woman hostage?”
“Correct.”
“Well, the body in the OR isn’t hers. It’s male.”
Weston, Varley, and Lavine exchanged puzzled glances.
“Are you sure?” I said.
“Of course,” Maher said. “It’s hardly the kind of thing I get wrong. He was skinny and slightly effeminate, yes, but certainly not female.”
“So it’s not Tanya,” Weston said. “She could still be alive.”
“Are you anywhere with an ID?” Varley said.
“There was nothing helpful on the body,” Maher said. “And the head and hands had been removed, presumably to hinder identification. But fortunately we’re a little more resourceful than that. One of my technicians hacked into the building security system. Only one person swiped in, but not back out again. His name was Kelvin Taylor. It gave his position as a director of the parent health care company.”
“Kelvin Taylor?” Weston said. “We know him. Naughty.”
“He should have stayed in jail,” I said.
“This is unconfirmed, remember,” Maher said. “Nothing’s guaranteed till we hear back from the lab. We need a DNA match to be sure who he was. Assuming we have a reference sample, of course.”
“Understood,” Varley said. “But put a rush on it, will you, Doc? It could be important.”
“What about Tanya Wilson?” I said. “The hostage. Any trace?”
“Not at this stage,” Maher said.
“They must have taken her somewhere,” I said. “Any indication?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid,” Maher said. “But we’ll keep looking.”
“Keep us posted,” Varley said. “Meantime, what else?”
“Second thing. Cause of death.”
“Let me guess. His head was cut off.”
“No. Seems that nothing in this case is as it appears on the surface. The decapitation occurred postmortem. So did the removal of the victim’s hands.”
“How do you know?”
“The blood tells us. Think about the vessels in the neck and wrists. If the heart had still been beating when any of those were severed, blood would have been forced out under considerable pressure. It would have sprayed in a series of diminishing arcs, leaving a completely different pattern. Very recognizable. Whereas in this case, you can see from the extensive pooling that the blood literally drained out of the victim.”
“So why the chop job?”
“I don’t know. We may not be able to make sense of it till we find the missing body parts.”
“Then what did kill him?”
“Preliminary findings suggest exsanguination due to the introduction of a catastrophic blood thinning agent.”
“Bleeding to death?”
“Yes. But no ordinary bleeding. The blood was thinned to such a colossal extent it would have escaped from the vessels even without them being cut.”
“What can do that?”
“I’m not sure. A drug of some kind, I’d imagine. But nothing I’ve encountered before. Nothing that acts so fast, anyway. We found a syringe in the sharps bin with traces of an unidentified clear liquid, and several unopened vials in the controlled-drugs cupboard. No labels, obviously. We’ll know more at the lab, but it looks to me like an extreme derivative of heparin or possibly warfarin. Both are commonly available. They’re used legitimately as anticoagulants.”
“I thought warfarin was rat poison.”
“That’s one use. Bait is doused with the drug, and if rats ingest it in high enough concentrations they die from massive internal bleeding. It’s a hideous way to go, even for vermin. The same thing happened to this victim. But in his case, the drug was administered intravenously. And it had been altered to increase the potency. Probably by a factor of many thousands.”
“Would Taylor have known what was happening to him?”
“Most likely. He probably would have seen the first traces oozing out through his pores before he lost consciousness.”
“Human ingenuity never ceases to amaze me, Doc. So, down to your last point?”
“Yes. Well. This is where it gets difficult. We just don’t have sufficient data. All I can definitely tell you is this. There was more going on in the clinic than illegal organ transplantation. But exactly what? I need time in the lab to be certain.”
“Best guess?”
“No guesswork. But I can tell you that we found components from miniature detonators. The kind that are activated by radio signals. We’re still looking for traces of explosives.”
“Any sign of a transmitter?”
“None. But it doesn’t look like the usual cell phone-based type. We’re thinking in terms of Wi-Fi.”
“So we’re looking at an Internet bomb factory?”
“That seems likely. We need to confirm the volatile material involved, but it would appear that someone has used the place to construct a series of compact devices. And given the presence of the victim and the lack of anyone else, there’s a strong likelihood the devices have already been planted. Or are in transit.”
“And you’re only telling me this now?”
“We need time to analyze. Rushing helps no one. A false conclusion can be more dangerous than-”
“Any indication as to targets?”
“Nothing. But we’re still looking.”
“David, what about Taylor? Think back. Everything he said. Was there anything that could give us a clue?”
“No,” I said. “But he may not have known. He said the people from Iraq took over the organ smuggling a few weeks back. They brought their own doctors. This murder, the drug, the explosives-it could all be their doing.”
“Damn,” Varley said. “And we can’t ask him now. Look, are there any bombs out there, or not? We need to know. And if so, where? And how many? And how big? Doctor, this is your top priority. Put everyone on it. I don’t care about anything else.”
“What about Tanya?” I said.
“I’m sorry, David,” Varley said. “We need a handle on this first.”
“Then why not start with the memory stick?” I said.
“What memory stick?” Varley said.
“The one from the OR,” I said. “Left where we couldn’t miss it. Now we know bombs are involved, I bet it’s some kind of warning. If you want the target, that’s where I’d look.”
“Doctor?” Varley said.
“I agree,” Maher said.
“And you were going to tell me, when?” Varley said. “Christmas? When the bombs have gone off? When I’m up to my ass in casualties?”
“I’d be at the lab right now, analyzing it,” Maher said. “If I wasn’t here, answering premature questions.”
“Where is it?” Varley said. “The stick.”
“Right here,” Maher said. “In my case.”
“Hand it over.”
“No.”
“Right now, Doctor, please.”
“I can’t. There’s a dozen reasons why not. It would compromise the chain of evidence, for a start. And there may be prints, which would be lost if you started pawing at it. The chip could contain viruses, or other malicious code. Untold damage could be done. You can’t just blunder in.”
“What brand is it?” I said.
