Touched by Fire (6 page)

She hung up and was taking a moment to pull herself together when she thought she smelled something vaguely familiar, something she couldn’t place. She dismissed her
concern with a glance to the ashtray, and was crossing to the door when she smelled the acrid, fuel-like odor again. She began sniffing the air, finally zeroing in on the package. She had no idea what it contained, no idea that the fire bomb had just been activated, that the lightbulb filament had ignited the book of matches, that the fuel-sprinkled excelsior was already aflame inside. She was reaching for the carton to open it when the phone on her desk rang, startling her. She froze momentarily, then scooped the receiver from the cradle. “Genetics—Or. Graham.”

“Hey, what do you like on your pizza, Doc?”

“Kauffman?” she wondered, displeased by the elation she heard in her voice.

“Your own personal pizza man, who else?” he replied with a cocky chortle. “I can handle anything but pineapple.”

Yeah, and med students with pouty lips and perky boobs, she thought, tempted to reveal she’d been at Mario’s and tease him that he was calling her because he’d struck out. “You’re something else, you know?”

“Hey, all the professors I sleep with say that.”

Lilah laughed in spite of herself, and glanced over her shoulder at the carton. “Yeah,” she said, deciding not to play hard to get, “but this one means it.”

“Agggh,” the kid groaned, pretending that he was crushed. “I knew it. I’m nothing more than a sex object.”

“A sex object who got into med school. Not bad for a guy with three strikes against him.”

“Three?”

“You’re white, you’re male, and you’re Jewish.”

“How do you know I’m Jewish?”

“I had the misfortune to acquire intimate knowledge of your shortcomings, remember?” They were both laughing
when Lilah suddenly screamed, then screamed again, startled by a deafening pop and blinding flash that erupted behind her when the combustion inside the box had amassed enough pressure to blow it apart at the seams. The Ziploc bag had already melted, exposing the incendiary mixture to the oxygen-rich air that rushed into the carton. Lilah whirled just as it ignited in a fireball. The intense heat vaporized the corrugated board like flash paper. Sheets of flame raced up the wall to the ceiling. Waves of fiery sludge rolled across the table and onto the floor like molten lava.

“Kauffman! Kauffmannnn!” Lilah screamed, her voice trailing off in a terrified wail.

“Lilah? Doc? Doc Graham?” Kauffman. shouted into the phone. “Doc, what’s going on? You okay?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The wail of sirens and throaty bark of Klaxons echoed off Westwood’s glass-walled towers as a caravan of fire trucks thundered down Wilshire Boulevard.

Moments earlier, Mac-Med’s detection system had automatically set off internal fire alarms, broadcast an evacuation announcement over the intercom, and transmitted a signal to the tire station on Veteran Avenue a quarter mile away. Within thirty seconds every piece of equipment in its arsenal was rolling.

Kauffman had dashed from the restaurant and was sprinting north on Westwood Boulevard toward UCLA’s main gate when the fire trucks rumbled past him. From there it was a straight two-block run to Mac-Med. The chunky six-story building, wrapped in bands of harsh red brick and waffle-iron window grids, sat atop a forbidding concrete bunker. A sweeping staircase cut into one side led to an entrance plaza above. The entire area was being cordoned off with barricades by campus security when Kauffman arrived.

Emergency flashers swept through the darkness. Radios hissed and crackled with the detached voices of dispatchers. Firemen in their clunky boots, protective coats, and helmets ran in every direction. Some were connecting
pumpers to hydrants and pulling hoses into the lobby; others were extending an aerial ladder and its platform-mounted water cannon to a window in Lilah’s office that had shattered from the heat. Flames shot from the opening and licked at the facade, which was blackening from billowing smoke.

The chaotic scene confirmed Kauffman’s fears that Lilah was in extreme danger. Drenched with sweat, gasping for breath, he fought through the crowd of onlookers, eluded a security guard, and vaulted the barricade. The guard pursued him to a group of firefighters who were reviewing blueprints that were spread across the hood of a campus security cruiser.

Captain Singer was in charge. A soft-spoken man with decisive eyes, he was noting the location of biohazard and radioactive symbols when Kauffman arrived. He held off the guard long enough for the kid to tell his story; then he assembled a rescue team and led the way into the building in search of Lilah. They trudged up four flights with their equipment and clumsy air tanks, then down a hazy corridor into the genetics lab. Thick smoke and torrential rains from the sprinkler system cut visibility to almost zero.

“Dr. Graham!” Singer called out. “Hello? Dr. Graham! Doc! Doc, you in here?”

There was no reply; no sound other than the rush of water and sharp crackle of fire. The sprinklers had contained it but hadn’t come close to extinguishing the inferno that was still raging in Lilah’s office. Several walls had already crumbled, and rhythmic waves of blue-orange flames were washing over the debris, threatening to engulf the entire lab.

The firefighters moved between the workstations, knocking down flames and flare-ups as they searched for
Lilah. Several made their way to the administrative area and found her at a wall of file cabinets. She was soaked to the skin and choking on the heavy smoke despite the scarf tied over her nose and mouth; and in defiance of the screaming alarm, raging flames, and intense heat, she was frantically trying to save the precious OX-A data from being destroyed. Lilah had already filled her briefcase with boxes of computer diskettes, and was now slipping packets of autorads into the Macy’s shopping bag.

“Dr. Graham!” Singer shouted, grasping her shoulders. “Tune to get out of here!”

“This data hasn’t been archived!” she replied as she pulled free and whirled to the files. “And we’ve got all these subzero reefers. The temperature’s critical—years of work—I mean, if the emergency power hasn’t kicked in—”

Singer and several of his men picked her up and carried her from the lab along with the briefcase and shopping bag. Between protests and gasps for breath, Lilah told the captain about the box that had exploded and burst into flame.

Kauffman was beside himself with anxiety by the time the firemen escorted Lilah from the building and turned her over to paramedics. Relieved that she was safe, he decided discretion was the better part of valor this time and kept his distance. She was being treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation when Captain Singer poked his head inside the van. “Thought you’d want to know the fire’s been knocked down, and the emergency power
is
on.”

“Thanks. Can I go back up there now?”

“Not till it cools down. Besides, we’re still checking for radioactivity.” He noticed a vehicle rumble to a stop on the far side of the paramedic van and hurried toward it.

A short time later Lilah was sitting in the open door of
the van with a cigarette—despite a paramedic’s advice that she lay off for a few days—when a shaggy, broad-shouldered man came toward her. An attaché case hung from his fist. His face was strained and smudged with soot. Massive rings of perspiration radiated from his armpits, darkening his shirt.

“Dr. Graham?”

Lilah nodded, squinting at the reflection that came from his badge.

“Lieutenant Merrick, Arson Squad. How’re you doing?”

She sighed and mumbled, “Rotten.” “Me too.” Merrick took a family-size bottle of Tums from a pocket and pulled the cap. He tossed a few into his mouth, then offered it to her.

“No thanks, but I’ll have one of
those
,”
she replied, pointing to his cigarette.

Merrick slipped the pack from a pocket and thumbed the top. “The captain tells me somebody mailed you a hot potato.”

Lilah lit one cigarette from the other and nodded.

“What’d it look like?”

“A box,” she replied, sizing it with her hands.

“Addressed to you?”

Lilah nodded again.

“Scribbled? Printed? Neat? Sloppy?”

“Neat. Bold, black printing.”

“Any idea who sent it?”

She shrugged forlornly, then exhaled, filling the space between them with smoke. “I just want to get back into my lab, Lieutenant. I’ve got a conference in less than a month and—”

“It’s a crime scene, Doc,” Merrick interrupted. “Nobody
goes in there till I check it out; and I can’t do that until it—”

“Cools down. I know,” she said wearily.

“You have any enemies?”

“Not that I know of. I guess I rub my share of people the wrong way, like everybody else.”

“Any of ’em loners?”

Lilah shrugged, then shook her head no.

“Low self-esteem, poor verbal skills?”

“This
is
a university, Lieutenant,” she replied with a smile.

“Yeah, well,” Merrick grunted impatiently. “Pyros are loaded with problems. Some are real good at hiding them. You ever get any threatening calls or mail?”

“No, never,” she replied, baffled by it all.

Merrick was mulling it over when Captain Singer joined them. “We can go in now.”

“We can?” Lilah said, brightening.

“It’s your call, Dan,” Singer said.

“No, it’s mine,” Lilah corrected. “It’s my lab, and I have to get in there.” She pushed past Merrick and strode toward the entrance. The determination in her voice moved him, but it was the matter of life-and-death plea in those soulful blue eyes that convinced Merrick not to stop her.

In the lobby, a fireman directed them to an elevator that had been cleared for use. “You teach?” Merrick asked as they got in and it started to rise.

“Uh-huh.”

“Ever flunk anybody?”

“Came close a couple of times.”

“What about a Dr. Kildare wannabe who couldn’t get into med school?”

“There are jillions of them, but I’m not involved with admissions.”

“What do you do in your lab?”

“Bench research.”

“You use animals?”

“No. Humans.” She cocked her head, reconsidering, and smiled. “Some of them might qualify.”

“I was thinking the animal rights gang.”

“I know. They broke into some labs here a couple of years ago. Contaminated all the experiments . . . a disaster.”

“You think of any groups who have it in for
you
?”

“Other than large segments of the psychiatric and sociological communities, neuroscientists, all major religions, and most minority and antidefamation groups, no.”

“That narrows it. What’re you into, kiddie porn?”

“Molecular biology.” She sensed his uncertainty and added, “Genetics. You know. The crazies who are going to make two-headed monsters with rat tails and shark’s teeth.”

“Are you?”

“Naw,” Lilah replied with a pregnant pause. “We already have enough politicians.”

Merrick had become preoccupied with a thought and nodded blankly; but Captain Singer laughed. He was still smiling when the elevator came to a stop. The door rolled open, and the acrid smell of fire hit them with an intensity that made their eyes glisten and bum. A smoky haze was drifting in the corridor. Water was gushing from under doors and rolling across the carpet.

“Genetics a competitive field?” Merrick prompted.

“They all are.”

“What about jealous colleagues?”

“Ditto. You suggesting it was sabotage?”

“What do you think?”

“Anything’s possible, I guess.”

Merrick nodded pensively and led the way into the lab. Steam hissed from piles of smoldering rubble. Charred debris floated in inch-deep water. Columns of smoke twisted upward, mushrooming against the ceiling in the dim glow of emergency lights. The lab was a mess, but the sprinklers had saved it from being completely incinerated.

Lilah paused briefly, taking it all in, then, ponytail swinging from side to side, she ran to a room at the far side of the lab where the freezers were located. The digital thermometer on each control panel read –70, as did the circular graph—visible through the Plexiglas window that protected it—on which a stylus had charted temperature variations over the entire incubation period. This meant that, like the contents of standard household refrigerators, which often survive fires, the hundreds of DNA samples that the laboratory freezers contained—the painstakingly prepared blots that had been made radioactive and sandwiched with X-ray film to produce autorads—hadn’t been destroyed. Lilah sighed with relief and crossed toward her office.

Twisted and misshapen by the intense heat, the steel door frame stood alone amid heaps of rubble that had once been walls. It looked more like a coal mine that had caught fire than an office. Lilah was shocked by the extent of the destruction, and stared into the cavern of charred surfaces, smoldering hulks of furniture, and mounds of sopping wet gunk. Most of the ceiling panels had vaporized; sections of the aluminum grid had sagged or fallen, causing lighting fixtures to hang from their cables at odd angles. The shattered window perfectly framed the fireman atop the
ladder outside. Manning work lights and water cannon, he seemed to levitate in the darkness, ready to pounce on any flare-ups.

Merrick was standing amid the debris, sniffing the air, when Lilah entered. “Real careful, Doc,” he ordered. “Don’t touch anything.” He sniffed the air again, nose wrinkling curiously at a whiff of something familiar.

“Gasoline?” Lilah ventured.

Merrick shook his head no. It had the same head-clearing impact of most petroleum-based accelerants but a more pronounced nose-burning sting. “Napthalene.”

“What?”

“Napthalene. Probably from mothballs. They’re a popular ingredient in home-brewed incendiaries.”

Lilah raised a brow in tribute.

Merrick produced a small flashlight and studied the burn pattern that radiated from what had once been a wall of bookshelves. The table that had stood in front of them—the one that had held the incendiary device—had been destroyed by the fire. The granite top had broken into pieces when it crashed to the floor. Merrick put the flashlight in his mouth to free his hands and used a telescoping pointer to gently poke through the charred debris, uncovering remnants of the corrugated box, a few bits of wire, the shattered casing of the battery that had exploded, and an unidentifiable blob of melted black plastic from which a length of wire protruded.

“Find something?” Lilah prompted.

Merrick waggled a hand and took the flashlight from his mouth. “Might be part of a timer or triggering device. What’s left of it anyway. This wasn’t some nut tossing a book of matches into a canyon to get his rocks off.”

“Pardon me?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be crude.”

“I’m not offended, Lieutenant,” she said. “I was just curious what you meant.”

“Well . . .” He paused and slipped an evidence bag from his attaché case. “A lot of arsonists are sexually stimulated by fire.”

“Really?”

Merrick nodded matter-of-factly.

“Are you?” Lilah prompted flirtatiously, making eye contact when he looked up.

Merrick held her gaze. “I get off by catching them, Doc,” he retorted smartly, his lip curling with a mixture of discomfort and disdain.

Lilah did a little double take, certain she’d seen that expression before. “You know,” she said, trying to place him, “you look kind of familiar.”

“Lots of people say that.”

“The TV,” she said as it dawned on her. “You’re the guy who saved those firemen up in Malibu, aren’t you?”

Merrick nodded humbly, then picked up the lump of melted plastic with tweezers and slipped it into one of the evidence bags. He was filling in the data block when his cellular phone started twittering.

It was Gonzalez calling from the Ops Center.

“Come on, Gonzo. I’m still at UCLA for Chrissakes . . . Where? . . . Calabasas? No, dammit, it’s not on my way home, and you know it . . .
Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . Fuck . . . Okay . . . Hey, take yes for an answer, okay?” Merrick clicked off, then crossed to Captain Singer, who was supervising the cooling down operation. “I got another call, Cap. You’re gonna have to seal this place off for me.”

“He’s your man,” Singer replied, introducing Merrick to Chief Copeland, director of campus security. A retired
deputy LAPD commander, he was having dinner at his home in Simi Valley—an hour’s drive from UCLA—when notified of the fire, and bad just arrived.

“I’ve already ordered the C.S. be secured,” Copeland said in a tone that rang with territorial imperative.

Merrick sized him up, then nodded. “Just out of curiosity, your surveillance cameras tied in to VCRs?”