Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

O n Monday afternoon, Sal called me from Weyers Cave before turning off his phone as he ventured deeper into the Quiet Zone. This was around 1:30 P.M. , and it should have taken approximately two hours to drive the rest of the way to Green Bank, West Virginia. But he didn’t arrive at the restaurant until 7:00 P.M. What was he doing? Where did he go?

“Did you find perovskite on Luna Briley’s pajamas or anywhere else?” I ask Lee over speakerphone.

“No.”

Tron is driving the grumbling Dodge Charger through Phoebus, the shops and diners straight out of the 1950s.

“Are there companies in Virginia that make things out of solar cells?” I ask while speeding past a veterans’ cemetery, the perfect rows of white headstones reminding me of teeth.

“Not many but some,” the trace evidence examiner says.

“I’m wondering if perovskite might be mined anywhere around here. If so, that could explain finding traces of the real mineral.” I can’t stop thinking about Sal’s mysterious trips to Weyers Cave.

He was a free spirit but not given to reckless impulsivity. He often told me that our summer romance was the most impetuous thing he ever did. He thought long and hard about most things, and if he stopped somewhere on his way to Green Bank, it was purposeful. If he periodically visited Weyers Cave, it was calculated.

“Based on what I’ve been reading, perovskite occurs naturally in the mountains where volcanic activity went on hundreds of millions of years ago,” Lee is saying. “As the lava cools, it forms igneous or volcanic rocks, which is where perovskite is found.”

“From fire and brimstone. That figures somehow.” It’s not easy taking notes as Tron drives like Formula One. “Where might we find volcanic rocks around here? Assuming the possibility that perovskite is mined locally?”

“The Appalachian Mountains for sure.” Lee talks slowly and with a drawl that belies his facile intelligence. “Most perovskite is mined in Russia. Also Sweden and Mount Vesuvius, Italy. And Magnet Cove, Arkansas. I’m not aware of any actual mines in this part of the world. But there could be.”

“I’ll make sure the Secret Service has the latest update, and we’ll keep this between us, Lee,” I tell him. “Whoever left nanograins of perovskite and fake moon dust may not be aware of it.”

Carrie.

“That tends to be what happens when it’s something you can’t see with the naked eye,” he replies. “People don’t think about what they’re carrying around on their skin, their clothing, in their hair, leaving traces on everything they brush up against and touch.”

“Carrie would think about it,” Lucy says when I end the call as we pass through Hampton. “She understands about trace evidence and how it’s transferred from one thing to the next.”

“We can assume she knows a lot of the same things that we know.” I look out at the Walmart Supercenter where my Norfolk office has an expense account.

“In some instances, more than we know.” Lucy’s tone hints of the deep-seated respect that she still has for her former mentor and lover.

It’s like one world-class competitor admiring another at the same time they want to destroy each other. But what Carrie does isn’t a sport, and it drives me mad when I detect the pilot light burning inside my niece. What they once had with each other isn’t entirely gone.

“As long as she keeps herself under control, there’s not much she can’t master and figure out,” Lucy is saying.

“It would be foolish to underestimate someone like her,” Tron agrees.

“There isn’t anyone like her,” I reply with an edge. “And yes, it would be foolish.”

The muscle car roars past the Virginia Air & Space Science Center, the soaring glass entrance reminding me of the cartoon The Jetsons . We have our windows partially opened and the air-conditioning off. I’m dryer than I was but the padding in my bike shorts is uncomfortably damp and squishy.

“Carrie might be decompensating,” Lucy says. “It’s happened before. And she crashes and burns.”

“Usually not before she’s done something hideous,” I reply.

“Being cavalier about trace evidence that might be on your person isn’t like her.” Lucy glances back at me as we’re talking. “She’s making mistakes.”

“Possibly,” I reply. “But I can understand not being aware of nanograins of dust clinging to her body and clothing. Especially if she’s in and out of an environment where she’s exposed regularly. People can get lax about PPE. They might wear a mask and gloves but not the rest of it. They think if they’re passing through a room or not staying long, they don’t need to bother. Or they’ll reuse Tyvek that’s become contaminated.”

“Assuming Carrie’s the one leaving the microscopic residues? I’m guessing she doesn’t care.” Tron glances at me in the rearview mirror as she drives like the proverbial bat out of hell.

Her face is unusually solemn. I can tell she’s not entirely comfortable with the conversation.

“She wouldn’t want to leave something unintentionally,” Lucy repeats. “That’s what I mean about her decompensating. When she does, she takes bigger risks and can be careless.”

“I’m not sure she gives a damn about leaving evidence.” Tron says the same thing Benton did as she blasts past a slow driver. “She figures we’ll never catch her.” A spike of hostility. “We don’t even know where she is right now.”

“Around here somewhere,” Lucy says. “Or she was. Assuming she’s involved in Sal Giordano’s abduction and death.”

“She’d be na?ve to think she can duck the police forever,” I reply. “Especially in rural areas around here where she’d stand out.”

“She’s spent a lot of time in Virginia,” Tron says. “She knows her way around, and I suspect she can blend when it suits her.”

“If she’s the one leaving the trace evidence, then we also have some idea where she’s been,” Lucy adds. “Which is wherever Sal was held hostage. And maybe Carrie was around the Brileys, even inside their house. Maybe she had contact with Luna, explaining the sparkling residue on her pajamas.”

“If she’s the one leaving it, what’s she doing with fake moon dust?” I ask.

“Don’t know,” Lucy says.

“What about perovskite and solar cells? What might she be doing with those?”

“Could be a lot of things. Electronics, including photovoltaic ones like lasers, LEDs, ceramic capacitors, aerospace technologies such as solar arrays,” Lucy answers. “Also, and more pervasively, solar panels. As you’ve probably noticed when we’re flying around, there are a lot of solar farms and solar-paneled rooftops.”

“More all the time as companies and everyday people use them to generate electricity and profits,” Tron adds. “I’m surprised a scientist like Sal Giordano didn’t have solar panels on his property.”

“Maybe that was something he was looking into,” I suggest as more updates land, this time from forensic chemist Rex Bonetta.

I read the preliminary report he’s sent, and Sal had high levels of haloperidol, lorazepam and Benadryl on board when he died. The powerful antipsychotic in combination with a benzodiazepine and antihistamine is known as a B-52 . It’s used as a chemical restraint when prisoners and psychiatric patients are out of control.

“That may be the explanation for the redness of his skin. Haloperidol, or Haldol as it’s better known, has side effects.” I’m looking them up on my phone as I’m talking, and what I suspect is confirmed. “One of them is photosensitivity,” I add. “And Sal was fair-skinned to begin with.”

“So, while he was dying in the sunny clearing, he was getting sunburned,” Tron says.

“And he might have burned more quickly because he had Haldol in his system,” I explain.

“A mixture of that, lorazepam and Benadryl is what was injected in his neck and elsewhere,” Lucy surmises.

“It would be fast acting,” I reply. “A B-Fifty-Two would cause ataxia and heavy sedation. Explaining why it’s been used as a way of controlling violent and severely agitated people.”

“And it’s a favorite of the Russians,” Lucy answers. “Used in prison camps and mental asylums to keep inmates in a stupor. Particularly certain political enemies of the Kremlin. A B-Fifty-Two cocktail is something Carrie would be aware of and probably utilizes when it suits her purposes.”

As I’m listening, I imagine Sal driving his pickup truck away from the Red Caboose restaurant on Monday night. Minutes later, he stopped for someone. Perhaps it’s as Benton says, and the person pretended to be in distress. I imagine Sal getting out of his truck. Or perhaps he opened his window, and suddenly was stabbed in the neck with a hypodermic needle.

He would have felt the onset of the drug cocktail quickly, and that could be when he swallowed the blue-and-white capsule. Maybe it was in a pocket, and he managed to take it without the assailant knowing. I envision the injection sites on his arm and buttocks. He was kept sedated possibly the entire time he was held captive. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t aware of everything happening.

The low sun tinges the edges of building clouds, spreading pink across the horizon as we reach the NASA Langley hangar. Two Secret Service agents are waiting, and one of them takes the Dodge Charger from Tron. He guns the engine, squealing out of the parking lot.

“Back to a boring SUV.” She stares wistfully after the blacked-out muscle car growling away.

“When we get to Washington National, I’ll be dropping the two of you off.” Lucy says this for my benefit. “Tron will drive you home. Benton’s there with Marino and Mom, getting dinner ready. And Shannon is on her way. I’ll meet you there later. First I’ve got to get the helicopter back to the training center and safely into the hangar.”

They climb up into the cockpit, and it’s the first time I’ve sat in the back cabin alone. I text Marino that I’m in the helicopter headed home. The weather’s supposed to turn nasty again, and I don’t want anyone on the roads if possible. I assume he and Dorothy are spending the night. He doesn’t answer, and I hope they’ve settled their differences for now.

It’s five P.M. when the Langley tower clears the Doomsday Bird to take off for Northern Virginia. The visibility is beginning to deteriorate, and Lucy has requested flight-following along the way. We’ll be handed off from one air traffic control frequency to the next while Lucy routes us as a crow flies over water and forests. She wants to beat the storm barreling in, the hail predicted to be as big as gumballs.

Without Marino to worry about, the intercom is left on in the back cabin where I’m harnessed in my silvery-gray flame-retardant seat. The partition blocks my view of the cockpit, and every so often Tron gives me details about weather and our present location. As case information is updated, I’m given the details, and Blaise Fruge didn’t waste any time in the Luna Briley investigation.

A little while ago, she and other officers showed up with warrants at the Briley home. The couple was having drinks in the yard, enjoying the spring weather before it turns bad. I can imagine the looks on their faces as cops began searching their property for a second time. But now the stakes are different. They couldn’t be higher.

“Ryder and Piper Briley have been arrested,” Tron is saying. “They’re being transported to the city jail as we speak.”

“That’s just the beginning of the charges brought against them,” Lucy’s voice promises in my headset.

When we cross the York River, the helicopter is full throttle with a fierce tailwind at an altitude of two thousand feet. Our groundspeed is 210 knots, or more than 240 miles per hour, Tron informs me. At Colonial Beach we follow the western shoreline of the Potomac River as ominous clouds continue to gather, the wind gusting harder. Quantico is off to our left surrounded by miles of backcountry woods.

A pale gash in dark trees is all I can see of the storied FBI Academy where Benton and I carried on our torrid love affair. We were sneaking around while Lucy was interning there, and she was none the wiser. I think of the two of us running the Yellow Brick Road obstacle course when she was in college. I remember getting rope burns and bruises together, cursing like sailors as we slipped in mud and climbed over walls.

Afterward Lucy and I would eat burgers in the academy’s watering hole, the Board Room, hanging out with FBI agents, and I couldn’t have been prouder. I believed that helping her land the internship was for her own good. She’d get physically fit and finally make a few friends. I thought it the right thing at that time in her development, but her mother had other ideas. To this day Dorothy reminds me what a terrible idea it was.

She was adamantly opposed to her only child pursuing a career in law enforcement, and I wasn’t supposed to encourage it. My sister said she didn’t want Lucy turning out like me. Morbid and fatalistic. Spending every waking minute focused on violence, death, cruelty and treachery. Always thinking about what might injure or kill something or someone.

Instead of dancing and making love under the moonlight, as Dorothy puts it.

In the end, none of us had control over what Lucy was drawn to or would become in life. But if she hadn’t been at the FBI Academy when Carrie was, they wouldn’t have met. They wouldn’t have become lovers hell-bent on dismantling each other. Unless it was an inevitable karma they couldn’t escape. Opposing forces colliding. A quantum entanglement, the two of them forever caught in a spin.

We near the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the first drops of rain spitting as Lucy lands on the ramp we took off from yesterday. I retrieve my rain slicker from my jump-out bag, putting it on as she cuts the throttles to flight idle. Tron and I climb out, the blades thudding, the rotor wash whipping.

We hurry across asphalt speckled by raindrops, and I hear the pitch of the engines winding up as Lucy rolls open the throttles all the way. I wave as she lifts into a hover, making a pedal turn. For an instant we’re eye to eye, and she nods. At the hold line she waits for the tower to clear her. I watch as she noses forward, taking off, sharply turning away from the airport, the helicopter’s lights strobing.

“It’s a bit chaotic inside.” Tron presses an intercom button next to the door leading into the terminal. “As you’re about to see, we’ve got agents searching Briley Flight Services. And I’m going to need you to tag team with me.”

Employees are being questioned about any manner of things pertaining to Ryder and Piper Briley, she says. That includes Dana Diletti’s ill-fated flight this morning. The expectation is that her pilot’s incapacitation and fatal crash weren’t accidental.

“The goal is to interview employees before they completely clam up,” Tron explains as we wait for someone to open the door. “And to continue talking to them until they can’t keep their lies straight.” Peering through the glass, she knocks on it, ringing the bell again.

“Fear,” I reply. “That’s why they’re loyal.”

“I guess they’ll get to pick what scares them most,” she says. “Their disgraced employers who are chilling in the city jail right now? Or us?”