Dr. O (10 page)

Earlier he had seen a Commonwealth Edison representative with uniform and hard hat, blueprints in his hands and a truck parked out back of the enormous facility. With those layouts of the building, Ovierto could gain even more information about the building. With a badge proclaiming that he was a man named James Early, he'd have no opposition. He went directly for a door marked Employees Only, where the Edison electrician had gone.

The man on the other side looked over his specs rather casually when he saw who it was.

"Lady, you can't come through this way... lady... you okay?"

Ovierto, in wig and makeup, appeared to be faint and suddenly went to one knee. Early rushed to what he thought was a woman in distress when a screwdriver-sized hypodermic was suddenly twisting in his stomach. Snatched out, with Early staring at his attacker, the bloody tool suddenly bored into the electrical engineer's throat, cutting off his scream, toppling him over a catwalk. His body plummeted to the ground floor and was hidden among boilers that sent up a terrible racket.

Ovierto was pleased. He'd have the uniform, badge, and keys without getting the clothing sullied. He climbed down the metal stairs toward the dead man, who had ingested enough poison to kill ten men. He tossed away his wig as he climbed down and tore at a handkerchief to wipe away his eye shadow, rouge and lipstick. This done, he bent over Early and began to strip him. It was going so well.

Then he discovered the small two-way radio on Early's belt. It was not sending. Early was FBI. The building was crawling with FBI, alerted by Thorpe. Maybe even the Coca-Cola guys were FBI.

"Well, now the wolfs in the fold," he said to Early, snatching his gun from inside his uniform. He searched for and found Jack Harris's ID and FBI badge as well. He then picked up the radio so as to better monitor the movements of the others. He wondered if Deter had gone nuts yet. It didn't seem so, not with the radio quiet.

It would come soon, drawing them like flies to Deter. Poor Deter.

He climbed back up to where Harris was, reading the building specs, and he studied them for some moments, memorizing what he needed and moving on.

Inspector Donna Thorpe's helicopter flew over Fermilab, and she studied the details on the ground. The cars in the lot thinned out quickly now. The enormous Fermilab was a monument to nuclear physics, built by the U.S. Government; all its research was government-funded. From it had come an array of nuclear physics by-products and a better understanding of space and the universe. The huge circle at the rear of the building, the length of several football fields, appeared to be a giant racetrack; in fact it was the world's first nuclear "loop." Inside the accelerator loop, atoms were bombarded against one another and "smashed" to create infinitely smaller pieces of matter, the behavior and nature of which was carefully scrutinized and monitored by the sophisticated computers and analyzed by the geniuses employed here.

From where she sat she could see both the industrial area and, in the distance, Fermilab Village, with its empty farmhouses and a grazing herd of protected buffalos milling about. She could see the Geodesic Dome, the Proton Area, the Master Substation, and the Meson Detector Building. She saw all roads leading in and out of Argonne National Laboratories, which was bordered by Kirk and Butterfield roads. All those entrances were now being blocked on orders.

She had been unable to stop Harris and his three friends from interfering with Swisher and Ovierto, but she had him in the net now and that was what counted.

She stared again at the accelerator, imagining the speed with which the atoms flew through the concrete-lined tunnel —the speed of light. For a moment she wondered if Dr. Maurice Ovierto's brain did not work like the atom smasher, ever moving in heats to destroy and reduce and reduce and reduce. It might be a fitting place to see him reduced to a sniveling, pleading pulp of flesh.

The atom smasher was so large that it could not be seen in its entirety except from the air. Like her plan, she thought. So far, nothing untoward had happened.

She tried to raise Harris again, but the man seemed to be deliberately ignoring her calls. He'd pay for his insubordination. She cursed him for his arrogance.

"Take me to the top of the building," she ordered the pilot.

"Yes, ma'am."

Despite herself, she had to get inside... had to get close. She could smell Ovierto, another and even more arrogant bastard. He was here. So close it gave her goose bumps.

The specs had shown the service elevator which he now approached. He had hoped to kidnap Oliguerri and Hogarth, string out their deaths, enjoy them. If he killed them here, it would be too quick, too painless. But the place was filthy with FBI agents. He may not have any choice in the matter. Still, the acid he'd brought for the pair to swallow would disintegrate their insides.

He rode the elevator up and up to where Oliguerri's offices and lab could be found. He was grateful to Special Agent Jack Harris for having provided the specs.

The elevator door opened on a lab, and from across the room they stared at him. He lifted a calming hand, telling them, "I'm Special Agent Jack Harris." He flashed the badge and ID, coming closer. "Just checking out this avenue... making sure... can't be too safe with this sicko, Ovierto."

Something shaky in the woman's eye, he could see but not quite make out. She began backing toward the front offices. "You want to talk to Officer Swisher?" she was asking, going for the door.

"No, no, that's all right."

But it was too late. She was outside in the hallway. Oliguerri stood his ground, watching Ovierto smile and ask dumb questions. "What are you working on? High-level stuff, huh? Something to insure world peace, huh?"

"Something of that nature, yes," said Oliguerri who didn't even see the capsule that Ovierto shoved down his throat, holding him like a vet holding a cat, rubbing his Adam's apple, making him swallow. He kicked Oliguerri viciously in the groin, doubling him over and then went for the woman, Hogarth.

Swisher had let the buzz of the radio he'd put aside continue a third time before he picked it up and almost dropped it into the pail of water at his feet. He pressed the button and asked, "What is it?"

"Harris has been killed, stripped of his clothes!"

"Who is this?"

"Dunbar, damnit. The killer's got Harris's clothes on!"

At the same instant, Elena Hogarth came rushing toward Swisher, saying, "There is an agent Harris in the lab who wants to see you."

Swisher's eyes must have told her the truth when he grabbed her roughly and pushed her to the ground, ripping out his .38 Police Special, and saying, "Stay down, stay down."

"But Dr. Oliguerri is in there!"

"Get to the elevator. Get as far from here as you can," he instructed her.

She slithered along the freshly cleaned floor, reaching for the elevator button when she heard shots behind her, making her scream. She got up and raced for the stairwell. A bullet followed her through but missed her. She panted and started down when she heard a woman's voice call out, "This way!"

In the lobby, on the main floor, there was more gunfire. Elena looked down through the maze of open concrete to see a pair of dead security guards. More shots were fired. She looked up at the woman who waved her toward the roof. "Dr. Hogarth, it's me, Donna Thorpe! I have a helicopter on the roof."

She raced to join her on the roof. Thorpe settled her into the helicopter and ordered them to wait. She went back into the building and down the same steps. Someone was coming through the door. She steadied herself, taking her stance, holding her gun out firmly with both hands, ready to fire.

Joe Swisher hardly had the strength to push through the heavy door, using his body weight to do so. He was a bloody mess, having taken two bullets, one in the chest and one in the face. He looked up at her, their eyes meeting moments before Swisher fell over the railing and to the lobby below, leaving a trail of blood along the concrete facings.

"Bastard! Bastard!" she screamed and raced for the door, tearing it open onto a dark, empty hallway. In the middle of the floor was a mop and an overturned water bucket. She scanned the dark shadows for any movement. Closer, closer, she moved, toward Oliguerri's lab. She yanked open a closet door, sending junk tumbling across the wet floor. Silence reigned again, when suddenly the elevator door across from her dinged and an overhead light went on. She aimed for the occupant.

The doors opened on Robyn Muro who stared across at her. "Where's Joe?"

She hadn't time to explain Swisher's whereabouts or his condition now. She turned and silently rushed toward the lab.

"Where's Joe, damnit? They've got the maniac downstairs. He's dead."

Thorpe turned and in the dark her face was creased down the middle with light, dividing her features like a mask. "No, Ovierto is up here. And... and he just killed your partner."

"No! No!" Robyn was unwilling to believe it.

"The stairs, through there," she indicated and moved away from Muro for the interior of the lab. Her eyes instantly went to Oliguerri, who was choking and spewing forth blood from his mouth. The man's huge, white eyes seemed to be popping from their sockets. He was in a bad way, but his wild eyes followed her, pleading for her to help him. He appeared to be paralyzed.

She scanned the offices and the labs, looking through rows and rows of glass.

Nothing. Silence and emptiness save for the pitiful leavings of a dying Oliguerri who begged in gibberish for help. Her eyes fell on the elevator doors. The light indicated it was at the basement. She had to get to a radio —the chopper.

As she made her way back, passing Dr. Oliguerri, the dying man lunged toward her and trapped her ankle, pulling her to the floor, tugging and straining at her. She kicked out to free herself, shouting, "I'm going for help!"

"Dow-leaf-me... dow..." He could not speak clearly. She shouted to Muro as loudly as she could, "Get medics up here, now! Now!"

But she knew it was too late for Oliguerri... had known it when she entered the room. Dr. Ovierto left nothing halfway done... left no one half-dead. Whatever he'd done to Oliguerri, it was lethal. Still, she screamed for Muro's help.

But Robyn Muro remained frozen over the sight of Joe Swisher's body, which looked as if it were in a deep well filled with his blood.

All of Oliguerri's remaining strength seemed to be in his hands as he held tight to her ankle. She had to break free, if she was to catch Ovierto, and it must stop here. Then she saw the communicator awash in the water out in the hallway. She used her gun to break free of Oliguerri, hammering his hands until he let go. She then rushed to the communicator and picked it up. It was almost covered with water and Swisher's blood. She pressed a button and shouted into it. "All agents, stop Ovierto, service elevator, east side of the building!"

"He's dead, Inspector!" shouted one respondent.

"Took him out at the lobby."

She was confused. Then she remembered the shots welling up from the stairwell at the same time that Swisher was taking two bullets.

"You assholes are looking at Joe Swisher's body."

"No, damn, he come out of the rafters, but we got the looney down here, twenty-five or thirty slugs in him."

"No, no! It's a decoy."

"Decoy?"

"A duck... damnit, a stooge! He's gotten a stooge to divert attention. Where's Harris! Damnit, Harris! Get your men deployed at the service exits on the east side of the—"

"Harris is dead!"

"Dead?"

"Dead and stripped of his clothes earlier."

"What kind of clothes?"

"Same as I got on, Commonwealth Edison uniform. We came in a truck."

"You fools! Damned fools! He's getting away in that van!"

She threw down the static-filled radio and started to rush for the helicopter when suddenly she realized that Robyn Muro held her in her gun sights. "Robyn... you don't want to do this."

"I kill you and it's chalked up to Ovierto's doing. Righteous payback for Joe. I knew you'd get him killed."

"You don't want to do this, Robyn. His murderer is getting away at this very minute and together we can still catch the bastard. Ovierto killed your partner, not—"

"You killed him, you bitch! You and your obsession. Lying to him."

"Lying to him?"

"You left out too much about Ovierto."

"Not so! I gave Joe everything I had on Ovierto... everything."

"No, there's more... more to Ovierto, more to this whole damned business."

"I gave Joe every file—"

"Shut up! Just-"

The elevator doors opened and both women wheeled and aimed. It was Harris's men.

"I'm out of here!" shouted Donna Thorpe, rushing for the roof and the helicopter.

"Not without me," said Robyn.

They sized one another up for a moment, before Thorpe said, "We're wasting time here."

They raced up to the helicopter, Thorpe asking her pilot where Elena Hogarth had gone —for she was missing.

He merely shrugged. "Ran back down."