in a police station surrounded by people sworn to uphold the law. I should put you in lockup right now.”
“What about what I told you?”
She took a breath and stared at him. “Can you prove any of this? I mean, will anyone corroborate anything?”
“No. I don’t think anyone is dumb enough to say a word. The whole house of cards would crumble if anyone spoke up; they’d also go to prison. They’d all lose their millions.” He shook his head. “No. nobody will say a word.” He was ready to hold his hands out for cuffing. He’d spilled his guts and nothing would happen. He couldn’t even claim to be a whistle blower to the feds; nothing he said could be proven. There were no records in existence without Bridger’s data and his explanations. It was all destroyed except for the email to Mary, which was a clear violation of his secrecy agreement with GHI. Even if he gave it to the police, it couldn’t be validated.
She remained stern but compassionate. She understood that he was risking a long prison term by coming to her. She’d been in law enforcement almost twenty years and learned to read people. And then there was the shooting, and possibly the car crash; these either scrambled his brain, or helped prove his assertions. She had no doubt that he had tortured people into submission, and that made him a criminal, but it also piqued her instincts. “Look, John. It took guts to come here. I know you want to do the right thing and are willing to risk the outcome for admitting several felonies. I’m going to sit on this for a few days, and maybe something else will happen that will open things up for investigation. We don’t have it yet. This isn’t admissible as evidence. As you know, it’s not what you know … it’s … you know the rest.”
On the one hand, he was relieved. He wasn’t arrested. But his confession didn’t mean squat. The Baltimore PD wasn’t going to do anything. He understood that they couldn’t, but he felt good that his story was heard. If something happened to him, she knew (almost) everything that he knew.
He went home and sulked. Kelly was gone, and he was at a dead end. He skipped having a beer, going straight to the bottle of gin he’d started last Christmas. It was half full. After an hour, he’d finished two small martini-sized drinks. He thought about calling Kelly. She was all that he could think about. She had been dominating his thoughts since the first incident with the shooter. They were an “item” before that, but the near-death experience had solidified his feelings. They only grew more intense over the following days. After leaving him at the hospital with barely a “goodbye,” he felt like his heart was ripped out. She’d barely looked at him. He poured a third drink but didn’t put it to his lips. He couldn’t call Kelly. If she had had feelings for him … he just didn’t know anymore. She needed time to recover, and maybe their relationship never would. He knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t impulsive. She decided to leave for good reasons, and he wasn’t going to change them, not now. It would take time, and maybe her feelings for him would never re-emerge. He picked up the phone and dialed a familiar number.
Arrest
“John, are you sure about this?” She was shocked.
“It’s the only way, Detective.”
She paused then spoke softly. “All right; there will be a squad car at your apartment in a few minutes. You need to be prepared to surrender. Do you have any weapons?”
“No. I won’t have anything on me. I keep a handgun under the bed, but it’s locked.”
“Leave it there.”
McAlister wasn’t sure what he was doing. She wouldn’t take action against him unless someone complained, which wasn’t likely under the circumstances. John was an enigma; she’d known people to confess to crimes because they wanted the publicity or didn’t feel secure in free society, but never someone like John. He was a young professional with a great job. Why throw it away? He was going to confess his crimes, on the record.
More than an hour later, he was escorted by two uniformed officers into the station wearing handcuffs behind his back. He was booked and taken up to the same conference room as the one he was in earlier in the day. McAlister told the officers to remove the cuffs and leave them alone. “John, have you been drinking?”
He smiled. “Yep.”
“Then go home and sleep it off. This is ridiculous. Do you want to go to prison? Do you want that kind of record? You’ll be throwing your life away.”
His smile vanished. “I know all of that, Detective. I appreciate your council; I really do. But I’ve thought about this, maybe a little too much, but I know what needs to happen.”
She shook her head. “All right, it’s your funeral.”
He remained serious. “Look, if I confess to all of it (he had omitted Matinicus Island), you’ll have to investigate, right?”
She could see where he was headed, but wasn’t a hundred percent sure of her answer. “I guess; there won’t be a prosecution of a crime without an indictment, which will require some proof, but you’re taking a helluva chance.”
He thought for a moment, nodding slowly. “Then start investigating. I would suggest you start with Hanson, then Petronova, then Cooper, and then go to the owners Drs. Redinger and Ritter. Do them all sequentially, alone, and don’t let them have time to compare. Someone will crumble or their stories won’t match. If nothing comes of it, you can release me. If they admit I tortured them, they’ll have to invent some reason. If none of this works, you’ve got my confession, and I’ll go quietly to prison for a long time.”
She shook her head again. “Confessions are best in writing.”
He agreed.
The following morning, there was an email addressed to the President of Global Hemorrhagic Institute. It read:
“Gentlemen, we are of the joint medical task team in Guinea, WA, exploring an outbreak of disease. It has the characteristics of Hemorrhagic Fever. Local residents have shown us to a facility where the outbreak appears to be centered. There is a large biologic shipping box with a label from your Institute. It is damaged and appears to have been shot with some bullets. Are you aware of this container and can you please provide a shipping manifest?
Sincerely, Josef Leedjärv, Director Doctor, Embassy of Estonia”
Jules breathed deeply. “Damn! Damn that idiot. We’re screwed.” He sent the message to Charlie, asking him to send the manifest and explain that this was diverted by outlaws from the outbreak in Sierra Leone. There would be more emails, and Charlie would give them instructions to use the medicines in Guinea. It would only be a short time before they questioned some of the vials, and more messages would fly back and forth. Charlie wouldn’t understand, of course. Jules could confuse things enough to stall a few days, and he would try to push the Saudis to move faster.
Marie came in. “Jules, there are some police, some detectives in the lobby. They want to interview some of our employees.”
He was furious and nervous. “What’s it about, Marie?”
“They wouldn’t say. There’s a list of people to talk to, including you and Charlie.”
He mumbled his thoughts, which she couldn’t understand. “It can’t be the virus, they don’t know yet, it can’t be.” She was looking strangely at him so he enunciated, “I’ll go see them.” He stood abruptly and walked toward the lobby. When he arrived, three officers, one a woman, greeted him. Two wore business suits, and one male was a uniformed officer. Detective McAlister spoke for the group and introduced the others.
He wasn’t sure what the protocol or decorum should be for a police visit. “Ah … what’s this about, Detective?”
She handed him a list. “Sir, we need to talk to these individuals. Some of them may be victims of assaults that we’re investigating.”
He looked dumbfounded, “My name’s on here, but I wasn’t assaulted.”
“Yes, sir, the incidents involved another employee, and we need your input on this person.”
“Look, we’re extremely busy here. We’ve go
t a couple of Ebola outbreaks in Africa that we need to be working on. These people are necessary to get medicines shipped. Can’t this wait?”
“Sir, if possible, I want to do this here, today. It will save time if we can see them here without dragging them down one-by-one to the station. I doubt that you want to come to North Baltimore. So, if it will be all right, we’ll try to be brief. This is only a preliminary investigation. We just want to get a general idea if a crime has been committed against these people. If you have a spare office or conference room, we would like to keep these discussions private so that people aren’t embarrassed.”
“Well, I haven’t heard about any assaults.”
“Exactly, sir. These people are probably too timid to tell you. That’s why we need to keep these private. I’d like to request meetings in the order of that list, following the timelines of the assaults as they’ve been confessed.”
Jules was pouring sweat. They were trapped. There was only one thing connecting all these people. He knew Irina was bullet proof, but not Hansen. They needed time to rehearse, but the police