed. She wasn’t sure how long she had sat like that when finally she pulled herself together.

She kept hearing Platt’s explanation. He had afforded her too many details, probably thinking that her medical background provided her some sort of safety net of understanding. Knowledge did not necessarily always equal power or control. Instead, it sometimes had the opposite effect. Especially in this case where the more she understood about the virus, how absolutely powerful and unstoppable it was, the more vulnerable she began to feel.

Platt had left her with just enough details to keep her heart racing. And his questions ran on a loop through her brain:

“Did you touch Ms. Kellerman? Did you come in contact with any of her blood? Her bedsheets? Did you touch Mary Louise? Did she take your hand? Did her vomit get on your face? Your eyes? Your mouth?”

Maggie knew some of the little girl’s vomit had splattered her jacket, but she didn’t think it had gotten on her face. But Cunningham? Maggie remembered him wiping his face. He was holding Mary Louise when she threw up. Cunningham had taken the little girl to the bathroom to help her wash up, ordering Maggie to stay put.

And what about Mary Louise, that beautiful little girl, crawling onto her mother’s bloody bedsheets, living amongst the ruins for how many days?

That’s when Maggie remembered the line from the note: YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT SAFE ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME.

The words fit his purpose just as Mary Louise and her mother did by sharing the same name and partial address as one of the victims in the Tylenol case. But Maggie knew these particular words were not his. She suspected they had been copied, too. He had pulled that line from somewhere else but where?

She went back to the computer. She sat down but hesitated. She ran her fingers through her hair and realized her hands were shaking. She sat and waited for them to settle, for the sudden nausea to pass, for the pounding in her head to quiet. None of it did. She needed to ignore the swelling panic, push it aside. She had done it before. She could do it again, at least long enough to retreat, to escape, to work.

She went back to Google, and with fingers still a bit unsteady she typed in the phrase, exactly as she remembered it: YOUR CHILDREN ARE NOT SAFE ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME.

Immediately her answer came up in a dozen different sites. She couldn’t believe it. There on her computer screen, staring right back at her were the exact same words. They had also been used as a postscript on another note. Why hadn’t she recognized it earlier?

There were other phrases, other duplicates: “I AM GOD” and “CALL ME GOD.” Instead of “MR. F.B.I. MAN” was a close substitute: “FOR YOU MR. POLICE.”

And just as she suspected, the phrases had all been lifted from notes and messages of another killer, actually a pair of killers. They were phrases used by the Beltway Snipers, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo in October 2002.