Chapter IV

The rain stopped the second you entered the Scotland Yard’s Forensic Laboratories.

“EVERYTHING SMELLS LIKE BLEACH,” the Papal Nuncio said as he shriveled his nose in semi disgust.

The others smiled knowingly. They’d all been inside crime labs such as this one before. They all know the comforting smell of a sterile environment. It was a necessary quality of any lab with high standards and an even higher budget. While in most lines of government work, the lowest bidder is chosen to complete projects . . . the same did not apply to crime labs. In a lab, if you could afford it, you bought it. If you couldn’t, you leased.

Singleton took them all past the first line of security; several gun toting guards in blue suits with dark blue trousers. Quietly, and as politely as humanly possible, Singleton greeted each of the officers and shared a quick joke. Very posh and mannered, those English.

After Abbot, Carnathan, Ritti, Pasquale, and finally Singleton had been searched, the officers cataloged and locked away their personal belongings. They were given a small, grey card with a magnetic strip to retrieve their things after they left the labs. This morning they would be entering the Forensic Crime Lab, ‘B’ side. That was the lab that dealt with homicides, high level breaking and entering, and the various drug related crimes. They studied every detail of evidence that was available. From traces of drugs, to blood, to semen samples, to fibers of fabric that only a magnifying glass could possibly see.

The other lab—‘A’ side—was where explosives and other more discretionary matters were handled. That lab was run by MI-5, MI-6, and SO-17 (special operations). Those things were off-limits, even to Singleton.

As they passed the first checkpoint they were given special anti-static, silicon gloves. All around the hall they were passing through were dark gray painted walls with bold yellow signs that warned against touching anything or smoking of any kind.

A second security Checkpoint was manned by two officers wearing white jump-suits. They had name tags clipped to their ‘clean’ suits.

“I, uh,” Singleton said with an ‘I just remembered’ expression on his face. “Forgot to mention that we will have to slip on these overalls. I hope nobody minds. Rules you know.” He shrugged.

Abbot started to unbutton his shirt.

“No, sir. You don’t have to undress,” one of the guards blurted.

Clearly the others were relieved. Carnathan jibed, “Thank God for that.

Last thing a man needs to say at this time of the morning is your sorry—”

“Just slip the suits on over your clothes,” Singleton interrupted. Ritti and the Nuncio were laughing.

Three minutes later the five of them were dressed in white, looking kind of like they had all arrived at a Halloween party wearing the same marshmallow costume.

As they walked over a sheet of metal grate the static in their bodies was eliminated. “Next stop,” Singleton announced, “yucky things.”

The lab was set up like a large horseshoe. On each side, as you walked, there were large glass windows which would let the observer see what was going on in any of the twenty or more smaller labs. This design was to create compartmentalization of different aspects of the many investigations that were taking place. In each individual lab compartment you had several computers as well as metal tables with large, lexan covered boxes, where a pair of hollow arms awaited a lab technician’s delicate hands to manipulate things inside the boxes.

All sorts of brilliant detection equipment was dispersed through the various labs. One room might do ballistic tests, while another would focus on blood samples. Cameras and fire detection and extinguishing devices were allover every wall.

A fire in there would be short lived.

They all stayed huddled together as they walked down the corridor. Abbot, Carnathan, and Ritti looked interested. Pasquale looked impatient.

“What’s in that room?” Carnathan asked as he pointed to the left. Inside, a technician was placing something in a large, black box and backing away

from it, rather quickly.

“Ballistic test, probably,” Singleton answered nonchalantly.

“And over there?” Ritti asked as he pointed to a woman operating a strange laser beam that was focused strait down at a glass plate.

Singleton shrugged. “Microbes of some kind.” He looked at the others.

“My job is to find the little stuff, theirs to make something of it. All of these scientists are incredibly smart. Smarter than me.”

“Mr. Singleton,” Pasquale asked as he fast-walked to the front of the group. “The lab we just passed, where they were wearing those strange blue suits . . . what were they studying in there?” The others were quiet.

Singleton’s face became rigid and cautious, his jaw taut. “That’s a level four bio-containment area.” The Nuncio was uncomprehending. “A hot- zone.”

Everyone paused and looked back at the lab. “Level four, huh?” Carnathan said flatly.

“All sorts of nastiness in there.” Singleton continued, “Three different strains of Ebola, alone. Reston, Zaire, Marburg. Kill you in two days if

you were infected.” The others visibly cringed. Everyone knew about the Ebola virus, and its ability to turn every part of your body into a virus manufacturing plant. Eventually, the virus would amplify to the point where the human body would crash just hours after having been infected. And the real stinker was that nobody was completely sure of all of the ways these little bastards could infect a human. Ebola was no laughing matter.

While the color washed off of their faces, Singleton enjoyed the moment. “You really have all of those viruses in that room?” Pasquale said as he gulped.

“No, not really,” Singleton said with a grin. “What,” the others all seemed to say in unison.

Singleton shrugged, “I think they test different types of spray paint and glue, in there. They wear the suits so they don’t get stoned.”

Everyone except Pasquale found that extremely funny.

They all stood quietly as the chief Forensic Pathologist brought the investigation paperwork. Carnathan and Abbot compared notes they had brought with them from the FBI and San Antonio crime labs. “I’ve got a couple questions when you’re ready,” Abbot asked as he read various notes he had made on the copies in front of him.

The chief pathologist scurried back from the computer with several pages of printed material. “Right, then,” Dr. Ross said abruptly.

It wasn’t that he was inconvenienced or bothered by the gaggle of multi-national investigators, it was just the way he carried himself. He was a short, dumpy man with beady, brown eyes and a stubby nose . . . not unlike a Yorkshire terrier. If he had hair at one time, it had left his head long ago, in his teens. “Lets compare notes.” As he made his way across the brownish concrete floor, his slippers made a perpetual ‘shhhh’ sound.

“Why don’t you tell us what you’ve done so far,” Carnathan said as he flipped his stapled packet back to the first pages, where the table of contents was.

Dr. Ross eyed Singleton for approval, which he got. “Sure.” He quickly scanned through a couple of pages of his folder. “Ok. We started with the clothing. Our goal was to get as quick a lead on the potential assassin as possible.”

“You see, Don,” Singleton added, “we didn’t know if we were dealing with a serial killer, but we did have the information from the Spanish authorities. Seems they were quite bothered by the religious nature of the attacks.”

“No explanation necessary,” Carnathan reassured. “Good call, I’d say,” Abbot seconded.

Dr. Ross looked over at Ritti and Pasquale, who had been quiet up to this point. “Do you gentlemen have anything to add?”

Neither one of them said a word.

Dr. Ross nodded and continued. “So, with the clothing being the first concern, we looked for any evidence that might have been about the clothes, the rope that the victim was—”

“The Archbishop,” Pasquale interjected.

Dr. Ross looked up from the folder, at Pasquale, “Sorry. Evidence from the rope that was used to strangulate the Arch . . . Bishop, as well as the surrounding areas. Surfaces we swabbed were furniture and floor panels, glass, the door handles, the drapes, the toilets, the basin for the sink in the bathroom as well as the ceramic tiles surrounding the bath, oh, and some books.”

Carnathan and Abbots’ eyes widened.

“The exact tests we ran were,” Dr. Ross said as he flipped to a separate page. “Polarized light microscopy, Omnicrome light tests, we ran the Scanning electron microscope, an ion-microprobe, X-ray diffractometer, as well as Thin Layer chromatography.”

Both Carnathan and Abbot seemed pleased with the thoroughness of the

English lab’s work. Singleton stood smugly beside them. Pasquale was bored almost to the point of tears. He’d have read the Atheist’s Bible at this point. Ritti looked interested, but out of his element. Like a debutante at a pig roast.

“If you would help me a bit,” Ritti asked. “I’m not up to speed on all of these tests.”

“These are all tests for various trace substances and evidence that might have been found around the crime scene,” Singleton explained. “Our part is the initial investigation of the scene, but at this lab they take all the little bits of forensic information and try to give us a better picture of what happened.”

“Except,” Dr. Ross said, “in this case all of our tests for substances were inconclusive. If I hadn’t seen the crime scene photos myself, I wouldn’t have believed that anyone else took part in the,” he made a point to say. “Archbishop’s . . .” and finally, “death.”

“Nothing?” Carnathan said curiously, his glance turning to Abbot.

The Doctor smiled knowingly, like he had something up his sleeve. “Well, that bothered me too, so I decided to look into this ‘eye’ thing.” He flipped to another page in the folder. “I thought that it would be interesting to run a Precipitin test on the eyes, because I had this feeling that the bruising at the eye lids was abnormal”

He paused. “I mean,” he said as he looked up, “I haven’t encountered that before.”

“But why Precipitin?” Carnathan asked.

“What’s Precipitin?” Ritti asked as he stepped closer to the other men.

Abbot answered, “It’s a test that basically reacts with the blood’s antibodies to determine if the blood is human or animal.”

Ritti considered it for a moment and then cocked his head to the side, unsure. “So . . .” He shrugged.

“Long time ago we used the test quite often when we’d find a body,” or find spots of blood that we weren’t sure were human. This tells us if the blood is human or animal,” Dr. Ross said, but Ritti was still struggling with the reason for testing the bruises. “Obviously, the blood on the Archbishop’s eyelids is human.”

“And guess what.” Dr. Ross said as he turned the folder around and placed it in the silicon gloved hands of Special Agent Don Carnathan, FBI.

Carnathan studied the notes. “Mother . . . fuc—”

Abbot leaned his head over and read the same results. “How does that happen?”

“How do you get animal blood in the bruises on the eye lids of a deceased human?” Carnathan asked frustrated.