Interlude Ch. 09

A man dressed in a Town & County Police Officer's uniform was lying on the floor, dead. He was not an officer with our Department and had no identity upon him. He was fairly young, tall and slender, muscular, and had black hair and swarthy features.

"Look at his badge, Lieutenant." Teresa said. I knelt next to the body, noticing a peculiar odor around the dead man's face. I peered at the badge over his left breast pocket. It was obviously an imitation; our real badges are plated with real gold, and this one looked like that cheap imitation stuff they make high school class rings out of.

I saw what Teresa was getting at: on the top of the circular wreath was the word 'Lieutenant', and the number under the five-pointed star was my own: 1640.

"Oh, that's cute." I said, having to smile at the cheek of it all. "That's definitely a message to me. Hmm, I smell almonds even more strongly here... yes, he took cyanide, didn't he? By the way, who found the body?"


"He was alive when we detected him." Daniel Allgood said. "Our camera monitors in I.A. saw him in the Drug Evidence room, looking all over the place for something. We activated the door lock so he couldn't get out while Croyle assembled a team to take him down. As soon as we ordered him over the speakers to lie down with his hands spread above his head, his hand went to his mouth then his mouth foamed up. Classic cyanide suicide."

"Yep." I said. "First, anyone who has never smelled it before, smell around his lips now. That's what cyanide suicide smells like." Several people were doing that just as the Chief walked in.

"Geez, Crowbar," he said, "I love it when you train people, but sniffing dead people?"

"Well, it is my body, sir, according to that fake badge." I replied, a perfect comeback, startling the Chief.

After looking at the fake badge, the Chief said "Come on up to my office, Crowbar. You too, Allgood. Croyle, finish this up and have the body taken to the Crime Lab morgue for identification."

I piped up and said "Teresa, go to the crime lab with the EMTs that take the body there. Have whoever is on duty immediately make a double set of fingerprints and footprints and DNA samples. Process one set normally, but keep the other set separate; in fact, you can bring the second set here and ask I.A. to secure it."

"Why do we need to do that, Lieutenant?" the Chief asked.

"Because if I'm right, this body is going to disappear completely before eight o'clock this morning."

Part 22 - Wrap-Up

The early light of pre-dawn was just beginning to color the sky as I looked over the school and town from the patio of the "Mountain Nest". The view was fantastic, though I liked the higher view from "The Cabin" even better. Turning to look over my shoulder, I could see my home on the mountainside well above me.

I detected a movement at the door and looked on back. Laura was just coming outside. She looked good, dressed in a tight, form-fitting navy blue dress with a white blouse underneath, sheer stockings and high heel matte navy blue pumps. Since the birth of the baby she'd worked out to get back in shape, and had easily done so. Even though I had come in my wife's mouth just half an hour before, I felt the stirrings of desire for her and would've taken her back inside for a hot, quick fuck... but we had serious business to attend to.

"Ready to go?" I asked. Laura nodded. She was nervous, I could tell. Understandable, considering all of our discussions when I returned from Headquarters that left few stones unturned and made for little sleep.

"How's Carole?" I asked.

"Your mom's feeding her a bottle now." Laura said as we headed around to the cars. "She slept well last night, too."

"Good." I said. We got into our cars and drove down the road and to the University. Parking at Laura's normal parking space at the school, we did not head into her building but the one next to it. An older building on campus, it had once been the Chemistry building and was now the Pharmacy School. Laura unlocked a back door and we went in, immediately turning into a stairwell and going downstairs to the basement. Downstairs there was a long corridor hallway, but we only went a few feet to a locked, unmarked door.

Laura unlocked and opened the door and we went in. There was a mop and bucket and some paper supplies in the small room, but there was a metal door in the back wall with the words "Cleaning Chemicals" and a hazmat diamond on it. There was no keyhole to unlock the door I noticed. How to get in?

Laura opened a hidden panel next to the door. She had to swipe an access card as well as punch in a number code to open the metal door. Inside the next small room were a few bottles of Clorox, ammonia, and phosphate cleaning solutions; I knew that mixing those chemicals would produce a deadly gas, but that was not what was on my mind at the moment.

In the back wall of the room was an elevator. Laura swiped her card over the reader and the doors opened. Inside the elevator, Laura had to punch in a different number code. The elevator doors closed and the elevator began moving... downwards!

It was not a long ride. The elevator opened into a dark corridor which paralleled the basement corridor above. There were doors down the hall to the left and at the end. Laura went for the door to the left.

Inside was a large chemical laboratory: three long rows of benches with drawers, shelves in the middle, and assembled chemical glassware. Computer stations and instrumentation were in several places on the countertops. Three fume hoods lined the far wall. In the far back corner to my left I could see a sealed fume hood with glove inserts that one had to use to avoid contact with whatever was inside.

There were cabinets lining the other walls, including metal ones that housed chemicals and equipment. As I looked around, I felt like I had confirmation of my theory...

To our right as we entered was a door that lead to an office. Behind the desk was the frazzled, eccentric looking Dr. Heinz. There was a college-age girl in the room also, an Asian woman that I recognized as one of Laura's students in her clinic. I couldn't remember her name, maybe it was 'Connie' or something like that?

"Ah my dear Dr. Fredricson!" Dr. Heinz said. "And your most fortunate new husband, yes? How are you young man? Looking very fit you are, yes?"

"Yes, Dr. Heinz, thank you." I said, observing him as I shook his hand.

"Ah, I must congratulate you on your new baby. Wunderbar! And no after-effects of the drugs, no? It was... over a year ago?"

"No after-effects, so far." Laura said. "Though Don says he's been told his penis has gotten larger."

Dr. Heinz rattled off a spate of German, which I was barely able to understand but realized it meant something like "Did you test for this? Did you study it?" Laura's reply in perfect high German brought a laugh to both of them, and she told me the conversation, ending with "I told him that I study your penis very frequently."

I blushed. Then Laura said to me: "Well, Don, I'm sure you've figured out by now what this is."

"Yes." I said. "A research lab funded by the Central Intelligence Agency, in which Dr. Heinz and his associates do top-secret drug research overseen by you." The night before I had told Laura what I knew, that she was one of the highest-level officers in the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, and that she was overseeing research projects at the University in addition to her own sexual psychology research 'aboveground'.

"Yes." Laura said. "The research here is partly our own, but partly funded by the Agency."

"Yes, and while you and Dr. Heinz are pure researchers and do your sexual drug researches on your own, the Company wants results-- something they can use for applications in their work." I said.

"Yes, unfortunately that's the case." Laura said as we went into Dr. Heinz's office and sat down. I noticed a smaller room off to the right, which would correspond to the door at the end of the hallway. There was a small metal bed in the room with a sheet and thin blanket over it, and a door in the back wall leading to a bathroom.

"You live here, Dr. Heinz?" I asked.

"Oh, not officially." Dr. Heinz replied. "But so many times I have so excited become by my research that I stay here for many hours at a time, yes?"

"So I had them put in a bed for him." Laura said. "He still has to go upstairs to eat, though. Which he does not do enough." she added severely, looking at Dr. Heinz. I noticed that her admonition contained concern for the elderly doctor's health.

"What can I say?" Dr. Heinz said, spreading his hands in resignation. "With the work, I lose track of the time, you zee..."

When Laura asked Connie to leave the room, Dr. Heinz said he would start her on a project. They went into the lab and the girl began working on a chemical process as Dr. Heinz gave her some instructions.

"Does she work for the Company?" I asked.

"Yes." Laura said. "Except for you right now, anyone that can come in here works for the CIA in some capacity. And before you ask, Ned was contracted when he came to the school. The top brass really liked what he was doing. He was a real genius and impressed everyone with his work. When he went rogue and stole those sexual and emotion-inducing drugs, they were besides themselves."

"So how is it you're allowing me to see this?" I asked.

"Like you said last night, we have to destroy those drugs you found in the Bounel raid, and it's best to do it here. The ricin would be a danger if not properly destroyed, and we have the means to do it here and not risk public exposure. And, of course, to show you that I trust you." she replied. I understood fully what she meant by the last sentence.

Laura continued: "I'm putting in my paperwork that you've agreed to maintain secrecy under penalty of the law, and I'll have you sign a paper to that effect. But now they'll know that you know everything, so I won't have to keep playing stupid games with them."

Just then Dr. Heinz re-entered the office. "So, Dr. Fredricson, you wanted to discuss some other drugs that young Ned took?"

"Yes." Laura said. "Don has a theory about what happened." They both looked at me.

"First a question or two." I said. "Did this man ever work here?" I showed them the official police mug shot of Skinny Beard that the Town & County Police had taken upon his arrest, which I had downloaded into my iPhone. The mug shot was the only known picture of Skinny Beard and the only confirmation that the man had ever existed.

"Ah yes, he came here from time to time. He was an agent, he had identification, yes? He said he was here to take papers, reports and such, to Langley." Dr. Heinz said. "He did work with young Ned so he understood the chemical researches."

"I never knew him nor talked to him." Laura said. "He slipped by me. That means he was already an agent and had credentials to get down here, but he avoided me. With all that has gone on, we now know why."

"Yes, we do." I said. "Next, I understand that your research, even the Government secret research, has only been about sexual drugs, maybe some emotion-inducing or mind-altering drugs?"

"Ja, das ist richtig." Dr. Heinz said. "The drugs, they are not powerful. Not like the LSD experiments years ago. We hoped to find clinical applications to help psychologically... how do you say, the 'deranged' individuals recover from their illnesses, ja? I also work with Dr. Fredricson to find the drugs that affect sexual centers of the brain as well as the sexual organs."

"So you do not and did not work with drugs that could induce pain, that could be used to torture people in interrogations?" I asked.

"Nein, nein! Dr. Heinz answered with some feeling. "Never the harmful drugs were allowed here!"

"That's true." Laura said. "Although the Agency would love to have stuff like that, it's not what we did here at all."

"And they never tried to induce you to go in that direction?" I asked.

"No." Laura said. "They were interested in the hypnotic effects of some of the emotion-inducing drugs. They also were interested in sexual stimulants as well as drugs to suppress sexual desires, so that agents in the field would be less... distracted... by the temptations of the flesh. Most of the research here was at a very basic psychological level. Often our work was taken to other labs, which I can't even discuss out loud, for further work in making applications out of the research."

"When Ned was here," I asked. "Did he ever work outside your authority, or with anyone else?"

"Not that we know of, except for your friend Skinny Beard here." Laura said. "But when we discussed it last year, we realized that Ned might have been contacted by someone else within the Agency without us knowing about it and that he did work for them."

"I see. Well, that's what I'm thinking, too." I said. "My theory goes like this: Ned made these pain-inducing drugs and the antidotes for them, as well as some deadly chemicals. He might have done it on his own, but I suspect it was at the request of someone you two didn't know about, either an outside agent or more likely someone not in the Company but with an association to it. Skinny Beard was an integral part of that."

I continued: "Ned made the drugs, put them in the two sets of syringe vials, and then hid them here, probably in the back of one of the cabinets where it wouldn't be noticed but someone else could get to them if need be. He left no notes of his work, as it was outside the pervue of anything you were legitimately doing.

"Then Ned came on that family trip with us. He had his own personal agenda, of course, which we are now all too familiar with. Because he was arrested, he could never get back down here. So Skinny Beard came down and got the vials, but not for Ned... he acquired them for someone else, who was going to either sell them back to the Agency or to the highest bidder.

"These drugs induce pain, and it's obvious they were created to be used to torture individuals, then end the pain once the tortured person had confessed if they wanted to keep that person alive." I explained further. "And that is why so many people have become interested in them. Ned knows how to make more, so he didn't need to arrange for someone to get them out of this laboratory, nor did he need to send people into my evidence rooms at Headquarters to find them. That same someone tried to ambush police officers on a prisoner transfer, and then had someone actually attempt to get into the evidence room... but that person had to commit suicide when caught, and that shows the desperation of our unknown perp to get at them."

"So what do we have to do now?" Laura asked.

"Destroy the drugs." I said. I took out the small box I had carried with me. Inside were two sets of vials, one nearly empty, the other full. The near-empty set had come from the Crime Lab.

We went into the main lab and to the back corner where the sealed hood was. Connie put the sample vials and some clorox into the airlock, and upon request I was allowed to put my hands into the gloves and do the destruction work myself. A bunsen burner was lit and the chemicals drained out of the vials and into a metal cup. I then heated up the vial and the chemicals inside the cup caught fire and burned. I then charred the edges of the cup to burn out any residue. Next, I filled the syringes with the clorox and shot the liquid through the needles, then burned up the syringe plungers, charred out the inner portions of the glass vials, then heated the syringe needles until they were glowing red-hot.

"Very thorough." Laura said drily as she watched.

"You betcha." I replied. As I finished, I said "Why don't we take Dr. Heinz and his lovely assistant to breakfast?"

"Good idea." Laura said.

As we were leaving the restaurant after a delicious breakfast, I slipped something into Dr. Heinz's hand as I shook it.

"Was ist das? he asked, then caught his breath as he beheld the ancient coin. He was still for a long moment, unable to speak. Laura and Connie just watched with quizzical amazement.

"One of the women you helped escape the Nazis was my mother's grandmother." I whispered. "This was the only thing of value she escaped with."

"Yes, I remember. I was just a young boy then." Dr. Heinz said. He'd actually been a teenager. "But I am filled with happiness to know that her great-grandson is fighting the Evil now." He tried to give the coin back and I tried not to take it.

"Bitte, you must keep this." he said. "I am an old man now, and when the battle becomes hard, you will look at this to remember the Evil that you are fighting, ja?. The Evil today is just as potent and strong as what we faced in those dark times..."

I allowed him to persuade me.

Part 23 - Vanishing Act

It was nearly 9:00am as Laura and I got back to her office. She sat at her desk and got onto her computer, rapidly typing while I sat on one of the sofas and sent emails from my iPhone.

"Okay," she said, "I've just informed my superiors both openly and through the backchannels that we have destroyed the drugs and they no longer exist."

"And I've told the same thing to the Chief and to Jack Muscone." I said, "Of course I omitted any reference to any Government agencies you might be associated with, as this is not the most secure of cellphones. And hopefully the right words poured into the wrong ears will get the message out, and we won't have to worry about any of this any more."

"You won't." Laura said. "I can't say the same thing myself."

"What do you think is going to happen?" I asked, glancing over at my wife.

"I don't know." Laura said, sitting back in her comfortable chair. "I've already told them that I'm not leaving this University for another Company assignment; in fact, I'm about ready to retire from the Agency. Nearly 28 years is more than enough. Dr. Wellman knows about the projects and the money that the University gets from them, but he's already told me I can stay here forever even if they close down the projects."

"Well," I said, "the project might be getting shut down anyway. You know Dr. Heinz is sick, don't you?"

"Was it that noticeable?" Laura said, looking at me. As I nodded, she said, "Yes, and he's not helping by working as hard as he does. I don't know how long he has left, maybe a year if we're lucky." Sadness was written all over my wife's face as she became introspective. "So, quite the coincidence that your great-grandmother was one of those he saved--"

"We are about to have a visitor." I said, peering at the office door.

"How do you know?" Laura asked.

"I heard his phone ring in the hallway." I said. "Mine will be ringing shortly, also." A second later we heard a knock on the door.

"Come in." Laura said. The door opened and in walked... Henry R. Wargrave.

"Why Mr. Wargrave," Laura said, "I didn't know we had an appointment today."

"Oh, we don't." said Wargrave. "But I was in the vicinity, saw both your cars in the parking lot, and I couldn't resist coming in to wish the proud new parents my congratulations." Of course that was not the reason he was here, I knew.

"Very kind of you." I said, a bit shortly perhaps. "And fortunate that you were in the area, also."

*BRING! BRING! BRING!*

"I believe that is for you, Lieutenant." said Wargrave as my phone buzzed in my hand. He sat down in the chair in front of Laura's desk as she watched us both warily. I answered the phone.

"Hello, Perlman." I said, not even giving her the chance to say anything. "Don't tell me, let me guess. It's gone."

"Yes, it is. You were a bit early in your guess, though." Tanya said. "It took them until 8:45, but the body disappeared."