“What was that?” Gunn asked.
“He didn’t go into detail, only suggested I come by to discuss it.”
“Do you thi
nk it could be significant?”
She nodded. “He said he was sending one of the remaining samples to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the others to a research institute in the UK. That tells me there’s something unique in the water, perhaps something that prompted the attack on our camp.” She turned to Pitt. “Would you be interested in coming with me to College Park? Since you helped save the samples, I thought you might want to know what’s in them.”
“If there was something in the water that led to the destruction of the dam and the attack on your people,” Pitt said, “then I’d like to know about it.” He eyed her cast. “On top of that, driving one-handed in this town is inviting a return to Walter Reed.” He rose from his desk. “Rudi, mind the store.”
Pitt borrowed an agency Jeep from the basement garage and drove them across town to the Maryland suburb of College Park. The Maryland University campus featured a mix of red brick Georgian buildings sprawled across thirteen hundred acres of neatly trimmed grass. Elise guided him to the north side of campus, where they parked next to the more contemporary School of Public Health building.
“Dr. Nakamura has an office next to a research lab in the basement,” Elise said, as she guided Pitt down a stairwell off the main foyer. They had arrived during class sessions, so the corridors were quiet. As they reached the lower level, they passed a well-dressed man and woman heading up the stairs. One lugged a thick valise, while the other carried a pair of FedEx packages. Elise said hello, but they ignored her, staring coldly at Pitt as they passed.
Elise led them down a long hallway, passing three labs, each marked ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH EPIDEMIOLOGY RESEARCH—NO ADMITTANCE. At the end of the corridor, Elise stopped at an office and tried the handle. The door was locked. She knocked twice. There was no answer.
“That’s funny.” She stepped back to make sure the nameplate next to the door read DR. STEPHEN NAKAMURA. “Maybe he’s in the lab next door.”
As she pulled out her phone to call him, a janitor exited the office across the hall and glanced their way. “Do you need to get in there? I guess the professor is getting hard of hearing in his old age.” He selected a key card and unlocked the door.
“Thank you,” Elise said.
“No problem. Not the first time today.”
Elise pulled the door open and stepped in. Pitt followed, allowing the self-closing door to shut behind them. The office was long and narrow, with bookshelves lining the walls on either side. A small, round conference table was wedged into the middle of the room, with the professor’s paper-strewn desk at the far end. A side door next to the desk led to the adjacent lab.
Nakamura sat at his desk with his back to them, his head tilted to a phone wedged against his ear. As Pitt and Elise stepped closer, she whispered, “Hello, Dr. Nakamura?”
She waved to get his attention. He remained still. She started to step closer. Pitt grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“What is it?” she said.
Pitt didn’t answer, but she heard why he had stopped her. It was the busy tone emanating from the receiver, signaling a phone left off the hook.
Pitt eased past Elise to where he had an unobstructed view of Nakamura. The scientist didn’t move, and Pitt saw why. His face was ashen, his eyes were fixed open, with a neat red bullet hole perforating his temple.
16
Elise ignored Pitt’s warning and observed Nakamura’s wound for herself. She screamed.
As Pitt tried to calm her, his eyes scanned the scene. A file drawer sat open near the professor’s feet, a gap revealing a missing file. Also at his feet was a sealed cardboard box with no label. Papers lay strewn about the desk. An electric cord for a computer dangled from an outlet, but no laptop was visible. In a plastic outbox sitting atop a pair of FedEx receipts, Pitt spied a set of car keys with an attached key card. He glanced back at the professor. A trickle of blood around the entry point was still wet. He’d not been dead long.
“There’s nothing we can do for him.” Pitt shuffled Elise away from the desk. “Let’s go call the police.”
He froze as two muffled pops sounded from the other side of the office. A piece of the door lock fell and rolled across the floor. Pitt shoved Elise behind a file cabinet as the door was kicked open, and the woman they’d passed in the stairwell stepped in. She had short hair, dark eyes, and held a black pistol fitted with a suppressor. Looking toward Pitt, she raised the gun and fired.
Pitt dove past Nakamura’s desk. As the shot zipped by, he reached out and flicked off the wall lights. With the office dark, he jumped to his feet and groped about the professor’s desk. He found the keys, and the papers beneath them, then felt his way to the side lab door.
Two muzzle flashes lit the far end of the office, and shots smashed into the wall behind the desk. Pitt reached out and found Elise, pulling her toward him. He held up the key card and heard the lock click, then pulled open the side lab door and pushed her through. At the far end of the office, the woman found the other light switch and flicked it on. She had just an instant to see Pitt follow Elise into the side lab and slam the door.
The lab was absent students, but filled with computers, microscopes, refrigerators, and an array of high-tech equipment. Elise had shaken off her horror and was scrambling past several crowded workbenches, making her way toward the back of the lab—and an exit.
Pitt lingered long enough to slide a rack of computers in front of the door and turn off the lights. He had followed Elise to the middle of the lab when they heard two more taps. The door opened a fraction, banging hard into the rack. The armed woman shoved again, knocking one of the computers onto the floor.
They wouldn’t make the exit in time, so Pitt pushed Elise behind a workbench and dove down alongside her, sliding against a small refrigerator. As the assailant banged against the computer rack, Pitt searched for a weapon. Finding nothing obvious nearby, he opened the refrigerator. Inside, he found some cans of soda, several small packages of perishable materials, and a gallon bottle of alcohol. He grabbed the cans and the alcohol and turned to Elise. “Turn on that heating plate above your head.”
She reached up to an electric hot plate on the workbench and turned the dial to high. At the same time, Pitt crawled to the aisle and twisted off the cap to the alcohol bottle. He lay the bottle on its side, gave it a shove, and watched it roll down the aisle, spilling its contents along the way. It clinked against the far wall just as the woman pushed the rack aside and entered the lab.