“Not yet.”
“Take a look at this.” Dr. Wordsworth carefully lifted John Doe’s handcuffed wrist and pulled at a loose plastic wristband. “It looks almost like a conventional hospital ID band, but it’s not ours. I’ve never seen a psychiatric facility put such a bizarre tag on a patient, though. It doesn’t make sense. Even at a private institution, there ought to be some sort of comprehensible patient identification on it, the name of the facility, much more than this. There’s a handwritten date on it—also strange. It’s Saturday, two days ago, perhaps the day he escaped? His last treatment date?” She looked up at Savich, shook her head. “Perhaps they changed out his wristband each time he had a treatment. And look here, in small letters, E 2. Nothing else.”
Savich stared at the wide pale yellow plastic strip. Saturday most likely wasn’t the date he entered the facility, so Dr. Wordsworth was probably right, it was the date of his last treatment. But for what? And what could E 2 mean? Savich felt a tug of memory, and then it was gone. “Can’t help with that,” he said. “I’ve checked with Metro. They’ve had no inquiries from any psychiatric facility about our Mr. Doe. Nor does Metro know who he is. His fingerprints aren’t in the system.”
Dr. Wordsworth checked the IV infusion set, made a minor adjustment. “Isn’t that unusual? Your not being able to identify someone?”
“It only means he’s never worked for the government, been in the military, or been arrested. I tried the facial recognition program, missing persons countrywide, but without any luck.” Savich wondered if Mayer had done the same.
Dr. Wordsworth said, “Our staff have been contacting all the medical facilities and psychiatric hospitals in the District, in Maryland, and in Virginia. None of them have claimed him so far. If he was in a small facility or with his family, we’d expect them to be all over this. And then I ask myself, why would a family—especially a family—put a wristband like this on him?”
Savich said slowly, “It could be he escaped from somewhere, Doctor. He thought he had a mission, and it involved a woman who’s just given birth upstairs. Why her in particular, I don’t know yet.”
“Everyone here knows you saved Ms. Moody from John Doe.”
He said nothing, only shook his head.
“There’s something else you have to see.” She pulled back the thin blanket that covered John Doe’s arms. “Look at the needle tracks on his arms. You might think he was a big-time drug addict, but those scars aren’t anything like the scars of a drug addict. They’re carefully placed and well cared for, with no sign they were ever infected. There’s no way a drug addict could do that himself. And look up here at his neck and under his collarbone. He’s had large-bore catheters placed there, such as we use for people who need long-term venous access for their treatments, or for dialysis. These scars are the result of medical care, though for what I have no idea yet.”
The hospital loudspeaker paged Dr. Wordsworth to the ER, stat. Savich quickly gave her his card. She tucked it in her pocket, shook his hand, held it a moment. “Agent Savich, I’ll let you know if the head MRI shows anything unusual, and I trust you’ll call me if you find anything that can help me. I can see you care about him. You want to know who he is and what all this is about as much as I do.” She looked again toward John Doe, shook her head, and was out the door.
Savich looked down at John Doe. He looked so very young, helpless. He now clearly remembered him saying I’m an enigma. Was that what the E stood for? And the 2? Was there another enigma who came before him? Savich pulled out his cell and called Ben Raven at Metro. “Ben, are you in the field?”
“Yep. A beating, domestic. I hate these. What’s going on?”
“Do me a favor. I’m worried about our Mr. John Doe from yesterday. He’s still in a coma, completely helpless. He claimed someone was out hunting for him, that they wanted him back, and Kara Moody. If he’s right”—he didn’t want to sound ridiculous, so he only said—“it’s possible someone doesn’t mean him well. Could you assign an officer to him?”
A pause, then Raven said, “This is your gut talking, Savich?”
“Yes, that and a couple of odd things, inexplicable things about him.”
“I’ll check with my lieutenant, get a guard cleared with hospital security for a couple of days.” Savich could see Ben’s grin as he said, “Guess you didn’t want to ask Mayer?”
“Not in this lifetime. Can you get him here as fast as you can?”
“Hang on.”
Savich looked at John Doe as he waited for Ben Raven to come back on the line.
“Okay, it’s a go. We already have an officer on premises. He’ll be right up. Officer Tommy Sharpe is his name.”
“Thanks, Ben.” Savich punched off. He wished John Doe were FBI purview. Even more than that he wished he’d had the foresight to turn on the recorder on his cell phone when he’d been in Kara Moody’s house. With the urgency, the adrenaline rush, he simply couldn’t remember exactly what John Doe had said.
Savich pulled up a chair close to John Doe’s bed and texted Cam for a status report. Her reply came back:
Still alive, about to land at Magee Field in Kentucky. Cabot appears competent, at least he hasn’t crashed us yet. Sick sense of humor.
Savich grinned, texted back,
Let me know when you’ve reached the national forest. Give me your take on Duke and Harbinger.
Then he texted Jack much the same thing, not expecting an answer from the air, and punched off. He slipped his cell back into his pocket and studied the needle marks that ran up and down John Doe’s arms. What’s wrong with you? Do you need some kind of drug that can’t be swallowed in pill form? What drug?
Savich looked up when he heard Detective Aldo Mayer’s familiar voice at the door. “What are you doing here?”
7
BOWLER, BOWLER, AND BOWLER
CORNER OF K STREET SW AND 17TH STREET NW
WASHINGTON, D.C.
MONDAY AFTERNOON
Duce Bowler’s law offices on the fifth floor of the older, nondescript Blackthorn Building were a surprise. Agents Ruth Noble and Ollie Hamish stepped into an eighteenth-century French drawing room, with gilt sofas and chairs and classic paintings on the pale yellow walls, the three windows framed with floor-length gold brocade draperies looped open with long golden cords. Even the reception desk was eighteenth-century gold and white, with graceful curved legs, the desktop holding only a state-of-the-art computer monitor, a keyboard, and two phones. There were no clients waiting in modern dress to spoil the effect.
Ruth and Ollie crossed the expanse of glossy oak floor toward a tall, lanky young man dressed in a black suit, white shirt, and gray tie, who was rising from his gilt chair behind the desk. He smiled uncertainly at them. “Good afternoon, sir, madam. I am Kendrick. I’m afraid no one is free to assist you. May I set up an appointment for you?”
Ollie wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d made Kendrick wear a wig and knee pants. “We’re here to see Mr. Duce Bowler, Kendrick. I don’t see any clients waiting. Business is bad?”
“No, sir. An appointment is necessary, particularly on days when Mr. Bowler is prepping for a court case.”
Ruth handed Kendrick their creds and made introductions. “We’ll see him now, Kendrick.”
“You’re really FBI agents? You look so nice, I wouldn’t have guessed. Well, never mind that. Mr. and Mrs. Bowler are in the conference room.” Kendrick looked at his watch. “He might be taking a break. I took him his bear claw a couple of minutes ago. Maybe I could ask if he can spare the time to see you.”
“Just show us the way, Kendrick,” Ollie said. “Now would be good.”