THE TINY BELL ON the door rang as Kirk and Geoff left the barbershop. The air felt extra cold on Kirk’s now-bald head and smooth face. He ran his hand over his head, then reached inside his coat and pulled out an old beanie. He pulled it low over his ears and hunched his shoulders against the bitter winter’s frigid breath.
“What now, boss?” Geoff asked.
“We head back to the crime lab to see what Cassy found out. I think she might be able to tell us something about our mystery lady, as well.”
The day looked warm, with the sun shining in the cloudless sky, but it was deceiving. A cold, knife-like wind cut through the boxed-in city streets as if barreling through a tunnel, snatching the breath from anyone who dared step out into its path. On a day like today, Kirk liked the rental car better than his open motorcycle, but he still grumbled about all the gas it guzzled.
The receptionist told them Cassy was in the basement. Once again, they traversed the long, dingy stairs downward.
Cassy had her eye glued to a microscope and did not look up when Kirk and Geoff walked into the lab.
Kirk glanced around the room, which contained several tables covered with test tubes, blood-sample testers and other objects he couldn’t identify. Several white tables were lit from underneath, apparently illuminating objects of study. The place was jammed with boxes, file cabinets, and plastic bins, but everything was in order—not messy, just in dire need of more space.
Kirk leaned over Cassy’s shoulder.
She looked up. “Wow, when you get a haircut, you get a haircut! Feel better?”
He nodded.
She grinned. “You guys won’t believe what I discovered.” Her smile lit the room, which was noteworthy in the midst of the dim, blinking lights.
“Please tell me you have good news,” Kirk said.
“I think you’ll be pleased,” she said, a twinkle in her eye. “The cloth sample had no poison or any other substance in it, but I looked closer and found that this string isn’t cloth at all.” She motioned to the single white strand that lay in a round dish on the slide under the microscope lens.
“Really? What is it?” Geoff leaned over to look in the microscope.
Cassy pointed at a stool for Kirk to sit on and placed an open book in front of him. “See this description here? It’s a form of plastic mixed with an acid that eats away at cloth. When the material in the pillows started to deteriorate, it put off a gas that the inmates breathed as they slept.”
Kirk frowned. “So this gas stuff is what killed them?”
“No. By itself, it’s nontoxic, but I ran a few more tests. Guess what could be mixed with it to make it lethal?”
He shook his head.
“Botconie.” She looked expectantly at the men, but they just shrugged. “Okay. I’ll back up. Remember that theory we talked about last year, about how every drug has its partner opposite?”
He nodded.
“Well, Botconie is the partner to the anti-drug that was found in all the guards. It acts like a repellent to Dypethline.
Geoff looked confused. “I don’t get it.”
“I’ll tell you what I think happened. The pillows somehow had this patch of material placed in them. Over time, it filled the prison with a gas that could not be smelled or otherwise detected. Then the antidote was administered to the guards through their coffee, if you will, seeing as the guards had their own coffee pot in a private break room that was inaccessible to the inmates. The food was injected with Botconie, and when it mixed with the gas, it caused anyone who had it in their system to go into instant cardiac arrest.”
Kirk grinned. “You’re one smart cookie, Cassy. How did you come up with all this?”
“Easy. I tested the note against all the food samples and nothing happened until I got to the samples of coffee. I found traces of Dypethline in the coffee.”
“So the gas had been pumped into their systems, and the coffee drinkers were saved. I guess coffee does have its advantages,” Kirk said.
“Yeah, and lucky for them, all the guards drink coffee or we would have a few dead guards too. Whoever did this did their homework. Not one guard, or any other staff member, was hurt. I do have some bad news, though. With all the tests I had to run, I don’t have anything left of the fabric, which leaves us without any hard evidence outside of our own testimony.”
Kirk scratched his head, trying to figure out a way to get something hard to nail the case shut. “What we need is a witness and to find out who is behind all this. That’s the only way we’ll get this to stick. Without something concrete, we’re still standing with nothing more than a fancy story.”
He pulled the photo of the mystery woman from his jacket and handed it to Cassy. “Could you check your computer files to search for a match?”
She nodded and scanned the picture into the computer. “NCIC will pull up anyone who has any kind of criminal record. It matches facial structure and bone lines, so even if a person changes their looks, the program can tell with a ninety-four percent accuracy rate who they are—or were.”
The original picture appeared on the left side of her screen, while others scrolled across the right side. The photos flipped onto the screen for almost an hour as the three watched, hoping for a hit. Kirk drank the last cup of coffee, so Cassy made another pot while they waited.
Kirk was reviewing the details of the case in his head for the third time when a beeping sound jerked his attention to the flashing sign on the screen, which read No Matches Found. “That’s not what I wanted to see.”
Cassy sighed. “Sorry. Anything else you want me to look up?”
He drummed his fingers on the table. “Can you access all past and present government employees?”
She nodded. “Sure, hold on. I’ll pull up everyone in the CIA, FBI, or any other government program.”
Geoff asked, “You think she might work for the FBI?”
“Well, the file was given to the FBI,” Kirk said, “who did nothing about it, even though the evidence was clear that David’s Island was no accident. Somewhere along the line, the investigation was compromised.” He looked at Cassy. “Who did you give the file to, exactly?”
“I gave it to Jenkins. He works for me. And he delivered all our files to the FBI, but it couldn’t be him. He’s the last person in the world who would be in on some sort of cover-up.”
“Why are you so sure?” Geoff asked.
“I’ve known him for at least ten years. I’d trust him with my life.”
Kirk rubbed his chin. “Okay, but I still want to talk to him. I’d like to ask who he delivered that file to. I’d also like to get the names of everyone who had access to it in the FBI.” He paused. “Is Jenkins here now?”
“No. He’ll be in tomorrow. He had to go to the dentist today, so I gave him the day off.”
A beep sounded. They all turned to stare at the screen, which flashed the same message as before: No Matches Found.
Kirk tried not to show his mounting frustration. “What else can we try? She has to be there somewhere.”
Cassy bit her lip and stared at her keyboard. “I could try one other thing, but it is a little on the—well, how do I put this—risky side.”
Kirk perked up. “I can do risky. What do you got?”
“There’s a top-secret project database we can run it against that will pull up any active or underground programs the government is running or has run in the past. But if they find out I hacked in, I’m dead meat!”
Geoff’s forehead wrinkled. “It isn’t worth it, Cassy. You could lose your job, whether we get a hit or not.”
Kirk glared at Geoff then bent to look Cassy dead in the eye. “Please, I need to find this woman. She’s our only lead left. Without her, we’re finished.”
Cassy straightened. “Okay, I’ll do it, but you’d better cover me if the fur hits the fan.”
Kirk nodded and sat on the stool beside her. “Absolutely.”
Typing in a series of commands, she pulled up a page filled with file names and a search box and started running the list against the photo. As before, pictures flipped past the screen, but they suddenly stopped, and a green message flashed: Positive Match.
“Yes!” Kirk jumped to his feet to peer at the screen. “Isis Kanika—that’s her. I’m sure it’s the same woman!”
Cassy read the bio. “Looks like she used to work for the FIA, which is an intelligence agency based in foreign countries, mainly in Europe. They were disbanded about ten years ago. She was killed in action on a mission in Paris, but her body was never recovered.” She lifted an eyebrow. “My bet is she went rogue, and no one knows who she’s working for now.”
Geoff kept reading. “This says she was an assassin with over thirty-five confirmed kills and that she trained in hand-to-hand combat as well as heavy weapons. Boy, I’d hate to be on her bad side.”
The list went on for twenty more pages, noting her assignments and the missions she completed. Kirk shook his head. “So we have a professional on our hands, who obviously isn’t working alone.” He frowned and stopped the scrolling. “It looks like she was born in Egypt and moved to the States after she entered the program.”
“What is the FIA supposed to do—what was it doing?” Geoff asked.
“As far as I know,” Cassy said, “its agents would go in under the radar and carry out hits for the US military.” She switched to another screen. “Let’s see what else I can find.” After a couple clicks, she read for a moment, then said, “The most unnerving thing about the FIA is that it was shut down for doing some sort of experimentation on soldiers.”
Kirk leaned back on his stool. The FIA must have set her off somehow. Something must have gone wrong. “Can you print off Kanika’s information for me?”
“Sure, and if you know a good hacker, you might want to have them research this so-called agency. According to the file, her code name is Black Widow. I’m not sure if that will help you, but it’s a start.”
Geoff shook her hand. “You’ve been a great help, Cassy.”
Kirk took the papers from the printer. “Thanks for everything. I’ll keep in touch. If you find out anything more, give me a call.”
Cassy walked up the stairs with them to the front door. “No problem. I just hope you find out who’s responsible for all those deaths. I hate to think what else they are capable of.”
* * *
THE FIREPLACE FLAMES ROARED as they consumed Mark’s clothing, his coat, his boots—everything that could contain blood or DNA to trace him to the cabin and the explosion. The heat drifted over his body as he lay crumpled on the floor in front of the fire thinking about absolutely nothing.
He had driven straight home and run the stairs up to his apartment to grab a bottle of carpet cleaner from under the kitchen sink. The blood came out with ease from the leather seats, but the floor mats were a different story. They ended up in the fireplace along with his clothes.
After thoroughly scrubbing his car, he dragged himself to the elevator and returned to his apartment exhausted and drained. But his mind raced, repeatedly replaying the explosion. What have I done? He tried to feel guilty, but couldn’t. Though his retaliation was the only justice his family would ever see, somehow, he did not feel better. Yet, at the same time, he felt like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Finally, he passed out in front of the fireplace and didn’t wake up until the next morning. He looked around, trying to pull out of the nightmare, but it was not in his head. It was real.
Making his way to the kitchen, he started the coffee pot then headed for the shower. The water cleared his mind. As he thought about his uncharacteristic behavior and the things he’d done, he realized something about himself.
He stooped under the showerhead to rinse out the shampoo. How did I take out those guys without training? And where did he learn to turn on and shut off his emotions at will, as if he had an internal switch? His reactions had been quick and precise, like at the gun range. His movements had come to him like they’d been imprinted on his brain.
He turned off the water. Or maybe he’d watched too many Matt Damon movies.
Wrapping a towel around his waist, he wandered into the kitchen and poured coffee into a mug. As he sipped on the dark brew, he looked at his hand. No cuts, no bruises. He walked into the bedroom to look at his back in the mirror. Same thing—not a scratch or a mark anywhere on his body. He tried to think back. Was I hit or punched at all through that? He couldn’t remember.
“Weird. Sheer luck, I guess.” He put on a pair of jeans and a black shirt and walked out of the bedroom buttoning the shirt. Just as he finished the bottom button, he felt a presence and froze.
Someone was standing beside the fireplace. In two steps, he had the fire poker in his hand. One more step, and he’d shoved the tip against a soft throat. His hand was steady as he whispered in a dark voice that didn’t even sound like his, “Who are you, and what do you want?”