Michael Harvey - We All Fall Down

“Ever been down here before?”

I thought about an FBI agent named Katherine Lawson, cuffed to a locker. A bullet in her leg, but still alive.

“Not dressed like this,” I said.

Brazile swept a hand across the scene. “This team is specially trained in the field of microbial forensics. We process crime scenes at a genetic level. In the case of a suspected bioweapon, we isolate, collect, and process samples of the potential pathogen in accordance with a strict protocol.”

“So your evidence will hold up in court?”

“Exactly. We establish a rigorous chain of custody and follow it right through to the lab, where we break down the pathogen’s molecular structure in an attempt to pinpoint how it was engineered and where it came from.”

“You can do that?”

“If the virus or bacteria has been modified and you know where to look, yes, most labs will leave what we call a genetic fingerprint or signature.”

I glanced around at the team, scooping, scraping, and tapping away on their iPads. “The next generation of CSI.”

“If you want.”

“And what have you found so far?”

Brazile walked me twenty yards down the tunnel, through a gap in the wall and onto a second spur of track. Three cameras were trained on a cordoned-off area fifteen feet square. Two men walked an evidence grid. A third watched them on a flat-screen monitor.

“Danielson told me you know about the lightbulbs missing from Fort Detrick?” Brazile said.

“I know there are at least two missing.”

Brazile pointed to the ground with her flashlight, then up, at a single bare light socket.

“The lab coded them with ultraviolet identification tags. Danielson gave us the key.”

“And?”

“According to Detrick’s records, this bulb was loaded with anthrax on July 6, 1996. According to the records, the anthrax was irradiated. Harmless.”

“And what about your tests? What do they tell you?”

“The Ceeker’s optical scanner is calibrated to react to and identify a chemical compound unique to the anthrax bacterium. Each scan takes ten to twelve minutes. Come over here.”

Brazile led me to a row of laptops set up on a portable worktable. Nearby, piles of soil were laid out on a pale silk sheet. Small bits of white glass glinted in the dirt.

I watched as a scientist ran the Ceeker over a sample. After what seemed like a couple of eternities, the device beeped. Sort of like a microwave. Brazile took the Ceeker into her hands and studied the readout. Then she went back to her laptop and typed in a few commands.

“Want to take a look?” Brazile leaned back so I could see the results.

“Why don’t you just give me the bottom line?”

“That was the fifth sample we’ve tested. All irradiated. All harmless.”

“Just like Danielson said.”

“Just like he said.”

On the other side of the tunnel, a couple of scientists had unloaded a half-dozen silver canisters from the aluminum cases we’d brought in and attached black hoses. Now they started covering the walls with layers of thick white foam.

“What’s with the shaving cream?” I said.

“I mentioned carbon nanotubes earlier.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to give me a little more than that.”

“Nanotubes are specially constructed carbon molecules that make up the hardest and most flexible substance known to man. Can’t be seen with the naked eye and have all sorts of interesting applications. In this case, the aerosol foam delivers a constellation of nanotubes that have been chemically bonded to molecules of simple carbohydrates-sugars.”

“Why?”

“Weaponized anthrax spores are attracted to sugars and bond with them. Once the weaponized spores clump up around the sugar, they become too thick to enter the lining of the lungs, making them harmless to humans. In this case, it’s just a precaution. And a chance for us to see how our prototypes work in the field.”

I stepped to one side as a scientist started to layer foam across the tracks.

“Why don’t we head topside,” Brazile said. “Call in and give them the good news.”

“What about the second bulb?”

Brazile stopped packing up her laptop. “What about it?”

“Shouldn’t we pull it before it falls?”

“There is no second bulb, Mr. Kelly.”

“How do you know that?”

“Danielson.”

“He told you that?”

Brazile nodded. “He’ll have to explain the rest. Now, you want to head up?”

“Can I get out of this suit?”

“You don’t like it?”

I took a look around, at faces I couldn’t see, conversations I couldn’t hear, death I couldn’t touch. “No, I don’t like it at all.”

“Come on. I’ll take you back to our lab.”

“What’s back there?”

“It’s called black biology. You may not like it. I may not like it. But it’s the future. And it’s coming sooner than you think.”

Quin’s throat felt parched and swollen. He slid the rearview mirror over and took a look. His face was bright with fever. His eyes itched in their sockets, and the pressure behind his temples threatened to blow his head off his shoulders.

“Fuck me.”

Quin pulled to the curb and shook a couple of Tylenol out of a bottle. The ME’s assistant had cut him a break on the two homeless stiffs, agreeing to take them in alone and let him send over the paperwork later. Probably took one look at Quin and was worried he’d have a third body on his hands by the time he got the first two on ice.

Quin glanced at the clock on his dashboard: 8:03 a.m. The little pricks would be there, angling to get some walk-ups on their way to school. Quin slipped his car into gear.

He came in from the north, going the wrong way down Kildare at twice the speed limit. There were a half dozen of them, sitting on stoops, slumped against cars, huddled in the morning chill. They scattered when Quin was still twenty yards away. He punched the gas, then locked up the brakes and fishtailed into an alley, knocking one of the little bastards to the ground. The kid bounced up running. Or, rather, limping.

Quin jammed the car into reverse and zoomed back up the street. He ignored the rest of them and focused on the limper. Quin watched all that Discovery shit. Lions always went after the weak and the wounded. No different here.

The kid was wearing a Chicago White Sox hoodie and looking for a friendly doorway to duck into. Quin cut the wheel and bumped over the curb. The kid tried to ride the hood of the cruiser, but wasn’t as quick as he might have been. Quin pinned him against a building with the side of his car and stepped out, telescoping metal baton pressed to his thigh.

The kid was young-maybe twelve or thirteen-and squeaking, like a rat in one of those glue traps Quin used in the house his ex now owned.

“What’s your name?”

The kid continued to struggle, and then broke free. Quin grabbed him before he could get away and snapped the baton to full length.

“Can’t hear you.” Quin tapped the kid across the back of the knees and watched him crumble into the side of the building. Quin hit him again. The kid sagged the rest of the way to the ground, head level with the bumper, breath blowing in cold bursts.

They were in a stretch of the West Side called K Town. The neighborhood got its name from a series of streets that began with the letter K. In 1910, the city’s wise men picked K because the area’s eleven miles from the Illinois-Indiana border and K ’s the eleventh letter of the alphabet. Quin didn’t give a shit about history. Or the alphabet. When he drove K Town, he saw one supermarket, two schools, fifty-three lottery agents, and a hundred and four bars. The place was ground zero for the Four Corner Stars, whose turf ran north and east to the edge of Garfield Park. On the other side of the park and farther south, the Six Aces held sway. Between the two gangs, they controlled most of the West Side’s drug trade. And decided who died on a daily basis. For Quin, K Town was simply Kill Town.