“I’m a police officer. I’ve lost my badge and my radio during a foot pursuit, and I need to call my department. It’s an emergency.”
“You don’t have a badge?”
Mercy shook her head.
The woman assessed her shrewdly. Mercy could almost imagine what she was thinking: her story was unlikely… but who would claim to be a police officer in need of a cell phone who was not, in fact, just that?
“How can I believe you?”
“There’s no harm either way,” Mercy pointed out. “You can stand here while I make the call.”
The woman considered again, shrugged, and handed over a small silver flip phone. Mercy dialed 911. This time she was connected — the riots, she guessed, were finally calming down, thanks to police presence and protestor exhaustion— and she identified herself. The emergency dispatcher contacted West Bureau for her. She was connected to Sandy Waldman. She rolled her eyes. Waldman, a twenty-year veteran, had been one of the many who’d mocked her ecoterrorist theory.
“Sandy, I need help,” she said.
“You and half the goddamned city,” Waldman replied. She could picture him sitting at his desk with his feet up, his veteran’s belly rolling over the top of his belt buckle.
“I’m code five on Fourteenth Street in Santa Monica,” she said, using the department’s code for “on a stakeout” to affirm the dog walker’s generosity. “I need units to roll here ASAP code two.”
“Ooh, police talk,” Waldman joked. “You’re lucky. We’ve been code thirteen for the last couple of hours, but now we’re getting back to code fourteen.” Mercy hated Waldman in that moment, but she was glad to hear the department was standing down from major disaster activity caused by the riot. “I’ll roll a couple of slick tops to you now.”
“Thanks. Can you also run an address for me?” She recited the address of the brick house.
“Stand by.”
“What do you want with that house?” asked the woman with the bandana.
Mercy understood intuitively that she’d lost her hair to chemotherapy. “It’s police business, ma’am.”
“But that’s Bernie Copeland’s house. Is he okay?”
“You know him?”
“Well, he’s a neighbor,” the woman said as though all neighbors should know one another. “He travels quite a bit. South America most of the time, I think, but I see him outside sometimes when I walk Honeybear.” She tugged affectionately at her dog’s leash.
“Ever notice anything unusual about him?”
“Not until now,” the woman replied dubiously. “May I have my phone back?”
“Almost.”
Sandy Waldman came back on the line with the name of Bernard Copeland and a list of interesting items, only a few of which Mercy absorbed in that moment, because just then two unmarked police cars rolled up, one of them passing the house and pulling to a stop three doors down, the other stopping short. The cops inside were uniformed.
“Tell me what you want them to do and I’ll radio it to them,” Waldman said. For a jerk, he was a pretty efficient cop, she decided.
“Approach when they see me move, one goes to the back and the other goes in with me. He’s inside.”
“Ten-four.” A moment later, one of the unmarked cars rolled away to go around the block. Mercy knew he’d keep in contact with the other via radio.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Mercy said, handing back the phone. She walked down two doors, forcing herself to remain calm and steady, then made a hard left turn and crossed the street at a fast pace. The cop on this street put the radio to his mouth, then hung it up and exited quickly, hurrying up beside her and nodding. Together they strode up the steps to the door, and the officer kicked it in with one stomp of his boot.
Mercy let him enter first, since he was armed, but she knew almost immediately that there would be no gunfire.
Seldom Seen Smith, a.k.a. Bernard Copeland, was lying on his living room floor in a pool of blood.
“Radio for an ambulance!” she shouted. Mercy rushed forward while the uniformed officer began to clear the house while simultaneously making the call. Mercy heard the other officer enter from the back.
She knelt beside Smith, who was facedown. The back of his skull looked like hamburger meat mixed with clumps of hair. He was breathing, but barely.
“Copeland!” she said to him. “Copeland, can you hear me?” He didn’t answer. “Smith!” she yelled. “Seldom Seen Smith!”
His eyelids fluttered and then stopped at half mast. “Smith!” she repeated. “This is the police. An ambulance is on its way.”
She moved into his line of sight. His eyes focused on her for a moment and his breathing quickened. His mouth worked noiselessly.
“Take it easy,” she said. It seemed unsafe to move him, even though the pool of blood near his lips made his breathing wet and raspy. “We’re getting you help.” She knew without asking that Frankie Michaelmas had done this to him.
His mouth worked harder, and this time he succeeded in making small, moist, guttural sounds. He spoke words rather than sentences. “You,” he rasped. Then, “Infected.” Mercy didn’t know what he meant, but a sudden weight pressed against her stomach when he managed to add, “Hours. Only.”
His mouth worked desperately again. He closed his eyes and they remained closed; he coughed, spraying droplets of blood onto her knees. Copeland gathered himself and managed a few more words. No, one long word. “An…ti… dote.” Then he coughed again and pushed out another fearful word. “Gone.”
One uniformed cop walked back into the room. “All clear—” But Mercy held up her hand. Copeland continued slowly. “She…use… it. Terror. Vander. Bilt. Anti. Dote. She…use… it. Terror.” The sounds ebbed until they were only weak rasps. Copeland opened his eyes. His right hand moved along the floor, sliding until it reached the edge of the pool of blood. Reaching clear hardwood, his dragging fingers drew dark red lines. His hand stopped, then he drew three numbers—13, 48, 57. His hand stopped moving and his eyes closed. His lips quivered and, weak and thin as the meowings of a kitten, he spoke another phrase. Mercy couldn’t quite make it out. It sounded like a foreign name. “Uma,” like the actress, then something about a “ghetto.” Then he stopped making sounds altogether.
Mitch Rasher walked into the President’s suite at the Century Plaza. “We’re back on,” he said.
Barnes looked up from the security briefing he’d been reading. “What about the riots?”
“It’s going to look bad on the evening news,” Rasher warned him, “but the streets are getting back to normal now. By the time you have your meeting tonight, they’ll have everything cleared up.”
“And security is tight up there? Nothing’s been leaked?”
“No, sir. Tight as a drum. Shall I confirm with the other side?”
Barnes considered. He’d been looking forward to this meeting. He always enjoyed cutting through the red tape and slicing right to the heart of the matter. The riots, had they continued, would have made a meeting impossible and given the protestors a victory, though they’d never have known it. But, if Rasher felt the riots had burned themselves out, well…
“Let’s do it,” Barnes commanded.
Jack walked into CTU headquarters just shy of four-thirty. His entire body ached; the rush dialysis had taken more out of him than he cared to admit, and he felt as if that police wagon had landed on top of him. But he had no intention of slowing down.
He walked through CTU’s main floor and up to Henderson’s office, his face scratched from the struggle with the police, his eyes red from OC spray, and his shirt torn. He ignored the stares from the analysts as he reached the top of the operation chief ’s office.