And Then You Die (10 page)

In another minute she'd be putting a halo over his head. She smiled. Not bloody likely.

What on earth had possessed him to bring her ice-cold milk? He hadn't answered her question about his mother's remedies. It was odd to think of Kaldak with a mother who taught him household tasks and manners. It was odd to think of him with a mother, period.

I didn't crawl out from under a rock.

He was obviously accustomed to people thinking of him as something other than human.

And that's exactly what she was doing.

Yet he was her companion now and had been her savior at San Andreas and guardian on that journey through the hills. In some way she was making contact with him.

And, yes, his presence was becoming almost comforting.

Nine

It was nearly nine-thirty in the morning when De Salmo got off the plane at Hartsfield Airport and close to ten by the time he drove his black Saturn rental car out of the lot.

He checked the city map and then got on the I-75 highway heading north.

It was raining hard, but the traffic was moving smoothly. He should be at the CDC within a half hour. If he was lucky, this might be a very quick job.

It took Kaldak and Bess almost an hour on I-75 South to make it to the CDC headquarters. Kaldak pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine.

“Aren't we going inside?” Bess asked when he made no move to get out of the car.

Kaldak shook his head. “Ed is going to meet us here. He's a cautious man.”

“If he was cautious, he wouldn't be involved with you.” She tried to peer out the windshield. “And he's going to be very wet.”

“Which will only make him worse-tempered.” He nodded at a tall, gangly man in a trench coat springing across the parking lot. “Here he comes.”

Ed Katz was in his early forties, with receding brown hair and a thin, freckled face. He opened the back door of the car, dove in, and slammed the door. “It's a bad sign.”

“The rain?” Kaldak asked.

Katz nodded gloomily. “It's a bad sign.” He stiffened when he saw Bess. “Who is she?”

“A friend.”

“Oh, great. Why don't you invite the whole world, Kaldak?”

“She's safe.”

“Until they ask her to testify against me.”

“No one's going to testify against you.”

“Yeah, sure. If this goes down, everyone's going to take a fall.” He thrust the briefcase he was carrying at Kaldak. “Take this and let me get out of here.”

“Thanks, Ed.”

“Just don't ask me to do anything else. You know you could probably have done a better job than me. This was nasty stuff.”

“Did you do a double check on the test?”

“I'm almost sure it was positive, but there was too much deterioration of the sample. We'd need a lot more to do the job.”

“I know. I'll see to it.”

“Make it quick. And I don't want to hear from you until then.”

Kaldak nodded. “I won't bother you if I can help it.”

“Find a way to help it.” He got out of the car. “We're even, Kaldak.” He hesitated, raindrops pouring down his face as he stared at Kaldak. “It's real nasty. You going to be able to do anything about it?”

“With a little help from my friends.”

“I'm not your friend. Do you hear me, Kaldak? I'm not your friend. Don't you bring this back to me unless you have a way of stopping it.”

“Not unless it's necessary.” Kaldak started to back out of the parking space and then slammed on his brakes to avoid hitting a black Saturn that was whipping through the parking lot. “I'll call you.”

“Don't.”

The black Saturn was out of the way and searching for a parking spot in the next row. Kaldak backed out and headed for the exit.

Bess looked over her shoulder and saw Katz still standing in the rain, looking after them. “He's scared.”

“We're all scared, aren't we?”

But it had shaken her to realize an expert in the field was so terrified by the results of the tests. She suddenly remembered something Katz had said. “He said you could do the test yourself. Could you?”

“Given the right equipment.”

“Then are you a doctor like Katz?”

“No one's like Katz.”

“Don't sidestep. Are you?”

“Yes. A long time ago. Ed and I went to school together.”

“Then why––”

“Did I give it up to kill people?” Kaldak finished. “It takes time for a man to find his true vocation. Katz leads such a dull life.”

It was clear Kaldak had no intention of telling her anything more. At least she had that little morsel Katz had thrown out. It put a whole new light on Kaldak.

Or did it? He had been an enigma since the moment she had met him.

“Don't worry about it.” Kaldak shot her a sly glance as he negotiated his way through the traffic toward the freeway. “I didn't mean to overwhelm you with my myriad qualifications. Just treat me as your run-of-the-mill hit man. I'm sure you prefer it.”

Damn him.

She changed the subject. “Will he help us if we need him?”

“He'll help us.”

“He deals with dangerous germs every day. Why did the anthrax frighten him so much?”

“It comes packaged with money. He sees the potential. Money is alive.”

She shook her head. “Money is just paper.”

“Is it? Take a twenty-dollar bill out of your wallet.”

“What?”

“Do it.”

“This is stupid.” She flipped open her purse, took out her wallet, and extracted a twenty-dollar bill. “It's just paper.”

“Tear it up.”

Her hand instinctively tightened on the bill. “Don't be ridiculous. We might need it.”

“You see, it's not just paper, it's alive. That twenty-dollar bill could send your kids to college, pay for your house, free you from a job you hate, buy you a heroin hit to keep your body from screaming with pain. Who's going to refuse it even if there's a danger of it being contaminated? Most people think bad things are going to happen only to the other guy.”

“I can tear it up.”

“Then do it.”

She ripped the twenty-dollar bill in two.

“Congratulations.” Then he smiled. “But what are you doing?”

“Just putting the pieces back in my wallet.”

“So that you can tape them together later.”

Her eyes widened as she realized that's exactly what she had intended to do. “It would be stupid to lose the money for a silly experiment.”

“Right.” He swung onto the freeway. “They say self-preservation is the first law. Wouldn't you say that twenty-dollar bill has just preserved itself?”

Alive. The idea was ludicrous. No, it was frightening. Because she now understood what it meant. Money was not only currency, it was knit into the fabric of people's lives and dreams. Esteban couldn't have chosen a more irresistible siren to deliver the bacteria. “Diabolical.”

“Yes.”

“But if people knew, surely they'd reject it.”

“Maybe. But when we see them tearing up or burning money, we'll know we're really in trouble. What emotional response do you think it would take to trigger an act like that?”

Despair. Frustration. Fury.

“There would be anarchy. Just the situation Habin wants. It was his idea to use the money. He planned and worked for over seven years to steal those plates from Denver.”

“Where are they making the counterfeit money?”

“They made the pesos in an underground installation in Libya. I think they moved the operation earlier this year when they started making the U.S. currency.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere in the U.S. is a good bet.”

“You don't know?”

He shook his head. “But it would make sense not to have to transport the anthrax all over the world.”

“My God, what do you know?”

He was silent for a few moments. Then, “I found references to Waterloo, Iowa.”

“How?”

“Esteban had a lieutenant removed when he became overly curious about what was happening at Tenajo. I searched his belongings afterward.”

After Kaldak had killed the lieutenant himself. It was too easy to make the connection.

“Yes.” He answered her unspoken question. “And if I hadn't done away with Galvez, I wouldn't have had enough information to take the chance of getting you out of San Andreas.”

“I didn't say anything. I just wish it had been Esteban.”

“My, how fierce we're getting.”

“Waterloo, Iowa.” She shook her head. She could imagine the hidden laboratory in Libya or even Mexico but not in the heartland of America. “So the lab and the counterfeiting operation are both in Iowa?”

“Probably. It's more than likely that they transferred the counterfeiting operation to the same installation as the lab.”

Everything in place, ready to move. “Where is the target?” she murmured. “And how do we find out?”

She saw a flicker of expression on his face. “Were you lying to me? Do you know where the strike is going to be?”

“I didn't lie to you. I'm not sure.”

“But you do have an idea?”

“Galvez had a fax from Morrisey, who's evidently some kind of advance scout. The fax said his next stop was going to be Cheyenne.”

“You aren't going to warn them?”

“It was mentioned in passing. No clear threat. Should I panic an entire city when it could be nothing?”

“Yes.”

“And when Esteban learns of it, he'll just shift the target and we'll have no chance of intercepting them.”

“I don't care about catching them. I just don't want another Tenajo.”

His lips tightened. “Trust me. There won't be another Tenajo. Not if there's any way on earth I can help it.”

But what if he couldn't help it? She leaned back, listening to the heavy pounding of rain on the roof of the car.

Bad sign,
Katz had said.

She hoped he was wrong. They didn't need any more bad omens staring them in the face.

“I missed them,” De Salmo said. “I was too late.”

“There was always that possibility,” Esteban said.

“Should I stick around?”

“No, get on a plane to New Orleans.”

“Is that where she's going?”

Esteban smiled. “Oh, yes, that's where she's going.”

“Where is this safe house?” she asked as she gazed out the window. The rain had lessened as they drove east, but it was still a steady downpour. “We're in North Carolina now, aren't we?”

“About twenty minutes ago. We'll be at the house soon. It's in Northrup, a little town a bit south of here.”

“I want you to call Yael as soon as we get there.”

He nodded. “Whatever you say. Though I told you he might not have––”

Kaldak's portable phone rang. He pulled it out of his jacket and punched the answer button.

“Shit.”

There was nothing impassive about his expression now as he listened. His mouth twisted, and a vein pounded in his temple. “Are you certain, Ramsey?” he asked. “When?”

Something was wrong, she thought. The anthrax? Had Esteban set off––

“Bullshit. I can't do that. I
won't
do it.” He disconnected the phone and his foot pressed down hard on the accelerator.

“What's wrong? What happened?”

“In a minute.” He pulled off the highway onto a small road. He shut off the engine.

“Is it the anthrax?” she asked.

“No.” He looked straight ahead. He grasped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. “There's been a development in New Orleans.”

“A development?”

“An announcement in this morning's
Times-Picayune
.”

“What are you talking about?”

“An obituary for Emily Grady Corelli, who will be buried two days from now.”

Shock froze her. She couldn't breathe. Then she shook her head. “No, it's not true. It's crazy. It's just some vicious trick of Esteban's.”

He shook his head.

“Don't tell me no.” Her voice was shaking. “It can't be true. Emily was in Mexico. How would she–– It's a lie.”

“I wish it were.” His voice was thick. “I wish to God it were, Bess. It was confirmed. She's at the Duples Funeral Home on First Street. The body was delivered last night by an air freight service with forged health department certifications, cash, and instructions for the funeral.”

“It's a lie. He told me before that she was dead and in the morgue, but it was Rico. It wasn't Emily, it was Rico.”

“It's Emily this time. They took fingerprints and––”

“I don't believe it. You said Yael was going to find her, that he was going to bring her––”

“She's dead, Bess.”

She wouldn't believe it. If she believed it, then it might come true. “No, I'll show you. I'm going to New Orleans and I'll go to the funeral home and I'll prove––”

“No.” He suddenly turned and drew her into his arms. “I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry.”

He was trying to comfort her, she thought dully. But she couldn't accept it. Accepting comfort would be the same as admitting Emily was dead. “I'm going to see her.”

“It's a trap. Why do you think Esteban sent her to New Orleans? It's where you live. He knew we'd be monitoring everything that went on there. He wanted to draw you there.”

“So he killed her?”

He didn't answer for a moment. “He didn't have to kill her. She's been dead for a long time. We think she died of anthrax that first night in Tenajo.”

“No, she wasn't sick. And she wasn't at San Andreas. It was Rico. It was Ric–– ––”

“Shh.” His fingers buried in her hair and his voice was uneven. “I can't take it. Christ, I never thought it would be like this.”

“I have to go. She's not dead. I know it. She's not––”

“Bess. She's dead and Esteban wants you dead too. I can't let you go to New Orleans.”

She pushed him away. “You can't keep me from going to her.”

“Look, Ramsey's rushing the DNA test. They'll have absolute proof within a day or so.”

“Screw their proof. It's not true.” It was all lies. “Start this car. Take me to an airport, any airport.”

“No.” He looked away from her. “I can't do that.”

“You
have
to do it. I'm not going to any safe house. You can do without your damn witness.”

He shook his head.

“Don't you tell me no. It's my life.”

“No, it's not. Not entirely.”

What was he saying?

“There's a very good possibility you have an immunity to the mutated anthrax,” he said.

She looked at him in bewilderment. “Immunity.”

“You should have died at Tenajo. Everyone else did.”

“You said the anthrax dissipated too soon.”

He shook his head. “It had weakened, but it was still potent enough to do the job. It killed Rico. It killed your sister.”

“It didn't kill Emily. Esteban––”

“It killed them, Bess.” A muscle in his cheek jerked. “You survived. Why do you think Esteban didn't kill you right away? He couldn't understand why you didn't die, and he wanted to run blood tests.”

“I don't remember––” The Band-Aid covering the needle marks. Not all sedative injections as she had thought. “Blood tests.”