Michael Prescott: Next Victim

She braced her left hand against his arm, fighting to hold him off. Valiant try, but he was stronger. Stronger than she imagined. Stronger than any of them had ever guessed. They had snickered at him, the company man, the supervisor, with his stiff, tidy formality and his spotless eyeglasses and crisp, measured words. He was a martinet and a toady, a politician, not a real agent at all. Capable enough when behind a desk, but helpless in the field.

That was how they’d seen him-while at night he was Mobius, the dark riddle their best brains couldn’t solve.

They had always underestimated him. He was not an ordinary man. He was a thing of will.

And with his last will, he would drive the blade into Tess McCallum’s neck and take her with him into the dark.

"You’re dead, Tess." He grunted, forcing the knife closer. "Dead like me."

Her body strained as she grappled with him. The blade touched the folds of neoprene rubber at the base of her helmet.

He pushed forward with the full weight of his upper body, forcing the knife closer…

His visor brushed hers. Tess’s face was inches from his own, separated from his by two layers of clear plastic. Her eyes were big with fear and desperation. She couldn’t hold him off, and she knew it.

He was almost there. Time for one last effort.

A killing thrust.

Now.

He rammed the knife home, hard enough to puncture the thick rubber and the throat behind it But nothing happened.

His hand, his arm, hadn’t moved.

Wouldn’t move.

Tess shoved him back. He couldn’t fight her. He was suddenly weak, his body useless.

He fell off her like a heap of bedding and lay helpless on the floor.

A shiver scurried through him, making his teeth clack loudly, and a spasm of pain roared up his lower back. Abruptly he twisted around, bent at an impossible angle by a muscular contraction that just as abruptly released, leaving him limp and dazed, until the muscles of his abdomen clutched tight, compressing him into a fetal ball of pain, a moaning thing inside the loose folds of his suit. New pain galvanized his rib cage, his thighs, his shoulders, whipsawing him from side to side. Something spattered his face mask as he shook his head-mucus, runnels of phlegm escaping from his nose, his mouth-he was leaking, his insides streaming out of him in a river of snot and drool. His glasses were grimed with the stuff, he couldn’t see, he was blind inside his helmet, and all he could hear was the idiot roar of the air blower and a series of guttural noises that seemed to be coming from him.

New waves of convulsions ravaged him. He was tossed by tides of pain, and then finally the tides receded and left him beached and winded, arms and legs too heavy to move, face coated with a wet, gluey caul, eyes clogged, ears deafened, alone in a void and sinking, sinking into the soapy water of the bathtub.

When he looked up, he saw his mother standing over him, the gun in her hand.

He opened his mouth to ask why she’d hurt him, but the question faded away, unasked.

Tess watched Andrus die.

He was Andrus again. Not Mobius. Not now.

He had nearly succeeded in knifing her when the muscle spasms and convulsions started. The VX, invading his system in massive quantities, had manhandled him with ruthless ferocity, and all she could do was drag herself safely away from his thrashing limbs, then watch.

She knew he was in pain, and part of her was almost sorry about it, but the greater part was sorry for Angie Callahan and Paul Voorhees and Scott Maple and William Hayde and all the others.

Finally he stopped moving. His faceplate was slimed with nasal secretions, but she could still see his face, pressed against the plastic, big-eyed and agape.

"Wipe out," Tess whispered, and then she struggled to her feet in the bloated orange suit and made her way out of the room.

Tess had never been to Andrus’s house.

That this was true of the house in LA came as no surprise. What seemed odd, when she thought about it, was that in all the time she’d worked with him in Denver, she had never once visited his house there.

Now she knew why he had invited no one to his home. He kept too many secrets there.

The media were already outside the house in the predawn darkness. She saw Myron Levine doing a live stand-up in the glare of a portable arc lamp. Levine saw her as she walked up the front steps and tried making eye contact, but she turned quickly away. She had nothing to say to him.

Her FBI creds got her past the uniformed cop at the door. Inside, forensics experts from the LAPD’s Scientific Investigation Division were at work, bagging and tagging. Cops and federal agents stood around everywhere, contaminating the scene. Radios crackled and cell phones chirped. A TV was on, showing one of the newscasts. Levine again-she just couldn’t get away from that guy.

"Find anything interesting?" she asked the first familiar face, which belonged to Larkin.

"Oh, it’s all interesting. Hey, are you all right?"

"I’m fine. They got to me in the air-lock corridor outside ATSAC. Decontaminated my hazmat suit, then made me take the longest shower in history to be sure there was no VX on me."

"So you’re okay?"

"The suit held up fine. They checked it for leaks. Not a one."

"No, I mean — you’re okay?"

She got it. "Me, the human being? Well, it’s the first time I’ve ever killed a longtime colleague and personal friend."

"How do you, uh, feel about that?"

"Pretty good, actually." She smiled at him. "Pretty damn good."

Larkin shook his head thoughtfully. "You know, I wasted a lot of brownnosing on Andrus."

"Think of it as practice for the next AD."

"True. I have honed my skills. So I guess it’s not a total loss."

She couldn’t tell if he was joking. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

The house was a leased bungalow in Van Nuys, a nondescript district of the San Fernando Valley. The living room and dining area were decorated in such generic good taste that Tess suspected the rental had come fully furnished. But something was missing.

"A dog," she said.

Larkin glanced at her.

"Andrus said he had a dog. A terrier. Always talked about how he had to go home and feed it."

"He lied. No dog here. No dog food in the pantry, no water dish, no poo-poo in the backyard."

"Why would he make up a dog?"

"To sound normal." Larkin shrugged. "You know, domestic. But normal he definitely was not. Come on, I’ll show you."

Larkin led her past the master bedroom and a small study-rooms like the others, tidy and uncluttered and empty of personality.

"By the way," he said, "I just got word the mayor wants to meet with you, bestow his thanks for saving his ass-and everybody else’s."

"The mayor? I should’ve changed."

"There may be a press conference later. You’re a superstar, Tess."

"You’ll have to start brownnosing me now."

"I already am. Didn’t you notice?"

"I did, actually."

It looked like this was Black Tiger all over again-only bigger. Maybe she would put her celebrity status to better use this time. She was tired of idling in neutral. She was ready-well, ready to start living again.

A nice feeling. If only other people hadn’t had to die to make it possible.

This reminded her of a loose end in the case. "Did you find the body?" she asked as they entered a rear hall.

"What body?"

"Scott Maple-the grad student from the chemistry lab."

"We found something better than a body. We found him."

"Alive?"

"Luckiest young man in LA."

Larkin opened a door to a stairwell that descended into a narrow basement.

"Vegetable cellar or some damn thing," Larkin said. "That’s where Andrus kept him."