See Disclaimer, Chapter 1

Bird Flu - Chapter 26

Don leafed through the file in front of him. It was nearly 11:00 p.m., and the conference room was empty, except for him. The office was also nearly empty; outside the room, he could hear Wright and McKelvey quietly conversing. Wright had arrived two hours earlier from L.A., looking tired, his suit uncharacteristically rumpled. The three of them were the only ones in the office - all available agents and some Denver PD personnel were assigned to possible victims – watching any blonds who McKelvey had been in contact with during the past week. In spite of the wording of the message – 'someone who watches you work' – Don had advised McKelvey to consider any blonds, male or female, at any place he'd been in the last two weeks. It was imperative to keep open-minded, Don had told him. Like a Monday morning quarterback, spouting the wisdom of hindsight. Someone had suggested that McKelvey himself, with his blond hair, might be the target, and so Wright had arranged for a protective detail on the Denver SAC, when he was ready to leave the office.

Don had no such arrangement, but he was a prisoner nevertheless; Wright refused to relax his order that Don stay out of the field. Don's team had all been issued department vehicles, but not him – there was no need, Wright told him, if he was not going to be in the field; besides, the Denver office was running short on regulation vehicles. Instead, Don would keep the rental vehicle from the airport, which was more than adequate for the drive from the hotel to the office. Don had become accustomed to being in command, but now he felt like a loser, like a second-class citizen with his civilian vehicle, relegated to paperwork in the conference room. It was only small comfort that McKelvey was stuck there with him – Wright didn't want the Denver SAC out in the field either, but it was McKelvey's office, and he at least got to call the shots. Don got paperwork.

Not that it wasn't important. Someone had to go through the files, looking at related cases. Anything resembling stabbings or mutilations over the years, especially in recent months, was piled in front of him. There was a general belief that the perp had to have been in Denver before the Wyoming killing, based on the location where the first possible victim had been found. Maybe he'd even resided in Denver for a period of time. Of course, he could have come from anywhere, but they had to start doing a detailed look for similar cases somewhere, and Denver was as good a city as any in which to start.

Don felt a chill, a surge of panic, as the situation reasserted itself in his mind. This was it, as far as Charlie was concerned – the final showdown. The killer had chosen the next city, made his declaration. If past history was any judge, he would be planning to make his way through a victim or two, until he had one that he deemed was a handoff for Charlie. They were running out of time, out of victims. If they didn't catch him soon… He fought down a shudder, trying to keep his mind on the file in front of him. They had to get him, they had to. Failure was not an option.

He looked up as McKelvey came in through the door, and plopped into a seat across the table from him. "It's getting late," said McKelvey. "The surveillance teams just reported in. It's quiet – you probably ought to go check in at your hotel, get some sleep."

"I already checked in," Don replied. McKelvey was doing his best to be diplomatic, but the statement still sounded just a bit peremptory. In spite of the fact that McKelvey was right, Don felt a stubborn need to buck his authority. "I ran over at around seven, while you were in a meeting."

McKelvey nodded, backing off a little. "Suit yourself. I'm heading out myself. I'm sure we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. We're starting at six. Oh – I did process your request for a new cell phone – it should be in tomorrow morning." He stood, a look of understanding crossed his face, and his voice turned slightly conspiratorial. "You probably should know, Wright said he'd stay until we both left."

"Okay, thanks," said Don quietly, with a wry grimace. He had no intention of disregarding orders and going out, but now he couldn't even stay to work on paperwork without keeping his A.D up all night. He knew it was Wright's way of looking out for both of them, but it seemed condescending, and especially now, when he felt so helpless anyway, it rankled. He sighed and flipped the folder shut, and stacked it on top of the pile that hadn't been gone through yet. He'd take them back to the hotel, he decided, and go through them there.

A phone rang out in the office as he stepped out of the conference room with the files under his arm, and he listened absently as McKelvey put it on speaker, with Wright standing nearby, listening. Another report-in, this time from Agent Cook. She had left McKelvey's gym, and was on her way back in to the office. The receptionist at the gym, a blonde girl named Marcia, was on her way home, escorted by two Denver police officers, who would set up surveillance at her apartment. Allison was stopping in briefly to file a report before she headed home. No, it had been quiet, she said. No white vans. They'd checked out every white male at the gym – all had been longtime members, and none had fit the profile.

As Cook and McKelvey's conversation floated through the office, Don sidled up to Wright and murmured quietly. "I'm heading back to the hotel. McKelvey has my number."

Wright nodded, and clapped him on the shoulder. "It's quiet now – get some rest while you can. See you in the morning."

Don gave him a tired nod, and headed for the elevator. The fluorescent lights in it were harsh and garish, and seemed to accentuate the lateness of the hour. He leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes for a minute. God knew, he was tired. He couldn't remember being this exhausted in recent memory. The doors opened before he reached his floor, and two other people got on, both young men in their early thirties, in suits and loosened ties, with briefcases. They were chatting with animation – both lawyers, apparently. Young blood, with lots of energy and ambition. They made Don feel even more tired, and suddenly old.

The doors opened for one level of the parking garage, and the two lawyers exited, heading for their vehicles. Don was the next floor down, and as the elevator door opened into the garage, he noted there were still several vehicles there, despite the lateness of the hour. Probably many of them were on the case – the owners riding together with another agent, another cop, their own vehicles parked. As he stepped out, he caught a glimpse of a vehicle flashing past – he didn't get a good look, but it appeared to be Agent Allison Cook. The vehicle turned at the ramp and went on to the level above. He caught movement at the opposite end of the garage, near the down ramp; there was another set of doors there, and he saw one of them slowly closing – someone had just entered that set of stairs, apparently. Still people coming and going, even at this time of night.

As he walked to the SUV, he wondered absently why someone would be too impatient to wait for the elevator – why a person would park on this floor and use the stairs, when there were obviously several parking places to be had on the level above. Something didn't jive there, he thought, as he hit the door unlock button on the key and pulled the SUV door open, trying to juggle the files in his arms. He'd stuffed some into a case, but they didn't all fit, and one of the loose ones slipped, partially spilling its contents on the pavement.

He sighed, opened the back door of the SUV and deposited the rest of his load, then bent to retrieve the paperwork on the ground. He heard an engine stop on the floor above – probably Agent Cook's, he thought, as he gathered errant sheets of paper. He took his time; tucking the contents back in the file neatly, glancing at them as he stood. After a few minutes, he heard a vehicle door open, then shut; then suddenly there was a muffled cry.

Don froze, then tossed the file in the vehicle, and began running for the up ramp. He heard shouts, and as he reached the top of the ramp and the next level, he looked down the rows and spotted the source of the noise. Allison Cook was on the ground next to her vehicle with a hand to her head, and one of the lawyers from the elevator was helping her to sit up, while the other one yelled at someone, looking toward the far stairway. Don could see a figure with long dark hair sprinting away from them, already too far for the lawyers to catch him, and the man jerked open the stairwell door, and disappeared inside.

Don hesitated for just a fraction of a second. The man was getting away, and it appeared Allison was being taken care of. He needed to go after the perp; and had just started to sprint toward the stairwell on his end of that level, when he heard the bang of a door on the level below. He reversed direction, and ran back around the corner and looked down the ramp. The dark haired man was on the far side of the garage, heading for a blue van. Without breaking stride, Don sprinted for his SUV, which was between him and the blue van. He had just gotten in and slammed the door when the blue van pulled out, careened around the far corner, and disappeared, on its way to the exit below. He turned to look; taking that extra moment to try to get a plate number in case he lost him, but the dim garage lighting and the speed of the vehicle made that a hopeless proposition. He cranked the ignition harder than he needed to; the SUV's engine roared to life, and he threw it into reverse and backed up with a screech of tires.

By the time he got to the next level, another car had pulled out and had gotten between him and the blue van. Fortunately, it was moving along quickly, and Don could catch glimpses of the van ahead of them each time he hit another level, just before it turned the corner. He wasn't close enough to stop it from going through the exit gate, however; the gate was already rising in front of the van as he turned the last corner, and he nearly crawled up the bumper of the vehicle in front of him in his impatience to exit, himself. He was trying not to lay on the horn; the driver of the blue van couldn't know for sure at that point whether he was being followed, and Don wanted to keep it that way. Although the van was the wrong color, it hadn't been lost on Don that it was a panel van. There was a chance it could be him, the killer; and if so, there was a chance that he would lead Don to Charlie.

He was finally free of the garage, and he shot looks back and forth down the street, pulling hard to the right when he spotted the blue van as it passed under a streetlight, the next block down. There were now two cars between him and the van, which was actually a blessing; he needed to keep his distance to keep from being seen. The van turned right up ahead – headed for the highway, no doubt, and Don reached automatically toward the center of the dash, before he remembered he wasn't in a department-issue vehicle – he had no radio. He fumbled instead for his cell phone, grabbing it and hanging on as he turned the corner himself, then flipped it open, his eye on the van up ahead. He glanced down at the keypad, only to be confronted with a blank screen.

He uttered a string of curses, short but definitely descriptive, and punched the 'on' button with his thumb – not once, but three times, and finally flung the dead phone on the seat beside him with a particularly ripe epithet. Here he was, possibly tailing the killer – the best opportunity they'd had to take the guy, and he was without support, or a way to contact them. As the surge of adrenaline started to subside a little, however, he began to think that perhaps it was for the best. If support had been called in, Wright would undoubtedly move to take the man – he wouldn't take any chances of letting him escape – and if that happened, the man might not choose to give them Charlie's location. It was riskier to try to tail the suspect, but if Don managed to track him to where Charlie was…

There was no question in his mind, and happily, the situation gave him no choice. If he stopped to call for back up he would lose the suspect. If his decision was questioned later, that would be his rationale. He had only one job now – to stay on the man's tail without creating suspicion. He gripped the steering wheel just a bit tighter, and set his jaw. He could not, would not, screw this up.

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Ryan Morgan shook with anger and frustration behind the wheel of the van, his hands working, opening and closing, on the wheel. Everything he touched today had been a disaster – everything.

After leaving the gym area earlier, he'd cast desperately about for an alternative to Marcia Sanders. A dark haired woman on the street had caught his eye, and she made him think of Allison. A vision had flashed in his mind of the vehicle he'd just passed – Allison – sitting alone in her SUV. What if he took her tonight, he had suddenly wondered? Jumped right ahead to the objective?

The problem was he had no idea where she was going after her stakeout, or when. Would she accompany Marcia home? As he calmed down, he began to think more rationally, and circled back around carefully to the street the gym was on, pulling over to the side, but well down the street away from the gym. From his vantage point, he could see the parking lot, and at a few minutes after 10:00 p.m., he saw Marcia come out, with a woman escort – not Allison, apparently another agent, or a cop. They got in and drove away, and the two plainclothes police officers in the other vehicle followed them. Allison's SUV was still parked down at the other end of the street, and she stayed put as they passed her. So she wasn't going with them – that meant she was either going home, or back to the office. He didn't want to follow her – he didn't want to take chance of being spotted, and it would be harder to get close to her if he had to pull in right behind her. It would be much better if he could be there before her, and position himself. He pondered a minute, wondering which location to try.

He picked the office. If she didn't show up there, he decided, he'd go to her apartment later. He'd headed straight for the parking lot of the Federal Building on Stout Street – he'd been there before, to pick Allison up for one of their dates. He knew which floor she usually parked on, and pulled the van into a spot on the far side of that level. Sure enough, she had shown up minutes after he had, but this time she pulled up to the level above. He'd had to run up the stairs, but when he got up to her level, she hadn't gotten out of the vehicle yet. She had sat talking on her cell phone for a moment, allowing him time to make his way close her van, to crouch near it. He'd seen two young men on that level; they had paused near one of their cars, talking. They were a problem. Had he been collected, in a rational frame of mind, he would have aborted right then, but the need was making him desperate, crazy. The young men were on the other side of the lot, he reasoned, and there was no one else around. If he stunned her quickly and quietly, he could inject her and hide her in her own SUV until they left, and pull his van right up to her vehicle to collect her.

It was a decent enough plan, even though it was impulsive, and might well have worked with a civilian. Allison, however, was a trained agent; she caught his movement out of the corner of her eye as she exited the vehicle, and swung away from it. As a result, his blow to her head was glancing instead of direct. She went down, stunned, but not out, crying out as she fell, and it had been enough to alert the young men, who came running. He'd had to abandon the attempt then, and darted back through the parked vehicles to the stairwell, flying down the stairs and back to his van, consumed with rage.

He was still raging as he took the ramp for the highway – his insides a cocktail of fury, fear, adrenaline, and need. He was shaking like a junkie – he had to cut, and was without either of his intended victims - both of his plots had turned into failures. Worse yet, his ultimate victim, Allison, would now more than likely be out of reach – they would put protection on her, he would never be able to get to her, at least not in the foreseeable future. He would have to regroup. Perhaps leave Denver for a while, move around the country, selecting victims and cutting at will, and come back to Denver after weeks, or months. First, though, he needed to address his immediate need for a fix, so he could think straight. He wouldn't risk another attempt at a random victim, not when his mind was so dysfunctional. No, there was no reason to do that. He had a victim already, one that he'd been pining to cut. He tightened his grip on the wheel, and a smile crept onto his face, as he sped off into the night. Yes, he had a victim. He had Eppes.

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End Chapter 26