Containment

  CONTAINMENT

  Copyright © Kyle Kirkland

  2013

  ISBN: 9780615750583

  12 April, Monday

  Medburg, Pennsylvania / 3:45 p.m.

  The street looked old, and was old, with cracked, unswept pavement. The row homes that lined both sides of the street had been built shortly after World War II, in a flurry of construction as returning soldiers refused to live in apartments or with their parents—they'd acquired a taste for independence and the American dream. And so they'd shoehorned their dream into one of a row of identical little two-story boxes, with a tiny patch of lawn and a porch. Storefronts jutted out from many of the row homes, proof that at one time the street had seen its share of commerce. They, too, looked old, with filthy windows and scarcely legible signs, except for the freshly painted banners of the check casher and the pawn shop. But as Gary Winters walked home from school, he saw it with the eyes of a resident who knew no other city; which is to say, he saw nothing amiss, and was relatively content, since he'd just aced an algebra test.

  Then he heard the car. The roar of its powerful V8 could be heard a mile away. Derrick's car was an old Mustang that he'd fixed up, slapping on a coat of paint, a racing stripe, and fat tires. Gary looked up just in time to see Derrick's arm waving at him from the passenger's seat as the car zoomed past. Passenger seat? Who, Gary wondered, would Derrick allow to drive his baby?

  The car slowed, turned into a side street, and came to a halt with the passenger side facing Gary. Derrick beckoned. Gary ran a half-block to reach it.

  Derrick, black-haired and good-looking, leaned out through the open window. He always seemed to be smiling, and was now. "Hey, wanna ride?"

  Gary peered through the windshield to look at the driver. Somehow it didn't shock him to see Alicia.

  "Hi, Gar'," said his sister. Her sandy-colored hair, slightly darker than Gary's, looked wind-blown, as if she'd driven all the way from school with the windows down. A big grin split her pretty face. "Heard you did well in algebra. Bet Mom'll be glad."

  Gary nodded, willing to bet anything that Mom would scream if she found out Alicia had been driving that car, with only Derrick inside it. Leesh had gotten her learner's permit only a few months ago. Although she was a year younger than Gary, she'd been the first of the four kids in the family to do so. Gary had put it off; why bother since his chance of getting a car before graduation was nil? And Mom was so busy she didn't have much time to teach him to drive, and she always had to take the car to work anyway.

  Derrick's smile grew wider. "Hey, didja hear the news?"

  Derrick's father worked at the auxiliary medical examiner's office, and Derrick loved to talk about the gory details of the latest entry in the obituary page. In a city of 80,000, where the mines were petering out and crime had started to become the highest paying occupation, he had a lot to talk about. He held up two fingers. "Two bodies."

  Gary waited for the bloody description. Shooting, splattered brains; stabbing, protruding entrails.

  "Not a mark on 'em," said Derrick.

  "What?"

  "Clean as anything."

  "Who were they?"

  Derrick shrugged. "A couple of nobodies."

  For once Gary got interested in what Derrick had to say. "But what happened to them?"

  "They don't know what happened to them. That's just it."

  Gary began to sense some kind of joke or prank. He waited for the punch line.

  But Derrick suddenly turned serious. "They probably won't find out now. They messed up. The guys who picked up the bodies thought they'd gotten hit over the head or something. They packed 'em off to the morgue, and those guys filled 'em full of whatever kind of stuff they use and sprayed 'em, and now nobody will probably be able to tell anything about 'em anymore. Who knows what really happened? My Dad says someone in D.C. is gonna be seriously pissed." Then Derrick's good humor returned. He laughed. "Serves 'em right!"

  "I guess."

  Derrick started to open the door. "Hop in."

  Gary shook his head. "No thanks. I'll walk."

  "Suit yourself, chump." Derrick leaned back. "Let's go, Leesh."

  As the car lurched forward, Gary saw his sister punch Derrick on the shoulder. He heard her say something like, "He's my brother," and something else, but the sound of the motor drowned out the rest of it.

  13 April, Tuesday

  Micro-Investigation Unit, Department of Health and Human Services

  Bethesda, Maryland / 8:10 a.m.

  Kraig Drennan stared at his screen. Suddenly the large office flooded with cyan light—his favorite color—and the gentle melody of waves lapping against an isolated Pacific reef came over the concealed quadrophonic sound system. The sights and sounds of the sea pervaded the room of the 41-year-old physiologist and physician whose chief hobby was scuba diving.

  I'm calm, Kraig keep telling himself. He brushed back blond hair from the forehead of his bronze-colored face, lined and weathered by the sun. He smiled and tried to think of something pleasant, even though he knew with a certainty of experience that the chair, and its physiological sensors, would not be easily fooled.

  It wasn't. It continued to detect a rise in heartbeat, respiration rate, galvanic skin response, and blood pressure, all remotely sensed or approximated with the most sensitive equipment that money could buy. The coral reef display continued.

  Kraig tapped his fingers along the desk console. Topping his agenda after he gained the directorship of the Micro-Investigation Unit—his very first order of business following the promotion he'd long been aggressively pursuing—would be to rip out every high-tech physiological alarm in the entire building, and burn them at an evening bonfire.

  He stood up and strode briskly toward the office door, which he opened more forcefully than he had intended. Outside, in the common central area that was surrounded by the offices, a few of the assistants and interns looked up from their glassed-in cubicles.

  Still smiling, Kraig made his way through the glass tunnels, hoping to attract as little attention as possible. He reached a cubicle of an assistant whom he knew by name. Young, fresh out of graduate school. She reminded him of his ex-girlfriend, when he'd first met her years ago at a seminar in Los Angeles—the same place where she'd recently moved to live with her new significant other, an optometrist who shaped the cornea, colored the iris, and bleached the sclera of the entertainment industry.

  "Lisa," said Kraig, "how about letting me use your network link for a few minutes?"

  Lisa gave him a puzzled look. "Well, sure, but—"

  "Great. Could you excuse me?"

  Lisa stood up. The cubicle wasn't big enough for two people to be inside at the same time so Kraig backed up and let her leave. Then he scooted inside.

  Pausing in the transparent hallway, Lisa gave him a look. Then she said, "Your physiological alarm went off, didn't it?"

  "No, no," said Kraig, sitting down and slipping on the headset. "My network link's down, that's all. Darn thing goes out all the time, don't know what's wrong with it." He looked at her and smiled.

  "You know," said Lisa, "it's all right if people know you're mad. It's okay to get mad every once in a while."

  Not for someone bucking for the directorship of this place, thought Kraig. He said politely, "Will you excuse me?"

  Lisa gave him a knowing look, then disappeared.

  Surrounded by post-it notes with small, cramped writing and several pictures of a smiling Lisa with a smiling young man at the beach and on the ski slopes, Kraig discovered the computer wasn't working.

  Lisa had one of those new voice-activated computers. He guessed she'd trained it well, and now it probably wouldn't work with anybody else's voice. In a busy office with a constant background of
murmuring and the occasional shout, perhaps exclusivity was necessary. He killed the microphone and rolled the keyboard out from its slot. It looked like it hadn't been used in a while. And it didn't work, even though it was plugged in. He sighed and hung his head.

  Kraig knew the Unit's budget better than anybody, as he'd compiled it for each of the last three fiscal years. He had to fight for every Eppendorf tube, every DNA test kit, every full-time salaried position. Justifying the expenses was especially difficult when most members of Congress had never heard of the Micro-Investigation Unit or that it was a new branch of HHS, and even if they had, didn't have the slightest idea what it was supposed to do. And when they learned of its expertise in microscopic hazards of all varieties—biological, chemical, and technological—Senators and Representatives inevitably said, "Isn't that what Homeland Security and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are for?" Explaining the efficiencies of putting everything under the same roof wasn't easy; but nothing was easy to explain to a Congress always on the lookout for ways to cut spending. It didn't help that Chet loaded the budget with his favorite high-tech toys, none of which had anything to do with their job and most of which were useless, annoying, and occasionally inimical.

  Lisa stuck her head into the cubicle. "By the way, there's a switch on this kind of keyboard that you've got to flip to activate it. Did you know about that?"

  "What the hell is it for? Never mind. I don't want to know." Kraig flipped the switch and Lisa disappeared again.

  He logged onto the network using his name and password. Quickly he fired off emails to Roderick Halkin, Cecily Sunday, and the idiot in Medburg, Pennsylvania who allowed two bodies to be swept off the sidewalk like discarded beer cans. Then he requested a video link with the director. He waited as the software established a connection and activated the camera mounted on Lisa's monitor. Probably some beta version software, Kraig thought sourly. It worked maybe half the time. But this was Chet, so Kraig decided to use the video link instead of a sweet and simple phone line. All this just to leave a message.

  Finally the cam blinked and, to Kraig's surprise, the director's image came on the screen. He stared at the craggy face and the prominent white mustache. "Glad to see you're in, Chet," he said. Someone canceled the golf game? "We have a possible situation in Pennsylvania. A mid-sized town called Medburg."

  The craggy face turned sour. "Not influenza-related, I hope? The season's pretty much over, isn't it?"

  "That's the thing. We don't know. We've got no idea what it is."

  "Then what do we have?" said Chet Vernolt, in his official directorate voice, deep and authoritative. The one he reserved for employees, including the assistant director, who seemed to be wasting his time.

  Kraig hid a frown. "We have two bodies discovered at about the same time and close together. About 100 yards apart. No obvious wounds."

  "And no one's done a strain test for influenza or other viruses yet?"

  "Chet, no one's done anything at all. The bodies were cleaned up and taken to the morgue. As far as I can tell, the M.E. hasn't even looked at them yet."

  The bushy white mustache drooped. "Good God! How many near-miss epidemics have we had in the last ten years? Who's in charge over there?"

  "I gather that it's an economically depressed area. Bodies lying on the street aren't as much of a novelty as you would think. Lots of homeless people in the area."

  "Well, then, two more bodies aren't going to make all that big a difference, I suppose. At least we won't have a panic on our hands. Who have you got working the case?"

  "I'm going to assign Halkin and Sunday."

  The white mustache twitched. "You know I don't like to second guess my people, Kraig, particularly not you—"

  Kraig cut him off quickly. "They're the best I've got available right now." They're the best I've got—period—but you'd have no way of knowing that. They don't play golf.

  "Halkin I know. Good man, though quite peculiar. Well, perhaps certain cases call for that sort of thing. The field agent, I gather, is this person Sunday?"

  Kraig nodded. "She's not with the department."

  "And we have no department person who would, let us say, be better suited?"

  "She does have a few problems, Chet, but...." Kraig licked suddenly dry lips.

  "Ah." The director's face brightened slyly, turned fox-like. "I thought so. That's why she's not with the department. Right?"

  "Actually, she's not with the department by choice. Freelancing appeals to her. And she's worked with Halkin before. He thinks very highly of her."

  "Both of him?"

  Kraig shrugged. "Only one of his personalities is important, as far as the department is concerned."

  "I see." The mustache wavered, unconvinced. "I understand the need to hire creative people for these jobs, but don't you think you're going a bit too far? I'm all for creativity, but these lifestyles, and transcendentalism, and cultivating multiple personalities, and all that. Rather embarrassing if someone outside the Unit happened to drop by, wouldn't it?"

  "Don't worry, Chet. I always lock them in the closet when visitors show up."

  "Now, really. You're making me out to be the bad guy. All I'm saying is that we need to show a little professionalism. Image is important, you know. Good image and good health, and you've got life licked."

  "And I agree with you, up to a point. Up to the point where the difference between solving a case and not solving a case, or not solving it as quickly as possible, is ten thousand fatalities."

  "Exactly why you must have sturdy professionalism, not flighty artsy-fartsiness."

  "I agree with you again—" Kraig stopped. I'm pushing my luck.

  "Yes, well, perhaps this little situation will prove harmless," said the director. "The cause of death could turn out to be something easily contained. Food poisoning or the like. Maybe the victims both ate at the same diner. The salmonella diner."

  "Only two victims? That's pretty lucky for a contaminated diner."

  "Maybe it's as simple as a case of two simultaneous heart failures. Statistically unlikely, but it happens. Or, more likely, they had a little help vacating this world, even if there was no obvious trauma, if the neighborhood is as bad as you suggest. You know they make stilettos these days that'll skewer you but not leave much of a mark."

  "Seems more like a good old fashioned handgun kind of neighborhood to me."

  The mustache perked up saucily. "You know something about that kind of neighborhood, don't you?"

  Kraig pondered his response options. I know I'm a hick but we'uns try awful hard to please. Or maybe, At least my family didn't buy me a career like some people I know. He opted for something more tactful. "It's certainly something I know more about than you do."

  Kraig grew up in a rough sort of town in Missouri, near St. Louis. Everybody at Micro knew about Kraig's background and he did nothing to hide his hardscrabble roots, even at the white-tie dinners that the denizens of the nation's capital were so fond of having. But he'd lost his Midwestern twang in the halls of Emory University—picking up just a tad of y'all-isms—and muddied his accent further with a stint in Boston while obtaining his medical degree from Harvard. He'd paid the tuition himself, every penny of it, from money he'd earned shoveling crap in the stockyard—after increasing his bank account sixty-fold with a short but immensely successful career trading stock options.

  "Quite," said the director. "Well, we can still hope this is a false alarm, I suppose. You'll keep me informed?"

  "Like clockwork." Kraig smiled and disconnected. The moment the screen blanked, his smile vanished too.

  A voice behind him said, "Something interesting?"

  Kraig turned. Lisa was standing just outside the cubicle. He said, "You were listening?"

  "Well, no, not really." Lisa spread her arms. "But it's cube city, you know. You hear and see everything."

  "Have you ever worked with Cecily Sunday?"

  "No, but I've talked with her a few times.
"

  "You like her?"

  Lisa hesitated. "I guess...."

  "Don't guess," said Kraig. "Say what you mean, honestly."

  Lisa sighed. "To be perfectly honest, I found her detestable."

  "Good," said Kraig, rising from the chair. "I've got an assignment for you."

  Arlington, Virginia / 10:30 a.m.

  A woman sat on the floor, legs crossed, hands resting on knees. The photochromatic windows of her bedroom were darkened to almost blackness. The only source of light came from a widescreen plasma TV covering nearly the whole of one wall; it showed an early morning scene from an 18th-century city. From the wall-mounted speakers came the sound of wagons—tumbrels—creakily rolling over stone streets. The wooden wheels slapped against the odd, irregular shape of the stones, fell into gaps and squeaked as they grinded their way along the ancient pavement.

  And voices shouted and cursed.

  "Mourez! Mourez!" Die! Die!

  Cecily Sunday continued to sit motionless on the floor. Her eyes were closed.

  The tumbrel was approaching its destination, Place de la Révolution. And then, La Guillotine. Cecily had traveled the route many times—in her imagination. Her left hand slid down her thigh and reached out to the side, where the knife lay. A big hunting knife with a blood groove and a razor edge.

  She had no plans to use the knife. But she picked it up and felt the haft, caressed it with her palm and fingers.

  At the end of her fantasy trip was the infamous guillotine, so liberally used in the bloodbath of the Reign of Terror. La

  Terreur à l'ordre du jour. A daily dose of terror. It was one of Cecily's favorite historical periods.

  She would make the final walk, attacked by angry people—snaggly-toothed, unwashed, spotted and scarred by syphilis, pox, and tuberculosis—who would spit on her and curse her and kick her. And then at the end, on the scaffolding, a heavy blade loomed above. Sand was sprinkled everywhere, to soak up the blood lest the executioners slip and injure themselves.