Michael Prescott: Next Victim

She set the gun down, then slipped her feet inside the baggy socks built into the suit. She pulled the suit up around her armpits, then worked her arms into the sleeves until her hands had filled out the heavy-duty rubber gloves attached by gaskets. A row of yellow rubber boots lay underneath the suits. She slipped into the nearest pair.

The suit wasn’t heavy, but it was large-at least one size too big for her-and awkward to handle, and she found herself struggling with the thick folds of neoprene rubber. A seam, similar to the closure of a Ziploc bag, ran up the suit from the midsection to the chin. She pressed the flaps together, sealing the front of the suit.

Now only her head was exposed. She removed a helmet from the shelf above the rack. It was not a hard plastic shell like an astronaut’s helmet, but rather a loose tent of cloth with a flexible face mask in front, and when she dropped it over her head she felt as if she were enclosed in a bubble. Another Ziploc seal secured the bubble helmet to the suit, and now she was fully protected.

A rush of claustrophobia drained her strength, and for a moment she had a suicidal impulse to remove the helmet. She fought off the fear.

The air trapped in the suit would go stale in only a few minutes. She groped for the battery-operated air pack at the back of the suit and turned it on.

The electric blower came to life, and the suit puffed up with an inflow of air. Filters in the built-in air circulation system would screen out VX and any other toxin. At least, that was the theory.

The suit, inflated, had swelled to twice its original size. Instead of hanging off her, it was now as hard and smooth as an exoskeleton. She must look like the Michelin Man. The thought almost made her smile, but the smile died when she noticed a fine mist clouding the room.

The VX had made its way through the complex’s air-conditioning vents. The storage room was filling with it. If she’d been a minute slower in donning the suit, she would be dying right now.

She picked up her gun, holding it awkwardly in her gloved hand. Carefully she tried inserting her forefinger between the trigger and the trigger guard. Couldn’t do it. The glove, swollen with air, made it impossible to get a grip on the trigger. She was unable to shoot.

Of course, Andrus couldn’t use his gun either.

Over the roar of the blower, the PA continued its announcement. She turned to the control panel and shut it off.

"Hi, Tess."

Andrus’s voice, close to her ear. He was right behind her. She tried to pivot, but the clumsy suit made any quick motion impossible. Slowly she turned in a graceless pirouette, an oversize ballerina in a puffy suit. She expected to come face-to-face with Andrus and see the lifted muzzle of his gun.

But he wasn’t there. The room was empty except for her.

"Hope I didn’t startle you."

His voice, as close as ever. She realized it was coming from inside her suit.

The bubble helmet was equipped with a radio set-microphone and speaker. He was addressing her over the air, from the transceiver in his own suit.

"I don’t startle that easily," she lied.

"Don’t you? Funny. I could have sworn I heard you gasp. But I could be wrong. After all, I also thought you’d be dead by now."

He’d assumed she’d been killed in the explosion. That was why he hadn’t lingered by the storeroom to get the drop on her.

But silencing the PA system had been a giveaway that she was still alive. And he must know where she was-at the control panel.

She had to get out of here before he came this way. Shuffling in her rubber boots, she moved toward the door.

"You’ve spoiled things, Tess." He was trying to sound cool, faintly amused, but she heard the undertone of raw anger in his voice. "My careful plans have been shot to hell-and all because of you."

"Sorry."

"You’re not. But I’ll make you sorry. You’re not getting out of this. You’re going to die down here."

"It’s your own future I’d be concerned about, if I were you."

Out in the hall now. Moving in the suit was hard work-like wading through thick silt or operating under the higher gravity of an alien planet. Her faceplate had fogged up with sweat. She rubbed her face against the visor to clear it.

"Not at all," Andrus said. "I intend to come out of this just fine. An hour from now, I’ll be safe…and free."

She glanced inside the office across the corridor. Andrus wasn’t there. The office looked eerily normal, a place of business like any other, except for the knife-Mobius’s knife, a knife that had slit throats-still stuck in the wall.

She hesitated, then took a step inside the office.

"How will you manage that trick?" she asked.

"Before long, a hazmat team will enter this installation. I’ll blend in with them, leave with them. Easy enough-these suits all look alike."

"They’ll be looking for you."

"Eventually-but at first they’ll assume I was killed in the blast. They’ll mourn for their beloved assistant director, I’m sure. But they’ll forget one thing."

"What’s that?"

"It’s Easter, Tess-and I am the resurrection and the life."

Brave words, Andrus thought.

He could put up a front of bravado with Tess. But he couldn’t hide the truth from himself.

He was, to put it indelicately, fucked.

Oh, he hadn’t been lying to Tess. He still intended to survive this debacle. He would escape with his life and with the money he’d hidden in a secret bank account when he began moonlighting as Mobius three years ago.

Then there would be a new life under a new name. He had a variety of false IDs similar to the Donald Stevenson persona that had served him so well at the MiraMist.

But he would not have his triumph. He had meant to decapitate this city. He had meant to commit a crime that would elevate him to legendary heights.

She had ruined it for him. She had made a mockery of his comeback, the grand finale of his criminal career.

"That’s a hell of a plan, Gerry." Tess’s voice crackled over the headset in his hazmat suit. "You must have worked it out pretty quickly after you got hold of the VX."

"I worked it out beforehand. Remember how you told Tennant that Mobius would start to make mistakes because the VX wasn’t in the script? You were wrong, Tess, dead wrong. The VX was the script."

"You planned all this?"

"Yes, indeed. In the current climate of terrorist and counterterrorist activity, I knew it was only a matter of time until I obtained the kind of weapon I needed. I’ve been doing research for months. Don’t you recall my lecture on this command center? I knew a lot about the place, didn’t I? That’s because I always knew this would be ground zero. I had to know the installation’s layout-and its vulnerabilities."

"Wait a minute. You’re saying that when you picked up Amanda Pierce-"

"I already knew who she was and what she was carrying. Come on, Tess, honestly now. What are the odds of a serial killer meeting up, purely by accident, with a woman toting a canister of nerve agent?"

"Coincidences happen."

"Maybe so. But chance, said Pasteur, favors the prepared mind. And-if I might add an aphorism of my own-the prepared mind leaves nothing to chance."

Tess had reached the end of the corridor.

"So you arranged to meet Pierce?" she asked.

"Of course. I’d been briefed on the case. I knew Pierce was carrying a sample of a toxic agent used in chem-bio warfare. I wasn’t told what kind. I was hoping for anthrax, actually. I could have had a lot of fun with anthrax."

"You have a peculiar idea of fun."

She halted just inside the main room, surveying the destruction. Half of the workstations had been knocked over, the computer terminals smashed. Swivel chairs lay upended everywhere. The beige carpet was spotted with VX droplets.