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Left To Die
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
The smell of cheap takeout from a local Thai restaurant wafted on the still air of the borrowed office, hanging beneath the gray ceiling and pressing against the bare walls. Three uncomfortable metal chairs crowded around a circular wooden table. Adele wasn’t sure where this warehouse ranked in the BKA’s list of real estate assets, but she surmised it couldn’t have been high on the list.
The limousine, coupled with this dingy office in the basement of an abandoned warehouse suggested that perhaps the BKA still wasn’t thrilled about foreign agents operating on their soil. But Adele didn’t care. All that mattered now: they had the files.
The three of them were on laptops, their devices set up on the circular table, emitting quiet tapping sounds as they pressed the keys and searched through the records provided to them by Director Mueller’s office.
Adele cleared her throat, nearly choking on some dust that had fallen from the light fixture above. She coughed, then tried again. “Look for anyone who went on leave in the last couple of months,” said Adele. “Especially if they travel frequently.”
John grunted, making eyes toward Agent Marshall every few moments.
“Could we focus, please?” Adele said, her tone clipped.
Renee ignored her, but Agent Marshall went red and stared at her computer screen, dutifully searching the Lion Pharmaceutical employee records.
“No one,” said John with a grunt, his accent heavy from continuing in English for Marshall’s sake. “No red-haired employees. Surprising given how many of them there are, isn’t it? Couple of them might’ve been, once upon a time. They’re bald, now. Didn’t realize how many chrome Germans there were.” John snickered.
Adele passed a hand over her face, massaging her temples. The single naked bulb in the ceiling illuminated the cramped space with buzzing white light and further served to exacerbate her headache. The half empty cartons of Thai had tasted good on the way down, but Adele found they weren’t playing nice with her intestines.
Still, exhaustion had settled, embracing her. She needed sleep and more food, and some time to think. But any time wasted was time gifted to the killer. By now, he could have discovered they were closing in. Director Mueller could have told his employees that agents were searching for them.
“Fine, ignore the red-haired part,” said Adele. Briefly, she felt a jolt of regret. Robert had been so certain. Still, she would go where the evidence took her.
There’s nothing,” said John, rolling his eyes. “I don’t speak German. What does ‘der name’ mean?”
“I feel like even you can figure that one out,” said Adele. “Just keep looking. Keep an eye out for the name of the drug and look for any mentions in the ‘leave of absence’ column I showed you. That’ll be in numbers—you know those, right?”
“Funny,” said John. “I’ll have you know…” He trailed off, squinting at his laptop. It took him twice as long as the German-speaking women to cycle through one of the files, but this time, he took even longer, studying his screen. “Hang on…” he said, quietly. “I was looking through the technicians… What does ‘leitender chemiker’ mean?”
Adele glanced over. “It means that person is the lead chemist. Why?”
John tapped a finger against his laptop.
“Please be gentle!” Agent Marshall interjected. “I need to return these in functional condition.”
John, who’d already spilled spicy noodles on his keyboard, shrugged. “Look here,” he said, butchering the pronunciation of leitender chemiker a second time. “He’s in some supervisory role, right?”
He turned his laptop, facing it toward Adele.
She leaned in, peering at the screen and scanning the details. She frowned and reached out to push an arrow key to cycle through the contents.
“He requested leave five weeks ago,” she said, quietly. She shook her head, her eyes widening.
“Look at the project he’s in charge of,” John said, inclining his head toward the computer. “I can read that.”
Adele read the bio briefly and felt a jolt of electricity down her spine. She exhaled, softly. “He was directly responsible for Project 132z. That’s the drug.” She looked up, staring at John. “He was responsible for the drug.”
Agent Marshall glanced over from wiping fingerprints off the back of the laptop with a napkin. “The drug used by the killer?” For the first time, her nearly perfect English held a hint of her German accent. English was the only language the three of them had in common, but Adele knew neither John nor Marshall was completely comfortable with it.
Adele nodded. “Exactly. He was responsible for it. And he’s been on a leave of absence for five weeks…” She glanced toward John. “I’m not sure if I want to slap you or kiss you.”
Renee leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands behind his head. “Both, preferably. At the same time.” He winked.
“But he doesn’t have red hair,” said the BKA agent.
Adele pushed away from the table, regaining her feet. “A wig, then. It’s him. He’s the supervising chemist on the project.”
John frowned. “Look at him; he looks like a ghoul.”
The photo of the employee in question didn’t look that bad. In Adele’s assessment, he resembled a man who didn’t spend much time sleeping either. He had bags under his eyes, but he was probably in his forties, and despite depressed eye sockets, he had a cheerful smile and fading gray-brown hair.
“It’s him,” she said, pushing urgently away from the table and stepping over her seat. “Check his address. Agent Marshall, call some uniforms for backup—preferably without a limousine.”
John was also getting to his feet and Marshall had already raised her phone, beginning to speak rapidly in German.
“Address?” Adele called over her shoulder as she strode hurriedly toward the door.
“Got it!” John called; then the sound of rapid, heavy footfalls gave pursuit.
“Hurry!” Adele said, over her shoulder, pushing out of the door into the stairwell up to the warehouse.
“He might not be there,” John called after her. Glancing down at his phone. “What should I tell headquarters?”
Adele paused and looked back. “They should keep checking airports and train stations…” She hesitated, frowning. “He might not have come home—but if he did, he’s ours. Now hurry?”
She strode rapidly out of the basement with her two companions following quickly behind.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
“You’re sure that’s the right address?” Adele asked for the third time in as many minutes.
“I’m sure,” said John, growling. “Here.” He shoved his phone in her face. “You read it.”
Adele ignored the phone. “Can we go any faster?” she called through the glass partition.
But the vehicle kept a steady pace, following the flow of traffic.
Adele leaned back in her seat, trying not to let her impatience show. She counted slowly in her mind, breathing in, then exhaling and counting again. Finally, she said, “It’s good his house is close by. I suppose that makes sense since he works at the company. What’s his name again?”
“Peter Lehman,” John supplied.
Adele wrinkled her nose. “He didn’t come up in my investigation back stateside. Must’ve been using an alias. Dammit, can we go faster?”
Reluctantly, Agent Marshall raised a hand and rapped on the window. She called through the glass: “We’re in a bit of a hurry!”
Adele heaved a breath. She wished the BKA had given them someone with a bit more experience. Still, working with any sort of interdepartmental task force sometimes came with unforeseen obstacles. Right now, the best way to smooth things over was to catch the killer and catch him fast. But would Peter Lehman even be home? He’d been on a leave of absence for five weeks and wasn’t due back for another. He’d fled France, though—of that Adele was nearly certain. Where else could a German citizen go?
Adele clenched her fists. He had to be there.
The vehicle pulled up outside a house with two parked police cars already lining the street. In the distance, Adele heard more sirens as more vehicles responded to Agent Marshall’s call for backup. Adele didn’t have the patience to wait, though, and she burst out of the back of the car before they’d fully pulled to a stop.
“A2,” John called after her.
Adele flashed a thumbs-up as she sprinted toward the townhouse and briefly scanned the structure; her eyes settled on the address. A2.
There was a light on inside, behind green drapes.
Her heart skipped a beat and Adele raced forward, surging toward Peter Lehman’s residence. With the sound of boots to pavement, John raced after her, his gun leaving its holster with fluid ease. Adele also drew her weapon and squared her shoulders, feeling the reassuring weight of the Glock pressed against her palm.
John tried to sidestep Adele and took two lengthy strides as if he were preparing to kick down the door, but Adele quickly interjected an arm, tugging him back and giving the slightest shake of her head. She remained quiet as she reached out and tried the doorknob.
It turned.
She pulled the door open while John aimed through the gap, covering her. Then she lowered her weapon once more, brushing past the doorframe and entering a hall. Adele stepped over a pile of shoes by the door.
Peter had a family. There were children’s and a woman’s shoes next to a man’s loafers.
John followed, his breathing heavy, his eyes fixed ahead, his cheeks taut, bearing the load of a solemn expression as he tracked the room over Adele’s shoulder and kept his gun aimed safely off to the side. His posture allowed Adele full range of motion without crossing his line of fire.
She wasn’t sure what the BKA policies were for breaching a home, but she would ask forgiveness later.
She stepped past a sink full of messy dishes and an old fridge humming and buzzing, emitting strange popping sounds, suggesting the appliance wasn’t long for this kitchen.
Her feet padded against the ground as she made her way further into the townhouse. Through one of the walls, she heard loud music pulsing from the unit next door.
Adele felt prickles across the back of her neck. Hopefully the children would be in school. She wondered if they knew their father was a killer. And the mother? Adele passed a row of family pictures. Peter Lehman sat surrounded by his wife and three kids, all of them smiling out of the portrait, watching Adele. She noticed a certificate for a middle school science prize pinned on the refrigerator. One of Peter’s children was following in their father’s footsteps.
He had been the overseer for the entirety of Project 132z. He’d created the drug he’d used to torture six people to death.
“Don’t split,” John said quietly. “We check the bedrooms together.”
“You coming on to me?” Adele quipped, barely cognizant of her words due to the adrenaline pulsing through her body.
Uncharacteristically, John didn’t riposte. Whenever his sidearm appeared in his hands, his personality seemed to shift. He became quieter, more serious, more dangerous. His eyes were narrowed now, carrying a look that frightened Adele.
She was glad they were on the same side.
They moved to a door and John eased it open with his left hand, keeping his other gripping his weapon.
A bathroom, unoccupied.
They approached to the next door, and at that moment, through the thin wood, Adele heard movement. She held up a hand, teeth set, and pointed frantically at the frame; she tapped the side of her ear.
John glanced at her and nodded. In a barely discernible whisper, he said something in French, but Adele couldn’t quite make it out. In English, he tried again “Should I go around the house? Check for a window?”
Adele thought for a moment, but then shook her head. Also keeping her voice low, quiet enough that she could barely hear it, she said, “On the count of three. Don’t fire unless you see a weapon. No sense igniting an international powder keg.”
Briefly, the thought caught her attention. She could only imagine what the papers would read if a French and American agent shot a German citizen on German soil. The repercussions would cost them far more than their jobs. Still, if the killer made any threatening moves, she would face the fanfare. It was up to her to make sure neither her life nor her partner’s was put in jeopardy.
Adele counted down in her head, inhaling slowly through her nose, the weapon in her hand pointing toward the base of the door as she prepared to raise it the moment they entered.
Then John twisted the handle, pushed it open, and both of them started shouting at once.
“DGSI! Show your hands!”
“FBI! Don’t move!”
Their voices blared into the room, and they stepped in, one after the other in perfect synchronicity, both of them immediately sliding past the door frame and putting their backs to the nearest portion of wall.
Adele found her shoulders scraping against the wooden knobs of a cabinet, but her eyes swept the bedroom.
A man crouched over a suitcase at the base of the bed, his silhouette framed by the light gleaming through the bedroom window.
At the shouting, the man whirled, startled, and reeled back, his face turning pale. The man didn’t have red hair, but he matched the photo in the employee records of Peter Lehman.
“Show me your hands!” Adele shouted. “Now!”
Lehman didn’t hesitate, and his hands shot to the sky, his fingertips illuminated by the fluorescent bulbs in the fixture above.
John quickly scanned the room and sidestepped to look into a closet, making sure all threats were contained. Then he reached for his cuffs, and in a couple of deft motions stepped over and handcuffed the chemist.
The German grunted as John handled him, and the breath left his body as he was knocked into a sitting position on the bed. Vaguely, Adele wondered if she was supposed to check with Agent Marshall when arresting someone—but it had all happened so fast.
“Don’t move,” John snapped, kicking at the man on the bed.
Adele walked over and noted the suitcase. “Returning from somewhere?” she said. “France, maybe?”
Peter Lehman was trembling now, his mouth quavering, his lips trying to form sentences, but failing. “Who are you?” he demanded at last.
“I said be quiet,” John shouted in French.
But Peter glanced up with a look of confusion on his face.
John glared down at the man. “Don’t pretend you don’t speak French. That’s how you lured that poor girl into the underpass, isn’t it?”
Peter looked even more flabbergasted. He replied in German, “I don’t understand. German. Do you speak German? Who are you?”
Adele flashed her FBI badge. At that moment, Agent Marshall also joined them, her own weapon raised in trembling hands. She surveyed the scene and released a small gasp of relief, quickly holstering her firearm as if she were discarding a hot coal. “BKA task force with Interpol,” she announced, importantly through the room. “You, Peter Lehman, are under arrest for the murder of five US citizens and one French national.”
At this, Peter’s pale face turned downright ghostly. Sweat broke out across his forehead beneath his fading gray and brown hair. “I didn’t kill anyone!” he said, sputtering. “What is this about? A drug I worked on? I assure you, anything in my capacity for Lion Pharmaceutical is covered by the company’s liability. If any patients are suffering side effects, we have a shield of immunity from prosecution as individuals. Which project is the issue?” He was shaking his head. “I know that hair regrowth cream isn’t the best. But it wouldn’t have caused anyone’s death.” Peter was talking rapidly now, the words spilling from his throat. He shook his head side to side, looking pleadingly from John to Adele and back to Agent Marshall.
Adele had to hand it to him. He was good. She could understand why Marion would’ve gone with him into the underpass. There was a sincerity in his words and his expression that would have put anyone off guard. Still, facts didn’t lie.
“Check his suitcase,” she said, pointing at John.
The large agent pushed Peter roughly in the chest, causing him to collapse backward, lying down against the bed. Then John dropped to a knee and unzipped the suitcase.
A pile of folded clothes and neatly arranged toiletries comprised most of the compartment. Adele frowned, wondering if they would find the knife. But as John tossed clothing from the suitcase, causing a couple of shirts to land on Peter’s face, the tall agent froze.
“Sharp, look,” he said, pointing.
Adele stepped further into the room and peered down into the case. She spotted a small white container with translucent glass. Sealed within the container, six small test tubes protruded from circular compartments, secured by rubber clasps.
“Project 132z,” said John with a growl. He tapped the side of the glass with a long finger.
“Please, be careful with that!” Peter said, trying to sit back up.
John reached out an arm and pushed Peter back down on the bed.
“What do you know about the paralytic?” Lehman asked between hyperventilating gasps from where he lay, facing the ceiling, his hair sticking wildly out around him, jutting against the bed sheets.
“We know you used the drug to incapacitate your victims,” snapped John. “We know you stole it from the lab, even though it was slated to be destroyed. And we know that the five weeks you’ve been absent from your company, you’ve been vacationing in the United States and France, killing citizens.”
Agent Marshall pursed her lips, shaking her head side to side. “Mr. Lehman, I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”
Adele helped John back to his feet and patted him affectionately on the back.
As Agent Marshall muttered beneath her breath to Peter, advising him of his rights, Adele smiled at John. “Good job,” she said.
Renee holstered his weapon, and his smirk returned like flowers in bloom. “Same to you.”
Adele shifted her shoulders. “I have to say, I’m a little disappointed he didn’t have red hair.”
“You’re a strange one, American Princess. Not bad in a day’s work. Think we’ll get a confession?”
Adele frowned, glancing over at the two Germans by the bed. “I’m—I’m not sure…”
“What is it?”
“Nothing… Just a thought, but… no, really, it’s nothing.” Robert had often told her to trust her hunches… but this time, she didn’t want to. Peter Lehman seemed… so normal. He had to be the killer though, didn’t he?
Adele frowned, scratching at the side of her chin.
Together, the three agents led their handcuffed suspect out of his home and over to the waiting police cars at the end of the street.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
In Adele’s opinion, all police stations, no matter what country they called home, shared a certain recognizable uniformity immediately apparent to anyone who’d spent much time around cops. There was a quiet order among the men and women of a police force. The arrangement of their offices would be different, the interrogation rooms might be in a basement or down a hall. But eventually, all police stations could be interpreted through the same grid.
Adele wasn’t surprised they hadn’t been taken back to a BKA headquarters. While Germany might’ve decided to play nice, allowing a DGSI agent and an FBI agent into their base of operations without preparation would have been a laughable proposition.
Still, the local police station would do well enough.
Adele stood in front of the vending machines, scanning the items.
She inserted a euro which she’d borrowed from Agent Marshall, clicked the button, waited for the tumbling sound, then retrieved an iced tea from the vending machine’s slot. Clutching the cold beverage, she sidled past the desk clerk, and toward the long hall which led to the interrogation room.
She pushed open the door and stepped beneath the bright fluorescent light.
The naked room housed only two chairs, a long metal table bolted to the floor, and a glass mirror across the back half of the wall.
It wasn’t a one-way mirror, but it served to convince the suspects, who’d seen enough TV, to assume that every police station had someone on the other side of that glass, watching them. In this case, though, it was just a mirror.
John was already seated in the metal chair opposite Peter. The suspected killer’s hands were handcuffed in front of him and latched to the table through a metal hoop.
The man fidgeted uncomfortably, shaking his head. He could move his hands just enough to reach at his face to scratch an itch, but every time he moved one hand, the other one would lower, causing the chain to rattle as it slid through the metal hoop.
Adele placed the iced tea next to Lehman’s left hand. She stepped back, leaning against the frigid mirror and watching the suspected killer.
“It’s confirmed,” said John. “Those test tubes contain the same substance that killed your victims. How about you tell me what you were doing in France last week?”
Peter shivered though, and shook his head. He glanced pleadingly at Adele. “I don’t understand him. Is that French? Why am I being verbally abused by a Frenchman? What is this?”
Adele shrugged. “He says he can’t understand you.”
John threw his hands up. “He’s lying!” He pointed a steady, thick finger toward Peter’s chest. “You’re lying—we know you are. You can speak French; that’s how you tricked that poor girl to her death!”
Peter just looked back at Adele, his expression pleading. “I—I don’t understand. I’ve told you, I didn’t kill anyone! Please, you have to believe me. I’m not a violent man!”
“You’ve been gone from work for five weeks,” said Adele, her tone even. “A strange coincidence that our murderer also travels a lot. What was the suitcase for?”
Lehman shifted again, shaking his head nervously. “I was just packing some things to store beneath the bed.”
John growled, slamming his hands against the table. “What’s he saying?” he demanded.
Adele found herself confused for a moment, switching from German to French, while trying to process her thoughts in English. “He says he was just going to stow the suitcase beneath his bed,” she said, transitioning into French once more.
“Yeah?” John snorted. “Some things like illegal substances used to paralyze young women?”
Agent Marshall stood behind Peter, but she wasn’t leaning against the wall. She seemed nervous, and was on the phone, quietly relaying the interrogation’s entirety over the phone to her supervisors via video camera. Eyeballs in the sky, eyeballs on the ground. Adele glanced toward the security camera in the corner of the ceiling, then back at the blinking glass of Marshall’s camera lens.
They would have to do this by the book. Then again, there wasn’t much of a book for this sort of thing.
John continued to harangue the suspect, slamming a large hand against the top of the metal table with a resounding thwack! Peter Lehman continued to shake his head and repeat, over and over, “I only speak German. I don’t understand. Please. German.”
Adele felt, surprisingly, the rumblings of pity burgeoning in her chest. She studied their suspected killer.
He had a pleasant face with a straight nose and high cheekbones. His hair was thinning, but not unduly so, and he wore an earnest expression as he stared across the table.
He hadn’t even lawyered up. This unsettled Adele more than anything. Why hadn’t he asked for a lawyer? Did he think he could fool them with spectacle?
She leaned forward, pushing off the mirror, and striding toward John. She stepped past his chair and faced Lehman. “Why were the test tubes in your bag?”
The man stared desperately up at her, his gaze flicking between John and Adele with rapid motions. He tried to twist, turning back to look at Agent Marshall, but his chained wrists hampered his range of motion. So instead, he glanced in the mirror and stared at Marshall’s reflection.
“Please,” he said, loudly. “This is a mistake. I haven’t been to France. And I haven’t been to the United States, ever. I don’t know anything about killing. I-I did have the drug… yes… but for a good reason…”
He said this last part quickly, his cheeks turning red, and the slick sweat across his brow glistened beneath the fluorescent light. He muttered to himself beneath his breath, shaking his head wildly from side to side.
His voice was strained as he pressed on: “I can’t—can’t tell you why. Just please, I didn’t kill anyone.”
Adele was staring at him though, still frowning. “We’re not interested in the theft of the drug. That’s something for BKA to worry about. All I care about is the killer. You have the drug on you. There’s no disputing that. The lab confirmed it. BKA has confirmed it, and local authorities have the evidence in custody.” She didn’t blink, and she kept her tone even, unaffected by emotion. “You can’t escape that undeniable fact. Secondly, you had a suitcase at the foot of your bed. The man we’re looking for has just returned from France to Germany. If you weren’t traveling then why did you have a suitcase with the drugs in it? You have to understand; I’m asking the same question in different ways, but the facts remain undisputed. Unless you can explain away those two things, I’m afraid you’re not going to like what comes next.”
Peter Lehman’s eyes bugged in his head, and he again muttered to himself in German, staring down at his shackled wrists. He did a double take at the chains, as if not quite believing what he was seeing.
At last, though, he muttered quietly, “Switzerland.”
Adele leaned in, “What was that?”
“What’s he saying?” John demanded in French.
But Adele held up a finger toward her partner. She turned back to Peter. “What about Switzerland? Did you kill someone in Switzerland, too?”
“I didn’t kill anyone.” Peter loosed a sigh, his chest puffing toward the light, and then descending as he crumpled in on himself, his shoulders trembling now. Tears sprang into the man’s eyes.
He was better than Adele had given him credit for. No wonder his victims fell for him.
“Please,” he said. “My family, my children. If I tell you—I didn’t kill anyone. But you have to understand, I worked so hard on this project. The anesthesia was supposed to save lives. It would have been half the cost of normal anesthetic. There were some kinks; I admit that—some things that needed to be worked out, but we were rejected far too quickly. It was complete politics!”
Now his voice was rising, and the flush in his cheeks reddened further.
“What politics?” Adele demanded.
Peter was clenching his fists now, the tops of his hands turning white. “At our company. Lion is always gunning for contracts from the bigger fish. The competition wanted to put a stop to my project, to teach Director Mueller a lesson. I got caught in the crossfire. You have to understand, I’ve been working on this for three years. Me and my team have put in twenty hours days, sometimes staying over the weekends, just to make sure the thing was perfect. It should have been approved. We only had a couple more trials.”
He released another puff of air and continued to wilt in his chair, sliding down so that the back of his head rested against the metal frame. “Dear God, I didn’t kill anyone. This is a nightmare.”
Adele circled to the edge of the table and lowered into a sitting position on the table next to Peter’s clenched fist. She was only inches away from the man suspected of killing Marion, killing the three Americans. The same man who had callously murdered his victims and left their bodies to rot. The same way Adele’s mother had been left in that park.
She felt a flash of rage, which she quickly pushed deep down in her chest.
Somehow, though, she felt a burbling of pity, too. Perhaps Robert had been right. Perhaps even these sorts, the monsters of the world, were once destined to be masterpieces, but somehow vandalized.
Or perhaps her own instincts were trying to tell her something.
But what?
He couldn’t be innocent, could he? It was far too damning of evidence for him to have stolen the drug, have a packed suitcase, match the employee records, request a leave of absence…
“Adele,” said Agent Marshall, waving her phone.
But Adele held up another quieting finger and stared at Peter, studying the side of his face. “All right, let’s say you took the drug. Where have you been for the last five weeks?”
“Here, in Germany! I swear it. I’ve been with my family; you can ask my wife, my kids! I was at my daughter’s soccer practice last Wednesday. Everyone can tell you!”
“BKA is running your credit cards and passport right now,” said Adele. “You’re convincing, I’ll give you that. But this charade is pointless. If they find that you’ve been spending money in France, or that your passport was spotted at any of the borders, you’re going to spend the rest of your life behind bars. I hope you know that.”
Peter Lehman’s voice broke, shuddering with a sob. “I didn’t kill anyone. I took the five weeks because of the politics. Like I said. Those bastards at Lion wouldn’t stick up for us. I’m a chemist, not a killer. I was leading my team as best I could. I made promises, promises that they should’ve seen fulfilled. We all worked so hard…”
His voice strained, and he emitted another defeated sob. At last, he turned, meeting her gaze, his eyes laden with sadness. “I needed the time off to recover. I took the drug. I admit that. There’s no sense pretending, you found it. But I took it to sell it.”
He hesitated for a moment, his nostrils flaring as he realized what he’d said. But, shaking his head, he tried to steady himself. Then, soldiering on, with a grim look of determination like someone plunging into an icy river, he said, his voice strengthening with each word, “I was going to travel. I did pack a suitcase, but it wasn’t because I’ve returned from France, but because I was going to leave for Switzerland. I told my wife there was a conference, but really, I was going there to meet a Swiss pharmaceutical company. I told them about the drug. I offered to sell it to them. You have to understand; I’m not a bad man. But I spent three years working on this project.” He reached up as if to rub at his forehead, but his hand couldn’t make it the full way. The chain rattled as his hand dropped limply back to the table. “To throw it away, so callously, with Director Mueller not even taking a second to try to salvage it…it’s a crime. That’s the real crime!”
