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“So,” Eve deduced, “the agent had a … like a shelf life once released.”

“Exactamundo!” Siler gave her a happy look, a friendly slap on the arm she decided to let pass. “See, oxygen triggers the whole thing—releases the toxins that, merged together, are going to kill the shit out of you within like five minutes, and the clearing agent that’s going to kill the toxins inside about fifteen. Biowarfare-wise, it’s total mag because you can target specific, and anybody outside say, twenty feet’s not going to feel a thing, and anybody coming along a few minutes later, same deal.”

“Military?” Eve pressed.

“If it is, they’ll deny it because it violates all sorts of conventions and treaties and interplanetary laws. That’s why I went CIA—because, you know, covert. Because CIA. You’re sure it’s not?”

“Doubtful. How would you get those agents?”

“You gotta figure we’ve got bioweapons stashed away in some secret locations. Getting one out? I don’t know, man. And they’re unstable on top of it. It’s going to take steel balls, and some crazy with it.”

“How do you make it?”

“You’d need a seriously controlled lab, special containers, glassware, a fume hood. And yeah, a bunch of skill, a whacked-out brain. The whacked-out because if you screw up even a little, you’re gone, gone, gone. I can get you all the substances and precursors that go into it. I was going to write it all up after I got some shutdown, but the coffee’s got me revved, so I’ll have it for you in a couple hours. You’re going to need somebody who gets the science. You’re looking for somebody who gets the science or can pay somebody who does.”

“All right. Copy the ME on the report.”

“The body was clean, right? Organs gone, eyes all burned, like that, but the agent was dead?”

“That’s right.”

Siler drank more coffee. “Brilliant.”

Outside, on the sidewalk, Peabody stopped, turned her face up to the sky.

“What’re you doing?”

“Blue sky, pretty day. I’m reminding myself the world isn’t a completely fucked-up place. I did just okay in chemistry, like I said, but I know enough to get that somebody spent a lot of time, took a lot of risks to create something to kill a good man. Overkill, it seems to me.”

“Yeah, it does.” Eve jerked a thumb toward the car. “And back to specific. Just Abner—adding the kill agent in there proves that. He didn’t want Rufty, for instance, running back home. Forgot something, whatever, and being exposed. He didn’t want anybody to die but Kent Abner.”

“Unger Memorial?”

“That’s right. Maybe Dr. Ponti’s brilliant.”

* * *

Middle of the morning, Unger’s ER was busy but not insane. Eve suspected a good portion of the people waiting had put off going to a doctor for whatever ailed them until they hit desperate.

She could relate.

Others looked like a mix of falls, bumps, fights, kitchen mishaps.

She went to the check-in counter, pulled the woman on the stool’s attention away from her comp screen.

“We need to speak to Dr. Ponti.”

“Dr. Ponti’s with a patient. You’ll need to sign in here, then—”

“We need to speak to Dr. Ponti,” Eve repeated, and held up her badge. “Police business.”

“He’s still with a patient.”

“Where?”

She checked her comp screen. “He’s in Exam Three—and if you try to go in while he’s with a patient, I’ll call Security whether you have a badge or not.”

“We’ll wait. Outside of Exam Three.”


Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery