Ukiah - Alien Taste Part 7

Agent Zheng nodded. "It's been found that in psychotic individuals there is an inability to filter out background noise. It's theorized that it's a chemical imbalance that literally drives the person insane by overloading their senses. In your recording, Janet Haze repeatedly asked you how one stopped listening."

Max caught his eyes and shook his head, as if warning Ukiah not to say anything.

Haze had been asking the wrong person, Ukiah thought instead of saying. When they had first started working together, Max asked him often if he was listening. It had puzzled Ukiah since he didn't goaround with his fingers jammed into his ears. Slowly he had learned that other people couldn't recall things they hadn't paid attention to, while Max had learned that Ukiah always listened.

Ukiah glanced about the entry hall. Other than the bas.e.m.e.nt, there was the living room and the stairs leading out of the hall. "Where first?"

Agent Zheng indicated upstairs. "Since the bodies were on the first floor, it's the most disturbed. It probably would be best if you start with her room."

Ukiah started up the steps and had almost reached the top when a thought hit him. Why did Agent Zheng check on the ferrets yesterday afternoon?

He paused at the top of the steps and watched Agent Zheng follow him up. Should he ask her?

What would he say if she asked why he was so interested in the ferrets? If Janet Haze's ferrets were still at the humane society, then they weren't the ferrets at the morgue. a.s.suming, of course, they hadn't broken out, had a midnight feeding frenzy, and returned to their cages to look innocent. Unlikely, but so far everything about the morgue was unlikely.

The window to Janet's room was shut, and otherwise at first the room seemed unchanged. He stood at the center of the room and did a slow scan. To her credit, Agent Zheng stood patiently at the steps, without a hint of growing impatient. Max pulled out a cigar and chewed on its unlit end.

When Ukiah found the first missing item, Max caught the change in Ukiah's expression. "Found something?"

Ukiah stepped forward to tap a crowded bookshelf. "There was a bottle between these two books, shoved the whole way back to the back wall. It was one of those small drug bottles. It had a label with the word 'Imuran.'"

Agent Zheng and Max both pulled out their PDAs, and uplinked to the web. Max whistled as he found the information first.

"Imuran, generic name azathioprine, manufacturer-hmm-Indication: organ rejection after liver transplantation; severe, active, otherwise unresponsive rheumatoid arthritis. It's an immune-suppression drug." He did a further search as Agent Zheng nodded in agreement. "Janet Haze hadn't undergone organ replacement surgery anytime in her life. I wouldn't think you'd put someone with severe rheumatoid arthritis in the attic bedroom."

Ukiah shook his head. "She didn't have arthritis."

Agent Zheng tilted her head slightly. "Was she taking it, or giving it to someone else? Was any gone at all?"

"The bottle was half full and there were needles beside it. One used, and about three still in sterile wrappers." He cast his mind back to Janet Haze crouched in the shadows of the woods. "She had needle marks on her arms."

Agent Zheng made notes on her PDA, an infinitesimal frown touching her face. It was a slight crease between her black eyebrows and the hardening of her eyes. She glanced up to see Ukiah watching her, and the frown smoothed away.

"Anything else?" Max asked.

Ukiah shrugged. "All the books and papers have been s.h.i.+fted. It's as if someone took down each book, one by one, and replaced them. They're in the same order, but they're staggered differently." He held his hand over a piece of paper to indicate it without touching it. "This piece of paper was on top like this, but over here. As far as I can tell, at the moment, they are all here, but it's harder with the paper."

Agent Zheng took out latex gloves and slid them on. "I'll check through the books. If they needed to move every book, then maybe they didn't find what they were looking for.""Maybe your agent, Wil Trace, moved the books," Max suggested.

Agent Zheng nodded slowly. "It is possible but unlikely. I normally wouldn't on a case involving the Pack. They usually limit their contact to in-person conversations and rare telephone calls. The searcher was probably looking for something written: a letter, prescription, a photograph, or something like that. I don't think Wil Trace would have put in the effort either."

Max produced a pair of latex gloves and pulled them on. "Let's split this bookcase up while Mr.

Oregon finishes his search."

So they did, taking one book out at a time to flip through them. A half hour pa.s.sed in silence.

Max finished his half first, having flipped quicker through the books. He stretched and roamed the room. "Any luck, kid?"

"I only saw the top layer of papers, so I can't tell if anything from a lower layer is missing. There seems to be only one paper missing; a piece of legal tablet paper with the word 'subst.i.tutions' written across the top. I can recreate it, but it's all ASCII to me."

"If you write it down, I'll find someone who will understand it," Agent Zheng said. "There's something odd about these books. Janet read science fiction in her spare time; they account for all the worn paperbacks mixed in with the textbooks. But these other books she took out of the library. By the due date stamped inside, I think she borrowed them only a day or two before her first sick day at work. New Advances in Aging. Aging: Facts and Myths. Methuselah's Children: New Age Treatments for Aging."

"Immortality: Myth and Legends," Max added, slipping a book out from under a pillow. He sat on the edge of the bed to flip through it.

Ukiah stretched muscles sore from leaning over the desk. "Why would a twenty-something be reading up on aging?"

"You have to admit that it's ironic that she'd be dead within a week," Max commented, then made a sound of discovery. "What do you make of this?"

Agent Zheng and Ukiah came to look over his shoulder at the worn photograph he held. It was a black-and-white photo, older than any Ukiah had ever seen, of a dark-haired man. He stood under a great arch that proclaimed "New York City's World's Fair." While he was obviously the subject of the photo, a great number of people had been caught pa.s.sing under the arch.

Ukiah glanced at the photo and felt the hair on the back of his neck start to rise.

Agent Zheng shook her head. "Anything on the back?"

Max flipped the picture over but it was blank. "No."

"I doubt the searcher was looking for that." Agent Zheng unfolded from the bed and returned to the bookcase. "It looks like it might be a family photograph, maybe Janet's grandfather. Just in case, I'll run it through the FBI labs and see what they can deduce."

While her back was still to them, Ukiah caught Max's hand and flipped the photo back upright and then pointed to a face that sprang out of the crowd. In the ma.s.s of faces blurred by movement, one man alone was still, and thus clear. He stood a good thirty feet back, his face no larger than Ukiah's pinkie tip in the photo. He stared toward the photo's subject with crystalline hatred. It was Rennie Shaw.

Max stared at the photograph and then glanced at Ukiah. "Is this who I think it is?" was plain on his face. Ukiah nodded to him. Max indicated Agent Zheng with his chin. Ukiah shrugged, unsure of what the special agent would make of the impossible appearance of the Pack leader.

"I would be interested to know what the lab has to say about it." Max handed the photograph to her. "Could you keep us apprised?""You believe it's more important than I think?" There was no indication that Agent Zheng was demeaning their opinion. It seemed like an honest question.

"It's the only out-of-place thing we've actually put our hands on," Max pointed out.

"This evidence by omission is hard to work with," she admitted. She took a hand scanner from her purse, connected it to her PDA, and ran the photograph through it. The scanning complete, she put the scanner away and uploaded the scanned photo to some distant computer. "There, that will get them started."

Ukiah started to rise, putting out his hand to catch the bedpost. He stilled as his fingers ran over a patch of blood. He closed his eyes to pick through the information his senses were relaying to him on the smallest levels. Almost by reflex, he compared the new sensations to ones he learned by trial and error.

Here was the marker for male. There was the indication of European white. The loosing strands hinted at middle age. Max told Ukiah often that what he did was impossible-and also not to try and explain his abilities to anyone in detail. People, Max said, could handle "Indian trackers," and "psychic detectives," but probably not be able to cope with-whatever he was. What would Agent Zheng say if he explained his talents to her?

Until he talked to Max and made sure it was okay, he said instead, "There's blood here."

Max came to eye the bedpost. "Oh d.a.m.n, that's not good."

Ukiah moved his hand slowly down the post. "The smear goes the whole way down. Someone has made an effort to wipe it up." He ran his hands over the dark-painted hardwood floors. "There was blood on the floor, too, but not a lot. Some hair too. It seems like a head wound, blunt force to the head."

Crouched on the floor, he scanned the room. "If he was attacked in this room, and the attacker left the weapon behind, what was he hit with?"

"Why do you think it got left behind?" Agent Zheng asked.

"There's nothing missing," Max answered for him. "How about the cla.s.sical heavy acrylic award?"

Ukiah picked up the clear acrylic award but found it innocent of blood. "No."

Agent Zheng stood staring at the floor. "If the body fell here, the attacker would have stood here and"-she reached down to nudge a pair of roller blades tucked under the desk-"these would be close at hand."

Ukiah examined the heavy wheel base. The right blade was clean, but he found blood and hair caught under the rims of the left. "This was it. Someone hit Wil Trace in the head with this."

"And took his body out the back," Max added, "if no one saw him leave the front."

"Or the body is still in the house," Ukiah amended.

Agent Zheng shook her head. "We've checked the house."

From the attic window, Schenley Park stretched out as a canopy of green. Max looked out over the treetops and shook his head. "I'm starting to hate that park."

Ukiah crouched on the same path that Janet Haze had taken two days before. To him the pa.s.sage of Wil Trace's body was clear. "You said that your people checked the park?"

"There wasn't any indication that he went into the park."

Ukiah glanced up at Max. "Can't you see this?"

Max shook his head. "It's just a bunch of footprints to me. What is it?"

Ukiah forgave the FBI somewhat. It seemed to him as if they should be perfect and infallible. Thepath was there, why hadn't they seen it? "A man came this way, carrying something extremely heavy. See how deep his footprints are on this piece of level ground, compared to the others? Here, here, and here-blood. It's going to be easy to follow, but it's a day old."

"Might as well see where it goes." Max took out his pistol and checked its clip.

Agent Zheng nodded too, so they started down the dirt footpath.

Unlike Janet Haze's earlier trek, the blood trail followed the path to one of the park's wide graded trails until it came to the edge of Panther Hollow. There Wil Trace's abductor cut through shallow woods to a set of train tracks. The railroad, they discovered, forged through the heart of Oakland, almost unseen, hidden by the folds of land, bridges, and tunnels. Ukiah had heard the train occasionally, the rails singing, but never traced the engine's almost invisible route before. They walked through the narrow gorge between the Carnegie Museum and Carnegie Mellon University and found a tunnel. On the other side of the tunnel, the gorge continued. The Oakland traffic hummed high overhead on bridges crossing the ravine. Ukiah recognized the buildings perched above them and thus the streets crossing the bridges: Center Avenue and Baum Boulevard. It meant they were only a few blocks from the office.

Just before the railroad dipped down to join the busway, the blood trail climbed up the steep embankment to street level. It was a hard scramble, leaving Ukiah impressed with the strength of anyone who could do it with a body slung across one shoulder. They were in a bleak area. The street was deserted despite the fact it was full daylight. The buildings stood empty, windows boarded up, signs torn away.

The blood trail led to a door hanging askew on its hinges. Max caught Ukiah's shoulder before he entered, pausing him. Max had his pistol out, pointed skyward. He indicated Ukiah's gun with his eyes and a frown. Agent Zheng held her pistols skyward too, apparently also unwilling to enter the building unarmed.

Ukiah slipped his Colt out of his kidney holster, made sure the safety was on, then nodded his readiness.

The door opened to a large room, the far wall a bank of windows through which hazy sunlight barely cut through filthy gla.s.s. Dust coated the floor like a gray carpet. A host of footprints marched through the dust; dozens of people had entered and left the supposedly abandoned building.

Max moved cautiously into the large room. Agent Zheng followed behind. Ukiah stalked behind, stiff-legged, the hair on the back of his neck rising. Something was wrong. He moved slowly forward, straining to identify the sense of danger, to give it a shape, a name.

Except a few broken chairs, the only furniture in the room was a battered desk set under the bank of windows. Marks on the floor indicated that there had been an elaborate cubicle system in the vast room.

Offices lined the side walls, executive claims on privacy.

"The attacker carries Wil Trace to this center support." Ukiah called the trail as he found it, his eyes only half on the marks in the dust. "He puts him down. Wil Trace lies here, awakes, and starts to crawl. The attacker drags him back and ties him to the support."

"Trace is alive?" Surprise colored Zheng's voice.

"He was. There's no more blood." What was the danger? "The wound has stopped bleeding and the attacker doesn't hurt him again. Other people come in two groups. The first group walks around Agent Trace. There are three men and the attacker. The second group wears biker boots. They wander around the room; it seems at random. There are five men and a woman in the second group."

"The second group sounds like the Pack." Agent Zheng said. "Who are the first group, though?"

Ukiah shrugged helplessly.

"They put something on this desk." Max pointed at the disturbed dust on the desktop.

Ukiah nodded, following the tracks to the desk. "The one that brought him here put something here and retrieved it. A pen or pencil. See, these are his fingers sweeping through the dust to pick it up." Ukiah frowned at the feather-fine track across the desk. The pen or whatever had rolled across the slightlyslanted top. He stooped and looked under the desk. A hypodermic syringe glittered under the desk. "This doesn't look good."

"What is it?" Max asked.

"A syringe, and it's been used." He fished it out. On the tip of the needle, he found human blood. "It was used on Wil Trace."

Max drifted off, checking into the nearest empty executive office. He had his PDA out, digging through the Internet. "This wasn't a random spot. They knew this place was empty and considered it a safe meeting place."

"Can you tell what he was given?" Agent Zheng asked tentatively, doubt clear in her voice.

Ukiah pulled out the plunger and touched the tip, then slipped his pinkie into the cylinder. It had been used twice. At one time it had been filled with a complex pharmaceutical that he took to be the missing immune-suppression drug. The second substance was a bloodlike protein that triggered memories of Janet Haze's oddly broken DNA. He frowned. Agent Trace was injected with blood?

He sensed something then and grew still, unable to name it. The feeling of something horribly wrong struck him again. This time he got the impression there had been something he overlooked, a warning left unrecognized. He cast back over the last few hours, trying to spot it. A black car had been parked near the office that morning. It had been in the alley behind Janet Haze's house, parked and empty three houses down.

The second set of tracks leading into the building, those of the Pack's, led in but didn't go back out.

The Pack had followed them to Janet Haze's, then raced ahead to this building, and waited.

It was an ambush.

There was a slight noise from Agent Zheng, a sharp inhale of surprise, but it hit him like a shout.

He spun and found Rennie Shaw barely ten feet away, dressed in fatigues, shotgun in hand.

How did he get so close without me sensing him?

The Pack leader had turned too as Agent Zheng gasped, leveling his shotgun at her.

"No!" Ukiah flung himself in front of her.

A boom like a cannon filled the enclosed room and the blast hit him square in the chest, throwing him backward through the air. He hit the ground tumbling from the force. It hurt less than he expected Then he remembered he was wearing the flak jacket. If he could have breathed, he would have laughed.

He started to get up, gasping for breath. He had been kicked by an elk with less force. Rennie was coming on, chambering another sh.e.l.l. There was something about the Pack leader's face, his eyes. Ukiah suddenly realized that for Rennie, no one else existed. Rennie was here to kill him.

Ukiah scrambled backward on all fours, discovering he'd lost his .45, gasping hard for a breath that wouldn't come. Rennie lengthened his stride, brought down the shotgun, aimed at Ukiah's head.

Max suddenly appeared behind Rennie, pistol shoved against the back of the Pack leader's head.

"Drop it! Drop it or I'll blow your brains out."

Rennie froze. Just then, Ukiah sensed others in the building, hiding in the shadows. Even as he looked about for them, groping still for his pistol, they emerged from the ring of executive offices. Six in all, armed with shotguns. Like Rennie, they were intently looking at Ukiah.

"Put your guns down!" Max shouted, nudging the back of Rennie's head. "Do it or I'll kill him."