Michael Prescott: Next Victim

Tess stood at the top of the stairs and beamed her flashlight into the dark. She saw stone walls, a wooden chair, a worktable strewn with coiled wire and batteries and a roll of Mobius’s ubiquitous duct tape.

"He would’ve killed the kid," Larkin said, "except for something Maple mentioned in the lab. He said he was doing bomb calorimetry. You know what that is?"

"Put a sample inside a sealed container, then blow it up in a bucket of water. Difference of the water temperature before and after tells you how many calories were released by the blast, which equals the calorie content of the sample."

Larkin was impressed. "Very good. Anyway, I guess Andrus figured anyone who knew how to assemble a bomb calorimeter-"

"Could assemble a bomb," she finished. She remembered thinking that Mobius had never demonstrated any knowledge of explosives. "He knew a small bomb was the most efficient way to disperse the VX, but he wasn’t sure he could build one without blowing himself up."

"So he drafted young Mr. Maple. Forced him out of the chem lab and into the trunk of Andrus’s car at knifepoint. Drove him here and kept him down in the cellar for the past twenty-four hours or so. Padlocked the cellar door whenever he went out. Maple shouted for help, but no one could hear him from outside."

"How’s he doing now?"

"He’ll spend some time in the hospital. Dehydration, exhaustion, some contusions and cuts from his run-ins with Andrus-or from beating his fists against the door. But he’ll be okay."

"Thank God for that." Tess took another long look into the cellar, then switched off her flashlight. "Why do you suppose Andrus kept him alive after the two bombs had been made?"

Larkin shrugged. "Insurance policy, in case he needed another bomb, maybe."

"I don’t think so. I think he might have wanted someone left alive who could explain what happened. He wanted his story to be told. He wanted newspaper clippings."

"Hey," Larkin said, "that reminds me."

He escorted her to the guest bedroom at the far end of the hall.

The rest of the house betrayed no hint of individuality. But this room was different. It had been Mobius’s sanctuary.

One wall was covered with a collage of photos ringing the front page of the Albuquerque Tribune, the same page Tess had seen in the online collection.

She stared at the yellowed sheet of newspaper, then at the faded photographs. Gerald Beckett at various ages, with his birth parents. Later, with his adoptive parents, Mr. and Mrs. Andrus.

Her gaze returned to the newspaper headline: "WIPE OUT" IN ALCOMITA HOJO’S.

"He knew the song might lead to him," she said.

"What song?" Larkin asked. "‘Bad Moon Rising’?"

"What?"

"That was the song on the tape."

"No. It was a surf rock tune from the early sixties. ‘Wipe Out.’ The same song his mother-Wait a minute. What did you do with the tape after you picked it up from me?"

"Delivered it-" He stopped.

"To Andrus," she finished.

"Shit."

"He switched tapes. Once he had it in his possession, he substituted another recording-one that couldn’t be linked to his past." She almost smiled. "‘Bad Moon Rising.’ He probably figured Gaines would have a profiling field day with that one. I’m surprised he didn’t pick ‘Helter-Skelter.’"

"You think it’s funny?"

"Almost. In a way." Then she remembered Dodge, and her smile left her. "No. It’s not funny. I told him that Dodge and I had heard the tape. We were the only people who knew its actual contents. That’s why he went to Dodge’s house."

"His personal residence? Cops have unlisted addresses."

"And Andrus had access to the bureau’s computer system-which includes a database of everybody’s address, listed or unlisted."

"Point taken. So he, uh, got rid of Dodge."

"And tried to get rid of me. He wanted me off the case before I could talk to anyone. The leak to the media was just an excuse. He had to get me out of the field office-and back in my motel room."

"Which was sabotaged."

"Yes. Although I suspect he did that earlier. He’d brought me to LA just to kill me. He didn’t need any additional incentives."

Larkin let out a puff of breath. "Let’s face it. He was the boss from hell."

"Maybe that’s where he is now."

He gave her a quizzical look. "You believe in that stuff?"

"It would be nice to think there’s some ultimate justice."

"He’s dead. Isn’t that justice enough?"

She thought of Paul, what he had been, what she had lost.

"No," she said. "Not nearly."

The mayor was waiting. Tess left Larkin in the room that had been Mobius’s inner sanctum and returned to the front of the house.

"Well, look who’s here. The hero of the hour."

The maddening nasal voice could belong to only one person.

She turned and saw the Nose detach himself from a crowd of agents.

"Hero of the next fifteen minutes, anyway," she said.

"Don’t be modest. Use it for all it’s worth."

"I intend to."

"You know, McCallum"-for once, Michaelson met her gaze-"I had to help get the brass and the politicos out of that room and through the air lock. But when I saw that you weren’t with us, I was going to come back for you."

She said nothing. He took her silence as skepticism.

"Really. I was. But then the goddamn bomb went off, and we had to shut the door and get to ground level because the gas was all over. We had no protective gear." He gave a little laugh. "And you think this is all a line of bullshit, don’t you?"

"Actually, I don’t. I believe you." She smiled. "I don’t think you respect me enough to lie to me."

"Oh, I respect you. I just don’t like you. No, on second thought, I guess I don’t respect you, either. But that’ll just be our secret."

He was about to walk away, but she decided to tell him something. "You know what, Dick?" He hated being called Dick. "For a few minutes, I was almost convinced you were Mobius."

"Were you?"

"A lot of things pointed to it. But, of course, I should’ve known I was wrong. I’d seen the artist’s sketches of Mobius in his various disguises. He was a man with bland, totally unmemorable features." She showed him a kindly smile. "And let’s face it, Dick-there are some features you just can’t hide."

The Nose blinked, then understood. His hand went unconsciously to his proboscis.

"You’d better hope we never work together again, McCallum," he growled.

"Believe me," she said, "I do."

She could have left then, but Levine and the rest of the reporters were still outside, and she felt suddenly too tired to fend them off. She retreated out a side door and leaned against a eucalyptus tree in the yard, screened from the media by a high fence overgrown with oleander.

The stars were fading. There was a glow in the east. A new day.

The side door eased open, and Larkin poked his head out.

"Tess? The mayor…"

"In a minute."

He left her alone. She thought about the story in the Tribune, the eight-year-old boy whose mother had gone crazy. She thought about the laboratory in Oregon under government contract to make chemical poison.

There seemed to be no connection between those two things, yet they had come together like the words and music of a song. An old song, as old as history. Insanity breeding insanity, the stockpiled weapons of war replaced by new and deadlier armaments, terror giving birth to new terror. An endless cycle, a loop circling from one generation to the next, returning always to the same point. A Mobius strip.

Sow the wind, harvest the whirlwind. And no one learned, ever.

Yet it was morning, and the sun was rising, and it was Easter.

That had to count for something.

Tess stood unmoving for a long time and watched the brightening sky.