Bull Street (40 page)

Stark felt adrenaline surge through him.
Off your ass. Double-time. Move, move, move.
He threw open the car door and headed across the street, matching Maguire’s pace, then faster. He unzipped his jacket as he passed the police cruiser, slipped his right hand inside and grabbed the handle of his knife, just underneath his Ruger in its chest holster. By the time Maguire reached the door Stark was only a few strides behind him. Stark
felt the familiar thud of his pulse in his ears, dryness in his mouth, his jaw clenching involuntarily.
Here we go.

When Stark got inside Maguire was on the third step, his feet pounding like he was Frankenstein. Stark glanced up to the top of the steps just as he reached Maguire.
Nobody there.
He swung out the knife and plunged in a clean stab all the way to the hilt in Maguire’s kidney.

Maguire let out a howl like a bull mastiff and grabbed his back. Stark pulled the knife out for another stab, saw blood on the blade and felt the rush. Maguire then spun to face Stark, just as they always did, so Stark could go for the kill gore just below the solar plexus. But the guy was big and strong. Too late, Stark saw the left hook coming toward his head. The knife hit bone just as Maguire’s fist caught Stark on the chin. The lights went out for what must’ve been only a fraction of a second because Stark found himself grabbing the banister, his back against the wall but still on his feet as Maguire thundered up the steps. Stark righted himself and started after him, shoving the knife back in its holster, grabbing the Ruger with its silencer attached and sliding it out of his jacket. By the time Maguire got to the top of the stairs and turned left Stark was only about six steps below him.

Stevens heard someone crashing up the steps like a buffalo, a yell like a wounded animal, then some scuffling and what must’ve been a couple of guys running up the stairs. He turned and saw one guy get to the top, duck into the first office and lean against a woman standing there, then push her aside. Then another guy came up the stairs with—holy shit!—a Dirty Harry-sized piece with a silencer on it. On instinct, Stevens flipped open his holster
and grabbed his service revolver. As he did, the guy with the gun reached up and put a round square in the big guy’s back, and the big guy went down like a tree right in front of the woman. Stevens now held his Smith & Wesson in both hands, crouched in firing position as the guy with the gun bent down and started reaching into the big guy’s pocket.

No clear shot.
The woman was in the way. “Freeze!” Stevens yelled.

The guy with the gun glanced back and pulled off a round without even seeming to move. Stevens felt his left hip explode in pain and found himself on his back, looking upside down at the guy, who now turned and pointed the piece at him. Stevens’ arm was outstretched. He fired a crazy round over the guy’s head and when the guy ducked Stevens rolled onto his stomach, aimed and squeezed the trigger one, two, three, four times as the guy dived down the stairway and out of sight. Stevens dropped his head to the floor and everything went black.

Stark skidded to a stop about a quarter of the way down the stairway, got up and bounded down the rest of the steps and out the door. He held the Ruger at his side as he turned down Broadway, seeing the other cop still sitting in his squad car. How the hell hadn’t he heard the shots?
The guy must be deaf.
Stark slid the Ruger back into its holster and turned to look into a store window to conceal his movements. He zipped up his jacket and started toward 79
^th
Street. He’d abandon the Taurus across the street. Leaving Maguire’s picture in it was dumb, but who cared? The cops would know it was a hit anyhow. Stark’s heart was still thudding against his chest when he reached 72
^nd
Street
and hailed a cab. Inside, he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped Maguire’s blood off his gloves. A clean kill on Maguire, no question. But the client would be pissed he hadn’t been able to check Maguire’s pockets, even see if Maguire had handed anything off to the girl. And she’d gotten a good look at him. He’d have to circle back on that. The cop was unfortunate. If he lived he might be able to ID him, too. And if he didn’t live, well, that would make for unnecessary heat that might send him underground and out of work for a while, at least in the States. Overall, messy. Not a good day’s work.

Dani didn’t think it was possible to choke on air, but that’s how she felt. She gasped for breath and knew air was flowing in, but somehow it seemed to be suffocating her. She stood in front of her desk. Her knees were weak and she slumped backward, supporting herself with her hands behind her on her desk. Her ears rang from those awful shots, and she felt sick to her stomach from the smells in the room—blood mixed with gunpowder. She stared down at the man lying at her feet. He must be Dr. Maguire; he’d arrived promptly at 9:00, their scheduled time. She looked across the hall and now saw two people bent over the cop, who wasn’t moving. That snapped her out of her paralysis because now she knelt down and put two fingers on Maguire’s neck to check his pulse.
Nothing.
She realized she clutched a USB flash memory drive in her palm, and now remembered Maguire had thrust it there before he shoved her away. She slipped it into her blazer pocket.

Sirens, and a moment later a single uniformed cop ran up the stairs, glanced at Maguire, and then went in to tend to the
other cop. By the time the paramedics arrived, Dani’s stomach was beginning to settle. She wanted to go back behind her desk and sit down, but was still afraid to move. As the paramedics took the wounded cop away, two men in suits appeared at the top of the stairs. They spoke to the other cop for a few moments, then came over to Dani’s office. The short one bent over and started going through Maguire’s pockets. Dani recoiled. Even if it was the man’s job, it was disgusting. Ten minutes ago Maguire was a man who ran to her and implored her with desperate eyes. Now he was a carcass to be sifted through for evidence.

The other man who approached Dani was taller and skinnier, with watery eyes. “I’m Agent Wilson. FBI.” He flipped open a wallet-sized case and showed her a badge.

Dani felt her mouth move but no sound came out. She realized she was clutching the desk behind her as hard as she could with both hands.

“Tell us what happened,” Wilson said.

Dani cleared her throat. “I was waiting in my office for my appointment with Dr. Maguire when I heard a commotion on the stairs and then he ran in. His face was white and he was bleeding. He grabbed me and then pushed me away just as—” Dani heard the tremor in her voice, realized she was spewing words and took a deep breath to slow herself down, “—another man came in with a gun and shot him in the back.” The horror of it come back to her.
My God.
She’d actually seen a man murdered in front of her.

Wilson didn’t show any reaction, just stood looking at her through those watery eyes.

Dani went on. “Then the man bent over and started poking around in Dr. Maguire’s pockets. At that point someone yelled ‘freeze’ or something from across the hall, and I saw a policeman
with his gun outstretched, and then the policeman went down when the man shot him and I dove under my desk and heard three or four more shots. When I looked up the man with the gun was gone and the policeman was laying face down.”

Wilson seemed to be waiting for Dani to go on. When she didn’t, he said, “You said Dr. Maguire. Do you know him?”

“No, but we had an appointment, and I’ve been talking to him on the phone for some time to set up a meeting.”

“You sure it’s him?”

Dani paused. Actually, she wasn’t. “I assume it’s him.”

The man looked down at Dani’s hands.

“How’d you get blood on you?” Dani looked down at her hands and noticed they were bloody. Her blazer, too. “I told you. The man grabbed me and almost fell over on me, then shoved me aside.”

“You just called him ‘the man,’ not ‘Dr. Maguire.’” Wilson said, still observing her with no expression.

“I already told you, I assume it was Dr. Maguire.”

“Listen, we need you to cooperate.”

Huh?
Now Dani was annoyed. She felt her fingernails scraping the underside of the desk behind her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The short man finished going through Maguire’s pockets. He looked up at Wilson and shook his head. “He’s got a knife wound in his back,” the short man said.

Wilson nodded, then looked at Dani. “You’re not giving us anything,” he said.

Dani just stared at him. Now she was angry. Was this guy just dense, or was he fishing for something in particular?

Wilson said, “You expect us to believe this man, Maguire—Dr. David Maguire, a senior research biologist at Pharma
International—comes in here dying with a knife wound in his back to speak to you or give you something, and you don’t know him?”

“I don’t expect anything. You asked me what happened, and I’m telling you.”

“Why did he come here?”

“I told you. I’ve been calling about an interview, and he wanted to meet me first.”

“That’s all?”

Dani decided she didn’t want to tell Wilson she believed that there might have been something more on Maguire’s mind than that. She shrugged.

Wilson said, “Who set up the meeting?”

“He did.”

“Who introduced you? You obviously had a reason to talk to him, and you didn’t call him out of the blue.”

“I was introduced through a friend of his. John McCloskey.”

“That KellerDorne guy? The whistleblower?”

This was getting weird. She realized that it was strange that the FBI was probing her about Dr. Maguire even before the homicide cops showed up. And this guy, Wilson, knew who John McCloskey was with no prompting. Not exactly a household name. And how did he refer to Maguire? A research analyst at Pharma. How would he know that?

Wilson said, “What did he give you?”

She leveled her eyes at him. No way she was telling. “Nothing.”

At that moment two more men in suits appeared at the top of the stairs, followed by six or eight more, some with bulky cases, some uniformed cops. Wilson turned to them. “She’s all yours, fellas. We’re done here.” The partners left.

The two suits who just arrived looked at each other as if in confusion. They turned their backs to Dani and spoke to the uniformed cop, the one who arrived first, for a few moments. Yes, something really odd was going on. She got the idea that these cops had no clue who the FBI guys were, or why they were here. If they really were FBI.

She put her hand into her blazer pocket and felt the USB flash memory drive. It had to be why Maguire wanted to see her. She remembered that he said something to her about “being on the right side.” She eyed the men talking to each other in front of her and decided that until she figured out what was going on, she’d keep her mouth shut about it.