Next Victim

by Michael Prescott

  It can be all around you—Tennant’s voice came back to her—and you won’t know it until you experience the initial symptoms of exposure: runny nose, sweating, upset stomach, headache….

  VX.

  She had been exposed.

  She looked around wildly, her environment suddenly hostile, as she tried to understand how Mobius had done it. But how didn’t matter at this moment. She had to get out. That was what Tennant had said—in the event of exposure, evacuate the area immediately.

  The door to outside was only ten feet away. She got up, grabbing her purse off the coffee table, took two steps away from the sofa, and her knees buckled and she collapsed on the floor.

  She knew what was happening. The nerve agent attacked the central nervous system. It caused flulike symptoms initially, then tremors, then convulsions and paralysis.

  Finally, asphyxiation as the lungs stopped drawing air.

  She struggled to rise, but she couldn’t make her legs work. They were shivering all over with what Dr. Gant had called generalized fasciculations, a fancy way of saying that her muscular activity had been converted into a series of tics and flutters.

  The most basic control she possessed, her control over her own body, was lost.

  At the ATSAC briefing, both Gant and Tennant had stressed that a VX victim had to escape the contaminated area immediately, but neither of them had mentioned that she would be unable to use her legs.

  Could she crawl? Maybe, if she dragged herself forward using just her arms…but if she couldn’t stand, she would never be able to get the door open.

  Anyway, she didn’t have time for a slow, arduous crawl across two yards of carpet. Already her breathing was coming harder than before. Shortness of breath—dyspnea—another symptom mentioned by Dr. Gant when he was handing out…

  Handing out the antidote kits.

  She’d received one, too—a MARK I Nerve Agent Antidote Kit—the same thing combat soldiers were issued when they were headed into a hostile zone where chemical weapons might be used.

  Gant had explained it all, as an official-looking crew passed out the pouches. Each kit consisted of two auto injectors, crayonlike devices that could be yanked free of their plastic holder and pressed against the outer thigh. A needle would deliver a standard dose of medication intramuscularly. The first injector contained two milligrams of atropine sulfate, which would improve respiration. The second device held six hundred milligrams of pralidoxime chloride, an antidote to VX, which would break the chemical bond between the nerve agent and the enzymes in the blood.

  And she had it in her purse, which lay on the beige carpet beside her.

  If she could reach it.

  Her right arm was no good. It had stiffened up with a painful muscular contraction. She thought of rigor mortis and pushed the idea away. Death was not the imagery she needed in her head just now.

  Try with the left arm. Teeth gritted, she willed her arm toward the strap. It was almost within her grasp. But her fingers wouldn’t obey her, wouldn’t close over the strap. They were fluttering, useless.

  The effects of the nerve agent were spreading fast, covering more and more of her body. Soon the muscles of her rib cage would fail, and she would suffocate, smothered by her own body.

  She didn’t want to die that way. Fear gave her strength. Clumsily she hooked her hand over the strap and dragged it toward her.

  She had the purse. But it was shut. She had to undo the clasp. Couldn’t do it. No motor coordination. In desperation she slammed the heel of her hand against the purse. Again. Again.

  The clasp popped open. Okay, now get the kit out. Come on. She could do it; she was almost there….

  She found the pouch inside the purse and scooped it out in a shaking hand.

  With effort she ripped the first injection device free of its plastic clip.

  The jerking and twitching of her legs had died away, replaced by a heavy sense of muscular fatigue and a numb, limp paralysis. This was a bad sign, a later stage in the progression of neurological attack. But at least it made it possible for her to inject herself cleanly.

  Twisting at the hips, she pushed the green tip of the injector hard against her thigh, and the needle punched through the fabric of her pants leg and penetrated the muscle. She held it in place, counting to ten.

  Popped it free. Cast it aside.

  One down. One to go. The atropine was only the preliminary treatment. The second injection was the antidote itself.

  She reached into the pouch again, and suddenly the shaking of her left hand became a generalized agitation of both arms, and she was rolling on the floor, arms crossed over her chest as if straitjacketed, then pounding the floor with her elbows, her hands.

  The seizure passed, and she lay still, stunned by her exertions

  But breathing. Still breathing. The atropine had kept her lungs working, at least.

  Get the antidote into her system, and she might actually survive.

  She rolled onto her side and reached for the pouch. Her left arm was heavy, fatigued, but not yet paralyzed. Movement was difficult, not impossible.

  Snap the injector free….

  She was trying, but she had no strength. Her fingers could not exert enough pressure to break the injection device out of its clip. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t—

  Another tremor swept through her, jerking her sideways. The room darkened.

  She wavered on the edge of unconsciousness, then came slowly back.

  And found the injector, liberated from its clip, held loosely in her hand. The jerk of her arm had broken it free. All she had to do was stick the needle in her thigh….

  But her arm wouldn’t move.

  The last wave of seizure activity had stolen all her muscular strength. The extreme muscle fatigue Dr. Gant had called flaccid paralysis, which already had overtaken her legs, had now taken possession of her upper body as well.

  The injector began to slip from her fingers. If she dropped it, she would never be able to pick it up. With an effort of will, she managed to hold on.

  There was no hope of injecting the drug into her thigh—it was a million miles away. But another injection site would do. Deep muscle was what she needed. The muscle tissue of her breast and underarm was close enough that she could reach it simply by bending her arm at the elbow.

  It was a slow process, though not painful—she felt no specific pain anywhere, only the numbness of utter exhaustion. An inch at a time she advanced the injector. She could see it clearly, could even read the words printed on the side of the tube—PRALIDOXIME CHLORIDE.

  Now the injector was pressing against the muscle just behind her right breast. But she couldn’t fire it, couldn’t push hard enough to pop the needle through the protective tip.

  She had enough strength left for one final exertion. She pushed herself up with one arm and thudded down on her side, and the weight of her body compressed the injector between its target and the floor.

  She felt a sudden burning pain under her arm, and she knew the needle had plunged through her shirt and into her muscles, releasing its ampoule of medicine.

  For a long moment she just lay there, certain that the injection had come too late. She felt no improvement. Her lungs were barely functioning. Every breath was a struggle.

  You’re not going to make it, she thought as her awareness flickered on the verge of a blackout.

  Time crawled past. A minute or more. The TV still babbled; the air conditioner still hummed.

  And she was breathing just a little easier.

  Her lungs were starting to work again. She was weak and wheezy, but it seemed the antidote had kicked in.

  All right, then. Time to summon help.

  Her cell phone was in her purse, and it was already turned on—she left it on all the time to take incoming calls.

  She willed her hand toward the purse, reached inside, and dug out the phone.

  Got it.

  All she had to do was dial 9, then 1…

>   Her fingers stabbed at the keypad, missing their mark. The keys were too small, her hand still too shaky.

  There was another way: press redial. It was only one button to hit, and it was bigger than the other keys.

  On her fourth or fifth try, she succeeded. The phone’s LCD screen lit up with the words SENDING CALL.

  Who was the last person she’d talked to? Andrus when she was at the chem lab? No, it was Dodge, of course. She’d called him from her car, minutes ago.

  She hadn’t thought she’d ever be happy to hear Detective Dodge’s voice again, but she would be thrilled to hear it now.

  But he wasn’t answering.

  Three rings.

  Four.

  No pickup on the other end.

  But this was his cell phone number, the one he gave to informants. He would always answer the cell phone.

  Except tonight.

  Six rings by now. Seven. Eight.

  She lay on her side, fighting for breath, praying for Dodge to answer.

  32

  Dodge thought he might get lucky after all.

  It had seemed like the longest of long shots, but Tess McCallum seemed to have bought the industrial-size bag of bullshit he was selling. He’d thought federal agents were supposed to be worldly-wise and cynical, but McCallum was a babe in the fucking woods.

  By the end of the night he would have pinned the blame on Winston, and McCallum would be abjectly apologetic for all the nasty things she’d said about him.

  Was there any way she could make it up to him?

  Dodge smiled.

  He could think of a way. A few dozen ways.

  He turned into the driveway of his house, a bungalow dating from the 1930s, perched at the edge of a hillside. He hadn’t lied about the view. From the front of the house he could see the full expanse of LA, from the dark rim of desert on the east to the infinite Pacific on the west. If there was any poetry in his soul, it was aroused by that view, at night, under a swollen moon.

  Adjacent to the bungalow was a carport. He parked inside, killing his lights and motor.

  As he got out of the car, he was thinking of Tess McCallum and what he might be able to do with her in a very short time. Guilt was a powerful emotion, or so he had been told—he had never been much prone to guilt himself—and he intended to have McCallum feeling very fucking guilty before long.

  Thing was, he didn’t even care that much about her personally. There were women in his little black book who had her beat in the looks department. But he’d never bagged a federal agent. He wanted a taste of that certified U.S. Prime pussy. It was the kind of memory he could take with him into his old age.

  Smiling, he stepped out of the carport, then heard a footstep behind him.

  He pivoted, his hand sliding inside his jacket to unholster his Smith .38, and there was a flicker of motion on the margin of his sight, and crashing pain and the million lights of the city exploding before his eyes, weakness in his knees, numbness and confusion and roaring darkness, and he fell on his face and twitched and lay still.

  33

  After twenty unanswered rings Tess gave up on Dodge. If she was going to get out of this, she would have to do it some other way.

  And she would get out. She had to. Mobius had taken everything else from her, but he would not take her life.

  She tried to think, figure out what to do, a plan of action. There was poison in the air. How was it reaching her?

  The air conditioner. That was how he’d done it, the son of a bitch. He had sabotaged the air conditioner. Put VX inside it, so the outflow ducts would spew it into the room.

  With every inhalation she was breathing in more death. It would overcome the antidote, weaken her all over again, paralyze her, kill her right here on the floor.

  She had to stop the AC. Switch it off. The unit was mounted below the window, trailing a heavy-duty power cord plugged into the wall.

  No way she could reach the cord to yank it out. The distance was only two yards, but she still had no strength, no motor coordination, no way to get there.

  Closer to her was another wall outlet, unused, almost near enough to touch. It might be on the same circuit as the AC.

  Cause a power surge, get the circuit breaker to trip, and the AC might shut down.

  She looked at the cell phone in her hand. Had an idea.

  But to give it a try, she had to get nearer to the outlet.

  She ground her palms into the carpet and dragged herself forward. Sweat leaked into her eyes. Her heart pounded a furious rhythm in her ears.

  She was not very religious anymore—Paul’s death had badly disillusioned her about such things—but she found herself bargaining with God, making a deal.

  Just let me get out of this, she thought, and I’ll make it up to you. I’ll catch Mobius. I’ll stop him. That’s got to be worth something. A couple hundred Hail Marys, at least.

  She thrust herself forward another inch, using her arms and a contortion of her hips, dragging her useless legs, while the air conditioner chugged, and the fan blades whirred, and the air moved around her.

  Don’t breathe, she ordered herself. Once the AC is off, you can take a breath, but until then don’t breathe.

  The outlet was within reach now. Slowly she extended her arm, the cell phone outthrust in her trembling hand, and jammed the phone’s antenna at the outlet.

  She missed contact with the holes. Tried again. No good. A third try—

  The antenna plunged into one of the holes, and the phone sizzled with an influx of voltage, strong enough to lift her off the floor and shock her backward. Her fingers splayed, the phone fell in a shower of sparks—and half the lights in the room went out.

  She lay on her side, stunned by the jolt. Somewhere behind her, Myron Levine was still talking, and a varicolored play of light from the television bubbled over the walls and ceiling.

  The TV was on a different circuit. But the air conditioner?

  She listened.

  There was no sound but her hoarse breathing and Levine’s drone.

  The AC was off.

  No more VX would enter the room. She’d accomplished that much.

  All she could do now was wait and see if the symptoms passed…or worsened.

  She lay still. Her hands were numb and boneless. Her legs were sprawled on the carpet in limp disarray. She was panting, straining for breath. The muscles sheathing her rib cage still worked, but for how long?

  For a few minutes she was almost sure her symptoms were continuing to worsen, in which case she had been wrong, deluded, and there was no hope. God, it appeared, had rejected the terms of her offer.

  Then her chest shuddered, heaved, and she pulled a stream of air down her throat.

  She could breathe. Really breathe.

  Evidently God had been open to a deal, after all.

  Slowly she curled into a fetal pose and lay there, clutching her knees, wondering what to do next.

  She couldn’t say. She knew only one thing with certainty. She had promised God that she would stop Mobius. And she intended to keep her end of the bargain.

  34

  Dodge came around slowly, conscious at first of the ache in his head, then of the awkward position of his arms, suspended above his shoulders. He thought of the suspect he’d once seen handcuffed to the bars of a holding cell, and for a confused minute he thought he’d been found out by his fellow officers. They’d gotten him for the leaks to the media, and this was his punishment—to be fucking crucified.

  Then he remembered the footstep behind him in the carport, and he knew it was worse than that.

  His eyes opened. He was in the bedroom of his house, lying in the bed with his arms tied—no, taped—to the bronze headboard. His mouth…there was something on his mouth—more tape, gluing his lips together.

  Mobius.

  This was his MO. McCallum had told him about it.

  But Mobius killed women….

  Not always. There was McCallum’s partner
in Denver. And the kid in the chem lab.

  Shit. He blinked, looking around.

  The room was dark, the curtains shut, the glow of an outside spotlight trickling through. Dodge thought it must be around eight-thirty, maybe as late as nine. There was a chance that a call would come in for him. He and Bradley were still catching calls, and when he didn’t answer, Bradley or the watch commander would get worried and send a unit to check out his house. The patrol cops would see signs of a struggle in the carport, would come in with their guns drawn and blow this crazy asshole Mobius away.

  Sure. It would happen just like that.

  Dodge had heard enough bullshit from suspects and witnesses, not to mention from other cops, to know when he was slinging the bull himself. There wasn’t going to be any last-minute rescue. In the carport he’d had one shot at walking away from this situation with all his parts, and it had gone wrong and now he was fucked and it was over. Just that simple.

  Movement in the dimness. The man who must be Mobius, pacing. He wore a dark windbreaker and latex gloves. His face was barely visible, a shadow among shadows.

  "Sorry I hit you so hard," the man said.

  Dodge didn’t remember getting hit. The footstep he remembered. The sudden sense of danger. After that—nothing. Concussion, he figured. Amnesia. Common in head injuries. The least of his fucking problems.

  "I knew you’d be armed," Mobius went on in a quiet, conversational tone. "So I had to subdue you immediately. It was the same with Paul Voorhees. Only he never woke up. He was lucky. Luckier than you." Mobius took a step closer. "Are you afraid? Afraid of dying?"

  Dodge wouldn’t have answered even if he could. The answer was fucking obvious. Yeah, he was scared. He was propped up in bed, his pants wet, a sick feeling at the back of his throat, his heart working double time, his body quivering all over—and this cocksucker had the balls to ask if he was scared.

  "You shouldn’t be. Dying is nothing. I died when I was eight years old. I’m dead now. So are you. We’re all dead, all of us, though we try to pretend we don’t know."