Josh cupped his hand around Caitlyn’s elbow as they crossed the hotel lobby, praying they simply looked like another couple who belonged there. The decor, with its marble flooring and modern furniture, was a stark contrast to the seedy motel they were holed up in a couple days ago.
He kept his head down, aware of the security cameras, but he wasn’t too concerned about them. By the time the authorities went through the footage, he would either have already been arrested, or would have turned himself in.
In another hour or so, he’d know which one.
Caitlyn matched his stride as they passed Eddie, who was sitting in one of the plush lobby chairs, reading a newspaper, ready to inform them if the authorities showed up.
“I’m having second thoughts about this plan,” she said.
“Just smile and keep your head down. No one will know we don’t belong here.”
He slipped his hand down and took hers as they walked toward the elevators. An arriving group was talking with the concierge while the woman at the front desk was busy checking in a couple. No one was paying any attention to them.
He punched the button for the fifth floor, hoping Eddie’s information on Hayward was accurate. He’d insisted on keeping Caitlyn out of any confrontation with the ADA, but she’d only shot down his worry. Both Eddie and Caitlyn had objected to the idea of him being involved in the actual confrontation with Hayward, but he could be just as stubborn as she was. In the end, they’d settled on a plan with the two of them going to see Hayward and Eddie watching the lobby.
He touched his wireless earbuds. “We’re heading up the elevator now, Eddie.”
The tension around them was palpable as the elevator doors closed and they traveled upward. They were laying everything they had on the line in a last-ditch effort to get what they needed to give to the captain.
He squeezed her hands as the doors opened. “You okay?”
She nodded. “I just want to end this.”
They started down the paisley green and blue carpet toward room 531. Black-and-white photographs of Texas scenery hung on the walls. For the moment, there was no one in the hallway, and no signs of a maid. Which was good. The fewer people they encountered, the less chance they would have of being recognized.
They stopped in front of the door. He was used to grilling suspects in the controlled environment of an interrogation room, but today they had the disadvantage. And it was going to take far more than luck to get Hayward to give them what they needed.
He nodded at Caitlyn, and she knocked on the door. “Housekeeping.”
Ten seconds later the door swung open. “Wait a minute. You’re not—”
“No, we’re not.” Josh shoved his way into the room, taking Hayward by surprise, backing him onto the bed.
Caitlyn shut and locked the door behind her.
“Nigel—” The blonde in the bed wrapped the bedspread around herself and scooted back against the headboard. “What’s going on?”
Josh quickly snapped a string of photos of the compromised couple and sent them in a text message to Eddie.
Hayward lunged toward Josh. “You’re going to give me your phone, then get out of this room. Both of you. Right now.”
Josh easily blocked the man’s punch and shoved him back onto the bed. “It’s too late. I just sent the photos to a friend. If you don’t want them going to your wife—and going public—you’ll do exactly what I tell you. If anything happens to either of us, I’ve left strict instructions with my friend on what to do.”
“You can’t do that—”
“It’s already done. In the meantime, I want you to sit in that chair.” He pointed to the chair beside the desk.
“Do you know who I am? You’ll never get away with this.” Hayward let out a low groan, then paused. “Wait a minute . . . You’re Josh Solomon.”
“Get up and sit in the chair,” Josh repeated. When Hayward complied, Josh took a pair of zip ties from Caitlyn and secured the man’s hands and feet to the chair.
“You’re supposed to be in prison.”
“I was, but it turns out that I had a friend on the inside who was able to arrange an . . . early departure.”
“You escaped? You think anyone is going to believe your word over mine after what you’ve done?”
“Doesn’t matter at this point, because here’s what’s going to happen.” He turned to the woman, still cowering against the headboard. “Caitlyn’s going to check the bathroom, then you can go in there and get dressed and wait for us. Don’t try anything stupid unless you want these photos to hit the front page in the morning.”
Caitlyn checked the bathroom for any cell phones and emerged a moment later. “It’s clear.”
The blonde grabbed her clothes and scurried into the bathroom while Josh took a moment to study the man. Nigel Hayward had always been a bit of a golden boy to the courts. In his late thirties, he was young enough to please the millennials, yet he had more than a dozen years of experience under his belt. In court, he always came out swinging, and there were rumors circulating that he had an appetite for the district attorney’s job.
Their research had confirmed that while he was tough on the squash court, he was even tougher in the courtroom. He’d been married for seventeen years to a surgeon, and together they’d had two children, who attended private schools in the city that cost as much as college tuition. The only vices they’d managed to uncover were his love for cars and his mistress, who apparently gave him something his wife couldn’t.
Josh was hoping that weakness turned out to be the one thing that gave them what they needed.
“We’re going to talk,” Josh said, “but remember if you make any noise, or do anything stupid, those photos hit tonight’s news cycle.”
He glanced at Caitlyn, then sat down on the edge of the bed across from Hayward. “I’m going to get straight to the point. I know you were involved in the murders of Olivia Solomon, Dr. Walter Abbott, and Helen Fletcher. I also have evidence that you were involved in the selling of a virulent virus that has been made into a bioweapon and that there is an imminent attack being planned for tonight, using that virus.”
“Wait a minute . . . Bioweapons and murder?” Hayward let out a nervous laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m very serious.”
“I’m an attorney. I put people who are involved in things like that in prison. I don’t participate in them, and you’re insane to accuse me of it.”
“Oh, I can assure you that I’m quite sane. You were involved. And not only were you involved, you were in the perfect position to make sure that anyone who asked questions—like Olivia and Helen Fletcher—were silenced.”
Hayward leaned forward. “You know you won’t get away with this, don’t you? Incriminating pictures or not, you’ll be back in police custody by the end of the night, and I’ll be back at my job tomorrow.”
“I’m not sure what your payoff was,” Josh continued, ignoring the man’s comments, “but a few million dollars in an offshore bank account would give you enough to afford expensive hotels like this, vacations, and gifts for your mistress. That account shouldn’t be hard to track down—”
“Listen to me.” There was an edge of panic to Hayward’s voice. “I don’t know where you got the information you have, but clearly, I’m the victim here. Anyone who knows me will vouch for me. Besides, I’d never compromise my job for a few secrets—”
“We’re not just talking about selling a few secrets,” Josh said. “We’re talking about your involvement in a bioterrorism attack.”
“You’re crazy. You both are.”
“I don’t think so.” Caitlyn had opened up a briefcase that had been sitting on the desk and pulled out four passports and an itinerary. “This is interesting. Looks like someone’s headed to San Juan on the 11:45 flight out of IAH.”
“Just a vacation with my family.”
“And a separate ticket for Ms. Jennings to Las Vegas at eleven.”
“She has a sister there.”
Caitlyn glanced at the bathroom door. “Your timing is what is particularly interesting, considering there’s a planned attack for tonight. It’s risky, but we’ve heard you have your eyes on the DA’s job, so you’re probably not planning to disappear. Just staying out of harm’s way in case things go wrong, I’m guessing.”
“Nothing you’re saying is true. Just tell me what you want and let us go. If it’s money—”
“I’m not interested in your money,” Josh said. “We need to know who’s involved in the scheme and who you sold the virus to.”
“I’ve already told you I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Problem is . . .” Josh leaned forward. “I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have anything on me. You’re a fugitive who killed his wife. Do you really think they’re going to listen to you after everything you’ve done? And now you can add kidnapping the assistant DA to your list of crimes.”
“Actually, I do think they will listen once we’re done here.” Caitlyn dropped a photo of Hayward and Shawn Stover she’d pulled from her bag on the end table beside him. “I’m sure you recognize Stover. He’s an opportunist, connecting buyers and sellers of black-market items.” She dropped another photo onto the table. “This is Toni Salazar. She was a reporter looking into your connection with Stover. She died in a hit-and-run before she could finish her investigation. And these . . . are Olivia Solomon, Dr. Walter Abbott, and Helen Fletcher.” She pulled out three more photos. “All dead because they discovered what you were doing. We can connect them all to you.”
He tried to laugh away her words, but fear registered in his eyes. “You’re crazy!”
“Am I? We’re waiting for new autopsy results, but I just received confirmation from his wife that someone switched Dr. Abbott’s medication, upping his potassium levels and causing irregular heart rhythms that have been connected with sudden death. As for Helen Fletcher—”
“Stop.” Hayward shook his head. “Like I said . . . You’re crazy. Because if you had real evidence you would have gone straight to the authorities. Instead you’re here trying—futilely, I might add—to get information out of me. Which tells me that you’re bluffing. So you really should forget whatever game it is that you’re playing, because I have nothing to say to you. But I can promise that my office will have plenty to say. As soon as you’re done here, I’ll be requesting warrants for your arrest that will send both of you to prison for the rest of your lives.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I don’t exactly have anything to lose.” Josh stood up. “I’ve already been arrested for the murder of my wife and partner. Threatening the assistant DA with blackmail in his hotel room is nothing.”
“I hope you mean that, because you will pay.”
Josh took a step back in frustration. Hayward was scared. That was obvious, but he was right about one thing. They wouldn’t be here if they had the evidence they needed to go to the authorities. And they only had one card left.
“I do have something else to show you.” Caitlyn pulled a vial and syringe out of her bag and held them up. “Do you know what these are?”
Hayward shrugged. “Should I?”
“I work at MedTECH, where most of our work involves creating vaccines. Typically, what we work with isn’t dangerous, but there is always a very small chance for the genetic makeup of a virus to create a lethal one. And if that were to happen, you have the potential—with someone who knows what they are doing—for it to be weaponized. Now normally, if something like this were to happen, there are ethical boundaries we stand by. Except in this case, someone got greedy and decided to try and make a profit for themselves. Which is why we’re in this situation.”
“Interesting story, but how many times do I have to tell you that this has nothing to do with me?”
Caitlyn put the vial and syringe on the table beside him. “Then I’m guessing you really don’t know what this is.”
Hayward squirmed in his chair. “Why would I?”
“And I guess you don’t know this man I work with. His name is Jarred Carmichael. He’s one of those unethical employees who thought it might be advantageous to squirrel away a little nest egg of his own. I paid his wife a visit earlier today and found this in the refrigerator at his house. He must have pulled aside a few of the vials for a second buyer. Not a bad idea, considering how much they’re worth.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then let me explain. I’m not sure how much you know about this, but vaccines work on the premise of both keeping an individual from getting sick as well as stopping it from transferring to someone else. So you can imagine the problem we’d have if a vaccine not only produced a more dangerous strain of a virus but was also able to spread that virus.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Take for example, a disease like pneumonic plague or maybe smallpox,” she said, ignoring his question. “Pneumonic plague causes the infection to spread to the lungs through the bloodstream. That in turn causes a secondary issue. And here’s the problem with that. While the bubonic plague can surprisingly be treated with our basic antibiotics, pneumonic plague is different. Not only does it develop rapidly, the fatality rate is quite high. And it’s not a pleasant way to die. Especially when sepsis sets in. There will be organ failure, respiratory distress, hemorrhaging, and then death. Now can you imagine what would happen if something like this was created in a lab, not to stop the disease from spreading, but to cause it to spread?”
She picked up the plane tickets and dropped them onto the bed next to him. “It seems to me as if you believe you could leave the country for a week and walk away unaffected. The problem is, when you let something like this loose, you can’t pick and choose your victims. It will continue to spread rapidly without an antidote for days, maybe weeks. That means that the odds of you or your wife, your mistress, or your children getting it when you return are pretty high.”
“You’re bluffing and you’re crazy.”
“Am I?” She took the protective cap off the vial, pulled out the syringe, and shoved the needle through the rubber top before moving in front of Hayward.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Jarred Carmichael found a way to make this into a weapon, which would mean a death sentence to thousands of innocent people. And since you’re so certain that I’m bluffing, I say we try it out on you and see what happens.”
“Wait.” Hayward turned to Josh. “Stop her. Please.”
Josh stepped forward. “Who are you working with, and where are the rest of the vials?”
“I don’t know.”
Caitlyn drew up the dose with the plunger, then pulled it out and checked for bubbles.
“What are they planning to do with it, Hayward?” Josh asked.
“You’re too late. They’re gone.”
“Then who was your buyer?”
Hayward tried to pull away, but couldn’t. “Don’t . . . please don’t . . .”
Caitlyn swabbed his arm and injected the needle, her thumb hovering over the plunger. “I wouldn’t move if I were you. My finger might slip and accidently inject our little vaccine sample.”
“Tell me who it is.”
Hayward winced, and his hands shook in his lap, but he refused to answer.
“In case you hadn’t thought of it,” Josh said, “you and your family will be missing your flight tonight. If this virus gets out—”
Hayward was sweating bullets. “His name is Angelo Braddock.”
“Who else is involved?”
“Carmichael was our genius in the lab . . . Stover found us our buyer. He tried to get your wife involved, but she refused.”
“And so you killed her.” Josh frowned. “What about the precinct? Who was your inside person there?”
“No one. I put the pressure on the captain and fed him the evidence we planted.”
“If you’re lying—”
“I’m not.”
“Where can we find Braddock?” Josh asked.
“He didn’t exactly tell me his plans—”
“Hayward . . .” Josh glanced at Caitlyn. “All I have to do is say the word and you won’t need to worry about the virus getting out, because you’ll have it—”
“No! There’s a party being held at the Egyptian Consulate tonight. They’re planning to release the virus there as a test, but honestly, I don’t know any details.”
Caitlyn pulled out the needle without injecting the harmless saline.
Josh clicked on his earbud. “You’re up, Eddie. It’s time to turn ourselves in.”