With smooth, deliberate motions, Liz took the syringe labeled M1 and injected it into the first monkey.
Turning, she saw that the crowd of blue suits was pressing in toward her. They recoiled as a group at the sight of the syringe, moving back toward the far wall. She shuffled over to a red “sharps” container on the wall and dropped the syringe into it. She squirmed as a muscle spasm rippled along her back. Grimacing, she adjusted her posture. Her back ached from where the bullets had struck the Kevlar in the spacesuit. After a moment, the spasm passed.
Jaxon repeated her tranquilizing procedure with the second monkey and Liz injected it with M2. This proceeded through the first four monkeys. Each time she turned, the crowd had moved a little bit closer. Inside her suit she sighed, reflecting on Derek Stillwater’s comment about stage fright. No kidding. She felt like she was performing.
The next stage was trickier. They were going to inject all twenty monkeys with M13.
She stood back, sweat beading on her forehead, the blower loud in her ears. Another spasm assaulted her back. She gasped, twisted a bit, and it went away. Jaxon stood close to her, face shields touching. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
It was time-consuming and exhausting. The trick was to not rush. To work slowly and deliberately. To concentrate on what she was doing, not get into an automatic sequence.
But it was hard. It had been a long, exhausting day. Every few minutes her back seized up and she had to twist inside her spacesuit to relieve the pain. She knew she was tiring, knew that maybe she should take a break or turn this over to someone else. But she had something to prove. She had started this mess, had actually been one of the creators of Chimera, and she wanted to be one of the people to fix it.
By the time they hit monkey number twenty, a large thirty-pound male with gray tufted ears and yellowish brown fur, she just wanted to finish. The tidal ebb and flow of the crowd was getting to her. She wanted to get away from them. She wanted to get off her feet, out of the spacesuit and around a cup of coffee. Her back was complaining constantly now, a deep, uncomfortable ache split by the occasional spasm.
She moved in toward monkey number 20. The blue suits moved toward her, circling. Everyone wanting to mark this moment. As she stepped forward, the syringe in her hand, a jagged, searing pain raced through her back like an electrical current. With a cry she bent forward, the syringe jolting out of her grasp. Involuntarily she clutched at it, trying to catch it. She felt the jab of pain immediately, saw the tear in three layers of gloves, saw the drops of blood ooze through the hole.
She had been injected with Chimera M13!
16
Detective Lou Matthews double-parked the Crown Victoria and followed his partner, Detective Chris Flemming, over to the crime scene. Flemming, who stood six-three and weighed nearly three hundred pounds, his coal-black shaved skull standing out like a beacon, headed over to talk to the patrol officers who had cordoned off the area near Jimmy’s Saloon. Matthews, who wasn’t as tall as his partner, and whose skin was more chocolate in tone, moved toward where the crime scene squad was doing their thing. Dressed in a navy blue pinstripe three-piece suit, Matthews brushed back his suit coat and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
“What’ve we got?”
The CSI was a skinny guy with fuzzy brown hair, his complexion red, making his high rounded cheekbones seem rouged. Matthews had worked with him a couple times before. Todd Fawkes, he remembered. Yeah. That was his name. Annoying little shit, but seemed to know his business.
“Large caliber bullet to the heart,” Fawkes said, not looking up from taking evidence. “Looks like a handful of shots. One or two hit the wall here, haven’t got them yet. Couple hit vehicles. Winston’s working on them.”
“Sniper?”
“Maybe.”
Matthews crouched down and took a hard look at the victim. Long blond hair. Reddish beard. He took in the green scrub shirt now caked with drying blood, the jeans and tennis shoes. “Got an ID?”
“Got gloves?”
Matthews took a pair of Latex gloves from his pocket and tugged them on. Fawkes handed him a bagged wallet from his evidence kit. Matthews took it out of the bag and examined it. Maryland driver’s license. Austin Davis. Age: 49. Matthews took another look at the victim. Davis looked younger than 49. There was a doctor tag on the license. He flipped through more of the information, jotting notes in his notebook. AMA card. ID for Walter Reed. The usual collection of credit cards and identification. No photographs. Shifting to the two pockets, he noted that Davis carried a fair amount of cash: six twenties, two tens, one five, three ones. In the other pocket of the wallet was a collection of receipts and what appeared to be notes. The receipts looked straightforward, one from a Starbucks this morning, one from the Walter Reed cafeteria at noon. The man kept track of his expenses. A little anal-retentive, but so what? He was a doctor, right? Attention to detail would be a pretty good quality in a doctor.
The notes seemed to be a collection of To Do Lists, all on folded yellow Post-It notes. There was one with a list of things labeled one through five, number one being “Pick up dry-cleaning” and number five being “Staff mtg @ 3:30.” The staff meeting was crossed out, but none of the others were.
There was a yellow note that said, simply: Derek Stillwater @ Jimmy’s, 7:00.
He wanted to say Ah-ha! his gaze shifting thirty yards to the entrance to Jimmy’s. Nothing like a real clue to make you feel like a real detective.
He went through the rest of the wallet, angling it to the light from several patrol cars, their headlights cutting brilliant swaths through the dark night. Finally he handed it back to Fawkes. “Anything else?”
“Not so far.”
Matthews thanked the CSI and headed over to where his partner was deep in discussion with a female patrol officer. She was built like a weight lifter with broad shoulders stretching the tight uniform blouse, and had the bad complexion of a steroid freak. She adjusted her hat and brushed a flyaway strand of brown hair out of her face when he approached. He introduced himself and she identified herself as Officer Sheila Broadway.
“I was just telling your partner here what we’ve been doing.”
“Got a wit’,” Flemming said. He pointed to a patrol car. “Supposed to be a good one, too.”
“Good. So, what’s going on here?” Matthews asked Broadway.
“Witness reports that the victim was walking down the street with another man. The victim was shot and the other man ran. There were other shots. Then the second man jumped into a vehicle and drove off.”
“Huh,” Matthews said. “The witnesses think the second man shot the first man?”
Broadway shrugged. “Conflicting accounts. Some do, some don’t. Some think it was a sniper and the shots were coming from across the street, maybe from a vehicle. Some people think the second man was the shooter. At least two people were sure he had a gun.”
“They describe the second man?”
“Tall, muscular, jeans and a T-shirt, dark red windbreaker. Curly brown hair. Age is anywhere from twenty-five to fifty.”
They asked her more questions and she consulted her notes and answered them as best she could. “And the wit’ in the patrol?” Flemming asked.
“Got a good description of the vehicle the man jumped into. Plus a license plate.”
“Quite an eagle-eye.”
“Yes sir. He scribbled it on his hand. He was lying in the street, hoping not to get shot. I’ve already run the plate. Belongs to a D.C. address, a Dolores Smithson.”
Flemming said, “Call dispatch, have a patrol sent to that address and have them pick up Ms. Smithson and bring her in for questioning.”