Michael Prescott - Next Victim

Her fingers stabbed at the keypad, missing their mark. The keys were too small, her hand still too shaky.

There was another way: press redial. It was only one button to hit, and it was bigger than the other keys.

On her fourth or fifth try, she succeeded. The phone’s LCD screen lit up with the words SENDING CALL.

Who was the last person she’d talked to? Andrus when she was at the chem lab? No, it was Dodge, of course. She’d called him from her car, minutes ago.

She hadn’t thought she’d ever be happy to hear Detective Dodge’s voice again, but she would be thrilled to hear it now.

But he wasn’t answering.

Three rings.

Four.

No pickup on the other end.

But this was his cell phone number, the one he gave to informants. He would always answer the cell phone.

Except tonight.

Six rings by now. Seven. Eight.

She lay on her side, fighting for breath, praying for Dodge to answer.

Dodge thought he might get lucky after all.

It had seemed like the longest of long shots, but Tess McCallum seemed to have bought the industrial-size bag of bullshit he was selling. He’d thought federal agents were supposed to be worldly-wise and cynical, but McCallum was a babe in the fucking woods.

By the end of the night he would have pinned the blame on Winston, and McCallum would be abjectly apologetic for all the nasty things she’d said about him.

Was there any way she could make it up to him?

Dodge smiled.

He could think of a way. A few dozen ways.

He turned into the driveway of his house, a bungalow dating from the 1930s, perched at the edge of a hillside. He hadn’t lied about the view. From the front of the house he could see the full expanse of LA, from the dark rim of desert on the east to the infinite Pacific on the west. If there was any poetry in his soul, it was aroused by that view, at night, under a swollen moon.

Adjacent to the bungalow was a carport. He parked inside, killing his lights and motor.

As he got out of the car, he was thinking of Tess McCallum and what he might be able to do with her in a very short time. Guilt was a powerful emotion, or so he had been told-he had never been much prone to guilt himself-and he intended to have McCallum feeling very fucking guilty before long.

Thing was, he didn’t even care that much about her personally. There were women in his little black book who had her beat in the looks department. But he’d never bagged a federal agent. He wanted a taste of that certified U.S. Prime pussy. It was the kind of memory he could take with him into his old age.

Smiling, he stepped out of the carport, then heard a footstep behind him.

He pivoted, his hand sliding inside his jacket to unholster his Smith. 38, and there was a flicker of motion on the margin of his sight, and crashing pain and the million lights of the city exploding before his eyes, weakness in his knees, numbness and confusion and roaring darkness, and he fell on his face and twitched and lay still.

After twenty unanswered rings Tess gave up on Dodge. If she was going to get out of this, she would have to do it some other way.

And she would get out. She had to. Mobius had taken everything else from her, but he would not take her life.

She tried to think, figure out what to do, a plan of action. There was poison in the air. How was it reaching her?

The air conditioner. That was how he’d done it, the son of a bitch. He had sabotaged the air conditioner. Put VX inside it, so the outflow ducts would spew it into the room.

With every inhalation she was breathing in more death. It would overcome the antidote, weaken her all over again, paralyze her, kill her right here on the floor.

She had to stop the AC. Switch it off. The unit was mounted below the window, trailing a heavy-duty power cord plugged into the wall.

No way she could reach the cord to yank it out. The distance was only two yards, but she still had no strength, no motor coordination, no way to get there.

Closer to her was another wall outlet, unused, almost near enough to touch. It might be on the same circuit as the AC.

Cause a power surge, get the circuit breaker to trip, and the AC might shut down.

She looked at the cell phone in her hand. Had an idea.

But to give it a try, she had to get nearer to the outlet.

She ground her palms into the carpet and dragged herself forward. Sweat leaked into her eyes. Her heart pounded a furious rhythm in her ears.

She was not very religious anymore-Paul’s death had badly disillusioned her about such things-but she found herself bargaining with God, making a deal.

Just let me get out of this, she thought, and I’ll make it up to you. I’ll catch Mobius. I’ll stop him. That’s got to be worth something. A couple hundred Hail Marys, at least.

She thrust herself forward another inch, using her arms and a contortion of her hips, dragging her useless legs, while the air conditioner chugged, and the fan blades whirred, and the air moved around her.

Don’t breathe, she ordered herself. Once the AC is off, you can take a breath, but until then don’t breathe.

The outlet was within reach now. Slowly she extended her arm, the cell phone outthrust in her trembling hand, and jammed the phone’s antenna at the outlet.

She missed contact with the holes. Tried again. No good. A third try The antenna plunged into one of the holes, and the phone sizzled with an influx of voltage, strong enough to lift her off the floor and shock her backward. Her fingers splayed, the phone fell in a shower of sparks-and half the lights in the room went out.

She lay on her side, stunned by the jolt. Somewhere behind her, Myron Levine was still talking, and a varicolored play of light from the television bubbled over the walls and ceiling.

The TV was on a different circuit. But the air conditioner?

She listened.

There was no sound but her hoarse breathing and Levine’s drone.

The AC was off.

No more VX would enter the room. She’d accomplished that much.

All she could do now was wait and see if the symptoms passed…or worsened.

She lay still. Her hands were numb and boneless. Her legs were sprawled on the carpet in limp disarray. She was panting, straining for breath. The muscles sheathing her rib cage still worked, but for how long?

For a few minutes she was almost sure her symptoms were continuing to worsen, in which case she had been wrong, deluded, and there was no hope. God, it appeared, had rejected the terms of her offer.

Then her chest shuddered, heaved, and she pulled a stream of air down her throat.

She could breathe. Really breathe.

Evidently God had been open to a deal, after all.

Slowly she curled into a fetal pose and lay there, clutching her knees, wondering what to do next.

She couldn’t say. She knew only one thing with certainty. She had promised God that she would stop Mobius. And she intended to keep her end of the bargain.

Dodge came around slowly, conscious at first of the ache in his head, then of the awkward position of his arms, suspended above his shoulders. He thought of the suspect he’d once seen handcuffed to the bars of a holding cell, and for a confused minute he thought he’d been found out by his fellow officers. They’d gotten him for the leaks to the media, and this was his punishment-to be fucking crucified.

Then he remembered the footstep behind him in the carport, and he knew it was worse than that.

His eyes opened. He was in the bedroom of his house, lying in the bed with his arms tied-no, taped-to the bronze headboard. His mouth…there was something on his mouth-more tape, gluing his lips together.