Andrew Grant - Even

“OK. Understood. Just make sure it’s soon.”

“What will you do now?”

“Don’t know. Head over to her apartment myself, I guess. Try and put my hands on someone there. I’m only forty minutes out.”

“Sounds like you’re clutching at straws.”

“Got any better ideas?”

“Just don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“Me? Never. But how about you? Found anything that goes bump in the night?”

“Nada.”

“Did big-head Maher come up with anything, now he’s back at his lab?”

“No. Well, yes. But nothing useful.”

“Such as?”

“Something about that weird blood drug.”

“Have they put a name to it?”

“No. They’re nowhere with that yet. But it’s obviously some deliberately made thing. And the surgeons were from Iraq, so Maher’s wondering if it’s part of some different procedure they have over there. He’s trying to find someone to check with.”

“What did he find, then?”

“Nothing. He’s just curious about the quantity involved. They found another whole bunch of vials in the basement. All used.”

“Empty medicine bottles? Sounds pretty normal for a clinic.”

“But you saw how strong the stuff is. Taylor took a whole vial. That means they’d only need a tiny bit for any patients they didn’t want to kill. So either they had millions of patients, which we don’t know about, or they threw most of it away.”

“It’s probably just a scam to charge more. Private clinic. Desperate patients. It’s a license to print money. Do you know what the busiest piece of equipment in that place was?”

“No. What?”

“The credit card machine. Check it, if you don’t believe me.”

The navy spends its training budget on all kinds of strange things.

I was once sent on a course to learn about how I learn. Seriously. It seems there are different ways, and knowing which one suits you is allegedly beneficial. For example, some people favor an auditory style, which means they like things explained to them in words. Others are kinesthetic. That’s a fancy way of saying they learn from experience. And the final group are visual. Breaking ideas and concepts down into pictures and diagrams is the key thing for them.

It turned out I was a visual person.

Only it’s not just textbook illustrations I respond to.

I took the curving on-ramp far faster than strictly necessary and kept my foot on the gas until the tires started to squeal. I’d hoped it was late enough for the highway to be clear, but I saw another vehicle trundling through the junction, making me drop a little speed. It was an old van. Its dull silver bodywork looked rough, as though it had been badly resprayed, and a crude picture of a woman had been painted on the side. She was half sitting, half lying back with one knee raised. Her clothes were all leather and fishnets and her wild purple hair flowed all the way back to the rear doors. I couldn’t help wondering who it was based on.

I pulled onto the main highway and moved straight into the left-hand lane. I saw a picture had been painted on the far side of the van, too. It was another figure, in the same pose as the purple-haired woman. But this one’s clothes were all torn open and inside them lay a grinning skeleton. It still had its head and hands, but somehow it reminded me of the body I’d seen in the OR. The two paintings could be before and after shots, like some government health warning against the mystery blood drug.

The silver van rapidly dwindled to nothing in my mirrors, and after it disappeared I didn’t come across another vehicle for twelve or thirteen miles. There was no other traffic on either side to distract me. Nothing to divert my imagination from what Lesley might have in store for Tanya. Or what she might already be doing to her. My foot leaned harder on the gas and the heavy sedan swayed through the next set of bends. I was moving fast, but I had no idea if I was heading in the right direction. My only leads had gone up in smoke. No one had a clue where Tanya was. I certainly didn’t know where to look. And all the time the car’s wheels were thumping tirelessly on the road like the ticking of a giant clock, counting down what few minutes I had left to find her.

The toll plaza had been busy on Saturday when Weston brought me back from Lesley’s, but now, with no one around, it looked like a field the day after a festival. There was debris everywhere. Coffee cups, soda cans, food wrappers, newspapers. All kinds of rubbish that people must have jettisoned while they were inching along in the queues, earlier in the day.

A slight breeze was blowing across to my right, stirring up the lighter items. It caught an A5-sized piece of paper and set it dancing, holding it level with my window for a second. It was an advertisement for a mobile dog-grooming service. I looked around and saw dozens more lying discarded on the ground. They were from a whole range of different places. But none were takeout menus. And none had my picture on them, this time, either.

I wondered what had happened to all the flyers the NYPD were handing out on Friday. Some would have been discarded straightaway, I guessed. Others would have been held on to, at least for a while. Some might still be in people’s cars. I wondered how far they’d been taken. I imagined them radiating out from that point on the highway, trampled on floors and stuffed into door pockets. I pictured a map with tiny colored dots to show their final destinations, like the one of the railroad victims in the FBI’s office. In my mind, these dots were also red. Only I could see hundreds, scattered randomly all over the country.

I thought about the image. What it could mean. And then, once again, I picked up my phone and called Lavine.

“Anything?” I said.

“No,” he said. “We’ve got two and a half hours left. Varley’s going nuts. It’s chaos. So much for well-rehearsed protocols. More like setting a bunch of monkeys loose in a banana plantation.”

“Then listen. I’ve got another question. The medicine vials Maher’s people found. At the clinic. Were there all different types? Or just the mystery ones.”

“Just the mystery ones,” he said. “Why?”

“How many were there?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. We already thought about it. We figure they disposed of the other kinds in the normal way, and hung on to the mystery ones because they aren’t licensed here.”

“I understand that. But how many were there?”

“Let me check. Seventy-two.”

“Were they all used?”

“No. Sixty-five were used. Seven were unopened.”

“The sixty-five, does that include the one they used on Taylor?”

“I think so. Let’s see. Yes, it does.”

“OK. So that makes sixty-four used on patients. Have you heard from the other clinics? Did they find any vials?”

“David, I don’t have time for inventory queries. Can’t this wait?”

“No. It can’t. Think about it. There are five clinics. What’s five times sixty-four?”

“Three hundred twenty. OK, that’s weird. I’m putting you on hold for a minute.”

He was back after two minutes.

“Boston and D.C. did find vials,” he said. “There were sixty-four hidden away in both places. All were used. We’ve got to assume it’s the same for the others.”

“I think we do.”

“Three hundred twenty vials. That number again. But you were expecting it?”

“Yes.”

“How come?”

“Because I know what they’re doing.”

“You do? Then talk to me. Stop wasting time. The bombs. Where are they?”

“Nowhere. There aren’t any. You’re on a wild-goose chase.”

“We aren’t. Maher found detonators. Bomb-making equipment.”