Kevin Anderson - Lethal Exposure

In his bed, Dumenco managed a smile.

Because of his high-profile research, the technical papers he published, and his consideration for the Nobel Prize, Georg Dumenco would have been easy to locate. Paige was sure the family members must have followed the career of the man who had arranged for them to flee the Ukraine. But, because of the sharp and secret eyes of enforcers from the former Soviet Union, Dumenco had insisted that they never get in touch with him, never be seen with him.

It seemed a horrible prison sentence to Paige, but the man who had tried to kill him in the hospital, who had broken into his apartment, destroyed Dumenco’s computer and incapacitated Craig and Jackson with chlorine gas, had proven such precautions necessary.

Carrying a bag under one arm, Trish LeCroix stepped into the hospital room like a worried mother hen. Paige watched her fidget in her clean white doctor’s uniform, her figure petite, her nails done perfectly, her hair short and no-nonsense, her glasses delicate and stylish. Trish’s every move spoke of carefully planned elegance.

Paige could see why Craig had been attracted to her, but the woman seemed more like a trophy than a human being. With her aggressive work for the PR-Cubed, her time spent studying the fallout and repercussions of Chernobyl, and her impeccable training and residency record, Trish LeCroix had many passions and convictions… and little flexibility. Craig must have just gone along with her, distracted by his FBI duties.

Paige smiled, thinking that for being so decisive in his work as a Federal agent, where he could discern the faintest connections, Craig was naive and almost passive in personal relationships. But his slightly-embarrassed nervousness, which he always tried to hide, was one of the things Paige found most endearing about him.

She had forgotten how much she’d missed him over the past year.

Trish crossed her arms over her chest and scrutinized Dumenco’s family, then glanced over at Paige. She wore a sour but grudgingly tolerant expression.

Trish reached into the bag and removed various items: an ornate gold-plated cross, framed photographs of Ukrainian churches, and colorfully enameled religious icons that looked like collector’s plates. Trish set them up on the bedside table and around Dumenco’s room, firmly pushing his stacked technical papers aside.

The scientist’s wife nodded in gratitude, perhaps recognizing a few of the keepsakes. The younger daughter, Alyx, helped to display a few of the items, thankful for something to keep her busy. Paige stared at Trish, her blue gaze filled with questions.

“I went to Georg’s apartment. He gave me his keys,” Trish said defensively. “I took a few things from his walls. I thought he’d be glad to have them around him.”

Earlier, Paige had set up the polished stone chess pieces Craig had brought for Dumenco, placing them where the dying man could reach them if he wanted. Dumenco had made no move, no suggestion that he wanted to attempt a game of chess, but he seemed to enjoy looking at the pieces nevertheless, hypnotized by the way the light played across their slick curves.

Alyx’s blond hair, longer than her sister’s, flowed down between her shoulder blades. She picked up one of the small icon paintings and clutched it as she stood beside Kathryn, looking down at her father. Luba stood stoically, gripping the shoulders of her children; she stood in silence as the boy Peter continued to talk aimlessly. Now he was saying something about various baseball teams and pitchers.

Dumenco sat awake, watching them. His eyes were bright and sparkling. He leaned forward, reaching out with one swollen hand, then he winced as his entire body convulsed.

As Dumenco shuddered, Trish hurried forward. She glanced down at a prep tray and selected a filled hypodermic syringe, which she prepared to inject into one of the IV lines taped to Dumenco’s arm.

“What are you doing?” Paige asked quietly, touching her elbow.

Trish’s dark eyes flashed. “He’s in pain-can’t you see that? I’m trying to relieve some of it.”

“But won’t that make him unconscious?” Paige asked. “He’s barely awake now.”

Trish kept her harsh voice low, as if to prevent the stricken family members from hearing her. “All of his major organ systems have been destroyed or damaged. I don’t know how he’s managed to last this long, but he’s literally falling apart. The pain must be excruciating.”

“I know that,” Paige said, also keeping her voice low. “But his daughters are here, his wife, his son. You said yourself that he doesn’t have much time left, maybe hours, maybe days.”

Trish shook her head. “He’ll never survive to the end of this day.”

“Then leave him awake and conscious for these last few moments with loved ones he hasn’t seen in a long time.”

“I’m a doctor. I’m supposed to ease suffering and relieve pain,” Trish said, holding up the hypodermic as if it were a dagger. “How can I let him lie here and ignore his condition when I know what agony he’s going through?”

“What are you afraid he’s going to say with his last breath?” Paige said coldly. “Something about you? Something you don’t want anybody to hear?”

Trish looked at her in astonishment. Paige knew all about Trish’s activist work, the lectures she had given, and how many hard-line stands she had taken… but now, all the hypothetical situations had changed, and she was faced with a real patient-and perhaps for the first time, a real man she had known very well.

Trish backed off without answering Paige’s question. She returned the hypodermic to its tray. “We’ll leave him awake for now,” she said. “But I have to watch him very carefully.” She stood back at an uneasy distance from Paige.

Dumenco’s family clung together at his bedside and waited for the scientist to die.

Friday, 11:57 a.m.

Fermilab

Craig stood on the blackened grass, angry and disheveled. Bretti had escaped from right under their noses. And the grad student now had an extraordinarily valuable-and dangerous-cache of antimatter. The sheer rarity of antiprotons made the sample Bretti carried in his crystal-lattice trap worth thousands of times more than any precious metal or gem.

But where would he sell it?

And, if Dumenco’s comments were correct, the crystal-lattice trap was also disastrously unstable. Bretti had a bomb large enough to take out dozens of city blocks. Did he even know?

Behind him, fire trucks from the towns of Batavia and Aurora formed a semicircle to contain the grass fire. Crews dressed in metallic-silver suits with full-face mask respirators dangling at their sides pushed aside a firebreak and wetted down the brown prairie as a last line of defense against the spreading flames. Other crews sprayed streams of water high in the air back and forth across the grass fire.

Jackson trudged up, his dark face smudged with smoke and his suit jacket flapping open in the wind. Holding up his cell phone, he wiped his arm across his sweaty brow. “We’re lucky this still works. Dr. Piter is getting us Bretti’s home address from the head office- our own info on Bretti is back at the temporary command post. I’d like to be the one to catch that little bastard.”

Craig took a deep breath, then straightened his sunglasses. “Get the Chicago office to set up roadblocks while we check out Bretti’s place. See if Schultz will send us some backup. And get a search warrant.”

“Got it.” A cloud of smoke from the fire swirled around them as Jackson immediately started punching in numbers. The lean FBI agent held the cell phone to his ear. With the prairie fire raging behind him, he looked like a lone survivor from a bombing raid.