Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed
Chapter Five
"Okay, I've narrowed it down to this area," Charlie said, tapping a couple keys to highlight one section of the map.
"That's a pretty big area," Don said, disappointed.
"Sorry," Charlie said. "But five data points aren't a lot to go on."
"No, no. Good work, Charlie." He peered at the map, then asked "Are there any garden supply stores in that area?"
"Three." Charlie tapped a couple keys and pulled up the store information.
"Print that for me?" Don requested, heaving himself out of his chair with more effort than he cared to admit. He snagged the page just as the printer spit it out, on his way out the door.
He found David at his desk, just arriving back from questioning one of the stores that was the site of the poisoning. "Anything?"
"Not a lot. We took samples from other drinks at the store, but nothing came up. And no one who was working noticed anything out of the ordinary."
Don nodded. "I figured. Could you talk to these stores, get lists of anyone who bought castor seeds in the last six months?"
"I'm on it," David affirmed, turning to his computer. Don turned around and started, shocked to find Charlie standing next to him.
"Geez, Charlie! Trying to scare me to death?" Don shook his head, trying to calm his increased heart rate as it made his head throb more frequently.
"So what's the next step here?" Charlie asked, following Don as he headed towards the break room.
"We need to think," Don replied. He opened the fridge in the break room and took out a bottle of water, twisting the cap off and taking a small sip. His mouth was incredibly dry and he was feeling weak and dizzy – or, more so than he had been. All signs point to dehydration. He wanted to kick himself for allowing it to happen, but he had a few other things on his mind.
Don folded himself into one of the chairs, leaning over the table. He forced himself to take measured sips of his water. He caught Charlie watching him and gave his brother the most intimidating stare he could manage, but to no avail. Sighing, he looked away and returned his focus to the case.
"How do you know that this wasn't the whole attack?" Charlie asked. "What if the guy just wanted to kill a few people?"
"Ricin is easy to make, but it's dangerous," Don said. "Getting just a little on your skin, or inhaling even less than that would be deadly. No one would risk that much to kill just a couple people. There are a lot of things that are easier to handle, if you don't need that much. Any of the heavy metals, cyanide…no, this guy definitely is planning something bigger." He fell silent, considering. People said the way to catch a criminal was to think like one. If it were him, he thought, he would want the poison to hit not just the maximum number of people, but the maximum area. He'd want it to be so widespread no one would feel safe buying food anywhere. But how could a person tamper with that many products, at that many locations? Unless they were at the source…
Don bolted from his chair and strode back to the war room, Charlie on his heels. "Distribution centers," Don said. "The best way to contaminate food that is headed for multiple destinations in the same city. If it were a factory worker, we'd have cases everywhere, not five all in Los Angeles."
"But there have to be hundreds of distribution centers in Los Angeles," Charlie said.
"We could cross check with the list David is working on, and the people living in the area you marked," Don said.
"Wait," Charlie said, eyes opening wide. "What if we aren't looking for a house in this area at all?" He looked at Don expectantly.
"I'm gonna need more, buddy."
"When you took calculus in high school, you probably covered optimization, right? The idea that with a certain set of conditions, there is an ideal solution that yields the best possible results. Picture a college student with five hours to kill one night, and forty-eight dollars to spend. He could spend his time being tutored for his exam the next day, or he could go out and party. Or he could do both. And if we say it costs eight dollars per hour to be tutored, but sixteen to party, well we have a dilemma. If he parties for three hours, he's run out of money and he still has two hours left to do nothing. But if he gets tutored for all five hours, he hasn't used all his money, and thus he hasn't gotten the maximum reward."
"So you're saying our terrorist is trying to optimize his attack."
"Our terrorist has, say, twenty-four hours to distribute as much poison as he can. But there are other factors. He wants to hit as many locations as possible, probably decently far apart. But he is limited by travel time and how much his truck can hold."
"His actual location has nothing to do with it," Don realized. "The important thing is –"
"The distribution center," Charlie finished, scribbling furiously on the board. "So if we rework this equation slightly, assuming certain values for minimum distance – because he is trying to make the data look random – then we can narrow down the possible distribution centers."
"Great work," Don said, clapping his brother on the shoulder and upsetting his writing. "You keep working on this, I'm going to call the stores and see if they keep records of who drops off their shipments."
As he strode across the bull pen, David caught up to him, walking along side him. "I've got the list, Don, but it's huge. It'll take us days to contact these people, and a lot of people paid with cash, so we don't even have their names."
"Well, Charlie's working on a new equation for us, so just hold on to the list, and we'll compare names and see if anything jumps out at us." Don briefly outlined the conversation between him and Charlie, skipping the long-winded metaphor and going directly to the punch line.
"But the guy is probably producing the toxin at his house – so these may not even be the stores he'd go to," David pointed out.
"Maybe," Don conceded. "Where do you get your groceries?"
"What?"
"When you leave here late at night, do you go home and then go back out to get groceries, or do you swing by a store between here and your house?" David nodded. "It's a pretty safe bet that his house isn't too far from his work, and if he's anything like us, he probably went to a store close to his work." Don veered towards the men's room. "It may not turn up anything, but it's a start. Can you call the stores and see if they have any kind of log as to who drops off their supplies and when?" Without waiting for an answer, he pushed through the door of the men's room, stumbled into a stall and threw up yet again, before experiencing another coughing fit so debilitating it left him lightheaded and trembling.
When he woke up a little over twenty hours ago, he had thought it was not even possible to feel worse. Now he'd give anything to go back to this morning.
He'd been sick for days already, though it was difficult to tell exactly where exhaustion ended and actual illness began. But it had been manageable, if only because Don was far too stubborn to admit defeat. But now, even his stubbornness wasn't enough to get Don up off the bathroom floor and on with his life. Every single muscle ached, his head pounded, his stomach was still in knots, he was dehydrated, feverish, exhausted, and stressed. But all of that he could push through. The real issue was the gasping for breath, the heavy feeling in his chest that forced him to inhale in quick, shallow bursts, leaving his head spinning and his already sore throat dry and irritated. He began coughing once more, vision becoming black at the edges before he managed to quell it.
Even Don had to admit, things were not looking good. By the time he finally managed to pick himself up off the floor and head to the sink to wash up, Charlie was looking for him, ready to share some results. And Don washed and dried his hands, studiously avoided his own reflection, and followed Charlie back to the war room – at an admittedly slower pace than normal, but he wouldn't split hairs. No matter how bad his own illness was, an attack on the greater Los Angeles area would leave a lot of people doing even worse. And Don Eppes, along with all his commitment issues, trust issues, and workaholism, could also claim a huge hero complex. He'd have to mention that to his shrink, assuming he stopped the attack and they both lived that long. If he didn't stop it, well, some hero he was.