Tess Gerritsen - Harvest

Abby frowned at him. "I thought the autopsy was confirmatory."

"We found something on toxicology. We got the results back just last week from the crime lab."

"Something turned up?"

"In his muscle tissue. They found traces of succinylcholine." She stared at him. Succinylcholine. It was used every day by anaesthesiologists to induce muscle relaxation during surgery. In the OR, it was a vitally useful drug. Outside the OR, its administration would cause the most horrible of deaths. Complete paralysis in a fully conscious subject. Though awake and aware, one would be unable to move or breathe. Like drowning in a sea of air.

She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. "It wasn't a suicide."

"No."

She took a breath and slowly let it out. For a moment she was too horrified to speak. She didn't dare even consider what Aaron's death must have been like. She looked through the fence, towards the pier. Evening fog was forming over the harbour and starting to drift in wispy fingers across the waterfront. Mapes had not reappeared. The freighter loomed, black and silent in the fading light.

"I want to know what's on that boat," she said. "I want to know why he's gone there." She reached for the door. He stopped her. "Not yet."

"When?"

"Let's drive up a block and pull over. We can wait there." He glanced at the sky, then at the fog thickening over the water. "It'll be dark soon."

"How long has it been?"

"Only about an hour," said Katzka.

Abby hugged herself and shivered. The evening had turned even colder, and inside the car, their breaths fogged the windows. In the mist outside, the distant street lamp gave off a yellow glow.

"Interesting you should put it that way. Only an hour. To me it feels like all night."

"It's a matter of perspective. I've put in a lot of time in surveillance. Early in my career."

Katzka as a young man — she couldn't picture that, couldn't imagine him as a fresh-faced rookie. "What made you become a policeman?" she asked.

He shrugged, a blip of shadow in the gloom of the car. "It suited me."

"I guess that explains everything."

"What made you become a doctor?"

She wiped a streak across the fogged windshield and stared out at the boxy canyons formed by ships' containers. "I don't quite know how to answer that."

"Is it such a difficult question?"

"The answer's complicated."

"So it wasn't something simple. Like for the good of humanity."

Now it was her turn to shrug. "Humanity will scarcely notice my absence."

"You go to school for eight years. You train for another five years. It has to be a pretty compelling reason."

The window had fogged up again. She wiped her hand across it and the condensation felt strangely warm against her skin. "I guess, if I had to give you a reason, it would be my brother. When he was ten years old, he had to be hospitalized. I spent a lot of time, watching his doctors. Seeing how they worked."

HARVEST

Katzka waited for her to elaborate. When she didn't, he said softly, "Your brother didn't live?"

She shook her head. "It was a long time ago." She looked down at the moisture glistening on her hand. Warm as tears, she thought. And for one precarious moment she thought she might shed real tears. She was glad Katzka remained silent; she did not feel up to answering any more questions, not up to reviving the images of the ER, of Pete lying on a gurney, the blood splashed on his brand new tennis shoes. How small those shoes had seemed, far too small for a ten-year-old boy. And then there'd been the months of watching him lie in a coma, his flesh shrinking away, his limbs contracting into a permanent self-embrace. The night he'd died, Abby had lifted him from the bed and had sat rocking him in her arms. He'd felt weightless, and as fragile as an infant.

She told Katzka none of this, yet she sensed he understood all he needed to know. Communication by empathy. It was not a talent she'd suspected he possessed. But then, there were so many things about Katzka that she found surprising.

He looked out at the night. And he said: "I think it's dark enough." They stepped out of the car and walked through the open gate, into the container yard. The freighter loomed in the mist. The only light aboard the vessel was a weirdly greenish glow from one of the lower portholes. Otherwise the ship seemed abandoned. They walked onto the pier, passing a tower of empty crates stacked on a loading pallet.

At the ship's gangplank they paused, listening to the slap of water on the hull, to the myriad groans of steel and cable. The shriek of another jet taking off startled them both. Abby glanced up at the sky, and as she watched the jet's lights lift away she had the disorientating sensation that she was the one moving through space and time. She almost reached out to Katzka for a steadying grip. How did I end up standing on this pier, with this man? she wondered. What strange chain of events has brought me to this unexpected moment in my life?

Katzka touched her arm, his contact warm and solid. "I'm going to look around on board." He stepped onto the gangplank. He'd taken only a few paces towards the vessel when he halted and glanced back up the pier.

A pair of headlights had just swung through the gate.The vehicle was now rolling towards them, across the container yard. It was a van.

Abby had no chance to duck for cover behind the crates. The headlights' beam had already caught her, trapped at the end of the pier.

The van skidded to a halt. Shielding her eyes against the glare, Abby could see almost nothing, but she heard doors open and slam shut. Heard footsteps crunching across the gravel as the men moved in to cut off any escape.

Katzka materialized right beside her. She hadn't even heard him scramble off the gangplank, but suddenly there he was, stepping between her and the van. "OK, just back off," he said. "We're not here to cause any trouble."

The two men, silhouetted by the headlights, hesitated only a second. Then they began to advance.

"Let us by!" Katzka said.

Abby's view of the men was partially blocked by Katzka's back. She didn't see what happened next. All she knew was that he suddenly dropped to a crouch, that there was a simultaneous crack of gunfire and the zing of something ricocheting off the concrete pier behind her.

She and Katzka lunged at the same time for the cover of the crates. He shoved her head to the ground as more gunfire rang out, chunking out splinters of wood.

Katzka returned fire. Three quick blasts.

There was a tattoo of retreating footsteps. A terse exchange of voices.

Then the sound of the van being started, the engine revving and tyres spitting up gravel.

Abby raised her head to look. To her horror she saw the van was rolling towards them, bearing down on the crates like a battering ram.

Katzka took aim and fired. Four bursts that shattered the windshield.

The van bumped crazily onto the pier, swerved right, then left, a battering ram gone out of control.

Katzka fired two last, desperate blasts.

The van kept coming.

Abby registered a blinding glimpse of headlights. Then she flung herself off the pier and hurtled into pitch darkness.

The plunge into icy water was shocking. She sputtered back to the surface, choking on brine and spilled diesel, her limbs flailing at the black water. She heard men shouting on the pier above, then a thunderous splash. Water boiled up and washed over her head. She surfaced again, coughing. At the end of the pier the water

HARVEST

seemed to be glowing a phosphorescent green. The van. It was sliding under the surface, its headlights casting two watery beams of light. As it sank, the greenish glow faded to black.

Katzka. Where was Katzka?