ALIAS – Poisoned

Synopsis: Jack pursues an assassin who uses a terrifying poison against a group of scientists, while fighting the "ghost" of Irina. Pre-S1.

Rated R for graphic violence and gore, including some disturbing images, strong sexual content, and language.

ZERO

April 1989.

For the first time in a long time, Grace was admiring herself in a full-length mirror. She had to admit she didn't look fifty, except for her silvering hair. Her skin was still in good shape, especially under her eyes and around her mouth. The concealer that they used at the spa had seemed to work to defeat the smile lines that had been developing, and hidden the tracks of the crow's feet. The yoga classes had paid off, the vegetarian diet, too. She felt a twinge of buyer's guilt as she noticed her dress. So maybe she'd spent a little too much on an outfit for a conference dinner. But it fit like a dream, and made her feel like she was mysterious and alluring, and in that basic black number, maybe she would draw a few eyes. She grabbed her handbag from the desktop, took one last look in the mirror, and made her way out the door.

Unfortunately, the attention she'd hoped to receive didn't materialize. Sure, there were friendly glances, and a few nods, but overall, the final formal dinner had been as boring as it ever was at these particular events. But as the evening had seemed to be ending early – as it usually did – a younger man had asked if the seat next to her was taken.

Jack was in his shower at home, cleansing and rinsing a deep cut on his left bicep. The steam had made the glass translucent. And the squeal of the hot water through the pipes covered all other sounds. At least they must have, because while his attention was on the wound, the shower door swung open, and Laura was standing on the bath mat, home from the university.

"What happened, love?" she asked, her face heavy with concern.

"Nothing," he lied. "Some rotten mugger, surprised me in the parking garage at work. Punk kid with a switchblade took a swipe at me. Sydney didn't see it." Jack frowned, hoped she'd buy it. "It's not as bad as it looks. I'll be okay."

"That makes my awful day somewhat trivial now," Laura said softly. She met his dark eyes with hers, then slowly scanned his naked form, pretending to look for other bruises. Reached into the needles of water, touching his arms, his face, his torso. Caressed his back, her shirtsleeve becoming drenched. Then she said something he couldn't quite hear, something about making sure her husband got nice and clean. Didn't want to have to take him to a hospital, and have to share him with the nurses in ICU.

And as she spoke, she loosed her hair. Unbuttoned her linen blouse. Stepped out of her shoes. Let her gabardine slacks fall. Unfastened her black lace bra. Slipped her thumbs under the elastic of her panties, and slid them down her legs. She did all of these things with a seducer's deliberation, her dark eyes never leaving his. Even when she was undressed, she stood before him, unblinking and unashamed.

Jack drank in the sight of his wife's athletic body, glorious and exquisite. But he was frozen, even under the force of the hot water, and the drive of his desire. She shouldn't be here, he was thinking. She's not Laura. The wife. She's Irina. The enemy. And she's dead.

Dead a long time, he thought.

"Oh, Jack, you silly man. It's Laura," she whispered, taking a step into the shower. "Your wife." Ducking under the water. "Your friend." Soaking her dark hair. "Your lover." Reaching for him. "Touch me, Jack, like you do, or I'll just die," she said. And as he stepped into the weight of her, felt the delicious pressure of her lips against his neck, he noticed her fingertips melting and twisting into black talons and piercing his abdomen….

Jack bolted upright in bed. His pager was screaming on the night table next to him. He snatched it into his palm and shut off the alarm. Not again. He rubbed his eyes and tried to read the display. 911, it said. He needed to get to a phone.

Ryan Corcoran was a doctoral candidate at Michigan, at least according to the laminated ID card dangling from the lanyard around his neck. Grace remembered him: he'd been in almost all of her seminars, asked some interesting questions; one or two that had even caught her a little off-guard. He was apologetic from the start tonight – he admitted that he'd gravitated toward her through the evening, wanting to have a few private moments with her, maybe she'd share some wisdom with him about the world he would be entering. Now, he was on the chair next to her, listening to her prattle on and on about her research subjects. He was sweet about it. Just listening to her, smiling and nodding in camaraderie, and every once and a while, tossing in another one of those questions that made her have to pause. She couldn't help notice that he looked a bit different tonight. Yes, he wasn't dressed as casually as he'd been for the Q & A sessions, but that wasn't all of it. He seemed taller, more confident. Or maybe it was the fact he wasn't wearing those thick eyeglasses.

She certainly took note of his hands. They were strong, stronger than most any men she'd had contact with over the last few years. They made her think of her husband, gone five years now. He'd been her best friend. They met in college, when she was a gawky sophomore majoring in chemistry, and he was a decidedly not gawky senior English major. She'd fallen for him well before she knew that he had fallen for her. And on the first night they made love, six months after they first met, but before finding the narrow bed in his dorm room, they'd been in a place not unlike this, and she had been prattling on about some experiment, and he stopped her heart with a kiss.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Donnelly," the young man said. He hesitantly put one of his hands on hers.

"Sorry?" she asked, realizing that her eyes were burning with tears.

He handed her a handkerchief. "You look so sad. If you want to be alone – "

"No," she said. "You're doing just fine."

"I am?" he asked, blushing a bit.

"Yeah," she said, folding her hands over his.

Jack swung his legs off the bed, stood up, and as he rose from between the sheets, noticed the room was not his. The walls were prettied up with some framed lithographs: a shrunken Monet, a stretched-out Van Gogh, and someone else's work he couldn't think of just now. A torn Union Jack muscle shirt, with scribbled autographs on it, also had a place of honor, but not a frame. Just thumbtacks. Definitely not his selections. And the tufted carpet under his feet was certainly not his. As he looked down to see the floor, he saw that he was naked. And he'd been busy. "Oh, brother," he muttered. He scanned the shag carpet for his discarded slacks.

"You okay?" a dusky, drowsy voice asked.

Jack turned back toward the bed. The blonde that was looking at him must have owned it. She crawled onto the bedclothes and rested lazily on her haunches, seeming unaware of her own nudity.

Jesus, he thought, finding his eyes scanning her build. She was a Greek sculpture, with a rock-n-roll mane, tousled and tawny. And somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five. "Yeah," he replied, indicating his pager. "Work. Where's your phone?"

"In the living room," she said. The blonde cocked her head a bit. "You sure you're okay? You look like you're lost."

"I'm fine. Just a bit out of sorts. The pager waking me and all." Jack shook his head. He started to leave the room.

"You want a pick-me-up?" the girl asked.

"A what?" Jack replied.

The girl gave him a sideways glance. "You know," she said, a sly smile on her lips. "A pick-me-up."

Jack blinked. "Maybe after I call my boss."

Forty minutes later, Ryan and Grace were standing at her door. He'd insisted on walking her back to her room, with the pretext of asking her about some paper she'd consulted on, but on the way up in the elevator, he embraced her with a surprising intensity, and pressed his lips on to hers. For some reason, she not only let him, but also returned the affection with a deeper kiss of her own.

She unlocked her hotel room door. "Come in, if you want," she said.

The blonde had walked Jack out to the front gate, dressed only in a remarkably short silk robe, ostensibly to let him out. But as he was leaving, she snuck a quick kiss onto his blank expression, and dropped her phone number into his jacket. "Just in case you liked the hospitality," she said.

Jack nodded. Tried to give her a smile. He noticed the boxy edges of a five-year old navy Ford sedan across the street. "That's me," he said, fishing the words out as best he could. Then he bolted through the now-open gateway, and crossed to the car. As he popped open the passenger door, and slid onto the seat, he noticed the driver. Just my luck, Jack thought. They sent Maxwell. The last person he wanted to see this early in the morning at this particular location. Well, maybe not the last, exactly.

It didn't take long for Grace and Ryan to be lying together on top of the bed. In between soft, wet kisses, he unzipped her dress, then lowered his face to her breasts, his mouth finding her awakened flesh through the cups of her dark strapless brassiere. His nimble fingers worked the hooks beneath the smooth satin, and freed her smallish bosom. Grace was about to mumble a weak apology about her cup size, but then his lips brushed against her nipples, and the apology transformed into a moan.

"Jack, you are my new hero," Maxwell said after the car door had shut.

Jack was as polite as possible. "Shut up, Al."

Al didn't. "That is something I have no talent for. Scoring beautiful, bountiful young women like that. That's it. From now on, I'm living vicariously through you."

Jack stared straight ahead. "You understand that I will hit you. And it will very likely cause your death."

"Jeez, Jack, you just laid a hot blonde." He glanced in the rearview mirror, noticing the flounce of the woman's robe, which showed off her long legs, and just a hint more. Al pointed to the mirror. "With a perfect peach of an ass."

"Knock it off, Al," Jack growled.

"Jesus, sorry." Al steered the car back into traffic without a last glance. "I thought sex might mellow you a little, like it does for most everyone."

Jack shook his head. "It's time to work, Al," he said. "We're going where?"

Al groaned. "The Westchester. Apparently somebody the CIA cares about is dead."

Jack popped open the glove compartment and noticed the credentials lying on top of the owner's manual. He withdrew one, noticing the badge on the outside. "FBI on this one?"

"Yeah, FBI," Al said, like the initials made his head hurt. "AD Kendrick already set the cover for us, just in case LA's finest decide they don't want us sniffing around their case. I tried to tell him that my old RHD shield would have been enough to get us through the door, but no."

Jack watched the streetlights pass. "He's ahead of himself today, isn't he?"

"Oh, yeah. Mathers taking that job in London, it just fed the promotion bug that's square up his ass; I guess he thinks that if he can impress a few of the higher-ups with his quick, decisive manuevering, he'll finally win that desk lottery."

Jack chuckled a bit. Kendrick wasn't as bad as Maxwell thought, just not the best director of field operatives. Still, though, he had to agree about posing as FBI agents. What, was hearing CIA too scary? "I need coffee," Jack decided aloud. "It's too damn early, I didn't get much sleep – don't say a word – and I can't go see a corpse without being semi-conscious myself, so it's time for a cup of coffee."

Al nodded. "Time for a little pick-me-up, huh?"

"No thanks. Already had one this morning," Jack said. A pleased look crossed his face.

Al feigned shock, then shot his partner an impish grin. "Quit bragging," he said, as he steered the car into the parking lot of a Dunkin' Donuts and cut the engine.

As she felt Ryan's mouth pressing kisses into her hungry skin, the scientific centers of Grace's mind were still buzzing. He was moving down her body, sampling patches of her, lingering when she reacted with some extremity. There were no pauses in his movement, any stops for him to remove his shirt and tie and slacks. But she could feel the brush of his skin against hers, the cut of his muscles, the heat of his being. Grace found herself wrestling with this. Perhaps she had simply drunk too much at the mixer, retired to her room alone as usual, and had begun dreaming of a tryst she never could have. And yet, when his eyes met hers again, and he kissed her mouth, that feeling of nerves and hair and skin pressing against each other told her that he was indeed here and real and undressed. Grace's logical mind was beginning to tick off protestations against this particular activity, but the heating of her blood was pushing all those thoughts away, and they were being replaced by those primal hungers that she had forgotten about.

Jack sipped from his coffee as Al parked next to a police cruiser, which wasn't more than twenty feet from the front doors of this luxury hotel. His mind flashed to a remembered rendezvous here – inside an eleventh floor room, on this tremendous king-size, with a dark-eyed woman he'd just met –

Not. Laura.

– at a dinner party for some State Department official. "I'm only in town for a couple of days," she'd said, a few hours before she invited him upstairs for a proper glass of Bourbon.

She'd smelled so clean. And she kissed like she meant it. Hungry. When she had unbuttoned his shirt, and put her mouth over his, and used her tongue and lips and teeth, he could have sworn she had learned it from –

Irina was staring at Jack through his side mirror. He saw her, clear as day. A little smile on her lips told him that she knew that. She puckered, then grinned.

– French-Indonesian girl. Nathalie. French by birth. Paris, she said.

She died in Cairo. Nine bullets. One point-blank to her left eye. Now she was staring at Jack in the mirror. Her left eye trickled blood down her cheek.

A finger snap. "Yoo-hoo, Jack. No time for reverie. If you're going to bitch about working this early, you can't fall into catatonia."

Jack's eyes drifted over and noticed the mirror was empty. He opened his door.

The exterior of the Westchester was aesthetically pleasing, even in the dim light of an early morning, and the doormen were eager to smile and tip their caps at the men with the FBI badges. The inside was just as posh, with long leather sofas, Persian rugs underfoot, and a pair of marble staircases that spiraled up and away from the lowly lobby. Al shook his head. "I'll probably get billed for breathing in here," he muttered.

"No," Jack replied. "But don't sit down." He turned toward the elevators, ignoring the front desk clerk, who was juggling telephone calls and a group of people milling at the counter who seemed to be loaded with questions that she couldn't answer.

As they showed their credentials to the baby-faced uniformed cop by the elevator, Al indicated to Jack the placard that he noticed: WELCOME – NORTH AMERICAN SOCIETY OF GENETICISTS.

"This is gonna be some thrill ride," Al said.

Ryan laced fingers with her. She moved that hand to her lips and began kissing – then suckling – his thumb. "Are you ready, Grace?" he asked.

She nodded, her face flushed, but not from exhaustion.

Ryan's smile broadened.

The elevator doors opened. A pair of plainclothes homicide detectives stood before them, attempting not to look agitated. "Jeff Roper," the younger said. "My partner, Larry Garcia," he added. They both gave Al and Jack's authentic-looking credentials a close study. "What's the FBI doing here?" Roper finally asked.

"Just hoping to find out what you know," Al replied. "Our boss is friendly with the owner of the hotel. Went to college with him or something. Just wanted to have us take a look around, offer a hand, which I can tell you don't need."

"Damn right," Garcia said.

"We're not here to steal your case. We just want to get some details," Jack said.

After a long moment, Roper shook his head and sighed. "Don't spill coffee in my crime scene," he said, then motioned the others to follow him.

Grace could hear her pulse pounding, as Ryan moved his hips against hers, and her body reacting in kind. Her eyes closed for a moment, riding the waves of pleasure that were rolling up her spine. Her skin tingled, and her eyes opened to see the face of the man who was bringing her to the brink of…

The detectives led Al and Jack into the hotel room. The forensics team was on-site, snapping pictures of the room, dusting for prints on the dressing table, and scanning the carpet with an ultra-violet light. The body on the bed was nude, and where the skin wasn't bruised and purplish-black, it was split-apart and bloody. The belly was burst open, and entrails were emerging from underneath the skin.

"My God," Jack said. He looked over at Al, who was beyond pale.

The younger detective nodded in empathy, but started his detail of the scene. "DOA's a white female, mid-fifties. Driver's license in the purse says the name's Grace Donnelly."

…oh, no…

"What happened to her?" Al asked, sounding a bit choked.

Roper shook his head in frustration. "Your guess is as good as mine. There's evidence of intercourse, but no signs of struggle. And what rape has ever caused someone's stomach to do that?"

…Ryan's face was bloody. His mouth was ringed crimson. And he was still smiling. Like a wolf might.

"From what we've gathered so far, she was attending the conference here," Garcia said. He looked at his notebook. "Genetics researcher at Stanford, three Ph. D degrees in fields that sound really impressive - and which I can't even pronounce – and popular tenured professor. Respected in her field, her peers had nothing bad to say about her, and yet…there she is."

Suddenly, Grace's chest felt heavy. It was becoming more and more difficult to breathe. Intense pain spidered through her, as her eyes began to cloud, making it almost impossible to see. She instinctively knew that tears weren't interfering with her sight. She tried to scream, but her throat betrayed her. A sudden spasm arched her back, driving her head and shoulders into the pillow.

"What was her specialty?" Jack asked. "Anyone tell you that?"

Garcia glanced back at his book. "Plant genetics, with an eye towards forestry."

"So building a better tree, or whatever," Al said through gritted teeth.

"Yeah," Garcia said, shooting a quick glare at Al. "She was at all the events, including last night's banquet. Two different people said they saw her leaving around ten-thirty."

"Alone?" Jack asked.

"None of the witnesses noticed anyone with her," he replied. "Just our luck."

She could see Ryan above her, his horrifying grin filtered through the dark. Wanted to scream. Wanted to fight. But she had no muscles.

And then, she saw stars. And black. Twinkling black. And blood flowed hot from her nose and filled her mouth. Then a piercing pain in her chest – but just for an instant. Her body twitched a final time, then sank into the bedclothes. Her jaw relaxed, her lips parted just a bit, and dark fluid poured onto the pillowcase and saturated the light fabric, just as Ryan's back arched and stiffened, and he cried out, released.

"Detectives," the forensics leader interjected. "Take a look at this." He led the quartet to the bedside and pointed at the pool of near-black liquid that was drying into the soft pillow.

"What is that, blood?" Roper asked.

"No, I don't think so," the forensics leader said.

"Get a sample to the lab. Find out what it is," Roper said to the man.

"Could we get some of that, too?" Al asked, a bit of fascination in his voice. Jack noticed that his partner was staring at the liquid, the color still away from his cheeks. "We'll take it to our lab, get a second set of results for you," Al said.

The detectives seemed to stiffen at that. "We let you look around. That's as far as you said you wanted to go," Garcia sniffed.

"Let's not get territorial, fellas," Jack said. "All my partner is suggesting is that we could help you. I could care less about taking credit for catching the guy. But I would like to see him caught."

The detectives looked at each other for a moment. Then Roper turned his head to the forensics leader. "Get a second sample for the agents," he said.

Ryan's body shuddered, then relaxed. He tilted her slackened face to his. "Oh, Grace. You were even better than I hoped," he purred, gazing into her unseeing eyes. Then he rose from the bed and began to pick his clothes from the floor as he headed to the bathroom door. He paused and looked at the dead woman again. "Thanks for letting me come inside," he said, just as he stepped onto the tile and shut the door.

Jack and Al exited the lobby through an already-opened door, and walked down the sidewalk to their car. Almost as soon as the morning sunlight hit his face, Al was taking large gulps and gasps of the outside air. "You know," Jack said, "you're probably better off breathing the corpse gas."

Al scowled. "Maybe, but at least the air out here has the tiniest hint of oxygen in it." He cleared his throat and spat on the sidewalk. "What the hell happened to that woman, Jack?" he asked, his voice ragged. "And what did she ever do to deserve dying like that?"

Jack shook his head. "God knows."

"That'll be a real comfort to her friends and family," Al said, coughing. He pressed the car keys into Jack's palm. "If you could. I think I might puke."

Jack scanned his partner's green face. Then he held the vial up to the increasing daylight. The few drops of mystery liquid gleamed in the sunlight. "What do you think it could be?" he asked Al.

Al shuddered as he opened the passenger door. "Whatever it is, I don't want any on me."

As Jack dropped the vial into a plastic bag and sealed it, he glanced across the street at the sidewalk café that was opening for breakfast. A few of the cops were standing around drinking coffee from tall white cups, while four or five civilians were bobbing and weaving among them, picking at their pastries, nursing drinks of their own, and quietly resenting the intrusion by the LAPD and all the other strangers.

Jack would have sworn that Irina was at one of the tables, watching him, but a jogger crossed his field of vision, and she vanished again. He shook his head as he opened his door. "She's dead," he mumbled. "Dead a long time."

The man who'd been Ryan Corcoran the night before now sat across the street from the Westchester, drinking steaming coffee from a Styrofoam cup. He studied the Federal agents who walked out of the hotel. The younger one had a sick expression painted across his cheeks. The older, more solid one, he seemed unfazed by the sights inside, and seemed to be staring at a small item in his hand. Probably a sample from the crime scene, the man thought. He noticed the older man paying close attention to the activity on his side of the street. Had he been noticed, even recognized?

No matter, the former Corcoran thought, staying cool. The compound was untraceable. And even if it could be traced, it certainly wouldn't come back to him. This idea was confirmed by the older man, who slipped into his car instead of crossing the street, and then drove away. The man allowed them a full minute to disappear before he walked over to the garbage barrel and dropped the half-full cup – as well as the laminated ID and lanyard – into it. He wasn't going to need any of those things any more. He turned his body in the opposite direction, which would eventually lead him to the car his employer had promised. And the money. A nice little bonus for a job well done, he thought. Although, he added, a smile creeping onto his face, Grace had been bonus enough.

TO BE CONTINUED...