He quickly dialed and it rang without answer until an answering machine beeped on and her recorded voice began giving him instructions. He didn't know what to do. If he left a message, they'd have his voiceprint; if he didn't leave a message, she might not come within his grasp, and time was of the essence..
He hung up, trying to think. Could she have already entered the building?
He dug through the signatures of people coming and going through this area, his eyes scanning for her name. There it was. While he was upstairs, she had entered the building. The time she signed in read 11:47 P.M. His heart raced. She was here, very close, within his grasp.
She must be in her lab, must be poring over the autopsy results on Emmons, must be digging for the single thread of evidence that would lead back to him. But it wasn't about to happen that way. Dr. Coran was in for a great shock.
Archer carried with him another hypodermic. Meant to incapacitate rather than kill, the drug would effectively paralyze her. She'd stiffen and her eyes would be frozen open long enough to watch him torture her body, to take what he wanted. But not here. It would be done far from here, and the trademark of the killer that now would be stalking D.C. would be very different from the Claw who terrorized New York. The weapon he'd devised was every bit as deadly as the claw, and of far more precision. It utilized a scalpel that fit over the hand, razor-sharp and deadly, but it would leave an entirely different marking than the claw's three-pronged ruptures.
The body would be discovered on the street, perhaps pinned to a chain-link fence just outside the darkened interior he had found earlier in the day. He had done it all this time without any help from the bungling Ovid. He didn't need Ovid. All he needed was Casadessus.
He went for the elevator, which opened on a number of tired faces, none of whom seemed to pay him any attention as they made for the register and signed out of the building. They were talking about finding a night spot for drinks, but one moaned he was far too tired after the grueling day they'd had. The others tried to get this one, called J.T., to join them, but he remained steadfast, saying, “Dr. Coran'11 be expecting me at the crack of dawn.”
“ You let her run your life, too?” asked another.
“ Hey, why not?” asked another.
“ Imagine her with that cane beating your-”
“ Knock it off!” shouted the one called J.T., who looked up at the guard who'd remained near the elevators, saying, “Where's Tuttle tonight?”
“ Wasn't feeling well,” said Archer flatly.
“ Hmmmmm. Well, g'night.”
Archer stood in the hallway on the floor where Dr. Coran's lab was located when he saw a door opening ahead of him. He dropped back into a parallel hallway. All around him were glass partitions through which he saw laboratories. Given the fact it was so late and that it was Labor Day weekend, the place was nearly deserted. Still, the lights over various lab tables confirmed that there were some people yet in the building.
But where was Jessica Coran?
Then he heard her, or rather he heard her cane as it tapped out a singular chorus to him. She was approaching from the door that'd burst open, sending him hiding. She was coming straight toward him: tap, tap, tap… coming for the elevators, no doubt. He readied his hypodermic and listened as she approached. Closer and closer, tap, tap, tap…
He was acutely aware that the hallway corridor formed a complete square at the center of which were elevators on both sides.
When she was within inches, he lurched from around the corner and stabbed her full in the chest with the hypodermic, but it wasn't her. It was an elderly man in a white lab coat who now stood clutching at his heart, certain he had been killed by a madman, going to his knees, his cane skittering away, clattering against the floor.
“ Damn, damn, damn,” Archer moaned where he stood over the fallen old man, whose eyes had rolled back in his head, the whites staring up at Archer without seeing him. But somewhere he felt eyes upon him and when he turned back, he saw her. Dr. Coran was several offices away from the incident in the hallway, but through the panes of glass through which she had watched, she saw a poorly disguised Dr. Simon Archer attack her serologist, Dr. Robertson. Her eyes told him that she knew that he had come for her.
For a moment they simply stared at one another, hunter and hunted. Then she revealed to him that she had a gun. Pointing it, aiming it at Archer and firing, she burst the three panes of glass between them, but Archer had disappeared. She could not tell if she had hit him or not, but drawing up her nerve, she rushed toward Steve Robertson's prone and still form. Archer had somehow escaped. She wheeled about with the gun extended, her white lab coat flapping about her legs, her cane tucked below her arm. She fought to keep balance, knowing her full weight on her ankles was not good, but she must be prepared to fire again if need be.
She saw that the elevator was taking someone down, possibly Simon Archer being true to form-a coward when faced with a victim who fought back. Every victim of the Claw before now had been defenseless and taken by surprise.
She knelt over Robertson, seeing blood on the floor beside him. She took his pulse and found it weak and erratic; searched frantically for a wound, fearing that flying glass had hit him. But there were no wounds. Robertson was unable to speak and quite possibly unable to hear. Paralyzed somehow by Archer, she knew that but for the grace of God it might well be her lying here paralyzed, in the complete and utter control of the Claw.
“ I hope you can hear me, Robertson… Robertson!” she called out to the injured man. “I'm calling 911. You're going to be all right. Just hang on!”
She realized now that the blood beside Robertson was Archer's blood, that she had wounded him. She saw a trail of it leading in the direction of the elevators. She now pushed upward against her cane to regain her feet, but the cane slipped from beneath her when it found blood. She lay on her back when she saw a shadow dart across the hall down from her, going toward her office and lab. She held firmly to the gun, and hearing something metallic skitter away from her, she found an odd glove with a scalpel firmly attached to it: Archer's new weapon of choice. She placed it safely away- evidence for later.
She wanted to hunt Archer down. Turn the tables on the sonofabitch, see him in the position of his victims, avenge Dr. Darius and all those other victims of the man's madness. One thing she did not want was to see this freak Archer incarcerated in Gabe Arnold's Philadelphia madhouse alongside Matisak. She wanted some modicum of justice this time around.
Regaining her feet, she saw that the elevator she had thought to be going down was coming up. Was he aboard it, or had he taken refuge in the labs, hiding in wait there? She could not be certain. She waited for the elevator to arrive and for the doors to open, her gun extended, at the ready.
The door opened on a stranger to her, his hands going up on seeing her gun pointed at his eyes. “Don't shoot,” he said.
“ Who the hell are you?”
“ Frakley, FBI, like you, Dr. Coran.” He flashed an ID and said, “I got a call from a Captain Alan Rychman, NYPD, about you. The captain was real worried, pressed us for a twenty-four-hour surveillance of your place.”
“ Why the hell wasn't I told?”
“ There's been no time. Something to do with your Claw case and that you might be a target for some guy named Archer you've been trying to nail. Rychman made it sound real urgent.”
“ Jesus, it takes Archer's coming to assassinate me for everyone to believe me. How long've you been watching me?”