Just as they reached the Metro station, Jack’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out to read Declan’s name in the caller ID screen. He hit the talk button. “What did you find?”
“It took some finagling, but we finally got in to talk with the director of research and development who is overseeing the cancer vaccination project.”
Jack came to a stop inside the station, his gaze searching the platform and the people standing there waiting for the next train. “And?”
“He said he couldn’t go into too much detail about the XC-16 vaccine. They’d been working on it for the past two years, getting closer than they’ve ever gotten before. The vaccine triggers the immune system to kill cancer cells, which was a great step forward. But experimenting on mice proved to be deadly for the mice. Even at extremely low doses, the mice died within hours of receiving the vaccination.”
“So the serum killed cancer, but killed the patients, too?”
“Exactly. The drug was deemed too dangerous to experiment with on human subjects. They made some changes to the formula and they had some better results. The mice didn’t die as suddenly. They lived at least a week before they started showing signs of decline. Ultimately, the experiments were thought to be a failure, as the mice died anyway.”
“What did they say about the man in the picture? Do they think the man in the photo might be using one of their vaccines?” Jack asked.
Declan snorted. “The director said no one had authority to test the XC-16 vaccine on humans. They’re using nanotechnology to deliver the vaccine into the patient’s system and it’s considered unstable at this time. In fact, the program had been put on hold until they could figure out what was killing the mice they’d used as test subjects. The researcher in charge of the program was laid off until further notice.”
“Did you get the name of the researcher?” Jack asked. “Maybe we can learn more from him. He might be more likely to spill information since he’s been laid off.”
Declan chuckled. “We did. His name is Leon Metzger.” He texted the man’s address to Jack. “We planned on going there next.”
“Hang on while I look at the location.” Jack pulled the phone away from his ear, put it on speaker and stared down at the text. The address came up and he clicked on it, bringing up the map on his phone.
Anne leaned over his shoulder. “That’s not far from here. It’s close to the next stop. I almost rented a condo in that area.”
Jack glanced at his watch. “Do you have time to swing by there?”
Anne nodded. “As long as we get back to my office before two o’clock.”
“I think we can make it. Did you hear that, Declan? We’re only about a five-minute train ride to that location. We’ll swing by.”
“Good, because it’ll take us at least thirty minutes fighting traffic. Let us know if he’s there and we can meet you there.”
“Roger,” Jack said and ended the call.
The train rolled into the station and they boarded.
When they got off at the next stop, Jack used the GPS directions on his phone to get them to the row of condominiums where Metzger lived.
“Fourth door on the left,” Jack said.
Anne pressed the doorbell.
Jack could hear the echo of the bell inside the hallway. No one came to see who was there.
Anne pressed it again.
Jack heard another sound coming from the garage attached to the condo. He stepped close to the garage and pressed his ear to the overhead door. The hum of an engine sounded inside. Why would someone have his car engine running with the garage door closed? As soon as the thought entered his head, he knew something wasn’t right.
Jack tried the front door, but it was locked. He ran around to the back of the building and counted to the fourth back door and tried it. Not wanting to leave Anne alone for too long, he hurried back around to find her standing on her toes, looking into the window of the condo.
“I don’t see anyone moving around inside.”
“I think it’s because whoever lives here is in the garage, with the car running,” Jack said, his face grim.
“That would be stupid. He could die of carbon monoxide poison—” Anne’s eyes widened. “Oh, dear.”
“Call 911. I’m going to break a window to get inside.”
“Calling,” Anne said. “Hurry,”
Jack grabbed a landscaping brick and threw it into a window on the first floor. The glass shattered, leaving a large hole.
Using a stick, Jack broke away the remaining shards of glass, ducked through the window and ran through the kitchen to the door leading into the garage.
He could smell the sulfurous smoke before he opened the door. A white sedan stood where the owner parked it, the engine running. Inside, slumped over the wheel was a man in a gray T-shirt, his face pale and waxy.
Jack pulled his shirt up over his nose, slammed his hand onto the garage door opener and yanked open the car door.
The man behind the wheel slumped sideways. If Jack hadn’t been there to catch him, he would have fallen out of the car.
Grabbing beneath the man’s shoulders, Jack dragged him from the car and out of the fume-filled garage into the open air and laid him on the grass.
“The fire department is on the way,” Anne said, slipping her phone back into her purse. Her brow pinched. “Is he...”
Jack felt for a pulse at the base of the man’s throat. “I don’t feel a pulse and he’s already cold. I’d say he’s dead.”
SIRENS SOUNDED IN the distance, getting louder as they moved closer. A red truck pulled into the condo driveway, red lights blinking from its roof. Emergency medical technicians jumped down from the truck, grabbed their gear and ran toward where Jack and Anne stood. The first one there dropped to his knees, felt for a pulse and frowned. He pulled out a stethoscope and pressed it to the man’s chest. He shook his head, folded his stethoscope and stuffed it into his pocket.
Anne held her breath, wishing the man would find a pulse, knowing he wouldn’t.
A police cruiser pulled to a stop beside the fire truck and, a minute later, an ambulance arrived.
For the next thirty minutes, Jack and Anne answered the questions they could, and waited for the police to clear them to leave. Eventually, Leon Metzger’s body was loaded into the ambulance and carried away to the morgue.
Anne had her own set of questions, but Jack had stepped away while the techs worked on Metzger and called Declan, who assured him they’d look into this incident immediately. For the time being, they had to be patient.
Anne and Jack walked to the Metro station and caught the train back to the Farragut West station. They found seats near the back of the car and sank into them.
“You think it was suicide?” Anne asked softly.
“We won’t know until they do the autopsy.”
Anne wasn’t sure, but her gut was telling her it wasn’t suicide. “He didn’t look like someone who was going to commit suicide. He looked like he was going for a date or something.”
Jack nodded in agreement. “Metzger didn’t look like he was ready to die. He was dressed in his best, with the scent of cologne lingering on his skin, like he was trying to impress someone.” He lowered his voice. “And I noticed something on his kitchen calendar when I ran through there. He had a vacation coming up. Bermuda in big capital letters. He was looking forward to the future.”
“Why would someone want to kill a research scientist?” Anne asked.
“Better question is—” Jack glanced toward her “—who had something to lose if he talked about his research with the cancer vaccine?”
Anne’s eyes narrowed. “The company developing it?”
“You heard what the program director said,” Jack said. “They put the project on hold until they could figure out what was killing the mice. They went as far as laying off some scientists.”
“You think he took his research elsewhere?” Anne asked.
“It’s possible. But he’d have to take it a lot farther than in the same country where the scientific community speaks the same language.” Jack’s brow furrowed. “You have to know they talk to each other.”
Anne stared at the back of the seat in front of her. “Some place like Russia? And they used the vaccine on the people in that Syrian village, because they would trust anyone to help them when they needed help most.” She shook her head, her stomach roiling at the senseless murders. “They experimented on those people.” She pressed her knuckles to her lips. “They killed everyone in that village, including the children.”
“We don’t know that for certain. This is all circumstantial at this point. Until the World Health Organization can get in there and test some of the bodies, we won’t know anything.”
Anne nodded. “You’re right. At this point, all we can do is guess at what’s happening. In the meantime, I have tomorrow’s NSC meeting to prepare for. I should be getting the finalized agenda back from the national security advisor. Then I need to update the briefing slides and stage them for tomorrow morning. The president hates to be kept waiting on technical glitches.”
“Then we just have to make sure there are no glitches. Are you in charge of the audiovisual equipment?”
“No, but I help the guy who is. Terrence Tully is our conference room facilitator. He makes certain the conference room is in perfect order, there are seats for everyone invited to speak and drinks for everyone. He sets up the audiovisual connections and loads the briefings. I’ll be there to make sure all the images come across correctly.”
“That means we have to be at the office early tomorrow.” He didn’t ask the question. He stated a fact.
Anne was always extra early on NSC meeting day. “Right. I’ll want to be even earlier than we were this morning.”
“I can do early,” Jack said.
The train came to a stop at the Farragut West. Jack took Anne’s arm and helped her out of the train and through the exit into the late afternoon sunshine. “We missed your two o’clock deadline,” Jack said as they entered the West Wing.
“I’m not sweating it. I only set the hour as something to aim for. I can stay as late as I need to. We’ll see how many changes Shaun came up with. That will determine how late I’ll be here.”
“Anything I can do to help...let me.”
She gave him a weak smile. “I will.” Anne paused outside the door to the NSA office suite, hesitating before diving in. “I admit I’ve never seen a dead body up close and personal like that.”
“You never get used to it,” Jack said. “It’s hardest when you knew the guy.”
Anne shot him a glance but didn’t question him. He didn’t need her forcing him to relive something as catastrophic as losing a friend in battle.
As soon as she stepped through the door, Anne was hit by one request after another.
Shaun had her in his office going over the last-minute fixes to the agenda and the images he expected to use for his portion of the briefing.
“Who put the question of Russian sanctions on the agenda?” he asked.
“Chris Carpenter.”
“We settled that a couple months ago. Why does he insist on rehashing it?”
Anne didn’t speculate. Chris had his reasons. It wasn’t her place to question them. The council would decide what was important and assign taskings to different government bodies to accomplish what they wanted done. She sat in the meetings on rare occasions if they wanted someone to clarify an issue. Normally, she was simply moral support. But sometimes she provided valuable background information if members had questions.
Anne checked the entire slate and researched all the issues in order to advise the NSA so that he might brief the president. Shaun didn’t necessarily need her advice, but he liked to bounce ideas off her. She figured it was one of her job duties to listen to her boss’s thoughts and ideas. He was the one who had to present to the president, vice president, the chief of staff, and other members of the council.
Once she had all the changes incorporated on the slide presentation, she saved a copy to her desktop as backup and moved another copy into a file they used specifically for the council meetings. Terrence would know where to go to get the presentation and Anne would be there to double-check the right document was loaded.
Once she’d completed setting up the agenda and the supporting documents that Shaun might need, she poked her head back into her boss’s office. “Do you need anything else?”
He was on his feet, slipping into his suit jacket. “No, thank you. I have another meeting to attend tonight. I’ll be in early tomorrow morning.”
“Have a good evening, Mr. Louis,” she said.
“And you.” He paused as he passed her. “Anne, is there anything else going on with you?”
She looked at him in surprise. She’d been working hard every day to get this meeting arranged. Anne prided herself on keeping her emotions to herself. She didn’t like weak or whiny women, and in keeping with that, she refused to be one of them. “No, sir. Why do you ask?”
“You seem to be distracted. I hope you aren’t experiencing any problems outside of work.”
Anne bit down hard on her tongue to keep from telling her boss everything that had gone wrong over the past few days. But she stopped herself in time. Shaun didn’t need to know her life was getting more complicated by the minute and that she had an assassin after her. “No, sir. Everything is perfect.” A perfect mess. She pasted a smile on her face. “Have a good evening.”
“You’d tell me if something isn’t right in your world, wouldn’t you?” he persisted.
“Yes, sir,” she said, holding up her hand as if swearing an oath, though she was lying through her teeth. She didn’t like telling untruths, but sometimes a person didn’t need to share even a small portion of her life with her colleagues. Her boss had much bigger issues to concern him. The safety of the nation was far more important.
The text messages she’d been receiving could be hoaxes, for all she knew. She had yet to identify the person who’d sent them. Not one of the Secret Service staff had received anything indicating a threat to the president, vice president or any other member of the council. If they had, the meeting would have been postponed and everyone in the White House would have been warned.
Should she have raised an alarm when she’d received the first volley of messages?
Her boss continued on toward the door.
“Mr. Louis,” Anne blurted out.
“Yes, Anne?” he said and turned to face her, his eyebrows cocked.
The words she knew she should say lodged in her throat. Finally, she forced air past her vocal cords. “Have a nice evening, sir.”
Shaun’s eyes narrowed slightly, and for a moment, he looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. “Thank you,” he said and left.
Anne let go of the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and walked back into her office. Once she shut her door, she paced the length of the room.
Jack rose from where he’d been seated and crossed the room to stand in front of her. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “I’m not cut out to be a spy.”
“You don’t have to be.” He held open his arms.
Anne sucked in a deep breath, fighting the urge to take advantage of his offer to comfort her. She had been at this job long enough to know right from wrong. At that moment, she was almost convinced she’d been wrong to keep a potential threat from the others working in the West Wing. “I should tell someone that something bad might happen soon.”
He dropped his arms to his sides. “Do you know for certain when and where?”
“No.” She huffed out a frustrated breath and held out her hand. “Give me your phone. It’s about time we got some answers from our text woman.”
JACK HANDED OVER his cell phone and waited while Anne keyed in a text to the mysterious woman who’d been less than helpful in their search for answers.
Anne hit the send button and looked up. “Now we wait and see if she actually responds. Telling someone there’s going to be trouble without giving any specifics is almost worse than letting them be surprised.”
“I disagree. At least we’re not blind sheep being herded over a cliff. We are aware and watching.” Jack wished he’d found more information through his search of the West Wing database he had access to. Nothing had seemed to stand out.
Cole and Jonah were in a better position to cybersnoop. With the ability to hack into many different government and corporate databases, they could get in and get out without being detected.
As the new White House staffer, Jack would be easily detected. He suspected that anyone in the White House with connections to Trinity would be extra careful about contact with them. They wouldn’t use their government computers or the cell phones they used for work. That kind of sloppiness could get someone killed.
He looked over Anne’s shoulder at the words she’d typed to the woman who’d been texting.
Tomorrow is a big day, lots of targets in the NSC meeting. Need help. Can you give us any more specifics?
After a minute passed, Jack began to think their texter wasn’t online. After three minutes, he shook his head. “We might as well call it a night. Tomorrow will be an early day.”
Anne nodded and stepped close to Jack. She reached around him and turned on a small desk fan before she spoke, creating noise to drown out her words. “She might not contact us while we’re here. We don’t know what kind of surveillance equipment is employed within these walls.”
Jack nodded, inhaling the fragrance Anne used. Or was it the fresh scent of her shampoo? Whatever it was, it was intoxicating.
She stepped away and gathered her purse.
Jack slipped into his jacket and they left the office and the West Wing of the White House.
The evening crush of people hurried toward the Metro in their mad rush to get home.
Jack kept a close watch on Anne, afraid someone would make a move while she was buried in a sea of humanity. If someone was to attack, now would be the time. It was too dangerous. He gripped her arm and pulled her into one of the cafés along the way.
She looked up at him, a questioning expression on her face.
“I couldn’t protect you from everyone,” he whispered. “We’ll wait until the crowd thins out before continuing on.”
Anne nodded and looked around at the little restaurant. “We could go ahead and have dinner here. By the time we get back to the estate, it will be late.”
“I’m all for it.” He grinned. “We were so busy at lunch we never stopped to eat.”
Anne pressed a hand to her belly. “That must be why I’m so hungry.”
They waited to be seated by the hostess and looked at the menu.
Jack studied Anne across the table. He could imagine this as a real date. They sat in companionable silence, comfortable in each other’s company. He wouldn’t consider her unconventionally beautiful with her straight black hair and blue eyes. But her true beauty came from her intelligence, compassion and life experiences. This was a woman who, despite the trying circumstances, forged ahead and went to work, instead of cowering in a corner, afraid to live because someone was after her.
As they waited for the waitress to return, Jack reached across the table and captured Anne’s hand. “You amaze me.”
She appeared clearly startled by his touch and words. A smile quirked upward on one side of her mouth. “Why do you say that?”
“You’ve been nothing but a trouper through this whole ordeal.”
She snorted softly. “I’m only as strong as the man who’s been by my side practically from the start.” Anne squeezed his hand. “I couldn’t do this without you.”
He shook his head. “I believe you could.”
“Well, I’m glad I don’t have to.” For a long moment, they held hands across the table.
Like a couple.
For the first time in a long time, even though he knew it put Anne in jeopardy, Jack wished this relationship would continue after they resolved the danger.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, jerking him back to reality. He dug it out and stared down at the text from their informer.
Be at the movie theater on 6th and H Street for the 7:35 showing.
Along with the text was an attachment with two tickets to Godzilla.