Michael Prescott: Next Victim

"If he intended to disseminate VX," Tess said, "he would have tried to get it into the AC." Which was still on, she noted uneasily. She hoped she wasn’t breathing in more of the stuff. It was doubtful she could survive a second exposure in such a short time frame.

"That’s probably true." Tennant was methodically checking underneath the seats with a flashlight. Tess got out her own flash and did the same. "But there’s no easy way to access the AC vents-not without being seen by the other riders. My guess is, he planted a bomb."

"Nothing in his profile or past behavior suggests a proficiency with explosives."

"Maybe he’s learning on the job."

They reached the end of the first car and crossed into the second, then continued their methodical search of the seats, the floors, and every cubbyhole and niche.

"By the way," Tennant remarked, "you’re clear on that news leak thing."

She looked up, startled. "What?"

"It wasn’t you. Well, you already knew that-but now the AD knows it too."

"I’m not following."

"It’s like this. When I heard about the leak, I called up an old friend of mine in the LAPD. Got to know him when I was stationed here back in the eighties. He’s with Internal Affairs now."

They moved into the central car.

"My friend told me IAD has been taking a long look at that detective you paired up with-Dodge. Dodge doesn’t know it, but they’ve got him down for passing confidential information to the media. Specifically, to this Levine guy at Channel Eight."

"So it was him," Tess muttered.

"Yeah. And IAD’s closing in. This Dodge guy’s about to be in a whole lot of trouble."

"Not anymore. He’s dead."

It was Tennant’s turn to look up in surprise. "Courtesy of Mobius?"

"Exactly."

"Well, then I guess his problems are over. And so are yours, as far as the leak situation is concerned."

"You say you already told Andrus?"

"Called him as soon as I knew."

"How long ago?"

"Hour, maybe."

"Would’ve been nice if he’d gotten in touch with me."

"He’s a cold fish, that guy. I don’t-Whoops, here we go."

He was crouching by a seat. Tess knelt beside him and saw a squarish package wrapped in aluminum foil, taped to the seat bottom.

Duct-taped. Of course.

She stared at it, aware that she was looking at a bomb of some sort, probably not very powerful, but carrying a deadly payload of nerve agent.

"He planted it during the northbound run." Her thoughts came in a rush, her brain pressed into high gear. "Would’ve wanted it to go off when the train was southbound. Ideally, under the mountains. That would be the longest stretch of uninterrupted tunnel."

"Train’s been sitting at this station for a good ten minutes," Tennant said. "Bomb might go off at any second. Safest thing is to get out of here, let it blow."

"Then we lose the evidence."

"We don’t need evidence to identify him."

"But we may need it to get a conviction."

"Shit." Tennant looked at the package.

"Can you disarm one of these things?"

"Maybe. I did a little munitions work in Vietnam. All right, get out and let me handle it."

"No way."

"It’s not a two-person job."

"Yes, it is. I’ll hold the flashlight. You need both hands free."

"If it blows-"

"We get splashed, and we die. That’s a good reason to hurry up and get started, don’t you think?"

Tennant put down his flashlight, and Tess aimed hers at the package. Carefully Tennant peeled away the tinfoil, uncovering a gradated glass cylinder-a test tube-stoppered at one end, filled with amber liquid.

"VX," Tess said, for no good reason.

Taped to the test tube was a wad of puttylike explosive. A wire extending from the charge was soldered into the guts of a small, battery-operated traveler’s alarm clock.

"Standard electrically initiated explosive device," Tennant said. "Alarm acts as a triggering switch, sends a current through the ignition wire-and blows the test tube to bits."

"Scattering VX everywhere."

"You got it."

In the movies a bomb’s timer helpfully displayed the minutes and seconds remaining until detonation. Here the clock’s digital display merely showed the current time, 10:41. The alarm could be set for 10:42 or 11:00 or any time at all. There was no way to know.

It felt to Tess as if an hour had passed already, and Tennant still hadn’t gone to work on the device. "What are you waiting for?" she asked in a voice she hoped was steady.

"Fancy bombs can have a tilt switch or even a radio receiver for remote detonation."

"Great." She was liking this less and less. At least now she understood why Tennant had wanted her cell phone turned off.

"I doubt Mobius would be that goddamn clever. The guy’s a serial killer, not a Special Forces op."

"Is that what you were? In Vietnam?"

"Just a grunt." He spent an endless stretch of time studying the test tube. "I don’t see any funny business. We-"

As Tess watched, the clock’s LED readout changed to 10:42. They both froze, waiting.

Nothing happened.

"Better get this thing defused," Tennant said. "We might not be so lucky a minute from now."

Gently he took hold of the ignition wire and tried to ease it free of the explosive charge.

"Won’t move. Glued down or something. Got any tools on you?"

"Tools?"

"Wire cutters, needle-nose pliers, anything like that?"

She was going to ask him why she would possibly be carrying needle-nose pliers around, when she remembered the nail clipper in her purse. She dug it out. "Will this work?"

"It’ll have to."

He snagged the wire between the clipper’s tiny jaws, then worked it back and forth.

"Almost got it."

Click.

The wire was cut.

And the alarm went off.

The sudden loud buzzing noise startled Tess so badly she nearly dropped the flashlight. Tennant, she noticed, didn’t even flinch.

"Made it by a good two or three seconds," he said with satisfaction. "No problem."

Tess wasn’t sure she saw it that way, but she was alive, anyway. And there was one other good thing.

"He’s shot his wad," she said. "Used up the nerve agent. Right?"

Tennant shook his head. "Unfortunately, no. From what I can tell, there’s only about two hundred ccs of VX in this tube. Meaning there’s still five hundred ccs left unaccounted for."

Tess sagged against a handrail. "So he’s doling it out a little at a time. Working up to his big strike."

"Looks that way." Tennant frowned. "And if taking out a trainload of passengers is his idea of a warm-up act, I don’t want to see the main event."

Tess was still trembling a little as she disembarked from the train, leaving Tennant to remove the disarmed bomb and search for any secondary devices.

By now the station was crowded with uniformed cops, federal agents, and assorted emergency personnel. The loudspeaker finally had fallen silent, but the confusion of voices was nearly as loud.

Amid the hubbub she saw Andrus, Michaelson, and another man engaged in intense discussion near the platform. She wondered what Michaelson was doing here, but the answer was obvious-once the news had gone public, it would have been pointless to keep him off the task force any longer, and probably impossible, as well.

She approached at a fast clip, catching pieces of their conversation.

"…couldn’t get out," Andrus said. "The police are checking everyone who exits."

"Well, he’s not in here." That was the unknown man, who had the stiff, flustered looked of a bureaucrat in over his head. "The hiding places…"

"…sure?"

"…all searched…reviewing the tapes at the ROC office now."

"Maybe McCallum was wrong." Michaelson, of course. "Maybe he was never on this train."