Greg Iles - True Evil

He responded with a weak smile. "Sympathy kiss?"

"Maybe."

He jerked his hands away and hugged himself during a particularly violent bout of shivering. "Sorry."

"You don't have to talk now."

He gritted his teeth, then gave his hands back to her.

She wanted to distract him, but she didn't know how. "So Ben is at Dr. Cage's house?"

"Yeah. Tom's wife is great, but Ben's really scared. I wish I was in good enough shape to have him here."

"What about the chemotherapy option? You still haven't taken any chemo drugs?"

"No. After what I've learned about the Virus Cancer Program-and Tarver's primate lab-I'm more convinced than ever that he injected me with some sort of retrovirus. No virus can induce cancer in a matter of days, so the way to attack it right now is with antiviral drugs." Chris struggled to shift on the bed. "I don't want to risk getting leukemia or lymphoma by taking melphalan or something else just as dangerous."

Alex squeezed his hands. "I think you just don't want to lose your hair."

He closed his eyes, but the ghost of a smile touched his lips.

"Are we friends, Chris?" she asked softly.

His eyes opened, questioning her without words. "Of course we are. I owe you my life. If I live through this, that is."

"I've got to tell you something else about Thora."

"Oh, God," he said wearily. "What has she done?" Sudden fear flashed in his eyes. "She hasn't taken Ben, has she?"

Alex shook her head. "No." And she never will again. "Thora's dead, Chris."

He stared up from the pillow without changing expression. His eyes seemed the same, but she knew that inside, the tenuous hold that he had on reality was tearing loose. After studying her face for a few moments, he saw that she had spoken the truth. "How?" he whispered.

"Somebody killed her. We're not sure who yet. Probably Rusk or Tarver."

Chris blinked once. "Killed her how?"

"She was beaten to death with a blunt instrument. Probably a claw hammer."

Alex saw despair in his eyes, and then he rolled over to face the wall.

"I didn't want to tell you," she said helplessly, "but the idea of someone else telling you was worse."

The back of his head was shaking, as though in denial of the news. But she knew he had believed her. "Where's Thora now?" he asked.

"They're doing a postmortem on her."

She heard a sharp exhalation. Chris knew too well what that meant in medical terms.

"Ben doesn't know, does he?"

"No, no."

"Could he hear it on TV or anything like that?"

"No."

"I need to see him."

Alex had already taken care of this. "He's on his way." She glanced at her watch. "He should be here any minute, actually. I called Tom Cage as soon as we-as soon as I knew. Tom went to check Ben out of school, and he promised to have him here as fast as possible."

Chris sighed heavily. "Thank you for doing that. Tom deals with death every day. He'll know how to handle Ben."

"Will you look at me, Chris?"

After nearly a minute, he rolled over and looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. She was about to speak when he said, "Help me up."

"What? You shouldn't-"

"Come on." Pulling against her hands, he managed to bring himself into a sitting position. He was still shivering and panting, but his eyes held only determination. "You can go now."

"I'm fine right here."

Chris's eyes narrowed. "Fine? Why aren't you out trying to find Tarver?"

"They won't let me. They've turned me into a goddamn bystander."

"So? You never waited for permission before. And the only way you're going to save Jamie-or me-is by nailing Tarver. Only he can convict your brother-in-law now. And only he can tell the doctors what he shot into me. Without that knowledge, it won't matter that I have Ben. I'll die before he grows out of Little League."

Alex was stunned by the anger in Chris's voice and eyes. She was trying to think of some reassuring reply when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. It was Kaiser. She pressed SEND and held the phone to her ear.

"Tell me something good, John."

"Solve this puzzle, and I'll give you the best news you ever had."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm sitting with your alleged friend Neville Byrd. He's recanted his statements about you and admitted that he was hired by Eldon Tarver."

Alex closed her eyes in relief. "How did you manage that?"

While Kaiser answered, Alex clicked her cell phone's speaker function, so that Chris could listen in.

"When Mr. Byrd and his attorney heard the words Patriot Act, they became very talkative," Kaiser said. "But Tarver didn't hire Byrd just to keep tabs on Rusk. Rusk had set up a digital mechanism that would destroy Tarver in the event that Tarver killed him. Insurance, right? Byrd was hired to find out what that mechanism was."

"Did he?" asked Alex.

"Yes. Rusk used a Dutch Internet service called EX NIHILO. Every day he had to log on and enter a series of passwords to verify that he was alive. If he didn't, a digital catalog of every crime Rusk and Tarver had committed would be sent to the Bureau and the Mississippi State Police."

"Dear God. Tell me you have that file, John."

"I'm looking at it right now. But I can't open it."

"Why not?"

"I don't have the final password. Rusk never accessed the file while Byrd was watching him. Neville stole enough passwords for Tarver to log in and pretend he was Rusk, but not to open or delete the confession file. Neville's been trying to hack the password since last night, but he hasn't been able to do it."

Chris was staring at the cell phone with laserlike focus.

"Do you have any idea what it could be?" Alex asked.

"What I'm thinking," said Kaiser, "is that after Dr. Tarver smacked Rusk in the head a few times with that putter, Rusk's last conscious thought was to get revenge on the bastard if he could. He couldn't use the telephone, but he could move his foot enough to write in the blood on the floor."

"A's number twenty-three!" Alex cried.

"Exactly. But Neville and I have googled our way through all the baseball rosters of the Oakland A's for the past hundred and six years. We've tried every player we can find who wore number twenty-three, but no combination of any of their names or birthdays or batting averages or anything else is the password."

Alex thought furiously. "You're making an assumption that A's refers to the baseball team. Throw that out and start from zero. A's number …What else could it mean?"

"The only hits that search engines kick up are baseball-related. I just put in a call to the NSA in Washington. They've put it in the queue for a supercomputer."

"It can't be that hard," said Alex. "It's something Rusk thought we could figure out. What were his other passwords?"

"One was pi to the ninth decimal place."

"Pi," Alex echoed.

"A couple were names from classical literature. One was the speed of light."

In a strangely detached voice, Chris said, "How did he write ‘miles per second squared'?"

"Who's that talking?" asked Kaiser.

"Chris," Alex replied. "Can you answer his question?"

"Hang on."

Alex looked down. Chris had taken hold of her elbow. "The only A's number I know about is Avogadro's number," he said.

"What's that?"

"A constant in chemistry. It has to do with molar concentration. Every high school chemistry student has to memorize it."

"What was that?" asked Kaiser.

"Chris has got a password for you to try. Hold on." She looked at Chris. "What's the number exactly?"

"Six-point-oh-two-two times ten to the twenty-third power."

"The twenty-third power?" Alex echoed.

Chris nodded.

"That's the twenty-three? A's number twenty-three. "