What Lies Behind Read online

  Fletcher ran them through the scene. Girabaldi listened without flinching, then interrupted yet again. “Other than the blood, what was collected from the scene? Amanda should have been carrying a laptop, or tablet, at the very least. A satellite phone. We’ll need her phone, her personal effects, everything, brought to State immediately for our own internal examination. I would request that you refrain from having your people go through any of these items. Because the work she was doing is classified, they don’t have the appropriate clearances.”

  Fletcher’s brows drew together. “I saw the evidence log early this morning, and I don’t recall anything of the sort at the scene. No laptops at all, actually. I’ll have to recheck the evidence list, but I don’t believe there were any electronic devices identified as Ms. Souleyret’s. There was a desktop computer and cell phone that belonged to Mr. Cattafi, but they have yet to be fully examined. As you know, our investigation is just beginning.”

  He shifted in his seat. “And Madam Undersecretary, as I mentioned earlier, we’re pretty well convinced a third party killed Ms. Souleyret and did their best to take out Mr. Cattafi, too. The more information you can give us about her, the quicker we’ll be able to find her killer.”

  Girabaldi ran a hand through the sleek gray bob again. Sam realized it was a nervous gesture. Nervous, or maybe even scared. The woman looked at her team, and her lips drew back into what could be categorized as a smile if the circumstances were different. Sam was reminded of a fox she’d once seen on her back deck in Nashville. Brazen little thing had stood its ground when she came out to shoo it away; she’d worried it might be rabid. It had the same look on its face as Girabaldi did now.

  “We’ll get you all the information you need, Lieutenant,” Girabaldi said. “But for the time being, we need you to classify this as a domestic dispute and close the case.”

  Chapter 19

  FLETCHER SHOOK HIS head. “Wait a minute, here. This isn’t a domestic dispute gone wrong. It’s a murder, and from the precarious state of Thomas Cattafi, about to be a double. I won’t be able to classify it otherwise.”

  Girabaldi shrugged, and the insouciance of the gesture made Sam go on alert. The woman definitely knew more about this than she was letting on.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure something out. I know how resourceful you are, Lieutenant.”

  Ashleigh Cavort spoke up, that pale ponytail swinging around her neck like a noose. “Lieutenant Fletcher, there’s more. In addition to closing the case, we think it would be best for you to put out word that Thomas Cattafi has died. You’ll be given a specific backgrounder on Amanda Souleyret, and we need you to use the information therein for all official statements and correspondence. We can’t jeopardize her operation, even if she is dead.”

  Sam bit her lip. Fletcher was too well-versed in the D.C. machine to respond appropriately: you’re out of your ever-loving mind if you think that’s going to happen. Instead, he took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “Are you claiming jurisdiction?”

  Girabaldi shook her head. “No. Officially, we aren’t involved at all, nor, as I understand, is the FBI, outside of Dr. Owens consulting. This meeting never happened, you were never here. Best-case scenario for us—you close the case for the record, but off the record, run a very quiet investigation and help us figure out what’s happened. Because of the classified nature of Amanda’s work, we can’t have anyone knowing about this. Too many lives are at stake. Simply put out word this was a murder-suicide that’s ended tragically, and we can help you manage the rest from behind the scenes.”

  Fletcher’s eyebrows rocketed skyward. “Do you realize the level of coordination it would take to make all that happen in silence? Hospital workers, nurses, half the police force...” He broke off, shaking his head. “And you want me to keep it to myself and handle it all alone? Is there anything else we can do for you, Madam Undersecretary? Change the color of the sky, perhaps?”

  Girabaldi gave him a half smile. “There’s no need for sarcasm, Lieutenant. This is a matter of national security, and every piece of the investigation is need to know. We need you to cooperate and help us out. I would consider this a personal favor. When the time is right, if the time ever becomes right, you can quietly move the case to your homicide files. I know how the D.C. police do so love their close rates.”

  Fletcher leaned forward, put his hands flat on the table. Sam wondered if he was going to get up and walk out, but he simply said, “I don’t think you understand. I don’t have the power to do this. There are too many people involved already. Cops, EMTs, hospital employees, reporters. Witnesses. Homeland Security has a finger in the pie, too, now that we’ve had to call in HAZMAT, there’s—”

  Girabaldi’s eyes nearly popped from her skull. “You did what?”

  Fletcher had the good grace not to look affronted. “Ma’am, some of us follow protocol. If you wanted a cover-up, you needed to get up earlier.”

  She narrowed her eyes, but sat back and crossed her arms. “What happened? Why was HAZMAT involved?”

  “Cattafi had a refrigerator full of illegal pathogens. We didn’t have a choice. We had to protect the scene and the neighborhood.”

  “And you didn’t mention this before?”

  “You interrupted me before I had a chance to get to it. What the hell was your chick doing with Cattafi? Do you even know?”

  Girabaldi’s eyes sought the heavens. “God save me from these people,” she muttered, then looked at Sam and Fletcher. “Sorry, I didn’t mean you. No, I don’t know what Amanda was doing with Thomas Cattafi.”

  “Until we establish their ties, we’re going to have a hard time figuring out this case.”

  Girabaldi looked at her team. “Can we have the room, please?”

  The four staffers stood and exited without a word. When the door was shut, Girabaldi turned exhausted eyes to Fletcher.

  “Lieutenant, I know our requests are atypical. And I do understand it would take a herculean effort on your behalf to completely shut the door on this investigation. But, please, I need you to keep this as close held as possible. I do not want to be out making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows trying to explain this situation. Do I make myself clear?”

  Sam didn’t think that was the most politic way to get Fletch to cooperate. He didn’t respond well to demands. She wasn’t surprised to see a matching look of exasperation on his face.

  “So you don’t know what she was doing with Cattafi, but I take it you know what the pathogens were doing at the kid’s apartment?”

  “Amanda was probably bringing material in to test. Cattafi wasn’t on our—anyone’s—radar. He’d be a safe place to store them if she couldn’t get them to us. And don’t worry about it. Those aren’t pathogens. Those are test vaccines. There’s no real danger from them.”

  Fletcher was getting fed up with all the double-talk and subterfuge. Sam could see the impatience in his balled-up fists. “Test on what? Or on whom?” he said slowly.

  Girabaldi cleared her throat. “I could lose my job for telling you this.”

  “Without all the information, we’re going to have a hard time bringing Amanda’s killer to justice. Besides, we signed the nondisclosures. We aren’t stupid. You can trust me, ma’am. Trust us. I think you’re going to have to.”

  She nodded, leaned closer across the table. “Last year, some bad vaccines were shipped into Africa. We don’t know who was behind the shipment. Amanda has been trying to find out where they’re coming from. All the manufactured vaccines have markers in them, almost like DNA. And the vaccines themselves are DNA-based and administered with a gene gun, so the sequence of the DNA might act as a fingerprint to trace back to the source. Amanda has been smuggling batches of vaccines under development out of every company who might have a part in this. Not only the vaccines themselves, but the vials that contain them, the material
used in the suspension liquids for the vaccines, the gene guns, everything that goes into making and distributing the vaccines. Are you following?”

  “Yes. Different companies create different components and you have to test them all to see where the bad ones are coming from.”

  She gave him an appreciative look. “Exactly. It’s been grueling for her. And for us. Clearly she was able to get out another batch, and it must have been a sudden opportunity if she didn’t have time to signal. Though why she didn’t make us aware, I guess we won’t ever know. We could have protected her.”

  “What do you mean, bad vaccines?” Sam asked.

  “Bad as in worthless. Selling them on the black market, saying they were a cure-all for every household African disease you can think of. There are no cures for many of the hemorrhagic diseases in Africa. It’s snake oil.”

  Sam wondered if that was the whole truth. She thought about Tommy Cattafi and his interest in regeneration. “Madam Undersecretary, are you sure there isn’t something else going on with the vaccines?”

  She looked surprised by the question. “Like what?”

  “This seems like a lot of trouble to go to for inactive, unworkable medicines. If they cause no harm, this is unethical, but it isn’t criminal. And you’re concerned enough to put an operative in play to infiltrate—what, ten companies, twelve?”

  “Eight so far,” Girabaldi replied.

  “Infiltrate eight separate companies, risking life and limb, for snake oil? What’s really wrong with the vaccines?”

  Chapter 20

  GIRABALDI SAT BACK in her seat. “John Baldwin told me you were smart.”

  “I appreciate the compliment. Now, would you mind telling us what’s really going on here?”

  “Be careful what you wish for, Dr. Owens.” She straightened her jacket, smoothed her hair. “You’re aware that transportation, financial and bioterror are the biggest threats we face today. We work tirelessly to thwart attacks on our country, and on our people abroad, through highly sophisticated monitoring of possible hotbeds of terror.”

  “Spying, you mean,” Fletcher said.

  Girabaldi gave him a cold look, then continued. “Do you recall a biological event in 2006 in Israel, where several Israelis died after receiving a flu vaccination?”

  Sam nodded. “Of course. It was big news at the time. A potential bioterrorism scare.”

  “That’s right. As it turned out, Israel was a fluke. It wasn’t an actual attack, as far as we could tell. All of the vaccines were given by a single nurse who was ill, and she passed along her infection to the people she inoculated. Four of them did not survive. Sad, but not an attack.

  “However, ever since this event, we’ve been closely monitoring anything that could be related to vaccines and bioterrorism. Amanda was our lead on discovering and disturbing these threats. Since we recognize the dangers we face from a sophisticated bioterrorism attack, we gave her every resource we have to do her job.”

  Sam was starting to get uncomfortable. Bioterrorism scared the living hell out of her—she knew just how easy it would be to enact, given the appropriate circumstances. She told Girabaldi that.

  “Scares the hell out of me, too, Dr. Owens. As it did Amanda. Last year, she discovered an association between measles vaccinations and an outbreak of a virulent viral hemorrhagic fever in Africa. It was similar in nature to Lassa and Ebola, but new. Something no one had seen before. And dreadful. The mortality rate was nearly one hundred percent. The virologists who are familiar with it have been operating under the assumption it may have come from the bat population, which is logical. As the forests get smaller, the hunters must go farther afield to find food, and they come into contact with new, infected animals. Voilà, new viruses are discovered, much to the people’s detriment.”

  “But the vaccinations were responsible?” Sam asked.

  “We believe that to be the case. Every person who died of this new virus was inoculated for measles at a specific Médecins Sans Frontières station out in the bush, all during a single week’s time frame. The outbreak could have turned into an epidemic, but the bodies of all the victims were gathered up and burned in a mass cremation. The ashes were buried, the vaccinations halted and the outbreak stopped. The batch of tainted vaccines was destroyed, as well. Vaccinations resumed a week later, no one else sickened and the outbreak was written off as a fluke.” She shook her head. “Another fluke.”

  Sam was horrified. “Didn’t anyone in Africa put the two things together? The medication and the delayed mortality response? They track these incidents closely.”

  “Yes, they do,” Girabaldi said. “But sometimes the powers that be don’t release all they know. Amanda found the records, which showed that the remaining tainted vaccines were taken off-site by a man with a British accent, as he was described, who promised to see them destroyed. The man has disappeared, and there is no trace of the vaccines he took with him.

  “Amanda was convinced they’d just witnessed a dry run, a test of something much more sinister than a batch of tainted vaccines. And she felt strongly this man was planning to use the information gained to increase their effectiveness and utilize them for an attack.”

  “Had Amanda found the proof of all of this?” Fletcher asked.

  Girabaldi shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t know exactly what she found. She’d been cabling me information as the search went on, but as far as I know, she hadn’t made any real discoveries. Trust me, she would have told me immediately if she’d found him. All we know about this man is what Amanda had been able to track down, which has been very little. She had a vague physical description, which varies from person to person, and she hadn’t seen him herself.” She paused, then shook her head. “Though I must assume she stumbled across something quite terrible if she was murdered, as you say.”

  “Could we be looking at a case of genocide? Or are we just dealing with some very, very bad people?” Sam asked.

  “I am afraid we’re dealing with the latter. You’d be amazed what people will do for money, Dr. Owens. There are two components to this case. One, who is behind it? And two, where did the tainted vaccines come from? The second we find out, we will blow the whistle and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. Amanda was getting close.”

  “Why haven’t you gone public with this?” Sam asked. “And why wouldn’t you just stop all the vaccinations in Africa immediately? It seems the only safe thing to do.”

  “And create a panic? Do you know how many deaths are prevented each year with these vaccinations? Besides, the people Amanda has been chasing are cockroaches. If we let them know we’re onto them, they’ll simply scurry back into the woodwork. And we will lose all hope of finding the tainted vaccines and stopping this attack.”

  Sam glanced at Fletcher. “Unfortunately, Madam Undersecretary, I think these people, or this man, knew quite well Amanda was onto him. And that’s why she’s lying in the morgue right now.”

  Girabaldi was already pale. At this, her cheeks flushed, and Sam could have sworn tears pricked at the corners of the woman’s eyes.

  “Unfortunately, Dr. Owens, I believe you’re absolutely right.”

  Sam tapped her pen on the notepad in front of her, thinking. “If she was so close... We have the ‘vaccines’ from Cattafi’s apartment. Maybe it’s actually the tainted medications disguised. Perhaps Amanda managed to find some and get it into the country, and whoever killed her didn’t discover them at Cattafi’s apartment.”

  “Which means they’ll be looking elsewhere for them,” Fletcher said.

  Girabaldi seemed pleased with their quick grasp of the situation. “If that’s the case, we need to have everything you discovered delivered to our scientists as quickly as possible. The problem is, one is lying in a hospital, nearly dead, from what you tell me.”

  “Thomas
Cattafi?”

  “Yes. Do you think he will survive?”

  Fletcher didn’t answer, clearly surprised by this reversal. “So you do know what she was doing with him.”

  “Yes.”

  “You lied to us?”

  “I didn’t want to reveal the truth in front of my staff. This case is sensitive, and on a need-to-know basis. We’re trying to protect our people, Lieutenant. Surely you understand that.”

  “Fine. You want to tell me why Thomas Cattafi was working on this, instead of a professional? He’s just a kid. Still in school.”

  Girabaldi looked momentarily surprised, then shook her head. “Thomas is a brilliant young man. He and Amanda have known each other for several years. He’s more capable than anyone else in our government. And more discreet, as well.” She leaned forward. “Will he survive?”

  “I don’t know,” Fletcher said. “That’s the truth.”

  “I’m still confused as to why you haven’t simply brought in your very best people and shut this operation down,” Sam said.

  Girabaldi sat back, flipped a hand through her hair. Sam got the sense she was deciding how much to say, and exactly how to say it. “Trust me, if I thought we could, I would have. We don’t need a sledgehammer here. We need a scalpel. The fewer people involved at this point, the better.”

  “But they could be gearing up to murder more innocent people.” Sam realized she sounded utterly incredulous, and with good cause. “We’re the United States. We can stop them from—”

  “Yes,” Girabaldi interrupted calmly. “And we’re going to. But without knowing who is behind this, identifying all the players, following the money trails back to the individuals at the corporations... Dr. Owens, surely you understand how undercover work goes. The whole point is for it to be undercover. If we were to just announce this to the world, as I mentioned before, they’d pack up shop and disappear, starting over somewhere else. We must stay the course. We’re so close now.”