by Sarah Lovett
“You always have to have the last word,” M said sharply, backing away. For an instant he resembled a peevish schoolboy; then his expression hardened. “We have two possible scenarios. The first belongs to the demon. You, Beatrice, remain with the bomb. Dantes and I leave. When the explosion occurs”—he glanced at his watch—“in three minutes, twenty-nine seconds, you’re blown to shit and a series of secondary explosions at strategic locations are triggered.” He shrugged. “Basically, Los Angeles is crippled—possibly beyond recovery.”
M hadn’t taken his eyes from Dantes, but now he checked his watch again. “Three minutes, four seconds. Almost time to skeedadle, but there is a second scenario—and this one belongs to the fallen hero.” He smiled. “It goes like this. I leave Dantes with you, Dr. Strange. He just has time to cut you free—in the process, he triggers a booby-trap, another switch on the bomb. Do you see that bright orange wire by your elbow? That’s the one. LA is saved—the explosion is contained inside this bunker—and it’s possible that Beatrice can escape—she has a good thirty seconds to make it out of here and up a ladder to the manhole. But that’s only if Dantes keeps his finger on the little button. When the time is up—boom! John Dantes sacrifices himself—he dies a hero.”
M sighed. “Two minutes, thirteen seconds. Two minutes, ten seconds. Two minutes, seven seconds.” He paused, studying his audience, apparently puzzled by their lack of enthusiasm.
Finally, he turned to Dantes for corroboration. “She dies, yes?”
Dantes nodded. Yes.
“Yes.” M tipped his head toward Sylvia. “My fair Beatrice—where is your precious faith now? Don’t deny it—you believed in John.”
M was moving, strolling close to the tanks of acetylene that were lined along the far wall. Sylvia saw the labels, DANGER—PELIGROSO, inscribed on metal. She remembered Dantes’ words: acetylene . . . unstable at twenty-five pounds . . . just a little bit lighter than air . . .
“Not that it matters,” M was saying. “But Dantes would like to kill me and escape. Unfortunately for you, that would be too much like the past.” He continued walking, covering space very slowly. When he was a few feet from Dantes, he bent forward quickly and sliced the small blade through the binding tape.
“‘Which way shall I fly, infinite wrath and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell,’” M whispered.
Now that Dantes’ hands were free, he massaged his wrists and forearms. He made no move to stand.
“This will interest you Dr. Strange,” M said, running his tongue across his lips. “Dantes believes his conversion disorder was all a sham. He conveniently forgets about UCLA—that was real. Although he tells himself he’s confused things in his memory. But we know better, don’t we?”
Dantes looked straight into Sylvia’s eyes; there might have been the slightest tinge of regret in the gray-green pupils. “M’s right. Bombing is a coward’s crime,” he said softly. “I lost my faith too long ago to be worthy of yours.”
Sylvia stared at him, refusing to let him go, thoughts racing through her mind—Dantes’ rigid ideals, his obsession with his mother and his parallel obsession with Los Angeles, his relationship with Simon Mole; a story complete with all the elements of love and revenge.
Except Sylvia still didn’t know the story’s ending—she couldn’t quite believe Dantes would condemn himself to hell. She looked straight into his eyes; he met her gaze, and the energy was still there, still alive.
Sylvia shook her head. “You’re not a coward, Dantes.”
She saw Dantes react—M saw it, too, and at that same moment shifted, as if to break the connection between Sylvia and Dantes.
M’s foot caught the edge of a metal canister; it rolled, raising a clatter. The noise, the movement, was enough to distract his focus.
Dantes lunged forward, and both men went down, cursing. They were on top of each other, hands at each other’s throats.
M forced Dantes toward the wall, where acetylene cans tumbled to the floor.
Dantes reached out blindly, grasping a piece of metal pipe. He brought it down hard. There was a dull cracking noise, and M went limp. He lay on his back, eyes wide open in surprise.
“You . . . broke my back,” he whispered. “That was never part of the plan.”
But Dantes was already beside Sylvia. He ripped through tape with the sharp edge of pipe. Clasping the hot orange wire between his fingers, he whispered, “You knew I’d never let her down—not LA, not you.”
“Dantes—”
He wrenched a wire back; there was a sharp clicking sound. “Now get the hell out of here.”
She turned, stumbling, facing darkness.
“Go!” Dantes bellowed.
She ran down the tunnel stealing one quick look back. She caught a glimpse of Dantes as he hovered over the bomb.
Sylvia found the metal ladder, climbed—half heaved herself upward to hit solid metal. The cover gave—breaking open—and sunlight warmed her face.
Then she was out, slamming down the manhole cover, diving across the hood of a parked car, hitting the ground hard.
When the bunker exploded, flames shot skyward through the manhole, the earth shivered, and a roar reverberated through the City of Angels like the echo of winds racing across the desert ruins of Babylon.
EPILOGUE
Seigen jikan ippai!
Referee (Time’s up!)
June 30—two months later . . . Neon bruised the street, pulsing red, blue, orange against slick asphalt. The night was quiet, sounds of traffic muffled by light rain, and the only other pedestrian was a slender woman in a black slicker poised gracefully beneath a white umbrella. Sylvia wiped mist from her eyes; when she looked up again, the woman had disappeared.
She glanced down to see Serena smile, eyes bright with excitement.
The club was located at the intersection of a bitumen trail, Chunking Alley, running west to east. Luke moved casually, in the lead, through a low, narrow doorway that Sylvia would have missed. Just below the sleeve of his T-shirt, and signaling the way, the tattoed flying fish hovered against pale flesh. Purcell and Pete (who was now a hero at county flood control) were meeting them later. Gretchen followed Sylvia and Serena through the doorway to ascend a long flight of stairs.
Sylvia was startled when they emerged onto a long balcony overlooking a small sports arena fifty feet below.
Luke whispered in Sylvia’s ear, “It’s called the dohyo . . . the ring.”
Quiet and expectant, an audience of more than a hundred people waited, backed by rainbow-colored flags. “Those are nobori banners, Serena,” Luke explained. “They list the names of the rikishi . . . the ‘strong men’ . . . those who compete.”
Sylvia was looking around curiously. “Where’s Sweetheart?” she asked, slightly puzzled and touching the empty seat to her left.
“He’s here somewhere,” Luke said vaguely. “There’s going to be an overload of ritual . . . such as . . .” He proceeded to overwhelm Serena and Sylvia with vocabulary. He said, “This isn’t honbasho—a major tournament. There are only six of those a year, all in Japan. This is jungyo—a ritual exhibition. Even these are extremely rare outside Japan. We’re lucky to be here.” He smiled. “It’s great you two could fly out from New Mexico.”
Gretchen touched Sylvia’s leg and said, “The wrestlers join a heya, a stable, usually when they’re just out of college. They work their way up through divisions . . .”
“Serena?” Sylvia said, smiling.
“I love this,” Serena said.
Luke’s voice asked, “When you going back to Santa Fe?”
“Tomorrow morning, early.” Sylvia gave the map man a smile. “Unless we can convince Matt to fly out.”
“We can,” Serena said, quickly.
A murmur of excitement went through the crowd. Sylvia looked down to see several men enter the ring. The two wrestlers were wearing traditional sumo belts.
One looked familiar . . .
“It�
�s very rare that non-Japanese ever become sumo,” Luke said. “They’re tossing salt, an offering for the gods. . . .” He looked up, over Sylvia’s head, and smiled.
She turned, expecting to see the professor. It was Molly Redding who took the seat to her left. Sylvia reached out, clasping Molly’s hand. Molly gently squeezed her fingers in return. She caught Sylvia’s eye—I’m okay. She smiled at Serena and leaned down to give the child a quick hug.
A cry went up from the crowd. Sylvia, Molly, and the entire audience glued their eyes on the ring. The match had begun.
It was at the moment of first contact that Sylvia thought she recognized the smaller wrestler: something in the posture, the stature, the grace. Her eyes went wide, she turned toward Luke—but he kept his gaze straight ahead.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Lovett worked as a legal researcher for the New Mexico Office of the Attorney General and at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. A former resident of Los Angeles and a native Californian, she now lives in Santa Fe with her husband Michael and assorted dogs. Her Web site address is: http://www.sarahlovett.com/
ALSO BY SARAH LOVETT
A DESPERATE SILENCE
ACQUIRED MOTIVES
DANGEROUS ATTACHMENTS
SIMON & SCHUSTER PROUDLY PRESENTS
DARK ALCHEMY
SARAH LOVETT
Available in hardcover March 2003
from Simon & Schuster
Read on for a preview of Dark Alchemy . . .
Prologue . . .
Doug Thomas fed the cat, walked the dog, and left for work in his two-year-old Subaru Outback. It was business as usual for the thirty-six-year-old molecular-toxicologist except for the headache. A doozy. Gene Krupa playing sticks on his gray matter.
Doug popped two extra-strength Tylenol and donned his sunglasses. Must be his sinuses acting up again; he’d been having trouble lately. His fingers had been tingling and now his field of vision was blurry around the edges. Bad headaches could do that. When his ex-wife called about the child support check, she always had the same three complaints: men, money, migraines.
Headache or no, Doug couldn’t afford to stay home. No rest for the wicked, he thought to himself with a tight smile. Stay on schedule, business as usual, no break with routine. Nothing to tip them to the fact he’d pulled off another extracurricular assignment. Ten minutes work—only moderately risky—and this time he’d bought himself the chance to erase his debts once and for all.
Keep up appearances—that’s all I have to do. Can’t afford to miss a minute at the lab.
This was a crucial “window” for Project Mithradates. The “Mith Squad” had made a major breakthrough—“Building a better biotoxin,” he whispered—they’d developed an entirely new manufacturing process (not to mention quantum improvements in the delivery system) using their quarry.
And a fascinating quarry it was—a relative (third cousin twice removed) of Gymnodinium breve, the dinoflagellate responsible for Red Tides, and Pfiesteria pisicida. Lethal little bastard. Still, you couldn’t help but admire its chameleon nature: opportunistic, unpredictable, changeable.
Got to hand it to their project head, the Ice Queen—for all her bitchiness, she is truly amazing—come to think of it, not unlike their killer tox: opportunistic, unpredictable, lethal.
What was a headache compared to everything he’d been through over the past months, he wondered bitterly. He’d vowed he wouldn’t let the petty personality differences affect his concentration. Territorial disputes were part of every research project, federal, state, private—just like they were part of every family. In a field as narrowly focused as his, fellow researchers interacted like some extended clan complete with feuds and alliances. He’d been down this road before. He told himself it would go no farther than disputes over territory; in the end it would all work out. The bastards were always on his case anyway—he’d yet to see eye-to-eye with his supervisors on any project.
But hell, a little bickering never killed anyone.
In fact, all in all, Dr. Doug Thomas was looking forward to his day. His thirty-five-minute commute—he lived in a sweet little river valley and the lab was on a mountaintop—allowed him to organize and prepare mentally for the work ahead.
He usually finished his PB&J sandwich before he reached the main highway, and he almost always swallowed the last of the Earl Grey tea in his thermos at the alpine tree-line where the view was awesome.
But this morning he’d forgotten to make his sandwich; the jar of Jif was sitting on the counter at home, as was the milk for his tea. And when Doug tried to open the thermos, his fingers felt stiff.
He spilled half of the contents into his lap; the other half tasted like bitter water, and it was cold, not hot. A sudden, fleeting bout of nausea hit—he managed to keep from vomiting—he did not remember that he’d been sick the night before.
In fact by the time he approached the main highway, Doug Thomas wasn’t registering much of anything. He was functioning on auto-pilot. A faint internal voice warned him that he should take his foot off the gas pedal. The voice was meaningless because Doug could no longer respond to voluntary commands from his brain. He was traveling in a deep fog.
The thermos toppled, spilling the last of the tea onto his thigh, but he didn’t feel the liquid contact. Sunglasses couldn’t ease the bright blinding light because it came from behind his eyes, an explosion of illumination. Fear came and went. Terror turned his skin cold—and then that emotion receded, too.
A weary sigh escaped his lips. A heavy calm slowed his body. He moved through molasses. His right foot grew heavy as it pressed down on the accelerator. The dark blue cross-trainer with the white laces seemed to belong to someone else.
As Doug Thomas drove his Subaru across four lanes of oncoming traffic on the highway, he did experience a moment of bewilderment: You’d almost think I’ve been poisoned.
The two-ton truck hit the Subaru broadside and Doug Thomas was killed almost instantly.
One . . .
redrider: well done! bravo!
alchemist: have we met?
redrider: call me an admirer
alchemist: ?
redrider: I was impressed with the way you handled your associate
alchemist: sorry?
redrider: Dr.T—brilliantly done
alchemist: don’t know what you’re talking about
redrider: I’m still not sure how you managed the exposure
—
redrider: hello . . .
—
redrider: I know you’re there
—
redrider: take all the time you need I’ll be waiting
Two . . .
“One of the most problematic aspects of the case is the longitudinal factor; the deaths have occurred over a span of at least a decade,” Edmond Sweetheart said. He was standing on the balcony of his room at the Eldorado Hotel. Behind him, the New Mexico sky was the color of raw turquoise and quartzite, metallic cirrus clouds highlighting a blue-green scrim.
“Why did it take so long to put it together?” Dr. Sylvia Strange had chosen to sit at one end of a cream-colored suede sofa in front of a polished burl table, the room’s centerpiece. For the moment, she would keep her distance—from Sweetheart, from this new case. Her slender fingers slid over the black frame of the sunglasses that still shaded her eyes. Her shoulder-length hair was slightly damp from the shower she’d taken after a harder-than-usual workout at the gym. She studied the simple arrangement of flowers on the table: pale lavender orchids blooming from a slender vase the color of moss. Late afternoon sun highlighted the moist, fleshlike texture of the blossoms. The air was laced with a heavy, sweet scent. “Why didn’t anybody link the deaths?”
“They were written off as unfortunate accidents.” Sweetheart frowned. “Everyone missed the connection—the CID, FBI, Dutch investigators—until a young, biochemistry grad assistant was poisoned in London six months ago. Her name was Samantha Grayson. Her fiancé
happened to be an analyst with M.I.6—the Brit’s intelligence service responsible for foreign intelligence. He didn’t buy the idea that his girlfriend had accidentally contaminated herself with high doses of an experimental neurotoxin. Samantha Grayson died a bad death, but her fiancé had some consolation—he zeroed in on a suspect.”
“But M.I.6 chases spies, not serial poisoners.” Sylvia stretched both arms along the crest of the couch, settling in. “And this is a criminal matter.”
She was aware that Sweetheart was impatient. He reminded her of a parent irritated with a sassing child. “So who gets to play Sherlock Holmes, the FBI?”
“As of the last week, the case belongs to the FBI, yes.”
She nodded. Although the FBI handled most of its investigations on home turf, in complex international criminal cases the feds were often called upon to head up investigations, to integrate information from all involved local law enforcement agencies—and to ward off the inevitable territorial battles that could destroy any chance of justice and the successful apprehension and prosecution of the guilty party or parties.
“And the FBI is using you—?”
“To gather a profile on the suspect.”
Sylvia shrugged. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the last time I looked, you were a counterterrorist expert. Is there something you’re leaving out of your narration?”
“There are unusual facets to this case.”
“For instance.”
“The suspect deals with particularly lethal neurotoxins classified as biological weapons. As far as we know, at this moment, there’s no active terrorist agenda; nevertheless, more than one agency is seeking swift closure.”
Sweetheart had his full weight pressed against the balcony’s railing. The carved wood looked too delicate to support his 280 pounds. “The suspect is female, caucasian, forty-four, never-married, although she’s had a series of lovers. She’s American, a research toxicologist and molecular biochemist with an I.Q. that’s off the charts.”