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.
