David Golemon - Ancients

"The safe was found like that with only the fingerprints of the senior partner...." He looked into a small notebook. "Mr. Jackson Keeler. Twenty thousand dollars in cash was found, along with several keepsakes and legal papers."

"What was missing?"

"We don't know at this point. Mr. Keeler has no living relatives, and his partners were among the dead."

"It had to be something pretty good to have murdered this many people," Ryan said as he looked into the safe.

"At this point it could have been anything, or nothing. Whoever killed Mr. Keeler took a lot of pleasure in doing it. He was shot ten times."

"So maybe they didn't get what they wanted. Maybe that's why he angered his killers," Everett commented as he looked at the large bloodstain.

"Did the bullets from Keeler match those of the others?"

"We don't know yet; he hasn't been autopsied yet. The coroner seems to be a little bit behind schedule. Guess he wasn't ready for the rush."

"Anything caught on security cameras?" Jack asked.

"No, the cables were--"

"What in the hell are you doing, conducting tours?"

Jack and the others turned at the sound of a booming voice with an Irish lilt. A large man stood in the office doorway with his hands on his hips, glaring at the detective.

"Captain, these men are from ATF and wanted--" 'I don't give a damn what they want. Get them the hell out of here! Did you know you have more people in here than Fenway! One of our CSI photographers was mugged outside just twenty minutes ago. We found him beat to hell. Now, all deals are off. You ATF guys go through channels."

Three minutes later, Jack and the others were standing on the other side of the police cordon.

"What now, Colonel?" Mendenhall asked.

"The coroner's office--maybe he has something we can use."

Their false ATF IDs worked again with no difficulty. The office of the coroner was packed with next of kin and extra medical examiners brought in from other towns to assist the Boston office with the massacre victims. Jack grabbed the first harried-looking white coat he could stop.

"Jackson Keeler--has he been autopsied yet?" Collins shouted above the din of crying family members and tired medical examiners.

The young woman wanted to pull away from Jack's grip, but when she found it locked around her wrist, she quickly looked at her clipboard.

"Number three. They're just starting."

Collins let the woman go and she dashed into a mob of people and started explaining the hold-up on the identification process. The four men watched for a moment and felt for the families suffering from this cold-blooded tragedy.

They turned away and went to two side-by-side doors. One said EXAMINING ROOM 3 and the one next to it was marked VIEWING.

Jack chose the latter. As the four men entered, they saw two medical students standing at the glass. They looked at the four men in black wind-breakers with the curiosity one would show a bug that had just crawled onto ones' sandwich. Everett held up his ID and the two students swallowed and stepped to the far side of the glass.

Inside, the autopsy had already started. On a chalkboard in front of the stainless steel table was a hastily written identification: JACKSON KEELER, 78 YEARS, 4 MONTHS.

The speaker inside the viewing room was connected to the microphone used by the ME as he started to work on the elderly attorney.

Twenty minutes later, Everett leaned toward Jack.

"Well, I guess all we're going to get is the cause of death."

"Dammit. I was hoping something would come out of this," Collins said as he turned and sat in a chair next to Will and Jason.

None of the four men paid any attention to one of the medical students when she stood up and walked to the intercom.

"Dr. Freely, when your assistant removed the subject's dentures, something fell out of his mouth."

Everett watched as the assistant in the autopsy room bent over, retrieved something from the floor, and held it up to the light.

"Jack, you may want to see this," Carl said as he watched closely.

"It's a torn piece of paper. Looks like four names here; it's hard to make out," the assistant said, holding it in front of the ME.

Jack looked at Everett and they both made for the door.

"Ryan, you and Will go get the car started and meet us out front."

The ME was just reaching for the torn piece of paper when the door opened and two men in black windbreakers stepped in.

"Don't touch that, Doctor, please," Jack said.

"Hey, you can't be in here, there's an autopsy going on!" the assistant said as he tried to step in front of Everett, who just picked the smaller man up and set him aside.

Jack snatched a pair of rubber gloves from the counter and pulled the right one on and easily removed the paper from the shocked ME's hand.

"Call security and get these men out of here!" he said as he watched Collins hold the paper up to the light.

The assistant looked as if he wanted to follow the orders of his boss, but Everett was still standing in front of him with his brows raised.

"ATF, Doctor. We'll need this," Jack said as he lowered the paper and made for the door, followed quickly by Everett.

"What is it, Jack?" Carl asked as he caught up with Collins.

"Names; I can't make them out, but they are names. Keeler obviously didn't want his killers to have them, so he stuck them in his mouth before he died."

They were ten feet from the door when the large Boston police captain entered with the detective that who had given them the tour of the law office; they stood toe-to-toe with Jack and Everett.

"Hey, stop those men! They just took evidence from the autopsy room!" the whiny little assistant cried from the open door of the examining room.

"Okay, give it--"

That was as far as the police captain got, because right at that moment Jason Ryan pushed the double doors open as hard as he could, sending the two policemen sprawling onto the green tiled floor. Everett and Collins did not wait to offer apologies and followed the smaller Ryan out of the door and into the car, and Mendenhall sped away as if they had just robbed a bank.

As their car took off, another vehicle, this one a white van, pulled out and sped along in pursuit.

Sarah had called a two-hour break for the science teams so that they could recharge their batteries. Thus far, the group had come up with no theory that would pass muster as to the validity of the manmade-earthquake theory. Virginia was very close to calling Niles at the White House and informing him that in the opinion of the Group, while not impossible to do, the expense and labor-intensive problems would be too much to overcome with today's technology. Which in and of itself was not gospel, but close to it, with the minds they had working the problem.

Virginia and Alice sat next to Sarah in the large cafeteria. They both had tea and they looked at Sarah's unfinished sandwich.

"Are we interrupting something?" Alice asked with her pleasant smile.

Sarah snapped to as if she had been in deep thought.

"Oh, hello, ladies. No, you're not interrupting anything more than the contemplation of failure."

"Failure? I wouldn't say that, Sarah. You weren't ordered by the president to start a manmade earthquake, only to prove if it could possibly be done by others. You failed at nothing."

Sarah looked from Virginia to the face of Alice and she smiled sadly.

"You know, this may sound strange, but I think it could be done. Oh, I know the North Korean claims are probably just a smokescreen, but I think the answers are out there and we just failed to find them."

Alice patted her small hand. "Well, don't take it so hard. You should spend the rest of your break down in the artifact-cataloging room--that's where the excitement is happening."