Christa Faust - Fringe The Zodiac Paradox

Expressions on the faces of the students ranged from skeptical to angry to amazed. But he had no choice but to keep going. Time was not his friend.

“Worse, these same federal agents will be here in just a few minutes to arrest, interrogate, and violate the civil rights of every last one of us. And while we’re in their custody, the killer will be free to shoot everyone on the Golden Gate carousel in exactly...” He looked at his watch. “Sixty-two minutes.”

“Shoot them?” Kenneth frowned. “You don’t mean... the Zodiac Killer?”

Walter didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Suddenly the mood in the lab went from casual skepticism to intense interest. So he just nodded.

“What we are planning is very dangerous,” he said. “With potentially lethal side effects for all of us, and everyone around us. But there are deadly consequences for the killer’s future victims should you chose not to participate. So, while I cannot make you help us, if you are unwilling, I sincerely hope that you will.”

“It’s no choice at all,” May said, stepping forward without hesitation. “I’m in.”

“Right,” Leslie echoed, stepping up beside May. “In.”

All the other students swiftly gathered around them. All of them in.

Walter hung his head, humbled and grateful.

“Thank you,” he said. “This is a wonderful thing you’re doing.”

“Yeah, fantastic,” Nina said. “But we’re not going to do it at all if we don’t get going. Now, come on. Let’s move!”

She clapped her hands and the students all hurried back to the lab carts and rolled them out into the hall. Walter let out a long, shaky breath and started to follow, but Nina put a hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze.

“Way to go, Walter,” Nina said. “You should have been a politician. Ask not what science can do for you...”

Bell nodded in agreement.

“Honestly,” he said. “I can’t believe you managed it.”

Walter shivered, suddenly chilled.

“I almost wish I hadn’t.”

They hurried into the hall and down the stairs.

* * *

Walter looked uneasily around the parking lot of the Institute as he followed Nina and Bell out. He was afraid they would find unmarked black cars, filled with Latimer’s men, blocking the drive. But everything seemed quiet. The students were loading the individual biofeedback machines into their vehicles and scrambling into their seats. May was driving a tan Ford station wagon. Kenneth drove a teal Volkswagen microbus, and Leslie drove a white eight-seat passenger van owned by the Institute.

“Maybe we made it,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else.

Nina climbed into the driver’s seat of her Beetle, and fired it up as Walter got into the back seat, and Bell slid in beside her. Before Walter had a chance to get buckled in, she was surging toward the drive and pulling out into the street.

“Easy,” Bell said. “The last thing we want to do is draw attention to ourselves.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nina said. “But Walter’s little speech cost us some precious time. We’ve got just under an hour to get to the park before that psycho starts his rampage.”

“Still,” Walter said, “we’ll be even more delayed if we get stopped for speeding.”

“Okay, okay,” she replied. “I suppose you’re right.” She slowed reluctantly as the bus, the van, and station wagon swayed out of the Institute lot and fell in behind her. They trundled down Stanford Avenue toward the Bay Bridge at a reasonable thirty miles an hour, while Walter and Bell swiveled their heads in every direction.

Walter was positive that he was going to spot a line of unmarked black Fords following them, or coming to intercept them.

And finally, just when he had begun to hope they might have made it into the clear, the dreaded black cars cruised into view.

40

The Beetle was just coming down the ramp on the San Francisco end of the Bay Bridge when Walter heard Bell suck in a quick breath, and he turned to look.

There, on the opposite side of the highway, starting up the ramp that would take them to the east-bound lower tier of the bridge, was a line of unmarked black cars in the middle of heavy traffic. In the driver’s seat of the first car, he saw a recognizable face with a square jaw and Hollywood tan.

“Oh, hell,” Walter said. “It’s Latimer.

Nina turned and looked, then laughed.

“This is great,” she said. “Look at them. They’re stuck. They won’t be able to turn around until he gets to the Oakland side of the bridge. And he won’t know that we’ve left the Institute until—”

She cut off when, as though he had heard her, Latimer turned his head and looked right at them. He did a double take and stomped on his brakes, nearly causing the cars behind him to rear-end him.

“Damn,” Walter uttered.

“No, no,” Nina said, knuckles white on the wheel. “We’re still good. He still can’t turn around. He still has to go all the way to Oakland.”

Bell shook his head.

“But he can call it in, can’t he?” he asked. “And I’d be willing to bet that’s exactly what he’s doing right now.”

Walter craned his neck as the black unmarked cars started to disappear under the upper tier. Latimer was, indeed, on the mike. He was shouting, the cords of his neck standing out like cables, obviously putting out an all points bulletin, or whatever they called it.

He was alerting the cops.

All of a sudden the maze of San Francisco wasn’t just a puzzle of traffic snarls and one-way streets. It was a trap, poised to close on them.

Nina swerved the Beetle into the left lane and started speeding up. Walter turned to her, but Bell beat him to it. He put a hand on her arm.

“Steady,” he cautioned. “We still can’t give ourselves away.”

She slowed again.

“Sorry,” she said.

“The good thing is,” Walter said, “Latimer can’t possibly know where we’re going. He’ll tell them we’re headed west. Change directions and we’ll throw them off.”

Nina whipped around a corner, still too fast, and started heading north. Walter slammed against the door, then pushed himself upright.

“Nina...”

“Sorry. Sorry.”

The walkie-talkie crackled. Leslie’s sharp, whip-crack voice came through the static.

“Everything okay?” she asked. “What the hell just happened?”

Walter looked out the back window. He could see her at the wheel of the passenger van, holding the walkie-talkie and looking a bit surprised. The others were swinging into the street behind her, swaying a bit on their wheels.

Nina grunted and picked up the walkie-talkie.

“Everything’s fine,” she said. “Almost missed my turn, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

“Not for them,” Bell muttered. “The police won’t have descriptions of them.”

“Fine,” Leslie said over the crackly speaker. “But give us more warning next time.”

Nina let out a breath, and put down the walkie.

“With luck,” she said. “There won’t be a next time.”

She took them up the side street to Market, then turned west again, which deposited them into the middle of mid-afternoon traffic. Bell scanned for police cars. Walter reflexively checked his watch.

“Plenty of time,” he said, seemingly half to himself. “Plenty of time. We’ll get there. We’ll hide the car. Everything will be fine.”

But as they passed Stockton Street, the walkie-talkie squawked again.

“Nina? Bell? Come in?” Leslie said. “We have to find a bathroom. The dose isn’t agreeing with Payton’s digestion.”

A crackle and a laugh interrupted Nina as she tried to respond, then a loud scraping noise and Gary’s voice, singing loud and off-key.