Sixteen
Shooter got to his office an hour early so he could get in touch with the Port Authority. He looked up the number and dialed.
“Hello, this is John Sloan,” a voice answered.
“Mr. Sloan, I’m Detective Steve Kowolski with the Houston Police Department and I wonder if you could give me some information?”
“Sure, Mr. Kowolski,” Sloan answered. “What do you need to know?”
“We had an incident a few months back at a dock on the Houston Ship Channel involving a ship named the Night Runner.”
“Yeah, I remember it. Quite a shoot-out from what I heard.”
“The problem is, the ship is no longer berthed at the dock. I was wondering if you guys moved it or had it moved.”
“Give me a minute to check the records, Mr. Kowolski.”
Shooter heard the sound of computer keys being hit over the phone. After a moment, Sloan was back on the line.
“No, I can’t find any record of us doing anything with the ship.”
“Mr. Sloan, a few days after the incident, a nearby warehouse was broken into and cleaned out. Do you think the same people could have stolen the ship?”
Sloan laughed over the phone. “Now, that’s a new one,” he said. “I’ve never heard of a ship being stolen. Matter of fact, I don’t think it’d be possible.”
“Why is that?” Shooter asked.
“Well, first off, you’d have to have an experienced crew and captain to run the ship, and second, every ship leaving the port has to check in with us so we can track it and keep the shipping lanes safe from collision.”
“And you have no records of a ship by that name leaving the port?”
“Nope.”
Shooter gave him the date of the assault on Niemann’s ship and the current date. “What other ships left the port between that time.”
“You want all of them?” Sloan asked in amazement.
“Why, are there a lot?” Shooter asked.
“Mr. Kowolski, the port of Houston is the second or third most busy port in the States. There have been hundreds of ships in and out of here since then.”
Shooter thought for a moment, and then it came to him. “Mr. Sloan, if someone took that ship out under a false name, then there would have to be a record of it leaving but no record of it arriving, wouldn’t there?”
“Hey, that’s right,” Sloan answered. “You are a detective, Mr. Kowolski.”
“If it’s not too much bother, could you run a cross-check against any ships leaving in that time frame against any arrivals for the past twelve months?”
“No bother at all since we’re computerized now. But it’ll probably take a couple of hours to run the program. Can I call you back?”
“Sure, I’ll be at this number until noon at least,” Shooter said, and gave him the police station phone number and his extension.
After he hung up, Shooter grabbed a cup of coffee and began to go through the paperwork on his desk.
* * *
Matt and Sam were in the lab going over the test results on TJ when the phone rang. Matt answered it.
“Hello, is this Dr. Matt Carter?” a voice said.
“Yes, I’m Dr. Carter,” Matt answered.
“I’m Dr. Bartholomew Wingate,” the voice said.
“Oh, hi, Dr. Wingate.”
“Please, call me Bartholomew,” Wingate said. “If we’re going to be working together, I think we can do without the formality.”
Matt motioned for Sam to pick up the extension. “Great, Bartholomew, I’m Matt and on the other line is Dr. Samantha Scott, known locally as Sam.”
“Glad to talk to you both,” Bartholomew said.
“Have you got any news for us?” Sam asked.
“Not anything good, I’m afraid. I’ve received the samples you sent and I’ve begun processing them, but without more information it is going to take some time to determine exactly what strain of plasmid is infecting your friend.”
“How long are we talking about, Bartholomew?” Matt asked.
“A couple of months, at least.”
“Oh, no,” Sam sighed into the phone.
“Is that a problem?” Bartholomew asked.
“Yes, sir,” Sam said. “TJ, the one who’s infected, has begun to show some troubling signs of the infection.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bartholomew said. “But, unless you can get me some more specific information about just what strain she was infected with, I’ll have to do it the slow way.”
“OK, Doctor, just please find out as soon as you can.”
“I assure you, Matt, I’ll work on nothing else until we’ve solved the mystery. This is the most exciting thing in plasmid research I’ve ever come across, so I’ll pull out all the stops and get back to you as soon as possible.”
“Thank you, Bartholomew,” Sam said, dejection evident in her tone.
“Is there no way to find out from the person responsible for the initial infection?” Bartholomew asked.
Matt looked at Sam across the room. “No, sir. I’m afraid he’s dead.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. It would speed up the process of growing some conjugation-blocking plasmids if we knew the DNA structure of the infecting organisms.”
“Well, if we come up with anything we’ll let you know immediately,” Matt said.
“Thanks, Matt. Keep in touch, and if any new symptoms arise, be sure and let me know.”
Sam slowly replaced the phone in its cradle and hung her head, clearly saddened by the news of how long it would take to get results that would help TJ.
Matt stood up and walked over to put his arms around Sam. “It can’t be helped, Sam,” he said gently. “I’m sure he’s working as fast as he can.”
She looked up at him. “I know, Matt, but TJ is changing. She’s turning into someone I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, sitting his hips on the desk next to her.
Sam looked around the room as she tried to find the right words to describe the changes taking place in her best friend. After a moment, she focused on Matt. “I don’t know quite how to describe it, Matt. It’s almost as if she’s a completely different person.”
“How so?”
“She seems locked off in her own world. She no longer seems interested in her patients or her residency, and she’s more . . . closed off. We used to confide in each other, but now it’s as if she’s so afraid of what’s been happening to her that she’s decided to go it alone. She won’t even talk about the changes and she no longer tells me about the dreams that plague her and keep her from sleeping.”
“You think the infection is growing, making her change into the type of creature that Niemann was, don’t you?”
Slowly, Sam nodded. “Yes, and I’m afraid if we don’t find some sort of cure soon, there won’t be any more of the original TJ left to save.”
Matt took her hand. “Then we’ll just have to work harder and faster and make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Sam was about to reply, when the door opened and Shooter walked in, accompanied by Chief Damon Clark. Clark looked much better than the last time Matt had seen him. He’d gained some weight and looked stronger since his surgery.
“Hey, Shooter, Chief,” Matt said.
Sam turned her head and discreetly wiped the tears from her eyes, then smiled at Shooter and Damon. “Hi, guys,” she said.
Matt, noticing the serious expressions on their faces, asked, “What’s up? You two look like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
“We need to talk,” Shooter said.
Matt got up off the desk and moved to the small conference table in the corner of the room where he and Sam went over lab reports and research notes. He swept the papers on the table into a pile in one corner and motioned for everyone to take a seat.
Once they were seated around the table, Matt said, “Go ahead.”
Shooter opened a manila folder he was carrying and laid a sheet of paper out on the desk. “After our visit to Niemann’s warehouse the other day, I checked with Chief Clark and he said he wasn’t aware the ship was gone, so I called the Port Authority to see what had happened to it.”
“Had they moved it?” Sam asked, looking down at the paper and trying to read it upside down.
Shooter shook his head. “Nope. So I got to thinking and had the man there run a check on all the ships that’d sailed out of the port since our fight with Niemann.”
“What’d you find out?” Matt asked.
“There was no record of any ship by the name of Night Runner having left the port.”
“Maybe someone just took it and didn’t check in with the Port Authority,” Sam offered, playing devil’s advocate.
Shooter shook his head. “Not possible, at least not for a ship as big as Niemann’s.”
“Get to the point,” Damon said irritably.
“Anyway, I figured whoever took the ship might have changed its name, so I had them run a cross-check of any ships that left that didn’t have a record of having arrived.”
“Smart move,” Matt said.
“Tell them what you learned,” Damon said.
“Only one ship left that hadn’t arrived. It was named the Moon Chaser and it left two days after our shoot-out.”
“Where was it headed?” Sam asked.
“Officially, Naples, Florida,” Shooter said. “But I called the port there and they had no record of it ever getting there.”
“Maybe whoever it was just changed the name again before getting to Florida,” Matt said.
“I thought of that, but first I called all the ports that were marked on that map we found in Niemann’s warehouse to see if a ship named Moon Chaser had berthed.”
“And?” Matt asked.
Shooter smiled grimly. “I hit the jackpot. The Moon Chaser arrived in the port of New Orleans three days after it left Houston.”
“And who was listed as the owner?” Sam asked.
Shooter shook his head. “Some corporation registered in Nigeria. That turned out to be a dead end, so I called Chief Clark to see if we could get the New Orleans police to check it out for us.”
Both Matt and Sam turned their attention to Damon, who opened a leather briefcase he’d set on the floor next to him and pulled out a sheet of paper.
“Just before Shooter called me, I received a bulletin from ViCAP.”
“ViCAP?” Sam asked.
“The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program,” Damon explained. “It’s a computer network run by the FBI and shared with local law-enforcement agencies in which criminals are tracked across the country by means of their MOs, the type of crimes they commit.”
He handed the bulletin across the table for Matt and Sam to read.
After he scanned the report, Matt glanced up with fear in his eyes. “This can’t be.”
Damon nodded, his lips tight. “I know. The police chief in New Orleans is investigating multiple killings where the necks are slashed and all of the blood drained from the victims, just the type of killings Niemann was doing here before we stopped him.”
Sam pointed to the bottom of the bulletin. “He also had a query here about any history of assaults with swords and gasoline, just like the one we had where the man was beheaded and his body burned with gasoline. The one where the DNA tests showed the victim was over a hundred years old.”
“Exactly,” Damon said.
“What do you think this means, Damon?” Matt asked, though he was afraid he knew the answer.
“One of two things,” Damon replied. “First, and I have to admit most likely, is we have a copycat murderer. Either someone who was in Houston at the time of our killings and who read about them and is killing in the same manner as Niemann was, or it’s another creature like him who has the same MO.”
“What’s the second possibility?” Sam asked, her face pale.
“That Niemann somehow survived our assault, cleared out his belongings from his warehouse, sailed his ship to New Orleans, and picked up right where he left off in Houston.”
“But,” Matt protested, “that’s impossible, Damon. You saw how his body was riddled with machine-gun bullets. Hell, his head was almost severed from his body.”
Damon shook his head. “I know, Matt. And for the record, I don’t believe it, either. But the coincidence of all of Niemann’s belongings being removed, and his ship being taken to New Orleans, and the simultaneous beginning of killings similar in nature and method to those he performed, is just too great to ignore.”
“Besides, Matt,” Shooter said, “six months ago you would have said the presence of a Vampyre in Houston who sucked the blood out of his victims and seemed to be one hundred fifty or more years old would have been impossible.” He shook his head. “I hesitate to use the word ‘impossible’ in conjunction with anything concerning Niemann.”
Matt spread his hands, frustration written all over his face. “So what are we gonna do? Call the New Orleans police and tell them we think their killer. . . what do they call him, the Ripper, is a vampire that we let get away and now he’s busily biting necks in their city?” He laughed harshly. “Hell, they’d think we were nuts.”
Damon glanced at Shooter and said, “You tell them.”
Shooter stared at Matt and Sam. “I think we should go to New Orleans and track down the owner of the Moon Chaser.”
“What?” Sam asked, her mouth open in amazement.
“It’s the logical thing to do,” Shooter explained. “After all, we know what Niemann looks like, and more importantly, we believe in what he is. Something we’ll never be able to convince the New Orleans police about.”
“OK, I can see the rationale in you going, Shooter,” Matt said. “But why Sam and I?”
Damon interjected, “Because if our perp is Niemann, he’s likely to be using the same dodge he did here, working as a doctor somewhere. You and Sam, as docs, can get entry into those places better than a cop.”
“I don’t know,” Matt said, his heart beating rapidly at the very thought of again confronting the monster Roger Niemann.
Sam put her hand on his arm. “Matt, I think we should go. If it is Roger, we may be able to gain access to his research. It might save TJ’s life.”
Matt stood up and began to pace the room. “Jesus, guys, I just don’t know if I can face that again,” he said, remembering the terror he felt the night he’d climbed on Niemann’s ship and faced the monster head-on.
Shooter got up and walked over to stand in front of Matt. “You can do it, pal. We’ve got to do it. For TJ, if nothing else.”
Matt chuckled, shook his head, and turned to Damon. “If we go, Chief, I’m gonna want a really big gun!”