Kitty Goes to Washington (Kitty Norville 2)

He made a disgusted huff. “What a bunch of posers.”

Supper that evening was room service at Ben’s hotel. Cormac sat on the bed, plate balanced on his lap, one eye on the news channel playing on the TV, volume turned way down. He and Ben drank beers, like a couple of college buddies. Maybe that was where they’d met.

We’d debriefed Ben on our field trip. The chart from the lab lay spread across the middle of the table.

Ben nodded at it. “Is this a copy or did you just take it out of his office?”

“It’s a copy.”

He pursed his lips and gave a quick nod, like he was happy with that answer. “Was it worth it?”

They both looked at me. I rubbed my forehead. My brain was full. “Yeah, I think so.”

Ben said, “This doesn’t prove anything, you know.”

“I know people on that list. At least, I think I do. If I can track them down, they’ll give me someone else to talk to.” I hoped.

“Will they talk to you?” Cormac said.

“I don’t know.”

Ben leaned back in his chair. “Kitty, I know this Flemming character is suspicious as hell. But maybe he’s exactly what he appears to be: an NIH doctor, ex-army researcher, nervous because he doesn’t want his funding cut. What is it you think you’re going to find?”

Fritz the Nazi. I wondered what kind of questions Flemming asked him, assuming he actually talked to his subjects. I wondered if Fritz told him the stories he wouldn’t tell me. What would an ex-army medical researcher want to learn from a Nazi werewolf war veteran—

“Military application,” I whispered. I swallowed, trying to clear my throat, because both men had set aside their forks and beers and were staring hard at me. “He told this story about a patient in a car accident, horrible injuries, but he walked out of the hospital a week later. Flemming seemed totally . . . entranced by it. By the possibilities. He talked about it in the hearing, remember? Curing diseases, using a lycanthrope’s healing abilities. Imagine having an army of soldiers who are that hard to kill.”

“If he had military backing he wouldn’t need to be explaining himself to Congress,” Ben said.

Cormac said, “Even if he’s developing military applications, is there anything wrong with that?”

“There is if he’s using people,” I said. “He has jail cells in his lab.”

“Look, I thought you liked what this guy was doing,” Ben said. “That you wanted all this out in the open. You want him shut down now?”

“Yeah, I think I do.”

“Why?”

I shrugged, because it was true. I’d loved seeing this stuff in the Washington Post. I was enjoying the respect. But I could still smell the garlic paint in the lab. “Because he’s unethical.”

I hadn’t finished dinner, but I couldn’t eat any more. It was dark now; time to see Alette. “I won’t be able to track one of these guys down until tomorrow, but I think I can find the other one tonight. I’m going to go do that.”

“Need company?” Cormac said. Read: need help?

“No thanks, I’ll be fine. I think.” I collected the pages from Flemming’s lab.

“You might want to think about making a copy of those,” Ben said. “Maybe put them in a safety deposit box. Just in case.”

“Or mail ’em to someone,” Cormac said. “With a note to open it if anything happens to you. If you get in trouble you can use it as a threat and not be lying.”

“Or you could not do it, say you did, and use it as a threat anyway.” Ben said this pointedly at Cormac, weighing the statement with significance.

Cormac gave his best shit-eating grin. “Would I do something like that?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I’m taking the Fifth on that one.”

I stared. “Uh, you two go way back, don’t you?”